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.