was sincerely convinced of his own merit, and could see
no reason for feigning. The topmost round of his azure ladder had been
reached by this time: he had held his secretaryship these twenty years--
had long since made his orations on the _ringhiera_, or platform of the
Old Palace, as the custom was, in the presence of princely visitors,
while Marzocco, the republican lion, wore his gold crown on the
occasion, and all the people cried, "Viva Messer Bartolommeo!"--had been
on an embassy to Rome, and had there been made titular Senator,
Apostolical Secretary, Knight of the Golden Spur; and had, eight years
ago, been Gonfaloniere--last goal of the Florentine citizen's ambition.
Meantime he had got richer and richer, and more and more gouty, after
the manner of successful mortality; and the Knight of the Golden Spur
had often to sit with helpless cushioned heel under the handsome loggia
he had built for himself, overlooking the spacious gardens and lawn at
the back of his palace.

He was in this position on the day when he had granted the desired
interview to Tito Melema. The May afternoon sun was on the flowers and
the grass beyond the pleasant shade of the loggia; the too stately silk
lucco was cast aside, and the light loose mantle was thrown over his
tunic; his beautiful daughter Alessandra and her husband, the Greek
soldier-poet Marullo, were seated on one side of him: on the other, two
friends not oppressively illustrious, and therefore the better
listeners. Yet, to say nothing of the gout, Messer Bartolommeo's
felicity was far from perfect: it was embittered by the contents of
certain papers that lay before him, consisting chiefly of a
correspondence between himself and Politian. It was a human foible at
that period (incredible as it may seem) to recite quarrels, and favour
scholarly visitors with the communication of an entire and lengthy
correspondence; and this was neither the first nor the second, time that
Scala had asked the candid opinion of his friends as to the balance of
right and wrong in some half-score Latin letters between himself and
Politian, all springing out of certain epigrams written in the most
playful tone in the world. It was the story of a very typical and
pretty quarrel, in which we are interested, because it supplied
precisely that thistle of hatred necessary, according to Nello, as a
stimulus to the sluggish paces of the cautious steed, Friendship.
Politian, having been a rejected pr