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occasion, rushed among the crockery, smashing nowone piece, then another, on the right hand and on theleft, with his walking-stick. The potter, half para-lised and half frantic, hastily, yet hesitatingly, enquiredwhy the gentleman should thus injure a poor fellowwho had done him no harm ? “ No harm, man ? ”

replied the enraged author, “ I am scarcely even withthee yet: I have cracked three or four wretched jugs ofthine, not worth a groat, and thou hast been manglingand murdering a stanza of mine worth a mark of gold ! ”Unluckily for the credit of this sally of professionalpetulance, the same anecdote has been told of Camoens ,the Portuguese , who lived half a century later; andsomething like it of Philoxenus, who lived nearly 2000years earlier. Yet the tradition concerning Ariosto may be true; who, remembering the classic precedent,might choose to follow it in a case where no redresscould be looked for, except from taking the law into hisown hands. At the worst, such an outrage must havebeen a piece of caustic pleasantry; and it may be takenfor granted, that the sufFerer was well compensated forhaving afforded the poet no very disagreeable opportunityof indulging his humour; since, however the learnedmay pretend to despise the opinions of the multitude,there is scarcely any proof of fame more flattering tothe proudest aspirant, than a cross-wind of popular ap-plause. Cervantes, who well understood the secrets ofa poet’s breast, goes farther, and, with consummatepropriety, makes the student, whose verses had beencommended to the skies by Don Quixote , say withinhimself, — “ How sweet is praise, even from the lipsof a madman ! ”

Of Ariosto ’s personal habits, some whimsical pecu-liarities have been mentioned, not worth repeating,except to gratify the very natural curiosity — call itimpertinent who will—which most readers feel to learnall that they can about a favourite author. He himselfconfesses that he could scarcely distinguish the different

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