Note 630 — Chapter V

This affectation had begun in the preceding century, and was carried by Campano in his Life of Braccio di Montone to as great an extreme as by Bembo, or any Ciceronian of his age. Bayle (Bembus, Note B.) gives some odd instances of it in the latter. Notwithstanding his laborious scrupulosity as to language, Bembo is reproached by Lipsius, and others of a more advanced stage of critical knowledge, with many faults of Latin, especially in his letters. Ibid. Sturm says of the letters of Bembo: Ejus epistolæ scriptæ mihi magis quam missæ esse videntur. Indicia sunt hominis otiosi et imitatoris speciem magis rerum quam res ipsas consectantis. Ascham, Epist. cccxci.