The Duke continued to resent his former practice with the Medici, and disapproved of his perpetual wanderings.

The courtiers had done their utmost to prejudice his mind by calumnies and gossip, raking up all that seemed injurious to Tasso's reputation in the past acts of his life and in the looser verses found among his papers.

It may also be conceded that they contrived to cast an unfavorable light upon his affectionate correspondence with the two princesses.

Tasso himself laid great stress upon his want of absolute loyalty, upon some lascivious compositions, and lastly upon his supposed heresies.

It is not probable that the duke attached importance to such poetry as Tasso may have written in the heat of youth; and it is certain that he regarded the heresies as part of the poet's hallucinations.