[Footnote 327: 'Erat distortis sæpe moribus, uti facie nequaquam ingenuâ et liberali ab enormi præsertim naso, subluscoque oculo perabsurdâ.' Giovio, _Elogia_. Cf. Poliziano's own verses to Mabilius, beginning:-- Quod nasum mihi, quod reflexa colla Demens objicis. _Carmina Quinque Poetarum_, p. 277.] The results of Poliziano's more fugitive studies, and some notes of conversations on literary topics with Lorenzo, were published in 1489 under the title of 'Miscellanea.'[328] The form was borrowed from the 'Noctes Atticæ' of Aulus Gellius; in matter this collection anticipated the genial criticisms of Erasmus. The excitement caused by its appearance is vividly depicted in the following letter of Jacopus Antiquarius, secretary to the Duke of Milan:[329]--'Going lately, according to my custom, into one of the public offices, I found a number of the young clerks neglecting their prince's business, and lost in the study of a book which had been distributed in sheets among them. When I asked what new book had appeared, they answered, Politian's "Miscellanies." I mounted their desk, sat down among them, and began to read with equal eagerness. But, as I could not spend much time there, I sent at once to the bookseller's stall for a copy of the work.' By this time Poliziano's fame had eclipsed that of all his contemporaries. He corresponded familiarly with native and foreign princes, and held a kind of court at Florence among men of learning who came from all parts of Italy to converse with him. This popularity grew even burdensome, or at any rate he affected to find it so. 'Does a man want a motto for his sword's hilt or a posy for a ring,' he writes,[330] 'an inscription for his bedroom or a device for his plate, or even for his pots and pans, he runs like all the world to Politian. There is hardly a wall I have not besmeared, like a snail, with the effusions of my brain. One teazes me for catches and drinking-songs, another for a grave discourse, a third for a serenade, a fourth for a Carnival ballad.' In executing these commissions he is said to have shown great courtesy; nor did they probably cost him much trouble, for in all his work he was no less rapid than elegant. He boasted that he had dictated the translation of Herodian while walking up and down his room, within the space of a day or two; and the chief fault of his verses is their fluency. [Footnote 328: The first words of the dedication run as follows:--'Cum tibi superioribus diebus Laurenti Medices, nostra hæc Miscellanea _inter equitandum_ recitaremus.'] [Footnote 329: _Angeli Politiani Epistolæ_, lib. iii. ed. Ald. 1498. The letter is dated Nov. 1488.] [Footnote 330: In a letter to Hieronymus Donatus, dated Florence, May 1480, _Angeli Politiani Epistolæ_, lib. ii.]