"Thus have I sung in youth's aspiring days Rinaldo's pleasing plains and martial praise: While other studies slowly I pursued Ere twice revolved nine annual suns I viewed; Ungrateful studies, whence oppressed I groaned, A burden to myself and to the world unknown. * * * * * But this first-fruit of new awakened powers! Dear offspring of a few short studious hours! Thou infant volume child of fancy born Where Brenta's waves the sunny meads adorn." Canto XII. stanza xc.] [bh] {150}_My mind like theirs adapted to its grave_.--[MS.] [186] ["Nor do I lament," wrote Tasso, shortly after his confinement, "that my heart is deluged with almost constant misery, that my head is always heavy and often painful, that my sight and hearing are much impaired, and that all my frame is become spare and meagre; but, passing all this with a short sigh, what I would bewail is the infirmity of my mind.... My mind sleeps, not thinks; my fancy is chill, and forms no pictures; my negligent senses will no longer furnish the images of things; my hand is sluggish in writing, and my pen seems as if it shrunk from the office. I feel as if I were chained in all my operations, and as if I were overcome by an unwonted numbness and oppressive stupor."--_Opere_, Venice, 1738, viii. 258, 263.] [187] [In a letter to Maurizio Cataneo, dated December 25, 1585, Tasso gives an account of his sprite (_folletto_): "The little thief has stolen from me many crowns.... He puts all my books topsy-turvy (_mi mette tutti i libri sottosopra_), opens my chest and steals my keys, so that I can keep nothing." Again, December 30, with regard to his hallucinations he says, "Know then that in addition to the wonders of the Folletto ... I have many nocturnal alarms. For even when awake I have seemed to behold small flames in the air, and sometimes my eyes sparkle in such a manner, that I dread the loss of sight, and I have ... seen sparks issue from them."--Letters 454, 456, _Le Lettere_, 1853, ii. 475, 479.] [bi] {151} / _nations yet_ \ _Which_ < > _shall visit for my sake_.--[MS.] \ _after days_ / [188] {152}["Tasso, notwithstanding the criticisms of the Cruscanti, would have been crowned in the Capitol, but for his death," Reply to _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ (Ravenna, March 15, 1820), _Letters_, 1900, iv. Appendix IX. p. 487.] [bj] / _wrench_ \ _As none in life could_ < > _thee from my heart_.--[MS.] \ _wring_ / [189] [Compare-- "From Life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined." _Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xvi. lines 6, 7, _vide ante_, p. 62.] [190] [The Apennines, April 20, 1817.] BEPPO: A VENETIAN STORY.