His bereavement was thus intimated by Torquato to the Duke of Urbino: "On the 4th of September it pleased the Lord God to call to himself the blessed soul of my father, whose death, although in all respects mature, is nevertheless felt by me as most untimely, and, I am persuaded, will be very unacceptable to your Excellency, who by so many proofs of regard considered him among your most esteemed servants, and towards whom I know his especial reverence. Of this respect, and of the infinite obligations under which he lay to your Excellency, I am most willingly the representative; and if that favour which your Excellency ever extended for his protection, and that of his interests, be devolved upon me, I shall deem it an ample patrimony that he has left me. And herewith praying a happy issue to all your honoured desires, I humbly kiss your hands. From Ferrara, the 28th September, 1569." An amiable disposition and agreeable manners procured for Bernardo Tasso, in all the fluctuations of his career, troops of friends, including the brightest names of his age. In the many situations of trust which he filled, his prudence and address, his fidelity and sincerity, acquired for him general estimation. Although his literary reputation now hangs, in a great degree, upon that of his son, his contemporaries, who knew not what the latter had in store for them, regarded him as the first epic poet of his age, comparing him even with Ariosto, whom he freely and avowedly imitated. To draw out some fifty-seven thousand verses on a borrowed and almost barren theme, in a style anticipated by several preceding minstrels, was an effort repugnant to fine genius, and susceptible of no marked success. Its necessary failing is diffuseness, varying from inflation to languor; its redeeming merit an acknowledged facility, sustained at times by fertile images, and by delicately beautiful descriptions. It is generally flowing, though, at times, feeble; yet is considered by Panizzi "unquestionably the best romantic narrative from amongst those not founded on the traditions respecting Charlemagne." Indeed, his poetry, while sharing with coeval productions the blemishes of exuberant ornament and quaint conceits, is seldom surpassed in pathos, and his dulcet numbers reconcile us to his faults of manner. What, to its author, was probably its most important quality, is now, perhaps, its greatest defect,--the profuse flattery of which it was made the medium. "To eat the bread of others" was the often hard, usually degrading, tenure self-imposed on court poets; and to such, a subject admitting of endless episodes, and the frequent introduction of existing personages, in their real characters or under transparent allegories, was a harvest of princely favour and of wealth. This, however, was an error of the age, which ought not to be charged on any single poet, least of all on one who had given his best and worthiest efforts to a barren soil. The fugitive poetry of Tasso