path, that it rescued him from what must have been his inevitable
fate, morbid cynicism: it was one of the happiest incidents that
ever occurred to him:--he formed the acquaintance of a man,
seventeen years his senior--who, in the lapse of a very short
time, became to him a father and adviser, to whom present or
absent he imparted every one of his schemes, thoughts, cares,
sayings and doings; who was the unfailing allayer of his
anxieties, alleviator of his sorrows, and most constant support of
all his undertakings,--Niccolo Niccoli,--of whom I must take
notice, as he was one of the most active stimulators of the
forgery of the Annals.

Though by no means affluent, and frequently straitened in
circumstances ("homo nequaquam opulens, et rerum persaepe inops,"
says Bracciolini of him, Or. Fun. III.), nevertheless, he made
enough money, as well as possessed the munificent spirit to build
at his own expense, and present to the Convent of the Holy Spirit
in Florence an edifice in which to deposit the books bequeathed to
the Brothers by Boccaccio; and, at his death, he left to the
public in the same City his own manuscripts, which he had
accumulated at great cost and with much pains. He was one of the
few laymen, not to be found out of Italy, who had learning and a
knowledge of Latin, which he had acquired with that eminent
scholar, philosopher and theologian, about half a dozen of whose
works have come down to us, Ludovicus Marsilius; but learning and
Latin were essential to the carrying on of his very pleasant and
most lucrative occupation;--that of amending and collating
manuscripts previous to their disposal for coin; a business, in
which, we are told by Bracciolini, that he surpassed everybody in
excessive expertness ("solertissimus omnium fuit in emendis ac