LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.]! 
 
 ShelfJlJtfl??? 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 -■ >^4 
 
LANDOR'S 
 
 THE PENTAMERON, 
 
 ETC. 
 
LANDOR'S COMPLETE PROSE WORKS. 
 
 Imaginary Conversations : 
 
 First Series. Classical Dialogues. 
 
 Second Series. Sovereigns and Statesmen. 
 
 Thij'd Series. Literary Men. 
 
 Fourth Series. Dialogues of Literary Men, Famous 
 
 Women, and Miscellaneous. 
 Fifth Series. Miscellaneous Dialogues, Continued. 
 
 5 volumes, izmo, cloth, $10.00 ; i5mo, Oxford style, $5.00. 
 
 The Pentameron. Citation and Examination of William Shake- 
 speare, Minor Prose Pieces, and Criticisms. " i2mo, cloth, 
 
 $2.00. 
 
 Pericles and Aspasia. i2mo, cloth, $1.50. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 CITATION AND EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 MINOR PROSE PIECES. CRITICISMS. 
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS," "PERICLES AND ASPASIA." 
 
 Dt 
 
 //^W 
 
 w^' 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 

 Copyright, 1888, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pagb 
 
 The Pentameron i 
 
 Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare : 
 
 Editor's Preface • 141 
 
 Examination 151 
 
 Minor Prose Pieces: 
 
 I. Opinions on Caesar, Cromwell, Milton, and Bona- 
 parte 249 
 
 II. Inscription for a Statue at St. Ives . . . . . 258 
 
 III. Sir Robert Peel, and Monuments to Public Men . 259 
 
 IV. To Cornelius at Munich 264 
 
 V. The Quarterly Review 267 
 
 VI. A Story of Santander 272 
 
 VII. The Death of Hofer 283 
 
 VIII. A Vision 286 
 
 IX. The Dream of Petrarca 289 
 
 X, Parable of Asabel 292 
 
 XI. Jeribohaniah 295 
 
 Criticisms on Theocritus, Catullus, and Petrarca : 
 
 The Idyls of Theocritus 3° I 
 
 The Poems of Catullus 325 
 
 Francesco Petrarca 372 
 
 INDEX 411 
 
 Note. — This volume, "Imaginary Conversations" (five volumes), 
 and " Pericles and Aspasia " (one volume) comprise Landor's Complete 
 Prose Writings. 
 
LANDOR'S WRITINGS. 
 
 They are unique. Having possessed them, we should 
 miss them. Their place would be supplied by no others. 
 There is hardly a conceivable subject in life or literature 
 which they do not illustrate by striking aphorisms, by 
 concise and profound observations, by wisdom ever ap- 
 plicable to the needs of men, and by wit as available for 
 their enjoyment. Nor, above all, will there anywhere 
 be found a more pervading passion for liberty, a fiercer 
 hatred of the base, a wider sympathy with the wronged 
 and the oppressed, or help more ready at all times for 
 those who fight at odds and disadvantage against the 
 powerful and the fortunate, than in the writings of 
 Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 JOHN FORSTER. 
 
THE PENTAMERON ; 
 
 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 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Wanting a bell for my church at San Vivaldo, and hearing that 
 our holy religion is rapidly gaining ground in England, to the un- 
 speakable comfort and refreshment of the faithful, I bethought my- 
 self that I might peradventure obtain such effectual aid from the 
 piety and liberality of the converts as wellnigh to accomplish the 
 purchase of one. Desirous, moreover, 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 re- 
 solved that nothing on my part should be wanting to so blessed a. 
 consummation. Therefore, while I am executing my mission in re- 
 gard to the bell, I omit no opportunity of demonstrating how much' 
 happier and peacefuUer 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 " The 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 cer- 
 tainly 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 fran- 
 cesconi, or dollars. To such a 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 sur-' 
 prise and delight it will be to Giovanni in paradise the first time 
 he hears, instead of that cracked and jarring tumbril ( which must 
 
X THE EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 have grated in his 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 the\r fes^aP 
 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 under- 
 taking it, teUing 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 Hnes of Horatius Flaccus, who Hved in the 
 reign of Augustus, a short time before the Incarnation, — 
 
 " Non ebur, sed horridum 
 Bucca dehiscit in niea lacuna ! " 
 
 Then, turning the discourse from so melancholy a topic, he was 
 pleased to relate from the inexhaustible stores of his archaeolo- 
 gical 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 Sundaj'- of August, a thunderbolt fell into 
 the belfry of the Duomo, by the negligence of Canonjco 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 civetta, it began to thunder; and, within the 
 evening, intelligence of the thunderbolt was brought to the Can- 
 onico. 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 rumor had already gone abroad of his omis- 
 sion. He often rode as usual to Conte Geronimo's, gammoned Ser 
 Matteo, hooded the civetta, limed a twig or two, stood behind the 
 spinette, hummed the next note, turned over the pages of the 
 music-book of the contessine, beating time on the chair-back, and 
 showing them what he could do now and then on the viola 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 olio santo, no viaticuf/i, poor man ! Candles he had ; 
 and it was as much as he had, poor sinner! And this also hap- 
 
THE EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 pened in the month of August ! Monsignore, in his great liberah'ty, 
 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 him- 
 self in their discourses. Petrarca, who was fonder of sheer dia- 
 logue 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 indaed 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 dia- 
 logue; and downward from h-'m 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 "Interviews" took place not within the walls of Certaldo, 
 although within the parish, at Boccaccio's villa. It should be noti- 
 fied 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 has broken off a foot or a finger to do him 
 honor; not even an English name is engraven on the face, al- 
 though the English hold confessedly the highest rank in this de- 
 partment of literature. In Italy, and particularly in Tuscany, the 
 remains of the illustrious are inviolable; and among the illustri- 
 ous, men of genius hold the highest rank. The arts are more po- 
 tent 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 forever. It seemed 
 probable at this meeting that Giovanni would have been called away 
 first, for heavy and of long continuance had been his infirmity; 
 
XU THE EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 but he outlived it three whole years. He could not outhve 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 wq 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, 
 
 Pievano of San Vivaldo. 
 
 London, October i, 1836. 
 
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 ? 
 
 Frate Biagio ! can it possibly be you ? 
 
 No more physic for me, nor masses neither, at present. 
 
 Assunta ! Assuntina ! who is it ? 
 
 Assunta. I cannot say, Signor Padrone ! he puts his fin- 
 ger 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 se- 
 crets. The girl knows her duty and does her business. I have 
 slept well, and wake better. \Raising himself up a little. 
 
 Why ! who are you ? It makes my eyes ache tp look aslant 
 over the sheets ; and I cannot get to sit quite upright so con- 
 veniently ; and I must not have the window-shutters opener, 
 they tell me. 
 
 Petrarca. Dear Giovanni, have you then been very unwell? 
 
 Boccaccio. Oh, 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 laborer, I would 
 make him work upon these of Certaldo. He would have little 
 time and little itch for mischief ere he 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 labor and the 
 laborer. You have then been dangerously ill? 
 
2 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccio. I 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 them, if 
 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? 
 
 Petrarca. I think he might. 
 
 Boccaccio. Particularly if I ofifered 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 hplocaust of your 
 " Decameron." What proof have you that God would exact it ? 
 If you could destroy the " Inferno " of Dante, would you? 
 
 Boccaccio. Not I, upon my life ! I would not promise to 
 bum a copy of it on the condition of a recovery for twenty 
 years. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. 
 
 Boccaccio. I am not jealous of any one : I think admiration 
 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. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 3 
 
 Petrarca. Be as compassionate, be as amiably irresolute, 
 toward your own " Novelle," 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. 
 
 ■ Petrarca. If aught of this is true, let it be recorded of me 
 that my exhortations and entreaties have been successful in pre- 
 serving 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 ad- 
 ulation ; 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 copy of 
 Dante ! And what effect would that produce ? There must 
 be fifty, or near it, in various parts of Italy. 
 
 Petrarca. I 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 beautiful meadow because there 
 are reptiles in it ; or because a few grubs hereafter may be 
 generated by the succulence of the grass ? 
 
4 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 " Paradise " more re- 
 cently. 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 ad- 
 mire 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,! 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." 
 
 1 It may puzzle an Englishman to read the lines beginning with Modi- 
 cum, so as to give the metre. The secret is, to draw out et into a dissyl- 
 lable, 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. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 5 
 
 Boccaccio. So, then, you would preserve at any rate my fa- 
 vorite 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 fail- 
 ing, will read you with more pleasure than is commendable or 
 innocent. Yet the very time they occupy with you would per- 
 haps 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 this warmth, 
 might seek excitement among the things described. 
 
 I would not tell you in health what I tell you in convales- 
 cence, nor urge you to compose, what I dissuade you from can- 
 celling. After this avowal, I do declare to 5'-ou, 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 them- 
 selves 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 grace- 
 ful 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 sim- 
 ple for the extravagant, the true and characteristic for the in- 
 definite and diffuse. 
 
 Boccaccio. I dare not defend myself under the bad exam- 
 ple 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 approach- 
 
6 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 ing, 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. 
 
 Petrarca. The best apology for Dante, in his poetical char- 
 acter, is presented by the indulgence of criticism, in consider- 
 ing the " Inferno " and " Purgatorio " as a string of Satires, part 
 in narrative and part in action ; which renders the title of " Com- 
 media " 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 wish I could expatiate rather 
 on his injudiciousness than on his ferocity, in devising punish- 
 ments 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 s'l 
 means yes, why are thy neighbors slack to punish thee ? May 
 Capraia and Gorgona stop up the mouth of the Amo, 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 imprecation 
 against the Pisans, than he asks the Genoese why such a parcel 
 of knaves as themselves were not scattered over the face oi 
 the earth. 
 
 Boccaccio. Here he is equitable. I wonder he did not in- 
 cline to one or other of these rival republics. 
 
 Petrarca. In fact, the Genoese fare a trifle better under 
 him than his neighbors the Pisans do. 
 
 Boccaccio. Because they have no Gorgona and Capraia to 
 block them up. He cannot 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 quar- 
 rels and conflicts of Messer Gino Ubaldini's trufle-dog at the 
 
THE PENTAMERON. J 
 
 next door, and Messer Guidone Fantecchi's shop-dog, whose 
 title and quaUty are in abeyance, swore bitterly, and called the 
 Virgin and Saint Catherine to witness, that he would cut off 
 their tails if ever he caught them. His cook, Niccolo Buonac- 
 corsi, hoping to gratify his master, set baits for them, and cap- 
 tured them both in the kitchen. But unwilling to cast hands 
 prematurely on the delinquents, he, after rating them for their 
 animosities and their ravages, bethought himself in what man- 
 ner he might best conduct his enterprise to a successful issue. 
 He was the rather inclined to due deliberation in these coun- 
 sels, as they, lajdng 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 demonstra- 
 tions 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 
 favorable 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 in- 
 quisitiveness and incipient hunger were regaining the ascend- 
 ency, Niccolo Buonaccorsi, with all the sagacity and courage, 
 all the promptitude 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, un- 
 til the notes of resentment partook of remonstrance 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 Jephtha's. Alas ! 
 one of the children of captivity, the trufle-dog, had no tail ! 
 
is THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Fortunately for Messer Gregorio, he found a friend among the 
 White Friars, Frate Geppone Pallorco, who told him that when 
 v/e cannot do a thing 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, Mes- 
 ser 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 relationship toward him, called for 
 the kitchen knife, and, in absolving his promise, had lighter 
 things to deal with than Gorgona and Capraia. 
 
 Petrarca. Giovanni ! this will do instead of one among the 
 worst of the hundred : but with little expenditure of labor 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, to- 
 gether 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 invad- 
 ers, but of magistrates from their own city placed irregularly 
 over them, and the laws, not subverted, but administered un- 
 constitutionally. That Frenchmen and Austrians should argue 
 and think in this manner is no wonder, no inconsistency : that 
 a Florentine, the wisest and greatest of Florentines, should have 
 done it, is portentous. 
 
 How merciful is the Almighty, O Giovanni ! What an argu- 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 9 
 
 ment 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 Bru- 
 tus and Cassius, at worst, but slew an atheist, while the other 
 rogue flamed forth like the pestilential dogstar, 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Historians have related that Rome was consumed 
 by Nero for the purpose of suppressing the rising sect, by lay- 
 ing 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 ? 
 I am 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 favor, 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 be- 
 gan : 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 fre- 
 quent the theatres nor other places of public entertainment 
 by night, such conveniences were uncalled for in 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 in- 
 cendiaries. 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 vir- 
 tuous of the new believers a few seditious were also to be 
 
 1 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. 
 
lO THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 found, forming separate and secret associations, choosing gen- 
 erals or superiors to whom they swore impKcit 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 se- 
 verity 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 bond 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 dehcate 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 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 distem- 
 per 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 Sara- 
 cens, on whom it was requisite to inflict spiritual or other dis- 
 cipline to make her go covered? " 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 1 1 - 
 
 Some of the other 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, "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. I am glad to hear it. 
 
 Boccaccio. Those whom I could venture to cover, I cov- 
 ered with all my heart. 
 
 Petrarca. Humanely done. You might likewise have ad- 
 ded 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 ? 
 
 Petrarca. I beheve it may, in general, be best to leave 
 them as we find them. 
 
 Boccaccio. I would not say that, neither. Much may be in 
 vain, but something sticks. 
 
 Petrarca. They are more amused than settled by anything 
 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 ? 
 
 Petrarca. Fie ! fie ! Giovanni ! This is worse than the in- 
 dictment on parchment. 
 
 Boccaccio. Women like us none the less for joking with 
 them about their foibles. In fact, they take it ill when v/e 
 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 com- 
 mon field and does not paw against privacy, nor open his nos- 
 trils on individuality : I mean the individuality of the person 
 we converse with, for another's is pure zest. 
 
 Petrarca. Surely, you can not draw this hideous picture 
 from your own observation : has any graver man noted it ? 
 
12 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccio. Who would believe your graver men upon such 
 matters? Gout and gravel, bile and sciatica, are the uphol- 
 sterers that stuff their moral sentences. Crooked and cramp 
 are truths written with chalk-stones. When people like me 
 talk as I have been talking, they may be credited. We have 
 no ill-will, no ill-humor, 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 po- 
 lished. Why do you smile ? 
 
 Petrarca. I am afraid these qualities are often of as httle 
 advantage in composition as they are corporeally. When ac- 
 tion and strength are chiefly the requisites, we may perhaps be 
 better with little of them. The modulations of voice and lan- 
 guage are 'infinite. Cicero has practised many of them ; but 
 Cicero has his favorite swells, his favorite flourishes and caden- 
 ces. Our Italian language is in the enjoyment of an ampler 
 scope and compass ; and we are liberated from the horrible 
 sounds of tis, 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 
 vigor. 
 
 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 1 3 
 
 another age it is probable that curtailments will rather be made 
 than additions ; for it was so with the Latin and Greek. Bar- 
 baric luxury sinks down into civic neatness, and chaster orna- 
 ments fill rooms of smaller dimensions. 
 
 Petrarca. Cicero came into possession of the stores col- 
 lected by Plautus, which he always held very justly in the high- 
 est estimation ; and Sallust is reported to have misapplied a 
 part of them. At his death they were scattered and lost. 
 
 Boccaccio. I am wiser than I was when I studied the noble 
 orator, and wiser by his means chiefly. In return for his ben- 
 efits, 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 rhet- 
 oric 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 than to expatiate on their propor- 
 tions 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. MiddUng men, favored in their lifetime by cir- 
 cumstances, often appear of higher stature than belongs to 
 them; great men always of lower. Time, the sovereign, in- 
 vests with befitting raiment and distinguishes with proper en- 
 signs 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 or 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 comprehension 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. 
 
14 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Great painters have always the same task to perform. What 
 is excellent in their art cannot 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 lia- 
 bility 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 j we censure by caprice ; 
 and there is nothing in which we are more ingenious and in- 
 ventive. 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. 
 
 Petrarca. But our business at present is with prose and 
 Cicero j 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 some- 
 times but submissive and imploring, yet equally unwiUing on 
 both occasions to conceal the labor he had taken to captivate 
 their attention and obtain success. At the tribunal of Caesar 
 the Dictator he laid aside his costly armor, 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. 
 
 Boccaccio. And after all this, can you bear to think what 
 I am? 
 
 Petrarca. Complacently and joyfully; venturing, neverthe- 
 less, to offer you a friend's advice. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 15 
 
 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 cor- 
 rectly 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, 
 
 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. 
 
 Petrarca. If you copied him to perfection, and on no occa- 
 sion lost sight of him, you would be an indifferent, not to say a 
 bad writer. 
 
 Boccaccio. I begin to think you are in the right. Well, then, 
 retrenching some of my licentious tales, I must endeavor to 
 fill up the vacancy with some serious and some pathetic. 
 
 Petrarca. I 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, speci- 
 mens of it stand at wider distances than the trophies of Sesos- 
 tris. Here we return again to the " Inferno " 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 mosquitoes : 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 
 
1 6 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 curses he went through, nor the roads he took on the journey, — 
 theology, poHtics, and that barbican of the " Inferno " marriage, 
 surrounded with its 
 
 " Selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte." 
 
 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. 
 
 Petrarca. The thirty lines from 
 
 " Ed io sentj " 
 
 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 them- 
 selves, — hard, cruel, inflexible, mahgnant, but whenever moved, 
 moved powerfully. In Francesca, with the faculty of divine 
 spirits, he leaves his own nature (not indeed the exact repre- 
 sentative of theirs) and converts all his strength into tender- 
 ness. 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 bacio tutto tremante — 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse — 
 
 Quel giorno piii non vi legemmo avante." 
 
 In the midst of her punishment, Francesca, when she comes to 
 the tenderest part of her story, tells it with complacency 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 I " 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 1/ 
 
 Are we not impelled to join in her prayer, wishing them hap- 
 pier in their union? 
 
 Petrarca. If there be no sin in it. 
 
 Boccaccio. Ay, and even if there be — God help us ! 
 
 What a sweet aspiration in each caesura 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, 
 "Galeotio is the name of the book," fancying by this timorous 
 Httle 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. 
 
 "Galeotfo is the name of the book." 
 
 "What matters that?" 
 
 "And of the vmter." 
 
 "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 per- 
 ception, 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Perfection of poetry ! The greater is my won- 
 der 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 immitigable sufferings ! Seeing 
 this, I cannot but consider the " Inferno " as the most immoral 
 and impious book that ever was written. Yet, hopeless that 
 our country shall ever see 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 cancelhng 
 it, if this had been his intention. Much however as I admire 
 
15 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 his vigor and severity of ^tyle in the description of UgoHno, I 
 acknowledge with you that I do not discover so much imagina- 
 tion, so much creative power, as in the Francesca, I find in- 
 deed 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 murderers, wards of hos- 
 pitals, schools of anatomy, will afford us nearly the same sen- 
 sations 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 al- 
 ways is in ^schylus 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. This is 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 friend- 
 ship for some time after the triumphal course of composition. 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. I 9 
 
 Petrarca. They keep the soul from sinking in such dread- 
 ful circumstances by the buoyancy of imagination. The sun- 
 shine of poetry makes the color 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 hke a skeleton, by 
 dry bony verity. 
 
 Petrarca. We cannot be too distinct in our images ; but 
 although distinctness on this and most other occasions is de- 
 sirable 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 hke a dream : this is a dream. Afterward, you present 
 to us such palpable forms and pleasing colors 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, 
 
 Petrarca. A poet often does more and better than he is 
 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 
 
20 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 form an idea of a poem, into which so many personages are 
 introduced, containing so few deUneations of character, so few 
 touches that excite our sympathy, so few elementary signs for 
 our instruction, so few topics for our dehght, so few excursions 
 for our recreation. Nevertheless, his powers of language are 
 prodigious ; 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 conster- 
 nation 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 re- 
 pletion. But let us rather look to his poetry than his temper. 
 
 Petrarca. We will, then. 
 
 A good poem is not divided into little panes like a cathedral 
 window ; which httle 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 coloring. 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 feature and 
 properties of heroic character, and terminates with accom- 
 plishing some momentous action. A good tragedy shows us 
 that greater men than ourselves have suffered more severely 
 and more unjustly ; that the highest human power hath sud- 
 denly fallen helpless and extinct ; or, what is better to con- 
 template and usefuUer to know, that uncontrolled by law, 
 unaccompanied by virtue, unfoUowed by contentment, its pos- 
 session 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 by-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 cate- 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 21 
 
 gory it required a strong hand to make Pluto and Pepe Satan 
 keep the peace, both having the same pretensions, and neither 
 the sweetest temper. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 mar- 
 riages 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 like- 
 wise 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 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 in- 
 tellectual 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 only warm us : those who are standing near, and just be- 
 fore, 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 hav- 
 ing been crowned in the capital of the Christian world, 
 
 Petrarca. That indeed would have been something, if I 
 had been crowned for my Christianity, of which I suspect there 
 
22 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 first two, but many 
 more, prefer you ; and that neither they, nor any who are ac- 
 quainted with your character, can believe that your strictures 
 on Dante are invidious or uncandid. 
 
 Petrarca. I 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 
 forever. 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 illus- 
 trious fellow-citizen once only, and when I was a 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 favor. 
 The worst I can recollect to have said against his poem to 
 others is, that the architectural fabric of the " Inferno " is unin- 
 telligible without a long study, and only to be understood after 
 distracting our attention from its inhabitants. Its locahty and 
 dimensions are at last uninteresting, and would better have 
 been left in their obscurity. The zealots of Dlnte 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 
 ^neas had done before. In the Odyssea the mind is perpet- 
 ually relieved by variety of scene and character. There are 
 vices enough in it, but rising from lofty or from powerful pas- 
 sions, 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 dimensions : he appears before us neither cramped by 
 systems nor jaundiced by schools, — no savage, no cit, no canni- 
 bal, 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 23 
 
 valor 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. "j 
 
 Boccaccio. I must confess there are nowhere two whole 
 cantos in Dante which will bear a sustained and close com- 
 parison with the very worst book of the Odyssea or the 
 ^neid ; that there is nothing of the same continued and un- 
 abated excellence as Ovid's in the contention for the armor of 
 Achilles, — the most heroic of heroic poetry, and only censur- 
 able, if censurable at all, because the eloquence of the braver 
 man is more animated and more persuasive than his successful 
 rival's. I do not think Ovid the best poet that ever lived, but 
 I think he wrote the most of good poetry, and, in proportion 
 to its quantity, the least of bad or indifferent. The " Inferno," 
 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 vigor and simplicity, but 
 oftener his harshness and meagreness and disproportion. I am 
 afraid the good Alighieri, like his friends the painters, was in- 
 clined 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 hard- 
 ship in the case. 
 
 The opening of the third canto of the " Inferno " has always 
 been much admired. There is indeed a great solemnity in 
 the words of the inscription on the portal of hell ; nevertheless, 
 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, besides the " perduta gente," who else can suffer the eternal 
 woe ? And when the portal has told us that " Justice moved 
 the high Maker to make it," surely it might have omitted the 
 notification that his " divine power " did it, — 
 
 " Fecemi la divina potestate." 
 
24 - THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 '1 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Systems of poetry, of philosophy, of government 
 form and model us to their own proportions. As our sys- 
 tems want the grandeur, the light, and the symmetry of the 
 ancient, we cannot 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 taber- 
 nacles on the road-side, contain in painting the same punish- 
 ments 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 arrange- 
 ment 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 cannot hope or desire that a pious Itahan 
 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. 
 
 Petrarca. I see no reason why we should not revert at 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 2$ 
 
 times to the first intentions of poetry. Hymns to the Creator 
 were its earUest efforts. 
 
 Boccaccio. I do not beheve 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 pleasura- 
 ble song, perhaps of drunkenness, and resembled the dithy- 
 rambic. Strong excitement alone could force and hurry men 
 among words displaced and exaggerated ideas. 
 
 Beheving 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 
 ardor of his pursuit. In after years he lost a son, his com- 
 panion in the croft and in the forest : images too grew up 
 there, and rested on the grave. A daughter who had won- 
 dered at his strength and wisdom, looked to him in vain for 
 succor 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 composure ; 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 insen- 
 sible to private wrongs. Chryses in the lUad is willing that his 
 king and country should be enslaved, so that his daughter be 
 sent back to him. David in the Psalms is no unimportunate 
 or lukewarm applicant for the discomfiture and extermination 
 of his adversaries, and among the visions of feUcity none 
 brighter is promised a fortunate warrior than to dash the in- 
 fants 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 cK- 
 mates 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 savory 
 
26 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 game. Judaea had hers ; Attica reared them among her thyme 
 and hives ; and Tuscany may hft 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 whirlpools, — 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 ? 
 
 Petrarca. We have the authority of history for it. 
 
 Boccaccio. Bad authority too, unless we sift and cross-ex- 
 amine 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. Mer- 
 chants in those days were not only the most adventurous, but 
 the most intelligent men : and there were ardent minds, unin- 
 fluenced by a spirit of lucre, which were impelled by the 
 ardor 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. I imagine that 
 Orpheus, whoever he was, brought his knowledge from that 
 quarter. We are too apt to fancy that Greece owed every- 
 thing to the Phoenicians 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 Phoenicia for nothing but her alphabet ; and even these 
 signs she modified, and endowed them with a portion of her 
 flexibility and grace. 
 
 Petrarca. There are those who tell us that Homer lived 
 before the age of letters in Greece. 
 
 Boccaccio. 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 
 
 1 ' Aptaque sunt nostris barbara verba modis.' 
 What are all the other losses of literature in comparison with this .'' 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 2/ 
 
 letters) by which traders cast up accounts ? The Phoenicians 
 traded largely with every coast of the ^gean Sea, and among 
 their earliest correspondents were the inhabitants of the Greek 
 maritime cities, insular and continental. 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 pecuUarly fitted for social intercourse, so inquisitive, so 
 imaginative, as the Greeks ? 
 
 Petrarca. Certainly it is not. 
 
 Boccaccio. The Greeks were the most creative, the Romans 
 the least creative, of mankind. No Roman ever invented any- 
 thing. Whence then are derived the only two works of im- 
 agination we find among them, — the story of the " Ephesian i 
 Matron," and the story of "Psyche"? Doubtless from some 
 country farther 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 were wisdom and the arts, and mounted instruments 
 through which a greater magnitude was given to the stars. 
 
 Petrarca. I 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. 
 
 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 
 
 1 One similar, and better conceived, is given by Du Halde from tlie 
 Chinese. If the fiction of Psyche 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. 
 
28 THE PENTAMERON, 
 
 requisite for this effect that our cradles should have been 
 placed on it. 
 
 Petrarca. What will you say about Pindar? 
 
 Boccaccio. I think it more probable that he was reared in 
 the vicinity of Thebes than within the walls. For Bosotia, 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. 
 
 Petrarca. In my delight to listen to you after so long an 
 absence, I have been too unwary ; and you have been speak- 
 ing 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 ban- 
 ishment, and when my tears streamed 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 ex- 
 hausted : 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? 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 29 
 
 Petrarca. No, indeed. 
 
 Boccaccio. As for me, since you would not indulge me 
 with your company an hour ago, I could do nothing more de- 
 lightful than to look over some of your old letters. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 extinguished 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? 
 
 Petrarca. As we Florentines are fond of omitting the first 
 syllable in proper names, — calling Luigi Gigi, Giovanni Nanni, 
 Francesco Cecco, — in like manner at Rome they say Renzi for 
 Lorenzi, and by another corruption it has been pronounced and 
 written Rienzi. Beheve me, I should never have ventured to 
 address the personage who held and supported the highest dig- 
 nity on earth until I had ascertained his appellation ; for nobody 
 ever quite forgave, unless in the low and ignorant, a wrong pro- 
 nunciation of his name, — the humblest being of opinion that they 
 have one of their owh, 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 
 Rientiits as Laurentius ; but it would certainly have been offen- 
 sive 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 mushrooms : 
 the sun produced them, the shade produced them, every hill, 
 every valley, every busy and every idle hour. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 degra- 
 dation than any other people on record, rose up against the 
 deliverer who ceased to consult their ignorance. I speak 
 
30 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 advisedly and without rhetoric on the foul depths of their de- 
 basement. 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 labors that were 
 imposed on them. But the subjugation of the Romans was 
 effected by the depravation of their morals, which the priest- 
 hood 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, further 
 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 
 acquired the highest influence in the city : those of Jupiter 
 were jealous that foreign gods should become more than sup- 
 plementary 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 additions, 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 praetorian 
 guard, and elected, or procured the election of, an emperor. 
 Every man who loved peace and quiet took refuge in a sanct- 
 uary, 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, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 3 I 
 
 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 httle care and knowledge. Like Egyptian embalmers, 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 priest- 
 hood, should abandon religion altogether, when it is forbidden 
 to approach her without such company. 
 
 Boccaccio. Philosophy is but the calyx of that plant of para- 
 dise, religion. Detach it, and it dies away; meanwhile the 
 plant itself, supported by its proper nutriment, retains its vigor. 
 
 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, hght, 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. The luxury and rapacity of the Church, together 
 with the insolence of the barons, excited that discontent which 
 emboldened Nicolo di 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 castel- 
 lated felon. He might by degrees have restored the repubhc 
 of Rome had he preserved his moderation ; ,he might have be- 
 come the master of Italy had he continued the master of him- 
 self; but he allowed the weakest of the passions to run away with 
 him. He fancied he could not inebriate himself soon enough 
 
32 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 hostihty of barbarians, he set at defiance 
 the best and highest feelings of his more instructed country- 
 men, 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 com- 
 plaints, when he ordered the imprisonment of Stefano Colonna 
 in his ninetieth year ! 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 favor and pro- 
 tection from the pontiff; I had cast into peril, almost into per- 
 dition, the friendship, famiharity, and love of the Coloimas. 
 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 enthu- 
 siastically give way to the deception. Indeed, whenever a 
 man capable of performing great and glorious actions is emerg- 
 ing 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 behooves 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Can we wonder, then, that such wretches have 
 turned him to such purposes? The calmness, the sagacity, the 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 33 
 
 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Men often give the hand to the madness that 
 seizes them. He yielded to pride and luxury ; behind them 
 came jealousy and distrust : fear followed these, and. 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 ex- 
 hibit this inferiority in a son? Irrational as are all who aim at 
 despotism, this is surely the most irrational of their specu- 
 lations. 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 ex- 
 istences as the dying- down of a favorable wind in the prose- 
 cution 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 ! Vision- 
 ary 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. ^ 
 
 Giovanni ! the heart that has once been bathed in love's 
 pure fountain, retains the pulse of youth forever. Death can 
 
 1 This event is related by Petrarca as occurring on the 6th of April, 
 the day of her decease. 
 
 3 
 
34 THE PENTAMERON, 
 
 only take away the sorrowful from our affections : the flower ex- 
 pands ; the colorless film that enveloped it falls off and perishes. 
 
 Boccaccio. 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 passed 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 extinguished lamps, the faded wreaths, 
 The dust and desolation left behind ? " 
 
 But whether we desire it or not, we must sfibmit. 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 merce- 
 naries who assailed us, and to have stood aloof from the distri- 
 bution 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 favorites. 
 It appears to me that there are spots accursed, spots doomed 
 to eternal sterility ; and Rome is one of them. No gospel an- 
 nounces the glad tidings of resurrection to a fallen nation : 
 once down, and down forever. The Babylonians, the Mace- 
 donians, the Romans, prove it. Babylon is a desert, Macedon 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 35 
 
 a den of thieves, Rome (what is written as an invitation on 
 the walls of her streets) one vast immondezzaio, morally and 
 substantially. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 Valentinian. In 
 nearly all the campaigns with the Romans she came ofif victo- 
 rious ; none of her icings or generals was 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 exuber- 
 ant 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 sleepy, 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 represen- 
 tatives, and enjoying the inalienable succession, of the Csesars. 
 This is all that goose or man can do at Rome. She, I think, 
 will be the last city to rise from the dead. 
 
 Petrarca. There is a trumpet, and on earth, that shall 
 awaken even her. 
 
 Boccaccio. I should like to live and be present. 
 
 Petrarca. This cannot 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 permis- 
 sion. Fra Biagio felt my pulse on Wednesday, and cried, — 
 
36 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 " 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 up hill. Even to 
 walk upstairs, which used occasionally to be as pleasant an ex- 
 ercise as any, grows sadly too much for me. For which reason 
 I lie here below ; and it is handier too for Assunta. 
 
 Petrarca. Very judicious and considerate. In high situa- 
 tions, 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 ! 
 
 Petrarca. 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 
 Deir 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. 
 
THE PENTAMERON, 37 
 
 Boccaccio. I 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. 
 
 Pefrarca. I 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. Any one would imagine from it that Galeotto 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 correspondence between 
 Lancilotto and Ginevra. The appellation is now become the 
 generic of all men whose business it is 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 11 tuo dottore," — 
 
 since he- knew no more about it than anybody else. As we 
 proceed, there are passages in which I cannot find my way, 
 and where I suspect the poet could not show it me. For in- 
 stance, is it not strange that Briareus should be punished in the 
 
38 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 same way as Nimrod, when Nimrod sinned against the Uving 
 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) 
 accomphshed. 
 
 Petrarca. Equally strange that Brutus and Cassius (a re- 
 mark which escaped us in our mention of them yesterday) 
 should be placed in the hottest pit of hell for slaying Caesar, 
 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 pro- 
 moted to so valuable a post in preference to doctors, popes, 
 confessors, and fathers ? Wonderful indeed ! and they never 
 seemed to take it much amiss. 
 
 Petrarca. Alighieri not only throws together the most op- 
 posite and distant characters, but even makes Jupiter and our 
 Saviour the same person, — 
 
 " E se lecito m ' e, o sommo Giove ! 
 Che fosti in terra per noi crocijisso." 
 
 Boccaccio. Jesus Christ ought no more to be called Jupiter 
 than Jupiter ought to be called Jesus Christ. 
 
 Petrarca. In the whole of the " Inferno " I find only the 
 descriptions of Francesca and of Ugolino at all admirable. 
 Vigorous expressions there are many, but lost in their appli- 
 cation to base objects ; and insulated thoughts in high relief, 
 but with everything crumbling round them. Proportionally 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 commencement 
 of the eighth, if not highly admirable, are what no ordinary 
 poet could have produced. 
 
 Petrarca. They are streaks of light in a thunder-cloud. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 39 
 
 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 undergoing the dia- 
 logue between Simon and master Adam. 
 
 Boccaccio. I am sorry to be reminded of this. It is like the 
 brawl of the two fellows in Horace's "Journey to Brundusium." 
 They are the straitest parallels of bad wit and bad poetry that 
 ancient and modem times exhibit. Ought I to speak so sharply 
 of poets who elsewhere have given me so great delight? 
 
 Petrarca. Surely you ought. No criticism is less beneficial 
 to an author or his reader than one tagged with favor and 
 tricked with courtesy. The gratification of our humors is not 
 the intent and scope of criticism, and those who indulge in it 
 on such occasions are neither wise nor honest. 
 
 Boccaccio. I never could see why we should designedly 
 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 drug- 
 gist weigh out the commodity before them to a single grain. 
 If they do it with odors 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 com- 
 punction. Every one of these people has some favorite 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 move- 
 ments of the mind. There are rich and copious veins of 
 
40 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 mineral in regions far remote from commerce and habitations : 
 these veins are useless ; so are those writings of which the 
 style is uninviting and inaccessible through its ruggedness, its 
 chasms, its points, its perplexities, its obscurity. There are 
 scarcely three authors, besides 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 
 for fresh seed. Our ancestors did this, no very long time ago. 
 Foremost in zeal, in vigor, and authority, Ahghieri took on him- 
 self the same patronage and guardianship of our adolescent 
 dialect as Homer of the Greek ; and my Giovanni hath since 
 endowed it so handsomely that additional 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 be attained only 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 4 1 
 
 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 marked the promontories and in- 
 dentations, and oftentimes the direction of unprofitable marshes 
 and impassable sands and wildernesses : level surfaces are un- 
 noted. I would not detract one atom from the worth of Dante, 
 which cannot 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 oifence to the factious. Whatever you 
 do beyond is for yourself, your friends, and futurity. 
 
 Boccaccio. I 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 fruitless) may be called so, I proceeded by water to 
 Sorrento, 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 intri- 
 cacies of policy. His reception 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 
 
42 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 belts, gemmed with golden fruit and sparkling flowers. We 
 stood high above them, but not above their fragrance ; and 
 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 vohtion. Another day he conducted me far- 
 ther from the palace, and showed me. with greater pride than 
 I had ever seen in him before, the pale-green ohves, on little 
 smooth plants, the first year of their bearing. " I 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,^ 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 
 
 1 This sentiment must be attributed to the gratitude of Boccaccio, not 
 to the merits of Acciaioli, who treated him unworthily. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 43 
 
 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 in- 
 cessantly, 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. 
 
 TJgolino relates to him his terrible dream, in which he fan- 
 cied that he had seen Gualando, Sismondi, and Lanfranco, 
 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 
 labored 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, consider- 
 ing 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 ill-timed ; and the conference 
 would indeed be better without it anywhere. 
 
 Petrarca. Farther on, in whatever way we interpret 
 
 " Poscia piu che '1 dolor pote '1 digiuno," 
 
 the poet falls sadly from his sublimity. 
 
 Boccaccio. If the fact were as he mentions he should 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 arch- 
 bishop's skull is, in the opinion of many, rather ludicrous than 
 tremendous. 
 
 Petrarca. In mine, rather disgusting than ludicrous ; but 
 Dante (we must whisper it) is the great master of the disgust- 
 
44 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 ing. When the ancients wrote indecently and loosely, they 
 presented what either had something alluring or something 
 laughable about it ; and if they disgusted, it was involuntarily. 
 Indecency is the most shocking in deformity. We call inde- 
 cent, 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 now are to ferocity. I wish I could find in some epi- 
 taph, " 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 honors we can expect 
 from the wisest of our species, when even the wisest hold us 
 lighter in estimation than those who labor to destroy what God 
 dehghted 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 any one 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 into 
 circulation, the writings of other men. We deserve as much, 
 were it only that it gives people an opportunity of nmning over 
 us (as ants over the images of gods in orchards), and of reach- 
 ing 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? 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 45 
 
 Petrarca. 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 a77iec, zabe, almi. 
 Non avria pur dell orlo fatto crick.''* 
 
 Petrarca. There is no occasion to look into and investigate 
 a puddle, — we perceive at first sight its impurity ; but it is use- 
 fiil to analyze, if we can, a limpid and sparkling water, in which 
 the common observer finds nothing but transparency and fresh- 
 ness, 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, 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 appreciate their merit, and most zeal- 
 ously guard their honor. The flippancy with which genius is 
 often treated by mediocrity, is the surest sign of a prostrate 
 mind's incontinence and impotence. It will gratify the na- 
 tional 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 
 
46 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 prince of Roman poets, whose footsteps he follows with rever- 
 ential and submissive obsequiousness. 
 
 Petrai-ca. Have you never observed that persons of high 
 rank universally treat their equals with deference ; and that 
 ill-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 vaporing in- 
 dependence 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. Sus- 
 picion of his superiority he had none whatever, nor perhaps 
 have you yourself much more. 
 
 Boccaccio. I take all proper interest in my author ; I am 
 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 any 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, " You are 
 less wise than I am." Now, who likes this? 
 
 Boccaccio. But surely if there are some very 'high places in 
 our Alighieri, the inequalities are perpetual and vast ; whereas the 
 regularity, the continuity, the purity of Virgil are proverbial. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 — mit sfet Marpesia cautes 
 Majus adorata nefas — majoremque orsa furorem. 
 Arma amens capio — nee sat rationis in armis. 
 
 Superatne — et vescitur aura 
 ^theria — neqiie adhiic criidelibus occubat umbris ? 
 Omnes — ccelicolas — omnes supera alta tenentes. 
 
 Scuta latentia cotidunt. 
 Has inter voces — media inter talia verba. 
 Finem dedit — ore loquendi. 
 Insonuere cavae — sonitumque dedere cavernce. 
 Ferro accitam — crebrisque bipennibiis. 
 Nee nostri generis puerum — nee sanguinis." 
 
 Boccaccio. These things look very ill in Latin, and yet they 
 had quite escaped my observation. We often find in the 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 4/ 
 
 Psalms of David one section of a sentence placed as it were 
 in symmetry with another, and not at all supporting it by pre- 
 senting 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, al- 
 though 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 ; vesterque rigescuttt" ? 
 
 Boccaccio. Wretched faUing-off. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 ; gentemque togaiam ? 
 The masters of the world — and long-tailed coats !^^ 
 
 Come to Carthage. What a recommendation to a beautiful 
 queen does ^neas offer, in himself and his associates ! 
 
 " Lvpi ceil 
 Raptores; atra in nebula, quos improha ventris 
 Exegit csecos rabies ! " 
 
 Ovid is censured for his 
 
 " Consiliis non currihis utere nostris ; " 
 Virgil never for 
 
 " Inceptoqite et sedibics hjeret 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 sup- 
 
48 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 pose 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 ^neid, 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 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. 
 
 Boccaccio. 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 vigor 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 " ? 
 
 Petrarca. My critics have found fault with the "lenti," 
 calling it an expletive, and ignorant that equally in Italian and 
 Latin the word signifies both slow and languid, while "tardi" 
 signifies slow only. 
 
 Boccaccio. 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 ! 
 
 Petrarca. If we deduct the inexpert, the ignorant, and the 
 invidious, can we correctly say it pleases most people? But 
 either my worst compositions are the most admired, or the in- 
 sincere and malignant bring them most forward for admiration, 
 keeping the others in the background ! Sonneteers, in con- 
 sequence, have started up from all quarters. 
 
 Boccaccio. The sonnet seems peculiarly adapted to the 
 languor of a melancholy and despondent love, the rhymes 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 49 
 
 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 con- 
 veniently can manage, than they seat themselves down and 
 set busily to work, punching it neatly out with a clever cubic 
 stamp of fourteen lines in diameter. 
 
 Petrarca. A pretty sonnet may be written on a lambkin or 
 a parsnip, there being room enough for truth and tenderness 
 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 re- 
 lation 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 quae sint habitura deorum 
 Concilia incertum est, urbisne invisere, Caesar, 
 Terrarumque velis curam, et te maximus orbis 
 Auctorem f rugum ? — " 
 
 Boccaccio. Already forestalled ! 
 Petrarca. 
 
 " — tempestatumque potentem." 
 
 Boccaccio. Very strange coincidence of opposite qualifica- 
 tions, truly. 
 Petrarca. 
 
 " Accipiat, cingens materna tempora myrto : 
 An deus immensi venias maris — " 
 
 Boccaccio. Surely he would not put down Neptune ! 
 Petrarca. 
 
 " — ac tua nautse 
 Numina sola colant : tibi set-viat ultima Thule." 
 
 Boccaccio. Catch him up ! catch him up ! uncoil the whole 
 
 4 
 
50 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 of the vessel's rope ! never did man fall overboard so unluckily, 
 or sink so deep on a sudden. 
 Petrarca. 
 
 " Teque sibi generum Tethys emai 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 Caesar, 
 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 tardis sidus te mensibus addas ? " 
 
 Boccaccio. For what purpose ? If the months were slow, 
 he was not hkely 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. I would not incommode him \ I would beg him 
 to be quite at his ease. 
 Petrarca. 
 
 " — et coeli justa plus parte reliquit. 
 Quicquid eris (nam te nee sperent Tartara regem 
 Nee tibi regnandi veniet tam dira cupido, 
 Quamvis Elysios miretur Grsecia campos, 
 Nee repetita sequi curet Proserpina matrem)." 
 
 Boccaccio. Was it not enough to have taken all Varro's in- 
 vocation, 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 5 I 
 
 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 schoolboy, the 
 commencement or the conclusion of the Georgics, — an un- 
 wholesome 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Frequently the points of comparison are salient 
 in proportion as the angles of similitude recede, and the ab- 
 sence 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 negli- 
 gence, in both. The great fault in the " Metamorphoses " is 
 in the plan, as proposed in the argument : — 
 
 " primaque ab origine mundi 
 In Tat2i perpehmm deducere tempora carmen." 
 
 Had he divided the more interesting of the tales, and omit- 
 ted 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 faults or 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 gayety ; 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 
 judging 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 labors of Lucretius. 
 
 " Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti, 
 Exitio terras quum dabit una dies." 
 
52 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 advan- 
 tages 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 asser- 
 tion, 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 uni- 
 formly 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 limper is but little prepos- 
 sessing, yet the two most beautiful and most perfect poems of 
 the language are composed in it, — the "Miser Catulle " and 
 the "Sirmio." 
 
 Petrarca. 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 deUght 
 he has afforded us. We may forgive him his Proteus and his 
 PoUio ; but we cannot well forbear to ask him how ^neas 
 came to know that Acragas y^z.% formerly the sire of high-mettled 
 steeds, even if such had been the fact. But such was only 
 the fact a thousand years afterward, in the reign of Gelon. 
 
 Boccaccio. Was it theji ? 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 in- 
 debted to the studs of Xerxes for the noblest of her prizes on 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 53 
 
 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 valor, 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 direc- 
 tions in the choice of horses. He speaks unfavorably 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 color : 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 
 Rhoebus. 
 
 Petrarca. The dying hero, for hero he is transcendently 
 above all the others in the ^neid, 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. 
 
 " Rhoebe 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 apphed. It is not the thought for the occasion, it is not the 
 thought for the man. He could no more have uttered it than 
 Rhoebus 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. Besides, the youth of 
 Lausus and the activity and strength of Mezentius, as exerted 
 
54 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 Rhoebus ; 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. 
 
 Boccaccio. I have always been of opinion that Virgil is in- 
 ferior 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, 
 
 Petrarca. 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 him- 
 self to hear Mass in the parish church at Certaldo. Where- 
 upon 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 55 
 
 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, " God bless thee, gentle soul ! the mother of purity 
 and innocence protect thee ! " 
 
 He then went into the kitchen, where he found the girl As- 
 sunta, 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 as a lover. Ser Francesco patted her on the 
 cheek, and called her seniplicetfa I She was overjoyed at this 
 honor 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 Fran- 
 cesco'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. Before any answer could be returned, she had 
 begun; and having now satisfactorily executed her undertak- 
 ing, she felt irrepressible delight and glee at being able to do 
 what Ser Francesco had failed in. He was scarcely more suc- 
 cessful with his allotment of the labor ; found unlooked-for in- 
 
 1 Literally, due fave, — the expression on such occasions to signify a 
 small quantity. 
 
$6 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 tricacies and complications in the machinery, wondered that 
 human wit could not simplify it, and declared that the animal 
 had 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-colored 
 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 some- 
 times came on the Sunday morning to sweep the court-yard 
 for Assunta. 
 
 " Oh ! 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 As- 
 sunta was handing to the rider his long ebony staff, bearing an 
 ivory caduceus, the quadruped turned suddenly round. Sim- 
 plizio called him bestiaccia ! and then, softening it, poco gar- 
 bato I 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 grizzly 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 obedience 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 
 convents 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 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 57 
 
 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. Siraplizio once or twice 
 attempted to call back an intimate of the same age with him- 
 self; but the utmost he could obtain was a riveritissimo, and 
 a genuflection 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 Gnor^ 
 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 satis- 
 fied with the pace, and told Simplizio to be sparing of the 
 switch, unless in case of a hornet or gadfly. SimpHzio 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 pro- 
 cessional hymns, along the woodland paths and along the yellow 
 meadows. It was really the Lord's Day, for he made his crea- 
 tures 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 labor. 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 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 
 
 1 Contraction of signor, customary in Tuscany. 
 
58 THE PENTAMERON, 
 
 attendance ; but Fra Biagio of San Vivaldo, who himself had 
 offered no obsequiousness or respect, liad 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 
 favorite 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 villeggiatura, — rarely 
 in the carnival, and never at other times. The elder of the 
 priests stood round in their sacred vestments, 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 conclusion 
 that although he had been crowned in the Capitol he must 
 die, being bom mortal, Ser Francesco rode homeward. 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 PENTAMERON. 59 
 
 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 bam, 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 cannot think how ruddy and golden and sweet and mel- 
 low 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. 
 
 " I wanted to thank him," said the canonico. 
 
 " May I tell him so? " asked she. 
 
 "And give him," continued he, holding a piece of silver — 
 
 " I will give him something of my own, if he goes on and 
 behaves well," said she ; " but Signor Padrone would drive him 
 away forever, 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. 
 
 " I 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 
 
60 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 weary. I have heard but few of them, and come from church 
 for this," 
 
 Whether Simphzio had obeyed some private signal from As- 
 sunta, or whether his own dehcacy had prompted him to dis- 
 appear, he was now again in the stable, and the manger was 
 replenished with hay. A bucket was soon after heard ascend- 
 ing from the well ; and then two words, " Thanks, Simphzio." 
 
 When Petrarca entered the chamber he found Boccaccio with 
 his breviary in his hand, not looking into it, indeed, but re- 
 peating a thanksgiving in an audible and impassioned tone of 
 voice. Seeing Ser Francesco, he laid the book down beside 
 him, and welcomed him. 
 
 " I 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. 
 
 "I am afraid you will dine sadly late to-day; noon has 
 struck this half-hour, 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 (please God !) whether 
 we two greyhounds cannot 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, deer, 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 sub- 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 6 1 
 
 missively, but seriously, and almost sadly, ' Marc-Antonio, now- 
 all the people have seen it, they will think it.' And, after a 
 pause, ' I 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, ' O Santissima ! we are quite 
 alone.' 
 
 " ' Will you be mine ? ' cried he, enthusiastically. 
 
 " ' Oh, they will hear you in the church,' replied she. 
 
 " ' They shall, they shall ! ' cried he again, as loudly. 
 
 " ' If you will only go away.' 
 
 "'And then?' 
 
 " ' Yes, yes, indeed.' 
 
 " ' The Virgin hears you ; fifty saints are witnesses.* 
 
 " * Ah ! they know you made me ; they will look kindly on 
 us.' 
 
 " 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 Saint Peter,' said Marc- Antonio, ' if there is a leveret 
 in the wood, the crowiied 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 anti- 
 pope, and had performed many miracles, for which they had 
 canonized 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 con- 
 tagious. Never was dinner more enjoyed by two compan- 
 ions, and never so much by a greater number. One glass of 
 a fragrant wine, the color 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 refresh- 
 ing 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 du- 
 
62 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 ties 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 scorice. 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. 
 
 I cannot but think, again and again, how fruitlessly the 
 bravest have striven to perpetuate the ascendency or to estab- 
 lish 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 honor, 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 sat- 
 isfied with its bare-bone poverty? By good fortune we have 
 nothing to do with it in the course of our examination. 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. 
 
 Boccaccio. There are certainly some that require no httle 
 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 63 
 
 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. 
 
 Petrarca. In proceeding to explore the " Paradise " more 
 minutely, I must caution you against remarking to your audi- 
 ence, 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 allu- 
 sion, from the confusedness of the ground-work, the indistinct- 
 ness of the scene, and the paltriness (in great measure) of the 
 agents. If we are amazed at the number of Latin verses in 
 the " Inferno " and " Purgatorio," what must we be at their fer- 
 tility 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 seventeenth, 
 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. 
 
64 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 But he soon grows weary of tenderness and sick of sorrow, and 
 returns to his habitual exercise of throwing stones and caUing 
 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 examination, which the 
 poet undergoes from Saint Simon- Peter. He acquits himself 
 pretty well, and receives a handsome compliment from the 
 questioner, who, " inflamed with love," acknowledges he has 
 given " a good account of the coinage, both in regard to 
 weight and alloy." 
 
 ''Tell me," continues he, "have you any of it in your 
 pocket?" 
 
 " 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 " a 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 sitnt et este" — 
 
 as, whatever may peradventure he within them, they are hardly 
 worth the ceremony of being burned alive for, although it should 
 be at the expense of the Church. 
 
 Fetf-arca. I 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 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. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 65 
 
 Boccaccio. The room is hardly Hght enough to let me see 
 whether you are smiling ; but being the most ingenuous soul 
 alive, and by no means the least jocose one, I suspect it. My 
 ofifice is to explain what is difificult, 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 splendor as there is in the single line, — 
 
 " Cio ch' io vedevo mi sembrava un riso 
 Deir universo ! " 
 
 With what exultation shall I toss up my gauntlet into the bal- 
 cony 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. Besides, we seldom 
 find anything in our progress that is not apter to excite a very 
 different sensation. School-divinity can never be made attrac- 
 tive to the Muses ; nor will Virgil and Thomas Aquinas ever 
 cordially shake hands. The unrelenting rancor 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 excres- 
 cences to shoot up, exhausting and poisoning the soil they 
 sprang from. 
 
 Petrarca. I 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, 
 II luogo mio, il luogo mio," etc. 
 
 Alighieri was not the first Catholic who taught us that the pa- 
 pacy 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 besides 
 yourself, prythee tell me how it happens that an infallible pope 
 should denounce as damnable the decision of another infal- 
 
 5 
 
66 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 lible 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 swal- 
 lowed the choke- pear they could not chew. The succeeding 
 pope, who called himself an ass, — in which infallibihty was less 
 wounded, and neither king nor doctor carped at it (for not 
 only was he one, but as truth- telUng 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. I 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 re- 
 ported that there are among Christians some who hesitate to 
 worship the Virgin. 
 
 Petrarca. Few, let us hope. 
 
 Boccaccio. 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, 
 "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, show- 
 ing me too clearly my unworthiness by the light of a reproving 
 smile. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 color 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 PENTAMERON. 6/ 
 
 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 ne- 
 cessity 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 want- 
 ing 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 I 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. I 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. 
 
