stave or other out of Orlando Furioso, I think where Rinaldo requested his horse to tarry for him, in the first book, the 32d stanza.

Ferma, Baiardo, mio, deh, ferma il piede
Che l'esser senza de troppo mi nuoce.

Stay, my Bayardo, stay!--thy flight restrain,
Much has thy want to day perplex'd thy lord.

"Or some such grave matter fit for a potter: but he plotted the verses out so ill-favouredly (as might well beseem his dirty occupation), that Ariosto being, or at least making semblance to be in a great rage withal, with a little walking stick he had in his hand, brake divers of the pots. The poor potter, put quite beside his song, and almost beside himself, to see his market half marred before it was a quarter done, in a pitiful tone or manner, between railing and whining, asked, What he meant to wrong a poor man that had never done him injury in all his life? Yes, varlet! quoth Ariosto, I am yet scarce even with thee for the wrong thou hast done me here before my face, for I have broken but half a dozen base pots of thine, that are not worth so many halfpence, but thou hast broken and mangled a fine stanza of mine worth a mark of gold *."

A story of the same kind has been likewise told of Camöens; and Mr. Mickle observes, that "both these silly tales are borrowed from Plutarch's Life of Arcesilaus, where the same dull humour is told of Philoxenus. He heard some brickmakers mistune one

* Sir John Harington's Life of Ariosto.

of his songs, and, in return, destroyed a number of their bricks*"

He was of an amorous constitution, and very apt to receive impressions from every beautiful object, violent in his attachments, impatient of a rival; but in his amours he was discreet, cautious, and secret. It has been said that he might possibly allude to this by the sculpture of his ink-standish, on the top of which was a Cupid, with his fore finger placed on his lip, as an emblem of silence. This disposition to gallantry, which he retained to the last year of his life, is confirmed by many parts of his writings.

Pensi, chi vuol, ch'el tempo i lacci scioglia
Che amore anoda, e che ci dorrem' anco,
Nomando questa leve e bassa voglia`;
Ch'io per me voglio al capel nero e bianco,
Amare ed esortar che sempre s'ami,

E se in me tal voler dee venir manco;
Spezzi or la parca al mia vita i stami.

There are who think, that time, with stealing hand,
Dissolves the knot of Cupid's tender band;
That frozen age ill suits with amorous fire,
When wisdom bids us scorn each frail desire:
For me, let graceful ringlets deck my head,
Or hoary snows my wrinkled temples spread ;
Still must I love---still woo the melting dame,
Exhorting all to love---but when the flame
Is quite extinct, the sisters' fatal shears

May cut my thread, and end my useless years.

Elegy xv.

The names of the women, whom he loved, do not appear to be mentioned, except one whom he is said to be strongly attached to, of the name of Geneura, to whom he is supposed to allude in his Sonnet.

Mickle's Life of Camoens.

Quel' arboscel, che in le solinghe rive
All' aria spiega i rami oridi et irti,
E d'odor vince i pin gli abeti e i mirti,
E lieto e verde al caldo e al ghiaccio vive,
Il nome hà di colei che mi prescrive

Termine e leggi a' travagliati spirti,

Da cui seguir non portrian' scille e sirti
Ritarmi, o le brumali ore o l'estive.
E se benigno influsso di planeta,
Lunghe vigilie od amorosi sproni

Son per condurmi ad onorata meta;
Non voglio, o Febo, o Bacco, mi perdoni,
Che lor frondi mi mostrino poeta ;

Ma che un Ginebro sia che mi coroni.

Yon tree, that near the rivulet's pleasing scene,
Than pines or myrtles sweeter scents the gale,
Whose boughs, for ever gay, for ever green,

Nor drop in summer, nor in winter fail,

Bears her dear name*, whose beauties fill my heart,
And o'er my senses boundless sway maintain;
From whom no change can force me to depart,
While Fortune shifts her vary'd face in vain!
Should some fair planet, from benignant skies,
Befriend a lover's cares, a lover's sighs,

And kindly lead him to the goal design'd,
Tho' haply Phœbus chide, or Bacchus frown,
Their slighted leaves shall ne'er my temples crown,
But this lov'd tree my happy brows shall bind.

Sonnet vii.

In his early life he contracted an intimacy with a noble Florentine called Nicolo Vespucci, whom he accompanied into Florence in 1513, being then thirty-nine years old, to perfect himself in the Tuscan dialect, and to be present at the magnificent ceremony used at the feast of St. Baptist: here he fell violently in love with a kinswoman of Vespucci, whom he found preparing a

* Ginebre, or Genuro, the juniper-tree, which, by the liberty the Italians give themselves, may be supposed to stand for Gencura.

E S

dress of silver, embroidered with purple for her sons to appear in at the jousts. Ariosto, who was then deeply engaged in writing is poem, is supposed, from this circumstance, to have taken the idea of that beautiful simile in the twenty-fourth book, when he describes the wound received by Zerbino from the hand of Mandricardo.

Le lucide arme il caldo sangue irriga,
Pen sin al piè di rubiconda riga,
Cosi tal hora, un bel purpureo nastro
Ho veduto partir tela d'argento,

Da quella bianca man più ch' alabastro
Da cui partir il cor sepesso mi sento.

The warm blood issu'd with a crimson tide,
And, trickling down, his shining armour dy'd:
So have I seen a purple floweret spread,
And stain the silver vest with blushing red;
Wrought by her snowy hand with matchless art,

That hand, whose whiteness oft has pierc'd my heart.

It has been the opinion of some, that he was privately married, but that he was obliged to keep it secret for fear of forfeiting some church benefices which he enjoyed some go so far as to say, that his wife's name was Alexandra, and that he alludes to her in these lines. Orl. Fur. B. xx.

:

Alessandra gentil ch'umida avea,

Per la pietà del giovanetto i rai.

Fair Alexandra, in whose gentle eyes,

Tears, for the youth, in sweet compassion rise.

Concerning the person of Ariosto, he was rather above the common size, of a countenance generally grave and contemplative, as appears from the admirable picture painted by Titian; his head was partly bald; his hair

black and curling; his forehead high; his eye-brows raised; his eyes black and sparkling; his nose large and aquiline; his lips well formed; his teeth even and white; his cheeks rather thin, and his complexion inclining to the olive; he was well made, except that his shoulders were somewhat large, which made him appear to stoop a little; his walk was slow and deliberate, as indeed were his actions in general.

Ariosto left behind him two sons by Alexandra, who were always considered illegitimate; Virginio before named, and J. Baptista; the first of whom being brought up under his father, who took great pains to instruct him, and was made a canon of the house of Ferrara, and Ariosto resigned a great part of his benefices to him the latter went very young into the army, and having acquired considerable reputation as a soldier, returned to Ferrara a little while before Ariosto's death, and died himself an officer in the duke's service.

:

Ariosto is reported to have met his dissolution with the utmost composure, and to have told some of his friends, who were present at his last moments, that he left the world without the least reluctance; and the more so, because, as he believed, that, in another state, men would know each other, he was impatient to meet again so many friends that had gone before him.

He was interred in the church of St. Benedict, under a plain monument, which was afterwards enriched with a number of inscriptions in the Greek, Latin, and Tuscan Languages, the greatest wits contending to celebrate his memory.