med to leave him no other resource. Had he been
of that class of unfeeling and self-satisfied natures from whose hard
surface the reproaches of others fall pointless, he might have found
in insensibility a sure refuge against reproach: but, on the contrary,
the same sensitiveness that kept him so awake to the applauses of mankind
rendered him, in a still more intense degree, alive to their censure.
Even the strange, perverse pleasure which he felt in painting himself
unamiably to the world did not prevent him from being both startled and
pained when the world took him at his word; and, like a child in a mask
before a looking-glass, the dark semblance which he had half in sport,
put on, when reflected back upon him from the mirror of public opinion,
shocked even himself. * * *

"Then came the disappointment of his youthful passion,--the lassitude
and remorse of premature excess,--the lone friendlessness of his
entrance into life, and the ruthless assault upon his first literary
efforts,---all links in that chain of trials, errors, and sufferings, by
which his great mind was gradually and painfully drawn out;--all bearing
their respective shares in accomplishing that destiny which seems to
have decreed that the triumphal march of his genius should be over the
waste and ruins of his heart. He appeared, indeed, himself to have had
an instinctive consciousness that it was out of such ordeals his
strength and glory were to arise, as his whole life was passed in
courting agitation and difficulties; and whenever the scenes around him
were too tame to furnish such excitement, he flew to fancy or memory for
'thorns' whereon to 'lean his breast.'" At the same time, the melancholy
with which his heart was filled was soothed and cherished by the
associations which every object in Venice inspired. The prospects of
dominion subdued, of a high spirit humbled, of splendour tarnished, of
palaces sinking into ruins, was but too faithfully in accordance with
the dark and mournful mind which the poet bore within him. Nor were
other motives of a nature wholly different wanting to draw him to
Venice.[1] How beautifully has the poet illustrated this preference:--

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone--but Beauty still is here.
States fall, hearts fade--but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet for