If, however, we may give credit to Poggio’s account of the state of his feelings on his entrance upon his new connexion, his felicity was not interrupted by any painful reflections on the past, or by any uneasy forebodings with respect to the future. In a letter to one of his English friends, Nicholas Bilston, Archdeacon of Winchester, he thus expresses himself on the subject of his marriage. “Our epistolary intercourse, my dear father, has by my omission been too long suspended. Do not, however, impute my silence to forgetfulness of the obligations which your goodness has conferred upon me; for I can assure you that a sense of your kindness is impressed upon my mind in indelible characters. The fact is, that till lately, no event has occurred in my history of sufficient importance to constitute the subject of a letter. But I have now to announce to you a most important change in my situation—a change, of which I hasten to give you the earliest intelligence, in full confidence that you will participate in my joys. You know that I have been hitherto uncertain what course of life to pursue, and that I have long hesitated whether to adopt the secular or the clerical character. To the ecclesiastical profession, however, I must confess that I never felt any inclination. In this dubious state of mind, I arrived at a period when it was absolutely requisite for me to fix upon some settled plan for the regulation of my future conduct. Determining, therefore, not to spend the remainder of my days in unsocial solitude, I resolved to marry; and though now declining into the vale of years, I have ventured to enter into the matrimonial union with a young lady of great beauty, and possessed of all the accomplishments which are proper for her sex. You will perhaps say, that I ought to have taken this step at an earlier period. I confess it: but, as the old proverb says, ‘better late than never;’ and you must remember that philosophers assure us, that ‘_Sera nunquam est ad bonos mores via_.’ I might, indeed, have changed my condition many years ago; but in that case I should not have obtained my present spouse, a partner in all respects suited to my manners and disposition, in whose agreeable converse I find a solace for all my anxieties and cares. So richly is she endowed with virtues, that she gratifies my most sanguine wishes. This circumstance is the source of the greatest comfort to me; and I return thanks to God, who, having continually been propitious to me, ‘has loved me even to the end,’ and has bestowed upon me more than I could have wished. Well knowing your regard for me, and duly sensible of the value of your friendship, I have thought it my duty to acquaint you with my present circumstances, and to make you a partaker in my pleasure. Farewell.”