his coat; how he drinks only milk from a cow which he has milked in his
presence; how he tries his dog with morsels of his food, lest it be
poisoned; how he suspects the wax-candles because of their peculiar
smell; how he fears riding out lest some one should frighten his horse
and cause him to break his neck--after all this, and when Medea has
been in her grave two years, he tells his correspondent of his fear of
meeting the soul of Medea after his own death, and chuckles over the
ingenious device (concocted by his astrologer and a certain Fra
Gaudenzio, a Capuchin) by which he shall secure the absolute peace of
his soul until that of the wicked Medea be finally "chained up in hell
among the lakes of boiling pitch and the ice of Caina described by the
immortal bard"--old pedant! Here, then, is the explanation of that
silver image--_quod vulgo dicitur idolino_--which he caused to be
soldered into his effigy by Tassi. As long as the image of his soul was
attached to the image of his body, he should sleep awaiting the Day of
Judgment, fully convinced that Medea's soul will then be properly
tarred and feathered, while his--honest man!--will fly straight to
Paradise. And to think that, two weeks ago, I believed this man to be a
hero! Aha! my good Duke Robert, you shall be shown up in my history;
and no amount of silver idolinos shall save you from being heartily
laughed at!

_Nov. 15th.--_

Strange! That idiot of a Prefect's son, who has heard me talk a hundred
times of Medea da Carpi, suddenly recollects that, when he was a child
at Urbania, his nurse used to threaten him with a visit from Madonna
Medea, who rode in the sky on a black he-goat. My Duchess Medea turned
into a bogey for naughty little boys!