No sooner were the bolts withdrawn than his genius essayed a fresh flight.

He had long meditated the composition of a tragedy, and had already written some scenes.

At Mantua in 1586-7 this work took the form of _Torrismondo_.

It cannot be called a great drama, for it belongs to the rigid declamatory species of Italian tragedy; and Tasso's genius was romantic, idyllic, elegiac, anything but genuinely tragic.

Yet the style is eminent for nobility and purity.