100, for Tasso's description of the farewell to his mother, which he remembered deeply, even in later life.] [Footnote 9: _Lettere_, vol.i.p.

6.] In the midst of these afflictions, which already tuned the future poet's utterance to a note of plaintive pathos and ingenuous appeal for aid, Torquato's studies were continued on a sounder plan and in a healthier spirit than at Naples.

The perennial consolation of his troubled life, that delight in literature which made him able to anticipate the lines of Goethe-- That naught belongs to me I know, Save thoughts that never cease to flow From founts that cannot perish, And every fleeting shape of bliss Which kindly fortune lets me kiss, Or in my bosom cherish-- now became the source of an inner brightness which not even the 'malignity of fortune,' the 'impiety of men,' the tragedy of his mother's death, the imprisonment of his sister, and the ever-present sorrow of his father, 'the poor gentleman fallen into misery and misfortune through no fault of his own,' could wholly overcloud.

The boy had been accustomed in Naples to the applause of his teachers and friends.

In Rome he began to cherish a presentiment of his own genius.