1Oh, how many learned men are hidden and withdrawn from fame by their own modesty or their love of quiet! 1Yet when we are about to speak or read anything, we fear only those who bring their studies forward, whereas those who keep silent excel by this much more, that they honour the greatest work with silence. 2I write what I write from experience. 2Terentius Junior, after discharging the equestrian military posts and also the procuratorship of the province of Narbonensis with the greatest integrity, withdrew to his estates and preferred the most tranquil leisure to the honours that awaited him. 3Invited to stay with him, I looked on him as a good head of household and a diligent farmer, intending to talk of the matters with which I supposed him to be occupied; 3and I had begun, when he called me back to literature with most learned conversation.
4How polished everything was, how Latin, how Greek! 4For he is so strong in both languages that he seems to excel more in whichever he happens at the moment to be speaking. 4How much he has read, how much he remembers! 4You would think the man lived in Athens, not in a country house. 5Need I say more? 5He has increased my anxiety and made me fear these retired and, as it were, rustic men no less than those whom I know to be most learned. 6I advise you to do the same: for just as in the army, so also in our literary world there are many in civilian dress whom, if you search them out carefully, you will find girt and armed, and indeed with a most ardent talent.
6Farewell.