“It is impossible to read your elegant and most interesting history of that ornament of human nature, Lorenzo de’ Medicis, and not feel at the same time a kind of triumphant enthusiasm that we possess a contemporary writer of such superior talents and such indefatigable industry, with a choice of the most interesting, instructive, animating subjects that can improve his countrymen and honour himself.
“Your documents are as new as they are
| 164 | LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE. |
“In the mean time I venture to exhort you, ‘Perge ut incepisti,’ and take for your next theme a subject still more extensive, still more exalted, and, of course, still more worthy of your very eminent abilities. ’T is the sequel of Lorenzo that I propose to you, in the life of his son, Leo X. You see at once, Sir, what a glorious, interesting, animating era it embraces; and who so fit to paint the manhood of arts, of science, of religious reformation, as that happy and elegant writer who has so satisfactorily sketched and delineated their infancy?
“If, during my abode at Rome, I can in any way serve you by my connection with the Vatican Librarian, you may command me.”
