That a sympathy of no commonplace kind subsisted between this delicate and polished princess and her sensitively gifted poet, is apparent.

But it may be doubted whether Tasso had in him the stuff of a grand passion.

Mobile and impressible, he wandered from object to object without seeking or attaining permanence.

He was neither a Dante nor a Petrarch; and nothing in his _Rime_ reveals solidity of emotion.

It may finally be said that had Leonora returned real love, or had Tasso felt for her real love, his earnest wish to quit Ferrara when the Court grew irksome, would be inexplicable.