His restlessness returning, the poet now condescended to craft a second time. Expecting to meet with a refusal, and so to be afforded a pretext for quitting Ferrara, he applied for the vacant office of historiographer. It was granted him; and he then disgusted the Medici by pleading an unlooked-for engagement, which he could only reconcile to his applications for their favour by renouncing his claim to be believed. If he could have deceived others, why might he not have deceived them?
All the lurking weakness of the poet’s temperament began to display itself at this juncture. His perplexity excited him to a degree of irritability bordering on delirium; and circumstances conspired to increase it. He had lent an acquaintance the key of his rooms at court, for the purpose (he tells us) of accommodating some intrigue; and he suspected this person of opening cabinets containing his papers. Remonstrating with him one day in the court of the palace, either on that or some other account, the man gave him the lie. He received in return a blow on the face, and is said by Tasso to have brought a set of his kinsmen to assassinate him, all of whom the heroical poet immediately put to flight. At one time he suspected the duke of jealousy respecting the dedication of his poem, and at another, of a wish to burn it. He suspected his servants. He became suspicious of the truth of his friend Gonzaga. He doubted, even, whether some praises addressed to him by Orazio Ariosto, the nephew of the great poet, which, one would have thought, would have been to him a consummation of bliss, were not intended to mystify and hurt him. At length he fancied that his persecutors had accused him of heresy to the Inquisition; and, as he had gone through the metaphysical doubts, common with most men of reflection respecting points of faith and the mysteries of creation, he feared that some indiscreet words had escaped him, giving colour to the charge. He thus beheld enemies all around him. He dreaded stabbing and poison; and one day, in some paroxysm of rage or horror, how occasioned it is not known, ran with a knife or dagger at one of the servants of the Duchess of Urbino in her own chamber.
Alfonso, upon this, apparently in the mildest and most reasonable manner, directed that he should be confined to his apartments, and put into the hands of the physician. These unfortunate events took place in the summer of 1577, and in the poet’s thirty-third year.
Tasso shewed so much affliction at this treatment, and, at the same time, bore it so patiently, that the duke took him to his beautiful country seat of Belriguardo; where, in one of his accounts of the matter, the poet says that he treated him as a brother; but in another, he accuses him of having taken pains to make him criminate himself, and confess certain matters, real or supposed, the nature of which is a puzzle with posterity. Some are of opinion (and this is the prevailing one), that he was found guilty of being in love with the Princess Leonora, perhaps of being loved by herself. Others think the love out of the question, and that the duke was concerned at nothing but his endeavouring to transfer his services and his poetic reputation into the hands of the Medici. Others see in the duke’s conduct nothing but that of a good master interesting himself in the welfare of an afflicted servant.
It is certain that Alfonso did all he could to prevent the surreptitious printing of the Jerusalem Delivered in various towns of Italy, the dread of which had much afflicted the poet; and he also endeavoured, though in vain, to ease his mind on the subject of the Inquisition; for these facts are attested by state-papers and other documents, not dependent either on the testimony of third persons or the partial representations of the sufferer. But Tasso felt so uneasy at Belriguardo, that he requested leave to retire a while into a convent. He remained there several days, apparently so much to his satisfaction, that he wrote to the duke to say that it was his intention to become a friar; and, yet he had no sooner got into the place, than he addressed a letter to the Inquisition at Rome, beseeching it to desire permission for him to come to that city, in order to clear himself from the charges of his enemies. He also wrote to two other friends, requesting them to further his petition; and adding that the duke was enraged with him in consequence of the anger of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who, it is supposed, had accused Tasso of having revealed to Alfonso some indecent epithet which his highness had applied to him. These letters were undoubtedly intercepted, for they were found among the secret archives of Modena, the only principality ultimately remaining in the Este family; so that, agreeably to the saying of listeners hearing no good of themselves, if Alfonso did not know the epithet before, he learnt it then. The reader may conceive his feelings. Tasso, too, at the same time, was plaguing him with letters to similar purpose; and it is observable, that while in those which he sent to Rome he speaks of Cosmo de’ Medici as “Grand Duke,” he takes care in the others to call him simply the “Duke of Florence.” Alfonso had been exasperated to the last degree at Cosmo’s having had the epithet “Grand” added by the Pope to his ducal title; and the reader may imagine the little allowance that would be made by a haughty and angry prince for the rebellious courtesy thus shewn to a detested rival. Tasso, furthermore, who had not only an infantine hatred of bitter “physic,” but reasonably thought the fashion of the age for giving it a ridiculous one, begged hard, in a manner which it is humiliating to witness, that he might not be drenched with medicine. The duke at length forbade his writing to him any more; and Tasso, whose fears of every kind of ill usage had been wound up to a pitch unbearable, watched an opportunity when he was carelessly guarded, and fled at once from the convent and Ferrara.
