ned out to be, at least in part;
the opinion being, that the sight of one of the eyes was preserved.[8]

Party-spirit has so much to do with stories of princes, and princes are
so little in a condition to notice them, that, on the principle of
not condemning a man till he has been heard in his defence, an honest
biographer would be loath to credit these horrors of Cardinal Ippolito,
did not the violent nature of the times, and the general character of the
man, even with his defenders, incline him to do so. His being a soldier
rather than a churchman was a fault of the age, perhaps a credit to the
man, for he appears to have had abilities for war, and it was no crime of
his if he was put into the church when a boy. But his conduct to Ariosto
shewed him coarse and selfish; and those who say all they can for him
admit that he was proud and revengeful, and that nobody regretted him
when he died. He is said to have had a taste for mathematics, as his
brother had for mechanics. The truth seems to be, that he and the duke,
who lived in troubled times, and had to exert all their strength to
hinder Ferrara from becoming a prey to the court of Rome, were clever,
harsh men, of no grace or elevation of character, and with no taste but
for war; and if it had not been for their connexion with Ariosto, nobody
would have heard of them, except while perusing the annals of the time.
Ippolito might have been, and probably was, the ruffian which the
anecdote of his brother Giulio represents him; but the world would have
heard little of the villany, had he not treated a poet with contempt.

The admirers of our author may wonder how he could become the servant of
such a man, much more how he could praise him as he did in the great work
which he was soon to begin writing. But Ariosto was the son of a man who
had passed his life in the service of the family; he had probably been
taught a loyal blindness to its defects; gratuitous panegyrics of princes
had been the fashion of men of letters since the time of Augustus; and
the poet wanted help for his relatives, and was of a nature to take
the least show of favour for a virtue, till he had learnt, as he
unfortunately did, to be disappointed in the substance. It is not known
what his appointment was under the cardinal. Probably he was a kind of
gentleman of all work; an officer in his guards, a companion to amuse,
and a confidential agent for the transaction of business. The employment
in which h