publication, let them be disposed of according to their
pleasure.

"In respect to my property, I wish that such part of it as I have
_pledged to Abram --_ for twenty-five lire, and seven pieces of arras,
which are _likewise in pledge to Signor Ascanio for thirteen scudi_,
together with whatever I have in this house, should be sold, and that the
overplus of the proceeds should go to defray the expense of the following
epitaph to be inscribed on a monument to my father, whose body is in St.
Polo. And should any impediment take place in these matters, I entreat
Signor Ercole _to have recourse to the favour of the most excellent
Madame Leonora, whose liberality I confide in, for my sake._

"I, Torquato Tasso, have written this, Ferrara, 1570."

I shall have occasion to recur to this document by and by. I will merely
observe, for the present, that the marks in it, both of imprudence in
money-matters and confidence in the goodwill of a princess, are very
striking. "Abram" and "Signor Ascanio" were both Jews. The pieces of
arras belonged to his father; and probably this was an additional reason
why the affectionate son wished the proceeds to defray the expense of the
epitaph. The epitaph recorded his father's poetry, state-services, and
vicissitudes of fortune.

Tasso was introduced to the French king as the poet of a French hero and
of a Catholic victory; and his reception was so favourable (particularly
as the wretched Charles, the victim of his mother's bigotry, had himself
no mean poetic feeling), that, with a rash mixture of simplicity and
self-reliance (respect makes me unwilling to call it self-importance),
the poet expressed an impolitic amount of astonishment at the favour
shewn at court to the Hugonots--little suspecting the horrible design it
covered. He shortly afterwards broke with his master the cardinal; and
it is supposed that this unseasonable escape of zeal was the cause. He
himself appears to have thought so.[4] Perhaps the cardinal only wanted
to get the imprudent poet back to Italy; for, on Tasso's return to
Ferrara, he was not only received into the service of the duke with
a salary of some fifteen golden scudi a-month, but told that he was
exempted from any particular duty, and might attend in peace to his
studies. Balzac affirms, that while Tasso was at the court of France, he
was so poor as to beg a crown from a friend; and that, when he left it,
he had the same coat on his back that he came in.[5]