And such was the enthusiasm of the new arts that one of the sons of Alphonso the First did not disdain to speak a prologue on the stage.

In the legitimate forms of dramatic composition the Italians have not excelled; but it was in the court of Ferrara that they invented and refined the _pastoral comedy_, a romantic Arcadia which violates the truth of manners and the simplicity of nature, but which commands our indulgence by the elaborate luxury of eloquence and wit.

The _Aminta_ of Tasso was written for the amusement and acted in the presence of Alphonso the Second, and his sister Leonora might apply to herself the language of a passion which disordered the reason without clouding the genius of her poetical lover.

Of the numerous imitations, the _Pastor Fido_ of Guarini, which alone can vie with the fame and merit of the original, is the work of the Duke's secretary of state.

It was exhibited in a private house in Ferrara....
The father of the Tuscan muses, the sublime but unequal Dante, had pronounced that Ferrara was never honoured with the name of a poet; he would have been astonished to behold the chorus of bards, of melodious swans (their own allusion), which now peopled the banks of the Po.