The expected assailants, however, after curiously eying the governor and his train, permitted them to pass; which his excellency was very willing to do, though, as chief magistrate, he had found a whole nest of outlaws. Having formerly signalised himself in the river fight with the Venetians, and there being no occasion to exercise any other than "the better part of valour--discretion"--in this affair, Ariosto felt his honour as safe as his life, in riding on without offering molestation where he experienced none. But the captain of the band, being struck with his superior presence, demanded of the hindmost of his attendants what was his master's name. "Ludovico Ariosto," replied the other: whereupon, galloping up to him, the freebooter hailed the poet (who expected a very different salutation) with the most profound respect and courtesy, introducing himself as Philippo Pachione, and regretting that, from not having previously known his person, he and his troop had not done due honour to him in passing. He then launched out into vehement praises of the "Orlando Furioso" (a poem likely enough to be the delight of such adventurers), and with all humility and frankness offered his most devoted services to its author. Baretti's version of the anecdote is to the following effect:--Ariosto one morning happened to take a walk in his night-gown and slippers beyond the castle where he resided, fell into a fit of thought, and forgot himself so much, that step after step he found himself, when he recovered, already far from home, and surrounded on a sudden by a troop of desperadoes; who certainly would have ill used, and perhaps murdered him, had not his face been known by one of the gang, who, informing his comrades that it was signor Ariosto, the chief of the banditti addressed him with intrepid gallantry, and told him, that since his excellency was the author of "Orlando Furioso," he might be sure that none of his company would injure him, but would see him, on the contrary, safe to the castle. This they did, entertaining him all the way with the passages which they most admired in his poem." Ariosto himself seems to allude to some such circumstance in the Epistle to S. Maleguccio (Satire V.), written during his residence in Graffagnana. "Saggio chi dal castel poco si scosta." "He's wise who strays but little from the castle." Two of his epistolary Satires are dated from that province; where he seems to have been as little at home as Ovid in Pontus. In that first quoted, to Sigismondo Maleguccio, at the end of the first year of his honourable exile, he says,--