impurity and rust, against the finger of the Almighty
Power that formed it: but give me, Francesco, give me rather the
creature to sympathize 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 devising 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 conformation 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.

_Petrarca._ All cannot be my own; if you mean by _thoughts_ the
opinions and principles I should be the most desirous 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.

_Boccaccio._ Certainly you thus throw open, to its full extent, the
range of poetry and invention; which cannot 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, marked with unerring skill through every shade and
gradation; and finally and chiefly, much intertexture and intensity of
passion. You thus convey to us more largely and expeditiously 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,