Tres Orationes

most wretched age, and in the publication of
the greatest moroseness of temperaments, of
which we wish to be certain to others as well.
If anyone should think otherwise of it, we
gladly let him remain in his own opinion, and
we do not care much that he should come over
to ours, with the good hope that these thoughts,
committed to writing and brought into the
public sphere, whatever they may be (they are
certainly meager, neither elaborated for the
opinion of men, nor greatly worthy of the
reading of the learned), will be supported by the
favor and patronage of your kindness, if not by
their own nature. For in whose power would
it be to drain the expectation of imminent
judgments, and thus to work out his own
works, so that they displease no one, but
please everyone equally? He who would even
dare to imagine this to himself, or to under-
take it, must be thought to have too much
brain, and to want to be wiser than the rest.
For it does not taste the same to everyone, and
the palate of wits is certainly diverse, if
anything else is. So that I may not mention its
fastidiousness in the meantime, which not
rarely rejects and averts what is best. I do not
know how prudently I write these things to
you, and perhaps your noble virtue will under-
take a thought concerning these very things.
But I know that for certain, that I cannot
otherwise respond to the will of your nobility,
which is much too kind to me, than by this
monument of my obedience, and as a pledge of
my soul subjected to you, which
The catchword "per-" anticipates the beginning of the next page.