During the four months which intervened between the demise of Pius IV. and the election of a new pope, who assumed the name of Pius V., Torquato's patron, the cardinal Luigi, being absent, he was left at Ferrara to make his way into favour wherever an opening might be presented; and it was then that he became more particularly acquainted with the princesses Lucretia and Leonora of Este, by whom he was brought under the notice of their brother the duke, who, after all that has been said and conjectured, seems never to have regarded him otherwise than with stately or selfish condescension. That a youth so gifted with genius, so early distinguished among his countrymen, favoured by nature with more than ordinary personal advantages, and in many other ways gallantly accomplished, should have attracted the esteem of these illustrious ladies, who appear to have been more than mere court beauties, both in intellect and sensibility, delighting in poetry, and occasionally exercising themselves in it, was almost a necessary consequence of the parties becoming acquainted. Under such circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that, on either side, secret presentiments of the most gratifying kind should unconsciously spring up and be covertly cherished by the several individuals; never, indeed, as must be inferred from the sequel, to be fully disclosed, nor even, perhaps, perfectly understood by themselves. If, in the age of chivalry, it was imperative upon true knights to assert the beauty and maintain the honour of their ladies in all due seasons, and in all proper places, it was, in the seventeenth century, equally the duty of true poets to celebrate the same virtues and adornments in their verses upon those of the better sex, who were either their mistresses or their patronesses. Torquato, dazzled by the transition from schools, law offices, and colleges of philosophy, to the court region of enchantment, has described his own emotions and the influence of the change upon him in the language which he puts into the mouth of _Tirsi_ (the representative of himself in his "Amintor"), where, after taking vengeance on his father's friend, but his own very questionable one (Sperone), for having dissuaded him from going to the city, which, he assured him, was given up wholly to deceit, voluptuousness, avarice, and ambition, the shepherd tells his companions how bravely he was disabused when he beheld the marvellous reality; for there, "as gracious heaven would have it, I happened to pass near the blissful dwelling, whence issued sweet, harmonious voices of swans, of nymphs, of syrens--heavenly syrens! and sounds of music soft and clear, with other ravishments so strange, that for a while I stood entranced with joy and admiration." Being courteously invited to enter by one of noble aspect, who appeared the guardian of the enchanted spot, he exclaims, "O then what saw, what felt I? I beheld nymphs, goddesses, and minstrels--luminaries new and beautiful--all without veil or cloud, as to the immortals, scattering silver dews and golden rays, Aurora seems; Apollo and the Muses, too, I saw, and in that moment felt myself as growing greater. Filled with new virtue, new divinity, I sang of wars and heroes, disdaining my rude pastoral pipe. But though I soon returned to these calm shades (to please another), I still retained a portion of that nobler spirit; my simple reed no longer warbled as before, but, rivalling the trumpet, filled the woods with notes more lofty and sonorous. Mopso (Sperone) heard it, and, with evil eye, looked on me and bewitched me, so that I grew hoarse, and long continued mute. The shepherds thought I had been glared at by a wolf--a wolf, indeed, he was to me!" The last allusion is to Sperone's savage criticisms on the "Gerusalemme," when submitted to his examination in manuscript. Torquato, however, had reason to think, after years of disappointing experience, that Sperone's notions of courts and courtiers were quite as near the truth as his own, during his first visit and sojourn at Ferrara.