 Peti-arca. If 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 ma- 
 jority 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 connections or 
 affinities, and in which the preservation of character is less 
 desirable to them than the possession of power. The opera- 
 
68 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 tions of injustice, and the opportunities of improvement 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 uni- 
 versal monarchy, if kings and princes there must be, even in 
 the midst of civility and letters, why cannot they return to 
 European customs, renouncing those Asiatic practices which 
 are become enormously prevalent ? Why cannot they be con- 
 tented with such power as the kings of Rome and the lucu- 
 mons 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 vigor 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, 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 apothegm they ever 
 learned 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 essen- 
 tially 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 69 
 
 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 labors, 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 su- 
 perintend their families and converse with their equals and 
 dependants. Do we find that farms are better cultivated for 
 being large? Is your neighbor friendUer for being powerful? 
 Is your steward honester and more attentive for having a mort- 
 gage on your estate, or a claim to a joint property in your man- 
 sion? Yet well-educated men are seen about the streets so 
 vacant and delirious as to fancy that a country can only be 
 well governed by somebody who never saw and will never see 
 a twentieth part of it, or know a hundredth part of its neces- 
 sities, — somebody who has no relationships in it, no connec- 
 tions, no remembrances. A man without soul and sympathy 
 is alone to be the governor of men ! Giovanni, our Floren- 
 tines 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 cannot h^lp 
 them : we have made the most of them, like the good tailor 
 who, as Dante says, cut his coat according to his cloth. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 
 
/O THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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. Dante burst into indignation at the 
 sight of this, and because the popes took away our Chris- 
 tianity, he was so angry he would throw our 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 in- 
 truder with the title of Roman Emperor. What ! it is not 
 enough then that he assumes it? We must invite him, for- 
 sooth, to accept it at our hands ! 
 
 Petrarca. Let the other nations of Europe be governed by 
 their hereditary kings and feudal princes, — it is more accord- 
 ant 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 6r 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 beheve 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 themselves under his banner, apart from the citizens. 
 Venice, who appears to have received by succession the politi- 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 7 1 
 
 cal 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. 
 
 Petj^arca. 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 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 Csesar, 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 sen- 
 suality ; and the milk of the wolf could always be traced in the 
 veins of the effeminated Romans. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 con- 
 federates, — 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 have 
 been enriched with the generous blood of the Lombards. This 
 Uttle tribe on the Subalpine territory, and the Norman on the 
 
72 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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. 
 
 Boccaccio. The Germans, although as ignorant as are the 
 French, are less cruel, less insolent, and less rapacious. The 
 French have a separate claw for every object of appetite or 
 passion, and a spring that enables them to seize it. The de- 
 sires of the German are overlaid with food and extinguished 
 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 everything. Sometimes when he has 
 done so, he will reconstruct and refit it in his own manner, slen- 
 derly and fantastically ; oftener leaving it in the middle, and 
 proposing to lay the foundation when he has pointed the pin- 
 nacles and gilded the weathercock. 
 
 Fet7-arca. 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. If 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 what- 
 ever she has lost, has been alike won and lost by her perfidy, — 
 the characteristic of the people from the earliest ages, and re- 
 corded 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 I have read, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 73 
 
 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 neighbor. 
 
 Petrarca. So am I ; but we must never deny or dissemble 
 the victories of the ancient Gauls, many traces of which are re- 
 maining, — 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 ac- 
 quisition, how inconsiderable a part of the population is 
 Gauhsh ! Long before the time of Caesar 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. 
 
 Petrarca. The 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 aUiance. Union at home 
 is all we want, and vigilance to perpetuate the better of our 
 institutions. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 ac- 
 knowledges the supremacy of Genius. Besides, 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 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, 
 
74 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 Pet7'arca. None else, certainly. 
 
 Boccaccio. Heard in bed ! dreaming, dreaming — ay ? 
 
 Petrarca. No, indeed : my eyes and ears were wide open. 
 
 Boccaccio. The little parlor 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. It is right and proper that you should be in- 
 formed who the clergyman was to whom you are under an 
 obligation. 
 
 Boccaccio. Tell me something about it, for truly I am at a loss 
 to conjecture. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 conversation 
 holdeth he?" 
 
 She answered : " He never talks of loving our neighbor 
 with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength, although 
 he often gives away the last loaf in the pantry." 
 
 Boccaccio. It was she ! Why did she say that ? — the 
 slut ! 
 
 Petrarca. " He doth well," rephed the confessor. " Of 
 the Church, of the brotherhood, that is, of me, what discourses 
 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 PENTAMERON. 75 
 
 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 " com- 
 pany, and to express that his reverence had asserted his power 
 of absolution ; which is undeniable. 
 
 Boccaccio. I 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 further interrogation, 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 con- 
 fessors in general wish to have the sole steerage of the con- 
 science. When she told him that your benignity 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 Fran- 
 cesco in the next room ; he sleeps long into the morning, but 
 he is so clever a clerk he may understand you just the same. 
 I doubt whether he thinks Ser Giovanni in the wrong for 
 
'j6 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 Pe- 
 trarca. 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. 
 
 " I cannot tell that matter," she answered somewhat im- 
 patiently ; " 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." 
 
 " I 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. 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 ! 
 
 Petrarca. The man's prudence may be reasonably doubted, 
 but it were uncharitable to question his sincerity. Could a 
 neighbor, a religious one in particular, be indifferent to the wel-r 
 fare of Boccaccio, or any belonging to him ? 
 
 Boccaccio. I do not complain of his indifference. In- 
 different ! 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 
 \h.€vc podere ; they shall not in mine. The girl is an honest girl, 
 Francesco, though I say it. Neither she nor any other shall be 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 7/ 
 
 befooled and bamboozled under my roof. Methinks Holy 
 Church might contrive some improvement upon confession. 
 
 Petraj'ca. Hush, Giovanni ! But, it being a matter of dis- 
 cipline, who knows but she might. 
 
 Boccaccio. Discipline ! ay, ay, ay ! faith and troth, there 
 are some who want it. 
 
 Petrarca. You really terrify me. These are sad surmises. 
 
 Boccaccio. Sad enough ! but I am keeper of my hand- 
 maiden's probity. 
 
 Petrarca. It could not be kept safer. 
 
 Boccaccio. I wonder what the Frate would be putting into 
 her head. 
 
 Petrarca. Nothing, nothing ; be assured. 
 
 Boccaccio. Why did he ask her all those questions ? 
 
 Petrarca. 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 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 harboring dirt. Let him 
 mind that ! Such, I assure you, is that poor little wench, 
 Assuntina. 
 
 Petrarca. I 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 
 
78 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 sweeping ; when they do, the broom should be taken from be- 
 hind 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 tinea.'' 
 
 Petraj'ca. I 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? 
 
 Petrarca. Yes, before thou wert born. 
 
 Assunta. Ah, sir ! it must have been long ago then. 
 
 Pet)'arca. Thou hast just entered upon life. 
 
 Assunta. I am no child. 
 
 Petrarca. What then art thou? 
 
 Assunta. I know not ; I have lost both father and mother : 
 there is a name for such as I am. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. I could hardly lift up my apron to my eyes with 
 it in my hand. Luca, who brought it all the way from the 
 Padule, could scarcely be entreated to eat a morsel of bread, 
 or to 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. 
 
 Boccaccio. 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 cannot recollect young Luca of the Bientola, 
 who married Maria. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 79 
 
 Boccaccio. I 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 Fran- 
 cesco, 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 wiles 
 and craftiness, and sent his reverence over to the monas- 
 tery in the mountains, — Laverna yonder, — to make him look 
 sharp ; and there he is yet. 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 imagination. 
 
 Petrarca. No wonder then she fell into misfortune, and her 
 neighbors 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 
 imagination. 
 
80 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Petrarca. He could not have finished his work more 
 effectually. 
 
 Assmita. 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 Maria 
 with all his ; but they both hated Paroco Snello for such ne- 
 glect about the evil one. And even Monsignore, who sent for 
 Luca on purpose, had some difficulty in persuading him to for- 
 bear 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. " I 
 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 com- 
 forted ! 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 occa- 
 sion. Pulcheria, his governante, eighty years old, carried an 
 apronful of hUes to bestrew the altar; and partly from the 
 lilies, and partly from the blessed angels, who although invisi- 
 ble 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? 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 8 I 
 
 Assunta. I had none. 
 
 Boccaccio. Surely there are ahvays such about the premises. 
 
 Assunta. Not mine to give away. 
 
 Boccaccio. So then at thy hands, Assunta, she went 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 parlor. I made the basket — I and — 
 but myself chiefly, for boys are loiterers. 
 
 Boccaccio. Well, well, — why not bestow the basket, together 
 with its rich contents ? 
 
 Assunta. I 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. 
 
 Petrarca. I hope you have always kept her command. 
 
 Assunta. Nobody is ever unhappy here excepting Fra Bia- 
 gio, 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 ! ex- 
 cuse 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 to see 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 chiccory 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." 
 
82 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 FOURTH DAY'S INTERVIEW. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. 
 
 Petrarca. You have coasted the whole poem, and your 
 boat's bottom now touches ground. But tell me what you 
 think of Beatrice. 
 
 Boccaccio. I 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 oiie 
 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 stan- 
 zas leave us nothing to desire in facility and elegance. Alighieri 
 grows harmonious as he grows humane, and does not, like Or- 
 pheus, play the better with the beasts about him. 
 
 Petrarca. It 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. 
 
 Petraira. 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? 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 8^ 
 
 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 ? 
 
 Petrarca. I 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 cannot give you an ex- 
 ample 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 embossed 
 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 observed 
 His shell so shallow and so chipped around. 
 Tall though he was, he held it higher, to meet 
 The sparkler at its outset : with fresh leap, 
 Vigorous as one just free upon the world, 
 Impetuous too as one first checked, with stamp 
 Heavy as ten such sparklers might be deemed, 
 Rushed it amain, from cavity and rim 
 And rim's divergent channels, and dropped 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 ! " 
 
84 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Petrarca. O Giovanni ! these are better thoughts and op- 
 portuner 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 find 
 other images ; sometimes the pure fountain failed in bringing 
 purity to the heart. 
 
 " Unholy fire sprang up in fields and woods ; 
 The air that fanned 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 cannot 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 must 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 ac- 
 count, 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 (ionquer 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. 
 
 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 harbor 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 
 firom 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." 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 85 
 
 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 feeUngs 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 bedside 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 labors ! 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 gormandizer who casts upon his 
 loaded stomach the little breast that has poured delight on 
 thousands. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 gamer sensibility. 
 
 Petrarca. Ser Geoffreddo felt more pleasure in the gen- 
 erosity and humanity of his countrymen than in the victories 
 they had recently won with incredibly smaller numbers over 
 their boastful enemy. 
 
 Boccaccio, I 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 
 1 Chaucer. 
 
86 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 grammars, — one Greek, one Hebrew, neither of which labors 
 had been attempted by the most industrious and erudite of 
 those who spoke the languages ; he likewise formed so com- 
 plete a library as belongs only to the Byzantine emperors. 
 This prelate came into Italy attended by Ser Geoffreddo, in 
 whose company we spent, as you remember, two charming 
 evenings at Arezzo. 
 
 Petra7'ca. 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 thousand ^ male adults, was capable 
 of sending from her native population a sufficient force of war- 
 riors to conquer the best province of France 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 beheve as I do, that the ejected 
 Romans, of the coast at least, became pirates, and were useful 
 to the Scandinavians by introducing what was needful of their 
 arts and salable 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 encour- 
 aged, 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. Besides, they are remark- 
 able for a sedate and somewhat repulsive pride, very different 
 
 1 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. 87 
 
 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 commu- 
 nicable to them. Their rivals, the French, are the best imi- 
 tators 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Ser Geoffreddo, I well remember, was no less re- 
 markable 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 Eng- 
 lish 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 French- 
 man 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 English- 
 man 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 other country of such easy, graceful, unaffected manners as 
 our Italians. We are warmer at the extremities than at the 
 heart : sunless nations have central fires. The Englishman is 
 more gratified when you enable him to show you a fresh kind- 
 ness than when you remind him of a past one ; and he forgets 
 what he has conferred as readily as we forget what we have re- 
 ceived. 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 
 
88 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 perfect, with the sole exception of memory ; and our memory is 
 only deficient in its retentiveness of obligation. 
 
 Pet7-arca. Better had it failed in almost all its other func- 
 tions. 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 " Commen- 
 tary," 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 
 Italians in general, that in calling on me to produce one, they 
 would rather I should praise indiscriminately than parsimonious- 
 ly ; and respect is due to them for repairing, by all the means 
 in their power, the injustice their fathers committed, — for en- 
 during in humility his resentment, and for investing him with 
 public honors 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. 
 
 Fetrarca. 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 rever- 
 ence 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 
 honor, or their shame in withholding 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 surprised one blushed and struggled, as those 
 do who unwittingly have been drawn into a penalty (not light- 
 ened by laughter) for having sitten in the imperial or the papal 
 chair. 
 
 Petrarca. These are good signs, and never fallacious. In 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 89 
 
 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 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 pesti- 
 lence, 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 exemption 
 from that Plica Polonica of invidiousness, which infests the 
 squander 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 leisure- 
 ly 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 color, 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 bowlings. Remarking 
 so material a change in his countenance and manners, a satyr, 
 who was much his friend and deeply interested in his punish- 
 ment, said calmly, " IMarsyas ! 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 satis- 
 faction of seeing that thy skin is more than half drawn off thee ; 
 it is hardly worth while to make a bustle about it now." 
 
 Fefrarca. Every Marsyas hath his consoling satyr. Probably 
 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 yet, poor souls ! the prize will never fall to them. 
 There is something sweet and generous in the tone of praise. 
 
90 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 which captivates an ingenuous mind whatever maybe the subject 
 of it ; while propensity to censure not only excites suspicion of 
 malevolence, but reminds the hearer of what he cannot dis- 
 entangle 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 in 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 struc- 
 ture ; 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 accum- 
 ulating weight upon depression, and building labyrinths about 
 perplexity. 
 
 Boccaccio. Yet, O Francesco ! when I remem.ber what 
 Dante had suffered and was suffering from the mahce and ob- 
 duracy 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 j and although the civility far 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, and stand before him almost silent. I be- 
 lieve I should do the same at the present day. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 con- 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 9 1 
 
 stituted 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 fami- 
 nes ; and every family in Florence is a portion of the govern- 
 ment, or has been lately. Every one preserves the annals of 
 the Republic, — the facts being nearly the same, the inferences 
 widely diverging, the motives utterly dissimilar. A strict ex- 
 amination of Dante would involve the bravest and most in- 
 telligent ; 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 cannot 
 show too much activity, and very soon prove, by exerting it, 
 that they can show too little discretion. The military, the 
 knigMy, the baronial, are spurred on to join in the chase ; but 
 the fleshers have other names and other instincts. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. I wonder you did not mention him before. 
 Perhaps he is no favorite with you. 
 
 Petrarca. Why cannot we be delighted with an author, and 
 even feel a predilection for him, without a dislike of others? 
 An admiration of Catullus or Virgil, of TibuUus or Ovid, is 
 never to be heightened by a discharge of bile on Horace. 
 
 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 frowardness. 
 These are resolved to agitate the puddle of their blood by 
 running into parties, literary or political, and espouse a cham- 
 pion's cause with such ardor 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 
 
92 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 lampooners, whose hands latterly had 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. I 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 eco- 
 nomical 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 admirable 
 correctness and precision : can they theirs ? 
 
 Boccaccio. I never heard they could ; but well enough for 
 their customers and their consciences. 
 
 Petrarca. I see, then, no great accuracy is required. 
 
 Boccaccio. If 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 
 
 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 at- 
 tempts 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 93 
 
 school as the masterpiece of the pathetic, — I mean the ode 
 addressed to Virgil on the death of Quinctilius Varus. 
 
 " Praecipe lugubres 
 Cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam pater 
 Vocem cum cithara dedit." 
 
 Did he want any one to help him to cry? What man im- 
 mersed 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 Or- 
 pheus ? 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 ear, too many low notes, and somewhat of a 
 wooden sound. And give me " Vixi puellis," 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, 
 
 " Acer et Mauri 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 
 
 " Obliquo laborat 
 Lympha fugax trepidare rivo." 
 
 Petrarca, The moment I learn it you shall have it. Laborat 
 trepidare! lympha rivo ! fugax too ! Fugacity is not the action 
 for hard work, or labor. 
 
 Boccaccio. Since you cannot help me out, I must give up 
 the conjecture, it seems, while it has cost me only half a cen- 
 tury. Perhaps it may be curiosafelicitas. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. 
 
94 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccio. What is that? 
 
 Petrarca. I 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 
 Nasidienus," I remember the expression nosse laboro ; " I am 
 anxious to know " : this expedites the solution but little. In 
 the same piece there is another odd expression, — 
 
 " Turn in lecto quoque videres 
 Stridere secreta divisos aure siisurrosP 
 
 Petrarca. I 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 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 expla- 
 nations, but in avoiding them. Some scholars will assert that 
 everything 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 compositions, — in 
 prose and poetry, in Latin and Italian. Hence it became the 
 safer for him afterward to introduce her as an allegorical per- 
 sonage, in opposition to the Meretrice ; under which appella- 
 tion 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 explain- 
 
 1 Except " Non ita me divi vera gemunt juerint." 
 
THE PENTAMERON, 95 
 
 ing 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 Meretrice stealing from Beatrice both the divim 
 and the august chariot ; the Church and Empire. Grave critics 
 will protest their inabihty 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 tenderness in our readers, and little interest. But, alas ! 
 these are no longer the days to dwell on them. 
 
 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 
 
 Clasped it, and down it fell again. 
 
 Come, come ! bear your disappointment, and forgive my cheat- 
 ing 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 Era Biagio is merry as a lark, and half master 
 of the house. Do not look so grave upon me for remembering 
 so well another state of existence. He who forgets his love 
 may still more easily forget his friendships. I am weak, I 
 
96 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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, Gio- 
 vanni, 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 dis- 
 dain, 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 thither. Love 
 preceding passion insures, 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. 
 
 1 The tender and virtuous Shenstone, in writing the most beautiful of 
 epitaphs, was unaware how near he stood to Petrarca, — " Heu quanto 
 minus est cum aliis versari quam tui meminisse." 
 
 " Pur mi consola che morir per lei 
 Meglio b che gioir d'altra." 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 9/ 
 
 For rarely are we envied, until we are so prosperous that envy 
 is rather a famihar 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Giovanni, you are unsuspicious, and would 
 scarcely see a monster in a 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 shpperiness and tortuous- 
 ness of your detractors. 
 
 Boccaccio. Whatever they detract from me, they leave more 
 than they can carry away. Besides, they always are detected. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 wilhng to cor- 
 rect. There are many things, as you have just now told me, 
 very unworthy of their company. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 pro- 
 fusion, 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-bom 
 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 of 
 the hay-fever for beauty-spots. In another half-century their 
 
 7 
 
98 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 volumes will be inquired after ; but only for the sake of cutting 
 out an illuminated letter from the titlepage, 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 re- 
 member two admonitions : first, that sweet things hurt diges- 
 tion ; 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 creating, has likewise the inferior power of keep- 
 ing his creation in order. The best poets are the most im- 
 pressive, because their steps are regular ; for without regularity 
 there is neither strength nor state. Look at Sophocles, look at 
 .^schylus, 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, 
 
 Petrarca. 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. Frequently, when 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. 
 
 Fetrarca. Giovanni, are you not grown satirical? 
 
 Boccaccio. Not in this. It is a truth as broad and glaring 
 as the eye of the Cyclops. To make you amends for your shud- 
 dering, I will express my doubt, on the other hand, whether 
 Dante felt all the indignation he threw into his poetry. We 
 are 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 slipped into 
 
 1 Dives inaccessis ubi Solis filia lucis 
 Urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum. — ^neid. 
 
THE PENTAMERON, 99 
 
 the habit of vituperation ; and he thought it fitted him, — so he 
 never left it off. 
 
 Pet7-arca. Serener colors 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 ox appre- 
 hension lessens it. Alighieri, who had certainly studied the 
 gospel, must have been conscious that he not only was inhu- 
 mane, but that he betraj'-ed 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 its amputation. This 
 eagle, unlike Jupiter's, never loosened the thunderbolt from it 
 under the influence of harmony. 
 
 Petj-arca. 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. 
 
 Boccacdo. Alas ! if I live, I hope to show it. You have 
 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? 
 
 Petrarca, Cannot you do without one? 
 
 Boccaccio. No I a nun I must have, — say nothing against 
 her ; I can more easily let the abbess alone. Yet Frate Biagio,* 
 
 1 Our San Vivaldo is enriched by Ms deposit. In the church, on the 
 fifth flagstone from before the high altar, is tliis inscription : — 
 Hic srrus est, 
 
 EEATAM IMMORTAHTATEM EXPECTANS, 
 
 D. BLASIUS DE BLASIIS, 
 
 HUJUS CCENOBH ABBAS, 
 
 SINGULARI VIR CHARITATE, 
 
 MORIBUS INTEGERRIMIS, 
 
 REI THEOLOGICjE NEC NON PHYSICS 
 
 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 J the other he reserves in petto. — Domenico Grigi. 
 
lOO THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 — that Frate Biagio, who never came to visit me but when he 
 thought I was at extremities or asleep — Assuntina ! are you 
 there ? 
 
 Petrarca. No; do you want her? 
 
 Boccaccio. 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 " Tale 
 of the Frate." 
 
 Petrarca. Do not openly name him. 
 
 Boccaccio. He shall recognize himself by one single expres- 
 sion. He said to me, when I was at the worst, — 
 
 " Ser Giovanni, it would not be much amiss (with permis- 
 sion !) 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 call 
 me unto him, I say " The Nun 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 comer, to walk 
 hajf over my podere. 
 
 Have you done ? Have you done ? 
 
 Petrarca. Be. quiet ; you may talk too much. 
 
 Boccaccio. I cannot 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. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. lOI 
 
 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 schoolroom. 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 
 the appetite of a dogfish or shark, and to have bitten the harder 
 the warmer he was. I would not voluntarily be under his mani- 
 fold rows of dentals. He has an incisor to every saint in the 
 calendar. I should fare, methinks, Hke Brutus and the Arch- 
 bishop. He is forced to stretch himself, out of sheer listless- 
 ness, 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, " Earth, Italy, and Heaven." 
 
 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 
 
102 THE PENTAMERON,. 
 
 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. 
 
 Petraraa. 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 vic- 
 tory that it were better we had encountered a defeat. Unre- 
 mitting care must be taken that nothing soil the monuments 
 we are raising: sure enough we are that nothing can subvert, 
 and nothing but our negligence, or worse than negligence, efface 
 them. Under the glorious^ lamp intrusted 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 cheerfuEer 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 hke 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 cannot 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 lihes 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. I do indeed think my little bevy from Santa 
 
THE PENTAMERON. IO3 
 
 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. 
 
 Petrarca. This is atrocious, not terrific nor grand. Alighieri 
 is grand by his lights, not by his shadows ; by his human affec- 
 tions, not by his infernal. As the minutest sands are the labors 
 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 moviug and moaning on the earth 
 in loneliness and sadness. 
 
 Boccaccio. Among men he is what among waters is 
 
 The strange, mysterious, solitary Nile. 
 
 Petrarca. Is that his verse ? I do not remember it. 
 
 Boccaccio. No, it is mine for the present ; how long it may 
 continue mine, I cannot tell. I never run after those who steal 
 my apples, — it would only tire me ; and they are hardly worth 
 recovering when they are biiiised and bitten, as they are usu- 
 ally. 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 our 
 Alighieri. 
 
 Boccaccio. I 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. 
 
 Petraj'ca. I wish our 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 
 
104 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 predecessors than apy of the Roman poets from theirs. Rea- 
 sonably may it be expected that ahnost all who follow will be 
 greatly more indebted to antiquity, to whose stores we every 
 year are making some addition. 
 
 Petrarca. It can be held no flaw in the title-deeds of genius 
 if the same thoughts reappear as have been exhibited long ago. 
 The indisputable sign of defect should be looked for in the 
 proportion they bear to the unquestionably original. There are 
 ideas which necessarily must occur to minds of the like magni- 
 tude and materials, aspect and temperature. When two ages 
 are in the same phasis, they will excite the same humors, and 
 produce the same coincidences and combinations. In addition 
 to which, a great poet may really borrow ; he may even con- 
 descend 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. Imita- 
 tion, 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 com- 
 edy, 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 suffer- 
 ings 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 
 
 ^ Facit indignatio versum. — Juvenal. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. IO5 
 
 beneficent philosopher who made him at peace with himself, 
 and tolerant and kindly toward his fellow-creatures ! How im- 
 portunate the other that God should forego his divine mercy, and 
 hurl everlasting torments both upon the dead and the living ! 
 
 Boccaccio. I have always heard that Ser Dante was a very 
 good man and sound Catholic ; but Christ forgive me if my 
 heart is oftener on the side of Lucretius.-^ Observe, I say my 
 heart ; nothing more. I devoutly hold to the sacraments and 
 the mysteries ; yet somehow I would rather see men tranquil- 
 lized 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 wood- 
 lark yonder gushing with joyousness, or when I see the beauti- 
 ful clouds, resting so softly upon one 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Be not too confident ! 
 
 Boccaccio. 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? 
 
 Petrarca. No, child ! 
 
 Boccaccio. Oh, get you gone ! get you gone ! you little 
 rogue you ! Francesco, I feel quite well. Your kindness to my 
 
 1 Query : How much of Lucretius (or Petronius or Catullus, before 
 cited) was then known ? — Remark by Monsigiiore. 
 
I06 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 playful creatures i"^ *^^ " Decameron" has revived me, and has 
 put me into goP^ humor with the greater part of them. Are 
 you quite certain the Madonna will not expect me to keep my 
 promise ? ^ou said you were ; I need not ask you again, I will 
 accept ttie whole of your assurances, and half your praises. 
 ^ Pttrarca. 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. 
 
 It 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 inessenger who brought it ! " 
 
 He had slept soundly ; for ere he closed his eyes he had 
 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 transgressions, 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 10/ 
 
 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 innocence ; deemmg 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 es- 
 pecially 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 suc- 
 ceeded, to his own wonder, — it being increased by the mani- 
 festation 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 oc- 
 casion 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, 
 And the last blossom of the plum 
 ■ Inviting her first leaves to come, — 
 Which hang a little back, but show 
 'T is 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 chirrupped first to maids and men. 
 
 Petrarca. I 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. 
 
I08 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccio. Very true ; and such being the case, let us care- 
 fully 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 part- 
 ner. In future, no more of comparisons for me ! 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. Besides, 
 you yourself will get hated for them. We neither can deserve 
 praise nor receive it with impunity. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 in- 
 fluence 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 certain of his Novelle 
 were modelled on originals in their orders. Hence, although 
 they indeed both professed and felt esteem for Canonico Pe- 
 trarca, 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 continuance 
 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 j 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, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. IO9 
 
 who, inhabiting the next township to them, were naturally their 
 enemies. Yet they might beheve Frate Biagio, and certainly 
 would interrogate him accordingly. He formed his determi- 
 nation, put his frock and hood on, and gave a curvature to his 
 shoe, to evince his knowledge of the world, by pushing the ex- 
 tremity 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 impos- 
 sible to resist the impulses of pride in showing Assunta his rigid 
 and stately frock, with 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," repUed he. 
 
 "Why!" said she, "those are surely his shoes! Santa 
 Maria ! you must have put them on in the dusk of the morn- 
 ing, to say your prayers in ! Here, here ! take these old ones 
 of Signor Padrone, for the love of God ! I hope your rev- 
 erence met nobody." 
 
 Frate. What dost smile at? 
 
 Assunta. Smile at ! I could find in my heart to laugh out- 
 right, if I only were certain that nobody had seen your rev- 
 erence in such a funny trim. Riverenza, put on these. 
 
 Frate. Not I, indeed. 
 
 Assunta. Allow me, then? 
 
 Frate. 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 sud- 
 denly, and said, " No ; I might miss my footing. But, mercy 
 upon us ! what made you cramp your reverence with those 
 
no THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 ox-yoke shoes, and strangle your reverence with that hang- dog 
 collar?" 
 
 " If 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. I thought no less ; indeed, I knew it. Which goes 
 to bed first? 
 
 Assunta. Both together. 
 
 Frate. Demonio ! what dost mean? 
 
 Assunta. He tells me never to sit up waiting, but to say 
 my prayers and dream of the Virgin. 
 
 Frate. As if it were 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 besides, there 
 is a mat upon the floor, all around the bed, excepting the top 
 and bottom. 
 
 Frate. I 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 ? 
 
 Frate, The truth 1 the truth J again, I say the truth J 
 
 Assunta. He did then. 
 
 Frate. I knew it J The most dangerous man living ! 
 
 Assunta. Ah ] indeed he is ! Signor Padrone said so. 
 
 Frate. He knows him of old : he warned you, it seems. 
 
 Assunta. Me J 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 ail, is it ? 
 
 Assunta. And bad enough too ! that such good-natured 
 men should ever grow so bulky, and stand in danger, as Pa- 
 drone said they both do, of such a seizure 1 
 
 Frate. What ! and art ready to cry about it ? Old folks 
 cannot die easier ; and there are always plenty of younger to 
 
THE PENTAMERON. HI 
 
 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, As- 
 sunta ! tell me, you little angel ! did you — we all may, the 
 very best of us may, and do — sin, my sweet ? 
 
 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. So famous a man — 
 
 Frate. No excuse in that. 
 
 Assunta. So dear to Padrone — 
 
 Frate. The more shame for him ! 
 
 Assunta. Called me — 
 
 Frate. And called you, did he ? the traitorous swine ! 
 
 Assunta. Called me — good girl. 
 
 Frate. Psha ! the wenches, I think, are all mad : but few 
 of them in this manner. 
 
 Without saying another word, Fra Biagio went forward and 
 opened the bed-chamber 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 
 
112 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 sitting up, but have taken a draught of fresh air at the window, 
 and every leaf had a little present of sunshine for me. 
 
 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 ex- 
 actly 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 it? 
 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. 
 
 Frate. 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 ! 
 
 Frate. 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? 
 
 Frate. Try, and trust me with any. I am a confessional 
 on legs ; there is no more a whisper in me than in a woolsack. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. II3 
 
 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. 
 Frate. 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 pill brutta e tua di tutte. 
 
 Badi, non cascare sulle 
 
 Graziosissime fanciulle, 
 
 Che con capo dritto, alzato, 
 
 Uova portano al mercato. 
 
 Pessima mi pare I'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 it ? I 
 did not ride, however, to-day, as you may see by the lining of 
 my frock. But plus 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 
 
 1 Avendo io fatto comparire nel nostro idioma toscano, e senza tra- 
 duzione, i leggiadri versi sopra stampati, chiedo perdono da clii 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 piu 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' e male; ma poeta 
 poco felice poi. Parlano que' Signori critici riveritissimi di certi poemetti 
 e frammenti gia da noi ammessi in questo volume, ed an che 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 ateisimo, ovvero di alto tradimento, Che questo non lo sia, ne palse- 
 samente ne occultamente, fermo col proprio pugno. — Domenico Grigi. 
 
114 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 have a store of others, her equals or betters. We have none 
 Uke them at poor San Vivaldo. A rivederci, Ser Giovanni / 
 Schiavo, Ser Canonico ! mi commandino. 
 
 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 hps, selected seven, which he himself fried 
 in oil, although the maid offered her services. He never had 
 been so little disposed to enter into conversation 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 
 cannot 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 ser- 
 vice 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 San 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 him, and for 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. II5 
 
 Boccaccio. I think so myself; though authors, Httle dis- 
 posed as they are to doubt their possession of any quahty 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 ten- 
 der, and to have written tenderly, for I am certain it is this 
 alone that has made you love me with such affection. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 forever ! 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 you. 
 
 Boccaccio. Well guessed ! They are verses written by a 
 gentleman who resided long in this country, and who much re- 
 gretted the necessity of leaving it. He took great dehght in 
 composing both Latin and Italian, but never kept a copy 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 't is 
 
 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 1 
 
 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 favorite seat, 
 
 With the new knife I sent thee over sea ? 
 
 Or hast thou broken it, and hid the hilt 
 
 Among the myrtles, starred with flowers, behind ? 
 
Il6 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 ! 't was he who slew 
 Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, 
 That feared not you and me — alas, nor him ! 
 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 1 What sports, what cares 
 (Since there are none too young for these) engage 
 Thy busy thoughts ? Are you again at work, 
 Walter and you, with those sly laborers 
 Geppo, Giovanni, Cecco, and Poeta, 
 To build more solidly your broken dam 
 Among the poplars, whence the nightingale 
 Inquisitively watched 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. I am not sorry to see the Muses by the side of child- 
 hood, and forming a part of the family. But now tell me about 
 the books. 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 11/ 
 
 Boccaccio. Resolving to lay aside the more valuable of those I 
 had collected or transcribed, and to place them under the guar- 
 dianship 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 calcula- 
 tion 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 fortresses inexpugnable, and others more 
 prodigious for their ruins ; then below them lordly abbeys, 
 over-canopied with stately trees, and girded with rich luxuri- 
 ance ; and towns that seem approaching them to do them 
 honor, and 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 accom- 
 phshment 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 macaroni,^ while a Neapolitan is suspend- 
 ing 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 ac- 
 complish 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Sigh not g,t 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. 
 
 ^ This is valuable, since it shows that macaroni (here called pasta) was 
 invented in the time of Boccaccio ; so are the letters of Petrarca, which 
 inform us equally in regard to spectacles : " Kd octilariiim [occhiali] mihi 
 confugiendum esset auxilium." — Domenico Grigi. 
 
Il8 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 Boccaccio. I prayed ; and my breast, after some few tears, 
 grew calmer. Yet sleep did not ensue matil 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. 
 
 Petrarca. I think, Giovanni, I can divine the place. Al- 
 though 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 favorite spot with 
 me, because of the two strong forked stakes wherewith it is 
 propped and supported ! 
 
 Petrarca. 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 here 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. 
 
 " I must go down to the brook," sai4 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 disobeyed her only an 
 instant ; yet my sense of disobedience, increasing my feeble- 
 ness and confusion, made me lose sight of her. In the next 
 
THE PENTAMERON. II9 
 
 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 before me many groves and palaces and gardens, 
 and their statues and their avenues, and their labyrinths of 
 alatemus and bay, and alcoves of citron and watchful loopholes 
 in the retirements of impenetrable pomegranate. Farther off, 
 just below where the fountain slipped 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 tantaliz- 
 ing with their bosomed flowers and their moist and pouting 
 blossoms the little shy rivulet, and of covering its face with all 
 the colors of the dawn. My dream expanded and moved for- 
 ward. I trod again the dust of Posilipo, soft as the feathers in 
 the wings of Sleep. I emerged on Baia ; I crossed her in- 
 numerable 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, 
 her grottoes and dells and forts and promontories, rushed for- 
 ward 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 penalty, 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 
 
120 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 whole heart with fragrance. Venerating, adoring, I bowed my 
 head at last to kiss her snow-white robe, and trembled at my 
 presumption. And yet the effulgence of her countenance viv- 
 ified while it chastened me. I loved her — I must not say 
 more than ever — better than ever ; it was Fiametta who had 
 inhabited the skies. As my hand opened toward her, — 
 
 "Beware!" said she, faintly smiling; "beware, Giovanni! 
 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 — oh ! 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 
 \ovt^ first ; " nor which of us replied, " Say /east, say /east, 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 com- 
 fort, 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 exhorta- 
 tion to accomplish my deliverance. 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 pusillanimity. It was only when a ringlet 
 had touched the rim, and perhaps the water (for a sunbeam 
 on the surface could 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 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 121 
 
 on me ; she looked most fondly ; she took my hand ; she suf- 
 fered me to press hers to my bosom : but, whether by design I 
 cannot tell, she let fall a few drops of the chilly element between. 
 
 "And now, O my beloved ! " said she, "we have consigned 
 to the bosom of God our earthly joys and sorrows. The joys 
 cannot return, — let not the sorrows. These alone would 
 trouMe 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Alas, alas ! the time always comes when we 
 must regret the enjoyments of our youth. 
 
 Boccaccio. If we have let them pass us. 
 
 Petrarca. I mean our indulgence in them. 
 
 Boccaccio. Francesco, I think you must remember Raffa- 
 ellino degli Alfani. 
 
 Petrarca. Was it RafFaellino who lived near San Michele in 
 Orto? 
 
 Boccaccio. The same. He was an innocent soul, and fond 
 
122 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 of fish. But whenever his friend Sabbatelli sent him a trout 
 from Pratohno, 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 undeniable 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 Raffael- 
 lino was, I think I should have taken an opportunity of enjoying 
 it while the pink and crimson were glittering on it. 
 
 Peti'UJ'ca. Trout, yes. 
 
 Boccaccio. And all other fish I could encompass. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 standing at the 
 door : not that I believe she would be guilty of any such im- 
 propriety, 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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. 
 
 I find I was mistaken, there was nobody. 
 
 Petrarca. A cat, perhaps. 
 
 Boccaccio. No such thing. I order him over to Certaldo 
 while the birds are laying and sitting ; and he knows by ex- 
 perience, favorite as he is, that it is of no use to come back 
 before he is sent for. Since the first impetuosities 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 learned something of my manners, wherein vio- 
 lence and enterprise by no means predominate. I have 
 watched him looking at a large green lizard; and, their eyes 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 1 23 
 
 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 otium 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 philoso- 
 pher of Samos, — but after due examination. In cleanliness he 
 is a very nun ; albeit in that quality which lies between cleanli- 
 ness 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. 
 
 Petrarca, What prayer were you looking for ? Let me find it. 
 
 Boccaccio. I 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 that 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 repeating. 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. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 
 
124 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 yours, and as having been not totally useless to me. Often 
 have I reflected on it, — sometimes with pensiveness, with sad- 
 ness 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 ^neas, this, in preference to the whole swarm of 
 them, is the queen dream for me. 
 
 Petrarca. 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 Al- 
 mighty Power that formed it : but give me, Francesco, give me 
 rather the creature to sympathize with ; apportion me the suf- 
 ferings 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 philolo- 
 gist, 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 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 12$ 
 
 far from unprofitable to set passing events before past actors, 
 and to record the decisions of those whose interests and pas- 
 sions 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 favorite ones perhaps may obtrude too promi- 
 nently, but otherwise no misbehavior is permitted them ; rep- 
 rehension 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 di- 
 versity 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 under- 
 standing and imagination than you ever could by sonnets or 
 canzonets, or sinewless and sapless allegories. 
 
 But weightier works are less captivating. If you had pub- 
 lished 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 ecvo ; " 
 
 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 cannot 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 enthusiastic in their favor ! 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 
 
126 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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. 
 
 Petrarca. Allegory, which you named with sonnets and 
 canzonets, had few attractions for me, beheving 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 reflected for some time on 
 tills subject, when, wearied with the length of my walk over the 
 mountains, and finding a soft old molehill covered with gray 
 grass by the way-side, I laid my head upon it and slept. I 
 cannot tell how long it 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 be- 
 hind his ankles. 
 
 "■ This feather never awakens any one," rephed 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 I am. Many whom you have wounded 
 grievously, call upon me for succor. But so little am I dis- 
 posed to thwart you, it is seldom I venture to do more for them 
 than to whisper a few words of comfort in passing. How many 
 reproaches on these occasions have been cast upon me for in- 
 difference and infidehty ! Nearly as many, and nearly in the 
 same terms, as upon you ! " 
 
 " Odd enough that we, O Sleep ! should be thought so alike ! " 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 12/ 
 
 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 assert- 
 ing his power or his benefits ; Love 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 rap- 
 ture, 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. What- 
 ever 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 cannot 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 somewhat 
 of anxiety, somewhat of disdain ; and cried, " Go away ! go 
 away ! nothing that thou touchest lives ! " 
 
 " Say rather, child ! " replied the advancing form, and ad- 
 vancing grew loftier and statelier, — " say rather that nothing 
 of beautiful or of glorious Uves 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. Al- 
 though 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 compla- 
 cency. 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 be- 
 nignly. 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 
 
128 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm and entrancing 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. Sedate and grave 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 cannot follow me, he who cannot 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. 
 
 Before 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 " Interviews," being the substance of 
 an intended Confession, might, according to the Decretals, be 
 made pubhc. Monsignore took the subject into his considera- 
 tion, 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." 
 
 " 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." 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 1 29 
 
 " Pievano," said Monsignore, " it is customary in the fash- 
 ionable Uterature 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 young- 
 est 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 as strin- 
 gent as the ladies had in Ovid's Metamorphoses ; and the gal- 
 lants 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 dalhance 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 him, — 
 
 Ne turbo il tuono di nebbiosa mente 
 Acqua si limpida e ridente.^ 
 
 I cannot 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 Mon- 
 signore. " The two chief differences now are, — with ours, that 
 we must not eat butcher's meat on a Friday ; with the Angli- 
 can, that they must not eat baked meat on a Sunday. Sec- 
 ondly, 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 car- 
 
 ^ Nor did the thunderings of a cloudy mind 
 Trouble so limpid and serene a water. 
 9 
 
I30 THE PENTAMERON, 
 
 riage ; if he goes thither in any other than his own, be he halt 
 or bUnd, 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 eca7'te 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 
 "Friday; " 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 further the objects of religion, as understood 
 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, the bishop of London, was touched in the wind, 
 and might be seriously a sufferer, — " for the bishop," said he, 
 " is no better walker than a goose." 
 
 There is, moreover, great and general discontent in the lower 
 orders of the clergy that some should be obhged to serve a 
 couple of churches, and perhaps a jail or hospital to 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 
 emoluments of the bishopric of London are greater than the 
 united revenue of twelve cardinals ; that they are amply suffi- 
 cient for the board, lodging, and education of three htmdred 
 young men destined to the ministry ; and that they might 
 relieve from famine, rescue from sin, and save perhaps from 
 
THE PENTAMERON. I31 
 
 eternal punishment three thousand fellow- creatures yearly. On 
 a narrow inspection of one manufacturing 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 subdivided 
 and carefully expended ; if a more numerous and more effi- 
 cient 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 su- 
 pineness, 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 impudence, 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 prospects 
 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 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 cannot 
 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 cannot 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 
 
132 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 abandoned. God at last has made his enemies perform his 
 work ; and the EngUsh prelates, not indeed on the stool of re- 
 pentance 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 demeanor of these prelates, refractory and mu- 
 tinous as it has been (in other matters) to the government of 
 their patron the king, has ultimately (by joining the malcon- 
 tents in abolishing the favorite 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. 
 
 London, June 17, 1837. 
 
 HEADS OF CONFESSION; A MONTHFUL. 
 Printed and Published Supericyrum Licentid. 
 
 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 acknowledge my 
 sinfulness to her. I said she had nothing to do with it, which 
 vexed her. 
 
 March 23. Reproved Assuntina, and called her ragazzaccia, 
 for asking of Messer Piero Pimpema 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 lire since — I 
 forget when. 
 
 March 31. It blowing tramontana, I was ruffled ; suspected 
 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 humor was in me. 
 
 Reflection. The Devil, if he cannot have his walk one way, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 1 33 
 
 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 3d 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 cover- 
 let, 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, 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. 
 
 Among 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 per- 
 son 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 at honor. There 
 are insects on the shoals and sands ot literature, shrimps which 
 must be half boiled before they redden ; and there are blushes 
 
134 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 (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 wrathfubiess 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 neighbor " is 
 a commandment which the literary cast down from over their 
 communion table, to nail against the doors of the commonalty, 
 with a fist and forefinger pointing at it. Although the depre- 
 ciation 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 chap- 
 men. 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 cir- 
 cumference, it might be heartily and honestly derided, — but 
 less probably by the fellow- villager of the vender, 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 inconsiderate rumor 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 " Africa "as to submit it yet to the in- 
 spection 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 acknowl- 
 edged, the authority of Petrarca himself that he never had read 
 the " Decameron " through, even to the last year of his life, 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 1 35 
 
 when he had been intimate with Boccaccio four-and-twenty 
 years. 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 heart or of his friend's ! I must request the 
 liberty of adducing his whole letter, as already translated : — 
 
 " I 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 
 it are excusable^ fro7n haviiig been writte7i in youth, frotn the sub- 
 jects it treats of, and from the persons for whojn 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 attention to the beginning and the end. Your descrip- 
 tion of the people in the Plague is very true and pathetic, and the 
 touching story of Griseldis has been ever since laid up in ?ny mem- 
 ory, that I may relate it in my conversations with my friends. 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 ray friends 
 determined on the same venture ; and having read it from begin- 
 ning to end, without the least alteration of voice or gesture, he said, 
 on returning the book, ' It must be owned that 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 I 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 solici- 
 tude to say everything that could gratify his friend ! With what 
 ingenuity are those faults not palliated but excused (his own ex- 
 pression) which rnust 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 fearful of giving offence, a man more sensitive to the 
 delicacy of friendship, or more deferential to sanctity of char- 
 acter. 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 
 
136 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 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 no- 
 ble 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 com- 
 positions ; 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 Pe- 
 trarca'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 Ermis- 
 senda; 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 be- 
 queathed to his only brother, whom however he loved tenderly. 
 Such had been, long before their acquaintance, the celebrity of 
 Petrarca, such the honors conferred on him v/herever he re- 
 sided or appeared, that he never thought of equality or rivalr)^ 
 And such was Boccaccio's reverential modesty, that, to the 
 very close of his life, he called Petrarca his master. Immeasur- 
 able 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 be- 
 lieve, are the only instances on record where poets have been 
 very tenaciously erroneous in the estimate of their own inferi- 
 ority. The same observation cannot be made so confidently 
 on the decisions of contemporary critics. Indeed, the balance 
 in which works of the highest merit are balanced, vibrates long 
 
THE PENTAMERON. 1 37 
 
 before it is finally adjusted. Even the most judicious men 
 have formed injudicious opinions on the living and the recently 
 deceased. Bacon and Hooker could not estimate Shakspeare, 
 nor could Taylor and Barrow give Milton his just award. 
 Cowley and Dryden were preferred to both, by a great ma- 
 jority of the learned. Many, although they believe they dis- 
 cover 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 disapprobation and moroseness that it has pro- 
 duced four men so pre-eminently great that no name, modern 
 or ancient, excepting Homer, can stand very near the lowest : 
 these are, Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, and Newton. Beneath 
 the least of these (if any one 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 ener- 
 getic, but having no less at command the depths of thought 
 and treasures of fancy, — beyond him in 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 honor of stand- 
 ing alone, if not first. Milton and Homer may be placed to- 
 gether : on the continent Homer will be seen at the right 
 hand ; in England, Milton. Supreme above all, immeasurably 
 supreme, stands Shakspeare. 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 
 
 1 We can speak only of those whose works are extant. Democritus 
 and Anaxagoras were perhaps the greatest in discoveiy and invention. 
 
138 THE PENTAMERON. 
 
 powerfuller without any display of them at all. Both together 
 are just equivalent to Milton, shorn of his Sonnets, and of 
 his "Allegro" and " Penseroso," — the most delightful of what 
 (wanting a better name) we call lytical 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 
 honored 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 in it : there was his station, 
 there his studies, there his happiness. In the vivacity and ver- 
 satility 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 Shakspeare. Ariosto and Spenser may stand 
 at 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. 
 
CITATION AND EXAMINATION 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, 
 
 EUSEBY TREEN, JOSEPH CARNABY, AND SILAS GOUGH, Clerk, 
 
 BEFORE THE WORSHIPFUL 
 
 SIR THOMAS LUCY, Knight, 
 
 TOUCHING DEER-STEALING, 
 ON THE 19th DAY OF SEPTEMBER, IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1582. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 " It was an ancestor of my husband who brought out the famous 
 Shakspeare." These words were really spoken, and were repeated 
 in conversation as ridiculous. Certainly such was very far from the 
 lady's intention ; and who knows to what extent they are true ? 
 
 The frolic of Shakspeare in deer-steahng was the cause of his 
 "Hegira;" and his connection with players in London was the 
 cause of his writing plays. Had he remained in his native town, 
 his ambition had never been excited by the applause of the intellec- 
 tual, the popular, and the powerful, which after all was hardly suf- 
 ficient to excite it. He wrote from the same motive as he acted, — 
 to earn his daily bread. He felt his own powers, but he cared little 
 for making them felt by others more than served his wants. 
 
 The malignant may doubt, or pretend to doubt, the authenticity 
 of the " Examination" here published. Let us, who are not ma- 
 lignant, be cautious of adding anything to the noisome mass of in- 
 credulity that surrounds us ; let us avoid the crying sin of our 
 age, in which the " Memoirs of a Parish Clerk," edited as they 
 were by a pious and learned dignitary of the Estabhshed Church, 
 are questioned in regard to their genuineness ; and even the privi- 
 leges of Parliament are inadequate to cover from the foulest im- 
 putation — the imputation of having exercised his inventive faculties 
 — the elegant and accomplished editor of Eugene Aram's apprehen- 
 sion, trial, and defence. 
 
 Indeed, there is little of real history excepting in romances. 
 Some of these are strictly true to nature ; while histories in general 
 give a distorted view of her, and rarely a faithful record either of 
 momentous or of common events. 
 
 Examinations taken from the mouth are surely the most trust- 
 worthy : whoever doubts it, may be convinced by Ephraim Barnett. 
 
 The Editor is confident he can give no offence to any person who 
 may happen to bear the name of Lucy. The family of Sir Thomas 
 became extinct nearly half a century ago, and the estates descended 
 to the Rev. Mr. John Hammond, of Jesus College, in Oxford, a 
 
142 EDITORS PREFACE. 
 
 respectable Welsh curate, between whom and him there existed at 
 his birth eighteen prior claimants. He took the name of Lucy. 
 
 The reader will form to himself, from this "Examination of 
 Shakspeare," a more favorable opinion of Sir Thomas than is left 
 upon his mind by the dramatist in the character of Justice Shallow. 
 The knight indeed is here exhibited in all his pride of birth and 
 station, tn all his pride of theologian and poet. He is led by the 
 nose, while he believes that nobody can move him, and shows some 
 other weaknesses, which the least attentive observer will discover ; 
 but he is not without a little kindness at the bottom of the heart, — 
 a heart too contracted to hold much, or to let what it holds ebulliate 
 very freely. But, upon the whole, we neither can utterly hate nor 
 utterly despise him. Ungainly as he is, 
 
 " Circum praecordia ludit." 
 
 The author of the "Imaginary Conversations" seems, in his 
 " Boccaccio and Petrarca," to have taken his idea of Sir Magnus 
 from this manuscript. He however has adapted that character to 
 the times ; and in Sir Magnus the coward rises to the courageous, 
 the unskilful in arms becomes the skilful, and war is to him a teacher 
 of humanity. With much superstition, theology never molests him ; 
 scholarship and poetry are no affairs of his: he doubts of himself 
 and others, and is as suspicious in his ignorance as Sir Thomas is 
 confident. 
 
 With these wide diversities there are family features, such as are 
 likely to display themselves in diiferent times and circumstances, 
 and some so generically prevalent as never to lie quite dormant in 
 the breed. In both of them there is parsimony, there is arrogance, 
 there is contempt of inferiors, there is abject awe of power, there is 
 irresolution, there is imbecility. But Sir Magnus has no knowledge, 
 and no respect for it. Sir Thomas would almost go thirty miles, 
 even to Oxford, to see a fine specimen of it, although like most of 
 those who call themselves the godly, he entertains the most un- 
 doubting belief that he is competent to correct the errors of the 
 wisest and most practised theologian. 
 
 A part only of the many deficiencies which the reader will dis- 
 cover in this book is attributable to the Editor. These however it 
 is his duty to account for, and he will do it as briefly as he can. 
 
 The facsimiles (as printers' boys call them, meaning specimens) 
 of the handwriting of nearly all the persons introduced might per- 
 haps have been procured, had sufficient time been allowed for an- 
 other journey into Warwickshire. That of Shakspeare is known 
 already in the signature to his will, but deformed by sickness ; that 
 of Sir Thomas Lucy is extant at the bottom of a commitment of a 
 female vagrant, for having a sucking child in hei arms on the public 
 road ; that of Silas Gough is affixed to the register of births and 
 marriages, during several years, in the parishes of Hampton Lucy and 
 
EDITORS PREFACE, I43 
 
 Charlecote, and certifies one death, — Euseby Treen's; surmised 
 at least to be his by the letters " E. T." cut on a bench seven inches 
 thick, under an old pollard-oak outside the park paling of Charlecote, 
 toward the northeast. For this discovery the Editor is indebted 
 to a most respectable intelligent farmer in the adjoining parish of 
 Wasperton, in which parish Treen's elder brother lies buried. The 
 worthy farmer is unwilHng to accept the large portion of fame justly 
 due to him for the services he has thus rendered to literature in 
 elucidating the history of Shakspeare and his times. In possession 
 of another agricultural gentleman there was recently a very curious 
 piece of iron, believed by many celebrated antiquaries to have con- 
 stituted a part of a knight's breast-plate. It was purchased for two 
 hundred pounds by the trustees of the British Museum, among 
 whom, the reader will be grieved to hear, it produced dissension 
 and coldness ; several of them being of opinion that it was merely 
 a gorget, while others were inclined to the belief that it was the 
 forepart of a horse-shoe. The Committee of Taste and the Heads 
 of the Archaeological Society were consulted. These learned, dis- 
 passionate, and benevolent men had the satisfaction of conciliating 
 the parties at variance, — each having yielded somewhat and every 
 member signing, and affixing his seal to the signature, that, if in- 
 deed it be the forepart of a horse-shoe, it was probably Ismael's; 
 there being a curved indentation along it, resembling the first letter 
 of his name, and there being no certainty or record that he died in 
 France, or was left in that country by Sir Magnus. 
 
 The Editor is unable to render adequate thanks to the Rev. 
 Stephen Turnover for the gratification he received in his curious 
 library by a sight of Joseph Carnaby's name at full-length, in red 
 ink, coming from a trumpet in the mouth of an angel. This invalu- 
 able document is upon an engraving in a frontispiece to the New 
 Testament. But since unhappily he could procure no signature of 
 Hannah Hathaway, nor of her mother, and only a questionable one 
 of Mr. John Shakspeare, the poet's father, ■ — there being two, in 
 two very different hands,— both he and the publisher were of 
 opinion that the graphical part of the volume would be justly cen- 
 sured as extremely incomplete, and that what we could give would 
 only raise inextinguishable regret for that which we could not. On 
 this reflection all have been omitted. 
 
 The Editor is unwilling to affix any mark of disapprobation on 
 the very clever engraver who undertook the sorrel mare ; but as in 
 the memorable words of that ingenious gentleman from Ireland, 
 ■whose polished and elaborate epigrams raised him justly to the rank 
 of prime minister, — 
 
 " White was not so very white," — 
 
 in like manner it appeared to nearly all the artists he consulted that 
 the sorrel mare was not so sorrel in print. 
 
