AND OTHER | 
 IMAGINARY 
 
 mCON- 
 SaVERSATIONS 
 
 Landor 
 
 
 
DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 DURHAM, N. C. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2021 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/pentameronotheri00land 
 

 
 S 
 
 
 
 
 
The Camelot Series 
 
 EDITED BY ERNEST RuHys 
 
 THE PENTAMERON 
 
 AND OTHER IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 
 

 
 
 
 euii98 Jolom 
 
 put pmeheet et 
 
 AO: 
 
 BVYOITARAA TUN: 
 
HE PENTAMERON AND 
 ‘a OTTER IMAGINARY CON- 
 VERS TrONS: BY WALTER 
 DAN AGE LANDOR: EDITED, 
 Moa be sant PRE PACE, BY 
 PrAwvi wOCK ELLIS; 
 
 EON DON: 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE 
 NEW YORK AND TORONTO: 
 W. J. GAGE & CO. 
 1889 
 
a; 
 be i vad 
 ‘i 
 7\' » ) 
 $i 
 & 
 ¢ 
 - 
 
 
 
 £0a nod 
 
 SA! SH OIWNAY as iO 
 serPmirariy TAR Ste Bae 
 
 4 Jt) @& Pace Ea? 
 
 
 
CON EEN TS. 
 
 ee ae 
 PAGE 
 PREFACE . - : ; j : IBS 
 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION ; ’ : xv 
 THE PENTAMERON— 
 FIRST DAY’S INTERVIEW , ; F i I 
 SECOND DAY’S INTERVIEW ; , ; 32 
 THIRD DAY’S iNTERVIEW . / 5 Gh 
 FOURTH DAY’S INTERVIEW : ; ; 92 
 FIFTH DAY’S INTERVIEW / ; , A iG) 
 PIEVANO GRIGI TO THE READER . : > 144 
 HEADS OF CONFESSION ; A MONTHFUL . . 149 
 THE TRANSLATOR’S REMARKS : ; : 150 
 
 OTHER IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS— 
 
 DANTE AND BEATRICE. . , 4 = 2 1§9 
 FRA FILIPPO AND POPE EUGENIUS THE FOURTH 167 
 TASSO AND CORNELIA . : . 5 aos 
 PRINCESS MARY AND PRINCESS ELIZABETH - 203 
 LA FONTAINE AND DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT » 213 
 ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE A ° i 233 
 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS . . . A. ek) 
 MELANCTHON AND CALVIN A F . 303 
 
 298467 
 
CLE TELLETS 
 
 
 
 “MSADS Didiey fey 
 P ; UH TOMY aha 
 AIA WA Ao 
 
  POBBES.. 
 
 
 
PREACH. 
 
 HE Jfentameron and a selection of comparatively 
 <) late Jmaginary Conversations (reprinted without any 
 omissions from the edition of 1846) are here brought 
 together. Zhe Pentameron belongs to the remarkable 
 triad of books which Landor produced between 1834 and 
 1837, the others being Zhe Citation and Examination of 
 William Shakspeare for Deer-stealing, and the Lericles 
 and Aspasia.* 
 
 These three books vary much both in character and 
 quality. Zhe Examination of William Shakspeare is a 
 failure, or, certainly, the nearest approach to a failure in 
 any of Landor’s longer writings. It is written with care ; 
 there is a certain stolid unity about it which is impressive 
 when it is looked at as a whole, but at scarcely more than 
 one or two points can we hear Landor’s true voice. Sir 
 Thomas Lucy is a portentous Justice Shallow; Master Silas 
 the Chaplain and Ephraim the Clerk are alike dreary and 
 silly ; while the youthful Shakespeare shows little promise of 
 those eminent abilities which have since attracted so much 
 attention. In painting the humours of a rich and massive 
 nature, a Montaigne or a Porson, Landor was incom- 
 parable ; he had not the light hand which is needed to 
 paint the humours of a fool. If it had not been for a faint 
 
 * A brief sketch of Landor’s life, and an estimate of his position in 
 English literature, will be found in the Introduction by the present 
 writer to the volume of Zmagznary Conversations in this Series, 
 
 2598467 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 sparkle of epigram emitted by the dying Lamb, “ Only two 
 men could have written it, the man who did write it, or he 
 -of whom it was written,” Zhe Lxaminalion of William 
 Shakspeare would probably never have been mistaken for 
 a masterpiece. 
 
 Lerides and Aspasia is the longest of Landor’s works. 
 It is written in the form of letters between Aspasia, 
 her friend Cleone, Pericles, Anaxagoras, Alcibiades. Here 
 Landor enshrined all that he had meditated or imagined of 
 the glory that was Greece. It possesses a certain unity, 
 though it is fragmentary and digresses on every side, 
 sometimes startling us by transparently veiled diatribes 
 directed at Georgian (scarcely yet Victorian) England, and 
 we must not look for archzeological realism. But here 
 and there, throughout, we may discover pleasant pictures 
 of Athenian life, true Landorian jewels of speech and 
 imagery. The wise and tolerant Pericles, the intelligent 
 and sympathetic Aspasia, the playful Alcibiades, Sophocles, 
 Thucydides, Aristophanes, are all brought before us in 
 those forms in which they had so often appeared to 
 Landor; while at the end the dying Pericles briefly and 
 nobly sums up the experiences of a life that had sometimes 
 seemed as of but a moment’s length, “at another time, as 
 if centuries had passed within it ; for within it have existed 
 the greater part of those who since the origin of the world 
 have been the luminaries of the human race.” 
 
 All three of these works were, for the most part, written 
 at the Villa Gherardesca, at Fiesole, near Florence, during 
 the happiest years of Landor’s life. _ This circumstance has 
 an intimate bearing on the third, Zhe /entameron, for 
 The FPentameron is written to the praise and glory of 
 Boccaccio, who was, of all the Continental writers of the 
 modern world, the one whom Landor most loved and 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 revered ; and it was in the grounds of the Villa Gherardesca 
 that Boccaccio had in part laid the scene of his Decameron. 
 Thither it was that the ladies and youths of that joyous 
 band journeyed in the pale dawn, listening to the songs of 
 the nightingales that seemed to greet them with delight, 
 and to whose sweet and fresh notes, not willing to be 
 outdone, they added their own songs that echoed along the 
 valley; and here, in the intervals of song or of cheerful 
 repast, under the living arbours by the lake’s side, they told 
 so many of their immortal stories. * 
 
 ‘** Be it known,” Landor writes to his friend Francis Hare, 
 ““T am master of the very place to which the greatest genius 
 of Italy, or the Continent, conducted those ladies who told 
 such pleasant tales in the warm weather, and the very scene 
 of his Vnfale.” In 1829, by the kindness of a wealthy 
 friend, who lent him the necessary money, Landor had been 
 enabled to purchase this most enviable piece of property, 
 and here, with his children, he found endless delight in his 
 gardens and fountains, his myrtles and pomegranates, his 
 conservatories for lemons and oranges, and the French fruit 
 trees he was planting. “I have the best water, the best air, 
 and the best oil in the world. I have a residence for life, 
 and literally may sit under my own vine and my own fig- 
 tree.” And, to crown these delights, that divinity of early 
 days, Ianthe, no longer young, appeared at Florence, and 
 assisted at the planting operations. 
 
 His poems are full of tender and delicious reference to 
 his “citron groves of Fiesole,” and to the little stream, 
 A ffrico— 
 
 ‘* By him made sacred whom alone 
 *T were not profane to call 
 The bard divine ;” 
 
 
 
 * See Decameron, beginning of Giornata vii. 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 to Valdarno below him, the crest of Vallombrosa in the 
 east — 
 
 “The massy walls at which we gaze, 
 Where, amid songs and village glee, 
 Soars immemorial Fiesole, 
 
 England, in all thy scenes so fair, 
 Thou canst not show what charmed me there !” * 
 
 About the hills of Fiesole Landor wandered alone, 
 moulding aloud the massive harmonies of his prose, or 
 meditating on his favourites of the men of old. Of these, 
 Boccaccio could, at Fiesole, scarcely fail to be among the 
 first, and Landor’s meditations on the man and his work, 
 among the scenes in which he had himself lived and 
 moved, slowly grew into a narrative of conversation and 
 episode, five days in duration, between Boccaccio and 
 Petrarch, which, in imitation of its hero’s greater 
 Decameron, was ultimately entitled Zhe Pentameron. 
 
 Of all Landor’s works Zhe Pentameron is that which 
 shows him in the richest and most various ways; his 
 tender humanity, his eloquence, his stately humour, his 
 literary insight, his broad toleration, his imperial instinct 
 of style, are nowhere so delightfully combined as here. 
 There is scarcely a single declension from its gracious 
 and harmonious level; even on the most purely imagina- 
 tive side he is here represented at his best in the 
 allegory which concludes the last day. Undoubtedly, on 
 a close examination, we realise clearly, even here, the 
 
 * Landor’s poems are too little known. A judicious selection, in 
 convenient shape, is much needed, and would form a volume full of 
 delight for those who care for classic outline and concentration, the 
 delicate suggestiveness and repose which mark Landor’s poems (as 
 
 in a considerable degree Matthew Arnold’s) and which make them so 
 interesting a complement to his prose. 
 
PREFACE, xili 
 
 very definite limits of Landor’s genius. His enthusiastic 
 conception of Boccaccio is sometimes rather vague and 
 uncritical ; his estimate of Dante (delicately as he appre- 
 ciated the artistic value of lines and passages in his work) 
 is sadly lacking in sympathy and historical insight ; the 
 story which Boccaccio is made to tell, with the notion of 
 substituting it for one of the more outrageous stories of the 
 Decameron, is so stupid and pointless that even the most 
 Puritanic of Boccaccio’s admirers would hesitate to abolish 
 in its favour the most licentious of the master’s tales— 
 whichever it may be. But these blots leave but a slight 
 impression ; our memory dwells on the modest and gentle 
 figure of the great story-teller himself—“ the most imagin- 
 ative and creative genius that our Italy, or indeed our 
 world, hath in any age beheld,” as Landor makes Petrarch 
 call him—on the courteous and dignified bearing of that 
 venerable Canon of Holy Church, Laura’s lover, as he 
 discourses of Dante with his old friend, or chats graciously 
 with Assuntina, or, having with but two or three efforts 
 mounted his sober steed, rides solemnly to mass, to be 
 received festively by the village youths and maidens, and to 
 set them to dance before service ; on Ser Biagio, the parish 
 priest, and his gently-touched foibles; on the charming 
 little maid, Assuntina, and her lover. It is these who 
 make up a poem full of the fragrance and charm of Fiesole, 
 a poem whose leaves, as Mrs. Browning said, “are too 
 delicious to turn over.” 
 H. E. 
 

 
LHE- EDITOR'S: INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a 
 
 WANTING a bell for my church at San Vivaldo, and hearing 
 that our holy religion is rapidly gaining ground in England, to 
 the unspeakable comfort and refreshment of the Faithful, I 
 bethought myself that I might peradventure obtain such 
 effectual aid, from the piety and liberality of the converts, as 
 well-nigh to accomplish the purchase of one. Desirous more- 
 over of visiting that famous nation, of whose spiritual prosperity 
 we all entertain such animated hopes, now that the clouds of 
 ignorance begin to break and vanish, I resolved that nothing 
 on my part should be wanting to so blessed a consummation. 
 Therefore, while I am executing my mission in regard to the 
 bell, I omit no opportunity of demonstrating how much happier 
 and peacefuller are we who live in unity, than those who, 
 abandoning the household of Faith, clothe themselves with 
 shreds and warm themselves with shavings. 
 
 Subsidiary to the aid I solicit, I brought with me, and here 
 lay before the public, translated by the best hand I could afford 
 to engage, “ Certain Interviews of Messer Francesco Petrarca 
 and Messer Giovanni Boccaccio, etc,” which, the booksellers 
 tell me, should be entitled “ Zhe Pentameron,” unless I would 
 return with nothing in my pocket. I am ignorant what gave 
 them this idea of my intent, unless it be my deficiency in the 
 language, for certainly I had come to no such resolution. 
 Assurances are made to me by the intelligent and experienced 
 in such merchandise, that the manuscript is honestly worth 
 from twenty-five to thirty francesconi, or dollars. To sucha 
 pitch hath England risen up again, within these few years, 
 after all the expenditure of her protracted war. 
 
 Is there any true Italian, above all is there any worthy 
 native of Certaldo or San Vivaldo, who revolveth not in his 
 mind what a surprise and delight it will be to Giovanni in 
 Paradise, the first time he hears, instead of that cracked and 
 
xvi EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 jarring tumbril (which must have grated in bis ear most grievously 
 ever since its accident, and have often tried his patience), just 
 such another as he was wont to hear when he rode over to 
 join our townspeople at their festa? It will do his heart 
 good, and make him think of old times ; and perhaps he may 
 drop a couple of prayers to the Madonna for whoso had a 
 hand in it. 
 
 Lest. it should be bruited in England or elsewhere, that 
 being in my seventieth year, I have unadvisedly quitted my 
 parish, “fond of change,’ to use the blessed words of Saint 
 Paul, I am ready to show the certificate of Monsignore, my 
 diocesan, approving of my voyage. Monsignore was pleased 
 to think me capable of undertaking it, telling me that I 
 looked hale, spoke without quavering, and, by the blessing of 
 our lady, had nigh upon half my teeth in their sockets, while, 
 pointing to his own and shaking his head, he repeated the 
 celebrated lines of Horatius Flaccus, who lived in the reign 
 of Augustus, a short time before the Incarnation :— 
 
 ** Non ebur, sed horridium 
 Bucca dehiscit in mea lacuna !” 
 
 Then, turning the discourse from so melancholy a topic, he was 
 pleased to relate from the inexhaustible stores of his archzeo- 
 logical acquirements, that no new bell whatever had been 
 consecrated in his diocese of Samminiato since the year of our 
 Lord 1611: in which year, on the first Sunday of August, a 
 thunderbolt fell into the belfry of the Duomo, by the negligence 
 of Canonico Malatesta, who, according to history, in his hurry 
 to dine with Conte Geronimo Bardi, at our San Vivaldo, 
 omitted a word in the mass. While he was playing at bowls 
 after dinner on that Sunday, or, as some will have it, while he 
 was beating Ser Matteo Filicaia at backgammon, and the 
 younger men and ladies of those two noble families were bird- 
 catching with the c7vef¢a, it began to thunder: and, within the 
 evening, intelligence of the thunderbolt was brought to the 
 Canonico. On his return the day following it was remarked, 
 says the chronicler, that the people took off their caps at the 
 distance of only two or three paces, instead of fifteen or twenty, 
 and few stopped who met him: for the rumour had already 
 gone abroad of his omission. He often rode, as usual, to Conte 
 Geronimo’s, gammoned Ser Matteo, hooded the czve¢/a, limed a 
 twig or two, stood behind the spinette, hummed the next note, 
 turned over the pages of the music-book of the contessine, 
 
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION. Xvil 
 
 beating time on the chair-back, and showing them what he 
 could do now and then on the wiola di gamba. Only eight 
 years had elapsed when, in the flower of his age (for he had 
 scarcely seen sixty), he was found dead in his bed, after as 
 hearty and convivial a supper as ever Canonico ate. No 
 warning, no o/io santo, no viaticum, poor man! Candles he 
 had ; and it was as much as he had, poor sinner! And this 
 also happened in the month of August! Monsignore, in his 
 great liberality, laid no heavy stress on the coincidence ; but 
 merely said, 
 
 “Well, Pievano ! a mass or two can do him no harm ; let us 
 hope he stands in need of few more ; but when you happen to 
 have leisure, and nobody else to think about, prythee clap 
 a wet clout on the fire there below in behalf of Canonico 
 Malatesta.” 
 
 I have done it gratis, and I trust he finds the benefit of it. 
 In the same spirit and by the same authority I gird myself for 
 this greater enterprise. Unable to form a satisfactory opinion 
 on the manuscript, I must again refer to my superior. It is the 
 opinion then of Monsignore, that our five dialogues were written 
 down by neither of the interlocutors, but rather by some 
 intimate, who loved them equally. “For,” said Monsignore, 
 “it was the practice of Boccaccio to stand up among his 
 personages, and to take part himself in their discourses. 
 Petrarca, who was fonder of sheer dialogue and had much 
 practice in it, never acquired any dexterity in this species 
 of composition, it being all question and answer, short, 
 snappish, quibbling, and uncomfortable. I speak only of his 
 Remedies of Adversity and Prosperity, which indeed leave his 
 wisdom all its wholesomeness, but render it somewhat apt to 
 cleave to the roof of the mouth. The better parts of Homer 
 are in dialogue: and downward from him to Galileo the noblest 
 works of human genius have assumed this form: among the 
 rest I am sorry to find no few heretics and scoffers. At the 
 present day the fashion is over: every man pushes every other 
 man behind him, and will let none speak out but himself. 
 
 The Znterviews took place not within the walls of Certaldo, 
 although within the parish, at Boccaccio’s villa. It should be 
 notified to the curious, that about this ancient town, small, 
 deserted, dilapidated as it is, there are several towers and 
 turrets yet standing, one of which belongs to the mansion 
 inhabited in its day by Ser Giovanni. His tomb and effigy 
 are in the church. Nobody has opened the grave to throw 
 light upon his relics ; nobody has painted the marble; nobody 
 
XVIii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nas broken off a foot or a finger to do him honour ; not even an 
 English name is engraven on the face ; although the English 
 hold confessedly the highest rank in this department of 
 literature. In Italy, and particularly in Tuscany, the remains 
 of the illustrious are inviolable ; and, among the illustrious, 
 men of genius hold the highest rank. The arts are more 
 potent than curiosity, more authoritative than churchwardens : 
 what Englishman will believe it? Well! let it pass, courteous 
 strangers! ye shall find me in future less addicted to the 
 marvellous. At present I have only to lay before you an 
 ancient and (doubt it not) an authentic account of what passed 
 between my countrymen, Giovanni and Francesco, before they 
 parted for ever. It seemed probable, at this meeting, that 
 Giovanni would have been called away first ; for heavy and 
 of long continuance had been his infirmity : but he outlived it 
 three whole years. He could not outlive his friend so many 
 months, but followed him to the tomb before he had worn 
 the glossiness off the cloak Francesco in his will bequeathed 
 to him. 
 
 We struggle with Death while we have friends around to 
 cheer us ; the moment we miss them we lose all heart for the 
 contest. Pardon my reflection! I ought to have remembered 
 I am not in my stone pulpit, nor at home 
 
 PRETE DOMENICO GRIGI, 
 Lievano of San Vivaldo. 
 
 LONDON, October 1, 1836. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 
 

 
 . a eee 
 
 
 
 
 
THE PENTAMERON ; 
 
 oR, 
 
 INTERVIEWS OF MESSER GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO 
 AND MESSER FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 
 WHEN 
 SAID MESSER GIOVANNI LAY INFIRM AT HIS VILLETTA 
 HARD BY CERTALDO ; 
 AFTER WHICH THEY SAW NOT EACH OTHER ON OUR SIDE 
 OF PARADISE : 
 SHOWING HOW THEY DISCOURSED UPON THAT FAMOUS THEOLOGIAN 
 MESSER DANTE ALIGHIERI, 
 
 AND SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS. 
 
 EDITED BY PIEVANO D. GRIGI. 
 

 
THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 
 
 Boccaccio. Who is he that entered, and now steps so 
 silently and softly, yet with a foot so heavy it shakes my 
 curtains P 
 
 Frate Biagio! can it possibly be you? 
 
 No more physic for me, nor masses neither, at present. 
 
 Assunta! Assuntina! who is it ? 
 
 Assunta. I can not say, Signor Padrone! he puts his 
 finger in the dimple of his chin, and smiles to make me 
 hold my tongue. 
 
 Boccaccio. Fra Biagio! are you come from Samminiato 
 for this? You need not put your finger there. We want 
 no secrets. The girl knows her duty and does her busi- 
 ness. I have slept well, and wake better. 
 
 | Raising himself up a little. 
 
 Why? who are you? It makes my eyes ache to look 
 aslant over the sheets; and I can not get to sit quite 
 upright so conveniently ; and I must not have the window- 
 shutters opened, they tell me. 
 
 Petrarca. Dear Giovanni! have you then been very 
 unwell P 
 
 Boccaccio. O that sweet voice! and this fat friendly hand 
 of thine, Francesco ! 
 
 Thou hast distilled all the pleasantest flowers, and all the 
 wholesomest herbs of spring, into my breast already. 
 
 What showers we have had this April, ay! How could 
 you come along such roads? If the devil were my 
 labourer, I would make him work upon these of Certaldo. 
 He would have little time and little itch for mischief ere he 
 
 : 594 
 
2 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 had finished them, but would gladly fan himself with an 
 Agnus-castus, and go to sleep all through the carnival. 
 
 Petrarca. Let us cease to talk both of the labour and the 
 labourer. You have then been dangerously ill ? 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 do not know: they told me I was: and 
 truly a man might be unwell enough, who has twenty 
 masses said for him, and fain sigh when he thinks what he 
 has paid for them. As I hope to be saved, they cost me a 
 lira each. Assunta is a good market-girl in eggs, and 
 mutton, and cow-heel; but I would not allow her to argue 
 and haggle about the masses. Indeed she knows best 
 whether they were not fairly worth all that was asked for 
 them, although I could have bought a winter cloak for less 
 money. However, we do not want both at the same time. 
 I did not want the cloak: I wanted ¢hem, it seems. And 
 yet I begin to think God would have had mercy on me, if I 
 had begged it of him myself in my own house. What 
 think you P 
 
 Fetrarca. I think he might. 
 
 Boccaccio. Particularly if I offered him the sacrifice on 
 which I wrote to you. 
 
 Petrarca. That letter has brought me hither. 
 
 Boccaccio. You do then insist on my fulfilling my promise, 
 the moment I can leave my bed. I am ready and 
 willing. 
 
 fetrarca. Promise! none was made. You only told me 
 that, if it pleased God to restore you to your health again, 
 you are ready to acknowledge his mercy by the holocaust 
 of your Decameron. What proof have you that God would 
 exact itP If you could destroy the /nferno of Dante, 
 would you P 
 
 Boccaccio. Not I, upon my life! I would not promise to 
 
 . burn a copy of it on the condition of a recovery for twenty 
 years. 
 
 Fetrarca, You are the only author who would not rather 
 demolish another's work than his own; especially if he 
 thought it better: a thought which seldom goes beyond 
 suspicion, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 3 
 
 Boccaccio. J am not jealous of anyone: I think admira- 
 tion pleasanter. Moreover, Dante and I did not come 
 forward at the same time, nor take the same walks. His 
 flames are too fierce for you and me: we had trouble 
 enough with milder. I never felt any high gratification in 
 hearing of people being damned ; and much less would I 
 toss them into the fire myself. I might indeed have put a 
 nettle under the nose of the learned judge in Florence, 
 when he banished you and your family; but I hardly 
 think I could have voted for more than a scourging to the 
 foulest and fiercest of the party. 
 
 Fetrarca. Be as compassionate, be as amiably irresolute, 
 toward your own JVoved/e, which have injured no friend of 
 yours, and deserve more affection. 
 
 Boccaccio, Francesco! no character I ever knew, ever 
 heard of, or ever feigned, deserves the same affection as 
 you do; the tenderest lover, the truest friend, the firmest 
 patriot, and, rarest of glories! the poet who cherishes 
 another’s fame as dearly as his own. 
 
 Fetrarca. If aught of this is true, let it be recorded of me 
 that my exhortations and intreaties have been successful, 
 in preserving the works of the most imaginative and 
 creative genius that our Italy, or indeed our world, hath in 
 any age beheld. 
 
 Boccaccio. I would not destroy his poems, as I told you, 
 or think I told you. Even the worst of the Florentines, 
 who in general keep only one of God’s commandments, 
 keep it rigidly in regard to Dante— 
 
 Love them who curse you. 
 
 He called them all scoundrels, with somewhat less courtesy 
 than cordiality, and less afraid of censure for veracity than 
 adulation : he sent their fathers to hell, with no inclination 
 to separate the child and parent: and now they are hugging 
 him for it in his shroud! Would you ever have suspected 
 them of being such lovers of justice ? 
 
 You must have mistaken my meaning; the thought 
 never entered my head: the idea of destroying a single 
 
4 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 copy of Dante! And what effect would that produce? 
 ‘There must be fifty, or near it, in various parts of Italy. 
 
 Petrarca. 1 spoke of you. 
 
 Boccaccio. Of me! My poetry is vile; I have already 
 thrown into the fire all of it within my reach. 
 
 Petrarca, Poetry was not the question. We neither of 
 us are such poets as we thought ourselves when we were 
 younger, and as younger men think us still. I meant your 
 Decameron ; in which there is more character, more nature, 
 more invention, than either modern or ancient Italy, or 
 than Greece, from whom she derived her whole inheritance, 
 ever claimed or ever knew. Would you consume a beauti- 
 ful meadow because there are reptiles in it; or because a 
 few grubs hereafter may be generated by the succulence of « 
 the grass P 
 
 Boccaccio. You amaze me: you utterly confound me. 
 
 fetrarca. If you would eradicate twelve or thirteen of 
 the JVovel/e, and insert the same number of better, which 
 you could easily do within as many weeks, I should be 
 heartily glad to see it done. Little more than a tenth of 
 the Decameron is bad: less than a twentieth of the Divina 
 Commedia is good. 
 
 Boccaccio. So little ? 
 
 Fetrarca, Let me never seem irreverent to our master. 
 
 Boccaccio. Speak plainly and fearlessly, Francesco! Malice 
 and detraction are strangers to you. 
 
 Petrarca. Well then: at least sixteen parts in twenty of 
 the /nferno and Purgatorio are detestable, both in poetry 
 and principle: the higher parts are excellent indeed. 
 
 Boccaccio. I have been reading the Paradiso more recently. 
 Here it is, under the pillow. It brings me happier dreams 
 than the others, and takes no more time in bringing them. 
 Preparation for my lectures made me remember a great 
 deal of the poem. I did not request my auditors to 
 admire the beauty of the metrical version : 
 
 Osanna sanctus deus Sabbaoth, 
 
 Super-illustrans charitate tua 
 Felices ignes horum Malahoth, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 5 
 
 nor these, with a slip of Italian between two pales of 
 Latin : 
 Modicum,* et non videbitis me, 
 
 Et iterum, sorelle mie dilette, 
 Modicum, et vos videbitis me. 
 
 I dare not repeat all J recollect of 
 Pepe Setan, Pepe Setan, aleppe, 
 
 as there is no holy-water-sprinkler in the room: and you 
 are aware that other dangers awaited me, had I been so 
 imprudent as to show the Florentines the allusion of our 
 poet. His gergo is perpetually in play, and sometimes 
 plays very roughly. 
 
 Petrarca. We will talk again of him presently. 1 must 
 now rejoice with you over the recovery and safety of your 
 prodigal son, the Decameron. 
 
 Boccaccio. So then, you would preserve at any rate my 
 favourite volume from the threatened conflagration. 
 
 Petrarca. Had I lived at the time of Dante, I would 
 have given him the same advice in the same circumstances. 
 Yet how different is the tendency of the two productions ! 
 Yours is somewhat too licentious; and young men, in 
 whose nature, or rather in whose education and habits, 
 there is usually this failing, will read you with more 
 pleasure than is commendable or innocent. Yet the very 
 time they occupy with you, would perhaps be spent in the 
 midst of those excesses or irregularities, to which the 
 moralist, in his utmost severity, will argue that your pen 
 directs them. Now there are many who are fond of 
 standing on the brink of precipices, and who nevertheless 
 are as cautious as any of falling in. And there are minds 
 desirous of being warmed by description, which without 
 
 * Tt may puzzle an Englishman to read the lines beginning with 
 Modicum, so as to give the metre. The secret is, to draw out eé 
 into a dissyllable, et-te, as the Italians do, who pronounce Latin verse, 
 if possible, worse than we, adding a syllable to such as end with a 
 consonant. 
 
6 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 this warmth, might seek excitement among the things 
 described. 
 
 I would not tell you in health what I tell you in con- 
 valescence, nor urge you to compose what I dissuade you 
 from cancelling. After this avowal, I do declare to you, 
 Giovanni, that in my opinion, the very idlest of your tales 
 will do the world as much good as evil ; not reckoning the 
 pleasure of reading, nor the exercise and recreation of the 
 mind, which in themselves are good. What I reprove you 
 for, is the indecorous and uncleanly; and these, I trust, 
 you will abolish. Even these, however, may repel from 
 vice the ingenuous and graceful spirit, and can never lead 
 any such toward them. Never have you taken an inhuman 
 pleasure in blunting and fusing the affections at the 
 furnace of the passions; never, in hardening by sour 
 sagacity and ungenial strictures, that delicacy which is more 
 productive of innocence and happiness, more estranged 
 from every track and tendency of their opposites, than what 
 in cold, crude systems hath holden the place and dignity 
 of the highest virtue. May you live, O my friend, in the 
 enjoyment of health, to substitute the facetious for the 
 licentious, the simple for the extravagant, the true and 
 characteristic for the indefinite and diffuse. 
 
 Boccaccio, I dare not defend myself under the bad 
 example of any: and the bad example of a great man 
 is the worst defence of all. Since, however, you have 
 mentioned Messer Dante Alighieri, to whose genius I 
 never thought of approaching, I may perhaps have been 
 formerly the less cautious of offending by my levity, after 
 seeing him display as much or more of it in hell itself. 
 
 Fetrarca. The best apology for Dante, in his poetical 
 character, is presented by the indulgence of criticism, in 
 considering the Jxferno and Purgatorio as a string of 
 Satives, part in narrative and part in action ; which renders 
 the title of Commedia more applicable. The filthiness of 
 some passages would disgrace the drunkenest horse-dealer ; 
 and the names of such criminals are recorded by the poet 
 as would be forgotten by the hangman in six months. I 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 7 
 
 wish I could expatiate rather on his injudiciousness than on 
 his ferocity, in devising punishments for various crimes ; or 
 rather, than on his malignity in composing catalogues of 
 criminals to inflict them on. Among the rest we find a 
 gang of coiners. He calls by name all the rogues and 
 vagabonds of every city in Tuscany, and curses every city 
 for not sending him more of them. You would fancy that 
 Pisa might have contented him; no such thing. He hoots, 
 
 ‘** Ah Pisa! scandal to the people in whose fine country 
 si means yes, why are thy neighbours slack to punish thee ? 
 May Capraia and Gorgona stop up the mouth of the Arno, 
 and drown every soul within thee!” 
 
 Boccaccio. None but a prophet is privileged to swear and 
 curse at this rate, and several of those got broken heads 
 for it. 
 
 Petrarca. It did not happen to Dante, though he once 
 was very near it, in the expedition of the exiles to recover 
 the city. Scarcely had he taken breath after this impreca- 
 tion against the Pisans, than he asks the Genoese why such 
 a parcel of knaves as themselves were not scattered over 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 Boccaccio. Here he is equitable. I wonder he did not 
 incline to one or other of these rival republics. 
 
 Fetrarca. In fact, the Genoese fare a trifle better under 
 him than his neighbours the Pisans do. 
 
 Boccaccio. Because they have no Gorgona and Capraia to 
 block them up. He can not do all he wishes, but he does 
 all he can, considering the means at his disposal. In like 
 manner Messer Gregorio Peruzzi, when he was tormented 
 by the quarrels and conflicts of Messer Gino Ubaldini’s 
 trufle-dog at the next door, and Messer Guidone Fantecchi’s 
 shop-dog, whose title and quality are in abeyance, swore 
 bitterly, and called the Virgin and St. Catherine to witness 
 that he would cut off their tails if ever he caughtthem. His 
 cook, Niccolo Buonaccorsi, hoping to gratify his master, set 
 baits for them, and captured them both inthe kitchen. But 
 unwilling to cast hands prematurely on the delinquents, he, 
 after rating them for their animosities and their ravages, 
 
8 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 bethought himself in what manner he might best conduct 
 his enterprise to a successful issue. He was the rather 
 inclined to due deliberation in these counsels, as they, 
 laying aside their private causes of contention in front of 
 their common enemy, and turning the principal stream of 
 their ill-blood into another channel, agreed in demonstrations 
 which augured no little indocility. Messer Gregorio hath 
 many servants, and moreover all the conveniences which 
 so plenteous a house requires. Among the rest is a long 
 hempen cloth suspended by a roller. Niccolo, in the most 
 favourable juncture, was minded to slip this hempen cloth 
 over the two culprits, whose consciences had made them 
 slink toward the door against which it was fastened. The 
 smell of it was not unsatisfactory to them, and an influx of 
 courage had nearly borne away the worst suspicions. At 
 this instant, while shrewd inquisitiveness and incipient 
 hunger were regaining the ascendancy, Niccolo Buonac- 
 corsi, with all the sagacity and courage, all the prompitude 
 and timeliness of his profession, covered both conspirators 
 in the inextricable folds of the fatal winding-sheet, from 
 which their heads alone emerged. Struggles, and barkings, 
 and exhibitions of teeth, and plunges forward, were equally 
 ineffectual. He continued to twist it about them, until the 
 notes of resentment partook of remonstance and pain: but 
 he told them plainly he would never remit a jot, unless they 
 became more domesticated and reasonable. In this state 
 of exhaustion and contrition he brought them into the 
 presence of Ser Gregorio, who immediately turned round 
 toward the wall, crossed himself, and whispered an ave. 
 At ease and happy as he was at the accomplishment of a 
 desire so long cherished, no sooner had he expressed his 
 piety at so gracious a dispensation, than, reverting to the 
 captor and the captured, he was seized with unspeakable 
 consternation. He discovered at once that he had made as 
 rash a vow as Jeptha’s. Alas! one of the children of captivity, 
 the trufle-dog, had no tail! Fortunately for Messer Gregorio, 
 he found a friend among the White Friars, Frate Geppone 
 Pallorco, who told him that when we cannot do a thing 
 
 i 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 9 
 
 promised by vow, whether we fail by moral inability or by 
 physical, we must do the thing nearest it ; “‘ which,” said Fra 
 Geppone, ‘“‘ hath always been my practice. And now,” added 
 this cool, considerate white friar, “‘a dog may have no 
 _tail, and yet be a dog to all intents and purposes, and 
 enable a good Christian to perform anything reasonable he 
 promised in his behalf. Whereupon I would advise you, 
 Messer Gregorio, out of the loving zeal I bear toward the 
 whole family of the Peruzzi, to amerce him of that which, if 
 not tail, is next to tail. Such function, I doubt not, will 
 satisfactorily show the blessed Virgin, and Saint Catherine, 
 your readiness and solicitude to perform the vow solemnly 
 made before those two adorable ladies, your protectresses 
 and witnesses.” Ser Gregorio bent his knee at first hearing 
 their names, again at the mention of them in this relation- 
 ship toward him, called for the kitchen knife, and, in 
 absolving his promise, had lighter things to deal with than 
 Gorgona and Capraia. 
 
 fetrarca. Giovanni! this will do instead of one among 
 the worst of the hundred: but with little expenditure of 
 labour you may afford us a better. 
 . Our great fellow-citizen, if indeed we may denominate 
 him a citizen who would have left no city standing in Italy, 
 and less willingly his native one, places in the mouth of the 
 devil, together with Judas Iscariot, the defenders of their 
 country, and the best men in it, Brutus and Cassius. 
 Certainly his feeling of patriotism was different from theirs. 
 
 I should be sorry to imagine that it subjected him to any 
 harder mouth or worse company than his own, although in 
 a spirit so contrary to that of the two Romans, he 
 threatened us Florentines with the sword of Germans, The 
 two Romans, now in the mouth of the devil, chose rather to 
 lose their lives than to see their country, not under the 
 government of invaders, but of magistrates from their own 
 city placed irregularly over them; and the laws, not 
 subverted, but administered unconstitutionally. That 
 Frenchmen and Austrians should argue and think in this 
 manner, is no wonder, no inconsistency : that a Florentine, 
 
10 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 the wisest and greatest of Florentines, should have done it, 
 is portentous. 
 
 How merciful is the Almighty, O Giovanni! What an 
 argument is here! how much stronger and more convincing 
 than philosophers could devise or than poets could utter, 
 unless from inspiration, against the placing of power in the 
 hands of one man only, when the highest genius at that 
 time in the world, or perhaps at any time, betrays a 
 disposition to employ it with such a licentiousness of 
 inhumanity. 
 
 Boccaccio. He treats Nero with greater civility: yet 
 Brutus and Cassius, at worst, but slew an atheist, while the 
 other rogue flamed forth like the pestilential dog-star, and 
 burnt up the first crop of Christians to light the ruins of 
 Rome. And the artist of these ruins thought no more of 
 his operation than a scene-painter would have done at the 
 theatre. 
 
 Fetrarca. Historians have related that Rome was con- 
 sumed by Nero for the purpose of suppressing the rising 
 sect, by laying all the blame on it. Do you think he cared 
 what sect fell or what sect rose? Was he a zealot in 
 religion of any kind? Iam sorry to see a lying spirit the 
 most prevalent one, in some among the earliest and firmest 
 holders of that religion which is founded on truth and 
 singleness of intention. There are pious men who believe 
 they are rendering a service to God by bearing false witness 
 in his favour, and who call on the father of lies to hold up 
 his light before the Sun of Righteousness. 
 
 We may mistake the exact day when the conflagration 
 began: certain it is, however, that it was in summer :* and 
 it is presumable that the commencement of the persecution 
 was in winter, since Juvenal represents the persecuted as 
 serving for lamps in the streets. Now, as the Romans did 
 not frequent the theatres, nor other places of public enter- 
 tainment, by night, such conveniences were uncalled for in 
 
 * Des Vignolles has calculated that the conflagration began on the 
 19th of July, in the year 64, and the persecution on the 15th of 
 November. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. tr 
 
 summer, a season when the people retired to rest betimes, 
 from the same motive as at present, the insalubrity of the 
 evening air in the hot weather. Nero must have been very 
 forbearing if he waited those many months before he 
 punished a gang of incendiaries. Such clemency is 
 unexampled in milder princes. 
 
 Boccaccio, But the Christians were not incendiaries, and 
 he knew they were not. 
 
 fetrarca. It may be apprehended that, among the many 
 virtuous of the new believers, a few seditious were also to 
 be found, forming separate and secret associations, choosing 
 generals or superiors to whom they swore implicit obedience, 
 and under whose guidance or impulse they were ready to 
 resist, and occasionally to attack, the magistrates, and even 
 the prince ; men aspiring to rule the state by carrying the 
 sword of assassination under the garb of holiness. Such 
 persons are equally odious to the unenlightened and the 
 enlightened, to the arbitrary and the free. In the regular 
 course of justice, their crimes would have been resisted by 
 almost as much severity, as they appear to have undergone 
 from despotic power and popular indignation. 
 
 Boccaccio. We will talk no longer about these people. 
 But since the devil has really and dond fide Brutus and 
 Cassius in his mouth, I would advise him to make the most 
 of them, for he will never find two more such morsels on 
 the same platter. Kings, emperors, and popes, would be 
 happy to partake with him of so delicate and choice a 
 repast : but I hope he has fitter fare for them. 
 
 Messer Dante Alighieri does not indeed make the most 
 gentle use of the company he has about him in hell and 
 purgatory. Since, however, he hath such a selection of 
 them, I wish he could have been contented, and could 
 have left our fair Florentines to their own fancies in their 
 dressing-rooms. 
 
 “The time,” he cries, “is not far distant, when there will 
 be an indictment on parchment, forbidding the impudent 
 young Florentines to show their breasts and nipples.” 
 
 Now, Francesco, I have been subject all my life to a 
 
12 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 strange distemper in the eyes, which no oculist can cure, 
 and which, while it allows me to peruse the smallest 
 character in the very worst female hand, would never let me 
 read an indictment on parchment where female names are 
 implicated, although the letters were a finger in length. I 
 do believe the same distemper was very prevalent in the 
 time of Messer Dante; and those Florentine maids and 
 matrons who were not afflicted by it, were too modest to 
 look at letters and signatures stuck against the walls. 
 
 He goes on, “ Was there ever girl among the Moors or 
 Saracens, on whom it was requisite to inflict spiritual or 
 other discipline to make her go covered ?” 
 
 Some of the o/her discipline, which the spiritual guides 
 were, and are still, in the habit of administering, have 
 exactly the contrary effect to make them go covered, 
 whatsoever may be urged by the confessor. 
 
 “If the shameless creatures,” he continues, ‘f were aware 
 of the speedy chastisement which Heaven is preparing for 
 them, they would at this instant have their mouths wide 
 open to roar withal.” 
 
 Petrarca. This is not very exquisite satire, nor much 
 better manners. 
 
 Boccaccio, Whenever I saw a pretty Florentine in such a 
 condition, I lowered my eyes. 
 
 Petrarca. 1 am glad to hear it. 
 
 Boccaccio. Those whom I could venture to cover, I 
 covered with all my heart. 
 
 fetrarca. Humanely done. You might likewise have 
 added some gentle admonition. 
 
 Boccaccio. They would have taken anything at my hands 
 rather than that. Truly they thought themselves as wise 
 as they thought me: and who knows but they were, at 
 bottom ? 
 
 fetrarca. I believe it may, in general, be best to leave 
 them as we find them. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 would not say that, neither. Much may be 
 in vain, but something sticks. 
 
 Petrarca. They are more amused than settled by anything 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 13 
 
 we can advance against them, and are apt to make light 
 of the gravest. It is only the hour of reflection that is at 
 last the hour of sedateness and improvement. 
 
 Boccaccio. Where is the bell that strikes it ? 
 
 FPetrarca. Fie! fie! Giovanni! This is worse than the 
 indictment on parchment. 
 
 Boccaccio. Women like us none the less for joking with 
 them about their foibles. In fact, they take it ill when we 
 cease to do so, unless it is age that compels us. We may 
 give our courser the rein to any extent, while he runs in the 
 common field and does not paw against privacy, nor open 
 his nostrils on individuality. I mean the individuality of 
 the person we converse with, for another’s is pure zest. 
 
 fetrarca. Surely you cannot draw this hideous picture 
 from your own observation : has any graver man noted it P 
 
 Boccaccio. Who would believe your graver men upon 
 such matters? Gout and gravel, bile and sciatica, are the 
 upholsterers that stuff their moral sentences. Crooked and 
 cramp are truths written with chalkstones. When people 
 like me talk as I have been talking, they may be credited. 
 We have no ill-will, no ill-humour, to gratify ; and vanity 
 has no trial here at issue. He was certainly born on an 
 unlucky day for his friends, who never uttered any truths 
 but unquestionable ones. Give me food that exercises my 
 teeth and tongue, and ideas that exercise my imagination 
 and discernment. 
 
 Petrarca. When you are at leisure, and in perfect health, 
 weed out carefully the few places of your Decameron which 
 are deficient in these qualities. 
 
 Boccaccio, God willing ; I wish I had undertaken it when 
 my heart was lighter. Is there anything else you can 
 suggest for its improvement, in particular or in general ? 
 
 Petrarca. Already we have mentioned the inconsiderate 
 and indecorous. In what you may substitute hereafter, I 
 would say to you, as I have said to myself, do not be on all 
 occasions too ceremonious in the structure of your sentences. 
 
 Boccaccio. You would surely wish me to be round and 
 polished. Why do you smile? 
 
14 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Ffetrarca. I am afraid these qualities are often of as little 
 advantage in composition as they are corporeally. When 
 action and strength are chiefly the requisites, we may 
 perhaps be better with little of them. The modulations of 
 voice and language are infinite. Cicero has practised many 
 of them ; but Cicero has his favourite swells, his favourite 
 flourishes and cadences. Our Italian language is in the 
 enjoyment of an ampler scope and compass ; and we are 
 liberated from the horrible sounds of us, am, um, ant, 
 int, unt, so predominant in the finals of Latin nouns and 
 verbs. We may be told that they give strength to the 
 dialect : we might as well be told that bristles give strength 
 to the boar. In our Italian we possess the privilege of 
 striking off the final vowel from the greater part of 
 masculine nouns, and from the greater part of tenses in 
 the verbs, when we believe they impede our activity and 
 vigour. 
 
 Boccaccio. We are as wealthy in words as is good for us; 
 and she who gave us these, would give us more if needful. 
 In another age it is probable that curtailments will rather 
 be made than additions ; for it was so with the Latin and 
 Greek. Barbaric luxury sinks down into civic neatness, 
 and chaster ornaments fill rooms of smaller dimensions, 
 
 Petrarca. Cicero came into possession of the stores 
 collected by Plautus, which he always held very justly in 
 the highest estimation; and Sallust is reported to have 
 misapplied a part of them. At his death they were 
 scattered and lost. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 am wiser than I was when I studied the 
 noble orator, and wiser by his means chiefly. In return for 
 his benefits, if we could speak on equal terms together, the 
 novelist with the philosopher, the citizen of Certaldo with 
 the Roman consul, I would fain whisper in his ear, 
 ‘Escape from rhetoric by all manner of means: and if you 
 must cleave (as indeed you must) to that old shrew, Logic, 
 be no fonder of exhibiting her than you would be of a plain, 
 economical wife. Let her be always busy, never intrusive ; 
 and readier to keep the chambers clean and orderly 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 15 
 
 than to expatiate on their proportions or to display their 
 furniture.” 
 
 Petrarca. The citizen of Certaldo is fifty-fold more richly 
 endowed with genius than the Roman consul, and might 
 properly 
 
 Boccaccio. Stay! stay! Francesco! or they will shave 
 all the rest of thy crown for thee, and physic thee worse 
 than me. 
 
 Petrarca. Middling men, favoured in their lifetime by 
 circumstances, often appear of higher stature than belongs 
 to them ; great men always of lower. Time, the sovran, 
 invests with befitting raiment and distinguishes with proper 
 ensigns the familiars he has received into his eternal 
 habitations: in these alone are they deposited: you must 
 wait for them. 
 
 No advice is less necessary to you, than the advice to 
 express your meaning as clearly as you can. Where the 
 purpose of glass is to be seen through, we do not want it 
 tinted nor wavy. In certain kinds of poetry the case may 
 be slightly different ; such, for instance, as are intended to 
 display the powers of association and combination in the 
 writer, and to invite and exercise the compass and com- 
 prehension of the intelligent. Pindar and the Attic 
 tragedians wrote in this manner, and rendered the minds of 
 their audience more alert and ready and capacious. They 
 found some fit for them, and made others. Great painters 
 have always the same task to perform. What is excellent 
 in their art can not be thought excellent by many, even of 
 those who reason well on ordinary matters, and see clearly 
 beauties elsewhere. All correct perceptions are the effect 
 of careful practice. We little doubt that a mirror would 
 direct us in the most familiar of our features, and that our 
 hand would follow its guidance, until we try to cut a lock of 
 our hair. We have no such criterion to demonstrate our 
 liability to error in judging of poetry ; a quality so rare that 
 perhaps no five contemporaries ever were masters of it. 
 
 Boccaccio. We admire by tradition; we censure by 
 caprice; and there is nothing in which we are more 
 
 
 
16 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 ingenious and inventive. _ A wrong step in politics sprains a 
 foot in poetry ; eloquence is never so unwelcome as when 
 it issues from a familiar voice ; and praise hath no echo but 
 from a certain distance. Our critics, who know little about 
 them, would gaze with wonder at anything similar, in our 
 days, to Pindar and Sophocles, and would cast it aside, as 
 quite impracticable. ‘They are in the right : for sonnet and 
 canzonet charm greater numbers. There are others, or may 
 be hereafter, to whom far other things will afford far higher 
 gratification, 
 
 fetrarca. But our business at present is with prose and 
 Cicero ; and our question now is, what is Ciceronian? He 
 changed his style according to his matter and his hearers. 
 His speeches to the people vary from his speeches to the 
 senate. ‘Toward the one he was impetuous and exacting ; 
 toward the other he was usually but earnest and anxious, 
 and sometimes but submissive and imploring, yet equally 
 unwilling, on both occasions, to conceal the labour he had 
 taken to captivate their attention and obtain success. At 
 the tribunal of Caesar, the dictator, he laid aside his costly 
 armour, contracted the folds of his capacious robe, and 
 became calm, insinuating, and adulative, showing his spirit 
 not utterly extinguished, his dignity not utterly fallen, his 
 consular year not utterly abolished from his memory, but 
 Rome, and even himself, lowered in the presence of his 
 judge. ; 
 
 Loccaccio. And after all this, can you bear to think what 
 Tam? 
 
 Petrarca. Complacently and joyfully ; venturing, never- 
 theless, to offer you a friend’s advice. 
 
 Enter into the mind and heart of your own creatures : 
 think of them long, entirely, solely : never of style, never of 
 self, never of critics, cracked or sound. Like the miles of an 
 open country, and of an ignorant population, when they are 
 correctly measured they become smaller. In_ the loftiest 
 rooms and richest entablatures are suspended the most 
 spider-webs; and the quarry out of which palaces are 
 erected is the nursery of nettle and bramble. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 17 
 
 Boccaccio. It is better to keep always in view such writers 
 as Cicero, than to run after those idlers who throw stones 
 that can never reach us. 
 
 fetrarca. If you copied him to perfection, and on no 
 occasion lost sight of him, you would be an indifferent, not 
 to say a bad writer. 
 
 Bocaccio. 1 begin to think you are in the right. Well 
 then, retrenching some of my licentious tales, I must 
 endeavour to fill up the vacancy with some serious and 
 some pathetic. 
 
 fetrarca, | am heartily glad to hear of this decision ; for, 
 admirable as you are in the jocose, you descend from your 
 natural position when you come to the convivial and the 
 festive. You were placed among the Affections, to move 
 and master them, and gifted with the rod that sweetens the 
 fount of tears. My nature leads me also to the pathetic ; 
 in which, however, an imbecile writer may obtain celebrity. 
 Even the hard-hearted are fond of such reading, when they 
 are fond of any ; and nothing is easier in the world than to 
 find and accumulate its sufferings. Yet this very profusion 
 and luxuriance of misery is the reason why few have 
 excelled in describing it. ‘The eye wanders over the mass 
 without noticing the peculiarities. ‘To mark them distinctly 
 is the work of genius ; a work so rarely performed, that, if 
 time and space may be compared, specimens of it stand at 
 wider distances than the trophies of Sesostris. Here we 
 return again to the J/z/ferno of Dante, who overcame the 
 difficulty. In this vast desert are its greater and its less 
 oasis; Ugolino and Francesca di Rimini. The peopled 
 region is peopled chiefly with monsters and moschitoes : 
 the rest for the most part is sand and suffocation. 
 
 Boccaccio. Ah! had Dante remained through life the 
 pure solitary lover of Bice, his soul had been gentler, 
 tranquiller, and more generous. He scarcely hath described 
 half the curses he went through, nor the roads he took on 
 the journey: theology, politics, and that barbican of the 
 Inferno, marriage, surrounded with its 
 
 Selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte. 
 595 
 
18 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Admirable is indeed the description of Ugolino, to whoever 
 can endure the sight of an old soldier gnawing at the scalp 
 of an old archbishop. 
 
 fetrarca. ‘The thirty lines from 
 
 Ed io sent}, 
 
 are unequalled by any other continuous thirty in the whole 
 dominions of poetry. 
 
 Boccaccio. Give me rather the six on Francesca: for if in 
 the former I find the simple, vigorous, clear narration, I 
 find also what I would not wish, the features of Ugolino 
 reflected full in Dante. ‘The two characters are similar in 
 themselves ; hard, cruel, inflexible, malignant, but, when- 
 ever moved, moved powerfully. In Francesca, with the 
 faculty of divine spirits, he leaves his own nature (not 
 indeed the exact representative of theirs) and converts all 
 his strength into tenderness. ‘The great poet, like the 
 original man of the Platonists, is double, possessing the 
 further advantage of being able to drop one half at his 
 option, and to resume it. Some of the tenderest on paper 
 have no sympathies beyond ; and some of the austerest in 
 their intercourse with their fellow-creatures, have deluged 
 the world with tears. It is not from the rose that the bee 
 gathers her honey, but often from the most acrid and the 
 most bitter leaves and petals. 
 
 Quando legemmo il disiato viso 
 
 Esser baciato di cotanto amante, 
 Questi, chi mai da me non sia diviso ! 
 
 La bocca mi bacid tutto tremante. . . 
 Galeotto {til libro, e chilo scrisse . . . 
 
 Quel giorno piu non sia vi legemmo avante. 
 
 In the midst of her punishment, Francesca, when she 
 comes to the tenderest part of her story, tells it with com- 
 placency and delight ; and, instead of naming Paolo, which 
 indeed she never has done from the beginning, she now 
 designates him as 
 
 Questi chi mai da me non sia diviso ! 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 19 
 
 Are we not impelled to join in her prayer, wishing them 
 happier in their union ? 
 
 fetrarca, If there be no sin in it. 
 
 Boccaccio. Ay, and even if there be . . . God help us! 
 
 What a sweet aspiration in each cesura of the verse! 
 three love-sighs fixed and incorporate! Then, when she 
 hath said 
 
 La bocca mi bacio, tutto tremante, 
 
 she stops: she would avert the eyes of Dante from her: he 
 looks for the sequel: she thinks he looks severely: she says, 
 
 “* Galeotto is the name of the book,” 
 fancying by this timorous little flight she has drawn him far 
 enough from the nest of her young loves. No, the eagle 
 beak of Dante and his piercing eyes are yet over her. 
 
 “ Galeotto is the name of the book.” 
 
 “What matters that?” 
 
 ** And of the writer.” 
 
 “Or that either ?” 
 
 At last she disarms him: but how? 
 
 “‘ That day we read no more.” 
 
 Such a depth of intuitive judgment, such a delicacy of 
 perception, exists not in any other work of human genius ; 
 and from an author who, on almost all occasions, in this 
 part of the work, betrays a deplorable want of it. 
 
 Fetrarca. Perfection of poetry! The greater is my 
 wonder at discovering nothing else of the same order or cast 
 in this whole section of the poem. He who fainted at the 
 recital of Francesca, 
 
 And he who fell as a dead body falls, 
 
 would exterminate all the inhabitants of every town in 
 Italy! What execrations against Florence, Pistoia, Siena, 
 Pisa, Genoa! what hatred against the whole human race! 
 what exultation and merriment at eternal and immiti- 
 gable sufferings! Seeing this, I can not but consider the 
 Inferno as the most immoral and impious book that ever 
 was written. Yet, hopeless that our country shall ever see 
 
20 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 again such poetry, and certain that without it our future 
 poets would be more feebly urged forward to excellence, I 
 would have dissuaded Dante from cancelling it, if this had 
 been his intention. Much however as I admire his vigour 
 and severity of style in the description of Ugolino, I 
 acknowledge with you that I do not discover so much 
 imagination, so much creative power, as in the Francesca. 
 I find indeed a minute detail of probable events: but this 
 is not all I want in a poet: it is not even all I want most 
 in a scene of horror. ‘Tribunals of justice, dens of mur- 
 derers, wards of hospitals, schools of anatomy, will afford 
 us nearly the same sensations, if we hear them from an 
 accurate observer, a clear reporter, a skilful surgeon, or an 
 attentive nurse. There is nothing of sublimity in the 
 horrific of Dante, which there always is in Atschylus and 
 Homer. If you, Giovanni, had described so nakedly the 
 reception of Guiscardo’s heart by Gismonda, or Lorenzo’s 
 head by Lisabetta, we could hardly have endured it. 
 
 Boccaccio. Prythee, dear Francesco, do not place me over 
 Dante: I stagger at the idea of approaching him. 
 
 Lfetrarca. Never think I am placing you blindly or indis- 
 criminately. I have faults to find with you, and even here. 
 Lisabetta should by no means have been represented 
 cutting off the head of her lover, “as well as she could” 
 with a clasp-knife. Thisis shocking and improbable. She 
 might have found it already cut off by her brothers, in order 
 to bury the corpse more commodiously and expeditiously. 
 Nor indeed is it likely that she should have intrusted it to 
 her waiting-maid, who carried home in her bosom a treasure 
 so dear to her, and found so unexpectedly and so lately. 
 
 Boccaccio. That is true: I will correct the oversight. 
 Why do we never hear of our faults until everybody knows 
 them, and until they stand in record against us? 
 
 Petrarca. Because our ears are closed to truth and 
 friendship for some time after the triumphal course of com- 
 position. We are too sensitive for the gentlest touch; and 
 when we really have the most infirmity, we are angry to be 
 told that we have any. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 21 
 
 Boccaccio. Ah Francesco! thou art poet from scalp to 
 heel: but what other would open his breast as thou hast 
 done! They show ostentatiously far worse weaknesses ; but 
 the most honest of the tribe would forswear himself on this. 
 Again, I acknowledge it, you have reason to complain of 
 Lisabetta and Gismonda. 
 
 Petrarca. They keep the soul from sinking in such 
 dreadful circumstances by the buoyancy of imagination. 
 The sunshine of poetry makes the colour of blood less 
 horrible, and draws up a shadowy and a softening haziness 
 where the scene would otherwise be too distinct. Poems, 
 like rivers, convey to their destination what must without 
 their appliances be left unhandled: these to ports and 
 arsenals, this to the human heart. 
 
 Boccaccio. So it is; and what is terror in poetry is horror 
 in prose. We may be brought too close to an object to 
 leave any room for pleasure. Ugolino affects us like a 
 skeleton, by dry bony verity. 
 
 Petrarca. We can not be too distinct in our images; but 
 although distinctness, on this and most other occasions, is 
 desirable in the imitative arts, yet sometimes in painting, 
 and sometimes in poetry, an object should not be quite 
 precise. In your novel of Andrevola and Gabriotto, you 
 afford me an illustration. 
 
 Le pareva dal corpo di lui uscire una 
 cosa oscura e terribile. 
 
 This is like a dream: this zs a dream. Afterward, you 
 present to us such palpable forms and pleasing colours as 
 may relieve and soothe us. 
 
 Ed avendo molte rose, bianche e vermi- 
 glie, colte, perciocche la stagione era. 
 
 Boccaccio. Surely you now are mocking me. The roses, 
 I perceive, would not have been there, had it not been the 
 season. ; 
 
 FPetrarca. A poet often does more and better than he is 
 
22 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 aware at the time, and seems at last to know as little about 
 it as a silkworm knows about the fineness of her thread. 
 
 The uncertain dream that still hangs over us in the 
 novel, is intercepted and hindered from hurting us by the 
 spell of the roses, of the white and the red; a word the less 
 would have rendered it incomplete. The very warmth and 
 geniality of the season shed their kindly influence on us; 
 and we are renovated and ourselves again by virtue of the 
 clear fountain where we rest. Nothing of this poetical 
 providence comes to our relief in Dante, though we want it 
 oftener. It would be difficult to form an idea of a poem, 
 into which so many personages are introduced, containing 
 so few delineations of character, so few touches that excite 
 our sympathy, so few elementary signs for our instruction, 
 so few topics for our delight, so few excursions for our 
 recreation. Nevertheless, his powers of language are pro- 
 digious; and, in the solitary places where he exerts his 
 force rightly, the stroke is irresistible. But how greatly to 
 be pitied must he be, who can find nothing in paradise 
 better than sterile theology! and what an object of sadness 
 and of consternation, he who rises up from hell like a giant 
 refreshed ! 
 
 Boccaccio. Strange perversion! A pillar of smoke by day 
 and of fire by night; to guide no one. Paradise had fewer 
 wants for him to satisfy than hell had; all which he fed to 
 repletion. But let us rather look to his poetry than his 
 temper. 
 
 fetrarca. We will then. 
 
 A good poem is not divided into little panes like a 
 cathedral window; which little panes themselves are broken 
 and blurred, with a saint’s coat on a dragon’s tail, a doctor’s 
 head on the bosom of a virgin martyr, and having about 
 them more lead than glass, and more gloom than colouring. 
 A good satire or good comedy, if it does not always smile, 
 rarely and briefly intermits it, and never rages. A good 
 epic shows us more and more distinctly, at every book of it 
 we open, the features and properties of heroic character, 
 and terminates with accomplishing some momentous action. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. Ag 
 
 A good tragedy shows us that greater men than ourselves 
 have suffered more severely and more unjustly; that the 
 highest human power hath suddenly fallen helpless and 
 extinct ; or, what is better to contemplate and usefuller to 
 know, that uncontrolled by law, unaccompanied by virtue, 
 unfollowed by contentment, its possession is undesirable 
 and unsafe. Sometimes we go away in triumph with 
 Affliction proved and purified, and leave her under the 
 smiles of heaven. In all these consummations the object is 
 excellent ; and here is the highest point to which poetry can 
 attain. ‘Tragedy has no bye-paths, no resting-places ; there 
 is everywhere action and passion. What do we find of this 
 nature, or what of the epic, in the Orpheus and Judith, 
 the Charon and Can della Scala, the Sinon and Maestro 
 Adamo ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Personages strangely confounded! In this : 
 category it required a strong hand to make Pluto and Pepe 
 Satan keep the peace, both having the same pretensions, 
 and neither the sweetest temper. 
 
 Fetrarca. Then the description of Mahomet is indecent 
 and filthy. Yet Dante is scarcely more disgusting in this 
 place, than he is insipid and spiritless in his allegory of the 
 marriages, between Saint Francesco and Poverty, Saint 
 Dominico and Faith. I speak freely and plainly to you, 
 Giovanni, and the rather, as you have informed me that I 
 have been thought invidious to the reputation of our great 
 poet; for such he is transcendently, in the midst of his 
 imperfections. Such likewise were Ennius and Lucilius in 
 the same period of Roman literature. They were equalled, 
 and perhaps excelled: will Dante ever be, in his native 
 tongue? The past generations of his countrymen, the 
 glories of old Rome, fade before him the instant he springs 
 upward, but they impart a more constant and a more genial 
 delight. 
 
 Boccaccio. They have less hair-cloth about them, and 
 smell less cloisterly ; yet they are only choristers. 
 
 The generous man, such as you, praises and censures 
 with equal freedom, not with equal pleasure: the freedom 
 
24. THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 and the pleasure of the ungenerous are both contracted, and 
 lie only on the left hand. 
 
 Petrarca. When we point out to our friends an object in 
 the country, do we wish to diminish it? do we wish to show 
 it overcast? Why then should we in those nobler works of 
 creation, God’s only representatives, who have cleared our 
 intellectual sight for us, and have displayed before us things 
 more magnificent than Nature would without them have 
 revealed ? 
 
 We poets are heated by proximity. ‘Those who are gone 
 warm us by the breath they leave behind them in their 
 course, and oz/y warm us: those who are standing near, and 
 just before, fever us. Solitude has kept me uninfected ; 
 unless you may hint perhaps that pride was my preservative 
 against the malignity of a worse disease. 
 
 Boccaccio. It might well be, though it were not; you 
 having been crowned in the capital of the Christian world. 
 
 Fetrarca. That indeed would have been something, if I 
 had been crowned for my Christianity, of which I suspect 
 there are better judges in Rome than there are of poetry. 
 I would rather be preferred to my rivals by the two best 
 critics of the age than by all the others ; who, if they think 
 differently from the two wisest in these matters, must 
 necessarily think wrong. ; 
 
 Boccaccio. You know that not only the two first, but 
 many more, prefer you; and that neither they, nor any who 
 are acquainted with your character, can believe that your 
 strictures on Dante are invidious or uncandid. 
 
 Petrarca. 1 am borne toward him by many strong 
 impulses. Our families were banished by the same faction : 
 he himself and my father left Florence on the same day, 
 and both left it for ever. This recollection would rather 
 make me cling to him than cast him down. Ill fortune 
 has many and tenacious ties: good fortune has few and 
 fragile ones. I saw our illustrious fellow citizen once only, 
 and when I wasa child. Even the sight of such a poet, in 
 early days, is dear to him who aspires to become one, and 
 the memory is always in his favour. The worst I can 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 28 
 
 recollect to have said against his poem to others, is, that 
 the architectural fabric of the /z/erno is unintelligible with- 
 out a long study, and only to be understood after distracting 
 our attention from its inhabitants. Its locality and dimen- 
 sions are at last uninteresting, and would better have been 
 left in their obscurity. The zealots of Dante compare it, 
 for invention, with the infernal regions of Homer and Virgil. 
 I am ignorant how much the Grecian poet invented, how 
 much existed in the religion, how much in the songs and 
 traditions of the people. But surely our Alighieri has taken 
 the same idea, and even made his descent in the same part 
 of Italy, as A‘neas had done before. In the Odyssea the 
 mind is perpetually relieved by variety of scene and 
 character. There are vices enough in it, but rising from 
 lofty or from powerful passions, and under the veil of 
 mystery and poetry: there are virtues too enough, and 
 human and definite and practicable. We have man, 
 although a shade, in his own features, in his own dimen- 
 sions: he appears before us neither cramped by systems 
 nor jaundiced by schools ; no savage, no cit, no cannibal, 
 no doctor. Vigorous and elastic, he is such as poetry saw 
 him first; he is such as poetry would ever see him. In 
 Dante, the greater part of those who are not degraded, are 
 debilitated and distorted. No heart swells here, either for 
 overpowered valour or for unrequited love. In the shades 
 alone, but in the shades of Homer, does Ajax rise to his full 
 loftiness : in the shades alone, but in the shades of Virgil, is 
 Dido the arbitress of our tears. 
 
 Boccaccio. J must confess there are nowhere two whole 
 cantos in Dante which will bear a sustained and close 
 comparison with the very worst book of the Odyssea or 
 the 4ineid ; that there is nothing of the same continued 
 and unabated excellence, as Ovid’s in the contention for the 
 armour of Achilles ; the most heroic of heroic poetry, and 
 only censurable, if censurable at all, because the eloquence 
 of the braver man is more animated and more persuasive 
 than his successful rival’s. I donot think Ovid the best 
 poet that ever lived, but I think he wrote the most of good 
 
26 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 poetry, and, in proportion to its quantity, the least of bad 
 or indifferent. The Zxferno, the Purgatorio, the Paradiso, 
 are pictures from the walls of our churches and chapels and 
 monasteries, some painted by Giotto and Cimabue, some 
 earlier. In several of these we detect not only the cruelty, 
 but likewise the satire and indecency of Dante. Sometimes 
 there is also his vigour and simplicity, but oftener his 
 harshness and meagreness and disproportion. I am afraid 
 the good Alighieri, like his friends the painters, was inclined 
 to think the angels were created only to flagellate and burn 
 us ; and Paradise only for us to be driven out of it. And 
 in truth, as we have seen it exhibited, there is but little 
 hardship in the case. 
 
 The opening of the third canto of the Znferno has always 
 been much admired. ‘There is indeed a great solemnity in 
 the words of the inscription on the portal of hell: never- 
 theless, I do not see the necessity for three verses out of 
 six. After 
 
 Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore, 
 
 it surely is superfluous to subjoin 
 Per me si va fra la perduta gente ; 
 
 for, beside the pexrduta gente, who else can suffer the eternal 
 woe? And when the portal has told us that “ Jus¢zce moved 
 the high Maker to make tt,” surely it might have omitted the 
 notification that his “ dvine power” did it. 
 
 Fecemi la divina potestate. 
 
 The next piece of information I wish had been conveyed 
 even in darker characters, so that they never could have 
 been deciphered. ‘The following line is, 
 
 La somma Sapienza e ’] primo Amore. 
 
 If God’s first love was hell-making, we might almost wish 
 his affections were as mutable as ours are: that is, if holy 
 church would countenance us therein. 
 
 Letvarca. Systems of poetry, of philosophy, of government, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 27 
 
 form and model us to their own proportions. As our 
 systems want the grandeur, the light, and the symmetry of 
 the ancient, we can not hope for poets, philosophers, or 
 statesmen, of equal dignity. Very justly do you remark 
 that our churches and chapels and monasteries, and even 
 our shrines and tabernacles on the road-side, contain in 
 painting the same punishments as Alighieri hath registered 
 in his poem: and several of these were painted before his 
 birth. Nor surely can you have forgotten that his master, 
 Brunetto Latini, composed one on the same plan. 
 
 The Virtues and Vices, and persons under their influence, 
 appear to him likewise in a wood, wherein he, like Dante, 
 is bewildered. Old walls are the tablets both copy: the 
 arrangement is the devise of Brunetto. Our religion is too 
 simple in its verities, and too penurious in its decorations, 
 for poetry of high value. We can not hope or desire that a 
 pious Italian will ever have the audacity to restore to Satan 
 a portion of his majesty, or to remind the faithful that he is 
 a fallen angel. 
 
 Boccaccio. No, no, Francesco; let us keep as much of 
 him down as we can, and as long. 
 
 Fetrarca. It might not be amiss to remember that 
 even human power is complacent in security, and that 
 Omnipotence is ever omnipotent, without threats and 
 fulminations. 
 
 Boccaccio. These, however, are the main springs of sacred 
 poetry, of which I think we already have enough. 
 
 Petrarca. But good enough ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Even much better would produce less effect 
 than that which has occupied our ears from childhood, and 
 comes sounding and swelling with a mysterious voice from 
 the deep and dark recesses of antiquity. 
 
 Fetrarca. I see no reason why we should not revert, at 
 times, to the first intentions of poetry. Hymns to the 
 Creator were its earliest efforts. 
 
 Boccaccio. I do not believe a word of it, unless He himself 
 was graciously pleased to inspire the singer; of which we 
 have received no account. I rather think it originated in 
 
28 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 pleasurable song, perhaps of drunkenness, and resembled 
 the dithyrambic. Strong excitement alone could force 
 and hurry men among words displaced and exaggerated 
 ideas. 
 
 Believing that man fell, first into disobedience, next into 
 ferocity and fratricide, we may reasonably believe that war- 
 songs were among the earliest of his intellectual exertions. 
 When he rested from battle he had leisure to think of love ; 
 and the skies and the fountains and the flowers reminded 
 him of her, the coy and beautiful, who fled to a mother 
 from the ardour of his pursuit. In after years he lost a son, 
 his companion in the croft and in the forest: images too 
 grew up there, and rested on the grave. A daughter, who 
 had wondered at his strength and wisdom, looked to him in 
 vain for succour at the approach of death. Inarticulate 
 grief gave way to passionate and wailing words, and Elegy 
 was awakened. We have tears in this world before we have 
 smiles, Francesco! we have struggles before we have com- 
 posure; we have strife and complaints before we have 
 submission and gratitude. I am suspicious that if we could 
 collect the ‘ winged words” of the earliest hymns, we should 
 find that they called upon the Deity for vengeance. Priests 
 and rulers were far from insensible to private wrongs. 
 Chryses in the //ad is willing that his king and country 
 should be enslaved, so that his daughter be sent back to 
 him. David in the Psa/ms is no unimportunate or luke- 
 warm applicant for the discomfiture and extermination of 
 his adversaries: and, among the visions of felicity, none 
 brighter is promised a fortunate warrior, than to dash the 
 infants of his enemy against the stones. The Holy 
 Scriptures teach us that the human race was created on the 
 banks of the Euphrates, and where the river hath several 
 branches. Here the climate is extremely hot; and men, 
 like birds, in hot climates, never sing well. I doubt whether 
 there was ever a good poet in the whole city and whole 
 plain of Babylon. Egypt had none but such as she 
 imported. Mountainous countries bear them as they bear 
 the more fragrant plants and savoury game. Judea had 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 29 
 
 hers: Attica reared them among her thyme and hives: 
 and Tuscany may lift her laurels not a span below. Never 
 have the accents of poetry been heard on the fertile banks 
 of the Vistula; and Ovid taught the borderers of the 
 Danube an indigenous* song in vain. 
 
 Petrarca. Orpheus, we hear, sang on the banks of the 
 Hebrus. 
 
 Boccaccio. The banks of the Hebrus may be level or 
 rocky, for what I know about them: but the river is 
 represented by the poets as rapid and abounding in whirl- 
 pools; hence, I presume, it runs among rocks and 
 inequalities. Be this as it may: do you imagine that 
 Thrace in those early days produced a philosophical poet ? 
 
 Fetrarca. We have the authority of history for it. 
 
 Boccaccio. Bad authority too, unless we sift and cross- 
 examine it. Undoubtedly there were narrow paths of 
 commerce, in very ancient times, from the Euxine to the 
 Caspian, and from the Caspian to the kingdoms of the 
 remoter East. Merchants in those days were not only the 
 most adventurous, but the most intelligent men: and there 
 were ardent minds, uninfluenced by a spirit of lucre, which 
 were impelled by the ardour of imagination into untravelled 
 regions. Scythia was a land of fable, not only to the 
 Greeks, but equally to the Romans. ‘Thrace was a land of 
 fable, we may well believe, to the nearest towns of northern 
 India. JI imagine that Orpheus, whoever he was, brought 
 his knowledge from that quarter. We are too apt to fancy 
 that Greece owed everything to the Phcenicians and 
 Egyptians. The elasticity of her mind threw off, or the 
 warmth of her imagination transmuted, the greater part of 
 her earlier acquisitions. She was indebted to Phcenicia 
 for nothing but her alphabet; and even these signs 
 she modified, and endowed them with a portion of her 
 flexibility and grace. 
 
 Fetrarca. There are those who tell us that Homer lived 
 before the age of letters in Greece. 
 
 * Aptaque sunt nostris barbara verba modis. 
 What are all the other losses of literature in comparison with this? 
 
30 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccto. I wish they knew the use of them as well as he 
 did. Will they not also tell us that the commerce of the 
 two nations was carried on without the numerals (and such 
 were letters) by which traders cast up accounts? The 
 Phoenicians traded largely with every coast of the A%gean 
 sea; and among their earliest correspondents were the 
 inhabitants of the Greek maritime cities, insular and con- 
 tinental. Is it credible that Cyprus, that Crete, that 
 Attica, should be ignorant of the most obvious means by 
 which commerce was maintained? or that such means 
 should be restricted to commerce, among a people so 
 peculiarly fitted for social intercourse, so inquisitive, so 
 imaginative, as the Greeks ? 
 
 Petrarca. Certainly it is not. 
 
 Bocaccio. ‘The Greeks were the most creative, the 
 Romans the least creative, of mankind. No Roman ever 
 invented anything. Whence then are derived the only two 
 works of imagination we find among them; the story of the 
 Ephesian* Matron, and the story of Pysche? Doubtless 
 from some country fariher eastward than Phoenicia and 
 Egypt. The authors in which we find these insertions are 
 of little intrinsic worth. 
 
 When the Thracians became better known to the Greeks 
 they turned their backs upon them as worn-out wonders, 
 and looked toward the inexhaustible Hyperboreans. 
 Among these too she placed wisdom and the arts, and 
 mounted instruments through which a greater magnitude 
 was given to the stars. 
 
 Fetrarca. 1 will remain no longer with you among the 
 Thracians or the Hyperboreans. But in regard to low and 
 level countries, as unproductive of poetry, I entreat you 
 not to be too fanciful nor too exclusive. Virgil was born 
 on the Mincio, and has rendered the city of his birth too 
 celebrated to be mistaken. 
 
 * One similar, and better conceived, is given by Du Halde from the 
 Chinese. If the fiction of Pysche had reached Greece so early as the 
 time of Plato, it would have caught his attention, and he would have 
 delivered it down to us, however altered. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 31 
 
 Boccaccio. He was born in the territory of Mantua, not 
 in the city. He sang his first child’s song on the shoulders 
 of the Apennines ; his first man’s under the shadow of 
 Vesuvius. 
 
 I would not assert that a great poet must necessarily be 
 born on a high mountain: no indeed, no such absurdity : 
 but where the climate is hot, the plains have never shown 
 themselves friendly to the imaginative faculties. We surely 
 have more buoyant spirits on the mountain than below, 
 but it is not requisite for this effect that our cradles should 
 have been placed on it. 
 
 Ffetrarca. What will you say about Pindar ? 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 think it more probable that he was reared 
 in the vicinity of Thebes than within the walls. For 
 Beeotia, like our Tuscany, has one large plain, but has 
 also many eminences, and is bounded on two sides by 
 hills. 
 
 Look at the vale of Capua! Scarcely so much as a 
 sonnet was ever heard from one end of it to the other ; 
 perhaps the most spirited thing was some Carthaginian glee, 
 from a soldier in the camp of Hannibal. Nature seems to 
 contain in her breast the same milk for all, but feeding 
 one for one aptitude, another for another ; and, as if she 
 would teach him a lesson as soon as he could look about 
 him, she has placed the poet where the air is unladen 
 with the exhalations of luxuriance. 
 
 fetrarca. In my delight to listen to you after so long an 
 absence, I have been too unwary; and you have been 
 speaking too much for one infirm. Greatly am I to 
 blame, not to have moderated my pleasure and your 
 vivacity. You must rest now: to-morrow we will renew 
 our conversation. 
 
 Boccaccio. God bless thee, Francesco! I shall be talking 
 with thee all night in my slumbers. Never have I seen 
 thee with such pleasure as to-day, excepting when I was 
 deemed worthy by our fellow-citizens of bearing to thee, 
 and of placing within this dear hand of thine, the sentence 
 of recall from banishment, and when my tears streamed 
 
—? 
 
 32 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 over the ordinance as I read it, whereby thy paternal lands 
 were redeemed from the public treasury. 
 
 Again God bless thee! ‘Those tears were not quite 
 exhausted: take the last of them. 
 
 SECOND DAY’S INTERVIEW. 
 
 Petrarca. How have you slept, Giovanni ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Pleasantly, soundly, and quite long enough. 
 You too methinks have enjoyed the benefit of riding ; for 
 you either slept well or began late. Do you rise in general 
 three hours after the sun ! 
 
 Letrarca. No indeed. 
 
 Boccaccio. As for me, since you would not indulge me 
 with your company an hour ago, I could do nothing more 
 delightful than to look over some of your old letters. 
 
 fetrarca. Ours are commemorative of no reproaches, 
 and laden with no regrets. Far from us 
 
 With drooping wing the spell-bound spirit moves 
 O’er flickering friendships and extinguisht loves. 
 
 Boccaccio. Ay, but as I want no record of your kindness 
 now you are with me, I have been looking over those 
 to other persons, on past occasions. In the Latin one to 
 the tribune, whom the people at Rome usually call Rienzi, 
 I find you address him by the denomination of Nicolaus 
 Laurentii. Is this the right one? 
 
 fetrarca. As we Florentines are fond of omitting the 
 first syllable in proper names, calling Luigi Gzgz, Giovanni 
 Vanni, Francesco Cecco, in like manner at Rome they say 
 Renzi for Lorenzi, and by another corruption it has been 
 pronounced and written Rienzi. Believe me, I should 
 never have ventured to address the personage who held 
 and supported the highest dignity on earth, until I had 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 33 
 
 ascertained his appellation: for nobody ever quite forgave, 
 unless in the low and ignorant, a wrong pronunciation of 
 his name; the humblest being of opinion that they have 
 one of their own, and one both worth having and worth 
 knowing. Even dogs, they observe, are not miscalled. 
 It would have been as Latin in sound, if not in structure, 
 to write Rientius as Laurentius: but it would certainly 
 have been offensive to a dignitary of his station, as being 
 founded on a sportive and somewhat childish familiarity. 
 Boccaccio. Ah Francesco! we were a good deal younger 
 in those days; and hopes sprang up before us like mush- 
 rooms: the sun produced them, the shade produced 
 them, every hill, every valley, every busy and every idle hour. 
 Letrarca. The season of hope precedes but little the 
 season of disappointment. Where the ground is unprepared, 
 what harvest can be expected? Men bear wrongs more 
 easily than irritations; and the Romans, who had sunk 
 under worse degradation than any other people on record, 
 rose up against the deliverer who ceased to consult their 
 ignorance. I speak advisedly and without rhetoric on 
 the foul depths of their debasement. The Jews, led 
 captive into Egypt and into Babylon, were left as little 
 corrupted as they were found ; and perhaps some of their 
 vices were corrected by the labours that were imposed 
 on them. But the subjugation of the Romans was effected 
 by the depravation of their morals, which the priesthood 
 took away, giving them ceremonies and promises instead. 
 God had indulged them in the exercise of power : first the 
 kings abused it, then the consuls, then the tribunes. One 
 only magistrate was remaining who never had violated it, 
 farther than in petty frauds and fallacies suited to the 
 occasion, not having at present more within his reach. 
 It was now his turn to exercise his functions, and no 
 less grievously and despotically than the preceding had 
 done. For this purpose the Pontifex Maximus needed 
 some slight alterations in the popular belief; and he 
 collected them from that Pantheon which Roman policy 
 had enlarged at every conquest. ‘The priests of Isis had 
 
 £96 
 Js 
 
54 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 acquired the highest influence in the city: those of Jupiter 
 were jealous that foreign gods should become more than 
 supplementary and subordinate: but as the women in 
 general leaned toward Isis, it was in vain to contest 
 the point, and prudent to adopt a little at a time from 
 the discipline of the shaven brotherhood. The names 
 and titles of the ancient gods had received many addi- 
 tions, and they were often asked which they liked best. 
 Different ones were now given them; and gradually, here 
 and there, the older dropped into desuetude. Then arose 
 the star in the east ; and all was manifested. 
 
 Boccaccio. Ay, ay, but the second company of shepherds 
 sang to a different tune from the first, and put them out. 
 Trumpeters ran in among them, horses neighed, tents waved 
 their pennons, and commanders of armies sought to raise 
 themselves to supreme authority, some by leading the faction 
 of the ancient faith, and some by supporting the recenter. 
 At last the priesthood succeeded to the power of the 
 pretorian guard, and elected, or procured the election of, 
 an emperor. Every man who loved peace and quiet 
 took refuge in a sanctuary, now so efficient to protect him ; 
 and nearly all who had attained a preponderance in wisdom 
 and erudition, brought them to bear against the worn-out 
 and tottering institutions, and finally to raise up the coping- 
 stone of an edifice which overtopped them all. 
 
 Petrarca, At present we fly to princes as we fly to caves 
 and arches, and other things of the mere earth, for shelter 
 and protection. 
 
 Boccaccio. And when they afford it at all, they afford it 
 with as little care and knowledge. Like Egyptian em- 
 balmers, they cast aside the brains as useless or worse, 
 but carefully swathe up all that is viler and heavier, and 
 place it in their painted catacombs. 
 
 Petrarca. What Dante saw in his day, we see in ours. 
 The danger is, lest first the wiser, and soon afterward the 
 unwiser, in abhorrence at the presumption and iniquity of 
 the priesthood, should abandon religion altogether, when it 
 is forbidden to approach her without such company. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 35 
 
 Boccaccio. Philosophy is but the calix of that plant of 
 paradise, religion. Detach it, and it dies away ; meanwhile 
 the plant itself, supported by its proper nutriment, retains 
 its vigour. 
 
 Petrarca. The good citizen and the calm reasoner come 
 at once to the same conclusion: that philosophy can never 
 hold many men together ; that religion can ; and those who 
 without it would not let philosophy, nor law, nor humanity 
 exist. Therefore it is our duty and interest to remove all 
 obstruction from it; to give it air, light, space, and 
 freedom ; carrying in our hands a scourge for fallacy, a 
 chain for cruelty, and an irrevocable ostracism for riches 
 that riot in the house of God. 
 
 Boccaccio. Moderate wealth is quite enough to teach with. 
 
 Petrarca. Vhe luxury and rapacity of the church, together 
 with the insolence of the barons, excited that discontent 
 which emboldened Nicolo de Rienzi to assume the station 
 of tribune. Singular was the prudence, and opportune the 
 boldness, he manifested at first. His modesty, his piety, 
 his calm severity, his unbiassed justice, won to him the 
 affections of every good citizen, and struck horror into the 
 fastnesses of every castellated felon. He might by degrees 
 have restored the republic of Rome, had he preserved his 
 moderation: he might have become the master of Italy, 
 had he continued the master of himself: but he allowed 
 the weakest of the passions to run away with him: he 
 fancied he could not inebriate himself soon enough with 
 the intemperance of power. He called for seven crowns, 
 and placed them successively on his head. He cited Lewis 
 of Bavaria and Charles of Bohemia to appear and plead 
 their causes before him; and lastly, not content with 
 exasperating and concentrating the hostility of barbarians, 
 he set at defiance the best and highest feelings of his more 
 instructed countrymen, and displayed his mockery of 
 religion and decency by bathing in the porphyry font of the 
 Lateran. How my soul grieved for his defection! How 
 bitterly burst forth my complaints, when he ordered the 
 imprisonment of Stefano Colonna in his ninetieth year! 
 
4 
 
 36 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 For these atrocities you know with what reproaches I 
 assailed him, traitor as he was to the noblest cause that 
 ever strung the energies of mankind. For this cause, under 
 his auspices, I had abandoned all hope of favour and 
 protection from the pontiff:-I had cast into peril, almost 
 into perdition, the friendship, familiarity, and love of the 
 Colonnas. Even you, Giovanni, thought me more rash 
 than you would say you thought me, and wondered at 
 seeing me whirled along with the tempestuous triumphs 
 that seemed mounting toward the Capitol. It is only in 
 politics that an actor appears greater by the magnitude of 
 the theatre ; and we readily and enthusiastically give way 
 to the deception. Indeed, whenever a man capable of 
 performing great and glorious actions is emerging from 
 -obscurity, it is our duty to remove, if we can, all obstruction 
 from before him ; to increase his scope and his powers, to 
 extol and amplify his virtues. This is always requisite, and 
 often insufficient, to counteract the workings of malignity 
 round about him. But finding him afterward false and 
 cruel, and, instead of devoting himself to the common- 
 wealth, exhausting it by his violence and sacrificing it to his 
 vanity, then it behoves us to stamp the foot, and to call in 
 the people to cast down the idol. For nothing is so 
 immoral or pernicious as to keep up the illusion of greatness 
 in wicked men. ‘Their crimes, because they have fallen 
 into the gulf of them, we call misfortunes ; and, amid ten 
 thousand mourners, grieve only for him who made them so. 
 Is this reason? is this humanity ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Alas! it is man. 
 
 Fetrarca. Can we wonder then that such wretches have 
 turned him to such purposes? ‘The calmness, the sagacity, 
 the sanctitude of Rienzi, in the ascent to his elevation, 
 rendered him only the more detestable for his abuse of 
 power. 
 
 Boccaccio. Surely the man grew mad. 
 
 Letrarca. Men often give the hand to the madness that 
 seizes them. He yielded to pride and luxury: behind them 
 came jealously and distrust: fear followed these, and 
 
THE PENTAME RON. 37 
 
 cruelty followed fear. Then the intellects sought the 
 subterfuge that bewildered them ; and an ignoble flight was 
 precluded by an ignominious death, 
 
 Boccaccio. No mortal is less to be pitied, or more to be 
 detested, than he into whose hands are thrown the fortunes 
 of a nation, and who squanders them away in the idle 
 gratification of his pride and his ambition. Are not these 
 already gratified to the full by the confidence and deference 
 of his countrymen? Can silks, and the skins of animals, 
 can hammered metals and sparkling stones, enhance the 
 value of legitimate dominion over the human heart? Can 
 a wise man be desirous of having a less wise successor? 
 And, of all the world, would he exhibit this inferiority in a 
 son? Irrational as are all who aim at despotism, this is 
 surely the most irrational of their speculations. Vulgar 
 men are more anxious for title and decoration than for 
 power ; and notice, in their estimate, is preferable to regard. 
 We ought as little to mind the extinction of such existences 
 as the dying down of a favourable wind in the prosecution 
 of a voyage. ‘They are fitter for the calendar than for 
 history, and it is well when we find them in last year’s. 
 
 Petrarca. What a year was Rienzi’s last to me! What 
 an extinction of all that had not been yet extinguished ! 
 Visionary as was the flash of his glory, there was another 
 more truly so, which this, my second great loss and sorrow, 
 opened again before me. 
 
 Verona! loveliest of cities, but saddest to my memory! 
 while the birds were singing in thy cypresses the earliest 
 notes of spring, the blithest of hope, the tenderest of desire, 
 she, my own Laura, fresh as the dawn around her, stood 
 before me. It was her transit ; I knew it ere she spake.* 
 
 O Giovanni! the heart that has once been bathed in 
 love’s pure fountain, retains the pulse of youth for ever. 
 Death can only take away the sorrowful from our affections : 
 the flower expands ; the colourless film that enveloped it 
 falls off and perishes. 
 
 * This event is related by Petrarca as occurring on the sixth af 
 April, the day of her decease. 
 
38 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Botwwanto. We may well believe it: and, believing it, let 
 us cease to be disquieted for their absence who have but 
 retired into another chamber, We are like those who have 
 overslept the hour: when we rejoin our friends, there is 
 only the more joyance and congratulation. Would we 
 break a precious vase, because it is as capable of containing 
 the bitter as the sweet? No: the very things which touch 
 us the most sensibly are those which we should be the 
 most reluctant to forget. The noble mansion is most 
 distinguished by the beautiful images it retains of beings 
 past away ; and so is the noble mind. 
 
 The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare 
 them for the necessity of their fall: and thus insensibly are 
 we, as years close round us, detached from our tenacity of 
 life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrows. When the 
 graceful dance and its animating music are over, and the 
 clapping of hands (so lately linked) hath ceased; when 
 youth and comeliness and pleasantry are departed, 
 
 Who would desire to spend the following day 
 Among the extinguisht lamps, the faded wreaths, 
 The dust and desolation left behind ? 
 
 But whether we desire it or not, we must submit. He 
 who hath appointed our days hath placed their contents 
 within them, and our efforts can neither cast them out nor 
 change their quality. In our present mood we will not 
 dwell too long on this subject, but rather walk forth into the 
 world, and look back again on the bustle of life. Neither 
 of us may hope to exert in future any extraordinary influence 
 on the political movements of our country, by our presence 
 or intervention: yet surely it is something to have set at 
 defiance the mercenaries who assailed us, and to have stood 
 aloof from the distribution of the public spoils. I have at 
 all times taken less interest than you have taken in the 
 affairs of Rome; for the people of that city neither are, nor 
 were of old, my favourites. 
 
 It appears to me that there are spots accursed, spots 
 doomed to eternal sterility ; and Rome is one of them. No 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 9 
 
 WwW 
 
 gospel announces the glad tidings of resurrection to a fallen 
 nation. Once down, and down for ever. The Babylonians, 
 the Macedonians, the Romans, prove it. Babylon is a 
 desert, Macedon a den of thieves, Rome (what is written 
 as an invitation on the walls of her streets) one vast 
 immondezzaio, morally and substantially. 
 
 fetrarca. The argument does not hold good throughout. 
 Persia was conquered : yet Persia long afterward sprang up 
 again with renovated strength and courage, and Sapor 
 mounted his war-horse from the crouching neck of Valen- 
 tinian. In nearly all the campaigns with the Romans she 
 came off victorious: none of her kings or generals were ever 
 led in triumph to the Capitol ; but several Roman emperors 
 lay prostrate on their purple in the fields of Parthia. 
 Formidable at home, victorious over friends and relatives, 
 their legions had seized and subdivided the arable plains 
 of Campania and the exuberant pastures of the Po ; but the 
 glebe that bordered the Araxes was unbroken by them. 
 Persia, since those times, has passed through many 
 vicissitudes, of defeat and victory, of obscurity and glory: 
 and why may not our country? Let us take hopes where 
 we can find them, and raise them where we find none. 
 
 Boccaccio. In some places we may; in others, the fabric 
 of hopes is too arduous an undertaking. When I was in 
 Rome nothing there reminded me of her former state, until 
 I saw a goose in the grass under the Capitoline hill. This 
 perhaps was the only one of her inhabitants that had not 
 degenerated. Even the dogs looked sleeply, mangy, 
 suspicious, perfidious, and thievish, The goose meanwhile 
 was making his choice of herbage about triumphal arches 
 and monumental columns, and picking up worms; the 
 surest descendants, the truest representatives, and enjoying 
 the inalienable succession, of the Czesars. This is all that 
 goose or man can do at Rome. She, I think, will be the 
 last city to rise from the dead. 
 
 fetrarca, There is a trumpet, and on earth, that shall 
 awaken even her. 
 
 Boccaccio. I should like to live and be present. 
 
40 LTHE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Letrarca. 'This can not be expected. But you may live 
 many years, and see many things to make you happy. For 
 you will not close the doors too early in the evening of 
 existence against the visits of renovating and cheerful 
 thoughts, which keep our lives long up, and help them to 
 sink at last without pain or pressure. 
 
 Boccaccio. Another year or two perhaps, with God’s per- 
 mission. Fra Biagio felt my pulse on Wednesday, and 
 cried, “Courage! Ser Giovanni! there is no danger of 
 Paradise yet: the Lord forbid!” 
 
 “Faith!” said I, “Fra Biagio! I hope there is not. 
 What with prayers and masses, I have planted a foot 
 against my old homestead, and will tug hard to remain 
 where I am.” 
 
 “A true soldier of the faith!” quoth Fra Biagio, and 
 drank a couple of flasks to my health. Nothing else, he 
 swore to Assunta, would have induced him to venture 
 beyond one; he hating all excesses, they give the adversary 
 such advantage over us; although God is merciful and 
 makes allowances. 
 
 fetrarca. Impossible as it is to look far and with pleasure 
 into the future, what a privilege is it, how incomparably 
 greater than any other that genius can confer, to be able to 
 direct the backward flight of fancy and imagination to the 
 recesses they most delighted in; to be able, as the shadows 
 lengthen in our path, to call up before us the youth of our 
 sympathies in all their tenderness and purity ! 
 
 Boccaccio. Mine must have been very pure, I suspect, for 
 I am sure they were very tender. But I need not call them 
 up; they come readily enough of their own accord ; and I 
 find it perplexing at times to get entirely rid of them. 
 Sighs are very troublesome when none meet them half- 
 way. The worst of mine now are while I am walking 
 uphill. Even to walk upstairs, which used occasionally to 
 be as pleasant an exercise as any, grows sadly too much for 
 me. For which reason I lie here below ; and it is handier 
 too for Assunta. 
 
 Leirarca. Very judicious and considerate. In high 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 41 
 
 situations, like Certaldo and this villetta, there is no danger 
 from fogs or damps of any kind. The skylark yonder 
 seems to have made it her first station in the air. 
 
 Boccaccio. To welcome thee, Francesco ! 
 
 Fetrarca. Rather say, to remind us both of our Dante. 
 All the verses that ever were written on the nightingale are 
 scarcely worth the beautiful triad of this divine poet on the 
 lark. 
 
 La lodoletta che in aere si spazia, 
 
 Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta 
 Dell’ ultima dolcezza che la sazia. 
 
 In the first of them do not you see the twinkling of her 
 wings against the sky? As often as I repeat them my ear 
 is satisfied, my heart (like hers) contented. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 agree with you in the perfect and unrivalled 
 beauty of the first; but in the third there is a redundance. 
 Is not contenta quite enough, without che la sazia? ‘The 
 picture is before us, the sentiment within us, and behold! 
 we kick when we are full of manna. 
 
 Petrarca. 1 acknowledge the correctness and propriety of 
 your remark ; and yet beauties in poetry must be examined 
 as carefully as blemishes, and even more; for we are more 
 easily led away by them, although we do not dwell on them 
 so long. We two should never be accused, in these days, 
 of malevolence to Dante, if the whole world heard us. 
 Being here alone, we may hazard our opinions even less 
 guardedly, and set each other right as we see occasion. 
 
 Boccaccio. Come on then ; I will venture. I will go back 
 to find fault ; I will seek it even in Francesca. 
 
 To hesitate, and waver, and turn away from the subject, 
 was proper and befitting in her. The verse, however, in no 
 respect satisfies me. Anyone would imagine from it that 
 Ga/leotto was really both the title of the book and the name 
 of the author; neither of which is true. Galeotto, in the 
 Tavola Ritonda, is the person who interchanges the corres- 
 pondence between Lancilotto and Ginevra. The appellation 
 is now become the generic of all men whose business it is 
 
42 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 to promote the success of others in illicit love. Dante was 
 stimulated in his satirical vein, when he attributed to 
 Francesca a ludicrous expression, which she was very 
 unlikely in her own nature, and greatly more so in her state 
 of suffering, to employ or think of, whirled round as she 
 was incessantly with her lover. Neither was it requisite to 
 say, ‘the book was a Galeotto, and so was the author,” 
 when she had said already that a passage in it had seduced 
 her. Omitting this unnecessary and ungraceful line, her 
 confusion and her delicacy are the more evident, and the 
 following comes forth with fresh beauty. In the commence- 
 ment of her speech I wish these had likewise been omitted, 
 
 ‘* E cio sa il tuo dottore ;” 
 
 since he knew no more about it than anybody else. As we 
 proceed, there are passages in which I can not find my 
 way, and where I suspect the poet could not show it me. 
 For instance, is it not strange that Briareus should be 
 punished in the same way as Nimrod, when Nimrod sinned 
 against the living God, and when Briareus attempted to 
 overthrow one of the living God’s worst antagonists, 
 Jupiter? an action which our blessed Lord, and the doctors 
 of the holy church, not only attempted, but (to their glory 
 and praise for evermore) accomplished. 
 
 Fetrarca. Equally strange that Brutus and Cassius (a 
 remark which escaped us in our mention of them yesterday) 
 should be placed in the hottest pit of hell for slaying Czesar, 
 and that Cato, who would have done the same thing with 
 less compunction, should be appointed sole guardian and 
 governor of purgatory. 
 
 Boccaccio. What interest could he have made to be 
 promoted to so valuable a post, in preference to doctors, 
 popes, confessors, and fathers? Wonderful indeed! and 
 they never seemed to take it much amiss. 
 
 FPetrarca. Alighieri not only throws together the most 
 Opposite and distant characters, but even makes Jupiter 
 and our Saviour the same person. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 43 
 
 E se lecito m’ é, o sommo Giove / 
 Che fosti in terra per noi croczfisso. 
 
 Boccaccio. Jesus Christ ought no more to be called 
 Jupiter than Jupiter ought to be called Jesus Christ. 
 
 Petrarca. In the whole of the Zxzferno I find only the 
 descriptions of Francesca and of Ugolino at all admirable. 
 Vigorous expressions there are many, but lost in their 
 application to base objects ; and insulated thoughts in high 
 relief, but with everything crumbling round them. Propor- 
 tionally to the extent, there is a scantiness of poetry, if 
 delight is the purpose or indication of it. Intensity shows 
 everywhere the powerful master: and yet intensity is not 
 invitation. A great poet may do everything but repel us. 
 Established laws are pliant before him: nevertheless his 
 office hath both its duties and its limits. 
 
 Boccaccio. The simile in the third canto, the satire at the 
 close of the fourth, and the description at the commence- 
 ment of the eighth, if not highly admirable, are what no 
 ordinary poet could have produced. 
 
 Letrarca. They are streaks of light in a thunder-cloud 
 You might have added the beginning of the twenty-seventh, 
 in which the poetry of itself is good, although not excellent, 
 and the subject of it assuages the weariness left on us, after 
 passing through so many holes and furnaces, and under- 
 going the dialogue between Simon and Master Adam. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 am sorry to be reminded of this. It is like 
 the brawl of the two fellows in Horace’s /ourney ¢o 
 Brundusium. They are the straitest parallels of bad wit 
 and bad poetry that ancient and modern times exhibit. 
 Ought I to speak so sharply of poets who elsewhere have 
 given me so great delight? 
 
 fetrarca. Surely you ought. No criticism is less bene- 
 ficial to an author or his reader than one tagged with 
 favour and tricked with courtesy. The gratification of our 
 humours is not the intent and scope of criticism, and those 
 who indulge in it on such occasions are neither wise nor 
 honest. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 never could see why we should designedly 
 
44 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 and prepensely give to one writer more than his due, to 
 another less. If we offer an honest man ten crowns when 
 we owe him only five, he is apt to be offended. The 
 perfumer and druggist weigh out the commodity before 
 them to a single grain. If they do it with odours and 
 powders, should not we attempt it likewise, in what is 
 either the nutriment or the medicine of the mind? I do 
 not wonder that Criticism has never yet been clear-sighted 
 and expert among us: I do, that she has never been 
 dispassionate and unprejudiced. There are critics who, 
 lying under no fear of a future state in literature, and all 
 whose hope is for the present day, commit injustice without 
 compunction. Every one of these people has some 
 favourite object for the embraces of his hatred, and a figure 
 of straw will never serve the purpose. He must throw his 
 stone at what stands out; he must twitch the skirt of him 
 who is ascending. Do you imagine that the worst writers 
 of any age were treated with as much asperity as you and 
 I? No, Francesco! give the good folks their due: they 
 are humaner to their fellow-creatures. 
 
 fetrarca. Disregarding the ignorant and presumptuous, 
 we have strengthened our language by dipping it afresh in 
 its purer and higher source, and have called the Graces 
 back to it. We never have heeded how Jupiter would 
 have spoken, but only how the wisest men would, and how 
 words follow the movements of the mind. There are rich 
 and copious veins of mineral in regions far remote from 
 commerce and habitations: these veins are useless: so are 
 those writings of which the style is uninviting and inacces- 
 sible, through its ruggedness, its chasms, its points, its 
 perplexities, its obscurity. There are scarcely three authors, 
 beside yourself, who appear to heed whether any guest 
 will enter the gate, quite satisfied with the consciousness 
 that they have stores within. Such wealth, in another 
 generation, may be curious, but cannot be current. When 
 a language grows up all into stalk, and its flowers begin to 
 lose somewhat of their character, we must go forth into the 
 open fields, through the dingles, and among the mountains, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 45 
 
 for fresh seed. Our ancestors did this, no very long time 
 ago. Foremost in zeal, in vigour and authority, Alighieri 
 took on himself the same patronage and guardianship of 
 oui adolescent dialect, as Homer of the Greek: and my 
 Giovanni hath since endowed it so handsomely, that addi- 
 tional bequests, we may apprehend, will only corrupt its 
 principles, and render it lax and lavish. 
 
 Boccaccio. Beware of violating those canons of criticism 
 you have just laid down. We have no right to gratify one 
 by misleading another, nor, when we undertake to show the 
 road, to bandage the eyes of him who trusts us for his 
 conductor. In regard to censure, those only speak ill who 
 speak untruly, unless a truth be barbed by malice and 
 aimed by passion. ‘To be useful to as many as possible is 
 the especial duty of a critic, and his utility can only be 
 attained by rectitude and precision. He walks in a garden 
 which is not his own; and he neither must gather the 
 blossoms to embellish his discourse, nor break the branches 
 to display his strength. Rather let him point to what 
 is out of order, and help to raise what is lying on the 
 ground. 
 
 fetrarca. Auditors, and readers in general, come to hear 
 or read, not your opinion delivered, but their own repeated. 
 Fresh notions are as disagreeable to some as fresh air to 
 others ; and this inability to bear them is equally a symptom 
 of disease. Impatience and intolerance are sure to be 
 excited at any check to admiration in the narratives of 
 Ugolino and of Francesca: nothing is to be abated: they 
 are not only to be admirable, but entirely faultless. 
 
 Boccaccio. You have proved to me that, in blaming our 
 betters, we ourselves may sometimes be unblamed. When 
 authors are removed by death beyond the reach of irritation 
 at the touch of an infirmity, we best consult their glory by 
 handling their works comprehensively and unsparingly. 
 Vague and indefinite criticism suits only slight merit, and 
 presupposes it. Lineaments irregular and profound as 
 Dante’s are worthy of being traced with patience and 
 fidelity. In the charts of our globe we find distinctly 
 
46 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 marked the promontories and indentations, and oftentimes 
 the direction of unprofitable marshes and impassable sands 
 and wildernesses: level surfaces are unnoted. I would 
 not detract one atom from the worth of Dante ; which can 
 not be done by summing it up exactly, but may be by 
 negligence in the computation. 
 
 Petrarca. Your business, in the lectures, is not to show 
 his merits, but his meaning; and to give only so much 
 information as may be given without offence to the factious. 
 Whatever you do beyond, is for yourself, your friends, and 
 futurity. 
 
 Boccaccio, 1 may write more lectures, but never shall 
 deliver them in person as the first. Probably, so near as I 
 am to Florence, and so dear as Florence hath always been 
 to me, I shall see that city no more. The last time I saw 
 it, I only passed through. Four years ago, you remember, 
 I lost my friend Acciaioli. Early in the summer of the 
 preceding, his kindness had induced him to invite me 
 again to Naples, and I undertook a journey to the place 
 where my life had been too happy. There are many who 
 pay dearly for sunshine early in the season: many, for 
 pleasure in the prime of life. After one day lost in idleness 
 at Naples, if intense and incessant thoughts (however fruit- 
 less) may be called so, I proceeded by water to Sorento, 
 and thence over the mountains to Amalfi. Here, amid 
 whatever is most beautiful and most wonderful in scenery, 
 I found the Seniscalco. His palace, his gardens, his 
 terraces, his woods, abstracted his mind entirely from the 
 solicitudes of state; and I was gratified at finding in the 
 absolute ruler of a kingdom, the absolute master of his 
 time. Rare felicity! and he enjoyed it the more after the 
 toils of business and the intricacies of policy. His recep- 
 tion of me was most cordial, He showed me his long 
 avenues of oranges and citrons: he helped me to mount 
 the banks of slippery short herbage, whence we could look 
 down on their dark masses, and their broad irregular belts, 
 gemmed with golden fruit and sparkling flowers. We stood 
 high above them, but not above their fragrance, and 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 47 
 
 sometimes we wished the breeze to bring us it, and sometimes 
 to carry a part of it away: and the breeze came and went as 
 if obedient to our volition. Another day he conducted me 
 farther from the palace, and showed me, with greater pride 
 than I had ever seen in him before, the pale-green olives, 
 on little smooth plants, the first year of their bearing. “TI 
 will teach my people here,” said he, ‘‘to make as delicate 
 oil as any of our Tuscans.” We had feasts among the 
 caverns: we had dances by day under the shade of the 
 mulberries, by night under the lamps of the arcade: we 
 had music on the shore and on the water. 
 
 When next I stood before him, it was afar from these. 
 Torches flamed through the pine-forest of the Certosa: 
 priests and monks led the procession: the sound of the 
 brook alone filled up the intervals of the dirge: and other 
 plumes than the dancers’ waved round what was Acciaioli. 
 
 Petrarca. Since in his family there was nobody who, 
 from education or pursuits or consanguinity, could greatly 
 interest him ; nobody to whom so large an accumulation of 
 riches would not rather be injurious than beneficial, and 
 place rather in the way of scoffs and carpings than exalt to 
 respectability ; I regret that he omitted to provide for the 
 comforts of your advancing years. 
 
 Boccaccio. The friend would not spoil the philosopher. 
 Our judgment grows the stronger by the dying-down of our 
 affections. 
 
 Petrarca. With a careful politician and diplomatist all 
 things find their places but men: and yet he thinks he has 
 niched it nicely, when, as the gardener is left in the garden, 
 the tailor on his board at the casement, he leaves the 
 author at his desk: to remove him would put the world in 
 confusion. 
 
 Boccaccio. Acciaioli knew me too well to suppose we 
 could serve each other: and his own capacity was amply 
 sufficient for all the exigencies of the state. Generous,* 
 
 * This sentiment must be attributed to the gratitude of Boccaccio, 
 not to the merits of Acciaioli, who treated him unworthily. 
 
aa 
 
 
 
 48 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 kind, constant soul! the emblazoned window throws now 
 its rich mantle over him, moved gently by the vernal air of 
 Marignole, or, as the great chapel-door is opened to some 
 visitor of distinction, by the fresh eastern breeze from the 
 valley of the Elsa. We too (mayhap) shall be visited in the 
 same condition; but in a homelier edifice, but in a humbler 
 sepulchre, but by other and far different guests. While 
 they are discussing and sorting out our merits, which are 
 usually first discovered among the nettles in the church- 
 yard, we will carry this volume with us, and show Dante 
 what we have been doing. 
 
 Petravca. We have each of us had our warnings: indeed 
 all men have them: and not only at our time of life, but 
 almost every day of their existence. They come to us even 
 in youth; although, like the lightnings that are said to 
 play incessantly, in the noon and in the morning and 
 throughout the year, we seldom see and never look for 
 them. Come, as you proposed, let us now continue with 
 our Dante. 
 
 Ugolino relates to him his terrible dream, in which he 
 fancied that he had seen Gualando, Sismondi, and Lan- 
 franco, killing his children: and he says that, when he 
 awakened, he heard them moan in their sleep. In such 
 circumstances, his awakening ought rather to have removed 
 the impression he laboured under ; since it showed him the 
 vanity of the dream, and afforded him the consolation that 
 the children were alive. Yet he adds immediately, what, if 
 he were to speak it at all, he should have deferred, 
 
 “You are very cruel if you do not begin to grieve, 
 considering what my heart presaged to me; and, if you do 
 not weep at it, what is it you are wont to weep at?” 
 
 Boccaccio. Certainly this is illtimed ; and the conference 
 would indeed be better without it anywhere. 
 
 FPetrarca. Farther on, in whatever way we interpret 
 
 Poscia pil che ’1 dolor poté ’] digiuno, 
 
 the poet falls sadly from his sublimity. 
 Boccaccio. Vf the fact were as he mentions, he should 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 49 
 
 have suppressed it, since we had already seen the most 
 pathetic in the features, and the most horrible in the stride, 
 of Famine. Gnawing, not in hunger, but in rage and 
 revenge, the archbishop’s skull, is, in the opinion of many, 
 rather ludicrous than tremendous. 
 
 Lfetrarca. In mine, rather disgusting than ludicrous: but 
 Dante (we must whisper it) is the great master of the 
 disgusting. When the ancients wrote indecently and loosely, 
 they presented what either had something alluring or some- 
 thing laughable about it, and, if they disgusted, it was 
 involuntarily. Indecency is the most shocking in deformity. 
 We call indecent, while we do not think it, the nakedness 
 of the Graces and the Loves. 
 
 Boccaccio. When we are less barbarous we shall become 
 more familiar with them, more tolerant of sliding beauty, 
 more hospitable to erring passion, and perhaps as indulgent 
 to frailty as we are now to ferocity. I wish I could find in 
 some epitaph, “he loved so many:” it is better than, ‘‘he 
 killed so many.” Yet the world hangs in admiration over 
 this ; you and I should be found alone before the other. 
 
 Petrarca. Of what value are all the honours we can 
 expect from the wisest of our species, when even the wisest 
 hold us lighter in estimation than those who labour to 
 destroy what God delighted to create, came on earth to 
 ransom, and suffered on the cross to save! Glory then, 
 glory can it be, to devise with long study, and to execute 
 with vast exertions, what the fang of a reptile or the leaf of 
 a weed accomplishes in an hour? Shall anyone tell me, 
 that the numbers sent to death or to wretchedness make 
 the difference, and constitute the great? Away then from 
 the face of nature as we see her daily! away from the 
 interminable varieties of animated creatures! away from 
 what is fixed to the earth and lives by the sun and dew! 
 Brute inert matter does it: behold it in the pestilence, in 
 the earthquake, in the conflagration, in the deluge! 
 
 Boccaccio. Perhaps we shall not be liked the better for 
 what we ourselves have written: yet I do believe we shall 
 be thanked for having brought to light, and for having sent 
 
 597 
 
60 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 into circulation, the writings of other men. We deserve as 
 much, were it only that it gives people an opportunity of 
 running over us, as ants over the images of gods in 
 orchards, and of reaching by our means the less crude 
 fruits of less ungenial days. Be this as it may, we 
 have spent our time well in doing it, and enjoy (what 
 idlers never can) as pleasant a view in looking back as 
 forward. 
 
 Now do tell me, before we say more of the Paradiso, 
 what can I offer in defence of the Latin scraps from litanies 
 and lauds, to the number of fifty or thereabout ? 
 
 FPetrarca. Say nothing at all, unless you can obtain some 
 Indulgences for repeating them. 
 
 Boccaccio. And then such verses as these, and several 
 score of no better: 
 
 I credo ch’ ei credette ch’ io credessi. 
 
 O Jacomo, dicea, di sant Andrea, 
 
 Come Livio scrisse, che non erra. 
 
 Nel quale un cinque cento dieci e cinque. 
 Mille ducento con sessanta sei. 
 
 Pepe Satan, Pepe Satan, Pepe. 
 
 Raffael mai amec, zabe, almi. 
 
 Non avria pur dell orlo fatto créch. 
 
 Petrarca. There is no occasion to look into and investi- 
 gate a puddle; we perceive at first sight its impurity; but 
 it is useful to analyse, if we can, a limpid and sparkling 
 water, in which the common observer finds nothing but 
 transparency and freshness: for in this, however the idle 
 and ignorant ridicule our process, we may exhibit what is 
 unsuspected, and separate what is insalubrious. We 
 must do then for our poet that which other men do for 
 themselves; we must defend him by advancing the best 
 authority for something as bad or worse; and although it 
 puzzle our ingenuity, yet we may almost make out in 
 quantity, and quite in quality, our spicilege from Virgil 
 himself. If younger men were present, I would admonish 
 and exhort them to abate no more of their reverence for the 
 Roman poet on the demonstration of his imperfections, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 51 
 
 than of their love for a parent or guardian who had walked 
 with them far into the country, and had shown them its 
 many beauties and blessings, on his lassitude or his 
 debility. Never will such men receive too much homage. 
 He who can best discover their blemishes, will best appre- 
 ciate their merit, and most zealously guard their honour. 
 The flippancy with which genius is often treated by 
 mediocrity, is the surest sign of a prostrate mind’s incon- 
 tinence and impotence. It will gratify the national pride 
 of our Florentines, if you show them how greatly the nobler 
 parts of their fellow-citizen excel the loftiest of his Mantuan 
 guide. 
 
 Boccaccio, Of Virgil? 
 
 Petrarca, Even so. 
 
 Boccaccio. He had no suspicion of his equality with this 
 prince of Roman poets, whose footsteps he follows with 
 reverential and submissive obsequiousness. 
 
 fetrarca. Have you never observed that persons of high 
 rank universally treat their equals with deference ; and that 
 il-bred ones are often smart and captious? Even their 
 words are uttered with a brisk and rapid air, a tone higher 
 than the natural, to sustain the factitious consequence and 
 vapouring independence they assume. Small critics and 
 small poets take all this courage when they licentiously shut 
 out the master; but Dante really felt the veneration he 
 would impress. Suspicion of his superiority he had none 
 whatever, nor perhaps have you yourself much more. 
 
 Boccaccio. I take all proper interest in my author; Iam 
 sensible to the duties of a commentator; but in truth I 
 dare hardly entertain that exalted notion. I should have 
 the whole world against me. 
 
 Petrarca. You must expect it for azy exalted notion ; for 
 anything that so startles a prejudice as to arouse a suspicion 
 that it may be dispelled. You must expect it if you throw 
 open the windows of infection. Truth is only unpleasant 
 in its novelty. He who first utters it, says to his hearer, 
 “Vou are less wise than I am.” Now who likes this? 
 
 Boccaccio, But surely if there are some very high places 
 
52 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 in our Alighieri, the inequalities are perpetual and vast ; 
 whereas the regularity, the continuity, the purity of Virgil, 
 are proverbial. 
 
 fetrarca. It is only in literature that what is proverbial is 
 suspicious ; and mostly in poetry. Do we find in Dante, 
 do we find in Ovid, such tautologies and flatnesses as 
 these ? 
 
 Quam si dura silex .. aut stet Marpessia cautes 
 
 Majus adorta nefas . . majoremque orsa furorem. 
 
 Arma amezs capio. . nec sat vatzonzs in armis. 
 Superatne . . et vescetur aura 
 
 Aitheria. . neque adhuc credelibus occubat umbris ? 
 
 Omnes. . ccelicolas . . omnes supera alta tenentes. 
 
 Scuta datentia condunt. 
 
 Has inter voces . . medza inter talia verba. 
 
 Finem dedit . . ove loguendz. 
 
 Insonuere cave. . sonztumaque dedere caverna. 
 
 Ferro accitam . . crebrisque dipennzbus. 
 
 Nec nostri generis puerum. . ec sanguints. 
 
 Boccaccio. These things look very ill in Latin; and yet 
 they had quite escaped my observation. We often find, in 
 the Psalms of David, one section of a sentence placed as it 
 were in symmetry with another, and not at all supporting it 
 by presenting the same idea. It is a species of piety to 
 drop the nether lip in admiration ; but in reality it is not 
 only the modern taste that is vitiated ; the ancient is little 
 less so, although differently. To say over again what we 
 have just ceased to say, with nothing added, nothing 
 improved, is equally bad in all languages and all times. 
 
 fetrarca. But in these repetitions we may imagine one 
 part of the chorus to be answering another part opposite. 
 
 Boccaccio. Likely enough. However, you have ransacked 
 poor Virgil to the skin, and have stripped him clean. 
 
 Petrarca. Of all who have ever dealt with Winter, he is 
 the most frost-bitten. Hesiod’s description of the snowy 
 season is more poetical and more formidable. What do 
 you think of these icicles — 
 
 CEraque dissiliunt vulgo ; vestesgue régescuné ! 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 53 
 
 Boccaccio. Wretched falling-off. 
 Letrarca. He comes close enough presently. 
 
 Stiriaque hirsutis dependent horrida barbis, 
 
 We will withdraw from the Alps into the city. And now 
 are you not smitten with reverence at seeing 
 
 Romanos rerum dominos ; gentemaque togatam ? 
 The masters of the world . and long-tatled coats ! 
 
 Come to Carthage. What a recommendation to a beauti- 
 ful queen does Afneas offer, in himself and his associates ! 
 
 Lupt ceu 
 Raptores ; atra in nebula, quos zmproba ventris 
 Exegit czecos rabies ! 
 
 Ovid is censured for his 
 
 Constlits non curribus utere nostris. 
 
 Virgil never for 
 
 Inceptoque et sedibus heeret in iisdem. 
 
 The same in its quality, but more forced. 
 
 The affectation of Ovid was light and playful; Virgil’s 
 was wilful, perverse, and grammatistical. Are we therefore 
 to suppose that every hand able to elaborate a sonnet may 
 be raised up against the majesty of Virgil? Is ingratitude 
 so rare and precious, that we should prefer the exposure of 
 his faults to the enjoyment of his harmony? He first 
 delivered it to his countrymen in unbroken links under the 
 form of poetry, and consoled them for the eloquent tongue 
 that had withered on the Rostra. It would be no difficult 
 matter to point out at least twenty bad passages in the 
 Aineid, and a proportionate number of worse in the 
 Georgics. In your comparison of poet with poet, the 
 defects as well as the merits of each ought to be placed 
 
54 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 side by side. ‘This is the rather to be expected, as Dante 
 professes to be Virgil’s disciple. You may easily show that 
 his humility no more became him than his fierceness. 
 
 Loccaccio, You have praised the harmony of the Roman 
 poet. Now in single verses I think our poetry is sometimes 
 more harmonious than the Latin, but never in whole 
 sentences. Advantage could perhaps be taken of our 
 metre if we broke through the stanza. Our language is 
 capable, I think, of all the vigour and expression of the 
 Latin ; ‘and, in regard to the pauses in our versification, 
 in which chiefly the harmony of metre consists, we have 
 greatly the advantage. What, for instance, is more beautiful 
 than your 
 
 Solo. . e pensoso,. . i piu deserti campi 
 Vo.. misurando.. a passi tardi. . e lenti. 
 
 Fetrarca. My critics have found fault with the JZenz, 
 calling it an expletive, and ignorant that equally in Italian 
 and Latin the word signifies both s/ow and /anguzd, while 
 tard? signifies slow only. 
 
 Hoccacio. Good poetry, like good music, pleases most 
 people, but the ignorant and inexpert lose half its pleasures, 
 the invidious lose them all. What a paradise lost is here ! 
 
 Letrarca. If we deduct the inexpert, the ignorant, and 
 the invidious, can we correctly say it pleases most people ? 
 3ut either my worst compositions are the most admired, 
 or the insincere and malignant bring them most forward 
 for admiration, keeping the others in the back-ground ! 
 Sonnetteers, in consequence, have started up from all 
 quarters. 
 
 Boccaccio. The sonnet seems peculiarly adapted to the 
 languor of a melancholy and despondent love, the rhymes 
 returning and replying to every plaint and every pulsation. 
 Our poetasters are now converting it into the penfold and 
 pound of stray thoughts and vagrant fancies. No sooner 
 have they collected in their excursions as much matter as 
 they conveniently can manage, than they seat themselves 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 55 
 
 down and set busily to work, punching it neatly out with a 
 clever cubic stamp of fourteen lines in diameter. 
 
 fetrarca. A pretty sonnet may be written on a lambkin 
 or a parsnep, there being room enough for truth and ten- 
 derness on the edge of a leaf or the tip of an ear; but a 
 great poet must clasp the higher passions breast high, 
 and compel them in an authoritative tone to answer his 
 interrogatories. 
 
 We will now return again to Virgil, and consider in what 
 relation he stands to Dante. Our Tuscan and Homer are 
 never inflated. 
 
 Boccaccio. Pardon my interruption ; but do you find that 
 Virgil is? Surely he has always borne the character of the 
 most chaste, the most temperate, the most judicious among 
 the poets. 
 
 fetrarca. And will not soon lose it. Yet never had there 
 swelled, in the higher or the lower regions of poetry, such a 
 gust as here, in the exordium of the Georgics - 
 
 Tuque adeo, quem mox que sint habitura deorum 
 Concilia incertum est, urbisne invisere, Czesar, 
 Terrarumque velis curam, et te maximus orbis 
 Auctorem frugum ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Already forestalled ! 
 fetrarca. 
 
 - - . tempestatumque potentem. 
 
 Boccaccio. Very strange coincidence of opposite qualifica- 
 tions. 
 Petrarca. 
 
 Accipiat, cingens materna tempora myrto: 
 An deus immensi venias maris. . . « 
 
 Boccaccio. Surely he would not put down Neptune ? 
 LPetrarca, 
 
 - - ac tua nautze 
 Numina sola colant : ¢¢b¢ serviat ultima Thule, 
 
56 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccio, Catch him up! catch him up! uncoil the 
 whole of the vessel’s rope ! never did man fall overboard so 
 unluckily, or sink so deep on a sudden. 
 
 Petrarca. 
 
 Teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Nobody in his senses would bid against her : 
 what indiscretion ! and at her time of life too! 
 
 Tethys then really, most gallant Ceesar ! 
 
 If you would only condescend to please her, 
 With all her waves would your good graces buy, 
 And you should govern all the Isle of Skie. 
 
 Petrarca. 
 
 Anne novum /ardzs sidus te mensibus addas ? 
 
 Boccaccio. For what purpose? If the months were s/ow, 
 he was not likely to mend their speed by mounting another 
 passenger. But the vacant place is such an inviting one ! 
 
 Petrarca. 
 
 Qua locus Erigonen inter Chelasque sequentes 
 Panditur. 
 
 Boccaccio. Plenty of room, sir ! 
 Petrarca. 
 
 . » « ipse tibi jam brachia contrahit ardens, 
 Scorpius. ... 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 would not incommode him; I would beg 
 him to be quite at his ease. 
 FPetrarca. 
 
 . et cceli justa plus parte reliquit. 
 Quicquid eris (nam te nec sperent Tartara regem 
 Nec tibi regnandi veniet tam dira cupido, 
 Quamvis Elysios miretur Greecia campos, 
 Nec repetita sequi curet Proserpina matrem), 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 57 
 
 Boccaccio, Was it not enough to have taken all Varro’s 
 invocation, much enlarged, without adding these verses to 
 the other twenty-three ? 
 
 Petrarca. Vainly will you pass through the later poets of 
 the empire, and look for the like extravagance and bombast. 
 Tell me candidly your opinion, not of the quantity but of 
 the quality. 
 
 Boccaccio. I had scarcely formed one upon them before. 
 Honestly and truly, it is just such a rumbling rotundity as 
 might have been blown, with much ado, if Lucan and 
 Nero had joined their pipes and puffed together into the 
 same bladder. I never have admired, since I was a school- 
 boy, the commencement or the conclusion of the Georgics ; 
 an unwholesome and consuming fungus at the foot of the 
 tree, a withered and loose branch at the summit. 
 
 Boccaccio. Virgil and Dante are altogether so different, 
 that, unless you will lend me your whole store of ingenuity, 
 I shall never bring them to bear one upon the other. 
 
 fetrarca. Frequently the points of comparison are salient 
 in proportion as the angles of similitude recede: and the 
 absence of a quality in one man usually makes us recollect 
 its presence in another; hence the comparison is at the 
 same time natural and involuntary. Few poets are so 
 different as Homer and Virgil, yet no comparison has been 
 made oftener. Ovid, although unlike Homer, is greatly 
 more like him than Virgil is ; for there is the same facility, 
 and apparently the same negligence, in both. The great 
 fault in the AZe¢amorphoses is in the plan, as proposed in the 
 argument, 
 
 primaque ab origine mundi 
 In mea ferpetuum deducere tempora carmen. 
 
 Had he divided the more interesting of the tales, and 
 omitted all the transformations, he would have written a 
 greater number of exquisite poems than any author of Italy 
 or Greece. He wants on many occasions the gravity of 
 Virgil ; he wants on all the variety of cadence ; but it is a 
 very mistaken notion that he either has heavier fau!ts or 
 
58 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 more numerous. His natural air of levity, his unequalled 
 and unfailing ease, have always made the contrary opinion 
 prevalent. Errors and faults are readily supposed, in 
 literature as in life, where there is much gaiety: and the 
 appearance of ease, among those who never could acquire 
 or understand it, excites a suspicion of negligence and 
 faultiness. Of all the ancient Romans, Ovid had the 
 finest imagination ; he likewise had the truest tact in judg- 
 ing the poetry of his contemporaries and predecessors. 
 Compare his estimate with Quintilian’s of the same writers, 
 and this will strike you forcibly. He was the only one of 
 his countrymen who could justly appreciate the labours of 
 Lucretius. 
 
 Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucrett, 
 Exitio terras quum dabit una dies. 
 
 And the kindness with which he rests on all the others, 
 shows a benignity of disposition which is often lamentably 
 deficient in authors who write tenderly upon imaginary 
 occasions. 
 
 I begin to be inclined to your opinion in regard to the 
 advantages of our Italian versification. It surely has a 
 greater variety, in its usual measure, than the Latin, in 
 dactyls and spondees. We admit several feet into ours: 
 the Latin, if we believe the grammarians, admits only two 
 into the heroic; and at least seven verses in every ten 
 conclude with a dissyllabic word. 
 
 Boccaccio. We are taught indeed that the final foot of an 
 hexameter is always a spondee: but our ears deny the 
 assertion, and prove to us that it never is, any more than it 
 is in the Italian. In both the one and the other the last 
 foot is uniformly a trochee in pronunciation. ‘There is only 
 one species of Latin verse which ends with a true inflexible 
 spondee, and this is the scazon. Its name of the 4mper is 
 but little prepossessing, yet the two most beautiful and most 
 perfect poems of the language are composed n it—the 
 Liiser Catulle and the Sirmio. 
 
j 
 
 THE PENTAMERON. 50 
 
 FPetrarca. This is likewise my opinion of those two little 
 golden images, which however are insufficient to raise 
 Catullus on an equality with Virgil: nor would twenty 
 such. Amplitude of dimensions is requisite to constitute 
 the greatness of a poet, besides his symmetry of form and 
 his richness of decoration. We have conversed more than 
 once together on the defects and oversights of the correct 
 and elaborate Mantuan, but never without the expression of 
 our gratitude for the exquisite delight he has afforded us. 
 We may forgive him his Proteus and his Pollio; but we 
 can not well forbear to ask him, how Atneas came to 
 know that Acragas was formerly the sire of high-mettled 
 steeds, even if such had been the fact? But such was 
 only the fact a thousand years afterwards, in the reign of 
 Gelon. 
 
 Boccaccio. Was it then? Were the horses of Gelon and 
 Theron and Hiero, of Agrigentine or Sicilian breed ? 
 The country was never celebrated for a race adapted to 
 chariots ; such horses were mostly brought from Thessaly, 
 and probably some from Africa. I do not believe there 
 was ever a fine one in Italy before the invasion of Pyrrhus. 
 No doubt, Hannibal introduced many. Greece herself, I 
 suspect, was greatly indebted to the studs of Xerxes for the 
 noblest of her prizes on the Olympic plain. In the 
 kingdom of Naples I have observed more horses of high 
 blood than in any other quarter of Italy. It is there that 
 Pyrrhus and Hannibal were stationary: and, long after 
 these, the most warlike of men, the Normans, took posses- 
 sion of the country. And the Normans would have horses 
 worthy of their valour, had they unyoked them from the 
 chariot of the sun. Subduers of France, of Sicily, of 
 Cyprus, they made England herself accept their laws. 
 
 Virgil, I remember, in the Georgics, has given some 
 directions in the choice of horses. He speaks unfavourably 
 of the white: yet painters have been fond of representing 
 the leaders of armies mounted on them. And the reason 
 is quite as good as the reason of a writer on husbandry, 
 Cato or Columella, for choosing a house-dog of a contrary 
 
60 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 colour: it being desirable that a general should be as 
 conspicuous as possible, and a dog, guarding against thieves, 
 as invisible. 
 
 I love beyond measure in Virgil his kindness toward 
 dumb creatures. Although he represents his Mezentius as 
 a hater of the Gods, and so inhuman as to fasten dead 
 bodies to the living, and violates in him the unity of 
 character more than character was ever violated before, we 
 treat as impossible all he has been telling us of his atrocities, 
 when we hear his allocution to Rheebus. 
 
 Petrarca. The dying hero, for hero he is trancendently 
 above all the others in the 4ezd, is not only the kindest 
 father, not only the most passionate in his grief for Lausus, 
 but likewise gives way to manly sorrows for the mute 
 companion of his warfare. 
 
 Rheebe diu, res si qua diu mortalibus usquam, 
 Viximus. 
 
 Here the philosophical reflection addressed to the 
 worthy quadruped, on the brief duration of human and 
 equine life, is ill applied. It is not the thought for the 
 occasion ; it is not the thought for the man. He could no 
 more have uttered it than Rhcebus could have appreciated 
 it. This is not however quite so great an absurdity as the 
 tender apostrophe of the monster Proteus to the dead 
 Eurydice. Beside, the youth of Lausus, and the activity 
 and strength of Mezentius, as exerted in many actions just 
 before his fall, do not allow us to suppose that he who says 
 to his horse, 
 
 Diu viximus, 
 
 had passed the meridian of existence. 
 
 Boccaccio. Francesco ! it is a pity you had no opportunity 
 of looking into the mouth of the good horse Rheebus; 
 perhaps his teeth had not lost all their marks. 
 
 Petrarca. They would have been lost upon me, though 
 horses’ mouths to the intelligent are more trustworthy than 
 many others, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 61 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 have always been of opinion that Virgil is 
 inferior to Homer, not only in genius, but in judgment, and 
 to an equal degree at the very least. I shall never dare to 
 employ half your suggestions in our irritable city, for 
 fear of raising up two new factions, the Virgilians and the 
 Dantists. 
 
 fetrarca. I wish in good truth and seriousness you 
 could raise them, or anything like zeal for genius, with 
 whomsoever it might abide. 
 
 Boccaccio. You really have almost put me out of conceit 
 with Virgil. 
 
 Petrarca. I have done a great wrong then both to him 
 and you. Admiration is not the pursuivant to all the steps 
 even of an admirable poet ; but respect is stationary. Attend 
 him where the ploughman is unyoking the sorrowful ox 
 from his companion dead at the furrow ; follow him up the 
 arduous ascent where he springs beyond the strides of 
 Lucretius ; and close the procession of his glory with the 
 coursers and cars of Elis. 
 
 THIRD DAY’S INTERVIEW. 
 
 it being now the Lord’s day, Messer Francesco thought 
 it meet that he should rise early in the morning and bestir 
 himself, to hear mass in the parish church at Certaldo. 
 Whereupon he went on tiptoe, if so weighty a man could 
 indeed go in such a fashion, and lifted softly the latch of 
 Ser Giovanni’s chamber-door, that he might salute him ere 
 _he departed, and occasion no wonder at the step he was 
 about to take. He found Ser Giovanni fast asleep, with the 
 missal wide open across his nose, and a pleasant smile on 
 his genial joyous mouth. Ser Francesco leaned over the 
 couch, closed his hands together, and, looking with even 
 more than his usual benignity, said in a low voice, 
 
62 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 ‘God bless thee, gentle soul! the mother of purity and 
 innocence protect thee !” 
 
 He then went into the kitchen, where he found the girl 
 Assunta, and mentioned his resolution. She informed him 
 that the horse had eaten his* two beans, and was as strong 
 as a lion and as ready asa lover. Ser Francesco patted 
 her on the cheek, and called her semplicetta/ She was 
 overjoyed at this honour from so great a man, the bosom- 
 friend of her good master, whom she had always thought 
 the greatest man in the world, not excepting Monsignore, 
 until he told her he was only a dog confronted with Ser 
 Francesco. She tripped alertly across the paved court into 
 the stable, and took down the saddle and bridle from the 
 farther end of the rack. But Ser Francesco, with his 
 natural politeness, would not allow her to equip his 
 palfrey. 
 
 “This is not the work for maidens,” said he; “return to 
 the house, good girl!” 
 
 She lingered a moment, then went away ; but, mistrusting 
 the dexterity of Ser Francesco, she stopped and turned 
 back again, and peeped through the half-closed door, and 
 heard sundry sobs and wheezes round about the girth. Ser 
 Francesco’s wind ill seconded his intention ; and, although 
 he had thrown the saddle valiantly and stoutly in its station, 
 yet the girths brought him into extremity. She entered 
 again, and dissembling the reason, asked him whether he 
 would not take a small beaker of the sweet white wine 
 before he set out, and offered to girdle the horse while his 
 Reverence bitted and bridled him. JBefore any answer 
 could be returned, she had begun. And having now 
 satisfactorily executed her undertaking, she felt irrepressible 
 delight and glee at being able to do what Ser Francesco 
 had failed in. He was scarcely more successful with his 
 allotment of the labour ; found unlooked-for intricacies and 
 complications in the machinery, wondered that human wit 
 could not simplify it, and declared that the animal had 
 
 * Literally, due fave, the expression on such occasions to signify a 
 small quantity. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 63 
 
 never exhibited such restiveness before. In fact, he never 
 had experienced the same grooming. At this conjuncture, a 
 green cap made its appearance, bound with straw-coloured 
 ribbon, and surmounted with two bushy sprigs of hawthorn, 
 of which the globular buds were swelling, and some 
 bursting, but fewer yet open. It was young Simplizio 
 Nardi, who sometimes came on the Sunday morning to 
 sweep the court-yard for Assunta. 
 
 “QO! this time you are come just when you were 
 wanted,” said the girl. 
 
 “Bridle, directly, Ser Francesco’s horse, and then go 
 away about your business.” 
 
 The youth blushed, and kissed Ser Francesco’s hand, 
 begging his permission. It was soon done. He then held 
 the stirrup; and Ser Francesco, with scarcely three efforts, 
 was seated and erect on the saddle. ‘The horse, however, 
 had somewhat more inclination for the stable than for the 
 expedition; and, as Assunta was handing to the rider his 
 long ebony staff, bearing an ivory caduceus, the quadruped 
 turned suddenly round. Simplizio called him Jdestiaccia / 
 and then, softening it, oco garbafo/ and proposed to Ser 
 Francesco that he should leave the bastone behind, and 
 take the crab-switch he presented to him, giving at the same 
 time a sample of its efficacy, which covered the long grizzle 
 hair of the worthy quadruped with a profusion of pink 
 blossoms, like embroidery. The offer was declined ; but 
 Assunta told Simplizio to carry it himself, and to walk by 
 the side of Ser Canonico quite up to the church-porch, 
 having seen what a sad, dangerous beast his reverence had 
 under him. 
 
 With perfect good will, partly in the pride of obedi- 
 ence to Assunta, and partly to enjoy the renown of 
 accompanying a canon of holy church, Simplizio did as she 
 enjoined. 
 
 And now the sound of village bells, in many hamlets and 
 conyents and churches out of sight, was indistinctly heard, 
 and lost again ; and at last the five of Certaldo seemed to 
 crow over the faintness of them all. The freshness of the 
 
64 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 morning was enough of itself to excite the spirits of youth ; 
 a portion of which never fails to descend on years that are 
 far removed from it, if the mind has partaken in innocent 
 mirth while it was its season and its duty to enjoy it. 
 Parties of young and old passed the canonico and his 
 attendant with mute respect, bowing and bare-headed ; for 
 that ebony staff threw its spell over the tongue, which the 
 frank and hearty salutation of the bearer was inadequate to 
 break. Simplizio, once or twice, attempted to call back 
 an intimate of the same age with himself; but the utmost 
 he could obtain was a 7zveritissimo / and a genuflexion to 
 the rider. It is reported that a heart-burning rose up from 
 it in the breast of a cousin, some days after, too distinctly 
 apparent in the long-drawn appellation of Gzor* Simplizio. 
 
 Ser Francesco moved gradually forward, his steed picking 
 his way along the lane, and looking fixedly on the stones 
 with all the sobriety of a mineralogist. He himself was 
 well satisfied with the pace, and told Simplizio to be 
 sparing of the switch, unless in case of a hornet or a gadfly. 
 Simplizio smiled, toward the hedge, and wondered at the 
 condescension of so great a theologian and astrologer, in 
 joking with him about the gadflies and hornets in the 
 beginning of April. ‘‘Ah! there are men in the world 
 who can make wit out of anything!” said he to himself. 
 
 As they approached the walls of the town, the whole 
 country was pervaded by a stirring and diversified air of 
 gladness. Laughter and songs and flutes and viols, inviting 
 voices and complying responses, mingled with merry bells 
 and with processional hymns, along the woodland paths and 
 along the yellow meadows. It was really the Lord’s Day, 
 for he made his creatures happy in it, and their hearts were 
 thankful. Even the cruel had ceased from cruelty ; and the 
 rich man alone exacted from the animal his daily labour. 
 Ser Francesco made this remark, and told his youthful 
 guide that he had never been before where he could not 
 walk to church on a Sunday; and that nothing should 
 persuade him to urge the speed of his beast, on the seventh 
 
 * Contraction of s¢gzor, customary in Tuscany. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 65 
 
 day, beyond his natural and willing foot’s-pace. He reached 
 the gates of Certaldo more than half an hour before the 
 time of service, and he found laurels suspended over them, 
 and being suspended; and many pleasant and beautiful 
 faces were protruded between the ranks of gentry and clergy 
 who awaited him. Little did he expect such an attendance ; 
 but Fra Biagio of San Vivaldo, who himself had offered no 
 obsequiousness or respect, had scattered the secret of his 
 visit throughout the whole country. A young poet, the 
 most celebrated in the town, approached the canonico with 
 a long scroll of verses, which fell below the knee, beginning, 
 
 How shall we welcome our illustrious guest ? 
 
 To which Ser Francesco immediately replied, “Take 
 your favourite maiden, lead the dance with her, and bid all 
 your friends follow ; you have a good half-hour for it.” 
 
 Universal applauses succeeded, the music struck up, 
 couples were instantly formed. The gentry on this occasion 
 led out the cittadinanza, as they usually do in the villeg- 
 giatura, rarely in the carnival, and never at other times. 
 The elder of the priests stood round in their sacred vest- 
 ments, and looked with cordiality and approbation on the 
 youths, whose hands and arms could indeed do much, and 
 did it, but whose active eyes could rarely move upward the 
 modester of their partners. 
 
 While the elder of the clergy were thus gathering the 
 fruits of their liberal cares and paternal exhortations, some 
 of the younger looked on with a tenderer sentiment, not 
 unmingled with regret. Suddenly the bells ceased; the 
 figure of the dance was broken; all hastened into the 
 church; and many hands that joined on the green, met 
 together at the font, and touched the brow reciprocally with 
 its lustral waters, in soul-devotion. 
 
 After the service, and after a sermon a good church-hour 
 in length to gratify him, enriched with compliments from all 
 authors, Christian and Pagan, informing him at the con- 
 clusion that, although he had been crowned in the Capitol, 
 
 596 
 
66 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 he must die, being born mortal, Ser Francesco rode home- 
 ward. ‘The sermon seemed to have sunk deeply into him, 
 and even into the horse under him, for both of them 
 nodded, both snorted, and one stumbled. Simplizio was 
 twice fain to cry, 
 
 “Ser Canonico! Riverenza! in this country if we sleep 
 before dinner it does us harm. ‘There are stones in the 
 road, Ser Canonico, loose as eggs in a nest, and pretty nigh 
 as thick together, huge as mountains.” 
 
 “ Good lad!” said Ser Francesco, rubbing his eyes, “ toss 
 the biggest of them out of the way, and never mind the rest.” 
 
 The horse, although he walked, shuffled almost into an 
 amble as he approached the stable, and his master looked 
 up at it with nearly the same contentment. Assunta had 
 been ordered to wait for his return, and cried, 
 
 “O Ser Francesco! you are looking at our long apricot, 
 that runs the whole length of the stable and barn, covered 
 with blossoms as the old white hen is with feathers. You 
 must come in the summer, and eat this fine fruit with 
 Signor Padrone. You can not think how ruddy and golden 
 and sweet and mellow it is. There are peaches in all the 
 fields, and plums, and pears, and apples, but there is not 
 another apricot for miles and miles. Ser Giovanni brought 
 the stone from Naples before I was born: a lady gave it to 
 him when she had eaten only half the fruit off it: but 
 perhaps you may have seen her, for you have ridden as far 
 as Rome, or beyond. Padrone looks often at the fruit, and 
 eats it willingly ; and I have seen him turn over the stones 
 in his plate, and choose one out from the rest, and put it 
 into his pocket, but never plant it.” 
 
 “Where is the youth ?” inquired Ser Francesco. 
 
 “Gone away,” answered the maiden. 
 
 ““T wanted to thank him,” said the Canonico. 
 
 “‘ May I tell him so?” asked she. 
 
 “And give him,” continued he, holding a piece of 
 Silvers see 
 
 **T will give him something of my own, if he goes on and 
 behaves well,” said she: “but Signor Padrone would drive 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 67 
 
 him away for ever, I am sure, if he were tempted in an evil 
 hour to accept a quattrino, for any service he could render 
 the friends of the house.” 
 
 Ser Francesco was delighted with the graceful animation 
 of this ingenuous girl, and asked her, with a little curiosity, 
 how she could afford to make him a present. 
 
 “‘T do not intend to make him a present,” she replied: 
 “but it is better he should be rewarded by me,” she blushed 
 and hesitated, “or by Signor Padrone,” she added, “ than 
 by your reverence. He has not done half his duty yet ; not 
 half. I will teach him: he is quite a child; four months 
 younger than me.” 
 
 Ser Francesco went into the house, saying to himself at 
 the doorway, 
 
 “Truth, innocence, and gentle manners, have not yet left 
 the earth. There are sermons that never make the ears 
 weary. I have heard but few of them, and come from 
 church for this.” 
 
 Whether Simplizio had obeyed some private signal from 
 Assunta, or whether his own delicacy had prompted him to 
 disappear, he was now again in the stable, and the manger 
 was replenished with hay. A bucket was soon after heard 
 ascending from the well; and then two words, ‘‘ Thanks, 
 Simplizio.” 
 
 When Petrarca entered the chamber, he found Boccaccio 
 with his breviary in his hand, not looking into it indeed, but 
 repeating a thanksgiving in an audible and impassioned 
 tone of voice. Seeing Ser Francesco, he laid the book 
 down beside him, and welcomed him. 
 
 ‘*T hope you have an appetite after your ride,” said he, 
 “for you have sent home a good dinner before you.” 
 
 Ser Francesco did not comprehend him, and expressed it 
 not in words but in looks. 
 
 “T am afraid you will dine sadly late to-day: noon has 
 struck this halfhour, and you must wait another, I doubt. 
 However, by good luck, I had a couple of citrons in the 
 house, intended to assuage my thirst if the fever had 
 continued. This being over, by God’s mercy, I will try 
 
68 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 (please God!) whether we two greyhounds can not be a 
 match for a leveret.” 
 
 “* How is this ?” said Ser Francesco. 
 
 “Young Marc-Antonio Grilli, the cleverest lad in the 
 parish at noosing any wild animal, is our patron of the 
 feast. He has wanted for many a day to say something in 
 the ear of Matilda Vercelli. Bringing up the leveret to my 
 bedside, and opening the lips, and cracking the knuckles, 
 and turning the foot round to show the quality and quantity 
 of the hair upon it, and to prove that it really and truly was 
 a leveret, and might be eaten without offence to my teeth, 
 he informed me that he had left his mother in the yard, 
 ready to dress it for me; she having been cook to the prior. 
 He protested he owed the crowned martyr a forest of 
 leverets, boars, deers, and everything else within them, for 
 having commanded the most backward girls to dance 
 directly. Whereupon he darted forth at Matilda, saying, 
 ‘The crowned martyr orders it,’ seizing both her hands, and 
 swinging her round before she knew what she was about. 
 He soon had an opportunity of applying a word, no doubt 
 as dexterously as hand or foot ; and she said submissively, 
 but seriously, and almost sadly, ‘ Marc-Antonio, now all the 
 people have seen it, they will think it.’ 
 
 “ And, after a pause, 
 
 “*T am quite ashamed: and so should you be: are not 
 you now?’ 
 
 ‘“The others had run into the church. Matilda, who 
 scarcely had noticed it, cried suddenly, 
 
 «QO Santissima! we are quite alone.’ 
 
 “Will you be mine ?’ cried he, enthusiastically. 
 
 ‘“¢Q! they will hear you in the church,’ replied she. 
 
 “« “They shall, they shall,’ cried he again, as loudly. 
 
 “<Tf you will only go away.’ 
 
 “¢ And then ?’ 
 
 «Ves, yes, indeed.’ 
 
 “<The Virgin hears you : fifty saints are witnesses.’ 
 
 “Ah! they know you made me: they will look kindly 
 on us.’ 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 69 
 
 “ He released her hand: she ran into the church, doubling 
 her veil (I will answer for her) at the door, and kneeling as 
 near it as she could find a place. 
 
 «By St. Peter,’ said Marc-Antonio, ‘if there is a leveret 
 in the wood, the crowned martyr shall dine upon it this 
 blessed day.’ And he bounded off, and set about his 
 occupation. I inquired what induced him to designate you 
 by such a title. He answered, that everybody knew you 
 had received the crown of martyrdom at Rome, between the 
 pope and antipope, and had performed many miracles, for 
 which they had canonised you, and that you wanted only to 
 die to become a saint.” 
 
 The leveret was now served up, cut into small pieces, and 
 covered with a rich tenacious sauce, composed of sugar, 
 citron, and various spices. The appetite of Ser Francesco 
 was contagious. Never was dinner more enjoyed by two 
 companions, and never so much bya greater number. One 
 glass of a fragrant wine, the colour of honey, and unmixed 
 with water, crowned the repast. Ser Francesco then went into 
 his own chamber, and found, on his ample mattress, a cool, 
 refreshing sleep, quite sufficient to remove all the fatigues of 
 the morning; and Ser Giovanni lowered the pillow against 
 which he had seated himself, and fell into his usual repose. 
 Their separation was not of long continuance: and, the 
 religious duties of the Sabbath having been performed, a 
 few reflections on literature were no longer interdicted. 
 
 Boccaccio. How happens it, O Francesco! that nearly at 
 the close of our lives, after all our efforts and exhortations, 
 we are standing quite alone in the extensive fields of 
 literature? We are only like to scoria struck from the 
 anvil of the gigantic Dante. We carry our fire along with 
 us in our parabola, and, behold! it falls extinguished on the 
 earth. 
 
 Petrarca. Courage! courage! we have hardly yet lighted 
 the lamp and shown the way. 
 
 Boccaccio. You are a poet; I am only a commentator, 
 and must soothe my own failures in the success of my 
 master, 
 
10 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 I can not but think again and again, how fruitlessly the 
 bravest have striven to perpetuate the ascendancy or to 
 establish the basis of empire, when Alighieri hath fixed a 
 language for thousands of years, and for myriads of men; a 
 language far richer and more beautiful than our glorious 
 Italy ever knew before, in any of her regions, since the 
 Attic and the Dorian contended for the prize of eloquence 
 on her southern shores. Eternal honour, eternal veneration, 
 to him who raised up our country from the barbarism that 
 surrounded her! Remember how short a time before him, 
 his master Brunetto Latini wrote in French; prose indeed ; 
 but whatever has enough in it for poetry, has enough for 
 prose out of its shreds and selvages. 
 
 fetrarca. Brunetto! Brunetto! it was not well done in 
 thee. An Italian, a poet, write in French! What human 
 ear can tolerate its nasty nasalities? what homely intellect 
 be satisfied with its bare-bone poverty? By good fortune 
 we have nothing to do with it in the course of our examina- 
 tion. Several things in Dante himself you will find more 
 easy to explain than to excuse. You have already given 
 me a specimen of them, which I need not assist you in 
 rendering more copious. 
 
 Loccaccio. There are certainly some that require no little 
 circumspection. Difficult as they are to excuse, the 
 difficulty lies more on the side of the clergy than the 
 laity. 
 
 Petrarca. I understand you. The gergo of your author 
 has always a reference to the court of the Vatican. Here 
 he speaks in the dark: against his private enemies he 
 always is clear and explicit. 
 
 Unless you are irresistibly pressed into it, give no more 
 than two, or at most three lectures, on the verse which, I 
 predict, will appear to our Florentines the cleverest in the 
 poem. 
 
 Che vel viso degli uomini legge O M O. 
 
 Boccaccio, We were very near a new civil war. about the 
 interpretation of it. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 71 
 
 etrarca. Foolisher questions have excited general ones. 
 What, I wonder, rendered you all thus reasonable at last ? 
 
 Boccaccio. The majority, which on few occasions is so 
 much in the right, agreed with me that the two eyes are 
 signified by the two vowels, the nose by the centre of the 
 consonant, and the temples by its exterior lines. 
 
 fetrarca. In proceeding to explore the Paradise more 
 minutely, I must caution you against remarking to your 
 audience, that, although the nose is between the eyes, the 
 temples are not, exactly. An observation which, if well 
 established, might be resented as somewhat injurious to the 
 Divinity of the Commedia. 
 
 Boccaccio, With all its flatnesses and swamps, many have 
 preferred the Paradiso to the other two sections of the 
 poem. 
 
 FPetrarca. There is as little in it of very bad poetry, or 
 we may rather say, as little of what is no poetry at all, as in 
 either, which are uninviting from an absolute lack of 
 interest and allusion, from the confusedness of the ground- 
 work, the indistinctness of the scene, and the paltriness (in 
 great measure) of the agents. If we are amazed at the 
 number of Latin verses in the Zzferno and Purgatorio, what 
 must we be at their fertility in the Paradiso, where they 
 drop on us in ripe clusters through every glen and avenue ! 
 We reach the conclusion of the sixteenth canto before we 
 come in sight of poetry, or more than a glade with a gleam 
 upon it. Here we find a description of Florence in her age 
 of innocence : but the scourge of satire sounds in our ears 
 before we fix the attention. 
 
 Boccaccio. I like the old Ghibelline best in the seven- 
 teenth, where he dismisses the doctors, corks up the Latin, 
 ceases from psalmody, looses the arms of Calfucci and 
 Arigucci, sets down Caponsacco in the market, and gives 
 us a stave of six verses which repays us amply for our 
 heaviest toils and sufferings. 
 
 Tu lascierai ogni cosa diletta, etc. 
 
 But he soon grows weary of tenderness and sick of sorrow, 
 
72 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 and returns to his habitual exercise of throwing stones and 
 calling names. 
 
 Again we are refreshed in the twentieth. Here we come — 
 to the simile: here we look up and see his lark, and are 
 happy and lively as herself. ‘Too soon the hard fingers of 
 the master are round our wrists again: we are dragged into 
 the school, and are obliged to attend the divinity-examina- 
 tion, which the poet undergoes from Saint Simon-Peter. 
 He acquits himself pretty well, and receives a handsome 
 compliment from the questioner, who, ‘‘zxflamed with love,” 
 acknowledges he has given “‘a good account of the coinace, 
 both tn regard to weight and alloy.” 
 
 “Tell me,” continues he, ‘‘have you any of it in your 
 pocket P” 
 
 “Yea,” replies the scholar, ‘and so shining and round 
 that I doubt not what mint it comes from.” 
 
 Saint Simon-Peter does not take him at his word for it, 
 but tries to puzzle and pose him with several hard queries. 
 He answers both warily and wittily, and grows so contented 
 with his examining master, that, instead of calling him, “@ 
 sergeant of infantry,” as he did before, he now entitles him 
 “* the baron.” 
 
 I must consult our bishop ere I venture to comment 
 on these two verses : 
 
 Credo una essenza, si una e si trina 
 Che soffera congiunto sunt et este, 
 
 as, whatever may peradventure lie within them, they are 
 hardly worth the ceremony of being burnt alive for, although 
 it should be at the expense of the Church. 
 
 Petrarca. recommend to you the straightforward course; 
 but I believe I must halt a little, and advise you to look 
 about you. If you let people see that there are so many 
 faults in your author, they will reward you, not according to 
 your merits, but according to its defects. On celebrated 
 writers, when we speak in public, it is safer to speak 
 magnificently than correctly. ‘Therefore be not too cautious 
 in leading your disciples, and in telling them, here you may 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 73 
 
 step securely, here you must mind your footing: for a florin 
 will drop out of your pocket at every such crevice you stop 
 to cross, 
 
 Boccaccio. The room is hardly light enough to let me see 
 whether you are smiling: but, being the most ingenuous 
 soul aiive, and by no means the least jocose one, I suspect 
 it. My office is, to explain what is difficult, rather than to 
 expatiate on what is beautiful or to investigate what is 
 amiss. If those who invite me to read the lectures, mark 
 out the topics for me, nothing is easier than to keep within 
 them. Yet with how true and entire a pleasure shall I 
 point out to my fellow-citizens such a glorious tract of 
 splendour as there is in the single line, 
 
 Cio ch’io vedevo mi sembrava un riso 
 Dell universo ! 
 
 With what exultation shall I toss up my gauntlet into the 
 balcony of proud Antiquity, and cry, Descend/ Contend ! 
 
 I have frequently heard your admiration of this passage, 
 and therefore I dwell on it the more delighted. Beside, we 
 seldom find anything in our progress that is not apter to 
 excite a very different sensation. School-divinity can never 
 be made attractive to the Muses; nor will Virgil and 
 Thomas Aquinas ever cordially shake hands. The un- 
 relenting rancour against the popes is more tedious than 
 unmerited: in a poem I doubt whether we would not 
 rather find it unmerited than tedious. For, of all the sins 
 against the spirit of poetry, this is the most unpardonable. 
 Something of our indignation, and a proportion of our 
 scorn, may fairly be detached from the popes, and thrown 
 on the pusillanimous and perfidious who suffered such 
 excrescences to shoot up, exhausting and poisoning the soil 
 they sprang from. 
 
 Petrarca. 1 do not wonder they make Saint Peter 
 “redden,” as we hear they do, but I regret that they 
 make him stammer, 
 
 Quegli che usurpa in terra il luogo mio, 
 Il luogo mio, il Iuogo mio, etc. 
 
74 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Alighieri was not the first catholic who taught us that the 
 papacy is usurpation, nor will he be (let us earnestly hope) 
 the last to inculcate so evident a doctrine. 
 
 Boccaccio. Canonico of Parma! Canonico of Parma! you 
 make my hair stand on end. But since nobody sees it 
 beside yourself, prythee tell me how it happens that an 
 infallible pope should denounce as damnable the decision 
 of another infallible pope, his immediate predecessor? 
 Giovanni the twenty-second, whom you knew intimately, 
 taught us that the souls of the just could not enjoy the 
 sight of God until after the day of universal judgment. 
 But the doctors of theology at Paris, and those learned and 
 competent clerks, the kings of France and Naples, would 
 not allow him to die before he had swallowed the choke- 
 pear they could not chew. The succeeding pope, who 
 called himself an ass, in which infallibility was less 
 wounded, and neither king nor doctor carped at it (for not 
 only was he one, but as truth-telling a beast as Balaam’s), 
 condemned this error, as indeed well he might, after two 
 kings had set their faces against it. But on the whole, the 
 thing is ugly and perplexing. That they were both infallible 
 we know; and yet they differed! Nay, the former differed 
 from himself, and was pope all the while; of course 
 infallible! Well, since we may not solve the riddle, let us 
 suppose it is only a mystery the more, and be thankful 
 for it. 
 
 Petrarca. That is best. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 never was one of those who wish for ice to 
 slide upon in summer. Being no theologian, I neither am 
 nor desire to be sharp-sighted in articles of heresy: but it is 
 reported that there are among Christians some who hesitate 
 to worship the Virgin. 
 
