What do you expect me to tell you now?—something more of the episode in my last letter, which may equally well have brought indignant tears to your eyes or made you laugh?[2] At this moment I certainly have nothing more important on hand, although there are plenty of trifling duties. Indeed, lack of time prevents my turning to more weighty matters, and even what little time I have is not really free, but is filled with astonishing interruptions. I am in a constant hubbub, always in motion, running here, there, and nowhere.[3] This is an ill that is all too familiar to those who move from place to place. Having left Babylon[4] for the last time, I am now at the Fountain of the Sorgue, my usual port of refuge from the storms that overtake me. Here I am waiting for travelling companions, as well as for late autumn, or at least for that season when, as Virgil hath it, "the shortening days bring a waning heat." In the meantime, that my country life may not be wholly profitless, I am gathering together the results of past meditation. Every day I try either to make some progress in the more important writings which I have in hand or to finish outright some one little thing. This letter will show you what I am doing to-day.
Poetry, a divine gift which belongs of necessity to the few, is now beginning to be usurped, not to say profaned and degraded, by the many. To me there is nothing more irritating than this, and if I know your disposition, my friend, you will find it no less hard than I to reconcile yourself to this unbecoming state of affairs. Never at Athens or Rome, never in the times of Homer or Virgil, was there such an ado about poets as we have now on the banks of the Rhone; although I believe there was never a place or a time when the knowledge of these matters was at so low an ebb. But I would have you smother your irritation in a laugh, and learn to jest even in the midst of sadness.
Cola di Rienzo has recently come, or rather been brought, a prisoner, to the papal curia. He who was once the Tribune of the city of Rome, inspiring terror far and wide, is now the most miserable of men, and, what is worst of all, I fear that, miserable as he undoubtedly is, he ought scarcely to arouse our pity, since he who might have died with glory upon the Capitol has submitted to be imprisoned, first by a Bohemian and then by a native of Limoges,[5] thus bringing derision upon himself and upon the Roman name and state. How active my pen was in praising and admonishing this man is perhaps better known than I should wish. I was enamoured of his virtue; I applauded his design, and admired his spirit; I congratulated Italy, and anticipated a restoration of dominion to the mother city, and peace for the whole world. I could not disguise the joy that such hopes engendered, and it seemed to me that I should become a participant in all this glory if I could but urge him on in his course. That he keenly felt the incentive of my words his letters and messages amply testified. This aroused me the more, and incited me to discover what would serve to inflame further his fervid spirit; and, as I well knew that nothing causes a generous heart to glow like praise and renown, I disseminated enthusiastic eulogies, which may have seemed exaggerated to some, but which were in my opinion perfectly justified. I commended his past actions, and exhorted him to persevere in the future. Some of my letters to him are still preserved, and I am not altogether ashamed of them. I am not addicted to prophecy; would that he, too, had refrained from it! Moreover, at the time when I wrote, what he had done and what he seemed about to do was worthy not only of my admiration but of that of the whole human race. I doubt whether these letters should be destroyed for the single reason that he preferred to live a coward rather than die with dignity. But it is useless to discuss the impossible; however anxious I might be to destroy them I cannot, for they are now in the hands of the public, and so have escaped from my control.
But to return to our subject. He who had filled evil-doers throughout the world with trembling apprehension, and the good with glad hope and anticipation, approached the papal court humbled and despised. He who had once been attended by the whole Roman people and the chiefs of the Italian cities was now accompanied by two guards only, one on either side, as he made his unhappy way through the people, who crowded about him in their eagerness to see the face of one of whom they had only heard the proud name....[6] In this plight, as I understand from the letters of friends, one hope is left him; a rumour has spread among the people that he is an illustrious poet. It seems to them a shameful thing that one devoted to so sacred a pursuit should suffer violence. The elevated sentiment that now prevails with the crowd is the same to which Cicero once appealed before the magistrates, in favour of his teacher, Aulus Licinius Archias. But I need not add a description of the oration, which I formerly fetched from farthest Germany when travelling through that region as an eager sight-seer in my early days. During the year following my return, in response to the desires of your friends, I sent it to our native city. That you have it and have read it carefully I can see from the letters which reach me from there. But what shall I say of Rienzo's affair? I am delighted, and rejoice more than words can tell, that such honour is now rendered to the Muses, and—what is the more astonishing—by those who are unacquainted with them; so that they are able to save by their name alone a man otherwise hateful even to his very judges. What more exalted prerogatives could they have enjoyed under Augustus Cæsar, at a time when they were held in supreme honour, when poets came from all parts to look upon the illustrious countenance of that unique prince who was at once their friend and the ruler of the earth? What greater tribute, I ask, could be paid to the power of the Muses than that they should be permitted to snatch from death's door a man certainly detested,—with how much reason I will not discuss,—a convicted and confessed criminal (even if not guilty of the offence of which he is accused), about to be condemned by the unanimous vote of his judges to capital punishment. I am delighted, again I say it; I congratulate both him and the Muses,—him upon the protection he enjoys, them upon the honour in which they are held. Nor do I grudge an offender, reduced to his last hope and in such critical circumstances, this saving title of poet.
Yet if you asked my opinion I should say that Cola di Rienzo is very eloquent, possessed of great powers of persuasion, and ready of speech; as a writer also he is charming and elegant, his diction, if not very copious, is graceful and brilliant. I believe, too, that he reads all the poets that are generally known; but he is not a poet for all that, any more than one is a weaver who dons a garment made by another's hands. Even the writing of verses does not suffice by itself to earn the title of poet. As Horace most truly says,
'T is not enough then merely to inclose
Plain sense in numbers,—which if you transpose,
The words were such as any man might say.[7]
But this man has never composed a single poem which has reached my ears, nor has he applied himself to such things; and without application nothing, however easy, can be well done.
I wished to tell you all this in order that you first might be moved by the fate of one who was once a public benefactor, and then might rejoice in his unexpected deliverance. You will, like me, be equally amused and disgusted by the cause of his escape, and will wonder, if Cola—which God grant!—can, in such imminent peril, find shelter beneath the ægis of the poet, why Virgil should not escape in the same way? Yet he would certainly have perished at the hands of the same judges, because he is held to be not a poet but a magician. But I will tell you something which will amuse you still more. I myself, than whom no one has ever been more hostile to divination and magic, have occasionally been pronounced a magician by quite as acute judges, on account of my fondness for Virgil. How low indeed have our studies sunk![8]...