CONJECTURES

AND

RESEARCHES

CONCERNING THE

LOVE, MADNESS, AND IMPRISONMENT

OF

TORQUATO TASSO,

RICHARD HENRY WILDE.

VOL. II.

Di mia favola, lunga il filo incerto
Con nodi inestricabili è sì involto,
Che per arte, di Febo esser disciolto,
Non può, se Dei non manda il cielo aperto,
Or chi sciorallo?

T. TASSO.-Sopra gli accidenti, della sua vita.

Onde Torquato

Ebbe la fama, che volontier mirro.

DANTE.-Paradiso, canto vi., v. 46-48.

Quel da Esti il fe far, che m' avea in ira
Assai più là, che il dritto, non volea.

DANTE.-Purgatorio, canto v., v, 77, 78.

ALEXANDER V. BLAKE, 54 GOLD STREET.
1842.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1841, by

ALEXANDER V. BLAKE,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

R. CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER, 112 Fulton Street.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY in October of this year, (1578,) Tasso wrote from Urbino to Count DOMENICO ALBANO, begging his good offices with the Cardinal. A short extract from this letter will be sufficient :

"The great malignity of others, and my own little prudence, as well in not knowing how to dissemble injuries, as in resenting them with too much freedom of language; my overweening confidence in friends, and the faithlessness I have found in them, have plunged me into a state so exceedingly miserable, that the least of many evils which I now suffer, would formerly, alone, have seemed insupportable. Yet could I be assured that snares are not laid for my life, and that the Duke of Ferrara, holding me justified, or not caring about my justification, would quiet me from all apprehensions of his anger, my other griefs would give me little