In addition to this laborious course of instruction, he also daily read a lecture on Morals.[219] Such was the arduous task undertaken by Filelfo—a task which demanded the exertions of a literary Hercules. He was, however, animated to the endurance of toil by the number and dignity of his audience, which daily consisted of four hundred persons, many of whom were not less eminent for their literary acquirements, than for the rank which they held in the state.[220] On Filelfo’s arrival in Florence, he found the inhabitants of that city divided into factions, and was by no means insensible of the difficulties which he had to encounter in endeavouring to avoid being involved in their disputes.[221] For the space of two years he seems to have acted with becoming discretion, and to have pursued his literary occupations without rendering himself subservient to the views of either party. His prudence was rewarded by an increase of his salary, which was augmented, towards the latter end of the year 1432, to the sum of three hundred and fifty gold crowns.[222] Unfortunately however for his peace of mind, he had not resided long at Florence, before he began to suspect that Niccolo Niccoli and Carlo Aretino, the latter of whom was one of the most accomplished of the Tuscan scholars, moved by envy of his literary fame, regarded him with sentiments of determined hostility. The irritable temper of Niccolo was indeed provoked by the supercilious pride of the new Coryphæus, who, without the least reserve of diffidence, assumed the high degree of eminence in the scale of importance to which he deemed himself entitled, and looked down upon the learned Florentines with undisguised disdain. Well knowing the intimacy which subsisted between Niccolo Niccoli and Cosmo de’ Medici, Filelfo took it for granted, that the latter would adopt the quarrels of his friend, and consequently apprehended that he had much to dread from the effects of his resentment. In this apprehension he was confirmed by the manifest coolness with which he was treated by Lorenzo, the brother of Cosmo; and he regarded the assurances which he received from the latter, that his suspicions with respect to himself were groundless, as a refinement of malice, intended to betray him into a fatal security.[223] His dread of the machinations of his enemies was also increased by a violent attack made upon him in the streets of Florence, by one Filippo, a noted assassin, by whom he was severely wounded in the face.[224]