Many, who would not feel inclined to take the trouble of reading Poggio's Works, may not be sorry to form an idea of them by perusing the extract I am about to give. Our Author's principal works, barring his History of Florence, have been collected, and reedited more than once. The first edition was published folio, in the year 1510, in Strasburg, at Johann Knoblouch's: to a certain Thomas D. Ancuparius, styling himself Poet laureate, Poeta Laureatus, the literary world was indebted for that collection. In a sort of Dedication to Sebastian Brandt, he says that, of all Poggio's Works, hardly any but the Facetiae had as yet come from the press, and that having gathered various writings of that Author, he thought he should be doing Poggio and men of Letters a good service by having them printed. Two years later, namely in 1513, there was brought out, in the same city, a second edition considerably enlarged, from which was published, in the year 1538, the Basle edition (apud Henricum Petrum), which is the most common. It is entitled: Poggii Florentini Oratoris et Philosophi Opera, collatione emendatorum exemplarium recognita, etc. All those editions are very incorrect: they teem with faults, and I should be at a loss to say which is the least defective.

We will now give a summary of the different productions thus collected.

The first is a controversy about Avarice, and in the form of a Dialogue, a mode of publishing Treatises which has been much in use with the Italians. It is in that shape that Pierius Valerianus wrote his treatise on the Misfortunes of Men of Letters (de Infelicitate Litteratorum); Sebastian Corradus his Life of Cicero, under the obscure title of Seb. Corradi Quaestura; Peter Alcyonius his Treatise on Exile (de Exsilio). Thus likewise, Aretino published his dirty compositions; Boccaccio his Decameron; John-Baptiste Gelli, a shoemaker and academician of Florence, the Capricci del Botaio, etc.

To return to the first production: it is a conversation between Antonio Lusco, Cincio of Rome, Bartolommeo de Monte Pulciano, and some others, which took place on a summer day at Bartolommeo's villa. After supper, it turned on Avarice and Lust; the Host inveighed forcibly against the former vice, which he asserted was much more heinous than the other; 'For,' said he, 'although wise men have declared lust to be the source of numerous woes, yet, in so far that it conduces to the propagation of mankind, it might be termed an agreeable evil, which injures only him who perpetrates it. But Avarice contributes merely to the overthrow of Society; it hurts, wounds, hates everybody; averse from all that is praiseworthy and respectable, it is a horrible and hideous monster, created for the ruin of Society and mankind. Believe me, nothing is more wretched than Avarice, nothing more shameful, nothing more villainous; if we could see its face, we could not be more terrified by the Furies rushing in a body out of Hell. I refrain from illustrating my sentiment by any instance, lest I shold give offence; but, if it were permissible, I could show to demonstration that there is no evil, no crime but it carries within itself, no good quality but it plucks from the heart it has possessed. It strips it of every affection, of benevolence, of charity, fills it with hatred, deceit, malice, ungodliness, making man unprincipled and cruel, to such a degree that all other vices put together are not to be compared with Avarice, so foul is the blot.' He kept on in the same strain, setting forth the enormity of that vice. Antonio Lusco next addressed the company, and endeavoured to show that Avarice is a lesser evil than Lust, is productive of divers benefits and advantages to Society, and that everyone is more or less tainted with it. When he had ended his discourse, Andrew of Constantinople replied, and confuted his arguments, concluding with the noble words of Cicero: 'That nothing is more indicative of a mean spirit and narrow mind than the love of wealth, nothing more commendable and glorious than to despise money, when one has it not, and, if one has, to spend it bounteously and liberally. 'Nihil esse tam angusti, tamque parvi animi, quam amare divitias; nihil honestius, magnificentiusque quam pecuniam contemnere, si non habes: si habeas, ad beneficentiam liberalitatemque conferre.' Antonio, and all the assistants, applauded the sentiment, and thereupon they parted.

Next comes the Convivial history, inscribed to Cardinal Prosper Colonna; Poggio tells him that the time spent on his writings had very much helped him to put up with adverse circumstances; that he had not been able to consider, without feelings of regret and sorrow, that, although advanced in years, he should be so poorly off as to have to think of getting a living rather than cultivating his mind; that, nevertheless, the Pope's liberality had removed all cause for complaint, so that he seemed to be at last reconciled to Fortune. That Convivial history comprises three Dissertations, written on the following occasion.

