Men bearing historic names, insensible of their own degradation, bowed the neck gladly, groveled in beatitude.

Deprived of power, they consoled themselves with privileges, patented favors, impertinences vented on the common people.

The princes amused themselves by debasing the old aristocracy to the mire, depreciating their honors by the creations of new titles, multiplying frivolous concessions, adding class to class of idle and servile dependents on their personal bounty.

In one word, the paradise of mediocrities came into being.' Tasso was born before the beginning of this epoch.

But he lived into the last decade of the sixteenth century.