1582, onward, show that he was put on a more generous diet; and it is known that a certain measure of liberty and other indulgences were gradually accorded. There can, however, be little doubt that for many months his food was neglected and medical attendance withheld. His statement, that he was denied the rites of the Church, cannot be gainsaid. He was regarded as a lunatic, and, as such, he would not be permitted either to make his confession or to communicate. Worse than all, there was the terrible solitude. "E sovra tutto," he writes (May, 1580), "m'affligge la solitudine, mia crudele e natural nimica." No wonder the attacks of delirium, the "unwonted lights," the conference with a familiar spirit, followed in due course. Byron and Shelley were ignorant of the facts; and we know that their scorn and indignation were exaggerated and misplaced. But the "pity of it" remains, that the grace and glory of his age was sacrificed to ignorance and fear, if not to animosity and revenge. (See _Tasso_, by E. J. Hasell; _History of the Italian Renaissance_, by J. A. Symonds; _Quart. Rev._, October, 1895, No. 364, art. x.; _Vita di Torquato Tasso_, 1895, i. 312-314, 410-412, etc.)] [mi] {357} _And thou for no one useful purpose born_.--[MS. M. erased.] [418] [Solerti (_Vita_, i. 418) combats the theory advanced by Hobhouse (see _note_ x.), that Lionardo Salviati, in order to curry favour with Alphonso, was responsible for "the opposition which the Jerusalem encountered from the Cruscan Academy." He assigns their unfavourable criticism to literary sentiment or prejudice, and not to personal animosity or intrigue. The _Gerusalemme Liberata_ was dedicated to the glory of the house of Este; and, though the poet was in disgrace, the duke was not to be propitiated by an attack upon the poem. Moreover, Salviati did not publish his theses in his own name, but under a _nom de guerre_, "L'Infarinato."] [mj] {358} _And baffled Gaul whose rancour could allow_.--[MS. M. erased.] [mk] _Which grates upon the teeth_----.--[MS. M. erased.] [419] [Hobhouse, in his note x., quotes Boileau, but not in full. The passage runs thus-- "Tous les jours, à la cour, un sot de qualité Peut juger de travers avec impunité, A Malherbe, à Racan, préfère Théophile, Et le clinquant du Tasse à tout l'or de Virgile." Perhaps he divined that the phrase, "un sot de qualité," might glance back on a "noble author," who was about to admit that he could not savour Horace, and who turned aside from Mantua and memories of Virgil to visit Ferrara and the "cell" where Tasso was "encaged." (See Darmesteter's _Notes to Childe Harold_, pp. 201, 217.) If "the Youth with brow serene," as Hugo calls him, had lived to read _Dédain. A Lord Byron, en_ 1811, he would have passed a somewhat different criticism on French poetry in general--