These ladies, clad, the one in purple embroidered with gold fleursde-lys, the other in hunter's green sparkling with gems, their white horses caparisoned with housings of cloth-of-silver,-are emissaries from the Palace of Courtesy; a stately building erected not far from Posilippo by Alba, Queen of Naples, and by her order so enchanted that none can dwell there who are not pure in life and will ing to spend their time in doing courteous acts to others. Of the goodly company of blameless damsels that inhabit it, one is chosen yearly to rule the rest; two of whom ride forth in turn daily to invite strangers to the shelter of their house. Rinaldo and Florindo willingly follow the two messengers, and climb first the hill on

-Canto vii. 53-57.

which their castle is seated, and then the alabaster stair which leads to its hall. From thence they gaze enraptured at the fair prospect at their feet; while inside the room the goddess of Courtesy, imaged above her own altar in its midst, first claims their attention, which is afterwards drawn to the portraits that hang on its walls and represent the knights and ladies who in future days are to be the most eminently courteous. Among these, Tasso takes care especially to place his own friends and those whose patronage he was already soliciting; especially Duke Alphonso of Este, whose courtesy towards the poet was one day to fail so utterly

the Prince of Urbino, his early school friend-and his first patron, Cardinal Lewis. Among the pic

they bid a grateful farewell to their courteous entertainers, receive their parting gifts,—a silver jewelled saddle and accoutrements for Bayard; a surcoat, embroidered, as if by Arachne or Pallas, with the story of Niobe, for Florindo,and get into the enchanted boat; which straightway, flying like an arrow from the bow, carries them at once out of sight of shore. Its rapid course is stayed at evening beside a galley of Saracen corsairs, who have just captured a vessel.

Rinaldo leaps on to their deck with his friend and slays the captain of the robber crew; who instantly rush upon him, like bees on an intruder on their hive, but prove powerless to avenge their leader's death, and only procure their own. One alone survives the combat (sent back afterwards by the knights with their defiance to his master); and from him Rinaldo learns that those whom he has killed were servants of the great Paynim king, Mambrino, and that

their newly made captives, whom he at once restores to liberty, were destined by them for their monarch's harem. Auristella, the beautiful queen of Arabia, with a train of fair damsels and her attendant knights, owes freedom and honour to Rinaldo, whom she would have gladly gifted with the treasures of the ship to which he restores her. Accepting her thanks only, the two friends return to their magic skiff, which, after it has landed them and their horses on an unknown shore, shoots back as swiftly as it came to Posilippo, there to await the coming of fresh adventurers.

In the strange land in which he finds himself, Rinaldo is speedily reminded of his absent lady; for a pavilion, palatial in size and decorations, which attracts his notice, proves to have been erected to the glory of Clarice by the enamoured Francardo. Her image stands on an alabaster column in the midst of the sumptuous tabernacle; and before it sacrifices smoke and in

cense burns continually. Hard by the Paynim lover stands, sword in hand, to demand the homage of all comers for his beauteous idol. By the clear light shining from the altar-flame Rinaldo discerns through the air, thick with Arabian perfumes, the eyes whence love first wounded him, the smile to him so inexpressibly sweet, and the lovelocks that first bound his heart. But while he gazes, Francardo's voice summons him harshly to dismount, and offer sacrifice to the image; confessing the while that none but he who thus presides over her worship is worthy to be her lover. "Who art thou? and what thy desert?" is Rinaldo's rejoinder: "my present purpose is to agree to the first, and dispute the second, proposition." This purpose grows doubly strong when the

young man hears his long-despised rival's name; the blood rushes to his brow, and he declares himself ready to maintain with his sword that Francardo is of all men most unworthy of the privilege of placing his thoughts so high. At this defiance, the Paynim straightway assails him, without taking time to put on his armour. Rinaldo, refusing the encounter on such unequal terms, stands merely on the defensive. Francardo, too enraged to observe the laws of chivalry, rains blows on him notwithstanding; till Florindo's reproaches make him turn his arms against him. In the duel which ensues between Rinaldo's friend and Rinaldo's rival, the former receives a severe wound, but the latter is slain. A general mêlée follows. Francardo's soldiers rush from the surrounding tents to avenge their general's fall. They are headed by his cousin, Mambrino's brother Clarello, the Warrior of the Lion, so called from the single combat in which he subdued an enormous lion, which now follows him faithfully to the field. Both attack Rinaldo; but Bayard's kicks keep the king of beasts at bay, till both he and his master fall before the paladin; who, however, mindful of the generosity with which the creature strove to avenge Clarello, changes his cognisance thenceforth, in his honour, from the panther to the lion. Meantime Florindo is getting hard pressed by the other warriors, till Rinaldo, coming to his assistance, makes their mutual victory complete. The survivors take to flight, and no one remains to dispute Rinaldo's right to fair Clarice's image; which he lifts from its pedestal, kisses, and bears away with him.

So soon as Florindo's wounds are healed, the friends pursue their

conquering course through Asia; delivering the oppressed, and earning a title to the gratitude of travellers by destroying two knights (brothers likewise of Mambrino), who, the one by fraud, the other by force, had long been their terror. Over the two months so spent, Tasso passes hastily to arrive at the least pleasing episode of his poem, — borrowed, without much judgment, from Virgil, in oblivion of the total difference of the circumstances of Æneas and Rinaldo, and only interesting as a sort of first sketch of the great episode of Armida in the 'Jerusalem Delivered.' Floriana, Queen of Media, is holding her court on a flowery plain, overshadowed by pleasant trees, when the two knights-errant appear before her. Struck by their martial bearing, she at once sends a page to invite them to a joust with her warriors. They accept the challenge. Eight approved cavaliers, whose names are given, are overthrown by them in rapid succession; and the nameless throng that succeeds them meets with a like fate. A stroke-the last received in the conflict-which deprives Rinaldo of his helmet, shows the queen that the stranger is as handsome as he is valiant; and while her ladies are applauding his victory, she is falling more sud

denly in love with him than did Dido with her Trojan guest. Her palfrey, as she returns to the city, is led by the Christian knight. With her he enters her palace— richly furnished with cloth-of-gold hangings from its ivory cornices, and Persian carpets of exceeding beauty on its floors-to banquet with her at the table, loaded with massive gold and silver, embossed with stories of the Median kings. While the song resounds during the feast to the music of the golden lyre, Floriana has eyes for Rinaldo only. When it is over, she lends a willing ear to his tales of Roland and of Charlemagne, whose fame is not unknown to her; and bids him tell how, while yet almost a child, he had defended his mother's honour, and forced her calumniator, with his lance, to recant the slanders with which he had defamed her.

Forgetful that love, the pastime of Virgil's hero, is the business of his own, and that Rinaldo's engagement to Clarice is so entirely his poem's mainspring, that its violation is as grave an artistic as it is a moral defect, Tasso proceeds to make his hero return Floriana's passion, and forget in her society, for a while, the lady of his vows. The ancient flame is rekindled in his bosom by a dream :—

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