to you:


"Laudari debes quoniam sub principe duro,
Temporibusque malis, ausus es esse bonus."


And those also of Virgil to Mecaenas, which extol the humanity of
that great man:


"Omnia cum possis tanto tam clarus amico,
Te sensit nemo posse nocere tamen."


Many indeed remonstrate against my proceedings, and those
particularly who call themselves my friends insist that, in
consequence of my violent attachment to study, I pay no attention
to the concerns of the world, or to the interests of my family; and
that, on this account, I shall experience a delay in my promotion
to worldly dignities; that the influence of authors, both poets and
historians, has long since ceased; that the respect paid to
literature vanished with literary princes; and that in these
degenerate days very different paths lead to honours and opulence.
I allow all this, I readily allow it, and acquiesce in the truth.
For the unprincipled and covetous attach themselves to the court,
the churchmen to their books, and the ambitious to the public
offices, but as every man is under the influence of some darling
passion, so the love of letters and the study of eloquence have
from my infancy had for me peculiar charms of attraction. Impelled