NOTES TO CANTO IV.
Though an ill mind appear in simulation.
Stanza i. line 1.
If any one should censure as pedantic my translation of il simulare, by its only exact English equivalent, which in the general wreck of precision of expression is now falling into disuse, and reject, as not of English authority, the rule laid down in
Quod non est simulo dissimuloque quod est,
I must refer him to Lord Bacon’s Essay on Simulation and Dissimulation.
Broad were his pinions, and of various hue.
Stanza v. line 1.
The winged horse, and indeed every thing in the Furioso, even to the adventures, has been maintained to be allegorical. An Italian commentator, nearest to the time of Ariosto, pronounces this beast to be a type of Love, reasoning from his wings, his power of transporting man or woman, &c. &c. &c. The whimsical and precise details of his parentage and education in an after-passage (see stanzas XVIII and XIX) will probably interest the reader more than these conjectures. The circumstantiality of the fiction may here seem to illustrate what I have said, in my preface, respecting points of resemblance between Ariosto and Defoe. Thus, when Robinson Crusoe lands on his island from an expedition in the raft, he sees, sitting
