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Rh To appreciate Zerbino's fidelity to his word, it must be known that, having been vanquished in a joust, he has been compelled to vow to escort a hideous old woman of singular depravity, and to maintain her beauty and virtue against all comers, with the prospect of being killed in her service. A more comic situation will hardly be found in any of the romances.

Ariosto's comedies must be considered along with the Italian drama in general. The most important of his minor poetical works are the Satires, rather in the vein of Horace than of Juvenal, and, in truth, hardly satires at all in any proper sense of the term. They are good metrical talk on light subjects, elegant, chatty, and discursive. His own disappointments are alluded to very good-humouredly. His lyrical pieces are not remarkable, except one impressive sonnet, in which he appears to express compunction for the irregularities of his life:

Late in life the poet married; whether he also reformed seems doubtful. His amours, however, were