The same year that the plague compelled Nicolas V to leave Rome, our Author retired to Terra-Nuova, his native place, where he was visited by Carlo Aretino, Benedetto Aretino, the jurist, and Niccolo di Foligni, a noted Philosopher, and professionally a Physician. After meal, they agitated the three questions which are the subject matter of those Dissertations. In the first, the debated point is as to which should return thanks, he who has been invited to a repast, or he who has given the invitation. Carlo Aretino maintains, in opposition to the other speakers, that thanks are incumbent on the latter; such was also the opinion of Democritus, who, according to Seneca, said he would never go to an entertainment if he knew he should not be thanked for his presence.

In the second Dissertation, Poggio brings under discussion which of the two Arts is the more excellent, the Medical or the Forensic. Niccolo di Foligni, the Physician, vindicates Medicine, and Benedetto Aretino, the Jurist, Law. They speak alternately, and each proudly extols his profession, slights and cries down that of his opponent. I can fancy two mountebanks in proximity to each other, who, puffing off their own drug and vilifying their neighbour's, endeavour to monopolize public favour and thus dispose their stock.

The third Dissertation is the best. It discusses the question whether the ancient Romans had all the same tongue, or whether there was one for men of letters, and another, different, for common people. Leonardo Aretino had written Blondus Flavius a letter supporting this latter view; Poggio maintains the former, deduces the reasons on which he relies, and next replies to Leonardo Aretino's objections. I cannot enter into such full particulars, and must be contented with referring the reader to the Critic history of the Latin tongue, by M. Walchius, who also discerns two sorts of language: a distinction however which does not militate against Poggio. M. Walchius says there was one language learned, docta, and another for the people, plebeia; that the learned language was the one used by the Ancients, when writing, and the other in conversation. I take it that Poggio did not deny that, but asserted there were not two distinct languages, appropriated, the one to genteel, the other to vulgar people. What, to my mind, corroborates our Author's opinion, is the fact that in Terence's and Plautus's plays, valets speak quite as good Latin as their masters. If they had had a separate language, Terence and Plautus would not have failed to put in their mouths their natural idiom, just as, in our comedies, peasants are made to speak their usual patois. The reverse would be in direct contradiction to the rules of art and common sense, rules given us by the Ancients themselves. I am bound to confess, however, that men of quality use more refined expressions than the common people; yet, the language is the same.

We now come to the Treatise upon Nobility. It sets forth the ways of living of Noblemen in Naples, Venice, Rome, Germany, France, England, Spain, etc.; inquires into the essence of true Nobility, and draws the conclusion that virtue alone truly ennobles us. In this Treatise our Author holds forth rather cavalierly on the score of the Venetians. Laurus Quirinus, a Venetian Patrician, retorted sharply. Poggio, moreover, writing to Thomasius, a Venetian Philosopher and Physician, says he had no other motive for speaking disparagingly of those of Venice than a spirit of revenge on some members of their Aristocracy, whom he suspected of having kindled war in Italy; adding that he bore no ill-will to the Nation, and had even intended to claim the freedom of the city and spend in Venice the remainder of his life-time; that, with a view to that, he had resolved to write its History; but that, having been recalled to his own Country, and provided with an honourable situation, he had altered his mind.

Next in order are two books on the Woes of human Fate, introduced by a letter of Henry Bebelius to Leonard Dur, Abbot of Adelberg, etc., in whose study he pretends to have found those Treatises' manuscript. In that work Poggio virulently assails the Monks, and portrays, in vivid colours, their luxurious, lazy and immoral habits, showing them no mercy. That was hardly likely to secure him their sympathy; for, as he observes, they already bore him ill-will on account of a treatise he had written against Hypocrites. In the second Book, he speaks very freely of Cardinals and Popes; he testifies that, of all the Prelates he knew during his fifty years stay at the Roman Court, he had not found one who thought himself at all happy, and did not repine at his lot; he adds that several Popes had complained to him, in private, of the thraldom to which the tiara subjected them, and that their dignity seemed to be obnoxious to them; considering next the Popes' deportment, he says that many trouble themselves neither with benefiting the Christians, nor with defending the faith; that the greater number studied no other object but the promotion and wealth of their relatives, had scarcely either doctrine or religion, and made nothing of virtue, 'so much so,' says our Author, 'that if I had not believed it to come to pass through Divine Providence, I should sometimes complain that God is entirely neglectful either of mankind or of his Religion.' Our Author takes good care not to forget the Cardinals: 'A voluminous book,' he observes,' would be required for the description of the life, morals and vices of many of them, we know.' It is obvious that, when writing thus, Poggio was no longer connected with the Roman Court, where such language would have been very ill received; he did not unbosom himself until he was in a place of safety, namely on his return to Florence, and he wrote that Treatise immediately after his arrival in that City. The remainder of the Book is devoted to showing the inconstancy and vicissitude of all things through life, the revolutions which Empires have been subject to, the ruins, conflagrations, earthquakes, plagues, famines, and other woes that have afflicted the world

The Description of the ruins of Rome, by our Author, is short. He therein enumerates the ancient Roman monuments preserved up to that time.

