He now took up his abode in another monastery, that of San Severino, where he was comforted by the visits of his friend Manso, to whom he had lately inscribed a dialogue on Friendship; for he continued writing to the last.  He had also the consolation, such as it was, of having the law-suit for his mother’s dowry settled in his favour, though under circumstances that rendered it of little importance, and only three months before his death.  So strangely did Fortune seem to take delight in sporting with a man of genius, who had thought both too much of her and too little; too much for pomp’s sake, and too little in prudence.  Among his new acquaintances were the young Marino, afterwards the corrupter of Italian poetry, and the Prince of Venosa, an amateur composer of music.  The dying poet wrote madrigals for him so much to his satisfaction, that, being about to marry into the house of Este, he wished to reconcile him with the Duke of Ferrara; and Tasso, who to the last moment of his life seems never to have been able to resist the chance of resuming old quarters, apparently from the double temptation of renouncing them, wrote his old master a letter full of respects and regrets.  But the duke, who himself died in the course of the year, was not to be moved from his silence.  The poet had given him the last possible offence by recasting his Jerusalem, omitting the glories of the house of Este, and dedicating it to another patron.  Alfonso, who had been extravagantly magnificent, though not to poets, had so weakened his government, that the Pope wrested Ferrara from the hands of his successor, and reduced the Este family to the possession of Modena, which it still holds and dishonours.  The duke and the poet were thus fading away at the same time; they never met again in this world; and a new Dante would have divided them far enough in the next.[31]

The last glimpse of honour and glory was now opening in a very grand manner on the poet—­the last and the greatest, as if on purpose to give the climax to his disappointments.  Cardinal Cintio requested the Pope to give him the honour of a coronation.  It had been desired by the poet, it seems, three years before.  He was disappointed of it at that time; and now that it was granted, he was disappointed of the ceremony.  Manso says he no longer cared for it; and, as he felt himself dying, this is not improbable.  Nevertheless he went to Rome for the purpose; and though the severity of the winter there delayed the intention till spring, wealth and honours seemed determined to come in floods upon the poor expiring great man, in order to take away the breath which they had refused to support.  The Pope assigned him a yearly pension of a hundred scudi; and the withholders of his mother’s dowry came to an accommodation by which he was to have an annuity of a hundred ducats, and a considerable sum in hand.  His hand was losing strength enough to close upon the money.  Scarcely was the day