 Petrarca. Few, let us hope. 
 
 Loccaccio, Hard hearts! Imagine her, in her fifteenth 
 year, fondling the lovely babe whom she was destined to 
 outlive! destined to see shedding his blood, and bowing 
 his head in agony. Can we ever pass her by and not say 
 from our hearts : 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 75 
 
 **O thou whose purity had only the stain of compassionate 
 tears upon it! blessings, blessings on thee !” 
 
 I never saw her image but it suspended my steps on the 
 highway of the world, discoursed with me, softened and 
 chastened me, showing me too clearly my unworthiness by 
 the light of a reproving smile. 
 
 fetrarca. Woe betide those who cut off from us any 
 source of tenderness, and shut out from any of our senses 
 the access to devotion ! 
 
 Beatrice, in the place before us, changes colour too, as 
 deeply as ever she did on earth; for Saint Peter, in his 
 passion, picks up and flourishes some very filthy words. 
 He does not recover the use of his reason on a sudden ; 
 but, after a long and bitter complaint that faith and 
 innocence are only to be found in little children ; and that 
 the child moreover who loves and listens to its mother 
 while it lisps, wishes to see her buried when it can speak 
 plainly ; he informs us that this corruption ought to excite 
 no wonder, since the human race must of necessity go 
 astray, not having any one upon earth to govern it. 
 
 Boccaccio. Is not this strange though; from the mouth of 
 one inspired? We are taught that there never shall be 
 wanting a head to govern the church; could Saint Peter 
 say that it was wanting? I feel my catholicism here 
 touched to the quick. However, I am resolved not to 
 doubt: the more difficulties I find, the fewer questions 
 T raise: the saints must settle it, as well as they can, among 
 themselves. 
 
 Petrarca, They are nearer the fountain of truth than we 
 are ; and I am confident Saint Paul was in the right. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 do verily believe he may have been, although 
 at Rome we might be in jeopardy for saying it. Well is it 
 for me that my engagement is to comment on Alighieri’s 
 Divina Commedia instead of his treatise De Monarchia. 
 He says bold things there, and sets apostles and popes 
 together by the ears. That is not the worst. He would 
 destroy what is and should be, and would establish what 
 never can nor ought to be. 
 
76 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 FPetrarca, Yf a universal monarch could make children 
 good universally, and keep them as innocent when they 
 grow up as when they were in the cradle, we might wish 
 him upon his throne to-morrow. But Alighieri, and those 
 others who have conceived such a prodigy, seem to be 
 unaware that what they would establish for the sake of 
 unity, is the very thing by which this unity must be 
 demolished. For, since universal power does not confer on 
 its possessor universal intelligence, and since a greater 
 number of the cunning could and would assemble round 
 him, he must (if we suppose him like the majority and 
 nearly the totality of his class) appoint a greater proportion 
 of such subjects to the management and control of his 
 dominions. Many of them would become the rulers of 
 cities and of provinces in which they have no connexions 
 or affinities, and in which the preservation of character is 
 less desirable to them than the possession of power. The 
 operations of injustice, and the opportunities of improve- 
 ment, would be alike concealed from the monarch in the 
 remoter parts of his territories; and every man of high 
 station would exercise more authority than he. 
 
 Boccaccio. Casting aside the impracticable scheme of 
 universal monarchy, if kings and princes there must be, 
 even in the midst of civility and letters, why can not they 
 return to European customs, renouncing those Asiatic 
 practices which are become enormously prevalent? why 
 can not they be contented with such power as the kings of 
 Rome and the lucumons of Etruria were contented with? 
 But forsooth they are wiser! and such customs are obsolete ! 
 Of their wisdom I shall venture to say nothing, for nothing, 
 I believe, is to be said of it, but the customs are not 
 obsolete in other countries. They have taken deep root in 
 the north, and exhibit the signs of vigour and vitality. 
 Unhappily, the weakest men always think they least want 
 help; like the mad and the drunk. Princes and geese are 
 fond of standing on one leg, and fancy it (no doubt) a 
 position of gracefulness and security, until the cramp seizes 
 them on a sudden: then they find how helpless they are, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 17 
 
 and how much better it would have been if they had 
 employed all the support at their disposal. 
 
 Petrarca. When the familiars of absolute princes taunt 
 us, as they are wont to do, with the only apophthegm they 
 ever learnt by heart, namely, that it is better to be ruled by 
 one master than by many, I quite agree with them ; unity 
 of power being the principle of republicanism, while the 
 principle of despotism is division and delegation. In the 
 one system, every man conducts his own affairs, either 
 personally or through the agency of some _ trustworthy 
 representative, which is essentially the same: in the other 
 system, no man, in quality of citizen, has any affairs of his 
 own to conduct: but a tutor has been as much set over 
 him as over a lunatic, as little with his option or consent, 
 and without any provision, as there is in the case of the 
 lunatic, for returning reason. Meanwhile, the spirit of 
 republics is omnipresent in them, as active in the particles 
 as in the mass, in the circumference as in the centre. 
 Eternal it must be, as truth and justice are, although not 
 stationary. Yet when we look on Venice and Genoa, on 
 the turreted Pisa and our own fair Florence, and many 
 smaller cities self-poised in high serenity; when we see 
 what edifices they have raised, and then glance at the 
 wretched habitations of the slaves around, the Austrians, 
 the French, and other fierce restless barbarians; difficult is 
 it to believe that the beneficent God, who smiled upon 
 these our labours, will ever in his indignation cast them 
 down, a helpless prey to such invaders. 
 
 Morals and happiness will always be nearest to perfection 
 in small communities, where functionaries are appointed by 
 as numerous a body as can be brought together of the 
 industrious and intelligent, who have observed in what 
 manner they superintend their families, and converse with 
 their equals and dependents. Do we find that farms are 
 better cultivated for being large? is your neighbour friendlier 
 for being powerful? is your steward honester and more 
 attentive for having a mortgage on your estate or a claim to 
 a joint property in your mansion? Yet well-educated men 
 
78 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 are seen about the streets, so vacant and delirious, as to 
 fancy that a country can only be well governed by some- 
 body who never saw and will never see a twentieth part of 
 it, or know a hundredth part of its necessities ; somebody 
 who has no relationships in it, no connexions, no remem- 
 brances. A man without soul and sympathy is alone to be 
 the governor of men! Giovanni! our Florentines are, 
 beyond all others, a treacherous, tricking, mercenary race. 
 What in the name of heaven will become of them, if ever 
 they listen to these ravings; if ever they lose, by their 
 cowardice and dissensions, the crust of salt that keeps them 
 from putrescency, their freedom ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Alas! I dare hardly look out sometimes, lest I 
 see before me the day when German and Spaniard will 
 split them down the back and throw them upon the coals. 
 Sad thought! here we will have done with it. We can not 
 help them: we have made the most of them, like the good 
 tailor who, as Dante says, cuts his coat according to his 
 cloth. 
 
 fetrarca. Do you intend, if they should call upon you 
 again, to give them occasionally some of your strictures on 
 his prose writings ? 
 
 Boccaccio. It would not be expedient. Enough of his 
 political sentiments is exhibited, in various places of his 
 poem, to render him unacceptable to one party; and 
 enough of his theological, or rather his ecclesiastical, to 
 frighten both. You and I were never passionately fond of 
 the papacy, to which we trace in great measure the 
 miseries of our Italy, its divisions and its corruptions, the 
 substitution of cunning for fortitude, and of creed for 
 conduct. He burst into indignation at the sight of this, 
 and, because the popes took away our Christianity, he was 
 so angry he would throw her freedom after it. Any thorn 
 in the way is fit enough to toss the tattered rag on. A 
 German king will do; Austrian or Bavarian, Swabian, or 
 Switzer, And, to humiliate us more and more, and render 
 us the laughing-stock of our household, he would invest the 
 intruder with the title of Roman emperor. What! it is not 
 
THE PENTAMERON. "9 
 
 enough then that he assumes it! We must invite him, 
 forsooth, to accept it at our hands! 
 
 Fetrarca. Let the other nations of Europe be governed 
 by their hereditary kings and feudal princes: it is more 
 accordant with those ancient habits which have not yet 
 given way to the blandishment of literature and the pacific 
 triumph of the arts: but let the states of Italy be guided 
 by their own citizens. May nations find out by degrees 
 that the next evil to being conquered is to conquer, and 
 that he who assists in making slaves gives over at last by 
 becoming one ! 
 
 Boccaccio. Let us endure a French pope, or any other, as 
 well as we can ; there is no novelty in his being a stranger. 
 The Romans at all times picked up recruits from the 
 thieves, gods, and priests, of all nations. Dante is wrong, I 
 suspect, in imagining the popes to be infidels; and, no 
 doubt, they would pay for indulgences as honestly as they 
 sell them, if there were anybody at hand to receive the 
 money. But who in the world ever thought of buying the 
 cap he was wearing on his own head? Popes are no such 
 triflers. After all, an infidel pope (and I do not believe 
 there are three in a dozen) is less noxious than a sanguinary 
 soldier, be his appellation what it may, if his power is only 
 limited by his will. My experience has however taught me, 
 that where there is a great mass of power concentrated, it 
 will always act with great influence on the secondary around 
 it. Whether pope or emperor or native king occupy the 
 most authority within the Alps, the barons will range them- 
 selves under his banner, apart from the citizens. Venice, 
 who appears to have received by succession the political 
 wisdom of republican Rome, has less political enterprise : 
 and the jealousies of her rivals will always hold them back, 
 or greatly check them, from any plan suggested by her for 
 the general good. 
 
 Ffetrarca. It appears to be the will of Providence that 
 power and happiness shall never co-exist. Whenever a 
 state becomes powerful, it becomes unjust ; and injustice 
 leads it first to the ruin of others, and next, and speedily, to 
 
80 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 its own. We, whose hearts are republican, are dazzled by - 
 looking so long and so intently at the eagles, and standards, 
 and golden letters, S. P. Q. R. We are reluctant to admit 
 that the most wretched days of ancient Rome were the days 
 of her most illustrious men ; that they began amid the 
 triumphs of Scipio, when the Gracchi perished, and reached 
 the worst under the dictatorship of Czesar, when perished 
 Liberty herself. A milder and better race was gradually — 
 formed by Grecian instruction. Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, 
 Trajan, the Antonines, the Gordians, Tacitus, Probus, in 
 an almost unbroken series, are such men as never wore the 
 diadem in other countries ; and Rome can show nothing 
 comparable to them in the most renowned and virtuous of 
 her earlier consuls. Humanity would be consoled in some 
 degree by them, if their example had sunk into the breasts 
 of the governed. But ferocity is unsoftened by sensuality ; 
 and the milk of the wolf could always be traced in the 
 veins of the effeminated Romans. 
 
 Fetrarca. That is true: and they continue to this day 
 less humane than any other people of Italy. The better 
 part of their character has fallen off from them; and in 
 courage and perseverance they are far behind the Venetians 
 and Ligurians. These last, a scanty population, were 
 hardly to be conquered by Rome in the plenitude of her 
 power, and with all her confederates: for which reason 
 they were hated by her beyond all other nations. To 
 gratify the pride and malice of Augustus, were written the 
 verses : 
 
 Vane Ligur ! frustraque animis elate superbis, 
 Nequicquam patrias tentasti lubricus artes. 
 
 Since that time, the inhabitants of Genoa and Venice haye 
 been enriched with the generous blood of the Lombards. 
 This little tribe on the Subalpine territory, and the Norman 
 on the Apulian, demonstrate to us, by the rapidity and 
 extension of their conquests, that Italy is an over-ripe fruit, 
 ready to drop from the stalk under the feet of the first 
 insect that alights on it. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 81 
 
 Boccaccio. The Germans, although as ignorant as the 
 French, are less cruel, less insolent and rapacious. The 
 French have a separate claw for every object of appetite or 
 passion, and a spring that enables them to seize it. The 
 desires of the German are overlaid with food and extin- 
 guished with drink, which to others are stimulants and 
 incentives. ‘The German loves to see everything about him 
 orderly and entire, however coarse and common: the 
 nature of the Frenchman is to derange and destroy every- 
 thing. Sometimes when he has done so, he will reconstruct 
 and refit it in his own manner, slenderly and fantastically ; 
 oftener leaving it in the middle, and proposing to lay the 
 foundation when he has pointed the pinnacles and gilt the 
 weathercock. 
 
 Petrarca. There is no danger that the French will have a 
 durable footing in this or any other country. Their levity 
 is more intolerable than German pressure, their arrogance 
 than German pride, their falsehood than German rudeness, 
 and their vexations than German exaction. 
 
 Boccaccio. \f I must be devoured, I have little choice 
 between the bear and the panther. May we always see the 
 creatures at a distance and across the grating. The French 
 will fondle us, to show us how vastly it is our interest to 
 fondle them; watching all the while their opportunity ; 
 looking mild and half-asleep ; making a dash at last; and 
 laying bare and fleshless the arm we extend to them, from 
 shoulder-blade to wrist. 
 
 Fetrarca. No nation, grasping at so much, ever held so 
 little, or lost so soon what it had inveigled. Yet France is 
 surrounded by smaller and by apparently weaker states, 
 which she never ceases to molest and invade. Whatever 
 she has won, and whatever she has lost, has been alike won 
 and lost by her perfidy; the characteristic of the people 
 from the earliest ages, and recorded by a succession of 
 historians, Greek and Roman. 
 
 Boccaccio. My father spent many years among them, 
 where also my education was completed; yet whatever I 
 have seen, I must acknowledge, corresponds with whatever 
 
 599 
 
82 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 I have read, and corroborates in my mind the testimony of 
 tradition. ‘Their ancient history is only a preface to their 
 later. Deplorable as is the condition of Italy, I am more 
 contented to share in her sufferings than in the frothy 
 festivities of her frisky neighbour. 
 
 Petrarca. So am 1: but we must never deny or dissemble 
 the victories of the ancient Gauls, many traces of which are 
 remaining ; not that a nation’s glory is the greener for the 
 ashes it has scattered in the season of its barbarism. 
 
 Boccaccio, The Cisalpine regions were indeed both 
 invaded and occupied by them; yet, from inability to 
 retain the acquisition, how inconsiderable a part of the 
 population is Gaulish! Long before the time of Ceesar, the 
 language was Latin throughout: the soldiers of Marius 
 swept away the last dregs and stains on the ancient hearth. 
 Nor is there in the physiognomy of the people the slightest 
 indication of the Gaul, as we perceive by medals and 
 marbles. These would surely preserve his features ; 
 because they can only be the memorials of the higher 
 orders, which of course would have descended from the 
 conquerors. They merged early and totally in the original 
 mass: and the countenances in Cisalpine busts are as 
 beautiful and dignified as our other Italian races. 
 
 Fetrarca. ‘Yhe French imagine theirs are too. 
 
 Boccaccio. I heartily wish them the full enjoyment of their 
 blessings, real or imaginary: but neither their manners nor 
 their principles coincide with ours, nor can a reasonable 
 hope be entertained of benefit in their alliance. Union at 
 home is all we want, and vigilance to perpetuate the better 
 of our institutions. 
 
 FPetrarca. The land, O Giovanni, of your early youth, the 
 land of my only love, fascinates us no longer. Italy is our 
 country ; and not ours only, but every man’s, wherever may 
 have been his wanderings, wherever may have been his 
 birth, who watches with anxiety the recovery of the Arts, 
 and acknowledges the supremacy of Genius. Beside, it is 
 in Italy at last that all our few friends are resident. Yours 
 were left behind you at Paris in your adolescence, if indeed 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 83 
 
 any friendship can exist between a Florentine and a 
 Frenchman: mine at Avignon were Italians, and older for 
 the most part than myself. Here we know that we are 
 beloved by some, and esteemed by many. It indeed gave 
 me pleasure the first morning as I lay in bed, to overhear 
 the fondness and earnestness which a worthy priest was 
 expressing in your behalf. 
 
 Boccaccio. In mine? 
 
 Petrarca. Yes indeed: what wonder ? 
 
 Boccaccio. A worthy priest ? 
 
 Petrarca. None else, certainly. 
 
 Boccaccio. Heard in bed! dreaming, dreaming ; ay? 
 
 Petrarca. No indeed: my eyes and ears were wide open. 
 
 Boccaccio, The little parlour opens into your room. But 
 what priest could that be? Canonico Casini? He only 
 comes when we have a roast of thrushes, or some such 
 small matter at table: and this is not the season; they are 
 pairing. Plover eggs might tempt him hitherward. If he 
 heard a plover he would not be easy, and would fain make 
 her drop her oblation before she had settled her nest. 
 
 Petrarca. \t is right and proper that you should be 
 informed who the clergyman was, to whom you are under 
 an obligation. 
 
 Boccaccio. Tell me something about it, for truly I am ata 
 loss to conjecture. 
 
 Fetrarca. He must unquestionably have been expressing 
 a kind and ardent solicitude for your eternal welfare. The 
 first words I heard on awakening were these : 
 
 ‘Ser Giovanni, although the best of masters . . .” 
 
 Boccaccio. Those were Assuntina’s. 
 
 Petrarca. . . . “may hardly be quite so holy (not being 
 priest or friar) as your Reverence.” 
 
 She was interrupted by the question, ‘“‘What conversa- 
 tion holdeth he?” 
 
 She answered : 
 
 ‘He never talks of loving our neighbour with all our 
 heart, all our soul, and all our strength, although he often 
 gives away the last loaf in the pantry.” 
 
84 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccio. It was she! Why did she say that? the slut! 
 
 Fetrarca. “He doth well,” replied the confessor. ‘“* Of 
 the church, of the brotherhood, that is, of me, what dis- 
 courses holdeth he?” 
 
 I thought the question an indiscreet one ; but confessors 
 vary in their advances to the seat of truth. 
 
 She proceeded to answer : 
 
 “He never said anything about the power of the church 
 to absolve us, if we should happen to go astray a little in 
 good company, like your Reverence.” 
 
 Here, it is easy to perceive, is some slight ambiguity. 
 Evidently she meant to say, by the seduction of “bad” 
 company, and to express that his Reverence had asserted 
 his power of absolution ; which is undeniable. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 have my version. 
 
 Petrarca. What may yours be? 
 
 Boccaccio. Frate Biagio; broad as daylight; the whole 
 frock round ! 
 
 I would wager a flask of oil against a turnip, that he laid 
 another trap for a penance. Let us see how he went on. 
 I warrant, as he warmed, he left off limping in his paces, 
 and bore hard upon the bridle. 
 
 Petrarca. ““Much do I fear,” continued the expositor, 
 ‘he never spoke to thee, child, about another world.” 
 
 There was a silence of some continuance. 
 
 ‘Speak !” said the confessor. 
 
 “No indeed he never did, poor Padrone!” was the slow 
 and evidently reluctant avowal of the maiden; for, in the 
 midst of the acknowledgment her sighs came through the 
 crevices of the door: then, without any farther interroga- 
 tion, and with little delay, she added, 
 
 “But he often makes this look like it.” 
 
 Boccaccio. And now, if he had carried a holy scourge, it 
 would not have been on his shoulders that he would have 
 laid it. 
 
 Petrarca. Zeal carries men often too far afloat; and 
 confessors in general wish to have the sole steerage of 
 the conscience. When she told him that your benignity 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 85 
 
 made this world another heaven, he warmly and sharply 
 answered, 
 
 “It is only we who ought to do that.” 
 
 “Hush,” said the maiden; and I verily believe she at 
 that moment set her back against the door, to prevent the 
 sounds from coming through the crevices, for the rest of 
 them seemed to be just over my night-cap. ‘‘ Hush,” said 
 she, in the whole length of that softest of all articulations, 
 “There is Ser Francesco in the next room: he sleeps long 
 into the morning, but he is so clever a clerk, he may under- 
 stand you just the same. I doubt whether he thinks Ser 
 Giovanni in the wrong for making so many people quite 
 happy ; and if he should, it would grieve me very much to 
 think he blamed Ser Giovanni.” 
 
 **Who is Ser Francesco?” he asked, in a low voice. 
 
 “Ser Canonico,” she answered. 
 
 “Of what Duomo?” continued he. 
 
 ‘*Who knows?” was the reply; ‘‘but he is Padrone’s 
 heart’s friend, for certain.” 
 
 “‘Cospetto di Bacco! It can then be no other than 
 Petrarca. He makes rhymes and love like the devil. 
 Don’t listen to him, or you are undone. Does he love you 
 too, as well as Padrone?” he asked, still lowering his voice. 
 
 “T can not tell that matter,’ she answered, somewhat 
 impatiently ; “but I love him.” 
 
 “To my face!” cried he, smartly. 
 
 “To the Santissima!” replied she, instantaneously ; “ for 
 have not I told your Reverence he is Padrone’s true heart’s 
 friend! And are not you my confessor, when you come on 
 purpose?” 
 
 “True, true!” answered he; “but there are occasions 
 when we are shocked by the confession, and wish it made 
 less daringly.” 
 
 “T was bold; but who can help loving him who loves my 
 good Padrone?” said she, much more submissively. 
 
 Boccaccio. Brave girl, for that! 
 
 Dog of a Frate! They are all of a kidney; all of a 
 kennel. I would dilute their meal well and keep them low. 
 
86 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 They should not waddle and wallop in every hollow lane, 
 nor loll out their watery tongues at every wash-pool in the 
 parish. We shall hear, I trust, no more about Fra Biagio in 
 the house while you are with us. Ah! were it then for life. 
 
 Fetrarca. The man’s prudence may be _ reasonably 
 doubted, but it were uncharitable to question his sincerity. 
 Could a neighbour, a religious one in particular, be indif- 
 ferent to the welfare of Boccaccio, or any belonging to him ? 
 
 Loccaccio. 1 do not complain of his indifference. Indif- 
 ferent! no, not he. He might as well be, though. My Villetta 
 here is my castle: it was my father’s; it was his father’s. 
 Cowls did not hang to dry upon the same cord with caps in 
 their odere ; they shall not in mine. The girl is an honest 
 girl, Francesco, though I say it. Neither she nor any 
 other shall be befooled and bamboozled under my roof. 
 Methinks Holy Church might contrive some improvement 
 upon confession. 
 
 Fetrarca. Hush! Giovanni! But, it being a matter of 
 discipline, who knows but she might. 
 
 Boccaccio. Discipline! ay, ay, ay! faith and troth there 
 are some who want it. 
 
 FPetrarca. You really terrify me. These are sad surmises. 
 
 Boccaccio. Sad enough: but I am keeper of my hand- 
 maiden’s probity. 
 
 fetrarca. It could not be kept safer. 
 
 Boccaccio. I wonder what the Frate would be putting into 
 her head ? 
 
 fetrarca, Nothing, nothing: be assured. 
 
 Boccaccio, Why did he ask her all those questions P 
 
 fetrarca, Confessors do occasionally take circuitous ways 
 to arrive at the secrets of the human heart. 
 
 Boccaccio. And sometimes they drive at it, methinks, a 
 whit too directly. He had no business to make remarks 
 about me. 
 
 Petrarca. Anxiety. 
 
 Boccaccio. "Fore God, Francesco, he shall have more of 
 that; for I will shut him out the moment I am again up 
 and stirring, though he stand but a nose’s length off. I 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 87 
 
 have no fear about the girl; no suspicion of her. He 
 might whistle to the moon on a frosty night, and expect as 
 reasonably her descending. Never was a man so entirely 
 at his ease as I am about that; never, never. She is 
 adamant; a bright sword now first unscabbarded; no 
 breath can hang about it. A seal of beryl, of chrysolite, of 
 ruby; to make impressions (all in good time and proper 
 place though) and receive none: incapable, just as they are, 
 of splitting, or cracking, or flawing, or harbouring dirt. Let 
 him mind that. Such, I assure you, is that poor little 
 wench, Assuntina. 
 
 Petrarca. 1 am convinced that so well-behaved a young 
 creature as Assunta 
 
 Boccaccio. Right! Assunta is her name by baptism; we 
 usually call her Assuntina, because she is slender, and 
 scarcely yet full-grown, perhaps: but who can tell ? 
 
 As for those friars, I never was a friend to impudence: I 
 hate loose suggestions. In girls’ minds you will find little 
 dust but what is carried there by gusts from without. They 
 seldom want sweeping ; when they do, the broom should be 
 taken from behind the house-door, and the master should 
 be the sacristan. 
 
 . . . scarcely were these words uttered when Assunta 
 was heard running up the stairs ; and the next moment she 
 rapped. Being ordered to come in, she entered with a 
 willow twig in her hand, from the middle of which willow 
 twig (for she held the two ends together) hung a fish, 
 shining with green and gold. 
 
 “What hast there, young maiden ?” said Ser Francesco. 
 
 “A fish, Riverenza!” answered she. “In Tuscany we 
 call it ¢znca.” 
 
 fetrarca. 1 too am a little of a Tuscan. 
 
 Assunta. Indeed! well, you really speak very like one, 
 but only more sweetly and slowly. I wonder how you can 
 keep up with Signor Padrone—he talks fast when he is in 
 health ; and you have made him so. Why did not you 
 come before? Your Reverence has surely been at Certaldo 
 in time past. 
 
 
 
88 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 FPetrarca. Yes, before thou wert born. 
 
 Assunta. Ah sir! it must have been long ago then. 
 
 Petrarca. Thou hast just entered upon life. 
 
 Assunta, T am no child. 
 
 Petrarca. What then art thou? 
 
 Assunta. 1 know not: I have lost both father and 
 mother; there is a name for such as I am. 
 
 fetrarca. And a place in heaven. 
 
 Boccaccio. Who brought us that fish, Assunta? hast 
 paid for it? there must be seven pounds: I never saw the 
 like. 
 
 Assunta. 1 could hardly lift up my apron to my eyes with 
 itin my hand. Luca, who brought it all the way from the 
 Padule, could scarcely be entreated to eat a morsel of bread 
 or sit down. 
 
 Boccaccio. Give him a flask or two of our wine; he will 
 like it better than the sour puddle of the plain. 
 
 Assunta. He is gone back. 
 
 Bocoaccto. Gone! who is he, pray? 
 
 Assunta, Luca, to be sure. 
 
 Boccaccio. What Luca ? 
 
 Assunta. Dominedio! O Riverenza! how sadly must 
 Ser Giovanni, my poor padrone, have lost his memory in 
 this cruel long illness! he can not recollect young Luca of 
 the Bientola, who married Maria. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 never heard of either, to the best of my 
 knowledge. 
 
 Assunta. Be pleased to mention this in your prayers 
 to-night, Ser Canonico! May Our Lady soon give him 
 back his memory! and everything else she has been 
 pleased (only in play, I hope) to take away from him! 
 Ser Francesco, you must have heard all over the world 
 how Maria Gargarelli, who lived in the service of our 
 paroco, somehow was outwitted by Satanasso. Monsignore 
 thought the paroco had not done all he might have done 
 against his whiles and craftiness, and sent his Reverence 
 over to the monastery in the mountains, Laverna yonder, to 
 make him look sharp ; and there he is yet. 
 
—— 
 
 THE PENTAMERON. 89 
 
 And now does Signor Padrone recollect ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Rather more distinctly. 
 
 Assunta. Ah me! Rather more distinctly ! have patience, 
 Signor Padrone! I am too venturous, God help me! 
 But, Riverenza, when Maria was the scorn or the 
 abhorrence of everybody else, excepting poor Luca 
 Sabbatini, who-had always cherished her, and excepting 
 Signor Padrone, who had never seen her in his lifetime 
 . . . for paroco Snello said he desired no visits from any 
 who took liberties with Holy Church... as if Padrone 
 did! Luca one day came to me out of breath, with money 
 in his hand for our duck. Now it so happened that the 
 duck, stuffed with noble chestnuts, was going to table at 
 that instant. I told Signor Padrone. 
 
 Boccaccio. Assunta, I never heard thee repeat so long 
 and tiresome a story before, nor put thyself out of breath 
 so. Come, we have had enough of it. 
 
 Petrarca. She is mortified : pray let her proceed. 
 
 Boccaccio. As you will. 
 
 Assunta. I told Signor Padrone how Luca was lamenting 
 that Maria was seized with an zmagination. 
 
 fetrarca. No wonder then she fell into misfortune, and 
 her neighbours and friends avoided her. 
 
 Assunta. Riverenza!~ how can you smile? Signor 
 Padrone! and you too? You shook your head and sighed 
 at it when it happened. The Demonio, who had caused 
 all the first mischief, was not contented until he had given 
 her the zmagznation. 
 
 Petrarca. He could not have finished his work more 
 effectually. 
 
 Assunta. He was balked, however. Luca said, 
 
 ‘* She shall not die under her wrongs, please God !” 
 
 I repeated the words to Signor Padrone . . . He seems 
 to listen, Riverenza! and will remember presently .. . 
 and Signor Padrone cut away one leg for himself, clean 
 forgetting all the chestnuts inside, and said sharply, ‘‘ Give 
 the bird to Luca ; and, hark ye, bring back the minestra.” 
 
 Maria loved Luca with all her heart, and Luca loved 
 
90 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Maria with all his: but they both hated paroco Snello for 
 such neglect about the evil one. And even Monsignore, 
 who sent for Luca on purpose, had some difficulty in 
 persuading him to forbear from choler and discourse. For 
 Luca, who never swears, swore bitterly that the devil should 
 play no such tricks again, nor alight on girls napping in the 
 parsonage. Monsignore thought he intended to take 
 violent possession, and to keep watch there himself without 
 consent of the incumbent. “TI will have no scandal,” said 
 Monsignore ; so there was none. Maria, though she did 
 indeed, as I told your Reverence, love her Luca dearly, 
 yet she long refused to marry him, and cried very much 
 at last on the wedding-day, and said, as she entered the 
 porch, 
 
 “Luca! it is not yet too late to leave me.” 
 
 He would have kissed her, but her face was upon his 
 shoulder. 
 
 Pievano Locatelli married them, and gave them his 
 blessing : and going down from the altar, he said before 
 the people, as he stood on the last step, ‘‘ Be comforted, 
 child! be comforted! God above knows that thy husband 
 is honest, and that thou art innocent.” Pievano’s voice 
 trembled, for he was an aged and holy man, and had 
 walked two miles on the occasion. Pulcheria, his 
 governante, eighty years old, carried an apronful of lilies to 
 bestrew the altar; and partly from the lilies, and partly 
 from the blessed angels who (although invisible) were 
 present, the church was filled with fragrance. Many who 
 heretofore had been frightened at hearing the mention of 
 Maria’s name, ventured now to walk up toward her; and 
 some gave her needles, and some offered skeins of thread, 
 and some ran home again for pots of honey. 
 
 Boccaccio. And why didst not thou take her some trifle ? 
 
 Assunta. I had none. 
 
 Boccaccio. Surely there are always such about the 
 premises. 
 
 Assunta. Not mine to give away. 
 
 Boccaccio. So then at thy hands, Assunta, she went 
 
THE PENTAMERON. gt 
 
 off not overladen. Ne’er a bone-bodkin out of thy 
 bravery, ay? 
 
 Assunta. I ran out knitting, with the woodbine and 
 syringa in the basket for the parlour. I made the basket, 
 ... Land... but myself chiefly, for boys are loiterers. 
 
 Boccaccio. Well, well: why not bestow the basket, 
 together with its rich contents ? 
 
 Assunta. 1 am ashamed to say it...I covered my 
 half-stocking with them as quickly as I could, and ran 
 after her, and presented it. Not knowing what was under 
 the flowers, and never minding the liberty I had taken, 
 being a stranger to her, she accepted it as graciously as 
 possible, and bade me be happy. 
 
 fetrarca. I hope you have always kept her command. 
 
 Assunta, Nobody is ever unhappy here, except Fra 
 Biagio, who frets sometimes: but that may be the walk ; 
 or he may fancy Ser Giovanni to be worse than he 
 really is. 
 
 . . . Having now performed her mission and concluded 
 her narrative, she bowed, and said, 
 
 “Excuse me, Riverenza! excuse me, Signor Padrone! 
 my arm aches with this great fish.” 
 
 Then, bowing again, and moving her eyes modestly 
 toward each, she added, “‘ with permission!” and left the 
 chamber. 
 
 “‘ About the Sposina,” after a pause began Ser Francesco: 
 “about the Sposina, I do not see the matter clearly.” 
 
 “You have studied too much for seeing all things 
 clearly,” answered Ser Giovanni; “you see only the 
 greatest. In fine, the devil, on this count, is acquitted by 
 acclamation; and the paroco Snello eats lettuce and 
 chicory up yonder at Laverna. He has mendicant friars 
 for his society every day ; and snails, as pure as water can 
 wash and boil them, for his repast on festivals. Under 
 this discipline, if they keep it up, surely one devil out of 
 legion will depart from him.” 
 
92 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 FOURTH DAY’S INTERVIEW. 
 
 Peivarca, Do not throw aside your Paradiso for me. 
 Have you been reading it again so early? 
 
 Boccaccio, Looking into it here and there. I had spare 
 time before me. 
 
 Lfetrarca. You have coasted the whole poem, and your 
 boat's bottom now touches ground. But tell me what you 
 think of Beatrice. 
 
 Boccaccio. | think her in general more of the seraphic 
 doctor than of the seraph. It is well she retained her 
 beauty where she was, or she would scarcely be tolerable 
 now and then. And yet, in other parts, we forget the 
 captiousness in which Theology takes delight, and feel our 
 bosoms refreshed by the perfect presence of the youthful 
 and innocent Bice. 
 
 There is something so sweetly sanctifying in pure love. 
 
 Petrarca. 
 
 Pure love? there is no other; nor shall be, 
 Till the worse angels hurl the better down 
 
 And heaven lie under hell: if God is one 
 And pure, so surely love is pure and one. 
 
 Boccaccio. You understand it better than I do: you must 
 have your own way. 
 
 Above all, I have been admiring the melody of the 
 cadence in this portion of the Divina Commedia. Some 
 of the stanzas leave us nothing to desire in facility and 
 elegance. 
 
 Alighieri grows harmonious as he grows humane, and 
 does not, like Orpheus, play the better with the beasts 
 about him. 
 
 fetrarca. Xt is in Paradise that we might expect his tones 
 to be tried and modulated. 
 
 Boccaccio. None of the imitative arts should repose on 
 writhings and distortions. ‘Tragedy herself, unless she lead 
 from Terror to Pity, has lost her way. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 93 
 
 Petrarca. What then must be thought of a long and 
 crowded work, whence Pity is violently excluded, and 
 where Hatred is the first personage we meet, and almost 
 the last we part from ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Happily the poet has given us here a few 
 breezes of the morning, a few glimpses of the stars, a few 
 similes of objects to which we have been accustomed 
 among the amusements or occupations of the country. 
 Some of them would be less admired in a meaner author, 
 and are welcome here chiefly as a variety and relief to the 
 mind, after a long continuance in a painful posture. Have 
 you not frequently been pleased with a short quotation of 
 verses in themselves but indifferent, from finding them in 
 some tedious dissertation? and especially if they carry you 
 forth a little into the open air. 
 
 fetrarca. 1 am not quite certain whether, if the verses 
 were indifferent, I should willingly exchange the prose for 
 them ; bad prose being less wearisome than bad poetry: so 
 much less indeed, that the advantage of the exchange might 
 fail to balance the account. 
 
 Boccaccio. Let me try whether I can not give you an 
 example of such effect, having already given you the tedious 
 dissertation. 
 
 Petrarca. Do your worst. 
 
 Boccaccio. Not that neither, but bad enough. 
 
 THE PILGRIM’S SHELL. 
 
 Under a tuft of eglantine, at noon, 
 
 I saw a pilgrim loosen his broad shell 
 
 To catch the water off a stony tongue ; 
 Medusa’s it might be, or Pan’s, erewhile, 
 For the huge head was shapeless, eaten out 
 By time and tempest here, and here embost 
 With clasping tangles of dark maidenhair. 
 
 “* How happy is thy thirst ! how soon assuaged } 
 How sweet that coldest water this hot day !” 
 Whispered my thoughts ; not having yet observ’d 
 His shell so shallow and so chipt around. 
 
 Tall though he was, he held it higher, to meet 
 The sparkler at its outset : with fresh leap, 
 
94 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Vigorous as one just free upon the world, 
 Impetuous too as one first checkt, with stamp 
 Heavy as ten such sparklers might be deemed, 
 Rusht it amain, from cavity and rim 
 And rim’s divergent channels, and dropt thick 
 (Issuing at wrist and elbow) on the grass. 
 The pilgrim shook his head, and fixing up 
 His scallop, 
 
 ‘ There is something yet,” said he, 
 ‘Too scanty in this world for my desires !” 
 
 Petrarca. O Giovanni! these are better thoughts and 
 opportuner than such lonely places formerly supplied us 
 with. The whispers of rose-bushes were not always so 
 innocent: under the budding and under the full-blown we 
 sometimes found other images : sometimes the pure fountain 
 failed in bringing purity to the heart. 
 
 Unholy fire sprang up in fields and woods ; 
 The air that fann’d it came from solitudes. 
 
 If our desires are worthy ones and accomplished, we 
 rejoice in after-time; if unworthy and unsuccessful, we 
 rejoice no less at their discomfiture and miscarriage. We 
 can not have all we wish for. Nothing is said oftener, 
 nothing earlier, nothing later. it begins in the arms with 
 the chidings of the nurse; it will terminate with the milder 
 voice of the physician at the death-bed. But although 
 everybody has heard and most have said it, yet nobody 
 seems to have said or considered, that it is much, very 
 much, to be able to form and project our wishes; that, in 
 the voyage we take to compass and turn them to account, 
 we breathe freely and hopefully ; and that it is chiefly in the 
 stagnation of port we are in danger of disappointment and 
 disease. 
 
 Boccaccio. The young man who resolves to conquer his 
 love, is only half in earnest or has already half conquered it. 
 But fields and woods have no dangers now for us. I may 
 be alone until doomsday, and loose thoughts will be at fault 
 if they try to scent me, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 95 
 
 Petrarca, When the rest of our smiles have left us, we 
 may smile at our immunities. ‘There are indeed, for nearly 
 all, 
 
 Rocks on the shore wherefrom we launch on life, 
 Before our final harbour rocks again, 
 
 And (narrow sun-paced plains sailed swiftly by) 
 Eddies and breakers all the space between. 
 
 Yet Nature preserves her sedater charms for us both 
 and I doubt whether we do not enjoy them the more, by 
 exemption from solicitations and distractions. We are not 
 old while we can hear and enjoy, as much as ever, , 
 
 The lonely bird, the bird of even-song, 
 When, catching one far call, he leaps elate, 
 In his full fondness drowns it, and again 
 
 The shrill shrill glee through Serravalle rings. 
 
 Boccaccio. The nightingale is a lively bird to the young 
 and joyous, a melancholy one to the declining and pensive. 
 He has notes for every ear; he has feelings for every 
 bosom ; and he exercises over gentle souls a wider and 
 more welcome dominion than any other creature. If I 
 must not offer you my thanks, for bringing to me such 
 associations as the bed-side of sickness is rarely in readiness 
 to supply ; if I must not declare to you how pleasant and 
 well placed are your reflections on our condition; I may 
 venture to remark on the nightingale, that our Italy is the 
 only country where this bird is killed for the market. In 
 no other is the race of Avarice and Gluttony so hard run. 
 What a triumph for a Florentine, to hold under his fork the 
 most delightful being in all animated nature! the being to 
 which every poet, or nearly every one, dedicates the first 
 fruits of his labours. A cannibal who devours his enemy, 
 through intolerable hunger, or, what he holds as_ the 
 measure of justice and of righteousness, revenge, may be 
 viewed with less abhorrence than the heartless gormandiser, 
 who casts upon his loaded stomach the little breast that has 
 poured delight on thousands, 
 
- 
 
 Fetrarca. The English, I remember Ser Geoffreddo* 
 telling us, never kill singing-birds nor swallows. 
 
 Boccaccio. Music and hospitality are sweet and sacred 
 things with them, and well may they value their few warm 
 days, out of which, if the produce is not wine and oil, they 
 gather song and garner sensibility. 
 
 Petrarca. Ser Geoffreddo felt more pleasure in the 
 generosity and humanity of his countrymen, than in the 
 victories they had recently won, with incredibly smaller 
 numbers, over their boastful enemy. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 know not of what nation I could name so 
 amusing a companion as Ser Geoffreddo. The Englishman 
 is rather an island than an islander; bluff, stormy, rude, 
 abrupt, repulsive, inaccessible. We must not however hold 
 back or dissemble the learning, and wisdom, and courtesy, 
 of the better. While France was without one single man 
 above a dwarf in literature, and we in Italy had only a small 
 sprinkling of it, Richard de Bury was sent ambassador to 
 Rome by King Edward. So great was his learning, that he 
 composed two grammars, one Greek, one Hebrew ; neither 
 of which labours had been attempted by the most industrious 
 and erudite of those who spoke the languages: he likewise 
 formed so complete a library as belongs only to the Byzan- 
 tine emperors. This prelate came into Italy attended by 
 Ser Geoffreddo, in whose company we spent, as you 
 remember, two charming evenings at Arezzo. 
 
 Petrarca. What wonderful things his countrymen have 
 been achieving in this century! 
 
 Boccaccio. And how curious it is to trace them up into their 
 Norwegian coves and creeks three or four centuries back ! 
 
 Petrarca. Do you think it possible that Norway, which 
 never could maintain sixty thousandy male adults, was 
 capable of sending, from her native population, a sufficient 
 force of warriors to conquer the best province of France, 
 
 g6 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 * Chaucer. 
 
 + With the advantages of her fisheries, which did not exist in the 
 age of Petrarca, and of her agriculture, which probably is quintupled 
 since, Norway does not contain at present the double of the number. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 97 
 
 and the whole of England? And you must deduct from 
 these sixty thousand, the aged, the artisans, the cultivators, 
 and the clergy, together with all the dependents of the 
 church: which numbers, united, we may believe amounted 
 to above one half. 
 
 Boccaccio. That she could embody such an army from 
 her own very scanty and scattered population ; no, indeed: 
 but if you recollect that a vast quantity of British had been 
 ejected by incursions of Picts, and that also there had been 
 on the borders a general insurrection against the Romans, 
 and against those of half-blood (which is always the case in 
 a rebellion of the Aboriginals), and if you believe, as I do, 
 that the ejected Romans of the coast at least, became 
 pirates, and were useful to the Scandinavians, by intro- 
 ducing what was needful of their arts and saleable of their 
 plunder, taking in exchange their iron and timber, you may 
 readily admit as a probability, that by the display of spoils 
 and the spirit of enterprise, they encouraged, headed, and 
 carried into effect the invasion of France, and subsequently of 
 England. The English gentlemen of Norman descent have 
 neither blue eyes, in general, nor fair complexions, differing 
 in physiognomy altogether both from the Belgic race and 
 the Norwegian. Beside, they are remarkable for a sedate 
 and somewhat repulsive pride, very different from the 
 effervescent froth of the one, and the sturdy simplicity of the 
 other. Ser Geoffreddo is not only the greatest genius, but 
 likewise the most amiable of his nation. He gave his 
 thoughts and took yours with equal freedom. His country- 
 men, if they give you any, throw them at your head; and, 
 if they receive any, cast them under their feet before you. 
 Courtesy is neither a quality of native growth, nor com- 
 municable to them. Their rivals, the French, are the best 
 imitators in the world; the English the worst ; particularly 
 under the instruction of the Graces. They have many 
 virtues, no doubt ; but they reserve them for the benefit of 
 their families, or of their enemies; and they seldom take 
 the trouble to unpack them in their short intercourse 
 
 abroad. 
 600 
 
98 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Petrarca. Ser Geoffreddo, I well remember, was no less 
 remarkable for courtesy than for cordiality. 
 
 Boccaccio. He was really as attentive and polite toward us 
 as if he had made us prisoners. It is on that occasion the 
 English are most unlike their antagonists and themselves. 
 What an evil must they think it to be vanquished! when, 
 struggling with their bashfulness and taciturnity, they 
 become so solicitous and inventive in raising the spirits 
 of the fallen. The Frenchman is ready to truss you on his 
 rapier, unless you acknowledge the perfection of his 
 humanity, and to spit in your face, if you doubt for a 
 moment the delicacy of his politeness. The Englishman is 
 almost angry if you mention either of these as belonging to 
 him, and turns away from you that he may not hear it. 
 
 Petrarca. Let us felicitate ourselves that we rarely are 
 forced to witness his self-affliction. 
 
 Boccaccio. In palaces, and especially the pontifical, it is 
 likely you saw the very worst of them: indeed there are few 
 in any country of such easy, graceful, unaffected manners as 
 our Italians. We are warmer at the extrenaities than at the 
 heart: sunless nations have central fires. ‘The Englishman 
 is more gratified when yov enable him to show you a fresh 
 kindness, than when you remind him of a past one; and he 
 forgets what he has conferred as readily as we forget what 
 we have received. In our civility, in our good-nature, in 
 our temperance, in our frugality, none excel us; and greatly 
 are we in advance of other men, in the arts, in the sciences, 
 in the culture, in the application, and in the power of 
 intellect. Our faculties are perfect, with the sole exception 
 of memory; and our memory is only deficient in its 
 retentiveness of obligation. 
 
 Petrarca. Better had it failed in almost all its other 
 functions. Yet, if our countrymen presented any flagrant 
 instances of ingratitude, Alighieri would have set apart a 
 bolga for their reception. 
 
 Boccaccio. When I correct and republish my Commendary, 
 I must be as careful to gratify, as my author was to affront 
 them. I know, from the nature of the Florentines and of 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 99 
 
 the Italians in general, that in calling on me to produce one, 
 they would rather I should praise indiscriminately than par- 
 simoniously. And respect is due to them for re, .iring, by 
 all the means in their power, the injustice their fathers 
 committed ; for enduring in humility his resentment ; and 
 for investing him with public honours, as they would some 
 deity who had smitten them. Respect is due to them, and 
 I will offer it, for placing their greatness on so firm a plinth, 
 for deriving their pride from so wholesome a source, and for 
 declaring to the world that the founder of a city is less than 
 her poet and instructor. 
 
 Petrarca. In the precincts of those lofty monuments, 
 those towers and temples, which have sprung up amid her 
 factions, the name of Dante is heard at last, and heard 
 with such reverence as only the angels or the saints 
 inspire. 
 
 Boccaccio. There are towns so barbarous, that they must 
 be informed by strangers of their own great man, when 
 they happen to have produced one; and would then 
 detract from his merits, that they might not exhibit their 
 awkwardness in doing him honour, or their shame in with- 
 holding it. There are such; but not in Italy. I have 
 seen youths standing and looking with seriousness, and 
 indeed with somewhat of veneration, on the broad and low 
 stone bench, to the south of the cathedral, where Dante sat 
 to enjoy the fresh air in summer evenings; and where 
 Giotto, in conversation with him, watched the scaffolding 
 rise higher and higher up his gracefullest of towers. It 
 was truly a bold action, when a youngster pushed another 
 down on the poet’s seat. The suprised one blushed and 
 struggled, as those do who unwittingly have been drawn 
 into a penalty (not lightened by laughter) for having sitten 
 in the imperial or the papal chair. 
 
 Fetrarca. These are good signs, and never fallacious. 
 In the presence of such young persons we ought to be very 
 cautious how we censure a man of genius. One expression 
 of irreverence may eradicate what demands the most 
 attentive culture, may wither the first love for the fair and 
 
100 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 noble, and may shake the confidence of those who are 
 about to give the hand to a guidance less liable to error. 
 We have ever been grateful to the Deity, for saving us from 
 among the millions swept away by the pestilence, which 
 depopulated the cities of Italy, and ravaged the whole of 
 Europe: let us be equally grateful for an exemption as 
 providential and as rare in the world of letters ; an exemp- 
 tion from that ca Polonica of invidiousness, which infests 
 the squalider of poetical heads, and has not always spared 
 those which ought to have been cleanlier. 
 
 Boccaccio. Critics are indignant if we are silent, and 
 petulant if we complain. You and I are so kindly and 
 considerate in regard to them, that we rather pat their 
 petulance than prick up their indignation. Marsyas, while 
 Apollo was flaying him leisurely and dexterously, with all 
 the calmness of a god, shortened his upper lip prodigiously, 
 and showed how royal teeth are fastened in their gums: 
 his eyes grew blood-shot, and expanded to the size of 
 rock-melons, though naturally, in length and breadth, as 
 well as colour, they more resembled a well-ripened bean- 
 pod. And there issued from his smoking breast, and shook 
 the leaves above it, a rapid irregular rush of yells and howl- 
 ings. Remarking so material a change in his countenance 
 and manners, a satyr, who was much his friend and deeply 
 interested in his punishment, said calmly, ‘‘ Marsyas! 
 Marsyas ! is it thou who criest out so unworthily? If thou 
 couldst only look down from that pleasant, smooth, shady 
 beech-tree, thou wouldst have the satisfaction of seeing that 
 thy skin is more than half drawn off thee: it is hardly worth 
 while to ma..e a bustle about it now.” 
 
 Petrarca. Every Marsyas hath his consoling satyr. Prob- 
 ably when yours was flayed, he was found out to be a 
 good musician, by those who recommended the flaying 
 and celebrated the flayer. Among authors, none hath so 
 many friends as he who is just now dead, and had the 
 most enemies last week. Those who were then his 
 adversaries are now sincerely his admirers, for moving out 
 of the way, and leaving one name less in the lottery. And 
 
THE PENTAMERON. IOI 
 
 yet, poor souls! the prize will never fall to them. There 
 is something sweet and generous in the tone of praise, 
 which captivates an ingenuous mind, whatever may be the 
 subject of it; while propensity to censure not only excites 
 suspicion of malevolence, but reminds the hearer of what 
 he can not disentangle from his earliest ideas of vulgarity. 
 There being no pleasure in thinking ill, it is wonderful 
 there should be any in speaking ill. You, my friend, can 
 find none of it: but every step you are about to take 
 in the revisal of your Lectures, will require much caution. 
 Aware you must be that there are many more defects in 
 our author than we have touched or glanced at: principally, 
 the loose and shallow foundation of so vast a structure ; its 
 unconnectedness ; its want of manners, of passion, of action, 
 consistently and uninterruptedly at work toward a distinct 
 and worthy purpose; and lastly (although less importantly 
 as regards the poetical character) that splenetic temper, 
 which seems to grudge brightness to the flames of hell, to 
 delight in deepening its gloom, in multiplying its miseries, 
 in accumulating weight upon depression, and building 
 labyrinths about perplexity. 
 
 Boccaccio, Yet, O Francesco! when I remember what 
 Dante had suffered and was suffering from the malice and 
 obduracy of his enemies ; when I feel (and how I do feel 
 it!) that you also have been following up his glory through 
 the same paths of exile ; I can rest only on what is great 
 in him, and the exposure of a fault appears to me almost an 
 inhumanity. 
 
 The first time I ever walked to his villa on the Mugnone, 
 I felt a vehement desire to enter it; and yet a certain awe 
 came upon me, as about to take an unceremonious and an 
 unlawful advantage of his absence. While I was hesitating, 
 its inhabitant opened the gate, saluted, and invited me. 
 My desire vanished at once; and although the civility tar 
 exceeded what a stranger as I was, and so young a stranger 
 too, could expect, or what probably the more illustrious 
 owner would have vouchsafed, the place itself and the 
 disparity of its occupier made me shrink from it in sadness, 
 
102 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 and stand before him almost silent. I believe I should do 
 the same at the present day. 
 
 Fetrarca. With such feelings, which are ours in common, 
 there is little danger that we should be unjust toward him ; 
 and, if ever our opinions come before the public, we may 
 disregard the petulance and aspersions of those whom 
 nature never constituted our judges, as she did us of Dante. 
 It is our duty to speak with freedom ; it is theirs to listen 
 with respect. 
 
 Boccaccio. History would come much into the criticism, 
 and would perform the most interesting part in it. But I 
 clearly see how unsafe it is to meddle with the affairs of 
 families: and every family in Florence is a portion of the 
 government, or has been lately. Every one préserves the 
 annals of the republic; the facts being nearly the same, the 
 inferences widely diverging, the motives utterly dissimilar. 
 A strict examination of Dante would involve the bravest 
 and most intelligent ; and the court of Rome, with its royal 
 agents, would persecute them as conspirators against 
 religion, against morals, against the peace, the order, the 
 existence of society. When studious and quiet men get 
 into power, they fancy they can not show too much activity, 
 and very soon prove, by exerting it, that they can show too 
 little discretion. The military, the knightly, the baronial, 
 are spurred on to join in the chase; but the fleshers have 
 other names and other instincts. 
 
 Fetrarca. Posterity will regret that many of those allusions 
 to persons and events, which we now possess in the pages of 
 Dante, have not reached her. Among the ancients there are 
 few poets who more abound in them than Horace does, and 
 yet we feel certain that there are many which are lost to us. 
 
 Boccaccio. J wonder you did not mention him before. 
 Perhaps he is no favourite with you. 
 
 fetrarca. Why can not we be delighted with an author, 
 and even feel a predilection for him, without a dislike to 
 others? An admiration of Catullus or Virgil, of Tibullus 
 or Ovid, is never to be heightened by a discharge of bile on 
 Horace. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 103 
 
 Boccaccio. The eyes of critics, whether in commending or 
 carping, are both on one side, like a turbot’s. 
 
 Petrarca. There are some men who delight in heating 
 themselves with wine, and others with headstrong froward- 
 ness. These are resolved to agitate the puddle of their 
 blood by running into parties, literary or political, and 
 espouse a champion’s cause with such ardour that they run 
 against everything in their way. Perhaps they never knew 
 or saw the person, or understood his merits: what matter? 
 No sooner was I about to be crowned, than it was 
 predicted by these astrologers, that Protonatory Nerucci 
 and Cavallerizzo Vuotasacchetti (two lampooners, whose 
 hands had latterly been kept from their occupation by 
 drawing gold-embroidered gloves on them) would be rife in 
 the mouths of men after my name had fallen into oblivion. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 never heard of them before. 
 
 Petrarca. So much the better for them, and none the 
 worse for you. Vuotasacchetti had been convicted of 
 filching in his youth ; and Nerucci was so expert a logician, 
 and so rigidly economical a moralist, that he never had 
 occasion for veracity. 
 
 Boccaccio. The upholders of such gentry are like little 
 girls with their dolls: they must clothe them, although they 
 strip every other doll in the nursery. It is reported that 
 our Giotto, a great mechanician as well as architect and 
 painter, invented a certain instrument by which he could 
 contract the dimensions of any head laid before him. But 
 these gentlemen, it appears, have improved upon it, and 
 not only can contract one, but enlarge another. 
 
 Petrarca. He could perform his undertaking with admir- 
 able correctness and precision ; can they theirs? 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 never heard they could: but well enough for 
 their customers and their consciences. 
 
 Petrarca. I see then no great accuracy is required. 
 
 Boccaccio. Uf they heard you they would think you very 
 dull. 
 
 Petrarca. They have always thought me so: and, if they 
 change their opinion, I shall begin to think so myself, 
 
104 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccio. They have placed themselves just where, if we 
 were mischievous, we might desire to see them. We have 
 no power to make them false and malicious, yet they 
 become so the moment they see or hear of us, and thus 
 sink lower than our force could ever thrust them, Pigs, it 
 is said, driven into a pool beyond their depth, cut their 
 throats by awkward attempts at swimming. We could 
 hardly wish them worse luck, although each had a devil in 
 him. Come, let us away; we shall find a purer stream and 
 pleasanter company on the Sabine farm. 
 
 Petrarca. We may indeed think the first ode of little 
 value, the second of none, until we come to the sixth 
 stanza. 
 
 Boccaccio. Bad as are the first and second, they are better 
 than that wretched one, sounded so lugubriously in our 
 ears at school, as the masterpiece of the pathetic; I mean 
 the ode addressed to Virgil on the death of Quinctilius 
 
 Vatus. 
 Precipe lugubres 
 Cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam pater 
 Vocem cum cithara dedit. 
 
 Did he want anyone to help him to cry? What man 
 immersed in grief cares a quattrino about Melpomene, or 
 her father’s fairing of an artificial cuckoo and a gilt guitar? 
 What man, on such an occasion, is at leisure to amuse 
 himself with the little plaster images of Pudor and Fides, of 
 Justitia and Veritas, or disposed to make a comparison of 
 Virgil and Orpheus? But if Horace had written a 
 thousand-fold as much trash, we are never to forget that he 
 
 also wrote 
 Ccelo tonantem, etc., 
 
 in competition with which ode, the finest in the Greek 
 language itself has, to my year, too many low notes, and 
 somewhat of a wooden sound. And give me Vixi pue/lis, 
 and give me Quis multa gracilis, and as many more as you 
 please ; for there are charms in nearly all of them. It 
 now occurs to me that what is written, or interpolated, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 105 
 
 Acer et Maur? peditis cruentum 
 Vultus in hostem, 
 
 should be manci; a foot soldier mutilated, but looking with 
 indignant courage at the trooper who inflicted the wound. 
 The Mauritanians were celebrated only for their cavalry. 
 In return for my suggestion, pray tell me what is the 
 meaning of 
 
 Obliguo laborat 
 Lympha fugax trepidare rivo. 
 
 Fetrarca. The moment I learn it you shall have it. 
 Laborat trepidare! lympha rivo! fugax too! Fugacity is 
 not the action for hard work, or /adour. 
 
 Boccaccio. Since you can not help me out, I must give up 
 the conjecture, it seems, while it has cost me only half a 
 century. Perhaps it may be curtosa /elicttas. 
 
 fetrarca, There again! Was there ever such an unhappy 
 (not to say absurd) expression! And this from the man 
 who wrote the most beautiful sentence in all latinity. 
 
 Boccaccio. What is that ? 
 
 Petrarca. 1 am ashamed of repeating it, although in 
 itself it is innocent. The words are: 
 
 Gratias ago languori tuo, quo diutius sub 
 umbra voluptatis lusimus. 
 
 Boccaccio. ‘Tear out this from the volume; the rest, both 
 prose and poetry, may be thrown away. In the Dinner of 
 NVasidienus, 1 remember the expression xosse laboro ; Iam 
 anxious (0 know: this expedites the solution but little. In 
 the same piece there is another odd expression : 
 
 Tum in lecto quéque wzderes 
 Stridere secreta divisos aure szszyrros. 
 
 Petrarca. 1 doubt Horace’s felicity in the choice of 
 words, being quite unable to discover it, and finding more 
 evidences of the contrary than in any contemporary or 
 preceding poet ; but I do not doubt his infelicity in his 
 
106 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 transpositions of them, in which certainly he is more 
 remarkable than whatsoever writer of antiquity. How 
 simple, in comparison, are Catullus* and Lucretius in the 
 structure of their sentences! but the most simple and 
 natural of all are Ovid and Tibullus. Your main difficulty 
 lies in another road; it consists not in making explanations, 
 but in avoiding them, Some scholars will assert that every- 
 thing I have written in my sonnets is allegory or allusion ; 
 others will deny that anything is; and similarly of Dante. 
 It was known throughout Italy that he was the lover of 
 Beatrice Porticari. He has celebrated her in many com- 
 positions ; in prose and poetry, in Latin and_ Italian. 
 Hence it became the safer for him afterward to introduce 
 her as an allegorical personage, in opposition to the 
 Meretrice ; under which appellation he (and I subsequently) 
 signified the Papacy. Our great poet wandered among the 
 marvels of the Apocalypse, and fixed his eyes the most 
 attentively on the words, 
 
 Veni, et ostendam tibi sponsam, uxorem Agni, 
 
 He, as you know, wrote a commentary on his Commedia at 
 the close of his Treatise de Monarchia. But he chiefly aims 
 at showing the duties of pope and emperor, and explaining 
 such parts of the poem as manifestly relate to them. The 
 Patarini accused the pope of despoiling and defiling the 
 church ; the Ghibellines accused him of defrauding and 
 rebelling against the emperor; Dante enlists both under 
 his flaming banner, and exhibits the J/erefrice stealing 
 from Beatrice both the dzvine and the august chariot ; the 
 church and empire. Grave critics will protest their inability 
 to follow you through such darkness, saying you are not 
 worth the trouble, and they must give you up. If Laura 
 and Fiametta were allegorical, they could inspire no tender- 
 ness in our readers, and little interest. But, alas! these are 
 no longer the days to dwell on them. 
 
 * Except ‘‘ Non ita me divi vera gemunt juérint.” 
 g J 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 107 
 
 Let human art exert her utmost force, 
 Pleasure can rise no higher than its source ; 
 And there it ever stagnates where the ground 
 Beneath it, O Giovanni! is unsound. 
 
 Boccaccio. You have given me a noble quaternion ; for 
 which I can only offer you such a string of beads as I am 
 used to carry about with me. Memory, they say, is the 
 mother of the Muses: this is her gift, not theirs. 
 
 DEPARTURE FROM FIAMETTA. 
 
 When go I must, as well she knew, 
 And neither yet could say adieu, 
 Sudden was my Fiametta’s fear 
 
 To let me see or feel a tear. 
 
 It could but melt my heart away, 
 
 Nor add one moment to my stay. 
 
 But it was ripe and would be shed. . . 
 So from her cheek upon my head 
 
 It, falling on the neck behind, 
 
 Hung on the hair she oft had twined. 
 Thus thought she, and her arm’s soft strain 
 Claspt it, and down it fell again. 
 
 Come, come, bear your disappointment, and forgive my 
 cheating you in the exchange! Ah Francesco! Francesco! 
 well may you sigh; and I too; seeing we can do little now 
 but make verses and doze, and want little but medicine and 
 masses, while Fra Biagio is merry as a lark, and half master 
 of the house. Do not look so grave upon me for remember- 
 ing so well another state of existence. He who forgets 
 his love may still more easily forget his friendships. I am 
 weak, I confess it, in yielding my thoughts to what returns 
 no more; but you alone know my weakness. 
 
 Petrarca. We have loved ;* and so fondly as we believe 
 none other ever did; and yet, although it was in youth, 
 
 * The tender and virtuous Shenstone, in writing the most beautiful 
 of epitaphs, was unaware how near he stood to Petrarcas Heu 
 quanto minus est cum alliis versari quam tui meminisse, 
 
 Pur mi consola, che morir per lei 
 Meglio é che gioir d’altra, 
 
103 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Giovanni, it was not in the earliest white dawn, when we 
 almost shrink from its freshness, when everything is pure 
 and quiet, when little of earth is seen, and much of heaven. 
 It was not so with us; it was with Dante. The little virgin 
 Beatrice Porticari breathed all her purity into his boyish 
 heart, and inhaled it back again; and if war and disaster, 
 anger and disdain, seized upon it in her absence, they 
 never could divert its course nor impede its destination. 
 Happy the man who carries love with him in his opening 
 day ! he never loses its freshness in the meridian of life, nor 
 its happier influence in the later hour. If Dante enthroned 
 his Beatrice in the highest heaven, it was Beatrice who 
 conducted him hither. Love, preceding passion, ensures, 
 sanctifies, and I would say survives it, were it not rather an 
 absorption and transfiguration into its own most perfect 
 purity and holiness. 
 
 Boccaccio. Up! up! look into that chest of letters, out of 
 which I took several of yours to run over yesterday 
 morning. All those of a friend whom we have lost, to say 
 nothing of a tenderer affection, touch us sensibly, be the 
 subject what it may. When, in taking them out to read 
 again, we happen to come upon him in some pleasant mood, 
 it is then the dead man’s hand is at the heart. Opening 
 the same paper long afterward, can we wonder if a tear has 
 raised its little island in it? Leave me the memory of all 
 my friends, even of the ungrateful! They must remind me 
 of some kind feeling ; and perhaps of theirs ; and for that 
 very reason they deserve another. It was not my fault if 
 they turned out less worthy than I hoped and fancied them. 
 Yet half the world complains of ingratitude, and the 
 remaining half of envy. Of the one I have already told 
 you my opinion, and heard yours; and the other we may 
 surely bear with quite as much equanimity. For rarely are 
 we envied, until we are so prosperous that envy is rather a 
 familiar in our train than an enemy who waylays us. If we 
 saw nothing of such followers and outriders, and no 
 scabbard with our initials upon it, we might begin to doubt 
 our station. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 109 
 
 Petrarca. Giovanni, you are unsuspicious, and would 
 scarcely see a monster ina minotaur. It is well, however, 
 to draw good out of evil, and it is the peculiar gift of an 
 elevated mind. Nevertheless, you must have observed, 
 although with greater curiosity than concern, the slipperiness 
 and tortuousness of your detractors. 
 
 Boccaccio. Whatever they detract from me, they leave 
 more than they can carry away. Beside, they always are 
 detected. 
 
 fetrarca. When they are detected, they raise themselves 
 up fiercely, as if their nature were erect and they could 
 reach your height. 
 
 Boccaccio. Envy would conceal herself under the shadow 
 and shelter of contemptuousness, but she swells too huge 
 for the den she creeps into. Let her lie there and crack, 
 and think no more about her. The people you have been 
 talking of can find no greater and no other faults in my 
 writings than I myself am willing to show them, and 
 still more willing to correct. There are many things, 
 as you have just now told me, very unworthy of their 
 company. 
 
 Fetrarca. He who has much gold is none the poorer for 
 having much silver too. When a king of old displayed 
 his wealth and magnificence before a philosopher, the 
 philosopher’s exclamation was : 
 
 “How many things are here which I do not want! ” 
 
 Does not the same reflection come upon us, when we have 
 laid aside our compositions for a time, and look into them 
 again more leisurely? Do we not wonder at our own 
 profusion, and say like the philosopher, 
 
 “ How many things are here which I do not want!” 
 
 It may happen that we pull up flowers with weeds ; but 
 better this than rankness. We must bear to see our first- 
 born despatched before our eyes, and give them up 
 quietly. 
 
 Boccaccio. The younger will be the most reluctant. There 
 are poets among us who mistake in themselves the freckles 
 
110 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 of the hay-fever for beauty-spots. In another half century 
 their volumes will be inquired after; but only for the sake 
 of cutting out an illuminated letter from the title-page, or of 
 transplanting the willow at the end, that hangs so prettily 
 over the tomb of Amaryllis. If they wish to be healthy 
 and vigorous, let them open their bosoms to the breezes of 
 Sunium ; for the air of Latium is heavy and overcharged. 
 Above all, they must remember two admonitions ; first, that 
 sweet things hurt digestion; secondly, that great sails are 
 ill adapted to small vessels. What is there lovely in poetry 
 unless there be moderation and composure? Are they not 
 better than the hot, uncontrollable harlotry of a flaunting, 
 dishevelled enthusiasm? Whoever has the power of creat- 
 ing, has likewise the inferior power of keeping his creation 
 in order. ‘The best poets are the most impressive, because 
 their steps are regular; for without regularity there is 
 neither strength nor state. Look at Sophocles, look at 
 “Eschylus, look at Homer. 
 
 Fetrarca. I agree with you entirely to the whole extent of 
 your observations ; and, if you will continue, I am ready to 
 lay aside my Dante for the present. 
 
 Boccaccio. No, no; we must have him again between us: 
 there is no danger that he will sour our tempers. 
 
 Fetrarca. In comparing his and yours, since you forbid 
 me to declare all I think of your genius, you will at least 
 allow me to congratulate you as being the happier of 
 the two. 
 
 Boccaccio. Frequenily, where there is great power in 
 poetry, the imagination makes encroachments on the heart, 
 and uses it as her own. I have shed tears on writings 
 which never cost the writer a sigh, but which occasioned 
 him to rub the palms of his hands together, until they were 
 ready to strike fire, with satisfaction at having overcome the 
 difficulty of being tender. 
 
 FPetrarca. Giovanni! are you not grown satirical P 
 
 Bocaccto. Not in this. It is a truth as broad and glaring 
 as the eye of the Cyclops. To make you amends for your 
 
THE PENTAMERON. III 
 
 shuddering, I will express my doubt, on the other hand, 
 whether Dante felt all the indignation he threw into his 
 poetry Weare immoderately fond of warming ourselves ; 
 and we do not think, or care, what the fire is composed of. 
 Be sure it is not always of cedar, like Circe’s.* Our 
 Alighieri had slipt into the habit of vituperation ; and he 
 thought it fitted him ; so he never left it off. 
 
 Petrarca. Serener colours are pleasanter to our eyes and 
 more becoming to our character. The chief desire in 
 every man of genius is to be thought one; and no fear or 
 apprehension lessens it. Alighieri, who had certainly 
 studied the gospel, must have been conscious that he not 
 only was inhumane, but that he betrayed a more vindictive 
 spirit than any pope or prelate who is enshrined within the 
 fretwork of his golden grating. 
 
 Boccaccio. Unhappily, his strong talon had grown into 
 him, and it would have pained him to suffer amputation. 
 This eagle, unlike Jupiter’s, never loosened the thunderbolt 
 from it under the influence of harmony. 
 
 Petrarvca. The only good thing we can expect in such 
 minds and tempers, is good poetry : let us at least get that ; 
 and, having it, let us keep and value it. If you had never 
 written some wanton stories, you would never have been 
 able to show the world how much wiser and better you 
 grew afterward. 
 
 Boccaccio. Alas! if I live, I hope to show it. You haye 
 raised my spirits: and now, dear Francesco! do say a 
 couple of prayers for me, while I lay together the materials 
 of a tale; a right merry one, I promise you. Faith! it 
 shall amuse you, and pay decently for the prayers ; a good 
 honest litany-worth. I hardly know whether I ought to 
 have a nun in it: do you think I may P 
 
 Petrarca. Can not you do without one ? 
 
 Boccaccio. No; a nun I must have: say nothing against 
 her; I can more easily let the abbess alone. Yet Frate 
 
 * Dives inaccessis ubi Solis filia lucis 
 Urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum. En. 
 
~— 
 
 112 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Biagio* . . . that Frate Biagio, who never came to visit me - 
 but when he thought I was at extremities or asleep. . . 
 Assuntina ! are you there ? 
 
 FPetrarca. No; do you want her ? 
 
 Bowaccio. Not a bit. That Frate Biagio has heightened 
 my pulse when I could not lower it again. ‘The very devil 
 is that Frate for heightening pulses. And with him I shall 
 now make merry... God willing ... in God’s good 
 time . . . should it be his divine will to restore me! which 
 I think he has begun to do miraculously. I seem to be 
 within a frog’s leap of well again; and we will presently 
 have some rare fun in my Zale of the Frate. 
 
 £fetrarca. Do not openly name him. 
 
 Boccaccio. He shall recognise himself by one single 
 expression. He said to me, when I was at the worst, 
 
 “Ser Giovanni! it would not be much amiss (with 
 permission !) if you begin to think (at any spare time) just a 
 morsel, of eternity.” 
 
 “Ah! Fra Biagio!” answered I, contritely, “I never 
 heard a sermon of yours but I thought of it seriously and 
 uneasily, long before the discourse was over.” 
 
 ‘So must all,” replied he, “and yet few have the grace 
 to own it.” 
 
 Now mind, Francesco! if it should please the Lord to 
 
 * Our San Vivaldo is enriched by his deposit. In the church, on 
 the filth flagstone from before the high altar, is this inscription ; 
 
 HIC SITUS EST, 
 BEATAM IMMORTALITATEM EXPECTANS, 
 D. BLASIUS DE BLASIIS, 
 
 HUJUS CGENOBII ABBAS, 
 SINGULARI VIR CHARITATE, 
 MORIBUS INTEGERRIMIS, 
 
 REI THEOLOGICA NEC NON PHYSICA 
 PERITISSIMUS, 
 
 ORATE PRO ANIMA EJUS. 
 
 To the word orate have been prefixed the letters PL, the aspiration, 
 
 no doubt, of some friendly monk; although Monsignore thinks it 
 
 susceptible of two interpretations ; the other he reserves 2 e/a. 
 Domenico Grigz. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 113 
 
 call me unto him, I say, Ze Wun and Fra Biagio will be 
 found, after my decease, in the closet cut out of the wall, 
 behind yon Saint Zacharias in blue and yellow. 
 
 Well done! well done! Francesco. I never heard any 
 man repeat his prayers so fast and fluently. Why! how 
 many (at a guess) have you repeated? Such is the power 
 of friendship, and such the habit of religion! They have 
 done me good: I feel myself stronger already. To-morrow 
 I think I shall be able, by leaning on that stout maple stick 
 in the corner, to walk half over my podere. 
 
 Have you done? have you done? 
 
 Petrarca. Be quiet : you may talk too much. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 can not be quiet for another hour ; so, if you 
 have any more prayers to get over, stick the spur into the 
 other side of them: they must verily speed, if they beat 
 the last. 
 
 Petrarca. Be more serious, dear Giovanni. 
 
 Boccaccio. Never bid a convalescent be more serious: no, 
 nor a sick man neither. ‘To health it may give that 
 composure which it takes away from sickness. Every man 
 will have his hours of seriousness ; but, like the hours of 
 rest, they often are ill chosen and unwholesome. Be 
 assured, our heavenly Father is as well pleased to see his 
 children in the playground as in the school-room. He has 
 provided both for us, and has given us intimations when 
 each should occupy us. 
 
 Petrarca. You are right, Giovanni! but we know which 
 bell is heard the most distinctly. We fold our arms at the 
 one, try the cooler part of the pillow, and turn again to 
 slumber ; at the first stroke of the other, we are beyond our 
 monitors. As for you, hardly Dante himself could make 
 you grave. 
 
 Boccaccio. I do not remember how it happened that we 
 slipped away from his side. One of us must have found 
 him tedious. 
 
 Petrarca. If you were really and substantially at his side, 
 he would have no mercy on you. 
 
 Boccaccio. In sooth, our good Alighieri seems to have had 
 
 601 
 
114 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 the appetite of a dogfish or shark, and to have bitten the 
 harder the warmer he was. I would not voluntarily be 
 under his manifold rows of dentals. He has an incisor to 
 every saint in the calendar. I should fare, methinks, like 
 Brutus and the Archbishop. He is forced to stretch 
 himself, out of sheer listlessness, in so idle a place as 
 Purgatory: he loses half his strength in Paradise: Hell 
 alone makes him alert and lively: there he moves about 
 and threatens as tremendously as the serpent that opposed 
 the legions on their march in Africa. He would not have 
 been contented in Tuscany itself, even had his enemies left 
 him unmolested. Were I to write on his model a tripartite 
 poem, I think it should be entitled, Zarth, Ltaly, and 
 LHeaven. 
 
 Petrarca. You will never give yourself the trouble, 
 
 Boccaccio. I should not succeed. 
 
 Petrarca. Perhaps not: but you have done very much, 
 and may be able to do very much more. 
 
 Boccaccio. Wonderful is it to me, when I consider that 
 an infirm and helpless creature, as I am, should be capable 
 of laying thoughts up in their cabinets of words, which 
 Time, as he rushes by, with the revolutions of stormy and 
 destructive years, can never move from their places. On 
 this coarse mattress, one among the homeliest in the fair at 
 Impruneta, is stretched an old burgess of Certaldo, of 
 whom perhaps more will be known hereafter than we know 
 of the Ptolemies and the Pharaohs; while popes and 
 princes are lying as unregarded as the fleas that are shaken 
 out of the window. Upon my life, Francesco! to think of 
 this is enough to make a man presumptuous. 
 
 Petrarca. No, Giovanni! not when the man thinks justly 
 of it, as such a man ought to do, and must. For, so 
 mighty a power over Time, who casts all other mortals 
 under his, comes down to us from a greater ; and it is only 
 if we abuse the victory that it were better we had 
 encountered a defeat. Unremitting care must be taken that 
 nothing soil the monuments we are raising : sure enough 
 we are that nothing can subvert, and nothing but our 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 115 
 
 negligence, or worse than negligence, efface them. Under 
 the glorious lamp entrusted to your vigilance, one among 
 the lights of the world, which the ministering angels of our 
 God have suspended for his service, let there stand, with 
 unclosing eyes, Integrity, Compassion, Self-denial. 
 
 Boccaccio. These are holier and cheerfuller images than 
 Dante has been setting up before us. I hope every thesis 
 in dispute among his theologians will be settled ere I set 
 foot among them. I like Tuscany well enough: it answers 
 all my purposes for the present: and I am without the 
 benefit of those preliminary studies which might render me 
 a worthy auditor of incomprehensible wisdom. 
 
 Petrarca. I do not wonder you are attached to Tuscany. 
 Many as have been your visits and adventures in other 
 parts, you have rendered it pleasanter and more interesting 
 than any: and indeed we can scarcely walk in any quarter 
 from the gates of Florence, without the recollection of some 
 witty or affecting story related by you. Every street, every 
 farm, is peopled by your genius: and this population can 
 not change with seasons or with ages, with factions or with 
 incursions. Ghibellines and Guelphs will have been 
 contested for only by the worms, long before the Decameron 
 has ceased to be recited on our banks of blue lilies and 
 under our arching vines. Another plague may come 
 amidst us; and something of a solace in so terrible a 
 visitation would be found in your pages, by those to whom 
 letters are a refuge and relief. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 do indeed think my little bevy from Santa 
 Maria Novella would be better company on such an 
 occasion, than a devil with three heads, who diverts the 
 pain his claws inflicted, by sticking his fangs in another 
 place. 
 
 Fetrarca. This is atrocious, not terrific nor grand. 
 Alighieri is grand by his lights, not by his shadows ; 
 by his human affections, not by his infernal. As the 
 minutest sands are the labours of some profound sea, or 
 the spoils of some vast mountain, in like manner his horrid 
 wastes and wearying minutenesses are the chafings of a 
 
. 
 
 turbulent spirit, grasping the loftiest things and penetrating 
 the deepest, and moving and moaning on the earth in 
 loneliness and sadness. 
 
 Boccaccio. Among men he is what among waters is 
 
 116 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 The strange, mysterious, solitary Nile. 
 
 Fetrarca. Is that his verse? I do not remember it. 
 
 Boccaccio. No, it is mine for the present: how long it 
 may continue mine I can not tell. I never run after those 
 who steal my apples: it would only tire me: and they are 
 hardly worth recovering when they are bruised and bitten, 
 as they are usually. I would not stand upon my verses: it 
 is a perilous boy’s trick, which we ought to leave off when 
 we put on square shoes. Let our prose show what we are, 
 and our poetry what we have been. 
 
