I told him that his suspicions were entirely groundless; that my esteem for you was so far from being diminished, that it was increased—I also promised to write to you. This promise I should certainly have immediately fulfilled, had I not been prevented by the press of business occasioned by the departure of the pontiff. “Accept my thanks for your kind congratulation on the late change in my condition. I hope I shall find it productive of perpetual comfort and pleasure. For since, as Flaccus says, the virtue of parents is a great dowry, I have had this alone in view, and have overlooked riches and other recommendations, which the generality of men regard as indispensably requisite to the happiness of the married state. Petronius Arbiter asserts, that wisdom and beauty are rarely allied—but by the favour of heaven, I am united to a wife, who, though she has not yet completed her eighteenth year, and is distinguished by her beauty, is yet more virtuous than she is fair, and comprehends in her character all the graces which adorn the female sex. I trust, therefore, that I have made a provision of comfort for my future years, though some of my friends say that I am beginning a new art, at the time when I ought to be quitting it. But it is never too late to do what is right and honest: and as good poets take especial pains in polishing the last act of their play, I am resolved to dedicate the remainder of my days to purity of conduct.”[272] At this time, the Florentines and the Venetians, being at war with the Duke of Milan, had engaged as their ally Giovan Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua; and whilst hostilities were carrying on between the above mentioned parties, the eldest son of the Marquis, being an ardent admirer of the character of Niccolo Piccinino, who held a station of distinction in the Milanese army, had secretly quitted his father’s house, and had entered into the service of the Duke for the purpose of studying the art of war under the auspices of that celebrated Condottiere. Gonzaga was so much irritated by this conduct of his son, that he disinherited him, as being, by a species of desertion, guilty of a capital crime. The young prince, whilst this judgment hung suspended over his head, having been ordered by Piccinino to guard with a body of troops the lines by which the town of Barga was beleaguered by the Milanese forces, was wounded and taken prisoner in a battle which he fought with Francesco Sforza, one of the commanders in the pay of the Florentine republic. The repentant run-away having, on his recovery, taken service under Sforza, and thus rejoined the standard of his native country, applied to his father for forgiveness of his fault. But he solicited for pardon in vain. Gonzaga, either indulging the natural severity of his disposition, or fearing to excite the jealousy of the Venetians, should he pass over so heinous a crime, turned a deaf ear to the suit of the youthful warrior, and sternly refused to mitigate the