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the Provenqals, and the pretended chronicle of arch-bishop Turpin , the public mind had been familiarisedwith the traditions concerning Arthur and his knightsof the round table; of Merlin the British enchanter,and the Lady of the Lake ; and of Charlemagne andhis peers. Yet it was the intense interest and curiosityexcited by Boiardo’s magnificent but uncompleted plot,which (so far as the principal personages are concerned),like

“ The story of a bear and fiddle,

Begins, but breaks off in the middle” —

it was these which had prepared the eager and delightedmultitude of readers, or rather listeners, for any sequelto his “ tales of wonder,” which should keep up thespirit of the original, and bring it to a crowning con-clusion. These, therefore, with transport proportionedto their surprise, hailed the appearance of Ariosto ’sproduction, when, after having been long promised,they found that it not only exceeded their expectations,but eclipsed in splendour, beauty, and variety, the pro-totype itself. This was so remarkably the case, thatone of the wittiest and most ingenious of his contem-poraries recomposed the whole of Boiardo’s poem;imitating, with farcical extravagance, the fine raillery andunapproachable humour of Ariosto ; and falling in thesame ratio beneath him in elegance, majesty, and grace,when the themes admitted or required adornment.Thus, by an unexampled fatality, the “ Orlando In-namorato” was outshone by a sequel, and supersededby a rifacimento (we have no English word to ex-press the renovating process). Authors themselves havealmost universally failed in second parts to their mostsuccessful performances ; and as rarely have they re-written such works, so as to take place of the first formin which they obtained public favour* ; yet here, on

* Witness the total miscarriage of Tasso, in his “ Gerusalemme Con-quistata,” as an improvement upon the “ Gerusalemme Liberataand ofAkenside, in his philosophic revision of the “Pleasures of Imagin-ation.”