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Unto whom shall he given immortality? Can Signorio, Prince of Verona, took the issue of fate boldly in his own hands, and the gables of his tomb bear the carven images of Faith. Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice and Fortitude. So would he cheat posterity — he who made light of these things, in life.
Nor can Bartolomeo della Scala, his ancestor, lord of Riva, Castel d'Arco, Reggio, and Parma, and, furthermore, overlord of Este, Vicenza, Feltre and Belluno, lay claim to a greater catalog of virtues.
Which leads us to believe, from scanning those pages of close-writ lust and intrigue, flattery and sudden death, that those things which we have, we deny, and those which fail us, we shout lustily to heaven as being the possessors of, even to this day.
So reasoned the plausible Luigi di Porto, who, when virtue failed in the Veronese, and went a-begging among the high and low, dug deep, until he found the most pellucid record of love that their vaunting, lying, bloodsmeared chronicles could show.
And so the poor novelist blew his feeble spark into a flame, which the copyers nurtured, and penned as many as ten score copies, some engrossed on vellum and illuminated with tinctures and carmine, for the delectation of fair courtezans who made great claims to virtue, and virtuous, dowdy princesses who denied everything but that they were not beautiful.
And in so doing, Luigi di Porto was stricken with a malignancy and died, and his work was like to have died along with him — a passing, gossamer tale, had not a poor playwright and hanger-on to my Lord Southampton, one William Shakespeare, come upon a stray copy in his master's library.
Now, a short time before this, Master Will, grown desperate by the niggardly pay of half-actor, half-playwright, was grown moody and slender, and fallen on bad company. He received as little as ten shillings for the works of his pen ; but now, thanks to my lord, he ranged the shelves of rare volumes, with the flush of a hunter in his eyes and cheeks. He read the tale of La Guilietta, cramped and florid as
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