The following paper is the translation of Lucian's Ass; it being well known, we will not dwell upon it.

Next come the Invectives, a title amply indicative of the contents to be expected, and which these thoroughly make good: Poggio was a first-rate inveigher, and was never at a loss for offensive expressions, nor abusive epithets. The first Invective concerns Amedeo, Duke of Savoy, elected a Pope, under the name of Felix V, by the Council of Basle. He loads him with insult; not content with styling him a heresiarch and schismatic, he goes the length of calling him Antichrist: and the Council of Basle, which had raised him to the Papal dignity, being adduced on his behalf, Poggio inveighs vehemently against that Council, which he terms a conventicle, a nest of sedition, an abode of villains, a dwelling of treachery. He says that assembly was made up of apostates, scoundrels, fornicators, incestuous men, deserters, blasphemers, and everything infamous, -- which rabble had been suborned with hard cash by the anti-Pope. The remainder of the Invective is in the same strain.

The following is against Francesco Filelfo, a Scholar and Poet of the time, who died in 1481. Our Author wrote it to avenge his friend Niccolo for a Satire which Filelfo, by nature much addicted to slander, had published against him. He taunts Filelfo with that his mother made a living in Rimini by gut-cleaning; that he had been banished from that town; that he was a non-conformist; that having been, for that motive, expelled from Padua, where he studied under Gasparino, he had retired to Constantinople, had there contrived to ingratiate himself with the noted Chrysoloras, who admitted him to his house, and whose daughter he had then seduced; that the father, having found it out, intended to kill him, whereupon the culprit had taken to flight; that, nevertheless, the girl being with child, the father, by dint of entreaties, had at last consented to give her to him for his wife. He also charges him with having stolen from his father-in-law books and several other things, and with having, in order to bring a young man, of whom he was enamoured, to indulge his infamous desires, placed him in his bed, between his wife and himself.

Our Author's second Invective against Filelfo was instigated by a further Satire with which the latter had assailed Niccolo. Poggio again treats him as a scoundrel, charges him with having stolen money from a Minorite in Bologna, taunts him with base ingratitude towards Niccolo, who had assisted him when destitute, and rendered him eminent services; he adds that he was an object of abomination to all contemporary Scholars, Carlo Aretino, Leonardo Aretino, Leonardo Justiniani, Francesco Barbaro, Guarino of Verona, Niccolo Lusco, and that he had been banished from Florence.

In his third Invective, Poggio goes into the particulars of his adversary's life, as fully as if he had constantly been at his heels, interspersing the whole with raillery, irony, insult and exclamation; in short, improving all the figures of rhetoric. It must be confessed that, if one quarter is true of all that our Author reproaches him with, Filelfo was indeed a great miscreant.

The last Invective, which however is not one at all, is here entitled: Invectiva excusatoria Poggii et reconciliatoria quarta cum Francisco Philelpho. It is a sort of reconciliatory letter to Filelfo, couched in very general terms, which, at bottom, have no great meaning; in fact, he had handled him by far too roughly that an honourable recantation could be open to him.

We now come to the Invectives which our Author published against Lorenzo Valla, a noted Grammarian of the time, whose sarcastic temper gave rise to the following Epitaph:

Ohe! ut Valla silet! solitus qui parcere non est.
  Si quaeris quid agat, nunc quoque mordet humum.

One cannot imagine anything more violent than these Invectives. Poggio treats Valla with the utmost contempt, and reproaches him with an infinite number of evil deeds; at every page occur the epithets bestia, latrator, furibundus, insanus, conviciator, demens, haereticus, monstrum, etc. And what is it all about? Only a few words, a few sentences of Poggio's letters, which Valla had exploded as being indifferent Latin. Hinc illae lacrimae, there is the subject of the quarrel in a nut-shell. Valla had taunted our Author with having his face slapped by George of Trebisond; Poggio passes over that very lightly. He coolly replies that not only had there been slaps, but also kicks and cudgelling, that swords had even been drawn: Non enim colaphis tantum, sed calcibus, fustibus, ferro res acta est. He next recriminates, and says that, whilst at the Court of the King of Naples, Valla had a quarrel with a certain knight Alfonso, who knocked him down, and thrashed him with fist and foot. Shortly before, he had related Valla's gallant exploit, who, having accidentally been kicked by a donkey in Naples, avenged himself by beating it to death.

