Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 12598-h.htm or 12598-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/5/9/12598/12598-h/12598-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/5/9/12598/12598-h.zip) THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. VOL. 17, NO. 481.] SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1831. [PRICE 2d. * * * * * RELICS OF ARIOSTO. [Illustration: Inkstand.] [Illustration: Chair.] We need not bespeak the reader's interest in these "trivial fond" relics--these consecrated memorials--of one of the most celebrated poets of Italy. They are preserved with reverential care at Ferrara, the poet's favourite residence, though not his birthplace. The Ferrarese, however, claim him "exclusively as their own" Lord Byron, in the Notes[1] to _Childe Harold_, canto 4, says, "the author of the Orlando is jealously claimed as the Homer, not of Italy, but Ferrara. The mother of Ariosto was of Reggio, and the house in which he was born is carefully distinguished by a tablet with these words:--'_Qui nacque Ludovico Ariosto il giorno 8 di Settembre dell' anno_ 1474.' But the Ferrarese make light of the accident by which their poet was born abroad, and claim him exclusively for their own. _They possess his bones, they show his_ ARM-CHAIR, and his INKSTAND, and his autographs. The house where he lived, the room where he died, are designated by his own replaced memorial, and by a recent inscription." Ferrara, we should here mention, is a fortified town, and a day's journey, _en voiturier_, from Florence to Vienna. The Tomb, as well as the above relics, a bronze Medallion of the great Poet, and an account of his last illness and death--the two latter found in his tomb--are in the public library at Ferrara. This library also contains the original MSS. of _Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata_, and Guarini's _Pastor Fido_; and in the Hospital of St. Anne, at Ferrara, travellers are shown the cell where Tasso was confined. The INKSTAND is of bronze, and its singular device is said to refer to the Poet's amorous caution. In his Life,[2] we are told that "The amours of Ariosto are a difficult theme for both his eulogists and his biographers. He has alluded in his Poems to several ladies with whose charms he was captivated, but, with the exception of Alessandra and Genevra, the names under which they are mentioned are fictitious. His caution in this respect is thought to have been hinted at in the device placed on his favourite inkstand, and which consisted of _a little Cupid having his forefinger on his lip in token of secresy_." The evidence in proof of Alessandra's being his wife is little short of unanswerable.