144 EDITORS PREFACE. 
 
 There is another and a graver reason why the Editor was induced 
 to reject the contribution of his friend the engraver : and this is, a 
 neglect of the late improvements in his art, he having, unadvisedly 
 or thoughtlessly, drawn in the old-fashioned manner lines at the 
 two sides and at the top and bottom of his print, confining it to such 
 limits as paintings are confined in by their frames. Our spirited 
 engravers, it is well known, disdain this thraldom, and not only 
 give unbounded space to their scenery, but also melt their figures 
 in the air, — so advantageously, that, for the most part, they ap- 
 proach the condition of cherubs. This is the true aerial perspec- 
 tive, so httle understood heretofore. Trees, castles, rivers, volca- 
 noes, oceans, float together in absolute vacancy; the solid earth 
 is represented, what we know it actually is, buoyant as a bubble, 
 so that no wonder if every horse is endued with all the privileges 
 of Pegasus, save and except our sorrel. Malicious carpers, insen- 
 sible or invidious of England's glory, deny her in this beautiful 
 practice the merit of invention, assigning it to the Chinese in their 
 tea-cups and saucers ; but if not absolutely new and ours, it must 
 be acknowledged that we have greatly improved and extended the 
 invention. 
 
 Such are the reasons why the little volume here laid before the 
 public is defective in those decorations which the exalted state of 
 literature demands. Something of compensation is supphed by a 
 Memorandum of Ephraim Barnett, written upon the inner cover, 
 and printed below. 
 
 The Editor, it will be perceived, is but little practised in the ways 
 of hterature, much less is he gifted with that prophetic spirit which 
 can anticipate the judgment of the public. It may be that he is 
 too idle or too apathetic to think anxiously or much about the 
 matter; and yet he has been amused, in his earlier days, at watch- 
 ing the first appearance of such few books as he believed to be the 
 production of some powerful intellect. He has seen people slowly 
 rise up to them, like carp in a pond when food is thrown into it; 
 some of which carp snatch suddenly at a morsel, and swallow it ; 
 others touch it gently with their barb, pass deliberately by, and 
 leave it; others wriggle and rub against it more disdainfully; others, 
 in sober truth, know not what to make of it, swim round and round 
 it, eye it on the sunny side, eye it on the shady, approach it, ques- 
 tion it, shoulder it, flap it with the tail, turn it over, look askance at 
 it, take a pea-shell or a worm instead of it, and plunge again their 
 heads into the comfortable mud. After some seasons the same 
 food will suit their stomachs better. 
 
EDITORS PREFACE. I45 
 
 MEMORANDUM, BY EPHRAIM BARNETT. 
 
 Studying the benefit and advantage of such as by God's bless- 
 ing may come after me, and wiUing to show them the highways of 
 Providence from the narrow by-lane in the which it hath been His 
 pleasure to station me, and being now advanced full-nigh unto the 
 close and consummation of my earthly pilgrimage, methinks I can- 
 not do better at this juncture than preserve the looser and lesser 
 records of those who have gone before me in the same, with higher 
 heel-piece to their shoe and more polished scallop to their beaver. 
 And here, beforehand, let us think gravely and religiously on what 
 the Pagans in their blindness did call Fortune, making a goddess of 
 her, and saying, — 
 
 " One body she lifts up so high 
 And suddenly, she makes him cry 
 And scream as any wench might do 
 That you should play the rogue unto : 
 And the same Lady Light sees good 
 To drop another in the mud, 
 Against all hope and likelihood." ' 
 
 My kinsman, Jacob Eldridge, having been taught by me, among 
 other useful things, to write a fair and laudable hand, was recom- 
 mended and introduced by our worthy townsman. Master Thomas 
 Greene, unto the Earl of Essex, to keep his accounts, and to write 
 down sundry matters from his dictation, even letters occasionally. 
 For although our nobility, very unlike the French, not only can 
 read and write, but often do, yet some from generosity and some 
 from dignity keep in their employment what those who are illiterate, 
 and would not appear so, call an " amanuensis," thereby meaning 
 secretary or scribe. Now, it happened that our gracious Queen's 
 Highness was desirous of knowing all that could be known about 
 the rebellion in Ireland ; and hearing but little truth from her nobility 
 in that country, — even the fathers in God inclining more unto court 
 favor than will be readily believed of spiritual lords, and inoulding 
 their ductile depositions on the pasteboard of their temporal mis- 
 tress until she was angry at seeing the lawn -sleeves so besmirched 
 from wrist to elbow, — she herself did say unto the Earl of Essex : 
 " Essex, these fellows lie ! I am inclined to unfrock and scourge 
 them sorely for their leasings. Of that anon. Find out, if you 
 can, somebody who hath his wit and his honesty about him at the 
 same time. I know that when one of these panniers is full the 
 
 1 The Editor has been unable to discover who was the author of this very free 
 translation of an Ode in Horace. He is certainly happy in his amplification of the 
 stridore acuta. May it not be surmised that he was some favorite scholar of 
 Ephraim Barnett? 
 
 10 
 
146 editor's preface. 
 
 other is apt to be empty, and that men walk crookedly for want of 
 balance. No matter, we must search and find. Persuade — thou 
 canst persuade, Essex ! — say anything ; do anything. We must 
 talk gold and give iron. Dost understand me ? " 
 
 The earl did kiss the jewels upon the dread fingers, for only the 
 last joint of each is visible, — and surely no mortal was ever so 
 fool-hardy as to take such a monstrous liberty as touching it, except 
 in spirit ! On the next day there did arrive many fugitives from 
 Ireland ; and among the rest was Master Edmund Spenser, known 
 even in those parts for his rich vein of poetry, in which he is de- 
 clared by our best judges to excel the noblest of the ancients, and 
 to leave all the moderns at his feet. Whether he notified his ar- 
 rival unto the earl, or whether fame brought the notice thereof unto 
 his lordship, Jacob knoweth not. But early in the morning did the 
 earl send for Jacob, and say unto him : " Eldridge, thou must write 
 fairly and clearly out, and in somewhat large letters, and in lines 
 somewhat wide apart, all that thou hearest of the conversation I 
 shall hold with a gentleman from Ireland. Take this gilt and 
 illumined vellum, and albeit the civet make thee sick fifty times, 
 write upon it all that passes ! Come not out of the closet until the 
 gentleman hath gone homeward. The Queen requireth much ex- 
 actness ; and this is equally a man of genius, a man of business, and 
 a man of worth. I expect from hinrj not only what is true, but what 
 is the most important and necessary to understand rightly and com- 
 pletely ; and nobody in existence is more capable of giving me both 
 information and advice. Perhaps if he thought another were within 
 hearing, he would be offended or over-cautious. His delicacy and 
 mine are warranted safe and sound by the observance of those com- 
 mands which I am delivering unto thee." 
 
 It happened that no information was given in this conference re- 
 lating to the movements or designs of the rebels ; so that Master 
 Jacob Eldridge was left possessor of the costly vellum, which, now 
 Master Spenser is departed this hfe, I keep as a memorial of him, 
 albeit oftener than once I have taken pounce-box and pen-knife in 
 hand in order to make it a fit and proper vehicle for my own very 
 best writing. But I pretermitted it, finding that my hand is no 
 longer the hand it was, or rather that the breed of geese is very 
 much degenerated, and' that their quills, like men's manners, are 
 grown softer and flaccider. Where it will end God only knows ! I 
 shall not live to see it. 
 
 Alas, poor Jacob Eldridge ! he little thought that within twelve 
 months his glorious master, and the scarcely less glorious poet, 
 would be no more 1 In the third week of the following year was 
 Master Edmund buried at the charges of the earl ; and within these 
 few days hath this lofty nobleman bowed his head under the axe of 
 God's displeasure, — such being our gracious Queen's. My kins- 
 man Jacob 5ent unto me by the Alcester drover, old Clem Fisher, 
 
EDITORS PREFACE. 1 4/ 
 
 this among other papers, fearing the wrath of that offended High- 
 ness, which allowed not her own sweet disposition to question or 
 thwart the will divine. Jacob did likewise tell me in his letter that 
 he was sure I should be happy to hear the success of William 
 Shakspeare, our townsman. And in truth right glad was I to hear 
 of it, being a principal in bringing it about, as those several sheets 
 will show which have the broken tile laid upon them to keep them 
 down compactly. 
 
 Jacob's words are these : " Now I speak of poets, you will be in 
 a maze at hearing that our townsman hath written a power of mat- 
 ter for the playhouse. Neither he nor the booksellers think it 
 quite good enough to print, but I do assure you, on the faith of a 
 Christian, it is not bad ; and there is rare fun in the last thing of 
 his about Venus, where a Jew, one Shiloh, is choused out of his 
 money and his revenge. However, the best critics and the greatest 
 lords find fault, and very justly, in the words, — 
 
 " ' Hath not a Jew eyes ? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, 
 senses, affections, passions ? fed with the same food, hurt with the same 
 weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed 
 and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is .'' ' 
 
 " Surely this is very unchristianlike. Nay, for supposition sake, 
 suppose it to be true, was it his business to tell the people so .? 
 Was it his duty to ring the crier's bell and cry to them, ' The sorry 
 Jews are quite as much men as you are' ? The Church, luckily, 
 has let him alone for the present, and the Queen winks upon it. 
 The best defence he can make for himself is that it comes from the 
 mouth of a Jew, who says many other things as abominable. Master 
 Greene may over-rate him; but Master Greene declares that if 
 William goes on improving and taking his advice, it will be desper- 
 ate hard work in another seven years to find so many as half-a- 
 dozen chaps equal to him within the liberties. 
 
 " Master Greene and myself took him with us to see the burial of 
 Master Edmund Spenser in Westminster Abbey, on the 19th of 
 January last. The halberdmen pushed us back as having no busi- 
 ness there. Master Greene told them he belonged to the Queen's 
 company of players. William Shakspeare could have said the same, 
 but did not. And I, fearing that Master Greene and he might be 
 halberded back into the crowd, showed the badge of the Earl of 
 Essex. Whereupon did the Serjeant ground his halberd, and say 
 unto me, ' That badge commands admittance everywhere : your 
 folk likewise may come in.' 
 
 " Master Greene was red-hot angry, and told me he would bring 
 him before the council. 
 
 " William smiled, and Master Greene said, ' Why ! would not 
 you, if you were in my place ? ' 
 
148 editor's preface. 
 
 " He replied, ' I am an half inclined to do worse, — to bring him 
 before the audience some spare hour.' 
 
 " At the close of the burial service all the poets of the age threw 
 their pens into the grave, together with the pieces they had com- 
 posed in praise or lamentation of the deceased. William Shakspeare 
 was the only poet who abstained from throwing in either pen or 
 poem ; at which no one marvelled, he being of low estate, and the 
 others not having yet taken him by the hand. Yet many authors 
 recognized him, not indeed as author, but as player ; and one civiller 
 than the rest, came up unto him triumphantly, his eyes sparkling 
 with glee and satisfaction, and said consolatorily, ' In due time, my 
 honest friend, you may be admitted to do as much for one of us.' 
 
 "'After such encouragement,' replied our townsman, 'I am 
 bound in duty to give you the preference, should I indeed be worthy.' 
 
 " This was the only smart thing he uttered all the remainder of 
 the day ; during the whole of it he appeared to be half lost, I know 
 not whether in melancholy or in meditation, and soon left us." 
 
 Here endeth all that my kinsman Jacob wrote about William Shaks- 
 peare, saving and excepting his excuse for having written so much. 
 The rest of his letter was on a matter of wider and weightier import ; 
 namely, on the price of Cotteswolde cheese at Evesham Fair. And 
 yet, although ingenious men be not among the necessaries of life, 
 there is something in them that makes us curious in regard to their 
 goings and doings. It were to be wished that some of them had 
 attempted to be better accountants ; and others do appear to have 
 laid aside the copybook full early in the day. Nevertheless, they 
 have their uses and their merits. Master Eldridge's letter is the 
 wrapper of much wholesome food for contemplation. Although the 
 decease (within so brief a period) of such a poet as Master Spenser 
 and such a patron as the earl be unto us appalling, we laud and 
 magnify the great Disposer of events no less for his goodness in 
 raising the humble than for his power in extinguishing the great. 
 And peradventure ye, my heirs and descendants, who shall read 
 with due attention what my pen now writeth, will say with the royal 
 Psalmist that it inditeth of a good matter when it showeth unto you 
 that, whereas it pleased the Queen's Highness to send a great lord 
 before the judgment-seat of Heaven, having fitted him by means 
 of such earthly instruments as princes in like cases do usually em- 
 ploy, and deeming (no doubt) in her princely heart that by such 
 shrewd tonsure his head would be best fitted for a crown of glory, 
 and thus doing all that she did out of the purest and most con- 
 siderate love for him, — it likewise hath pleased her Highness to 
 use her right hand as freely as her left, and to raise up a second 
 burgess of our town to be one of her company of players. And ye 
 also, by industry and loyalty, may cheerfully hope for promotion in 
 your callings, and come up (some of you) as nearly to him in the 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE. I49 
 
 presence of royalty as he cometh up (far off indeed at present) to 
 the great and wonderful poet who lies dead among more spices than 
 any phoenix, and more quills than any porcupine. If this thought 
 may not prick and incitate you, little is to be hoped from any gentle 
 admonition or any earnest expostulation of 
 
 Your loving friend and kinsman, 
 
 E. B. 
 
 ANNO jET. SVJE 74, DOM. 1 599, 
 
 DECEMB. l6 ; 
 
 GLORIA DP. DF. ET DSS. 
 
 AMOR VERSUS VIRGINEM REGINAM ! 
 
 PROTESTANTICE LOQUOR ET HONESTO SENSU : 
 
 OBTESTOR CONSCIENTIAM MEAM ! 
 
EXAMINATION, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 About one hour before noontide, the youth WilUam Shak- 
 speare, accused of deer-steahng, and apprehended for that 
 offence, was brought into the great hall at Charlecote, where, 
 having made his obeisance, it was most graciously permitted 
 him to stand. 
 
 The worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight, seeing him right 
 opposite on the farther side of the long table, and fearing no 
 disadvantage, did frown upon him with great dignity; then, 
 deigning ne'er a word to the culprit, turned he his face toward 
 his chaplain Sir Silas Gough, who stood beside him, and said 
 unto him most courteously, and unlike unto one who in his own 
 right commandeth, " Stand out of the way ! What are those 
 two varlets bringing into the room? " 
 
 "The table, sir," replied Master Silas, "upon the which the 
 consumption of the venison was perpetrated." 
 
 The youth, WiUiam Shakspeare, did thereupon pray and be- 
 seech his lordship most fervently, in this guise : " Oh, sir ! do 
 not let him turn the tables against me, who am only a simple 
 stripling, and he an old codger." 
 
 But Master Silas did bite his nether lip, and did cry aloud, 
 " Look upon those deadly spots ! " 
 
 And his worship did look thereupon most staidly, and did 
 say in the ear of Master Silas, but in such wise that it reached 
 even unto mine, " Good honest chandlery, methinks ! " 
 
 " God grant it may turn out so ! " ejaculated Master Silas. 
 
 The youth, hearing these words, said unto him, " I fear, 
 Master Silas, gentry like you often pray God to grant what he 
 would rather not ; and now and then what you would rather 
 not." 
 
152 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Sir Silas was wroth at this rudeness of speech about God in 
 the face of a preacher, and said, reprovingly, " Out upon thy 
 foul mouth, knave ! upon which lie slaughter and venison." 
 
 Whereupon did William Shakspeare sit mute awhile, and 
 discomfited ; then turning toward Sir Thomas, and looking and 
 speaking as one submiss and contrite, he thus appealed unto 
 him, " Worshipful sir ! were there any signs of Venison on my 
 mouth. Master Silas could not for his life cry out upon it, nor 
 help kissing it as 't were a wench's." 
 
 Sir Thomas looked upon him with most lordly gravity and 
 wisdom, and said unto him in a voice that might have come 
 from the bench, "Youth, thou speakest irreverently;" and 
 then unto Master Silas, " Silas, to the business on hand. Taste 
 the fat upon yon boor's table, which the constable hath brought 
 hither, good Master Silas ! And declare upon oath, being sworn 
 in my presence, first, whether said fat do proceed of venison ; 
 secondly, whether said venison be of buck or doe." 
 
 Whereupon the Reverend Sir Silas did go incontinently, and 
 did bend forward his head, shoulders, and body, and did sever- 
 ally taste four white solid substances upon an oaken board ; 
 said board being about two yards long, and one yard four 
 inches wide, found in, and brought thither from, the tenement 
 or messuage of Andrew Haggit, who hath absconded. Of these 
 four white solid substances, two were somewhat larger than a 
 groat, and thicker ; one about the size of King Henry VIII. 's 
 shilling, when our late sovereign lord of blessed memory was 
 toward the lustiest ; and the other, that is to say the middle- 
 most, did resemble in some sort a mushroom, not over fresh, 
 turned upward on its stalk. 
 
 " And what sayest thou. Master Silas? " quoth the knight. 
 
 In reply whereunto Sir Silas thus averred : — 
 
 " Venison ! o' my conscience ! 
 Buck ! or burn me alive ! 
 
 The three splashes in the circumference are verily and indeed 
 venison ; buck, moreover, and Charlecote buck, upon my 
 oath ! " 
 
 Then, carefully tasting the protuberance in the centre, he 
 spat it out crying, " Pho ! pho ! villain ! villain ! " and shaking 
 his fist at the culprit. 
 
 \ 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 53 
 
 Whereat the said culprit smiled and winked, and said 
 off-hand, " Save thy spittle, Master Silas ! It would supply a 
 gaudy mess to the hungriest litter; but it would turn them 
 from whelps into wolvets. 'T is pity to throw the best of thee 
 away. Nothing comes out of thy mouth that is not savory and 
 solid, bating thy wit, thy sermons, and thy promises." 
 
 It was my duty to write down the very words, irreverent as 
 they are, being so commanded. More of the like, it is to be 
 feared, would have ensued, but that Sir Thomas did check 
 him, saying shrewdly, " Young man, I perceive that if I do 
 not stop thee in thy courses, thy name being involved in thy 
 company's may one day or other reach across the county ; and 
 folks may handle it and turn it about as it deserveth, from 
 Coleshill to Nuneaton, from Bromwicham to Brownsover. And 
 who knoweth but that, years after thy death, the very house 
 wherein thou wert born may be pointed at and commented on 
 by knots of people, gentle and simple ? What a shame for an 
 honest man's son ! Thanks to me, who consider of measures 
 to prevent it ! Posterity shall laud and glorify me for plucking 
 thee clean out of her head, and for picking up timely a ticklish 
 skittle, that might overthrow with it a power of others just as 
 light. I will rid the hundred of thee with God's blessing ! nay, 
 the whole shire ! We will have none such in our county ; we 
 justices are agreed upon it, and we will keep our word now 
 and forever more. Woe betide any that resembles thee in any 
 part of him ! " 
 
 Whereunto Sir Silas added, "We will dog him and worry 
 him and haunt him and bedevil him ; and if ever he hear a 
 comfortable word, it shall be in a language very different from 
 his own." 
 
 "As different as thine is from a Christian's," said the 
 youth. 
 
 " Boy, thou art slow of apprehension," said Sir Thomas, with 
 much gravity, and taking up the cue did rejoin : " Master 
 Silas would impress upon thy ductile and tender mind the 
 danger of evil doing ; that we, — in other words, that justice is 
 resolved to follow him up, even beyond his country, where he 
 shall hear nothing better than the Italian or the Spanish or 
 the black language, or the language of Turk or Troubadour, or 
 Tartar or Mongol. And forsooth, for this gentle and indirect 
 
154 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 reproof, a gentleman in priest's orders is told by a stripling that 
 he lacketh Christianity ! Who then shall give it? " 
 
 Shakspeare. Who, indeed, when the founder of the feast 
 leaveth an invited guest so empty? Yea, sir, the guest was 
 invited, and the board was spread. The fruits that lay upon it 
 be there still, and fresh as ever ; and the bread of life in those 
 capacious canisters is unconsumed and unbroken. 
 
 Sir Silas {^aside) . The knave maketh me hungry with his 
 mischievous similitudes. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Thou hast aggravated thy offence, Will Shak- 
 speare ! Irreverent caitiff ! is this a discourse for my chaplain 
 and clerk? Can he or the worthy scribe Ephraim [his wor- 
 ship was pleased to call me worthy] write down such words as 
 those, about litter and wolvets, for the perusal and meditation 
 of the grand jury? If the whole corporation of Stratford had 
 not unanimously given it against thee, still his tongue would 
 catch thee, as the evet catcheth a gnat. Know, sirrah, the 
 reverend Sir Silas, albeit ill appointed for riding, and not over 
 fond of it, goeth to every house wherein is a venison feast for 
 thirty miles round. Not a buck's hoof on any stable-door but 
 it awakeneth his recollections like a red letter. 
 
 — This wholesome reproof did bring the youth back again 
 to his right senses ; and then said he, with contrition and with 
 a wisdom beyond his years, and little to be expected from one 
 who had spoken just before so unadvisedly and rashly, "Well do 
 I know it, your worship ! And verily do I believe that a bone 
 of one, being shovelled among the soil upon his coffin, would 
 forthwith quicken ^ him. Sooth to say, there is ne'er a buck- 
 hound in the county but he treateth him as a godchild, patting 
 him on the head, soothing his velvety ear between thumb and 
 forefinger, ejecting tick from tenement, calling him ' fine fel- 
 low,' ' noble lad,' and giving him his blessing, as one dearer to 
 him than a king's death to a debtor,^ or a bastard to a dad 
 of eighty. This is the only kindness I ever heard of Master 
 Silas toward his fellow-creatures. Never hold me unjust. Sir 
 Knight, to Master Silas. Could I learn other good of him, I 
 would freely say it ; for we do good by speaking it, and none 
 
 1 " Quicken," bring to life. 
 
 2 Debtors were often let out of prison at the coronation of a new king, 
 but creditors never paid by him. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. I55 
 
 is easier. Even bad men are not bad men while they praise 
 the just. Their first step backward is more troublesome and 
 wrenching to them than the first forward." 
 
 "In God's name, where did he gather all this?" whispered 
 his worship to the chaplain, by whose side I was sitting. 
 "Why, he talks like a man of forty-seven or more ! " 
 
 " I doubt his sincerity, sir ! " replied the chaplain. " His 
 words are fairer now — Devil choke him for them !" inter- 
 jected he in an undervoice — " and almost book-worthy ; but 
 out of place. What the scurvy cur yelped against me, I for- 
 give him as a Christian. Murrain upon such varlet vermin ! 
 It is but of late years that dignities have come to be reviled ; 
 the other parts of the gospel were broken long before, — 
 this was left us ; and now this likewise is to be kicked 
 out of doors, amid the mutterings of such moon- calves as 
 him yonder." 
 
 " Too true, Silas," said the knight, sighing deeply. " Things 
 are not as they were in our glorious wars of York and Lancaster. 
 The knaves were thinned then, — two or three crops a year of 
 that rank squitch-grass which it has become the fashion of late 
 to call the people. There was some difference then between 
 buff doublets and iron mail, and the rogues felt it. Well-a- 
 day ! we must bear what God willeth, and never repine, al- 
 though it gives a man the heart-ache. We are bound in duty 
 to keep these things for the closet, and to tell God of them 
 only when we call upon his holy name, and have him quite by 
 ourselves." 
 
 Sir Silas looked discontented and impatient, and said snap- 
 pishly, " Cast we off here, or we shall be at fault. Start him, 
 sir ! prythee, start him ! " 
 
 Again his worship, Sir Thomas, did look gravely and grandly, 
 and taking a scrap of paper out of the Holy Book then lying 
 before him, did read distinctly these words : " Providence hath 
 sent Master Silas back hither this morning to confound thee in 
 thy guilt." 
 
 Again, with all the courage and composure of an innocent 
 man, and indeed with more than what an innocent man ought 
 to possess in the presence of a magistrate, the youngster said, 
 pointing toward Master Silas, " The first moment he ventureth 
 to lift up his visage from the table, hath Providence marked 
 
156 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 him miraculously. I have heard of black malice. How many 
 of our words have more in them than we think of ! Give a 
 countryman a plough of silver, and he will plough with it all 
 the season, and never know its substance. 'T is thus with our 
 daily speech. What riches lie hidden in the vulgar tongue of 
 the poorest and most ignorant ! What flowers of Paradise lie 
 under our feet, with their beauties and parts undistinguished 
 and undiscerned, from having been daily trodden on ! Oh, 
 sir, look you, — but let me cover my eyes ! — look at his lips ! 
 Gracious Heaven ! they were not thus when he entered : they 
 are blacker now than Harry Tewe's bull-bitch's ! " 
 
 Master Silas did lift up his eyes in astonishment and wrath ; 
 and his worship Sir Thomas did open his wider and wider, and 
 cried by fits and starts, " Gramercy ! true enough ! nay, afore 
 God, too true by half ! I never saw the like ! Who would be- 
 lieve it? I wish I were fairly rid of this examination, — my 
 hands washed clean thereof ! Another time ! anon ! We have 
 our quarterly sessions ! We are many together ; at present I 
 remand — " 
 
 And now, indeed, unless Sir Silas had taken his worship by 
 the sleeve, he would mayhap have remanded the lad. But Sir 
 Silas, still holding the sleeve and shaking it, said hurriedly, 
 " Let me entreat your worship to ponder. WHat black does 
 the fellow talk of? My blood and bile rose up against the 
 rogue ; but surely I did not turn black in the face, or in the 
 mouth,- as the fellow calls it? " 
 
 Whether Master Silas had some suspicion and inkling of the 
 cause or not, he rubbed his right hand along his face and lips, 
 and looking upon it, cried aloud, " Ho, ho ! is it off? There 
 is some upon my finger's end, I find. Now I have it ; ay, there 
 it is. That large splash upon the centre of the table is tallow, 
 by my salvation ! The profligates sat up until the candle 
 burned out, and the last of it ran through the socket upon the 
 board. We knew it before. I did convey into my mouth both 
 fat and smut ! " 
 
 " Many of your cloth and kidney do that, good Master 
 Silas, and make no wry faces about it," quoth the youngster, 
 with indiscreet merriment, although short of laughter, as be- 
 came him, who had already stepped too far, and reached the 
 mire. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 57 
 
 To save paper and time, I shall now, for the most part, write 
 only what they all said, not saying that they said it, and just 
 copying out in my clearest hand what fell respectively from 
 their mouths. 
 
 Sir Silas. I did indeed spit it forth, and emunge my lips, 
 as who should not? 
 
 Shakspeare. Would it were so ! 
 
 Sir Silas. "Would it were so ! " in thy teeth, hypocrite ! 
 
 Sir Thomas. And truly I likewise do incline to hope and 
 credit it, as thus paraphrased and expounded. 
 
 Shakspeare. Wait until this blessed day next year, sir, at 
 the same hour. You shall see it forth again at its due season ; 
 it would be no miracle if it lasted. Spittle may cure sore eyes, 
 but not blasted mouths and scald consciences. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Why, who taught thee all this? 
 
 — Then turned he leisurely toward Sir Silas, and placing his 
 hand outspredden upon the arm of the chaplain, said unto him 
 in a low, judicial, hollow voice, " Every word true and solemn ! 
 I have heard less wise saws from between black covers." 
 
 Sir Silas was indignant at this under-rating, as he appeared 
 to think it, of the Church and its ministry, and answered im- 
 patiently, with Christian freedom, "Your worship surely will 
 not listen to this wild wizard in his brothel-pulpit ! " 
 
 Shakspeare. Do I live to hear Charlecote Hall called a 
 brothel-pulpit ! Alas, then, I have lived too long ! 
 
 Sir Silas. We will try to amend that for thee. 
 
 — William seemed not to hear him, loudly as he spake and 
 pointedly unto the youngster, who wiped his eyes, crying, 
 " Commit me, sir ! in mercy commit me. Master Ephraim ! 
 
 Master Ephraim ! A guiltless man may feel all the pangs 
 of the guilty ! Is it you who are to make out the commit- 
 ment? Dispatch ! dispatch ! I am a-weary of my life. If 
 
 1 dared to lie I would plead guilty." 
 
 Sir Thojiias. Heyday ! No wonder. Master Ephraim, thy 
 entrails are moved and wamble. Dost weep, lad ? Nay, nay ! 
 thou bearest up bravely. Silas, I now find, although the ex- 
 ample come before me from humble life, that what my mother 
 said was true, — 't was upon my father's demise : " In great 
 grief there are few tears." 
 
 Upon which did the youth, Willy Shakspeare, jog himself by 
 
158 -/ CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 the memory, and repeat these short verses, not wide from the 
 same purport : — 
 
 " There are, alas, some depths of woe 
 Too vast for tears to overflow." 
 
 Sir Thomas. Let those who are sadly vexed in spirit mind 
 that notion, whoever indited it, and be men, I always was ; 
 but some little griefs have pinched me woundily. 
 
 — Master Silas grew impatient, for he had ridden hard that 
 morning, and had no cushion upon his seat, as Sir Thomas had. 
 I have seen in my time that he who is seated on beech-wood 
 hath very different thoughts and moralities from him who is 
 seated on goose- feathers under doe-skin. But that is neither 
 here nor there ; albeit an I die, as I must, my heirs, Judith and 
 her boy Elijah, may note it. 
 
 Master Silas, as above, looked sourishly, and cried aloud, 
 " The witnesses ! the witnesses ! Testimony ! testimony ! We 
 shall now see whose black goes deepest. There is a fork to be 
 had that can hold the slipperiest eel, and a finger that can 
 strip the slimiest. I cry your worship to the witnesses." 
 
 Sir Thomas. Ay, indeed, we are losing the day ; it wastes 
 toward noon, and nothing done. Call the witnesses. How 
 are they called by name? Give me the paper. 
 
 — The paper being forthwith delivered ' into his worship's 
 hand by the learned clerk, his worship did read aloud the name 
 of Euseby Treen. Whereupon did Euseby Treen come forth 
 through the great hall-door, which was ajar, and answer most 
 audibly, " Your worship ! " 
 
 Straightway did Sir Thomas read aloud, in like form and 
 manner, the name of Joseph Carnaby ; and in like manner, as 
 aforesaid, did Joseph Carnaby make answer and say, " Your 
 worship ! " 
 
 Lastly did Sir Thomas turn the light of his countenance on 
 William Shakspeare, saying, " Thou seest these good men de- 
 ponents against thee, William Shakspeare." 
 
 And then did Sir Thomas pause. And pending this pause, 
 did William Shakspeare look steadfastly in the faces of both ; 
 and stroking down his own with the hollow of his hand, from the 
 jaw-bone to the chin-point, said unto his honor, — 
 
 " Faith ! it would give me much pleasure, and the neighbor- 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 59 
 
 hood much vantage, to see these two fellows good men. Joseph 
 Camaby and Euseby Treen ! Why, your worship, they know 
 every hare's form in Luddington-field better than their own 
 beds, and as well pretty nigh as any wench's in the parish." 
 
 Then turned he, with jocular scoff, unto Joseph Camaby, 
 thus accosting him whom his shirt, being made stiffer than usual 
 for the occasion, rubbed and frayed : " Ay, Joseph, smoothen 
 and soothe thy collar-piece again and again ! Hark ye, I know 
 what smock that was knavishly cut from." 
 
 Master Silas rose up in high choler, and said unto Sir Thomas, 
 " Sir, do not listen to that lewd reviler ! I wager ten groats I 
 prove him to be wrong in his scent. Joseph Carnaby is right- 
 eous and discreet." 
 
 ShaJzspeare. By daylight and before the parson. Bears and 
 boars are tame creatures and discreet in the sunshine and after 
 dinner. 
 
 Treen. I do know his down-goings and up-risings. 
 
 Shakspeare. The man and his wife are one, saith Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
 Treen. A sober-paced and rigid man, if such there be. 
 Few keep Lent like unto him. 
 
 Shakspeare. I warrant him, both lent and stolen. 
 
 Sir Tho77ias. Peace, and silence ! Now, Joseph Camaby, 
 do thou depose on particulars. 
 
 Carnaby. May it please your worship, I was returning from 
 Hampton upon Allhallowmas Eve, between the hours of ten and 
 eleven at night, in company with Master Euseby Treen ; and 
 when we came to the bottom of Mickle Meadow, we heard 
 several men in discourse. I plucked Euseby Treen by the 
 doublet, and whispered in his ear, " Euseby ! Euseby ! let us 
 slink along in the shadow of the elms and willows." 
 
 Treen. Willows and elm-trees were the words. 
 
 Shakspeare. See, your worship, what discordances ! They 
 cannot agree in their own story. 
 
 Sir Silas. The same thing, the same thing, in the main ! 
 
 Shakspeare. By less differences than this estates have been 
 lost, hearts broken, and England, our country, filled with home- 
 less, helpless, destitute orphans. I protest against it ! 
 
 Sir Silas. Protest, indeed ! He talks as if he were a 
 member of the House of Lords. They alone can protest. 
 
l60 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Your attorney may object, not protest, before 
 the lord judge. Proceed you, Joseph Camaby. 
 
 Carnaby. In the shadow of the willows and elm-trees 
 then — 
 
 Shakspeare. No hints, no conspiracies ! Keep to your own 
 story, man, and do not borrow his. 
 
 Sir Silas. I overrule the objection. Nothing can be more 
 futile and frivolous. 
 
 Shakspeare. So learned a magistrate as your worship will 
 surely do me justice by hearing me attentively. I am young ; 
 nevertheless, having more than one year written in the office of 
 an attorney, and having heard and listened to many discourses 
 and questions on law, I cannot but remember the heavy fine in- 
 flicted on a gentleman of this county who committed a poor man 
 to prison for being in possession of a hare, — it being proved 
 that the hare was in his possession, and not he in the hare's. 
 
 Sir Silas. Synonymous term ! synonymous term ! 
 
 Sir Thomas. In what term sayest thou was it? I do not 
 remember the case. 
 
 Sir Silas. Mere quibble ! mere equivocation ! Jesuitical ! 
 Jesuitical ! 
 
 Shakspeare. It would be Jesuitical, Sir Silas, if it dragged 
 the law by its perversions to the side of oppression and cruelty. 
 The order of Jesuits, I fear, is as numerous as its tenets are lax 
 and comprehensive. I am sorry to see their frocks flounced 
 with English serge. 
 
 Sir Silas. I don't understand thee, viper ! 
 
 Sir Thomas. Cease thou, Will Shakspeare ! Know thy 
 place ! And do thou, Joseph Garnaby, take up again the thread 
 of thy testimony. 
 
 Cai'iiaby. We were still at some distance from the party, 
 when on a sudden Euseby hung an — i 
 
 Sir Thomas. As weU write " drew back," Master Ephraim 
 and Master Silas ! Be circumspecter in speech, Master Joseph 
 Camaby ! I did not look for such rude phrases from that 
 starch-warehouse under thy chin. Continue, man ! 
 
 Carnaby. "Euseby," said I in his ear, "what ails thee, 
 Euseby?" "I wag no farther," quoth he. "What a number 
 of names and voices ! " 
 
 1 The word here omitted is quite illegible. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. l6l 
 
 Sir Thomas. Dreadful gang ! a number of names and 
 voices ! Had it been any other day in the year but Allhallow- 
 mas Eve ! To steal a buck upon such a day ! Well, God may 
 pardon even that. Go on, go on ! But the laws of our country 
 must have their satisfaction and atonement. Were it upon 
 any other day in the calendar less holy, the buck were nothing, 
 or next to nothing, saving the law and our conscience and our 
 good report. Yet we, her Majesty's justices, must stand in 
 the gap, body and soul, against evil-doers. Now do thou, in 
 furtherance of this business, give thine aid unto us, Joseph 
 Carnaby; remembering that mine eye from this judgment- 
 seat, and her Majesty's bright and glorious one overlooking 
 the whole realm, and the broader of God above, are upon 
 thee. 
 
 — Carnaby did quail a matter at these words about the judg- 
 ment-seat and the broad eye, — aptly and gravely delivered by 
 him, moreover, who hath to administer truth and righteousness 
 in our ancient and venerable laws, and especially at the present 
 juncture in those against park-breaking and deer-stealing. But 
 finally, nought discomfited, and putting his hand valiantly 
 atwixt hip and midriff, so that his elbow well-nigh touched the 
 taller pen in the ink-pot, he went on. 
 
 Carnaby. "In the shadow of the vidllows and elm- trees," 
 said he, " and get nearer ! " We were still at some distance, 
 may be a score of furlongs, from the party — 
 
 Sir Thomas. Thou hast said it already, all save the score 
 of furlongs. Hast room for them. Master Silas ? 
 
 Sir Silas. Yea, and would make room for fifty to let the 
 fellow swing at his ease. 
 
 Sir Tho?nas. Hast room, Master Ephraim? 
 
 " 'T is done, most worshipful," said I. The learned knight 
 did not recollect that I could put fifty furlongs in a needle's 
 eye, give me pen fine enough. But far be it from me to vaunt 
 of my penmanship, although there be those who do malign it, 
 even in my own township and parish ; yet they never have un- 
 perched me from my calling, and have had hard work to take 
 an idle wench or two from under me on Saturday nights. 
 
 I memorize thus much, not out of any malice or any sore- 
 ness about me, but that those of my kindred into whose hands 
 it please God these papers do fall hereafter may bear up stoutly 
 
1 62 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 in such straits : and if they be good at the cudgel, that they, 
 looking first at their man, do give it him heartily and unspar- 
 ingly, keeping within law. 
 
 Sir Thomas, having overlooked what we had written, and 
 meditated awhile thereupon, said unto Joseph : " It appeareth 
 by thy testimony that there was a huge and desperate gang of 
 them a-foot. Revengeful dogs ! it is difficult to deal with 
 them. The laws forbid precipitancy and violence, A dozen or 
 two may return and harm me ; not me indeed, but my tenants 
 and servants. I would fain act with prudence, and like unto 
 him who looketh abroad. He must tie his shoe tightly who 
 passeth through mire ; he must step softly who steppeth over 
 stones ; he must walk in the fear of the Lord (which, without 
 a brag, I do at this present feel upon me) who hopeth to reach 
 the end of the straightest road in safety." 
 
 Sir Silas. Tut, tut ! your worship. Her Majesty's deputy 
 hath matchlocks and halters at a knight's disposal, or the 
 world were topsy-turvy indeed. 
 
 Sir Thomas. My mental ejaculations, and an influx of 
 grace thereupon, have shaken and washed from my brain all 
 thy last words, good Joseph. Thy companion here, Euseby 
 Treen, said unto thee — ay ? 
 
 Carnaby. Said unto me, "What a number of names and 
 voices ! And there be but three living men in all ! And look 
 again ! Christ deliver us ! all the shadows save one go left- 
 ward : that one lieth right upon the river. It seemeth a big 
 squat monster, shaking a little, as one ready to spring upon its 
 prey." 
 
 Sir Thomas. A dead man in his last agonies, no doubt. 
 Your deer-stealer doth boggle at nothing : he hath alway the 
 knife in doublet and the Devil at elbow. I wot not of any 
 keeper killed or missing. To lose one's deer and keeper too 
 were overmuch. Do, in God's merciful name, hand unto me 
 a glass of sack, Master Silas ! I wax faintish at the big squat 
 man : he hath harmed not only me, but mine. Furthermore, 
 the examination is grown so long. 
 
 — Then was the wine delivered by Sir Silas into the hand of 
 his worship, who drank it off in a beaker of about half a pint, 
 but little to his satisfaction ; for he said shortly afterward : 
 " Hast thou poured no water into the sack, good Master Silas ? 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 63 
 
 It seemeth weaker and washier than ordinary, and affordeth 
 small comfort unto the breast and stomach." 
 
 Sir Silas. Not I, truly, sir ; and the bottle is a fresh and 
 sound one. The cork reported on drawing, as the best diver 
 doth on sousing from Warwick bridge into Avon. A rare 
 cork ! as bright as the glass bottle, and as smooth as the lips 
 of any cow. 
 
 Sir Thomas. My mouth is out of taste this morning ; or 
 the same wine, mayhap, hath a different force and flavor in the 
 dining-room and among friends. But to business. What 
 more? 
 
 Carnaby. " Euseby Treen, what may it be?" said I. "I 
 know," quoth he, "but dare not breathe it." 
 
 Sir Thomas. I thought I had taken a glass of wine, verily. 
 Attention to my duty as a magistrate is paramount. I mind 
 nothing else when that lies before me. Carnaby, I credit thy 
 honesty, but doubt thy manhood. Why not breathe it with a 
 vengeance ? 
 
 Carnaby. It was Euseby who dared not. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Stand still ; say nothing yet ; mind my orders ; 
 fair and softly ; compose thyself. 
 
 — They all stood silent for some time, and looked very com- 
 posed, awaiting the commands of the knight. His mind was 
 clearly in such a state of devotion that peradventure he might 
 not have descended for a while longer to his mundane duties, 
 had not Master Silas told him that, under the shadow of his 
 wing, their courage had returned, and they were quite com- 
 posed again. 
 
 "You may proceed," said the knight. 
 
 Carnaby. Master Treen did take off his cap and wipe his 
 forehead. I, for the sake of comforting him in this his heavi- 
 ness, placed my hand upon his crown ; and truly I might have 
 taken it for a tuft of bents, — the hair on end, the skin immov- 
 able as God's earth. 
 
 — Sir Thomas hearing these words, lifted up his hands above 
 his own head, and in the loudest voice he had yet uttered did 
 he cry, "Wonderful are thy ways in Israel, O Lord ! " 
 
 So saying, the pious knight did strike his knee with the palm 
 of his right hand ; and then gave he a sign, bowing his head 
 and closing his eyes, by which Master Carnaby did think he 
 
164 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 signified his pleasure that he should go on deposing, and he 
 went on thus : — 
 
 Carnaby. At this moment one of the accomplices cried, 
 " Willy, Willy ! prythee stop ! enough in all conscience ! First 
 thou divertedst us from our undertaking with thy strange vaga- 
 ries, thy Italian girl's nursery sighs, thy pucks and pinchings, 
 and thy Windsor whimsies. No kitten upon a bed of marum 
 ever played such antics. It was summer and winter, night and 
 day with us, within the hour ; and in such religion did we think 
 and feel it, we would have broken the man's jaw who gainsaid 
 it. We have slept with thee under the oaks in the ancient forest 
 of Arden, and we have wakened from our sleep in the tempest 
 far at sea.^ Now art thou for frightening us again out of all 
 the senses thou hadst given us, with witches and women more 
 murderous than they." 
 
 Then followed a deeper voice : " Stouter men and more 
 resolute are few ; but thou, my lad, hast words too weighty 
 for flesh and bones to bear up against. And who knows but 
 these creatures may pop among us at last, as the wolf did, 
 sure enough, -ipon him the noisy rogue who so long had been 
 crying wolf ! and wolf ! " 
 
 Sir Thomas. Well spoken, for two thieves ; albeit I miss 
 the meaning of the most part. Did they prevail with the 
 scapegrace, and stop him? 
 
 Carnaby. The last who had spoken did slap him on the 
 shoulder, saying, "Jump into the punt, lad, and across!" 
 Thereupon did Will Shakspeare jump into said punt, and 
 begin to sing a song about a mermaid. 
 
 Shakspeare. Sir, is this credible ? I will be sworn I never 
 saw one, and verily do believe that scarcely one in a hundred 
 years doth venture so far up the Avon. 
 
 Sir Thomas. There is something in this. Thou mayest 
 have sung about one, nevertheless. Young poets take great 
 liberties with all female kind ; not that mermaids are such very 
 unlawful game for them, and there be songs even about worse 
 and staler fish. Mind ye that ! Thou hast written songs and 
 hast sung them, and lewd enough they be, God wot ! 
 
 1 By this deposition it would appear that Shakspeare had formed the 
 idea, if not the outline, of several plays already, much as he altered them 
 no doubt in after-life. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. l6$ 
 
 Shakspeare. Pardon me, your worship ; they were not mine 
 then. Peradventure the song about the mermaid may have 
 been that ancient one which every boy in most parishes has 
 been singing for many years, and perhaps his father before 
 him ; and somebody was singing it then, mayhap, to keep up 
 his courage in the night. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I never heard it. 
 
 Shakspeare. Nobody would dare to sing in the presence 
 of your worship unless commanded; not even the mermaid 
 herself. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Canst thou sing it? 
 
 Shakspeare. Verily, I can sing nothing. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Canst thou repeat it from memory? 
 
 Shakspeare. It is so long since I have thought about it that 
 I may fail in the attempt. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Try, however. 
 
 Shakspeare, — 
 
 The mermaid sat upon the rocks 
 
 All day long, 
 Admiring her beauty and combing her locks, 
 
 And singing a mermaid song. 
 
 Sir Thomas. What was it, what was it? I thought as 
 much. There thou standest like a woodpecker, chattering 
 and chattering, breaking the bark with thy beak, and leaving 
 the grub where it was. This is enough to put a saint out of 
 patience. 
 
 Shakspeare. The wishes of your worship possess a mys- 
 terious influence ! I now remember all : — 
 
 And hear the mermaid's song you may, 
 
 As sure as sure can be, 
 If you will but follow the sun all day, 
 
 And souse with him into the sea. 
 
 Sir Thomas. It must be an idle fellow who would take that 
 trouble ; besides, unless he nicked the time he might miss the 
 monster. There be many who are slow to believe that the 
 mermaid singeth. 
 
 Shakspeare. Ah, sir ! not only the mermaid singeth, but 
 the merman sweareth, as another old song will convince you. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I would fain be convinced of God's wonders 
 
1 66 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 in the great deeps, and would lean upon the weakest reed, like 
 unto thee, to manifest his glory. Thou mayest convince me. 
 Shakspeare, — 
 
 A wonderful story, my lasses and lads, 
 
 Peradventure you 've heard from your grannams or dads, 
 
 Of a merman that came every night to woo 
 
 The spinster of spinsters, our Catherine Crewe. 
 
 But Catherine Crewe 
 Is now seventy-two> 
 And avers she hath half forgotten 
 The truth of the tale, when you ask her about it, 
 And says, as if fain to deny it or flout it, 
 " Pooh 1 the merman is dead and rotten." 
 
 The merman came up, as the mermen are wont. 
 To the top of the water, and then swam upon 't ; 
 And Catherine saw him with both her two eyes, — 
 A lusty young merman full six feet in size. 
 
 And Catherine was frightened. 
 
 Her scalp-skin it tightened. 
 And her head it swam strangely, although on dry land ; 
 
 And the merman made bold 
 
 Eftsoons to lay hold 
 ( This Catherine well recollects) of her hand. 
 
 But how could a merman, if ever so good, 
 
 Or if ever so clever, be well understood 
 
 By a simple young creature of our flesh and blood > 
 
 Some tell us the merman 
 Can only speak German, 
 In a voice between grunting and snoring; 
 But Catherine says he had learned in the wars 
 The language, persuasions, and oaths of our tars, 
 And that even his voice was not foreign. 
 
 Yet when she was asked how he managed to hide 
 The green fishy tail, coming out of the tide 
 
 For night after night above twenty, 
 "You troublesome creatures!" old Catherine replied, 
 " hi his pocket : won't that now content ye ? " 
 
 Si'r Thomas. I have my doubts yet. I should have said 
 unto her seriously, " Kate, Kate, I am not convinced." There 
 may be witchcraft or sortilege in it. I would have made it a 
 Star-chamber matter. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 6/ 
 
 Shakspeare. It was one, sir. 
 
 Sir Thomas. And now I am reminded by this silly childish 
 song, which after all is not the true mermaid's, thou didst tell 
 me, Silas, that the papers found in the lad's pocket were 
 intended for poetry. 
 
 Sir Silas. I wish he had missed his aim, sir, in your park, 
 as he hath missed it in his poetry. The papers are not worth 
 reading ; they do not go against him in the point at issue. 
 
 Sir Thomas. We must see that, they being taken upon his 
 person when apprehended. 
 
 Sir Silas. Let Ephraim read them then : it behooveth not 
 me, a Master of Arts, to con a whelp's whining. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Do thou read them aloud unto us, good 
 Master Ephraim. 
 
 — Whereupon I took the papers, which young Willy had not 
 bestowed much pains on; and they posed and puzzled me 
 grievously, for they were blotted and scrawled in many places, 
 as if somebody had put him out. These likewise I thought fit, 
 after long consideration, to write better, and preserve, great as 
 the loss of time is when men of business take in hand such un- 
 seemly matters. However, they are decenter than most, and 
 not without their moral. For example : — 
 
 TO THE OWLET. 
 
 Who, O thou sapient saintly bird ! 
 Thy shouted warnings ever heard 
 
 Unbleached by fear ? 
 The blue-faced blubbering imp, who steals 
 Yon turnips, thinks thee at his heels, 
 
 Afar or near. 
 
 The brawnier churl who brags at times 
 To front and top the rankest crimes, — 
 
 To paunch a deer, 
 Quarter a priest, or squeeze a wench, — 
 Scuds from thee, clammy as a tench, 
 
 He knows not where. 
 
 For this the righteous Lord of all 
 Consigns to thee the castle-wall, 
 
 When, many a year, 
 Closed in the chancel-vault, are eyes 
 Rainy or sunny at the sighs 
 
 Of knight or peer. 
 
1 68 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Sir Thomas, when I had ended, said unto me, " No harm 
 herein ; but are they over? " 
 
 I rephed, "Yea, sir ! " 
 
 "I miss the posy,^'' quoth he; "there is usually a lump of 
 sugar, or a smack thereof, at the bottom of the glass. They 
 who are inexperienced in poetry do write it as boys do their 
 copies in the copy-book, — without a flourish at the finis. It 
 is only the master who can do this befittingly." 
 
 I bowed unto his worship reverentially, thinking of a surety 
 he meant me, and returned my best thanks in set language. 
 But his worship rebuffed them, and told me graciously that he 
 had an eye on another of very different quality ; that the plain 
 sense of his discourse might do for me, the subtler was certainly 
 for himself. He added that in his younger days he had heard 
 from a person of great parts, and had since profited by it, that 
 ordinary poets are like adders, — the tail blunt and the body 
 rough, and the whole reptile cold-blooded and sluggish ; 
 whereas we, he subjoined, leap and caracole and curvet, and 
 are as warm as velvet and as sleek as satin and as perfumed as 
 a Naples fan in every part of us ; and the end of our poems is 
 as pointed as a perch's back-fin, and it requires as much nicety 
 to pick it up as a needle -^ at nine groats the hundred. 
 
 Then turning toward the culprit, he said mildly unto him, 
 "Now, why canst thou not apply thyself unto study? Why 
 canst thou not ask advice of thy superiors in rank and wisdom ? 
 In a few years, under good disciphne, thou mightest rise from 
 the owlet unto the peacock. I know not what pleasant things 
 might not come into the youthful head thereupon. " He was 
 the bird of Venus,^ goddess of beauty. He flew down (I 
 speak as a poet, and not in my quality of knight and Chris- 
 tian) with half the stars of heaven upon his tail ; and his long 
 blue neck doth verily appear a dainty slice out of the solid 
 sky." 
 
 Sir Silas smote me with his elbow, and said in my ear, " He 
 wanteth not this stuffing : he beats a pheasant out of the 
 
 1 The greater part of the value of the present work arises from the 
 certain information it affords us on the price of needles in the reign of 
 Elizabeth. Fine needles in her days were made only at Liege, and some 
 few cities in the Netherlands, and may be reckoned among those things 
 which were much dearer than they are now. 
 
 2 Mr. Tooke had not yet published his " Pantheon." 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 69 
 
 kitchen, to my mind ; take him only at the pheasant's size, 
 and don't (upon your Ufe) overdo him. Never be cast down in 
 spirit, nor take it too grievously to heart, if the color be a sus- 
 picion of the pinkish : no sign of rawness in that, none what- 
 ever. It is as becoming to him as to the salmon ; it is as 
 natural to your pea-chick in his best cookery as it is to the 
 finest October morning, moist underfoot, when partridge's and 
 puss's and reynard's scent hes sweetly." 
 
 Willy Shakspeare in the mean time lifted up his hands above 
 his ears half a cubit, and taking breath again, said audibly, al- 
 though he willed it to be said unto himself alone, " Oh that 
 knights could deign to be our teachers ! Methinks I should 
 briefly spring up into heaven, through the very chink out of 
 which the peacock took his neck." 
 
 Master Silas, who, like myself and the worshipful knight, did 
 overhear him, said angrily, " To spring up into heaven, my lad, 
 it would be as well to have at least one foot upon the ground 
 to make the spring withal. I doubt whether we shall leave thee 
 this vantage." 
 
 " Nay, nay ! thou art hard upon him, Silas ! " said the 
 knight. 
 
 I was turning over the other papers taken from the pocket 
 of the culprit on his apprehension, and had fixed my eyes on 
 one, when Sir Thomas caught them thus occupied, and ex- 
 claimed, " Mercy upon us ! have we more? " 
 
 " Your patience, worshipful sir ! " said I ; " must I forward? " 
 
 "Yea, yea," quoth he, resignedly, "we must go through : we 
 are pilgrims in this life." 
 
 Then did I read, in a clear voice, the contents of paper the 
 second, being as foUoweth : — 
 
 THE maid's lament. 
 
 I loved him not ; and yet now he is gone 
 
 I feel I am alone. 
 I checked him while he spoke ; yet could he speak, 
 
 Alas ! I would not check. 
 For reasons not to love him once I sought, 
 
 And wearied all my thought 
 To vex myself and him : I now would give 
 
 My love, could he but live 
 Who lately lived for me ; and when he found 
 
 'T was vain, in holy ground 
 
170 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEAKE. 
 
 He hid his face amid the shades of death. 
 
 I waste for him my breath 
 Who wasted his for me ; but mine returns, 
 
 And this lorn bosom burns 
 With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep. 
 
 And waldng me to weep 
 Tears that had melted his soft heart : for years 
 
 Wept he as bitter tears. 
 Merciful God ! " such was his latest prayer, 
 
 " These may she never share ! " 
 Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold, 
 
 Than daisies in the mould, 
 Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, 
 
 His name and life's brief date. 
 Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be, 
 
 And oh ! pray too for me ! 
 
 Sir Thomas had fallen into a most comfortable and refreshing 
 slumber ere this lecture was concluded ; but the pause broke 
 it, as there be many who experience after the evening service 
 in our parish-church. Howbeit, he had presently all his wits 
 about him, and remembered well that he had been carefully 
 counting the syllables about the time when I had pierced as 
 far as into the middle. 
 
