It is more easy to supply the loss of good poetry, than of authentic history.] [Footnote 120: Strada (Prolusion v.

vi.) allows him to contend with the five heroic poets, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Statius.

His patron is the accomplished courtier Balthazar Castiglione.

His admirers are numerous and passionate.

Yet the rigid critics reproach the exotic weeds, or flowers, which spring too luxuriantly in his Latian soil].