AT Ferrara (in the library) are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Gierusalemme and of Guarini's Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto; and the inkstand and chair, the tomb and the house of the latter. But as misfortune has a greater interest for posterity, and little or none for the cotemporary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St. Anna attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or the monument of Ariosto-at least it had this effect on me. There are two inscriptions, one on the outer gate, the second over the cell itself, inviting, unnecessarily, the wonder and the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is much decayed, and depopulated; the castle still exists entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon. G years!-It tries the thrilling frame to bear 1 eagle-spirit of a Child of Songg years of outrage, calumny, and wrong; puted madness, prison'd solitude, the mind's canker in its savage mood, en the impatient thirst of light and air ches the heart; and the abhorred grate, ring the sunbeams with its hideous shade, rks through the throbbing eyeball to the brain h a hot sense of heaviness and pain; I bare, at once, Captivity display'd nds scoffing through the never-open'd gate, ich nothing through its bars admits, save day And tasteless food, which I have eat alone And I can banquet like a beast of prey, Which is my lair, and—it may be—my grave. The God who was on earth and is in heaven, How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored. II. But this is o'er-my pleasant task is done:- Know, that my sorrows have wrung from me none. Which ever playing round me came and smiled, d woo'd me from myself with thy sweet sight, d therefore do I weep and inly bleed or cause for such: they call'd me mad-and why? a Leonora! wilt not thou reply? was indeed delirious in my heart lift my love so lofty as thou art;ng at still my frenzy was not of the mind; knew my fault, and feel my punishment ot less because I suffer it unbent. hat thou wert beautiful, and I not blind, he wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate. rapid rivers into ocean pour; at ours is fathomless, and hath no shore. JII. Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry And hark! the lash and the increasing howl, There be some here with worse than frenzy foul, Is wound up to the lust of doing ill: With these and with their victims am I class'd, 'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have pass'd; 'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close: So let it be for then I shall repose. IV. I have been patient, let me be so yet; I had forgotten half I would forget, To be forgetful as I am forgot! Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind, |