The unhappy poet selected the loneliest ways he could find, and directed his course to the kingdom of Naples, where his sister lived. He was afraid of pursuit; he probably had little money; and considering his ill health and his dread of the Inquisition, it is pitiable to think what he may have endured while picking his long way through the back states of the Church and over the mountains of Abruzzo, as far as the Gulf of Naples. For better security, he exchanged clothes with a shepherd; and as he feared even his sister at first, from doubting whether she still loved him, his interview with her was in all its circumstances painfully dramatic. Cornelia Tasso, now a widow, with two sons, was still residing at Sorrento, where the poet, casting his eyes around him as he proceeded towards the house, must have beheld with singular feelings of wretchedness the lovely spots in which he had been a happy little boy. He did not announce himself at once. He brought letters, he said, from the lady’s brother; and it is affecting to think, that whether his sister might or might not have retained otherwise any personal recollection of him since that time (for he had not seen her in the interval), his disguise was completed by the alterations which sorrow had made in his appearance. For, at all events, she did not know him. She saw in him nothing but a haggard stranger who was acquainted with the writer of the letters, and to whom they referred for particulars of the risk which her brother ran, unless she could afford him her protection. These particulars were given by the stranger with all the pathos of the real man, and the loving sister fainted away. On her recovery, the visitor said what he could to reassure her, and then by degrees discovered himself. Cornelia welcomed him in the tenderest manner. She did all that he desired; and gave out to her friends that the gentleman was a cousin from Bergamo, who had come to Naples on family affairs.
For a little while, the affection of his sister, and the beauty and freshness of Sorrento, rendered the mind of Tasso more easy: but his restlessness returned. He feared he had mortally offended the Duke of Ferrara; and, with his wonted fluctuation of purpose, he now wished to be restored to his presence for the very reason he had run away from it. He did not know with what vengeance he might be pursued. He wrote to the duke; but received no answer. The Duchess of Urbino was equally silent. Leonora alone responded, but with no encouragement. These appearances only made him the more anxious to dare or to propitiate his doom; and he accordingly determined to put himself in the duke’s hands. His sister entreated him in vain to alter his resolution. He quitted her before the autumn was over; and, proceeding to Rome, went directly to the house of the duke’s agent
there, who, in concert with the Ferrarese ambassador, gave his master advice of the circumstance. Gonzaga, however, and another good friend, Cardinal Albano, doubted whether it would be wise in the poet to return to Ferrara under any circumstances. They counselled him to be satisfied with being pardoned at a distance, and with having his papers and other things returned to him; and the two friends immediately wrote to the duke requesting as much. The duke apparently acquiesced in all that was desired; but he said that the illness of his sister, the Duchess of Urbino, delayed the procuration of the papers, which, it seems, were chiefly in her hands. The upshot was, that the papers did not come; and Tasso, with a mixture of rage and fear, and perhaps for more reasons than he has told, became uncontrollably desirous of retracing the rest of his steps to Ferrara.
Love may have been among these reasons — probably was; though it does not follow that the passion must have been for a princess. The poet now, therefore, petitioned to that effect; and Alfonso wrote again, and said he might come, but only on condition of his again undergoing the ducal course of medicine; adding, that if he did not, he was to be finally expelled his highness’s territories.