 ''Young man," said he to Willy, "thou givest short measure 
 in every other sack of the load. Thy uppermost stake is of 
 right length; the undermost falleth off, methinks. Master 
 Ephraim, canst thou count syllables? I mean no offence. I 
 may have counted wrongfully myself, not being bom nor edu- 
 cated for an accountant." 
 
 At such order I did count ; and truly the suspicion was as 
 just as if he had neither been a knight nor a sleeper. 
 
 "Sad stuff! sad stuff, indeed!" said Master Silas, "and 
 smelling of popery and wax-candles." 
 
 "Ay? " said Sir Thomas, " I must sift that." 
 
 " If praying for the dead is not popery," said Master Silas, 
 " I know not what the devil is. Let them pray for us, — they 
 may know whether it will do us any good ; we need not pray 
 for them, — we cannot tell whether it will do them any. I 
 call this sound divinity." 
 
 "Are our churchmen all agreed thereupon?" asked Sir 
 Thomas. 
 
 "The wisest are," rephed Master Silas. "There are some 
 lank rascals who will never agree upon anything but upon 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. I /I 
 
 doubting. I would not give ninepence for the best gown upon 
 the most thrifty of 'em ; and their fingers are as stiff and hard 
 with their pedlery knavish writing, as any bishop's are with 
 chalk-stones won honestly from the gout." 
 
 Sir Thomas took the paper up from the table on which I had 
 laid it, and said, after a while, "The man may only have 
 swooned. I scorn to play the critic, or to ask any one the 
 meaning of a word ; but, sirrah — " 
 
 Here he turned in his chair from the side of Master Silas, 
 and said unto Willy, " WiUiam Shakspeare, out of this thral- 
 dom in regard to popery I hope, by God's blessing, to deliver 
 thee. If ever thou repeatest the said verses, knowing the man 
 to be to all intents and purposes a dead man, prythee read the 
 censurable line as thus corrected, — 
 
 Pray for our Virgin Queen, gentles ! whoe'er you be, — 
 
 although it is not quite the thing that another should impinge 
 so closely on her skirts. By this improvement, of me sug- 
 gested, thou mayest make some amends, a syllable or two, for 
 the many that are weighed in the balance and are found 
 wanting." 
 
 Then, turning unto me, as being conversant by my profes- 
 sion in such matters, and the same being not very worthy of 
 learned and staid clerks the like of Master Silas, he said, '•' Of 
 all the youths that did ever write in verse, this one verily is he 
 who hath the fewest flowers and devices. But it would be loss 
 of time to form a border in the fashion of a kingly crown, 
 or a dragon, or a Turk on horseback, out of buttercups and 
 dandelions. Master Ephraim, look at these badgers, with a 
 long leg on one quarter and a short leg on the other ! The 
 wench herself might well and truly have said all that matter 
 without the poet, bating the rhymes and metre. Among the 
 girls in the country there are many such shilly-shallys, who give 
 themselves sore eyes and sharp eye-water ; I would cure them 
 rod in hand." 
 
 Whereupon did William Shakspeare say, with great humility, 
 " So would I, may it please your worship, an they would 
 let me." 
 
 " Incorrigible sluts ! Out upon 'em ! and thou art no better 
 than they are," quoth the knight. 
 
1/2 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Master Silas cried aloud, " No better, marry ! they at the 
 worst are but carted and whipped for the edification of the 
 market-folks.-^ Not a squire or parson in the county round 
 but comes in his best to see a man hanged." 
 
 "The edification then is higher by a deal," said William, 
 very composedly. 
 
 " Troth ! is it," replied Master Silas. " The most poisonous 
 reptile has the richest jewel in his head : thou shalt share the 
 richest gift bestowed upon royalty, and shalt cure the king's 
 evil." 2 
 
 " It is more tractable, then, than the Church's," quoth 
 William ; and turning his face toward the chair he made an 
 obeisance to Sir Thomas, saying, " Sir, the more submissive 
 my behavior is, the more vehem,ent and boisterous is Master 
 Silas. My gentlest words serve only to carry him toward 
 the contrary quarter, as the south wind bloweth a ship 
 northward." 
 
 "Youth," said Sir Thomas, smiling most benignly, "I find, 
 and well indeed might I have surmised, thy utter ignorance of 
 winds, equinoxes, and tides. Consider now a little ! With 
 what propriety can a wind be called a south wind if it bloweth 
 a vessel to the north ? Would it be a south wind that blew it 
 from this hall into Warwick market-place? " 
 
 " It would be a strong one," said Master Silas unto me, point- 
 ing his remark, as witty men are wont, with the elbow-pan. 
 
 But Sir Thomas, who waited for an answer, and received 
 none, continued, " Would a man be called a good man who 
 tended and pushed on toward evil? " 
 
 Shakspeare. I stand corrected. I could sail to Cathay or 
 Tartary ^ with half the nautical knowledge I have acquired in 
 this glorious hall. The Devil impelhng a mortal to wrong 
 courses is thereby known to be the Devil. He, on the con- 
 trary, who exciteth to good is no devil, but an angel of light, 
 or under the guidance of one. The Devil driveth unto his 
 own home ; so doth the south wind ; so doth the north wind. 
 
 ^ This was really the case within our memory. 
 
 2 It was formerly thought, and perhaps is thought still, that the hand 
 of a man recently hanged being rubbed on the tumor of the king's evil 
 was able to cure it. The crown and the gallows divided the glory of the 
 sovereign remedy. 
 
 2 And yet he never did sail any farther than into Bohemia. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1/3 
 
 Alas, alas ! we possess not the mastery over our own weak 
 minds when a higher spirit standeth nigh and draweth us 
 within his influence. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Those thy words are well enough ; very well, 
 very good, wise, discreet, judicious beyond thy years. But 
 then that sailing comes in an awkward ugly way across me ; 
 that Cathay, that Tartarus ! Have a care ! Do thou noth- 
 ing rashly. Mind ! an thou stealeth my pvmt for the pur- 
 pose, I send the constable after thee or e'er thou art half 
 way over. 
 
 Shakspeare. He would make a stock-fish of me an he 
 caught me. It is hard sailing out of his straits, although they 
 be carefully laid do\vn in most parishes, and may have taken 
 them from actual survey. 
 
 Sir Silas. Sir, we have bestowed on him already well-nigh 
 a good hour of our time. 
 
 — Sir Thomas, who was always fond of giving admonition 
 and reproof to the ignorant and erring, and who had found the 
 seeds (little mustard-seeds, 'tis true, and never likely to arise 
 into the great mustard-tree of the Gospel) in the poor lad 
 Willy, did let his heart soften a whit tenderer and kindlier than 
 Master Silas did, and said unto Master Silas, " A good hour of 
 our time ! Yea, Silas, and thou wouldst give him eternity I " 
 
 "What, sir, would you let him go?" said Master Silas. 
 " Presently we shall have neither deer nor dog, neither hare 
 nor coney, neither swan nor heron ; every carp from pool, every 
 bream from brook, will be groped for. The marble monu- 
 ments in the church will no longer protect the leaden coffins ; 
 and if there be any ring of gold on the finger of knight or 
 dame, it will be torn away with as little ruth and ceremony as 
 the ring from a butchered sow's snout." 
 
 " Awful words, blaster Silas," quoth the knight, musing ; " but 
 thou mistakest my intentions. I let him not go ; howbeit, at 
 worst I would only mark him in the ear, and turn him up again 
 after this warning, peradventure with a few stripes to boot 
 athwart the shoulders, in order to make them shrug a little, 
 and shake off the burden of idleness." 
 
 Now I, ha\dng seen, I dare not say the innocence, but the 
 innocent and simple manner of Willy, and pitying his tender 
 years, and having an inkling that he was a lad, poor Willy, 
 
174 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 whom God had endowed with some parts, and into whose 
 breast he had instilled that milk of loving-kindness by which 
 alone we can be like unto those little children of whom is the 
 household and kingdom of our Lord, I was moved, yea, even 
 unto tears. And now, to bring gentler thoughts into the 
 hearts of Master Silas and Sir Thomas, who in his wisdom 
 deemed it a light punishment to slit an ear or two, or in- 
 flict a wiry scourging, I did remind his worship that another 
 paper was yet unread, at least to them, although I had been 
 perusing it. 
 
 This was much pleasanter than the former two, and over- 
 flowing with the praises of the worthy knight and his gracious 
 lady ; and having an echo to it in another voice, I did hope 
 thereby to disarm their just wrath and indignation. It was 
 thus couched : — 
 
 FIRST SHEPHERD. 
 
 Jesu ! what lofty elms are here ! 
 Let me look through them at the clear 
 Deep sky above, and bless my star 
 That such a worthy knight's they are ! 
 
 SECOND SHEPHERD. 
 
 Innocent creatures 1 how those deer 
 Trot merrily, and romp and rear ! 
 
 FIRST SHEPHERD. 
 
 The glorious knight who walks beside 
 His most majestic lady bride, 
 
 SECOND SHEPHERD. 
 
 Under these branches spreading wide, 
 
 FIRST SHEPHERD. ~ 
 
 Carries about so many cares 
 
 Touching his ancestors and heirs, 
 
 That came from Athens and from Rome, 
 
 SECOND SHEPHERD. 
 
 As many of them as are come, 
 
 FIRST SHEPHERD. 
 
 Nought else the smallest lodge can find 
 In the vast manors of his mind ; 
 Envying not Solomon his wit, 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1/5 
 
 SECOND SHEPHERD. 
 
 No, nor his women, — not a bit; 
 Being well-built and well-behaved 
 As Solomon, I trow, or David. 
 
 FIRST SHEPHERD. 
 
 And taking by his jewelled hand 
 
 The jewel of that lady bland, 
 
 He sees the tossing antlers pass 
 
 And throw quaint shadows o'er the grass; 
 
 While she alike the hour beguiles, 
 
 And looks at him and them, and smiles. 
 
 SECOND SHEPHERD. 
 
 With conscience proof 'gainst Satan's shock. 
 Albeit finer than her smock,i 
 Marry ! her smiles are not of vanity, 
 But resting on sound Christianity. 
 Faith you would sware had naii'd ^ her ears on 
 The book and cushion of the parson. 
 
 " Methinks the rhyme at the latter end might be bettered," 
 said Sir Thomas. "The remainder is indited not unaptly. 
 But, young man, never having obtained the permission of my 
 honorable dame to praise her in guise of poetry, I cannot see 
 all the merit I would fain discern in the verses. She ought first 
 to have been sounded ; and it being certified that she disap- 
 proved not her glorification, then might it be trumpeted forth 
 into the world below." 
 
 " Most worshipful knight," replied the youngster, " I never 
 could take it in hand to sound a dame of quality ; they are all 
 of them too deep and too practised for me, and have better 
 and abler men about 'em. And surely I did imagine to myself 
 that if it were asked of any honorable man (omitting to speak 
 of ladies) whether he would give permission to be openly 
 praised, he would reject the application as a gross offence. It 
 appeareth to me that even to praise one's self, although it be 
 shameful, is less shameful than to throw a burning coal into 
 
 1 " Smock," formerly a part of female dress, corresponding with 
 "shroud," or what we now call (or lately called) "shirt," of the man's. 
 Fox, speaking of Latimer's burning, says, "Being slipped into his 
 shroud." 
 
 2 Faith nailing the ears is a strong and sacred metaphor. The rhyme 
 is imperfect ; Shakspeare was not always attentive to these minor 
 beauties. 
 
176 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 the incense-box that another doth hold to waft before us, 
 and then to snift and simper over it with maidenly wish- 
 ful coyness, as if forsooth one had no hand in setting it 
 a-smoke." 
 
 Then did Sir Thomas, in his zeal to instruct the ignorant, 
 and so make the lowly hold up their heads, say unto him, 
 " Nay, but all the great do thus. Thou must not praise them 
 without leave and license. Praise unpermitted is plebeian 
 praise. It is presumption to suppose that thou knowest enough 
 of the noble and the great to discover their high qualities. 
 They alone could manifest them unto thee. It requireth much 
 discernment and much time to enucleate and bring into light 
 their abstruse wisdom and gravely featured virtues. Those of 
 ordinary men lie before thee in thy daily walks ; thou mayest 
 know them by converse at their tables, as thou knowest the 
 little tame squirrel that chippeth his nuts in the open sunshine 
 of a bowling-green. But beware how thou enterest the awful 
 arbors of the great, who conceal their magnanimity in the 
 depths of their hearts as lions do." 
 
 He then paused ; and observing the youth in deep and 
 earnest meditation over the fruits of his experience, as one who 
 tasted and who would fain digest them, he gave him encour- 
 agement, and relieved the weight of his musings, by kind inter- 
 rogation : "So then these verses are thine own? " 
 
 The youth answered, " Sir, I must confess my fault." 
 
 "And who was the shepherd written here 'Second Shep- 
 herd,' that had the ill manners to interrupt thee ? Methinks 
 in helping thee to mount the saddle he pretty nigh tossed thee 
 over -^ with his jerks and quirks." 
 
 Without waiting for any answer, his worship continued his 
 interrogations. " But do you wool-staplers call yourselves by 
 the style and title of shepherds?" 
 
 1 Shakspeare seems to have profited afterward by this metaphor, even 
 more perhaps than by all the direct pieces of instruction in poetry given 
 him so handsomely by the worthy knight. And here it may be permitted 
 the editor to profit also by the manuscript, correcting in Shakspeare what 
 is absolute nonsense as now printed : — 
 
 " Vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself. 
 And falls on the other side." 
 
 Other side of what ? It should be " its sell." Sell is saddle in Spenser 
 and elsewhere, from the Latin and Italian. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. I// 
 
 " Verily, sir, do we ; and I trust by right. The last owner 
 of any place is called the master, more properly than the 
 dead and gone who once held it. If that be true (and who 
 doubts it ?) , we who have the last of the sheep, — namely, the 
 wool and skin, — and who buy all of all the flock, surely may 
 more properly be called shepherds than those idle vagrants 
 who tend them only for a season, selling a score or purchasing 
 a score as may happen." 
 
 Here Sir Thomas did pause awhile, and then said unto 
 Master Silas, " My own cogitations, and not this stripling, have 
 induced me to consider and to conclude a weighty matter for 
 knightly scholarship. I never could rightly understand before 
 how Colin Clout, and sundry others calling themselves shep- 
 herds, should argue like doctors in law, physic, and divinity. 
 Silas, they were wool-staplers ; and they must have exercised 
 their wits in dealing with tithe-proctors and parsons, and more- 
 over with fellows of colleges from our two learned universities, 
 who have sundry lands held under them, as thou knowest, and 
 take the small tithes in kind. Colin Clout, methinks, from his 
 extensive learning might have acquired enough interest with the 
 Queen's Highness to change his name for the better, and fur- 
 thermore her royal license to carry armorial bearings, in no 
 peril of taint from so unsavory an appellation." 
 
 Master Silas did interrupt this discourse, by saying, '* May it 
 please your worship, the constable is waiting." 
 
 Whereat Sir Thomas said tartly, " And let him wait." ^ 
 
 Then to me : " I hope we have done with verses, and are 
 not to be befooled by the lad's nonsense touching mermaids 
 or worse creatures." 
 
 Then to Will : " William Shakspeare, we live in a Christian 
 land, — a land of great toleration and forbearance. Threescore 
 carts full of fagots a year are fully sufficient to clear our English 
 air from every pestilence of heresy and witchcraft. It hath not 
 
 1 It has been suggested that this answer was borrowed from Virgil, and 
 goes strongly against the genuineness of the manuscript. The Editor's 
 memory was upon the stretch to recollect the words : the learned critic 
 supplied them, — 
 
 " Solum jEneas vocat : et vocei, oro.'' 
 
 The Editor could only reply, indeed weakly, that calling and waiting are 
 not exactly the same, unless when tradesmen rap and gentlemen are leav- 
 insc town. 
 
178 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 alway been so, God wot ! Innocent and guilty took their 
 turns before the fire, Uke geese and capons. The spit was 
 never cold ; the cook's sleeve was ever above the elbow. 
 Countrymen came down from distant villages, into towns and 
 cities, to see perverters whom they had never heard of, and to 
 learn the righteousness of hatred. When heretics waxed fewer, 
 the religious began to grumble that God in losing his enemies 
 had also lost his avengers. 
 
 " Do not thou, William Shakspeare, dig the hole for thy own 
 stake. If thou canst not make men wise, do not make them 
 merry at thy cost. We are not to be paganized any more. 
 Having struck from our calendars and unnailed from our 
 chapels many dozens of decent saints, with as little compunc- 
 tion and remorse as unlucky lads throw frog-spawn and tadpoles 
 out of stagnant ditches, never let us think of bringing back 
 among us the daintier divinities they ousted. All these are the 
 Devil's imps, beautiful as they appear in what we falsely call 
 works of genius, which really and truly are the Devil's own, — 
 statues more graceful than humanity, pictures more living than 
 life, eloquence that raised single cities above empires, poor men 
 above kings. If these are not Satan's works, where are they? 
 I will tell thee where they are likewise : in holding vain con- 
 verse with false gods. The utmost we can allow in propriety 
 is to call a knight Phoebus, and a dame Diana. They are not 
 meat for every trencher. 
 
 "We must now proceed straightforward with the business 
 on which thou comest before us. What further sayest thou, 
 witness? " 
 
 Treen. His face was toward me : I saw it clearly. The 
 graver man followed him into the punt, and said roughly, " We 
 shall get hanged as sure as thou pipest." Whereunto he 
 answered, — 
 
 " Naturally, as fall upon the ground 
 The leaves in winter and the girls in spring." 
 
 And then began he again with the mermaid ; whereat the graver 
 man clapped a hand before his mouth, and swore he should 
 take her in wedlock, to have and to hold, if he sang another 
 stave. "And thou shalt be her pretty httle bridemaid," quoth 
 he gayly to the graver man, chucking him under the chin. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1/9 
 
 Sir Thomas. And what did Carnaby say unto thee, or what 
 didst thou say unto Carnaby ? 
 
 Treen. Carnaby said unto me, somewhat tauntingly, " The 
 big squat man that lay upon thy bread-basket Hke a night-mare 
 is a punt at last, it seems." 
 
 " Punt, and more too," answered I, " Tarry awhile, and thou 
 shalt see this punt (so let me call it) lead them into tempta- 
 tion, and swamp them, or carry them to the gallows : I would 
 not stay else. 
 
 Sir Thomas. And what didst thou, Joseph Carnaby? 
 
 Carnaby. Finding him neither slack nor shy, I readily tarried. 
 We knelt down opposite each other, and said our prayers ; and 
 he told me he was now comfortable. " The evil one," said he, 
 " hath enough to mind yonder, — he shall not hurt us." Never 
 was a sweeter night, had there been but some mild ale under it, 
 which any one would have sworn it was made for. The milky 
 way looked like a long drift of hailstones on a sunny ridge. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Hast thou done describing? 
 
 Carnaby. Yea, an please your worship. 
 
 Sir Thomas. God's blessing be upon thee, honest Carnaby ! 
 I feared a moon-fall. In our days nobody can think about a 
 plum-pudding but the moon comes down upon it. I warrant 
 ye this lad here hath as many moons in his poems as the Sara- 
 cens had in their banners. 
 
 Shakspeare. I have not hatched mine yet, sir. Whenever 
 I do I trust it will be worth taking to market, 
 
 Carnaby. I said all I know of the stars ; but Master Euseby 
 can run over half a score and upward, here and there. " Am 
 I right or wrong? " cried he, spreading on the back of my hand 
 all his fingers, stiff as antlers and cold as icicles. " Look up ! 
 Joseph, Joseph, there is no Lucifer in the firmament ! " I 
 myself did feel queerish and qualmy upon hearing that a star 
 was missing, being no master of gainsaying it ; and I abased my 
 eyes and entreated of Euseby to do in like manner. And in 
 this posture did we both of us remain ; and the missing star 
 did not disquiet me ; and all the others seemed as if they 
 knew us and would not tell of us ; and there was peace and 
 pleasantness over sky and earth. And I said to my companion, 
 " How quiet now, good Master Euseby, are all God's creatures 
 in this meadow, because they never pry into such high matters, 
 
I80 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 but breathe sweetly among the pig-nuts. The only things we 
 hear or see stirring are the glow-worms and dormice, as though 
 they were sent for our edification, — teaching us to rest con- 
 tented with our own little light, and to come out and seek our 
 sustenance where none molest or thwart us." 
 
 Shakspeare. Ye would have it thus, no doubt, when your 
 pockets and pouches are full of gins and nooses. 
 
 Sir Thomas. A bridle upon thy dragon's tongue ! And do 
 thou, Master Joseph, quit the dormice and glow-worms, and 
 tell us whither did the rogues go. 
 
 Carnaby. I wot not after they had crossed the river : they 
 were soon out of sight and hearing. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Went they toward Charlecote ? 
 
 Carnaby. Their first steps were thitherward. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Did they come back unto the punt? 
 
 Cai'naby. They went down the stream in it, and crossed 
 the Avon some fourscore yards below where we were standing. 
 They came back in it, and moored it to the sedges in which it 
 had stood before. 
 
 Sir Thovias. How long were they absent ? 
 
 Carnaby. Within an hour, or thereabout, all the three men 
 returned. Will Shakspeare and another were sitting in the 
 middle, the third punted. 
 
 " Remember now, gentles ! " quoth William Shakspeare, 
 " the road we have taken is henceforward a footpath forever, 
 according to law." 
 
 " How so? " asked the punter, turning toward him. 
 
 " Forasmuch as a corpse hath passed along it," answered he. 
 
 Whereupon both Euseby and myself did forthwith fall upon 
 our faces, commending our souls unto the Lord. 
 
 Sir Thomas. It was then really the dead body that quivered 
 so fearfully upon the water, covering all the punt ! Christ de- 
 liver us ! I hope the keeper they murdered was not Jeremiah. 
 His wife and four children would be very chargeable, and the 
 man was by no means amiss. Proceed ! what further? 
 
 Carnaby. On reaching the bank, " I never sat pleasanter 
 in my lifetime," said William Shakspeare, " than upon this 
 carcass." 
 
 Sir Thomas. Lord have mercy upon us ! Thou upon a 
 carcass, at thy years ? 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. l8l 
 
 And the knight drew back his chair half an ell farther from 
 the table, and his lips quivered at the thought of such inhu- 
 manity. "And what said he more, and what did he? " asked 
 the knight. 
 
 Carnaby. He patted it smartly, and said, " Lug it out ; 
 break it." 
 
 Sir Thomas. These four poor children ! who shall feed 
 them? 
 
 Sir Silas. Sir, in God's name have you forgotten that Jere- 
 miah is gone to Nuneaton to see his father, and that the mur- 
 dered man is the buck? 
 
 Sir Thomas. They killed the buck likewise. But what, ye 
 cowardly varlets ! have ye been deceiving me all this time ? 
 And thou, youngster, couldst thou say nothing to clear up the 
 case ? Thou shalt smart for it. Methought I had lost by a 
 violent death the best servant ever-man had ; righteous, if there 
 be no blame in saying it, as the prophet whose name he beareth, 
 and brave as the lion of Judah. 
 
 Shakspeare. Sir, if these men could deceive your worship 
 for a moment, they might deceive me forever. I could not 
 guess what their story aimed at, except my ruin. I am inclined 
 to lean for once toward the opinion of Master Silas, and to be- 
 lieve it was really the stolen buck on which this William (if in- 
 deed there is any truth at all in the story) was sitting. 
 
 Sir Thomas. What more hast thou for me that is not enigma 
 or parable ? 
 
 Carnaby. I did not see the carcass, man's or beast's, may 
 it please your worship, and I have recited and can recite that 
 only which I saw and heard. After the words of lugging out 
 and breaking it, knives were drawn accordingly. It was no time 
 to loiter or Hnger. We crope back under the shadow of the 
 alders and hazels on the high bank that bordereth Mickle 
 Meadow, and making straight for the public road hastened 
 homeward. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Hearing this deposition, dost thou affirm the 
 like upon thy oath, Master Euseby Treen, or dost thou vary in 
 aught essential? 
 
 Treen. Upon my oath I do depose and affirm the like, and 
 truly the identical same ; and I will never more vary upon aught 
 essential. 
 
162 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I do now further demand of thee whether thou 
 knowest anything more appertaining unto this business. 
 
 Treen. Ay, verily ; that your worship may never hold me 
 for timorsome and superstitious, I do furthermore add that some 
 other than deer-stealers was abroad. In sign whereof, although 
 it was the dryest and clearest night of the season, my jerkin was 
 damp inside and outside when I reached the house-door. 
 
 Shakspeare. I warrant thee, Euseby, the damp began not 
 at the outside. A word in thy ear : Lucifer was thy tapster, 
 I trow. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Irreverent swine ! hast no awe nor shame? 
 Thou hast aggravated thy offence, William Shakspeare, by thy 
 foul-mouthedness. 
 
 Sir Silas. I must remind your worship that he not only has 
 committed this iniquity afore, but hath pawed the puddle he 
 made, and relapsed into it after due caution and reproof. God 
 forbid that what he spake against me, out of the gall of his 
 proud stomach, should move me. I defy him, a low ignorant 
 
 wretch, a rogue and vagabond, a thief and cut-throat, a ^ 
 
 monger and mutton-eater. 
 
 Shakspeare. Your worship doth hear the learned clerk's 
 testimony in my behalf. " Out of the mouth of babes and 
 sucklings — " 
 
 Sir Thomas. Silas, the youth has failings, — a madcap ; but 
 he is pious. 
 
 Shakspeare. Alas, no, sir ! Would I were ! But Sir Silas, 
 like the prophet, came to curse and was forced to bless me, 
 even me, a sinner, a mutton-eater ! 
 
 Sir Thomas. Thou urgedst him. He beareth no ill-will to- 
 ward thee. Thou knewedst, I suspect, that the blackness in 
 his mouth proceeded from a natural cause. 
 
 Shakspeare. The Lord is merciful ! I was brought hither in 
 jeopardy ; I shall return in joy. Whether my innocence be de- 
 clared or otherwise, my piety and knowledge will be forwarded 
 and increased ; for your worship will condescend, even from 
 the judgment-seat, to enlighten the ignorant where a soul shall 
 be saved or lost ! And I, even I, may trespass a moment on 
 
 1 Here the manuscript is blotted ; but the probability is, that it wasyfj^- 
 monger, rather than ironmonger, fishmongers having always been notorious 
 cheats and liars. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 83 
 
 your courtesy. I quail at the words natural cause. Be there 
 any such ? 
 
 Sir Thomas. Youth, I never thought thee so staid. Thou 
 hast, for these many months, been represented unto me as one 
 dissolute and light, much given unto mummeries and mysteries, 
 wakes and carousals, cudgel-fighters and mountebanks, and 
 wanton women. They do also represent of thee (I hope it may 
 be without foundation) that thou enactest the parts, not simply 
 of foresters and fairies, girls in the green-sickness and friars, 
 lawyers and outlaws, but likewise, having small reverence for 
 station, of kings and queens, knights and privy-councillors, in 
 all their glory. It hath been whispered moreover, and the testi- 
 mony of these two witnesses doth appear in some measure to 
 countenance and confirm it, that thou hast at divers times this 
 last summer been seen and heard alone, inasmuch as human 
 eye may discover, on the narrow slip of green-sward between 
 the Avon and the chancel, distorting thy body like one possessed, 
 and uttering strange language, like unto incantation. This how- 
 ever Cometh not before me. Take heed ! take heed unto thy 
 ways ! there are graver things in law even than homicide and 
 deer-stealing. 
 
 Sir Silas. And strong against him. Folks have been con- 
 sumed at the stake for pettier felonies and upon weaker 
 evidence. 
 
 Sir Thomas. To that anon. 
 
 — William Shakspeare did hold down his head, answering 
 nought. And Sir Thomas spake again unto him, as one mild 
 and fatherly, if so be that such a word may be spoken of a 
 knight -and parliament-man. And these are the words he 
 spake : — 
 
 " Reason and ruminate with thyself now. To pass over and 
 pretermit the danger of representing the actions of the others, 
 and mainly of lawyers and churchmen, — the former of whom 
 do pardon no offences, and the latter those only against God 
 (having no warrant for more), — canst thou believe it innocent 
 to counterfeit kings and queens? Supposest thou that if the 
 impression of their faces on a farthing be felonious and rope- 
 worthy, the imitation of head and body, voice and bearing, 
 plume and strut, crown and mantle, and everything else that 
 maketh them royal and glorious, be aught less? Perpend, 
 
184 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 young man, perpend ! Consider who among inferior mortals 
 shall imitate them becomingly? Dreamest thou they talk and 
 act like checkmen at Banbury Fair? How can thy shallow 
 brain suffice for their vast conceptions ? How darest thou say, 
 as they do, Hang this fellow, quarter that, flay, mutilate, stab, 
 shoot, press, hook, torture, bum alive? These are royalties. 
 Who appointed thee to such office ? The Holy Ghost ? He 
 alone can confer it ; but when wert thou anointed ? " 
 
 William was so zealous in storing up these verities that he 
 looked as though he were unconscious that the pouring-out 
 was over. He started, which he had not done before, at the 
 voice of Master Silas ; but soon recovered his complacency, 
 and smiled with much serenity at being called low-minded 
 varlet. 
 
 " Low-minded varlet ! " cried Master Silas, most contemptu- 
 ously, " dost thou imagine that king calleth king, like thy 
 chums, filcher and fibber, whirligig and nincojnpoop ? Instead 
 of this low vulgarity and sordid idleness, ending in nothing, they 
 throw at one another such fellows as thee by the thousand, and 
 when they have cleared the land, render God thanks and make 
 peace." 
 
 Willy did now sigh out his ignorance of these matters ; and 
 he sighed mayhap too at the recollection of the peril he had 
 run into, and had ne'er a word on the nail.^ 
 
 The bowels of Sir Thomas waxed tenderer and tenderer, and 
 he opened his lips in this fashion : — 
 
 " Stripling ! I would now communicate unto thee, on finding 
 thee docile and assentaneous, the instruction thou needest on 
 the signification of the words natural cause, if thy duty toward 
 thy neighbor had been first instilled into thee." 
 
 Whereupon Master Silas did interpose, for the dinner-hour 
 was drawing nigh. 
 
 "We cannot do all at once," quoth he. " Coming out of 
 order, it might harm him. Malt before hops, the world over, 
 or the beer muddies." 
 
 But Sir Thomas was not to be pricked out of his form even 
 by so shrewd a pricker ; and, like unto one who heareth not, 
 he continued to look most graciously on the homely vessel that 
 stood ready to receive his wisdom. 
 1 " On the nail " appears to be intended to express " ready payment." 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 85 
 
 "Thy mind," said he, " being tinprepared for higher cogita- 
 tions, and the groundwork and religious duty not being well 
 rammer-beaten and fiinted, I do pass over this supererogatory 
 point, and inform thee rather, that bucks and swans and herons 
 have something in their very names announcing them of knight- 
 ly appurtenance, and (God forefend that evil do ensue there- 
 from !) that a goose on the common, or a game-cock on the 
 loft of a cottager or villager, may be seized, bagged, and ab- 
 ducted ^vith far less offence to the laws. In a buck there is 
 something so gainly and so grand, he treadeth the earth with 
 such ease and such agility, he abstaineth from all other ani- 
 mals with such punctilious avoidance, one would imagine God 
 created him when he created knighthood. In the swan there 
 is such purity, such coldness is there in the element he inhab- 
 iteth, such solitude of station, that verily he doth remind me 
 of the Virgin Queen herself. Of the heron I have less to say, 
 not having him about me ; but I never heard his lordly croak 
 without the conceit that it resembled a chancellor's or a pri- 
 mate's. I do perceive, Wilham Shakspeare, thy compunction 
 and contrition." 
 
 Shakspeare. I was thinking, may it please your worship, of 
 the game-cock and the goose, having but small notion of herons. 
 This doctrine of abduction, please your worship, hath been 
 alway inculcated by the soundest of our judges. Would they 
 had spoken on other points with the same clearness ! How 
 many unfortunates might thereby have been saved from crossing 
 the Cordilleras ! ^ 
 
 Sir Thomas. Ay, ay ! they have been fain to fly the country 
 at last, thither or elsewhere. 
 
 — And then did Sir Thomas call unto him Master Silas, and 
 say, " Walk we into the bay-window. And thou mayest come, 
 Ephraim." 
 
 And when we were there together, — I, Master Silas, and his 
 worship, — did his worship say unto the chaplain, but oftener 
 looking toward me : " I am not ashamed to avouch that it goeth 
 against me to hang this yoimg fellow, richly as the offence in its 
 own nature doth deserve it ; he talketh so reasonably, — not 
 
 1 Perhaps a pun was intended ; or possibly it might, in the age of Eliz- 
 abeth, have been a vulgar term for hanging, although we find no trace 
 of the expression in other books. 
 
1 86 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 indeed so reasonably, but so like unto what a reasonable man 
 may listen to and reflect on. There is so much too of com- 
 passion for others in hard cases, and something so very near in 
 semblance to innocence itself in that airy swing of light-heart- 
 edness about him. I cannot fix my eyes (as one would say) 
 on the shifting and sudden shade-and-shine, which cometh 
 back to me, do what I will, and mazes me in a manner, and 
 blinks me." 
 
 At this juncture I was ready to fall upon the ground before 
 his worship, and clasp his knees for Willy's pardon. But he 
 had so many points about him that I feared to discompose 'em, 
 and thus make bad worse. Besides which. Master Silas left me 
 but scanty space for good resolutions, crying, " He may be 
 committed to save time. Afterward he may be sentenced to 
 death, or he may not." 
 
 Sir Thomas. 'T were shame upon me were he not ; 't were 
 indication that I acted unadvisedly in the commitment. 
 
 Sir Silas. The penalty of the law may be commuted, if ex- 
 pedient, on application to the fountain of mercy in London. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Maybe, Silas, those shall be standing round 
 the fount of mercy who play in idleness and wantonness with its 
 waters, and let them not flow widely nor take their natural 
 course. Dutiful gallants may encompass it, and it may linger 
 among the flowers they throw into it, and never reach the 
 parched lip on the wayside. 
 
 These are homely thoughts, — thoughts from a-field, thoughts 
 for the study and housekeeper's room ; but whenever I have 
 given utterance unto them, as my heart hath often prompted 
 me with beatings at the breast, my hearers seemed to bear 
 toward me more true and kindly affection than my richest 
 fancies and choicest phraseologies could purchase. 
 
 'Twere convenient to bethink thee, should any other great 
 man's park have been robbed this season, no judge upon the 
 bench will back my recommendation for mercy. And indeed 
 how could I expect it? Things may soon be brought to such 
 a pass that their lordships shall scarcely find three haunches 
 each upon the circuit. 
 
 "Well, sir," quoth Master Silas, "you have a right to go on 
 in your own way. Make him only give up the girl." 
 
 Here Sir Thomas reddened with righteous indignation, and 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. ig/ 
 
 answered, " I cannot think it ! such a striphng, — poor, penni- 
 less ! It must be some one else." 
 
 And now Master Silas did redden in his turn redder than Sir 
 Thomas, and first asked me, " What the devil do you stare at? " 
 And then asked his worship, "Who should it be if not the 
 rogue? " and his lips turned as blue as a blue-bell. 
 
 Then Sir Thomas left the window and again took his chair, 
 and having stood so long on his legs, groaned upon it to ease 
 him. His worship scowled with all his might, and looked ex- 
 ceedingly wroth and vengeful at the culprit, and said unto him, 
 " Hark ye, knave ! I have been conferring with my learned 
 clerk and chaplain in what manner I may, with the least severity, 
 rid the county (which thou disgracest) of thee." 
 
 William Shakspeare raised up his eyes, modestly and fear- 
 fully, and said slowly these few words, which, had they been a 
 better and nobler man's, would deserve to be written in letters 
 of gold. I, not having that art nor substance, do therefore write 
 them in my largest and roundest character, and do leave space 
 about 'em, according to their rank and dignity : — 
 
 " Worshipful sir ! a word est the ear is often as good 
 
 AS A halter under IT, AND SAVES THE GROAT." 
 
 "Thou discoursest well," said Sir Thomas, "but others can 
 discourse well likewise. Thou shalt avoid : I am resolute." 
 
 Shakspeare. I supplicate your honor to impart unto me, in 
 your wisdom, the mode and means whereby I may surcease to 
 be disgraceful to the county. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I am not bloody-minded. First, thou shalt 
 have the fairest and fullest examination. Much hath been 
 deposed against thee ; something may come forth for thy ad- 
 vantage. I will not thy death ; thou shalt not die. The laws 
 have loopholes like castles, both to shoot from and to let folks 
 down. 
 
 Sir Silas. That pointed ear would look the better for 
 pairing, and that high forehead can hold many letters. 
 
 — Whereupon did WilUam, poor lad, turn deadly pale, but 
 spake not. 
 
 Sir Thomas then abated a whit of his severity, and said 
 staidly: "Testimony doth appear plain and positive against 
 thee ; nevertheless am I minded and prompted to aid thee 
 myself, in disclosing and unfolding what thou couldst not of 
 
1 88 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 thine own wits, in furtherance of thine own defence. One 
 witness is persuaded and assured of the evil spirit having been 
 abroad, and the punt appeared unto him diversely from what 
 it appeared unto the other." 
 
 Shakspeare. If the evil spirit produced one appearance, he 
 might have produced all, with deference to the graver judg- 
 ment of your worship. If what seemed pimt was devil, what 
 seemed buck might have been devil too ; nay, more easily, the 
 horns being forthcoming. Thieves and reprobates do resemble 
 him more nearly still ; and it would be hard if he could not 
 make free with their bodies, when he has their souls already. 
 
 Sir Thomas. But, then, those voices ! and thou thyself, 
 Will Shakspeare ! 
 
 Shakspeare. Oh, might I kiss the hand of my deliverer, 
 whose clear-sightedness throweth such manifest and plenary 
 light upon my innocence? 
 
 Sir Thomas. How so? What light, in God's name, have 
 I thrown upon it as yet ? 
 
 Shakspeare. Oh, those voices, those fairies and spirits ! 
 whence came they? None can deal with 'em but the Devil, 
 the parson, and witches. And does not the Devil oftentimes 
 take the very form, features, and habiliments of knights and 
 bishops and other good men, to lead them into temptation 
 and destroy them ; or to injure their good name, in failure of 
 seduction ? He is sure of the wicked : he lets them go their 
 ways out of hand. I think your worship once delivered some 
 such observation, in more courtly guise, which I would not 
 presume to ape. If it was not your worship it was our glori- 
 ous lady, the Queen, or the wise Master Walsingham, or the 
 great Lord Cecil. I may have marred and broken it, as sluts 
 do a pancake, in the turning. 
 
 Sir Thojnas. Why, ay, indeed ! I had occasion once to 
 remark as much. 
 
 Shakspeare. So have I heard in many places ; although I 
 was not present when Matthew Atterend fought about it for 
 the honor of Kineton hundred. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Fought about it ! 
 
 Shakspeare. As your honor recollects. Not but on other 
 occasions he would have fought no less bravely for the queen. 
 
 Sir Thomas. We must get thee through, were it only for 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 89 
 
 thy memory, — the most precious gift among the mental powers 
 that Providence hath bestowed upon us. I had half- forgotten 
 the thing myself. Thou mayest in time take thy satchel for 
 London, and aid good old Master Holingshed. We must clear 
 thee, Will ! I am slow to surmise that there is blood upon 
 thy hands ! 
 
 — His worship's choler had all gone down again ; and he sat 
 as cool and comfortable as a man sitteth to be shaved. Then 
 called he upon Euseby Treen, and said, "■ Euseby Treen, tell 
 us whether thou observedst anything unnoticed or unsaid by 
 the last witness." 
 
 Treen. One thing only, sir. When they had passed the 
 water, an owlet hooted after them ; and methought if they 
 had any fear of God before their eyes they would have turned 
 back, he cried so lustily. 
 
 Shakspeare. Sir, I cannot forbear to take the owlet out of 
 your mouth. He knocks them all on the head like so many 
 mice. Likely story ! One fellow hears him cry lustily, the 
 other doth not hear him at all. 
 
 Carnaby. Not hear him ! A body might have heard him 
 at Barford or Sherbourne. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Why didst not name him? Canst not an- 
 swer me? 
 
 Carnaby. He doubted whether punt were punt ; I doubted 
 whether owlet were owlet, after Lucifer was away from the 
 roll-call. We say " speak the truth and shame the Devil ; " 
 but shaming him is one thing, your honor, and facing him 
 another ! I have heard owlets, but never owlet like him. 
 
 Shakspeare. The Lord be praised ! All, at last, a-running 
 to my rescue. Owlet, indeed ! Your worship may have re- 
 membered in an ancient book, — indeed, what book is so 
 ancient that your worship doth not remember it ? — a book 
 printed by Dr Faustus. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Before he dealt with the Devil ? 
 
 Shakspeare. Not long before ; it being the very book that 
 made the Devil think it worth his while to deal with him. 
 
 Sir Thomas. What chapter thereof wouldst thou recall unto 
 my recollection ? 
 
 Shakspeare. That concerning owls, with the grim print 
 afore it. Dr. Faustus, the wise doctor, who knew other than 
 
190 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 owls and owlets, knew the tempter in that form. Faustus 
 was not your man for fancies and figments ; and he tells us 
 that to his certain knowledge it was verily an owl's face 
 that whispered so much mischief in the ear of our first 
 parent. 
 
 "One plainly sees it," quoth Dr. Faustus, "under that 
 gravity which in human life we call dignity, but of which we 
 read nothing in the Gospel. We despise the hangman, we de- 
 test the hanged ; and yet, saith Duns Scotus, could we turn 
 aside the heavy curtain, or stand high enough a-tiptoe to peep 
 through its chinks and crevices, we should perhaps find these 
 two characters to stand justly among the most innocent in the 
 drama. He who blinketh the eyes of the poor wretch about 
 to die doeth it out of mercy ; those who preceded him, bidding 
 him in the garb of justice to shed the blood of his fellow-man, 
 had less or none. So they hedge well their own grounds, what 
 care they? For this do they catch at stakes and thorns, at 
 quick and rotten — " 
 
 Here Master Silas interrupted the discourse of the Devil's 
 own doctor, delivered and printed by him before he was the 
 Devil's, to which his worship had listened very attentively and 
 delightedly. But Master Silas could keep his temper no longer, 
 and cried fiercely, " Seditious serraonizer ! hold thy peace, or 
 thou shalt answer for 't before convocation ! " 
 
 Sir Thomas. Silas, thou dost not approve then the doctrine 
 of this Dr. Duns ? 
 
 Sir Silas. Heretical rabbi ! 
 
 Shakspeare. If two of a trade can never agree, yet surely 
 two of a name may. 
 
 Sir Silas. Who dares call me heretical ; who dares call me 
 rabbi ; who dares call me Scotus ? Spider ! spider ! yea, thou 
 hast one corner left. I espy thee, and my broom shall reach 
 thee yet. 
 
 Shakspeare. I perceive that Master Silas doth verily beheve 
 I have been guilty of suborning the witnesses, at least the last, 
 the best man (if any difference) of the two. No, sir, no. If 
 my family and friends have united their wits and money for 
 this purpose, be the crime of perverted justice on their heads ! 
 They injure whom they intended to serve. Improvident men 
 (if the young may speak thus of the elderly) ! could they im- 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 19I 
 
 agine to themselves that your worship was to be hoodwinked 
 and led astray? 
 
 Sir Thomas. No man shall ever dare to hoodwink me, to 
 lead me astray, — no, nor lead me anywise. Powerful defence ! 
 Heyday ! Sit quiet. Master Treen ! Euseby Treen, dost hear 
 me? Clench thy fist again, sirrah, and I clap thee in the 
 stocks. Joseph Carnaby, do not scratch thy breast nor thy 
 pate before me. 
 
 — Now, Joseph had not only done that in his wrath, but 
 had unbuckled his leathern garter, fit instrument for strife 
 and blood, and peradventure would have smitten, had not 
 the knight, with magisterial authority, interposed. 
 
 His worship said unto him gravely, "Joseph Carnaby, 
 Joseph Carnaby, hast thou never read the words. Put up thy 
 sword? " 
 
 "Subornation! your worship," cried Master Joe. "The 
 fellow hath ne'er a shilling in leather or till, and many must go 
 to suborn one like me," 
 
 " I do believe it of thee," said Sir Thomas ; " but patience, 
 man ! patience ! he rather tended toward exculpating thee. Ye 
 have far to walk for dinner ; ye may depart." 
 
 They went accordingly. 
 
 Then did Sir Thomas say, " These are hot men, Silas." 
 
 And Master Silas did reply unto him, " There are brands that 
 would set fire to the bulrushes in the mill-pool. I know these 
 twain for quiet folks, having coursed with them over Wincott." 
 
 Sir Thomas then said unto Wilham, " It behooveth thee to 
 stand clear of yon Joseph, unless when thou mayest call to thy 
 aid the Matthew Atterend thou speakest of. He did then fight 
 valiantly, eh? " 
 
 Shakspeare. His cause fought valiantly ; his fist but seconded 
 it. He won, — proving the golden words to be no property of 
 our lady's, although her Highness hath never disclaimed them. 
 
 Sir Thomas. What art thou saying? 
 
 Shakspeare. So I heard from a preacher at Oxford, who had 
 preached at Easter in the chapel-royal of Westminster. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Thou ! why how could that happen ? Oxford ! 
 chapel-royal ! 
 
 Shakspeare. And to whom I said (your worship will for- 
 give my forwardness), " I have the honor, sir, to live within two 
 
192 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 measured miles of the very Sir Thomas Lucy who spake that ; " 
 and I vow I said it without any hope or beUef that he would 
 invite me, as he did, to dine with him thereupon. 
 
 Sir Thomas. There be nigh upon three miles betwixt this 
 house and Stratford bridge-end. 
 
 Shakspeare. I dropped a mile in my pride and exultation, 
 God forgive me ! I would not conceal my fault. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Wonderful ! that a preacher so learned as to 
 preach before majesty in the chapel-royal should not have 
 caught thee tripping over a whole lawful mile, a good third of 
 the distance between my house and J;he cross-roads. This is 
 incomprehensible in a scholar. 
 
 Shakspeare. God willed that he should become my teacher, 
 and in the bowels of his mercy hid my shame. 
 
 Sir Thomas. How camest thou into the converse of such 
 eminent and ghostly men? 
 
 Shakspeare. How, indeed ! Everything against me. 
 
 — He sighed and entered into a long discourse, which Mas- 
 ter Silas would at sundry times have interrupted, but that Sir 
 Thomas more than once frowned upon him, even as he had 
 frowned heretofore on young Will, who thus began and con- 
 tinued his narration : — 
 
 " Hearing the preacher preach at St. Mary's (for being about, 
 my father's business on Saturday, and not choosing to be a- 
 horseback on Sundays, albeit time-pressed, I footed it to Ox- 
 ford for my edification on the Lord's day, leaving the sorrel 
 with Master Hal Webster of the Tankard and Unicorn) , — hear- 
 ing him preach, as I was saying, before the University in St. 
 Mary's church, and hearing him use moreover the very words 
 that Matthew fought about, I was impatient (God forgive me !) 
 for the end and consummation, and I thought I never should 
 hear those precious words that ease every man's heart, ' Now, 
 to conclude.' However, come they did. I hurried out among 
 the foremost, and thought the congratulations of the other 
 doctors and dons would last forever. He walked sharply off, 
 and few cared to keep his pace, for they are lusty men mostly, 
 and spiteful bad women had breathed ^ in the faces of some 
 among them, or the gowns had got between their legs. For 
 
 1 In that age there was prevalent a sort of cholera, on which Fracas- 
 torius, half a century before, wrote a Latin poem, employing the graceful 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 93 
 
 my part, I was not to be balked ; so, tripping on aside him, I 
 looked in his face askance. Whether he misgave, or how, he 
 turned his eyes downward. No matter, have him I would. I 
 licked my lips and smacked them loud and smart, and scarcely 
 venturing to nod, I gave my head such a sort of motion as dace 
 and roach give an angler's quill when they begin to bite. And 
 this fairly hooked him. 
 
 " 'Young gentleman,' said he, 'where is your gown? ' 
 
 " ' Reverend sir,' said I, ' I am unworthy to wear one.' 
 
 " ' A proper youth, nevertheless, and mightily well spoken ! ' 
 he was pleased to say. 
 
 " ' Your reverence hath given me heart, which failed me,' 
 was my reply. 'Ah, your reverence, those words about the 
 Devil were spicy words ; but under favor, I do know the brook- 
 side they sprang and flowered by. 'T is just where it runs into 
 Avon ; 't is called Hog-brook.' 
 
 " ' Right,' quoth he, putting his hand gently on my shoulder ; 
 ' but if I had thought it needful to say so in my sermon, I should 
 have affronted the seniors of the University, since many claim 
 them, and some peradventure would fain transpose them into 
 higher places, and giving up all right and title to them, would 
 accept in lieu thereof the poor recompense of a mitre.' 
 
 "I wished (unworthy wish for a Sunday!) I had Matthew 
 Atterend in the midst of them. He would have given them 
 skulls mitre-fashioned, if mitres are cloven now as we see them 
 on ancient monuments. Matt is your milliner for gentles, who 
 think no more harm of purloining rich saws in a mitre than 
 lane-born boys do of embezzling hazel-nuts in a woollen cap. 
 I did not venture to expound or suggest my thoughts ; but 
 feeling my choler rise higher and higher, I craved permission 
 to make my obeisance and depart. 
 
 " 'Where dost thou lodge, young man? ' said the preacher. 
 
 nymphs of Homer and Hesiod, somewhat disguised, in the drudgery of 
 pounding certain barks and minerals. An article in the Impeachment of 
 Cardinal Wolsey accuses him of breathing in the king's face, knowing 
 that he was affected with this cholera. It was a great assistant to the 
 Reformation, by removing some of the most vigorous champions that op- 
 posed it. In the Holy College it was followed by the sweating sickness, 
 which thinned it very sorely; and several even of God's vicegerents were 
 laid under tribulation by it. Among the chambers of the Vatican it hung 
 for ages, and it crowned the labors of Pope Leo XII., of blessed memory, 
 with a crown somewhat uneasy. 
 
 13 
 
194 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 " 'At the public,' said I, 'where my father customarily lodg- 
 eth. There too is a mitre of the old fashion, swinging on the 
 sign-post in the middle of the street.' 
 
 '"Respectable tavern enough,' quoth the reverend doctor; 
 * and worthy men do turn in there, even quality, — Master 
 Davenant, Master Powel, Master Whorwood, aged and grave 
 men. But taverns are Satan's chapels, and are always well 
 attended on the Lord's day, to twit him. Hast thou no friend 
 in such a city as Oxford ? ' 
 
 " ' Only the landlady of the Mitre,' said I. 
 
 " ' A comely woman,' quoth he, ' but too young for business 
 by half. Stay thou with me to-day, and fare frugally, but safely. 
 What may thy name be, and where is thy abode ? ' 
 
 " ' William Shakspeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, at your 
 service, sir.' 
 
 " ' And welcome,' said he ; ' thy father ere now hath bought 
 our college wool. A truly good man we ever found him ; and 
 I doubt not he hath educated his son to follow him in his 
 paths. There is in the blood of man, as in the blood of 
 animals, that which giveth the temper and disposition. These 
 require nurture and culture. But what nurture will turn flint- 
 stones into garden mould, or what culture rear cabbages in the 
 quarries of Hedington Hill ? To be well-bom is the greatest of 
 all God's primary blessings, young man, and there are many 
 well-born among the poor and needy. Thou art not of the 
 indigent and destitute, who have great temptations ; thou art 
 not of the wealthy and affluent, who have greater still. God 
 hath placed thee, WiUiam Shakspeare, in that pleasant island, 
 on one side whereof are the sirens, on the other the harpies, but 
 inhabiting the coasts on the wider continent, and unable to make 
 their talons felt or their voices heard by thee. Unite with me in 
 prayer and thanksgiving for the blessings thus vouchsafed. We 
 must not close the heart when the finger of God would touch it. 
 Enough, if thou sayest only. My soul, praise thou the Lord ! ' " 
 
 Sir Thomas said "Amen ! " Master Silas was mute for the 
 moment, but then quoth he, "I can say Amen too, in the 
 proper place." 
 
 The knight of Charlecote, who appeared to have been much 
 taken with this conversation, then interrogated Willy : " What 
 further might have been thy discourse with the doctor, — or 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 95 
 
 did he discourse at all at trencher-time? Thou must have 
 been very much abashed to sit down at table with one who 
 weareth a pure lamb-skin across his shoulder, and moreover 
 a pink hood." 
 
 Shakspeare. Faith ! was I, your honor, and could neither 
 utter nor gulp. 
 
 Sir Thomas. These are good signs. Thou hast not lost 
 all grace. 
 
 Shakspeare. With the encouragement of Dr. Glaston — 
 
 Sir Thomas. And was it Dr. Glaston? 
 
 Shakspeare. Said I not so? 
 
 Sir Thomas. The learnedst clerk in Christendom, — a very 
 Friar Bacon ! The pope offered a hundred marks in Latin to 
 who should eviscerate or evirate him (poisons very potent, 
 whereat the Italians are handy), so apostolic and desperate 
 a doctor is Dr. Glaston, — so acute in his quiddities, and so 
 resolute in his bearing ! He knows the dark arts, but stands 
 aloof from them. Prythee, what were his words unto thee ? 
 
 Shakspeare. Manna, sir, manna ! pure from the desert ! 
 
 Sir Thomas. Ay, but what spake he ; for most sermons are 
 that, and likewise many conversations after dinner? 
 
 Shakspeare. He spake of the various races and qualities of 
 men, as before stated, but chiefly on the elect and reprobate, 
 and how to distinguish and know them. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Did he go so far? 
 
 Shakspeai^e. He told me that by such discussion he should 
 say enough to keep me constantly out of evil company. 
 
 Sir Thomas. See there, see there ! and yet thou art come 
 before me ! Can nothing warn thee ? 
 
