themselves; not a living soul disputed the solitude of the halls with
the custodians, and the bust of Ariosto looked down from his monument
upon rows of empty tables, idle chairs, and dusty inkstands.

The poet, who was painted by Titian, has a tomb of abandoned ugliness,
and sleeps under three epitaphs; while cherubs frescoed on the
wall behind affect to disclose the mausoleum, by lifting a frescoed
curtain, but deceive no one who cares to consider how impossible it
would be for them to perform this service, and caper so ignobly as
they do at the same time. In fact this tomb of Ariosto shocks with
its hideousness and levity. It stood formerly in the Church of San
Benedetto, where it was erected shortly after the poet's death, and it
was brought to the Library by the French, when they turned the church
into a barracks for their troops. The poet's dust, therefore, rests
here, where the worm, working silently through the vellum volumes on
the shelves, feeds upon the immortality of many other poets. In the
adjoining hall are the famed and precious manuscripts of Ariosto and
of Tasso. A special application must be made to the librarian, in
order to see the fragment of the _Furioso_ in Ariosto's hand, and the
manuscript copy of the _Gerusalemma_, with the corrections by Tasso.
There are some pages of Ariosto's Satires, framed and glazed for the
satisfaction of the less curious; as well as a letter of Tasso's,
written from the Hospital of St. Anna, which the poet sends to a
friend, with twelve shirts, and in which he begs that his friend will
have the shirts mended, and cautions him "not to let them be mixed
with others." But when the slow custodian had at last unlocked that
more costly fragment of the _Furioso_, and placed it in my hands, the
other manuscripts had no value for me. It seems to me that the one
privilege which travel has reserved to itself, is that of making
each traveller, in presence of its treasures, forget whatever other