X

favours, in proportion to the progress I make in the esteem of such as you: the true and respectable judges of learning and merit."

The subsequent letters are farther illustrative of the confidential nature of that amity which subsisted between Lorenzo and Politian; while they serve to place the writers in no uninteresting point of view.

66

Laurentius Medices, to Ang. Politianus. (6) By your letter of which Michelotius is the bearer, you inform me of the indifferent state of the health of my little boys.

The news gave me that concern which might be expected in an affectionate parent. Indeed you foresaw this, and have endeavoured to fortify my mind with so many arguments, that, I fear, you entertain no very favourable opinion of my fortitude. Though I know this solicitude is to be considered as a proof of the excess of your affection for me, yet I confess, it gave me more concern, than any tidings of my children's indisposition could have done. For though they form a part as it were of the substance

of

(6) Lib. x. ep. 5.
C

1

of a parent, yet a distempered mind is a misfortune that more nearly affects him than the illness of children. They who possess health and vigour of mind, are above the reach of exterior calamities: but if the mind be weak and disordered, there can be no port so sheltered from the stormy billows of fortune, no sea so tranquil, no warfare so easy, but it will be liable to be agitated and perturbed. And do you then really think me of a temper so imbecile, as to be discomposed by such an event?-But admitting myself to be naturally so constituted, as to be the sport of my own passions,-yet I have surely learned constancy by long experience. I have already known what it is to bear not only the sickness, but the decease of my children. My own

father, taken away by a premature dissolution, left me in my one and twentieth year, so exposed to the assaults of fortune, that life became irksome to me. You ought therefore to conclude that experience has given me that fortitude, which nature denied. In your letter to Michelotius, you manifest no small distrust of my firmness of mind :— in that you address to me, you highly extol my virtues and mental endowments.

Is

there

there no contradiction in this? Either the one is untrue, or you want, yourself, that magnanimity, the want of which you seem to discover in me. You withold from me the intelligence which you communicate to Michelotius; as if the information became, in so doing, less your own--and you supposed the mode of communication would give me more pain than the tidings communicated. But I would not, by enlarging on trifles, fall into the error I impute to you:-nor seem, in the same letter, to despise such things, and multiply words about them. If any thing I have now written appear captious or severe, you will overlook it, for the sake of my known affection for you,-and because it is usual for us to be more fluent in abuse than commendation. I truly rejoice to hear that our Julianus applies diligently to his studies: my congratulations to him; and thanks to you, for exciting in him this disposition.-As you have already kindled in his breast a love of letters, still I entreat you, do all in your power to stimulate his diligence, and engage him to persevere.-I shall speedily rejoin you, and make one of the party with

you,

you, in the delightful walks of science. Adieu," From Pisa. Apr. 1477.

Angelus Politianus to Laur. Medices. (7)

It was not from any doubt of your constancy or discretion, that I addressed the letter concerning your children's indisposition to Michelotius, rather than to you:but because I was apprehensive it might appear indiscreet in me, to communicate disagreeable intelligence at at an improper moment. For the post often delivers letters abruptly; and the secretary seizes on any accidental interval to present them. It was expedient I should thus testify my respectful consideration for Laurentius Medices:

"Cui male si palpêre, recalcitrat undique tutus."(8) Nor is there any thing inconsistent in my reverencing you on the one hand, and extolling you on the other: for I venerate you on that very account, because I deem you worthy of the highest praise. These gentle reproofs of yours, are so far from giving me pain, that they serve only to render your kind attentions more pleasing. Julianus,—your brother indeed,―nay in the estimation of men of letters, your other self,

self, is to admiration, his own encourager in literary pursuits,and his own instructor. Nothing is wanting but your presence, to compleat our happiness.

Angelus Politianus to Laurent. Medices. (9)

Baptista Leo, (g) a Florentine, of the noble family of the Alberti,-a person who combined

(g) Leo Battista Alberti, distinguished no less as a scholar, than as an artist, was born 1404. While he studied at Bologna, he composed at the age of twenty, a latin comedy, which he entitled "Philodoxios" and having published it as a newly discovered work of Lepidus, an ancient comic poet, succeeded in imposing it as such on the learned of those times. What is yet more extraordinary, even in the following century, a descendant of Aldus Manutius, having met with it in MSS—and alike ignorant of its former publication, and the purpose it was intended to serve, printed it again at Lucca, A. D. 1588— still taking it for a precious remnant of antiquity: as appears from the epistle dedicatory addressed by him to Ascanius Persius :-"Lepidam Lepidi, antiqui comici, quisquis ille sit, fabulam ad te mitto, eruditissime Persi:—quæ cum ad manus meas pervenerit, perire nolui; et antiquitatis rationem habendam esse duxi, &c."

Lorenzo de' Medici, the true Mæcenas of his age, says du Fresne, with a view to pass the sultry season more

(9) Lib. x. ep. 7.