Note 629 — Chapter V

Niceron says of Sadolet’s Epistles, which form a very thick volume: Il y a plusieurs choses dignes d’être remarquées dans les lettres de Sadolet; mais elles sont quelquefois trop diffuses, et par conséquent ennuyeuses à lire. I concur in this: yet it may be added, that the epistles of Cicero would sometimes be tedious, if we took as little interest in their subjects as we commonly do in those of Sadolet. His style is uniformly pure and good; but he is less fastidious than Bembo, and does not use circuity to avoid a theological expression. They are much more interesting, at least, than the ordinary Latin letters of his contemporaries, such as those of Paulus Manutius. A uniform goodness of heart, and love of right, prevail in the epistles of Sadolet. His desire of ecclesiastical reformation in respect of morals has caused him to be suspected of a bias towards protestantism, and a letter he wrote to Melanchthon, which that learned man did not answer, has been brought in corroboration of this; but the general tenor of his letters refutes this surmise. His theology, which was wholly semi-pelagian, must have led him to look with disgust on the Lutheran school (Epist. l. iii. p. 121, and l. ix. p. 410); and after Paul III. bestowed on him the purple, he became a staunch friend of the court of Rome, though never losing his wish to see a reform of its abuses. This will be admitted by every one who takes the trouble to run over Sadolet’s epistles.