fered to see him part of the way on his journey!

The offer was accepted. Six miles he rode forth with us, the stupid old
man; and then, taking his leave, to return home, we pushed our horses
like lightning, and so left him to tear his hair and his old beard with
cries and curses, as soon as he opened the door of his tower.

ARIOSTO:

Critical Notice of his Life and Genius.

CRITICAL NOTICE

OF

ARIOSTO'S LIFE AND GENIUS.[1]

The congenial spirits of Pulci and Boiardo may be said to have attained
to their height in the person of Ariosto, upon the principle of a
transmigration of souls, or after the fashion of that hero in romance,
who was heir to the bodily strengths of all whom he conquered.

Lodovico Giovanni Ariosto was born on the 8th of September, 1474, in the
fortress at Reggio, in Lombardy, and was the son of Niccolo Ariosto,
captain of that citadel (as Boiardo had been), and Daria Maleguzzi,
whose family still exists. The race was transplanted from Bologna in the
century previous, when Obizzo the Third of Este, Marquess of Ferrara,
married a lady belonging to it, whose Christian name was Lippa. Niccolo
Ariosto, besides holding the same office as Boiardo had done, at Modena
as well as at Reggio, was master of the household to his two successive
patrons, the Dukes Borso and Ercole. He was also employed, like him,
in diplomacy; and was made a count by the Emperor Frederick the Third,
though not, it seems, with remainder to his heirs.

Lodovico was the eldest of ten children, five sons and five daughters.
During his boyhood, theatrical entertainments were in great vogue at
court, as we have seen in the life of Boiardo; and at the age of twelve,
a year after the decease of that poet (who must have been well known to
him, and probably encouraged his attempts), his successor is understood
to have dramatised, after his infant fashion, the story of Pyramus and
Thisbe, and to have got his brothers and sisters to perform it. Panizzi
doubts the possibility of these precocious private theatricals; but
considering what is called "writing" on the part of children, and that
only one other performer was required in the piece, or at best a third
for the lion (which some little brother might have "roared like any
sucking-dove"), I cannot see good reason for disbelieving the story. Pope
was not twelve years old when he turned the siege of Troy into a play,
and got his school-fellows to perform it, the part of Ajax bei