When the action of the human mind is inspired by the principle endeavoured here to be set down, the inexpugnable face of Excommunication, (magnified by the assent to its validity of the excommunicated one,) perhaps, may be realized. Duke Alfonso d’Este could not hope to stand where Caesar Semper Augustus fell. Naturally, he went in desperate and horrid fear. He knew that he had not deserved to be gibbeted as a Bandit before the world: but he knew also that, before the Holiness of the Pope, he, a sovereign-regnant, was crushable as a worm. He lost no time in omitting to seek release from the hideous ban. Early in 1513, he chose the poet Messer Ludovico Ariosto, with his beautiful Greek profile and noble intellect, secretary and laureate of Cardinal Ippolito; and named him as his Orator to open negotiations with the Pope. The Lord Julius P.P. II was perfectly implacable. He had not pardoned the indiscreet criticisms of Cardinal Francisco de Borja, who had passed beyond His power. It was the complete ruin of Borgia that alone would slake His passionate thirst for vengeance;—and a Borgia was Duchess of Ferrara. He did not intend kindness to the consort of that Duchess: and He resolved to begin, in a clerical manner, with intimidation. Accordingly, He admitted Messer Ludovico Ariosto to an audience; and immediately ordered him to quit the Vatican by the door before he should be thrown from the window. After this reception of a proffered olive-branch, the Pope’s Holiness coolly awaited Duke Alfonso’s next move. Don Fabrizio Colonna flourished in the favour of the Lord Julius P.P. II; and he, also, was under many vital obligations to the Duke of Ferrara. He, in his turn, tried the role of peacemaker between pontiff and sovereign; and so far succeeded, that the Holy Father farcically permitted the Duke to come to Rome, assured of a favourable reception, to plead his cause and to arrange the terms of his submission. He came. He saw the Ruler of the World. He was conquered. The Terrible Pontiff named the sole conditions on which He would consent to remit the ban of excommunication. Nothing could be more enormously radical and sweeping. They were, abdication of his sovereignty over the city and whole duchy of Ferrara, with absolute renunciation for himself and his heirs for ever of all rights therein, in favour of the Holy See; also, his retirement to voluntary life-long exile at the little city of Asti in the province of Lombardy. Death and obliteration of the Borgia, not by vulgar assassination but by constitutional withdrawal of the means to live, was the aim of the Terrible Pontiff; wherefore He would strip naked Duke Alfonso, as aforetime He had stripped naked Duke Cesare. Duke Alfonso d’Este refused to purchase release from excommunication on these disgraceful terms. The Lord Julius P.P. II let him have hints which gave to understand that the said terms might be mitigated. By various subterfuges he was detained in Rome.