 Petrarca. You would never have given this advice to 
 Alighieri. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 would never plough porphyry; there is 
 ground fitter for grain. Alighieri is the parent of his 
 system, like the sun, about whom all the worlds are but 
 particles thrown forth from him. We may write little 
 things well, and accumulate one upon another; but never 
 will any be justly called a great poet unless he has treated 
 a great subject worthily. He may be the poet of the 
 lover and of the idler, he may be the poet of green fields 
 or gay society ; but whoever is this can be no more. A 
 throne is not built of birds’-nests, nor do a thousand reeds 
 make a trumpet. 
 
 Petrarca. Y wish Alighieri had blown his on nobler 
 occasions. 
 
 Boccaccio. We may rightly wish it: but, in regretting what 
 he wanted, let us acknowledge what he had: and never 
 forget (which we omitted to mention) that he borrowed less 
 from his predecessors than any of the Roman poets from 
 theirs. Reasonably may it be expected that almost all who 
 follow will be greatly more indebted to antiquity, to whose 
 stores we, every year, are making some addition. 
 
 Fetrarca. It can be held no flaw in the title-deeds of 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 117 
 
 genius, if the same thoughts re-appear as have been 
 exhibited long ago. The indisputable sign of defect should 
 be looked for in the proportion they bear to the unquestion- 
 ably original. There are ideas which necessarily must 
 occur to minds of the like magnitude and materials, aspect 
 and temperature. When two ages are in the same phasis, 
 they will excite the same humours, and produce the same 
 coincidences and combinations. In addition to which, a 
 great poet may really borrow: he may even condescend to 
 an obligation at the hand of an equal or inferior: but he 
 forfeits his title if he borrows more than the amount of his 
 own possessions. The nightingale himself takes somewhat 
 of his song from birds less glorified: and the lark, having 
 beaten with her wing the very gates of heaven, cools her 
 breast among the grass. The lowlier of intellect may lay 
 out a table in their field, at which table the highest one 
 shall sometimes be disposed to partake: want does not 
 compel him. Imitation, as we call it, is often weakness, 
 but it likewise is often sympathy. 
 
 Boccaccio. Our poet was seldom accessible in this quarter. 
 Invective picks up the first stone on the wayside, and wants 
 leisure to consult a forerunner. 
 
 Petrarca. Dante (original enough everywhere) is coarse 
 and clumsy in this career. Vengeance has nothing to do 
 with comedy, nor properly with satire. ‘The satirist who 
 told us that Indignation made his verses* for him, might 
 have been told in return that she excluded him thereby 
 from the first class, and thrust him among the rhetoricians 
 and declaimers. Lucretius, in his vituperation, is graver 
 and more dignified than Alighieri. Painful; to see how 
 tolerant is the atheist, how intolerant the catholic: how 
 anxiously the one removes from among the sufferings of 
 Mortality, her last and heaviest, the fear of a vindictive 
 Fury pursuing her shadow across rivers of fire and tears ; 
 how laboriously the other brings down Anguish and 
 Despair, even when Death has done his work. How 
 grateful the one is to that beneficent philosopher who made 
 
 * Facit indignatio versum. /uv. 
 
118 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 him at peace with himself, and tolerant and kindly toward 
 his fellow-creatures ! how importunate the other that God 
 should forego his divine mercy, and hurl everlasting 
 torments both upon the dead and the living! 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 have always heard that Ser Dante was a very 
 good man and sound catholic: but Christ forgive me if my 
 heart is ofiener on the side of Lucretius!* Observe, I say, 
 my heart; nothing more. I devoutly hold to the sacra- 
 ments and the mysteries: yet somehow I would rather see 
 men tranquillised than frightened out of their senses, and 
 rather fast asleep than burning. Sometimes I have been 
 ready to believe, as far as our holy faith will allow me, that 
 it were better our Lord were nowhere, than torturing in his 
 inscrutable wisdom, to all eternity, so many myriads of us 
 poor devils, the creatures of his hands. Do not cross 
 thyself so thickly, Francesco! nor hang down thy nether 
 lip so loosely, languidly, and helplessly ; for I would be a 
 good catholic, alive or dead. But, upon my conscience, it 
 goes hard with me to think it of him, when I hear that 
 woodlark yonder, gushing with joyousness, or when I see 
 the beautiful clouds, resting so softly one upon another, 
 dissolving . . . and not damned for it. Above all, I am 
 slow to apprehend it, when I remember his great goodness 
 vouchsafed to me, and reflect on my sinful life heretofore, 
 chiefly in summer time, and in cities, or their vicinity. But 
 I was tempted beyond my strength ; and I fell as any man 
 might do. However, this last illness, by God’s grace, has 
 well nigh brought me to my right mind again in all such 
 matters: and if I get stout in the present month, and can 
 hold out the next without sliding, I do verily think I am 
 safe, or nearly so, until the season of beccaficoes. 
 
 Letrarca. Be not too confident ! 
 
 Boccaccto. Well, I will not be. 
 
 Petrarca. But be firm. 
 
 Boccaccio. Assuntina! what! are you come in again? 
 
 Assunta. Did you or my master call me, Riverenza ? 
 
 Be How much of Lucretius (or Petronius or Catullus, before 
 
 cited) was then known? Remark by Monsignore. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 119 
 
 Petrarca. No, child! 
 
 Boccaccio. O! get you gone! get you gone! you little 
 rogue you! 
 
 Francesco, I feel quite well. Your kindness to my 
 playful creatures in the Decameron has revived me, and has 
 put me into good-humour with the greater part of them. 
 Are you quite certain the Madonna will not expect me to 
 keep my promise? You said you were: I need not ask 
 you again. I will accept the whole of your assurances, and 
 half your praises. 
 
 Petrarca. To represent so vast a variety of personages so 
 characteristically as you have done, to give the wise all 
 their wisdom, the witty all their wit, and (what is harder to 
 do advantageously) the simple all their simplicity, requires 
 a genius such as you alone possess. Those who doubt it 
 are the least dangerous of your rivals. 
 
 FIFTH DAY’S INTERVIEW. 
 
 Ir being now the last morning that Petrarca could remain 
 with his friend, he resolved to pass early into his bed- 
 chamber. Boccaccio had risen, and was standing at the 
 open window, with his arms against it. Renovated health 
 sparkled in the eyes of the one; surprise and delight and 
 thankfulness to heaven, filled the other’s with sudden tears. 
 He clasped Giovanni, kissed his flaccid and sallow cheek, 
 and falling on his knees, adored the Giver of life, the 
 source of health to body and soul. Giovanni was not 
 unmoved: he bent one knee as he leaned on the shoulder 
 of Francesco, looking down into his face, repeating his 
 words, and adding, 
 
 “Blessed be thou, O Lord! who sendest me health 
 again! and blessings on thy messenger who brought it.” 
 
 He had slept soundly ; for ere he closed his eyes he had 
 
 
 
120 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 unburdened his mind of its freight, not only by employing 
 the prayers appointed by Holy Church, but likewise by 
 ejaculating; as sundry of the fathers did of old. He 
 acknowledged his contrition for many trangressions, and 
 chiefly for uncharitable thoughts of Fra Biagio: on which 
 occasion he turned fairly round on his couch, and leaning 
 his brow against the wall, and his body being in a 
 becomingly curved position, and proper for the purpose, 
 he thus ejaculated : 
 
 “Thou knowest, O most Holy Virgin! that never have I 
 spoken to handmaiden at this villetta, or within my mansion 
 at Certaldo, wantonly or indiscreetly, but have always been, 
 inasmuch as may be, the guardian of 4nnocence; deeming 
 it better, when irregular thoughts assailed me, to ventilate 
 them abroad than to poison the house with them. And if, 
 sinner as I am, I have thought uncharitably of others, and 
 more especially of Fra Biagio, pardon me, out of thy 
 exceeding great mercies! And let it not be imputed to me, 
 if I have kept, and may keep hereafter, an eye over him, 
 in wariness and watchfulness; not otherwise. For thou 
 knowest, O Madonna! that many who have a perfect and 
 unwavering faith in thee, yet do cover up their cheese from 
 the nibblings of vermin.” 
 
 Whereupon, he turned round again, threw himself on his 
 back at full length, and feeling the sheets cool, smooth, and 
 refreshing, folded his arms, and slept instantaneously. The 
 consequence of his wholesome slumber was a calm alacrity : 
 and the idea that his visitor would be happy at seeing him 
 on his feet again, made him attempt to get up: at which he 
 succeeded, to his own wonder. And it was increased by 
 the manifestation of his strength in opening the casement, 
 stiff from being closed, and swelled by the continuance of 
 the rains. The morning was warm and sunny: and it is 
 known that on this occasion he composed the verses below: 
 
 My old familiar cottage-green ! 
 
 I see once more thy pleasant sheen ; 
 The gossamer suspended over 
 Smart celandine by lusty clover ; 
 
 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 121 
 
 And the last blossom of the plum 
 Inviting her first leaves to come ; 
 Which hang a little back, but show 
 *Tis not their nature to say no. 
 
 I scarcely am in voice to sing 
 
 How graceful are the steps of Spring ; 
 And ah! it makes me sigh to look 
 How leaps along my merry brook, 
 The very same to-day as when 
 
 He chirrupt first to maids and men. 
 
 fetrarca. 1 can rejoice at the freshness of your feelings: 
 but the sight of the green turf reminds me rather of its 
 ultimate use and destination. 
 
 For many serves the parish pall, 
 The turf in common serves for all. 
 
 Boccaccio. Very true; and, such being the case, let us 
 carefully fold it up, and lay it by until we call for it. 
 
 Francesco, you made me quite light-headed yesterday. 
 I am rather too old to dance either with Spring, as I have 
 been saying, or with Vanity: and yet I accepted her at 
 your hand as a partner. In future, no more of comparisons 
 forme! You not only can do me no good, but you can 
 leave me no pleasure: for here I shall remain the few days 
 I have to live, and shall see nobody who will be disposed 
 to remind me of your praises. Beside, you yourself will get 
 hated for them. We neither can deserve praise nor receive 
 it with impunity. 
 
 FPetrarca. Have you never remarked that it is into quiet 
 water that children throw pebbles to disturb it? and that it 
 is into deep caverns that the idle drop sticks and dirt? 
 We must expect such treatment. 
 
 Boccaccio. Your admonition shall have its wholesome 
 influence over me, when the fever your praises have excited 
 has grown moderate. 
 
 . . . After the conversation on this topic and various 
 others had continued some time, it was interrupted by a 
 visitor. The clergy and monkery at Certaldo had never 
 been cordial with Messer Giovanni, it being suspected that 
 
122 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 certain of his /Vove//e were modelled on originals in their 
 orders. Hence, although they indeed both professed and 
 felt esteem for Canonico Petrarca, they abstained from 
 expressing it at the villetta. But Frate Biagio of San 
 Vivaldo was (by his own appointment) the friend of the 
 house ; and, being considered as very expert in pharmacy, 
 had, day after day, brought over no indifferent store of 
 simples, in ptisans, and other refections, during the continu- 
 ance of Ser Giovanni’s ailment. Something now moved 
 him to cast about in his mind whether it might not appear 
 dutiful to make another visit. Perhaps he thought it 
 possible that, among those who peradventure had seen 
 him lately on the road, one or other might expect 
 from him a solution of the questions, What sort of 
 person was the crowned martyr? whether he carried a 
 palm in his hand? whether a seam was visible across 
 the throat ? whether he wore a ring over his glove, with 
 a chrysolite in it, like the bishops, but representing 
 the city of Jerusalem and the judgment-seat of Pontius 
 Pilate? Such were the reports; but the inhabitants of San 
 Vivaldo could not believe the Certaldese, who, inhabiting 
 the next township to them, were naturally their enemies. 
 Yet they might believe Frate Biagio, and certainly would 
 interrogate him accordingly. He formed his determination, 
 put his frock and hood on, and gave a curvature to his shoe, 
 to evince his knowledge of the world, by pushing the 
 extremity of it with his breast-bone against the corner of his 
 cell. Studious of his figure and of his attire, he walked as 
 much as possible on his heels, to keep up the reformation 
 he had wrought in the workmanship of the cordwainer. 
 On former occasions he had borrowed a horse, as being 
 wanted to hear confession or to carry medicines, which 
 might otherwise be too late. But, having put on an entirely 
 new habiliment, and it being the season when horses are 
 beginning to do the same, he deemed it prudent to travel 
 on foot. Approaching the villetta, his first intention was to 
 walk directly into his patient’s room: but he found it 
 impossible to resist the impulses of pride, in showing 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 123 
 
 Assunta his rigid and stately frock, and shoes rather of the 
 equestrian order than the monastic. So he went into the 
 kitchen where the girl was at work, having just taken away 
 the remains of the breakfast. 
 
 “Frate Biagio!” cried she, “is this you? Have you 
 been sleeping at Conte Jeronimo’s ?” 
 
 “Not I,” replied he. 
 
 *“Why !” said she, ‘‘those are surely his shoes! Santa 
 Maria! you must have put them on in the dusk of the 
 morning, to say your prayers in! Here! here! take these 
 old ones of Signor Padrone, for the love of God! I hope 
 your Reverence met nobody.” 
 
 Frate. What dost smile at ? 
 
 Assunta. Smile at! I could find in my heart to laugh 
 outright, if I only were certain that nobody had seen your 
 Reverence in such a funny trim. Riverenza! put on 
 these. 
 
 Frrate. Not I indeed. 
 
 Assunta. Allow me then? 
 
 rate. No, nor you. 
 
 Assunta. Then let me stand upon yours, to push down 
 the points. 
 
 . . . Frate Biagio now began to relent a little, when 
 Assunta, who had made one step toward the project, 
 bethought herself suddenly, and said, 
 
 “No; I might miss my footing. But, mercy upon us! 
 what made you cramp your Reverence with those ox-yoke 
 shoes? and strangle your Reverence with that hang-dog 
 collar ?” 
 
 “Tf you must know,” answered the Frate, reddening, ‘it 
 was because I am making a visit to the Canonico of Parma. 
 I should like to know something about him: perhaps you 
 could tell me?” 
 
 Assunta, Ever so much. 
 
 Frate. 1 thought no less: indeed I knewit. Which goes 
 to bed first ? 
 
 Assunta. Both together. 
 
 frate, Demonio! what dost mean ? 
 
E24 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Assunta. He tells me never to sit up waiting, but to say 
 my prayers and dream of the Virgin. 
 
 Frate. As if it was any business of his! Does he put 
 out his lamp himself ? 
 
 Assunta. To be sure he does: why should not he? what 
 should he be afraid of? It is not winter: and beside, 
 there is a mat upon the floor, all round the bed, excepting 
 the top and bottom. 
 
 rate. 1 am quite convinced he never said anything to 
 make you blush. Why are you silent? 
 
 Assunta, I have a right. 
 
 Frate. He did then? ay? Do not nod your head: that 
 will never do. Discreet girls speak plainly. 
 
 Assunta, What would you have P 
 
 rate. The truth; the truth; again, I say, the truth. 
 
 Assunta. He did then. 
 
 frate. [knewit! The most dangerous man living! 
 
 Assunta. Ah! indeed he is! Signor Padrone said so. 
 
 Lvrate. He knows him of old: he warned you, it seems. 
 
 Assunia. Me! He never said it was I who was in 
 danger. 
 
 frate. He might: it was his duty. 
 
 Assunta. Am I so fat? Lord! you may feel every rib. 
 Girls who run about as I do, slip away from apoplexy. 
 
 Frate. Ho! ho! that is all, is it? 
 
 Assunta. And bad enough too! that such good-natured 
 men should ever grow so bulky; and stand in danger, as 
 Padrone said they both do, of such a seizure P 
 
 rate. What ? and art ready to cry about it? Old folks 
 can not die easier: and there are always plenty of younger 
 to run quick enough for a confessor. But I must not trifle 
 in this manner. It is my duty to set your feet in the right 
 way: it is my bounden duty to report to Ser Giovanni all 
 irregularities I know of, committed in his domicile. I 
 could indeed, and would, remit a trifle, on hearing the 
 worst. Tell me now, Assunta! tell me, you little angel! 
 did you . . . we all may, the very best of us may, and do 
 
 . sin, my sweet ? 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 125 
 
 Assunta. You may be sure I do not: for whenever I sin 
 I run into church directly, although it snows or thunders; 
 else I never could see again Padrone’s face, or any 
 one’s. 
 
 Frate. You do not come to me. 
 
 Assunta. You live at San Vivaldo. 
 
 Frate. But when there is sin so pressing I am always 
 ready to be found. You perplex, you puzzle me. Tell me 
 at once how he made you blush. 
 
 Assunta. Well then! 
 
 Frate. Well then! you did not hang back so before him. 
 I lose all patience. 
 
 Assunta. Sofamousaman!... 
 
 Frate. No excuse in that, 
 
 Assunta. So dear to Padrone.. . 
 
 Fate. The more shame for him ! 
 
 Assunta. Called me. . 
 
 Frate. And called you, did he! the traitorous swine! 
 
 Assunta. Called me. . . good girl. 
 
 Frrate. Psha! the wenches, I think, are all mad: but few 
 of them in this manner. 
 
 . . . Without saying another word, Fra Biagio went for- 
 ward and opened the bedchamber-door, saying, briskly, 
 
 “ Servant ! Ser Giovanni! Ser Canonico! most devoted! 
 most obsequious! I venture to incommode you. Thanks 
 to God, Ser Canonico, you are looking well for your years. 
 They tell me you were formerly (who would believe it?) the 
 handsomest man in Christendom, and worked your way 
 glibly, yonder at Avignon. 
 
 “Capperi! Ser Giovanni! I never observed that you 
 were sitting bolt-upright in that long-backed arm-chair, 
 instead of lying abed. Quite in the right. I am rejoiced 
 at such a change for the better. Who advised it?” 
 
 Boccaccio. So many thanks to Fra Biagio! I not only am 
 sitting up, but have taken a draught of fresh air at the 
 window, and every leaf had a little present of sunshine 
 for me. 
 
126 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 There is one pleasure, Fra Biagio, which I fancy you 
 never have experienced, and I hardly know whether I ought 
 to wish it you; the first sensation of health after a long 
 confinement. 
 
 Frate. Thanks! infinite! I would take any man’s word 
 for that, without a wish to try it. Everybody tells me I am 
 exactly what I was a dozen years ago; while, for my part, 
 I see everybody changed: those who ought to be much 
 about my age, even those . .. Per Bacco! I told them 
 my thoughts when they had told me theirs; and they were 
 not so agreeable as they used to be in former days. 
 
 Boccaccio. How people hate sincerity. 
 
 Cospetto! why, Frate! what hast got upon thy toes? 
 Hast killed some Tartar and tucked his bow into one, and 
 torn the crescent from the vizier’s tent to make the other 
 match itP Hadst thou fallen in thy mettlesome expedition 
 (and it is a mercy and a miracle thou didst not) those 
 sacrilegious shoes would have impaled thee. 
 
 rate. It was a mistake in the shoemaker. But no pain 
 or incommodity whatsoever could detain me from paying 
 my duty to Ser Canonico, the first moment I heard of his 
 auspicious arrival, or from offering my congratulations to 
 Ser Giovanni, on the annunciation that he was recovered 
 and looking out of the window. All Tuscany was standing 
 on the watch for it, and the news flew like lightning. By 
 this time it is upon the Danube. 
 
 And pray, Ser Canonico, how does Madonna Laura do? 
 
 Petrarca, Peace to her gentle spirit! she is departed. 
 
 Frate. Ay, true. I had quite forgotten: that is to say, I 
 recollect it. You told us as much, I think, in a poem on 
 her death. Well, and do you know! our friend Giovanni 
 here is a bit of an author in his way. 
 
 Boccaccio. Frate! you confuse my modesty. 
 
 Fratz. Murder will out. It is a fact, on my conscience. 
 Have you never heard anything about it, Canonico? Ha! 
 we poets are sly fellows: we can keep a secret. 
 
 Boccaccio. Are you quite sure you can ? 
 
 rate. Try, and trust me with any. I am a confessional 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 127 
 
 on legs: there is no more a whisper in me than in a 
 woolsack. 
 
 I am in feather again, as you see; and in tune, as you 
 shall hear. 
 
 April is not the month for moping. Sing it lustily. 
 
 Boccaccio. Let it be your business to sing it, being a 
 _Frate ; I can only recite it. 
 
 rate. Pray do then. 
 
 Boccaccio. 
 Frate Biagio! sempre quando 
 Qua tu vieni cavalcando, 
 Pensi che le buone strade 
 Per il mondo sien ben rade ; 
 E, di quante sono brutte, 
 La piu brutta é tua di tutte. 
 Badi, non cascare sulle 
 Graziosissime fanciulle, 
 Che con capo dritto, alzato, 
 Uova portano al mercato. 
 Pessima mi pare l’opra 
 Rovesciarle sottosopra. 
 Deh ! scansando le erte e sassi, 
 Sempre con premura passi. 
 Caro amico! Frate Biagio! 
 Passi pur, ma passi adagio.* 
 
 Frate. Well now really, Canonico, for one not exactly 
 one of us, that canzone of Ser Giovanni has merit; has not 
 
 * Avendo io fatto comparire nel nostro idioma toscano, e senza 
 traduzione, i leggiadri versi sopra stampati, chiedo perdono da chi 
 legge. Non potei, badando con dovuta premura ai miei interessi ed a 
 quelli del proposito mio, non potei, dico, far di meno; stanteche una 
 riunione de’ critici, i pitt vistosi del Regno unito d’Inghilterra ed 
 Irlanda, avra con unanimita dichiarato, che nessuno, di quanti esistono 
 i mortali, sapra mai indovinare la versione. Stimo assai il tradduttore ; 
 lavora per poco, e agevolmente; mi pare piutosto galantuomo; non c’ 
 é male; ma poeta poco felice poi. Parlano que’ Signori critici riveri- 
 tissimi di certi poemetti e frammenti gia da noi ammessi in questo 
 volume, ed anche di altri del medesimo autore forse originali, e restano 
 di avviso commune, che non vi sia neppure una sola parola veramente 
 da intendersi; che il senso (chi sa?) sara di atezszmo, ovvero di alto 
 tradimento, Che questo non lo sia, né palsesamente né occultamente, 
 fermo col proprio pugno. Domenico Grigt. 
 
7 
 
 it? I did not ride, however, to-day ; as you may see by the 
 lining of my frock. But Alus non vitiat; ay, Canonico! 
 About the roads he is right enough ; they are the devil’s 
 own roads ; that must be said for them. 
 
 Ser Giovanni! with permission; your mention of eggs in 
 the canzone, has induced me to fancy I could eat a pair of 
 them. ‘The hens lay well now: that white one of yours is 
 worth more than the goose that laid the golden: and you 
 have a store of others, her equals or betters: we have none 
 like them at poor St. Vivaldo. A riverderci, Ser Giovanni! 
 Schiavo | Ser Canonico! mi commandino. 
 
 128 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 . . . Fra Biagio went back into the kitchen, helped himself 
 to a quarter of a loaf, ordered a flask of wine, and, trying 
 several eggs against his lips, selected seven, which he 
 himself fried in oil, although the maid offered her services. 
 He never had been so little disposed to enter into conver- 
 sation with her; and, on her asking him how he found her 
 master, he replied, that in bodily health Ser Giovanni, by 
 his prayers and ptisans, had much improved, but that his 
 faculties were wearing out apace. ‘He may now run in 
 the same couples with the Canonico: they can not catch 
 the mange one of the other: the one could say nothing to 
 the purpose, and the other nothing at all. The whole 
 conversation was entirely at my charge,” added he. “And 
 now, Assunta, since you press it, I will accept the service of 
 your master’s shoes. How I shall ever get home I don’t 
 know.” He took the shoes off the handles of the bellows, 
 where Assunta had placed them out of her way, and 
 tucking one of his own under each arm, limped toward St. 
 Vivaldo. 
 
 The unwonted attention to smartness of apparel, in the 
 only article wherein it could be displayed, was suggested to 
 Frate Biagio by hearing that Ser Francesco, accustomed to 
 courtly habits and elegant society, and having not only 
 small hands, but small feet, usually wore red slippers in the 
 morning. Fra Biagio had scarcely left the outer door, than 
 he cordially cursed Ser Francesco for making such a fool of 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 129 
 
 him, and wearing slippers of black list. “These canonicoes,” 
 said he, “not only lie themselves, but teach everybody else 
 to do the same. He has lamed me for life: I burn as if I 
 had been shod at the blacksmith’s forge.” 
 
 The two friends said nothing about him, but continued 
 the discourse which his visit had interrupted. 
 
 fetrarca. Turn again, I entreat you, to the serious; and 
 do not imagine that because by nature you are inclined to 
 playfulness, you must therefore write ludicrous things 
 better. Many of your stories would make the gravest men 
 laugh, and yet there is little wit in them. 
 
 Boccaccio. J think so myself; though authors, little 
 disposed as they are to doubt their possession of any 
 quality they would bring into play, are least of all suspicious 
 on the side of wit. You have convinced me. I am glad to 
 have been tender, and to have written tenderly: for I am 
 certain it is this alone that has made you love me with such 
 affection. 
 
 fetrarca. Not this alone, Giovanni ! but this principally. 
 I have always found you kind and compassionate, liberal 
 and sincere, and when Fortune does not stand very close to 
 such a man, she leaves only the more room for Friendship. 
 
 Boccaccio. Let her stand off then, now and for ever! ‘To 
 my heart, to my heart, Francesco! preserver of my health, 
 my peace of mind, and (since you tell me I may claim it) 
 my glory. 
 
 Fetrarca. Recovering your strength you must pursue 
 your studies to complete it. What can you have been 
 doing with your books? I have searched in vain this 
 morning for the treasury. Where are they kept? Formerly 
 they were always open. I found only a short manuscript, 
 which I suspect is poetry, but I ventured not on looking 
 into it, until I had brought it with me and laid it before 
 
 ou. 
 : Boccaccio. Well guessed! They are verses written by a 
 gentleman who resided long in this country, and who much 
 regretted the necessity of leaving it. He took great delight 
 in composing both Latin and Italian, but never kept a copy 
 602 
 
130 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 of them latterly, so that these are the only ones I could 
 obtain from him. Read: for your voice will improve 
 them. 
 
 TO MY CHILD CARLINO. 
 
 
 
 Carlino ! what art thou about, my boy ? 
 Often I ask that question, though in vain, 
 
 For we are far apart: ah ! therefore ’tis 
 
 I often ask it ; not in such a tone 
 
 As wiser fathers do, who know too well. 
 
 Were we not children, you and I together? 
 
 Stole we not glances from each other’s eyes? 
 Swore we not secrecy in such misdeeds? 
 
 Well could we trust each other. Tell me then 
 What thou art doing. Carving out thy name, 
 Or haply mine, upon my favourite seat, 
 
 With the new knife I sent thee over sea? 
 
 Or hast thou broken it, and hid the hilt 
 
 Among the myrtles, starr'd with flowers, behind ? 
 Or under that high throne whence fifty lilies 
 (With sworded tuberoses dense around) 
 
 Lift up their heads at once, not without fear 
 That they were looking at thee all the while. 
 
 Does Cincirillo follow thee about ? 
 Inverting one swart foot suspensively, 
 And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp 
 Of bird above him on the olive-branch ? 
 Frighten him then away ! ’twas he who slew 
 Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, 
 That fear’d not you and me. . . alas, norhim! 
 I flattened his striped sides along my knee, 
 And reasoned with him on his bloody mind, 
 Till he looked blandly, and half-closed his eyes 
 To ponder on my lecture in the shade. 
 I doubt his memory much, his heart a little, 
 And in some minor matters (may I say it ?) 
 Could wish him rather sager. But from thee 
 God hold back wisdom yet for many years ! 
 Whether in early season or in late 
 It always comes high-priced. For thy pure breast 
 I have no lesson ; it for me has many. 
 Come throw it open then! What sports, what cares 
 (Since there are none too young for these) engage 
 Thy busy thoughts? Are you again at work, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 131 
 
 Walter and you, with those sly labourers, 
 Geppo, Giovanni, Cecco, and Poeta, 
 
 To build more solidly your broken dam 
 
 Among the poplars, whence the nightingale 
 Inquisitively watch’d you all day long? 
 
 I was not of your council in the scheme, 
 
 Or might have saved you silver without end, 
 And sighs too without number. Art thou gone 
 Below the mulberry, where that cold pool 
 Urged to devise a warmer, and more fit 
 
 For mighty swimmers, swimming three abreast ? 
 Or art thou panting in this summer noon 
 
 Upon the lowest step before the hall, 
 
 Drawing a slice of watermelon, long 
 
 As Cupid’s bow, athwart thy wetted lips 
 
 (Like one who plays Pan’s pipe) and letting drop 
 The sable seeds from all their separate cells, 
 And leaving bays profound and rocks abrupt, 
 Redder than coral round Calypso’s cave. 
 
 Petrarca. There have been those anciently who would 
 have been pleased with such poetry, and perhaps there may 
 be again. Iam not sorry to see the Muses by the side of 
 childhood, and forming a part of the family. But now tell 
 me about the books. 
 
 Boccaccio. Resolving to lay aside the more valuable of 
 those I had collected or transcribed, and to place them 
 under the guardianship of richer men, I locked them up 
 together in the higher story of my tower at Certaldo. You 
 remember the old tower? 
 
 Petrarca. Well do I remember the hearty laugh we had 
 together (which stopped us upon the staircase) at the calcu- 
 lation we made, how much longer you and I, if we 
 continued to thrive as we had thriven latterly, should be 
 able to pass within its narrow circle. Although I like this 
 little villa much better, I would gladly see the place again, 
 and enjoy with you, as we did before, the vast expanse of 
 woodlands and mountains and maremma ; frowning fort- 
 resses inexpugnable ; and others more prodigious for their 
 ruins ; then below them, lordly abbeys, overcanopied with 
 stately trees and girded with rich luxuriance ; and towns 
 that seem approaching them to do them honour, and 
 
132 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 villages nestling close at their sides for sustenance and 
 protection, 
 
 Boccaccio, My disorder, if it should keep its promise of 
 leaving me at last, will have been preparing me for the 
 accomplishment of such a project. Should I get thinner 
 and thinner at this rate, I shall soon be able to mount not 
 only a turret or a belfry, but a tube of macarone,* while a 
 Neapolitan is suspending it for deglutition. 
 
 What I am about to mention, will show you how little 
 you can rely on me! I have preserved the books, as you 
 desired, but quite contrary to my resolution: and, no less 
 contrary to it, by your desire I shall now preserve the 
 Decameron. In vain had I determined not only to mend 
 in future, but to correct the past; in vain had I prayed 
 most fervently for grace to accomplish it, with a final 
 aspiration to Fiametta that she would unite with your 
 beloved Laura, and that, gentle and beatified spirits as they 
 are, they would breathe together their purer prayers on 
 mine. See what follows. 
 
 Fetrarca. Sigh not at it. Before we can see all that 
 follows from their intercession, we must join them again. 
 But let me hear anything in which they are concerned. 
 
 Boccaccio. | prayed ; and my breast, after some few tears, 
 grew calmer. Yet sleep did not ensue until the break of 
 morning, when the dropping of soft rain on the leaves of 
 the fig-tree at the window, and the chirping of a little bird, 
 to tell another there was shelter under them, brought me 
 repose and slumber. Scarcely had I closed my eyes, if 
 indeed time can be reckoned any more in sleep than in 
 heaven, when my Fiametta seemed to have led me into the 
 meadow. You will see it below you: turn away that 
 branch: gently! gently! do not break it; for the little bird 
 sat there. 
 
 fetrarca. T think, Giovanni, I can divine the place. 
 
 * This is valuable, since it shows that #acavone (here called fasta) 
 was invented in the time of Boccaccio ; so are the letters of Petrarca, 
 which inform us equally in regard to spectacles. Ad ocularium 
 (occhiali) mihi confugiendum esset auxilium. Domenico Grigt. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 133 
 
 Although this fig-tree, growing out of the wall between the 
 cellar and us, is fantastic enough in its branches, yet that 
 other which I see yonder, bent down and forced to crawl 
 along the grass by the prepotency of the young shapely 
 walnut-tree, is much more so. It forms a seat, about a 
 cubit above the ground, level and long enough for several. 
 
 Boccaccio. Ha! you fancy it must be a favourite spot 
 with me, because of the two strong forked stakes wherewith 
 it is propped and supported ! 
 
 Fetrarca. Poets know the haunts of poets at first sight ; 
 and he who loved Laura .. . O Laura! did I say he who 
 loved thee? . . . hath whisperings where those feet would 
 wander which have been restless after Fiametta. 
 
 Boccaccio. It is true, my imagination has often conducted 
 her thither ; but there in this chamber she appeared to me 
 more visibly in a dream. 
 
 “ Thy prayers have been heard, O Giovanni,” said she. 
 
 I sprang to embrace her. 
 
 “Do not spill the water! Ah! you have spilt a part 
 of it.” 
 
 I then observed in her hand a crystal vase. A few drops 
 were sparkling on the sides and running down the rim: a 
 few were trickling from the base and from the hand that 
 held it. 
 
 “T must go down to the brook,” said she, “and fill it 
 again as it was filled before.” 
 
 What a moment of agony was this to me! Could I be 
 certain how long might be her absence? She went: I was 
 following: she made a sign for me to turn back: I dis- 
 obeyed her only an instant: yet my sense of disobedience, 
 increasing my feebleness and confusion, made me lose sight 
 of her. In the next moment she was again at my side, 
 with the cup quite full. I stood motionless: I feared my 
 breath might shake the water over. I looked her in the 
 face for her commands . . . and to see it . . . to see it so 
 calm, so beneficent, so beautiful. I was forgetting what I 
 had prayed for, when she lowered her head, tasted of the 
 cup, and gave it me. I drank ; and suddenly sprang forth 
 
134 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 before me, many groves and palaces and gardens, and their 
 statues and their avenues, and their labyrinths of alaternus 
 and bay, and alcoves of citron, and watchful loopholes in 
 the retirements of impenetrable pomegranate. Farther off, 
 just below where the fountain slipt away from its marble 
 hall and guardian gods, arose, from their beds of moss and 
 drosera and darkest grass, the sisterhood of oleanders, fond 
 of tantalising with their bosomed flowers and their moist 
 and pouting blossoms the little shy rivulet, and of covering 
 its face with all the colours of the dawn. My dream 
 expanded and moved forward. I trod again the dust of 
 Posilipo, soft as the feathers in the wings of Sleep. I 
 emerged on Baia; I crossed her innumerable arches; I 
 loitered in the breezy sunshine of her mole; I trusted the 
 faithful seclusion of her caverns, the keepers of so many 
 secrets ; and I reposed on the buoyancy of her tepid sea. 
 Then Naples, and her theatres and her churches, and 
 grottoes and dells and forts and promontories, rushed 
 forward in confusion, now among soft whispers, now among 
 sweetest sounds, and subsided, and sank, and disappeared. 
 Yet a memory seemed to come fresh from every one: each 
 had time enough for its tale, for its pleasure, for its 
 reflection, for its pang. As I mounted with silent steps the 
 narrow staircase of the old palace, how distinctly did I feel 
 against the palm of my hand the coldness of that smooth 
 stone-work, and the greater of the cramps of iron in it! 
 
 “Ah me! is this forgetting?” cried I anxiously to 
 Fiametta. 
 
 “We must recall these scenes before us,” she replied : 
 “such is the punishment of them. Let us hope and 
 believe that the apparition, and the compunction which 
 must follow it, will be accepted as the full penaity, and 
 that both will pass away almost together.” 
 
 I feared to lose anything attendant on her presence: I 
 feared to approach her forehead with my lips: I feared to 
 touch the lily on its long wavy leaf in her hair, which filled 
 my whole heart with fragrance. Venerating, adoring, I bowed 
 my head at last to kiss her snow-white robe, and trembled 
 
r= 
 
 THE PENTAMERON. 135 
 
 at my presumption. And yet the effulgence of her counten- 
 ance vivified while it chastened me. I loved her... I 
 must not say more than ever .. . de/fer than ever ; it was 
 Fiametta who had inhabited the skies. As my hand 
 opened toward her, 
 
 “Beware!” said she, faintly smiling; ‘beware, Gio- 
 vanni! ‘Take only the crystal; take it, and drink again.” 
 
 “Must all be then forgotten?” said I sorrowfully. 
 
 “Remember your prayer and mine, Giovanni. Shall 
 both have been granted . . . O how much worse than in 
 vain ?” 
 
 I drank instantly ; I drank largely. How cool my bosom 
 grew; how could it grow so cool before her! But it was 
 not to remain in its quiescency ; its trials were not yet over. 
 I will not, Francesco! no, I may not commemorate the 
 incidents she related to me, nor which of us said, ‘‘I blush 
 for having loved jfrst;” nor which of us replied, “Say 
 least, say least, and blush again.” 
 
 The charm of the words (for I felt not the encumbrance 
 of the body nor the acuteness of the spirit) seemed to 
 possess me wholly. Although the water gave me strength 
 and comfort, and somewhat of celestial pleasure, many 
 tears fell around the border of the vase as she held it 
 up before me, exhorting me to take courage, and inviting 
 me with more than exhortation to accomplish my deliver- 
 ance. She came nearer, more tenderly, more earnestly ; 
 she held the dewy globe with both hands, leaning forward, 
 and sighed and shook her head, drooping at my pusil- 
 lanimity. It was only when a ringlet had touched the rim, 
 and perhaps the water (for a sunbeam on the surface couid 
 never have given it such a golden hue) that I took courage, 
 clasped it, and exhausted it. Sweet as was the water, sweet 
 as was the serenity it gave me .. . alas! that also which it 
 moved away from me was sweet! 
 
 “This time you can trust me alone,” said she, and 
 parted my hair, and kissed my brow. Again she went 
 toward the brook: again my agitation, my weakness, my 
 doubt, came over me: nor could I see her while she raised 
 
136 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 the water, nor knew I whence she drew it. When she 
 returned, she was close to me at once: she smiled: her 
 smile pierced me to the bones: it seemed an angel’s. She 
 sprinkled the pure water on me; she looked most fondly ; 
 she took my hand; she suffered me to press hers to my 
 bosom ; but, whether by design I can not tell, she let fall 
 a few drops of the chilly element between. 
 
 “ And now, O my beloved!” said she, “‘we have con-_ 
 signed to the bosom of God our earthly joys and sorrows. 
 The joys can not return, let not the sorrows. These alone 
 would trouble my repose among the blessed. 
 
 “Trouble thy repose! Fiametta! Give me the chalice!” 
 cried I. . . “not a drop will I leave in it, not a drop.” 
 
 “Take it!” said that soft voice. “O now most dear 
 Giovanni! I know thou hast strength enough; and there 
 is but little . . . at the bottom lies our first kiss.” 
 
 “Mine! didst thou say, beloved one? and is that left 
 thee still ?” 
 
 “‘ Mine, said she, pensively ; and as she abased her head, 
 the broad leaf of the lily hid her brow and her eyes ; the 
 light of heaven shone through the flower.” 
 
 “O Fiametta! Fiametta!” cried I in agony, “God is 
 the God of mercy, God is the God of love . . . can I, can 
 I ever?” I struck the chalice against my head, unmindful 
 that I held it; the water covered my face and my feet. 
 I started up, not yet awake, and I heard the name of 
 Fiametta in the curtains. 
 
 Fetrarca. Love, O Giovanni, and life itself, are but 
 dreams at best. I do think 
 
 Never so gloriously was Sleep attended 
 As with the pageant of that heavenly maid. 
 
 But to dwell on such subjects is sinful. The recollection 
 of them, with all their vanities, brings tears into my eyes. 
 Boccaccio. And into mine too... they were so very 
 charming. 
 fetrarca, Alas, alas! the time always comes when we 
 must regret the enjoyments of our youth, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 137 
 
 Boccaccio. If we have let them pass us. 
 
 fetrarca. | mean our indulgence in them. 
 
 Boccaccio, Francesco! I think you must remember 
 Raffaellino degli Alfani. 
 
 Petrarca. Was it Raffaellino who lived near San Michele 
 in Orto? 
 
 Boccaccio. The same. He was an innocent soul, and 
 fond of fish. But whenever his friend Sabbatelli sent him 
 a trout from Pratolino, he always kept it until next day or 
 the day after, just long enough to render it unpalatable. 
 He then turned it over in the platter, smelt at it closer, 
 although the news of its condition came undeniably from a 
 distance, touched it with his forefinger, solicited a testimony 
 from the gills which the eyes had contradicted, sighed over 
 it, and sent it for a present to somebody else. Were I a 
 lover of trout as Raffaellino was, I think I should have 
 taken an opportunity of enjoying it while the pink and 
 crimson were glittering on it. 
 
 Petrarca. Trout, yes 
 
 Boccaccio. And all other fish I could encompass. 
 
 fetrarca. O thou grave mocker! I did not suspect such 
 slyness in thee: proof enough I had almost forgotten thee. 
 
 Boccaccio. Listen! listen! I fancied I caught a footstep 
 in the passage. Come nearer; bend your head lower, that 
 I may whisper a word in your ear. Never let Assunta hear 
 you sigh. She is mischievous: she may have been stand- 
 ing at the door: not that I believe she would be guilty 
 of any such impropriety: but who knows what girls are 
 capable of! She has no malice, only in laughing; 
 and a sigh sets her windmill at work, van over van, 
 incessantly. 
 
 Letrarca. I should soon check her. I have no notion. . 
 
 Boccaccio. After all, she is a good girl. . . a trifle of 
 the wilful. She must have it that many things are hurtful 
 to me... reading in particular . . . it makes people so 
 odd. ‘Tina is a small matter of the madcap... in her 
 own particular way ... but exceedingly discreet, I do 
 assure you, if they will only leave her alone. 
 

 
 138 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 I find I was mistaken, there was nobody. 
 
 FPetrarca, A cat perhaps 
 
 Boccaccio. No such thing. I order him over to Cer- 
 taldo while the birds are laying and sitting: and he knows 
 by experience, favourite as he is, that it is of no use to 
 come back before he is sent for. Since the first im-— 
 petuosities of youth, he has rarely been refractory or 
 disobliging. We have lived together now these five years, 
 unless I miscalculate ; and he seems to have learnt some- 
 thing of my manners, wherein violence and enterprise by 
 no means predominate. I have watched him looking at a 
 large green lizard; and, their eyes being opposite and 
 near, he has doubted whether it might be pleasing to me 
 if he began the attack; and their tails on a sudden have 
 touched one another at the decision. 
 
 Petrarca. Seldom have adverse parties felt the same 
 desire of peace at the same moment, and none ever carried 
 it more simultaneously and promptly into execution. 
 
 Boccaccio. He enjoys his o/ium cum dignitate at Certaldo: 
 there he is my castellan, and his chase is unlimited in 
 those domains. After the doom of relegation is expired, 
 he comes hither at midsummer. And then if you could 
 see his joy! His eyes are as deep as a well, and as clear 
 as a fountain: he jerks his tail into the air like a royal 
 sceptre, and waves it like the wand of a magician. You 
 would fancy that, as Horace with his head, he was about 
 to smite the stars with it, There is ne’er such another cat 
 in the parish ; and he knows it, a rogue! We have rare 
 repasts together in the bean-and-bacon time, although in 
 regard to the bean he sides with the philosopher of Samos ; 
 but after due examination. In cleanliness he is a very 
 nun ; albeit in that quality which lies between cleanliness 
 and godliness, there is a smack of Fra Biagio about him. 
 What is that book in your hand ? 
 
 Petrarca. My breviary. 
 
 Boccaccio. Well, give me mine too . . . there, on the little 
 table in the corner, under the glass of primroses. We can 
 do nothing better. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 139 
 
 Fetrarca. What prayer were you looking for? let me 
 find it. 
 
 Boccaccio. 1 don’t know how it is: I am scarcely at 
 present in a frame of mind for it. We are of one faith: 
 the prayers of the one will do for the other: and I am 
 sure, if you omitted my name, you would say them all 
 over afresh. I wish you could recollect in any book as 
 dreamy a thing to entertain me as I have been just repeat- 
 ing. We have had enough of Dante: I believe few of his 
 beauties have escaped us: and small faults, which we 
 readily pass by, are fitter for small folks, as grubs are the 
 proper bait for gudgeons. 
 
 Fetrarca. I have had as many dreams as most men. We 
 are all made up of them, as the webs of the spider are 
 particles of her own vitality. But how infinitely less do 
 we profit by them! I will relate to you, before we separate, 
 one among the multitude of mine, as coming the nearest to 
 the poetry of yours, and as having been not totally useless 
 to me. Often have I reflected on it; sometimes with 
 pensiveness, with sadness never. 
 
 Boccaccio. Then, Francesco, if you had with you as 
 copious a choice of dreams as clustered on the elm-trees 
 where the Sibyl led Afneas, this, in preference to the whole 
 swarm of them, is the queen dream for me. 
 
 Fetrarca. When I was younger I was fond of 
 wandering in solitary places, and never was afraid of 
 slumbering in woods and grottoes. Among the chief 
 pleasures of my life, and among the commonest of my 
 occupations, was the bringing before me such heroes and 
 heroines of antiquity, such poets and sages, such of the 
 prosperous and the unfortunate, as most interested me by 
 their courage, their wisdom, their eloquence, or their 
 adventures. Engaging them in the conversation best 
 suited to their characters, I knew perfectly their manners, 
 their steps, their voices: and often did I moisten with my 
 tears the models I had been forming of the less happy. 
 
 Boccaccio. Great is the privilege of entering into the 
 studies of the intellectual ; great is that of conversing with 
 
; 
 
 the guides of nations, the movers of the mass, the 
 regulators of the unruly will, stiff, in its impurity and 
 rust, against the finger of the Almighty Power that 
 formed it: but give me, Francesco, give me rather the 
 creature to sympathise with ; apportion me the sufferings 
 to assuage. Ah, gentle soul! thou wilt never send them 
 over to another; they have better hopes from thee. 
 
 Petrarca. We both alike feel the sorrows of those around 
 us. He who suppresses or allays them in another, breaks 
 many thorns off his own ; and future years will never harden 
 fresh ones. 
 
 My occupation was not always in making the politician 
 talk politics, the orator toss his torch among the populace, 
 the philosopher run down from philosophy to cover the 
 retreat or the advances of his sect ; but sometimes in devis- 
 ing how such characters must act and discourse, on subjects 
 far remote from the beaten track of their career. In like 
 manner the philologist, and again the dialectician, were not 
 indulged in the review and parade of their trained bands, 
 but, at times, brought forward to show in what manner and 
 in what degree external habits had influenced the con- 
 formation of the internal man. It was far from unprofitable 
 to set passing events before past actors, and to record 
 the decisions of those whose interests and passions are 
 unconcerned in them. 
 
 Boccaccio. This is surely no easy matter. The thoughts 
 are in fact your own, however you distribute them. 
 
 FPetrarca. All can not be my own; if you mean by 
 thoughts the opinions and principles I should be the most 
 desirious to inculcate. Some favourite ones perhaps may 
 obtrude too prominently, but otherwise no misbehaviour 
 is permitted them: reprehension and rebuke are always 
 ready, and the offence is punished on the spot. 
 
 Boccaccto. Certainly you thus throw open, to its full extent, 
 the range of poetry and invention ; which can not but be 
 very limited and sterile, unless where we find displayed 
 much diversity of character as disseminated by nature, 
 much peculiarity of sentiment as arising from position, 
 
 140 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 140 
 
 marked with unerring skill through every shade and grada- 
 _ tion; and finally and chiefly, much intertexture and intensity 
 of passion. You thus convey to us more largely and expedi- 
 tiously the stores of your understanding and imagination, 
 than you ever could by sonnets or canzonets, or sinewless 
 and sapless allegories. 
 
 But weightier works are less captivating. If you had 
 published any such as you mention, you must have waited 
 for their acceptance. Not only the fame of Marcellus, but 
 every other, 
 
 Crescit occulto velut arbor zevo ; 
 
 and that which makes the greatest vernal shoot is apt to 
 make the least autumnal. Authors in general who have 
 met celebrity at starting, have already had their reward ; 
 always their utmost due, and often much beyond it. We 
 can not hope for both celebrity and fame: supremely 
 fortunate are the few who are allowed the liberty of choice 
 between them. We two prefer the strength that springs 
 from exercise and toil, acquiring it gradually and slowly: 
 we leave to others the earlier blessing of that sleep which 
 follows enjoyment. How many at first sight are enthusi- 
 astic in their favour! Of these how large a portion come 
 away empty-handed and discontented ! like idlers who visit 
 the seacoast, fill their pockets with pebbles bright from the 
 passing wave, and carry them off with rapture. After a 
 short examination at home, every streak seems faint and 
 dull, and the whole contexture coarse, uneven, and gritty : 
 first one is thrown away, then another; and before the 
 week’s end the store is gone, of things so shining and 
 wonderful. 
 
 fetrarca. Allegory, which you named with sonnets and 
 canzonets, had few attractions for me, believing it to be the 
 delight in general of idle, frivolous, inexcursive minds, in 
 whose mansions there is neither hall nor portal to receive 
 the loftier of the Passions. A stranger to the Affections, 
 she holds a low station among the handmaidens of Poetry, 
 being fit for little but an apparition in a mask. I had 
 
142 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 reflected for some time on this subject, when, wearied with 
 the length of my walk over the mountains, and finding a 
 soft old molehill, covered with grey grass, by the way-side, I 
 laid my head upon it, and slept. I can not tell how long it 1 
 was before a species of dream or vision came over me. 
 
 Two beautiful youths appeared beside me; each was 
 winged ; but the wings were hanging down, and seemed ill 
 adapted to flight. One of them, whose voice was the — 
 softest I ever heard, looking at me frequently, said to the 
 other, | 
 
 “He is under my guardianship for the present: do not 
 awaken him with that feather.” 
 
 Methought, hearing the whisper, I saw something like the 
 feather on an arrow; and then the arrow itself ; the whole 
 of it, even to the point ; although he carried it in such a ~ 
 manner that it was difficult at first to discover more than a 
 palm’s length of it: the rest of the shaft, and the whole of 
 the barb, was behind his ankles. 
 
 “This feather never awakens anyone,” replied he, rather 
 petulantly ; ‘but it brings more of confident security, and 
 more of cherished dreams, than you without me are 
 capable of imparting.” 
 
 “Be it so!” answered the gentler... “none is less 
 inclined to quarrel or dispute than Iam. Many whom you 
 have wounded greviously, call upon me for succour. But 
 so little am I disposed to thwart you, it is seldom I venture 
 to do more for them than to whisper a few words of com- 
 fort in passing. How many reproaches on these occasions 
 have been cast upon me for indifference and infidelity ! 
 Nearly as many, and nearly in the same terms, as upon 
 you!” 
 
 “* Odd enough that we, O Sleep! should be thought so 
 alike!” said Love, contemptuously. ‘ Yonder is he who 
 bears a nearer resemblance to you: the dullest have 
 observed it.” I fancied I turned my eyes to where he was 
 pointing, and saw at a distance the figure he designated. 
 Meanwhile the contention went on uninterruptedly. Sleep 
 was slow in asserting his power or his benefits. Love 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 143 
 
 recapitulated them ; but only that he might assert his own 
 above them. Suddenly he called on me to decide, and to 
 choose my patron. Under the influence, first of the one, 
 then of the other, I sprang from repose to rapture, I 
 alighted from rapture on repose . . . and knew not which 
 was sweetest. Love was very angry with me, and declared 
 he would cross me throughout the whole of my existence. 
 Whatever I might on other occasions have thought of his 
 veracity, I now felt too surely the conviction that he would 
 keep his word. At last, before the close of the altercation, 
 the third Genius had advanced, and stood near us. I can 
 not tell how I knew him, but I knew him to be the Genius 
 of Death. Breathless as I was at beholding him, I soon 
 became familiar with his features. First they seemed only 
 calm; presently they grew contemplative; and _ lastly 
 beautiful : those of the Graces themselves are less regular, 
 less harmonious, less composed. Love glanced at him 
 unsteadily, with a countenance in which there was some- 
 what of anxiety, somewhat of disdain; and cried, ‘Go 
 away! go away! nothing that thou touchest, lives.” 
 
 “Say rather, child!” replied the advancing form, and 
 advancing grew loftier and statelier. ‘‘Say rather that 
 nothing of beautiful or of glorious lives its own true life 
 until my wing hath passed over it.” 
 
 Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his 
 forefinger the stiff short feathers on his arrow-head; but 
 replied not. Although he frowned worse than ever, and at 
 me, I dreaded him less and less, and scarcely looked 
 toward him. The milder and calmer Genius, the third, in 
 proportion as I took courage to contemplate him, regarded 
 me with more and more complacency. He held neither 
 flower nor arrow, as the others did ; but, throwing back the 
 clusters of dark curls that overshadowed his countenance, 
 he presented to me his hand, openly and benignly. I 
 shrank on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed to love 
 him. He smiled, not without an expression of pity, at 
 perceiving my diffidence, my timidity: for I remembered 
 how soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm and entrancing 
 
144 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 was Love’s. By degrees, I became ashamed of my 
 ingratitude ; and turning my face away, I held out my 
 arms, and felt my neck within his. Composure strewed 
 and allayed all the throbbings of my bosom ; the coolness 
 of freshest morning breathed around; the heavens seemed 
 to open above me; while the beautiful cheek of my 
 deliverer rested on my head. I would now have looked for 
 those others ; but knowing my intention by my gesture, he 
 said, consolatorily, 
 
 “Sleep is on his way to the Earth, where many are 
 calling him; but it is not to these he hastens; for every 
 call only makes him fly farther off. Sedately and gravely 
 as he looks, he is nearly as capricious and volatile as the 
 more arrogant and ferocious one.” 
 
 “ And Love!” said I, “ whither is he departed? If not 
 too late, I would propitiate and appease him.” 
 
 “He who can not follow me, he who can not overtake 
 and pass me,” said the Genius, ‘is unworthy of the name, 
 the most glorious in earth or heaven. Look up! Love is 
 yonder, and ready to receive thee.” 
 
 I looked: the earth was under me: I saw only the clear 
 blue sky, and something brighter above it. 
 
 PIEVANO GRIGI TO THE READER. 
 
 BeroreE I proceeded on my mission, I had a final audience of 
 Monsignore, in which I asked his counsel, whether a paper 
 sewed and pasted to the Jzterviews, being the substance of 
 an intended Confession, might, according to the Decretads, 
 be made public. Monsignore took the subject into his 
 consideration, and assented. Previously to the solution of 
 this question, he was graciously pleased to discourse on 
 Boccaccio, and to say, ‘I am happy to think he died a 
 good catholic, and contentedly.” 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 145 
 
 “No doubt, Monsignore!” answered I, ‘‘for when he 
 was on his death-bed, or a little sooner, the most holy man 
 in Italy admonished him terribly of his past transgressions, 
 and frightened him fairly into Paradise.” 
 
 “ Pievano!” said Monsignore, “it is customary in the 
 fashionable literature of our times to finish a story in two 
 manners. The most approved is, to knock on the head 
 every soul that has been interesting you: the second is, to 
 put the two youngest into bed together, promising the same 
 treatment to another couple, or more. Our forefathers 
 were equally zealous about those they dealt with. Every 
 pagan turned Christian: every loose woman had bark to 
 grow about her, as thick and astringent as the ladies had in 
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses ; and the gallants, who had played 
 false with them, were driven mad by the monks at their 
 death-bed. i neither hope nor believe that poor Boccaccio 
 gave way to their importunities, but am happy in thinking 
 that his decease was as tranquil as his life was inoffensive. 
 He was not exempt from the indiscretions of youth: he 
 allowed his imagination too long a dalliance with his 
 passions ; but malice was never found among them. Let 
 us then, in charity to him and to ourselves, be persuaded 
 that such a pest as this mad zealot had no influence over 
 hin— 
 
 Né turbo il tuono di nebbiosa mente 
 Acqua si limpida e ridente. * 
 
 I can not but break into verse, although no poet, while I 
 am thinking of him. Such men as he would bring over 
 more to our good-natured, honest old faith again than fifty 
 monks with scourges at their shoulders.” 
 
 “Ah, Monsignore!” answered I, “could I but hope to 
 be humbly instrumental in leading back the apostate 
 church to our true catholic, I should be the happiest man 
 alive.” 
 
 “God forbid you should be without the hope!” said 
 
 * Nor did the thunderings of a cloudy mind 
 Trouble so limpid and serene a water. 
 
 603 
 
146 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Monsignore. ‘The two chief differences now are; with 
 ours, that we must not eat butcher’s meat on a Friday ; with 
 the Anglican, that they must not eat baked meat on a 
 Sunday. Secondly, that we say, Come, and be saved ; the 
 Anglican says, Go, and be damned.” 
 
 Since the exposition of Monsignore, the Parliament has 
 issued an Act of Grace in regard to eating. One article 
 says: 
 
 ** Nobody shall eat on a Sunday roast, or baked, or other 
 hot victuals whatsoever, unless he goes to church in his 
 own carriage ; if he goes thither in any other than his own, 
 be he halt or blind, he shall be subject to the penalty of 
 twenty pounds. Nobody shall dance on a Sunday, or play 
 music, unless he also be able to furnish three écaréé tables 
 at the least, and sixteen wax-lights.” 
 
 I write from memory ; but if the wording is inexact, the 
 sense is accurate. Nothing can be more gratifying to a 
 true Catholic than to see the amicable game played by his 
 bishops with the Anglican. The Catholic never makes a 
 false move. His fish often slips into the red square, marked 
 Sunday, but the shoulder of mutton can never get into its 
 place, marked /7iday: it lies upon the table, and nobody 
 dares touch it. Alas! I am forgetting that this is purely 
 an English game, and utterly unknown among us, or indeed 
 in any other country under heaven. 
 
 To promote still farther the objects of religion, as under- 
 stood in the Universities and the Parliament, it was 
 proposed that public prayers should be offered up for rain 
 on every Sabbath-day, the more effectually to encompass 
 the provisions of the Bill. But this clause was cancelled in 
 the Committee, on the examination of a groom, who 
 deposed that a coach-horse of his master’s, the Bishop of 
 London, was touched in the wind, and might be seriously a 
 sufferer: “ for the bishop,” said he, “7s no better walker than 
 a goose.” 
 
 There is, moreover, great and general discontent in the 
 lower orders of the clergy, that some should be obliged to 
 serve a couple of churches, and perhaps a jail or hospital to 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 147 
 
 boot, for a stipend of a hundred pounds, and even less, 
 while others are incumbents of pluralities, doing no duty at 
 all, and receiving three or four thousands. It is reported 
 that several of the more fortunate are so utterly shameless 
 as to liken the Church to a Lottery-office, and to declare 
 that, unless there were great prizes, no man in his senses 
 would enter into the service of our Lord. I myself have 
 read with my own eyes this declaration, but I hope the 
 signature is a forgery. What is certain is, that the emolu- 
 ments of the bishopric of London are greater than the 
 united revenue of ¢we/ve cardinals; that they are amply 
 sufficient for the board, lodging, and education of ‘hree 
 hundred young men destined to the ministry ; and that they 
 might relieve from famine, rescue from sin, and save, 
 perhaps, from eternal punishment, ¢hrvee thousand /ellow- 
 creatures yearly. On a narrow inspection of one manu- 
 - facturing town in England, I deliver it as my firm opinion 
 that it contains more crime and wretchedness than all the 
 four continents of our globe. If these enormous masses of 
 wealth had been fairly sub-divided and carefully expended, 
 if a more numerous and a more efficient clergy had been 
 appointed, how very much of sin and sorrow had been 
 obviated and allayed! Ultimately the poor will be driven 
 to desperation, there being no check upon them, no 
 guardian over them ; and the eyes of the sleeper, it is to be 
 feared, will be opened by pincers. In the midst of such 
 woes, originating in her iniquities and aggravated by her 
 supineness, the Church of England, the least reformed 
 church in Christendom, and the most opposite to the 
 institutions of the State, boasts of being the purest member 
 of the Reformation. Shocked at such audacity and impud- 
 ence, the conscientious and pious, not only of her laity but 
 also of her clergy, fall daily off from her, and, resigning all 
 hope of parks and palaces, embrace the cross. 
 
 Never since the Reformation (so called) have our pros- 
 pects been so bright as at the present day. Our own 
 prelates, and those of the English church, are equally at 
 work to the same effect ; and the Catholic clergy will come 
 
148 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 into possession of their churches with as little change in the 
 temporals as in the spirituals. It is the law of the land that 
 the church can not lose her rights and possessions by lapse 
 of time ; impossible then that she should lose it by fraud 
 and fallacy. Although the bishops of England, regardless 
 of their vocations and vows, have, by deceit and falsehood, 
 obtained Acts of Parliament, under sanction of which they 
 have severed from their sees, and made over to their 
 families, the possessions of the episcopacy, it can not be 
 questioned that what has been wrongfully alienated will be 
 rightfully restored. No time, no trickery, no subterfuge 
 can conceal it. ‘The exposure of such thievery in such 
 eminent stations, worse and more shameful than any on the 
 Thames or in the lowest haunts of villany and prostitution, 
 and of attempts to seize from their poorer brethren a 
 few decimals to fill up a deficiency in many thousands, has 
 opened wide the eyes of England. Consequently, there are 
 religious men who resort from all quarters to the persecuted 
 mother they had so long abandoned. God at last has made 
 his enemies perform his work ; and the English prelates, not 
 indeed on the stool of repentance, as would befit them, but 
 thrust by the scorner into his uneasy chair, are mending 
 with scarlet silk, and seaming with threads of gold, the 
 copes and dalmatics of their worthy predecessors. I am 
 overjoyed in declaring to my townsmen that the recent 
 
 i 
 
 demeanour of these prelates, refractory and mutinous as it — 
 
 has been (in other matters) to the government of their 
 patron the king, has ultimately (by joining the malcontents 
 in abolishing the favourite farce of religious freedom, and in 
 forbidding roast meat and country air on the Sabbath) filled 
 up my subscription for the bell of San Vivaldo. 
 Salve Regina Cceli! 
 PRETE DOMENICO GRIGI, 
 
 Lonpon, June 17th, 1837. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 149 
 
 HEADS OF CONFESSION ; A MONTHFUL. 
 Printed and published Superiorum Licentia. 
 
 March 14. Being ill at ease, I cried, ‘“‘ Diavolo! I wish 
 that creaking shutter was at thy bedroom instead of mine, 
 old fellow!” Assuntina would have composed me, showing 
 me how wrong it was. Perverse ; and would not acknow- 
 ledge my sinfulness to her. I said she had nothing to do 
 with it ; wnich vexed her. 
 
 March 23. Reproved Assuntina, and called her ragaz- 
 gaccia! for asking of Messer Piero Pimperna half the 
 evening’s milk of his goat. Very wrong in me; it being 
 impossible she should have known that Messer Piero owed 
 me four “ve since . . . I forget when. 
 
 March 31. It blowing tramontana, I was ruffled: sus- 
 pected a feather in the minestra: said the rice was as black 
 as a coal. Sad falsehood! made Assuntina cry.... 
 Saracenic doings. 
 
 Recapitulation. Shameful all this month; I did not 
 believe such bad humour was in me. 
 
 Reflection. The devil, if he can not have his walk one 
 way, will take it another; never at a fault. Manifold proof; 
 poor sinner ! 
 
 April 2. Thought uncharitably of Fra Biagio. The Frate 
 took my hand, asking me to confess, reminding me that I 
 had not confessed since the 3rd of March, although I was so 
 sick and tribulated I could hardly stir. Peevish; said, 
 “Confess yourself ; I won't ; I am not minded; you will find 
 those not far off who...” and then I dipped my head 
 under the coverlet, and saw my error. 
 
 April 6. Whispers of Satanasso; pretty clear! A 
 sprinkling of vernal thoughts, much too advanced for the 
 season. About three hours before sunset Francesco came. 
 Forgot my prayers ; woke at midnight ; recollected, and did 
 not say them. Might have told him; never occurred that, 
 
150 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 being a Canonico, he could absolve me; now gone again 
 these three days, this being the fourteenth. Must unload 
 ere heavier-laden. Gratiae plena! have mercy upon me! 
 
 THE TRANSLATOR’S REMARKS 
 On the Alleged Jealousy of Boccaccio and Petrarca. 
 
 Amonc the most heinous crimes that can be committed 
 against society is the 
 
 temerati crimen amici, 
 
 and no other so loosens the bonds by which it is held 
 together. Once, and only once in my life, I heard it 
 defended by a person of intellect and integrity. It was the 
 argument of a friendly man, who would have invalidated the 
 fact ; it was the solicitude of a prompt and dexterous man, 
 holding up his hat to cover the shame of genius. I have 
 indeed had evidence of some who saw nothing extraordinary 
 or amiss in these filchings and twitchings; but there are 
 persons whose thermometer stands higher by many degrees — 
 at other points than honour. There are insects on the 
 shoals and sands of literature, shrimps which must be half- 
 boiled before they redden ; and there are blushes (no doubt) 
 in certain men, of which the precious vein lies so deep that 
 it could hardly be brought to light by cordage and windlass. 
 Meanwhile their wrathfulness shows itself at once by a 
 plashy and puffy superficies, with an exuberance of coarse 
 rough stuff upon it, and is ready to soak our shoes with its 
 puddle at the first pressure. 
 
 “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour ” 
 is a commandment which the literary cast down from over 
 their communion-table to nail against the doors of the 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 151 
 
 commonalty, with a fist and forefinger pointing at it. 
 Although the depreciation of any work is dishonest, the 
 attempt is more infamous when committed against a friend. 
 The calumniator on such occasions may in some measure 
 err from ignorance, or from inadequate information, but 
 nothing can excuse him if he speaks contemptuously. 
 It is impossible to believe that such writers as 
 Boccaccio and Petrarca could be widely erroneous in 
 each other’s merits ; no less incredible is it that, if they did 
 err at all, they would openly avow a disparaging opinion. 
 This baseness was reserved for days when the study opens 
 into the market-place, when letters are commodities, and 
 authors chapmen. Yet even upon their stalls, where an 
 antique vase would stand little chance with a noticeable 
 piece of blue-and-white crockery, and shepherds and sailors 
 and sunflowers in its circumference, it might be heartily and 
 honestly derided; but less probably by the fellow-villager 
 of the vendor, with whom he had been playing at quoits 
 every day of his life. When an ill-natured story is once 
 launched upon the world, there are many who are careful 
 that it shall not soon founder. Thus the idle and incon- 
 siderate rumour, which has floated through ages, about the 
 mutual jealousy of Boccaccio and Petrarca, finds at this day 
 a mooring in all quarters. Never were two men so 
 perfectly formed for friendship; never were two who 
 fulfilled so completely that happy destination. True it is, 
 the studious and exact Petrarca had not elaborated so 
 entirely to his own satisfaction his poem, A/rica, as to 
 submit it yet to the inspection of Boccaccio, to whom 
 unquestionably he would have been delighted to show it 
 the moment he had finished it. He died, and left it 
 incomplete. We have, it must be acknowledged, the 
 authority of Petrarca himself, that he never had read the 
 Decameron through, even to the last year of his life, when 
 he had been intimate with Boccaccio four-and-twenty. 
 How easy would it have been for him to dissemble this 
 fact! how certainly would any man have dissembled it who 
 doubted of his own qgert or of his friend’s! I must 
 
152 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 request the liberty of adducing his whole letter, as already 
 translated. 
 
 “T have only run over your Decameron, and therefore I 
 am not capable of forming a true judgment of its merit: 
 but upon the whole it has given me a great deal of pleasure. 
 The freedoms in tt are excusable; from having been written 
 in youth, from the subjects it treats of, and from the persons 
 Jor whom it was designed. Among a great number of gay 
 and witty jokes, there are however many grave and serious 
 sentiments. I did as most people do: I paid most attten- 
 tion to the beginning and the end. Your description of 
 the people in the Plague is very true and pathetic: and the 
 touching story of Griseldis has deen ever since laid up in my 
 memory, that I may relate it in my conversations with my 
 Jriends. A friend of mine at Padua, a man of wit and 
 knowledge, undertook to read it aloud; but he had scarcely 
 got through half of it, when his tears prevented him going 
 on. He attempted it a second time; but his sobs and 
 sighs obliged him to desist. Another of my friends deter- 
 mined on the same venture; and, having read it from 
 beginning to end, without the least alteration of voice or 
 gesture, he said, on returning the book, 
 
 ***Tt must be owned this is an affecting history, and I 
 should have wept could I have believed it true; but there 
 never was and never will be a woman like Griseldis.’” 
 
 Here was the termination of Petrarca’s literary life: he 
 closed it with the last words of this letter; which are, 
 ** Adieu, my friends! adieu my correspondence.” Soon 
 afterward he was found dead in his library, with his arm 
 leaning on a book. In the whole of this composition, what 
 a carefulness and solicitude to say everything that could 
 gratify his friend; with what ingenuity are those faults not 
 palliated but excused (his own expression) which must 
 nevertheless have appeared very grievous ones to the purity 
 of Petrarca. 
 
 But why did not Boccaccio send him his Decameron 
 long before? Because there never was a more perfect 
 gentleman, a man more fear‘ul of giving offence, a man 
 
 i 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 153 
 
 more sensitive to the delicacy of friendship, or more 
 deferential to sanctity of character. He knew that the 
 lover of Laura could not amuse his hours with mischievous 
 or idle passions; he knew that he rose at midnight to 
 repeat his matins, and never intermitted them. On what 
 succeeding hour could he venture to seize? with what 
 countenance could he charge it with the levities of the 
 world? Perhaps the Recluse of Arqua, the visitor of old 
 Certaldo, read at last the Decameron, only that he might be 
 able the better to defend it. And how admirably has the 
 final stroke of his indefatigable pen effected the purpose! 
 Is this the jealous rival? Boccaccio received the last 
 testimony of unaltered friendship in the month of October 
 1373, a few days after the writer’s death. December was 
 not over when they met in heaven: and never were two 
 gentler spirits united there. 
 
 The character of Petrarca shows itself in almost every 
 one of his various works. Unsuspicious, generous, ardent 
 in study, in liberty, in love, with a self-complacence which 
 in less men would be vanity, but arising in him from the 
 general admiration of a noble presence, from his place 
 in the interior of a heart which no other could approach 
 or merit, and from the homage of all who held the 
 principalities of Learning in every part of Europe. 
 
 Boccaccio is only reflected in full from a larger mass of 
 compositions: yet one letter is quite sufficient to display 
 the beauty and purity of his mind. It was written from 
 Venice, when finding there not Petrarca whom he expected 
 to find, but Petrarca’s daughter, he describes to the father 
 her modesty, grace, and cordiality in his reception. The 
 imagination can form to itself nothing more lovely than this 
 picture of the gentle Ermissenda: and Boccaccio’s delicacy 
 and gratitude are equally affecting. No wonder that 
 Petrarca, in his will, bequeathed to his friend a sum the 
 quintuple in amount of that which he bequeathed to his 
 only brother, whom however he loved tenderly. Such had 
 been, long before their acquaintance, the celebrity of 
 Petrarca, such the honours conferred on him wherever he 
 
154 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 resided or appeared, that he never thought of equality or 
 rivalry. And such was Boccaccio’s reverential modesty, 
 that, to the very close of his life, he called Petrarca his 
 master. Immeasurable as was his own superiority, he no 
 more thought himself the equal of Petrarca than Dante (in 
 whom the superiority was almost as great) thought himself 
 Virgil’s. These, I believe, are the only instances on record 
 where poets have been very tenaciously erroneous in the 
 estimate of their own inferiority. The same observation 
 can not be made so confidently on the decisions of contem- 
 porary critics. Indeed, the balance in which works of the 
 highest merit are weighed vibrates long before it is finally 
 adjusted. Even the most judicious men have formed inju- 
 dicious opinions on the living and the recently deceased. 
 Bacon and Hooker could not estimate Shakespeare, nor 
 could Taylor and Barrow give Milton his just award. 
 Cowley and Dryden were preferred to both, by a great 
 majority of the learned. Many, although they believe they 
 discover in a contemporary the qualities which elevate him 
 above the rest, yet hesitate to acknowledge it; part, 
 because they are fearful of censure for singularity; part, 
 because they differ from him in politics or religion; and 
 part, because they delight in hiding, like dogs and foxes, 
 what they can at any time surreptitiously draw out for their 
 sullen solitary repast. Such persons have little delight in 
 the glory of our country, and would hear with disappro- 
 bation and moroseness it has produced four men so 
 pre-eminently great, that no name, modern or ancient, 
 excepting Homer, can stand very near the lowest: these 
 are, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, and Newton. Beneath 
 the least of these (if anyone can tell which is least) are 
 Dante and Aristoteles, who are unquestionably the next.* 
 Out of Greece and England, Dante is the only man of the 
 first order; such he is, with all his imperfections. Less 
 ardent and energetic, but having no less at command the 
 depths of thought and treasures of fancy, beyond him in 
 
 * We can speak only of those whose works are extant. Democritus 
 and Anaxagoras were perhaps the greatest in discovery and invention. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 155 
 
 variety, animation, and interest, beyond him in touches 
 of nature and truth of character, is Boccaccio. Yet he 
 believed his genius was immeasurably inferior to Alighieri’s ; 
 and it would have surprised and pained him to find himself 
 preferred to his friend Petrarca; which indeed did not 
 happen in his lifetime. So difficult is it to shake the tenure 
 of long possession, or to believe that a living man is as 
 valuable as an old statue, that for five hundred years 
 together the critics held Virgil far above his obsequious but 
 high-souled scholar, who now has at least the honour of 
 standing alone, if not first. Milton and Homer may be 
 placed together: on the continent Homer will be seen at 
 the right hand; in England, Milton. Supreme, above all, 
 immeasurably supreme, stands Shakespeare. I do not 
 think Dante is any more the equal of Homer than Hercules 
 is the equal of Apollo. Though Hercules may display 
 more muscles, yet Apollo is the powerfuller without any 
 display of them at all. Both together are just equivalent 
 to Milton, shorn of his Sonnets, and of his Alegro and 
 Fenseroso; the most delightful of what (wanting a better 
 name) we call Zyvica7 poems. But in the contemplation of 
 these prodigies we must not lose the company we entered 
 with. ‘Two contemporaries so powerful in interesting our 
 best affections, as Giovanni and Francesco, never existed 
 before or since. Petrarca was honoured and beloved by all 
 conditions. He collated with the student and investigator, 
 he planted with the husbandman, he was the counsellor of 
 kings, the reprover of pontiffs, and the pacificator of 
 nations. Boccaccio, who never had occasion to sigh for 
 solitude, never sighed zz it: there was his station, there his 
 studies, there his happiness. In the vivacity and versatility 
 of imagination, in the narrative, in the descriptive, in the 
 playful, in the pathetic, the world never saw his equal, until 
 the sunrise of our Shakespeare. Ariosto and Spenser may 
 stand at no great distance from him in the shadowy and 
 unsubstantial ; but multiform Man was utterly unknown to 
 them. The human heart, through all its foldings, vibrates 
 to Boccaccio. 
 

 

 
 OTHER IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. 
 

 
OTHER IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 DANTE AND BEATRICE. 
 
 Danie. When you saw me profoundly pierced with love, 
 and reddening and trembling, did it become you, did it 
 become you, you whom I have always called ¢he most 
 gentle Bice, to join in the heartless laughter of those girls 
 around you? Answer me. Reply  unhesitatingly. 
 Requires it so long a space for dissimulation and duplicity ? 
 Pardon! pardon! pardon! My senses have left me; my 
 heart being gone, they follow. 
 
 Beatrice. Childish man! pursuing the impossible. 
 
 Danie. And was it this you laughed at? We can not 
 touch the hem of God’s garment ; yet we fall at his feet and 
 weep. 
 
 Ena But weep not, gentle Dante! fall not before 
 the weakest of his creatures, willing to comfort, unable to 
 relieve you. Consider a little. Is laughter at all times the 
 signal or the precursor of derision? I smiled, let me avow 
 it, from the pride I felt in your preference of me; and if I 
 laughed, it was to conceal my sentiments. Did you never 
 cover sweet fruit with worthless leaves? Come, do not 
 drop again so soon so faint a smile. I will not have you 
 grave, nor very serious. I pity you; I must not love you: 
 if I might, I would. 
 
 Dante. Yet how much love is due to me, O Bice, who 
 have loved you, as you well remember, even from your 
 
160 DANTE AND BEATRICE. 
 
 tenth year. But it is reported, and your words confirm it, 
 that you are going to be married. 
 
 Beatrice. Uf so, and if I could have laughed at that, and 
 if my laughter could have estranged you from me, would 
 you blame me P 
 
 Danie. Tell me the truth. 
 
 Beatrice. ‘The report is general. 
 
 Dante. The truth! the truth! Tell me, Bice. 
 
 Beatrice. Marriages, it is said, are made in heaven. 
 
 Dante. Is heaven then under the paternal roof? 
 
 Beatrice. It has been to me hitherto. 
 
 Dante. And now you seek it elsewhere. 
 
 Beatrice. I seek it not. The wiser choose for the 
 weaker. Nay, do not sigh so. What would you have, my 
 grave pensive Dante? What can I do? 
 
 Dante. Love me. 
 
 Beatrice. I always did. 
 
 Dante, Love me? O bliss of heaven ! 
 
 Beatrice. No,no,no! Forbear! Men’s kisses are always 
 mischievous and hurtful ; everybody says it. If you truly 
 loved me, you would never think of doing so. 
 
 Dante. Nor even this! 
 
 Beatrice. You forget that you are no longer a boy; and 
 that it is not thought proper at your time of life to continue 
 the arm at all about the waist. Beside, I think you would 
 better not put your head against my bosom; it beats too 
 much to be pleasant to you. Why do you wish it? why 
 fancy it can do you any good? It grows no cooler; it 
 seems to grow even hotter. O! how it burns! Go, go; 
 it hurts me too: it struggles, it aches, it sobs. Thank 
 you, my gentle friend, for removing your brow away; 
 your hair is very thick and long; and it began to heat 
 me more than you can imagine. While it was there, I 
 could not see your face so well, nor talk with you so 
 quietly. 
 
 Dante. O.! when shall we talk quietly in future? 
 
 Beatrice. When I am married. I shall often come to 
 visit my father, He has always been solitary since my 
 
DANTE AND BEATRICE. 16% 
 
 mother’s death, which happened in my infancy, long before 
 you knew me. 
 
 Dante. How can he endure the solitude of his house 
 when you have left it? 
 
 Beatrice. The very question I asked him. 
 
