Sir John Harrington tells the following story respecting the origin of this plot. “It happened that Ippolito, and one of these brothers, fell in love with a courtesan, who, showing less affection to Ippolito, was one day very earnestly importuned by him to know what moved her to prefer his brother before him; she answered, it was his beautiful eyes; upon which Ippolito ordered them to be thrust out; but the youth found means to preserve his sight, and, meeting with no redress, by making his complaint to the duke, he, and the other brother here mentioned, conspired to kill him; but, at the time of the execution, their hearts failed them, and the plot being discovered they were kept in perpetual imprisonment.”
Thieved from an Indian queen by subtle guiles.
Stanza lxix. line 2.
Angelica, daughter of Galaphroii of Cathay. For this and the other thefts of Brunello, see the Innamorato.
I am afraid the reader will have found this bad imitation of Virgil’s 6th book of the Æneid, and genealogy in verse and prose, as tedious to read as I have to write. If he is, however, nauseated with the flattery addressed to the house which it was intended to glorify, he should recollect that there are circumstances which may mitigate the feeling excited by seeing fine talents so unworthily employed.
It may, in the first place, be observed, that Ariosto’s sin was the vice of his century; and, in the second, that he proceeded in the line marked out for him by Boiardo, not merely in what relates to his story, but, generally speaking, also in his mode of conducting it, style of episodes,. &c. &c. &c. Now, in Boiardo, he found a precedent for the third canto, which I