I now come to our Author's Funeral Orations. The first panegyrizes the Cardinal of Florence, and, if the high character Poggio gives him be taken for granted, the Cardinal was a highly accomplished man. He was born in Padua, and had made his particular study of law, which, later on, he taught publicly and with distinction. Pope John XXII had then made him Bishop of Florence, and next a Cardinal; he might perhaps have become a Pope, had he lived longer. He died in Constance, on the 16th September 1417, while the Council was sitting in that town, and it was there that our Author delivered that Funeral Oration.

The second was intended for the eulogy of Cardinal Santa-Croce; I extract from that Harangue the following summary of the historical facts of the Cardinal's life. He was born in Bologna, and studied law at the University of that city; then, taking a disgust to worldly things, he embraced the Order of Carthusians, the sternest of all. Some time afterwards he was elected Superior of his Monastery, and, later, appointed to the Bishopric of Bologna, a dignity which he was compelled to accept against his will, and in which he distinguished himself by numerous good deeds. Martin V sent him to France and to England to make peace between the two kings; he won the love and esteem of both Monarchs, but his negotiation failed. Martin V thought he could not better honour his merit than by conferring on him a Cardinal's hat. He was sent to Venice to bring about peace between the Duke of Milan and the Venetians allied to the Florentines, who were waging war vigorously. He adjusted their differences, but the truce was only a short one. He thus had to return, in order to try and put an end to the war, and, finally, after six months, he induced them to conclude a Treaty of Peace in Ferrara. He was once more sent to France, where he remained two whole years. He was ordered to come back, through Basle, whence he went to Florence to meet Pope Eugenius IV, who had succeeded Martin V, and had retired to that city. By his commands he repaired a third time to France, for it was believed that Cardinal Santa-Croce alone could promote pacification. Having returned to Florence, he was again sent to Basle, thence came to the Pope at Bologna, and was by him deputed to Albert, king of the Romans, in Nurnberg, with a view to preventing the Schism which was later occasioned by the Council of Basle. At last, on his return to Ferrara from that embassy, he spent the remainder of his days with the Pope, who appointed him Grand Penitentiary. He died of the stone, at the age of sixty-eight.

Poggio wrote his third Harangue on the death of his friend Niccolo Niccoli, a Burgher of Florence. He was born in that city, where his father was a merchant: but he did not feel inclined to follow that profession, for he took to study, under the tuition of Loisio Marsilio, an Augustin Friar, one of the most learned men of the time. Niccolo's passion for books knew no bounds: he had collected such a considerable number from every corner of Europe, that he had made up the finest library in Italy; more praiseworthy still, he freely allowed the fruition thereof to everybody, who was at liberty to come and read and copy what he chose. It was he who attracted to Florence Manuel Chrysoloras, the man who, at that time, was most conversant with Greek, Guarino, Giovanni Aurispa, Francesco Filelfo, all clever men. In short, he was the Maecenas of the period, and besides that, as learned and as amiable as can well be imagined. He prescribed, by will, that a public Library should be composed with his Manuscripts, eight hundred of which he had collected. He died aged seventy-three.

The fourth Oration contains the Panegyric of Lorenzo de' Medici, who had been a good friend to Poggio, and eulogizes him in general terms without affording any particular information as to his life.

The last Harangue is addressed to Pope Nicolas V. That Discourse tends to exhort the Pontiff to beneficence and liberality, to the combining mercy with justice, and giving a docile ear to the remonstrances that might be made him. I know not what was the custom in those times; but now-a-days such a Harangue would be most unwelcome; it would amount to nothing less than a State offense.

Poggio's Letters are forty-two in number. I am only speaking of those which are to be found in this Selection; for M. Recanati (Latin Life of Poggio ) says that there are some which were never printed, and of which he quotes several fragments. Those given here are mostly undated, and are not set in chronological order.