 Pante. You did not then wish to... to... go away? 
 
 Beatrice. Anno! It is sad to be an outcast at fifteen. 
 
 Dante. An outcast? 
 
 Beatrice. Forced to leave a home. 
 
 Dante. For another ? 
 
 Beatrice. Childhood can never have a second. 
 
 Dante. But childhood is now over. 
 
 Beatrice. 1 wonder who was so malicious as to tell my 
 father that? He wanted me to be married a whole year ago. 
 
 Dante. And, Bice, you hesitated ? 
 
 Beatrice. No; 1 only wept. He is a dear good father. 
 I never disobeyed him but in those wicked tears ; and they 
 ran the faster the more he reprehended them. 
 
 Dante. Say, who is the happy youth P 
 
 Beatrice. 1 know not who ought to be happy if you are 
 not. 
 
 Dante. 1? 
 
 Beatrice. Surely you deserve all happiness. 
 
 Dante. Happiness! any happiness is denied me. Ah, 
 hours of childhood! bright hours! what fragrant blossoms 
 ye unfold! what bitter fruits to ripen! 
 
 Beatrice. Now can not you continue to sit under that 
 old fig-tree at the corner of the garden? It is always 
 delightful to me to think of it. 
 
 Dante. Again you smile: I wish I could smile too. 
 
 Beatrice. You were usually more grave than I, although 
 very often, two years ago, you told me I was the graver. 
 Perhaps I was then indeed; and perhaps I ought to be 
 now: but really I must smile at the recollection, and make 
 you smile with me. 
 
 Dante. Recollection of what in particular ?P 
 
 Beatrice. Of your ignorance that a fig-tree is the brittlest 
 of trees, especially when it is in leaf; and moreover of 
 
 604 
 
162 DANTE AND BEATRICE. 
 
 your tumble, when your head was just above the wall, and 
 your hand (with the verses in it) on the very coping-stone. 
 Nobody suspected that I went every day to the bottom 
 of our garden, to hear you repeat your poetry on the 
 other side ; nobody but yourself ; you soon found me out. 
 But on that occasion I thought you might have been hurt ; 
 and I clambered up our high peach-tree in the grass-plot 
 nearest the place; and thence I saw Messer Dante, with 
 his white sleeve reddened by the fig-juice, and the seeds 
 sticking to it pertinaciously, and Messer blushing, and 
 trying to conceal his calamity, and still holding the verses. 
 They were all about me. 
 
 Dante. Never shall any verse of mine be uttered from my 
 lips, or from the lips of others, without the memorial of Bice. 
 
 Beatrice. Sweet Dante! in the purity of your soul shall 
 Bice live ; as (we are told by the goatherds and foresters) 
 poor creatures have been found preserved in the serene and 
 lofty regions of the Alps, many years after the breath of 
 life had left them. Already you rival Guido Cavalcante 
 and Cino da Pistoja: you must attempt, nor perhaps shall 
 it be vainly, to surpass them in celebrity. 
 
 Dante. Vf ever lamabove them... andImustbe... 
 I know already what angel’s hand will have helped me up the 
 ladder. Beatrice, I vow to heaven, shall stand higher than 
 Selvaggia, high and glorious and immortal as that name will 
 be. You have given me joy and sorrow ; for the worst of 
 these (I will not say the least) I will confer on you all the 
 generations of our Italy, all the ages of our world. But 
 first (alas, from me you must not have it!) may happiness, 
 long happiness, attend you ! 
 
 Beatrice. Ah! those words rend your bosom! why should 
 they 
 
 Dante. 1 could go away contented, or almost contented, 
 were I sure of it. Hope is nearly as strong as despair, and 
 greatly more pertinacious and enduring. You have made 
 me see clearly that you never can be mine in this world: 
 but at the same time, O Beatrice! you have made me see 
 quite as clearly that you may and must be mine in another, 
 
DANTE AND BEATRICE. 163 
 
 Iam older than you: precedency is given to age, and not 
 to worthiness, in our way to heaven. I will watch over 
 you; I will pray for you when I am nearer to God, and 
 purified from the stains of earth and mortality. He will 
 permit me to behold you, lovely as when I left you. Angels 
 in vain should call me onward. 
 
 Beatrice. Hush, sweetest Dante! hush! 
 
 Dante. It is there where I shall have caught the first 
 glimpse of you again, that I wish all my portion of Paradise 
 to be assigned me; and there, if far below you, yet within 
 the sight of you, to establish my perdurable abode. 
 
 Beatrice. Is this piety? Is this wisdom? O Dante! 
 And may not I be called away first ? 
 
 Dante. Alas! alas! how many small feet have swept off 
 the early dew of life, leaving the path black behind them! 
 But to think that you should go before me! It almost 
 sends me forward on my way, to receive and welcome you. 
 If indeed, O Beatrice, such should be God’s immutable 
 will, sometimes look down on me when the song to Him is 
 suspended. Oh! look often on me with prayer and pity ; 
 for there all prayers are accepted, and all pity is devoid of 
 pain. Why are you silent? 
 
 Leatrice. It is very sinful not to love all creatures in the 
 world. But is it true, O Dante! that we always love those 
 the most who make us the most unhappy ? 
 
 Dante. The remark, I fear, is just. 
 
 Beatrice. Then, unless the Virgin be pleased to change 
 my inclinations, I shall begin at last to love my betrothed ; 
 for already the very idea of him renders me sad, wearisome, 
 and comfortless. Yesterday he sent me a bunch of violets. 
 When I took them up, delighted as I felt at that sweetest 
 of odours, which you and I once inhaled together. . 
 
 Danie. And only once. 
 
 Beatrice. You know why. Be quiet now, and hear me. 
 I dropped the posy ; for around it, hidden by various kinds 
 of foliage, was twined the bridal necklace of pearls. O 
 Dante ! how worthless are the finest of them (and there are 
 many fine ones) in comparison with those little pebbles, some 
 
164 DANTE AND BEATRICE. 
 
 of which (for perhaps I may not have gathered up all) may be 
 still lying under the peach-tree, and some (do I blush to say 
 it?) under the fig. Tell me not who threw these, nor for 
 what. But you know you were always thoughtful, and 
 sometimes reading, sometimes writing, and sometimes 
 forgetting me, while I waited to see the crimson cap, and 
 the two bay-leaves I fastened in it, rise above the garden- 
 wall. How silently you are listening, if you do listen ! 
 Dante. Oh! could my thoughts incessantly and eternally 
 dwell among these recollections, undisturbed by any other 
 
 voice . . . undistracted by any other presence! Soon 
 must they abide with me alone, and be repeated by none 
 but me... repeated in the accents of anguish and 
 
 despair! Why could you not have held in the sad home of 
 your heart that necklace and those violets ? 
 
 Beatrice. My Dante! we must all obey. ... I my father, 
 you your God. He will never abandon you. 
 
 Dante. J have ever sung, and will for ever sing, the most 
 glorious of His works: and yet, O Bice! He abandons me, 
 He casts me off ; and He uses your hand for this infliction. 
 
 Beatrice. Men travel far and wide, and see many on 
 whom to fix or transfer their affections ; but we maidens 
 have neither the power nor the will. Casting our eyes on 
 the ground, we walk along the straight and narrow road 
 prescribed for us ; and, doing this, we avoid in great measure 
 the thorns and entanglements of life. We know we are per- 
 forming our duty; and the fruit of this knowledge is content- 
 ment. Season after season, day after day, you have made 
 me serious, pensive, meditative, and almost wise. Being so 
 little a girl, I was proud that you, so much taller, should 
 lean on my shoulder to overlook my work. And greatly 
 more proud was I when in time you taught me several 
 Latin words, and then whole sentences, both in prose and 
 verse, pasting a strip of paper over, or obscuring with 
 impenetrable ink, those passages in the poets which were 
 beyond my comprehension, and might perplex me. But 
 proudest of all was I when you began to reason with me. 
 What will now be my pride if you are convinced by the first 
 
DANTE AND BEATRICE. 165 
 
 arguments I ever have opposed to you; or if you only take 
 them up and try if they are applicable. Certainly do I know 
 (indeed, indeed I do) that even the patience to consider 
 them will make you happier. Will it not then make me 
 so? I entertain no other wish. Is not this true love ? 
 
 Dante. Ah, yes! the truest, the purest, the least 
 perishable, but not the sweetest. Here are the rue and 
 hyssop ; but where the rose ? 
 
 Beatrice. Wicked must be whatever torments you: and 
 will you let love do it? Love is the gentlest and kindest 
 _ breath of God. Are you willing that the Tempter should 
 
 intercept it, and respire it polluted into your ear? Do not 
 make me hesitate to pray to the Virgin for you, nor tremble 
 lest she look down on you with a reproachful pity. To 
 her alone, O Dante! dare I confide all my thoughts. 
 Lessen not my confidence in my only refuge. 
 
 Dante. God annihilate a power so criminal! O, could 
 my love flow into your breast with hers! It should flow 
 with equal purity. 
 
 Beatrice. You have stored my little mind with many 
 thoughts ; dear because they are yours, and because they 
 are virtuous. May I not, O my Dante! bring some of 
 them back again to your bosom; as the Condadina lets 
 down the string from the cottage-beam in winter, and culls 
 a few bunches of the soundest for the master of the vine- 
 yard? You have not given me glory that the world should 
 shudder at its eclipse. ‘Fo prove that I am worthy of the 
 smallest part of it, I must obey God ; and, under God, my 
 father. Surely the voice of Heaven comes to us audibly 
 from a parent’s lips. You will be great, and, what is above 
 all greatness, good. 
 
 Danie. Rightly and wisely, my sweet Beatrice, have you 
 spoken in this estimate. Greatness is to goodness what 
 gravel is to porphyry: the one is a moveable accumulation, 
 swept along the surface of the earth ; the other stands fixt 
 and solid and alone, above the violence of war and of the 
 tempest ; above all that is residuous of a wasted world. 
 Little men build up great ones ; but the snow colossus soon 
 
166 DANTE AND BEATRICE. 
 
 melts: the good stand under the eye of God ; and therefore 
 stand. 
 
 Beatrice. Now you are calm and reasonable, listen to 
 me Bice. You must marry. 
 
 Dante. Marry ? 
 
 Beatrice. Unless you do, how can we meet again 
 unreservedly ? Worse, worse than ever! I can not bear 
 to see those large heavy tears following one another, heavy 
 and slow as nuns at the funeral of a sister. Come, I will 
 kiss off one, if you will promise me faithfully to shed no 
 more. Be tranquil, be tranquil; only hear reason. ‘There 
 are many who know you; and all who know you must love 
 you. Don’t you hear me? Why turn aside? and why 
 go farther off? I will have that hand. It twists about as 
 if it hated its confinement. Perverse and peevish creature ! 
 you have no more reason to be sorry than I have; and you 
 have many to the contrary which I have not. Being a man, 
 you are at liberty to admire a variety, and to make a choice. 
 Is that no comfort to you? 
 
 Dante. 
 
 Bid this bosom cease to grieve ? 
 
 Bid these eyes fresh objects see ? 
 Where’s the comfort to believe 
 
 None might once have rivall’d me ? 
 What ! my freedom to receive ? 
 
 Broken hearts, are they the free? 
 
 For another can I live 
 When I may not live for thee ? 
 
 Beatrice. \ will never be fond of you again if you are so 
 violent. We have been together too long, and we may be 
 noticed. 
 
 Dante. Is this our last meeting? Ifit is . . . and that it 
 is, my heart has told me . . . you will not, surely you will 
 not refuse . 
 
 Beatrice. Dante! Dante! they make the heart sad after: 
 do not wish it. But prayers .. . O, how much better are 
 they ! how much quieter and lighter they render it! They 
 carry it up to heaven with them ; and those we love are 
 left behind no longer. 
 
BRAY BIELPPO LIPRl4 AND, POPE 
 PUGENTUS THE FOURTH. 
 
 Eugenius. Filippo! I am informed by my son Cosimo 
 de’ Medici of many things relating to thy life and actions, 
 and among the rest, of thy throwing off the habit of a friar. 
 Speak to me as to a friend. Was that well done? 
 
 Lilippo. Holy Father! it was done most unadvisedly. 
 
 Lugenius. Continue to treat me with the same confidence 
 and ingenuousness ; and, beside the remuneration I intend 
 to bestow on thee for the paintings wherewith thou hast 
 adorned my palace, I will remove with my own hand the 
 heavy accumulation of thy sins, and ward off the peril of 
 fresh ones, placing within thy reach every worldly solace 
 and contentment. 
 
 Filippo. Infinite thanks, Holy Father! from the inner- 
 most heart of your unworthy servant, whose duty and 
 wishes bind him alike and equally to a strict compliance 
 with your paternal commands. 
 
 Eugenius. Was it a love of the world and its vanities that 
 induced thee to throw aside the frock ? 
 
 Filippo. It was indeed, Holy Father! I never had the 
 courage to mention it in confession among my manifold 
 offences. 
 
 Lugenius. Bad! bad! Repentance is of little use to the 
 sinner, unless he pour it from a full and overflowing heart 
 into the capacious ear of the confessor. Ye must not go 
 straightforward and bluntly up to your Maker, startling him 
 with the horrors of your guilty conscience. Order, decency, 
 time, place, opportunity, must be observed. 
 
 Filippo. 1 have observed the greater part of them: time, 
 place, and opportunity. 
 
168 FRA FILIPPO LiPPl. 
 
 Eugenius. That is much. In consideration of it, I 
 hereby absolve thee. 
 
 Filippo. \ feel quite easy, quite new-born. 
 
 Eugenius. 1 am desirous of hearing what sort of feelings 
 thou experiencest, when thou givest loose to thy intractable 
 and unruly wishes. Now, this love of the world, what can 
 itmean? <A love of music, of dancing, of riding? What 
 in short is it in thee P 
 
 Filippo. Holy Father! I was ever of a hot and amorous 
 constitution. 
 
 Lugenius. Well, well! I can guess, within a trifle, what 
 that leads unto. I very much disipprove of it, whatever it 
 may be. And then? and then? Prythee go on: I am 
 inflamed with a miraculous zeal to cleanse thee. 
 
 Lilippo. 1 have committed many follies, and some sins. 
 
 Leugenius, Let me hear the sins; I do not trouble my 
 head about the follies; the Church has no business with 
 them. The state is founded on follies, the Church on sins. 
 Come then, unsack them. 
 
 Lilippo. Concupiscence is both a folly and a sin. I felt 
 more and more of it when I ceased to be a monk, not 
 having (for a time) so ready means of allaying it. 
 
 Lugenius. No doubt. Thou shouldst have thought again 
 and again before thou strippedst off the cowl. 
 
 Filippo. Ah! Holy Father! I am sore at heart. I 
 thought indeed how often it had held two heads together 
 under it, and that stripping it off was double decapitation. 
 But compensation and contentment came, and we were 
 warm enough without it. 
 
 Lugenius. IY am minded to reprove thee gravely. No 
 wonder it pleased the Virgin, and the saints about her, to 
 permit that the enemy of our faith should lead thee captive 
 into Barbary. 
 
 Filippo. ‘The pleasure was all on their side. 
 
 Lugenius. 1 have heard a great many stories both of 
 males and females who were taken by Tunisians and 
 Algerines: and although there is a sameness in certain 
 parts of them, my especial benevolence toward thee, worthy 
 
 ee 
 
LRA FILIPPO LIPPH. 169 
 
 Filippo, would induce me to lend a vacant ear to thy report. 
 And now, good Filippo, I could sip a small glass of 
 muscatel or Orvieto, and turn over a few bleached almonds, 
 or essay a smart dried apricot at intervals, and listen while 
 thou relatest to me the manners and customs of that 
 country, and particularly as touching thy own adversities. 
 First, how wast thou taken P 
 
 filippo. I was visiting at Pesaro my worshipful friend the 
 canonico Andrea Paccone, who delighted in the guitar, 
 played it skilfully, and was always fond of hearing it well 
 accompanied by the voice. My own instrument I had 
 brought with me, together with many gay Florentine songs, 
 some of which were of such a turn and tendency, that the 
 canonico thought they would sound better on water, and 
 rather far from shore, than within the walls of the 
 canonicate. He proposed then, one evening when there 
 was little wind stirring, to exercise three young abbates* on 
 their several parts, a little way out of hearing from the 
 water’s edge. 
 
 Eugenius. | disapprove of exercising young abbates in 
 that manner. 
 
 Filippo. Inadvertently, O Holy Father! I have made 
 the affair seem worse than it really was. In fact, there were 
 only two genuine abbates; the third was Donna Lisetta, 
 the good canonico’s pretty niece, who looks so archly at 
 your Holiness when you bend your knees before her at 
 bed-time. 
 
 Lfugenius. How? Where? 
 
 Filippo. She is the angel on the right-hand side of the 
 Holy Family, with a tip of amethyst-coloured wing over a 
 basket of figs and pomegranates. I painted her from 
 memory: she was then only fifteen, and worthy to be the 
 niece of an archbishop. Alas! she never will be: she 
 plays and sings among the infidels, and perhaps would eat 
 a Jandrail on a Friday as unreluctantly as she would a 
 roach. 
 
 Eugenius. Poor soul! So this is the angel with the 
 
 * Little boys, wearing clerical habits, are often called addatz. 
 
170 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 amethyst-coloured wing? I thought she looked wanton: 
 we must pray for her release . . . from the bondage of sin. 
 What followed in your excursion ? 
 
 Filippo. Singing, playing, fresh air, and plashing water, 
 stimulated our appetites. We had brought no eatable with 
 us but fruit and thin marzopane, of which the sugar and 
 rose-water were inadequate to ward off hunger; and the 
 sight of a fishing-vessel between us and Ancona, raised our 
 host immoderately. ‘“ Yonder smack,” said he, “is sailing 
 at this moment just over the very best sole-bank in the 
 Adriatic. Ifshe continues her course and we run toward 
 her, we may be supplied, I trust in God, with the finest fish 
 in Christendom. Methinks I see already the bellies of 
 those magnificent sole bestar the deck, and emulate the 
 glories of the orient sky.” He gave his orders with such a 
 majestic air, that he looked rather like an admiral than a 
 priest. t 
 
 Lugenius. How now, rogue! Why should not the 
 churchman look majestically and courageously? I myself 
 have found occasion for it, and exerted it. 
 
 Lilippo. The world knows the prowess of your Holiness. 
 
 Lugenius. Not mine, not mine, Filippo! but His who gave 
 me the sword and the keys, and the will and the discretion 
 to use them. I trust the canonico did not misapply his 
 station and power, by taking the fish at any unreasonably 
 low price; and that he gave his blessing to the remainder, 
 and to the poor fishermen and to their nets. 
 
 Lilippo. He was angry at observing that the vessel, while 
 he thought it was within hail, stood out again to sea. 
 
 Eugenius. He ought to have borne more manfully so 
 slight a vexation. 
 
 Lilippo. On the contrary, he swore bitterly he would 
 have the master’s ear between his thumb and forefinger in 
 another half-hour, and regretted that he had cut his nails 
 in the morning lest they should grate on his guitar. “They 
 may fish well,” cried he, “ but they can neither sail nor row; 
 and, when I am in the middle of that tub of theirs, I will 
 teach them more than they look for.” Sure enough he was 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. Day 
 
 in the middle of it at the time he fixed: but it was by aid 
 of a rope about his arms, and the end of another laid lustily 
 on his back and shoulders. ‘‘Mount, lazy long-chined 
 turnspit, as thou valuest thy life,” cried Abdul the corsair, 
 “and away for Tunis.” If silence is consent, he had it. 
 The captain, in the Sicilian dialect, told us we might talk 
 freely, for he had taken his siesta. “Whose guitars are 
 those?” said he. As the canonico raised his eyes to 
 heaven and answered nothing, I replied, “Sir, one is mine: 
 the other is my worthy friend’s there.” Next he asked the 
 canonico to what market he was taking those young slaves, 
 pointing to the abbates. The canonico sobbed and could 
 not utter one word. I related the whole story; at which 
 he laughed. He then took up the music, and commanded 
 my reverend guest to sing an air peculiarly tender, invoking 
 the compassion of a nymph, and calling her cold as ice. 
 Never did so many or such profound sighs accompany it. 
 When it ended, he sang one himself in his own language, 
 on a lady whose eyes were exactly like the sicmitars of 
 Damascus, and whose eyebrows met in the middle like the 
 cudgels of prize-fighters. On the whole she resembled both 
 sun and moon, with the simple difference that she never 
 allowed herself to be seen, lest all the nations of the earth 
 should go to war for her, and not a man be left to breathe 
 out his soul before her. This poem had obtained the prize 
 at the University of Fez, had been translated into the 
 Arabic, the Persian, and the Turkish languages, and was 
 the favourite lay of the corsair. He invited me lastly to 
 try my talent. I played the same air on the guitar, and 
 apologised for omitting the words, from my utter ignorance 
 of the Moorish. Abdul was much pleased, and took the 
 trouble to convince me that the poetry they conveyed, 
 which he translated literally, was incomparably better than 
 ours. ‘Cold as ice!” he repeated, scoffing: “anybody 
 might say that who had seen Atlas: but a genuine poet 
 would rather say, ‘Cold as a lizard or a lobster.’” There 
 is no controverting a critic who has twenty stout rowers, 
 and twenty well-knotted rope-ends. Added to which, he 
 
172 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 seemed to know as much of the matier as the generality of 
 those who talk about it. He was gratified by my attention 
 and edification, and thus continued: “I have remarked in 
 the songs I have heard, that these wild woodland creatures 
 of the west, these nymphs, are a strange fantastical race. 
 But are your poets not ashamed to complain of their incon- 
 stancy ? whose fault is that? If ever it should be my 
 fortune to take one, I would try whether I could not bring 
 her down to the level of her sex; and if her inconstancy 
 caused any complaints, by Allah! they should be louder 
 and shriller than ever rose from the throat of Abdul.” I 
 still thought it better to be a disciple than a commentator. 
 
 Lugenius. If we could convert this barbarian and detain 
 him awhile at Rome, he would learn that women and 
 nymphs (and inconstancy also) are one and the same. 
 These cruel men have no lenity, no suavity. ‘They who do 
 not as they would be done by, are done by very much as 
 they do. Women will glide away from them like water ; 
 they can better bear two masters than half one; and a new 
 metal must be discovered before any bars are strong enough 
 to confine them. But proceed with your narrative. 
 
 filippo. Night had now closed upon us. Abdul placed 
 the younger of the company apart, and after giving them 
 some boiled rice, sent them down into his own cabin. ‘The 
 sailors, observing the consideration and distinction with 
 which their master had treated me, were civil and obliging. 
 Permission was granted me, at my request, to sleep on 
 deck. 
 
 Eugenius. What became of your canonico ? 
 
 filippo. 'The crew called him a conger, a priest, and a 
 porpoise. 
 
 Lugenius. Foul-mouthed knaves! could not one of these 
 terms content them? On thy leaving Barbary was he left 
 behind ? 
 
 Lilippo. Your Holiness consecrated him, the other day, 
 Bishop of Macerata. 
 
 Lugenius. True, true; I remember the name, Saccone. 
 How did he contrive to get off? 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 173 
 
 Filippo. He was worth little at any work ; and such men 
 are the quickest both to get off and to get on. Abdul 
 told me he had received three thousand crowns for his 
 ransom. 
 
 Fugenius. He was worth more to him than to me. I 
 received but two first-fruits, and such other things as of 
 right belong to me by inheritance. The bishopric is 
 passably rich : he may serve thee. 
 
 Filippo. While he was a canonico he was a jolly fellow ; 
 not very generous ; for jolly fellows are seldom that ; but 
 he would give a friend a dinner, a flask of wine or two in 
 preference, and a piece of advice as readily as either. I 
 waited on Monsignor at Macerata, soon after his elevation. 
 
 Lugenius. He must have been heartily glad to embrace 
 his companion in captivity, and the more especially as he 
 himself was the cause of so grievous a misfortune. 
 
 Lilippo. He sent me word he was so unwell he could not 
 see me. ‘ What!” said I to his valet, ‘‘is Monsignor’s 
 complaint in his eyes?” The fellow shrugged up his 
 shoulders and walked away. Not believing that the 
 message was a refusal to admit me, I went straight upstairs, 
 and finding the door of an ante-chamber half open, and a 
 chaplain milling an egg-posset over the fire, I accosted him. 
 The air of familiarity and satisfaction he observed in me 
 left no doubt in his mind that I had been invited by his 
 patron. “ Will the man never come?” cried his lordship. 
 “Yes, Monsignor!” exclaimed I, running in and embracing 
 him ; ‘‘ behold him here!” He started back, and then I 
 first discovered the wide difference between an old friend 
 and an egg-posset. 
 
 Luzentus. Son Filippo! thou hast seen but little of the 
 world, and art but just come from Barbary. Go on. 
 
 Filippo. “Fra Filippo!” said he gravely, ‘‘I am glad to 
 see you. I did not expect you just at present: I am not 
 very well: I had ordered a medicine and was impatient to 
 take it. If you will favour me with the name of your inn, I 
 will send for you when I am in a condition to receive you ; 
 perhaps within a day or two,” “Monsignor!” said J, “a 
 
174 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 change of residence often gives a man a cold, and oftener a 
 change of fortune. Whether you caught yours upon deck 
 (where we last saw each other), from being more exposed 
 than usual, or whether the mitre holds wind, is no question 
 for me, and no concern of mine.” 
 
 Lugenius. A just reproof, if an archbishop had made it. 
 On uttering it, I hope thou kneeledst and kissedst his 
 hand. 
 
 Filippo. I did not indeed. 
 
 Lugenius. Oh! there wert thou greatly in the wrong. 
 Having, it is reported, a good thousand crowns yearly of 
 patrimony, and a canonicate worth six hundred more, he 
 might have attempted to relieve thee from slavery, by 
 assisting thy relatives in thy redemption. 
 
 Filippo. The three thousand crowns were the uttermost 
 he could raise, he declared to Abdul, and he asserted that 
 a part of the money was contributed by the inhabitants of 
 Pesaro. ‘‘ Do they act out of pure mercy?” said he. ‘ Ay, 
 they must, for what else could move them in behalf of 
 such a lazy, unserviceable street-fed cur?” In the morning, 
 at sunrise, he was sent aboard. And now, the vessel being 
 under weigh, “TI have a letter from my lord Abdul,” said 
 the master, “which, being in thy language, two fellow 
 slaves shall read unto thee publicly.” ‘They came forward 
 and began the reading. “ Yesterday I purchased these two 
 slaves from a cruel, unrelenting master, under whose lash 
 they have laboured for nearly thirty years. I hereby give 
 orders that five ounces of my own gold be weighed out to 
 them.” Here one of the slaves fell on his face; the 
 other lifted up his hands, praised God, and blessed his 
 benefactor. 
 
 Leugenius. ‘The pirate ? the unconverted pirate ? 
 
 Filippo. Even so. ‘‘ Here is another slip of paper for 
 thyself to read immediately in my presence,” said the 
 master. The words it contained were, “‘ Do thou the same, 
 or there enters thy lips neither food nor water until thou 
 landest in Italy. I permit thee to carry away more than 
 double the sum: I am no suttler: I do not contract for 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 175 
 
 thy sustenance.’ The canonico asked of the master 
 whether he knew the contents of the letter ; he replied, no. 
 “ Tell your master, lord Abdul, that I shall take them into 
 consideration.” ‘My lord expected a much _ plainer 
 answer, and commanded me, in case of any such as thou 
 hast delivered, to break this seal.” He pressed it to his 
 forehead and then broke it. Having perused the characters 
 reverentially, ‘‘Christian! dost thou consent?” The 
 canonico fell on his knees, and overthrew the two poor 
 wretches who, saying their prayers, had remained in the 
 same posture before him quite unnoticed. ‘Open thy 
 trunk and take out thy money-bag, or I will make room for 
 it in thy bladder.” The canonico was prompt in the 
 execution of the command. The master drew out his 
 scales, and desired the canonico to weigh with his own 
 hand five ounces. He groaned and trembled: the balance 
 was unsteady. ‘Throw in another piece: it will not 
 vitiate the agreement,” cried the master. It was done. 
 Fear and grief are among the thirsty passions, but add little 
 to the appetite. It seemed however as if every sigh had left 
 a vacancy in the stomach of the canonico. At dinner the 
 cook brought him a salted bonito, half an ell in length ; 
 and in five minutes his Reverence was drawing his middle 
 finger along the white backbone, out of sheer idleness, 
 until were placed before him some as fine dried locusts as 
 ever provisioned the tents of Africa, together with olives the 
 size of eggs and colour of bruises, shining in oil and brine. 
 He found them savoury and pulpy, and, as the last love 
 supersedes the foregoing, he gave them the preference, even 
 over the delicate locusts. When he had finished them, he 
 modestly requested a can of water. <A sailor brought a 
 large flask, and poured forth a plentiful supply. The 
 canonico engulfed the whole, and instantly threw him- 
 self back in convulsive agony. ‘“ How is this?” cried the 
 sailor. ‘The master ran up and, smelling the water, began 
 to buffet him, exclaiming, as he turned round to all the 
 crew, “ How came this flask here?” All were innocent. 
 It appeared however that it was a flask of mineral water, 
 
176 FRA FILIPPO LIPPH 
 
 
 
 strongly sulphureous, taken out of a Neapolitan vessel, 
 laden with a great abundance of it for some hospital in the 
 Levant. It had taken the captor by surprise in the same 
 manner as the canonico. He himself brought out instantly 
 a capacious stone jar covered with dew, and invited the 
 sufferer into the cabin. Here he drew forth two richly-cut 
 wine-glasses, and, on filling one of them, the outside of it 
 turned suddenly pale, with a myriad of indivisible drops, 
 and the senses were refreshed with the most delicious 
 fragrance. He held up the glass between himself and his 
 guest, and looking at it attentively, said, ‘‘ Here is no 
 appearance of wine; all I can see is water. Nothing is 
 wickeder than too much curiosity: we must take what 
 Allah sends us, and render thanks for it, although it fall 
 far short of our expectations. Beside, our prophet would 
 rather we should even drink wine than poison.” ‘The 
 canonico had not tasted wine for two months: a longer 
 abstinence than ever canonico endured before. He 
 drooped: but the master looked still more disconsolate. 
 “T would give whatever I possess on earth rather than die 
 of thirst,” cried the canonico. ‘‘ Who would not ?” rejoined 
 the captain, sighing and clasping his fingers. “If it were 
 not contrary to my commands, I could touch at some cove © 
 or inlet.” ‘Do, for the love of Christ!” exclaimed the 
 canonico. ‘Or even sail back,” continued the captain. 
 “Q Santa Vergine!” cried in anguish the canonico, 
 “ Despondency,” said the captain, with calm solemnity, 
 “has left many a man to be thrown overboard: it even 
 renders the plague, and many other disorders, more fatal. 
 Thirst too has a powerful effect in exasperating them. 
 Overcome such weaknesses, or I must do my duty. The 
 health of the ship’s company is placed under my care; and 
 our lord Abdul, if he suspected the pest, would throw a Jew, 
 or a Christian, or even a bale of silk, into the sea: such is 
 the disinterestedness and magnanimity of my lord Abdul.” 
 “He believes in fate; does he not?” said the canonico. 
 “ Doubtless: but he says it is as much fated that he should 
 throw into the sea a fellow who is infected, as that the 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 177 
 
 fellow should have ever been so.” ‘‘Save me, O save me!” 
 cried the canonico, moist as if the spray had pelted him. 
 “*Willingly, if possible,” answered calmly the master. ‘At 
 present I can discover no certain symptoms; for sweat, 
 unless followed by general prostration, both of muscular 
 strength and animal spirits, may be cured without a hook 
 at the heel.” ‘‘ Giesu-Maria!” ejaculated the canonico.” 
 
 Lugenius. And the monster could withstand that appeal ? 
 
 Filippo. It seems so. ‘The renegade who related to me, 
 on my return, these events as they happened, was very 
 circumstantial. He is a Corsican, and had killed many 
 men in battle, and more out ; but is (he gave me his word 
 for it) on the whole an honest man. 
 
 Lugenius. How so? honest? and a renegade ? 
 
 Lilippo. He declared to me that, although the Mahome- 
 dan is the best religion to live in, the Christian is the 
 best to die in; and that, when he has made his fortune, he 
 will make his confession, and lie snugly in the bosom of the 
 Church. 
 
 Lugentus. See here the triumphs of our holy faith! The 
 lost sheep will be found again. 
 
 Filippo. Having played the butcher first. 
 
 Lugenius, Return we to that bad man, the master or 
 captain, who evinced no such dispositions. 
 
 filippo. He added, “The other captives, though older 
 men, have stouter hearts than thine.” ‘Alas! they are 
 longer used to hardships,’ answered he. ‘Dost thou 
 believe, in thy conscience,” said the captain, “that the 
 water we have aboard would be harmless to them ? for we 
 have no other ; and wine is costly ; and our quantity might 
 be insufficient for those who can afford to pay for it.” “TI 
 will answer for their lives,” replied the canonico. ‘“‘ With 
 thy own?” interrogated sharply the Tunisian. ‘“I must 
 not tempt God,” said, in tears, the religious man. ‘‘ Let 
 us be plain,” said the master. “Thou knowest thy money 
 is safe ; I myself counted it before thee when I brought it 
 from the scrivener’s ; thou hast sixty broad gold pieces ; 
 wilt thou be answerable, to the whole amount of them, for the 
 
 605 
 
178 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 lives of thy two countrymen if they drink this water?” ‘O 
 Sir! said the canonico, ‘‘I will give it, if, only for these few 
 days of voyage, you vouchsafe me one bottle daily of that 
 restorative wine of Bordeaux. ‘The other two are less 
 liable to the plague : they do not sorrow and sweat as I do. 
 They are spare men. There is enough of me to infect a 
 fleet with it ; and I can not bear to think of being anywise 
 the cause of evil to my fellow-creatures,” “The wine is 
 my patron’s,” cried the Tunisian ; “he leaves everything at 
 my discretion: should I deceive him?” “If he leaves 
 everything at your discretion,” observed the logician of 
 Pesaro, “‘there is no deceit in disposing of it.” The master 
 appeared to be satisfied with the argument. “Thou shalt 
 not find me exacting,” said he ; “ give me the sixty pieces, 
 and the wine shall be thine.” At a signal, when the 
 contract was agreed to, the two slaves entered, bringing a 
 hamper of jars. ‘Read the contract before thou signest,” 
 cried the master. He read. “ How is this? how is this? 
 Sixty golden ducats to the brothers Antonio and Lernabo 
 Panini, for wine received from them?” The aged men 
 tottered under the stroke of joy; and Bernabo, who would 
 have embraced his brother, fainted. 
 
 On the morrow there was a calm, and the weather was 
 extremely sultry. ‘The canonico sat in his shirt on deck, 
 and was surprised to see, I forget which of the brothers, 
 drink from a goblet a prodigious draught of water. 
 “Hold!” cried he angrily; ‘you may eat instead ; but 
 putrid or sulphureous water, you have heard, may produce 
 the plague, and honest men be the sufferers by your folly 
 and intemperance.” ‘They assured him the water was 
 tasteless, and very excellent, and had been kept cool in the 
 same kind of earthen jars as the wine. He tasted it, and 
 lost his patience. It was better, he protested, than any 
 wine in the world. They begged his acceptance of the jar 
 containing it. But the master, who had witnessed at a 
 distance the whole proceeding, now advanced, and, placing 
 his hand against it, said sternly, “Let him have his own.” 
 Usually, when he had emptied the second bottle, a desire 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPi. 179 
 
 of converting the Mahometans came over him: and they 
 showed themselves much less obstinate and refractory than 
 they are generally thought. He selected those for edifica- 
 tion who swore the oftenest and the loudest by the 
 Prophet ; and he boasted in his heart of having overcome, 
 by*precept and example, the stiffest tenet of their abomin- 
 able creed. Certainly they drank wine, and somewhat 
 freely. The canonico clapped his hands, and declared that 
 even some of the apostles had been more pertinacious 
 recusants of the faith. 
 
 Eugentus. Did he so? Cappari! I would not have made 
 him a bishop for twice the money if I had known it earlier. 
 Could not he have left them alone? Suppose one or other 
 of them did doubt and persecute, was he the man to blab it 
 out among the heathen ? 
 
 Lilippo. A judgment, it appears, fell on him for so doing. 
 A very quiet sailor, who had always declined his invitations, 
 and had always heard his arguments at a distance and in 
 silence, being pressed and urged by him, and reproved 
 somewhat arrogantly and loudly, as less docile than his 
 messmates, at last lifted up his leg behind him, pulled off 
 his right slipper, and counted deliberately and distinctly 
 thirty-nine sound strokes of the same, on the canonico’s 
 broadest tablet, which (please your holiness) might be 
 called, not inaptly, from that day, the tablet of memory. 
 In vain he cried out. Some of the mariners made their 
 moves at chess and waved their left hands as if desirous of 
 no interruption ; others went backward and forward about 
 their business, and took no more notice than if their mess- 
 mate was occupied in caulking a seam or notching a flint. 
 The master himself, who saw the operation, heard the 
 complaint in the evening, and lifted up his shoulders and 
 eyebrows, as if the whole were quite unknown to him. 
 Then, acting as judge-advocate, he called the young man 
 before him and repeated the accusation. To this the 
 defence was purely interrogative. ‘‘ Why would he convert 
 me? I never converted him.” ‘Turning to his spiritual 
 guide, he said, “I quite forgive thee: nay, I am ready to 
 
180 . FRA FITIPPO LIPS 
 
 appear in thy favour, and to declare that, in general, thou 
 hast been more decorous than people of thy faith and 
 profession usually are, and hast not scattered on deck that 
 inflammatory language which I, habited in the dress of a 
 Greek, heard last Easter. I went into three churches ; and 
 the preachers in all three denounced the curse of Allah on 
 every soul that differed from them a tittle. They were 
 children of perdition, children of darkness, children of the 
 devil, one and all. It seemed a matter of wonder to me, 
 that, in such numerous families and of such indifferent 
 parentage, so many slippers were kept under the heel. 
 Mine, in an evil hour, escaped me: but I quite forgive 
 thee. After this free pardon I will indulge thee with a 
 short specimen of my preaching. I will call none of you a 
 generation of vipers, as ye call one another; for vipers 
 neither bite nor eat during many months of the year: I will 
 call none of you wolves in sheep’s clothing ; for if ye are, 
 it must be acknowledged that the clothing is very clumsily 
 put on. You priests, however, take people’s souls aboard 
 whether they will or not, just as we do your bodies; and you 
 make them pay much more for keeping these in slavery 
 than we make you pay for setting you free body and soul 
 together. You declare that the precious souls, to the 
 especial care of which Allah has called and appointed you, 
 frequently grow corrupt, and stink in his nostrils. Now, I 
 invoke thy own testimony to the fact: thy soul, gross as 1 
 imagine it to be from the greasy wallet that holds it, had no 
 carnal thoughts whatsoever, and that thy carcase did not 
 even receive a fly-blow, while it was under my custody. 
 Thy guardian angel (I speak it in humility) could not 
 ventilate thee better. Nevertheless, I should scorn to 
 demand a single maravedi for my labour and skill, or for 
 the wear and tear of my pantoufle. My reward will be in 
 Paradise, where a Houri is standing in the shade, above a 
 vase of gold and silver fish, with a kiss on her lip, and an 
 unbroken pair of green slippers in her hand for me.” 
 Saying which, he took off his foot again, the one he had 
 been using, and showed the sole of it, first to the master, 
 
 a aa 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 181 
 
 then to all the crew, and declared it had become (as they 
 might see) so smooth and oily by the application, that it 
 was dangerous to walk on deck in it. 
 
 Lugenius. See! what notions these creatures have, both 
 of their fool’s paradise and of our holy faith! The seven 
 sacraments, I warrant you, go for nothing! Purgatory, 
 purgatory itself, goes for nothing! 
 
 Filippo. Holy Father! we must stop thee. Zhat does 
 not go for nothing, however. 
 
 Lugenius. Filippo! God forbid I should suspect thee of 
 any heretical taint ; but this smells very like it. If thou 
 hast it now, tell me honestly. I mean, hold thy tongue. 
 Florentines are rather lax. Even Son Cosimo might be 
 stricter: so they say: perhaps his enemies. ‘The great 
 always have them abundantly, beside those by whom 
 they are served, and those also whom they serve. 
 Now would I give a silver rose with my benediction 
 on it, to know of a certainty what became of those poor 
 creatures the abbates. ‘The initiatory rite of Mahometanism 
 is most diabolically malicious. According to the canons of 
 our catholic Church, it disqualifies the neophyte for holy 
 orders, without going so far as adapting him to the choir of 
 the pontificial chapel. ‘They limp; they halt. 
 
 Lilippo. Beatitude! which of them ? 
 
 Lugenius. The unbelievers: they surely are found 
 wanting. 
 
 Lilippo. The unbelievers too? 
 
 Lugenius. Ay, ay, thou half renegade! Couldst not thou 
 go over with a purse of silver,and try whether the souls of 
 these captives be recoverable? Even if they should have 
 submitted to such unholy rites, I venture to say they have 
 repented. 
 
 Filippo. The devil is in them if they have not. 
 
 Eugenius. They may become again as good Christians as 
 before. 
 
 Lilippo. Easily, methinks. 
 
 Lugenius. Not so easily ; but by aid of Holy Church in 
 the administration of indulgences. 
 
182 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 filippo. They never wanted those, whatever they want. 
 
 Lugenius. ‘The corsair then is not one of those ferocious 
 creatures which appear to connect our species with the lion 
 and panther. 
 
 Filippo. By no means, Holy Father! He is an honest 
 man ; so are many of his countrymen, bating the sacrament. 
 
 Lugenius. Bating! poor beguiled Filippo! Being un- 
 baptised, they are only as the beasts that perish : nay worse : 
 for the soul being imperishable, it must stick to their bodies 
 at the last day, whether they will or no, and must sink with 
 it into the fire and brimstone. 
 
 Lilip~po. Unbaptised! why, they baptise every morning. 
 
 Lugenius. Worse and worse! I thought they only 
 missed the stirrup; I find they overleap the saddle. 
 Obstinate blind reprobates! of whom it is written... 
 of whom it is written... of whom, I say, it is written 
 
 . as shall be manifest before men and angels in the day 
 of wrath. 
 
 Lilippo. More is the pity! for they are hospitable, frank, 
 and courteous. It is delightful to see their gardens, when 
 one has not the weeding and irrigation of them. What 
 fruit! what foliage! what trellises! what alcoves! what a 
 contest of rose and jessamine for supremacy in odour! of 
 lute and nightingale for victory in song! And how the 
 little bright ripples of the docile brooks, the fresher for their 
 races, leap up against one another, to look on! and how 
 they chirrup and applaud, as if they too had a voice of 
 some importance in these parties of pleasure that are loth 
 to separate. 
 
 Lugenius. Parties of pleasure! birds, fruits, shallow- 
 running waters, lute-players, and wantons! Parties of 
 pleasure ! and composed of these! ‘Tell me now, Filippo, 
 tell me truly, what complexion in general have the discreeter 
 females of that hapless country. 
 
 Filippo. The colour of an orange-flower, on which an 
 over-laden bee has left a slight suffusion of her purest 
 honey. 
 
 fugenius, We must open their eyes, 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 183 
 
 Filippo. Knowing what excellent hides the slippers of 
 this people are made of, I never once ventured on their less 
 perfect theology, fearing to find it written that I should be 
 a-bed on my face the next fortnight. My master had 
 expressed his astonishment that a religion so admirable as 
 ours was represented should be the only one in the world 
 the precepts of which are disregarded by all conditions of 
 men. ‘Our Prophet,” said he, “our Prophet ordered us 
 to go forth and conquer; we did it: yours ordered you to 
 sit quiet and forbear ; and, after spitting in his face, you 
 threw the order back into it, and fought like devils.” 
 
 Lugenius. The barbarians talk of our Holy Scriptures as 
 if they understood them perfectly. The impostor they 
 follow has nothing but fustian and rhodomontade in his 
 impudent lying book from beginning to end. I know it, 
 Filippo, from those who have contrasted it, page by page, 
 paragraph by paragraph, and have given the knave his due. 
 
 Filippo. Abdul is by no means deficient in a good 
 opinion of his own capacity and his Prophet’s all-sufficiency, 
 but he never took me to task about my faith or his own. 
 
 Eugentus. How wert thou mainly occupied ? 
 
 Filippo. I will give your Holiness a sample both of my 
 employments and of his character. He was going one 
 evening to a country-house, about fifteen miles from Tunis ; 
 and he ordered me to accompany him. I found there 
 a spacious garden, over-run with wild flowers and most 
 luxuriant grass, in irregular tufts, according to the dryness 
 or the humidity of the spot. The clematis overtopped the 
 lemon and orange trees ; and the perennial pea sent forth 
 here a pink blossom, here a purple, here a white one, and, 
 after holding (as it were) a short conversation with the 
 humbler plants, sprang up about an old cypress, played 
 among its branches, and mitigated its gloom. White 
 pigeons, and others in colour like the dawn of day, looked 
 down on us and ceased to coo, until some of their com- 
 panions, in whom they had more confidence, encouraged 
 them loudly from remoter boughs, or alighted on the 
 shoulders of Abdul, at whose side I was standing. A few 
 
184 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 of them examined me in every position their inquisitive 
 eyes could take; displaying all the advantages of their 
 versatile necks, and pretending querulous fear in the midst 
 of petulant approaches. 
 
 Lugenius. Is it of pigeons thou art talking, O Filippo? 
 I hope it may be. 
 
 Filippo. Of Abdul’s pigeons. He was fond of taming all 
 creatures ; men, horses, pigeons, equally: but he tamed 
 them all by kindness. In this wilderness is an edifice not 
 unlike our Italian chapter-houses built by the Lombards, 
 with long narrow windows, high above the ground. ‘The 
 centre is now a bath, the waters of which, in another part of 
 the inclosure, had supplied a fountain, at present in ruins, 
 and covered by tufted canes, and by every variety of aquatic 
 plants. The structure has no remains of roof: and, of six 
 windows, one alone is unconcealed by ivy. ‘This had been 
 walled up long ago, and the cement in the inside of it was 
 hard and polished. “Lippi!” said Abdul to me, after 
 I had long admired the place in silence, ‘I leave to thy 
 superintendence this bath and garden. Be sparing of the 
 leaves and branches: make paths only wide enough for me. 
 Let me see no mark of hatchet or pruning-hook, and tell 
 the labourers that whoever takes a nest or an egg shall be 
 impaled.” 
 
 Lugentus. Monster! so then he would really have im- 
 paled a poor wretch for eating a bird’s egg? How dispro- 
 portionate is the punishment to the offence ! 
 
 Lilippo. We efficiently checked in his slaves the desire of 
 transgressing his command. ‘To spare them as much as 
 possible, I ordered them merely to open a few spaces, and 
 to remove the weaker trees from the stronger. Meanwhile 
 I drew on the smooth blank window the figure of Abdul 
 and of a beautiful girl. 
 
 Lugenius, Rather say handmaiden : choicer expression ; 
 more ‘decorous. 
 
 filippo. Holy Father! I have been lately so much out of 
 practice, I take the first that comes in my way. MHand- 
 maiden I will use in preference for the future. 
 
» 
 
 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 185 
 
 Eugenius. On then! and God speed thee! 
 
 Filippo. 1 drew Abdul with a blooming handmaiden. 
 One of his feet is resting on her lap, and she is drying the 
 ankle with a saffron robe, of which the greater part is fallen 
 in doing it. That she is a bondmaid is discernible, not 
 only by her occupation, but by her humility and patience, 
 by her loose and flowing brown hair, and by her eyes 
 expressing the timidity at once of servitude and of fondness. 
 The countenance was taken from fancy, and was the 
 loveliest I could imagine: of the figure I had some idea, 
 having seen it to advantage in Tunis. After seven days 
 Abdul returned. He was delighted with the improvement 
 made in the garden. I requested him to visit the bath. 
 “We can do nothing to that,” answered he impatiently. 
 “There is no sudatory, no dormitory, no dressing-room, no 
 couch. Sometimes I sit an hour there in the summer, 
 because I never found a fly in it—the principal curse of 
 hot countries, and against which plague there is neither 
 prayer nor amulet, nor indeed any human defence.” He 
 went away into the house. At dinner he sent me from his 
 table some quails and ortolans, and tomatoes and honey 
 and rice, beside a basket of fruit covered with moss and 
 bay-leaves, under which I found a verdino fig, deliciously 
 ripe, and bearing the impression of several small teeth, but 
 certainly no reptile’s. 
 
 Lugenius. There might have been poison in them, for all 
 that. 
 
 Filippo. About two hours had passed, when I heard a 
 whirr and a crash in the windows of the bath (where I had 
 dined and was about to sleep), occasioned by the settling 
 and again the flight of some pheasants. Abdul entered. 
 “Beard of the Prophet! what hast thou been doing? 
 That is myself! No, no, Lippi! thou never canst have 
 seen her: the face proves it: but those limbs! thou hast 
 divined them aright: thou hast had sweet dreams then! 
 Dreams are large possessions: in them the possessor may 
 cease to possess his own. To the slave, O Allah! to the 
 slave is permitted what is not his! . . . I burn with anguish 
 
186 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 to think how much . . . yea, at that very hour. I would 
 not another should, even ina dream. . . . But, Lippi! thou 
 never canst have seen above the sandal?” ‘To which I 
 answered, “I never have allowed my eyes to look even on 
 that. But if any one of my lord Abdul’s fair slaves resembles, 
 as they surely must all do, in duty and docility, the figure I 
 have represented, let it express to him my congratulation 
 on his happiness.” ‘TI believe,” said he, ‘such represen- 
 tations are forbidden by the Koran; but as I do not 
 remember it, I do not sin. There it shall stay, unless the 
 angel Gabriel comes to forbid it.” He smiled in saying so. 
 
 Lugenius. There is hope of this Abdul. His faith hangs 
 about him more like oil than pitch. 
 
 Lilippo. He inquired of me whether I often thought of 
 those I loved in Italy, and whether I could bring them 
 before my eyes at will. To remove all suspicion from 
 him, I declared I always could, and that one beautiful 
 object occupied all the cells of my brain by night and day. 
 He paused and pondered, and then said, “ Thou dost not 
 love deeply.” I thought I had given the true signs. ‘‘ No, 
 Lippi! we who love ardently, we, with all our wishes, all 
 the efforts of our souls, can not bring before us the features 
 which, while they were present, we thought it impossible we 
 ever could forget. Alas! when we most love the absent, 
 when we most desire to see her, we try in vain to bring her 
 image back to us. The troubled heart shakes and con- 
 founds it, even as ruffled waters do with shadows. Hateful 
 things are more hateful when they haunt our sleep: the 
 lovely flee away, or are changed into less lovely.” 
 
 Lugenius. What figures now have these unbelievers ? 
 
 Lilippo. Various in their combinations as the letters or 
 the numerals; but they all, like these, signify something. 
 Almeida (did I not inform your Holiness ?) has large hazel 
 CyeStanete 
 uae Has she? thou never toldest me that. Well, 
 well! and what else has she? Mind! be cautious! use 
 decent terms. 
 
 Lilippo. Somewhat pouting lips. 
 
FRA ELEDPROVL IPP, 187 
 
 Lugenius. Ha! ha! What did they pout at? 
 
 Filippo. And she is rather plump than otherwise. 
 
 Lugenius. No harm in that. 
 
 Lilippo. And moreover is cool, smooth, and firm as a 
 nectarine gathered before sunrise. 
 
 Lugenius. Ha! ha! do not remind me of nectarines. 
 Iam very fond of them; and this is not the season! Such 
 females as thou describest are said to be among the 
 likeliest to give reasonable cause for suspicion. I would 
 not judge harshly, I would not think uncharitably ; but, 
 unhappily, being at so great a distance from spiritual aid, 
 peradventure a desire, a suggestion, an inkling . . . ay? If 
 she, the lost Almeida, came before thee when her master 
 was absent . . . which I trust she never did. . . . But those 
 flowers and shrubs and odours and alleys and long grass 
 and alcoves, might strangely hold, perplex, and entangle, 
 two incautious young persons . . . ay? 
 
 Lilippo. 1 confessed all I had to confess in this matter 
 the evening I landed. 
 
 Lugenius. Ho! I am no candidate for a seat at the 
 rehearsal of confessions: but perhaps my absolution might 
 be somewhat more pleasing and unconditional. Well! 
 well! since I am unworthy of such confidence, go about 
 thy business . . . paint! paint! 
 
 Lfilip~po. Am I so unfortunate as to have offended your 
 Beatitude ? 
 
 Lugenius. Offend me, man! who offends me? I took an 
 interest in thy adventures, and was concerned lest thou 
 mightest have sinned; for by my soul! Filippo! those are 
 the women that the devil hath set his mark on. 
 
 Filippo. It would do your Holiness’s heart good to rub 
 it out again, wherever he may have had the cunning to 
 make it. 
 
 Ftugenius. Deep! deep! 
 
 Filippo. Yet it may be got at; she being a Biscayan 
 by birth, as she told me, and not only baptised, but going 
 by sea along the coast for confirmation, when she was 
 captured, 
 
188 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 Lugentus. Alas! to what an imposition of hands was this 
 tender young thing devoted! Poor soul! 
 
 Filippo. 1 sigh for her myself when I think of her. 
 
 Lugenius. Beware lest the sigh be mundane, and lest the 
 thought recur too often. I wish it were presently in my 
 power to examine her myself on her condition. What 
 thinkest thou? Speak. 
 
 Filippo. Holy Father! she would laugh in your face. 
 
 Fugenius. So lost! 
 
 Filippo. She declared to me she thought she should have 
 died, from the instant she was captured until she was 
 comforted by Abdul: but that she was quite sure she should 
 if she were ransomed. 
 
 Lugenius. Fas the wretch then shaken her faith? 
 
 Filippo. The very last thing he would think of doing. 
 Never did I see the virtue of resignation in higher perfec- 
 tion than in the laughing, light-hearted Almeida. 
 
 Lugenius. Vamentable! Poor lost creature! lost in this 
 world and in the next. 
 
 Filippo. What could she do ? how could she help herself ? 
 
 Lugenius. She might have torn his eyes out, and have 
 died a martyr. 
 
 Filippo. Or have been bastinaded, whipped, and given up 
 to the cooks and scullions for it. 
 
 Lugenius. Martyrdom is the more glorious the greater the 
 indignities it endures. 
 
 Filippo. Almeida seems unambitious. There are many 
 in our Tuscany who would jump at the crown over those 
 sloughs and briars, rather than perish without them; she 
 never sighs after the like. 
 
 Lugenius. Nevertheless, what must she witness! what 
 abominations ! what superstitions ! 
 
 Filippo. Abdul neither practises nor exacts any other 
 superstition than ablutions. 
 
 Lugenius. Detestable rites! without our authority. I 
 venture to affirm that, in the whole of Italy and Spain, no 
 convent of monks or nuns contains a bath; and that the 
 worst inmate of either would shudder at the idea of 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 189 
 
 observing such a practice in common with the unbeliever. 
 For the washing of the feet indeed we have the authority of 
 the earlier Christians; and it may be done; but solemnly 
 and sparingly. Thy residence among the Mahometans, I 
 am afraid, hath rendered thee more favourable to them than 
 beseems a Catholic, and thy mind, I do suspect, sometimes 
 goes back into Barbary unreluctantly. 
 
 Filippo. While I continued in that country, although I 
 was well treated, I often wished myself away, thinking of my 
 friends in Florence, of music, of painting, of our villegiatura 
 at the vintage-time ; whether in the green and narrow glades 
 of Pratolino, with lofty trees above us, and little rills unseen, 
 and little bells about the necks of sheep and goats, tinkling 
 together ambiguously ; or amid the grey quarries, or under 
 the majestic walls of modern Fiesole ; or down in the woods 
 of the Doccia, where the cypresses are of such a girth that, 
 when a youth stands against one of them, and a maiden 
 stands opposite, and they clasp it, their hands at the time do 
 little more than meet. Beautiful scenes, on which Heaven 
 smiles eternally, how often has my heart ached for you! He 
 who hath lived in this country can enjoy no distant one. 
 He breathes here another air; he lives more life ; a brighter 
 sun invigorates his studies, and serener stars influence his 
 repose. Barbary hath also the blessing of climate; and 
 although I do not desire to be there again, I feel sometimes 
 a kind of regret at leaving it. A bell warbles the more 
 mellifluously in the air when the sound of the stroke is over, 
 and when another swims out from underneath it, and pants 
 upon the element that gave it birth. In like manner the 
 recollection of a thing is frequently more pleasing than the 
 actuality ; what is harsh is dropped in the space between. 
 There is in Abdul a nobility of soul on which I often have 
 reflected with admiration. I have seen many of the highest 
 rank and distinction, in whom I could find nothing of the 
 great man, excepting a fondness for low company, and an 
 aptitude to shy and start at every spark of genius or virtue 
 that sprang up above or before them. Abdul was solitary, 
 but affable : he was proud, but patient and complacent. I 
 
190 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 ventured once to ask him how the master of so rich a house 
 in the city, of so many slaves, of so many horses and mules, 
 of such corn-fields, of such pastures, of such gardens, woods, 
 and fountains, should experience any delight or satisfaction 
 in infesting the open sea, the high-road of nations. Instead 
 of answering my question, he asked me in return whether I 
 would not respect any relative of mine who avenged his 
 country, enriched himself by his bravery, and endeared to 
 him his friends and relatives by his bounty. On my reply 
 in the affirmative, he said that his family had been deprived 
 of possessions in Spain much more valuable than all the 
 ships and cargoes he could ever hope to capture, and that 
 the remains of his nation were threatened with ruin and 
 expulsion. “TI do not fight,” said he “ whenever it suits the 
 convenience, or gratifies the malignity, or the caprice of two 
 silly, quarrelsome princes, drawing my sword in perfectly 
 good-humour, and sheathing it again at word of command, 
 just when I begin to get into a passion. No; I fight on 
 my own account; not as a hired assassin, or still baser 
 journeyman.” 
 
 Lugenius. It appears then really that the Infidels have 
 some semblances of magnanimity and generosity ? 
 
 Lilip~po. 1 thought so when I turned over the many 
 changes of fine linen; and I was little short of conviction 
 when I found at the bottom of my chest two hundred 
 Venetian zecchins. 
 
 Eugenius. Corpo di Bacco! Better things, far better 
 things, I would fain do for thee, not exactly of this descrip- 
 tion ; it would excite many heart-burnings. Information 
 has been laid before me, Filippo, that thou art attached to a 
 certain young person, by name Lucrezia, daughter of 
 Francesco Buti, a citizen of Prato. 
 
 Filippo. 1 acknowledge my attachment: it continues. 
 
 Eugenius. Furthermore, that thou hast offspring by her. 
 
 Filippo. Alas! ’tis undeniable. 
 
 Eugenius. I will not only legitimatise the said offspring by 
 motu proprio and rescript to consistory and chancery . . . 
 
 Filippo. Holy Father! Holy Father! For the love of 
 
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. Igt 
 
 the Virgin, not a word to consistory or chancery of the two 
 hundred zecchins. As I hope for salvation, I have but forty 
 left, and thirty-nine would not serve them. 
 
 Lugenius. Fear nothing. Not only will I perform what I 
 have promised, not only will I give the strictest order that 
 no money be demanded by any officer of my courts, but, 
 under the seal of Saint Peter, I will declare thee and 
 Lucrezia Buti man and wife. 
 
 Lilippo. Man and wife ! 
 
 Lugenius. Moderate thy transport. 
 
 Filippo. O Holy Father! may I speak ? 
 
 Lugenius. Surely she is not the wife of another ? 
 
 Filippo. No, indeed. 
 
 Eugenius. Nor within the degrees of consanguinity and 
 affinity ? 
 
 Filippo. No, no, no. But ... man and wife! Con- 
 sistory and chancery are nothing to this fulmination. 
 
 Lugenius. How so ? 
 
 Filippo. It is man and wife the first fortnight, but wife 
 and man ever after. The two figures change places: the 
 unit is the decimal and the decimal is the unit. 
 
 Lugenius. What, then, can I do for thee ? 
 
 Filippo. I love Lucrezia; let me love her; let her love 
 me. Ican make her at any time what she is not; I could 
 never make her again what she is. 
 
 Lugenius. The only thing I can do then is to promise I 
 will forget that I have heard anything about the matter. 
 But, to forget it, I must hear it first. 
 
 Filippo. In the beautiful little town of Prato, reposing in 
 its idleness against the hill that protects it from the north, 
 and looking over fertile meadows, southward to Poggio 
 Cajano, westward to Pistoja, there is the convent of Santa 
 Margarita. I was invited by the sisters to paint an altar- 
 piece for the chapel. A novice of fifteen, my own sweet 
 Lucrezia, came one day alone to see me work at my 
 Madonna. Her blessed countenance had already looked 
 down on every beholder lower by the knees. I myself who 
 made her could almost have worshipped her. 
 
192 FRA FILIPPO LIFPS 
 
 Lugenius. Not while incomplete; no half-virgin will do. 
 
 Lilippo. But there knelt Lucrezia! there she knelt! first 
 looking with devotion at the Madonna, then with admiring 
 wonder and grateful delight at the artist. Could so little a 
 heart be divided? “I'were a pity! There was enough for 
 me ; there is never enough for the Madonna. Resolving on 
 a sudden that the object of my love should be the object of 
 adoration to thousands, born and unborn, I swept my brush 
 across the maternal face, and left a blank in heaven. ‘The 
 little girl screamed ; I pressed her to my bosom. 
 
 Lugenius. In the chapel P 
 
 Lilippo. Y knew not where I was; I thought I was in 
 Paradise. 
 
 Lugenius. If it was not in the chapel, the sin is venial, 
 But a brush against a Madonna’s mouth is worse than a 
 beard against her votary’s. 
 
 Filippo. 1 thought so too, Holy Father ! 
 
 Lugenius. Thou sayest thou hast forty zecchins; I will 
 try in due season to add forty more. The fisherman must 
 not venture to measure forces with the pirate. Farewell! I 
 pray God, my son Filippo, to have thee alway in His holy 
 keeping. 
 
TASSO AND CORNELIA. 
 
 Tasso. She is dead, Cornelia! she is dead ! 
 
 Cornelia. 'Torquato! my Torquato! after so many years 
 of separation do I bend once more your beloved head to 
 my embrace? 
 
 Tasso. She is dead! 
 
 Cornelia. ‘Tenderest of brothers! bravest and best and 
 most unfortunate of men! What, in the name of heaven 
 so bewilders you? 
 
 Tasso. Sister! sister! sister! I could not save her. 
 
 Cornelia. Certainly it was a sad event; and they who 
 are out of spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. 
 At this season of the year the vintagers are joyous and 
 negligent. 
 
 Tasso. How! what is this ? 
 
 Cornelia. The little girl was crushed, they say, by a 
 wheel of the car laden with grapes, as she held out a 
 handful of vine-leaves to one of the oxen. And did you 
 happen to be there just at the moment P 
 
 Tasso. So then the little too can suffer! the ignorant, the 
 indigent, the unaspiring! Poor child She was kind- 
 hearted, else never would calamity have befallen her. 
 
 Cornelia. I wish you had not seen the accident. 
 
 Tasso. I see it? 1? Isawit not. No other is crushed 
 where Lam. The little girl died for her kindness! Natural 
 death ! 
 
 Cornelia. Be calm, be composed, my brother! 
 
 Tasso. You would not require me to be composed or 
 calm if you comprehended a thousandth part of my 
 sufferings. 
 
 Cornelia. Peace! peace! we know them all. ae 
 
 0 
 
194 TASSO AND CORNELIA. 
 
 Tasso. Who has dared to name them? Imprisonment, 
 derision, madness. 
 
 Cornelia. Hush! sweet ‘Torquato! If ever these existed, 
 they are past. 
 
 Tasso. You do think they are sufferings? ay? 
 
 Cornelia. 'Too surely. 
 
 Tasso. No, not too surely: I will not have that answer. 
 They would have been; but Leonora was then living. 
 Unmanly as I am! did I complain of them? and while 
 she was left me? 
 
 Cornelia. My own Torquato! is there no comfort in a 
 sister’s love? Is there no happiness but under the passions ? 
 Think, O my brother, how many courts there are in Italy: 
 are the princes more fortunate than you? Which among 
 them all loves truly, deeply, and virtuously? Among them 
 all is there anyone, for his genius, for his generosity, for his 
 gentleness, ay, for his mere humanity, worthy to be beloved? 
 
 Zasso. Princes! talk to me of princes! How much 
 cross-grained wood a little gypsum covers! a little carmine 
 quite beautifies! Wet your forefinger with your spittle ; 
 stick a broken gold-leaf on the sinciput ; clip off a beggar’s 
 beard to make it tresses; kiss it; fall down before it; 
 worship it. Are you not irradiated by the light of its 
 countenance! Princes! princés! Italian princes! Estes! 
 What matters that costly carrion? Who thinks about it? 
 (After a pause.) She is dead! She is dead! 
 
 Cornelia. We have not heard it here. 
 
 Tasso. At Sorrento you hear nothing but the light surges 
 of the sea, and the sweet sprinkles of the guitar. 
 
 Cornelia. Suppose the worst to be true. 
 
 Tasso. Always, always. 
 
 Cornelia. If she ceases, as then perhaps she must, to 
 love and to lament you, think gratefully, contentedly, 
 devoutly, that her arms had clasped your neck before they 
 were crossed upon her bosom, in that long sleep which you 
 have rendered placid, and from which your harmonious 
 voice shall once more awaken her. Yes, Torquato! her 
 bosom had throbbed to yours, often and often, before the 
 
TASSO AND CORNELTA. 195 
 
 organ-peal shook the fringes round the catafalc. Is not 
 this much, from one so high, so beautiful ? 
 
 Tasso. Much? yes; for abject me. But I did so love 
 her! so love her! 
 
 Cornelia. Ah! let the tears flow : she sends you that 
 balm from heaven. 
 
 Tasso. So love her did poor Tasso! Else, O Cornelia, 
 it had indeed been much. I thought, in the simplicity of 
 my heart, that God was as great as an emperor, and could 
 bestow and had bestowed on me as much as the German 
 had conferred or could confer on his vassal. No part of 
 my insanity was ever held in such ridicule as this. And 
 yet the idea cleaves to me strangely, and is liable to stick 
 to my shroud. 
 
 Cornelia. Woe betide the woman who bids you to forget 
 that woman who has loved you: she sins against her sex. 
 Leonora was unblameable. Never think ill of her for what 
 _ you have suffered. 
 
 Tasso. Think illof her? I? I?I? No; those we love, 
 we love for everything ; even for the pain they have given 
 us. But she gave me none; it was where she was not that 
 pain was. 
 
 Cornelia. Surely, if love and sorrow are destined for 
 companionship, there is no reason why the last comer of 
 the two should supersede the first. 
 
 Tasso. Argue with me, and you drive me into darkness. 
 I am easily persuaded and led on while no reasons are 
 thrown before me. With these you have made my temples 
 throb again. Just Heaven! dost thou grant us fairer fields, 
 and wider, for the whirlwind to lay waste? Dost thou 
 build us up habitations above the street, above the palace, 
 above the citadel, for the Plague to enter and carouse in? 
 Has not my youth paid its dues, paid its penalties? Can 
 not our griefs come first, while we have strength to bear 
 them? The fool! the fool! who thinks it a misfortune 
 that his love is unrequited. Happier young man! look at 
 the violets until thou drop asleep on them. Ah! but thou 
 must awake! 
 
196 TASSO AND CORNELIA. 
 
 Cornelia. O heavens! what must you have suffered! for 
 a man’s heart is sensitive in proportion to its greatness. 
 
 Zasso. And a woman’s ? 
 
 Cornelia. Alas! I know not; but I think it can be no 
 other. Comfort thee, comfort thee, dear Torquato ! 
 
 Tasso. Then do not rest thy face upon my arm; it so 
 reminds me of her. And thy tears too! they melt me into 
 her grave. 
 
 Cornelia. Hear you not her voice as it appeals to you, 
 saying to you, as the priests around have been saying to Aer, 
 Blessed soul! rest in peace? 
 
 Tasso. I heard it not ; and yet I am sure she said it. A 
 thousand times has she repeated it, laying her head on my 
 heart to quiet it, simple girl! She told it to rest in peace... 
 and she went from me! Insatiable love! ever self-torturer, 
 never self-destroyer! the world, with all its weight of 
 miseries, can not crush thee, can not keep thee down. 
 Generally men’s tears, like the droppings of certain springs, 
 only harden and petrifiy what they fall on; but mine sank 
 deep into a tender heart, and were its very blood. Never 
 will I believe she has left me utterly. Oftentimes, and 
 long before her departure, I fancied we were in heaven 
 together. I fancied it in the fields, in the gardens, in the 
 palace, inthe prison. I fancied it in the broad daylight, when 
 my eyes were open, when blessed spirits drew around me 
 that golden circle which one only of earth’s inhabitants 
 could enter. Oftentimes in my sleep also I fancied it ; and 
 sometimes in the intermediate state, in that serenity which 
 breathes about the transported soul, enjoying its pure and 
 perfect rest, a span below the feet of the Immortal. 
 
 Cornelia. She has not left you ; do not disturb her peace 
 by these repinings. 
 
 Tasso. She will bear with them. ‘Thou knowest not what 
 she was, Cornelia ; for I wrote to thee about her while she 
 seemed but human. In my hours of sadness, not only her 
 beautiful form, but her very voice bent over me. How 
 girlish in the gracefulness of her lofty form! how pliable 
 in her majesty! what composure at my petulance and 
 
TASSO AND CORNELIA. 197 
 
 reproaches! what pity in her reproofs! Like the air that 
 angels breathe in the metropolitan temple of the Christian 
 world, her soul at every season preserved one temperature. 
 But it was when she could and did love me! Unchanged 
 must ever be the blessed one who has leaned in fond 
 security on the unchangeable. The purifying flame shoots 
 upward, and is the glory that encircles their brows when 
 they meet above. 
 
 Cornelia. Indulge in these delightful thoughts, my 
 Torquato! and believe that your love is and ought to be 
 imperishable as your glory. Generations of men move 
 forward in endless procession to consecrate and commem- 
 orate both. Colour-grinders and gilders, year after year, are 
 bargained with to refresh the crumbling monuments and 
 tarnished decorations of rude, unregarded royalty, and to 
 fasten the nails that cramp the crown upon its head. 
 Meanwhile, in the laurels of my Torquato there will always 
 be one leaf above man’s reach, above time’s wrath and 
 injury, inscribed with the name of Leonora. 
 
 Tasso. O Jerusalem! I have not then sung in vain the 
 Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 Cornelia. After such devotion of your genius, you have 
 undergone too many misfortunes. 
 
 Tasso. Congratulate the man who has had many, and 
 may have more. I have had,I have, I can have, one 
 only. 
 
 Candela Life runs not smoothly at all seasons, even with 
 the happiest ; but after a long course, the rocks subside, the 
 views widen, and it flows on more equably at the end. 
 
 Tasso. Have the stars smooth surfaces? No, no; but 
 how they shine ! 
 
 Cornelia. Capable of thoughts so exalted, so far above 
 the earth we dwell on, why suffer any to depress and 
 anguish you P 
 
 Tasso. Cornelia, Cornelia! the mind has within its 
 temples and porticoes and palaces and towers: the mind 
 has under it, ready for the course, steeds brighter than the 
 sun and stronger than the storm; and beside them stand 
 
198 TASSO AND CORNELIA. 
 
 winged chariots, more in number than the Psalmist hath 
 attributed to the Almighty. ‘The mind, I tell thee again, 
 hath its hundred gates, compared whereto the Theban are 
 but willow wickets ; and all those hundred gates can genius 
 throw open. But there are some that groan heavily on 
 their hinges, and the hand of God alone can close them. 
 
 Cornelia. Torquato has thrown open those of his holy 
 temple ; Torquato hath stood, another angel, at his tomb ; 
 and am I the sister of Torquato? Kiss me, my brother, 
 and let my tears run only from my pride and joy! Princes 
 have bestowed knighthood on the worthy and unworthy ; 
 thou hast called forth those princes from their ranks, 
 pushing back the arrogant and presumptuous of them like 
 intrusive varlets, and conferring on the bettermost crowns 
 and robes, imperishable and unfading. 
 
 Tasso. I seem to live back into those days. I feel the 
 helmet on my head; I wave the standard over it: brave 
 men smile upon me; beautiful maidens pull them gently 
 back by the scarf, and will not let them break my slumber, 
 nor undraw the curtain. Corneliolina!... 
 
 Cornelia. Well, my dear brother! why do you stop so 
 suddenly in the midst of them? ‘They are the pleasantest 
 and best company, and they make you look quite happy 
 and joyous. 
 
 Tasso. Corneliolina, dost thou remember Bergamo? 
 What city was ever so celebrated for honest and valiant 
 men, in all classes, or for beautiful girls! There is but one 
 class of those: Beauty is above all ranks; the true 
 Madonna, the patroness and bestower of felicity, the queen 
 of heaven. 
 
 Cornelia. Hush, Torquato, hush! talk not so. 
 
 Tasso. What rivers, how sunshiny and revelling, are the 
 Brembo and the Serio! What a country the Valtellina! 
 I went back to our father’s house, thinking to find thee 
 again, my little sister; thinking to kick away thy ball of 
 yellow silk as thou wast stooping for it, to make thee run 
 after me and beat me. I woke early in the morning ; thou 
 wert grown up and gone. Away to Sorrento: I knew the 
 
TASSO AND CORNELIA. 199 
 
 road: a few strides brought me back: here I am. To- 
 morrow, my Cornelia, we will walk together, as we used to 
 do, into the cool and quiet caves on the shore ; and we will 
 catch the little breezes as they come in and go out again on 
 the backs of the jocund waves. 
 
 Cornelia. We will indeed to-morrow ; but before we set 
 out we must take a few hours’ rest, that we may enjoy our 
 ramble the better. 
 
 Tasso. Our Sorrentines, I see, are grown rich and 
 avaricious. They have uprooted the old pomegranate 
 hedges, and have built high walls to prohibit the wayfarer 
 from their vineyards. 
 
 Cornelia, I have a basket of grapes for you in the book- 
 room that overlooks our garden. 
 
 Tasso. Does the old twisted sage-tree grow still against 
 the window ? 
 
 Cornelia. It harboured too many insects at last, and 
 there was always a nest of scorpions in the crevice. 
 
 Tasso, O! what a prince of a sage-tree! And the well 
 too, with its bucket of shining metal, large enough for the 
 largest cocomero* to cool in it for dinner. 
 
 Cornelia. The well, I asure you, is as cool as ever. 
 
 Tasso. Delicious! delicious! And the stonework round 
 it, bearing no other marks of waste then my pruning-hook 
 and dagger left behind? 
 
 Cornelia. None whatever. 
 
 Tasso. White in that place no longer; There has been 
 time enough for it to become all of one colour: grey, mossy, 
 half-decayed. 
 
 Cornetia. No, no; not even the rope has wanted repair. 
 
 Zasso. Who sings yonder? 
 
 Cornelia. Enchanter! No sooner did you say the word 
 cocomero than here comes a boy carrying one upon his 
 head. 
 
 Tasso. Listen! listen! I have read in some book or 
 other those verses long ago. They are not unlike my 
 Aminta,. ‘The very words! 
 
 * Water-melon. 
 
200 TASSO AND CORNELIA. 
 
 Cornelia, Purifier of love, and humaniser of ferocity, 
 how many, my Torquato, will your gentle thoughts make 
 
 happy ! 
 
 Zasso, At this moment I almost think I am one among 
 them.* 
 
 Cornelia. Be quite persuaded of it. Come, brother, 
 come with me. You shall bathe your heated brow and 
 weary limbs in the chamber of your childhood. It is there 
 we are always the most certain of repose. The boy shall 
 sing to you those sweet verses; and we will reward him 
 with a slice of his own fruit. 
 
 Tasso. He deserves it; cut it thick. 
 
 Cornelia. Come then, my truant! Come along, my 
 sweet smiling Torquato ! 
 
 Tasso. The passage is darker than ever. Is this the way 
 to the little court? Surely those are not the steps that lead 
 
 * The miseries of Tasso arose not only from the imagination and the 
 heart. In the metropolis of the Christian world, with many admirers 
 and many patrons, bishops, cardinals, princes, he was left destitute, and 
 almost famished. These are his own words: ‘‘ Apffena in questo stato 
 ho comprato due meloni: e benche io sia stato guasi sempre infermo, 
 molte volte mi sono contentato del: manzo e la ministra di latte o di 
 zucca, guando ho potuto averne, mi e stata in vece di delizie.” In 
 another part he says that he was unable to pay the carriage of a parcel. 
 No wonder ; if he had not wherewithal to buy enough of zucca for a 
 meal. Even had he been in health and appetite, he might have 
 satisfied his hunger with it for about five farthings, and have left half 
 for supper. And now a word on his insanity. Having been so 
 imprudent not only as to make it too evident in his poetry that he was 
 the lover of Leonora, but also to signify (not very obscurely) that his 
 love was returned, he much perplexed the Duke of Ferrara, who, with 
 great discretion, suggested to him the necessity of feigning madness, 
 The lady’s honour required it from a brother; and a true lover, to 
 convince the world, would embrace the project with alacrity. But 
 there was no reason why the seclusion should be in a dungeon, or why 
 exercise and air should be interdicted. This cruelty, and perhaps his 
 uncertainty of Leonora’s compassion, may well be imagined to have 
 produced at last the malady he had feigned. But did Leonora love 
 Tasso asa man would be loved? If we wish to do her honour, let us 
 hope it : for what greater glory can there be, than to have estimated at 
 the full value so exalted a genius, so affectionate and so generous a 
 heart ! ; 
 
TASSO AND CORNELIA. 201 
 
 down toward the bath? O yes! we are right; I smell 
 the lemon-blossoms. Beware of the old wilding that bears 
 them ; it may catch your veil; it may scratch your fingers! 
 Pray, take care: it has many thorns about it. And now, 
 Leonora! you shall hear my last verses! Lean your ear a 
 little toward me; for I must repeat them softly under this 
 low archway, else others may hear them too. Ah! you 
 press my hand once more. Drop it, drop it! or the verses 
 will sink into my breast again, and lie there silent! Good 
 girl ! 
 
