THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF POPE PIUS IT. 453 



and of Sienna ; Calixtus III. gave him a cardinal's hat ; and at the 

 death of that pope, ^Eneas Sylvius succeeded to the keys of St. Peter, 

 August 27, 1458, by the name and style of Pius II. 



Such in brief was the career of Piccolomini : as a man of letters he 

 must be considered a fertile writer for he is the author of an Ac- 

 count of the Council of Base, a History of Bohemia, a Cosmography, 

 Treatises on Rhetoric and Education,*&c. &c. which together with his 

 letters, form a large folio of more than a thousand pages. These 

 letters he arranged and published himself. They are characterised 

 by an extreme good-nature, and, but for a certain aim at effect, inse- 

 parable perhaps from all studied compositions,are marked by an almost 

 religious simplicity, which half induces one to look at them more in 

 the light of confessions than any thing else. The collection is cer- 

 tainly a very curious one : it presents a true portrait of one of the 

 first men of his time, painted by himcelf with great freedom and but 

 little artifice. We have purposely extracted from those letters, which 

 show the man, and not the bishop or the pope. The private life of a 

 scholar and a clergyman, at a remote date, is more instructive, or at 

 least more entertaining, than the history of a public character. If the 

 example be not always the most edifying, let it be remembered that 

 the true picture of deserving humanity in all ages, consists not in the 

 entire absence of misconduct and sin, but rather in a decent sorrow 

 and becoming atonement for the errors, without which we can none 

 of us hope to live. 



The first letter we shall abridge is one to his father, on which we 

 shall only premise that it was written when our author was thirty, 

 but before he became a bishop ; he printed it, however, when he was 

 pope. 



" ^Eneas Sylvius, Imperial Poet, to his Father Sylvius, 

 " Greeting. You write me word, father, that you are in doubts as to 

 whether you should rejoice or be sorry that God has given me a child. But 

 I regard it as a subject of joy and not of sorrow. For what is sweeter in 

 nature than to beget a likeness to one's-self, to extend, as it were, the currept 

 of one's blood, and have something to leave after one. What on earth is more 

 blissful than to behold the children of our children. To me, in truth, it is a 

 mighty pleasure that my seed has been fruitful, and that before you die, 

 something from me shall survive, and I thank the Lord for having made this 

 woman's offspring a boy, that another little ^Eneas shall play around you, 

 father, and my mother, and afford you that consolation which his father ought 

 to have rendered. If my birth was a subject of rejoicing to you, why should 

 not my son's please you ? And will not the boy's face rejoice you, when you 

 see in it the image of mine ? Will it not delight you, when the little one 

 hangs from your neck and indulges in his infantine gambols ? But, perhaps, 

 you grieve for my crime, my son having been begot in sin. I know not what 

 opinion you may entertain of me, but flesh and blood yourself, you gave life 



* In the British Museum we find, besides two folio editions of his works, the 

 following, in separate volumes : Historia Bohemica ; Epistolse, Cosmographia, 

 Asise Europeeque Elegantissima Descriptio ; Fasciculus rerum Expetendarum 

 ac Figuendarum, Parrallela,A. Gousina ; Commentarii ;De ortu et Authoritate 

 Sacri Roman! Imperil ; Historia Gothica ; Epistola de Fortuna ; De llemedio 

 Amoris Epistola ad Mahometan! Principem Turcorum ; Historia de Duobus 

 Amantibus. 



