constantly in the meridian of mind, as that Prince of the Church,
Cardinal Sadoleti, great as a poet, equally great as a philosopher,
whose poems on Curtius and the Curtian Lake and the Statue of Laocoon
would have done honour to Virgil, while in his "De Laudibus Philosophiae"
Cicero lives again in style and manner of thinking.

During that long interval of splendour, achievements of the
intellect are upon record that fully establish the existence of
the most remarkable genius. Poliziano in a letter (Ep. XII. 2) to
Prince Pico of Mirandola tells of one of these marvellous feats
that was done by a youthful prodigy, only eleven years old, of the
great family of Orsini (Fabius Ursinus). First young, Fabio Orsini
sang; then recited verses of his own: requested to turn the verse
into prose, he repeated the same thoughts unfettered by measure in
an unassuming manner, and with an appropriate and choice flow of
expression. After that subjects were proposed to him for
epistolary correspondence, on which he was to dictate ex tempore
to five amanuenses at once, the subjects given being "of a nature
so novel, various, and withal so ludicrous that he could not have
been prepared for them": after a moment's pause he dictated a few
words to the first amanuensis on one subject; gave his
instructions on a different theme to the second; proceeded in like
manner with the rest, then returning to the first, "filled up
every chasm and connected the suspended thread of his argument so
that nothing appeared discordant or disjointed," and, at the same
instant, finished the five letters. "If he lives," concluded
Poliziano, "to complete the measure of his days," and "perseveres
in the path of fame, as he has begun, he will, I venture to
predict, prove a person, whom, for admirable qualities and
attainments, mankind must unite to venerate as something more than