'Negas tibi persuaderi posse libros tuos & nobis legi, nisi si quis amicorum inter confabulandum orta tui mentione fuisset anagnostes. Adeon' me aut fastidiosum existimas vt legere grauer tam erudita? aut adeo inhumanum, ne dicam inuidum, vt talis amici lucubrationibus parum delecter? Imo ne sis insciens, nihil est omnino tuorum studiorum quod non inter precipuos autores nostra habeat bibliotheca. Annotationes tuas in Pandectas et Assem oraeulorum instar habeo: ad quae confugere soleo, si quid ambigo, nec ab istis vulgatis autoribus succurritur.
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Iam animaduerto te metaphoris ac parabolis impendio delectari, quas habes plaerasque mire raras et insigniter argutas; sed quam semel amplexus sis, ab ea vix vnquam diuelli potes: vnde fit vt cum totus sermo gemmeus sit potius quam gemmis distinetus, nonnihil videatur a naturali simplicitate recedere. ... Ad haec, dum in παρεκβάσεις eruditissimas simul et amoenissimas crebrius expatiaris et in his longule commoraris, periculum fortassis est ne quis morosior ita secum cogitet: Praeclara quidem haec et splendida, sed vt olim τί ταῦτα πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον, ita quid ista ad Assem?' (Allen et al. 1906-1958, vol. 2, pp. 362-70, letter 480)
['You say you cannot believe that I read your books, unless your name should have come up in conversation and one of my friends had read them aloud to me. Do you suppose me so fastidious that I am reluctant to read anything so scholarly, or so uncivilised, not to say jealous, that I do not enjoy as I should the writings of such a good friend? Let me tell you this: there is not one of your things which is not to be found in my library among my favourite authors. Your Annotations on the Pandects and your De Asse I regard as oracles, in which I take refuge when confronted with a problem on which the usual authorities are no help.
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I also observe that you take great delight in metaphors and comparisons, and have a large supply of a most unusual and very telling kind, but that once you have embraced one you can hardly ever be torn away from it; with the result that your whole style seems bespangled with gems rather than picked out with them here and there, and might be thought to part company somewhat with the simplicity of nature. ... Besides this, while you often expand into digressions both very scholarly and very entertaining, and spend perhaps rather a long time on them, there is some danger that a reader difficult to please may say to himself: This is all very good and splendid, but (as they used to say What has this to do with Dionysus?) what has it to do with the 'as'?' (translation from Mynors - Thomson - McConica 1977, pp. 102-111)]
