Page:Petrach, the first modern scholar and man of letters.djvu/310

 mistaken, when you were living there, with the former lord of that region, the grandfather of him who now holds sway. The lad's own family and fortune are humble. But he is well endowed, nevertheless. He has a force of character and a power of self-control that would be praiseworthy even in old age; and a mind that is keen and flexible; and a memory that is rapacious, and capacious, and, best of all, tenacious. My bucolics, which are divided off into twelve eclogues, as you know, he committed to memory within eleven days, reciting one section to me each evening and two the last time, repeating them without a single hitch, as if he had the book before his eyes. Besides that, he has himself a great deal of invention,—a rare thing in these days,—and a fine enthusiasm, and a heart that loves the Muses; and he is already, as Maro hath it, making new songs of his own; and if he lives, and his development keeps pace with his years, as I am confident it will, he surely will be something great, as was prophesied of Ambrose by his father. There is much to be said for him even now, at an age when usually there is very little to say. Of one of his good tendencies you have just heard. You shall hear now of another, a trait that constitutes the best possible foundation for sound character and solid intellectual attainments. As the common herd loves money and longs to possess it, even so, and more, does he hate it and spurn it. To 'add to golden numbers golden numbers' he considers labour worse than lost. He is scarcely willing to acquire