1This one day I ask to be excused: Titinius Capito is going to give a reading, whom I do not know whether I am more bound or more eager to hear. 1He is an excellent man and to be counted among the chief ornaments of our age. 1He cultivates literature, he loves, cherishes and advances literary men, he is the harbour, the refuge and the bosom of many who write something, an example to all, and in short the restorer and reformer of literature itself, which was already growing old. 2He offers his house to those giving readings, and attends lecture halls, not only at his own home, with wonderful kindness; 2to me, at least, he has never failed to come, if only he was in the city.
2Moreover it is all the more shameful not to return a favour, the more honourable the reason for returning it. 3Or if I were worn down with lawsuits, should I believe myself bound to one who attended my court appearances, and now, because my whole business and my whole care lies in literature, should I be less obliged to one who attends me with such great assiduity, in the very matter in which I can be obliged, if I do not say only, certainly most of all? 4But even if I owed him no return, no mutual services as it were, I should still be drawn either by the man's genius, which is most beautiful and most powerful and, amid the greatest severity, most charming, or by the nobility of his subject.
4He is writing about the deaths of famous men, among them some very dear to me. 5So I seem to be performing a dutiful office, and to be present at what are, as it were, funeral eulogies of those whose funerals I was not allowed to attend, late, it is true, but all the more true for that. 5Farewell.