His real superiority aroused jealousy; his frankness wounded the self-love of rivals whom he treated with a shadow of contempt.

As these were unable to compete with him in eloquence, or to beat him in debate, they soothed their injured feelings by conspiracy and calumny against him.
In an age of artifice and circumspection, while paying theoretical homage to its pedantries, and following the fashion of its compliments, Tasso was nothing if not spontaneous and heedless.

This appears in the style of his letters and prose compositions, which have the air of being uttered from the heart.

The excellences and defects of his poetry, soaring to the height of song and sinking into frigidity or baldness when the lyric impulse flags, reveal a similar quality.

In conduct this spontaneity assumed a form of inconsiderate rashness, which brought him into collision with persons of importance, and rendered universities and Courts, the sphere of his adoption, perilous to the peace of so naturally out-spoken and self-engrossed a man.