The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 481, March 19, 1831   By: Various

VOL. 17, NO. 481.] SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1831. [PRICE 2d.

RELICS OF ARIOSTO.

[Illustration: Inkstand.]

[Illustration: Chair.]

We need not bespeak the reader's interest in these "trivial fond" relics these consecrated memorials of one of the most celebrated poets of Italy. They are preserved with reverential care at Ferrara, the poet's favourite residence, though not his birthplace. The Ferrarese, however, claim him "exclusively as their own" Lord Byron, in the Notes[1] to Childe Harold , canto 4, says, "the author of the Orlando is jealously claimed as the Homer, not of Italy, but Ferrara. The mother of Ariosto was of Reggio, and the house in which he was born is carefully distinguished by a tablet with these words: ' Qui nacque Ludovico Ariosto il giorno 8 di Settembre dell' anno 1474.' But the Ferrarese make light of the accident by which their poet was born abroad, and claim him exclusively for their own. They possess his bones, they show his ARM CHAIR, and his INKSTAND, and his autographs. The house where he lived, the room where he died, are designated by his own replaced memorial, and by a recent inscription."