latest news from Paris, which Duchess Beatrice and all her ladies
were dying to hear.

"Tell me if the Queen of France is fair, and how the king appears in
your eyes--whether he is cruel or clement, inclined to walk in the paths
of virtue or of vice. And tell us, too, if the people of Paris seem to
fear the English and the Spaniard, and if they are true followers of
Mars? Tell us how the crowds who walk the streets are clad, and what
customs and manners they have, and how they speak, and what they think.
Tell me how many students their University numbers, and in what branches
of learning they excel. Tell me the names of their lawgivers and
historians, and if any classical antiquities are to be found in Paris.
Tell me how the Abbey of S. Denis is built, and what style of
architecture prevails in the far North? And tell me, too, if I dare ask,
have you perchance in Paris found some fair lady to bend a gracious
smile upon you, and console you for all that you have left behind?"

Girolamo Tuttavilla replied in verses of the same light and airy strain,
alluding to the fierce contest over Dante that waged between Dottore
Bramante and his foes, and laughing at friend Bellincioni's furious
rages, but saying that he at least is wiser, and will take the _via
media_ and steer warily between the two contending parties.

But the best poet at Lodovico's court, a sweeter singer and a finer
scholar than the much-praised Bellincioni or the gay Visconti, was
Niccolo, the "gran Correggio" of Gaspare's song. The son of that
accomplished princess of Este, Beatrice the Queen of Festivals, reared
by her in all the culture of Ferrara, this singularly polished and
handsome personage was in the eyes of his contemporaries the model of a
perfect courtier. To have known him was in itself a liberal education.
Sabba da Castiglione, that fastidious scholar and refined writer of the
sixteenth century, counted himself fortunate because as a boy he had
seen and known "this most famous, most courteous and gifted cavalier in
all Italy." Ariosto saw him in his vision upholding the Fountain of
Song, and chanting in his own lofty and noble style--

"Un Signor di Correggio
Con alto stil par che cantando scriva."

Niccolo had come to Milan in Beatrice's bridal train, and remained there
ever since, highly valued and beloved by Lodovico and all the ducal
family, riding in jousts and tournaments, going on foreign missions, and
composing songs and ec