an inveterate vice of his maturity, and he bequeathed to his
descendants a coil of legal troubles. Having married one of his
daughters, Anna, to Count Ercole Trotti, he had the misery of hearing in
1596 that she had fallen an innocent victim to her husband's jealousy,
and that his third son, Girolamo connived at her assassination. In the
midst of these annoyances and sorrows, he maintained a grave and robust
attitude, uttering none of those querulous lamentations which flowed so
readily from Tasso's pen.

[Footnote 179: _Lettere_, p. 195.]

[Footnote 180: In this year it was published with the author's revision
by Ciotto at Venice. It had been represented at Turin in 1585, and first
printed at Venice in 1590.]

Tasso had used the Pastoral Drama to idealize Courts. Guarini vented all
the bitterness of his soul against them in his _Pastor Fido_. He also
wrote from his retirement: 'I am at ease in the enjoyment of liberty,
studies, the management of my household.'[182] Yet in 1585, while on a
visit to Turin, he again accepted proposals from Alfonso. He had gone
there in order to superintend the first representation of his Pastoral,
which was dedicated to the Duke of Savoy. Extremely averse to his old
servants taking office under other princes, the Duke of Ferrara seems to
have feared lest Guarini should pass into the Court of Carlo Emmanuele.
He therefore appointed him Secretary of State; and Guarini entered upon
the post in the same year that Tasso issued from his prison. This
reconciliation did not last long. Alfonso took the side of Alessandro
Guarini in a lawsuit with his father; and the irritable poet retired in
indignation to Florence. The Duke of Ferrara, however, was determined
that he should not serve another master. At Florence, Turin, Mantua and
Rome, his attempts to obtain firm foothold in offices of trust were
invariably frustrated; and Coccapani, the Duke's envoy, hinted that if
Guarini were not circumspect, 'he might suffer the same fate as Tasso.'
To shut Guarini up in a madhouse would have been difficult. Still he
might easily have been dispatched by the poniard; and these words throw
not insignificant light upon Tasso's terror of assassination.

[Footnote 181: Guarini may be compared with Trissino in these points of
his private life. See _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. v. 303-305.]

[Footnote 182: _Lettere_, p. 196.]

The Duke Alfonso died in 1597, and Ferrara reverted to the Holy See.
Upon this occas