 Many, well I know, there are 
 
 Ready in your joys to share, 
 
 And (I never blame it) you 
 
 Are almost as ready too. 
 
 But when comes the darker day, 
 
 And those friends have dropt away, 
 
 Which is there among them all 
 
 You should, if you could, recall? 
 
 One who wisely loves and well 
 
 Hears and shares the griefs you tell ; 
 
 Him you ever call apart 
 
 When the springs o’erflow the heart ; 
 
 For you know that he alone 
 
 Wishes they were éz¢ his own. 
 
 Give, while these he may divide, 
 
 Smiles to all the world beside. 
 
 Cornelia. We are now in the full light of the chamber ; 
 can not you remember it, having looked so intently all 
 around ? 
 
 Tasso. O sister! I could have slept another hour. You 
 thought I wanted rest: why did you waken me so early? 
 I could have slept another hour or longer. What a dream ! 
 But I am calm and happy. 
 
 Cornelia. May you never more be otherwise! Indeed, 
 he can not be whose last verses are such as those. 
 
 Tasso. Have you written any since that morning ? 
 
 Cornelia. What morning ? 
 
 Tasso. When you caught the swallow in my curtains, and 
 trod upon my knees in catching it, luckily with naked feet. 
 The little girl of thirteen laughed at the outcry of her 
 
202 TASSO AND CORNELIA. 
 
 brother Torquatino, and sang without a blush her earliest 
 lay. 
 
 Cornelia, 1 do not recollect it. 
 
 Tasso. I do. 
 
 Rondinello ! rondinello ! 
 Tu sei nero, ma sei bello. 
 Cosa fa se tu sei nero? 
 Rondinello ! sei il primiero 
 De’ volanti, palpitanti, 
 
 (E vi sono quanti quanti !) 
 Mai tenuto a questo petto, 
 E percid sei il mio diletto,* 
 
 Cornelia. Here is the cocomero; it can not be more 
 insipid. Try it. 
 
 Zasso. Where is the boy who brought it? where is the 
 boy who sang my AmintaP Serve him first; give him 
 largely. Cut deeper; the knife is too short: deeper ; mia 
 brava Corneliolina! quite through all the red, and into the 
 middle of the seeds. Well done! 
 
 * The author wrote the verses first in English, but he found it 
 easy to write them better in Italian: they stood in the text as below : 
 they only do for a girl of thirteen :— 
 
 Swallow ! swallow ! though so jetty 
 Are your pinions, you are pretty : 
 And what matter were it though 
 You were blacker than a crow? 
 
 Of the many birds that fly 
 
 (And how many pass me by !) 
 You're the first I ever prest, 
 
 Of the many, to my breast: 
 Therefore it is very right 
 
 You should be my own delight, 
 
PRINCESS MARY, AND’ PRINCESS 
 PPA EH. 
 
 Mary. My dear dear sister! it is long, very long, since 
 we met. 
 
 Llizabeth. Methinks it was about the time they chopped 
 off our uncle Seymour’s head for him. Not that he was 
 our uncle though . . . he was only Edward’s. 
 
 Mary. The Lord Protector, if not your uncle, was always 
 doatingly fond of you; and he often declared to me, even 
 within your hearing, he thought you very beautiful. 
 
 Elizabeth. He said as much of you, if that is all; and he 
 told me why .. . ‘‘wot to vex me”... as if, instead of 
 vexing me, it would not charm me. I beseech your High- 
 ness, is there anything remarkable or singular in thinking 
 me... what he thought me? 
 
 Mary. No, indeed; for so you are. But why call me 
 Highness? drawing back and losing half your stature in the 
 circumference of the curtsey. 
 
 Lilizabeth. Because you are now, at this blessed hour, my 
 lawful queen. 
 
 Mary. Hush, prythee hush! The parliament has voted 
 otherwise. 
 
 Llizabeth. They would chouse you. 
 
 Mary. What would they do with me? 
 
 Llizabeth. Trump you. 
 
 Mary. 1 am still at a loss. 
 
 Elizabeth. Bamboozle you. 
 
 Mary. Really, my dear sister, you have been so courted 
 by the gallants, that you condescend to adopt their language, 
 in place of graver. 
 
204 PRINCESS MARY. 
 
 Elizabeth, Cheat you then . . . will that do? 
 
 Mary. Comprehensibly. 
 
 Elizabeth. 1 always speak as the thing spoken of requires. 
 To the point. Would our father have minded the caitiffs ? 
 
 Mary. Naming our father, I should have said, our father 
 now in bliss ; for surely he must be; having been a rock of 
 defence against the torrent of irreligion. 
 
 Elizabeth. Well; in bliss or out, there, here, or anywhere, 
 would he, royal soul! have minded parliament? No such 
 fool he. There were laws before there were parliaments ; 
 and there were kings before there were laws. Were I in 
 your Majesty’s place (God forbid the thought should ever 
 enter my poor weak head, even in a dream !) I would try the 
 mettle of my subjects: I would mount my horse, and head 
 them. 
 
 Mary. Elizabeth! you were always a better horsewoman 
 than Iam: I should be ashamed to get a fall among the 
 soldiers. 
 
 Elizabeth, Pish! Pish! it would be among knights and 
 nobles . . . the worst come to the worst. Lord o’ mercy! 
 do you think they never saw such a thing before ? 
 
 Mary. I must hear of no resistance to the powers that 
 be. Besides, I am but a weak woman. 
 
 Elizabeth. 1 do not see why women should be weak, 
 unless they like. 
 
 Mary. Not only the Commons, but likewise the peers, 
 have sworn allegiance. 
 
 Elizabeth. Did you ever in your lifetime, in any chronicle 
 or commentary, read of any parliament that was not as ready 
 to be forsworn as to swear? 
 
 Mary. Alas! 
 
 Elizabeth. If ever you did, the book is a rare one, kept 
 in an out-of-the-way library, in a cedar chest all to itself, 
 with golden locks and amber seals thereto. 
 
 Mary. I would not willingly think so ill of men. 
 
 Elizabeth. For my part, I can’t abide’em. All that can 
 be said, is, some are not so bad as others. You smile, and 
 deem the speech a silly and superfluous one. We may live, 
 
PRINCESS MARY. 205 
 
 sister Mary, to see and acknowledge that it is not quite so 
 sure and flat a verity as it now appears to us. I never 
 come near a primrose but I suspect an adder under it ; and 
 the sunnier the day the more misgivings. 
 
 Mary. But we are now, by the settlement of the mon- 
 archy, farther out of harm’s way than ever. 
 
 Lilizabeth. If the wench has children to-morrow, as she 
 may have, they will inherit. 
 
 Mary. No doubt they would. 
 
 Elizabeth. No doubt? I will doubt: and others shall 
 doubt too. The heirs of my body... yours first... 
 God prosper them! Parliament may be constrained to 
 retrace its steps. One half sees no harm in taking bribes, 
 the other no guilt in taking fright. Corruption is odious 
 and costly: but, when people have yielded to compulsion, 
 conscience is fain to acquiesce. Men say they were forced, 
 and what is done under force is invalid. 
 
 Mary. There was nothing like compulsion. 
 
 Elizabeth. Then let there be. Let the few yield to the 
 many, and all to the throne. Now is your time to stir. 
 The furnace is mere smut, and no bellows to blow the 
 embers. Parliament is without a leader. Three or four 
 turnspits are crouching to leap upon the wheel ; but, while 
 they are snarling and snapping one at another, what 
 becomes of the roast? Take them by the scruff, and out 
 with ’em. ‘The people will applaud you. They want bread 
 within doors, and honesty without. They have seen 
 enough of partisans and parliaments. 
 
 Mary. We can not do without one. 
 
 Elizabeth. Convoke it then: but call it with sound of 
 trumpet. Such a body is unlikely to finda head. There 
 is little encouragement for an honest knight or gentleman 
 to take the station. ~The Commons slink away with lowered 
 shoulders, and bear hateful compunction against the very 
 names and memory of those braver men, who, in dangerous 
 times and before stern authoritative warlike sovrans, 
 supported their pretensions. Kings, who peradventure 
 would have strangled such ringleaders, well remember and 
 
206 PRINCESS MARY. 
 
 well respect them: their fellows would disown their bene- 
 factors and maintainers. Kings abominate their example ; 
 clowns would efface the images on their sepulchres. What 
 forbearance on our part can such knaves expect, or what 
 succour from the people ? 
 
 Mary. What is done is done. 
 
 Elizabeth, Oftentimes it is easier to undo than to do. 
 I should rather be glad than mortified at what has been 
 done yonder. In addition to those churls and chapmen in 
 the lower house, there are also among the peers no few who 
 voted most audaciously. 
 
 Mary. The majority of them was of opinion that the 
 Lady Jane should be invested with royal state and dignity. 
 
 Elizabeth. The majority! So much the better... so 
 much the better, say I. I would find certain folk who 
 should make sharp inquest into their title-deeds, and spell 
 the indentures syllable by syllable. Certain lands were 
 granted for certain services; which services have been 
 neglected. I would not in such wise neglect the lands in 
 question, but annex them to my royal domains. 
 
 Mary. Sister! sister! you forget that the Lady Jane 
 Gray (as was) is now queen of the realm. 
 
 Elizabeth. Forget it indeed! The vile woman! I am 
 minded to call her as such vile women are called out of 
 doors. 
 
 Mary. Pray abstain ; not only torasmuch as it would be 
 unseemly in those sweet, slender, delicate lips of yours, but 
 also by reason that she is adorned with every grace and 
 virtue, bating (which indeed outvalues them all) the true 
 religion. Sister! I hope and believe I in this my speech 
 have given you no offence: for your own eyes, I know, are 
 opened. Indeed, who that is not wilfully blind can err in 
 so straight a road, even if so gentle and so sure a guidance 
 were wanting? The mind, sister, the mind itself must 
 be crooked which deviates a hair’s breadth. Ay, that 
 intelligent nod would alone suffice to set my bosom quite at 
 rest thereupon. Should it not ? 
 
 Llizabeth. It were imprudent in me to declare my real 
 
PRINCESS MARY. 207 
 
 opinion at this juncture. We must step warily when we 
 walk among cockatrices. I am barely a saint ; indeed far 
 from it ; and Iam much too young to bea martyr. But that 
 odious monster, who pretends an affection for reformation, 
 and a reverence for learning, is counting the jewels in the 
 crown, while you fancy she is repeating her prayers, or 
 conning her Greek. 
 
 Sister Mary! as God is in heaven, I hold nothing so 
 detestable in a woman as hypocrisy. Add thereunto, as 
 you fairly may, avarice, man-hunting, lasciviousness, The 
 least atom of the least among these vices is heavy enough 
 to weigh down the soul to the bottomless pit. 
 
 Mary. Unless divine grace 
 
 Elizabeth. Don’t talk to me. Don’t spread the filth 
 fine. 
 
 Now could not that empty fool, Dudley, have found 
 some other young person of equal rank with Mistress Jane, 
 and of higher beauty? Not that any other such, pretty as 
 the boy is, would listen to his idle discourse. 
 
 And, pray, who are these Dudleys? The first of them 
 was made a man of by our grandfather. And what was 
 the man after all? Nothing better than a huge smelting- 
 pot, with a commodious screw at the colder end of the 
 ladle. 
 
 I have no patience with the bold hariotry. 
 
 Mary. 1 see you have not, sister ! 
 
 Elizabeth. No, nor have the people. They are on tip-toe 
 for rising in all parts of the kingdom, 
 
 Mary. What can they do? God help them ! 
 
 Elizabeth. Sister Mary! good sister Mary! did you say 
 God help them? J am trembling intoa heap. It is well 
 you have uttered such works to safe and kindred ears. If 
 they should ever come whispered at the Privy Council, it 
 might end badly. 
 
 I believe my visit hath been of as long continuance as 
 may seem befitting. I must be gone. 
 
 Mary. Before your departure, let me correct a few of 
 your opinions in regard to our gentle kinswoman and most 
 
 
 
208 PRINCESS MARY. 
 
 gracious queen. She hath nobly enlarged my poor alimony. 
 Look here ! to begin. 
 
 Llizabeth, What! all golden pieces? I have not ten 
 groats in the world. 
 
 Mary. Be sure she will grant unto you plenteously. She 
 hath condescended to advise me of her intent. Meanwhile 
 I do entreat you will take home with you the purse you are 
 stroking down, thinking about other things. 
 
 Lilizabeth. Not I, not I, if it comes from such a 
 creature. 
 
 Mary. You accept it from me. 
 
 Ltizabeth, Then indeed unreservedly. Passing through 
 your hands the soil has been wiped away. However, as I 
 live, I will carefully wash every piece in it with soap and 
 water. Do you believe they can lose anything of their 
 weight thereby ? 
 
 Mary. Nothing material. 
 
 Elizabeth. 1 may reflect and cogitate upon it. I would 
 not fain offer anybody light money. 
 
 Troth ! I fear the purse, although of chamois and double 
 stitched, is insufficient to sustain the weight of the gold, 
 which must be shaken violently on the road as I return. 
 Dear sister Mary! as you probably are not about to wear 
 that head-tire, could you, commodiously to yourself, lend it 
 me awhile, just to deposit a certain part of the moneys 
 therein? for the velvet is stout, and the Venetian netting 
 close and stiff: I can hardly bend the threads. I shall 
 have more leisure to admire its workmanship at home. 
 
 Mary. Elizabeth! I see you are grown forgiving. In the 
 commencement of our discourse I suggested a slight altera- 
 tion of manner in speaking of our father. Do you pray 
 for the repose of his soul morning and night? 
 
 Lilizabeth, The doubt is injurious. 
 
 Mary. Pardon me! I feel it. But the voices of children, 
 O Elizabeth! come to the ear of God above all other 
 voices. The best want intercession. Pray for him, 
 Elizabeth ! pray for him. 
 
 Elizabeth, Why not? He did indeed, but he was in a 
 
PRINCESS MARY. 209 
 
 passion, order my mother up the three black stairs, and he 
 left her pretty head on the landing: but I bear him no 
 malice for it. 
 
 Mary. Malice! The baneful word hath shot up from hell 
 in many places, but never between child and parent. In 
 the space of that one span, on that single sod from Paradise, 
 the serpent never trailed. Husband and wife were severed 
 by him, then again clashed together: brother slew brother : 
 but parent and child stand where their Creator first placed 
 them, and drink at the only source of pure untroubled love. 
 
 Elizabeth. Beside, you know, being king, he had clearly 
 a right to do it, plea or no plea. 
 
 Mary. We will converse no longer on so dolorous a 
 subject. 
 
 Elizabeth. I will converse on it as long as such is my 
 pleasure. 
 
 Mary. Being my visitor, you command here. 
 
 Elizabeth. 1 command nowhere. I am blown about like 
 a leaf: I am yielding as a feather in a cushion, only one 
 among a million. But I tell you, honestly and plainly, I do 
 not approve of it anyhow! It may have grown into a trick 
 and habit with him: no matter for that: in my view of the 
 business, it is not what a husband ought to do with a wife. 
 And, if she did . . . but she did not . . . and I say it. 
 
 Mary. It seems indeed severe. 
 
 Elizabeth. Yea, afore God, methinks it smacks a trifle of 
 the tart. 
 
 Mary. Our father was God’s vicegerent. Probably it 
 is for the good of her soul, poor lady! Better suffer 
 here than hereafter. We ought to kiss the rod, and be 
 thankful. 
 
 Elizabeth. Kiss the rod, forsooth. I have been con- 
 strained erewhile even unto that; and no such a child 
 neither. But I would rather have kissed it fresh and fair, 
 with all its buds and knots upon it, than after it had 
 bestowed on me, in such a roundabout way, such a deal of 
 its embroidery and lace-work. I thank my father for all 
 that. I hope his soul lies easier than my skin did. 
 
210 PRINCESS MARY. 
 
 Mary. The wish is kind; but prayers would much help 
 it. Our father of blessed memory, now (let us hope) among 
 the saints, was somewhat sore in his visitations; but they 
 tended heavenward. 
 
 Lelizabeth. Yea, when he cursed and cuffed and kicked 
 us. 
 Mary. He did kick, poor man ! 
 
 Elizabeth. Kick! Fifty folks, young and old, have seen 
 the marks his kicking left behind. 
 
 Mary. We should conceal all such his infirmities. They 
 arose from an irritation in the foot, whereof he died. 
 
 Elizabeth. 1 only know I could hardly dance or ride for 
 them ; chiefly caught, as I was, fleeing from his wrath. He 
 seldom vouchsafed to visit me: when he did, he pinched 
 my ear so bitterly, I was fain to squeal. And then he said, 
 I should turn out like my mother, calling me by such a 
 name moreover as is heard but about the kennel ; and even 
 there it is never given to the young. 
 
 Mary. There was choler in him at certain times and 
 seasons, ‘Those who have much will, have their choler 
 excited when opposite breath blows against it. 
 
 Elizabeth. Let them have will ; let them have choler too, 
 in God’s name; but it is none the better, as gout is, for 
 flying to hand or foot. 
 
 Mary. I have seen . . . now do, pray forgiveme... 
 
 Llizabeth. Well, what have you seen? 
 
 Mary. My sweet little sister lift up the most delicate of 
 all delicate white hands, and with their tiny narrow pink 
 nails tear off ruffs and caps, and take sundry unerring aims 
 at eyes and noses. 
 
 Elizabeth. Was that any impediment or hindrance to 
 riding and dancing? I would always make people do their 
 duty, and always will. Remember (for your memory seems 
 accurate enough) that, whenever I scratched anybody’s 
 face, I permitted my hand to be kist by the offender within 
 a day ortwo. _ 
 
 Mary. Undeniable. 
 
 Elizabeth, 1 may, peradventure, have been hasty in my 
 
PRINCESS MARY. 211 
 
 childhood : but all great hearts are warm; all good ones 
 are relenting. If, in combing my hair, the hussy lugged it, 
 I obeyed God’s command, and referred to the 4x falionts. 
 I have not too much of it ; and every soul on earth sees its 
 beauty. A single one would be a public loss. Uncle 
 Seymour . . . but what boots it? there are others who can 
 see perhaps as far as uncle Seymour. 
 
 Mary. | do remember his saying that he watched its 
 growth as he would a melon’s. And how fondly did those 
 little sharp grey eyes of his look and wink when you blushed 
 and chided his flattery. 
 
 Elizabeth. Never let any man dare to flatter me: I am 
 above it. Only the weak and ugly want the refreshment of 
 that perfumed fan. I take but my own; and touch it who 
 dares. 
 
 Really it is pleasant to see in what a pear-form fashion 
 both purse and cowl are hanging. Faith! they are heavy: 
 I could hardly lift them from the back of the chair. 
 
 Mary. Let me call an attendant to carry them for you. 
 
 Elizabeth. Are you mad? They are unsealed, and 
 illtied : anyone could slip his hand in. 
 
 And so that... the word was well nigh out of my 
 mouth . . . gave you all this gold. 
 
 Mary. For shame! O for shame ! 
 
 Llizabeth. 1 feel shame only for her. It turns my cheeks 
 ' red... together with some anger upon it. But I can not 
 keep my eyes off that book, if book it may be, on which the 
 purse was lying. 
 
 Mary. Somewhat irreverently, God forgive me! But it 
 was sent at the same time by the same fair creature, with 
 many kind words. It had always been kept in our father’s 
 bedroom closet, and was removed from Edward’s by those 
 unhappy men who superintended his education. 
 
 Elizabeth. She must have thought all those stones are 
 garnets: to me they look like rubies, one and all. Yet, 
 over so large a cover, they cannot all be rubies. 
 
 Mary. 1 believe they are, excepting the glory in the 
 centre, which is composed of chrysolites. Our father was 
 
212 PRINCESS MARY. 
 
 
 
 an excellent judge in jewellery, as in every thing else, and he 
 spared no expenditure in objects of devotion. 
 
 Llizabeth. \What creature could fail in devotion with an 
 object such as that before the eyes? Let me kiss it... 
 partly for my Saviour’s and partly for my father’s sake. 
 
 Mary. How it comforts me, O Elizabeth, to see you thus 
 press it to your bosom! Its spirit, I am confident, has 
 entered there. Disregard the pebbles: take it home: 
 cherish it evermore. May there be virtue, as some think 
 there is, even in the stones about it! God bless you, 
 strengthen you, lead you aright, and finally bring you to 
 everlasting glory. 
 
 Elizabeth (going). The Popish puss } 
 
 ) 
 
LA FONTAINE AND DE LA 
 ROCHEPOUCAULT. 
 
 La Fontaine. \ am truly sensible of the honour I receive, 
 M. de la Rochefoucault, in a visit from a personage so 
 distinguished by his birth and by his genius. Pardon my 
 ambition, if I confess to you that I have long and ardently 
 
 wished for the good fortune, which I never could promise 
 
 myself, of knowing you personally. 
 Rochefoucault. My dear M. de la Fontaine! 
 La Fontaine. Not “dela,” not ‘de la.” Iam Za Fontaine 
 
 purely and simply. 
 
 Rochefoucault. The whole; not derivative. You appear, 
 in the midst of your purity, to have been educated at court, 
 in the lap of the ladies. What was the last day (pardon!) 
 I had the misfortune to miss you there ? 
 
 La Fontaine. I never go to court. They say one can 
 
 not go without silk stockings ; and I have only thread: 
 
 plenty of them indeed, thank God! Yet, would you 
 believe it? Nanon, in putting a so/ette to the bottom of 
 one, last week, sewed it so carelessly, she made a kind of 
 cord across: and I verily believe it will lame me for life ; 
 for I walked the whole morning upon it. 
 
 Rochefoucault. She ought to be whipt. 
 
 La Fontaine. | thought so too, and grew the warmer at 
 being unable to find a wisp of osier or a roll of packthread 
 
 inthe house. Barely had I begun with my garter, when in 
 came the bishop of Grasse, my old friend Godeau, and 
 
 another lord, whose name he mentioned, and they both 
 Interceded for her so long and so touchingly, that at last I 
 was fain to let her rise up and go. I never saw men look 
 
 
 
214 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 down on the erring and afflicted more compassionately. 
 The bishop was quite concerned for me also. But the 
 other, although he professed to feel even more, and said 
 that it must surely be the pain of purgatory to me, took a 
 pinch of snuff, opened his waistcoat, drew down his ruffles, 
 and seemed rather more indifferent. 
 
 Rochefoucault, Providentially, in such moving scenes, the 
 worst is soon over. But Godeau’s friend was not too 
 sensitive. 
 
 La Fontaine. Sensitive! no more than if he had been 
 educated at the butcher’s or the Sorbonne, 
 
 Rochefoucault. | am afraid there are as many hard hearts 
 under satin waistcoats as there are ugly visages under the 
 same material in miniature cases. 
 
 La Fontaine. My lord, I could show you a miniature case 
 which contains your humble servant, in which the painter 
 has done what no tailor in his senses would do; he has 
 given me credit for a coat of violet silk, with silver frogs as 
 large as tortoises. But I am loth to get up for it while the 
 generous heart of this dog (if I mentioned his name he 
 would jump up) places such confidence on my knee. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Pray do not move on any account; above 
 all, lest you should disturb that amiable grey cat, fast asleep 
 in his innocence on your shoulder. 
 
 La Fontaine. Ah, rogue! art thou there? Why! thou 
 hast not licked my face this half-hour. 
 
 Rochefoucault. And more too, I should imagine. I do 
 not judge from his somnolency, which, if he were President 
 of the Parliament, could not be graver, but from his 
 natural sagacity. Cats weigh practicabilities. What sort of 
 tongue has he? 
 
 La Fontaine. He has the roughest tongue and the 
 tenderest heart of any cat in Paris. If you observe the 
 colour of his coat, it is rather blue than grey; a certain 
 indication of goodness in these contemplative creatures. 
 
 Rochefoucault, We were talking of his tongue alone; by 
 which cats, like men, are flatterers. 
 
 La Fontaine. Ah! you gentlemen of the court are much 
 
LA FONTAINE. 215 
 
 mistaken in thinking that vices have so extensive a range. 
 There are some of our vices, like some of our diseases, 
 from which the quadrupeds are exempt; and those, both 
 diseases and vices, are the most discreditable. 
 
 Rochefoucault. 1 do not bear patiently any evil spoken of 
 the court: for it must be acknowledged, by the most 
 malicious, that the court is the purifier of the whole 
 nation. 
 
 La Fontaine. I know little of the court, and less of the 
 whole nation ; but how can this be? 
 
 Rochefoucault, It collects all ramblers and gamblers; all 
 the market-men and market-women who deal in articles 
 which God has thrown into their baskets, without any 
 trouble on their part ; all the seducers and all who wish to 
 be seduced ; all the duellists who erase their crimes with 
 their swords, and sweat out their cowardice with daily 
 practice ; all the nobles whose patents of nobility lie in 
 gold snuff-boxes, or have worn Mechlin ruffles, or are 
 deposited within the archives of knee-deep waistcoats ; all 
 stock-jobbers and church-jobbers, the black-legged and the 
 red-legged game, the flower of the justaucorps, the robe, and 
 the soutane. If these were spread over the surface of 
 France, instead of close compressure in the court or cabinet, 
 they would corrupt the whole country in two years. As 
 matters now stand, it will require a quarter of a century to 
 effect it. 
 
 La Fontaine. Am J not right then in preferring my beasts 
 to yours? But if yours were loose, mine (as you prove to 
 me) would be the last to suffer by it, poor dear creatures ! 
 Speaking of cats, I would have avoided all personality that 
 might be offensive to them: I would not exactly have said, 
 in so many words, that, by their tongues, they are flatterers, 
 like men. Language may take a turn advantageously in 
 favour of our friends. True, we resemble all animals in 
 something. I am quite ashamed and mortified that. your 
 lordship, or anybody, should have had the start of me in 
 this reflection. When a cat flatters with his tongue he is 
 not insincere: you may safely take it for a real kindness. 
 
216 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 He is loyal, M. de la Rochefoucault ! my word for him, he 
 is loyal. Observe too, if you please, no cat ever licks you 
 when he wants anything from you ; so that there is nothing 
 of baseness in such an act of adulation, if we must call it 
 so. For my part, I am slow to designate by so foul a 
 name, that (be it what it may) which is subsequent to a 
 kindness. Cats ask plainly for what they want. 
 
 Rochefoucault. And, if they can not get it by protocols 
 they get it by invasion and assault. 
 
 La Fontaine. No! no! usually they go elsewhere, and 
 fondle those from whom they obtain it. In this I see no 
 resemblance to invaders and conquerors. I draw no paral- 
 lels: I would excite no heart-burnings between us and them. 
 Let all have their due. 
 
 I do not like to lift this creature off, for it would waken 
 him, else I could find out, by some subsequent action, the 
 reason why he has not been on the alert to lick my cheek 
 for so long a time. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Cats are wary and provident. He would 
 not enter into any contest with you, however friendly. He 
 only licks your face, I presume, while your beard is but a 
 match for his tongue. 
 
 La Fontaine. Ha! you remind me. Indeed I did begin 
 to think my beard was rather of the roughest ; for yesterday 
 Madame de Rambouillet sent me a plate of strawberries, 
 the first of the season, and raised (would you believe it ?) 
 under glass. One of these strawberries was dropping from. 
 my lips, and I attempted to stop it. When I thought it had 
 fallen to the ground, “ Look for it, Nanon; pick it up and: 
 eat it,” said I. 
 
 “Master!” cried the wench, “your beard has skewered 
 and spitted it.” ‘‘ Honest girl,” I answered, “come, cull it 
 from the bed of its adoption.” 
 
 I had resolved to shave myself this morning: but our 
 wisest and best resolutions too often come to nothing, poor 
 mortals ! 
 
 Rochefoucault, We often do very well everything but the 
 only thing we hope to do best of all; and our projects often 
 
LA FONTAINE. 217 
 
 drop from us by their weight. A little while ago your 
 friend Molitre exhibited a remarkable proof of it. 
 
 La Fontaine. Ah, poor Moliére! the best man in the 
 world; but flighty, negligent, thoughtless. He throws 
 himself into other men, and does not remember where. 
 The sight of an eagle, M. de la Rochefoucault, but the 
 memory of a fly. 
 
 Rochefoucault. 1 will give you an example: but perhaps 
 it is already known to you. 
 
 La Fontaine. Likely enough. We have each so many 
 friends, neither of us can trip but the other is invited to the 
 laugh. Well; I am sure he has no malice, and I hope I 
 have none: but who can see his own faults ? 
 
 Rochefoucault, He had brought out a new edition of his 
 
 - comedies. 
 
 La Fontaine. There will be fifty; there will be a 
 hundred: nothing in our language, or in any, is so 
 delightful, so graceful; I will add, so clear at once and so 
 profound. 
 
 Rochefoucault, You are among the few who, seeing well 
 his other qualities, see that Molitre is also profound. In 
 order to present the new edition to the Dauphin, he had put 
 on a sky-blue velvet coat, powdered with fleur-de-lis. He 
 laid the volume on his library table; and, resolving that 
 none of the courtiers should have an opportunity of ridicu- 
 ling him for anything like absence of mind, he returned to 
 his bedroom, which, as may often be the case in the 
 economy of poets, is also his dressing-room. Here he 
 surveyed himself in his mirror, as well as the creeks and 
 lagoons in it would permit. 
 
 La Fontaine. | do assure you, from my own observation, 
 M. de la Rochefoucault, that his mirror is a splendid one. 
 I should take it to be nearly three feet high, reckoning the 
 frame, with the Cupid above and the elephant under. I 
 suspected it was the present of some great lady; and indeed 
 I have since heard as much. 
 
 kochefoucauit. Perhaps then the whole story may be quite 
 as fabulous as the part of it which I have been relating. 
 
218 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 La Fontaine. In that case, I may be able to set you 
 right again. 
 
 Rochefoucault. He found his peruke a model of perfec- 
 tion; tight, yet easy ; not an inch more on one side than 
 on the other. The black patch on the forehead. . . 
 
 La Fontaine. Black patch too! I would have given a 
 fifteen-sous piece to have caught him with that black patch. 
 
 Rochefoucault, He found it lovely, marvellous, irresistible. 
 Those on each cheek... . 
 
 La Fontaine. Do you tell me he had one on each cheek? 
 
 Rochefoucault. Symmetrically. The cravat was of its 
 proper descent, and with its appropriate charge of the best 
 Strasburg snuff upon it. The waistcoat, for a moment, 
 puzzled and perplexed him. He was not quite sure 
 whether the right number of buttons were in their holes ; 
 nor how many above, nor how many below, it was the 
 fashion of the week to leave without occupation. Sucha 
 piece of ignorance is enough to disgrace any courtier on 
 earth, He was in the act of striking his forehead with 
 desperation ; but he thought of the patch, fell on his knees, 
 and thanked heaven for the intervention. 
 
 La Fontaine. Just like him! just like him! good soul ! 
 
 LRochefoucault. The breeches... . ah! those require atten- 
 tion: all proper: everything in its place. Magnificent. 
 The stockings rolled up, neither too loosely nor too negli- 
 gently. A picture! The buckles in the shoes. . . all but 
 one... soon set to rights... well thought of ! And now 
 the sword. . . ah, that cursed sword! it will bring at least 
 one man to the ground if it has its own way much longer... 
 up with it! up with it higher. . . A//ons/ we are out of 
 danger. 
 
 La Fontaine. Delightful! I have him before my eyes. 
 What simplicity! aye, what simplicity ! 
 
 Rochefoucault. Now for hat. Feather in? Five at least. 
 Bravo! 
 
 He took up hat and plumage, extended his arm to the 
 full length, raised it a foot above his head, lowered it 
 thereon, opened his fingers, and let them fall again at his side. 
 
LA FONTAINE. 219 
 
 La Fontaine. Something of the comedian in that; aye, 
 M. de la Rochefoucault? But, on the stage or off, all is 
 natural in Molitre. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Away he went: he reached the palace, 
 stood before the Dauphin. . . Oconsternation! O despair! 
 “Morbleau! béte que je suis,” exclaimed the hapless man, 
 “le livre, ot donc est-il?” You are forcibly struck, I 
 perceive, by this adventure of your friend. 
 
 La Fontaine. Strange coincidence! quite unaccountable ! 
 There are agents at work in our dreams, M. de la Roche- 
 foucault, which we shall never see out of them, on this side 
 the grave. [Zo himself.| Sky-blue? no. Fleurs-de-lis ? 
 bah! bah! Patches? I never wore one in my life. 
 
 Rochefoucault, It well becomes your character for 
 generosity, M. la Fontaine, to look grave, and ponder, and 
 ejaculate, on a friend’s untoward accident, instead of laugh- 
 ing, as those who little know you, might expect. I beg 
 your pardon for relating the occurrence. 
 
 La Fontaine. Right or wrong, I can not help laughing 
 any longer. Comical, by my faith! above the tip-top of 
 comedy. Excuse my flashes and dashes and rushes of merri- 
 ment. Incontrollable! incontrollable! Indeed the laughter 
 is immoderate. And you all the while are sitting as grave as 
 a judge; I mean a criminal one; who has nothing to do 
 but to keep up his popularity by sending his rogues to the 
 gallows. The civil indeed have much weighty matter on 
 their minds: they must displease one party: and sometimes 
 a doubt arises whether the fairer hand or the fuller shall 
 turn the balance. 
 
 Rochefoucault. I congratulate you on the return of your 
 gravity and composure. 
 
 La Fontaine. Seriously now: all my lifetime I have been 
 the plaything of dreams. Sometimes they have taken such 
 possession of me, that nobody could persuade me after- 
 ward they were other than real events. Some are very 
 oppressive, very painful, M. de la Rochefoucault! I have 
 never been able, altogether, to disembarrass my head of the 
 most wonderful vision that ever took possession of any 
 
220 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 man’s. There are some truly important differences, but in 
 many respects this laughable adventure of my innocent, 
 honest friend Molitre seemed to have befallen myself. I 
 can only account for it by having heard the tale when I was 
 half-asleep. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Nothing more probable. 
 
 La Fontaine. You absolutely have relieved me from an 
 incubus. 
 
 Rochefoucault, I do not yet see how. 
 
 La Fontaine. No longer ago than when you entered this 
 chamber, I would have sworn that I myself had gone to the 
 Louvre, that I myself had been commanded to attend the 
 dauphin, that I myself had come into his presence,* 
 had fallen on my knee, and cried, “Peste! ot est 
 donc le livre!” Ah, M. de la Rochefoucault, permit 
 me to embrace you: this is really to find a friend at 
 court. 
 
 Rochefoucault. My visit is even more auspicious than I 
 could have ventured to expect: it was chiefly for the 
 purpose of asking your permission to make another at my 
 return to Paris. . . Iam forced to go into the country on 
 some family affairs: but hearing that you have spoken 
 favourably of my Jaxims, I presume to express my 
 satisfaction and delight at your good opinion. 
 
 La Fontaine. Pray, M. de la Rochefoucault, do me the 
 favour to continue here a few minutes: I would gladly 
 reason with you on some of your doctrines. 
 
 Rochefoucault, For the pleasure of hearing your senti- 
 ments on the topics I have treated, I will, although it is 
 late, steal a few minutes from the court, of which I must 
 take my leave on parting for the province. 
 
 La Fontaine. Are you quite certain that all your Maxims 
 are true, or, what is of greater consequence, that they are 
 all original? I have lately read a treatise written by an 
 Englishman, Mr. Hobbes; so loyal a man that, while others 
 tell you kings are appointed by God, he tells you God is 
 appointed by kings. 
 
 * This happened, 
 
 oe ee —— 
 
LA FONTAINE. 221 
 
 Rochefoucault, Ah! such are precisely the men we want. 
 If he establishes this verity, the rest will follow. 
 
 La Fontaine. He does not seem to care so much about 
 the rest. In his treatise I find the ground-plan of your 
 chief positions. 
 
 Rochefoucault. 1 have indeed looked over his publication ; 
 and we agree on the natural depravity of man. 
 
 La Fontaine. Reconsider your expression. It appears to 
 me that what is natural is not depraved: that depravity is 
 deflection from nature. Let it pass: I can not, however, 
 concede to you that the generality of men are naturally 
 bad. Badness is accidental, like disease. We find more 
 tempers good than bad, where proper care is taken in 
 proper time. 
 
 Rochefoucault, Care is not nature. 
 
 La Fontaine. Nature is soon inoperative without it; so 
 soon indeed as to allow no opportunity for experiment or 
 hypothesis. Life itself requires care, and more continually 
 than tempers and morals do. The strongest body ceases to 
 be a body in a few days without a supply of food. | When 
 we speak of men being naturally bad or good, we mean 
 susceptible and retentive and communicative of them. In 
 this case (and there can be no other true or ostensible one) 
 I believe that the more are good ; and nearly in the same 
 proportion as there are animals and plants produced 
 healthy and vigorous than wayward and weakly. Strange 
 is the opinion of Mr. Hobbes, that, when God hath poured 
 so abundantly his benefits on other creatures, the only one 
 capable of great good should be uniformly disposed to 
 greater evil. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Yet Holy Writ, to which Hobbes would 
 reluctantly appeal, countenances the supposition. 
 
 La Fontaine. The Jews, above all nations, were morose 
 and splenetic. Nothing is holy to me that lessens in my 
 view the beneficence of my Creator. If you could show 
 him ungentle and unkind ina single instance, you would 
 render myriads of men so, throughout the whole course of 
 their lives, and those too among the most religious. The 
 
222 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 less that people talk about God, the better. He has left us 
 a design to fill up: he has placed the canvas, the colours, 
 and the pencils, within reach ; his directing hand is over 
 ours incessantly ; it is our business to follow it, and neither 
 to turn round and argue with our master, nor to kiss and 
 fondle him. We must mind our lesson, and not neglect 
 our time: for the room is closed early, and the lights are 
 suspended in another, where no one works. If every man 
 would do all the good he might within an hour’s walk from 
 his house, he would live the happier and the longer: for 
 nothing is so conducive to longevity as the union of 
 activity and content. But, like children, we deviate from 
 the road, however well we know it, and run into mire and 
 puddles in despite of frown and ferule. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Go on, M. la Fontaine! pray goon. We 
 are walking in the same labyrinth, always within call, always 
 within sight of each other. We set out at its two 
 extremities, and shall meet at last. 
 
 La Fontaine. 1 doubt it. From deficiency of care 
 proceed many vices, both in men and children, and more 
 still from care taken improperly. M. Hobbes attributes 
 not only the order and peace of society, but equity and 
 moderation and every other virtue, to the coercion and 
 restriction of the laws. The laws, as now constituted, doa 
 great deal of good; they also doa great deal of mischief. 
 They transfer more property from the right owner in six 
 months than all the thieves of the kingdom do in twelve. 
 What the thieves take they soon disseminate abroad again ; 
 what the laws take they hoard. The thief takes a part of 
 your property: he who prosecutes the thief for you takes 
 another part: he who condemns the thief goes to the tax- 
 gatherer and takes the third. Power has been hitherto 
 occupied in no employment but in keeping down Wisdom. 
 Perhaps the time may come when Wisdom shall exert her 
 energy in repressing the sallies of Power. 
 
 Rochefoucault, I think it more probable that they will 
 agree; that they will call together their servants of all 
 liveries, to collect what they can lay their hands upon ; and 
 
LA FONTAINE. 223 
 
 that meanwhile they will sit together like good housewives, 
 making nets from our purses to cover the coop for us. If 
 you would be plump and in feather, pick up your millet and 
 be quiet in your darkness. Speculate on nothing here 
 below, and I promise you a nosegay in Paradise. 
 
 La Fontaine. Believe me, I shall be most happy to 
 receive it there at your hands, my lord duke. 
 
 The greater number of men, I am inclined to think, with 
 all the defects of education, all the frauds committed on 
 their credulity, all the advantages taken of their ignorance 
 and supineness, are disposed, on most occasions, rather to 
 virtue than to vice, rather to the kindly affections than the 
 unkindly, rather to the social than the selfish. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Here we differ: and were my opinion the 
 same as yours, my book would be little read and less 
 commended. 
 
 La Fontaine. Why think so P 
 
 Rochefoucault. For this reason. Every man likes to hear 
 evil of all men: every man is delighted to take the air of 
 the common, though not a soul will consent to stand within 
 his own allotment. No inclosure-act! no finger-posts ! 
 You may call every creature under heaven fool and rogue, 
 and your auditor will join with you heartily: hint to him 
 the slightest of his own defects or foibles, and he draws the 
 rapier. You and he are the judges of the world, but not 
 its denizens. 
 
 La Fontaine. Mr. Hobbes has taken advantage of these 
 weaknesses. In his dissertation he betrays the timidity and 
 malice of his character. It must be granted he reasons 
 well, according to the view he has taken of things ; but he 
 has given no proof whatever that his view is a correct one. 
 I will believe that it is, when I am persuaded that sickness 
 is the natural state of the body, and health the unnatural. 
 If you call him a sound philosopher, you may call a 
 mummy a sound man. Its darkness, its hardness, its 
 forced uprightness, and the place in which you find it, may 
 commend it to you; give me rather some weakness and 
 peccability, with vital warmth and human sympathies. A 
 
224 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 shrewd reasoner is one thing, a sound philosopher is — 
 another. I admire your power and precision. Monks will 
 admonish us how little the author of the M/axims knows 
 of the world; and heads of colleges will cry out “a libel 
 on human nature!” but when they hear your titles, and, 
 above all, your credit at court, they will cast back cowl, 
 and peruke, and lick your boots. You start with great 
 advantages. ‘Throwing off from a dukedom, you are sure 
 of enjoying, if not the tongue of these puzzlers, the full cry 
 of the more animating, and will certainly be as long-lived as 
 the imperfection of our language will allow. I consider 
 your Maxims as a broken ridge of hills, on the shady side 
 of which you are fondest of taking your exercise: but the 
 same ridge hath alsoa sunny one. You attribute (let me 
 say it again) all actions to self-interest. Now, a sentiment 
 of interest must be preceded by calculation, long or brief, 
 right or erroneous. Tell me then in what region lies the 
 origin of that pleasure which a family in the country feels 
 on the arrival of an unexpected friend. I say a family in 
 the country ; because the sweetest souls, like the sweetest 
 flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there 
 than the purity of delight. If I may judge from the few 
 examples I have been ina position to see, no earthly one 
 can be greater. There are pleasures which lie near the 
 surface, and which are blocked up by artificial ones, or are 
 diverted by some mechanical scheme, or are confined by 
 some stiff evergreen vista of low advantage. But these 
 pleasures do occasionally burst forth in all their brightness ; 
 and, if ever you shall by chance find one of them, you will 
 sit by it, I hope, complacently and cheerfully, and turn 
 toward it the kindliest aspect of your meditations. 
 Rochefoucault, Many, indeed most people, will differ from 
 me. Nothing is quite the same to the intellect of any two 
 men, much less of all. When one says to another, “I am 
 entirely of your opinion,” he uses in general an easy and 
 indifferent phrase, belicving in its accuracy, without exami- 
 nation, without thought. The nearest resemblance in 
 opinions, if we could trace every line of it, would be found 
 
: LA FONTAINE. 225 
 greatly more divergent than the nearest in the human form 
 or countenance, and in the same proportion as the varieties 
 of mental qualities are more numerous and fine than of the 
 bodily. Hence I do not expect nor wish that my opinions 
 should in all cases be similar to those of others: but in 
 many I shall be gratified if, by just degrees and after a long 
 survey, those of others approximate to mine. Nor does 
 this my sentiment spring from a love of power, as in many 
 good men quite unconsciously, when they would make 
 proselytes, since I shall see few and converse with fewer of 
 them, and profit in no way by their adherence and favour ; 
 but it springs from a natural and a cultivated love of all 
 truths whatever, and from a certainty that these delivered 
 by me are conducive to the happiness and dignity of man. 
 You shake your head. 
 
 La Fontaine. Make it out. 
 
 Rochefoucault, {have pointed out to him at what passes 
 he hath deviated from his true interest, and where he hath 
 mistaken selfishness for generosity, coldness for judgment, 
 contraction of heart for policy, rank for merit, pomp for 
 dignity ; of all mistakes, the commonest and the greatest. 
 I am accused of paradox and distortion. On paradox I 
 shall only say, that every new moral truth has been called 
 so. Inexperienced and negligent observers see no differ- 
 ence in the operations of ravelling and unravelling: they 
 never come close enough: they despise plain work. 
 
 La Fontaine. The more we simplify things, the better we 
 descry their substances and qualities. A good writer will 
 not coil them up and press them into the narrowest possible 
 space, nor macerate them into such particles that nothing 
 shall be remaining of their natural contexture. You are 
 accused of this too, by such as have forgotten your title- 
 page, and who look for treatises where maxims only have 
 been promised. Some of them perhaps are spinning out 
 sermons and dissertations from the poorest paragraph in the 
 - volume. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Let them copy and write as they please ; 
 
 against or for, modestly or impudently. I have hitherto 
 608 
 
226 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 had no assailant who is not of too slender a make to be 
 detained an hour in the stocks he has unwarily put his foot 
 into. Ifyou hear of any, do not tell of them. On the 
 subjects of my remarks, had others thought as I do, my 
 labour would have been spared me. Iam ready to point 
 out the road where I know it, to whosoever wants it; but I 
 walk side by side with few or none. 
 
 La Fontaine. We usually like those roads which show 
 us the fronts of our friends’ houses and the pleasure-grounds 
 about them, and the smooth garden-walks, and the trim 
 espaliers, and look at them with more satisfaction than at 
 the docks and nettles that are thrown in heaps behind. 
 The Offices of Cicero are imperfect; yet who would not 
 rather guide his children by them than by the line and 
 compass of harder-handed guides; such as Hobbes for 
 instance P 
 
 Rochefoucault. Imperfect as some gentlemen in hoods 
 may call the Offices, no founder of a philosophical or of 
 a religious sect has been able to add to them anything 
 important. 
 
 La Fontaine. Pity! that Cicero carried with him no 
 better authorities than reason and humanity. He neither 
 could work miracles, nor damn you for disbelieving them. 
 Had he lived fourscore years later, who knows but he might 
 have been another Simon Peter, and have talked Hebrew as 
 fluently as Latin, all at once! Who knows but we might 
 have heard of his patrimony ! who knows but our venerable 
 popes might have claimed dominion from him, as descend- 
 ant from the kings of Rome! 
 
 Rochefoucault. The hint, some centuries ago, would have 
 made your fortune, and that saintly cat there would have 
 kittened in a mitre. 
 
 La Fontaine. Alas! the hint could have done nothing: 
 Cicero could not have lived later. 
 
 Rochefoucault. 1 warrant him. Nothing is easier to 
 correct than chronology. There is not a lady in Paris, nor 
 a jockey in Normandy, that is not eligible to a professor’s 
 chair in it. I have seen a man’s ancestor, whom nobody 
 
 
 
LA FONTAINE. 227 
 
 ever saw before, spring back over twenty generations. Our 
 Vatican Jupiters have as little respect for old Chronos as 
 the Cretan had: they mutilate him when and where they 
 think necessary, limp as he may by the operation. 
 
 La Fontaine. When I think, as you make me do, how 
 ambitious men are, even those whose teeth are too loose 
 (one would fancy) for a bite at so hard an apple as the devil 
 of ambition offers them, I am inclined to believe that we are 
 actuated not so much by selfishness as you represent it, but 
 under another form, the love of power. Not to speak 
 of territorial dominion or political office, and such other 
 things as we usually class under its appurtenances, do we 
 not desire an exclusive control over what is beautiful and 
 lovely? the possession of pleasant fields, of well-situated 
 houses, of cabinets, of images, of pictures, and indeed of 
 many things pleasant to see but useless to possess ; even of 
 rocks, of streams, and of fountains? ‘These things, you will 
 tell me, have their utility. True, but not to the wisher, 
 nor does the idea of it enter his mind. Do not we wish 
 that the object of our love should be devoted to us only ; 
 and that our children should love us better than their 
 brothers and sisters, or even than the mother who bore 
 them? Love would be arrayed in the purple robe of 
 sovranty, mildly as he may resolve to exercise his power. 
 
 Rochefoucault, Many things which appear to be incon- 
 trovertible are such for their age only, and must yield 
 to others which, in their age, are equally so. There are 
 only a few points that are always above the waves. Plain 
 truths, like plain dishes, are commended by everybody, and 
 everybody leaves them whole. If it were not even more 
 impertinent and presumptuous to praise a great writer in 
 his presence than to censure him in his absence, I would 
 venture to say that your prose, from the few specimens you 
 have given of it, is equal to your verse. Yet, even were 
 I the possessor of such a style as yours, I would never 
 employ it to support my JZaxims. You would think a 
 writer very impudent and self-sufficient who should quote 
 his own works : to defend them is doing more. We are the 
 
228 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 
 
 
 worst auxiliaries in the world to the opinions we have 
 brought into the field. Our business is, to measure the 
 ground, and to calculate the forces ; then let them try their 
 strength. If the weak assails me, he thinks me weak ; if 
 the strong, he thinks me strong. He is more likely to 
 compute ill his own vigour than mine. At all events, I 
 love inquiry, even when [ myself sit down. And I am not 
 offended in my walks if my visitor asks me whither does 
 
 that alley lead. It proves that he is ready to go on with 
 
 me; that he sees some space before him; and that he 
 
 believes there may be something worth looking after. 
 
 La Fontaine. You have been standing a long tits my 
 lord duke : I must entreat you to be seated. 
 
 Rochefoucault, Excuse me, my dear M. la Fontaine ; -I 
 would much rather stand. 
 
 La Fontaine. Mercy on us! have you been upon your 
 legs ever since you rose to leave meP 
 
 Rochefoucault. A change of position is agreeable: a friend 
 always permits it. 
 
 La Fontaine. Sad doings! sad oversight! The other two 
 chairs were sent yesterday evening to be scoured and 
 mended. But that dog is the best-tempered dog! an 
 angel of a dog, I do assure you ; he would haye gone down 
 in a moment, ata word. I am quite ashamed of myself 
 for such inattention. With your sentiments of friendship 
 for me, why could you not have taken the liberty to shove 
 him gently off, rather than give me this uneasiness ? 
 
 Rochefoucault, My true and kind friend! we authors are 
 too sedentary ; we are heartily glad of standing to con- 
 verse, whenever we can do it without any restraint on our 
 acquaintance. 
 
 La Fontaine. I must reprove that animal when he 
 uncurls his body. He seems to be dreaming of Paradise 
 and Houris. Ay, twitch thy ear, my child! I wish at my 
 heart there were as troublesome a fly about the other: God 
 forgive me! The rogue covers all my clean linen! shirt 
 and cravat ! what cares he! 
 
 Rochefoucault. Dogs are not very modest. 
 
) 
 
 LA FONTAINE. 229 
 
 La Fontaine. Never say that, M. de la Rochefoucault ! 
 The most modest people upon earth! Look at a dog’s 
 eyes, and he half closes them, or gently turns them 
 away, with a motion of the lips, which he licks languidly, 
 and of the tail, which he stirs tremulously, begging your 
 forbearance. I am neither blind nor indifferent to the 
 defects of these good and generous creatures. They are 
 subject to many such as men are subject to: among the 
 rest, they disturb the neighbourhood in the discussion of 
 their private causes; they quarrel and fight on small 
 motives, such as a little bad food, or a little vain-glory, or 
 the sex. But it must be something present or near that 
 excites them ; and they calculate not the extent of evil they 
 may do or suffer. 
 
 Rochefoucault, Certainly not: how should dogs 
 calculate ? 
 
 La Fontaine. I know nothing of the process. I am 
 unable to inform you how they leap over hedges and 
 brooks, with exertion just sufficient, and no more. In 
 regard to honour and a sense of dignity, let me tell you, a 
 dog accepts the subsidies of his friends, but never 
 claims them: a dog would not take the field to obtain 
 power for ason, but would leave the son to obtain it by his 
 own activity and prowess. He conducts his visitor or 
 inmate out a-hunting, and makes a present of the game to 
 him as freely as an emperor to an elector. Fond as he 
 is of slumber, which is indeed one of the pleasantest and 
 best things in the universe, particularly after dinner, he 
 shakes it off as willingly as he would a gadfly, in order 
 to defend his master from theft or violence. Let the 
 robber or assailant speak as courteously as he may, he 
 waives your diplomatical terms, gives his reasons in plain 
 language, and makes war. I could say many other things 
 to his advantage; but I never was malicious, and would 
 rather let both parties plead for themselves ; give me the 
 dog, however. 
 
 Rochefoucault, Faith! I will give you both, and never 
 boast of my largess in so doing. 
 
230 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 La Fontaine. 1 trust I have removed from you the 
 suspicion of selfishness in my client, and I feel it quite as 
 easy to make a properer disposal of another ill attribute, 
 namely cruelty, which we vainly try to shuffle off our own 
 shoulders upon others, by employing the offensive and 
 most unjust term, brutality. But to convince you of my 
 impartiality, now I have defended the dog from the first 
 obloquy, I will defend the man from the last, hoping to 
 make you think better of each. What you attribute to 
 cruelty, both while we are children and afterward, may be — 
 assigned, for the greater part, to curiosity. Cruelty tends 
 to the extinction of life, the dissolution of matter, the 
 imprisonment and sepulture of truth ; and if it were our 
 ruling and chief propensity, the human race would have 
 been extinguished in a few centuries after its appearance. 
 Curiosity, in its primary sense, implies care and 
 consideration. 
 
 Rochefoucault, Words often deflect from their primary 
 sense. We find the most curious men the most idle and 
 silly, the least observant and conservative. 
 
 La fontaine. So we think ; because we see every hour 
 the idly curious, and not the strenuously ; we see only the 
 persons of the one set, and only the works of the other. 
 
 More is heard of cruelty than of curiosity, because while 
 curiosity is silent both in itself and about its object, cruelty 
 on most occasions is like the wind, boisterous in itself, and 
 exciting a murmur and bustle in all the things it moves 
 among. Added to which, many of the higher topics 
 whereto our curiosity would turn, are intercepted from it 
 by the policy of our guides and rulers ; while the principal 
 ones on which cruelty is most active, are pointed to by the 
 sceptre and the truncheon, and wealth and dignity are the 
 rewards of their attainment. What perversion! He who 
 brings a bullock into a city for its sustenance is called 
 a butcher, and nobody has the civility to take off the hat to 
 him, although knowing him as perfectly as I know 
 Matthieu le Mince, who served me with those fine kidneys 
 you must have remarked in passing through the kitchen: 
 
 
 
LA FONTAINE. 231 
 
 on the contrary, he who reduces the same city to 
 famine is styled M. le General or M. le Merechal, and 
 gentlemen like you, unprejudiced (as one would think) and 
 upright, make room for him in the antechamber. 
 
 Rochefoucault, He obeys orders without the degrading 
 influence of any passion. 
 
 La Fontaine. Then he commits a baseness the more, a 
 cruelty the greater. He goes off at another man’s setting, 
 as ingloriously as a rat-trap: he produces the worst effects 
 of fury, and feels none: a Cain unirritated by a brother’s 
 incense. 
 
 Rochefoucault. 1 would hide from you this little rapier, 
 which, like the barber’s pole, I have often thought too 
 obtrusive in the streets. 
 
 La Fontaine. Never shall I think my countrymen half 
 civilised while on the dress of a courtier is hung the 
 instrument of a cut-throat. How deplorably feeble must be 
 that honour which requires defending at every hour of the 
 day ! 
 
 Rochefoucault. Ingenious as you are, M. Fontaine, I do 
 not believe that, on this subject, you could add anything to 
 what you have spoken already ; but really, I do think one 
 of the most instructive things in the world would be a 
 dissertation on dress by you. 
 
 La Fontaine. Nothing can be devised more commodious 
 than the dress in fashion. Perukes have fallen among us 
 by the peculiar dispensation of Providence. As in all the 
 regions of the globe the indigenous have given way to 
 stronger creatures, so have they (partly at least) on the 
 human head. At present the wren and the squirrel are 
 dominant there. Whenever I have a mind for a filbert, I 
 have only to shake my foretop. Improvement does not 
 end in that quarter. I might forget to take my pinch of 
 snuff when it would do me good, unless I saw a store of it 
 on anothers cravat. Furthermore, the slit in the coat 
 behind tells in a moment what it was made for: a thing of 
 which, in regard to ourselves, the best preachers have to 
 remind us all our lives: then the central part of our 
 

 
 232 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 habiliment has either its loop-hole or its portcullis in the 
 opposite direction, still more demonstrative. All these are 
 for very mundane purposes: but Religion and Humanity 
 have whispered some later utilities. We pray the more 
 commodiously, and of course the more frequently, for 
 rolling up a royal ell of stocking round about our knees: 
 and our high-heeled shoes must surely have been worn by 
 some angel, to save those insects which the flat-footed would 
 have crushed to death. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Ah! the good dog has awakened: he saw 
 me and my rapier, and ran away. Of what breed is he? 
 for I know nothing of dogs. 
 
 La Fontaine. And write so well! 
 
 Rochefoucault. \s he a trufler ? 
 
 La Fontaine. No, not he ; but quite as innocent. 
 
 Rochefoucault. Something of the shepherd-dog, I 
 suspect. 
 
 La Fontaine. Nor that neither ; although he fain would 
 make you believe it. Indeed he is very like one: pointed 
 nose, pointed ears, apparently stiff, but readily yielding ; 
 long hair, particularly about the neck ; noble tail over his 
 back, three curls deep, exceedingly pleasant to stroke down 
 again ; straw-colour all above, white all below. He might 
 take it ill if you looked for it ; but so it is, upon my word : 
 an ermeline might envy it. 
 
 Rochefoucault, What are his pursuits ? 
 
 La Fontaine. As to pursuit and occupation, he is good 
 for nothing. In fact, I like those dogs best . . . and those 
 men too. 
 
 Rochefoucault, Send Nanon then for a pair of silk 
 stockings, and mount my carriage with me: it stops at the 
 Louvre. 
 
ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 Romilly. Indeed, sir, I can not but suspect that the 
 agitation of this question on the abolition of the slave-trade 
 is countenanced by Mr. Pitt chiefly to divert the attention 
 of the people from crying grievances nearer home. Our 
 paupers are increasing daily both in number and in 
 wretchedness ; our workhouses, our hospitals, and our jails 
 are crowded and overflowing ; our manufactories are almost 
 as stifling as slave-ships, and more immoral; apprentices, 
 milliners, dressmakers, work throughout the greater part of 
 the night, and, at last disabled by toil, take the sorrowful 
 refuge of the street. After so many have coldly repeated 
 that vice leads to misery, is there no generous man who 
 will proclaim aloud that misery leads to vice? We all see 
 it every day: we warn the wretched too late: we are afraid 
 of warning the affluent too soon: we are prodigal of 
 reproaches that make the crushed heart bleed afresh: we 
 think it indecorous to approach the obcdurate one, and 
 unsafe to touch it . . . barbarous and dastardly as we are. 
 
 Wilberforce. Postponing all these considerations, not 
 immediately applicable to the subject on which, Mr. 
 Romilly, I have taken the liberty to knock at your door, 
 I must assure you that my friend Mr. Pitt is not only the 
 most unbending and unchanging, but also the most sincere 
 man living. 
 
 Romilly. \t is happy when we can think so of any, 
 especially of one in power. 
 
 Wilberforce. Do you doubt it ? 
 
 Romilly. 1 never oppose, without reluctance, opinion to 
 sentiment ; or, when I can help it, a bad opinion to a good 
 one. 
 
234 ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE, 
 
 Wilberforce. O' if you knew him as I do! 
 
 Romilly. The thing is impossible. 
 
 Wilberforce. Why so? I should be proud to introduce 
 
 ou. 
 
 g Romilly. The pride would rest entirely apart from me, 
 It may be that coarse metals are less flexible than finer; — 
 certain it is that they do not well cohere. 
 
 Wilberforce. But on this occasion you invariably vote 
 together. 
 
 Romilly. In the House of Commons. 
 
 Wilberforce. It is there we must draw up our forces. 
 
 Romilly. Do you never doubt, however slightly, and only 
 on one occasion, the fidelity of your leader ? 
 
 Wilberforce. Leader! Mr. Romilly! leader! Humble 
 as I am, the humblest, indeed, of that august assembly, on 
 this question, on this alone, perhaps, yes, certainly on this 
 alone, I am acknowledged, universally acknowledged, I 
 know too well how unworthily, yet I do know, and God has 
 given me strength and grace to declare it before men, that 
 I, the weakest of his creatures, ¢heve am leader. It is I, a 
 band of withy, who bind giants: it is I who keep together 
 on this ground the two rival parties: it is I, a potter’s vessel, 
 who hold out across the Atlantic the cup of freedom and of 
 fellowship. 
 
 Romilly. Certainly you have seconded with admirable 
 zeal the indefatigable Clarkson. ‘Those who run with spirit 
 and celerity have no breath for words : the whole is expended 
 in action. 
 
 Wilberforce. Just so with me. However, I can spare a 
 speech of a few hours every session in expounding the vex- 
 ations and evils of slavery, and in showing how opposite it 
 is to Christianity. 
 
 fomilly. J am almost a believer in that doctrine. 
 
 Wilberforce. Almost ? 
 
 Romilly. I should be entirely, if many of the most ortho- 
 dox men in both Houses, including a great part of the 
 bishops, had been assenters. 
 
 Wilberforce. Are they not? 
 
ROMILLVY AND WILBERFORCE. 235 
 
 Romilly. Apparently no. Otherwise they would never 
 be absent when the question is discussed, nor would they 
 abstain from a petition to the Crown, that a practice so 
 dangerous to salvation, so certain to bring down a curse on 
 the country, be, with all expedient speed, abolished. 
 
 Wilberforce. It is unnecessary for me to defend the con- 
 duct of my Right Reverend friends; men of such piety as 
 no other country hath exhibited ; but permit me to remark, 
 Mr. Romilly, that you yourself betray a lukewarmness in the 
 cause, when you talk of expedient speed. Expedient, 
 indeed! Gracious Jesu! Ought such a crime to be toler- 
 ated for one hour? Are there no lightnings in heaven. . . 
 
 Romilly. Probably there are: there were last summer. 
 But I would rather see them purifying the air than scorch- 
 ing the earth before me. My good Mr. Wilberforce! 
 abstain, I beseech you, from a species of eloquence in 
 which Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Pitt excel you, especially 
 when it is late in the evening: at that season such men are 
 usually the most pious. The lightnings of heaven fall as 
 frequently on granaries as on slave-ships. It is better at all 
 times to abstain from expostulating with God; and more 
 especially on the righteousness of his judgments and the 
 delay of his vengeance. 
 
 Wilberforce. Mr. Romilly! Mr. Romilly! the royal 
 psalmist 
 
 Romilly. Was too often like other royal personages, and, 
 with much power of doing evil, was desirous of much more. 
 Whenever we are conscious of such propensities, it would 
 be wiser and more religious to implore of God to pardon 
 than to promote them. 
 
 Wilberforce. We must bow to authority in all things. 
 
 Romilly. So we hear: but we may be so much in the 
 habit of bowing as at last to be unable to stand upright. 
 Before we begin at all, it is useful to inquire what is 
 authority. We are accustomed to mistake place and power 
 for it. Now the Devil, on this earth at least, possesess as 
 much power as the Deity, and more place. Unless he did, 
 we tell a manifest lie in every prayer and supplication. For 
 
 
 
236 ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 we declare that we are, and always have been, miserable 
 sinners, and that there is no truth in us. 
 
 Wilberforce. Ah, my dear sir! you are no theologian, I 
 see. Some of us, by the blessing of God, are under grace ; 
 and, once under grace, we are safe. But it is not on this 
 business I visit you. Here we may differ; but on the 
 Abolition we think alike. 
 
 Romilly. Tam not quite sure of that. 
 
 Wilverforce. Indeed! Then, pray, my dear sir, correct 
 your judgment. 
 
 Romilly. | have been doing it, to the best of my ability, 
 all my life. 
 
 Wilberforce. If you had only clung to the Cross, you would 
 have been sure and steadfast from your very childhood. 
 
 Romilly. Alas! I see but one cross remaining on earth, 
 and it is that of the unrepentant thief. What thousands of 
 the most venomous wasps and hornets swarm about it, and 
 fight for its putrescencies! The blessed one was pulled 
 down long ago, indeed soon after its erection, in the scuffle 
 of those who would sell the splinters. Great fortunes are 
 daily made by it, and it maintains as many clerks and 
 treasurers as the South Sea. The money-changers in the 
 Temple of old did at least give change: ours bag the 
 money, and say cad/ to-morrow. 
 
 Wilberforce. Unholy as the gains may be, we must not 
 meddle with vested rights and ancient institutions. 
 
 Romilly. Then, worthy Mr. Wilberforce, let slavery con- 
 tinue ; for certainly no institution is more ancient. In this 
 also am I to correct my judgment ? 
 
 Wilberforce. The fact is too true. You were erroneous 
 there only where you differed from me on that subject, 
 which I had examined attentively and minutely. 
 
 Lomilly. Namely, the Abolition. 
 
 Wilberforce. Exactly so. 
 
 Romilly. The clearers of ground in the forests of America 
 clear first the places round about the homestead. On this 
 principle I would begin to emancipate and enlighten the 
 suffering labourers in my own vicinity. Look at the 
 
 
 
ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 237 
 
 draught-horses now passing under the window. The first 
 quarter of their lives was given to their growth: plentiful 
 food came before painful service. They are ignorant of 
 our vices, insensible of our affections: ease is all in all to 
 them; and while they want it most, and while it is most 
 profitable or promissory to the master, they enjoy it. 
 
 Wilberforce. Ve then put blinkers before their eyes, that 
 nothing may make them swerve on the road. Here is 
 another act of humanity. 
 
 Romilly. Tf you attempt to put blinkers before the intel- 
 lectual eye, you only increase its obliquity. Give as much 
 clear-sightedness as possible, give reasonable leisure, or you 
 never will conciliate affection to your institutions. Inflict 
 on men the labour and privations of brutes, and you 
 impress on them the brutal character: render them ration- 
 ally happy, and they are already on the highway to heaven. 
 No man rationally happy will barter the possession he enjoys 
 for the most brilliant theory: but the unhappy will dream 
 of daggers until he clutches them. If your friend Mr. Pitt 
 wishes to retard the revolutionary movement, he will not 
 attempt to put the fetter on the white man while you are 
 taking it off the black: he will not bring forward a flogged 
 soldiery to confront an enthusiastical one: he will not dis- 
 play to the vigorous sons of starving yeomen the sight of 
 twenty farm-houses rising up from the ruins of one chéfeau. 
 Peace is easier to retain than to recall. 
 
 Wilberforce. Well, Mr. Romilly! we are departing a little 
 from the object of my visit : and, if we continue to digress, 
 Iam afraid you may not be so entirely at leisure to hear 
 me repeat the speech I have prepared on the Abolition. 
 Your room appears to be well adapted to my voice. 
 
 Romilly, Already I have had the benefit of your observa- 
 tions the three last sessions. 
 
 Wilberforce. You will hear me again, I confidently hope, 
 with the same pleasure in a very crowded House. 
 
 Romilly. You represent a Riding in the county of York. 
 
 Wilberforce. I have that honour. 
 
 Romilly. To represent a county is not in itself an honour, 
 
238 ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 but it offers opportunities of earning many. Inform your 
 constituents that the slavery in the West Indies is less cruel 
 and pernicious than the slavery in their own parishes : that 
 the condition of the Black is better on the whole than the 
 condition of the pauper in England, and that his children 
 are incomparably more comfortable and happy. 
 
 Wilberforce. Lord of mercy! do I hear this from a 
 philanthropist ? 
 
 Romilly, I venture to assert, you do, however deficient I 
 may be in the means of showing it. You might, in any 
 Session of Parliament, obtain a majority of votes in favour 
 of a bill to diminish the hours of a child’s labour in 
 factories. Every country gentleman, every peer, would 
 vote that none under his eighth year should be incarcerated 
 in these pesthouses. 
 
 Wilberforce. O Sir! is such a word applicable ? 
 
 Romilly. Precisely: although a pesthouse is usually the 
 appellation of that building which excludes the malady and 
 receives the endangered. From eight years to twelve, I 
 would prohibit a longer daily work than of six hours, with 
 two hours between each three, for food and exercise. 
 After the twelfth year the sexes should not be confounded. 
 
 Wilberforce. The first regulation would create much 
 discontent among our wealthiest supporters; and even the 
 parents would object to them. 
 
 Romilly. Two signal and sorrowful truths! There are 
 also two additional. They who feel the least for others 
 feel the most for themselves: and the parents who waste 
 away their own strength in gin-shops are ready to waste 
 their children’s in factories. If our inconsiderate war and 
 our prodigal expenditure permitted the exercise of policy, 
 we should bethink ourselves that manly hearts and sound 
 bodies are the support of states, not creaking looms nor 
 over-pressed cotton-bags in human shape. We have no 
 right to break down the sinews of the rising generation: 
 we have no right to devote the children of the poor 
 either to Belial or to Moloch. I do care about the Blacks ; 
 I do care greatly and anxiously about them; but I would 
 
 
 
ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 239 
 
 rather that slavery should exist for seven centuries longer 
 in the West Indies, than for seven years longer in Lan- 
 cashire and Yorkshire. If there be any sincerity in the 
 heart of Mr. Pitt, why does he not order his dependants in 
 both Houses (and nearly all are his dependants in both 
 alike) to vote for your motion ? 
 
 Wilberforce. He wishes us well: but he is aware that a 
 compensation must be made to the masters of the slaves; 
 and he has not money for it. 
 
 Romilly. Whose fault is that? He always has found 
 money enough for extending the miseries of other nations 
 and the corruption of his own. By his extravagance and 
 the excess of taxation he is leading to that catastrophe 
 which he avowed it was his object to prevent. 
 
 Wilberforce. God forbid! 
 
 Romilly. God has forbidden; but he does not mind 
 that. 
 
 Wilberforce. You force me to say, Mr. Romilly, what I 
 hope you will not think a personality. The French Revolu- 
 tion was brought about in great measure by the gentlemen 
 of your profession. 
 
 Romilly. The people were rendered so extremely poor by 
 the imposts, that there were few litigations in the courts of 
 law. Hence the lawyers, who starved others until now, 
 began to be starved in turn, and incited the people to 
 revolution, that there might be crime and change of 
 property, England has now taken the sins of the world 
 upon her, and pays for all. 
 
 Wilberforce. Awful expression! Let us return to the 
 Blacks. It is calculated that twenty millions are requisite 
 to indemnify the slave-holders. 
 
 Romilly. Do you wonder then that he is evasive ? 
 
 Wilberforce. 1 should wonder if a man of his integrity 
 were sO upon any occasion. But he has frankly told me 
 that he does not see clearly at what time the measure may 
 be expedient. 
 
 Romilly. Everything can be caculated, except the hour 
 for the abolition of injustice. It is not always in our power 
 
240 ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 
 
 to retrace our steps when we have committed it. Nay, | 
 sometimes is it requisite not only to go on with it, but even 
 to add fresh. We waged a most unnecessary, a most 
 impolitic, a most unjust war against France. Nothing else 
 could have united her people: nothing else could have 
 endangered or have interrupted our commerce. Having 
 taken the American islands from our enemy, we should 
 have exported from them the younger slaves into our own, 
 taking care that the number of females be proportional to 
 the number of males. We should have granted our pro- 
 tection to Brazil and Cuba, on condition that the traffic in 
 African slaves immediately cease, and that everyone 
 belonging to Spaniard or Portuguese, who had served 
 fourteen years, should be free. Unhappily we ourselves 
 can do little more at present for our own, without a grievous 
 injustice to a large body of our fellow-subjects. We can 
 however place adequate power in the hands of the civil and 
 military governors, authorising them to grant any slave his 
 freedom who shall be proved to have been cruelly treated 
 by his master. What a curse is it upon us, that at present 
 we neither can make peace nor abolish slavery! We can 
 decree, and we ought instantly, that the importation and 
 sale of slaves do cease at this very hour throughout the 
 world. We can decree, and we ought instantly, that 
 husband and wife be united, and separated no more. We 
 can decree, and ought instantly, that children from seven to 
 ten years of age be instructed one hour daily. But, as 
 things are now constituted, I think I have no right to 
 deprive a proprietor of his property, unless he has forfeited 
 it by a violation of law. To repay me for my protection, 
 and for granting him a monopoly during the war, I would 
 stipulate with him, that whoever had served him fourteen 
 years should be emancipated. He should also be obliged 
 to maintain as many females as males, or nearly, and to 
 set apart a plot of ground for every emancipated slave, 
 enough for his support, on lease for life, at such a rent as 
 those deputed by the governor may think reasonable. The 
 proposition of granting twenty, or ten, or five millions to 
 
ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 241 
 
 carry into execution the abolition of slavery, by way of . 
 indemnity to the slave-holders, is absurd. Abolish all 
 duties of importation and exportation; that will be 
 sufficient. The abolition of the slave-trade is greatly more 
 important than the abolition of slavery in our islands. The 
 traffic can be terminated at once; the servitude but 
 gradually. It is in politics as in diet. They who have 
 committed excesses can not become quite temperate at 
 the first perception of their perilous situation. ‘The conse- 
 quences of a sudden change might be fatal. 
 
 Wilberforce. Religion teaches us that we should consent 
 to no truce with Sin. 
 
 Romilly. We should enter into no engagements with her: 
 but the union is easier than the divorce. There are 
 materials which, being warped, are not to be set right 
 again by a stroke of the hammer, but by temperance and 
 time. Our system of slavery is in this condition. We have 
 done wrong with impunity; we can not with impunity do 
 right. We wound the state in stripping the individual. 
 
 Wilberforce. 1 would not strip him ; I would grant him a 
 fair and full indemnity. 
 
 Romilly. What! when all your property is mortgaged ? 
 When you are without a hope of redeeming it, and can 
 hardly find wherewithal to pay the interest? If ever you 
 attempt the undertaking, it can be only at the peace. 
 
 Wilberforce. I am sorry to find you so despondent. 
 
 Romilly, 1 am more despondent than I have yet appeared 
 to be. 
 
 Wilberforce. With what reason ? 
 
 Romilly. Hostilities having ceased, the people will be 
 clamorous for the removal of many taxes; and some of the 
 most productive will be remitted the first. In my opinion, 
 unwise as was the war, and entered into for the gratification 
 of an old madman, who never knew the difference between 
 a battle and a review, and who chuckled at the idea of his 
 subjects being peppered when they were shot; a war con- 
 ducted by grasping men, outrageous at the extortion of 
 their compliance, and at the alternative that either their 
 
 609 
 
242 ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE, 
 
 places or their principles must be surrendered ; we never- 
 theless ought to discharge the debt we contracted, and not 
 to leave the burden for our children. If our affairs are as 
 ill-conducted in peace as they are in war, it is greatly to be 
 feared that we may injure the colonist more than we benefit 
 the slave. We may even carry our imprudence so far as to 
 restore to our enemies the lands we have conquered from 
 them, cultivated by blacks. 
 
 Wilberforce. Impossible. Mr. Pitt has declared that 
 peace is never to be signed without indemnity for the 
 past, and security for the future. These are his very words. 
 
 Romilly. Not as a politician, but as an arithmetician, he 
 knew when he uttered these words that they never could be 
 accomplished. War is alike the parent and the child of 
 evil. It would surpass your ingenuity, or Mr. Pitt’s, to 
 discover any whatsoever which does not arise from war, or 
 follow war, or romp and revel in the midst of war. It 
 begins in pride and malice, it continues in cruelty and 
 rapine, it terminates in poverty and oppression. Our 
 bishops, who pray for success in it, are much bolder men 
 than our soldiers who engage in it bayonet to bayonet. For 
 the soldier fights only against man, and under the command 
 of man: the bishop fights against the command of God, 
 and against God himself. Every hand lifted up in prayer 
 for homicide, strikes him in the face. 
 
 Wilberforce. Mr. Romilly! I entertain a due respect for 
 you, as being eminent in your profession, a member of 
 Parliament, a virtuous and (I hope) a religious man: you 
 would however rise higher in my estimation if you rever- 
 enced your superiors. 
 
 Romilly, It must be a man immeasurably above me, both 
 in virtue and intellect, whom, knowing my own deficiency, 
 I could reverence. Seldom is it that I quote a verse or a 
 sentiment, but there is in a poet, not very original, a thought 
 so original that nobody seems ever to have applied it to 
 himself or others :— 
 
 “* Below the good how far! how far above the great |” 
 
 
 
ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 243 
 
 Wilberforce. There is only one half of it I would hear 
 willingly. When men begin to think themselves above the 
 great, social order is wofully deranged. I deplore the 
 absence of that self-abasement on which is laid the founda- 
 tion of all Christian virtues. 
 
 Romilly, Unless we respect ourselves, our respect for 
 superiors is prone to servility. No man can be thrown by 
 another from such a height as he can throw himself from. 
 I never have observed that a tendency toward the powerful 
 was a sufficient check to spiritual pride: and extremely few 
 have I known, or heard of, who, tossing up their nostrils into 
 the air and giving tongue that they have hit upon the trail 
 to heaven, could distinguish humility from baseness. 
 Mostly they dirty those they fawn on, and get kicked 
 before they get fed. 
 
 Wilberforce. Christianity makes allowances for human 
 infirmity. 
 
 Romilly. Christianity, as now practised by the highest 
 of its professors, makes more infirmities than allowances. 
 Can we believe in ¢heir belief who wallow in wealth and 
 war? in theirs who vote subsidies for slaughter ? who speed 
 the slave-ship with their prayers? who bind and lacerate 
 and stifle the helpless wretches they call men and brethren ? 
 
 Wilberforce. Parliamentary steps must be taken before 
 you can expect to mitigate the curses of war and slavery. 
 
 Romilly. By whom first should the steps be taken? 
 Persuade the bishops, if you can, to raise their voices for 
 the double abolition. Let them at least unite and join you 
 in that which, apparently, you have most at heart. In 
 order to effect it gradually, I am ready to subscribe my 
 name to any society, of which the main object shall be the 
 conversion of our spiritual lords to Christianity. The 
 waters of Jordan, which were formerly used for bleaching, 
 serve at present no other purpose than the setting of scarlet 
 and purple. 
 
 Wilberforce. There is danger in touching the altar. We 
 may overturn the table and bruise the chalice in attempting 
 any restoration of the structure. 
 
