Note 97 — CHAP. III.

Ambrosii Traversarii Opera, tom. ii. p. 285. To the decline of life Poggio retained a considerable degree of indignation, which was at this time excited in his mind, by the indifference with which his labours to recover the lost writers of antiquity were regarded by the great. In the introduction to his dialogue, De Infelicitate Principum, he puts the following strictures on their conduct into the mouth of Niccolo Niccoli.—“When many of the ancient classics had been brought to light by our friend Poggio, and there was a most flattering prospect of the recovery of others of still greater consequence, no sovereign prince or pontiff contributed in the least degree to the liberation of those most excellent authors from the prisons of the barbarians. These exalted personages spend their days and their money in pleasures, in unworthy pursuits, in pestiferous and destructive wars. So great is their mental torpidity, that nothing can rouse them to search after the works of excellent writers, by whose wisdom and learning mankind are taught the way to true felicity.”—Poggii Opera, p. 394.