He was graciously received — too graciously, it would seem, for his equanimity; for it gave him such a flow of spirits, that the duke appears to have thought it necessary to repress them. The unhappy poet, at this, began to have some of his old suspicions; and the unaccountable detention of his papers confirmed them. He made an effort to keep the suspicions down, but it was by means, unfortunately, of drowning them in wine and jollity; and this gave him such a fit of sickness as had nearly been his death. He recovered, only to make a fresh stir about his papers, and a still greater one about his poems in general, which, though his Jerusalem was yet only known in manuscript, and not even his Aminta published, he believed ought to occupy the attention of mankind. People at Ferrara, therefore, not foreseeing the respect that posterity would entertain for the poet, and having no great desire perhaps to encourage a man who claimed to be a rival of their countryman Ariosto, now began to consider their Neapolitan guest not merely an ingenious and pitiable, but an overweening and tiresome enthusiast. The court, however, still seemed to be interested in its panegyrist, though Tasso feared that Alfonso meant to burn his Jerusalem. Alfonso, on the other hand, is supposed to have feared that he would burn it himself, and the ducal praises with it. The papers, at all events, apparently including the only fair copy of the poem, were constantly withheld; and Tasso, in a new fit of despair, again quitted Ferrara. This mystery of the papers is certainly very extraordinary.
The poet’s first steps were to Mantua, where he met with no such reception as encouraged him to stay. He then went to Urbino, but did not stop long. The prince, it is true, was very gracious; and bandages for a cautery were applied by the fair hands of his highness’s sister; but, though the nurse enchanted, the surgery frightened him. The hapless poet found himself pursued wherever he went by the tormenting beneficence of medicine. He escaped, and went to Turin. He had no passport; and presented, besides, so miserable an appearance, that the people at the gates roughly refused him admittance. He was well received, however, at court; and as he had begun to acknowledge that he was subject to humours and delusions, and wrote to say as much to Cardinal Albano, who returned him a most excellent and affecting letter, full of the kindest regard and good counsel, his friends entertained a hope that he would become tranquil. But he disappointed them. He again applied to Alfonso for permission to return to Ferrara — again received it, though on worse than the old conditions — and again found himself in that city in the beginning of the year 1579, delighted at seeing a brilliant assemblage from all quarters of Italy on occasion of a new marriage of the duke’s (with a princess of Mantua). He made up his mind to think that nothing could be denied him, at such a moment, by the bridegroom whom he meant to honour and glorify.
Alas! the very circumstance to which he looked for success, tended to throw him into the greatest of his calamities. Alfonso was to be married the day after the poet’s arrival. He was therefore too busy to attend to him. The princesses did not attend to him. Nobody attended to him. He again applied in vain for his papers. He regretted his return; became anxious to be any where else; thought himself not only neglected but derided; and at length became excited to a pitch of frenzy. He broke forth into the most unmeasured invectives against the duke, even in public; invoked curses on his head and that of his whole race; retracted all he had ever said in the praise of any of them, prince or otherwise; and pronounced him and his whole court “a parcel of ingrates, rascals, and poltroons.” The outbreak was reported to the duke; and the consequence was, that the poet was sent to the hospital of St. Anne, an establishment for the reception of the poor and lunatic, where he remained (with the exception of a few unaccountable leave-days) upwards of seven years. This melancholy event happened in the March of the year 1579.