244 ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 Romilly. Christianity is a plant which grows well from 
 seed, but ill from cuttings: they who have grafted it on a 
 wilding have sometimes succeeded ; never they who (as we 
 have) inoculated it on one cracked in the stem and oozing 
 over with foul luxuriance. I do not deny that families and 
 small communities have profited by secession from more 
 corrupt religions: but as soon as ever cities and provinces 
 have embraced the purer creed, ambitious men have 
 always been ready to materialise the word of God and 
 to raise houses and estates upon it. 
 
 Wilberforce. The prosperity of the labourers in Christ’s 
 vineyard has excited the envy of the ill-disposed. 
 
 Romilly. What prosperity? Success in improving it? 
 
 Wilberforce. No, indeed, but their honest earnings. 
 
 Romilly. Did the master pay such earnings to those 
 whose work was harder? or did he command, or will, that 
 such should be paid on any future day ? 
 
 Wilberforce. 1 am sorry, Mr. Romilly, that you question 
 and quibble (pardon me the expression) just like those 
 unhappy men, miscalled philosophers, who have brought 
 down the vengeance of Heaven on France, Voltaire at the 
 head of them. 
 
 Romilly. No, indeed; I never have sunned myself on the 
 trim and short grass bordered by the papered pinks and 
 powdered ranunculuses of Voltaire. His pertness is 
 amusing; but I thought it pleasanter to bathe in the 
 deep wisdom of wit running up to its banks through the 
 romantic scenery of Cervantes. 
 
 Wilberforce. Little better than infidelity. 
 
 Romilly. But not, as infidelity generally is, sterile and 
 flimsy. Christians themselves are all infidels in the sight 
 of some other Christians ; and they who come nearest to 
 them are the most obnoxious. Strange interpretation of 
 “Love your neighbour!” If there are grades of belief, 
 there must also be grades of unbelief. The worst of 
 unbelief is that which regrets the goodness of our heavenly 
 Father, and from which there springs in us a desire of 
 breaking what we cannot bend, and of twisting wire after 
 
ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 245 
 
 wire and tying knot after knot in his scourge. Christianity, 
 as I understand it, lies not in belief but in action. That 
 servant is a good servant who obeys the just orders of his 
 master ; not he who repeats his words, measures his stature, 
 or traces his pedigree! On all occasions it is well to be a 
 little more than tolerant ; especially when a wiser and better 
 man than ourselves thinks differently from us. Religious 
 minds will find an additional reason for their humility, when 
 they observe such excellent men as Borromeo and Fénelon 
 adhering to the religion they were born in, amidst the 
 discussions and commotions of every land around. 
 
 Wilberforce. My opinion is, that religion should be mixed 
 up in all our institutions, and that it not only should be a 
 part, but the main part of the state. 
 
 Romilly. I am unwilling to obtrude my sentiments on 
 this question, and even to answer any. For I always have 
 observed that the most religious men become the most 
 impatient in the course of discussion, calling their opponents 
 weak wavering sceptics, or obstinate reckless unbelievers. 
 But since the constitution of our country is involved in it, 
 together with its present defects and future meliorations, I. 
 must declare to you my conviction that even the best 
 government and the best religion should be kept apart in 
 their ministries. 
 
 In building a house, brick and lime are ingredients. Let 
 the brick be imbedded in the lime reduced to mortar: but 
 if you mix it in the composition of the brick, it swells and 
 cracks and falls to pieces in the kiln. 
 
 Wilberforce. That is no argument. 
 
 Romilly.* Arguments cease to be arguments the moment 
 
 * Parliament has been proved in our times, and indeed in most 
 others, a slippery foundation for names, although a commodious one for 
 fortunes. But Romilly went into public life with temperate and healthy 
 aspirations. Providence, having blessed him with domestic peace, 
 withheld him from political animosities. He knew that the sweetest 
 {fruits grow nearest the ground, and he waited for the higher to fall into 
 his bosom, without an effort or a wish to seize on them. No man 
 whosoever in our Parliamentary history has united in more perfect 
 accordance and constancy pure virtue and lofty wisdom. 
 
246 ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 they come home. But this, I acknowledge, is only an 
 illustration. ‘To detain you no longer, Mr. Wilberforce, I 
 give you my promise I will attend at the debate, and vote 
 with you. Neither of us can live long enough to see the 
 Africans secure from bondage, or from the violence of tribe 
 against tribe, and from the myriads of other calamities that 
 precede it. Europe is semi-barbarous at the present hour ; 
 and, even among the more civilised, one state is as sus- 
 picious of another as one Black is of another in the 
 belligerents of Senegal and Gambia. For many years to 
 come, no nation will unite with us in any work or project 
 for the furtherance of our mutual well-being: little then 
 can we expect that Honour, now totally lost sight of on the 
 Continent, will be recognised in a character so novel as the 
 Knight-errant of Humanity. 
 
 One more remark at parting; the only one by which in 
 this business I can hope to serve you materially. Permit 
 me to advise you, Mr. Wilberforce, to display as small a 
 portion of historical research as you possibly fe consist- 
 ently with your eloquence and enthusiasm. 
 
 Wilberforce. Why so, Mr. Romilly ? 
 
 Lomilly, Because it may counteract your benevolent 
 intentions. 
 
 Wilberforce. Nothing shall counteract them. 
 
 Romilly. Are you aware to which of our sovereigns we 
 must attribute the deadly curse of African slavery, inasmuch 
 as our country is concerned in it? 
 
 Wilberforce. Certainly to none of our justly revered kings 
 can so horrible a crime be imputed, although the royal 
 power, according to the limitations of our constitution, may 
 have been insufficient to repress it effectively. 
 
 Romilly. Queen Elizabeth equipped two vessels for her 
 own sole profit, in which two vessels, escorted by the fleet 
 under the command of Hawkins, were the first unhappy 
 Blacks inveigled from their shores by Englishmen, and 
 doomed to end their lives in servitude. Elizabeth was 
 avaricious and cruel; but a small segment of her heart had 
 a brief sunshine on it, darting obliquely. We are under a 
 
 
 
ROMILLY AND WILBERFORCE. 2477 
 
 king notoriously more avaricious ; one who passes without a 
 shudder the gibbets his sign-manual has garnished ; one 
 who sees on the fields of the most disastrous battles, battles 
 in which he ordered his people to fight his people, nothing 
 else to be regretted than the loss of horses and saddles, of 
 haversacks and jackets. If this insensate and insatiable man 
 ever hears that Queen Elizabeth was a slave-dealer, he will 
 assert the inalienable rights of the Crown, and swamp your 
 motion, 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 Timotheus. 1 am delighted, my cousin Lucian, to observe 
 how popular are become your Dialogues of the Dead. 
 Nothing can be so gratifying and satisfactory to a rightly 
 disposed mind, as the subversion of imposture by the force 
 of ridicule. It hath scattered the crowd of heathen gods as 
 if a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of them. Now, I 
 am confident you never would have assailed the false 
 religion, unless you were prepared for the reception of the 
 true. For it hath always been an indication of rashness 
 and precipitancy, to throw down an edifice before you have 
 collected materials for reconstruction. 
 
 Lucian. Of all metaphors and remarks, I believe this of 
 yours, my good cousin Timotheus, is the most trite, and 
 pardon me if I add, the most untrue. Surely we ought to 
 remove an error the instant we detect it, although it may be 
 out of our competence to state and establish what is right. 
 A lie should be exposed as soon as born: we are not to 
 wait until a healthier child is begotten. Whatever is evil in 
 any way should be abolished. The husbandman never 
 hesitates to eradicate weeds, or to burn them up, because he 
 may not happen at the time to carry a sack on his shoulder 
 with wheat or barley init. Even if no wheat or barley is to 
 be sown in future, the weeding and burning are in them- 
 selves beneficial, and something better will spring up. 
 
 Timotheus. That is not so certain. 
 
 Lucian. Doubt it as you may, at least you will allow that 
 the temporary absence of evil’is an advantage. 
 
 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 249 
 
 Timotheus. I think, O Lucian, you would reason much 
 better if you would come over to our belief. 
 
 Lucian. I was unaware that belief is an encourager and 
 guide to reason. 
 
 Timotheus. Depend upon it, there can be no stability of 
 truth, no elevation of genius, without an unwavering faith 
 in our holy mysteries. Babes and sucklings who are blest 
 with it, stand higher, intellectually as well as morally, than 
 stiff unbelievers and proud sceptics. 
 
 Lucian. 1 do not wonder that so many are firm holders of 
 this novel doctrine. It is pleasant to grow wise and 
 virtuous at so small an expenditure of thought or time. 
 This saying of yours is exactly what I heard spoken with 
 angry gravity not long ago. 
 
 Timotheus. Angry! no wonder! for it is impossible to 
 keep our patience when truths so incontrovertible are 
 assailed. What was your answer ? 
 
 Lucian. My answer was. If you talk in this manner, my 
 honest friend, you will excite a spirit of ridicule in the 
 gravest and most saturnine of men, who never had let a 
 laugh out of their breasts before. Lie to me, and welcome ; 
 but beware lest your own heart take you to task for it, 
 reminding you that both anger and falsehood are repre- 
 hended by all religions, yours included. 
 
 Timotheus. Lucian! Lucian! you have always been 
 called profane. 
 
 Lucian. For what? for having turned into ridicule the 
 gods whom you have turned out of house and home, and 
 are reducing to dust ? 
 
 Timotheus. Well; but you are equally ready to turn into 
 ridicule the true and holy. 
 
 Lucian, In other words, to turn myself into a fool. He 
 who brings ridicule to bear against Truth, finds in his hand 
 a blade without a hilt. The most sparkling and pomted 
 flame of wit flickers and expires against the incombustible 
 walls of her sanctuary. 
 
 Timotheus. Fine talking! Do you know, you have really 
 been called an atheist ? 
 

 
 250 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 Lucian. Yes, yes; I know it well. But, in fact, I believe 
 there are almost as few atheists in the world as there are 
 Christians, 
 
 Timotheus. How! as few? Most of Europe, most of 
 Asia, most of Africa, is Christian. 
 
 Lucian. Show me five men in each who obey the com- 
 mands of Christ, and I will show you five hundred in this 
 very city who observe the dictates of Pythagoras. Every 
 Pythagorean obeys his defunct philosopher; and almost 
 every Christian disobeys his living God. Where is there 
 one who practises the most important and the easiest of his 
 commands, to abstain from strife? Men easily and per- 
 petually find something new to quarrel about; but the 
 objects of affection are limited in number, and grow up 
 scantily and slowly. Even a small house is often too 
 spacious for them, and there is a vacant seat at the table. 
 Religious men themselves, when the Deity has bestowed 
 on them everything they prayed for, discover, as a peculiar 
 gift of Providence, some fault in the actions or opinions of 
 a neighbour, and run it down, crying and shouting after it, 
 with more alacrity and more clamour than boys would a 
 leveret or a squirrel in the playground. Are our years and 
 our intellects, and the word of God itself, given us for this, 
 O Timotheus ? 
 
 Timotheus. A certain latitude, a liberal construction . . . 
 
 Lucian. Ay, ay! ‘These “ liberal constructions” let loose 
 all the worst passions into those “certain latitudes.” The 
 priests themselves, who ought to be the poorest, are the 
 richest ; who ought to be the most obedient, are the most 
 refractory and rebellious. All trouble and all piety are 
 vicarious. ‘They send missionaries, at the cost of others, 
 into foreign lands, to teach observances which they super- 
 sede at home. I have ridiculed the puppets of all features, 
 all colours, all sizes, by which an impudent and audacious 
 set of impostors have been gaining an easy livelihood these 
 two thousand years. 
 
 Timotheus. Gently! gently! Ours have not been at it 
 yet two hundred. We abolish all idolatry. We know that 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUTS. 251 
 
 Jupiter was not the father of gods and men: we know that 
 Mars was not the Lord of Hosts: we know who is: we are 
 quite at ease upon that question. 
 
 Lucian. Are you so fanatical, my good Timotheus, as to 
 imagine that the Creator of the world cares a fig by what 
 appellation you adore him? whether you call him on one 
 occasion Jupiter, on another Apollo? I will not add Mars 
 or Lord of Hosts; for, wanting as I may be in piety, I am 
 not, and never was, so impious as to call the Maker the 
 Destroyer; to call him Lord of Hosts who, according to 
 your holiest of books, declared so lately and so plainly that 
 he permits no hosts at all; much less will he take the com- 
 mand of one against another, Would any man in his 
 senses go down into the cellar, and seize first an amphora 
 from the right, and then an amphora from the left, for the 
 pleasure of breaking them in pieces, and of letting out the 
 wine he had taken the trouble to put in? We are not 
 contented with attributing to the gods our own infirmities ; 
 we make them even more wayward, even more passionate, 
 even more exigent and more malignant: and then some of 
 us try to coax and cajole them, and others run away from 
 them outright. 
 
 Timotheus. No wonder: but only in regard to yours: and 
 even those are types. 
 
 Lucian. There are honest men who occupy their lives in 
 discovering types for all things. 
 
 Timotheus. Truly and rationally thou speakest now. 
 Honest men and wise men above their fellows are they, and 
 the greatest of all discoverers. There are many types above 
 thy reach, O Lucian! 
 
 Lucian. And one which my mind, and perhaps yours also, 
 can comprehend. ‘There is in Italy, I hear, on the border 
 of a quiet and beautiful lake,* a temple dedicated to Diana ; 
 the priests of which temple have murdered each his pre- 
 decessor for unrecorded ages. 
 
 Timotheus. What of that? They were idolaters. 
 
 * The lake of Nemi. 
 
252 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHETS. 
 
 Lucian. They made the type, however: take it home with 
 you, and hang it up in your temple. 
 
 Timotheus. Why! you seem to have forgotten on a 
 sudden that I am a Christian: you are talking of the 
 heathens. 
 
 Lucian. True! true! I am near upon eighty years of age, 
 and to my poor eyesight one thing looks very like another, 
 
 Timotheus. You are too indifferent. 
 
 Lucian. No indeed. I love those best who quarrel least, 
 and who bring into public use the most civility and good 
 humour. 
 
 Timotheus. Our holy religion inculcates this duty 
 especially. 
 
 Lucian. Such being the case, a pleasant story will not be 
 thrown away upon you. Xenophanes, my townsman of 
 Samosata, was resolved to buy a new horse: he had tried 
 him, and liked him well enough. I asked him why he wished 
 to dispose of his old one, knowing how sure-footed he was, 
 how easy in his paces, and how quiet in his pasture. 
 ‘Very true, O Lucian,” said he; “the horse is a clever 
 horse ; noble eye, beautiful figure, stately step; rather too 
 fond of neighing and of shuffling a little in the vicinity of a 
 mare; but tractable and good tempered.” “I would not 
 have parted with him then,” said I. ‘*The fact is,” 
 replied he, “my grandfather, whom I am about to visit, 
 likes no horses but what are Saturnised. ‘To-morrow I 
 begin my journey: come and see me set out.” I went at 
 the hour appointed. ‘The new purchase looked quiet and 
 demure; but Ze also pricked up his ears, and gave sundry 
 other tokens of equinity, when the more interesting part of 
 his fellow-creatures came near him. As the morning oats 
 began to operate, he grew more and more unruly, and 
 snapped at one friend of Xenophanes, and sidled against 
 another, and gave a kick at a third. “Allin play! all in 
 play!” said Xenophanes; ‘his nature is more of a lamb’s 
 than a horse’s.” However, these mute salutations being 
 over, away went Xenophanes. In the evening, when my 
 lamp had just been replenished for the commencement of 
 
 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 253 
 
 my studies, my friend came in striding as if he were still 
 across the saddle. “I am apprehensive, O Xenophanes,” 
 said I, ‘ your new acquisition has disappointed you.” ‘Not 
 in the least,” answered he. “Ido assure you, O Lucian! he 
 is the very horse I was looking out for.” On my requesting 
 him to be seated, he no more thought of doing so than if it 
 had been in the presence of the Persian king. I then 
 handed my lamp to him, telling him (as was true) it con- 
 tained all the oil I had in the house, and protesting I should 
 be happier to finish my Déa/ogue in the morning. He took 
 the lamp into my bedroom, and appeared to be much 
 refreshed on his return. Nevertheless, he treated his chair 
 with great delicacy and circumspection, and evidently was 
 afraid of breaking it by too sudden a descent. I did not 
 revert to the horse: but he went on of his own accord. “I 
 declare to you, O Lucian! it is impossible for me to be 
 mistaken in a palfrey. My new one is the only one in 
 Samosata that could carry me at one stretch to my grand 
 father’s.” “But ashe?” said I, timidly. ‘‘No; he has not 
 yet,” answered my friend. ‘‘ To-morrow, then, I am afraid, 
 we really must lose you.” ‘‘No,” said he; “the horse does 
 trot hard: but he is the better for that: I shall soon get 
 used to him.” In fine, my worthy friend deferred his visit 
 to his grandfather: his rides were neither long nor frequent : 
 he was ashamed to part with his purchase, boasted of him 
 everywhere, and, humane as he is by nature, could almost 
 have broken on the cross the quiet contented owner of old 
 Bucephalus. 
 
 Timotheus. Am I to understand by this, O cousin 
 Lucian, that I ought to be contented with the impurities of 
 paganism P 
 
 Lucian. Unless you are very unreasonable. A 
 moderate man finds plenty in it. 
 
 Timotheus. We abominate the Deities who patronise 
 them, and we hurl down the images of the monsters. 
 
 Lucian. Sweet cousin! be tenderer to my feelings. In 
 such a tempest as this, my spark of piety may be blown 
 out. Hold your hand cautiously before it, until I can find 
 
254 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUOS. 
 
 my way. Believe me, no Deities (out of their own houses) 
 patronise immorality ; none patronise unruly passions, least 
 of all the fierce and ferocious. In my opinion, you are 
 wrong in throwing down the images of those among them 
 who look on you benignly: the others I give up to your 
 discretion. But I think it impossible to stand habitually 
 in the presence of a sweet and open countenance, graven 
 or depicted, without in some degree partaking of the 
 character it expresses. Never tell any man that he can 
 derive no good, in his devotions, from this or from that ; 
 abolish neither hope nor gratitude. 
 
 Timotheus. God is offended at vain efforts to represent 
 him. 
 
 Lucian. No such thing, my dear Timotheus. If you 
 knew him at all, you would not talk of him so irreverently. 
 He is pleased, I am convinced, at every effort to resemble 
 him, at every wish to remind both ourselves and others of 
 his benefits. You can not think so often of him without 
 an effigy. 
 
 TZimotheus. What likeness is there in the perishable to 
 the unperishable ? 
 
 Lucian. I see no reason why there may not be a 
 similitude. All that the senses can comprehend may be 
 represented by any material; clay or fig-tree, bronze or 
 ivory, porphyry or gold. Indeed I have a faint remem- 
 brance that, according to your sacred volumes, man was 
 made by God after his own image. If so, man’s intellectual 
 powers are worthily exercised in attempting to collect all 
 that is beautiful, serene, and dignified, and to bring him 
 back to earth again by showing him the noblest of his 
 gifts, the work most like his own. Surely he can not hate 
 or abandon those who thus cherish his memory, and thus 
 implore his regard. Perishable and imperfect is everything 
 human: but in these very qualities I find the best reason 
 for striving to attain what is least so. Would not any 
 father be gratified by seeing his child attempt to delineate 
 his features? And would not the gratification be rather 
 increased than diminished by his incapacity? How long 
 
 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 255 
 
 shall the narrow mind of man stand between goodness and 
 omnipotence? Perhaps the effigy of your ancestor Isknos 
 is unlike him; whether it is or no, you can not tell; but 
 you keep it in your hall, and would be angry if anybody 
 broke it to pieces or defaced it. Be quite sure there are 
 many who think as much of their gods as you think of your 
 ancestor Isknos, and who see in their images as good a 
 likeness. Let men have their own way, especially their 
 way to the temples. It is easier to drive them out of one 
 road than into another. Our judicious and good-humoured 
 Trajan has found it necessary on many occasions to 
 chastise the law-breakers of your sect, indifferent as he 
 is what gods are worshipped, so long as their followers are 
 orderly and decorous. ‘The fiercest of the Dacians never 
 knocked off Jupiter’s beard, or broke an arm off Venus; 
 and the emperor will hardly tolerate in those who have 
 received a liberal education what he would punish in 
 barbarians. Do not wear out his patience: try rather to 
 imitate his equity, his equanimity, and forbearance. 
 
 Timotheus. I have been listening to you with much 
 attention, O Lucian! for I seldom have heard you speak 
 with such gravity. And yet, O cousin Lucian! I really 
 do find in you a sad deficiency of that wisdom which 
 alone is of any value. You talk of Trajan! what is 
 Trajan ? 
 
 Lucian. A beneficent citizen, an impartial judge, a 
 sagacious ruler; the comrade of every brave soldier, the 
 friend and associate of every man eminent in genius, 
 throughout his empire, the empire of the world. All arts, 
 all sciences, all philosophies, all religions, are protected by 
 him. Wherefore his name will flourish, when the proudest 
 of these have perished in the land of Egypt. Philosophies 
 and religions will strive, struggle, and suffocate one another. 
 Priesthoods, I know not how many, are quarrelling and 
 scuffling in the street at this instant, all calling on Trajan 
 to come and knock an antagonist on the head; and the 
 most peaceful of them, as it wishes to be thought, proclaim- 
 ing him an infidel for turning a deaf ear to its imprecations. 
 
4 
 
 Mankind was never so happy as under his guidance ; and 
 he has nothing now to do but to put down the battles 
 of the gods. If they must fight it out, he will insist on our 
 neutrality. 
 
 Timotheus. He has no authority and no influence over 
 us in matters of faith, A wise and upright man, whose 
 serious thoughts lead him forward to religion, will never 
 be turned aside from it by any worldly consideration or any 
 human force, 
 
 Lucian, True: but mankind is composed not entirely of 
 the upright and the wise. I suspect that we may find some, 
 here and there, who are rather too fond of novelties in the 
 furniture of temples ; and I have observed that new sects 
 are apt to warp, crack, and split, under the heat they 
 generate. Our homely old religion has run into fewer 
 quarrels, ever since the Centaurs and Lapiths (whose 
 controversy was on a subject quite comprehensible), than 
 yours has engendered in twenty years. 
 
 Timotheus. We shall obviate that inconvenience by 
 electing a supreme Pontiff to decide all differences. It has 
 been seriously thought about long ago; and latterly we 
 have been making out an ideal series down to the present 
 day, in order that our successors in the ministry may have 
 stepping-stones up to the fountain-head. At first the 
 disseminators of our doctrines were equal in their com- 
 mission ; we do not approve of this any longer, for reasons 
 of our own. 
 
 Lucian. You may shut, one after another, all our other 
 temples, but, I plainly see, you will never shut the temple 
 of Janus. The Roman empire will never lose its 
 pugnacious character while your sect exists. The only 
 danger is, lest the fever rage internally and consume the 
 vitals. If you sincerely wish your religion to be long-lived, 
 maintain in it the spirit of its constitution, and keep it 
 patient, humble, abstemious, domestic, and zealous only in 
 the services of humanity. Whenever the higher of your 
 priesthood shall attain the riches they are aiming at, the 
 people will envy their possessions and revolt from their 
 
 256 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 257 
 
 impostures. Do not let them seize upon the palace, and 
 shove their God again into the manger. 
 
 Timotheus. Lucian! Lucian !, I call this impiety. 
 
 Lucian. So do I, and shudder at its consequences. 
 Caverns which at first look inviting, the roof at the aperture 
 green with overhanging ferns and clinging mosses, then 
 glittering with native gems and with water as sparkling and 
 pellucid, freshening the air all around ; these caverns grow 
 darker and closer, until you find yourself among animals 
 that shun the daylight, adhering to the walls, hissing along 
 the bottom, flapping, screeching, gaping, glaring, making 
 you shrink at the sounds, and sicken at the smells, and 
 afraid to advance or retreat. 
 
 Timotheus. To what can this refer? Our caverns open 
 on verdure, and terminate in veins of gold. 
 
 Lucian. Veins of gold, my good Timotheus, such as your 
 excavations have opened and are opening, in the spirit 
 of avarice and ambition, will be washed (or as you would 
 say, purified) in streams of blood. Arrogance, intolerance, 
 resistance to authority and contempt of law, distinguish 
 your aspiring sectarians from the other subjects of the 
 empire. 
 
 Timotheus. Blindness hath often a calm and composed 
 countenance ; but, my cousin Lucian! it usually hath also 
 . the advantage of a cautious and a measured step. It hath 
 pleased God to blind you, like all the other adversaries of 
 our faith; but he has given you no staff to lean upon. 
 You object against us the very vices from which we are 
 peculiarly exempt. 
 
 Lucian. Then it is all a story, a fable, a fabrication, 
 about one of your earlier leaders cutting off with his sword 
 a servant’s ear? If the accusation is true, the offence is 
 heavy. For not only was the wounded man innocent of 
 any provocation, but he is represented as being in the 
 service of the High Priest at Jerusalem. Moreover, from 
 the direction and violence of the blow, it is evident that 
 his life was aimed at. According to law, you know, my 
 dear cousin, all the party might have been condemned 
 
 610 
 
258 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 to death, as accessaries to an attempt at murder. I am 
 unwilling to think so unfavourably of your sect ; nor indeed 
 do I see the possibility that, in such an outrage, the 
 principal could be pardoned. For any man but a soldier to 
 go about armed is against the Roman law, which, on that 
 head, as on many others, is borrowed from the Athenian ; 
 and it is incredible that in any civilised country so 
 barbarous a practice can be- tolerated. Travellers do 
 indeed relate that, in certain parts of India, there are 
 princes at whose courts even civilians are armed. But 
 traveller has occasionally the same signification as 4av, and 
 India as fable. However, if the practice really does exist 
 in that remote and rarely visited country, it must be in 
 some region of it very for beyond the Indus or the Ganges: 
 for the nations situated between those rivers are, and were 
 in the reign of Alexander, and some thousand years before 
 his birth, as civilised as the Europeans ; nay, incomparably 
 more courteous, more industrious, and more pacific; the 
 three grand criterions. 
 
 But answer my question: is there any foundation for 
 so mischievous a report P 
 
 Timotheus. There was indeed, so to say, an ear, or some- 
 thing of the kind, abscinded ; probably by mistake. But 
 High Priests’ servants are propense to follow the swagger- 
 ing gait of their masters, and to carry things with a high | 
 hand, in such wise as to excite the choler of the most quiet. 
 If you knew the character of the eminently holy man who 
 punished the atrocious insolence of that bloody-minded 
 wretch, you would be sparing of your animadversions. We 
 take him for our model. 
 
 Lnctan. 1 see you do. 
 
 Timotheus. We proclaim him Prince of the Apostles. 
 
 Lucian. | am the last in the world to question his 
 princely qualifications ; but, if I might advise you, it should 
 be to follow in preference him whom you acknowledge to be 
 an unerring guide ; who delivered to you his ordinances with 
 his own hand, equitable, plain, explicit, compendious, and 
 complete ; who committed no violence, who countenanced 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 259 
 
 no injustice, whose compassion was without weakness, 
 whose love was without frailty, whose life was led in 
 humility, in purity, in beneficence, and, at the end, laid 
 down in obedience to his father’s will. 
 
 Timotheus. Ah, Lucian! what strangely imperfect 
 notions ! all that is little. 
 
 Lucian. Enough to follow. 
 
 Timotheus. Not enough to compel others. I did indeed 
 hope, O Lucian! that you would again come forward with 
 the irresistible arrows of your wit, and unite with us against 
 our adversaries. By what you have just spoken, I doubt no 
 longer that you approve of the doctrines inculcated by the 
 blessed founder of our religion. 
 
 Lucian. To the best of my understanding. 
 
 Timotheus. So ardent is my desire for the salvation of 
 your precious soul, O my cousin! that I would devote 
 many hours of every day to disputation with you on the 
 principal points of our Christian controversy. 
 
 Lucian. Many thanks, my kind Timotheus! But I 
 think the blessed founder of your religion very strictly 
 forbade that there should be amy points of controversy. 
 Not only has he prohibited them on the doctrines he 
 delivered, but on everything else. Some of the most 
 obstinate might never have doubted of his divinity, if the 
 conduct of his followers had not repelled them from the 
 belief of it. How can they imagine you sincere when they 
 see you disobedient? It is in vain for you to protest that 
 you worship the God of Peace, when you are found daily in 
 the courts and market-places with clenched fists and bloody 
 noses. I acknowledge the full value of your offer; but 
 really I am as anxious for the salvation of your precious 
 time as you appear to be for the salvation of my precious 
 soul, particularly since I am come to the conclusion that 
 souls can not be lost, and that time can. 
 
 Timotheus. We mean by salvation exemption from eternal 
 torments. 
 
 Lucian. Among all my old gods and their children, 
 morose as some of the senior are, and mischievous as are 
 
260 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 some of the junior, I have never represented the worst of 
 them as capable of inflicting such atrocity. Passionate and 
 capricious and unjust are several of them; but a skin 
 stripped off the shoulder, and a liver tossed to a vulture, are 
 among the worst of their inflictions. 
 
 Timotheus. ‘This is scoffing. 
 
 Lucian. Nobody but an honest man has a right to scoff 
 at anything. 
 
 Timotheus. And yet people of a very different cast are 
 usually those who scoff the most. 
 
 Lucian. We are apt to push forward at that which we are 
 without : the low-born at titles and distinctions, the silly at 
 wit, the knave at the semblance of probity. But I was 
 about to remark, that an honest man may fairly scoff at all 
 philosophies and religions which are proud, ambitious, 
 intemperate, and contradictory. ‘The thing most adverse to 
 the spirit and essence of them all is falsehood. It is the 
 business of the philosophical to seek truth: it is the office 
 of the religious to worship her; under what name is unim- 
 portant. The falsehood that the tongue commits is slight 
 in comparison with what is conceived by the heart, and 
 executed by the whole man, throughout life. If, professing 
 love and charity to the human race at large, I quarrel day 
 after day with my next neighbour; if, professing that the 
 rich can never see God, I spend in the luxuries of my 
 household a talent monthly ; if, professing to place so much 
 confidence in his word, that, in regard to worldly weal, I 
 need take no care for to-morrow, I accumulate stores even 
 beyond what would be necessary, though I quite distrusted 
 both his providence and his veracity; if, professing that 
 “he who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,” I 
 . question the Lord’s security, and haggle with him about the 
 amount of the loan; if, professing that I am their steward, 
 I keep ninety-nine parts in the hundred as the emolument 
 of my stewardship; how, when God hates liars and 
 punishes defrauders, shall I, and other such thieves and 
 hypocrites, fare hereafter ? 
 
 Timotheus. Let us hope there are few of them. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHELUS. 261 
 
 Lucian. We can not hope against what is: we may, 
 however, hope that in future these will be fewer ; but never 
 while the overseers of a priesthood look for offices out of it, 
 taking the lead in politics, in debate, and strife. Such men 
 bring to ruin all religion, but their own first, and raise 
 unbelievers not only in divine providence, but in human 
 faith. 
 
 Timotheus. If they leave the altar for the market-place, 
 the sanctuary for the senate-house, and agitate party ques- 
 tions instead of Christian verities, everlasting punishments 
 await them. 
 
 Lucian. Everlasting ? 
 
 Timotheus. Certainly: at the very least. I rank it next 
 to heresy in the catalogue of sins; and the church supports 
 my opinion. 
 
 Lucian. I have no measure for ascertaining the distance 
 between the opinions and practices of men; I only know 
 that they stand widely apart in all countries on the most 
 important occasions; but this newly-hatched word Heresy, 
 alighting on my ear, makes me rub it. A beneficent God 
 descends on earth in the human form, to redeem us from 
 the slavery of sin, from the penalty of our passions: can 
 you imagine he will punish an error in opinion, or even an 
 obstinacy in unbelief, with everlasting torments? Supposing 
 it highly criminal to refuse to weigh a string of arguments, 
 or to cross-question a herd of witnesses, on a subject which 
 no experience has warranted and no sagacity can compre- 
 hend ; supposing it highly criminal to be contented with the 
 religion which our parents taught us, which they bequeathed 
 to us as the most precious of possessions, and which it 
 would have broken their hearts if they had foreseen we 
 should cast aside; yet are eternal pains the just retribution 
 of what at worst is but indifference and supineness ? 
 
 Timotheus. Our religion has clearly this advantage over 
 yours: it teaches us to regulate our passions. 
 
 Lucian. Rather say it zed/s us. I believe all religions do 
 the same; some indeed more emphatically and primarily 
 than others; but ¢#a¢ indeed would be incontestably of 
 
262 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 divine origin, and acknowledged at once by the most 
 sceptical, which should thoroughly teach it. Now, my 
 friend Timotheus, I think you are about seventy-five years 
 of age. 
 
 Timotheus. Nigh upon it. 
 
 Lucian, Seventy-five years, according to my calculation, 
 are equivalent to seventy-five gods and goddesses in regulat- 
 ing our passions for us, if we speak of the amatory, which 
 are always thought in every stage of life the least to be 
 pardoned. 
 
 Timotheus. Execrable ! 
 
 Lucian. I am afraid the sourest hang longest on the tree. 
 Mimnermus says :— 
 
 In early youth we often sigh 
 
 Because our pulses beat so high ; 
 
 All this we conquer, and at last 
 
 We sigh that we are grown so chaste, 
 
 Timotheus. Swine ! 
 
 Lucian. No animal sighs oftener or louder. But, my 
 dear cousin, the quiet swine is less troublesome and less 
 odious than the grumbling and growling and fierce hyzena, 
 which will not let the dead rest in their graves. We may 
 be merry with the follies and even the vices of men, without 
 doing or wishing them harm; punishment should come 
 from the magistrate, not from us. If we are to give pain to 
 anyone because he thinks differently from us, we ought to 
 begin by inflicting a few smart stripes on ourselves ; for 
 both upon light and upon grave occasions, if we have 
 thought much and often, our opinions must have varied. 
 We are always fond of seizing and managing what apper- 
 tains to others. In the savage state all belongs to all. Our 
 neighbours the Arabs, who stand between barbarism and 
 civilisation, waylay travellers, and plunder their equipage 
 and their gold. The wilier marauders in Alexandria start 
 up from under the shadow of temples, force us to change 
 our habiliments for theirs, and strangle us with fingers 
 dipped in holy water if we say they sit uneasily. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 263 
 
 Zimotheus. ‘This is not the right view of things. 
 
 Lucian. That is never the right view which lets in too 
 much light. About two centuries have elapsed since your 
 religion was founded. Show me the pride it has humbled ; 
 show me the cruelty it has mitigated ; show me the lust it 
 has extinguished or repressed. I have now been living ten 
 years in Alexandria ; and you never will accuse me, I think, 
 of any undue partiality for the system in which I was 
 educated ; yet, from all my observation, I find no priest or 
 elder, in your community, wise, tranquil, firm, and sedate as 
 Epicurus, and Carneades, and Zeno, and Epictetus; or 
 indeed in the same degree as some who were often called 
 forth into political and military life; Epaminondas, for 
 instance, and Phocion. 
 
 Timotheus. I pity them from my soul: they were ignorant 
 of the truth : they are lost, my cousin! take my word for it, 
 they are lost men. 
 
 Lucian. Unhappily, they are. I wish we had them back 
 again; or that, since we have lost them, we could at least 
 find among us the virtues they left for our example. 
 
 Timotheus. Alas, my poor cousin! you too are blind ; 
 you do not understand the plainest words, nor comprehend 
 those verities which are the most evident and palpable. 
 Virtues! if the poor wretches had any, they were false 
 ones. 
 
 Lucian. Scarcely ever has there been a politician, in 
 any free state, without much falsehood and duplicity. I 
 have named the most illustrious exceptions. Slender and 
 irregular lines of a darker colour run along the bright 
 blade that decides the fate of nations, and may indeed 
 be necessary to the perfection of its temper. The great 
 warrior has usually his darker lines of character, necessary 
 (it may be) to constitute his greatness. No two men 
 possess the same quantity of the same virtues, if they have 
 many or much. We want some which do not far outstep 
 us, and which we may follow with the hope of reaching ; we 
 want others to elevate, and others to defend us. The order 
 of things would be less beautiful without this variety. 
 
264 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUTS. 
 
 Without the ebb and flow of our passions, but guided and 
 moderated by a beneficent light above, the ocean of life 
 would stagnate; and zeal, devotion, eloquence, would 
 become dead carcases, collapsing and wasting on unprofit- 
 able sands. The vices of some men cause the virtues of 
 others, as corruption is the parent of fertility. 
 
 Timotheus. O my cousin! this doctrine is diabolical. 
 
 Lucian. What is it? 
 
 Timotheus. Diabolical; a strong expression in daily use 
 among us. We turn it a little from its origin. 
 
 Lucian. 'Timotheus, I love to sit by the side of a clear 
 water, although there is nothing in it but naked stones. Do 
 not take the trouble to muddy the stream of language for 
 my benefit ; I am not about to fish in it. 
 
 Timotheus. Well, we will speak about things which come 
 nearer to your apprehension. I only wish you were some- 
 what less indifferent in your choice between the true and 
 the false. 
 
 Lucian. We take it for granted that what is not true must 
 be false. 
 
 Zimotheus. Surely we do. 
 
 Lucan. This is erroneous. 
 
 Timotheus. Are you grown captiousP Pray explain. 
 
 Lucian. What is not true, I need not say, must be 
 untrue ; but that alone is false which is intended to deceive. 
 A witness may be mistaken, yet you would not call him 
 a false witness unless he asserted what he knew to be false. 
 
 Timotheus. Quibbles upon words ! 
 
 Lucian. On words, on quibbles, if you please to call 
 distinctions so, rests the axis of the intellectual world. A 
 winged word hath stuck ineradicably in a million hearts, 
 and envenomed every hour throughout their hard pulsation. 
 On a winged word hath hung the destiny of nations. Ona 
 winged word hath human wisdom been willing to cast the 
 immortal soul, and to leave it dependent for all its future 
 happiness. It is because a word is unsusceptible of 
 explanation, or because they who employed it were im- 
 patient of any, that enormous evils have prevailed, not only 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHETUS. 265 
 
 against our common sense, but against our common 
 humanity. Hence the most pernicious of absurdities, far 
 exceeding in folly and mischief the worship of three score 
 gods ; namely, that an implicit faith in what outrages our 
 reason, which we know is God’s gift, and bestowed on us 
 for our guidance, that this weak, blind, stupid faith is 
 surer of his favour than the constant practice of every 
 human virtue. They at whose hands one prodigious lie, 
 such as this, hath been accepted, may reckon on their 
 influence in the dissemination of many smaller, and may 
 turn them easily to their own account. Be sure they will 
 do it sooner or later. The fly floats on the surface for a 
 while, but up springs the fish at last and swallows it. 
 
 Timotheus. Was ever man so unjust as you are? The 
 abominable old priesthoods are avaricious and luxurious: 
 ours is willing to stand or fall by maintaining its ordinances 
 of fellowship and frugality. Point out to me a priest of our 
 religion whom you could, by any temptation or entreaty, so 
 far mislead, that he shall reserve for his own consumption 
 one loaf, one plate of lentils, while another poor Christian 
 hungers. In the meanwhile the priests of Isis are proud 
 and wealthy, and admit none of the indigent to their tables. 
 And now, to tell you the whole truth, my cousin Lucian, I 
 come to you this morning to propose that we should lay 
 our heads together and compose a merry dialogue on these 
 said priests of Isis. What say you? 
 
 Lucian. These said priests of Isis have already been 
 with me, several times, on a similar business in regard to 
 yours. 
 
 Zimotheus. Malicious wretches ! 
 
 Lucian. Beside, they have attempted to persuade me 
 that your religion is borrowed from theirs, altering a name 
 a little, and laying the scene of action in a corner, in the 
 midst of obscurity and ruins. 
 
 TZimotheus. The wicked dogs! the hellish liars! We 
 have nothing in common with such vile impostors. Are 
 they not ashamed of taking such unfair means of lowering 
 us in the estimation of our fellow-citizens? And so, they 
 
266 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 artfully came to you, craving any spare jibe to throw 
 against us! They lie open to these weapons ; we do not; 
 we stand above the malignity, above the strength, of man. 
 You would do justly in turning their own devices against 
 them: it would be amusing to see how they would look. 
 If you refuse me, I am resolved to write a Dialogue of the 
 Dead, myself, and to introduce these hypocrites in it. 
 
 Lucian. Consider well first, my good ‘Timotheus, whether 
 you can do any such thing with propriety; I mean to say 
 judiciously in regard to composition. 
 
 Timotheus. 1 always thought you generous and open- 
 hearted, and quite inaccessible to jealousy. 
 
 Lucian. Let nobody ever profess himself so much as 
 that : for, although he may be insensible of the disease, it 
 lurks within him, and only waits its season to break out. 
 But really, my cousin, at present I feel no symptoms: and, 
 to prove that I am ingenuous and sincere with you, these 
 are my reasons for dissuasion. We believers in the Homeric 
 family of gods and goddesses, believe also in the locality of 
 Tartarus and Elysium. We entertain no doubt whatever 
 that the passions of men and demigods and gods are nearly 
 the same above-ground and below; and that Achilles would 
 dispatch his spear through the body of any shade who would 
 lead Briseis too far among the myrtles, or attempt to throw 
 the halter over the ears of any chariot-horse belonging to 
 him in the meads of asphodel. We admit no doubt of these 
 verities, delivered down to us from the ages when Theseus 
 and Hercules had descended into Hades itself. Instead of 
 a few stadions in a cavern, with a bank and a bower at the 
 end of it, under a very small portion of our diminutive 
 Hellas, you Christians possess the whole cavity of the 
 earth for punishment, and the whole convex of the sky for 
 felicity. 
 
 Timotheus. Our passions are burnt out amid the fires of 
 purification, and our intellects are elevated to the enjoyment 
 of perfect intelligence. 
 
 Lucian. How silly then and incongruous would it be, not 
 to say how impious, to represent your people as no better 
 
§ 
 7 
 i 
 
 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 267 
 
 and no wiser than they were before, and discoursing on 
 subjects which no longer can or ought to concern them. 
 Christians must think that your Déalogue of the Dead no 
 less irreligious than their opponents think mine, and 
 infinitely more absurd. If indeed you are resolved on 
 this form of composition, there is no topic which may not, 
 with equal facility, be discussed on earth; and you may 
 intersperse as much ridicule as you please, without any fear 
 of censure for inconsistency or irreverence. Hitherto such 
 writers have confined their view mostly to speculative 
 points, sophistic reasonings, and sarcastic interpellations. 
 
 Timotheus. Ha! you are always fond of throwing a little 
 pebble at the lofty Plato, whom we, on the contrary, are 
 ready to receive (in a manner) as one of ourselves. 
 
 Lucian. To throw pebbles is a very uncertain way of 
 showing where lie defects. Whenever I have mentioned 
 him seriously, I have brought forward, not accusations, but 
 passages from his writings, such as no philosopher or 
 scholar or moralist can defend. 
 
 Timotheus. His doctrines are too abstruse and too sublime 
 or you. 
 
 Lucian. Solon, Anaxagoras, and Epicurus, are more 
 sublime, if truth is sublimity. 
 
 Timotheus. Truth is, indeed ; for God is truth. 
 
 Lucian. We are upon earth to learn what can be learnt 
 upon earth, and not to speculate on what never can be. 
 This you, O Timotheus, may call philosophy: to me it 
 appears the idlest of curiosity; for every other kind may 
 teach us something, and may lead to more beyond. Let 
 men learn what benefits men ; above all things, to contract 
 their wishes, to calm their passions, and, more especially, 
 to dispel their fears. Now these are to be dispelled, not 
 by collecting clouds, but by piercing and scattering them. 
 In the dark we may imagine depths and heights immeasur- 
 able, which, if a torch be carried right before us, we find it 
 easy to leap across. Much of what we call sublime is only 
 the residue of infancy, and the worst of it. 
 
 The philosophers I quoted are too capacious for schools 
 
268 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 and systems. Without noise, without ostentation, without 
 mystery, not quarrelsome, not captious, not frivolous, their 
 lives were commentaries on their doctrines. Never evapor- 
 ating into mist, never stagnating into mire, their limpid and 
 broad morality runs parallel with the lofty summits of their 
 genius. 
 
 Timotheus. Genius! was ever genius like Plato’s ? 
 
 Lucian. The most admired of his Dialogues, his Banquet, 
 is beset with such puerilities, deformed with such pedantry, 
 and disgraced with such impurity, that none but the thickest 
 beards, and chiefly of the philosophers and the satyrs, 
 should bend over it. On a former occasion he has given 
 us a specimen of history, than which nothing in our lan- 
 guage is worse: here he gives us one of poetry, in honour 
 of Love, for which the god has taken ample vengeance on 
 him, by perverting his taste and feelings. The grossest of 
 all the absurdities in this dialogue is, attributing to Aris- 
 tophanes, so much of a scoffer and so little of a visionary, 
 the silly notion of male and female having been originally 
 complete in one person, and walking circuitously. He may 
 be joking: who knows ? 
 
 Timotheus. Forbear! forbear! do not call this notion a 
 silly one: he took it from our Holy Scriptures, but per- 
 verted it somewhat. Woman was made from man’s rib, 
 and did not require to be cut asunder all the way down: 
 this is no proof of bad reasoning, but merely of misinter- 
 pretation. 
 
 Lucian. If you would rather have bad reasoning, I will 
 adduce a little of it. Farther on, he wishes to extol the 
 wisdom of Agathon by attributing to him such a sentence 
 as this :— 
 
 “Tt is evident that Love is the most beautiful of the 
 gods, decause he is the youngest of them.” 
 
 Now, even on earth, the youngest is not always the most 
 beautiful ; how infinitely less cogent, then, is the argument 
 when we come to speak of the Immortals, with whom age 
 can have no concern! ‘There was a time when Vulcan was 
 the youngest of the gods: was he, also, at that time, and 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 269 
 
 for that reason, the most beautiful? Your philosopher tells 
 us, moreover, that “ Love is of all deities the most “guzd ; 
 else he never could fold himself about everything, and flow 
 into and out of men’s souls.” 
 
 The three last sentences of Agathon’s rhapsody are very 
 harmonious, and exhibit the finest specimen of Plato’s 
 style ; but we, accustomed as we are to hear him lauded for 
 his poetical diction, should hold that poem a very indifferent 
 one which left on the mind so superficial an impression. 
 The garden of Academus is flowery without fragrance, and 
 dazzling without warmth: I am ready to dream away an 
 hour in it after dinner, but I think it unsalutary for a 
 night’s repose. So satisfied was Plato with his Banguet, 
 that he says of himself, in the person of Socrates, “ How 
 can I or anyone but find it difficult to speak after a dis- 
 course so eloquent? It would have been wonderful if the 
 brilliancy of the sentences at the end of it, and the choice 
 of expression throughout, had not astonished all the 
 auditors. I, who can never say anything nearly so beauti- 
 ful, would if possible have made my escape, and have fairly 
 run off for shame.” He had indeed much better run off 
 before he made so wretched a pun on the name of Gorgias. 
 “T dreaded,” says he, ‘“‘lest Agathon, measuring my dis- 
 course by the head of the eloquent Gorgias, should turn me to 
 stone for inability of utterance.” 
 
 Was there ever joke more frigid? What painful twisting 
 of unelastic stuff! If Socrates was the wisest man in the 
 world, it would require another oracle to persuade us, after 
 this, that he was the wittiest. But surely a small share of 
 common sense would have made him abstain from hazard- 
 ing such failures. He falls on his face in very flat and very 
 dry ground ; and, when he gets up again, his quibbles are 
 well-nigh as tedious as his witticisms. However, he has 
 the presence of mind to throw them on the shoulders of 
 
 Diotima, whom he calls a prophetess, and who, ten years 
 before the Plague broke out in Athens, obtained from the 
 gods (he tells us) that delay. Ah! the gods were doubly 
 mischievous: they sent her first. Read her words, my 
 
270 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 cousin, as delivered by Socrates ; and if they have another 
 Plague in store for us, you may avert it by such an act of 
 expiation. 
 
 Timotheus. ‘The world will have ended before ten years — 
 are over. | 
 
 Lucian, Indeed | 
 
 Timotheus. It has been pronounced. 
 
 Lucian. How the threads of belief and unbelief run — 
 woven close together in the whole web of human life! 
 Come, come ; take courage ; you will have time for your 
 Dialogue. Enlarge the circle; enrich it with a variety of 
 matter, enliven it with a multitude of characters, occupy 
 the intellect of the thoughtful, the imagination of the lively ; 
 spread the board with solid viands, delicate rarities, and 
 sparkling wines ; and throw, along the whole extent of it, 
 geniality and festal crowns. 
 
 Timotheus. What writer of dialogues hath ever done this, 
 or undertaken, or conceived, or hoped it ? 
 
 Lucian. None whatever; yet surely you yourself may, 
 when even your babes and sucklings are endowed with 
 abilities incomparably greater than our niggardly old gods 
 have bestowed on the very best of us. 
 
 Timotheus. Y wish, my dear Lucian, you would let our 
 babes and sucklings lie quiet, and say no more about them ; 
 as for your gods, I leave them at your mercy. Do not 
 impose on me the performance of a task in which Plato 
 himself, if he had attempted it, would have failed. 
 
 Lucian. No man ever detected false reasoning with more 
 quickness ; but unluckily he called in Wit at the exposure ; 
 and Wit, I am sorry to say, held the lowest place in his 
 household. He sadly mistook the qualities of his mind in 
 attempting the facetious ; or, rather, he fancied he possessed 
 one quality more than belonged to him. But, if he himself 
 had not been a worse quibbler than any whose writings are 
 come down to us, we might have been gratified by the 
 exposure of wonderful acuteness wretchedly applied. It is 
 no small service to the community to turn into ridicule the 
 grave impostors, who are contending which of them shall 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 271 
 
 guide and govern us, whether in politics or religion. 
 There are always a few who will take the trouble to walk 
 down among the sea-weeds and slippery stones, for the 
 sake of showing their credulous fellow-citizens that skins 
 filled with sand, and set upright at the forecastle, are 
 neither men nor merchandise. 
 
 Timotheus. 1 can bring to mind, O Lucian, no writer 
 possessing so great a variety of wit as you. 
 
 Lucian, No man ever possessed any variety of this gift ; 
 and the holder is not allowed to exchange the quality for 
 another. Banter (and such is Plato’s) never grows large, 
 never sheds its bristles, and never do they soften into the 
 humorous or the facetious. 
 
 Timotheus. 1 agree with you that banter is the worst 
 species of wit. We have indeed no correct idea what 
 persons those really were whom Plato drags by the ears, to 
 undergo slow torture under Socrates. One sophist, I must 
 allow, is precisely like another: no discrimination of 
 character, none of manner, none of language. 
 
 Lucian. He wanted the fancy and fertility of Aristo- 
 phanes. 
 
 Timotheus. Otherwise, his mind was more elevated and 
 more poetical. 
 
 Lucian. Pardon me if I venture to express my dissent in 
 both particulars. Knowledge of the human heart, and 
 discrimination of character, are requisites of the poet. 
 Few ever have possessed them in an equal degree with 
 Aristophanes: Plato has given no indication of either. 
 
 Timotheus. But consider his imagination. 
 
 Lucian. On what does it rest? He is nowhere so 
 imaginative as in his Po/ty, Nor is there any state in the 
 world that is, or would be, governed by it. One day you 
 may find him at his counter in the midst of old-fashioned 
 toys, which crack and crumble under his fingers while he 
 exhibits and recommends them ; another day, while he is 
 sitting on a goat’s bladder, I may discover his bald head 
 surmounting an enormous mass of loose chaff and uncleanly 
 feathers, which he would persuade you is the pleasantest 
 
272 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 and healthiest of beds, and that dreams descend on it from 
 the gods. 
 
 ‘© Open your mouth, and shut your eyes, and see what Zeus shall 
 send you,” 
 
 says Aristophanes in his favourite metre. In this helpless 
 condition of closed optics and hanging jaw, we find the 
 followers of Plato. It is by shutting their eyes that they 
 see, and by opening their mouths that they apprehend. 
 Like certain broad-muzzled dogs, all stand equally stiff and 
 staunch, although few scent the game, and their lips wag, 
 and water, at whatever distance from the net. We must 
 leave them with their hands hanging down before them, 
 confident that they are wiser than we are, were it only for 
 this attitude of humility. It is amusing to see them in it 
 before the tall, well-robed Athenian, while he mis-spells the 
 charms, and plays clumsily the tricks, he acquired from the 
 conjurors here in Egypt. I wish you better success with 
 the same materials. But in my opinion all philosophers 
 should speak clearly. The highest things are the purest 
 and brightest ; and the best writers are those who render 
 them the most intelligible to the world below. In the arts 
 and sciences, and particularly in music and metaphysics, 
 this is difficult: but the subjects not being such as lie 
 within the range of the community, I lay little stress upon 
 them, and wish authors to deal with them as they best may, 
 only beseeching that they recompense us, by bringing 
 within our comprehension the other things with which they 
 are entrusted for us. The followers of Plato fly off 
 indignantly from any such proposal. If I ask them the 
 meaning of some obscure passage, they answer that I am 
 unprepared and unfitted for it, and that his mind is so far 
 above mine, I can not grasp it. I look up into the faces of 
 these worthy men, who mingle so much commiseration with 
 so much calmness, and wonder at seeing them look no less 
 vacant than my own. 
 
 Timotheus. You have acknowledged his eloquence, while 
 you derided his philosophy and repudiated his morals. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 243 
 
 Lucian. Certainly there was never so much eloquence 
 with so little animation. When he has heated his oven, he 
 forgets to put the bread into it; instead of which, he throws 
 in another bundle of faggots. His words and sentences are 
 often too large for the place they occupy. Ifa water-melon 
 is not to be “placed in an oyster-shell, neither is a grain of 
 millet in a golden salver. At high festivals a full band may 
 enter: ordinary conversation goes on better without it. 
 
 Timotheus. There is something so spiritual about him, 
 that many of us Christians are firmly of opinion he must 
 have been partially enlightened from above. 
 
 Lucian. 1 hope and believe we all are. His entire works 
 are in our library. Do me the favour to point out to mea 
 few of those passages where in poetry he approaches the 
 spirit of Aristophanes, or where in morals he comes up to 
 Epictetus. 
 
 Timotheus. It is useless to attempt it if you carry your 
 prejudices with you. Beside, my dear cousin, I would not 
 offend you, but really your mind has no point about it 
 which could be brought to contact or affinity with Plato’s. 
 
 Lucian. In the universality of his genius there must 
 surely be some atom coincident with another in mine. You 
 acknowledge, as everybody must do, that his wit is the 
 heaviest and lowest: pray, is the specimen he has given us 
 of history at all better ? 
 
 Timotheus. 1 would rather look to the loftiness of his 
 mind, and the genius that sustains him. 
 
 Lucian. So would I. Magnificent words, and the pomp 
 and procession of stately sentences, may accompany genius, 
 but are not always nor frequently called out by it. The 
 voice ought not to be perpetually nor much elevated in the 
 ethic and didactic, nor to roll sonorously, as if it issued 
 from a mask in the theatre. The horses in the plain under 
 Troy are not always kicking and neighing ; nor is the dust 
 always raised in whirlwinds on the banks of Simois and 
 Scamander; nor are the rampires always in a blaze. 
 Hector has lowered his helmet to the infant of Andro- 
 mache, and Achilles to the embraces of Briseis. I do not 
 
 611 
 
274 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 blame the prose-writer who opens his bosom occasionally to 
 a breath of poetry; neither, on the contrary, can I praise 
 the gait of that pedestrian who lifts up his legs as high on a 
 bare heath as in a corn-field. Be authority as old and 
 obstinate as it may, never let it persuade you that a man is 
 the stronger for being unable to keep himself on the ground, 
 or the weaker for breathing quietly and softly on ordinary 
 occasions. ‘Tell me, over and over, that you find every 
 great quality in Plato: let me only once ask you in return, 
 whether he ever is ardent and energetic, whether he wins 
 the affections, whether he agitates the heart. Finding him 
 deficient in every one of these faculties, I think his disciples 
 have extolled him too highly. Where power is absent, we 
 may find the robes of genius, but we miss the throne. He 
 would acquit a slave who killed another in self-defence, but 
 if he killed any free man, even in self-defence, he was not 
 only to be punished with death, but to undergo the cruel 
 death of a parricide. This effeminate philosopher was more 
 severe than the manly Demosthenes, who quotes a law 
 against the striking of a slave: and Diogenes, when one ran 
 away from him, remarked that it would be horrible if 
 Diogenes could not do without a slave, when a slave could 
 do without Diogenes ? 
 
 Timotheus. Surely the allegories of Plato are evidences 
 of his genius. 
 
 Lucian. A great poet in the hours of his idleness may 
 indulge in allegory: but the highest poetical character will 
 never rest on so unsubstantial a foundation. The poet 
 must take man from God’s hands, must look into every 
 fibre of his heart and brain, must be able to take the 
 magnificent work to pieces, and to reconstruct it. When 
 this labour is completed, let him throw himself composedly 
 on the earth, and care little how many of its ephemeral 
 insects creep over him. In regard to these allegories of 
 Plato, about which I have heard so much, pray what and 
 where are they? You hesitate, my fair cousin Timotheus ! 
 Employ one morning in transcribing them, and another in 
 noting all the passages which are of practical utility in the 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 275 
 
 commerce of social life, or purify our affections at home, or 
 excite and elevate our enthusiasm in the prosperity and 
 glory of our country. Useful books, moral books, instructive 
 books are easily composed: and surely so great a writer 
 should present them to us without blot or blemish: I find 
 among his many volumes no copy of a similar composition. 
 My enthusiasm is not easily raised indeed; yet such a 
 whirlwind of a poet must carry it away with him ; neverthe- 
 less, here I stand, calm and collected, not a hair of my 
 beard in commotion. Declamation will find its echo in 
 vacant places: it beats ineffectually on the well-furnished 
 mind. Give me proof; bring the work ; show the passages ; 
 convince, confound, overwhelm me. 
 
 Limotheus. I may do that another time with Plato. 
 And yet, what effect can I hope to produce on an unhappy 
 man who doubts even that the world is on the point of 
 extinction ? 
 
 Lucian. Are there many of your asscciation who believe 
 that this catastrophe is so near at hand ? 
 
 Timotheus. We all believe it ; or rather, we all are certain 
 of it. 
 
 Lucian. How so? Have you observed any fracture in 
 the disc of the sun? Are any of the stars loosened in 
 their orbits? Has the beautiful light of Venus ceased 
 to pant in the heavens, or has the belt of Orion lost its 
 gems ! 
 
 Timotheus. O for shame! 
 
 Lucian. Rather should I be ashamed of indifference on 
 so important an occasion. 
 
 Timotheus. We know the fact by surer signs. 
 
 Lucian. These, if you could vouch for them, would be 
 sure enough for me. The least of them would make me 
 sweat as profusely as if I stood up to the neck in the hot 
 preparation of a mummy. Surely no wise or benevolent 
 philosopher could ever have uttered what he knew or 
 believed might be distorted into any such interpretation. 
 For if men are persuaded that they and their works are so 
 soon about to perish, what provident care are they likely to 
 
276 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 take in the education and welfare of their families? What 
 sciences w.ll they improve, what learning will they cultivate, 
 what monuments of past ages will they be studious to 
 preserve, who are certain that there can be no future ones? 
 Poetry will be censured as rank profaneness, eloquence will 
 be converted into howls and execrations, statuary will 
 exhibit only Midases and Ixions, and all the colours of 
 painting will be mixed together to produce one grand 
 conflagration : flammantia menia mundt. 
 
 Timotheus. Do not quote an atheist ; especially in Latin. 
 I hate the language ; the Romans are beginning to differ 
 from us already. 
 
 Lucian. Ah! you will soon split into smaller fractions. 
 But pardon me my unusual fault of quoting. Before I let 
 fall a quotation I must be taken by surprise. I seldom do 
 it in conversation, seldomer in composition ; for it mars the 
 beauty and unity of style, especially when it invades it from 
 a foreign tongue. A quoter is either ostentatious of his 
 acquirements or doubtful of his cause. And moreover, he 
 never walks gracefully who leans upon the shoulder ot 
 another, however gracefully that other may walk. Hero- 
 dotus, Plato, Aristoteles, Demosthenes, are no quoters. 
 Thucydides, twice or thrice, inserts a few sentences of 
 Pericles: but Thucydides is an emanation of Pericles, 
 somewhat less clear indeed, being lower, although at no 
 great distance from that purest and most pellucid source. 
 The best of the Romans, I agree with you, are remote from 
 such originals, if not in power of mind, or in acuteness of 
 remark, or in sobriety of judgment, yet in the graces of 
 composition. While I admired, with a species of awe such 
 as not Homer himself ever impressed me with, the majesty 
 and sanctimony of Livy, I have been informed by learned 
 Romans that in the structure of his sentences he is often 
 inharmonious, and sometimes uncouth. I can imagine 
 such uncouthness in the goddess of battles, confident of 
 power and victory, when part of her hair is waving round 
 the helmet, loosened by the rapidity of her descent or the 
 vibration of her spear. Composition may be too adorned 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 277 
 
 even for beauty. In painting it is often requisite to cover a 
 bright colour with one less bright; and, in language, to 
 relieve the ear from the tension of high notes, even at the 
 cost of a discord. ‘There are urns of which the borders are 
 too prominent and too decorated for use, and which appear 
 to be brought out chiefly for state, at grand carousals. The 
 author who imitates the artificers of these, shall never have 
 my custom. 
 
 Timotheus. 1 think you judge rightly: but I do not 
 understand languages: I only understand religion. 
 
 Lucian. He must be a most accomplished, a most extra- 
 ordinary man, who comprehends them both together. We 
 do not even talk clearly when we are walking in the dark. 
 
 Timotheus. ‘Thou art not merely walking in the dark, but 
 fast asleep. 
 
 Lucian. And thou, my cousin, wouldst kindly awaken me 
 with a red-hot poker. I have but a few paces to go along 
 the corridor of life: prythee let me turn into my bed again 
 and lie quiet. Never was any man less an enemy to religion 
 than I am, whatever may be said to the contrary: and you 
 shall judge of me by the soundness of my advice. If your 
 leaders are in earnest, as many think, do persuade them 
 to abstain from quarrelsomeness and contention, and not 
 to declare it necessary that there should perpetually be a 
 religious as well as a political war between east and west. 
 No honest and considerate man will believe in their doc- 
 trines, who, inculcating peace and good-will, continue all 
 the time to assail their fellow-citizens with the utmost 
 rancour at every divergency of opinion, and, forbidding the 
 indulgence of the kindlier affections, exercise at full stretch 
 the fiercer. This is certain: if they obey any commander, 
 they will never sound a charge when his order is to sound a 
 retreat : if they acknowledge any magistrate, they will never 
 tear down the tablet of his edicts. 
 
 Timotheus. We have what is all-sufficient. 
 
 Lucian. I see you have. 
 
 Timotheus. You have ridiculed all religion and all 
 philosophy, 
 
278 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 Luctan. 1 have found but little of either. I have cracked 
 many a nut, and have come only to dust or maggots. 
 
 Timotheus. 'To say nothing of the saints, are all philoso- 
 phers fools or impostors? And, because you can not rise 
 to the ethereal heights of Plato, nor comprehend the real 
 magnitude of a man so much above you, must he be a 
 dwarf ? 
 
 Lucian, The best sight is not that which sees best in the 
 dark or the twilight ; for no objects are then visible in their 
 true colours and just proportions; but it is that which 
 presents to us things as they are, and indicates what is 
 within our reach and what is beyond it. Never were any 
 three writers, of high celebrity, so little understood in the 
 main character, as Plato, Diogenes, and Epicurus. Plato 
 is a perfect master of logic and rhetoric; and whenever he 
 errs in either, as I have proved to you he does occasionally, 
 he errs through perverseness, not through unwariness. His 
 language often settles into clear and most beautiful prose, 
 often takes an imperfect and incoherent shape of poetry, 
 and often, cloud against cloud, bursts with a vehement 
 detonation in the air. Diogenes was hated both by the 
 vulgar and the philosophers. By the philosophers, because 
 he exposed their ignorance, ridiculed their jealousies, and 
 rebuked their pride: by the vulgar, because they never 
 can endure a man apparently ot their own class who avoids 
 their society and partakes in none of their humours, 
 prejudices, and animosities. What right has he to be 
 greater or better than they are? he who wears older 
 clothes, who eats staler fish, and possesses no yote to 
 imprison or banish anybody. I am now ashamed that 
 I mingled in the rabble, and that I could not resist the 
 childish mischief of smoking him in his tub. He was the 
 wisest man of his time, not excepting Aristoteles ; for he 
 knew that he was greater than Philip or Alexander. Aris- 
 toteles did not know that he himself was, or, knowing it, 
 did not act up to his knowledge ; and here is a deficiency 
 of wisdom. 
 
 Timotheus. Whether you did or did not strike the cask, 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 279 
 
 Diogenes would have closed his eyes equally. He would 
 never have come forth and seen the truth, had it shone 
 upon the world in that day. But, intractable as was this 
 recluse, Epicurus, I fear, is quite as lamentable. What 
 horrible doctrines ! 
 
 Lucian. Enjoy, said he, the pleasant walks where you 
 are: repose, and eat gratefully the fruit that falls into your 
 bosom: do not weary your feet with an excursion, at the 
 end whereof you will find no resting-place: reject not the 
 odour of roses for the fumes of pitch and sulphur. What 
 horrible doctrines ! 
 
 Timotheus. Speak seriously. He was much too bad for 
 ridicule. 
 
 Lucian. 1 will then speak as you desire me, seriously. 
 His smile was so unaffected and so graceful, that I should 
 have thought it very injudicious to set my laugh against it. 
 No philosopher ever lived with such uniform purity, such 
 abstinence from censoriousness, from controversy, from 
 jealousy, and from arrogance. 
 
 Timotheus. Ah, poor mortal!- I pity him, as far as may 
 be; he is in hell: it would be wicked to wish him out: we 
 are not to murmur against the all-wise dispensations. 
 
 Lucian. 1 am sure he would not; and it is therefore I 
 hope he is more comfortable than you believe. 
 
 Zimotheus. Never have I defiled my fingers, and never 
 will I defile them, by turning over his writings. But in 
 regard to Plato, I can have no objection to take your 
 advice. 
 
 Lucian. He will reward your assiduity: but he will assist 
 you very little if you consult him principally (and eloquence 
 for this should principally be consulted) to strengthen your 
 humanity. Grandiloquent and sonorous, his lungs seem to 
 play the better for the absence of the heart. His imazina- 
 tion is the most conspicuous, buoyed up by swelling billows 
 over unsounded depths. There are his mild thunders, 
 there are his glowing clouds, his traversing coruscations, 
 and his shooting stars. More of true wisdom, more of 
 trustworthy manliness, more of promptitude and power 
 
280 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEYUS. 
 
 to keep you steady and straightforward on the perilous road 
 of life, may be found in the little manual of Epictetus, 
 which I could write in the palm of my left-hand, than there 
 is in all the rolling and redundant volumes of this mighty 
 rhetorician, which you may begin to transcribe on the 
 summit of the great Pyramid, carry down over the Sphynx 
 at the bottom, and continue on the sands half-way to 
 Memphis. And indeed the materials are appropriate ; one 
 part being far above our sight, and the other on what, by 
 the most befitting epithet, Homer calls the xo-corn-bearing. 
 
 Timotheus. There are many who will stand against you 
 on this ground. 
 
 Lucian. With what perfect ease and fluency do some of 
 the dullest men in existence toss over and discuss the most 
 elaborate of all works! How many myriads of such 
 creatures would be insufficient to furnish intellect enough 
 for any single paragraph in them! Yet ‘we think this, ‘we 
 advise that, are expressions now become so customary, that 
 it would be difficult to turn them into ridicule. We must 
 pull the creatures out while they are in the very act, and 
 show who and what they are. One of these fellows said to 
 Caius Fuscus in my hearing, that there was a time when it 
 was permitted him to doubt occasionally on particular 
 points of criticism, but that the time was now over. 
 
 Timotheus. And what did you think of such arrogance ? 
 What did you reply to such impertinence P 
 
 Lucian. Let me answer one question at a time. First: 
 I thought him a legitimate fool, of the purest breed. 
 Secondly: I promised him I would always be contented 
 with the judgment he had rejected, leaving him and his 
 friends in the enjoyment of the rest. 
 
 Timotheus. And what said he ? j 
 Luctan. I forget. He seemed pleased at my acknowledg- 
 ment of his discrimination, at my deference and delicacy. 
 He wished, however, I had studied Plato, Xenophon, and 
 Cicero, more attentively ; without which preparatory discip- 
 line, no two persons could be introduced advantageously 
 into a dialogue. I agreed with him on this position, 
 
EUCIAN AND TIMOTHETS. 281 
 
 remarking that we ourselves were at that very time giving 
 our sentence on the fact. He suggested a slight mistake 
 on my side, and expressed a wish that he were conversing 
 with a writer able to sustain the opposite part. With his 
 experience and skill in rhetoric, his long habitude of com- 
 position, his knowledge of life, of morals, and of character, 
 he should be less verbose than Cicero, less gorgeous than 
 Plato, and less trimly attired than Xenophon. 
 
 Timotheus. If he spoke in that manner, he might indeed 
 pe ridiculed for conceitedness and presumption, but his 
 language is not altogether a fool’s. 
 
 Lucian. I deliver his sentiments, not his words : for who 
 would read, or who would listen to me, if such fell from me 
 as from him? Poetry has its probabilities, so has prose: 
 when people cry out against the representation of a dullard, 
 Could he have spoken all that? ‘ Certainly no,’ is the reply: 
 neither did Priam implore, in harmonious verse, the pity of 
 Achilles. We say only what might be said, when great 
 postulates are conceded. 
 
 Timotheus. We will pretermit these absurd and silly 
 men: but, cousin Lucian! cousin Lucian! the name of 
 Plato will be durable as that of Sesostris. 
 
 Lucian. So will the pebbles and bricks which gangs of 
 slaves erected into a pyramid. I do not hold Sesostris in 
 much higher estimation than those quieter lumps of matter. 
 They, O Timotheus, who survive the wreck of ages, are by 
 no means, as a body, the worthiest of our admiration. It is 
 in these wrecks, as in those at sea, the best things are not 
 always saved. Hen-coops and empty barrels bob upon the 
 surface, under a serene and smiling sky, when the graven or 
 depicted images of the gods are scattered on invisible rocks, 
 and when those who most resemble them in knowledge and 
 beneficence are devoured by cold monsters below. 
 
 Timotheus. You now talk reasonably, seriously, almost 
 religiously. Do you ever pray? 
 
 Lucian. 1 do. It was no longer than five years ago that 
 I was deprived by death of my dog Melanops. He had 
 uniformly led an innocent life; for I never would let him 
 
282 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 walk out with me, lest he should bring home in his mouth 
 the remnant of some god or other, and at last get bitten or 
 stung by one. I reminded Anubis of this: and moreover 
 I told him, what he ought to be aware of, that Melanops 
 did honour to his relationship. 
 
 Timotheus. 1 can not. ever call it piety to pray for dumb 
 and dead beasts. 
 
 Lucian, ‘Yimotheus! Timotheus! have you no heart? 
 have you no dog? do you always pray only for yourself ? 
 
 Timotheus. We do not believe that dogs can live again. 
 
 Lucian. More shame for you! If they enjoy and suffer, 
 if they hope and fear, if calamities and wrongs befall them, 
 such as agitate their hearts and excite their apprehensions ; 
 if they possess the option of being grateful or malicious, 
 and choose the worthier ; if they exercise the same sound 
 judgment on many other occasions, some for their own 
 benefit and some for the benefit of their masters, they 
 have as good a chance of a future life, and a better chance 
 of a happy one, than half the priests of all the religions in 
 the world. Wherever there is the choice of doing well or 
 ill, and that choice (often against a first impulse) decides for 
 well, there must not only be a soul of the same nature as 
 man’s, although of less compass and comprehension, but, 
 being of the same nature, the same immortality must 
 appertain to it; for spirit, like body, may change, but can 
 not be annihilated. 
 
 It was among the prejudices of former times that pigs 
 are uncleanly animals, and fond of wallowing in the mire 
 for mire’s sake. Philosophy has now discovered, that when 
 they roll in mud and ordure, it is only from an excessive 
 love of cleanliness, and a vehement desire to rid themselves 
 of scabs and vermin. Unfortunately, doubts keep pace 
 with discoveries. ‘They are like warts, of which the blood 
 that springs from a great one extirpated, makes twenty 
 little ones. 
 
 Timotheus. The Hydra would be a more noble simile. 
 
 Lucian. I was indeed about to illustrate my position by 
 the old Hydra, so ready at hand and so tractable; but I 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 283 
 
 will never take hold of a hydra, when a wart will serve 
 my turn. 
 
 Timotheus. Continue then. 
 
 Lucian. Even children are now taught, in despite of 
 Esop, that animals never spoke. The uttermost that can 
 be advanced with any show of confidence is, that if they 
 spoke at all, they spoke in unknown tongues. Supposing 
 the fact, is this a reason why they should not be respected ? 
 Quite the contrary. Ifthe tongues were unknown, it tends 
 to demonstrate our ignorance, not ¢heirs. If we could not 
 understand them, while they possessed the gift, here is no 
 proof that they did not speak to the purpose, but only that 
 it was not to our purpose ; which may likewise be said with 
 equal certainty of the wisest men that ever existed. How 
 little have we learned from them, for the conduct of life or 
 the avoidance of calamity! Unknown tongues, indeed! 
 yes, so are all tongues to the vulgar and the negligent. 
 
 Timotheus. It comforts me to hear you talk in this 
 manner, without a glance at our gifts and privileges. 
 
 Lucian. I am less incredulous than you suppose, my 
 cousin! Indeed I have been giving you what ought to be 
 a sufficient proof of it. 
 
 Timotheus. You have spoken with becoming gravity, I 
 must confess. 
 
 Lucian. Let me then submit to your judgment some 
 fragments of history which have lately fallen into my hands. 
 There is among them a A/ymn, of which the metre is so 
 incondite, and the phraseology so ancient, that the gram- 
 marians have attributed it to Linus. But the Hymn will 
 interest you less, and is less to our purpose, than the tra- 
 dition; by which it appears that certain priests of high 
 antiquity were of the brute creation. 
 
 Timotheus. No better, any of them. 
 
 Lucian. Now you have polished the palms of your hands, 
 I will commence my narrative from the manuscript. 
 
 Timotheus. Pray do. 
 
 Lucian. There existed in the city of Nephosis a fraternity 
 of priests, reverenced by the appellation of Gasteres. It is 
 
284 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS, 
 
 reported that they were not always of their present form, 
 but were birds, aquatic and migratory, a species of cormor- 
 ant. ‘The poet Linus, who lived nearer the transformation 
 (if there indeed was any), sings thus, in his Hymn to Zeus :— 
 
 “ Thy power is manifest, O Zeus! in the Gasteres. Wild 
 birds were they, strong of talon, clanging of wing, and 
 clamorous of gullet. Wild birds, O Zeus! wild birds; now 
 cropping the tender grass by the river of Adonis, and break- 
 ing the nascent reed at the root, and depasturing the sweet 
 nymphzea ; now again picking up serpents and other creeping 
 things on each hand of old Aigyptos, whose head is hidden 
 in the clouds. 
 
 “OQ that Mnemosyne would command the staidest of her 
 three daughters to stand and sing before me! to sing clearly 
 and strongly. How before thy throne, Saturnian! sharp 
 voices arose, even the voices of Heré and of thy children. 
 How they cried out that innumerable mortal men, various- 
 tongued, kid roasters in tent and tabernacle, devising in 
 their many-turning hearts and thoughtful minds how to 
 fabricate well-rounded spits of beech-tree, how such men, 
 having been changed into brute animals, it behoved thee to ~ 
 trim the balance, and in thy wisdom to change sundry brute 
 animals into men ; in order that they might pour out flame- 
 coloured wine unto thee, and sprinkle the white flower of 
 the sea upon the thighs of many bulls, to pleasure thee. 
 Then didst thou, O storm-driver! overshadow far lands 
 with thy dark eyebrows, looking down on them, to accom- 
 plish thy will. And then didst thou behold the Gasteres, 
 fat, tall, prominent-crested, purple-legged, dzedal-plumed, 
 white and black, changeable in colour as Iris. And lo! 
 thou didst will it, and they were men.” 
 
 Timotheus. No doubt whatever can be entertained of 
 this Hymn’s antiquity. But what farther says the historian? 
 
 Lucian. I will read on, to gratify you. 
 
 “It is recorded that this ancient order of a most lordly 
 priesthood went through many changes of customs and 
 ceremonies, which indeed they were always ready to accom- 
 modate to the maintenance of their authority and the 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 285 
 
 enjoyment of their riches. It is recorded that, in the 
 beginning, they kept various tame animals, and some wild 
 ones, within the precincts of the temple: nevertheless, after 
 a time, they applied to their own uses everything they could 
 lay their hands on, whatever might have been the vow of 
 those who came forward with the offering. And when it 
 was expected of them to make sacrifices, they not only 
 would make none, but declared it an act of impiety to 
 expect it. Some of the people, who feared the Immortals, 
 were dismayed and indignant at this backwardness ; and 
 the discontent at last grew universal. Whereupon, the two 
 chief priests held a long conference together, and agreed 
 that something must be done to pacify the multitude. But 
 it was not until the greater of them, acknowledging his 
 despondency, called on the gods to answer for him that his 
 grief was only because he never could abide bad pre- 
 cedents: and the other, on his side, protested that he was 
 overruled by his superior, and moreover had a serious 
 objection (founded on principle) to be knocked on the 
 head. Meanwhile the elder was looking down on the folds 
 of his robe, in deep melancholy. After long consideration, 
 he sprang upon his feet, pushing his chair behind him, and 
 said, ‘ Well, it is grown old, and was always too long for 
 me: I am resolved to cut off a finger’s breadth.’ 
 
 *¢ Having, in your wisdom and piety, well contemplated 
 the bad precedent,’ said the other, with much consternation 
 in his countenance at seeing so elastic a spring in a heel by 
 no means bearing any resemblance to a stag’s... ‘I have, 
 I have,’ replied the other, interrupting him ; ‘say no more; 
 I am sick at heart ; you must do the same.’ 
 
