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world from calling to mind as a nature ruined by bad education, a poet when poetry was undervalued by his countrymen, and a sufferer from an early and remorseful death.
At length, in 1573, and in the twenty-ninth year of his age, Tasso found leisure, during a visit of the Duke's to Rome, to produce his Aminta; which he is said to have written in the course of two months; an expedition that has been much admired. The poet, however, probably thought nothing of it; for if the impulse was upon him, he might as well have done it in two months as in twenty. He enjoyed his work; it was one of feeling, rather than thought; and love is a quick traveller. At the return of the Duke, it was performed by his orders, and obtained the greatest applause. It soon spread to the other theatres of Italy, and continued so long and so highly in fa-
