But a dismal cloud was approaching. In his twenty-first year he lost
his father, and found a large family left on his hands in narrow
circumstances. The charge was at first so heavy, especially when
aggravated by the death of Pandolfo, that he tells us he wished to die.
He took to it manfully, however, in spite of these fits of gloom; and he
lived to see his admirable efforts rewarded; his brothers enabled to seek
their fortunes, and his sisters properly taken care of. Two of them, it
seems, had become nuns. A third married; and a fourth remained long in
his house. It is not known what became of the fifth.

In these family-matters the anxious son and brother was occupied for
three or four years, not, however, without recreating himself with his
verses, Latin and Italian, and recording his admiration of a number of
goddesses of his youth. He mentions, in particular, one of the name of
Lydia, who kept him often from "his dear mother and household," and
who is probably represented by the princess of the same name in the
_Orlando_, punished in the smoke of Tartarus for being a jilt and
coquette.[6] His friend Bembo, afterwards the celebrated cardinal,
recommended him to be blind to such little immaterial points as ladies'
infidelities. But he is shocked at the advice. He was far more of
Othello's opinion than Congreve's in such matters; and declared, that he
would not have shared his mistress' good-will with Jupiter himself.[7]

Towards the year 1504, the poet entered the service of the unworthy
prince, Cardinal Ippolito of Este, brother of the new Duke of Ferrara,
Alfonso the First. His eminence, who had been made a prince of the church
at thirteen years of age by the infamous Alexander the Sixth (Borgia),
was at this period little more than one-and-twenty; but he took an active
part in the duke's affairs, both civil and military, and is said to