till. 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 beautiful meadow
because there are reptiles in it; or because a few grubs hereafter may
be generated by the succulence of the grass?

_Boccaccio._ You amaze me: you utterly confound me.

_Petrarca._ If you would eradicate twelve or thirteen of the
_Novelle_, 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?

_Petrarca._ 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
_Inferno_ 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,

nor these, with a slip of Italian between two pales of Latin:

Modicum,[14] et non videbitis me,
Et iterum, sorelle mie dilette,
Modicum, et vos videbitis me.

I dare not repeat all I 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. I 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 t