Quintilian.[71] The Hebrew language was not, like the Latin tongue, of practical use in the daily affairs of a literary or political life; and finally, his instructor was a man of no talents or respectability of character, and soon became the butt of his ridicule, and the object of his sovereign contempt. These causes concurred to check his progress in biblical studies, in which he does not appear to have made any great proficiency. The amusement which he in vain sought for in the extension of his literary attainments, he found in a total suspension of his studies. [A. D. 1416.] In the spring of the year 1416, he took advantage of the leisure time afforded him, by the termination of his functions as secretary to the deposed pontiff, to make an excursion to the baths of Baden.[72] Of these baths he gave a description in the following letter, which he addressed to Niccolo Niccoli; and which, whilst it exhibits an interesting picture of a fashionable watering place of the fifteenth century, displays a sportiveness of fancy, and an expansion of good humour, which were characteristic and attractive features of Poggio’s mind. “I wrote to you from Constance, on the first of March, if my memory be correct, a letter, which, if it came to hand, I imagine made you tolerably merry. It was rather long, and pregnant with wit. I gave you in it a long account of my Hebrew studies, and passed many jokes upon my tutor, a stupid, unsteady, and illiterate man; which indeed is the general character of those who are converted from Judaism to Christianity. But I am inclined to suspect, that this letter, and another which I addressed to Leonardo Aretino, did not reach their destination. Had you received my epistle, you would surely have answered it, were it only with the view of congratulating me on my new course of study, which you have so frequently exhorted me to undertake. I cannot find that the study of Hebrew adds to my stock of philosophical knowledge; but it so far promotes my acquaintance with literature, that I am thereby enabled to investigate the principles upon which St. Jerome founded his translation of the scriptures. But I write to you from these baths, (to which I am come to try whether they can remove an eruption which has taken place between my fingers) to describe to you the situation of the place, and the manners of its inhabitants, together with the customs of the company who resort hither for the benefit of the waters. Much is said by the ancients of the pleasant baths of Puteoli, which were frequented by almost all the people of Rome. But in my opinion, those boasted baths must, in the article of pleasure, yield the palm to the baths of Baden. For the pleasantness of the baths of Puteoli was founded more on the beauty of the circumjacent country, and the magnificence of the neighbouring villas, than on the festive manners of the company by which they were frequented. The scenery of Baden, on the contrary, has but