[574] "A questa confessione così sincera diede forse occasione una nuova caduta, ch' ei fece."—Tiraboschi, Storia, lib. iii., della Letteratura Italiana, Rome, 1783, v. 460.
[575] [{482}] "Il n'y a que la vertu seule qui soit capable de faire des impressions que la mort n'efface pas."—M. de Bimard, Baron de la Bastie, in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions de Belles Lettres for 1740 (Mémoires de Littérature [1738-1740], 1751, xvii. 424). (See also Riflessioni, etc., p. xcvi.; Le Rime, etc., 1832, ii. s.f.)
[576] "And if the virtue or prudence of Laura was inexorable, he enjoyed, and might boast of enjoying, the nymph of poetry."—Decline and Fall, 1818, chap. lxx. p. 321, vol. xii. 8vo. Perhaps the if is here meant for although.
[577] [{484}] Remarks on Antiquities, etc., in Italy, by Joseph Forsyth, p. 107, note.
[578] [{485}] La Vita di Tasso, lib. iii. p. 284 (tom. ii. edit. Bergamo, 1790).
[579] Histoire de l'Académie Française depuis 1652 jusqu'a 1700, par M. l' Abbé [Thoulier] d'Olivet, Amsterdam, 1730. "Mais, ensuite, venant à l'usage qu'il a fait de ses talens, j'aurois montré que le bon sens n'est pas toujours ce qui domine chez lui," p. 182. Boileau said he had not changed his opinion. "J'en ai si peu changé, dit-il," etc., p. 181.
[580] La Manière de bien Penser dans les Ouvrages de l'esprit, sec. Dial., p. 89, edit. 1692. Philanthes is for Tasso, and says in the outset, "De tous les beaux esprits que l'Italie a portez, le Tasse est peut-estre celuy qui pense le plus noblement." But Bohours seems to speak in Eudoxus, who closes with the absurd comparison: "Faites valoir le Tasse tant qu'il vous plaira, je m'en tiens pour moy à Virgile," etc. (ibid., p. 102).
[581] La Vita, etc., lib. iii. p. 90, tom. ii. The English reader may see an account of the opposition of the Crusca to Tasso, in Black's Life, 1810, etc., chap. xvii. vol. ii.
[582] For further, and it is hoped, decisive proof, that Tasso was neither more nor less than a prisoner of state, the reader is referred to Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto of Childe Harold, p. 5, and following.
[583] [{486}] Orazioni funebri ... delle lodi di Don Luigi Cardinal d'Este ... delle lodi di Donno Alfonso d'Este. See La Vita, lib. in. p. 117.