1The illness of Passennus Paulus has caused me great anxiety, and indeed for very many and very just reasons. 1He is an excellent man, most honourable, and very fond of me; 1besides, in literature he emulates, reproduces and recreates the ancients, Propertius above all, from whom he traces his descent, a true offspring, and most like him in that in which Propertius excelled. 2If you take his elegies into your hands, you will read a work polished, tender, delightful, and plainly written in Propertius' house. 2Recently he has turned to lyric verse, in which he reproduces Horace as he does Propertius in the elegies: you would think, if kinship counts for anything in literature, that he is a relation of this poet too.
2Great variety, great versatility: he loves like one who loves most truly, grieves like one who grieves most impatiently, praises like one who praises most kindly, jests like one who jests most wittily; in short he perfects everything as though each were his only work. 3For such a friend, for such a talent, I was no less sick in mind than he in body; at last I have got him back, at last myself. 3Congratulate me, congratulate literature itself as well, which faced as great a danger from his peril as it will gain glory from his recovery. 3Farewell.