And as to the honours which were offensive to the envious, they had been well earned: witness his whole life since he came in penury to Florence.
The elegant scholar, in reply, was not surprised that Scala found the Age distasteful to him, since he himself was so distasteful to the Age; nay, it was with perfect accuracy that he, the elegant scholar, had called Scala a branny monster, inasmuch as he was formed from the off-scourings of monsters, born amidst the refuse of a mill, and eminently worthy the long-eared office of turning the paternal millstones ( in pistrini sordibus natus et quidem pistrino dignissimus )!
It was not without reference to Tito’s appointed visit that the papers containing this correspondence were brought out today. Here was a new Greek scholar whose accomplishments were to be tested, and on nothing did Scala more desire a dispassionate opinion from persons of superior knowledge than on that Greek epigram of Politian’s.
After sufficient introductory talk concerning Tito’s travels, after a survey and discussion of the gems, and an easy passage from the mention of the lamented Lorenzo’s eagerness in collecting such specimens of ancient art to the subject of classical tastes and studies in general and their present condition in Florence, it was inevitable to mention Politian, a man of eminent ability indeed, but a little too arrogant—assuming to be a Hercules, whose office it was to destroy all the literary monstrosities of the age, and writing letters to his elders without signing them, as if they were miraculous revelations that could only have one source. And after all, were not his own criticisms often questionable and his tastes perverse? He was fond of saying pungent things about the men who thought they wrote like Cicero because they ended every sentence with “ esse videtur :” but while he was boasting of his freedom from servile imitation, did he not fall into the other extreme, running after