Nor less than real stone seemed stone to be.
Stanza xxxiv. line 8.
‘Quanto rectius hic!’
Reclined on Alexandrian carpets rare.
Stanza xxxvii. line 1.
As things often bear the name of the place from which they are received, and not of the country of which they are the production, articles imported from the East were usually called Alexandrian, when Alexandria was the channel through which flowed the commerce of Asia. For this see our chronicles and romances.
You shall in nobler studies be professed,
Tutored by her, than bath and costly fare,
Song, dance, and perfumes; as how fashioned best,
Your thoughts may tower more high than hawks in air;
And how some of the glory of the blest
You here may in the mortal body share.
Stanza xlvii. lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Hitherto the allegory of the Furioso has (I think) justified what I have said respecting this machinery, as employed by Boiardo and Ariosto, in my introduction to the Innamorato. I mean that hitherto it has not been offensively intrusive, and has been always subservient to the objects of poetry. Once suppose the existence of fairies, and every thing about Alcina is natural. The same thing may be predicated of the servants and
