nce. His company was not desired in Rome, so
that he was seldom there. Ariosto, however, was an amusing companion; and
the cardinal seems not to have liked to go anywhere without him. In the
year 1515 he was attended by the poet part of the way on a journey to
Rome and Urbino; but Ariosto fell ill, and had leave to return. He
confesses that his illness was owing to an anxiety of love; and he even
makes an appeal to the cardinal's experience of such feelings; so that it
might seem he was not afraid of Ippolito's displeasure in that direction.
But the weakness which selfish people excuse in themselves becomes a
"very different thing" (as they phrase it) in another. The appeal to the
cardinal's experience might only have exasperated him, in its assumption
of the identity of the case. However, the poet was, at all events, left
this time to the indulgence of his love and his poetry; and in the
course of the ensuing year, a copy of the first edition of the _Orlando
Furioso_, in forty cantos, was put into the hands of the illustrious
person to whom it was dedicated.

The words in which the cardinal was pleased to express himself on this
occasion have become memorable. "Where the devil, Master Lodovick," said
the reverend personage, "have you picked up such a parcel of trumpery?"
The original term is much stronger, aggravating the insult with
indecency. There is no equivalent for it in English; and I shall not
repeat it in Italian. "It is as low and indecent," says Panizzi, "as
any in the language." Suffice it to say that, although the age was not
scrupulous in such matters, it was one of the last words befitting the
lips of the reverend Catholic; and that, when Ippolito of Este
(as Ginguene observes) made that speech to the great poet, "he
uttered--prince, cardinal, and mathematician as he was--an
impertinence."[15]

Was the cardinal put out of temper by a device which appeared in this
book? On the leaf succeeding the title-page was the privilege for its
publication, granted by Leo in terms of the most flattering personal
recognition.[16] So far so good; unless the unpoetical Este patron was
not pleased to see such interest taken in the book by the tasteful Medici
patron. But on the back of this leaf was a device of a hive, with the
bees burnt out of it for their honey, and the motto, "Evil for good"
(_Pro bono malum_). Most biographers are of opinion that this device was
aimed at the cardinal's ill return for all the sweet w