d for the custom of the times, for his charity
to others, and for the genial disposition which made him an enchanting
poet. Above all, he was an affectionate son; lived like a friend with his
children; and, in spite of his tendency to pleasure, supplied the place
of an anxious and careful father to his brothers and sisters, who
idolized him.

"Ornabat pietas et grata modestia vatem,"

wrote his brother Gabriel,

"Sancta fides, dictique memor, munitaque recto
Justitia, et nullo patientia victa labore,
Et constans virtus animi, et elementia mitis,
Ambitione procul pulsa fastusque tumore;
Credere uti posses natum felicibus horis,
Felici fulgente astro Jovis atque Diones."[32]

Devoted tenderness adorn'd the bard,
And grateful modesty, and grave regard
To his least word, and justice arm'd with right,
And patience counting every labour light,
And constancy of soul, and meekness too,
That neither pride nor worldly wishes knew.
You might have thought him born when there concur
The sweet star and the strong, Venus and Jupiter.

His son Virginio, and others, have left a variety of anecdotes
corroborating points in his character. I shall give them all, for they
put us into his company. It is recorded, as an instance of his reputation
for honesty, that an old kinsman, a clergyman, who was afraid of being
poisoned for his possessions, would trust himself in no other hands; but
the clergyman was his own grand-uncle and namesake, probably godfather;
so that the compliment is not so very great.

In his youth he underwent a long rebuke one day from his father without
saying a word, though a satisfactory answer was in his power; on which
his brother Gabriel expressing his surprise, he said that he was thinking
all the time of a scene in a comedy he was writing, for which the
paternal lecture afforded an excellent study.

He loved gardening better than he understood it; was always shifting
his plants, and destroying the seeds, out of impatience to see them
germinate. He was rejoicing once on the coming up of some "capers," which
he had been visiting every day to see how they got on, when it turned out
that his capers were elder-trees!

He was perpetually altering his verses. His manuscripts are full of
corrections. He wrote the exordium of the _Orlando_ over and over again;
and at last could only be satisfied with it in proportion as it was not
his own; that is to say, in proportion as it came n