he achieved a notable success. The Duke of Savoy, Carlo
Emmanuele, offered him a place at Court, appointed him secretary, and
dubbed him Knight of S. Maurice.

Vidi la corte, e nella corte io vidi
Promesse lunghe e guiderdoni avari,
Favori ingiusti e patrocini infidi,
Speranze dolci e pentimenti amari,
Sorrisi traditor, vezzi omicidi,
Ed acquisti dubbiosi e danni chiari,
E voti vani ed idoli bugiardi,
Onde il male e sicuro e il ben vien tardi.

It was the custom of all poets in that age to live in Courts and to
abuse them, to adulate princes and to vilify these patrons. Marino,
however, had real cause to complain of the treachery of courtiers. He
appears to have been a man of easy-going temper, popular among
acquaintances, and serviceable to the society he frequented. This
comradely disposition did not save him, however, from jealousies and
hatreds; for he had, besides, a Neapolitan's inclination for satire.
There was a Genoese poetaster named Gasparo Murtola established in
Court-service at Turin, who had recently composed a lumbering poem, _Il
Mondo Creato_. Marino made fun of it in a sonnet; Murtola retorted; and
a warfare of invectives began which equaled for scurrility and filth the
duels of Poggio and Valla. Murtola, seeing that he was likely to be
worsted by his livelier antagonist, waited for him one day round a
corner, gun in hand. The gun was discharged, and wounded, not Marino,
but a favorite servant of the duke. For this offense the assassin was
condemned to death; and would apparently have been executed, but for
Marino's generosity. He procured his enemy's pardon, and was repaid with
the blackest ingratitude. On his release from prison Murtola laid hands
upon a satire, _La Cuccagna_, written some time previously by his rival.
This he laid before the duke, as a seditious attack upon the government
of Savoy. Marino now in his turn was imprisoned; but he proved, through
the intervention of Manso, that the _Cuccagna_ had been published long
before his arrival at Turin. Disgusted by these incidents, he next
accepted an invitation from the French Court, and journeyed to Paris in
1615, where the Italianated society of that city received him like a
living Phoebus. Maria de Medici, as Regent, with Concini for her
counselor and lover, was then in all her vulgar glory. Richelieu's star
had not arisen to eclipse Italian intrigue and to form French taste by
the Academy. D'Urfe and D