Tasso was stunned by this blow as much as if he had never done or suffered any thing to expect it. He could at first do nothing but wonder and bewail himself, and implore to be set free. The duke answered, that he must be cured first. Tasso replied by fresh entreaties; the duke returned the same answers. The unhappy poet had recourse to every friend, prince, and great man he could think of, to join his entreaties; he sought refuge in composition, but still entreated; he occasionally reproached and even bantered the duke in some of his letters to his friends, all of which, doubtless, were opened; but still he entreated, flattered, adored, all to no purpose, for seven long years and upwards. In time he became subject to maniacal illusions; so that if he was not actually mad before, he was now considered so. He was not only visited with sights and sounds, such as many people have experienced whose brains have been over-excited, but he fancied himself haunted by a sprite, and become the sport of “magicians.” The sprite stole his things, and the magicians would not let him get well. He had a vision such as Benvenuto Cellini had, of the Virgin Mary in her glory; and his nights were so miserable, that he ate too much in order that he might sleep. When he was temperate, he lay awake. Sometimes he felt “as if a horse had thrown himself on him.” “Have pity on me,” he says to the friend to whom he gives these affecting accounts; “I am miserable, because the world is unjust.”
The physicians advised him to leave off wine; but he says he could not do that, though he was content to use it in moderation. In truth he required something to support him against the physicians themselves, for they continued to exhaust his strength by their medicines, and could not supply the want of it with air and freedom. He had ringings in the ears, vomits, and fluxes of blood. It would be ludicrous, if it were not deplorably pathetic, to hear so great a man, in the commonest medical terms, now protesting against the eternal drenches of these practitioners, now humbly submitting to them, and now entreating like a child, that they might at least not be “so bitter.” The physicians, with the duke at their head, were as mad for their rhubarbs and lancets as the quacks in Molière; and nothing but the very imagination that had nearly sacrificed the poet’s life to their ignorance could have hindered him from dashing his head against the wall, and leaving them to the execrations of posterity. It is the only occasion in which the noble profession of medicine has not appeared in wise and beneficent connexion with the sufferings of men of letters. Why did Ferrara possess no Brocklesby in those days? no Garth, Mead, Warren, or Southwood Smith?
Tasso enabled himself to endure his imprisonment with composition. He supported it with his poetry and his poem, and what, alas! he had been too proud of during his liberty, the praises of his admirers. His genius brought him gifts from princes, and some money from the booksellers: it supported him even against his critics. During his confinement the Jerusalem Delivered was first published; though, to his grief, from a surreptitious and mutilated copy. But it was followed by a storm of applause; and if this was succeeded by as great a storm of objection and controversy, still the healthier part of his faculties were roused, and he exasperated his critics a
nd astonished the world by shewing how coolly and learnedly the poor, wild, imprisoned genius could discuss the most intricate questions of poetry and philosophy. The disputes excited by his poem are generally supposed to have done him harm; but the conclusion appears to be ill founded. They diverted his thoughts, and made him conscious of his powers and his fame. I doubt whether he would have been better for entire approbation: it would have put him in a state of elevation, unfit for what he had to endure. He had found his pen his great solace, and he had never employed it so well. It would be incredible what a heap of things he wrote in this complicated torment of imprisonment, sickness, and “physic,” if habit and mental activity had not been sufficient to account for much greater wonders. His letters to his friends and others would make a good-sized volume; those to his critics, another; sonnets and odes, a third; and his Dialogues after the manner of Plato, two more. Perhaps a good half of all he wrote was written in this hospital of St. Anne; and he studied as well as composed, and had to read all that was written at the time, pro and con, in the discussions about his Jerusalem, which, in the latest edition of his works, amount to three out of six volumes octavo! Many of the occasions, however, of his poems, as well as letters, are most painful to think of, their object having been to exchange praise for money. And it is distressing, in the letters, to see his other little wants, and the fluctuations and moods of his mind. Now he is angry about some book not restored, or some gift promised and delayed. Now he is in want of some books to be lent him; now of some praise to comfort him; now of a little fresh linen. He is very thankful for visits, for respectful letters, for “sweetmeats;” and greatly puzzled to know what to do with the bad sonnets and panegyrics that are sent him. They were sometimes too much even for the allowed ultra courtesies of Italian acknowledgment. His compliments to most people are varied with astonishing grace and ingenuity; his accounts of his condition often sufficient to bring the tears into the manliest eyes; and his ceaseless and vain efforts to procure his liberation mortifying when we think of himself, and exasperating when we think of the petty despot who detained him in so long, so degrading, and so worse than useless a confinement.
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