 One hinted that the Inquisition would not tolerate its supernatural machinery; another demanded the excision of its most charming passages, the loves of "Armida", "Clorinda" and "Erminia".Tasso had to defend himself against all these ineptitudes and pedantries, and to accommodate his practice to the theories he had rashly expressed.Tasso's self-chosen critics were not men to admit what the public has since accepted as incontrovertible.