"Ariosto; but I cannot say I love him better than the others, for he is
my only love."

"You know the others, though?"

"I think I have read them all, but all their lights pale before
Ariosto's. Fifteen years ago I read all you have written against him, and
I said that you, would retract when you had read his works."

"I am obliged to you for thinking that I had not read them. As a matter
of fact I had done so, but I was young. I knew Italian very imperfectly,
and being prejudiced by the learned Italians who adore Tasso I was
unfortunate enough to publish a criticism of Ariosto which I thought my
own, while it was only the echo of those who had prejudiced me. I adore
your Ariosto!"

"Ah! M. de Voltaire, I breathe again. But be good enough to have the work
in which you turned this great man into ridicule excommunicated."

"What use would that be? All my books are excommunicated; but I will
give you a good proof of my retractation."

I was astonished! The great man began to recite the two fine passages
from the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth cantos, in which the divine poet
speaks of the conversation of Astolpho with St. John and he did it
without missing a single life or committing the slightest fault against
the laws of prosody. He then pointed out the beauties of the passages
with his natural insight and with a great man's genius. I could not have
had anything better from the lips of the most skilled commentators in
Italy. I listened to him with the greatest attention, hardly daring to