 *** A cursed dog has torn a hole in mine,’ answered the 
 other, ‘and, if I cut anywhere about it, I only make bad 
 worse. In regard to its length, I wish it were as long 
 again.’ ‘Brother! brother ! never be worldly-minded,’ said 
 the senior. ‘Follow my example: snip off it not a finger’s 
 breadth, half a finger’s breadth.’ 
 
 ‘But,’ expostulated the other, ‘will that satisfy the 
 gods?’ ‘Who talked about them?’ placidly said the 
 
286 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUTS. 
 
 senior. ‘It is very unbecoming to have them always in 
 our mouths: surely there are appointed times for them. 
 Let us be contented with laying the snippings on the altar, 
 and thus showing the people our piety and condescension. 
 They, and the gods also, will be just as well satisfied, as if 
 we offered up a buttock of beef, with a bushel of salt and 
 the same quantity of wheaten flour on it.’ 
 
 “Well, if that will do...and you know best,’ replied 
 the other, ‘so be it.’ Saying which words, he carefully and 
 considerately snipped off as much in proportion (for he was 
 shorter by an inch) as the elder had done, yet leaving on 
 his shoulders quite enough of materials to make handsome 
 cloaks for seven or eight stout-built generals. Away they 
 both went, arm-in-arm, and then holding up their skirts a 
 great deal higher than was necessary, told the gods what 
 they two had been doing for them and their glory. About 
 the court of the temple the sacred swine were lying in 
 indolent composure: seeing which, the brotherly twain 
 began to commune with themselves afresh: and the senior 
 said repentantly, ‘What fools we have been! The populace 
 will laugh outright at the curtailment of our vestures, but 
 would gladly have seen these animals eat daily a quarter 
 less of the lentils.’ The words were spoken so earnestly 
 and emphatically that they were overheard by the quad- 
 rupeds. Suddenly there was a rising of all the principal 
 ones in the sacred inclosure: and many that were in the 
 streets took up, each according to his temperament and 
 condition, the gravest or shrillest tone of reprobation. 
 The thinner and therefore the more desperate of the 
 creatures, pushing their snouts under the curtailed habili- 
 ments of the high priests, assailed them with ridicule and 
 reproach. For it had pleased the gods to work a miracle 
 in their behoof, and they became as loquacious as those 
 who governed them, and who were appointed to speak in 
 the high places. ‘ Let the worst come to the worst, we at 
 least have our tails to our hams,’ said they. ‘For how 
 long?’ whined others, piteously: others incessantly ejacu- 
 lated tremendous imprecations: others, more serious and. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 287 
 
 sedate, groaned inwardly ; and, although under their hearts 
 there lay a huge mass of indigestible sourness ready to 
 rise up against the chief priests, they ventured no farther 
 than expostulation. ‘We shall lose our voices,’ said they, 
 ‘if we lose our complement of lentils; and then, most 
 reverend lords, what will ye do for choristers?’ Finally, 
 one of grand dimensions, who seemed almost half-human, 
 imposed silence on every debater. He lay stretched out 
 apart from his brethren, covering with his side the greater 
 portion of a noble dunghill, and all its verdure native and 
 imported. He crashed a few measures of peascods to cool 
 his tusks; then turned his pleasurable longitudinal eyes 
 far toward the outer extremities of their sockets, and leered 
 fixedly and sarcastically at the high priests, showing every 
 tooth in each jaw. Other men might have feared them ; 
 the high priests envied them, seeing what order they were 
 in, and what exploits they were capable of. A great painter, 
 who flourished many olympiads ago, has, in his volume 
 entitled the Canon, defined the line of beauty! It was 
 here in its perfection: it followed with winning obsequious- 
 ness every member, but delighted more especially to swim 
 along that placid and pliant curvature on which Nature had 
 ranged the implements of mastication. Pawing with his 
 cloven hoof, he suddenly changed his countenance from the 
 contemplative to the wrathful. At one effort he rose up 
 to his whole length, breadth, and height: and they who 
 had never seen him in earnest, nor separate from the 
 common swine of the inclosure, with which he was in 
 the habit of husking what was thrown to him, could 
 form no idea what a prodigious beast he was. Terrible 
 were the expressions of choler and comminations which 
 burst forth from his fulminating tusks. Erimanthus would 
 have hidden his puny offspring before them ; and Hercules 
 would have paused at the encounter. Thrice he called 
 aloud to the high priests: thrice he swore in their own 
 sacred language that they were a couple of thieves and 
 impostors: thrice he imprecated the worst maledictions 
 on his own head if they had not violated the holiest of their 
 
288 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 vows, and were not ready even to sell their gods. A tremor 
 ran throughout the whole body of the united swine; so 
 awful was the adjuration! Even the Gasteres themselves 
 in some sort shuddered, not perhaps altogether at the 
 solemn tone of its impiety ; for they had much experience 
 in these matters. But among them was a Gaster who was 
 calmer than the swearer, and more prudent and conciliating 
 than those he swore against. Hearing this objurgation, he 
 went blandly up to the sacred porker, and, lifting the flap of 
 his right ear between forefinger and thumb with all delicacy 
 and gentleness, thus whispered into it: ‘You do not in 
 your heart believe that any of us are such fools as to sell 
 our gods, at least while we have such a reserve to fall back 
 upon.’ 
 
 ““« Are we to be devoured?’ cried the noble porker, 
 twitching his ear indignantly from under the hand of the 
 monitor. ‘Hush!’ said he, laying it again, most sooth- 
 ingly, rather farther from the tusks: ‘hush! sweet friend ! 
 Devoured? O certainly not: that is to say, not a//: or, 
 if all, not allat once. Indeed the holy men my brethren may 
 perhaps be contented with taking a little blood from each of 
 you, entirely for the advantage of your health and activity, 
 and merely to compose a few slender black-puddings 
 for the inferior monsters of the temple, who latterly are 
 grown very exacting, and either are, or pretend to be, 
 hungry after they have eaten a whole handful of acorns, 
 swallowing I am ashamed to say what a quantity of water to 
 wash them down. We do not grudge them it, as they well 
 know: but they appear to have forgotten how recently no 
 inconsiderable portion of this bounty has been conferred. 
 If we, as they object to us, eat more, they ought to be 
 aware that it is by no means for our gratification, since we 
 have abjured it before the gods, but to maintain the dignity 
 of the priesthood, and to exhibit the beauty and utility of 
 subordination.’ 
 
 ‘The noble porker had beaten time with his muscular 
 tail at many of these periods; but again his heart panted 
 visibly, and he could bear no more. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 289 
 
 **¢ All this for our good! for our activity! for our health! 
 -Let us alone: we have health enough ; we want no activity. 
 Let us alone, I say again, or by the Immortals! .. / 
 ‘Peace, my son! Your breath is valuable: evidently you 
 have but little to spare: and what mortal knows how soon 
 the gods may demand the last of it 2’ 
 
 “At the beginning of this exhortation, the worthy high 
 priest had somewhat repressed the ebullient choler of his 
 refractory and pertinacious disciple, by applying his flat soft 
 palm to the signet-formed extremity of the snout. 
 
 “¢We are ready to hear complaints at all times,’ added 
 
 he, ‘and to redress any grievance at our own. But beyond 
 a doubt, if ycu continue to raise your abominable outcries, 
 some of the people are likely to hit upon two discoveries : 
 first, that your lentils would be sufficient to make daily for 
 every poor family a good wholesome porridge; and 
 secondly, that your flesh, properly cured, might hang up 
 nicely against the forthcoming bean-season.’ Pondering 
 these mighty words, the noble porker kept his eyes fixed 
 upon him for some instants, then leaned forward dejectedly, 
 then tucked one foot under him, then another, cautious to 
 descend with dignity. At last he grunted (it must for ever 
 be ambiguous whether with despondency or with resigna- 
 tion), pushed his wedgy snout far within the straw sub- 
 jacent, and sank into that repose which is granted to the 
 just.” 
 Timotheus. Cousin! there are glimmerings of truth and 
 wisdom in sundry parts of this discourse, not unlike little 
 broken shells entangled in dark masses of sea-weed. But I 
 would rather you had continued to adduce fresh arguments 
 to demonstrate the beneficence of the Deity, proving (if you 
 could) that our horses and dogs, faithful servants and com- 
 panions to us, and often treated cruelly, may recognise us 
 hereafter, and we them. We have no authority for any 
 such belief. 
 
 Lucian. We have authority for thinking and doing 
 whatever is humane. Speaking of humanity, it now occurs 
 to me, I have heard a report that some wel penne 
 
 12 
 
290 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 men of your religion so interpret the words or wishes of its 
 founder, they would abolish slavery throughout the empire. 
 
 Zimotheus. Such deductions have been drawn indeed 
 from our Master’s doctrine: but the saner part of us receive 
 it metaphorically, and would only set men free from the 
 bonds of sin. For if domestic slaves were manumitted, we 
 should neither have a dinner dressed nor a bed made, 
 unless by our own children: and as to labour in the fields, 
 who would cultivate them in this hot climate? We must 
 import slaves from /Zthiopia and elsewhere, wheresoever 
 they can be procured: but the hardship lies not on them ; 
 it lies on us, and bears heavily ; for we must first buy them 
 with our money, and then feed them; and not only must 
 we maintain them while they are hale and hearty and can 
 serve us, but likewise in sickness and (unless we can sell 
 them for a trifle) in decrepitude. Do not imagine, my 
 cousin, that we are no better than enthusiasts, visionaries, 
 subverters of order, and ready to roll society down into one 
 flat surface. 
 
 Lucian. I thought you were maligned: I said so. 
 
 Timotheus. When the subject was discussed in our con- 
 gregation, the meaner part of the people were much in 
 favour of the abolition: but the chief priests and ministers 
 absented themselves, and gave no vote at all, deeming it 
 secular, and saying that in such matters the laws and 
 customs of the country ought to be observed. 
 
 Lucian. Several of these chief priests and ministers are 
 robed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every 
 day. 
 
 Timotheus. I have hopes of you now. 
 
 Lucian. Why so suddenly? 
 
 Zimotheus. Because you have repeated those blessed 
 words, which are only to be found in our scriptures. 
 
 Lucian. There indeed I found them. But I also found 
 in the same volume words of the same speaker, declaring 
 that the rich shall never see his face in heaven. 
 
 Timotheus. He does not always mean what you think he 
 does. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 2g! 
 
 Lucian. How is this? Did he then direct his discourses 
 to none but men more intelligent than I am ? 
 
 Timotheus. Unless he gave you understanding for the 
 occasion, they might mislead you. 
 
 Lucian. Indeed ! 
 
 Timotheus. Unquestionably. For instance, he tells us 
 to take no heed of to-morrow: he tells us to share equally 
 all our wordly goods: but we know that we can not be 
 respected unless we bestow due care on our possessions, 
 and that not only the vulgar but the well-educated esteem 
 us in proportion to the gifts of fortune. 
 
 Lucian. The eclectic philosophy is most flourishing 
 among you Christians. You take whatever suits your 
 appetites, and reject the rest. 
 
 Timotheus. We are not half so rich as the priests of Isis. 
 Give us their possessions ; and we will not sit idle as they 
 do, but be able and ready to do incalculable good to our 
 fellow-creatures. 
 
 Lucian. I have never seen great possessions excite to 
 great alacrity. Usually they enfeeble the sympathies, and 
 often overlie and smother them. 
 
 Timotheus. Our religion is founded less on sympathies 
 than on miracles. Cousin! you smile most when you 
 ought to be most serious. 
 
 Lucian. I was smiling at the thought of one whom I would 
 recommend to your especial notice, as soon as you disin- 
 herit the priests of Isis. He may perhaps be refractory ; 
 for he pretends (the knave !) to work miracles. 
 
 Timotheus. Impostor ! who is he? 
 
 Lucian. Aulus of Pelusium. Idle and dissolute, he never 
 gained anything honestly but a scourging, if indeed he ever 
 made, what he long merited, this acquisition. Unable to 
 run into debt where he was known, he came over to 
 Alexandria. 
 
 Timotheus. 1 know him: I know him well. Here, of his 
 own accord, he has betaken himself to a new and regular 
 life. 
 
 Lucian. He will presently wear it out, or make it sit 
 
292 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 easier on his shoulders. My metaphor brings me to my 
 story. Having nothing to carry with him beside an empty 
 valise, he resolved on filling it with something, however 
 worthless, lest, seeing his utter destitution, and hopeless of 
 payment, a receiver of lodgers should refuse to admit him 
 into the hostelry. Accordingly, he went to a tailor’s, and 
 began to joke about his poverty. Nothing is more apt to 
 bring people into good-humour : for, if they are poor them- 
 selves, they enjoy the pleasure of discovering that others 
 are no better off; and, if not poor, there is the conscious- 
 ness of superiority. 
 
 “The favour I am about to ask of a man so wealthy and 
 so liberal as you are,” said Aulus, “is extremely small: you 
 can materially serve me, without the slightest loss, hazard, 
 or inconvenience. In few words, my valise is empty: and 
 to some ears an empty valise is louder and more discordant 
 than a bagpipe: I can not say I like the sound of it myself. 
 Give me all the shreds and snippings you can spare me. 
 They will feel like clothes ; not exactly so to me and my 
 person, but to those who are inquisitive, and who may be 
 importunate.” 
 
 The tailor laughed, and distended both arms of Aulus 
 with his munificence. Soon was the valise well filled and 
 rammed down. Plenty of boys were in readiness to carry 
 it to the boat. Aulus waved them off, looking at some 
 angrily, at o'hers suspiciously. Boarding the skiff, he 
 lowered his treasure with care and caution, staggering a 
 little at the weight, and shaking it gently on deck, with his 
 ear against it: and then, finding all safe and compact, he 
 sat on it; but as tenderly as a pullet on her first eggs. 
 When he was landed, his care was even greater, and who- 
 ever came near him was warned off with loud vociferations. 
 Anxiously as the other passengers were invited by the inn- 
 keepers to give their houses the preference, Aulus was 
 importuned most: the others were only beset; he was 
 borne off in triumphant captivity. He ordered a bedroom, 
 and carried his valise with him; he ordered a bath, and 
 carried with him his valise. He started up from the 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 293 
 
 company at dinner, struck his forehead, and cried out, 
 “Where is my valise?” ‘We are honest men here,” 
 replied the host. ‘‘ You have left it, sir, in your chamber: 
 where else indeed should you leave it?” 
 
 “Honesty is seated on your brow,” exclaimed Aulus ; 
 “but there are few to be trusted in the world we live in. 
 I now believe I can eat.” And he gave a sure token of the 
 belief that was in him, not without a start now and then 
 and a finger at his ear, as if he heard somebody walking in 
 the direction of his bed-chamber. Now began his first 
 miracle: for now he contrived to pick up, from time to 
 time, a little money. In the presence of his host and 
 fellow-lodgers, he threw a few obols, negligently and 
 indifferently, among the beggars. “These poor creatures,” 
 said he, ‘know a new comer as weil as the gnats do: in 
 one half-hour I am half-ruined by them ; and this daily.” 
 
 Nearly a month had elapsed since his arrival, and no 
 account of board and lodging had been delivered or called 
 for. Suspicion at length arose in the host whether he really 
 was rich. When another man’s honesty is doubted, the 
 doubter’s is sometimes in jeopardy. The host was tempted 
 to unsew the valise. To his amazement and horror he 
 found only shreds within it. However, he was determined 
 to be cautious, and to consult his wife, who, although a 
 Christian like Aulus, and much edified by his - discourses, 
 might dissent from him in regard to a community of goods, 
 at least in her own household, and might defy him to 
 prove by any authority that the doctrine was meant for inn- 
 keepers. Aulus, on his return in the evening, found out 
 that his valise had been opened. He hurried back, threw 
 its contents into the canal, and, borrowing an old cloak, he 
 tucked it up under his dress, and returned. Nobody had 
 seen him enter or come back again, nor was it immediately 
 that his host or hostess were willing to appear. But, after 
 he had called them loudly for some time, they entered his 
 apartment: and he thus addressed the woman :— 
 
 “OQ Eucharis! no words are requsite to convince you 
 (firm as you are in the faith) of eternal verities, however 
 
294 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 mysterious. But your unhappy husband has betrayed his 
 incredulity in regard to the most awful. If my prayers, 
 offered up in our holy temples all day long, have been 
 heard, and that they have been heard I feel within me the 
 blessed certainty, something miraculous has been vouch- 
 safed for the conversion of this miserable sinner. Until 
 the present hour, the valise before you was filled with 
 precious relics from the apparel of saints and martyrs, fresh 
 as when on them.” “True, by Jove!” said the husband to 
 himself. ‘‘Within the present hour,” continued Aulus, 
 “they are united into one raiment, signifying our own 
 union, Our own restoration.” 
 
 He drew forth the cloak, and fell on his face. Eucharis 
 fell also, and kissed the saintly head prostrate before her. 
 The host’s eyes were opened, and he bewailed his hardness 
 of heart. Aulus is now occupied in strengthening his 
 faith, not without an occasional support to the wife’s: all 
 three live together in unity. 
 
 Timotheus. And do you make a joke even of this? Will 
 you never cease from the habitude ? 
 
 Lucian. Too soon. The farther we descend into the 
 vale of years, the fewer illusions accompany us: we have 
 little inclination, little time, for jocularity and laughter. 
 Light things are easily detached from us, and we shake off 
 heavier as we can. Instead of levity, we are liable to 
 moroseness : for always near the grave there are more briars 
 than flowers, unless we plant them ourselves, or our friends 
 supply them. 
 
 Timotheus. Thinking thus, do you continue to dissemble 
 or to distort the truth? The shreds are become a cable 
 for the faithful. That they were miraculously turned into 
 one entire garment who shall gainsay? How many hath it 
 already clothed with righteousness? Happy men, casting 
 their doubts away before it! Who knows, O cousin Lucian, 
 but on some future day you yourself will invoke the merciful 
 interposition of Aulus! 
 
 Lucian. Possibly: for if ever I fall among thieves, 
 nobody is likelier to be at the head of them. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 205 
 
 Timotheus. Uncharitable man! how suspicious! how 
 ungenerous! how hardened in unbelief! Reason is a 
 bladder on which you may paddle like a child as you swim 
 in summer waters: but, when the winds rise and the waves 
 roughen, it slips from under you, and you sink; yes, O 
 Lucian, you sink into a gulf whence you never can emerge. 
 
 Lucian. I deem those the wisest who exert the soonest 
 their own manly strength, now with the stream and now 
 against it, enjoying the exercise in fine weather, venturing 
 out in foul, if need be, yet avoiding not only rocks and 
 whirlpools, but also shallows. In such a light, my cousin, 
 I look on your dispensations. I shut them out as we 
 shut out winds blowing from the desert; hot, debilitating, 
 oppressive, laden with impalpable sands and pungent salts, 
 and inflicting an incurable blindness. 
 
 Timotheus. Well, cousin Lucian! I can bear all you say 
 while you are not witty. Let me bid you farewell in this 
 happy interval. 
 
 Lucian. Is it not serious and sad, O my cousin, that 
 what the Deity hath willed to lie incomprehensible in his 
 mysteries, we should fall upon with tooth and nail, and 
 ferociously growl over, or ignorantly dissect ? 
 
 Timotheus. Ho! now you come to be serious and sad, 
 there are hopes of you. ‘Truth always begins or ends so. 
 
 Lucian. Undoubtedly. But I think it more reverential 
 to abstain from that which, with whatever effort, I should 
 never understand. 
 
 Timotheus. You are lukewarm, my cousin, you are luke- 
 warm. A most dangerous state. 
 
 Lucian. For milk to continue in, not for men. I would 
 not fain be frozen or scalded. 
 
 Timotheus. Alas! you are blind, my sweet cousin ! 
 
 Lucian. Well; do not open my eyes with pincers, nor 
 compose for them a collyrium of spurge. 
 
 May not men eat and drink and talk together, and 
 perform in relation one to another all the duties of social 
 life, whose opinions are different on things immediately 
 under their eyes? If they can and do, surely they may as 
 
; 
 
 easily on things equally above the comprehension of each 
 party. ‘The wisest and most virtuous man in the whole 
 extent of the Roman empire is Plutarch of Cheronea: yet 
 Plutarch holds a firm belief in the existence of I know 
 not how many gods, every one of whom has committed 
 notorious misdemeanours. ‘The nearest to the Cheronzan 
 in virtue and wisdom is Trajan, who holds all the gods dog- 
 cheap. These two men are friends. If either of them 
 were influenced by your religion, as inculcated and practised 
 by the priesthood, he would be the enemy of the other, and 
 wisdom and virtue would plead for the delinquent in vain. 
 When your religion had existed, as you tell us, about a 
 century, Caius Czcilius,* of Novum Comum, was Proconsul 
 in Bithynia. Trajan, the mildest and most equitable of 
 mankind, desirous to remove from them, as far as might be, 
 the hatred and invectives of those whose old religion was 
 assailed by them, applied to Czecilius for information on 
 their behaviour as good citizens. The reply of Cecilius 
 was favourable. Had Trajan applied to the most eminent 
 and authoritative of the sect, they would certainly have 
 brought into jeopardy all who differed in one tittle from 
 any point of their doctrine or discipline. For the thorny 
 and bitter aloe of dissension required less than a century to 
 flower on the steps of your temple. 
 Timotheus. You are already half a Christian, in exposing 
 to the world the vanities both of philosophy and of power. 
 Lucian. 1 have done no such thing: I have exposed the 
 vanities of the philosophising and the powerful. Philosophy 
 is admirable; and Power may be glorious: the one con- 
 duces to truth, the other has nearly all the means of 
 conferring peace and happiness, but it usually, and indeed 
 almost always, takes a contrary direction. I have ridiculed 
 the futility of speculative minds, only when they would paye 
 the clouds instead of the streets. To see distant things 
 better than near is a certain proof of a defective sight. 
 The people I have held in derision never turn their eyes 
 to what they can see, but direct them continually where _ 
 * The younger Pliny. 
 
 206 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 297 
 
 nothing is to be seen. And this, by their disciples, is 
 called the sublimity of speculation! ‘There is little merit 
 acquired, or force exhibited, in blowing off a feather that 
 - would settle on my nose: and this is all I have done in 
 regard to the philosophers: but I claim for myself the 
 approbation of humanity, in having shown the true dimen- 
 sions of the great. The highest of them are no higher than 
 my tunic; but they are high enough to trample on the 
 necks of those wretches who throw themselves on the 
 ground before them. 
 
 Timotheus. Was Alexander of Macedon no higher ? 
 
 Lucian. What region of the earth, what city, what theatre, 
 what library, what private study, hath he enlightened? If 
 you are silent, I may well be. It is neither my philosophy 
 nor your religion which casts the blood and bones of men 
 in their faces, and insists on the most reverence for those 
 who have made the most unhappy. If the Romans 
 scourged by the hands of children the schoolmaster who 
 would have betrayed them, how greatly more deserving of 
 flagellation, from the same quarter, are those hundreds of 
 pedagogues who deliver up the intellects of youth to such 
 immoral revellers and mad murderers! They would punish 
 a thirsty child for purloining a bunch of grapes from a 
 vineyard, and the same men on the same day would insist 
 on his reverence for the subverter of Tyre, the plunderer of 
 Babylon, and the incendiary of Persepolis. And are these 
 men teachers? are these men philosophers? are these men 
 priests? Of all the curses that ever afflicted the earth, I 
 think Alexander was the worst. Never was he in so little 
 mischief as when he was murdering his friends. 
 
 Timotheus. Yet he built this very city; a noble and 
 opulent one when Rome was of hurdles and rushes. 
 
 Lucian. He built it! I wish,O Timotheus! he had been 
 as well employed as the stone-cutters or the plasterers. 
 No, no: the wisest of architects planned the most beautiful 
 and commodious of cities, by which, under a rational 
 government and equitable laws, Africa might have been 
 civilised to the centre, and the palm have extended her 
 
298 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 conquests through the remotest desert. Instead of which, 
 a dozen of Macedonian thieves rifled a dying drunkard 
 and murdered his children. In process of time, another 
 drunkard reeled hitherward from Rome, made an easy 
 mistake in mistaking a palace for a brothel, permitted a 
 stripling boy to beat him soundly, and a serpent to receive 
 the last caresses of his paramour 
 
 Shame upon historians and pedagogues for exciting the 
 worst passions of youth by the display of such false glories ! 
 If your religion hath any truth or influence, her professors 
 will extinguish the promontory lights, which only allure to 
 breakers. They will be assiduous in teaching the young 
 and ardent that great abilities do not constitute great men, 
 without the right and unremitting application of them; and 
 that, in the sight of Humanity and Wisdom, it is better to 
 erect one cottage than to demolish a hundred cities. Down 
 to the present day we have been taught little else than 
 falsehood. We have been told to do this thing and that: 
 we have been told we shall be punished unless we do: but 
 at the same time we are shown by the finger that prosperity 
 and glory, and the esteem of all about us, rest upon other 
 and very different foundations. Now, do the ears or the 
 eyes seduce the most easily and lead the most directly to 
 the heart? But both eyes and ears are won over, and alike 
 are persuaded to corrupt us. 
 
 Timotheus. Cousin Lucian, I was leaving you with the 
 strangest of all notions in my head. I began to think for a 
 moment that you doubted my sincerity in the religion I 
 profess; and that a man of your admirable good sense, and 
 at your advanced age, could reject that only sustenance 
 which supports us through the grave into eternal life. 
 
 Lucian. 1 am the most docile and practicable of men, 
 and never reject what people set before me: for if it is 
 bread, it is good for my own use; if bone or bran, it will do 
 for my dog or mule. But, although you know my weakness 
 and facility, it is unfair to expect I should have admitted 
 at once what the followers, and personal friends of your 
 Master, for a long time hesitated to receive. J remember 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 299 
 
 to have read in one of the early commentators, that his 
 disciples themselves* could not swallow the miracle of the 
 loaves; and one who wrote more recently says, that even 
 his brethren did not believey in him. 
 
 Timotheus. Yet, finally, when they have looked over 
 each other’s accounts, they cast them up, and make them 
 all tally in the main sum; and if one omits an article, the 
 next supplies its place with a commodity of the same value. 
 What would you have? But it is of little use to argue on 
 religion with a man who, professing his readiness to 
 believe, and even his credulity, yet disbelieves in miracles. 
 
 Lucian. I should be obstinate and perverse if I dis- 
 believed in the existence of a thing for no better reason 
 than because I never saw it, and can not understand its 
 operations. Do you believe, O Timotheus, that Perictione, 
 the mother of Plato, became his mother by the sole 
 agency of Apollo’s divine spirit, under the phantasm of that 
 god? 
 
 Timotheus. 1 indeed believe such absurdities ! 
 
 Lucian. You touch me on a vital part if you call an 
 absurdity the religion or philosophy in which I was 
 educated. Anaxalides, and Clearagus, and Speusippus, his 
 own nephew, assert it. Who should know better than 
 they? 
 
 Timotheus. Where are their proofs ? 
 
 Lucian. J would not be so indelicate as to require them 
 on such an occasion. A short time ago I conversed with 
 an old centurion, who was in service by the side of 
 Vespasian, when Titus, and many officers and soldiers of 
 the army, and many captives, were present, and who saw 
 one Eleazar put a ring to the nostril of a demoniac (as the 
 patient was called) and draw the demon out of it. 
 
 Timotheus. And do you pretend to believe this nonsense? 
 
 Lucian. I only believe that Vespasian and Titus had 
 nothing to gain or accomplish by the miracle; and 
 that Eleazar, if he had been detected in a trick by two 
 
 * Mark vi. + John vii. 
 
300 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHETS. | 
 acute men and several thousand ‘enemies, had nothing 
 to look forward to but a cross—the only piece of upholstery 
 for which Judea seems to have either wood or workmen, 
 and which are as common in that country as direction-posts 
 are in any other. 
 Timotheus. ‘The Jews are a stiff-necked people. 
 Lucian. On such occasions, no doubt. 
 | 
 
 
 
 Timotheus. Would you, O Lucian, be classed among the 
 atheists, like Epicurus ? 
 
 Lucian. It lies not at my discretion what name shall be 
 given me at present or hereafter, any more than it did at my 
 birth. But I wonder at the ignorance and precipitancy of 
 those who call Epicurus an atheist. He saw on the same 
 earth with himself a great variety of inferior creatures, some 
 possessing more sensibility and more thoughtfulness than 
 others. Analogy would lead so contemplative a reasoner to 
 the conclusion that if many were inferior and in sight, 
 others might be superior and out of sight. He never dis- 
 believed in the existence of the gods; he only disbelieved 
 that they troubled their heads with our concerns. Have 
 they none of their own? If they are happy, does their 
 happiness depend on us, comparatively so imbecile and 
 vile? He believed, as nearly all nations do, in different 
 ranks and orders of superhuman beings; and perhaps he 
 thought (but I never was in his confidence or counsels) that 
 the higher were rather in communication with the next to 
 them in intellectual faculties, than with the most remote. 
 ‘To me the suggestion appears by no means irrational, that, 
 if we are managed or cared for at all by beings wiser than 
 ourselves (which in truth would be no sign of any great 
 wisdom in them), it can only be by such as are very far from 
 perfection, and who indulge us in the commission of 
 innumerable faults and follies, for their own speculation or 
 amusement. | 
 
 Timotheus. There is only one such ; and he is the Devil. 
 
 Lucian. If he delights in our wickedness, which you 
 believe, he must be incomparably the happiest of beings, 
 which you do not believe. No god of Epicurus rests his 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 301 
 
 elbow on his arm-chair with less energetic exertion or dis- 
 composure. 
 
 Timotheus. We \ead holier and purer lives than such 
 ignorant mortals as are not living under Grace. 
 
 Lucian. 1 also live under Grace, O Timotheus! and I 
 venerate her for the pleasures I have received at her hands. 
 I do not believe she has quite deserted me. If my gray 
 hairs are unattractive to her, and if the trace of her fingers 
 is lost in the wrinkles of my forehead, still I sometimes am 
 told it is discernible even on the latest and coldest of my 
 writings. 
 
 Timotheus. You are wilful in misapprehension. The 
 Grace of which I speak is adverse to pleasure and impurity. 
 
 Lucian. Rightly do you separate impurity and pleasure, 
 which indeed soon fly asunder when the improvident would 
 unite them. But never believe that tenderness of heart 
 signifies corruption of morals, if you happen to find it 
 (which indeed is unlikely) in the direction you have 
 taken; on the contrary, no two qualities are oftener found 
 together, on mind as on matter, than hardness and 
 lubricity. 
 
 Believe me, cousin Timotheus, when we come to eighty 
 years of age we are all Essenes. In our kingdom of heaven 
 there is no marrying or giving in marriage ; and austerity in 
 ourselves, when Nature holds over us the sharp instrument 
 with which Jupiter operated on Saturn, makes us austere to 
 others. But how happens it that you, both old and young, 
 break every bond which connected you anciently with the 
 Essenes? Not only do you marry (a height of wisdom to 
 which I never have attained, although in others I commend 
 it), but you never share your substance with the poorest of 
 your community, as they did, nor live simply and frugally, 
 nor purchase nor employ slaves, nor refuse rank and offices 
 in the state, nor abstain from litigation, nor abominate and 
 execrate the wounds and cruelties of war. The Essenes did 
 all this, and greatly more, if Josephus and Philo, whose 
 political and religious tenets are opposite to theirs, are 
 credible and trustworthy. 
 
302 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
 Timotheus. Doubtless you would also wish us to retire 
 into the desert, and eschew the conversation of mankind. 
 
 Lucian. No, indeed ; but I would wish the greater part 
 of your people to eschew mine, for they bring all the worst 
 of the desert with them whenever they enter ; its smother- 
 ing heats, its blinding sands, its sweeping suffocation. 
 Return to the pure spirit of the Essenes, without their 
 asceticism ; cease from controversy, and drop party designa- 
 tions. If you will not do this, do less, and be merely what 
 you profess to be, which is quite enough for an honest, a 
 virtuous, and a religious man. 
 
 Timotheus. Cousin Lucian, I did not come hither to 
 receive a lecture from you. 
 
 Lucian. I have often given a dinner to a friend who did 
 not come to dine with me. 
 
 Timotheus. Then, I trust, you gave him something better 
 for dinner than bay-salt and dandelions. If you will not 
 assist us in nettling our enemies a little for their absurdities 
 and impositions, let me entreat you, however, to let us 
 alone, and to make no remarks on us. I myself run into 
 no extravagances, like the Essenes, washing and fasting, and 
 retiring into solitude. I am not called to them; when I 
 am, I go. 
 
 Lucian. I am apprehensive the Lord may afflict you with 
 deafness in that ear. 
 
 Timotheus. Nevertheless, I am indifferent to the world, 
 and all things in it. This, I trust, you will acknowledge to 
 be true religion and true philosophy. 
 
 Lucian. That is not philosophy which betrays an indiffer- 
 ence to those for whose benefit philosophy was designed ; 
 and those are the whole human race. But I hold it 
 to be the most unphilosophical thing in the world to 
 call away men from useful occupations and mutual help, 
 to profitless speculations and acrid controversies. Cen- 
 surable enough, and contemptible too, is that supercilious 
 philosopher, sneeringly sedate, who narrates in full and 
 flowing periods the persecutions and tortures of a fellow- 
 man, led astray by his credulity, and ready to die in the — 
 
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 303 
 
 assertion of what in his soul he believes to be the truth. 
 But hardly less censurable, hardly less contemptible, is the 
 tranquilly arrogant sectarian, who denies that wisdom or 
 honesty can exist beyond the limits of his own ill-lighted 
 chamber. 
 
 Timotheus. What! is he sanguinary P 
 
 Lucian. Whenever he can be, he is; and he always has 
 it in his power to be even worse than that, for he refuses his 
 custom to the industrious and honest shopkeeper who has 
 been taught to think differently from himself in matters 
 which he has had no leisure to study, and by which, if he 
 had enjoyed that leisure, he would have been a less 
 industrious and a less expert artificer. 
 
 Timotheus. We can not countenance those hard-hearted 
 men who refuse to hear the word of the Lord. 
 
 Lucian. The hard-hearted knowing this of the tender- 
 hearted, and receiving the declaration from their own lips, 
 will refuse to hear the word of the Lord all their lives. 
 
 Timotheus. Well, well; it can not be helped. I see, 
 cousin, my hopes of obtaining a little of your assistance in 
 your own pleasant way are disappointed ; but it is some- 
 thing to have conceived a better hope of saving your soul, 
 from your readiness to acknowledge your belief in miracles. 
 
 Lucian. Miracles have existed in all ages and in all 
 religions. Witnesses to some of them have been 
 numerous ; to others of them fewer. Occasionally the 
 witnesses have been disinterested in the result. 
 
 Timotheus. Now indeed you speak truly and wisely. 
 
 Lucian, But sometimes the most honest and the most 
 quiescent have either been unable or unwilling to push 
 themselves so forward as to see clearly and distinctly the 
 whole of the operation ; and have listened to some knave 
 who felt a pleasure in deluding their credulity, or some 
 other who himself was either an enthusiast or a dupe. It 
 also may have happened in the ancient religions, of Egypt 
 for instance, or of India, or even of Greece, that narratives 
 have been attributed to authors who never heard of them; 
 and have been circulated by honest men who firmly 
 
4 
 
 believed them ; by half-honest, who indulged their vanity 
 in becoming members of a novel and bustling society ; and 
 by utterly dishonest, who, having no other means of rising 
 above the shoulders of the vulgar, threw dust into their 
 eyes and made them stoop. 
 
 Timotheus. Ha! the rogues} It is nearly all over with 
 them. 
 
 Lucian. Let us hope so. Parthenius and the Roman 
 poet Ovidius Naso, have related the transformations of 
 sundry men, women, and gods. 
 
 Zimotheus. Idleness! Idleness! I never read such lying 
 authors. 
 
 Lucian. 1 myself have seen enough to incline me toward 
 a belief in them. 
 
 Timotheus. You? Why! you have always been thought 
 an utter infidel ; and now you are running, hot and heed- 
 less as any mad dog, to the opposite extreme ! 
 
 Lucian. I have lived to see, not indeed one man, but 
 certainly one animal turned into another; nay, great 
 numbers. I have seen sheep with the most placid faces in 
 the morning, one nibbling the tender herb with all its dew 
 upon it; another, negligent of its own sustenance, and 
 giving it copiously to the tottering lamb aside it. 
 
 Timotheus. How pretty! half poetical ! 
 
 Lucian. In the heat of the day I saw the very same 
 sheep tearing off each other’s fleeces with long teeth and 
 longer claws, and imitating so admirably the howl of 
 wolves, that at last the wolves came down on them ina 
 body, and lent their best assistance at the general devour- 
 ing. What is more remarkable, the people of the villages 
 seemed to enjoy the sport; and, instead of attacking the 
 wolves, waited until they had filled their stomachs, ate the 
 little that was left, said piously and from the bottom of 
 their hearts what you call grace, and went home singing and 
 piping. 
 
 304 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 
 
MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 
 
 Calvin, Are you sure, O Melancthon! that you yourself 
 are among the elect ? 
 
 Melancthon. My dear brother! so please it God, I would 
 rather be among the many. 
 
 Calvin, Of the damned ? 
 
 Melancthon, Alas! no. But I am inclined to believe 
 that the many will be saved and will be happy, since Christ 
 came into the world for the redemption of sinners. 
 
 Calvin. Hath not our Saviour said explicitly, that many 
 are called, but few chosen. 
 
 Melancthon, Our Saviour? hath he said it ? 
 
 Calvin. Hath he, forsooth! Where is your New 
 Testament ? 
 
 Melancthon. In my heart. 
 
 Calvin. Without this page, however. 
 
 Melancthon. When we are wiser and more docile, that is, 
 when we are above the jars and turmoils and disputations 
 of the world, our Saviour will vouchsafe to interpret what, 
 through the fumes of our intemperate vanity, is now indis- 
 tinct or dark. He will plead for us before no inexorable 
 judge. He came to remit the sins of man; not the sins of 
 a few, but of many ; not the sins of many, but of all. 
 
 Calvin. What! of the benighted heathen too? of the 
 pagan ? of the idolater ? 
 
 Melancthon. I hope so ; but I dare not say it. 
 
 Calvin. You would include even the negligent, the 
 indifferent, the sceptic, the unbeliever. 
 
 Melancthon. Pitying them for a want of happiness in a 
 want of faith, ‘They are my brethren: they are God’s 
 children. He will pardon the presumption of my wishes 
 
 613 
 
306 MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 
 
 for their welfare; my sorrow that they have fallen, some 
 through their blindness, others through their deafness, 
 others through their terror, others through their anger, 
 peradventure at the loud denunciations of unforgiving man, 
 If I would forgive a brother, may not he, who is immeasur- 
 ably better and more merciful, have pity on a child? He 
 came on earth to take our nature upon him: will he punish, 
 will he reprehend us, for an attempt to take as much as may 
 be of his upon ourselves ? 
 
 Calvin. ‘There is no bearing any such fallacies. 
 
 Melancthon, Is it harder to bear these fallacies (as they 
 appear to you, and perhaps are, for we all are fallible, and 
 many even of our best thoughts are fallacies), is it harder, O 
 my friend, to bear these, than to believe in the eternal 
 punishment of the erroneous P 
 
 Calvin. Erroneous, indeed! Have they not the Book of 
 Life, now at last laid open before them, for their guidance ? 
 
 Melancthon. No, indeed; they have only two or three 
 places, dog-eared and bedaubed, which they are commanded 
 to look into and study. ‘These are so uninviting, that many 
 close again the volume of salvation, clasp it tight, and throw 
 it back in our faces. I would rather show a man green 
 fields than gibbets: and if I called him to enter the service 
 of a plenteous house and powerful master, he may not be 
 rendered the more willing to enter it by my pointing out to 
 him the stocks in the gateway, and telling him that nine- 
 tenths of the household, however orderly, must occupy that 
 position. The book of good news under your interpretation, 
 tells people not only that they may go and be damned, but 
 that unless they are lucky, they must inevitably. Again it 
 informs another set of inquirers that if once they have been 
 under what they feel to be the influence of grace, they never 
 can relapse. All must go well who have once gone well: 
 and a name once written in the list of favourites can never 
 be erased. 
 
 Calvin. ‘This is certain. 
 
 Melancthon. Let us hope then, and in holy confidence let 
 us believe, that the book is large and voluminous; that it 
 
MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 307 
 
 begins at an early date of man’s existence ; and that amid 
 the agitation of inquiry, it comprehends the humble and 
 submissive doubter. For doubt itself, between the richest 
 patrimony and utter destitution, is quite sufficiently painful : 
 and surely it is a hardship to be turned over into a criminal 
 court for having lost in a civil one. But if all who have 
 once gone right can never go astray, how happens it that so 
 large a part of the angels fell off from their allegiance ? 
 They were purer and wiser than we are, and had the 
 advantage of seeing God face to face. They were the 
 ministers of his power; they knew its extent; yet they 
 defied it. If we err, it is in relying too confidently on his 
 mercies ; not in questioning his omnipotence. If our hopes 
 forsake us, if the bonds of sin bruise and corrode us, so that 
 we can not walk upright, there is, in the midst of these 
 calamities, no proof that we are utterly lost. Danger far 
 greater is there in the presumption of an especial favour, 
 which men incomparably better than ourselves can never 
 have deserved. Let us pray, O Calvin, that we may here- 
 after be happier than our contentions and animosities will 
 permit us to be at present ; and that our opponents, whether 
 now in the right or in the wrong, may come at last where all 
 error ceases. 
 
 Calvin. 1 am uncertain whether such a wish is rational: 
 and I doubt more whether it is religious. God hath willed 
 them to walk in their blindness. To hope against it seems 
 like repining at his unalterable decree ; a weak indulgence 
 in an unpermitted desire ; an unholy entreaty of the heart 
 that He will forego his vengeance, and abrogate the law 
 that was from the beginning. Of one thing I am certain: 
 we must lop off the unsound. 
 
 Melancthon. What a curse hath metaphor been to religion ! 
 It is the wedge that holds asunder the two great portions of 
 the Christian world. We hear of nothing so commonly as 
 fire and sword. And here indeed what was metaphor is 
 converted into substance and applied to practice. The 
 unsoundness of doctrine is not cut off nor cauterised; the 
 professor is. The head falls on the scaffold, or fire surrounds 
 
208 MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 
 
 the stake, because a doctrine is bloodless and incombustible. 
 Fierce outrageous animals, for want of the man who has 
 escaped them, lacerate and trample his cloak or bonnet. 
 This, although the work of brutes, is not half so brutal as 
 the practice of theologians, seizing the man himself, instead 
 of bonnet or cloak. 
 
 Calvin. We must leave such matters to the magistrate. 
 
 Melancthon. Let us instruct the magistrate in his duty ; 
 this is ours. Unless we can teach humanity, we may resign 
 the charge of religion. For fifteen centuries, Christianity 
 has been conveyed into many houses, in many cities, in 
 many regions, but always through slender pipes ; and never 
 yet into any great reservoir in any part of the earth. Its 
 principal ordinances have never been observed in the polity 
 of any state whatever. Abstinence from spoliation, from 
 oppression, from bloodshed, has never been inculcated by 
 the chief priests of any. These two facts excite the doubts 
 of many in regard to a divine origin and a divine protection. 
 Wherefore it behoves us the more especially to preach 
 forbearance. If the people are tolerant one toward another 
 in the same country, they will become tolerant in time 
 toward those whom rivers or seas have separated from them. 
 For surely it is strange and wonderful that nations which 
 are near enough for hostility should never be near enough 
 for concord. ‘This arises from bad government; and bad 
 government arises from a negligent choice of counsellors by 
 the prince, usually led or terrified by a corrupt, ambitious, 
 wealthy (and therefore unchristian) priesthood. While their 
 wealth lay beyond the visible horizon, they tarried at the 
 cottage, instead of pricking on for the palace. 
 
 Calvin. By the grace and help of God we will turn them 
 back again to their quiet and wholesome resting-place, 
 before the people lay a rough hand upon the silk. 
 
 But you evaded my argument on predestination. 
 
 Melancthon. Our blessed Lord himself, in his last hours, 
 ventured to express a wish before his heavenly Father, that 
 the bitter cup might pass away from him. I humbly dare to 
 implore that a cup much bitterer may be removed from the 
 
MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 309 
 
 great body of mankind; a cup containing the poison of 
 eternal punishment, where agony succeeds to agony, but 
 never death. 
 
 Calvin. I come armed with the Gospel. 
 
 Melancthon. ‘Tremendous weapon! as we have seen it 
 through many ages, if man wields it against man; but like 
 the fabled spear of old mythology, endued with the faculty 
 of healing the saddest wound its most violent wielder can 
 inflict. Obscured and rusting with the blood upon it, let us 
 hasten to take it up again, and apply it, as best we may, to 
 its appointed uses. 
 
 The life of our Saviour is the simplest exposition of his 
 words. Strife is what he both discountenanced and 
 forbade. We ourselves are right-minded, each of us all: 
 and others are right-minded in proportion as they agree 
 with us, chiefly in matters which we insist are well worthy 
 of our adherence, but which whosoever refuses to embrace 
 displays a factious and unchristian spirit. These for the 
 most part are matters which neither they nor we under- 
 stand, and which, if we did understand them, would little 
 profit us. The weak will be supported by the strong, if 
 they can ; if they can not, they are ready to be supported 
 even by the weaker, and cry out against the strong, as 
 arrogant or negligent, or deaf or blind; at last even their 
 strength is questioned, and the more if, while there is fury 
 all around them, they are quiet. 
 
 I remember no discussion on religion in which religion 
 was not a sufferer by it, if mutual forbearance, and belief in 
 another’s good motives and intentions, are (as [ must always 
 think they are) its proper and necessary appurtenances. 
 
 Calvin. Would you never make inquiries ? 
 
 Melancthon. Yes; and as deep as possible; but into my 
 own heart, for that belongs to me ; and God hath entrusted 
 it most especially to my own superintendence. 
 
 Calvin. We must also keep others from going astray, by 
 showing them the right road, and, if they are obstinate in 
 resistance, then by coercing and chastising them through 
 the magistrate. 
 
310 MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 
 
 Melancthon. It is sorrowful to dream that we are scourges 
 in God’s hand, and that he appoints for us no better work 
 than lacerating one another. I am no enemy to inquiry, 
 where I see abuses, and where I suspect falsehood. ‘The 
 Romanists, our great oppressors, think it presumptuous to 
 search into things abstruse ; and let us do them the justice 
 to acknowledge that, if it is a fault, it is one which they 
 never commit. But surely we are kept sufficiently in the 
 dark by the infirmity of our nature: no need to creep into 
 acorner and put our hands before our eyes. ‘To throw 
 away or turn aside from God’s best gifts is verily a curious 
 sign of obedience and submission. He not only hath given 
 us a garden to walk in, but he hath planted it also for us, 
 and he wills us to know the nature and properties of every- 
 thing that grows up within it. Unless we look into them 
 and handle them and register them, how shall we discover 
 this to be salutary, that to be poisonous ; this annual, that 
 perennial P 
 
 Calvin. Here we coincide ; and I am pleased to find in 
 you less apathy than I expected. It becomes us, moreover, 
 to denounce God’s vengeance on a sinful world. 
 
 Melancthon. \s it not better and pleasanter to show the 
 wanderer by what course of life it may be avoided? is it 
 not better and pleasanter to enlarge on God’s promises of 
 salvation, than to insist on his denunciations of wrath P is 
 it not better and pleasanter to lead the wretched up to his 
 mercy-seat, than to hurl them by thousands under his fiery 
 chariot ? 
 
 Calvin. We have no option. By our heavenly Father 
 many are called, but few are chosen. 
 
 Melancthon. There is scarcely a text in the Holy Scriptures 
 to which there is not an opposite text, written in characters 
 equally large and legible; and there has usually been a 
 sword laid upon each. Even the weakest disputant is made 
 so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself 
 wiser than the wisest who thinks differently from him ; and 
 he becomes so ferocious by what he calls holding it fast, 
 that he appears to me as if he held it fast much in the same 
 
MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 311 
 
 manner as a terrier holds a rat, and you have about as much 
 trouble in getting it from between his incisors. When at 
 last it does come out, it is mangled, distorted, and extinct. 
 Calvin. M. Melancthon! you have taken a very perverse 
 view of the subject. Such language as yours would 
 extinguish that zeal which is to enlighten the nations, and 
 to consume the tares by which they are overrun. 
 Melancthon. ‘The tares and the corn are so intermingled 
 throughout the wide plain which our God hath given us to 
 cultivate, that I would rather turn the patient and humble 
 into it to weed it carefully, than a thresher who would 
 thresh wheat and tare together before the grain is ripened, 
 or who would carry fire into the furrows when it is. 
 Calvin. Yet even the most gentle, and of the gentler sex, 
 are inflamed with a holy zeal in the propagation of the faith. 
 Melancthon. 1 do not censure them for their earnestness 
 in maintaining truth. We not only owe our birth to them, 
 but also the better part of our education; and if we were 
 not divided after their first lesson, we should continue to 
 live in a widening circle of brothers and sisters all our lives. 
 After our infancy and removal from home, the use of the rod 
 is the principal thing we learn of our alien preceptors ; and, 
 catching their dictatorial language, we soon begin to exercise 
 their instrument of enforcing it, and swing it right and left, 
 even after we are paralysed by age, and until Death’s hand 
 strikes it out of ours. I am sorry you have cited the gentler 
 part of the creation to appear before you, obliged as I am to 
 bear witness that I myself have known a few specimens of 
 the fair sex become a shade less fair, among the perplexities 
 of religion. Indeed I am credibly informed that certain of 
 them have lost their patience, running up and down in the 
 dust where many roads diverge. ‘This surely is not walking 
 humbly with their God, nor walking with him at all; for 
 those who walk with him are always readier to hear “7s 
 voice than their own, and to admit that it is more persua- 
 sive. But at last the zealot is so infatuated, by the serious 
 mockeries he imitates and repeats, that he really takes his 
 own voice for God’s. Is it not wonderful that the words of 
 
312 MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 
 
 eternal life should have hitherto produced only eternal 
 litigation ; and that, in our progress heavenward, we should 
 think it expedient to plant unthrifty thorns over bitter wells 
 of blood in the wilderness we leave behind us ? 
 
 Ca/vin, It appears to me that you are inclined to tolerate 
 even the rank idolatry of our persecutors. Shame! shame! — 
 
 Melancthon. Greater shame if I tolerated it within my 
 own dark heart, and waved before it the foul incense of 
 self-love. 
 
 Calvin. 1 do not understand you. What I do under- 
 stand is this, and deny it at your peril . . . I mean at the 
 peril of your salvation . . . that God is a jealous God: he 
 himself declares it. 
 
 Melancthon. We are in the habit of considering the God 
 of Nature as a jealous God, and idolatry as an enormous 
 evil: an evil which is about to come back into the world, 
 and to subdue or seduce once more our strongest and most 
 sublime affections. Why do you lift up your eyes and 
 hands P 
 
 Calvin. An evil about to come back! about to come! 
 Do we not find it in high places ? 
 
 Melancthon. We do indeed, and always shall, while there 
 are any high places upon earth. ‘Thither will men creep, 
 and there fall prostrate. 
 
 Calvin. Against idolatry we still implore the Almighty 
 that he will incline our hearts to keep his law. 
 
 Melancthon. 'The Jewish law ; the Jewish idolatry. You 
 fear the approach of this, and do not suspect the presence 
 of a worse. 
 
 Calvin. A worse than that which the living God hath 
 denounced ? 
 
 Melancthon. Fiven so. 
 
 Calvin. Would it not offend, would it not wound to the 
 quick, a mere human creature, to be likened to a piece of 
 metal or stone, a calf or monkey ? 
 
 Melancthon. A mere human creature might be angry; 
 because his influence among his neighbours arises in great — 
 measure from the light in which he appears to them ; and 
 
MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 313 
 
 this light does not emanate from himself, but may be thrown 
 on him by any hand that is expert at mischief: beside, the 
 likeness of such animals to him could never be suggested 
 by reverence or esteem, nor be regarded as a type of any 
 virtue. The mere human creature, such as human creatures 
 for the most part are, would be angry; because he has 
 nothing which he can oppose to ridicule but resentment. 
 
 Calvin. I am in consternation at your lukewarmness. If 
 you treat idolaters thus lightly, what hope can I enter- 
 tain of discussing with you the doctrine of grace and 
 predestination. 
 
 Melancthon. Entertain no such hope at all. Wherever I 
 find in the Holy Scriptures a disputable doctrine, I interpret 
 it as judges do, in favour of the culprit: such is man: the 
 benevolent judge is God. But in regard to idolatry, I see 
 more criminals who are guilty of it than you do. I go 
 beyond the stone-quarry and the pasture, beyond the graven 
 image and the ox-stall. If we bow before the distant image 
 of good, while there exists within our reach one solitary 
 object of substantial sorrow, which sorrow our efforts can 
 remove, we are guilty (1 pronounce it) of idolatry : we prefer 
 the intangible effigy to the living form. Surely we neglect 
 the service of our Maker if we neglect his children. He left 
 us in the chamber with them, to take care of them, to feed 
 them, to admonish them, and occasionally to amuse them : 
 instead of which, after a warning not to run into the fire, we 
 slam the door behind us in their faces, and run eagerly 
 downstairs to dispute and quarrel with our fellows of the 
 household who are about their business. The wickedness 
 of idolatry does not consist in any inadequate representation 
 of the Deity, for whether our hands or our hearts represent 
 him, the representation is almost alike inadequate. Every 
 man does what he hopes and believes will be most pleasing 
 to his God ; and God, in his wisdom and mercy, will not 
 punish gratitude in its error. 
 
 Calvin. How do you know that ? 
 
 Melancthon. Because I know his loving-kindness, and 
 experience it daily. 
 
314 MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 
 
 Calvin. If men blindly and wilfully run into error when 
 God hath shown the right way, he will visit it on their 
 souls, 
 
 Melancthon. Ue will observe from the serenity of heaven, 
 a serenity emanating from his presence, that there is scarcely 
 any work of his creation on earth which hath not excited, 
 in some people or other, a remembrance, an admiration, a 
 symbol, of his power. The evil of idolatry is this. Rival 
 nations have raised up rival deities: war hath been 
 denounced in the name of Heaven: men have been 
 murdered for the love of God: and such impiety hath 
 darkened all the regions of the world, that the Lord of 
 all things hath been invoked by all simultaneously as the 
 Lord of Hosts. This is the only invocation in which men 
 of every creed are united: an invocation to which Satan, 
 bent on the perdition of the human race, might have 
 listened from the fallen angels. 
 
 Calvin. We can not hope to purify men’s hearts until we 
 lead them away from the abomination of Babylon: nor will 
 they be led away from it until we reduce the images to dust. 
 So long as they stand, the eye will hanker after them, and 
 the spirit be corrupt. 
 
 Melancthon. And long afterward, I sadly fear. 
 
 We attribute to the weakest of men the appellations and 
 powers of Deity: we fall down before them: we call the 
 impious and cruel by the title of gracious and most religious : 
 and, even in the house of God himself, and before his very 
 altar, we split his Divine Majesty asunder, and offer the 
 largest part to the most corrupt and most corrupting of his 
 creatures. 
 
 Calvin. Not we, M. Melancthon. I will preach, I will 
 exist, in no land of such abomination. 
 
 Melancthon. So far, well: but religion demands more. 
 Our reformers knock off the head from Jupiter: thunderbolt 
 and sceptre stand. The attractive, the impressive, the 
 august, they would annihilate, leaving men nothing but their 
 sordid fears of vindictive punishment, and their impious 
 doubts of our Saviour’s promises. 
 
MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 315 
 
 Calvin. We should teach men to retain for ever the fear 
 of God before their eyes, never to cease from the appre- 
 hension of His wrath, to be well aware that He often 
 afflicts when He is farthest from wrath, and that such 
 infliction is a benefit bestowed by Him. 
 
 Melancthon. What! if only a few are to be saved when 
 the infliction is over ? 
 
 Calvin. It becometh not us to repine at the number of 
 vessels which the supremely wise artificer forms, breaks, 
 and casts away, or at the paucity it pleaseth him to 
 preserve. The ways of Providence are inscrutable. 
 
 Melancthon. Some of them are, and some of them are 
 not ; and in these it seems to be his design that we should 
 see and adore his wisdom. We fancy that all our inflictions 
 are sent us directly and immediately from above: some- 
 times we think it in piety and contrition, but oftener in 
 moroseness and discontent. It would, however, be well if 
 we attempted to trace the causes of them. We should 
 probably find their origin in some region of the heart which 
 we never had well explored, or in which we had secretly 
 deposited our worst indulgences. The clouds that intercept 
 the heavens from us, come not from the heavens, but from 
 the earth. 
 
 Why should we scribble our own devices over the Book 
 of God, erasing the plainest words, and rendering the Holy 
 Scriptures a worthless palimpsest? Can not we agree to 
 show the nations of the world that the whole of Christianity 
 is practicable, although the better parts never have been 
 practised, no, not even by the priesthood, in any single one 
 of them. Bishops, confessors, saints, martyrs, have never 
 denounced to king or people, nor ever have attempted to 
 delay or mitigate, the most accursed of crimes, the crime of 
 Cain, the crime indeed whereof Cain’s was only a germ, the 
 crime of fratricide, war, war, devastating, depopulating, soul- 
 slaughtering, heaven-defying war. Alas! the gentle call of 
 mercy sounds feebly, and soon dies away, leaving no trace 
 on the memory: but the swelling cries of vengeance, in 
 which we believe we imitate the voice of Heaven, run and 
 
316 MELANCTHON AND CALVIN. 
 
 reverberate in loud peals and multiplied echoes along the 
 whole vault of the brain. All the man is shaken by them ; 
 and he shakes all the earth. 
 
 Calvin! I beseech you, do you who guide and govern so 
 many, do you (whatever others may) spare your brethren. 
 Doubtful as I am of lighter texts, blown backward and 
 forward at the opening of opposite windows, I am convinced 
 and certain of one grand immovable verity. It sounds 
 strange ; it sounds contradictory. 
 
 Calvin. I am curious to hear it. 
 
 Melancthon. You shall. This is the tenet. There is 
 nothing on earth divine beside humanity. 
 
 Printed by WaLtTER Scotr, Felling, Newcastle-on- Tyne. 
 
Ihe Canterbury Poets, 
 EDITED BY WILLIAM SHARP. _ 
 WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTICES BY VARIOUS CONTRIBUTORS, 
 
 
 
 In SHILLING Monthly Volumes, Square 8vo. 
 
 Well printed on fine 
 
 toned paper, with Red-line Border, and strongly bound in Cloth. Each 
 
 Volume contains from 300 to 350 pages. 
 
 Cloth, Red Edges - 1s. 
 Cloth, Uncut Edges - Is. 
 
 Red Roan, Gilt Edges 2s. 6d. 
 Pad. Morocco, Gilt Edges - 8s. 
 
 
 
 THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE NOW READY. 
 
 CHRISTIAN YEAR. 
 By Rey. John Keble. 
 
 COLERIDGE. Ed. by J. Skipsey. 
 LONGFELLOW. Ed. by E. Hope. 
 CAMPBELL. Edited by J. Hogben. 
 SHELLEY. Edited by J. Skipsey. 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Edited by A. J. Symington. 
 BLAKE. 
 
 WHITTIER. Edited by Eva Hope. 
 POE, ee we Joseph Skipsey. 
 CHATTERT 
 
 Sion hp John Richmond. 
 BURNS. Poems. Edited by 
 BURNS. Songs. 
 MARLOWE. 
 
 Edited b. y P. E. Pinkerton. 
 KEATS. Edited by John Hogben. 
 HERBERT. Edited by E. Rhys. 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 Translated by Dean Carrington. 
 COWPER. Edited by Eva Hope. 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Songs, Egon, and Sonnets, 
 Edited by William Sharp. 
 EMERSON. Edited b by W. Lewin. 
 SONNETS of this CENTURY. 
 Edited by William Sharp. 
 WHITMAN. HEdited by E. Rhys. 
 SCOTT, Marmion, etc. 
 SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, etc. 
 Edited by William Sharp. 
 PRAED. Edited by Fred. Cooper. 
 HOGG. ae aneyiet Mrs Garden. 
 GOLDSMITH. E d. by W. Tirebuck. 
 MACKAY’S LOVE LETTERS. 
 SPENSER. Edited by Hon. R. Noel. 
 CHILDREN OF TH POETS. 
 Edited by Eric S. Robertson. 
 JONSON. Edited by J. A. Symonds. 
 BYRON . Vols.) 
 dited by Mathilde Blind. 
 THE seth i OF EUROPE. 
 dited by S. Waddington. 
 
 Edited by Joseph Skipsey. 
 
 Joseph Skipsey. 
 
 RAMSAY, Ed by J. L. Robertson. 
 DOBELL. Edited by Mrs. Dobell. 
 DAYS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 With Introduction by Wm. Sharp. 
 POPE. Edited by John Hogben, 
 HEINE, Edited by Mrs. Kroeker. 
 ee & FLETCHER. 
 
 d by J. S. Fletcher. 
 BOWLES, LAMB, &c. 
 Edited by William ‘Tirebuck. 
 EARLY ENGLISH POETRY. 
 Edited by H. Macaulay Fitzgibbon. 
 SEA MUSIC, Edited by Mrs Sharp. 
 HERRICK. Edited by ErnestRhys. 
 BALLADES AND RONDEAUS 
 Edited by J. Gleeson White. 
 IRISH MINSTRELSY. 
 Edited by H. Halliday Sparling, 
 MILTON’S PARADISE LOST. 
 Edited by J. Bradshaw, re LL: 
 JACOBITE BALLA 
 Edited by G. S. Theol 
 AUSTRALIAN "BALLADS. 
 Edited by D. B. W. Sladen, B.A. 
 MOORE. Edited by John Dorrian. 
 BORDER BALLADS. 
 
 Edited by Graham R. Tomson. 
 SONG-TIDE. by P. B. Marston. 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Translations by Sir 8. de Vere, Bt. 
 OSSIAN. Edited by G. E. Todd. 
 ELFIN MUSIC Ed. by A. Waite. 
 SOUTHEY., Ed. byS. R. Thompson. 
 CHAUCER. Edited by F. N. Paton. 
 POEMS OF WILD LIFE. 
 Edited by Chas. G. D. Roberts, M.A. 
 PARADISE REGAINED. 
 Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D. 
 CRABBE. Edited by E. Lamplough. 
 DORA GREENWELL. 
 
 Edited by William Dorling. 
 
 
 
 London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
Monthly Shilling Volumes. Cloth, cut or uncut edges. 
 
 THE CAMELOT SERGE 
 
 EDITED BY ERNeEsT Ruys. 
 
 
 
 THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE NOW READY. 
 
 ROMANCE OF nek ARTHUR. Edited by E. Rhys, 
 THORHAU'S WALDEN. Edited by W. H. Dircks. 
 ENGLISH OPIUM. WATER. Edited by William Sharp. 
 LANDOR’S eg eet ec) Edited by H. Ellis, 
 PLUTARCH’S LIVE Edited by B. J. Snell, M.A. 
 RELIGIO MEDICI, pts. Edited by J. A. Symonds, 
 SHELLEY'S LETTERS. Edited by Ernest Rhys. 
 Sate WRITINGS OF SWIFT. Edited by W. Lewin. 
 MY STUDY WINDOWS. _ Edited by R. Garnett, LL.D. 
 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. Edited by W. Sharp. 
 LORD BYRON’S LETTERS. Edited by M. Blind 
 ESSAYS BY LEIGH HUNT. Edited by A. Symons, 
 LONGFELLOW’S PROSE. Edited by W. Tirebuck. 
 GREAT aE attae COMPOSERS. Edited by E. Sharp. 
 MARCUS AURELIUS. Edited by Alice Zimmern. 
 SPECIMEN DAYS IN AMERICA. By Walt Whitman. 
 WHITH'S NATURAL HISTORY of SHLBORNE 
 Edited, with Introduction, by Richard Jefferies. 
 
 ee S SINGLETON. Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. 
 AZZINITS HSSAYS. Edited by William Clarke, 
 Te PROSE WRITINGS OF HEINRICH HEINE. 
 Edited, with Introduction, by Havelock Ellis. 
 
 REYNOLDS’ DISCOURSES. Edited by Helen Zimmern. 
 PAPERS OF STEELE & ADDISON. Edited by W. Lewin. 
 BURNS’S LETTERS. Edited by J. Logie Robertson, M.A. 
 
 VOLSUNGA SAGA. Edited by H. H. Sparling. 
 SARTOR RESARTUS. Edited by Ernest Rhys. 
 Arar vee fon Peers ca Edited by Percival Chubb. 
 
 ENECA’S MO LS. Edited by Walter Clode. 
 DEMOGRATIG TISTAS. By Walt Whitman. 
 LIFE OF LORD nee a Edited by Will H. Dircks. 
 ENGLISH PROS Edited by Arthur Galton. 
 
 THEH PILLARS OT SOCIETY, and other Plays. 
 
 By Henrik Ibsen. Edited by Havelock Ellis. 
 FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. Edited by W. B. Yeats. 
 BPICTETUS. Edited by T. W. Rolleston. 
 THE ENGLISH PORTS. By James Russell Lowell. 
 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. _ Edited by Stuart J. Reid. 
 ESSAYS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. Edited by F. Carr. 
 
 London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
Monthly Shilling Volumes. Cloth, cut or uncut edges. 
 
 GRHAAT WRITERS. 
 
 EDITED BY PROFESSOR E. S. ROBERTSON. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE NOW READY. 
 
 LIFE OF LONGFELLOW. By Professor Eric S. Robertson. 
 
 x most readable little work, brightened by fancy, and enriched by poetic 
 feeling.”—Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 LIFE OF COLERIDGE. By Hall Caine. 
 
 ‘Brief and vigorous, written throughout with spirit and great literary 
 skill, often rising into eloquence.”—Scotsman. 
 
 LIFE OF DICKENS. By Frank T. Marzials. 
 
 ““We should, until we came across this volume, have been at a loss to 
 recommend any popular life of England’s most popular novelist as being 
 really ee ”_ A thenceum. 
 
 LIFE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. By Joseph Knight. 
 
 “Mr. Knight’s picture of the great poet and painter is the tallest: and best 
 
 oa eae a the oe ’—The Graphic. 
 OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. By Colonel F. Grant. 
 ** Colonel Gaot has performed his task with diligence, sound judgment, 
 ‘ood taste, and accuracy.”—Jllustrated London News. 
 LI Ez ne DARWIN, By G. T. Bettany. 
 
 Be ¢ T. Bettany’s Infe of Darwin is a sound and conscientious work.” 
 — ae a: 
 
 LIFE OF ere BRONTE. By Augustine Birrell. 
 
 “Those who know much of Charlotte Bronté will learn more, and those 
 who know methine stent her will find all that is best worth learning i in Mr. 
 Birrell’s pleasant book.”—St. James’ Gazette. 
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLE. By Richard Garnett, LL.D. 
 
 “This is an admirable book. Nothing could be more felicitous than the 
 
 way in which he takes us through Carlyle’s life.”—Pall Mall Gazette. 
 LIFE OF ADAM SMITH. By R. B. Haldane, M.P. 
 
 “ Written throughout with a perspicuity seldom exemplified when dealing 
 
 with economic science.”—Scotsman. 
 LIFE OF KEATS. By W. M. Rossetti. 
 “Valuable for the ample information which it contains.”—Cambridge 
 
 et 
 LIFE OF SHELLEY. By William Sharp. 
 * Another fit memorial of a beautiful soul.”—The Academy, 
 LIFE OF SMOLLETT. By David Hannay. 
 “An exceptionally manly and capable record.”—Saiurday Review. 
 LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. By Austin Dobson. 
 LIFE OF SCOTT. By Professor Yonge 
 LIFE OF BURNS. By Professor Blacki 
 LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO. By Frank T. Marzials. 
 LIFE OF EMERSON. By Richard Garnett, LL.D. 
 LIFE OF GOETHE. By James Sime. 
 LIFE OF CONGREVE. By Edmund Gosse. 
 LIFE OF BUNYAN. By Canon Venables. 
 LIFE OF CRABBE, By T. E. Kebbel, M.A, 
 LIFE OF HEINE. By William Sharp. 
 LIFE OF MILL. By W. L. Courtney. 
 LIFE OF SCHILLER. By H. W. Nevinson. [Ready January 25th. 
 
 Complete Bibliography to each volume, by J. P. ANDERSON, British Museum. 
 
 
 
 LIBRARY EDITION OF “GREAT WRITERS,”—Printed on 
 
 large paper of extra quality, in handsome binding, Demy 8vo, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
 
 
Square 8v0, Price 6d. New and Revised Edition. 
 
 PARENTAL COMMANDMENTS 
 
 Or, Warnings to Parents 
 
 ON THE PHYSICAL, INTELLECTUAL, AND MORAL 
 TRAINING OF THEIR CHILDREN. 
 
 
 
 The Lancet—'‘'Very sensible advice—agreeably readable—terse, 
 interesting, instructive, well considered, and accurate; readers will 
 doubtless learn some points which they don’t know.” 
 
 Christian World— Terse and sententious warnings on the physical, 
 intellectual, and moral training of children, which parents will do well 
 to lay to heart.” 
 
 Newcastle Chronicle—‘ Valuable book—mass of information—have 
 not seen any work which treats in such an exhaustive and interesting 
 fashion on training of children; if studied and acted upon, would 
 quickly be a more beneficial revolution of society than all the hosts of 
 social reformers can ever hope to accomplish.” 
 
 Literary World—‘'Sound common sense and knowledge of the 
 conditions of healthy child-life.” 
 
 Bristol Mercury— Shall not be surprised if the circulation rivals 
 Called Back ; it has that touch of genius which makes it everybody’s 
 reading.” 
 
 Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone—“ It has been read by two members of 
 my family, on whose taste and judgment I fully rely. Both of them 
 think of it with warm favour.” 
 
 Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol—‘‘ Very useful and suggestive 
 precepts.” 
 
 Late Earl of Iddesleigh—‘ How interested I have been in its perusal.” 
 
 Dr. Samuel Smiles— Capital book—full of sound advice—should 
 be widely read.” 
 
 Professor Huxley— Excellent manual of negative commandments for 
 fathers and mothers.” 
 
 Mr. S. C. Haill—‘‘Valuable little book. I know no book con- 
 aing a tenth part so many wise, moral, social, and physical axioms.” 
 
 George R. Sims, Author ‘‘ Dagonet Ballads,” etc.—‘ Admirable 
 little book ; hope it will have the success it deserves.” 
 
 Mr. Wilkie Collins—‘‘ The second axiom at once informed me that 
 it was the work of a man whose knowledge of human nature, and whose 
 wise and gentle method of communicating that knowledge, established 
 claims on the gratitude and respect of his reader; there are, as I firmly 
 believe, thousands of intelligent people in this country to whom this book 
 will be a blessing, in the truest sense of that word.” 
 
 Cardinal Newman— So full of good sense and wisdom.” 
 
 Lord Brabazon—* Valuable work.” 
 
 Lord Salishbury— Interesting little book.” 
 
 London: WALTER Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
Windsor Series of Poetical Anthologies. 
 
 Printed on Antique Paper. Crown Svo. Bound in Blue Cloth, 
 each with suitable Emblematic Design on Cover, Price 3s. 6d. 
 Also in various Calf and Morocco Bindings. 
 
 Women’s Voices. An Anthology of the 
 most Characteristic Poems by English, Scotch, and Irish Women. 
 Edited by Mrs. William Sharp. 
 
 Sonnets of this Century. With an 
 Exhaustive and Critical Essay on the Sontict- Edited by 
 William Sharp. 
 
 The Children of the Poets. An Anthology 
 from English and American Writers of Three Centuries. Edited 
 by Professor Eric S. Robertson. 
 
 Sacred Song. A Volume of Religious 
 Verse. Selected and arranged, with Notes, by Samuel 
 Waddington. 
 
 A Century of Australian Song. Selected 
 and Edited by Douglas B. W. Sladen, B.A., Oxon. 
 
 Jacobite Songs and Ballads. Selected 
 and Edited, with Notes, by G. S. Macquoid. 
 
 Irish Minstrelsy. Edited, with Notes and 
 Introduction, by H. Halliday Sparling. 
 
 The Sonnets of Europe. A Volume of 
 Translations. Selected and arranged, with Notes, by Samuel 
 Waddington. 
 
 Early English and Scottish Poetry. 
 Selected and Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by H 
 Macaulay Fitzgibbon. 
 
 Ballads of the North Countrie. Edited, 
 with Introduction, by Graham R. Tomson. 
 
 Songs and Poems of the Sea. An 
 Anthology of Poems Descriptive of the Sea. Edited by Mrs. 
 William Sharp, 
 
 Songs and Poems of Fairyland. An 
 
 Anthology of English Fairy Poetry, selected and arranged, with 
 an Introduction, by Arthur Edward Waite. 
 
 
 
 London: WALTER ScoTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row 
 
THE OXFORD LIBRARY. 
 
 Strongly Bound in Elegant Cloth Binding, Price 2s. each. 
 
 This Series of Popular Books comprises many original Novels by new 
 Authors, as well as the most choice works of Dickens, Lytton, Smollett, 
 
 Scott, Ferrier, ete, 
 
 The following are now ready, and will be followed by others shortly — 
 
 BARNABY RUDGE. 
 OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 
 PICKWICK PAPERS. 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 OLIVER TWIST. 
 MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 
 SKETCHES BY BOZ, 
 RODERICK RANDOM, 
 PEREGRINE PICKLE. 
 IVANHOE. 
 KENILWORTH. 
 
 JACOB FAITHFUL 
 PETER SIMPLE, 
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 ERNEST MALTRAVERS. 
 ALICE ; or, the Mysteries. 
 RIENZI. 
 
 PELHAM. 
 
 LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, 
 
 THE SCOTTISH CHIEFS. 
 WILSON’S TALES. 
 THE INHERITANCE, 
 
 ETHEL LINTON, 
 
 A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 
 HAZEL; or, Perilpoint Lighthouse, 
 VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. 
 PRINCE of the HOUSE of DAVID, 
 WIDE, WIDE WORLD. 
 VILLAGE TALES. 
 
 BEN-HUR. 
 
 UNCLE TOM’S OABIN. 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE. 
 CHARLES O’MALLEY. 
 MIDSHIPMAN EASY. 
 
 BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN. 
 LAST OF THE BARONS, 
 
 OLD MORTALITY. 
 
 TOM CRINGLE’S LOG. 
 CRUISE OF THE MIDGE. 
 COLLEEN BAWN. 
 VALENTINE VOX. 
 
 NIGHT AND MORNING. 
 FOXE’S BOOK OF MARTYRS. 
 BUNYAN’S PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, 
 
 London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
THE NOVOCASTRIAN NOVELS. 
 
 
 
 Square 8vo. Price One Shilling each. 
 
 POLICE SERGEANT C 21: 
 THE STORY OF A CRIME. By REGINALD BARNETT. 
 
 “The Blot is ingenious, the interest is well sustained throughout, and the 
 
 style is distinctly above that of the ordinary ‘shilling shocker.’ At times, 
 
 indeed, Mr. Barnett reminds us of Gaboriau, whose M. Lecoq (as M. Lecoq was 
 
 re nie younger days) the policeman-hero resembles in a considerable degree.”— 
 aphic. 
 
 
 
 JACK DUDLEY’S WIFE. 
 
 By E. M. DAVY, Author of “A Prince of Como,” &e. 
 
 “The tale is written with excellent skill, and succeeds in holding the interest 
 well up from first to last.” —Scotsman. 
 
 OAK-BOUGH AND WATTLE-BLOSSOM. 
 Stories and Sketches by Australians in England. 
 Edited by A. PATCHETT MARTIN. 
 “A collection of interesting stories.”—Literary World. 
 
 VANES INVENTION: AN ELECTRICAL ROMANCE. 
 
 By WALTER MILBANK. 
 ‘The story is capitally told.”—Scotsman. 
 
 JHE POLICEMAN’S LANTERN. 
 
 STRANGE STORIES OF LONDON LIFE. 
 By JAMES GREENWOOD, “The Amateur Casual.” 
 
 “The stories are merrily told in a i spontaneous style, which touches oft 
 the bizarre aspects of life on the city streets, or among the ‘ shady’ members of 
 a city population.”—Z'he Scots Observer. 
 
 A WITNESS FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 (A SPECIAL REPORTER'S STORY.) 
 By FLORENCE LAYARD. 
 
 THE UGLY STORY OF MISS WETHERBY. 
 
 By RICHARD PRYCE, Author of ‘ An Evil Spirit,” &c. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
1lOOTH THOUSAND. 
 
 CROWN 8vo0, 440 PAGES, PRICE ONE SHILLING. 
 
 THE WORLD 
 OF Cla. 
 
 
 
 
 
 “ Daily Telegraph.” —“ Decidedly a book with a purpose.” 
 
 ** Scotsman.’ —** A vigorous, clever, and almost ferocious exposure, 
 in the form of a story, of the numerous shams and injustices.” 
 
 “ Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.” —‘ Trenchant in sarcasm, warm in 
 commendation of high purpose. . . . A somewhat remarkable book.” 
 
 “ London Figaro.” —‘‘It cannot be said that the author is partial ; 
 clergymen and Nonconformist divines, Liberals and Conservatives 
 lawyers and tradesmen, all come under his lash. . . . The sketches are 
 worth reading. Some of the characters are portrayed with considerable 
 skill.” 
 
 ‘* May the Lord deliver us from all Cant : may the Lord, whatever 
 else He do or forbear, teach us to look facts honestly in the face, and to 
 beware (with a kind of shudder) of smearing them over with our 
 despicable and damnable palaver into irrecognisability, and so falsifying 
 the Lord’s own Gospels to His unhappy blockheads of Children, 
 all staggering down to Gehenna and the everlasting Swine’s-trough, for 
 want of Gospels. 
 
 ‘©O Heaven! it is the most accursed sin of man: and done every- 
 where at present, on the streets and high places at noonday! Verily, 
 seriously I say and pray as my chief orison, May the Lord deliver us 
 from it.”—Letter from Carlyle to Emerson. 
 
 London: WALTER Scort, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 

 

 
XhTeee 
 0 
 
 iit 
 
 62 8 
 su w 
 } 
 
 20b4 
 MMM 
 
 
 
 + eul 
 a Li}