You also, I know, are confident of your powers, but where will you find a judge like Augustus, who, as is well known, assiduously encouraged every kind of talent in his time? Our kings can pass judgment on the flavour of a dish, or the flight of a hawk; but on human qualities they can offer no opinion, and, should they try, their insolent pride would blind them or keep their eyes from the truth. Lest they should seem to respect anything in their own age, they profess an admiration for the ancients, about whom, however, they scorn to learn anything. So with them the praise of the dead entails an affront to the living. It is among such critics that we must live and die, and, what is hardest, hold our peace.
Where, I asked, are you to find a judge like Augustus? Italy rejoices in one, indeed. Yes, there is one such on earth, Robert, the Sicilian king. Happy Naples! which enjoys the unequalled good fortune of possessing the single ornament of our age. Happy and most enviable Naples, the august home of literature! If thou once seemedst sweet to Virgil, how much greater thy charm since the most equitable of censors of talent and learning lives within thy borders! All who have faith in their powers flee to him. Nor should they delay, for delay is dangerous. He is well advanced in age; the world has long deserved to lose him, while he has well earned the title to happier realms. I fear that I myself may be storing up unavailing regrets by my delay. It is always shameful to put off a good thing, and deliberation may be so prolonged as to become blameworthy. The opportunity should be improved, and that which could not be accomplished earlier should be done now, without further delay. As for myself, I have resolved to hasten with all possible speed, and to dedicate all my powers to him (as Cicero says, in one of his letters, of Cæsar). It may come to pass that, by ardent application, I may yet reach the goal. As a belated traveller, although he has overslept, may yet, with speed, reach his destination earlier than if he had spent the night on the road, so I, late as I have been in offering my homage to this man, may still make up for lost time by increased diligence. As for you, you must adopt your own expedients, since it is not simply the narrow strait, but war, which forms the obstacle between you and this monarch. Your country, which has no more loyal citizen than yourself, now lies under the dominion of a hostile ruler,[3] or tyrant, as I might say, did I not fear to offend your ears. But such a mighty question as this is to be decided, not by our pens, but by the swords of those interested.
Reverting now to our original discussion, to-day [we see about us, among others,] the lawyers, in whom the passion for self-glorification is universal, and those fellows who spend their whole time in disputations and dialectic subtleties, forever wrangling over some trivial question:—hear my verdict upon the whole pack of them. Their fame will surely die with them; a single grave will suffice for their name and their bones. When death shall have forced their own paralysed tongues to silence, those of others will be equally silent in regard to all that concerns them. ... But what is it, after all, that we are so anxiously striving for? The fame we reach after is but a breath, a mist, a shadow, a nothing. A sharp and penetrating mind will therefore easily learn to scorn it. But if, perchance,—since it is a pest which commonly pursues the generous soul,—thou canst not radically extirpate this longing, thou mayest at least check its growth with the sickle of reason. Accept the laws of time and circumstances. Finally, to sum up my advice in a word, seek virtue while thou livest, and thou shalt find fame in thy grave. Adieu.
BOLOGNA, April 18th.
[1] Fam., i., 1.
[2] Dante's reasoning in the Convito (cap. iii. sq.) offers an interesting analogy to that of Petrarch. "I have," he says, "gone through almost all the land in which this language [Italian] lives,—a pilgrim, almost a mendicant;... and I have appeared despicable in the eyes of many who perhaps, through some report, had imagined me in other guise; in the sight of whom not only did my person become contemptible, but my works, both those that were completed and those that remained to be done, appeared less worthy." Dante adds a philosophical explanation of this.
[3] Sicily, it will be remembered, had revolted from the rule of Charles of Anjou, at the time of the Sicilian Vespers, 1282, and still remained under rulers belonging to a branch of the house of Aragon.