ain the
latter. It must therefore form the subject of a somewhat detailed study.

Guarini drew his blood on the paternal side from the illustrious
humanist Guarino of Verona, who settled at Ferrara in the fifteenth
century as tutor to Leonello d'Este.[176] By his mother he claimed
descent from the Florentine house of Machiavelli. Born in 1537, he was
seven years older than Torquato Tasso, whom he survived eighteen years,
not closing his long life until 1612. He received a solid education both
at Pisa and Padua, and was called at the early age of eighteen to
profess moral philosophy in the University of Ferrara. Being of noble
birth and inheriting a considerable patrimony, Guarini might have
enjoyed a life of uninterrupted literary leisure, if he had chosen to
forego empty honors and shun the idle distractions of Courts. But it was
the fate of distinguished men in that age to plunge into those
quicksands. Guarini had a character and intellect suited to the conduct
of state affairs; and he shared the delusion prevalent among his
contemporaries, that the petty Italian principalities could offer a
field for the exercise of these talents. 'If our country is reduced to
the sole government of a prince,' he writes, 'the man who serves his
prince will serve his country, a duty both natural and binding upon
all.'[177] Accordingly, soon after his marriage to Taddea of the noble
Bendedei family, he entered the service of Alfonso II. This was in 1567.
Tasso, in his quality of gentleman to Cardinal d'Este, had already shed
lustre on Ferrara through the past two years. Guarini first made Tasso's
friendship at Padua, where both were Eterei and house-guests of Scipione
Gonzaga. The two poets now came together in a rivalry which was not
altogether amicable. The genius of Tasso, in the prime of youth and
heyday of Court-favor, roused Guarini's jealousy. And yet their
positions were so different that Guarini might have been well satisfied
to pursue his own course without envy. A married and elder man, he had
no right to compete in gallantry with the brilliant young bachelor.
Destined for diplomacy and affairs of state, he had no cause to grudge
the Court poet his laurels. Writing in 1595, Guarini avers that 'poetry
has been my pastime, never my profession'; and yet he made it his
business at Ferrara to rival Tasso both as a lyrist and as a servant of
dames. Like Tasso, he suffered from the spite of Alfonso's secretaries,
Pigna and Montecat