Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/49

23 PARTITION OF NAPLES. 23 with an ample revenue for his maintenance, which, chapter to the credit of the French king, was continued ' after he had lost all hope of recovering the crown of Naples.^* With this show of magnanimity, how- ever, he kept a jealous eye on his royal guest ; un- der pretence of paying him the greatest respect, he placed a guard over his person, and thus detained him in a sort of honorable captivity to the day of his death, which occurred soon after, in 1504. Frederic was the last of the illegitimate branch of Aragon, who held the Neapolitan sceptre ; a line of princes, who, whatever might be their char- acters in other respects, accorded that munificent patronage to letters which sheds a ray of glory over the roughest and most turbulent reign. It might have been expected, that an amiable and accom- plished prince, like Frederic, would have done still more towards the moral developement of his people, by healing the animosities which had so long fes- tered in their bosoms. His gentle character, how- ever, was ill suited to the evil times on which he had fallen ; and it is not improbable, that he found greater contentment in the calm and cultivated retirement of his latter years, sweetened by the sympathies of friendship which adversity had prov- ed,^^ than when placed on the dazzling heights 31 St. Gelais, Hist, de Louys ter forms so beautiful a contrast XII., p. 163. — D'Aulon, Hist, de with tiie conduct of Pontano, and Louys XII., part. l,ch. 56. — Sum- indeed of too many of his tribe, monte, Hist, di Napoli, torn. iii. whose gratitude is of that sort that p. 541. will only rise above zero in the sun- 32 The reader will readily call to shine of a court. His various mind the Neapolitan poet Sannaza- poetical effusions afford a noble ro, whose fidelity to his royal mas- testimony to the virtues of his un-