It is not practicable, in this succinct memoir, to trace the sufferer through all the details which have been recorded of his miseries from penury, pride, ambition, and disappointment, the wrongs inflicted on him by patrons and rivals, and above all, those growing symptoms of a mind diseased, occasioning suspicions, jealousies, misunderstandings, and quarrels with his friends and contemporaries; while that insidious malady, which no medicine can reach, was making its unchecked ravages upon his constitution, and inveterately fixing upon him its evil influences, so that, with brief and distant lucid intervals, his remaining days were passed in horror and despondency, whether amidst the darkness of the dungeons of Ferrara, or wandering amidst the broad sunshine on foot, and depending for bread and shelter upon casual hospitality, from province to province throughout Italy. Imagining that his enemies--enemies as imaginary, in this case, as were his fears of them--had accused him to Alfonso of treason, and to the pope of heresy, he at length grew so outrageous, that, one day, for some unaccountable provocation, he drew a dagger upon a servant, and assaulted him in an apartment of the duchess of Urbino. Being instantly disarmed, he was confined, by order of the duke, within the precincts of the palace. Here, when for the first time he found himself a prisoner, he was overwhelmed with anguish, and bitterly bewailed his fate. As soon as he could again command his passion, he wrote a very penitential letter to Alfonso, suing for pardon and release. Both were granted to him; and he was removed, under the eye of the duke himself, to the palace of Belriguardo, in the country, that he might recover his health and spirits, amidst scenes and with the society in which he had formerly delighted to be placed. With a delicate regard to one of his most grievous temptations--that he had been guilty of heresy, Alfonso introduced to him the head of the holy inquisition at Ferrara, who, after duly examining him, fully absolved him from all imputations of the kind, and assured him that he was yet a good catholic. Not contented with this, he suddenly left Belriguardo, and took refuge in a convent of St. Francis, from which he sent word to his patron, that as soon as he should be sufficiently restored he intended to enter himself among the fraternity. But nothing could calm the troubled waters of his mind; he still conceived himself under the displeasure of the duke, and that his acquittal by the inquisitor was invalid. In this turmoil of doubts and self-reproaches, he importuned Alfonso and the duchess of Urbino with letters concerning his imaginary offences, and imploring comfort and assurance which they could not give, because he would not receive. With Leonora he appears never to have had that freedom and frequency of correspondence which he had hitherto been permitted to hold with her elder sister. Whether this be in favour of his presumed passion or not