y, ere its close, saw the birth
of Poggio, Valla, and the elder Guarino; and early in the fifteenth
Florence under Cosmo de Medici was a nest of Platonists. These, headed
by Gemistus Pletho, a born Greek, began about A.D. 1440 to write down
Aristotle. For few minds are big enough to be just to great A without
being unjust to capital B.

Theodore Gaza defended that great man with moderation; George of
Trebizond with acerbity, and retorted on Plato. Then Cardinal Bessarion,
another born Greek, resisted the said George, and his idol, in a tract
"Adversus calumniatorem Platonis."

Pugnacity, whether wise or not, is a form of vitality. Born without
controversial bile in so zealous an epoch, Francesco Colonna, a young
nobleman of Florence, lived for the arts. At twenty he turned Dominican
friar. His object was quiet study. He retired from idle company, and
faction fights, the humming and the stinging of the human hive, to St.
Dominic and the Nine Muses.

An eager student of languages, pictures, statues, chronology, coins,
and monumental inscriptions. These last loosened his faith in popular
histories.

He travelled many years in the East, and returned laden with spoils;
master of several choice MSS., and versed in Greek and Latin, Hebrew and
Syriac. He found his country had not stood still. Other lettered princes
besides Cosmo had sprung up. Alfonso King of Naples, Nicolas d'Este,
Lionel d'Este, etc. Above all, his old friend Thomas of Sarzana had been
made Pope, and had lent a mighty impulse to letters; had accumulated
5000 MSS. in the library of the Vatican, and had set Poggio to translate
Diodorus Siculus and Xenophon's Cyropaedia, Laurentius Valla to
translate Herodotus and Thucydides, Theodore Gaza, Theophrastus; George
of Trebizond, Eusebius, and certain treatises of Plato, etc. etc.

The monk found Plato and Aristotle under armistice, but Poggio and
Valla at loggerheads over verbs and nouns, and on fire with odium
philologicum. All this was heaven; and he settled down in his native
land, his life a rosy dream. None so happy as the versatile,
provided they have not their bread to make by it. And Fra Colonna was
Versatility. He knew seven or eight languages, and a little mathematics;
could write a bit, paint a bit, model a bit, sing a bit, strum a bit;
and could relish superior excellence in all these branches. For
this last trait he deserved to be as happy as he was. For, gauge the
intellects of your acquaintances