It contains nothing characteristic of the period or of the individual.

It is a series, not of letters, but of themes; and, as it is not generally known, might be very safely employed at public schools as a magazine of commonplaces.

Whether he write on politics to the Emperor and the Doge, or send advice and consolation to a private friend, every line is crowded with examples and quotations, and sounds big with Anaxagoras and Scipio.

Such was the interest excited by the character of Petrarch, and such the admiration which was felt for his epistolary style, that it was with difficulty that his letters reached the place of their destination.
The poet describes, with pretended regret and real complacency, the importunity of the curious, who often opened, and sometimes stole, these favourite compositions.

It is a remarkable fact that, of all his epistles, the least affected are those which are addressed to the dead and the unborn.