e; but the Marquis had summoned the most popular
singers, harpers, and buffoons to exercise their talents in
this splendid theatre. After this festival I might remark a
singular gift of this same Boniface to the Emperor Henry
III., a chariot and oxen of solid silver, which were
designed only as a vehicle for a hogshead of vinegar. If
such an example should seem above the imitation of Azo
himself, the Marquis of Este was at least superior in wealth
and dignity to the vassals of his compeer. One of these
vassals, the Viscount of Mantua, presented the German
monarch with one hundred falcons and one hundred bay horses,
a grateful contribution to the pleasures of a royal
sportsman. In that age the proud distinction between the
nobles and princes of Italy was guarded with jealous
ceremony. The Viscount of Mantua had never been seated at
the table of his immediate lord; he yielded to the
invitation of the Emperor; and a stag's skin filled with
pieces of gold was graciously accepted by the Marquis of
Tuscany as the fine of his presumption.

"The temporal felicity of Azo was crowned by the long
possession of honour and riches; he died in the year 1097,
aged upwards of an hundred years; and the term of his mortal
existence was almost commensurate with the lapse of the
eleventh century. The character as well as the situation of
the Marquis of Este rendered him an actor in the revolutions
of that memorable period; but time has cast a veil over the
virtues and vices of the man, and I must be content to mark
some of the eras, the milestones of his which measure the
extent and intervals of the vacant way. Albert Azo the
Second was no more than seventeen when he first drew the
sword of rebellion and patriotism, when he was involved with
his grandfather, his father, and his three uncles in a
common proscription. In the vigour of his manhood, about his
fiftieth year, the Ligurian Marquis governed the cities of
Milan and Genoa as the minister of Imperial authority. He
was upwards of seventy when he passed the Alps to vindicate
the inheritance of Maine for the children of his second
marriage. He became the friend and servant of Gregory VII.,
and in one of his epistles that ambitious pontiff recommends
the Marquis Azo, as the most faithful and be