earer to the beautiful
passage in Dante from which his ear and his feelings had caught it.[33]

He, however, discovered that correction was not always improvement. He
used to say, it was with verses as with trees. A plant naturally well
growing might be made perfect by a little delicate treatment; but
over-cultivation destroyed its native grace. In like manner, you might
perfect a happily-inspired verse by taking away any little fault of
expression; but too great a polish deprived it of the charm of the first
conception. It was like over-training a naturally graceful child. If it
be wondered how he who corrected so much should succeed so well, even to
an appearance of happy negligence, it is to be considered that the most
impulsive writers often put down their thoughts too hastily, then correct
and re-correct them in the same impatient manner; and so have to bring
them round, by as many steps, to the feeling which they really had at
first, though they were too hasty to do it justice.

Ariosto would have altered his house as often as his verses, but did not
find it so convenient. Somebody wondering that he contented himself with
so small an abode, when he built such magnificent mansions in his poetry,
he said it was easier to put words together than blocks of stone.[34]

He liked Virgil; commended the style of Tibullus; did not care for
Propertius; but expressed high approbation of Catullus and Horace. I
suspect his favourite to have been Ovid. His son says he did not study
much, nor look after books; but this may have been in his decline, or
when Virginio first took to observing him. A different conclusion as to
study is to be drawn from the corrected state of his manuscripts, and the
variety of his knowledge; and with regard to books, he not only mentions
the library of the Vatican as one of his greatest temptations to visit
Rome, but describes himself, with all the gusto of a book-worm, as
enjoying them in his chimney-corner.[35]

To intimate his secrecy in love-matters, he had an inkstand with a
Cupid on it, holding a finger on his lips. I believe it is still in
existence.[36] He did not disclose his mistresses' names, as Dante did,
for the purpose of treating them with contempt; nor, on the other hand,
does he appear to have been so indiscriminately gallant as to be fond of
goitres.[37] The only mistress of whom he complained he concealed in a
Latin appellation; and of her he did not complain with scorn. He had
l