Nor can it be concluded that Morato was not at this time imbued with the new opinions, from the fact, that he evidently stood well in the court society at Ferrara. In the absence of all ascertained dates to enable us to fix with precision the leading events of his life, we must content ourselves with concluding, that it must have been between the years 1520 and 1525, in all probability, that he first established himself in that city. We know that he there married a Ferrarese lady, and that his daughter Olympia was born there in 1526. Now it is clear from the letters of Calcagnini that he must about that time have adopted at least those doctrines on justification by faith, and on free–will, which a few years afterwards were stamped as heretical and visited with persecution. But nobody on the southern side of the Alps dreamed as yet that such opinions, must, or even might, lead to that dreaded consummation, separation from the Church. Morato was at this time a valued member of the learned society of Ferrara; and though doubtless a frequenter of those academic meetings in the apartments of the Duchess, which were afterwards discovered to have been so heretically pernicious, he was as yet well esteemed by the most unsuspectedly orthodox churchmen. [Sidenote: ANECDOTE OF BEMBO.] A little anecdote from the vast repertory of such supplied by the "quarrels of authors," may serve to show that the favourable opinion of Messer Peregrino Morato was no little valued among the set with whom he lived. The celebrated Pietro Bembo, who was a few years after this time called to the purple by Paul III., had passed some years at Ferrara in the early part of his life, and having formed friendships with most of the literary men there, never lost an opportunity of paying them a visit, and was thus intimate with all the knot among whom Morato lived. Now it seems that Bernardo Tasso, the father of the poet, who was secretary to the Duchess Renée, had somewhat maliciously written to Bembo that Morato had accused[38] him of plagiarising certain grammatical speculations, from one Francesco Fortunio. Upon which Bembo, writing in reply on the 27th May, 1529, manifests great anxiety to convince Morato that he is in error. "On the contrary," writes Bembo, "he stole these things from me, together with the very words as I had written them in a small work of mine before he could speak, much less write, badly as he does it. This work of mine he saw and had in his hands many days; and I am ready to show it to him (Morato) whenever he please; and he will then see whether I deserve to be thus branded and cut up by him. Besides, I can introduce him to several great personages worthy of all credit, who heard and learned from me all the matters in question, long before Fortunio took to teaching others what he does not know himself."[39] Bembo, ex–secretary to Pope Leo, and presently to be a Cardinal, stood very much higher in the social