During his stay at Constance, Poggio took a trip to the Waters of Thuringia, and gives a very unaffected description of them in a Letter to Niccolo. The free and easy mode of living there was something inconceivable to a man who had always resided on the other side of the mountains. Males and females, old and young, promiscuously entered the same baths, where they frolicked and disported themselves together; husbands had not the least objection to strangers larking with their wives; jealousy was quite unknown to them. Our Author enjoyed this very much; taking a dip but twice a day, he spent the remainder of his time going to the baths and throwing to the women, according to custom, bunches of flowers and coins, thus instigating them to a sort of struggle as to which should lay hold of the missiles; what most diverted Poggio is that, in the scuffle, they revealed their most hidden beauties. That letter is worth reading, as also the following, addressed to Leonardo Aretino.

This one relates what took place at the execution of Jerome of Prague. One cannot read, without feeling moved, the Harangue which that so-styled Heresiarch delivered before his impassioned and prejudiced Judges: 'How unjust!' said he, 'during three hundred and forty days that you have kept me chained down in a dark and infectious dungeon, destitute of everything, you have constantly listened to my enemies, and you deny me one hour's hearing. They have been at leisure to make you believe I am a heretic, an enemy to the Faith, a persecutor of Ecclesiastics: and such is, most likely, the reason why you will not listen to me, having adjudicated before knowing what I am. And yet, you are but men and not Gods, you are mortal and will not live forever. Neither are you infallible; you may err, or be deluded by others. It is said that all knowledge and discretion are here collected; it therefore behooves your glory and interest that you should do nothing inconsiderately and without mature reflection, lest you should commit some act of injustice. As for myself, I am but a man of little consequence, and, though my life is at stake, I am mortal, and speak much less in my own interest than with a view to keeping so many wise men from a resolution which would redound to their disgrace and set a bad example.' That fine Discourse was of no avail, and, to make matters short, Jerome of Prague was sentenced to be burnt alive, a punishment which he suffered with the utmost courage and resolution. As the executioner was about to light the fire behind Jerome's back, so that he should not see it: 'Light it in front of me,' he exclaimed, 'for if I had been afraid, I might easily have escaped it.' -- 'Such,' says Poggio in conclusion, 'was the end of a man excellent beyond belief. I was an eye-witness of the tragedy, every act of which I saw. I know not whether he was impelled by obstinacy or by unbelief, but you might have fancied the death of some ancient Philosopher. Mucius Scaevola thrust his hand into the fire, and Socrates drank poison with less fearlessness and intrepidity than were exhibited by Jerome of Prague at the stake.'

Most of the following Letters are but of trifling interest; yet, they convey some particulars concerning Poggio. Some of those letters are written to Guarino of Verona and to Leonardo Aretino; others to Aeneas Silvius, later on a Pope by the name of Pius II, to Carlo Aretino, Antonio of Palermo, Cosmo de' Medici, Scipio of Ferrara, Justiniani, Francesco Barbaro, and many others. There is also one from Filippo-Maria, Duke of MIlan, with Poggio's reply. The last Letter is a long apologetic disquisition against Guarino of Verona, with whom he had fallen out for having preferred Scipio to Caesar in his Parallel between those two great men. They became eventually reconciled.

Our Author's Letters are followed by a Treatise of his on the Misfortune of Princes. It is written in the shape of a Dialogue between Carlo Aretino, Niccolo, Cosmo de' Medici and Poggio, who discourse therein most freely the good and evil qualities of Princes.

The Facetiae, or Collection of good jokes and tales, bring this volume to a close. That Work alone has done more to make Poggio known than all he has written besides. He was the first who edited anything in that taste, and he has been followed by a host of others, who have frequently pirated his Tales without even giving him credit for them. Thus, we find in Rabelais, in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, in Ariosto, in the Ducento Novelle of Celio Malespini, in La Fontaine and sundry others, the tale of Hans Carvel's Ring, the invention of which is due to Poggio. He says himself, in the second Invective against Valla, that his Facetiae were circulated all through Italy, France, Spain, Germany, England, read by all such who understood Latin, and approved of by all men of Letters: 'Facetias meas, ex quibus liber constat, non placere homini inhumano, vasto, stupido, agresti, dementi, barbaro, rusticano? At ab reliquis aliquanto quam tu doctioribus probantur, leguntur, et in ore et manibus habentur, ut, velis nolis, rumpantur licet tibi Codro ilia, diffusae sint per universam Italiam, et ad Gallos usque, Hispanos, Germanos, Britannos, ceterasque nationes transmigrarint qui sciant loqui Latine.'

