Art thou, perchance, unaware how few scholars there have been at all times, even in our country? Unless I am mistaken, this same friend of ours is at this time the only scholar in all Greece. My late teacher was a second.[140] But alas! he died after having raised within me most pleasing hopes of ultimate success, leaving me at the mere threshold of such studies. Indeed, even before his death he had left me to shift for myself; for, having regard for his rather than for my own advantage, I had added my influence to procure his elevation to a bishopric. Therefore, Homer, bear up with this small handful of followers and grant to an enfeebled and declining age the same indulgence which thou wouldst have granted to a strong and flourishing one.
Formerly there were a few who highly valued the ennobling study of letters. Today their number is sadly diminished, and I predict that shortly they will have disappeared entirely.[141] It is best to abide with these few as eagerly as may be, and pray do not for one instant harbor the thought of exchanging our stream for any larger channel. Thou art no mere mariner, nor fisherman; nay, if the report be true (and I would it were false) thy intercourse with that tribe was none too auspicious.[142] The small Castalian fount and the low and humble Helicon once did give thee pleasure. May our Arno and our hills be as fortunate, where noble intellects abound like the gushing waters of the hills and where the sweetly singing nightingales build their nests. These are few indeed, I confess; but to repeat, if thou surveyest the land far and near, they will appear relatively many. Outside of these few singers what dost thou hope to find in our population except fullers, weavers, and smiths? Not to mention impostors, whom wilt thou come upon except publicans, thieves of various kinds, thousands of frauds and cheats, hostile factions that never hesitate to resort to deceitful means, the anxious avaricious and their vain struggles, and the rank scum that pursues the mechanical trades? Among such as these thou must needs endure all scoffing with unruffled brow, as an eagle among the night-owls, as a lion among apes. In their presence thou must repeat what Ennius, greatly thy inferior, once said: “I flit about in life on the lips of (learned) men.”[143] Let the lips of the untaught continue to disclose their ignorance and utter vain gossip. Let them remain in ignorance of thee and thy works, or, knowing, let them revile. Praise from such lips would be blasphemy indeed.
