taneous and heedless. This appears in the
style of his letters and prose compositions, which have the air of being
uttered from the heart. The excellences and defects of his poetry,
soaring to the height of song and sinking into frigidity or baldness
when the lyric impulse flags, reveal a similar quality. In conduct this
spontaneity assumed a form of inconsiderate rashness, which brought him
into collision with persons of importance, and rendered universities and
Courts, the sphere of his adoption, perilous to the peace of so
naturally out-spoken and self-engrossed a man. His irritable
sensibilities caused him to suffer intensely from the petty vengeance of
the people he annoyed; while a kind of amiable egotism blinded his eyes
to his own faults, and made him blame fortune for sufferings of which
his indiscretion was the cause.

After leaving Bologna, Tasso became for some months house-guest of his
father's earliest patrons, the Modenese Rangoni. With them he seems to
have composed his Dialogues upon the Art of Poetry. For many years the
learned men of Italy had been contesting the true nature of the Epic.
One party affirmed that the ancients ought to be followed; and that the
rules of Aristotle regarding unity of plot, dignity of style, and
subordination of episodes, should be observed. The other party upheld
the romantic manner of Ariosto, pleading for liberty of fancy, richness
of execution, variety of incident, intricacy of design. Torquato from
his earliest boyhood had heard these points discussed, and had watched
his father's epic, the _Amadigi_, which was in effect a romantic poem
petrified by classical convention, in process of production. Meanwhile
he carefully studied the text of Homer and the Latin epics, examined
Horace and Aristotle, and perused the numerous romances of the Italian
school. Two conclusions were drawn from this preliminary course of
reading: first, that Italy as yet possessed no proper epic; Trissino's
_Italia Liberata_ was too tiresome, the _Orlando Furioso_ too
capricious; secondly, that the _spolia opima_ in this field of art would
be achieved by him who should combine the classic and romantic manners
in a single work, enriching the unity of the antique epic with the
graces of modern romance, choosing a noble and serious subject,
sustaining style at a sublime altitude, but gratifying the prevalent
desire for beauty in variety by the introduction of attractive episodes
and the ornaments of