are narrated with great perspicuity and elegance.—The third book comprises an entertaining epitome of the history of Italy during the pontificate of Eugenius IV. The fourth book is not strictly relevant to the subject of this dialogue, and ought to be considered as a separate and detached composition. It contains an account of Persia and India, which Poggio collected from the narrative of Niccolo Conti, a Venetian, who in the course of a peregrination of twenty-five years, had penetrated into the regions situated beyond the Ganges. This bold adventurer having, during his residence in Arabia, been obliged to abjure the Christian faith, immediately after his return to Italy repaired to the pontifical court to solicit from Eugenius IV. the remission of his sin of apostacy. On this occasion Poggio procured from him an account of his route, and of his observations on the manners, customs, and natural history of the eastern nations. This account he digested into a narrative, which will be found not a little amusing by the modern inquirer, and must have excited an extraordinary degree of attention at the time of its publication. The Dialogue _On the Vicissitudes of Fortune_ is the most interesting of the works of Poggio. It inculcates maxims of sublime philosophy, enforced by a detail of splendid and striking events. The account which it contains of the changes which took place in Italy at the end of the fourteenth, and at the commencement of the fifteenth centuries, presents a succinct and clear view of the politics of that period; and the journey of the Venetian traveller merits the attentive perusal of the curious inquirer into the history of man.[382]