Meanwhile the duke of Ferrara, wishing to pacify the wrath of Julius II., who threatened him not only with the thunders of the Vatican (which were no impotent artillery in those days), but with "force and arms," in the strongest sense of the legal verbiage, so terribly illustrated in appeals to the sword; it is no small proof of the ability and address in worldly affairs of one who lived amidst a creation of ideals of his own rearing, that Ariosto was despatched as ambassador to Rome on this occasion. Though in the sequel he did not effect his purpose of appeasing the ferocious pontiff; yet, by his eloquence; he persuaded him to feign a milder mood; and send an answer which meant less favour than the words seemed to imply. For soon afterwards, Julius, who had set his heart upon adding Ferrara to the ecclesiastical states, entered into a league with the Venetians, who coveted Padua as the quarter adjacent to their territories; and, while his holiness furnished an army, the doge sent a fleet up the Po, to attack the capital of Alfonso at once by land and by water. The papal forces, however, were defeated at the battle of Ravenna, and the republican squadron was beaten, dispersed, or captured on the river. On this occasion, Ariosto, unlike Horace (his master in verse, but not in arms), fought gallantly, and made prize of one of the enemy's richest vessels, laden with military stores. This appears to be authenticated, though he himself never alludes to the circumstance in his Satires (when he is boasting of his services, and murmuring at their ill requital), and notwithstanding his reputed timidity on the water. At the same time, the proof usually given of the latter, it must be allowed, is too equivocal to establish the fact; namely, that when he had occasion to disembark, he would pertinaciously wait till every body else had landed, before he would venture to descend from the deck, using the phrase, de "_puppe novissimus exi_:" but the coolest captain, when his ship is wrecked or foundering, makes it a point of honour and duty to be the last to abandon it. He is likewise said to have been as indifferent a horseman, as _good_ seamen often are (though he was none), riding slowly and cautiously, and alighting on the least appearance of peril or inconvenience in his way. Personally a coward he may have been, but mentally courageous he undoubtedly was: there is no deficiency of spirit traceable in his conduct on some trying occasions, any more than there is in his verses at any time. Indeed, one who had not the keenest intellectual delight in the boldest enterprises, the most appalling dangers, and difficulties insurmountable except by magic intervention, would hardly have written "Orlando Furioso;" for in no work of imagination does the author more effectually dispossess himself of himself, and become for the time being the knight or the giant whose exploits he is celebrating.