From infancy he manifested decided symptoms of "a genius to madness near allied." Indifferent to toys, he seemed exempt from the emotions and the tastes of childhood. Precocious in all mental powers, he spoke intelligibly at six months, knew Greek and wrote verses at seven years, and at eighteen published the _Rinaldo_, a sustained and applauded epic.[*180] The reverses of his early days on which we have already dwelt in our notice of his father, the premature loss of his mother, the injudicious liberty of thought and action allowed him by Bernardo, and the rough criticisms to which his writings were subjected ere his character and knowledge of mankind were developed--all these tinged deeper the gloom of his constitutional sadness, and formed a training the most fatal to one of innately morbid sensibilities. The results were obvious. Bald before his time, his digestion enervated, subject to faintings and fevers intermittent or delirious, his health at thirty was ruined, his nerves and brain shattered. The natural consequence of his precocity was an overweening pride in his accomplishments, which rendered him jealous, touchy, and quarrelsome; and though destined from youth to wander in search of given bread, nature had neither granted him the humble resignation required for such a lot, nor imbued him with a daring spirit to rise above it. Men who live in courts must be prepared to encounter intrigues; those who publish poetry should lay their account with unsparing strictures; and the smaller the court, or the more prominent their poetic merits, so much the greater need have they of forbearance and philosophy. But Tasso possessed neither; and the jealousies of Pigna and Guarini, the malice of the della Crusca critics, stung him to the quick.[*181] A slight or fancied affront, which he met with from one of the courtiers of Ferrara, though avenged by a duel, brought his symptoms to a head.[*182] From that moment, when in his thirty-third year, we find him a victim to the restlessness, suspicions, fears, sad forebodings, and hopeless misery, which afflict lipemaniacs. [Footnote *180: See on the _Rinaldo_, PROTO, _Sul Rinaldo di T.T._ (Napoli, 1895).] [Footnote *181: Cf. D'OVIDIO, _Di una antica testimonianza circa la controversia della Crusca con Tasso_ (Napoli, 1894) and VIVALDI, _La più grande polemica del Cinquecento_ (Catanzaro Caliò, 1895). SOLERTI reviewed this last in _Giornale Stor. d. Lett. Ital._, vol. XXVII., p. 426.] [Footnote *182: It was in September, 1576. Tasso had in July thought himself insulted by Ercole Fucci and his brother Maddalò; he boxed Ercole's ears. Then, in September, they met him and assaulted him. There was no duel. Only Solerti has found out the truth.]