the whole house of Este, and the pope, and
all the other Italian princes, left that to be done by the imperial
general, the celebrated Alfonso Davallos, Marquess of Vasto, to whom he
was sent on some mission by the Duke of Ferrara, and who settled on him
an annuity of a hundred golden ducats; "the only reward," says Panizzi,
"which we find to have been conferred on Ariosto expressly as a
poet."[24] Davallos was one of the conquerors of Francis the First,
young and handsome, and himself a writer of verses. The grateful poet
accordingly availed himself of his benefactor's accomplishments to make
him, in turn, a present of every virtue under the sun. Caesar was not so
liberal, Nestor so wise, Achilles so potent, Nireus so beautiful, nor
even Ladas, Alexander's messenger, so swift.[25] Ariosto was now verging
towards the grave; and he probably saw in the hundred ducats a golden
sunset of his cares.

Meantime, however, the poet had built a house, which, although small, was
raised with his own money; so that the second edition of the _Orlando_
may have realised some profits at last. He recorded the pleasant fact in
an inscription over the door, which has become celebrated:

"Parva, sed apta mihi; sed nulli obnoxia; sed non
Sordida; parta meo sed tamen acre domus."
Small, yet it suits me; is of no offence;
Was built, not meanly, at my own expense.

What a pity (to compare great things with small) that he had not as long
a life before him to enjoy it, as Gil Blas had with his own comfortable
quotation over his retreat at Lirias![26]

The house still remains; but the inscription unfortunately became
effaced; though the following one remains, which was added by his son
Virginio:

"Sic domus haec Areostea
Propitios habeat deos, olim ut Pindarica."

Dear to the gods, whatever come to pass,
Be Ariosto's house, as Pindar's was.

This was an anticipation--perhaps the origin--of Milton's sonnet about
his own house, addressed to "Captains and Collonels," during the civil
war.[27]

Davallos made the poet his generous present in the October of the year
1513; and in the same month of the year following the _Orlando_ was
published as it now stands, with various insertions throughout, chiefly
stories, and six additional cantos. Cardinal Ippolito had been dead some
time; and the device of the beehive was exchanged for one of two vipers,
with a hand and pair of shears cutting out their tongues, and t