Time was, the trade was nobler, if not honest;
When they that robb'd were men of better faith
Than kings or pontiffs; where such reverence
The poet drew among the woods and wilds,
A voice was heard, that never bade to spare,
Crying aloud, "Hence to the distant hills!
Tasso approaches; he, whose song beguiles
The day of half its hours; whose sorcery
Dazzles the sense, turning our forest glades
To lists that blaze with gorgeous armoury,
Our mountain-caves to regal palaces:
Hence, nor descend till he and his are gone.
Let him fear nothing!"
(Rogers, Italy: Banditti, 5-17).—T.
[188] Ippolito Aldobrandini, Pope Clement VIII. (1536-1605), elected Pope in 1592.—T.
[189] LUKE, XXIII., 46.—T.
[190] Now the Quai Voltaire.—T.
[191] Giovanni Battista Manso, Marchese Della Villa (1561-1645). Milton was ambitious of his acquaintance, as the friend of Tasso, and was introduced to him in Naples in 1638. To him Milton addressed his Latin epistle, Ad Mansum; Tasso had addressed his dialogue on Friendship to him and complimented him in the twentieth canto of the Gerusalemme Conquistata, as the introduction to Ad Mansum shows:
"Joannes Baptista Mansus, Marchio Villensi, vir ingenii laude, turn literarum studio necnon et bellica virtute, apud Italos clarus in primus est; ad quern Torquati Tassi Dialogus extat di Amicitia scriptus; erat enim Tassi amicissimus; ab quo etiam inter Campanile principes celebratur, in ilio poemate cui titulus 'Gerusalemme Conquistata,' lib. 20.
Fra cavalier magnanimi, è cortesi
Risplende il Manso."Is auctorem Neapoli commorantem summa benevolentia prosecutus est, multaque ei detulit humanitalis officia: ad hunc itaque hospes ille, antequam ab ea urbe discederet, ut ne ingratum se ostenderet hoc carmen misit."—T.
[192] In Venice, in 1806.—Author's Note.
[193] Titian.—Author's Note.
[194] In 1803.—Author's Note.