“Be not surprised,” concluded the good saint, “if I have expressed myself with warmth on this subject.  I love writers, and look upon their cause as my own, for I was a writer myself when I lived among you; and I succeeded so well in the vocation, that time and death will never prevail against me.  Just therefore is it, that I should be thankful to my beloved Master, who procured me so great a lot.  I grieve for writers who have fallen on evil times—­men that, with pale and hungry faces, find the doors of courtesy closed against all their hardships.  This is the reason there are so few poets now, and why nobody cares to study.  Why should he study?  The very beasts abandon places where there is nothing to feed them.”

At these words the eyes of the blessed old man grew so inflamed with anger, that they sparkled like two fires.  But he presently suppressed what he felt; and, turning with a sage and gracious smile to the Paladin, prepared to accompany him back to earth with his wonted serenity.

He accordingly did so in the sacred car:  and Astolfo, after receiving his gentle benediction, descended on his hippogriff from the mountain, and, joining the delighted Paladins with the vial, his wits were restored, as you have heard, to the noble Orlando.

The figure which is here cut by St. John gives this remarkable satire a most remarkable close.  His association of himself with the fraternity of authors was thought a little “strong” by Ariosto’s contemporaries.  The lesson read to the house of Este is obvious, and could hardly have been pleasant to men reputed to be such “criminals” themselves.  Nor can Ariosto, in this passage, be reckoned a very flattering or conscientious pleader for his brother-poets.  Resentment, and a good jest, seem to have conspired to make him forget what was due to himself.

The original of St. John’s remarks about Augustus and the ancient poets must not be omitted.  It is exquisite of its kind, both in matter and style.  Voltaire has quoted it somewhere with rapture.

  “Non fu si santo ne benigno Augusto
    Come la tuba di Virgilio suona: 
  L’aver avuto in poesia buon gusto
    La proscrizion iniqua gli perdona. 
  Nessun sapria se Neron fosse ingiusto,
    Ne sua fama saria forse men buona,
  Avesse avuto e terra e ciel nimici,
  Se gli scrittor sapea tenersi amici.

  Omero Agamennon vittorioso,
    E fe’ i Trojan parer vili et inerti;
  E che Penelopea fida al suo sposo
    Da i prochi mille oltraggi avea sofferti: 
  E, se tu vuoi che ’l ver non ti sia ascoso,
    Tutta al contrario l’istoria converti: 
  Che i Greci rotti, e che Troia vittrice,
  E che Penelopea fu meretrice.

Da l’altra parte odi che fama lascia
Elissa, ch’ebbe il cor tanto pudico;
Che riputata viene una bagascia,
Solo perche Maron non le fu amico.”

Canto xxxv. st. 26. ]

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