A Work so free as these Facetiae could not lack censors. Gesner is one of those who have most vehemently inveighed against it; he calls it 'opus turpissimum, et aquis incendioque dignissimum.' Abbot Tritheme decries it no less sharply in his Treatise de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis . He speaks of it in the following terms: 'Spurcitiarum opus, quod Facetias praenotavit, ab illustrium Virorum catalogo merito censuimus repellendum, quoniam ejus lectio devotos offendit, incautis nocet, carnales inficit.' Erasmus was alluding to it when he said: 'Poggius, rabula adeo indoctus, ut etiamsi vacaret obscenitate, tamen indignus esset qui legeretur; adeo autem obscenus, ut etiamsi doctissimus fuisset, tamen esset a bonis viris rejiciendus.' We may here notice, by the way, that Erasmus has been inconsistent with himself on the score of Poggio: for, after terming him an ignorant man, he speaks of him quite differently elsewhere. In a Letter to Cornelius Goudanus, he styles him 'vir nec inelegans nec indoctus ,' and writing again to the same correspondent, he says: 'Quid Aenea Sylvio, quid Augustino Dato, quid Guarino, quid Poggio, quid Gasparino eloquentius?' The good Hermit James Philip of Bergamo has thought more favorably of those Tales to which he applies the epithet 'pulcherrimus liber.' The Council of Trent has nevertheless placed this Work in the Index Expurgatorius.

Innumerable editions have moreover been brought out of these Tales, which have often been joined to those of Henry Bebel, Nicodemus Frischlin, Alphonso, King of Aragon, etc. They have also been translated into various languages. In order to enliven this Article, I will here give one of Poggio's Tales, translated into French by M. de la Monnoye, and which I omitted in my recent edition of his Poems:

John, surnamed Andrew, a noted Doctor in Law,
Was, one day, caught sinning through love,
He was hugging a young abigail;
His wife came, made the sign of the cross:
'Oh! oh!,' she said, 'is that you? no, methinks,
You whose discretion is everywhere extolled,
What has then become of that refined sense?'
Good Andrew, proceeding with his business,
Yet ashamed: 'By my faith,' he replied,
'Discretion, sense, and all, lies in this grave.'

Besides that, Poggio wrote a Dialogue against Hypocrites, some Books on the state of the Indies and the duty of Princes, a Harangue against Slanderers, a Disquisition wherein he considers whether an old man should take a wife. We must add a Treatise on the portraits of the Buondelmonte family, and some pamphlets against the Council of Basle; but those two last Works, which never came out, have been lost.

He translated from the Greek the Life of Cyrus by Xenophon, and five Books of Diodorus Siculus. This latter translation he undertook by the commands of Pope Nicolas V, to whom he was Secretary, and inscribed it to him; in the Dedication he says that he had, at his request, translated Xenophon's Life of Cyrus from the Greek.

In fine, Poggio's most considerable Work is his History of Florence written in Latin. His son Jacopo, I know not why, took it into his head to keep the original to himself, and to give an Italian translation of his own. It first came out in Venice, in 1476, folio, and was next reprinted in the same form at Florence, in 1484; finally, the Giunti gave out a more correct edition, quarto, in the same city, 1598. It was only in 1715 that Poggio's Latin History came to light, with the title: Poggii Historia Florentina nunc primum edita, notisque et Auctoris vita illustrata ab Jo. Baptista Recanato, Patricio Veneto, Academico Florentino; Venetiis, 1715. Without going into the particulars of that History, I will merely say that Poggio has very elegantly written, in eight books, what took place in Florence between the years 1350 and 1455. The Editor's notes, which help to elucidate, sometimes even to correct, the text, are curious. Everyone is, moreover, aware that our Historian has been charged with excessive partiality to his fellow-citizens, regardless of historical truth, and that, upon that score, Sannazaro reproached him, in an ingenious Epigram, for that, whilst praising his own country and blaming the enemy, he has shown himself a good patriot, but a bad historian:

Dum Patriam laudat, damnat dum Poggius Hostem,
   Nec malus est Civis, nec bonus Historicus.

Hic est Emanuel situs,
Sermonis decus Attici,
Qui dum quaerere opem Patriae
Affectae studet, huc iit.
Res belle cecidit tuis
Votis, Italia: hic tibi
Linguae restituit decus
Atticae, ante reconditae.
Res belle cecidit tuis
Votis, Emanuel: solo
Consecutus in Italo
Aeternum decus es tibi,
Quale Graecia non dedit,
Bello perdita Graecia.

Infernos postquam defunctus Valla petivit,
   Non audet Pluto verba Latina loqui.
Jupiter hunc superis dignatus honore fuisset,
   Censorem linguae sed timet ipse suae.