This mystery was not in Ariosto the effect of chance or affectation; it arose from a principle of conduct faithfully adhered to from youth to age; in behalf of which, and the many beautiful passages expressive of devotion and reverential tenderness towards our sex, scattered through his great poem, we will endeavour, (though at some little sacrifice of the pride and delicacy of women,) to pardon him, for having treated us most wickedly, on sundry other occasions. As an emblem of the reserve he had imposed on himself, a little bronze Cupid, with his finger on his lip, in token of silence, ornamented his inkstand, which is still preserved at Ferrara. Of Ariosto's amatory poems, so full of spirit, grace, and a sort of earnest triumphant tenderness, it is impossible to doubt that the objects were real. The earliest of his serious attachments, was to a young girl of the Florentine family of the Lapi, but residing at Mantua, or in its vicinity. Her name was Ginevra,--a name he has tenderly commemorated in the Orlando Furioso, by giving it to one of his most charming and interesting heroines,--Ginevra di Scozia. He has also, after Petrarch's fashion, _played_ upon this name in one or two of his sonnets; _Ginevro_ signifying a juniper-tree: Non voglio (e Febo e Bacco mi perdoni) Che lor frondi mi mostrino poeta, Ma che un _Ginevro_ sia che mi coroni! "I wish not, (may Bacchus and Phoebus pardon me!) either the laurel or the ivy to crown my brows; let my wreath be rather of the thorny juniper!" His love for Ginevra (which was fondly returned,) began in very early youth; their first interview occurred at a _Festa di Ballo_,--a fête-champêtre, where Ginevra excelled all her young companions in the dance, as much as she surpassed them in her blooming beauty. He alludes to stolen interviews, in a grove of laurels, and on the banks of the Mincio: and on the whole, confesses that he had no reason to complain of cruelty from the fair Ginevra.[75] This attachment lasted long; for, four years after their first meeting, Ariosto addresses her in a most impassioned strain, and vows that she was then "dearer to him than his own soul, and fairer than ever in his eyes." She seems to have left that permanent impression on his memory and fancy, that shade of tender regret with which a man of strong sensibility and ardent imagination always recurs to the first love of his youth, even when the passion itself is past. He says himself, when revisiting Mantua many years afterwards, that the scene revived all his former tenderness-- Quel foco ch' io pensai che fosse estinto, Dal tempo, dagli affanni, ed il star lunge Signor pur arde.----