But what claims had Ariosto on the bounty of Leo X.? The fact is certain, that, previous to the elevation of Giovanni de' Medici, under that name, to the papal chair (not in prosperity only, but in exile and captivity after the battle of Ravenna), Ariosto had been on terms of the most cordial intimacy that can be supposed to have subsisted between persons so unequally circumstanced with regard to birth, but having in common one passionate attachment to elegant literature. In Ariosto this was supreme, in Leo it was only secondary; hence the heartless ingratitude of the priest on the one hand, and the wormwood and gall of chagrin, that exasperated the poet on the other. But his own authority on the subject is the best; and if not the most correct, it has the merit of being the most amusing representation of the game of self-delusion at which both played and both lost (the one his honour, and the other his reward); for there is no reason to doubt of Giovanni de' Medici's affection towards his friend, and his purpose to serve him being as sincere--till he had the means of doing so--as the poets hopes were natural and ingenuous. Time has avenged the injured party, and Ariosto's fourth Satire adds little to the glory of the golden days of Leo. While the latter was a whelp, he fondled his playmate the spaniel; when he came to lion's estate, he had too many foxes and wolves about his den to care for his former companion. "Until the time" when he went to Rome to be made lion[101] (Leo), "I was always agreeable to him, and apparently he loved few persons more than me. Often hath he said, when he was legate and in Florence, that if need were, he would make no difference between me and his own brother. Hence some might imagine, that being at Rome, it would have been easy for me to have slipt my head out of a black hood into a green one. I answer those who may think so with an example; read it, for it will cost you less to read than me to write." This, as well as some former and following extracts from the Satires, are given, for variety's sake, in slipshod verse:-- "The ground, one summer, was so parch'd with drought, It seem'd as though Apollo had resign'd His horses' reins to Phaëton again: Dry every well, and every fountain dry; Lakes, streams, and rivers most renown'd, might then Be forded without bridges. "In that time, There lived a pastor, rich I do not say, Nor overstock'd with herds and woolly flocks, Who, among others, press'd by want of water, And having search'd in vain through every cave, Turn'd to that Lord who never disappoints The man that trusts in him;--and light was given, And inspiration to his heart, that he, Far thence, should in a valley's bottom find The long-desired supply.