it was usual for scholars to submit their essays to his eyes before they ventured upon publication. Thus Lionardo Bruni sent him his 'Life of Cicero,' calling him 'the censor of the Latin tongue.'[150] Notwithstanding his fine sense of language, Niccolo never appeared before the world of letters as an author. His enemies made the most of this reluctance, averring that he knew his own ineptitude, while his friends referred his silence to an exquisite fastidiousness of taste.[151] It may have been that he remembered the Tacitean epigram on Galba--_omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperâsset_--and applied it to himself. Certainly his reserve, in an age noteworthy for arrogant display, has tended to confer on him distinction. The position he occupied at Florence was that of a literary dictator. All who needed his assistance and advice were received with urbanity. He threw his house open to young men of parts, engaged in disputations with the curious, and provided the ill-educated with teachers. Foreigners from all parts of Italy and Europe paid him visits: 'the strangers who came to Florence at that time, if they missed the opportunity of seeing him at home, thought they had not been in Florence.'[152] The house where he lived was worthy of his refined taste and cultivated judgment; for he had formed a museum of antiquities--inscriptions, marbles, coins, vases, and engraved gems. There he not only received students and strangers, but conversed with sculptors and painters, discussing their inventions as freely as he criticised the essays of the scholars. It is probable that the classicism of Brunelleschi and Donatello, both of whom were among his intimate friends, may be due in part at least to his discourses on the manner of the ancients.[153] Pliny, we know, was one of his favourite authors; for, having heard that a complete codex of the 'Natural Histories' existed at Lübeck, he left no stone unturned till it had been transferred to Florence.[154] [Footnote 145: What follows I have based on Vespasiano's Life of Niccolo. Poggio's Funeral Oration, and his letter to Carlo Aretino on the death of his friend Niccolo, are to the same effect. _Poggii Opera_, pp. 270, 342.] [Footnote 146: Vespasiano, p. 471. 'Le scriveva di sua mano o di lettera corsiva o formata, che dell'una lettera e dell'altra era bellissimo scrittore.'] [Footnote 147: _Ibid._ p. 473.] [Footnote 148: See a letter of Ambrogio Traversari, quoted by Voigt, p. 155.] [Footnote 149: Vespasiano, p. 476. Poggio, p. 271.] [Footnote 150: Vespasiano, pp. 473, 478.] [Footnote 151: _Ibid._ p. 478. Poggio, p. 343.] [Footnote 152: Vespasiano, p. 477.] [Footnote 153: _Ibid._ p. 479.] [Footnote 154: _Ibid._ p. 474.]