1. It is a duty to devote one’s self to poetry and the fine arts only when one has a decided vocation for them.
“Be rather a mason, if that be your talent.”
2. The poet should listen to good advice.
“Make choice of a solid and wholesome censor.”
3. The poet and artist should, in their verses and works, be the interpreters of virtue.
“Let your soul and your morals, depicted in your works,
Never present of you but noble images.”
Love, then, virtue; nourish your soul therewith.
“The verse always savors of the baseness of the heart.”
4. They must avoid jealousies and rivalries.
“Flee, above all, flee base jealousies.”