rtan fever, which delayed
the completion of the _Jerusalem_ till next year. This was at length
effected; and now once more, it might have been thought, that the writer
would have reposed on his laurels.

But Tasso had already begun to experience the uneasiness attending
superiority; and, unfortunately, the strength of his mind was not equal
to that of his genius. He was of an ultra-sensitive temperament, and
subject to depressing fits of sickness. He could not calmly bear envy.
Sarcasm exasperated, and hostile criticism afflicted him. The seeds of a
suspicious temper were nourished by prosperity itself. The author of the
_Armida_ and the _Jerusalem_ began to think the attentions he received
unequal to his merits; while with a sort of hysterical mixture of demand
for applause, and provocation of censure, he not only condescended to
read his poems in manuscript wherever he went, but, in order to secure
the goodwill of the papal licenser, he transmitted it for revisal to
Rome, where it was mercilessly criticised for the space of two years by
the bigots and hypocrites of a court, which Luther had rendered a very
different one from that in the time of Ariosto.

This new source of chagrin exasperated the complexional restlessness,
which now made our author think that he should be more easy any where
than in Ferrara; perhaps more able to communicate with and convince
his critics; and, unfortunately, he permitted himself to descend to a
weakness the most fatal of all others to a mind naturally exalted
and ingenuous. Perhaps it was one of the main causes of all which he
suffered. Indeed, he himself attributed his misfortunes to irresolution.
What I mean in the present instance was, that he did not disdain to adopt
underhand measures. He skewed a face of satisfaction with Alfonso, at the
moment that he was taking steps to exchange his court for another. He
wrote for that purpose to his friend Scipio Gonzaga, now a prelate at the
court of Rome, earnestly begging him, at the same time, not to commit him
in their correspondence; and Scipio, who was one of his kindest and most
indulgent friends, and who doubtless saw that the Duke of Ferrara and his
poet were not of dispositions to accord, did all he could to procure him
an appointment with one of the family of the Medici.

Most unhappily for this speculation (and perhaps even the good-natured
Gonzaga took a little more pleasure in it on that account), Alfonso
inherited all the det