Poggio expressed his joy on the return of his friend in a long epistle, in the commencement of which he intimated, that he had chosen that mode of address in preference to a personal congratulation, in order that his commendation of his patron might be diffused amongst such of the learned as felt an interest in the perusal of his compositions. He then proceeded to dilate at considerable length upon the unanimity with which the Florentine people passed the decree of the recall of Cosmo, which, he justly observed, was a most distinguished proof of his merits. “This is,” said he, “in my opinion, the greatest subject of congratulation in your case—that all ranks concurred in bearing testimony to your dignity and virtue. So earnest was the desire of your return, that the inconveniences resulting to yourself from your exile, must be far overbalanced by the unprecedented honour and affection with which your fellow citizens have received you on your return to your native country.” He concluded this epistle by exhorting his friend to persevere in those virtuous principles which had been his support in the day of adversity, and which had caused him to be restored to the exalted rank in the state from which he had been for a short period displaced by the intrigues of faction.[232] Poggio had long meditated a signal retaliation of the insults which he had experienced from Filelfo; and no sooner did the Medici regain their ascendancy in the republic, than he proceeded to administer to the acrimonious Tolentine the merciless severity of a literary castigation. Wisely stepping forward as the indignant friend of the injured Niccolo Niccoli, rather than as the avenger of his own wrongs, he published an invective against Filelfo, in which he almost exhausted the Latin language in the accumulation of epithets of abuse. Noticing the obscenity of the satire which, as he says, Filelfo “had vomited forth against his friend, from the feculent stores of his putrid mouth,” he reproved him for the use of terms and phrases which even a strumpet of any degree of reputation would be ashamed to utter. The propensity of the satirist to the adoption of such language, he ascribed to the early taste which he had acquired for impurity, in consequence of the occupation of his mother, whom he represented as living at Rimini, engaged in the most sordid offices.[233] Tracing the history of his antagonist from his earliest days, he alleged, that he was banished from Padua, in consequence of his indulgence of the most depraved propensities; and that, when he had been hospitably entertained at Constantinople by John Crysoloras, he repaid the kindness of his host by debauching his daughter. By the perpetration of this crime, if credit may be given to the assertions of Poggio, Filelfo obtained the hand of a lady, to whom, if her conduct had been in any degree answerable to the nobility of her descent, he would never have had the audacity to aspire.[234] Finally,