 Shakspeare. I dare not dissemble nor feign nor hold aught 
 back, although it be to my confusion. As well may I speak 
 at once the whole truth ; for your worship could find it out if 
 I abstained. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Ay, that I should indeed, and shortly. But, 
 come now, I am sated of thy follies and roguish tricks, and 
 yearn after the sound doctrine of that pious man. What ex- 
 pounded the grave Glaston upon signs and tokens whereby ye 
 shall be known? 
 
 Shakspeare. Wonderful things, — things beyond belief ! 
 "There be certain men," quoth he — 
 
196 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Sir Thomas. He began well. This promises. But why 
 canst not thou go on? 
 
 Shakspeare. " There be certain men who rubbing one comer 
 of the eye do see a peacock's feather at the other, and even fire. 
 We know, William, what that fire is, and whence it cometh. 
 Those wicked men, WiUiam, all have their marks upon them, 
 be it only a corn or a wart or a mole or a hairy ear or a 
 toe-nail turned inward. Sufficient, and more than sufficient ! 
 He knoweth his own by less tokens. There is not one of 
 them that doth not sweat at some secret sin committed, or 
 some inclination toward it unsnaffied. Certain men are there 
 likewise who venerate so little the glorious works of the Crea- 
 tor that I myself have known them to sneeze at the sun. 
 Sometimes it was against their will, and they would gladly 
 have checked it had they been able ; but they were forced to 
 show what they are. In our carnal state we say. What is one 
 against numbers? In another, we shall truly say. What are 
 numbers against one?" 
 
 — Sir Thomas did ejaculate, "Amen ! Amen ! " And then 
 his lips moved silently, piously, and quickly; and then said 
 he, audibly and loudly, " And make us at last true Israelites ! " 
 After which he turned to young Willy, and said anxiously, " Hast 
 thou more, lad? Give us it while the Lord strengtheneth." 
 
 " Sir," answered Willy, " although I thought it no trouble 
 on my return to the Mitre to write down every word I could 
 remember, and although few did then escape me, yet at this 
 present I can bring to mind but scanty sentences, and those so 
 stray and out of order that they would only prove my incapacity 
 for sterling wisdom, and my incontinence of spiritual treasure." 
 
 Sir Thomas. Even that sentence hath a twang of the doctor 
 in it,. Nothing is so sweet as humility. The mountains may 
 descend, but the valleys, cannot rise. Every man should know 
 himself. Come, repeat what thou canst. I would fain have 
 three or four more heads. 
 
 Shakspeare. I know not whether I can give your worship 
 more than one other. Let me try. It was when Dr. Glaston 
 was discoursing on the protection the wise and powerful should 
 afford to the ignorant and weak : — 
 
 " In the earlier ages of mankind, your Greek and Latin 
 authors inform you, there went forth sundry worthies, men of 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 97 
 
 might to deliver, not wandering damsels, — albeit for those 
 likewise they had stowage, — but low-conditioned men, who fell 
 under the displeasure of the higher, and groaned in thraldom 
 and captivity. And these mighty ones were believed to have 
 done such services to poor humanity that their memory grew 
 greater than they, as shadows do than substances at day-fall. 
 And the sons and grandsons of the delivered did laud and 
 magnify those glorious names ; and some in gratitude, and 
 some in tribulation, did ascend the hills, which appeared unto 
 them as altars bestrewn with flowers and herbage for Heaven's 
 acceptance. And many did go far into the quiet groves, under 
 lofty trees, looking for whatever was mightiest and most pro- 
 tecting ; and in such places did they cry aloud unto the mighty, 
 who had left them, ' Return, return ! help us, help us ! be 
 blessed ! forever blessed ! " 
 
 " Vain men ! but, had they stayed there, not evil. Out of 
 gratitude, purest gratitude, rose idolatry. For the Devil sees 
 the fairest, and soils it. 
 
 " In these our days, methinks, whatever other sins we may 
 fall into, such idolatry is the least dangerous. For neither on 
 the one side is there much disposition for gratitude, nor on the 
 other much zeal to deliver the innocent and oppressed. Even 
 this deliverance, although a merit and a high one, is not the 
 highest. Forgiveness is beyond it. Forgive, or ye shall not 
 be forgiven. This ye may do every day ; for if ye find not 
 offences, ye feign them, — and surely ye may remove your own 
 work, if ye may remove another's. To rescue requires more 
 thought and wariness : learn then the easier lesson first. After- 
 ward, when ye rescue any from another's violence, or from his 
 own (which oftentimes is more dangerous, as the enemies are 
 within not only the penetrals of his house but of his heart) , 
 bind up his wounds before ye send him on his way. Should 
 ye at any time overtake the erring, and resolve to deliver him 
 up, I will tell you whither to conduct him. Conduct him to 
 his Lord and Master, whose household he hath left. It is 
 better to consign him to Christ his Saviour than to man his 
 murderer; it is better to bid him live than to bid him die. 
 The one word our Teacher and Preserver said, the other our 
 enemy and destroyer. Bring him back again, the stray, the 
 lost one ; bring him back, not with clubs and cudgels, not with 
 
198 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 halberts and halters, but generously and gently, and with the 
 linking of the arm. In this posture shall God above smile 
 upon ye ; in this posture of yours he shall recognize again his 
 beloved Son upon earth. Do ye likewise, and depart in peace." 
 
 — WiUiam had ended, and there was silence in the hall for 
 some time after, when Sir Thomas said : " He spake unto 
 somewhat mean persons, who may do it without disparage- 
 ment. I look for authority, I look for doctrine, and find none 
 yet. If he could not have drawn us out a thread or two from 
 the coat of an apostle, he might have given us a smack of 
 Augustine, or a sprig of Basil. Our older sermons are headier 
 than these. Master Silas ; our new beer is the sweeter and 
 clammier, and wants more spice. The doctor hath seasoned 
 his with pretty wit enough (to do him justice), which in a 
 sermon is never out of place ; for if there be the bane, there 
 likewise is the antidote. What dost thou think about it, 
 Master Silas?" 
 
 Sir Silas. I would not give ten farthings for ten folios of 
 such sermons. 
 
 Shakspeare. These words, Master Silas, will oftener be 
 quoted than any others of thine, but rarely (do I suspect) as 
 applicable to Dr. Glaston. I must stick unto his gown. I 
 must declare that, to my poor knowledge, many have been 
 raised to the bench of bishops for less wisdom, and worse, than 
 is contained in the few sentences I have been commanded by 
 authority to recite. No disparagement to anybody ! I know. 
 Master Silas, and multitudes bear witness, that thou above 
 most art a dead hand at a sermon. 
 
 Sir Silas. Touch my sermons, wilt dare? 
 
 Shakspeare. Nay, Master Silas, be not angered: it is 
 courage enough to hear them. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Now, Silas, hold thy peace, and rest con- 
 tented. He hath excused himself unto thee, throwing in a 
 compliment far above his station, and not unworthy of Rome 
 or Florence. I did not think him so ready. Our Warwick- 
 shire lads are fitter for football than courtesies ; and, sooth to 
 say, not only the inferior. 
 
 — His worship turned from Master Silas toward William, 
 and said, "Brave Willy, thou hast given us our bitters; we 
 are ready now for anything solid. What hast left?" 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. I99 
 
 Shakspeare. Little or nothing, sir. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Well, give us that little or nothing. 
 
 — William Shakspeare was obedient to the commands of Sir 
 Thomas, who had spoken thus kindly unto him, and had deigned 
 to cast at him from his " lordly dish " (as the Psalmist hath it) 
 a fragment of facetiousness. 
 
 Shakspeare. Alas, sir ! may I repeat it without offence, it 
 not being doctrine but admonition, and meant for me only? 
 
 Sir Thomas. Speak it the rather for that. 
 
 Then did William give utterance to the words of the preacher, 
 not indeed in his sermon at St. Mary's, but after dinner : — 
 
 " Lust seizeth us in youth, ambition in midlife, avarice in 
 old age ; but vanity and pride are the besetting sins that drive 
 the angels from our cradle, pamper us with luscious and most 
 unwholesome food, ride our first stick with us, mount our first 
 horse with us, wake with us in the morning, dream with us in 
 the night, and never at any time abandon us. In this world, 
 beginning with pride and vanity, we are delivered over from 
 tormentor to tormentor, until the worst tormentor of all taketh 
 absolute possession of us forever, seizing us at the mouth of 
 the grave, enchaining us in his own dark dungeon, standing at 
 the door, and laughing at our cries. But the Lord, out of his 
 infinite mercy, hath placed in the hand of every man the helm 
 to steer his course by, pointing it out with his finger, and 
 giving him strength as well as knowledge to pursue it. 
 
 " William, William ! there is in the moral straits a current 
 from right to wrong, but no reflux from wrong to right, — for 
 which destination we must hoist our sails aloft and ply our oars 
 incessantly, or night and the tempest will overtake us, and 
 we shall shriek out in vain from the billows, and irrecoverably 
 sink." 
 
 "Amen!" cried Sir Thomas most devoutly, sustaining his 
 voice long and loud. " Open that casement, good Silas ; the 
 day is sultry for the season of the year ; it approacheth unto 
 noontide. The room is close, and those blue flies do make a 
 strange hubbub." 
 
 Shakspeare. In troth do they, sir; they come from the 
 kitchen, and do savor woundily of roast goose ! And, me- 
 thinks — 
 
 Sir Thomas. What bethinkest thou? 
 
200 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Shakspeare. The fancy of a moment, — a light and vain 
 one. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Thou reUevest me ; speak it. 
 
 Shakspeare. How could the creatures cast their coarse rank 
 odor thus far, even into your presence ? A noble and spacious 
 hall ! Charlecote, in my mind, beats Warwick Castle, and 
 challenges Kenilworth. 
 
 Sir Thomas. The hall is well enough, — I must say it is a 
 noble hall, a hall for a queen to sit down in. And I stuffed an 
 arm-chair with horse-hair on purpose, feathers over it, swan- 
 down over them again, and covered it with scarlet cloth of 
 Bruges, five crowns the short ell. But her Highness came not 
 hither ; she was stopped short ; she had a tongue in her ear. 
 
 Shakspeare. Where all is spring, all is buzz and murmur. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Quaint and solid as the best yew-hedge ! I 
 marvel at thee. A knight might have spoken it under favor. 
 They stopped her at Warwick — to see what ? two old towers 
 that don't match ! ^ Charlecote Hall, I could have told her 
 sweet Highness, was built by those Lucies who came over with 
 Julius Csesar and William the Conqueror, with cross and scal- 
 lop-shell on breast and beaver. But, honest Willy — 
 
 Such were the very words ; I wrote them down with two 
 signs in the margent, — one a mark of admiration, as thus ( ! ) ; 
 the other of interrogation (so we call it), as thus (? ). 
 
 " But, honest Willy, I would fain hear more," quoth the 
 knight, " about the learned Dr. Glaston. He seemeth to be a 
 man after God's own heart." 
 
 Shakspeare. Ay is he ! Never doth he sit down to dinner 
 but he readeth first a chapter of the Revelation; and if he 
 tasteth a pound of butter at Carfax, he saith a grace long 
 
 enough to bring an appetite for a baked bull's zle.^ If 
 
 this be not after God's own heart, I know not what is. 
 
 1 Sir Thomas seems to have been jealous of these two towers, certainly 
 the finest in England. If Warwick Castle could borrow the windows 
 from Kenilworth, it would be complete. 
 
 2 Another untoward blot I but leaving no doubt of the word. The 
 only doubt is, whether he meant the mtizzle of the animal itself or one 
 of those leathern muzzles which are often employed to coerce the vio- 
 lence of animals. In besieged cities men have been reduced to such 
 extremities. But the muzzle in this place would more properly be 
 called the blinker, which is often put upon bulls in pastures when they 
 are vicious. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 201 
 
 Sir Thomas. I would fain confer with him, but that Oxford 
 lieth afar off, — a matter of thirty miles, I hear. I might in- 
 deed write unto him ; but our Warwickshire pens are mighty 
 broad-nibbed, and there is a something in this plaguy ink of 
 ours sadly ropy. 
 
 " I fear there is," quoth Willy. 
 
 " And I should scorn," continued his worship, " to write 
 otherwise than in a fine Italian character, to the master of a 
 college near in dignity to knighthood." 
 
 Shakspeare. Worshipful sir, is there no other way of com- 
 municating but by person, or writing, or messages ? 
 
 Sir Thomas. I will consider and devise. At present I can 
 think of none so satisfactory. 
 
 — And now did the great clock over the gateway strike ; and 
 Bill Shakspeare did move his lips, even as Sir Thomas had 
 moved his erewhile in ejaculating. And when he had wagged 
 them twice or thrice after the twelve strokes of the clock were 
 over, again he ejaculated with voice also, saying, " Mercy upon 
 us ! how the day wears ! Twelve strokes ! Might I retire, 
 please your worship, into the chapel for about three quarters 
 of an hour, and perform the service ^ as ordained ? " 
 
 Before Sir Thomas could give him leave or answer, did Sir 
 Silas cry aloud, " He would purloin the chalice, worth forty- 
 eight shillings, and melt it down in the twinkling of an eye, he 
 is so crafty." 
 
 But the knight was more reasonable, and said, reprovingly, 
 " There now, Silas, thou talkest widely, and verily in malice, 
 if there be any in thee." 
 
 "Try him," answered Master Silas; "I don't kneel where 
 he does. Could he have but his wicked will of me he would 
 chop my legs off, as he did the poor buck's." 
 
 Sir Thomas. No, no, no ! he hath neither guile nor revenge 
 in him. We may let him have his way, now that he hath taken 
 the right one. 
 
 Sir Silas. Popery, sheer popery, strong as hartshorn ! 
 Your papists keep these outlandish hours for their Masses and 
 
 1 Let not this countenance the opinion that Shakspeare was a Roman 
 Catholic. His contempt of priests may have originated from the unfair- 
 ness of Silas. Friars he treats kindly, perhaps in return for somewhat 
 less services than Friar Lawrence's to Romeo. 
 
202 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 mummery. Surely we might let God alone at twelve o'clock ! 
 Have we no bowels? 
 
 Shakspeare. Gracious sir, I do not urge it ; and the time is 
 now past by some minutes. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Art thou popishly inclined, William ? 
 
 Shakspeare. Sir, I am not popishly inclined ; I am not in- 
 clined to pay tribute of coin or understanding to those who 
 rush forward with a pistol at my breast, crying, " Stand, or you 
 are a dead man ! " I have but one guide in faith, a powerful, 
 an almighty one. He will not suffer to waste away and vanish 
 the faith for which he died. He hath chosen in all countries 
 pure hearts for its depositaries ; and I would rather take it 
 from a friend and neighbor, intelligent and righteous and re- 
 jecting lucre, than from some foreigner educated in th^ pride 
 of cities or in the moroseness of monasteries, who sells me what 
 Christ gave me, — his own flesh and blood. I can repeat by 
 heart what I read above a year agone, albeit I cannot bring to 
 mind the title of the book in which I read it. These are the 
 words : — 
 
 "The most venal and sordid of all the superstitions that 
 have swept and darkened our globe may indeed, like African 
 locusts, have consumed the green corn in very extensive re- 
 gions, and may return periodically to consume it; but the 
 strong unwearied laborer who sowed it hath alway sown it in 
 other places less exposed to such devouring pestilences. 
 Those, cunning men who formed to themselves the gorgeous 
 plan of universal dominion were aware that they had a better 
 chance of establishing it than brute ignorance or brute force 
 could supply, and that soldiers and their paymasters were sub- 
 ject to other and powerfuller fears than the transitory ones of 
 war and invasion. What they found in heaven they seized ; 
 what they wanted they forged. 
 
 " And so long as there is vice and ignorance in the world, so 
 long as fear is a passion, their dominion will prevail ; but their 
 dominion is not, and never shall be, universal. Can we 
 wonder that it is so general ? Can we wonder that anything is 
 wanting to give it authority and effect, when every learned, 
 every prudent, every powerful, every ambitious man in Europe 
 for above a thousand years united in the league to consoli- 
 date it? 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 203 
 
 " The old dealers in the shambles, where Christ's body is 
 exposed for sale in convenient marketable slices, have not 
 covered with blood and filth the whole pavement. Beautiful 
 usages are remaining still, kindly affections, radiant hopes, and 
 ardent aspirations ! 
 
 " It is a comfortable thing to reflect — as they do, and as 
 we may do unblamably — that we are uplifting to our Guide 
 and Maker the same incense of the heart, and are uttering the 
 very words, which our dearest friends in all quarters of the 
 earth, nay in heaven itself, are oifering to the throne of grace 
 at the same moment. 
 
 "Thus are we together through the immensity of space. 
 What are these bodies ? Do they unite us ? No ; they keep 
 us apart and asunder even while we touch. Realms and 
 oceans, worlds and ages, open before two spirits bent on 
 heaven. What a choir surrounds us when we resolve to live 
 imitedly and harmoniously in Christian faith ! " 
 
 Sir Thomas. Now, Silas, what sayest thou? 
 
 Sir Silas. Ignorant fool ! 
 
 Shakspeare. Ignorant fools are bearable. Master Silas; 
 your wise ones are the worst. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Prythee no bandying of loggerheads. 
 
 Shakspeare, — 
 
 Or else what mortal man shall say 
 Whose shins may suffer in the fray "i 
 
 Sir Thomas. Thou reasonest aptly and timest well. And 
 surely being now in so rational and religious a frame of mind, 
 thou couldst recall to memory a section, or head or two, of 
 the sermon holden at St. Mary's. It would do thee and us as 
 much good as " Lighten our darkness," or " Forasmuch as it 
 hath pleased ; " and somewhat less than three quarters of an 
 hour (may-be less than one quarter) sufficeth. 
 
 Sir Silas. Or he hangs without me. I am for dinner in 
 half the time. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Silas, Silas ! he hangeth not with thee or 
 without thee. 
 
 Sir Silas. He thinketh himself a clever fellow; but he 
 (look ye) is the cleverest that gets off. 
 
 "I hold quite the contrary," quoth Will Shakspeare, winking 
 
204 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 at Master Silas, from the comfort and encouragement he had 
 just received touching the hanging. 
 
 And Master Silas had his answer ready, and showed that he 
 was more than a match for poor Willy in wit and poetry. He 
 answered thus : — 
 
 " If winks are wit, 
 Who wanteth it ? 
 
 Thou hadst other bolts to kill bucks withal. In wit, sirrah, 
 thou art a mere child." 
 
 Shakspeare. Little dogs are jealous of children, great ones 
 fondle them. 
 
 Sir Thomas. An that were written in the "Apocrypha," 
 in the very teeth of Bel and the Dragon, it could not be truer. 
 I have witnessed it with my own eyes, over and over. 
 
 Sir Silas. He will take this for wit likewise, now the arms 
 of Lucy do seal it. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Silas, they may stamp wit, they may further 
 wit, they may send wit into good company, but not make it. 
 
 Shakspeare. Behold my wall of defence ! 
 
 Sir Si/as. An thou art for walls, I have one for thee from 
 Oxford, pithy and apposite, sound and solid, and trimmed up 
 becomingly, as a collar of brawn with a crown ,of rosemary, or 
 a boar's head with a lemon in the mouth. 
 
 Shakspeare. Egad, Master Silas ! those are your walls for 
 lads to climb over, an they were higher than Babel's. 
 
 Sir Silas. Have at thee ! 
 
 Thou art a wall 
 To make the ball 
 Rebound from. 
 
 Thou hast a back 
 For beadle's crack 
 
 To sound from, to sound from. 
 
 The foolishest dolts are the ground-plot of the most wit, as the 
 idlest rogues are of the most industry. Even thou hast brought 
 wit down from Oxford. And before a thief is hanged Parha- 
 ment must make laws, attorneys must engross them, printers 
 stamp and publish them, hawkers cry them, judges expound 
 them, juries weigh and measure them with offences, then execu- 
 tioners carry them into effect. The farmer hath already sown the 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 20$ 
 
 hemp, the rope-maker hath twisted it ; sawyers saw the timber, 
 carpenters tack together the shell, grave-diggers delve the earth. 
 And all this truly for fellows like unto thee ! 
 
 Shakspeare. Whom a God came down from heaven to 
 save ! 
 
 Sir Tho7nas. Silas, he hangeth not. William, I must 
 have the heads of the sermon, six or seven of 'em ; thou hast 
 whetted my appetite keenly. How ! dost duck thy pate into 
 thy hat ? Nay, nay, that is proper and becoming at church ; we 
 need not such solemnity. Repeat unto us the setting forth at 
 St. Mary's. 
 
 — Whereupon did William Shakspeare entreat of Master Silas 
 that he would help him in his ghostly endeavors, by repeating 
 what he called the preliminary prayer, — which prayer I find no- 
 where in our ritual, and do suppose it to be one of those Latin 
 supplications used in our learned universities, now or erewhile. 
 I am afeard it hath not the approbation of the strictly or- 
 thodox, for inasmuch as Master Silas at such entreaty did 
 close his teeth against it, and with teeth thus closed did say, 
 Athanasius-wise, " Go, and be damned ! " 
 
 Bill was not disheartened, but said he hoped better, and be- 
 gan thus : " ' My brethren ! ' said the preacher, ' or rather let 
 me call you my children, — such is my age confronted with 
 yours, for the most part : my children, then, and my brethren 
 (for here are both), believe me, killing is forbidden.' " 
 
 Sir Thomas. This, not being delivered unto us from the 
 pulpit by the preacher himself, we may look into. Sensible 
 man, shrewd reasoner, what a stroke against deer-stealers ! 
 how full of truth and ruth ! Excellent discourse ! 
 
 Shakspeare. The last part was the best. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I always find it so. The softest of the cheese- 
 cake is left in the platter when the crust is eaten. He kept 
 the best bit for the last, then? He pushed it under the salt, 
 eh ? He told thee — 
 
 Shakspeare. Exactly so. 
 
 Sir Thomas. What was it? 
 
 Shakspeare. "Ye shall not kill." 
 
 Sir Thomas. How ! did he run in a circle like a hare ? 
 One of his mettle should break cover and off across the 
 country, like a fox or hart. 
 
Z06 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Shakspeare. " And yet ye kill time when ye can, and are 
 uneasy when ye cannot." 
 
 Whereupon did Sir Thomas say aside unto himself, but within 
 my hearing, " Faith and troth ! he must have had a head in at 
 the window here one day or other." 
 
 Shakspeare. " This sin crieth unto the Lord." 
 
 Sir Thomas. He was wrong there. It is not one of those 
 that cry: mortal sins cry. Surely he could not have fallen 
 into such an error ! it must be thine ; thou misunderstoodest 
 him. 
 
 Shakspeare. Mayhap, sir. A great heaviness came over 
 me ; I was oppressed in spirit, and did feel as one awakening 
 from a dream. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Godlier men than thou art do often feel the 
 right hand of the Lord upon their heads in like manner. It 
 followeth contrition, and precedeth conversion. Continue. 
 
 Shakspeare. " My brethren and children," said the teacher, 
 " whenever ye want to kill time call God to the chase, and bid 
 the angels blow the horn, and thus ye are sure to kill time to 
 your heart's content. And ye may feast another day, and 
 another after that — " 
 
 — Then said Master Silas unto me concernedly, "This is 
 the mischief- fullest of all the Devil's imps, to. talk in such wise 
 at a quarter past twelve ! " But William went straight on, not 
 hearing him : — 
 
 " — upon what ye shall in such pursuit have brought home 
 with you. Whereas, if ye go alone, or two or three together, 
 nay, even if ye go in thick and gallant company, and yet pro- 
 vide not that these be with ye, my word for it, and a power- 
 fuller word than mine, ye shall return to your supper tired and 
 jaded, and rest little when ye want to rest most." 
 
 "Hast no other head of the doctor's? " quoth Sir Thomas. 
 
 " Verily none," repUed Willy, "of the morning's discourse, 
 saving the last words of it, which, with God's help, I shall al- 
 ways remember." 
 
 " Give us them, give us them ! " said Sir Thomas. " He 
 wants doctrine, he wants authority. His are grains of millet, 
 grains for unfledged doves ; but they are sound, except the 
 crying. Deliver unto us the last words ; for the last of the 
 preacher, as of the hanged, are usually the best." 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 20/ 
 
 Then did William repeat the concluding words of the dis- 
 course, being these : " As years are running past us, let us 
 throw something on them which they cannot shake off in the 
 dust and hurry of the world, but must carry with them to 
 that great year of all, whereunto the lesser of this mortal life 
 do tend and are subservient." 
 
 Sir Thomas, after a pause, and after having bent his knee 
 under the table, as though there had been the church- cushion, 
 said unto us, " Here he spake through a glass, darkly, as 
 blessed Paul hath it." 
 
 Then turning toward Willy, ''And nothing more? " 
 
 " Nothing but the glory," quoth Willy; "at which there is 
 always such a clatter of feet upon the floor, and creaking of 
 benches, and rustling of gowns, and bustle of bonnets, and 
 justle of cushions, and dust of mats, and treading of toes, and 
 punching of elbows from the spitefuUer, that one wishes to be 
 fairly out of it, after the scramble for the peace of God is at 
 an end — " 
 
 Sir Thomas threw himself back upon his arm-chair, and ex- 
 claimed in wonderment, " How ! " 
 
 Shakspeare. — and in the midst of the service again, were it 
 possible. For nothing is painfuUer than to have the pail shaken 
 oif the head when it is brim-full of the waters of life, and we 
 are walking staidly under it. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Had the learned doctor preached again in 
 the evening, pursuing the thread of his discourse, he might per- 
 adventure have made up the deficiencies I find in him. 
 
 Shakspeare. He had not that opportunity. 
 
 Sir Thomas. The more 's the pity. 
 
 Shakspeare. The evening admonition, delivered by him 
 unto the household — 
 
 Sir Thomas. What ! and did he indeed show wind enough 
 for that ? Prythee out with it, if thou didst put it into thy 
 tablets. 
 
 Shakspeare. Alack, sir ! there were so many Latin words, 
 I fear me I should be at fault in such attempt. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Fear not ; we can help thee out between us, 
 were there a dozen or a score. 
 
 Shakspeare. Bating those Latinities, I do verily think I 
 could tie up again most of the points in his doublet. 
 
208 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Sir Thomas. At him, then ! What was his bearing? 
 
 Shakspeare. In dividing his matter, he spooned out and 
 apportioned the commons in his discourse as best suited the 
 quahty, capacity, and constitution of his hearers. To those in 
 priests' orders he dehvered a sort of catechism. 
 
 Sir Silas. He catechise grown men ! He catechise men in 
 priests' orders, being no bishop, nor bishop's ordinary ! 
 
 Shakspeare. He did so ; it may be at his peril. 
 
 Sir Thomas. And what else, for catechisms are baby's 
 pap. 
 
 Shakspeare. He did not catechise, but he admonished, the 
 richer gentlemen with gold tassels for their top-knots. 
 
 Sir Siias. I thought as much. It was no better in my 
 time. Admonitions fell gently upon those gold tassels, and 
 they ripened degrees as glass and sunshine ripen cucumbers. 
 We priests, forsooth, are catechised ! The worst question to 
 any gold tasseller is, "How do you do?" Old Alma Mater 
 coaxes and would be coaxed; but let her look sharp, or 
 spectacles may be thrust upon her nose that shall make her 
 eyes water. Aristotle could make out no royal road to wis- 
 dom ; but this old woman of ours will show you one, an you 
 tip her. Tilley valley ! ^ catechise priests, indeed ! 
 
 Sir Tho}?ias. Peradventure he did it discreetly. Let us 
 examine and judge him. Repeat thou what he said unto 
 them. 
 
 Shakspeare. " Many," said he, " are ingenuous, many are 
 devout, some timidly, some strenuously; but nearly all flinch 
 and rear and kick at the slightest touch, or least inquisitive 
 suspicion of an unsound part in their doctrine. And yet, my 
 brethren, we ought rather to flinch and feel sore at our own 
 searching touch, our own serious inquisition into ourselves. 
 Let us preachers, who are sufficiently liberal in bestowing our 
 advice upon others, inquire of ourselves whether the exercise 
 of spiritual authority may not be sometimes too pleasant, tick- 
 ling our breasts with a plume from Satan's wing, and turning 
 our heads with that inebriating poison which he hath been 
 seen to instil into the very chalice of our salvation. Let us 
 ask ourselves in the closet, whether, after we have humbled 
 
 1 " Tilley valley " was the favorite adjuration of James the Second. It 
 appears in the comedies of Shakspeare. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 2O9 
 
 ourselves before God in our prayers, we never rise beyond the 
 due standard in the pulpit ; whether our zeal for the truth be 
 never over-heated by internal fires less holy; whether we 
 never grow stiffly and sternly pertinacious, at the very time 
 when we are reproving the obstinacy of others ; and whether 
 we have not frequently so acted as if we believed that opposi- 
 tion were to be relaxed and borne away by self-sufficiency and 
 intolerance. Believe me, the wisest of us have our catechism 
 to learn; and these, my dear friends, are not the only ques- 
 tions contained in it. No Christian can hate, no Christian can 
 malign; nevertheless, do we not often both hate and malign 
 those unhappy men who are insensible to God's mercies? 
 And I fear this unchristian spirit swells darkly, with all its 
 venom, in the marble of our hearts, — not because our brother 
 is insensible to these mercies, but because he is insensible to 
 our faculty of persuasion, turning a deaf ear unto our claim 
 upon his obedience, or a blind or sleepy eye upon the fountain 
 of light, whereof we deem ourselves the sacred reservoirs. 
 There is one more question at which ye will tremble when ye 
 ask it in the recesses of your souls (I do tremble at it, yet must 
 utter it) , — Whether we do not more warmly and erectly 
 stand up for God's word because it came from our mouths, 
 than because it came from his? Learned and ingenious men 
 may indeed find a solution and excuse for all these proposi- 
 tions ; but the wise unto salvation will cry, ' Forgive me, O my 
 God, if, called by thee to walk in thy way, I have not swept 
 this dust from the sanctuary ! ' " 
 
 Sir Thomas. All this, methinks, is for the behoof of clerks 
 and ministers. 
 
 Shakspeare. He taught them what they who teach others 
 should learn and practise. Then did he look toward the young 
 gentlemen of large fortune, and lastly his glances fell upon us 
 poorer folk, whom he instructed in the duty we owe to our 
 superiors. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Ay, there he had a host. 
 
 Shakspeare. In one part of his admonition he said : 
 "Young gentlemen, let not the highest of you who hear me 
 this evening be led into the delusion (for such it is) that the 
 founder of his family was originally a greater or a better man 
 than the lowest here. He willed it, and became it. He must 
 
 14 
 
2IO CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 have stood low; he must have worked hard, and with tools 
 moreover of his own invention and fashioning. He waved and 
 whistled off ten thousand strong and importunate temptations ; 
 he dashed the dice-box from the jewelled hand of Chance, the 
 cup from Pleasure's, and trod under foot the sorceries of each ; 
 he ascended steadily the precipices of Danger, and looked 
 down with intrepidity from the summit; he overawed Arro- 
 gance with Sedateness ; he seized by the horn and overleaped 
 low Violence ; and he fairly swung Fortune round. 
 
 " The very high cannot rise much higher, the very low may ; 
 the truly great must have done it. 
 
 " This is not the doctrine, my friends, of the silkenly and 
 lawnly religious ; it wears the coarse texture of the fisherman, 
 and walks uprightly and straightforward under it. I am speak- 
 ing now more particularly to you among us upon whom God 
 hath laid the encumbrances of wealth, the sweets whereof bring 
 teasing and poisonous things about you, not easily sent away. 
 What now are your pretensions under sacks of money, or your 
 enjoyments under the shade of genealogical trees? Are they 
 rational? Are they real? Do they exist at all? Strange in- 
 consistency, to be proud of having as much gold and silver 
 laid upon you as a mule hath, and yet to carry it less com- 
 posedly ! The mule is not answerable for the* conveyance and 
 discharge of his burden : you are. Stranger infatuation still, 
 to be prouder of an excellent thing done by another than by 
 yourselves, supposing any excellent thing to have actually been 
 done ; and, after all, to be more elated on his cruelties than 
 his kindnesses, — by the blood he hath spilt than by the benefits 
 he hath conferred, — and to acknowledge less obligation to a 
 well-informed and well-intentioned progenitor than to a lawless 
 and ferocious barbarian ! Would stocks and stumps, if they 
 could utter words, utter such gross stupidity? Would the 
 apple boast of his crab origin, or the peach of his prune? 
 Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors, 
 although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if 
 indeed the great in general descended from the worthy. I did 
 expect to see the day, — and although I shall not see it, it 
 must come at last, — when he shall be treated as a madman 
 or an impostor who dares to claim nobility or precedency, and 
 cannot show his family name in the history of his country. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 211 
 
 Even he who can show it, and who cannot write his own under 
 it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the im- 
 putation of degeneracy, from which the lowly and obscure are 
 exempt. 
 
 "He alone who maketh you wiser, maketh you greater; 
 and it is only by such an implement that Almighty God 
 himself effects it. When he taketh away a man's wisdom, he 
 taketh away his strength, his power over others, and over him- 
 self. What help for him then ? He may sit idly and swell his 
 spleen, saying, ' Who is this ? Who is that ? ' and at the ques- 
 tion's end the spirit of inquiry dies away in him. It would not 
 have been so if in happier hour he had said within himself, 
 ' Who am I ? What am I ? ' and had prosecuted the search in 
 good earnest. 
 
 " When we ask who this man is, or who that man is, we do 
 not expect or hope for a plain answer; we should be dis- 
 appointed at a direct, or a rational, or a kind one. We desire 
 to hear that he was of low origin, or had committed some 
 crime, or been subjected to some calamity. Whoever he be, 
 in general we disregard or despise him, unless we discover that 
 he possesseth by nature many qualities of mind and body which 
 he never brings into use, and many accessories of situation and 
 fortune which he brings into abuse every day. According to 
 the arithmetic in practice, he who makes the most idlers and 
 the most ingrates is the most worshipful. But wiser ones than 
 the scorers in this school will tell you how riches and power 
 were bestowed by Providence that generosity and mercy should 
 be exercised : for if every gift of the Almighty were distributed 
 in equal portions to every creature, less of such virtues would 
 be called into the field ; consequently there would be less of 
 gratitude, less of submission, less of devotion, less of hope, and 
 in the total, less of content." 
 
 — Here he ceased, and Sir Thomas nodded, and said, 
 " Reasonable enough ! nay, almost too reasonable ! But where 
 are the apostles? Where are the disciples? Where are the 
 saints ? Where is hell-fire ? Well, patience ! we may come to 
 it yet. Go on. Will ! " 
 
 With such encouragement before him, did Will Shakspeare 
 take breath and continue : " ' We mortals are too much accus- 
 tomed to behold our superiors in rank and station as we behold 
 
212 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 the leaves in the forest. While we stand under these leaves, — 
 our protection and refuge from heat and labor, — we see only 
 the rougher side of them, and the gloominess of the branches 
 on which they hang. In the midst of their benefits we are 
 insensible to their utility and their beauty, and appear to be 
 ignorant that if they were placed less high above us, we should 
 derive from them less advantage.' " 
 
 Sir Thomas. Ay ; envy of superiority made the angels kick 
 and run restive. 
 
 Shakspeare. May it please your worship, with all my faults, 
 I have ever borne due submission and reverence toward my 
 superiors. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Very right ! very scriptural ! But most folks 
 do that. Our duty is not fulfilled unless we bear absolute 
 veneration; unless we are ready to lay down our lives and 
 fortunes at the foot of the throne, and everything else at the 
 foot of those who administer the laws under virgin majesty. 
 
 Shakspeare. Honored sir, I am quite ready to lay down my 
 life and fortune, and all the rest of me, before that great virgin. 
 
 Sir Silas. Thy life and fortune, to wit ! What are they 
 worth ? A June cob-nut, maggot and all. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Silas, we will not repudiate nor rebuff his 
 Magdalen, that bringeth a pot of ointment. ' Rather let us 
 teach and tutor than twit. It is a tractable and conducible 
 youth, being in good company. 
 
 Sir Silas. Teach and tutor ! Hold hard, sir. These base 
 varlets ought to be taught but two things, — to bow as beseem- 
 eth them to their betters, and to hang perpendicular. We 
 have authority for it, that no man can add an inch to his 
 stature ; but by aid of the sheriff, I engage to find a chap who 
 shall add two or three to this whoreson's.-^ 
 
 Sir Thomas. Nay, nay, now, Silas ! the lad's mother was 
 always held to be an honest woman. 
 
 1 " Whoreson," if we may hazard a conjecture, means the son of a 
 woman of ill-repute. In this we are borne out by the context. It ap- 
 pears to have escaped the commentators on Shakspeare. 
 
 " Whoreson," a word of frequent occurrence in the comedies ; more 
 rarely found in the tragedies. Although now obsolete, the expression 
 proves that there were (or were believed to be) such persons formerly. 
 
 (The Editor is indebted to two learned friends for these two remarks, 
 which appear no less just than ingenious.) 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 21 3 
 
 Sir Silas. His mother may be an honest woman for me. 
 
 Shakspeare. No small privilege, by my faith, for any wo- 
 man in the next parish to thee, Master Silas ! 
 
 Sir Silas. There again ! out comes the filthy runlet from 
 the quagmire that but now lay so quiet with all its own in it. 
 
 Shakspeare. Until it was trodden on by the ass that could 
 not leap over it. These, I think, are the words of the fable. 
 
 Sir Thomas. They are so. 
 
 Sir Silas. What fable ? 
 
 Sir Thomas. Tush ! don't press him too hard ; he wants 
 not wit, but learning. 
 
 Sir Silas. He wants a rope's end ; and a rope's end is not 
 enough for him, unless we throw in the other. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Peradventure he may be an instrument, a 
 potter's clay, a type, a token. I have seen many young men, 
 and none like unto him. He is shallow, but clear; he is 
 simple, but ingenuous. 
 
 Sir Silas. Drag the ford again then ! In my mind he is as 
 deep as the big tankard ; and a mouthfal of rough burrage will 
 be the beginning and end of it. 
 
 Sir Thomas. No fear of that. Neither, if rightly reported 
 by the youngster, is there so much doctrine in the doctor as we 
 expected. He doth not dwell upon the main : he is worldly ; 
 he is wise in his generation; he says things out of his own 
 head. Silas, that can't hold ! We want props, — fulcrums, I 
 think you called 'em to the farmers ; or was it stimulii7ns ? 
 
 Sir Silas. Both very good words. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I should be mightily pleased to hear thee dis- 
 pute with that great don. 
 
 Sir Silas. I hate disputations. Saint Paul warns us against 
 them. If one wants to be thirsty, the tail of a stockfish is as 
 good for it as the head of a logician. The doctor there at 
 Oxford is in flesh and mettle ; but let him be sleek and gin- 
 gered as he may, clap me in St. Mary's pulpit, cassock me, 
 lamb-skin me, give me pink for my colors, glove me to the 
 elbow, heel-piece me half an ell high, cushion me before and 
 behind, bring me a mug of mild ale and a rasher of bacon, only 
 just to con over the text withal, — then allow me fair play, and 
 as much of my own way as he had, and the Devil take the 
 hindermost. I am his man at any time. 
 
214 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I am fain to believe it. Verily, I do think, 
 Silas, thou hast as much stuff in thee as most men. Our 
 beef and mutton at Charlecote rear other than babes and 
 sucklings. I like words taken, like thine, from black-letter 
 books. They look stiif and sterling, and as though a man 
 might dig about 'em for a week, and never loosen the lightest. 
 Thou hast alway at hand either saint or devil, as occasion 
 needeth, according to the quality of the sinner, and they never 
 come uncalled for. Moreover, Master Silas, I have observed 
 that thy hell-fire is generally lighted up iii the pulpit about the 
 dog-days. 
 
 — Then turned the worthy knight unto the youth, saying, 
 " 'Twere well for thee, William Shakspeare, if the learned doc- 
 tor had kept thee longer in his house, and had shown unto thee 
 the danger of idleness, which hath often led unto deer-stealing 
 and poetry. In thee we already know the one, although the 
 distemper hath eaten but skin-deep for the present ; and we 
 have the testimony of two burgesses on the other. The pur- 
 suit of poetry, as likewise of game, is unforbidden to persons 
 of condition." 
 
 Shakspeare. Sir, that of game is the more likely to keep 
 them in it. 
 
 Sir Tho7nas. It is the more knightly of- the two ; but 
 poetry hath also her pursuers among us. I myself, in my 
 youth, had some experience that way ; and I am fain to blush 
 at the reputation I obtained. His honor, my father, took me 
 to London at the age of twenty ; and sparing no expense in 
 my education, gave fifty shillings to one Monsieur Dubois to 
 teach me fencing and poetry in twenty lessons. In vacant 
 hours he taught us also the laws of honor, which are diff"erent 
 from ours. 
 
 In France you are unpohte unless you solicit a judge or his 
 wife to favor your cause ; and you inevitably lose it. In France 
 there is no want of honor where there is no want of courage ; 
 you may lie, but you must not hear that you lie. I asked him 
 what he thought then of lying, and he replied, — 
 
 " C'est selon." 
 
 " And suppose you should overhear the whisper? " 
 
 " Ah, parbleu ! Cela m'irrite, cela me pousse au bout.'i- 
 
 I was going on to remark that a real man of honor could less 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 215 
 
 bear to lie than to hear it ; when he cried, at the words " real 
 man of honor," " Le voiia, Monsieur, le voila ! " and gave him- 
 self such a blow on the breast as convinced me the French are 
 a brave people. 
 
 He told us that nothing but his honor was left him, but that 
 it supplied the place of all he had lost. It was discovered 
 some time afterward that Monsieur Dubois had been guilty of 
 perjury, had been a spy, and had lost nothing but a dozen or 
 two of tin patty-pans, hereditary in his family, his father hav- 
 ing been a cook on his own account. 
 
 William, it is well at thy time of life that thou shouldst 
 know the customs of far countries, particularly if it should be 
 the will of God to place thee in a company of players. Of all 
 nations in the world, the French best understand the stage. 
 If thou shouldst ever write for it (which God forbid !), copy 
 them very carefully. Murders on their stage are quite deco- 
 rous and cleanly. Few gentlemen and ladies die by violence 
 who would not have died by exhaustion. For they rant and 
 rave until their voice fails them, one after another ; and those 
 who do not die of it, die consumptive. They cannot bear to 
 see cruelty ; they would rather see any image than their own. 
 These are not my observations, but were made by Sir Everard 
 Starkeye, who likewise did remark to Monsieur Dubois that cats, 
 if you hold them up to the looking-glass, will scratch you ter- 
 ribly, and that the same fierce animal, as if proud of its cleanly 
 coat and velvety paw, doth carefully put aside what other 
 animals of more estimation take no trouble to conceal. 
 
 "Our people," said Sir Everard, "must see upon the stage 
 what they never could have imagined ; so the best men 
 in the world would earnestly take a peep of hell through a 
 chink, whereas the worser would skulk away." 
 
 Do not thou be their caterer, William. Avoid the writing of 
 comedies and tragedies. To make people laugh is uncivil, and 
 to make people cry is unkind. And what, after all, are these 
 comedies and these tragedies? They are what, for the benefit 
 of all fiiture generations, I have myself described them, — 
 
 The whimsies of wantons, and stories of dread 
 That make the stout-hearted look under the bed. 
 
 Furthermore, let me warn thee against the same on account 
 
2l6 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 of the vast charges thou must stand at. We Englishmen can- 
 not find it in our hearts to murder a man without much diffi- 
 culty, hesitation, and delay. We have little or no invention 
 for pains and penalties ; it is only our acutest lawyers who have 
 wit enough to frame them. Therefore it behooveth your tragedy 
 man to provide a rich assortment of them, in order to strike 
 the auditor with awe and wonder. And a tragedy man, in our 
 country, who cannot afford a fair dozen of stabbed males, and 
 a trifle under that mark of poisoned females, and chains enow 
 to moor a whole navy in dock, is but a scurvy fellow at the 
 best. Thou wilt find trouble in purveying these necessaries ; 
 and then must come the gimcracks for the second course, — 
 gods, goddesses, fates, furies, battles, marriages, music, and 
 the maypole. Hast thou within thee wherewithal? 
 
 " Sir," replied Billy, with great modesty, " I am most grate- 
 ful for these ripe fruits of your experience. To admit delight- 
 ful visions into my own twilight chamber is not dangerous nor 
 forbidden. Believe me, sir, he who indulges in them will ab- 
 stain from injuring his neighbor ; he will see no glory in peril, 
 and no delight in strife. The world shall never be troubled 
 by any battles and marriages of mine, and 1 desire no other 
 music and no other maypole than have lightened my heart at 
 Stratford." 
 
 Sir Thomas, finding him well- conditioned and manageable, 
 proceeded : " Although I have admonished thee of sundry and 
 insurmountable impediments, yet more are lying in the path- 
 way. We have no verse for tragedy. One in his hurry hath 
 dropped rhyme, and walketh like unto the man who wanteth the 
 lefl-leg stocking. Others can give us rhyme indeed, but can 
 hold no longer after the tenth or eleventh syllable. Now, Sir 
 Everard Starkeye, who is a pretty poet, did confess to Mon- 
 sieur Dubois the potency of the French tragic verse, which thou 
 never canst hope to bring over. 
 
 " ' I wonder, Monsieur Dubois,' said Sir Everard, ' that your 
 countrymen should have thought it necessary to transport their 
 heavy artillery into Italy. No Italian could stand a volley of 
 your heroic verses from the best and biggest pieces. With 
 these brought into action, you never could have lost the battle 
 of Pavia.' 
 
 " Now, my friend Sir Everard is not quite so good a histo- 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 21/ 
 
 rian as he is a poet ; and Monsieur Dubois took advantage of 
 him. 
 
 " ' Pardon, Monsieur Sir Everard,' said Monsieur Dubois, 
 smiling at my friend's slip, 'we did not lose the battle of 
 Pavia. We had the misfortune to lose our king, who delivered 
 himself up, as our kings always do, for the good and glory of 
 his country.' 
 
 " ' How was this ? ' said Sir Everard, in surprise. 
 
 " ' I will tell you, Monsieur Sir Everard,' said Monsieur 
 Dubois. * I had it from my own father, who fought in the 
 battle, and told my mother, word for word. The king, seeing 
 his household troops, being only one thousand strong, sur- 
 rounded by twelve regiments, the best Spanish troops, amount- 
 ing to eighteen thousand four hundred and forty-two, although 
 he doubted not of victory, yet thought he might lose many 
 brave men before the close of the day, and rode up instantly 
 to King Charles, and said, " My brother, I am loath to lose so 
 many of those brave men yonder. Whistle off youi Spanish 
 pointers, and I agree to ride home with you." And so he 
 did. But what did King Charles? Abusing French loyalty, 
 he made our Francis his prisoner — would you believe it ? — 
 and treated him worse than ever badger was treated at the 
 bottom of any paltry stable-yard, putting upon his table beer 
 and Rhenish wine and wild boar.' 
 
 " I have digressed with thee, young man," continued the 
 knight, much to the improvement of my knowledge, I do rev- 
 erentially confess, as it was of the lad's. "We will now," said 
 he, " endeavor our best to sober thee, finding that Dr. Glaston 
 hath omitted it." 
 
 " Not entirely omitted it," said William, gratefully ; " he did, 
 after dinner, all that could be done at such a time toward it. 
 The doctor could, however, speak only of the Greeks and 
 Romans, and certainly what he said of them gave me but little 
 encouragement." 
 
 Si'r Thomas. What said he? 
 
 Shakspeare. He said, " The Greeks conveyed all their wis- 
 dom into their theatre ; their stages were churches and parlia- 
 ment-houses, — but what was false prevailed over what was true. 
 They had their own wisdom, — the wisdom of the foohsh. 
 Who is Sophocles, if compared to Dr. Hammersley of Oriel ; 
 
2l8 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 or Euripides, if compared to Dr. Prichard of Jesus ? Without 
 the gospel, light is darkness ; and with it, children are giants. 
 
 "William, I need not expatiate on Greek with thee, since 
 thou knowest it not, but some crumbs of Latin are picked up 
 by the callowest beaks. The Romans had, as thou findest, 
 and have still, more taste for murder than morahty, and as 
 they could not find heroes among them, looked for gladiators. 
 Their only very high poet employed his elevation and strength 
 to dethrone and debase the Deity. They had several others, 
 who polished their language and pitched their instruments with 
 admirable skill ; several who glued over their thin and flimsy 
 gaberdines many bright feathers from the wide-spread downs 
 of Ionia and the richly cultivated rocks of Attica. 
 
 " Some of them have spoken from inspiration, for thou art 
 not to suppose that from the heathen were withheld all the 
 manifestations of the Lord. We do agree at Oxford that the 
 PoUio of Virgil is our Saviour. True, it is the dullest and 
 poorest poem that a nation not very poetical hath bequeathed 
 unto us ; and even the versification, in which this master ex- 
 celled, is wanting in fluency and sweetness. I can only account 
 for it from the weight of the subject. Two verses, which are 
 fairly worth two hundred such poems, are from another pagan ; 
 he was forced to sigh for the Church without knowing her. 
 He saith : — 
 
 ' May I gaze upon thee when my latest hour is come ! 
 May I hold thy hand when mine faileth me ! ' 
 
 This, if adumbrating the Church, is the most beautiful thought 
 that ever issued from the heart of man ; but if addressed to a 
 wanton, as some do opine, is filth from the sink, nauseating 
 and insufferable. Wilham, that which moveth the heart most 
 is the best poetry ; it comes nearest unto God, the source of 
 all power." 
 
 Sir Thomas. Yea, and he appeareth unto me to know 
 more of poetry than of divinity. Those ancients have little 
 flesh upon the body poetical, and lack the savor that sufificeth. 
 The Song of Solomon drowns all their voices ; they seem but 
 whistlers and guitar-players compared to a full-cheeked trum- 
 peter, — they standing under the eaves in some dark lane, he 
 upon a well-caparisoned stallion, tossing his mane and all his 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 219 
 
 ribbons to the sun. I doubt the doctor spake too fondly of the 
 Greeks; they were giddy creatures, WiUiam. I am loath to 
 be hard on them, but tlaey please me not. There are those 
 now living who could make them bite their nails to the quick, 
 and turn green as grass with envy. 
 
 Shakspeare. Sir, one of those Greeks, methinks, thrown 
 into the pickle-pot, would be a treasure to the house-wife's 
 young gherkins. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Simpleton ! simpleton ! but thou valuest them 
 justly. Now, attend. If ever thou shouldst hear, at Oxford or 
 London, the verses I am about to repeat, prythee do not com- 
 municate them to that fiery spirit Matt Atterend. It might not 
 be the battle of two hundreds, but two counties, — a sort of 
 York and Lancaster war, whereof I would wash my hands. 
 Listen ! 
 
 — And now did Sir Thomas clear his voice, always high and 
 sonorous, and did repeat from the stores of his memory these 
 rich and proud verses : — 
 
 " Chloe, mean men must ever make mean loves ; 
 They deal in dog-roses, but I in cloves. 
 They are just scorched enough to blow their fingers, 
 I am a phoenix downright burnt to cinders." 
 
 At which noble conceits, so far above what poor Bill had 
 ever imagined, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, 
 "The world itself must be reduced to that condition before 
 such glorious verses die ! Chloe and Clove .' Why sir, Chloe 
 wants but a v toward the tail to become the very thing ! 
 Never tell me that such matters can come about of themselves. 
 And how truly is it said that we mean men deal in dog-roses ! 
 Sir, if it were permitted me to swear on that holy Bible, I 
 would swear I never until this day heard that dog-roses were 
 our provender ; and yet did I, no longer ago than last sum- 
 mer, write, not indeed upon a dog-rose, but upon a sweet- 
 brier, what would only serve to rinse the mouth withal after 
 the clove." 
 
 Sir Thomas. Repeat the same, youth ! We may haply 
 give thee our counsel thereupon. 
 
 — Willy took heart, and lowering his voice, which hath 
 much natural mellowness, repeated these from memory : — 
 
220 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 " My brier that smelledst sweet 
 When gentle spring's first heat 
 
 Ran through thy quiet veins ; 
 Thou that wouldst injure none, 
 But wouldst be left alone, — 
 Alone thou leavest me, and nought of thine remains. 
 
 " What ! hath no poet's lyre 
 O'er thee, sweet-breathing brier, 
 
 Hung fondly, ill or well ? 
 And yet methinks with thee 
 A poet's sympathy, 
 Whether in weal or woe, in life or death, might dwell. 
 
 " Hard usage both must bear, 
 Few hands your youth will rear, 
 
 Few bosoms cherish you. 
 Your tender prime must bleed 
 Ere you are sweet ; but freed 
 From life, you then are prized. Thus prized are poets too." 
 
 Sir Thomas said, with kind encouragement, "He who be- 
 ginneth so discreetly with a dog-rose, may hope to encompass 
 a damask-rose ere he die." 
 
 Willy did now breathe freely. The commendation of a 
 knight and magistrate worked powerfully within him ; and Sir 
 Thomas said furthermore, " These short matters do not suit 
 me. Thou mightest have added some moral about life and 
 beauty ; poets never handle roses without one. But thou art 
 young, and mayest get into the train." 
 
 Willy made the best excuse he could, — and no bad one it 
 was, the knight acknowledged ; namely, that the sweet-brier 
 was not really dead, although left for dead. 
 
 " Then," said Sir Thomas, " as life and beauty would not 
 serve thy turn, thou mightest have had full enjoyment of the 
 beggar, the wayside, the thieves, and the good Samaritan ; 
 enough to tapestry the bridal chamber of an empress." 
 
 William bowed respectfully, and sighed. 
 
 " Ha ! thou hast lost them, sure enough, and it may not be 
 quite so fair to smile at thy quandary," quoth Sir Thomas. 
 
 " I did my best the first time," said Willy, " and fell short 
 the second." 
 
 " That indeed thou must have done," said Sir Thomas. 
 " It is a grievous disappointment, in the midst of our lamenta- 
 tions for the dead, to find ourselves balked. I am curious to 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 221 
 
 see how thou couldst help thyself. Don't be abashed • I am 
 ready for even worse than the last." 
 Bill hesitated, but obeyed : — 
 
 " And art thou yet alive ? 
 And shall the happy hive 
 
 Send out her youth to cull 
 Thy sweets of leaf and flower, 
 And spend the sunny hour 
 With thee, and thy faint heart with murmuring music lull ? 
 
 "Tell me what tender care. 
 Tell me what pious prayer, 
 
 Bade thee arise and live. 
 The fondest-favored bee 
 Shall whisper nought to thee 
 More loving than the song my grateful muse shall give." 
 
 Sir Thomas looked somewhat less pleased at the conclusion 
 of these verses than at the conclusion of the former ; and said 
 gravely, " Young man, methinks it is betimes that thou talkest 
 of having a muse to thyself, or even in common with others. 
 It is only great poets who have muses, — I mean to say who 
 have the right to talk in that fashion. The French, I hear, 
 Phoebus it and Muse-me it right and left ; and boggle not to 
 throw all Nine, together with mother and master, into the com- 
 pass of a dozen lines or thereabout. And your Italian can 
 hardly do without 'em in the multipKcation-table. We English- 
 men do let them in quietly, shut the door, and say nothing of 
 what passes. I have read a whole book of comedies, and ne'er 
 a muse to help the lamest." 
 
 Shakspeare. Wonderful forbearance ! I marvel how the 
 poet could get through. 
 
 Sir Thomas. By God's help. And I think we did as well 
 without 'em, for it must be an unabashable man that ever shook 
 his sides in their company. They lay heavy restraint both upon 
 laughing and crying. In the great master Virgil of Rome they 
 tell me they come in to count the ships, and having cast up 
 the sum total, and proved it, make off again. Sure token of 
 two things : first, that he held 'em dog cheap ; secondly, that 
 he had made but little progress (for a Lombard bom) in book- 
 keeping at double entry. He, and every other great genius, be- 
 gan with small subject-matters, — gnats and the like. I myself, 
 
222 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 similar unto him, wrote upon fruit. I would give thee some 
 copies for thy copying, if I thought thou wouldst use them tem- 
 perately, and not render them common, as hath befallen the 
 poetry of some among the brightest geniuses. I could show 
 thee how to say new things, and how to time the same. Before 
 my day, nearly all the flowers and fruits had been gathered by 
 poets, old and young, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop 
 on the wall : roses went up to Solomon, apples to Adam, 
 and so forth. Willy, my brave lad, I was the first that ever 
 handled a quince, I '11 be sworn. Hearken ! 
 
 Chloe ! I would not have thee wince 
 
 That I unto thee send a quince. 
 
 I would not have thee say unto 't 
 
 " Begone !" and trample 't under foot, 
 
 For, trust me, 't is no fulsome fruit. 
 
 It came not out of mine own garden, 
 
 But all the way from Henly in Arden, 
 
 Of an uncommon fine old tree 
 
 Belonging to John Asbury. 
 
 And if that of it thou shalt eat 
 
 'Twill make thy breath e'en yet more sweet ; 
 
 As a translation here doth show, 
 
 " On fruit-trees by Jean Mirabeau." 
 
 The frontispiece is printed so. 
 
 But eat it with some wine and cake, 
 
 Or it may give the belly-ache.^ 
 
 This doth my worthy clerk indite, 
 
 I sign, 
 
 Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight. 
 
 Now, Willy, there is not one poet or lover in twenty who 
 careth for consequences. Many hint to the lady what to do ; 
 few what not to do, — although it would oftentimes, as in this 
 case, go to one's heart to see the upshot. 
 
 "Ah, sir ! " said Bill, in all humility, " I would make bold to 
 put the parings of that quince under my pillow for sweet dreams 
 and insights, if Dr. Glaston had given me encouragement to 
 continue the pursuit of poetry. Of a surety it would bless me 
 with a bedful of churches and crucifixions, duly adumbrated." 
 
 Whereat Sir Thomas, shaking his head, did inform him, " It 
 
 1 " Belly-ache," a disorder once not uncommon in England. Even the 
 name is now almost forgotten ; yet the elder of us may remember at least 
 the report of it, and some perhaps even the complaint itself, in our school- 
 days. It usually broke out about the cherry season; and, in some cases, 
 made its appearance again at the first nutting. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 223 
 
 was in the golden age of the world, as pagans call it, that 
 poets of condition sent fruits and flowers to their beloved, with 
 posies fairly penned. We in our days have done the like. But 
 manners of late are much corrupted on the one side, if not on 
 both. Willy, it hath been whispered that there be those who 
 would rather have a piece of brocade or velvet for a stomacher 
 than the touchingest copy of verses, with a bleeding heart at 
 the bottom." 
 
 Shakspeare. Incredible ! 
 
 Sir Thomas. 'T is even so ! , 
 
 Shakspeare. They must surely be rotten fragments of the 
 world before the flood, saved out of it by the Devil. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I am not of that mind. Their eyes, mayhap, 
 fell upon some of the bravery cast ashore from the Spanish 
 Armada. In ancienter days, a few pages of good poetry out- 
 valued a whole ell of the finest Genoa. 
 
 Shakspeare. When will such days return? 
 
 Sir Thomas. It is only within these few years that corrup- 
 tion and avarice have made such ghastly strides. They always 
 did exist, but were gentler. My youth is waning, and has 
 been nigh upon these seven years, I being now in my forty- 
 eighth. 
 
 Shakspeare. I have understood that the god of poetry is 
 in the enjoyment of eternal youth; I was ignorant that his 
 sons were. 
 
 Sir Thomas. No, child ; we are hale and comely, but must 
 go the way of all flesh. 
 
 Shakspeare. Must it, can it be ? 
 
 Sir Thomas. Time was, my smallest gifts were acceptable, 
 as thus recorded : — 
 
 From my fair hand, oh will ye, will ye 
 Deign humbly to accept a gilly- 
 
 Flower for thy bosom, sugared maid ? 
 
 Scarce had I said it, ere she took it, 
 And in a twinkling, faith ! had stuck it 
 
 Where e'en proud knighthood might have laid. 
 
 — William was now quite unable to contain himself, and 
 seemed utterly to have forgotten the grievous charge against 
 him, to such a pitch did his joy o'erleap his jeopardy. 
 
 Master Silas, in the mean time was much disquieted ; and 
 
224 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 first did he strip away all the white feather from every pen in 
 the ink-pot, and then did he mend them, one and all, and then 
 did he slit them with his thumb-nail, and then did he pare and 
 slash away at them again, and then did he cut off the tops ; 
 until at last he left upon them neither nib nor plume, nor 
 enough of the middle to serve as quill to a virginal. It went 
 to my heart to see such a power of pens so wasted, — there 
 could not be fewer than five. Sir Thomas was less wary than 
 usual, being overjoyed ; for great poets do mightily affect to 
 have little poets under them, and little poets do forget them- 
 selves in great company, — as fiddlers do, who hail-fellow-well- 
 7fiet even with Lords. 
 
 Sir Thomas did not interrupt our Bill's wild gladness. I 
 never thought so worshipful a personage could bear so much. 
 At last he said unto the lad : " I do bethink me if thou hearest 
 much more of my poetry and the success attendant thereon, 
 good Dr. Glaston would tear thy skirt off ere he could drag 
 thee back from the occupation." 
 
 Shakspeare. I fear me, for once, all his wisdom would sluice 
 out in vain. 
 
 Sir Thomas. It was reported to me that when our virgin 
 Queen's Highness (her Dear Dread's^ ear not being then 
 poisoned) heard these verses, she said before her courtiers, to 
 the sore travail of some and heart's content of others, "We 
 need not envy our young cousin James of Scotland his ass's 
 bite of a thistle, having such flowers as these gilhflowers on the 
 chimney-stacks of Charlecote." I could have told her High- 
 ness that all this poetry, from beginning to end, was real 
 matter of fact, well and truly spoken by mine own self. I had 
 only to harness the rhymes thereunto, at my leisure. 
 
 Shakspeare. None could ever doubt it. Greeks and Tro- 
 jans may fight for the quince ; neither shall have it — 
 
 While a Warwickshire lad 
 
 Is on earth to be had, 
 
 With a wand to wag 
 
 On a trusty nag. 
 
 He shall keep the lists 
 
 With cudgel or fists ; 
 
 And black shall be whose eye 
 
 Looks evil on Lucy. 
 
 1 Sir Thomas borrowed this expression from Spenser. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 22$ 
 
 Sir Thomas. Nay, nay, nay ! do not trespass too soon up- 
 on heroics. Thou seest thou canst not hold thy wind beyond 
 eight Hnes. What wouldst thou do under the heavy mettle 
 that should have wrought such wonders at Pavia, if thou findest 
 these petards so troublesome in discharging? Surely the good 
 doctor, had he entered at large on the subject, would have been 
 very particular in urging this expostulation. 
 
 Shakspeare. Sir, to my mortification I must confess that I 
 took to myself the counsel he was giving to another, — a young 
 gentleman who from his pale face, his abstinence at table, his 
 cough, his taciturnity, and his gentleness, seemed already more 
 than half poet. To him did Dr. Glaston urge, with all his zeal 
 and judgment, many arguments against the vocation ; teUing 
 him that even in college he had few applauders, being the first 
 and not the second or third, who always are more fortunate ; 
 reminding him that he must solicit and obtain much interest 
 with men of rank and quality before he could expect their 
 favor, and that without it the vein chilled, the nerve relaxed, 
 and the poet was left at next door to the bellman. " In the 
 coldness of the world," said he, "in the absence of ready 
 friends and adherents to light thee upstairs to the richly tapes- 
 tried chamber of the Muses, thy spirits will abandon thee, thy 
 heart will sicken and swell within thee ; overladen, thou wilt 
 make, O Ethelbert ! a slow and painful progress, and ere the 
 door open, sink. Praise giveth weight unto the wanting, and 
 happiness giveth elasticity unto the heavy. As the mightier 
 streams of the unexplored world, America, run languidly in 
 the night, 1 and await the sun on high to contend with him in 
 strength and grandeur, so doth genius halt and pause in the 
 thraldom of outspread darkness, and move onward with all his 
 vigor then only when creative light and jubilant warmth sur- 
 round him." 
 
 Ethelbert coughed faintly ; a tinge of red the size of a rose- 
 bud colored the middle of his cheek, and yet he seemed not 
 to be pained by the reproof. He looked fondly and affection- 
 ately at his teacher, who thus proceeded : — 
 
 " My dear youth, do not carry the stone of Sisyphus on thy 
 shoulder to pave the way to disappointment. If thou writest 
 but indifferent poetry, none will envy thee and some will praise 
 
 1 Humboldt notices this. 
 15 
 
226 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 thee ; but Nature in her malignity hath denied unto thee a ca- 
 pacity for the enjoyment of such praise. In this she hath been 
 kinder to most others than to thee : we know wherein she hath 
 been kinder to thee than to most others. If thou writest good 
 poetry, many will call it flat, many will call it obscure, many 
 will call it inharmonious, — and some of these will speak as 
 they think ; for as in giving a feast to great numbers it is easier 
 to possess the wine than to procure the cups, so happens it in 
 poetry, — thou hast the beverage of thy own growth, but canst 
 not find the recipients. What is simple and elegant to thee 
 and me, to many an- honest man is flat and sterile ; what to us 
 is an innocently sly allusion, to as worthy a one as either of us 
 is dull obscurity; and that moreover which swims upon our 
 brain, and which throbs against our temples, and which we de- 
 light in sounding to ourselves when the voice has done with 
 it, touches their ear, and awakens no harmony in any cell of 
 it. Rivals will run up to thee and call thee a plagiary ; and 
 rather than that proof should be wanting, similar words to 
 some of thine will be thrown in thy teeth out of Leviticus and 
 Deuteronomy. 
 
 " Do you desire calm studies, do you desire high thoughts, — 
 penetrate into theology. What is nobler than to dissect and 
 discern the opinions of the gravest men upon the subtlest 
 matters ? And what glorious victories are those over infidelity 
 and scepticism? How much loftier, how much more lasting 
 in their effects, than such as ye are invited unto by what this 
 ingenious youth hath contemptuously and truly called 
 
 ' The swaggering drum, and trumpet hoarse with rage.' 
 
 And what a delightful and edifying sight it is to see hundreds 
 of the most able doctors, all stripped for the combat, each 
 closing with his antagonist, and tugging and tearing, tooth and 
 nail, to lay down and establish truths which have been floating 
 in the air for ages, and which the lower order of mortals are 
 forbidden to see, and commanded to embrace. And then the 
 shouts of victory ! and then the crowns of amaranth held over 
 their heads by the applauding angels ! Besides, these combats 
 have other great and distinct advantages. Whereas in the 
 carnal, the longer ye contend the more blows do ye receive, in 
 these against Satan, the more fiercely and pertinaciously ye drive 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 227 
 
 at him the slacker do ye find him ; every good hit makes him 
 redden and rave with anger, but diminishes its effect. 
 
 '•' My dear friends, who would not enter a service in which he 
 may give blows to his mortal enemy, and receive none ; and in 
 which not only the eternal gain is incalculable, but also the 
 temporal at four-and-twenty may be far above the emolument 
 of generals, who before the priest was born had bled profusely 
 for their country, established her security, brightened her glory, 
 and augmented her dominions?" 
 
 — At this pause did Sir Thomas turn unto Sir Silas, and asked, 
 " What sayest thou, Silas? " 
 
 Whereupon did Sir Silas make answer ; " I say it is so, and 
 was so, and should be so, and shall be so. If the queen's 
 brother had not sopped the priests and bishops out of the 
 Catholic cup, they could have held the Cathohc cup in their 
 own hands, instead of yielding it into his. They earned their 
 money : if they sold their consciences for it, the business is 
 theirs, not ours. I call this facing the Devil with a vengeance. 
 We have their coats, no matter who made 'em ; we have 'em, 
 I say, and we will wear 'em ; and not a button, tag, or tassel, 
 shall any man tear away." 
 
 Sir Thomas then turned to Willy, and requested him to pro- 
 ceed with the doctor's discourse, who thereupon continued : 
 
 " ' Within your own recollection, how many good, quiet, in- 
 offensive men, unendowed with any extraordinary abilities, have 
 been enabled, by means of divinity, to enjoy a long life in tran- 
 quillity and affluence ? ' 
 
 "Whereupon did one of the young gentlemen smile, and 
 on small encouragement from Dr. Glaston to enounce the 
 cause thereof, he repeated these verses, which he gave after- 
 ward unto me : — 
 
 " ' In the names on our books 
 
 Was standing Tom Flooke's, 
 Who took in due time his degrees ; 
 
 Which when he had taken, 
 
 Like Ascham or Bacon, 
 By night he could snore, and by day he could sneeze. 
 
 " ' Calm, pithy, pragmatical,^ 
 Tom Flooke he could at a call 
 
 1 " Pragmatical " here means only " precise." 
 
228 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Rise up like a hound from his sleep ; 
 
 And if many a quarto 
 
 He gave not his heart to, 
 If pellucid in lore, in his cups he was deep. 
 
 " ' He never did harm, 
 
 And his heart might be warm, 
 For his doublet most certainly was so : 
 
 And now has Tom Flooke 
 
 A quieter nook 
 Than ever had Spenser or Tasso. 
 
 " * He lives in his house , 
 
 As still as a mouse 
 Until he has eaten his dinner ; 
 
 But then doth his nose 
 
 Outroar all the woes 
 That encompass the death of a sinner. 
 
 " ' And there oft has been seen 
 
 No less than a dean 
 To tarry a week in the parish. 
 
 In October and March, 
 
 When deans are less starch, 
 And days are less gleamy and garish. 
 
 " * That Sunday Tom's eyes 
 
 Looked alway more wise. 
 He repeated more often his text ; 
 
 Two leaves stuck together 
 
 (The fault of the weather), 
 And — the rest ye shall hear in my next. 
 
 " ' At mess he lost quite 
 
 His small appetite. 
 By losing his friend the good dean : 
 
 The cook's sight must fail her ! 
 
 The eggs sure are staler ! 
 The beef too ! Why, what can it mean ? 
 
 " ' He turned off the butcher ; 
 
 To the cook, could he clutch her. 
 What his choler had done there's no saying — 
 
 'T is verily said 
 
 He smote low the cock's head. 
 And took other pullets for laying.' " 
 
 "On this being concluded, Dr. Glaston said he shrewdly 
 suspected an indigestion on the part of Mr. Thomas Flooke, 
 caused by sitting up late and studying hard with Mr. Dean ; 
 and he protested that theology itself should not carry us into 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 229 
 
 the rawness of the morning air, particularly in such critical 
 months as March and October, in one of which the sap rises, 
 in the other sinks, and there are many stars very sinister." 
 
 — Sir Thomas shook his head, and declared he would not be 
 uncharitable to rector or dean or doctor, but that certain sur- 
 mises swam uppermost. He then winked at Master Silas, who 
 said incontinently, — 
 
 " You have it. Sir Thomas ! The blind buzzards, with their 
 stars and saps ! " 
 
 "Well, but Silas, you yourself have told us over and over 
 again, in church, that there are arcana.^'' 
 
 " So there are ; I uphold it ! " rephed Master Silas ; " but a 
 fig for the greater part, and a fig-leaf for the rest ! As for 
 these signs, they are as plain as any page in the Revelation." 
 
 Sir Thomas, after short pondering, said scoffingly : " In re- 
 gard to the rawness of the air having any effect whatsoever on 
 those who discourse orthodoxically on theology, it is quite as 
 absurd as to imagine that a man ever caught cold in a Protes- 
 tant church. I am rather of opinion that it was a judgment 
 on the rector for his evil-mindedness toward the cook, the 
 Lord foreknowing that he was about to be wilful and vengeful 
 in that quarter. It was however more advisedly that he took 
 other pullets, on his own view of the case, although it might be 
 that the same pullets would suit him again as well as ever 
 when his appetite should return ; for it doth not appear that 
 they were loath to lay, but laid somewhat unsatisfactorily. 
 
 "Now, youth," continued his worship, "if in our clemency 
 we should spare thy life, study this higher elegiacal strain 
 which thou hast carried with thee from Oxford ; it containeth, 
 over and above an unusual store of biography, much sound 
 moral doctrine for those who are heedful in the weighing of it. 
 And what can be more affecting than — 
 
 'At mess he lost quite 
 His small appetite, 
 By losing his friend the good dean'? 
 
 And what an insight into character ! Store it up, store it up ! 
 Small appetite, particular; good dean, generic." 
 
 Hereupon did Master Silas jerk me with his indicative joint, 
 the elbow to wit, and did say in my ear : " He means deanery. 
 
230 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Give me one of those bones so full of marrow, and let my lord 
 bishop have all the meat over it and welcome. If a dean is 
 not on his stilts, he is not on his stumps ; he stands on his own 
 ground, — he is a noli-me-tangeretarian.^'' 
 
 "What art thou saying of those sectaries, good Master 
 Silas? " quoth Sir Thomas, not hearing him distinctly. 
 
 " I was talking of the dean," replied Master Silas. " He 
 was the very dean who wrote and sang that song called the 
 'Two Jacks.' " 
 
 "Hast it?" asked he. 
 
 Master Silas shook his head, and trying in vain to recollect 
 it, said at last, "After dinner it sometimes pops out of a 
 filbert-shell in a crack ; and I have known it float on the first 
 glass of Herefordshire cider. It also hath some affinity with 
 very stiff and old bottled beer ; but in a morning it seemeth 
 unto me like a remnant of over-night." 
 
 " Our memory waneth. Master Silas," quoth Sir Thomas, 
 looking seriously. " If thou couldst repeat it, without the 
 grimace of singing, it were not ill." 
 
 Master Silas struck the table with his fist, and repeated the 
 first stave angrily ; but in the second he forgot the admonition 
 of Sir Thomas, and did sing outright, — 
 
 " Jack Calvin and Jack Cade, 
 Two gentles of one trade, — 
 
 Two tinkers, — 
 Very gladly would pull down 
 Mother Church and Father Crown, 
 And would starve or would drown 
 
 Right thinkers. 
 
 Honest man 1 honest man ! 
 
 Fill the can, fill the can. 
 They are coming ! they are coming ! they are coming ! 
 
 If any drop be left, 
 
 It might tempt 'em to a theft — 
 Zooks ! 't was only the ale that was humming." 
 
 " In the first stave, gramercy ! there is an awful verity," 
 quoth Sir Thomas ; " but I wonder that a dean should let his 
 skewer slip out and his fat catch fire so wofully in the second. 
 Light stuff, Silas, fit only for ale-houses." 
 
 Master Silas was nettled in the nose, and answered, " Let 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 23 1 
 
 me see the man in Warwickshire, and in all the counties 
 round, who can run at such a rate with so light a feather in the 
 palm of his hand. I am no poet, thank God ! but I know 
 what folks can do, and what folks cannot do." 
 
 "Well, Silas," replied Sir Thomas, "after thy thanksgiving 
 for being no poet, let us have the rest of the piece." 
 
 "The rest!" quoth Master Silas. "When the ale hath 
 done with its humming, it is time, methinks, to dismiss it. Sir, 
 there never was any more : you might as well ask for more 
 after Amen or the See of Canterbury." 
 
 Sir Thomas was dissatisfied, and turned off the discourse ; 
 and peradventure he grew more inclined to be gracious unto 
 Willy from the slight rub his chaplain had given him, were it 
 only for the contrariety. When he had collected his thoughts, 
 he was determined to assert his supremacy on the score of 
 poetry. 
 
 "Deans, I perceive, like other quality," said he, "cannot run 
 on long together. My friend, Sir Everard Starkeye, could 
 never over-leap four bars. I remember but one composition of 
 his, on a young lady who mocked at his inconsistency in call- 
 ing her sometimes his Grace and at other times his Muse, — 
 
 ' My Grace shall Fanny Carew be, 
 While here she deigns to stay ; 
 
 And (ah, how sad the change for me !) 
 My Muse when far away ! ' 
 
 And when we laughed at him for turning his back upon her 
 after the fourth verse, all he could say for himself was, that he 
 would rather a game at all fours with Fanny, than ombre and 
 picquet with the finest furbelows in Christendom. Men of con- 
 dition do usually want a belt in the course." 
 
 Whereunto said Master Silas, " Men out of condition are 
 quite as liable to lack it, methinks." 
 
 "Silas, Silas," repHed the knight, impatiently, "prythee 
 keep to thy divinity, thy stronghold upon Zion ; thence none 
 that faces thee can draw thee without being bitten to the bone. 
 Leave poetry to me ! " 
 
 "With all my heart," quoth Master Silas ; " I will never ask 
 a belt from her, until I see she can afford to give a shirt. She 
 has promised a belt indeed, not one however that doth much 
 
232 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 improve the wind to tliis lad here, and will keep her word ; 
 but she was forced to borrow the pattern from a Carthusian 
 friar, and somehow it slips above the shoulder." 
 
 " I am by no means sure of that," quoth Sir Thomas. " He 
 shall have fair play. He carrieth in his mind many valuable 
 things, whereof it hath pleased Providence to ordain him the 
 depositary. He hath laid before us certain sprigs of poetry 
 from Oxford trim as pennyroyal, and larger leaves of house-- 
 hold divinity the most mildly- savored, — pleasant in health, 
 and wholesome in sickness." 
 
 "I relish not such mutton-broth divinity," said Master Silas. 
 "It makes me sick in order to settle my stomach." 
 
 "We may improve it," said the knight; "but first let us 
 hear more." 
 
 Then did William Shakspeare resume Dr. Glaston's dis- 
 course. 
 
 " ' Ethelbert, I think thou walkest but little ; otherwise I 
 should take thee with me, some fine fresh morning, as far as 
 unto the first hamlet on the Cherwell. There lies young 
 Wellerby, who the year before was wont to pass many hours 
 of the day poetizing amid the ruins of Godstow nunnery. It 
 is said that he bore a fondness toward a young maiden in 
 that place, — formerly a village, now containing but two old 
 farm-houses. In my memory there were still extant several 
 dormitories. Some love-sick girl had recollected an ancient 
 name, and had engraven on a stone with a garden-nail, which 
 lay in rust near it, — 
 
 POORE ROSAMUND. 
 
 I entered these precincts, and beheld a youth of manly form 
 and countenance washing and wiping a stone with a handful 
 of wet grass ; and on my going up to him and asking what he 
 had found, he showed it to me. The next time I saw him was 
 near the banks of the Cherwell. He had tried, it appears, to 
 forget or overcome his fooUsh passion, and had applied his 
 whole mind unto study. He was foiled by his competitor; 
 and now he sought consolation in poetry. Whether this 
 opened the wounds that had closed in his youthful breast, and 
 malignant Love in his revenge poisoned it; or whether the 
 disappointment he had experienced in finding others preferred 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 233 
 
 to him, first in the paths of fortune, then in those of the 
 muses, — he was thought to have died broken-hearted. 
 
 " ' About half a mile from St. John's College is the termina- 
 tion of a natural terrace, with the Cherwell close under it, in 
 some places bright with yellow and red flowers glancing and 
 glowing through the stream, and suddenly in others dark 
 with the shadows of many different trees, in broad overbend- 
 ing thickets, and with rushes spear-high, and party-colored 
 flags. 
 
 " 'After a walk in midsummer the immersion of our hands 
 into the cool and closing grass is surely not the least among 
 our animal delights. I was just seated, and the first sensation 
 of rest vibrated in me gently, as though it were music to the 
 limbs, when I discovered by a hollow in the herbage that an- 
 other was near. The long meadow-sweet and blooming bumet 
 half concealed from me him whom the earth was about to hide 
 totally and forever. "Master Batchelor," said I, "it is ill 
 sleeping by the water-side." 
 
 " ' No answer was returned. I arose, went to the place, and 
 recognized poor Wellerby. His brow was moist, his cheek 
 was warm. A few moments earlier and that dismal lake where- 
 unto and wherefrom the waters of life, the buoyant blood, ran 
 no longer, might have received one vivifying ray reflected from 
 my poor casement. I might not indeed have comforted, — I 
 have often failed ; but there is one who never has, and the 
 strengthener of the bruised reed should have been with us. 
 
 " ' Remembering that his mother did abide one mile farther 
 on, I walked forward to the mansion, and asked her what tid- 
 ings she lately had received of her son. She replied that, 
 having given up his mind to light studies, the fellows of the 
 college would not elect him. The master had warned him be- 
 forehand to abandon his selfish poetry, take up manfully the 
 quarterstaff" of logic and wield it fpr St. John's, come who 
 would into the ring. " ' We want our man,' said he to me, 
 ' and your son hath failed us in the hour of need. Madam, he 
 hath been foully beaten in the schools by one he might have 
 swallowed, with due exercise.' I rated him, told him I was 
 poor, and he knew it. He was stung, and threw himself upon 
 my neck and wept. Twelve days have passed since, and only 
 three rainy ones. I hear he has been seen upon the knoll 
 
234 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 yonder, but hither he hath not come. I trust he knows at last 
 the value of time, and I shall be heartily glad to see him after 
 this accession of knowledge. Twelve days, it is true, are 
 rather a chink than a gap in time; yet, O gentle sir, they 
 are that chink which makes the vase quite valueless. There 
 are light words which may never be shaken off the mind they 
 fall on. My child, who was hurt by me, will not let me see the 
 marks." "Lady," said I, "none are left upon him. Be com- 
 forted, thou shalt see him this hour. All that thy God hath 
 not taken is yet thine." 
 
 " ' She looked at me earnestly, and would have then asked 
 something, but her voice failed her. There was no agony, no 
 motion, save in the lips and cheeks. Being the widow of one 
 who fought under Hawkins, she remembered his courage and 
 sustained the shock, saying calmly, " God's will be done ! I 
 pray that he find me as worthy as he findeth me willing to join 
 them." 
 
 " ' Now, in her unearthly thoughts she had led her only son 
 to the bosom of her husband ; and in her spirit (which often is 
 permitted to pass the gates of death with holy love) she left 
 them both with their Creator. 
 
 " ' The curate of the village sent those who should bring 
 home the body ; and some days afterward he came unto me, 
 beseeching me to write the epitaph. Being no friend to stone- 
 cutter's charges, I entered not into biography, but wrote these 
 few words : — 
 
 JOANNES WELLERBY 
 LTTERARUM QUiESIVIT GLORIAM, 
 VIDET DEI. ' " 
 
 "Poor tack, poor tack!" sourly quoth Master Silas. "If 
 your wise doctor could say nothing more about the fool, who 
 died like a rotten sheep among the darnels, his Latin might 
 have held out for the father, and might have told people he 
 was as cool as a cucumber at home, and as hot as pepper in 
 battle. Could he not find room enough on the whinstone to tell 
 the folks of the village how he played the devil among the dons, 
 burning their fingers when they would put thumbscrews upon 
 us, punching them in the weasand as a blacksmith punches 
 a horse-shoe, and throwing them overboard Uke bilgewater? 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 235 
 
 Has Oxford lost all her Latin? Here is no capitani filius ; 
 no more mention of family than a Welshman would have al- 
 lowed him ; no Mc jacet ; and, worse than all, the devil a tittle 
 of spe redemptionis or anno Dojninir 
 
 " Willy," quoth Sir Thomas, " I shrewdly do suspect there 
 was more, and that thou hast forgotten it." 
 
 " Sir," answered Willy, " I wrote not down the words, fearing 
 to mis-spell them, and begged them of the doctor when I took 
 my leave of him on the morrow ; and verily he wrote down all 
 he had repeated. I keep them always in the tin-box in my 
 waistcoat-pocket, among the eel-hooks, on a scrap of paper a 
 finger's length and breadth, folded in the middle to fit. And 
 when the eels are running, I often take it out and read it be- 
 fore I am aware. I could as soon forget my own epitaph as 
 this." 
 
 " Simpleton ! " said Sir Thomas, with his gentle compassion- 
 ate smile ; '' but thou hast cleared thyself." 
 
 Sir Silas. I think the doctor gave one idle chap as much 
 solid pudding as he could digest, with a slice to spare for 
 another. 
 
 Shakspeare. And yet after this pudding the doctor gave 
 him a spoonful of custard, flavored with a little bitter, which 
 was mostly left at the bottom for the other idle chap. 
 
 — Sir Thomas not only did endure this very good-naturedly, 
 but deigned even to take in good part the smile upon my coun- 
 tenance, as though he were a smile-collector, and as though his 
 estate were so humble that he could hold his laced-bonnet (in 
 all his bravery) for bear and fiddle. 
 
 He then said unto Willy, " Place likewise this custard before 
 us." 
 
 " There is but little of it ; the platter is shallow," replied he ; 
 " 't was suited to Master Ethelbert's appetite. The contents 
 were these : — 
 
 " ' The things whereon thy whole soul brooded in its inner- 
 most recesses, and with all its warmth and energy, will pass un- 
 prized and unregarded, not only throughout thy lifetime, but 
 long after. For the higher beauties of poetry are beyond the 
 capacity, beyond the vision, of almost all. Once perhaps in 
 half a century a single star is discovered, then named and 
 registered, then mentioned by five studious men to five more ; 
 
236 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 at last some twenty say, or repeat in writing, what they have 
 heard about it. Other stars await other discoveries. Few and 
 soHtary, and wide asunder, are those who calculate their relative 
 distances, their mysterious influences, their glorious magnitude, 
 and their stupendous height. 'T is so, believe me, and ever 
 was so, with the truest and best poetry. Homer, they say, was 
 blind : he might have been ere he died. That he sat among 
 the blind we are sure. Happy they who, like this yoimg lad 
 from Stratford, write poetry on the saddle-bow when their 
 geldings are jaded, and keep the desk for better purposes.' 
 
 " The young gentlemen, hke the elderly, all turned their 
 faces toward me, to my confusion, so much did I remark of 
 sneer and scoff at my cost. Master Ethelbert was the only one 
 who spared me. He smiled and said : ' Be patient ! From 
 the higher heavens of poetry, it is long before the radiance of 
 the brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that 
 one man finds out one beauty, another man finds out another, 
 placing his observatory and instruments on the poet's grave. 
 The worms must have eaten us before it is rightly known what 
 we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are boxed 
 and ticketed and prized and shown. Be it so ! I shall not be 
 tired of waiting.' " 
 
 " Reasonable youth ! " said Sir Thomas ; '^ yet both he and 
 Glaston walk rather astraddle, methinks. They might have 
 stepped up to thee more straightforwardly, and told thee the 
 trade ill suiteth thee, having little fire, little fantasy, and little 
 learning. Furthermore that one poet, as one bull, sufficeth 
 for two parishes ; and that where they are stuck too close to- 
 gether they are apt to fire, like hay- stacks. I have known it 
 myself; I have had my malignants and scoffers." 
 
 Shakspeare. I never could have thought it. 
 
 Sir Thomas. There again ! Another proof of thy in- 
 experience. 
 
 Shakspeare. Matt Atterend ! Matt Atterend ! where wert 
 thou sleeping? 
 
 Sir Thomas. I shall now from my own stores impart unto 
 thee what will avail to tame thee, showing the utter hopeless- 
 ness of standing on that golden weathercock which supporteth 
 but one at a time. 
 
 The passion for poetry wherewith Monsieur Dubois would 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 237 
 
 have inspired me, as he was bound to do, being paid before- 
 hand, had cold water thrown upon it by that unlucky one, Sir 
 Everard. He ridiculed the idea of male and female rhymes, 
 and the necessity of trying them as rigidly by the eye as by the 
 ear, — saying to Monsieur Dubois that the palate, in which the 
 French excel all mortals, ought also to be consulted in their ac- 
 ceptance or rejection. Monsieur Dubois told us that if we did 
 not wish to be taught French verse, he would teach us EngUsh. 
 Sir Everard preferred the Greek ; but Monsieur Dubois would 
 not engage to teach the mysteries of that poetry in fewer than 
 thirty lessons, having (since his misfortunes) forgotten the 
 letters and some other necessaries. 
 
 The first poem I ever wrote was in the character of a shep- 
 herd, to Mistress Anne Nanfan, daughter of Squire Fulke Nan- 
 fan, of Worcestershire, at that time on a visit to the worshipful 
 family of Comptcfti at Long Compton. We were young crea- 
 tures, — I but twenty-four and seven months (for it was written 
 on the 14th of May), and she well-nigh upon a twelvemonth 
 younger. My own verses (the first) are neither here nor there ; 
 indeed they were imbedded in solid prose, like lampreys and 
 ram's-homs in our limestone, and would be hard to get out whole. 
 What they are may be seen by her answer, all in verse : — 
 
 Faithful shepherd ! dearest Tommy ! 
 I have received the letter from ye, 
 
 And mightily delight therein. 
 But mother, s^e says, " Nanny ! Nanny 1 
 How, being staid and prudent, can ye 
 
 Think of a man, and not of sin ? " 
 
 Sir Shepherd ! I held down my head. 
 And " Mother ! fie for shame ! " I said. 
 
 All I could say would not content her ; 
 Mother she would forever harp on 't, 
 A man 'j no better than a sarpent. 
 
 And not a crumb more innocenter" 
 
 I know not how it happeneth, but a poet doth open before 
 a poet, albeit of baser sort. It is not that I hold my poetry to 
 be better than some other in time past ; it is because I would 
 show thee that I was virtuous and wooed virtuously, that I re- 
 peat it. Furthermore, I wished to leave a deep impression on 
 the mother's mind that she was exceedingly wrong in doubting 
 my innocence. 
 
238 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Shakspeare. Gracious Heaven ! and was this too doubted ? 
 
 Sir Thomas. May be not ; but the whole race of men, the 
 whole male sex, wanted and found in me a protector. I showed 
 her what I was ready to do. 
 
 Shakspeare. Perhaps, sir, it was for that very thing that she 
 put the daughter back and herself forward. 
 
 Sir Thomas. I say not so, but thou mayest know as much 
 as befitteth, by what follows : — 
 
 Worshipful lady ! honored madam ! 
 I at this present truly glad am 
 
 To have so fair an opportunity 
 Of saying I would be the man 
 To bind in wedlock Mistress Anne, 
 
 Living with her in holy unity. 
 
 And for a jointure I will gi'e her 
 A good two hundred pounds a-year • 
 
 Accruing from my landed rents, 
 Whereof see t'other paper, telling 
 Lands, copses, and grown woods for felling. 
 
 Capons, and cottage tenements, — 
 
 And who must come at sound of horn, 
 And who pays but a barley-corn, 
 
 And who is bound to keep a whelp, 
 And what is brought me for the pound, , 
 And copyholders which are sound, 
 
 And which do need the leech's help. 
 
 And you may see in these two pages 
 Exact their illnesses and ages. 
 
 Enough (God willing) to content ye : 
 Who looks full red, who looks full yellow. 
 Who plies the mullein, who the mallow, 
 
 Who fails at fifty, who at twenty. 
 
 Jim Yates must go I He 's one day very hot 
 And one day ice ; I take a heriot ; 
 
 And poorly, poorly 's Jacob Burgess : 
 The doctor tells me he has poured 
 Into his stomach half his hoard 
 
 Of anthelminticals and purges. 
 
 Judith, the wife of Ebenezer 
 
 Fillpots, won't have him long to tease her ; 
 
 Fillpots blows hot and cold like Jim, 
 And, sleepless lest the boys should plunder 
 His orchard, he must soon knock under ; 
 
 Death has been looking out for him. 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 239 
 
 He blusters ; but his good yard-land 
 Under the church, his ale-house, and 
 
 His Bible, which he cut in spite, 
 Must all fall in ; he stamps and swears 
 And sets his neighbors by the ears — 
 
 Fillpots 1 thy saddle sits not tight ! 
 
 Thy epitaph is ready : " Here 
 
 Lies 07te whom all his friends did fear 
 
 More than they ever feared the Lord ; 
 In peace he was at times a Christian ; 
 In strife what stubborner Philistian I 
 
 Sing, sing his psalm with one accord." 
 
 And the brave lad who sent the bluff 
 Olive-faced Frenchman (sure enough) 
 
 Screaming and scouring like a plover, 
 Must follow ; him I mean who dashed 
 Into the water, and then thrashed 
 
 The cullion past the town of Dover. 
 
 But first there goes the blear old dame 
 "Who nursed me ; you have heard her name 
 
 (No doubt) at Compton, — Sarah Salways; 
 There are twelve groats at once, beside 
 The frying-pan in which she fried 
 Her pancakes. 
 
 Madam, I am always (etc.), 
 
 Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight. 
 
 I did believe that such a clear and conscientious exposure 
 of my affairs would have brought me a like return. My letter 
 was sent back to me with small courtesy. It may be there was 
 no paper in the house, or none equalling mine in whiteness. 
 No notice was taken of the rent-roll ; but between the second 
 and third stanza these four lines were written, in a very fine 
 
 hand : — 
 
 " Most honored knight, Sir Thomas ! two 
 For merry Nan will fPever do ; 
 Now, under favor let me say 't, 
 She will bring more herself than that." 
 
 I have reason to believe that the worthy lady did neither write 
 nor countenance the same, perhaps did not ever know of them. 
 She always had at her elbow one who jogged it when he lis- 
 ted, and although he could not overrule the daughter, he took 
 especial care that none other should remove her from his tute- 
 lage, even when she had fairly grown up to woman's estate. 
 
24C5 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Now, after all this condescension and confidence, promise 
 me, good lad, promise that thou wilt not edge and elbow me. 
 Never let it be said, when people say, " Sir Thomas was a 
 poet when he willed it ; so is Bill Shakspeare ! " It beseem- 
 eth not that our names do go together cheek by jowl in this 
 familiar fashion, like an old beagle and a whelp, in couples, 
 where if the one would, the other would not. 
 
 Sir Silas. Sir, while these thoughts are passing in your 
 mind, remember there is another pair of couples out of which 
 it would be as well to keep the cur's neck. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Young man, dost thou understand Master 
 Silas ? 
 
 Shakspeare. But too well. Not those couples in which it 
 might be apprehended that your worship and my unworthiness 
 should appear too close together ; but those sorrowfuller which 
 peradventure might unite Master Silas and me in our road to 
 Warwick and upward. But I resign all right and title unto 
 these as willingly as I did unto the other, and am as ready to 
 let him go alone. 
 
 Sir Silas. If we keep wheeling and wheeling, like a flock 
 of pigeons, and rising again when we are within a foot of the 
 ground, we shall never fill the craw. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Do thou then question him, Sijas. 
 
 Sir Silas. I am none of the quorum ; the business is none 
 of mine. 
 
 — Then Sir Thomas took Master Silas again into the bay- 
 window, and said softly, "Silas, he hath no inkling of thy 
 meaning ; the business is a ticklish one ; I like not overmuch 
 to meddle and make therein." 
 
 Master Silas stood dissatisfied awhile, and then answered, 
 " The girl's mother, sir, was housemaid and sempstress in your 
 own family, time back, and you thereby have a right over her 
 unto the third and fourth generation." 
 
 " I may have, Silas," said his worship ; " but it was no longer 
 than four or five years agone that folks were fain to speak ma- 
 liciously of me for only finding my horse in her hovel." 
 
 Sir Silas looked red and shiny as a ripe strawberry on a Snit- 
 terfield tile, and answered somewhat peevishly, "The same 
 folks, I misgive me, may find the rogue's there any night in the 
 week." 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 24 1 
 
 Whereunto replied Sir Thomas mortifiedly, " I cannot think 
 it, Silas, I cannot think it." And after some hesitation and 
 disquiet, — " Nay, I am resolved I will not think it ; no man, 
 friend or enemy, shall push it into me." 
 
 "Worshipful sir," answered Master Silas, " I am as resolute 
 as any one in what I would think and what I would not think, 
 and never was known to fight dunghill in either cockpit. Were 
 he only out of the way, she might do her duty ; but what doth 
 she now ? She points his young beard for him, persuading him 
 it grows thicker and thicker, blacker and blacker ; she washes 
 his ruff, stiffens it, plaits it, tries it upon his neck, removes the 
 hair from under it, pinches it with thumb and forefinger, pre- 
 tending that he hath moiled it, puts her hand all the way round 
 it, setting it to rights, as she calleth it — Ah, Sir Thomas, a 
 louder whistle than that will never call her back again when 
 she is off with him." 
 
 Sir Thomas was angered, and cried tartly, " Who whistled, I 
 would know? " 
 
 Master Silas said submissively, " Your honor, as wrongfully I 
 fancied." 
 
 " Wrongfully, indeed, and to my no small disparagement and 
 discomfort," said the knight, verily beheving that he had not 
 whistled ; for deep and dubious were his cogitations. " I pro- 
 test," went he on to say, "I protest it was the wind of the case- 
 ment ; and if I live another year I will put a better in the place 
 of it. Whistle, indeed ! For what ? I care no more about 
 her than about an unfledged cygnet, — a child, 1 a chicken, a 
 mere kitten, a crab-blossom in the hedge." 
 
 The dignity of his worship was wounded by Master Silas 
 unaware, and his wrath again turned suddenly upon poor 
 William : — 
 
 " Hark ye, knave ! hark ye again, ill-looking stripling, lanky 
 from vicious courses ! I will reclaim thee from them ; I will 
 do what thy own father would and cannot. Thou shalt follow 
 his business." 
 
 " I cannot do better, may it please your worship," said 
 the lad. 
 
 1 She was then twenty-eight years of age. Sir Thomas must have 
 spoken of her from earlier recollections. Shakspeare was in his twenti- 
 eth year. 
 
 16 
 
242 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 " It shall lead thee unto wealth and respectability," said the 
 knight, somewhat appeased by his ready compliancy and low 
 gentle voice. " Yea, but not here ; no witches, no wantons 
 [this word fell gravely and at full length upon the ear], no 
 spells hereabout. Gloucestershire is within a measured mile of 
 thy dwelling. There is one at Bristol, formerly a parish- boy, 
 or little better, who now writeth himself ' gentleman ' in large 
 round letters, and hath been elected, I hear, to serve as bur- 
 gess in Parliament for his native city, — just as though he had 
 eaten a capon or turkey-poult in his youth, and had actually 
 been at grammar-school and college. When he began, he had 
 not credit for a goat-skin ; and now, behold ye ! this very coat 
 upon my back did cost me eight shillings the dearer for him, 
 he bought up wool so largely." 
 
 Shakspeare. May it please your worship, if my father so 
 ordereth, I go cheerfully. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Thou art grown discreet and dutiful. I am 
 fain to command thy release, taking thy promise on oath, and 
 some reasonable security, that thou wilt abstain and withhold 
 in future from that idle and silly slut, that sly and scoffing 
 giggler, Hannah Hathaway, with whom, to the heartache of 
 thy poor worthy father, thou wantonly keepest company. 
 
 — Then did Sir Thomas ask Master Silas- Gough for the 
 Book of Life, bidding him deliver it into the right hand of Billy, 
 with an eye upon him that he touch it with both lips, — it be- 
 ing taught by the Jesuits, and caught too greedily out of their 
 society and communion, that whoso toucheth it with one lip 
 only, and thereafter sweareth falsely, cannot be called a per- 
 jurer, since perjury is breaking an oath. But breaking half an 
 oath, as he doth who toucheth the Bible or crucifix with one 
 lip only, is no more perjury than breaking an eggshell is break- 
 ing an egg, the shell being a part, and the egg being an 
 integral. 
 
 William did take the Holy Book with all due reverence the 
 instant it was offered to his hand. His stature seemed to rise 
 therefrom as from a pulpit, and Sir Thomas was quite edified. 
 
 " Obedient and conducible youth ! " said he. "See there. 
 Master Silas ! What hast thou now to say against him ? Who 
 sees farthest?" 
 
 "The man from the gallows is the most likely, bating his 
 
CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 243 
 
 nightcap and blinker," said Master Silas, peevishly. "He hath 
 not outwitted me yet." 
 
 " He seized upon the Anchor of Faith like a martyr," said 
 Sir Thomas ; " and even now his face burns red as elder- wine 
 before the gossips." 
 
 Shakspeare. I await the further orders of your worship from 
 the chair. 
 
 Sir Thomas I return and seat myself. 
 
 — And then did Sir Thomas say with great complacency 
 and satisfaction in the ear of Master Silas, " What civility 
 and deference and sedateness of mind, Silas ! " 
 
 But Master Silas answered not. 
 
 Shakspeare. Must I swear, sir? 
 
 Sir Thomas. Yea, swear ; be of good courage ! I protest 
 to thee, by my honor and knighthood, no ill shall come unto 
 thee therefrom. Thou shalt not be circumvented in thy 
 simpleness and inexperience. 
 
 — Willy, having taken the Book of Life, did kiss it piously, 
 and did press it unto his breast, saying, "Tenderest love is 
 the growth of my heart, as the grass is of Alvescote mead. 
 May I lose my life or my friends, or my memory or my 
 reason; may I be viler in my own eyes than those men 
 are — " 
 
 Here he was interrupted most lovingly by Sir Thomas, who 
 said unto him, " Nay, nay, nay ! poor youth, do not tell me so ! 
 They are not such very bad men ; since thou appealest unto 
 Caesar, — that is, unto the judgment-seat." 
 
 Now, his worship did mean the two witnesses, Joseph and 
 Euseby; and, sooth to say, there be many worse. But Wil- 
 liam had them not in his eye ; his thoughts were elsewhere, as 
 will be evident, for he went on thus : — 
 
 " — if ever I forget or desert thee, or ever cease to worship ^ 
 and cherish thee, my Hannah ! " 
 
 Sir Silas. The madman ! the audacious, desperate, out- 
 rageous villain ! Look ye, sir, where he flung the Holy 
 Gospel ! Behold it on the holly and box-boughs in the 
 chimney-place, spreaden all abroad, like a lad about to be 
 whipped ! 
 
 1 It is to be feared that his taste for venison outlasted that for matri- 
 mony, spite of this vow. 
 
244 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Sir Thomas. Miscreant knave ! I will send after him 
 forthwith ! Ho, there ! is the caitiff at hand, or running off? 
 
 — Jonas Greenfield the butler did budge forward after a 
 while, and say, on being questioned, " Surely, that was he ! 
 Was his nag tied to the iron gate at the lodge. Master Silas? " 
 
 "What should I know about a thief s nag, Jonas Green- 
 field?" 
 
 "And didst thou let him go, Jonas, even thou?" said Sir 
 Thomas. " What, are none found faithful? " 
 
 " Lord love your worship ! " said Jonas Greenfield ; " a man 
 of threescore and two may miss catching a kite upon wing. 
 Fleetness doth not make folks the faithfuUer, or that youth 
 yonder beats us all in faithfulness. Look, he darts on like a 
 greyhound whelp after a leveret. He, sure enough, it was ! 
 I now remember the sorrel mare his father bought of John 
 Kinderley last Lammas, swift as he threaded the trees along 
 the park. He must have reached Wellesbourne ere now at 
 that gallop, and pretty nigh Walton-hill." 
 
 Sir Thomas. Merciful Christ ! grant the country be rid of 
 him forever ! What dishonor upon his friends and native 
 town ! A reputable wool-stapler's son turned gypsy and poet 
 for life. 
 
 Sir Silas. A Beelzebub ! he spake as bigly apd fiercely as a 
 soaken yeoman at an election feast, — this obedient and con- 
 ducive youth ! 
 
 Sir Thomas. It was so written. Hold thy peace, Silas ! 
 
Po0t=<Scrtptum 
 
 BY ME, EPHRAIM BARNETT. 
 
 Twelve days are over and gone since William Shakspeare did 
 leave our parts. And the spinster, Hannah Hathaway, is in sad 
 doleful plight about him ; forasmuch as Master Silas Gough went 
 yesterday unto her, in her mother's house at Shottery, and did 
 desire both her and her mother to take heed and be admonished 
 that if ever she, Hannah, threw away one thought after the runa- 
 gate William Shakspeare, he should swing. 
 
 The girl could do nothing but weep ; while as the mother did 
 give her solemn promise that her daughter should never more think 
 about him all her natural life, reckoning from the moment of this 
 her promise. 
 
 And the maiden, now growing more reasonable, did promise the 
 same. But Master Silas said, "I doubt you will, though." 
 
 " No," said the mother, " I answer for her she shall not think of 
 him, even if she sees his ghost." 
 
 Hannah screamed and swooned, the better to forget him. And 
 Master Silas went home easier and contenteder. For now all the 
 worst of his hard duty was accomplished ; he having been, on 
 the Wednesday of last week, at the speech of Master John Shak- 
 speare, Will's father, to inquire whether the sorrel mare was his. 
 To which question the said Master John Shakspeare did answer, 
 "Yea." 
 
 " Enough said ! " rejoined Master Silas. *' Horse-stealing is 
 capital. We shall bind thee over to appear against the culprit, as 
 prosecutor, at the next assizes." 
 
 May the Lord in his mercy give the lad a good deliverance, if so 
 be it be no sin to wish it ! 
 
 October i, a. 1x^1582. 
 
 Laus Deo. 
 
 E. B. 
 
MINOR PROSE PIECES. 
 
MINOR PROSE PIECES. 
 
 I. OPINIONS ON C^SAR, CROMWELL, MILTON, 
 AND BONAPARTE. 
 
 No person has a better right than Lord Brougham to speak 
 contemptuously of Csesar, of Cromwell, and of Milton. Cssar 
 was the purest and most Attic writer of his country, and there 
 is no trace of intemperance, in thought or expression, through- 
 out the whole series of his hostilities. He was the most gener- 
 ous friend, he was the most placable enemy; he rose with 
 moderation, and he fell with dignity. Can we wonder then at 
 Lord Brougham's unfeigned antipathy and assumed contempt? 
 Few well-educated men are less able to deliver a sound opinion 
 of style than his lordship ; and perhaps there are not many of 
 our contemporaries who place a just value on Caesar's, dissim- 
 ilar as it is in all its qualities to what they turn over on the 
 sofa-table. There is calmness, there is precision, there is a 
 perspicuity which shows objects in their proper size and posi- 
 tion j there is strength without strain, and superiority without 
 assertion. I acknowledge my preference of his style, and he 
 must permit me to add Cicero's, to that which he considers 
 the best of all, — namely, his own ; and he must pardon me if I 
 entertain an early predilection for easy humor over hard vul- 
 garity, and for graceful irony over intractable distortion. I 
 was never an admirer, even in youth, of those abrupt and splin- 
 tery sentences which, like many coarse substances, sparkle 
 only when they are broken, and are looked at only for their 
 sharpnesses and inequaUties. 
 
 Csesar and Cromwell are hung up in the same wicker basket, 
 as an offering to the warrior God of our formidable Celt's idol- 
 
250 OPINIONS ON CiESAR, ETC. 
 
 atry. Cromwell was destitute of all those elegancies which 
 adorned the Roman dictator, but he alone possessed in an 
 equal degree all those which insure the constancy of Fortune. 
 Both were needful, — one against an unjust and reckless aris- 
 tocracy whose leader had declared that he would follow up the 
 steps of Sulla, and cover the fields of Italy with slaughter ; the 
 other, to rescue the most religious and most conscientious of 
 his countrymen from the persecution of an unchristian and 
 intolerant episcopacy, and the bravest friends of ancient free- 
 dom from torture, from mutilation, and from solitude and 
 death in pestilential jails. Were such the deeds of Charles? 
 Yes ; but before an infallible Church had commanded us to 
 worship him among the martyrs. Among ? no, not among, — 
 above, and to the exclusion of all the rest. This was wanting 
 as the finishing stroke of our Reformation. And was Cromwell 
 then pure ? Certainly not ; but he began in sincerity, and he 
 believed to the last that every accession of power was an 
 especial manifestation of God's mercy. Fanaticism hath always 
 drawn to herself such conclusions from the Bible, Power made 
 him less pious, but more confident, God had taken him by 
 the hand at first, and had now let him walk by himself: to 
 show how he could walk, he strode. Religion, in the exercise 
 of power, is more arbitrary, more intolerant, and more cruel 
 than monarchy ; and the sordid arrogance of Presbyterianism 
 succeeded to the splendid tyranny of Episcopacy. The crozier 
 of Laud was unbroken ; those who had been the first in 
 cursing it, seized and exercised it : it was to fall in pieces 
 under the sword of Cromwell. To him alone are we indebted 
 for the establishment of religious liberty. If a Vane and a 
 Milton have acknowledged the obligation, how feeble were the 
 voices of all men living, if the voices of all men living were 
 raised against it. Of our English rulers Oliver holds the next 
 place to Alfred ; and it would be unjust and ignominious to 
 station him merely on a level with the most intelligent, the 
 most energetic, and the most patriotic of succeeding kings. 
 He did indeed shed blood ; but the blood he shed was solely 
 for his country, although without it he never would have risen 
 to the Protectorate. The same cannot be said of Csesar ; nor 
 of that extraordinary personage whom some of his flatterers 
 place beside, and some before him. 
 
OPINIONS ON CESAR, ETC. 25 1 
 
 The first campaigns of Bonaparte were admirably conducted, 
 and honor and glory in the highest degree are due to him for 
 abstaining from the plunder of Italy. It would be ungenerous 
 to seize the obvious idea that by his vivid imagination he prob- 
 ably saw in the land of his forefathers his future realm, without 
 any such hope regarding France, and was desirous of winning 
 those golden opinions which bear so high an interest. But 
 Egypt seems to be the country in which the renown of con- 
 querors is destined to be tarnished. The latent vices of the 
 Persian, of the Macedonian, of Pompey, of Julius, of Antonius, 
 of Octavius, shot up here and brought forth fruits after their 
 kind. It was here also that the eagle eye of Bonaparte was 
 befilmed ; here forty thousand of the best troops in the world 
 were defeated under his guidance, and led captive after his de- 
 sertion. He lost Hayti, which he attempted to recover by 
 force ; he lost Spain, which he attempted to seize by perfidy. 
 And what generosity or what policy did he display with Tous- 
 saint rOuverture, or with Ferdinand ? Imprisonment and a 
 miserable death befell the braver. Is there a human heart that 
 swells not at the deliberate murder of the intrepid and blame- 
 less Hofer? I say nothing of Palm; I say nothing of D'En- 
 ghein : even in such atoms as these he found room enough for 
 the perpetration of a crime. They had indeed friends to mourn 
 for them, but they were not singly worth whole nations ; their 
 voices did not breathe courage into ten thousand breasts ; chil- 
 dren were not carried into churches to hear their names uttered 
 with God's. If they had virtues, those virtues perished with 
 them : Hofer's will ring eternally on every mountain and irra- 
 diate every mine of Tyrol ; Universal Man, domestic, political, 
 and religious, will be the better for him. When he was led to 
 slaughter in Mantua, some of those Italian soldiers who had 
 followed Bonaparte in his earhest victories shed tears. The 
 French themselves, from the drummer on the platform to the 
 governor in the citadel, thought of the cause that first united 
 them in arms, and knew that it was Hofer's. Bonaparte could 
 no more pardon bravery in his enemy than cowardice in his 
 soldier. No expression was too virulent for Hofer, for Sir 
 Sydney Smith, or for any who had foiled him ; he spoke contemp- 
 tuously of Kleber, maliciously of Hoche ; he could not even 
 refrain from an unmanly triumph on the death of the weak 
 
252 OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 
 
 Moreau. If this is greatness, he certainly did not inherit it 
 from any great man on record. Sympathy with men at large 
 is not among their attributes, but sympathy with the courageous 
 and enterprising may be found in all of them, and sometimes 
 a glance has fallen from them so low as on the tomb of the 
 unfortunate. The inhumanity of Napoleon was certainly not 
 dictated by policy, whose dictates, rightly understood, never 
 point in that direction. It is unnecessary to discuss what in- 
 struction he received in his military school, after which he had 
 small leisure for any unconnected with his profession. And so 
 little was his regard for literature in others, that he drove out 
 of France the only person in that country ^ who had attained 
 any eminence in it. His " Catechism " was adapted to send 
 back the rising generation to the Middle Ages. 
 
 But let us consider that portion of his policy which he studied 
 most, and on which he would have founded his power and 
 looked forward to the establishment of his dynasty. He repu- 
 diated the woman who attached to him the best of all parties, 
 by the sweetness of her temper and the activity of her benefi- 
 cence ; and he married into the only family proscribed by the 
 prejudices of his nation. He soon grew restless with peace, 
 and uneasy under the weight of his acquisitions. No public 
 man, not Pitt himself, ever squandered such prodigious means 
 so unprofitably. Anxious to aggrandize his family, could he 
 not have given the whole of Italy to one brother, leaving Spain 
 as his privy purse in the hands of its imbecile Bourbon ? Could 
 he not have given Poland and Polish Prussia to the King of 
 Saxony, and have placed an eternal barrier between France and 
 Russia? The Saxon dominions, with Prussian Silesia, would 
 have recompensed Austria for the session of the Venetian ter- 
 ritories on the West of the Taghamento. I do not suggest 
 these practicabilities as fair dealings toward nations : I suggest 
 them only as suitable to the interests of Napoleon, who shook 
 and threw nations as another gamester shakes and throws dice. 
 Germany should have been broken up into its old Hanse towns 
 and small principalities. 
 
 With such arrangements, all feasible at one time or other, 
 France would have been unassailable. Instead of which, her 
 ruler fancied it necessary to make an enemy of Russia. Had 
 1 Madame de Stael. 
 
OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 2$^ 
 
 it been so, he might have profited by the experience of all who 
 had ever invaded the interior of that country. The extremities 
 of the Muscovite empire are easily broken off, by lying at so 
 great a distance from the trunk ; added to which, they all are 
 grafts, imperfectly granulated on an uncongenial stock, and with 
 the rush-bound cement fresh and friable about them. Moscow 
 never could be long retained by any hostile forces ; subsistence 
 would be perpetually cut off and carried away from them by 
 hostile tribes, assailing and retreating as necessity might de- 
 mand, and setting fire to the harvests and the forests. The 
 inhabitants of that city, especially the commercial body and 
 the ancient nobility, would have rejoiced at the demolition of 
 Petersburg which nothing could prevent, the ports of the Baltic 
 being in the hands of Bonaparte, and Dantzic containing stores 
 of every kind, sufficient for an army the most numerous that 
 ever marched upon the earth. For the Asiatic have contained, 
 in all ages, less than a fifth of fighting men, the rest being mer- 
 chants, husbandmen, drovers, artisans, and other followers of the 
 camp. The stores had been conveyed by the coast, instead of 
 employing two- thirds of the cavalry ; and the King of Sweden 
 had been invited to take possession of a fortress (for city there 
 would have been none) protecting a province long under his 
 crown, and reluctantly torn away from it. No man ever yet 
 obtained the lasting renown of a consummate general who 
 committed the same mistakes as had been committed in the 
 same position by those before him ; who suffered great reverses 
 by great improvidence ; who never rose up again after one 
 discomfiture ;: or who led forth army upon army fruitlessly. 
 Napoleon, in the last years of his sovereignty, fought without 
 aim, vanquished without glory, and perished without defeat. 
 
 Did Gustavus Adolphus, did Frederick, did Washington, ever 
 experience a great reverse by committing a great imprudence ? 
 For on this main question rests the solid praise of generalship. 
 Bonaparte, after affronting every potentate of every dimension 
 by the rudeness of his nature and the insolence of his domina- 
 tion, left to every one of them sufficient power to retaliate. 
 Surely, he must have read his MachiavelU upside-down ! A 
 king should never be struck unless in a vital part. Cromwell, 
 with many scruples, committed not this mistake ; Bonaparte, 
 with none, committed it. The shadow of Cromwell's name 
 
254 OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 
 
 overawed the most confident and haughty. He intimidated 
 Holland, he humiliated Spain, and he twisted the supple 
 Mazarine, the ruler of France, about his finger. All those 
 nations had then attained the summit of their prosperity ; all 
 were unfriendly to the rising power of England ; all trembled 
 at the authority of that single man who coerced at once her 
 aristocracy, her priesthood, and her factions. No agent of 
 equal potency and equal moderation had appeared upon earth 
 before. He walked into a den of lions, and scourged them 
 growling out; Bonaparte was pushed into a menagerie of 
 monkeys, and fainted at their grimaces. His brother's bell 
 and Oudinot's grenadiers frightened them off and saved him. 
 Meteors look larger than fixed stars, and strike with more ad- 
 miration the beholder. Those who know not what they are, 
 call them preternatural. They venerate in Bonaparte what 
 they would ridicule in a gypsy on the roadside, — his lucky and 
 unlucky days, his ruling star, his ascendant. They bend over 
 his emetic with gravity, and tell us that poison has no power 
 over him. Nevertheless, the very men who owed their fortunes 
 to him found him incompetent to maintain them in security. 
 In the whole of Europe there was one single great man op- 
 posed to him, wanting all the means of subsistence for an 
 army, and thwarted in all his endeavors by those, for whose lib- 
 eration he fought. His bugles on the Pyrenees dissolved the 
 trance of Europe. He showed the world that military glory 
 may be intensely bright without the assumption of sovereignty, 
 and that history is best occupied with it when she merely tran-' 
 scribes his orders and despatches. Englishmen will always 
 prefer the true and modest to the false and meretricious ; and 
 every experienced eye will estimate a Vatican fresco more 
 highly than a staircase transparency. Rudeness, falsehood, 
 malignity, and revenge have belonged in common to many 
 great conquerors, but never to one great man. Cromwell 
 had indulged in the least vile of these ; but on his assump- 
 tion of power he recollected that he was a gentleman. No 
 burst of rage, no sally of ribaldry, no expression of con- 
 temptuousness, was ever heard from the Lord Protector. He 
 could subdue or conciliate or spell-bind the master-spirits of 
 his age ; but it is a genius of a far different order that is to seize 
 and hold futurity : it must be such a genius as Shakspeare's 
 
OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 255 
 
 or Milton's. No sooner was Cromwell in his grave, than all 
 he had won for himself and for his country vanished. 
 
 If we must admire the successful, however brief and hollow the 
 advantages of their success, our admiration is not due to those 
 whose resources were almost inexhaustible, and which nothing 
 but profligate imprudence could exhaust, but to those who re- 
 sisted great forces with means apparently inadequate, — such 
 as Kosciusko and Hofer, Hannibal and Sertorius, Alexander 
 and Caesar, Charles of Sweden and Frederick of Prussia. 
 Above all these, and indeed above all princes, stands high 
 Gustavus Adolphus, one of whose armies in the space of six 
 weeks had seen the estuary of the Elbe and the steeples of 
 Vienna ; another, if a fever had not wasted it on the Lake of 
 Como, would within less time have chanted Luther's Hymn 
 in St. Peter's. But none of these potentates had attempted the 
 downfall or the disgrace of England. Napoleon, on the con- 
 trary, stood at the head of that confederacy whose orators were 
 consulting the interests of France in the British Parliament. 
 He has left to the most turbulent and unprincipled of them a 
 very memorable lesson. The schoolmaster is abroad in the 
 guise of Bonaparte. He reminds them how, when his hands 
 were full, they dropped what they held by grasping at what 
 they could not hold ; how he made enemies of those who 
 might have been neutrals or friends ; how he was driven out 
 by weaker men than himself; and how he sank at last the 
 unpitied victim of disappointed ambition. Lord Brougham will 
 not allow us to contemplate greatness at our leisure ; he will 
 not allow us, indeed, to look at it for a moment. Csesar must 
 be stripped of all his laurels and left bald ; or some rude soldier, 
 with bemocking gestures, must be thrust before his triumph. 
 If he fights, he does not know how to hold his sword ; if he 
 speaks, he speaks vile Latin. I wonder that Cromwell fares no 
 better, if, signal as were his earlier services to his country, he 
 lived a hypocrite and died a traitor. Milton is indeed less 
 pardonable. He adhered, through good report and through 
 evil report (and there was enough of both), to those who had 
 a,sserted liberty of conscience, and who alone were able to 
 maintain it. 
 
 But an angry cracked voice is now raised against that 
 eloquence — 
 
256 OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 
 
 " Of which all Europe rang from side to side." 
 
 I shall make only a few remarks on Milton's English, and a 
 few preliminary on the importance of style in general, which 
 none understood better than he. The greater part of those who 
 are most ambitious of it are unaware of all its value. Thought 
 does not separate man from the brutes, — for the brutes think ; 
 but man alone thinks beyond the moment and beyond himself. 
 Speech does not separate them, — for speech is common to all 
 perhaps, more or less articulate, and conveyed and received 
 through different organs in the lower and more inert. Man's 
 thought, which seems imperishable, loses its form, and runs 
 along from proprietor to impropriator, like any other transitory 
 thing, unless it is invested so becomingly and nobly that no 
 successor can improve upon it by any new fashion or combina- 
 tion. For want of dignity or beauty, many good things are 
 passed and forgotten ; and much ancient wisdom is overrun 
 and hidden by a rampant verdure, succulent but unsubstantial. 
 It would be invidious to bring forward proofs of this out of 
 authors in poetry and prose, now living or lately dead. A dis- 
 tinction must, however, be made between what falls upon many 
 like rain, and what is purloined from a cistern or a conduit be- 
 longing to another man's house. There are things which were 
 another's before they were ours, and are not the less ours for 
 that ; not less than my estate is mine because it was my grand- 
 father's. There are features, there are voices, there are 
 thoughts, very similar in many ; and when ideas strike the 
 same chord in any two with the same intensity, the expression 
 must be nearly the same. Let those who look upon style as 
 unworthy of much attention, ask themselves how many, in pro- 
 portion to men of genius, have excelled in it. In all languages, 
 ancient and modern, are there ten prose-writers at once harmo- 
 nious, correct, and energetic? Harmony and correctness are 
 not uncommon separately, and force is occasionally with each ; 
 but where, excepting in Milton, where, among all the moderns, 
 is energy to be found always in the right place ? Even Cicero 
 is defective here, and sometimes in the most elaborate of his 
 orations. In the time of Milton it was not customary for men 
 of abilities to address to the people at large what might inflame 
 their passions; the appeal was made to the serious, to the 
 well-informed, to the learned, and was made in the language of 
 
OPINIONS ON CESAR, ETC, 25/ 
 
 their studies. The phraseology of our Bible, on which no sub- 
 sequent age has improved, was thought to carry with it solem- 
 nity and authority ; and even when popular feelings were to be 
 aroused to popular interests, the language of the prophets was 
 preferred to the language of the vulgar. Hence, amid the com- 
 plicated antagonisms of war there was more austerity than fe- 
 rocity. The gentlemen who attended the court avoided the 
 speech as they avoided the manners of their adversaries. 
 Waller, Cowley, and South were resolved to refine what was 
 already pure gold, and inadvertently threw into the crucible 
 many old family jewels, deeply enchased within it. EKot, Pym, 
 Selden, and Milton reverenced their father's house, and retained 
 its rich language unmodified. Lord Brougham would make us 
 believe that scarcely a sentence in Milton is easy, natural, and 
 vernacular. Nevertheless, in all his dissertations there are. 
 many which might appear to have been written in our days, if 
 indeed any writer in our days were endowed with the same 
 might and majesty. Even in his "Treatise on Divorce," where 
 the Bible was most open to him for quotations, and where he 
 might be the most expected to recur to the grave and anti- 
 quated, he has often employed, in the midst of theological 
 questions and juridical formularies, the plainest terms of his 
 contemporaries. Even his arguments against prelacy, where 
 he rises into poetry like the old prophets, and where his ardent 
 words assume in their periphery the rounded form of verse, 
 there is nothing stiff or constrained. I remember a glorious 
 proof of this remark, which I believe I have quoted before, but 
 no time is lost by reading it twice : — 
 
 " — But when God commands to take the trumpet, 
 And blow a dolorous or thrilling blast, 
 It rests not with man's will what he shall say, 
 Or what he shall conceal." 
 
 Was ever anything more like the inspiration it refers to ? Where 
 is the harshness in it ; where is the inversion ? 
 
 The style usually follows the conformation of the mind. 
 Solemnity and stateliness are Milton's chief characteristics. 
 Nothing is less solemn, less stately, less composed, or less 
 equable than Lord Brougham's. When he is most vivacious, 
 he shows it by twitches of sarcasm ; and when he springs 
 highest, it is from agony. He might have improved his man- 
 
 17 
 
258 INSCRIPTION FOR A STATUE AT ST. IVES. 
 
 ner by recurring to Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, equally dis- 
 contented politicians ; but there was something of high breeding 
 in their attacks, and more of the rapier than of the bludgeon. 
 Brougham found their society uncongenial to him, and trundled 
 home in preference the sour quarter-cask of Smollett. Many 
 acrid plants throw out specious and showy flowers ; few of these 
 are to be found in his garden. What then has he ? I will tell 
 you what he has, — more various and greater talents than any 
 other man ever was adorned with, who had nothing of genius 
 and little of discretion. He has exhibited a clear compendious 
 proof that a work of extraordinary fiction may be elaborated 
 in the utter penury of all those qualities which we usually 
 assign to imagination. Between the language of Milton and 
 Brougham there is as much difference as between an organ 
 and a bagpipe. One of these instruments fills, and makes to 
 vibrate, the amplest, the loftiest, the most venerable edifices, 
 and accords with all that is magnificent and holy ; the other is 
 followed by vile animals in fantastical dresses and antic ges- 
 tures, and surrounded by the clamorous and disorderly. 
 
 11. INSCRIPTION FOR A STATUE AT ST. IVES. 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL, 
 
 a good son, a good husband, a good father, 
 
 a good citizen, a good ruler 
 
 both in war and peace, 
 
 was born in this town. 
 
 To know his publick acts, 
 
 open the History of England, 
 
 where it exhibits in few pages 
 
 (alas too few !) 
 
 the title of Commonwealth. 
 
III. SIR ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO 
 PUBLIC MEN. 
 
 Statues are now rising in every quarter of our metropolis, 
 and mallet and chisel are the chief instruments in use. What- 
 ever is conducive to the promotion of the arts ought undoubt- 
 edly to be encouraged ; but love in this instance, quite as much 
 as in any, ought neither to be precipitate nor blind. A true 
 lover of his country should be exempted from the pain of 
 blushes when a foreigner inquires of him, "Whom does this 
 statue represent; and for what merits was it raised?" The 
 defenders of their country, not the dismemberers of it, should 
 be first in honor; the maintainers of the laws, not the sub- 
 verters of them, should follow next. I may be asked by the 
 studious, the contemplative, the pacific, whether I would assign 
 a higher station to any public man than to a Milton and a 
 Newton, My answer is plainly and loudly. Yes ! But the 
 higher station should be in streets, in squares, in Houses of 
 Parliament, — such are their places : our vestibules and our 
 libraries are best adorned by poets, philosophers, and philan- 
 thropists. There is a feehng which street- walking and public- 
 meeting men improperly call "loyalty; " a feeling intemperate 
 and intolerant, smelling of dinner and wine and toasts, which 
 swells their stomachs and their voices at the sound of certain 
 names reverberated by the newspaper press. As little do they 
 know about the proprietary of these names as pot-wallopers 
 know about the candidates at a borough election, and are just 
 as vociferous and violent. A few days ago I received a most 
 courteous invitation to be named on a committee for erecting 
 a statue to Jenner. It was impossible for me to decline it ; 
 and equally was it impossible to abstain from the observations 
 which I am now about to state. I recommended that the 
 statue should be placed before a public hospital, expressing 
 my sense of impropriety in confounding so great a benefactor 
 
26o ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO PUBLIC MEN. 
 
 of mankind, in any street or square or avenue, with the Dis- 
 memberer of America and his worthless sons. Nor would I 
 willingly see him among the worn-out steam-engines of par- 
 liamentary debates. The noblest parhamentary men who had 
 nothing to distribute, not being ministers, are without statues. 
 The illustrious Burke, the wisest, excepting Bacon, who at any 
 time sat within the people's house ; Romilly, the sincerest 
 patriot of his day ; Huskisson, the most intelligent in commer- 
 cial affairs, — have none. Peel has become popular, not by his 
 incomparable merits, but by his untimely death. Shall we never 
 see the day when Oliver and William mount the chargers of 
 Charles and George, and when a royal swindler is superseded 
 by the purest and most exalted of our heroes, Blake ? 
 
 Now the fever hath somewhat subsided which came over the 
 people from the grave of Sir Robert Peel, there is room for a 
 few obsei-vations on his decease and on its consequences. All 
 public writers, I believe, have expatiated on his character, com- 
 paring him with others who within our times have occupied 
 the same position. My own opinion has invariably been that 
 he was the wisest of all our statesmen ; and certainly, though 
 lie found reason to change his sentiments and his measures, 
 he changed them honestly, well weighed, always from convic- 
 tion, and always for the better. He has been compared, and 
 seemingly in no spirit of hostility or derision, with a Castle- 
 reagh, a Perceval, an Addington, a Canning. Only one of 
 these is worthy of notice ; namely, Canning, whose brilliancy 
 made his shallowness less visible, and whose graces of style 
 and elocution threw a veil over his unsoundness and lubricity. 
 Sir Robert Peel was no satirist or epigrammatist, — he was only 
 a statesman in public life, only a virtuous and friendly man in 
 private ; par negotiis, nee supra. Walpole alone possessed 
 his talents for business. But neither Peel nor his family were 
 enriched from the spoils of his country; Walpole spent in 
 building and pictures more than, double the value of his he- 
 reditary estate, and left the quadruple to his descendants. 
 
 Dissimilar from Walpole,, and from commoner and coarser 
 men who occupied the same office. Peel forbade that a name 
 which he had made illustrious should be degraded and stigma- 
 tized by any title of nobility ; for he knew that all those titles 
 
ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO PUBLIC MEN. 261 
 
 had their origin and nomenclature from military services, and 
 belong to military men, like their epaulets and spurs and 
 chargers. They sound well enough against the sword and hel- 
 met, strangely in law-courts and cathedrals ; but reformer as 
 he was, he could not reform all this, — he could only keep 
 clear of it in his own person. 
 
 I now come to the main object of my letter. 
 
 Subscriptions are advertised for the purpose of raising 
 monuments to Sir Robert Peel, and a motion has been made 
 in Parliament for one in Westminster Abbey at the public ex- 
 pense. Whatever may be the precedents, surely the house of 
 God should contain no object but such as may remind us of 
 His presence and our duty to Him. Long ago I proposed 
 that ranges of statues and busts should commemorate the great 
 worthies of our country. All the lower parts of our National 
 ■Gallery might be laid open for this purpose. Even the best 
 monuments in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's are deform- 
 ities to the edifice. Let us not continue this disgrace. De- 
 ficient as we are in architects, we have many good statuaries, 
 and we might well employ them on the .statues of illustrious 
 commanders and the busts of illustrious statesmen and writers. 
 Meanwhile our cities, and especially the commercial, would, I 
 am convinced, act more wisely, and more satisfactorily to the 
 relict of the deceased, if instead of statues they erected 
 schools and almshouses, with an inscription to his memory. 
 
 We glory in about sixty whose busts and statues may occupy 
 what are now the " deep solitudes and awful cells " in our 
 National Gallery. Our literary men of eminence are happily 
 more numerous than the political or the warlike, or both 
 together. There is only one class of them which might be 
 advantageously excluded, namely, the theological; and my 
 reasons are these. First, their great talents were chiefly em- 
 ployed on controversy ; secondly, and consequently, their 
 images would excite dogmatical discord, every sect of the 
 Anglican Church and every class of Dissenters complaining of 
 undue preferences. Painture and sculpture lived in the midst 
 of corruption, lived throughout it, and seemed indeed to draw 
 vitality from it, as flowers the most delicate from noxious air ; 
 but they collapsed at the searching breath of free inquiry, and 
 could not abide persecution. The torch of philosophy never 
 
262 ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO PUBLIC MEN. 
 
 kindled the suffocating fagot, under whose smoke Theology- 
 was mistaken for Religion. Theology had, until now, been 
 speculative and quiescent ; she abandoned to Philosophy these 
 humbler qualities : instead of allaying and dissipating, as 
 Philosophy had always done, she excited and she directed 
 animosities. Oriental in her parentage, and keeping up her 
 wide connections in that country, she acquired there all the 
 artifices most necessary to the furtherance of her designs : 
 among the rest was ventriloquism, which she quite perfected, 
 making her words seem to sound from above and from below 
 and from every side around. Ultimately, when men had 
 fallen on their faces at this miracle, she assumed the supreme 
 power. Kings were her lackeys, and nations the dust under 
 her palfrey's hoof. By her sentence Truth was gagged, 
 scourged, branded, cast down on the earth in manacles ; and 
 Fortitude, who had stood at Truth's side, was fastened with 
 iiails and pulleys to the stake. I would not revive by any 
 images, in the abode of the graceful and the gentle Arts, these 
 sorrowful reminiscences. The vicissitudes of the world appear 
 to be bringing round again the spectral past. Let us place 
 great men between it and ourselves, — they are all tutelar ; not 
 the warrior and the statesman only ; not only the philosopher ; 
 but also the historian who follows them step by step, and the 
 poet who secures us from peril and dejection by his counter- 
 charm. Philosophers in most places are unwelcome ; but there 
 is no better reason why Shaftesbury and Hobbes should be 
 excluded from our gallery than why Epicurus should have been 
 from Cicero's, or Zeno from Lucullus's. 
 
 Of our sovereigns, I think Alfred, Cromwell, and William III. 
 alone are eligible ; and they, because they opposed successfully 
 the subverters of the laws. Three viceroys of Ireland will 
 deservedly be placed in the same receptacle, — Sir John Perrot, 
 Lord Chesterfield, and (in due time) the last lord-deputy; 
 one Speaker, one only, of the Parliament, — he without whom 
 no Parliament would be now existing; he who declared to 
 Henry IV. that until all public grievances were removed, no 
 subsidy should be granted., The name of this Speaker may be 
 found in Rapin. English historians talk about facts, forgetting 
 men. 
 
 Admirals and generals are numerous and conspicuous. 
 
ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO PUBLIC MEN. 263 
 
 Drake, Blake, Rodney, Jervis, Nelson, Collingwood ; the sub- 
 duer of Algiers beaten down for the French to occupy ; and 
 the defender of Acre, the first who defeated, discomfited, 
 routed, broke, and threw into shameful flight Bonaparte. 
 Our generals are Marlborough, Peterborough, Wellington, and 
 that successor to his fame in India who established the empire 
 that was falling from us, who achieved in a few days two ar- 
 duous victories, who never failed in any enterprise, who accom- 
 plished the most difficult with the smallest expenditure of 
 blood, who corrected the disorders of the military, who gave 
 the soldier an example of temperance, the civilian of simplicity 
 and frugahty, and whose sole (but exceedingly great) reward 
 was the approbation of our greatest men. 
 
 With these come the statesmen of the Commonwealth, the 
 students of Bacon, the readers of Philip Sidney, the companions 
 of Algernon, the precursors of Locke and Newton. Opposite 
 to them are Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton ; lower in 
 dignity, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Keats, Scott, 
 Burns, Shelley, Southey, Byron, Wordsworth ; the author of 
 " Hohenlinden " and the " Battle of the Baltic ;" and the 
 glorious woman who equalled these two animated works in her 
 " Ivan " and '' Casablanca." Historians have but recently 
 risen up among us ; and long be it before, by command of 
 ParUament, the chisel grates on the brow of a Napier, a Grote, 
 and a Macaulay ! 
 
IV. TO CORNELIUS AT MUNICH. 
 
 On coming to England, and on looking at the Cartoons ex- 
 hibited for decorating the Houses of Parliament, you will won- 
 der, Cornelius, that the most important facts and most illus- 
 trious men have been overlooked. The English are certainly 
 less sensitive to national glory than to party politics, to past 
 achievements than to passing celebrity. Wilkes excited more 
 enthusiasm than Hampden. It appears to be certain that the 
 Protector Cromwell will be expunged from the pictorial history 
 of the nation, — of that nation which he raised to the summit 
 of political power. It is contended that he usurped his au- 
 thority. We will not argue the point, nor take the trouble to 
 demonstrate that the greatest and best princes in many coun- 
 tries have been usurpers. Without great services none of 
 them could ever have been invested with sufficient power to 
 assume the first dignity of the State. William of Normandy 
 was manifestly a usurper; and if breaking the direct line of 
 succession is usurpation, so was William the Third. Henry 
 the Fourth and Henry the Seventh were usurpers also, yet their 
 reigns were signally beneficial to their people. And to Rich- 
 ard the Third, whatever may have been his crimes in the as- 
 cent to sovereignty, the nation at large is perhaps more in- 
 debted for provident statutes of perdurable good than to any 
 other of her kings. But the glory of them all is cast into ob- 
 scurity by Cromwell. He humbled in succession the dominant 
 powers of Europe, at a time when they were governed by the 
 ablest men and had risen to the zenith of their prosperity. 
 Spain, France, Holland, crouched before him ; and the soldiers 
 of Gustavus Adolphus, the greatest king the world ever beheld, 
 thought he had risen from the grave to accomplish the delivery 
 of nations. For how little, in comparison, is France indebted 
 to Napoleon ! Yet both king and people are united in raising 
 
TO CORNELIUS AT MUNICH. 265 
 
 a monument to his memory. Compare the posthumous 
 honors conferred by the two great nations on the two great 
 men. The body of the one is brought back from the extremi- 
 ties of the ocean, to be venerated by a people he had reduced 
 to servitude ; the body of the other was treated as the vilest 
 malefactor's, in the midst of a nation he had vindicated from 
 double slavery, — the slavery of a lawless prince and an in- 
 tolerant priesthood. It is enough for Frenchmen that Napo- 
 leon had once humbled the enemies of France. We, who 
 judge more calmly, judge that whatever he did was done for 
 the advancement of his power and the perpetuation of his 
 dynasty. He had the quickest and the shortest sight of all 
 men living, and his arrogance brought into France the nations 
 that subdued her. Different in all these points was Oliver. 
 Never was man more bravely humane or more tranquilly ener- 
 getic. He stood above fear, above jealousy, above power ; he 
 was greater than all things but his country. 
 
 The English are erecting a column and statue to Nelson. 
 No such monument has been raised to Blake, because he 
 fought for a country without a king at the head of it. This 
 courageous and virtuous man abstained from party and from 
 politics, and would have defended his country even under the 
 king who sold her. No action of Nelson himself is more 
 glorious than the action of Blake at Cadiz, and his character 
 on every side is without a stain ; but in England the authorities 
 and the Arts neglect him. 
 
 " Caret quia rege sacro." 
 
 In the list of the committee which is to decide on fit sub- 
 jects for painting the Houses of Parliament you will find the 
 name of Eastlake, a good painter and a good scholar ; and of 
 Rogers, endowed with every quality of a gentleman, and with 
 an exquisite judgment in everything relating to literature and 
 the fine arts. Yet I doubt if either of them would not prefer 
 an allegory in the " Faery Queen," or a witchery in "Faust," 
 for a decoration of the Chambers, if highly picturesque, to the 
 most appropriate scene in parliamentary annals if less so. 
 English history, in fact, is now represented without living 
 figures, and worked by machinery. We see the events, and 
 wonder where are the actors. The later historians keep them 
 
266 TO CORNELIUS AT MUNICH. 
 
 carefully out of sight, and make their own voices suffice for all 
 within the boxes they exhibit. 
 
 The histories of other nations are alive with human agents ; 
 the earth moves and heaves with their energies ; we see not 
 only the work they have done, but we see them doing it. 
 Whereas, in our own sandy deserts, the only things astir are 
 small animals intent on their burrows, or striving to possess a 
 knot of fresh herbage. All beyond is indistinct : if ever we 
 come to it, we find only scanty eminences, under which are 
 evanescent features and weightless bones ; we trample them 
 down, and walk back again. 
 
V. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 
 
 The " Quarterly Review" for December, 1849, was shown 
 to me this morning, for the sake of a note on page 130. A 
 reviewer comes valiantly forth in his obscurity, and strikes at 
 me in the bottom of a page, without provocation and with- 
 out aim. Nothing of mine was in question ; the subject was 
 utterly remote. Rabid animals run straight — could not this ? 
 Is he blind? Apparently. The "Quarterly" would prolong 
 its painful struggles for existence by clinging to my name. 
 
 Speaking of the Duke of Wellington's Dispatches, the 
 reviewer observes : " When French people could not resist the 
 evidence of all great gifts and noble qualities with which that 
 record was filled ; when they owned that it would not do to 
 persist in their old vein of disparagement now the world had 
 before it that series of writings in which it was impossible to 
 say whether one should admire most, the range of knowledge, 
 reflection, sense, and wisdom, or the unaffected display of 
 every manly, modest, and human feeling under an almost 
 infinite variety of circumstances, and all conveyed in language 
 of such inimitable simplicity, so thoroughly the style becoming 
 a captain and statesman of the most illustrious class, — when 
 this was the result in France, the home faction saw it was time 
 to consider the matter, and they undoubtedly showed, and 
 have continued to show, proper signs of repentance. The 
 exceptions are very few. Here in England we know of none 
 at all in what can be called society ; of none in the periodical 
 press, beyond its very lowest disgraces. Among authors," etc. 
 
 It would be well if the writer of this verbose and rambling 
 note had attempted, at least, the " inimitable simplicity " which 
 he has been taught by some wiser authority to commend. No 
 man ever praised more unreservedly or more heartily the Duke 
 of Wellington's style, honesty, wisdom, and achievements than 
 I have always done ; and though his Grace may care little for 
 
268 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 
 
 such commendations, he will probably, if ever he hears of 
 them, set them somewhere apart from the " Quarterly " 
 reviewers. 
 
 The reviewer proceeds to number me among the home fac- 
 tion. Certainly I never was " at home " in it, and never knew 
 where its home was. I never was at a public dinner, at a 
 club, or hustings ; I never influenced or attempted to influence 
 a vote, yet many (and not only of my own tenants) have 
 asked me to whom they should give theirs. If the reviewer is 
 desirous of obtaining any favor from the Duke of Wellington, 
 let me assure him that the safest way is by descending from 
 flattery to truth. Even the duke (as future ages, like the 
 present, will call him) could not make his actions greater than 
 they are j they can only be diminished, as the steps of holy 
 places, by the grovelling knees and importunate kisses of 
 fanatic worshippers. When I commend the conciseness, the 
 manliness, the purity of the duke's style, it is not, as it must 
 be in the reviewer, from hearsay and tradition. Let him also 
 be taught, and repeat with less ostentation and more rev- 
 erence, that far above the faded flowers wherewith his puny 
 hands have bestrewn the great man's road, our deliverer has 
 confirmed the religious (more than all the theologians in the 
 country) in the belief that there is a superintending and a rul- 
 ing Power, under which, and by whose especial guidance, a 
 single arm can scatter myriads of the powerful, and raise up 
 prostrate nations. 
 
 I must now mount again the " bad eminence " on which it 
 hath pleased this gentleman to place me. " Among authors of 
 books of any sort of note," he continues, " verse or prose, we 
 recollect of none, unless Mr. W. Savage Landor, who however 
 clings with equal pertinacity to his ancient abuse of Bonaparte 
 as a ' blockhead and a coward,' of Byron as a ' rhymer wholly 
 devoid of genius or wit,' of Pitt as a * villain,' of Fox as a 
 ' scoundrel,' of Canning as a ' scamp,' and so on." 
 
 Now, I appeal to you and to every man who, however negli- 
 gently or however malignantly, has read my writings, whether 
 my education and habits of life have permitted me such lan- 
 guage. It is such as no gentleman could either have used or 
 have attributed to another. Even if the phrases were reduced 
 to synonymes of more decorum, the falsehood of the statement 
 
THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 269 
 
 would remain. I have never called Bonaparte a "blockhead" 
 or a "coward." I would not call by such a name even the 
 writer of this criticism. Bonaparte committed many gross 
 errors, some in polity, some in war, — greater indeed and 
 more numerous than any leader of equal eminence. He lost 
 three great armies ; he abandoned three in defeat. 
 
 It is curious that the "Quarterly Review" should rail 
 against my opinion on Bonaparte, when the only man of 
 genius connected with it, Southey, far exceeded me in hostility 
 to that sanguinary and selfish despot. His laws against the 
 press were more numerous and more stringent than ever had 
 existed in any country, and alienated from him every true 
 friend of liberty and letters. His cruelty to Toussaint L 'Ou- 
 verture (omitting an infinitude of others) was such as Charles 
 IX. would have discountenanced, and such as could hardly 
 have been perpetrated by his compatriot Eccellino. His mis- 
 calculations in Syria, in Egypt, in Spain, in Germany, in Russia, 
 where an open road to conquest lay before him along the 
 Baltic, will supplant in another age the enthusiasm that now 
 supports him. It is singular that a "Quarterly" reviewer 
 should assail me for joining all his leaders in hostility to this 
 destroyer ; and scarcely is it less so that I should continue on 
 terms of intimacy with many the most prominent of his ad- 
 mirers. Throughout life it has been my good fortune to enjoy 
 the unbroken and unaltered friendship of virtuous and illus- 
 trious men whose pohtical opinions- have been adverse. If it 
 is any honor, it has been conferred on me to have received 
 from Napoleon's heir the literary work he composed in prison, 
 well knowing as he did, and expressing his regret for, my 
 sentiments on his uncle. The explosion of the first cannon 
 against Rome threw us apart forever. 
 
 Of Byron I never have spoken as a " mere rhymer ; " I never 
 have represented him as destitute of genius or of wit. He had 
 much of both, with much energy, not always well apphed. 
 Lord Malmesbury has informed us that Mr. Pitt entered into 
 the war against France contrary to his own opinion, to gratify 
 the king. If so, the word "villain" would carry with it too 
 feeble a sound for me to employ it even in the company of 
 such persons as my critic, supposing me ever to have been 
 conversant in such. My intimacy with the friends and near 
 
270 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 
 
 relatives of Mr. Fox would have certainly closed my lips 
 against the utterance of the appellation of "scoundrel " in regard 
 to him. He had more and warmer friends than any statesman 
 upon record ; he was ingenuous, Uberal, learned, philosophical ; 
 he was the delight of social Kfe, the ornament of domestic. 
 Mr. Fox was a man of genius, and (what in the present day is 
 almost as rare) a gentleman. Specimens of either character 
 may never have fallen in the reviewer's way; and if perad- 
 venture they should have, probably it was not very closely, and 
 his inexperience may easily have mistaken them. Reverence 
 for the unknown, or for the dimly seen, may indeed be com- 
 mon to the vulgar; but here is an instance that it is by no 
 means universal. 
 
 Mr. Canning was a graceful writer both in poetry and prose ; 
 he had also the gift of eloquence in debate. His conduct 
 toward his colleague in the Administration lost him all his 
 popularity, which was not recovered by his asking an office 
 from the minister he had traduced and fought. The word 
 " scamp " was applied to Mr. Canning by the late Lord Yar- 
 mouth, who certainly ought to have known its full signification. 
 It was on the morning when, second to Lord Castlereagh, he 
 saved Mr. Canning's life, desiring his cousin to give " the 
 scamp a chance " by taking into the field, ijot his own well- 
 tried pistols, but those which Lord Yarmouth had brought with 
 him and laid upon the table. This account I received from 
 the only other person then present, and now living. But what- 
 ever I may continue to think of Mr. Canning, I prefer a phrase- 
 ology somewhat circuitous to a monosyllable better adapted to 
 the style and temper of the reviewer than to mine. 
 ' Few writers have been less obnoxious to rudeness and 
 impertinence than I have been ; and I should abstain from 
 noticing them now, had they been unaccompanied by a mis- 
 representation of my manners and a forgery of my words. 
 These are grave offences, such as public justice takes out of 
 private hands, I remember a fable of Phsedrus, in which a 
 mischievous youth cast a pebble at a quiet wayfarer, who, in- 
 stead of resentment or remonstrance, advises him to perform 
 the same exploit on a dignitary then coming up. I am quieter 
 than the dignitary, and even than the quiet man. Instead of 
 sending to the cross or to the whipping-post the mischievous 
 
THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 2/1 
 
 youth who passes over the road to cast his pebble at me, al- 
 though I might not perhaps beg him off from the latter inflic- 
 tions, I would entreat his employer, the moment I could learn 
 the editor's name, to continue the payment of his wages, and 
 to throw in an additional trifle for his (however ill-directed) 
 originality. I suspect he will neither be so graceful nor so 
 proud as he might be on obtaining this notice. Could he 
 have hoped it? But thus is extracted from the dryest and 
 hardest lichen in the coldest regions, where men are the most 
 diminutive, a nutritious sustenance often remedial in a low 
 disease. 
 
VI. A STORY OF SANTANDER. 
 
 Don Luis Cabeza-de-Moro was a widower, with two sons, 
 Antonio and Ignacio. His younger brother, named also Ig- 
 nacio, liad married a rich heiress in the island of Cuba, — both 
 of whom died, leaving an only daughter, seven years old, to the 
 guardianship of Don Luis, and intimating a wish, and providing 
 by will and testament, that Ines in due time should espouse her 
 cousin Ignacio. 
 
 Don Luis was rejoiced at the injunction, — for he disliked 
 his elder son from the cradle. This was remarkable, especially 
 as his lady, the Dona Pedrila, had continued long without off- 
 spring, and Antonio was her first-bom j besides which, there 
 were mysteries and signs and tokens such as ought to have 
 taught him better. His whole household were amazed and 
 edified and awed at the result of supplications which, after 
 four years of fruitless marriage, had produced this blessing; 
 and the " Moor's head," the blazon of the family, was displayed 
 by them with greater pride than ever in the balcony of the 
 ancient mansion-house. About a year before this event, an 
 Irish ensign had entered the service of Spain. Leave of ab- 
 sence was given him to visit his maternal uncle, the dean of 
 Santander, near which city was the residence of Don Luis. 
 Subsequently, Dona Pedrila saw him so often, and was so im- 
 pressed by his appearance, that it was reported in the family, 
 and the report was by no means discouraged by the dean, that 
 Ensign Lucius O'Donnell, now entitled Don Lucio, had been 
 dreamt of by Dona Pedrila, not once only, or occasionally, but 
 on the three successive vigils of the three glorious saints who 
 were more especially the patrons of the house. Under the im- 
 pression of these dreams, there was a wonderful likeness of the 
 infant to Don Lucio, which Don Luis was the first to perceive, 
 and the last to communicate. It extended to the color of the 
 hair and of the eyes. Surely it ought to have rendered a 
 
A STORY OF SANTANDER. 2/3 
 
 reasonable man more pious and paternal, but it produced quite 
 a contrary effect. He could hardly endure to hear the three 
 glorious saints mentioned ; and whenever he uttered their 
 names, he elongated the syllables with useless emphasis and 
 graceless pertinacity. Moreover, in speaking of the child to 
 its numerous admirers, he swore that the creature was ugly and 
 white-blooded. Within two more years Dona Pedrila bore 
 another son to him, and died. This son, Ignacio, came into 
 the world a few months before his cousin Ines, and the fathers 
 were confident that the union of two such congenial names 
 would secure the happiness of the children and of their 
 posterity. 
 
 Before Antonio had completed quite eleven years he was 
 sent for his education to Salamanca, not as a collegian, but as 
 a pupil under an old officer, a friend of Don Luis, who being 
 somewhat studious had retired to end his days in that city. 
 Here the boy, although he made no unsatisfactory progress in 
 polite literature, engaged more willingly with his tutor in manly 
 exercises, likewise in singing and playing on the guitar. He 
 was never invited home for three entire years ; but Ignacio, 
 who was of the mildest temper and kindest disposition, re- 
 membering the playfulness and fondness of Antonio, united his 
 entreaties with those of liies that he might return. Don Luis, 
 in reply, threw a leg over a knee. 
 
 ^' Uncle," said Ines, "he cannot ride on that knee all the 
 way from Salamanca ; send my mule for him, saddle, bridle, 
 and ropes, and the little bit of gilt leather for the crupper, 
 from the shrine of blessed Saint Antonio, his patron no less 
 than the patron of mules and horses. Ignacio says we must 
 have him ; and have him we will, if prayers and masses go for 
 anything. Cannot we sing, cannot we play? What would you 
 wish for his studies, — heresy, magic, freemasonry, chemistry, 
 necromancy ? We want him, dear uncle ; we want him sadly 
 with us. You always give us what we ask for in reason. Come 
 now, a kiss, uncle, and then the mule out of the stable. Come, 
 we will help you to write the letter, as you are somewhat out 
 of practice, and I know how to fold one up, after a trial or 
 two." 
 
 No one could resist this appeal : Antonio was sent for. He 
 returned in raptures. On his first entrance the lively eyes of 
 
274 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 
 
 Ines, full of curiosity, were bent toward him ; but he regarded 
 her not. He threw his arms around Ignacio, lifted him ofif 
 the ground, set him down again, gazed on his face, and burst 
 suddenly into tears. 
 
 " Ignacio, my Ignacio, how light you are ! how thin, how 
 pallid, how weak ! " 
 
 Don Luis looked on, and muttered something inaudible. 
 Antonio, fearful of having offended his worthy genitor by neg- 
 lect of duty, sprang from his dejection, clasped the waist of 
 Don Luis, and then falling at his feet, asked his blessing. Don 
 Luis with bitter composure prayed the three saints to bestow 
 it, as they might well do, he said, on the young Senor Don 
 Antonio now before them. The boy kissed his hand and 
 thanked him fervently ; and now, in his inconsiderate joyous- 
 ness, another spring forward ; but he stopped in the midst of 
 it, and instead of running up at once to liaes, who bit her lip 
 and pinched her veil, he turned again to Ignacio, and asked 
 him in a whisper whether cousins were forced to kiss after an 
 absence of only three years. "Certainly not," replied Ignacio. 
 But Ines came up, and pouting a little gave him her hand 
 spontaneously, and helped him moreover to raise it to his lips, 
 saying, as he blushed at it, "You simpleton ! you coward ! " 
 
 Antonio bore "simpleton" pretty well ; " .coward " amused 
 him, and gave him spirit. He seized her hand afresh, and 
 kept it within his, although she pushed the other against his 
 breast, — the little hand, with its five arches of pink-polished 
 nails half hidden in his waistcoat; the little hand sprouting 
 forth at him, soft and pulpy as that downy bud which swells 
 and bursts into the vine-leaf. 
 
 Antonio never saw in her any other object than the betrothed 
 of his brother, and never was with her so willingly as with him. 
 Nor indeed did Ines care much about Antonio, but wished 
 he could be a little more attentive and polite, and sing in a 
 chamber as willingly as in a chestnut-tree. After six weeks 
 Don Luis observed that Antonio was interrupting the studies 
 of Ignacio and neglecting his own. Accordingly he was sent 
 back to Salamanca, where he continued five whole years with- 
 out recall. At this time the French armies had invaded Spain ; 
 the old officer, Don Pablo Espinosa, who directed the studies 
 of Antonio, wrote to his father that the gallant youth, now in 
 
A STORY OF SANTANDER. 275 
 
 his twentieth year, desired to be enrolled in the regiment of 
 the province, next to himself, as a volunteer and a private. In 
 the fulness of joy Don Luis announced these tidings to Ignacio 
 and Ines. They both turned pale ; both threw themselves on 
 the floor before him, entreating and imploring him to forbid it. 
 Their supplications and their tears for many days were insuffi- 
 cient to mollify Don Luis. By this time a large division of the 
 French army had surrendered, and insurrection was universal. 
 Don Pablo was constrained, by three urgent letters, — of which 
 the father's was, however, the least so, — to leave his pupil at 
 the university ; he himself took the field, and perished in the 
 first battle. Antonio, disappointed in his hopes of distinction, 
 swore to avenge his tutor's death and his country's honor. His 
 noble person, his extraordinary strength, his eloquent tongue, 
 his unquestioned bravery, soon placed him at the head of many 
 students, and he was always the first to advise and execute the 
 most difficult and dangerous enterprises. 
 
 Toward the north of Spain the enemy had rallied, and had 
 won, indeed, the battle of Rio Seco, but within a month were 
 retreating in all directions. Antonio, bound by no other duties 
 than those of a volunteer, acceded at last to the earnest and re- 
 peated wishes of his brother and cousin that he would in this 
 interval return to them. Don Luis said he would be a mad- 
 man wherever he was, but might return if he liked it, both he 
 and his guitar. On the first of August, 1808, the visitor passed 
 again the threshold of his native home. Covered as he was 
 with dust, he entered the apartment where the family were 
 seated. The sun was setting, and the supper had just been 
 taken off the table, excepting two small flasks of red and white 
 wine, part of a watermelon, and some pomegranates. In fact, 
 more was remaining than had been eaten or removed, not reck- 
 oning a radish of extraordinary length and tenuity, which the 
 Senorita Ines was twisting round her thumb. It was no waste ; 
 there was not any use for it ; many things in the house were 
 better to mend harness with. Moreover, on the sideboard 
 there were sundry yellow peaches, of such a size, weight, and 
 hardness that only a confident and rash invader would traverse 
 the country in the season of their maturity, unless he had col- 
 lected the most accurate information that powder was deficient 
 in the arsenals. 
 
2/6 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 
 
 At the dusty apparition, at the beard and whiskers never seen 
 before, at the broad and belted shoulder, at the loud-spurred 
 boot, at the long and hurried stride toward the party, Don Luis 
 stared ; Don Ignacio stared ; Dona liies cast her eyes on the 
 ground and said, " ' T is he ! " The brother, whether he heard 
 her or not, repeated the words " ' Tis he ! " and rushed into his 
 arms. Don Luis himself rose slowly from his chair, and 
 welcomed him. Ifies was the nearest to him, and seemed 
 abashed. 
 
 " My cousin," said Antonio, bending down to her, " I have 
 yet to remove in part the name of coward," and Hfting her 
 hand from her apron, he kissed the extremities of her fingers. 
 " Brother, one more embrace, and then for those pomegran- 
 ates ; I am thirsty to death. God be with you, my dear, kind, 
 honored father ! You look upon me with more than usual, 
 and much more than merited, affection." Don Luis did in- 
 deed regard him with much complacency. " I must empty 
 those two flasks, my beloved father, to your health." So say- 
 ing, he poured the contents of one into a capacious beaker, 
 with about the same quantity of water, and swallowed it at a 
 draught. 
 
 " What lady have you engulfed with that enormous gasp?" 
 asked liies, with timid shyness ; " will she never rise up, do 
 you think, in judgment against you? " 
 
 " Pray mix me the flask near you," said he, " in like manner 
 as the last, and then perhaps I may answer you, my sweet 
 cousin; but tell me, liies, whether I did not rasp your nails 
 with; my thirsty and hard lips?" 
 
 " Yes, and with that horrid brake above," said she, pouring 
 out the wine and water, and oflering it. 
 
 Don Luis all this time had kept his eyes constantly on his 
 son, and began to prognosticate in him a valiant defender ; 
 then discovered, first in one feature, afterward in another, a re- 
 semblance to himself; and lastly, he was persuaded in his own 
 mind that he had been prejudiced and precipitate when he 
 was younger. The spirit of hospitality was aroused by paternal 
 love ; he gave orders for a fowl to be killed instantaneously, 
 even the hen on her nest rather than none, although the omelet 
 might be thinner for it on the morrow. Such was the charm 
 the gallant and gay Antonio breathed about the house. He 
 
A STORY OF SANTANDER. 277 
 
 was peculiarly pleased and gratified by the suavity of his father ; 
 not that he ever had doubted of his affection, but he had fan- 
 cied that his own boisterous manners had rendered him less 
 an object of solicitude. He had always been glad to see it 
 bestowed on his brother, whose dehcate health and sensitive 
 nature so much required it. 
 
 No house in Spain, where few were happy then, contained 
 four happier inmates. Ignacio, it is true, became thinner 
 daily, and ceased after a time to join in the morning walks of 
 his brother and Ines ; but he was always of the party when, 
 returning from the siesta, they took up their guitars, and tuned 
 each other's. 
 
 Were there ever two comely and sensitive young persons, 
 possessing sweet voices, exercising them daily together, bending 
 over the same book, expressing the same sentiment in its most 
 passionate accents, — were they ever long exempt from the gen- 
 tle intrusion of one sweet stranger? Neither lUes nor Antonio 
 was aware of it ; both would have smiled in the beginning, and 
 both would have afterward been indignant at any such surmise. 
 But revolutions in States effect no revolutions in nature. The 
 French, who changed everything else, left the human heart as 
 they found it. Ignacio feared, but said nothing. Antonio too, 
 although much later, was awakened to the truth, and determined 
 on departure. And now Ignacio was ashamed and grieved at 
 his suspicions, and would have delayed his brother, who dis- 
 sembled his observation of them ; but the poor youth's health, 
 always slender, had given way under them. For several days 
 he had taken to his bed ; fever had seized him, and had been 
 subdued. But there is a rose which Death lays quietly on the 
 cheek of the devoted, before the poppy sheds on it its tran- 
 quillizing leaves : it had settled immovably in the midst of 
 Ignacio's smiles, — smiles tranquilly despondent. Seldom did 
 Antonio leave his bedside, but never had he yet possessed the 
 courage to inquire the cause, of those sighs and tears, which 
 burst forth in every moment of silence, and then only. At 
 length however he resolved on it, that he might assure him the 
 more confidently of his recovery, having first requested Ines 
 that, whenever he was absent, she would supply his place. 
 
 " Cannot we go together? " said she, disquieted. 
 
 " No, senora ! '' answered he, with stem sadness, " we can- 
 
2/8 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 
 
 not. You owe this duty to the companion of your girlhood, to 
 the bequeathed of your parents, to your betrothed." 
 
 At that word sudden paleness overspread her countenance ; 
 her Hps, which never before had lost their rich color, faded and 
 quivered. No reply could pass them, had any been ready ; 
 even the sigh was drawn suddenly back, — not one escaped. 
 In all that was visible she was motionless. But now with strong 
 impulse she pressed both palms against her bosom, and turned 
 away. The suddenness and the sound struck terror into the 
 heart of Antonio. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and 
 looked into her face. Tears glittered on the folds of the long 
 black veil ; and they were not the tears of liies. But now she 
 also shed them. Alas ! from how many and from what distant 
 sources do they flow ! 
 
 liies went ; she sobbed at the door, but she went. No song 
 that evening, no book, no romance of love, no narrative of war : 
 the French were as forgotten as the Moors. 
 
 Morning rose fresh and radiant ; but the dim lavender on 
 each side of the narrow pathway had all its dew upon it ; the 
 cistus was opening its daily flowers, with no finger to press 
 down and attempt to smoothen the crumpled leaves ; none to 
 apply its viscous cup in playful malice against the trim orna- 
 ment of a smiling lip. Nobody thought of looking for the 
 large green lizard on the limestone by the twisted rosemary- 
 bush, covered with as many bees as blossoms, and uprearing as 
 many roots as branches above the prostrate wall. Nobody 
 thought of asking, " Did you ever know any creature who 
 panted so quickly as that foolish lizard ? — I mean in bat- 
 tle." Nobody met the inquiry with, "Did you ever hear of 
 any one who felt anything a little, a very little like it, at the 
 cembalo? " 
 
 Antonio, at this early hour, was seated on the edge of his 
 brother's bed, asking him, with kind dissimulation, what reason 
 he could possibly have to doubt liies' love and constancy. 
 
