'The princes are not tyrants--they are not, no, no: he is the tyrant.'[40] After quitting Ferrara, Tasso wandered through Mantua, Padua, Venice, coldly received in all these cities; for 'the hearts of men were hardened by their interests against him.' Writing from Venice to the Grand Duke in July, Maffeo Veniero says: 'Tasso is here, disturbed in mind; and though his intellect is certainly not sound, he shows more signs of affliction than of insanity.'[41] [Footnote 40: _Lettere_, ibid.p.

289.] [Footnote 41: _Lettere_, ibid.p.

233.] The sequestration of his only copy of the _Gerusalemme_ not unnaturally caused him much distress; and Veniero adds that the chief difficulty under which he labored was want of money.

Veniero hardly understood the case.

Even with a competence it is incredible that Tasso would have been contented to work quietly at literature in a private position.[42] From Venice he found his way southward to Urbino, writing one of his sublimest odes upon the road from Pesaro.[43] [Footnote 42: Tasso declares his inability to live outside the Court.
'Se fra i mali de l'animo, uno de'piu gravi e l'ambizione, egli ammalo di questo male gia molti anni sono, ne mai e risanato in modo ch'io abbia potuto sprezzare affatto i favori e gli onori del mondo, e chi puo dargli' (_Lettere_, vol.iii.p.