Posterity has confirmed this eulogy. Tasso replied to the praises by quoting this line from Seneca: Magnifica verba mors prope admota excutit. Attacked by an evil which he foresaw was to cure all the others, he retired to the Convent of Sant' Onofrio, on the 1st of April 1595. He climbed up to his last refuge during a tempest of wind and rain. The monks received him at the gate where Domenichino's frescoes are fading away to-day. He greeted the fathers: "I come to die among you." O hospitable cloisters, deserts of religion and poetry, you have lent your solitude to outlawed Dante and to dying Tasso! [Sidenote: Tasso's death.] All succour was unavailing. On the seventh morning of the fever, the Pope's[188] doctor declared to the patient that he had very little hope. Tasso kissed him and thanked him for announcing such good news to him. Next he looked up to the sky and, with an abundant outpouring of the heart, gave thanks to God for His mercies. His weakness increased; he wished to receive the Eucharist in the church of the monastery: he dragged himself there leaning on the monks and returned carried in their arms. When he was stretched once more upon his couch, the prior asked him as to his last wishes. "I have troubled very little about fortune's gifts during my life; I care still less for them at my death. I have no will to make." "Where will you have your burying-place?" "In your church, if you will deign to do my remains so great an honour." "Will you dictate your epitaph yourself?" Thereupon, turning towards his confessor: "Father, write: I return my soul to God, who gave it me, and my body to the earth, whence it came. I bequeath to this monastery the sacred image of my Redeemer." He took in his hands a crucifix which the Pope had given him, and pressed it to his lips. Seven more days passed by. The tried Christian having solicited the favour of the Holy Oils, Cardinal Cintio arrived, bringing the blessing of the Sovereign Pontiff. The dying man displayed great joy at this: "Here," said he, "is the crown which I came to Rome to seek; I hope to triumph to-morrow with its aid." Virgil sent to beg Augustus to fling the _Æneid_ into the fire; Tasso entreated Cintio to burn the _Gerusalemme._ Thereafter, he desired to be left alone with his crucifix. The cardinal had not reached the door when his tears, till then violently restrained, burst forth: the bell was tolled, and the monks, chanting the prayers for the dead, wept and lamented in the cloisters. At this sound, Torquato said to the charitable recluses, whom he seemed to see wander around him like shadows: "Friends, you think you are leaving me; I am only going before you." Thenceforth, he held no converse except with his confessors and a few fathers great in doctrine. When he was on the point of breathing his last, they gathered this stanza from his lips, the fruit of his life's experience: