eans to escape from this confinement, after having suffered it about a year; and, being now about 34 years of age, retired to Turin, where he was soon known and recommended to the duke of Savoy, who showed him many marks of esteem and affection: but Tasso, fearing that the duke of Ferrara would require him to be delivered up, and that the duke of Savoy would choose rather to comply than forfeit the friendship of that prince, precipitately set out for Rome alone, and without proper necessaries for such a journey.

He got safe, however, to Rome; where he went directly to his friend Maurizio Cataneo, who received him with great kindness, and the whole city seemed to rejoice at the presence of so extraordinary a person. He was visited by princes, cardinals, prelates, and all the learned in general. But being impatient of exile, he took measures to make his peace with the duke, and proceeded.

The duke received him with great appearance of satisfaction, and gave him fresh marks of his esteem. But Tasso having made some attempts on the princess Leonora, whom he has celebrated in several of his verses, the duke her brother, believing, or pretending to believe, that his ill conduct proceeded from a disordered understanding, caused him to be strictly confined in the hospital of St Anne. Tasso applied to the duke, by every friend he had, to release him from this confinement; but the duke coldly answered, that instead of endeavouring to procure the enlargement of a person in his condition, they ought rather to exhort him to submit patiently to such remedies as were judged proper for him. Tasso was certainly disordered in his mind, whether as the effect or cause of this confinement: he was conscious that he laboured under some distemper, and he believed the cause of it to be supernatural, and fancied himself haunted by a spirit that continually disordered his books and papers; to which, however, the tricks played him by his keepers might contribute. He continued, notwithstanding, to solicit the interposition of all the powers in Italy, to whom he could find means to apply, particularly the emperor and the pope; but without success. At last, after he had been a prisoner seven years, Vincentio Gonzaga prince of Mantua came to Ferrara among other great personages, during the festivals and rejoicings that were held there on the marriage of Cesare of Este with Virginia of Medicis, procured his liberty, and took him with him to Mantua, he being then in the 42nd year of his age.

At Mantua he lived about a year in great favour with the prince, and in all the splendour and affluence which the favour of great princes confers: but he was weary of a state of dependence, however splendid and luxurious; and therefore resolved to go to Naples, and endeavour to recover his mother's jointure, which had been seized by her relations when he went into exile with his father Bernardo. With this view he procured letters of recommendation to the viceroy; and having taken leave of the prince of Mantua, he went first to Bergamo, where he stayed some time, and thence proceeded to Naples.

At Naples he immediately commenced a suit at law for the recovery of his right, and divided his time between a prosecution of that and his studies. But during the summer he retired to Bifaccio with one Giovanni Battista Manfo, with whom he had contracted an intimate friendship.

Tasso, who was now in his 45th year, appeared to Manfo, while they were at Bifaccio, to be affected with a melancholy, which had very singular effects; he therefore very frequently questioned him about them; and Tasso told him that he had a familiar spirit, with whom he frequently and freely conversed. Manfo treated this as an illusion, but Tasso still affirmed it to be real; and telling him that the spirit would meet and converse with him the next day, invited him to be present. Manfo coming at the hour appointed, saw Tasso fix his eyes with great earnestness upon a window, and perceiving him to continue without motion, he called him several times by his name. Tasso made no reply; but at length cried out with great vehemence, "There is the friendly spirit that is come to converse with me; look, and be convinced that what I have said is true." Manfo looked, not without some surprize, but saw nothing except the sun beams which shone through the window. He was just going to ask where the pretended spirit was, when he was prevented by Tasso's speaking with great earnestness to some imaginary being, sometimes putting questions, and sometimes giving answers, in a manner so pleasing, and with such elevation of expression, that Manfo had no desire to interrupt him: the conversation at last ended by the supposed departure of the spirit; when Tasso turning round to his friend, asked if his doubts were removed? To which he made no reply, being so much amazed that he gladly waved all farther conversation on the subject.

Finding his law-suit not likely to be soon determined, he went from Naples to Rome, where he continued about a year in high favour with Pope Sextus Quintus; and then went to Florence, at the pressing invitation of Ferdinando grand duke of Tuscany, who had been cardinal at Rome when Tasso first resided there. Having spent about another year at Florence, he returned again to Naples; and there applied himself to correct his Jerusalem Delivered. Soon after the publication of this work, Hippolito Aldrobandini succeeded Sextus Quintus to the papacy, by the name of Clement the VIIth; and his two nephews, Cynthio and Pietro Aldrobandini, were created cardinals. Cynthio, who was a great patron of learning and genius, and had known Tasso when he last resided at Rome, prevailed with him once more to leave his retreat at Naples, and live with him in that city. Here he continued till his 50th year; and being then again weary of his situation, and desirous to prosecute his law-suit, he obtained permission to retire once more to Naples, where he took up his abode with the Benedictine fathers in the convent of St Severin. Cardinal Cynthio, however, found means to recall him again to Rome, after a very short absence, by having prevailed with the Pope to confer upon him the honour of being publicly and solemnly crowned with laurel in the Capitol.

He set out from Naples to receive this honour, with a preface that he should never return; and arrived at Rome in the beginning of the year 1595, being then about 51 years old: he was met at the entrance of the city by many prelates and persons of distinction, and was introduced by the two cardinals to the pope, who complimented him by saying, "That his merit would confer as much honour on the laurel he was about to receive, as the laurel had formerly conferred on others." Orders were immediately given to decorate not only the pope's palace and the Capitol, but all the principal streets through which the procession was to pass; but Tasso, whether from an habitual dejection of mind, or a secret sensation of the first approaches of a disease which he apprehended would be fatal, declared that all these pompous preparations would be in vain.

It happened, that while they were waiting for fair weather to celebrate the solemnity, cardinal Cynthio fell sick; and, before he was perfectly recovered, Tasso himself was taken ill, and died on the 15th day of his sickness, aged 51. His poems have acquired him an immortal reputation. The principal of them are, 1. Jerusalem Delivered. 2. Jerusalem Conquered. 3. Rinaldo. 4. The Seven Days of the Creation. 5. The Tragedy of Torimond. 6. Aminta, &c. All Tasso's works were printed together at Florence in 1724, in five volumes folio, with the pieces for and against his Jerusalem Delivered. A splendid edition of this last poem was printed at Venice in 1745, in folio. The best edition of Mirebaud's French translation is that of Paris in 1735, in two vols 12mo. His Aminta and Gierusalemme Liberata have been translated into English.