This young man's madness had taken a very poetic turn. Sometimes he fancied himself to be Tasso; at another time Shakspeare or Chateaubriand. At the time of my visit to the asylum, he was deeply impressed with the delusion of imagining himself to be Dante. When we approached him, he was pacing up and down an alley in the garden, pleasantly shaded by trees. He held in one hand a pencil, and in the other some slips of paper, and he was busily engaged in composing the thirty-third Canto of his Inferno. At intervals he rubbed his forehead, as if to collect his scattered thoughts, and then he would note down some lines of the poem. Profiting by a pause, during which he seemed to emerge from his profound abstraction, I stepped up to him, saying, "I understand, sir, that I have the honor of addressing myself to Dante." "That is my name," replied Lucca. "What have you to say to me?" "To assure you how much pleasure I shall feel in making your acquaintance. I proceeded to Florence, in the hope of finding you there, but you had left that city." "Then," said Lucca, with that sharp, quick sort of utterance often observable in insane persons, "then, it seems, you were not aware of my having been driven from Florence, and that they charged me with having stolen the money of the Republic? Dante accused of robbery, forsooth! I slung my sword at my side, and having collected the first seven Cantos of my poem, I departed." This strange hallucination excited my interest, and, pursuing the conversation, I said, "I hoped to have overtaken you between Fettre and Montefeltro." "Oh! I staid only a very short time there," said he. "Why did you not go to Ravenna?" "I did go there, and found only your tomb!" "But I was not in it," observed he. "Do you know how I escaped?" I replied in the negative. "I have discovered a mode of restoring one's life." "Is it a secret?" "No; I will tell it you. When I feel that I am dying, I order a grave to be dug--a very deep grave. You are aware that in the centre of the earth there is an immense lake full of red water--and--and--" Count Pisani, who had overheard the latter part of this conversation, here suddenly interrupted Lucca, saying, "Signor Dante, these people are very anxious to have a dance. Will you indulge them by playing a quadrille?" He then hurriedly dispatched one of the attendants for a violin, on which instrument he informed me, Lucca was a masterly performer. The violin being brought, the count handed it to Lucca who began to tune it. Meanwhile, the count, drawing me aside, said, "I interrupted your conversation, just now, somewhat abruptly; because I observed that Lucca was beginning to wander into some of his metaphysical delusions, and I never allow him to talk on such subjects. These metaphysical lunatics are always very difficult to cure.