None of these works would have placed him on a level with Vida or Buchanan.

Yet, when we compare him with those who preceded him, when we consider that he went on the forlorn hope of literature, that he was the first who perceived, and the first who attempted to revive, the finer elegancies of the ancient language of the world, we shall perhaps think more highly of him than of those who could never have surpassed his beauties if they had not inherited them.
He has aspired to emulate the philosophical eloquence of Cicero, as well as the poetical majesty of Virgil.

His essay on the Remedies of Good and Evil Fortune is a singular work in a colloquial form, and a most scholastic style.

It seems to be framed upon the model of the Tusculan Questions,--with what success those who have read it may easily determine.

It consists of a series of dialogues: in each of these a person is introduced who has experienced some happy or some adverse event: he gravely states his case; and a reasoner, or rather Reason personified, confutes him; a task not very difficult, since the disciple defends his position only by pertinaciously repeating it, in almost the same words at the end of every argument of his antagonist.