 " At first," replied Ignacio, " she used to hold my hand, to 
 look anxiously in my face, and to wipe away her tears that she 
 might see it the more distinctly in this darkened chamber. 
 Now she has forgotten to take my hand ; she looks as often 
 into my face, but not anxiously, not even inquiringly; she 
 lets her tears rise and dry again ; she never wipes them away, 
 
A STORY OF SANTANDER. 279 
 
 and seldom hides them. This at least is a change in her; 
 perhaps no favorable one for me." 
 
 Antonio thus answered him : " Ignacio, if we would rest at 
 all, we must change our posture in grief as in bed. The first 
 moments are not like the second, nor the second like the last. 
 Be confident in her ; be confident in me : within two hours 
 you shall, I promise you, whether you will or not. Farewell, 
 my beloved brother ! You are weary ; close but your eyes for 
 sleep, and sleep shall come. I will not awaken you, even with 
 glad tidings." 
 
 Folding his arms, he left the chamber with a firm step. 
 Within two hours he entered it again ; but how ? Hateful as 
 monastic life had ever appeared to him, ridiculous as he daily 
 in Salamanca had called its institutions, indifferent and incred- 
 ulous as he lately had become to many articles of the faith, 
 having been educated under the tuition of a soldier, — so free 
 in his opinions as once to have excited the notice and question- 
 ings of the Inquisition, — he went resolutely forth at daybreak, 
 and prevailed on the superior of a monastic order to admit him 
 into it at once, as its sworn defender. He returned in the vest- 
 ments of that order, and entered the bedchamber in silence. 
 His brother had slept, and was yet sleeping. He gently 
 undrew the curtain, and stood motionless. Ignacio at last 
 moved his elbow, and sighed faintly ; he then rested on it a 
 little, and raised his cheek higher on the pillow : it had lost 
 the gift of rest, its virtues were departed from it ; there was 
 no cool part left. He opened his eyes and looked toward 
 Antonio ; then closed them, then looked again. 
 
 " Ignacio ! " said Antonio, softly, " you see me ; it is me you 
 see, Ignacio ! " 
 
 The sick exhausted youth sighed again, and closing his hands, 
 raised them as if in prayer. This movement fully awakened him. 
 He now opened his eyes in wonder on his brother, who pressed 
 those raised hands within his, and kissed that brow which the 
 fever had shortly left. Ignacio sighed deeply and sank back 
 again. The first words he uttered afterward were these : — 
 
 " Oh, Antonio ! why could you not have waited, — impet- 
 uous, impatient Antonio? I might have seen you both from 
 Paradise ; I might have blest you from thence, — from thence 
 I might indeed. O God ! O Virgin ! O Mary, pure and true ! 
 
280 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 
 
 pardon my ingratitude ! Should love ever bear that bitter fruit ? 
 Forbid it, O host of Heaven ! forbid it ! it must not be," 
 
 " Brother, speak not so ; it is accomplished," said Antonio ; 
 " and now can you doubt your bride? " 
 
 Ines at this moment rushed into the chamber. She knew the 
 stately figure, she knew the lofty head, although tonsured ; she 
 screamed and fainted. Antonio drew her forth by the arm, 
 and when she recovered her senses, thus addressed her : — 
 
 " Cousin, my heart reproaches me for having loved you. If 
 yours (how incomparably less guilty !) should haply feel some 
 compunction, not indeed at what is past, but at what you see," 
 and he extended his large mantle to his arm's length, " return 
 from the unworthy to the worthy ; from him who renounces 
 the world to him whose world you are. Now, Ines, now we 
 can with unabashed front go together into his chamber." 
 
 " I will tend him," said she, " day and night ; I will follow 
 him to the grave ; I will enter it with him, — yes, and even 
 that chamber, while he suffers in it, I will enter." She paused 
 awhile, then continued : " Antonio, oh, Antonio ! you have 
 never loved. They tell us none can love twice. That is false ; 
 but this is true, — we can never love twice the same object." 
 
 Antonio stood mute with wonder at the speech of this inno- 
 cent girl, retired alike from society and unbeguiled by books. 
 Little had he considered how strong a light is sometimes thrown 
 on the intellect, what volumes of thought are expanded and 
 made clearly legible, by the first outflaming of the passions. 
 And yet Antonio should have known it ; for in the veins of 
 Antonio one half was blood, the other half was fire. While 
 with eyes fixed on the ground he stood yet before her, who 
 perhaps was waiting for his reply, she added briefly, — 
 
 " Let me repair my fault as well as may be. You shall see 
 me no more. Leave, me sir ! " 
 
 Antonio did leave her. In a fortnight the gentle spirit of 
 Ignacio had departed. 
 
 The French armies had again defeated the Spanish, pene- 
 trated to Santander, laid waste all the country around, and de- 
 molished the convent in which Ines had taken refuge. Some 
 women in Spanish cities were heroines ; in Spanish convents, if 
 any became so, the heroism was French. 
 
A STORY OF SANTANDER. 28 1 
 
 They who have visited Santander will remember the pointed 
 hill on the northwest of the city, looking far over the harbor, 
 the coast, and the region of La Mancha. Even while the 
 enemy was in possession of the place, a solitary horseman was 
 often seen posted on this eminence, and many were the dead 
 bodies of French soldiers found along the roads on every side 
 under it. Doubtless, the horseman had strong and urgent rea- 
 sons for occupying a position so exposed to danger. It was 
 Antonio. He had heard that Ines, after the desecration of the 
 convent, had been carried back by the invaders into Santander. 
 
 Early in October, the officers of the garrison made parties 
 with the ladies of the city to enjoy the vintage in its vicinity. 
 One morning a peasant boy employed by Antonio, ran breath- 
 less up to him on the mountain side, saying, as soon as he 
 could say it, — 
 
 " Illustrious senor, the Senora Ines and the other senoras, 
 and an officer and a soldier, all French, are coming ; and only 
 a mile behind are many more." 
 
 " I have watched them," replied Antonio, " and shall dis- 
 tinguish them presently." He led his horse close behind a high 
 wagon, laden with long and narrow barrels of newly gathered 
 grapes standing upright in it, and then tied his bridle to the bar 
 which kept them in their position. Only one horse could pass 
 it at a time. Ines was behind j the officer was showing her 
 the way, and threatening both vintagers and mules for their in- 
 tractability. Antonio sprang forward, seized him by the collar, 
 and threw him under them, crying to Ines : " Fly into the 
 mountains with me ! not a moment is to be lost ! Pass me : 
 he is out of the way. Fly ! fly ! Distrust my sanctity, but trust 
 my honor, O liies of Ignacio ! " 
 
 liies drew in her bridle, turned her face aside, and said 
 irresolutely, " I cannot ! oh, I cannot ! I am — I am — " 
 
 She could not utter what she was : perhaps the sequel may 
 in part reveal it. Scarcely had she spoken the last words, be- 
 fore she leaped down from her saddle, and hung with her whole 
 weight on Antonio's arm, in which the drawn sword was uplifted 
 over the enemy, and waiting only until he could rise upon his 
 feet again, and stand upon his defence. He was young, as was 
 discernible even through the dense forest of continuous hair 
 which covered all but nose and forehead. Roughly and with 
 
282 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 
 
 execrations did he thrust liies away from him, indignant at her 
 struggles for his protection. Before the encounter (for which 
 both were eager) could begin, the private had taken his post 
 behind an ilex at the back of Antonio, and discharged his mus- 
 ket. Gratitude, shame, love perhaps too, hurried liies to his 
 help. She fell on her knees to raise him. Gently, with open 
 palm and quivering fingers, he pushed her arm away from him, 
 and turning with a painful effort quite round, pressed his brow 
 against the wayside sward. The shepherd dogs in the evening 
 of that sultry day tried vainly to quench their thirst, as they 
 often had done in other human blood, in the blood also of 
 Antonio : it was hard, and they left it. The shepherds gave 
 them all the bread they carried with them, and walked home 
 silently. 
 
VII. THE DEATH OF HOFER. 
 
 I PASSED two entire months in Germany, and like the people. 
 On my way I saw Waterloo, — an ugly table for an ugly game. 
 At Innspruck I entered the church in which Andreas Hofer is 
 buried. He lies under a plain slab, on the left, near the door. 
 I admired the magnificent tomb of bronze in the centre, sur- 
 rounded by heroes, real and imaginary. They did not fight, 
 tens against thousands ; they did not fight for wives and chil- 
 dren, but for lands and plunder, — therefore they are heroes ! 
 My admiration for these works of art was soon satisfied, which 
 perhaps it would not have been in any other place. Snow 
 mixed with rain was falling, and was blown by the wind upon 
 the tomb of Hofer. I thought how often he had taken advan- 
 tage of such weather for his attacks against the enemies of his 
 country, and I seemed to hear his whistle in the wind. At the 
 little village of Landro (I feel a whimsical satisfaction in the 
 likeness of the name to mine) the innkeeper was the friend of 
 this truly great man, — the greatest man that Europe has pro- 
 duced in our days, excepting his true compeer, Kosciusko. 
 Andreas Hofer gave him the chain and crucifix he wore three 
 days before his death. You may imagine this man's enthusi- 
 asm, who because I had said that Hofer was greater than king 
 or emperor, and had made him a present of small value as the 
 companion and friend of that harmless and irreproachable hero, 
 took this precious relic from his neck and offered it to me. 
 
 By the order of Bonaparte, the companions of Hofer, eighty in 
 number, were chained, thumbscrewed, and taken out of prison 
 in couples to see him shot. He had about him one thousand 
 florins in paper currency, which he delivered to his confessor, 
 requesting him to divide it impartially among his unfortunate 
 countrymen. The confessor, an Italian who spoke German, 
 kept it, and never gave relief from it to any of them, most of 
 whom were suffering, not only from privation of wholesome 
 
284 THE DEATH OF HOFER. 
 
 air, to which, among other privations they never had been ac- 
 customed, but also from scantiness of nourishment and clothing. 
 Even in Mantua, where as in the rest of Italy sympathy is both 
 weak and silent, the lowest of the people were indignant at the 
 sight of so brave a defender of his country led into the pubhc 
 square to expiate a crime unheard of for many centuries in 
 their nation. When they saw him walk forth, with unaltered 
 countenance and firm step before them ; when, stopping on the 
 ground which was about to receive his blood, they heard him 
 with unfaltering voice commend his soul and his country to the 
 Creator, and as if still under his own roof (a custom with him 
 after the evening prayer) , implore a blessing for his boys and 
 his little daughter, and for the mother who had reared them up 
 carefully and tenderly thus far through the perils of childhood ; 
 finally, when in a lower tone, but earnestly and emphatically, 
 he besought pardon from the Fount of Mercy for her brother, 
 his betrayer, — many smote their breasts aloud ; many, think- 
 ing that sorrow was shameful, lowered their heads and wept ; 
 many, knowing that it was dangerous, yet wept too. The peo- 
 ple remained upon the spot an unusual time ; and the French, 
 fearing some commotion, pretended to have received an order 
 from Bonaparte for the mitigation of the sentence, and publicly 
 announced it. Among his many falsehoods, any one of which 
 would have excluded him forever from the society of men of 
 honor, this is perhaps the basest ; as indeed of all his atrocities 
 the death of Hofer, which he had ordered long before and ap- 
 pointed the time and circumstances, is that which the brave 
 and virtuous will reprobate the most severely. He was urged 
 by no necessity, he was prompted by no policy ; his im_patience 
 of courage in an enemy, his hatred of patriotism and integrity 
 in all, of which he had no idea himself and saw no image in 
 those about him, outstripped his blind passion for fame, and 
 left him nothing but power and celebrity. 
 
 The name of Andreas Hofer will be honored by posterity 
 far above any of the present age, and together with the most 
 glorious of the last, — Washington and Kosciusko. For it rests 
 on the same foundation, and indeed on a higher basis. In 
 virtue and wisdom their coequal, he vanquished on several 
 occasions a force greatly superior to his own in numbers and 
 in disciphne, by the courage and confidence he inspired, and 
 
THE DEATH OF HOFER. 285 
 
 by his brotherly care and anxiety for those who were fighting 
 at his side. Differently, far differently, ought we to estimate 
 the squanderers of human blood, and the scomers of human 
 tears. We also may boast of our great men in a cause as 
 great, — for without it they could not be so. We may look 
 back upon our Blake, whom the prodigies of a Nelson do not 
 eclipse, — nor would he have wished (such was his generosity) 
 to obscure it. Blake was among the founders of freedom ; 
 Nelson was the vanquisher of its destroyers ; Washington was 
 both ; Kosciusko was neither ; neither was Hofer. But the 
 aim of all five was alike ; and in the armory of God are sus- 
 pended the arms the last two of them bore, — suspended for 
 success more signal and for vengeance more complete. 
 
 I am writing this from Venice, which is among cities what 
 Shakspeare is among men. He will give her immortality by 
 his works, which neither her patron saint could do nor her 
 surrounding sea. 
 
VIII. A VISION. 
 
 Blessed be they who erected temples to the ancient Gods ! 
 Mistaken they may have been, but they were pious and they 
 were grateful. The deities of Olympus, although no longer 
 venerated, have thrown open both to the enthusiastic and to the 
 contemplative many a lofty view beyond the sterile eminences 
 of human life, and have adorned every road of every region 
 with images of grandeur and of grace. Never are they malig- 
 nant or indifferent to the votary who has abandoned them ; and 
 I believe there is no record of any appearing by night with 
 frowns and threats, but on the contrary I know from my own 
 experience that neither time nor neglect has worn the celestial 
 smile off their placid countenances. An instance of this fact I 
 am now about to relate. 
 
 Let me begin by observing that my eyes, perhaps by an 
 imprudent use of them, grow soon weary with reading, even 
 while curiosity and interest have lost little or nothing of ex- 
 citement. A slumber of a few minutes is sufficient to refresh 
 them, during which time I often enjoy the benefit of a dream ; 
 and what is, I believe, remarkable and singular, it usually takes 
 a direction far wide of the studies on which I had been en- 
 gaged. On one occasion perhaps it might have been that — 
 pushing my book away from me to the middle of the table — 
 the last object I saw was a picture by Swaneveldt, on the left 
 of which there is a temple ; for a temple, sure enough, stood 
 before me in my dream. Beside it ran a river, and beyond 
 it rose a mountain, each sensible alike of the sky that glowed 
 above. So far the picture and the dream were in accordance. 
 But the dream's temple was entirely its own ; it had no sheep 
 nor shepherd near it as the picture had, and although dreams 
 are apt to take greater liberties than pictures do, yet in the 
 picture there was an autumnal tree by the side of a summer 
 tree, — the one of rich yellow, the other of deep green. In 
 
A VISION. 287 
 
 the dream I remember nothing of the kmd ; yet I verily think 
 I remember every particle of it. I remember a cool and gentle 
 hand conducting me over some narrow planks thrown across 
 a deep channel of still water. I remember the broad leaves 
 underneath us, and how smooth, how quiet, how stainless, I 
 remember we tarried here awhile, not leaning on the rail, for 
 there was none, but tacitly agreeing to be mistaken in what we 
 reciprocally were leaning on. At length we passed onward by 
 the side of a cottage in ruins, with an oven projecting from 
 it at the gable-end ; on the outside of its many-colored arch 
 were gillifiowers growing in the crevices ; very green moss, in 
 rounded tufts and blossoming, had taken possession of its en- 
 trance ; and another plant, as different as possible, was hanging 
 down from it, so long and slender and flexible that a few bees 
 as they alighted on it shook it. Suddenly I stumbled ; my 
 beautiful guide blushed deeply, and said, — 
 
 " Do you stumble at the first step of the temple ? What an 
 omen ! " 
 
 I had not perceived that we had reached any temple ; but 
 now, abashed at the reproof, I looked up and could read the 
 inscription, although the letters were ancient, for they were 
 deeply and well engraven. "Sacred to Friendship" were the 
 words, in Greek. The steps were httle worn, and retained all 
 ■their smoothness and their polish. After so long a walk as 
 I had taken I doubt whether I should have ascended them 
 without the hand that was offered me. In the temple I beheld 
 an image, of a marble so purely white that it seemed but re- 
 cently chiselled. I walked up to it and stood before it. The 
 feet were not worn as the feet of some images are by the lips 
 of votaries ; indeed, I could fancy that scarcely the tip of a 
 finger had touched them, and I felt pretty sure that words were 
 the only offerings, and now and then a sigh at a distance. Yet 
 the longer I gazed at it the more beautiful did it appear in its 
 color and proportions ; and turning to my companion, who, I . 
 then discovered, was looking at me, — 
 
 " This image," said I, " has all the features and all the attri- 
 butes of Love, excepting th^ bow, quiver, and arrows." 
 
 "Yes," answered she smiling; "all excepting the mischiev- 
 ous. It has all that the wiser and better of the ancients attrib- 
 uted to him. But do you really see no difference ? " 
 
288 A VISION. 
 
 " Again I raised my eyes, and after a while I remarked that 
 the figure was a female, very modest, very young, and little 
 needing the zone that encompassed her. I suppressed this 
 portion of my observations, innocent as it was, and only 
 replied, — 
 
 " I see that the torch is borne above the head, and that the 
 eyes are upHfted in the same direction." 
 
 " Do you remember," said she, " any image of Love in this 
 attitude?" 
 
 " It might be," I answered ; " and with perfect propriety." 
 
 "Yes; it both might and should be," said she. "But," she 
 continued, " we are not here to worship Love, or to say any- 
 thing about him. Like all the other blind, he is so quick at 
 hearing, and above all others, blind or sighted, he is so ready 
 to take advantage of the slightest word, that I am afraid he 
 may one day or other come down on us unaware. He has 
 been known before now to assume the form of Friendship, 
 making sad confusion. Let us deprecate this, bending our 
 heads devoutly to the Deity before us." 
 
 Was it a blush, or was it the sun of such a bright and 
 genial day, that warmed my cheek so vividly while it de- 
 scended in adoration; or could it be, by any chance of 
 casualty, that the veil touched it through whiqh the breath of 
 my virgin guide had been passing ? Whatever it was, it awak- 
 ened me. Again my eyes fell on the open book, — to rest on 
 it, not to read it; and I neither dreamed nor slumbered a 
 second time that day. 
 
IX. THE DREAM OF PETRARCA. 
 
 When I was younger I was fond of wandering in solitary- 
 places, and never was afraid of slumbering in woods and grot- 
 toes. 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 of the unfortunate, as most interested me 
 by their courage, their wisdom, their eloquence, or their adven- 
 tures. 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. 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 rash 
 against the finger of the Almighty Power that formed it, — but 
 give me rather the creature to sympathize with ; apportion me 
 the sufferings to assuage. Allegory had few attractions for 
 me ; beheving 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 reflected for some time on this subject, when, wearied 
 with the length of my walk over the mountains, and finding a 
 soft old mole-hill covered with gray grass by the way- side, I 
 laid my head upon it, and slept, I cannot tell how long it 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, on hearing the whisper, I saw 
 something like the feather of an arrow, and then the arrow 
 
 19 
 
290 THE DREAM OF PETRARCA. 
 
 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 any one," 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 I am. Many whom you have 
 wounded grievously call upon me for succor ; 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 comfort 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 ob- 
 served 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 assert- 
 ing his power or his benefits. Love 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 alter- 
 cation, the third Genius had advanced, and stood near us. I 
 cannot tell how I knew him, but I knew him to be the Genius 
 of Death. Breathless as I was at beholding him, I soon be- 
 came 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 counte- 
 
THE DREAM OF PETRARCA. 29I 
 
 nance in which there was somewhat of anxiety, somewhat of 
 disdain ; and cried, " Go away ! go away ! Nothing that thou 
 touchest, Hves." 
 
 "Say, rather, child," rephed the^ advancing form, and ad- 
 vancing grew loftier and stateUer, — " say rather that nothing of 
 beautiful or of glorious lives its own . true Ufe until my wing 
 hath passed over it." 
 
 Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his fore- 
 finger 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 was Love's. By degrees I grew ashamed of 
 my ingratitude ; and turning my face away, I held out my arms, 
 and felt my neck within his. Composure 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 
 them he hastens, for every call only makes him fly farther off. 
 Sedate and grave 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 cannot follow me, he who cannot 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. 
 
X. PARABLE OF ASABEL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AsABEL in his youth had been of those who place their trust 
 in God, and he prospered in the land, and many of his friends 
 did partake of his prosperity. After a length of years it came 
 to pass that he took less and less delight in the manifold gifts 
 of God, for that his heart grew fat within him, and knew not 
 any work-day for its work ; nor did thankfulness enter into it, 
 as formerly, to awake the sluggard. 
 
 Nevertheless did Asabel praise and glorify the Almighty 
 both morning and evening, and did pray unto Him for the con- 
 tinuance and increase of His loving mercies, and did call him- 
 self, as the godly are wont to do, miserable sinner, and leper 
 and worm and dust. And all men did laud Asabel, inasmuch 
 as, being clothed in purple and smelling of spikenard, he was 
 a leper and worm and dust. And many did come from far 
 regions to see that dust and that worm and that leper, and did 
 marvel at him, and did bow their heads, and did beseech of 
 God that they might be like unto him. But God inclined not 
 his ear ; and they returned unto their own country. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 And behold it came to pass that an angel from above saw 
 Asabel go forth from his house. And the angel did enter, and 
 did seat himself on the seat of Asabel. 
 
 After a while, a shower fell in sunny drops upon the plane- 
 tree at the gate, and upon the hyssop thereby, and over the 
 field nigh unto the dwelling. Whereupon did Asabel hasten 
 him back ; and coming into the doorway he saw another seated 
 upon his seat, who arose not before him, but said only, " Peace 
 be unto thee ! " 
 
PARABLE OF ASABEL. 293 
 
 Asabel was wroth, and said, " Lo ! the rain abateth, the 
 sun shineth through it ; if thou wilt eat bread, eat ; if thou 
 wilt drink water, drink ; but having assuaged thy hunger and 
 thy thirst, depart ! " 
 
 Then said the angel unto Asabel, " I will neither eat bread 
 nor drink water under thy roof, O Asabel ! forasmuch as thou 
 didst send therefrom the master whom I serve." 
 
 And now the wrath of Asabel waxed hotter, and he said, 
 " Neither thy master nor the slave of thy master have I sent 
 away, not knowing nor having seen either." 
 
 Then rose the angel from the seat, and spake : " Asabel, 
 Asabel ! thy God hath filled thy house with plenteousness. 
 Hath he not verily done this and more unto thee ? " 
 
 And Asabel answered him, and said : " Verily the Lord my 
 God hath done this and more unto his servant ; blessed be his 
 name forever ! " 
 
 Again spake the angel : " He hath given thee a name among 
 thy people ; and many by his guidance have come unto thee 
 for counsel and for aid." 
 
 " Counsel have I given, aid also have I given," said Asabel; 
 " and neither he who received it nor he who gave it, hath re- 
 pented himself thereof." 
 
 Then answered the angel : " The word that thou spakest is 
 indeed the true word. But answer me in the name of the 
 Lord thy God. Hath not thy soul been farther from him as 
 thy years and his benefits increased ? The more wealth and 
 the more wisdom (in thy estimation of it) he bestowed upon 
 thee, hast thou not been the more proud, the more selfish, 
 the more disinclined to listen unto the sorrows and wrongs 
 of men? " 
 
 And Asabel gazed upon him, and was angered that a youth 
 should have questioned him, and thought it a shame that the 
 eyes of the young should see into the secrets of the aged ; and 
 stood reproved before him. 
 
 But the angel took him by the hand and spake thus : " Asa- 
 bel, behold the fruit of all the good seed thy God hath given 
 thee, — pride springing from wealth, obduracy from years, and 
 from knowledge itself uncontrollable impatience and inflexible 
 perversity. Couldst thou not have employed these things much 
 better? Again I say it, thou hast driven out the God that 
 
294 PARABLE OF ASABEL. 
 
 dwelt with thee ; that dwelt within thy house, within thy breast ; 
 that gave thee much for thyself, and intrusted thee with more 
 for others. Having seen thee abuse, revile, and send him thus 
 away from thee, what wonder that I, who am but the lowest of 
 his ministers, and who have bestowed no gifts upon thee, should 
 be commanded to depart ! " 
 
 Asabel covered his eyes, and when he raised them up again, 
 the angel no longer was before him. " Of a truth," said he, 
 and smote his breast, " it was the angel of the Lord." And 
 then did he shed tears. But they fell into his bosom, after a 
 while, like refreshing dew, bitter as were the first of them ; and 
 his heart grew young again, and felt the head that rested on it ; 
 and the weary in spirit knew, as they had known before, the 
 voice of Asabel. 
 
 Thus wrought the angel's gentleness upon Asabel, even as 
 the quiet and silent water wins itself an entrance where tempest 
 and fire pass over. It is written that other angels did look up 
 with loving and admiration into the visage of this angel on his 
 return ; and he told the younger and more zealous of them, 
 that, whenever they would descend into the gloomy vortex of 
 the human heart, under the softness and serenity of their voice 
 and countenance its turbulence would subside. " Beloved ! " 
 said the angel, "there are portals that open to the palm- 
 branches we carry, and that close at the flaming sword." 
 
XL JERIBOHANIAH. 
 
 Jeribohaniah sat in his tent, and was grieved and silent, 
 for years had stricken him. And behold there came and stood 
 before him a man who also was an aged man, who howbeit 
 was not grieved, neither was he silent. Nevertheless, until 
 Jeribohaniah spake unto him, spake not he. 
 
 But Jeribohaniah had always been one of ready speech ; nor 
 verily had age minished his words, nor the desire of his heart 
 to question the stranger. Wherefore uttered he first what 
 stirred within him, saying, " Methinks thou comest from a far 
 country : now what country may that be whence thou comest? " 
 
 And the stranger named by name the country whence his 
 feet, together with the staff of his right hand, had borne him. 
 
 "Bad, exceeding bad, and stinking in our nostrils," said 
 Jeribohaniah, " is that country ! Nevertheless mayest thou 
 enter and eat within my tent, and welcome, seeing that thy 
 scrip hangeth down to thy girdle, round and large as hangeth 
 the gourd in the days of autumn ; and it is fitting and right 
 that if I give unto thee of mine, so likewise thou of thine, in 
 due proportion, give unto me ; and the rather, forasmuch as 
 my tent containeth few things within it, and thy wallet (I 
 guess) abundant." 
 
 Whereupon did Jeribohaniah step forward, and strive to 
 touch with his right hand the top of the wallet, and the bottom 
 with his left. But the stranger drew back therefrom, saying, 
 " Nay." 
 
 Then Jeribohaniah waxed wroth, and would have smitten 
 the stranger at the tent, asking him in his indignation why he 
 drew back, and wherefore he withheld the wallet from the most 
 just, the most potent, the most intelligent, and the most vener- 
 able of mankind ! Whereupon the stranger answered him and 
 said, "Far from thy servant be all strife and wrangling, all 
 
296 JERIBOHANIAH. 
 
 doubt and suspicion. Verily he hath much praised thee, even 
 until this day, unto those among whom he was born and abided. 
 And when some spake evil of thee and of thine, then did thy 
 servant, even I who stand before thee, say unto them, ' Tarry ! 
 I will myself go forth unto Jeribohaniah, and see unto his ways, 
 and report unto ye truly what they be.' " 
 
 " And now I guess," quoth Jeribohaniah, " thou wouldst re- 
 turn and tell them the old story, — how I and my children 
 have lusted after the goods of other men, and have taken 
 them. Now, we only took the goods, — the men took we not; 
 yet so rebellious and migrateflil were they that we were fain to 
 put them to the edge of the sword. And thus did we. And 
 lest another such generation of vipers should spring up in the 
 wilderness beyond them, we sent onward just men, who should 
 turn and harrow the soil, and put likewise to the edge of the 
 sword such as would hinder us in doing what is lawful and 
 right; namely, that which our wills ordained. To prevent 
 such an extremity, our prudence and humanity led us, under 
 God, to detain the silver and gold intrusted to us by the most 
 suspicious and spiteful of our enemies. And now thou art ad- 
 mitted into my confidence, lay down thy scrip, and eat and 
 drink freely." 
 
 " Pleaseth it thee," replied the stranger, " that I carry back 
 unto my own country what thou hast related unto me as seem- 
 ing good in thine eyes? " 
 
 "Carry back what thou wilt," calmly said Jeribohaniah, 
 " save only that which my sons, whose long shadows are now 
 just behind thee, may hold back." 
 
 Scarcely had he spoken when the sons entered the tent, 
 and, occupying all the seats, bade the stranger be seated and 
 welcome. Venison brought they forth in deep dishes; wine 
 also poured they out, and they drank unto his health. And 
 when they had wiped their lips with the back of the hand, 
 which the Lord in his wisdom had made hairy for that pur- 
 pose, they told the stranger that other strangers had blamed 
 curiosity in their kindred ; and that they might not be reproved 
 for it, they would ask no questions as to what might peradven- 
 ture be contained within the scrip, but would look into it at 
 their leisure. 
 
 Jeribohaniah told his guest that they were wild lads, and 
 
JERIBOHANIAH. 297 
 
 would have their way. He then looked more gravely and 
 seriously, saying, — 
 
 " Everything in this mortal life ends better than we short- 
 sighted creatures could have believed or hoped. Providence 
 hath sent us back those boys purely that thy mission might be 
 accomplished. Unless they had come home in due time, how 
 little wouldst thou have had to relate to thy own tribe con- 
 cerning us, save only what others, envying our probity and 
 prosperity, and far behind us in wisdom and enterprise, have 
 discoursed about, year after year? " 
 
CRITICISMS 
 
 THEOCRITUS, CATULLUS, AND PETRARCA. 
 
CRITICISMS. 
 
 I 
 
 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Within the last half-century the Germans have given us 
 several good editions of Theocritus. That of Augustus Meine- 
 kius, to which the very inferior and very different poems of 
 Bion and Moschus are appended, is among me best and the 
 least presuming. No version is added ; the ■pes are few and 
 pertinent, never pugnacious, never prolix. =,^1 no age, since 
 the time of Aristarchus or before, has the Gfeek language been 
 so profoundly studied, or its poetry in its Ature and metre so 
 perfectly understood, as in ours. Neither Athens nor Alexan- 
 dria saw so numerous or so intelligent a race of grammarians as 
 Germany has recently seen contemporary. Nor is the society 
 diminished, nor are its labors relaxed at this day. Valckenaer, 
 Schrieber, Schaeffer, Kiesling, Wue§teman, are not the only 
 critics and editors who, before the present one, have bestowed 
 their care and learning on Theocritus. 
 
 Doubts have long been entertained upon the genuineness of 
 several among his Idyls. But latterly a vast number, even of 
 those which had never been disputed, have been called in 
 question by Ernest Reinhold, in a treatise printed at Jena in 
 1819. He acknowledges the first eleven, the thirteenth, four- 
 teenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth. Against the arbi- 
 trary ejection of the remainder rose Augustus Wissowa in 1828. 
 In his "Theocritus Theocritoeus," vindicating them from sus- 
 picion, he subjoins to his elaborate criticism a compendious 
 index of ancient quotations, in none of which is any doubt en- 
 tertained of their authenticity. But surely it requires no force 
 of argument, no call for extraneous help, to subvert the feeble 
 
302 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 position, that, because the poet wrote his Pastorals mostly in 
 his native dialect (the Doric), he can never have written in 
 another. If he composed the eighteenth Idyl in the ^olic, 
 why may he not be allowed the twelfth and twenty-second in 
 the Ionic? Not, however, that in the twelfth he has done it 
 uniformly : the older manuscripts of this poem contain fewer 
 forms of that dialect than were afterward foisted into it, for 
 the sake of making it all of a piece. It is easy to believe that 
 the Idyls he wrote in Sicily were Doric, with inconsiderable 
 variations, and that he thought it more agreeable to Hiero, 
 whose favor he was desirous of conciliating. But when he re- 
 tired from Sicily to the court of Ptolemy, where Callimachus 
 and ApoUonius and Aratus were residing, he would not on 
 every occasion revert to an idiom little cultivated in Egypt. 
 Not only to avoid the charge of rivalry with the poets who were 
 then flourishing there, but also from sound judgment, he wrote 
 heroic poetry in Homeric verse, — in verse no less Ionic than 
 Homer's own ; indeed, more purely so. 
 
 Thirty of his poems are entitled Idyls, — in short all but the 
 Epigrams, however different in length, in subject, and in metre. 
 But who gave them this appellation, or whence was it derived ? 
 We need go up no higher than to eT8os for the derivation, and 
 it is probable that the poet himself supplied the title. But did 
 he give it to all his compositions, or even to all those (except- 
 ing the Epigrams) which are now extant ? We think he did 
 not, although we are unsupported in our opinion by the old 
 scholiast who wrote the arguments. "The poet," says he, " did 
 not wish to specify his pieces but ranged them all under one 
 titled We believe that he ranged what he thought the more 
 important and the more epic under this category, and that he 
 omitted to give any separate designation to the rest, prefixing to 
 each piece (it may be) its own title. Nay, it appears to us not 
 at all improbable that those very pieces which we modems call 
 more peculiarly Idyls, were not comprehended by him in this 
 designation. We believe that t&vXkiov means a small image 
 of something gi-eater, and that it was especially applied at first 
 to his short poems of the heroic cast and character. As the 
 others had no genuine name denoting their quality, but only 
 the names of the interlocutors or the subjects (which the an- 
 cient poets, both Greek and Roman, oftener omitted), they 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 3O3 
 
 were all after a while comprehended in a mass within one com- 
 mon term. That the term was invented long after the age of 
 Theocritus, is the opinion of Heine and of Wissowa ; but where 
 is the proof of the fact, or foundation for the conjecture ? No- 
 body has denied that it existed in the time of Virgil ; and many 
 have wondered that he did not thus entitle his Bucolics, instead 
 of calling them Eclogues. And so indeed he probably would 
 have done, had he believed that Theocritus intended any such 
 designation for his Pastorals. But neither he nor Calpumius, 
 nor Nemesian, called by the name of Idyl their bucolic poems ; 
 which they surely would have done if, in their opinion or in the 
 opinion of the pubUc, it was applicable to them. It was not 
 thought so when literature grew up again in Italy, and when 
 the shepherds and shepherdesses recovered their lost estates 
 in the provinces of poetry, under the patronage of Petrarca, 
 Boccaccio, Pontanus, and Mantuanus. 
 
 Eobanus Hessus, a most voluminous writer of Latin verses, 
 has translated much from the Greek classics, and among the 
 rest some pieces from Theocritus. From time to time we have 
 spent several hours of idleness over his pages ; but the farther 
 we proceeded, whatever was the direction, the duller and 
 drearier grew his unprofitable pine-forest, the more wearisome 
 and disheartening his flat and printless sands. After him, 
 Bruno Sidelius, another German, was the first of the moderns 
 who conferred the name of Idyl on their Bucolics. As this 
 word was enlarged in its acceptation, so was another in another 
 kind of poetry ; namely, the Pasan, which at first was appro- 
 priated to Apollo and Artemis, but was afterward transferred to 
 other deities. Servius, on the first ^neid, tells us that Pindar 
 not only composed one on Zeus of Dodona, but several in 
 honor of mortals. The same may be said ot the Dithjrambic. 
 Elegy too, in the commencement, was devoted to grief exclu- 
 sively, like the ncenics and thrence. Subsequently it embraced 
 a vast variety of matters, some of them ethic and didactic ; 
 some the very opposite to its institution, inciting to war and 
 patriotism, for instance those of Tyrtseus ; and some to love 
 and licentiousness, in which Mimnermus has been followed 
 by innumerable disciples to the extremities of the earth. 
 
 Before we inspect the Idyls of Theocritus, one by one, as we 
 intend to do, it may be convenient in this place to recapitulate 
 
304 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 what little is known about him. He tells us, in the epigraph 
 to them, that there was another poet of the same name, a 
 native of Chios, but that he himself was a Syracusan of low 
 origin, son of Praxagoras and Philina. He calls his mother 
 TrepiKk^LTrj (illustrious), evidently for no other reason than 
 because the verse required it. There is no ground for disbe- 
 lieving what he records of his temper, — that he never was 
 guilty of detraction. His exact age is unknown, and unimpor- 
 tant. One of the Idyls is addressed to the younger Hiero, 
 another to Ptolemy Philadelphus. The former of these began 
 his reign in the one hundred and twenty-sixth Olympiad, the 
 latter in the one hundred and twenty-third. In the sixteenth 
 Idyl the poet insinuates that the valor of Hiero was more con- 
 spicuous than his liberality ; on Ptolemy he never had reason 
 to make any such remark. Among his friends in Egypt was 
 Aratus, of whom Cicero and Caesar thought highly, and of 
 whose works both of them translated some parts. Philetus the 
 Coan was another ; and his merit must also have been great, 
 for Propertius joins him with Callimachus, and asks permission 
 to enter the sacred grove of poetry in their company, — 
 
 " Callimachi manes et Coi sacra Philetas I 
 In veStrum quaeso me sinite ire nemus." 
 
 It appears, however, that Aratus was more -particularly and 
 intimately Theocritus's friend. To him he inscribes the sixth 
 Idyl, describes his loves in the seventh, and borrows from him 
 the religious exordium of the seventeenth. After he had 
 resided several years in Egypt, he returned to his native 
 country, and died there. 
 
 We now leave the man for the writer, and in this capacity 
 we have a great deal more to say. The poems we possess 
 from him are only a part, although probably the best, of what 
 he wrote. He composed hymns, elegies, and iambics. Her- 
 mann, in his dissertation on hexameter verse, expresses his 
 wonder that Virgil, in the Eclogues, should have deserted the 
 practice of Theocritus in its structure ; and he remarks, for 
 instance, the first in the first Idyl, — 
 
 'ASiJ T« rh ^tdipiafia Koi a irirvs . . . alir6\e T-fiva. 
 
 This pause, however, is almost as frequent in Homer as in 
 Theocritus ; and it is doubtful to us, who indeed have not 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 305 
 
 counted the examples, whether any other pause occurs so often 
 in the Ihad. In reading this verse, we do not pause after 
 TTtTus, but after ij/iOvpLcrixa ; but in the verses which the illus- 
 trious critic quotes from Homer the pause is precisely in that 
 place, — 
 
 HSvTO} fxev Ta vpcora Kopvfffferai . . . avrap eiretra 
 Xepcrai l>7]yvujj.eyov fx,eyd\a Ppeixei . . . afj.(pl Se t &Kpas. 
 
 Although the pause is greatly more common in the Greek 
 hexameter than in the Latin, yet Hermann must have taken up 
 Virgil's Eclogues very inattentively in making his remark. 
 For that which he wonders the Roman has imitated so spar- 
 ingly from the Syracusan occurs quite frequently enough in 
 Virgil, and rather too frequently in Theocritus. It may be 
 tedious to the inaccurate and negligent ; it may be tedious to 
 those whose reading is only a species of dissipation, and to 
 whom ears have been given only as ornaments ; nevertheless, 
 for the sake of others, we have taken some trouble to establish 
 our position in regard to the Eclogues, and the instances are 
 given below : — 
 
 Eel. I , containing 83 verses. 
 
 Namqne erit ille mihi semper deus . . . 
 Non equidem invideo, miror magis . . . 
 Ite mese, felix quondam, pecus . • . 
 
 Eel. II. 73 verses. 
 
 Atque superba pati fastidia . . . 
 Cum placidum ventis staret mare . . . 
 Bina die sieeant ovis ubera . . . 
 Heu, heu ! quid volui misero mihi .-. -. 
 
 Eel. III. iTi verses. 
 
 Die mihi, Damoeta, cujum pecus . . . 
 Infelix, O semper oves pecus . . . 
 Et, si non aliqua nocuisses . . . 
 Si nescis, mens ille caper fuit . . . 
 Bisque die numerant ambo pecus . . . 
 Parta mese Veneri sunt munera . . . 
 Pollio et ipse facit nova carmina . . . 
 Parcite, oves, nimium procedere . . . 
 
 Eel. V. 90 verses. 
 
 Sive antro potius succedimus . . . 
 Frigida, Daphni, boves ad flumina . . . 
 20 
 
306 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Quale sopor fessis in gramine . . , 
 Haec eadem docuit cujum pecus . . . 
 
 Eel. VI. 86 verses. 
 
 Cum canerem reges et prselia . . . 
 ^gle Naiadum pulcherrima . . . 
 Carmina quse vultis cognoscite . . . 
 Aut aliquam in magno sequitur grege 
 Errabunda bovis vestigia . . . 
 Quo cursu deseita petiverit . . . 
 
 Eel. VII. 70 verses. 
 
 Ambo florentes aetatibus . . . 
 Vir gregis ipse caper deerraverat . . . 
 Aspicio ; ille ubi me contra videt . . . 
 Nymphse noster amor Lebethrides 
 Quale meo Codro concedite . . . 
 Setosi caput hoc apri tibi . . . 
 Ite domum pasti, si quis pudor . . . 
 Aut si ultra placitum laudarit . . . 
 Si foetura gregem suppleverit . . . 
 Solstitium pecori defendite . . . 
 Populus Alcidse gratissima . . . 
 Fraxinus in sylvis pulcherrima. 
 
 Eel. VIII. 109 verses. 
 
 Sive oram Illyrici legis asquoris . . . 
 A te principium, tibi desinet ... - 
 Carmina coepta tuis, atque hac sine . . 
 Nascere prasque diem veniens age . . . 
 Omnia vel medium fiant mare . . . 
 Desine Msenalios jam desine . . . 
 Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina . 
 Transque caput jace ; ne respexeris . . 
 
 Eel. IX. 67 verses. 
 
 Heu cadit in quemquam tantum scelus 
 Tityre dum redeo, brevis est via . . . 
 Et potum pastas age Tityre . . . 
 Pierides, sunt et mihi carmina . . . 
 Omnia fert setas, animum quoque . . . 
 Nunc oblita mihi tot carmina . . . 
 Hinc adeo media est nobis via . . . 
 Incipit apparere Bianoris . . . 
 
 Eel. X. 77 verses. 
 
 Nam neque Parnassi, vobis juga . . . 
 Omnes mide amor iste rogant tibi . . 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 307 
 
 Instances of the cadence are not wanting in the ^neid. 
 The fourth book, the most elaborate of all, exhibits them, — 
 
 " Tempora, quis rebus dexter modus "... 
 
 And again in the last lines, with only one interposed, — 
 
 " Devolat, et supra caput adstitit . . . 
 Sic ait et dextra crinem secat." 
 
 In Theocritus it is not this ijsage which is so remarkable ; it 
 is the abundance and exuberance of dactyls. They hurry on 
 one after another, like the waves of a clear and rapid brook in 
 the sunshine, reflecting all things the most beautiful in Nature, 
 but not resting upon any. 
 
 Idyl I. Of all the poetry in all languages, that of Theocri- 
 tus is the most fluent and easy ; but if only this Idyl were ex- 
 tant, it would rather be memorable for a weak imitation of it 
 by Virgil and a beautiful one by Milton, than for any great 
 merit beyond the harmony of its verse. Indeed, it opens with 
 such sounds as Pan himself in a prelude on his pipe might have 
 produced. The dialogue is between Thyrsis and a goatherd. 
 Here is much of appropriate description ; but it appears un- 
 suitable to the character and condition of a goatherd to offer 
 so large a reward as he offers for singing a song. , " If you 
 will sing as you sang in the contest with the Libyan shepherd 
 Chromis, I will reward you with a goat, mother of two kids, 
 which goat you may milk thrice a day ; for though she suckles 
 two kids, she has milk enough left for two pails." 
 
 We often hear that such or such a thing " is not worth an old 
 song." Alas, how very few things are ! What precious recol- 
 lections do some of them awaken ! What pleasurable tears do 
 they excite ! They purify the stream of life ; they can delay 
 it on its shelves and rapids ; they can turn it back again to the 
 soft moss amidst which its sources issue. 
 
 But we must not so suddenly quit the generous goatherd ; 
 we must not turn our backs on him for the sake of indulging 
 in these reflections. He is ready to give not only a marvel- 
 lously fine goat for the repetition of a song, but a commodity 
 of much higher value in addition, — a deep capacious cup of 
 the most elaborate workmanship, carved and painted in several 
 compartments. Let us look closely at these. 
 
308 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 The first contains a woman in a veil and fillet ; near her are 
 two young suitors who throw fierce words one against the other : 
 she never minds them, but smiles upon each alternately. Surely 
 no cup, not even a magical one, could express all this ! But 
 they continue to carry on their ill-will. 
 
 In the next place is an old fisherman on a rock, fi-om which 
 he is hauHng his net. Not far firom him is a vineyard, laden 
 with purple grapes. A little boy is watching them near the 
 boundary-hedge, while a couple of foxes are about their busi- 
 ness, — one walking through the rows of vines, picking out the 
 ripe grapes as he goes along ; the other devising mischief to 
 the boy's wallet, and declaring on the word of a fox that he 
 will never quit the premises until he has captured the breakfast 
 therein deposited. 
 
 The song is deferred no longer, — and a capital song it is ; 
 but the goatherd has well paid the piper. It is unnecessary to 
 transcribe the verses which Virgil and Milton have imitated : 
 
 " Nam neque Parnassi vobis juga nam neque Pindi 
 Ulla moram facere, neque Aonia Aganippe." 
 
 Virgil himself, on the present occasion, was certainly not de- 
 tained in any of these places. Let us try whether we cannot 
 come toward the original with no greater deviation, and some- 
 what less' dulness : — 
 
 "Where were ye,. O ye nymphs, when Daphnis died^ 
 For not on Pindus were ye, nor beside 
 Peneiis in his softer glades, nor where 
 Acis might well expect you, once your care. 
 But neither Acis did your steps detain, 
 Nor strong Anapus rushing forth amain, 
 Nor high-browed Etna with her forest chain." 
 
 Harmonious as are the verses of Theocritus, the Greek lan- 
 guage itself could not bear him above Milton in his " Lycidas." 
 He had the good sense to imitate the versification of Tasso's 
 " Aminta," employing rhyme where it is ready at hand, and 
 permitting his verses to be longer or shorter, as may happen. 
 They are never deficient in sweetness, taken separately, and 
 never at the close of a sentence disappoint us. However, we 
 cannot but regret the clashing of irreconcilable mythologies. 
 Neither in a poem nor in a picture do we see willingly the 
 Nymphs and the Druids together ; Saint Peter comes even more 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 309 
 
 inopportunely ; and although in the midst of such scenery we 
 may be prepared against wolves with their own heads and 
 " maws " and " privy paws," yet we deprecate them when they 
 appear with a bishop's : they are then an over-match for us. 
 The ancients could not readily run into such errors ; yet 
 something of a kind not very dissimilar may be objected to 
 Virgil, — 
 
 " Venit Apollo, 
 ' Galle, quid insanis ? ' inquit." 
 
 When the poet says, " Cynthius aurem vellit et admonuit," we 
 are aware that it is merely a form of phraseology ; but among 
 those who in Virgil's age believed in Apollo, not one believed 
 that he held a conversation with Gallus. The time for these 
 familiarities cf gods with mortals had long been over, — 
 
 " Nee se contingi patiuntur lumine claro." 
 
 There was only one of them who could still alight without sus- 
 picion among the poets. Phoebus had become a mockery, a 
 by-word ; but there never will be a time probably when Love 
 shall lose his personality, or be wished out of the way if he has 
 crept into a poem. But the poem must be a little temple of 
 his own, admitting no other occupant or agent besides himself 
 and (at most) two worshippers. 
 
 To return to this first Idyl. Theocritus may be censured 
 for representing a continuity of action in one graven piece, 
 where the girl smiles on two young men alternately. But his 
 defence is ready. He would induce the belief that on looking 
 at the perfection of the workmanship we must necessarily know 
 not only what is passing, but also what is past and what is to 
 come. We see the two foxes in the same spirit, and enter into 
 their minds and machinations. We swear to the wickedest of 
 the two that we will keep his secret, and that we will help 
 him to the uttermost of our power when he declares that he 
 (<^aTt) will have the boy's breakfast. Perhaps we might not 
 be so steadily his partisan, if the boy himself were not medi- 
 tating an ill turn to another creature. He is busy in making a 
 little cage for the cicala. Do we never see the past and the 
 future in the pictures of Edwin Landseer, who exercises over 
 all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air an undivided and 
 unlimited dominion, koI voov lyvw ? 
 
3IO THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 We shall abstain, as far as may be, in this review from verbal 
 criticism, for which the judicious editor, after many other great 
 scholars, has left but little room ; but we cannot consent with 
 him to omit the hundred and twentieth verse, merely because 
 we find it in the fifth Idyl, nor because he tells us it is rejected 
 in the best editions. Verses have been repeated both by Lu- 
 cretius and by Virgil. In the present case the sentence with- 
 out it seems obtruncated, and wants the peculiar rhythm of 
 Theocritus, which is complete and perfect with it. In the last 
 two verses are aiSe -)(ijxaLpai Ov jxt] o-Kipraa-qr^. Speaking to the 
 she-goats he could not well say at, which could only be said in 
 speaking oflhtra. Probably the right reading is wSe, although 
 we believe there is no authority for it. The repetition of that 
 word is graceful, and adds to the sense. " Come hither, Kis- 
 saitha ! milk this one ; but, you others, do not leap about 
 here, lest, etc." The poet tells us he will hereafter sing more 
 sweetly : it is much to say ; but he will keep his promise. He 
 speaks in the character of Thyrsis. When the goatherd gives 
 the cup to the shepherd he wishes his mouth to be filled with 
 honey and with the honty-comb ! 
 
 Idyl II. is a monologue, and not bucohc. Cimsetha, an en- 
 chantress, is in love with Delphis. The poem is curious, con- 
 taining a complete system of incantation as practised by the 
 Greeks. Out of two verses, by no means remarkable, Virgil has 
 framed some of the most beautiful in all his works. Whether 
 the Idyl was in this particular copied from ApoUonius, or 
 whether he in the Argonautics had it before him, is uncertain. 
 Neither of them is so admirable as, — 
 
 " Sylvasque et sasva quierant 
 ^quora. 
 
 At non infelix animi Phcenissa ; neque unquam 
 Solvitur in somnos, oculisve aut pectore ^loctem 
 Accipit: ingeminant curse, rursusque resurgens 
 Ssevit amor. 
 
 The woods and stormy waves were now at rest, 
 
 But not the hapless Dido ; never sank 
 
 She into sleep, never received she night 
 
 Into her bosom ; grief redoubled grief, 
 
 And love sprang up more fierce the more repressed." 
 
 Idyl III. A goatherd, whose name is not mentioned, de- 
 clares his love, with prayers and expostulations, praises and re- 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 3 II 
 
 proaches, to Amaryllis. The restlessness of passion never was 
 better expressed. The tenth and eleventh lines are copied by 
 Virgil, with extremely ill success : — 
 
 " Qicod potui, puero sylvestri ex arbore leda 
 Aurea mala decern misi, eras altera mittam." 
 
 How poor is quod potui / and what a selection (lecta) is that 
 of crabs ! moreover, these were sent as a present (misi), and 
 not offered in person. There is not even the action, such as 
 it is, but merely the flat relation of it. Instead of a narration 
 about sending these precious crabs, and the promise of as 
 many more on the morrow, here in Theocritus the attentive 
 lover says, " Behold ! I bring you ten apples. I gathered 
 them myself from the tree whence you desired me to gather 
 them ; to-morrow I will bring you more. Look upon my soul- 
 tormenting grief ! I wish I were a bee that I might come into 
 your grotto, penetrating through the ivy and fern, however 
 thick about you." Springing up and away from his dejection 
 ' and supplication, he adds wildly, — 
 
 Nw iyvuiv rhv "Epcora : 0apbs Oehs 7} pa Xeaivas 
 Macrhhv iOTjXa^e, Spvfi^ Se /xiy erpeipe /^aTTjp-^ 
 
 Now know T Love, a cruel God, who drew 
 A lioness's teat, and in the forest grew. 
 
 Virgil has amplified the passage to no purpose : — 
 
 "Nunc scio quid sit amor; duris in cotibus ilium 
 Ismarus aut Rhodope aut extremi Garamantes 
 "Nee generis nostri puerum nee sanguinis edunt." 
 
 Where is the difference of meaning here between genus and 
 sanguis ? And why all this bustle about Ismarus and Rhodope 
 and the Garamantes? A lioness in an oak-forest stands in 
 place of them all, and much better. Love being the deity, 
 not the passion, qui would have been better than qtiid, both 
 in propriety and in sound. There follows, — 
 
 " Alter ab undecimo jam turn me ceperat annus." 
 
 1 We have given, not the Editor's, but our own punctuation : none 
 after OeSs ; for if there were any in that place, we should have wished the 
 words were fiaphv de6v. 
 
312 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 This is among the most faulty expressions in Virgil. The 
 words "jam turn me " sound woodenly ; and "me ceperat annus " 
 is scarcely Latin. Perhaps the poet wrote mihi, abbreviated to 
 7m, — mihi coeperat annus. There has been a doubt regarding 
 the exact meaning ; but this should raise none. The meaning 
 is, "I was entering my thirteenth year." " Unus ab undecimo " 
 would be the twelfth ; of course " alter ab undecimo " must 
 be the thirteenth. 
 
 Virgil is little more happy in his translations from Theo- 
 critus than he is in those from Homer. It is probable that 
 they were only school exercises, — too many, and in his opin- 
 ion, too good to be thrown away. J. C. Scaliger, zealous for 
 the great Roman poet, gives him the preference over Homer 
 in every instance where he has copied him. But in fact there 
 is nowhere a sentence, and only a single verse anywhere, in 
 which he rises to an equality with his master. He says of 
 Fame, — 
 
 " Ingrediturque solo et caput inter sidera condit." 
 
 The noblest verse in the Latin language. 
 
 Idyl IV. " Battus and Corydon." ^ The greater part is tedi- 
 ous ; but at verse thirty-eight begins a tender grief of Battus 
 on the death of his Amaryllis. Corydon attempts to console 
 him : "You must be of good courage, my dear Battus ! Things 
 may go better with you another day." To which natural and 
 brief reflection we beheve all editions have added two verses as 
 spoken by Corydon. Nevertheless we suspect that Theocritus 
 gave the following one to Battus, and that he says in reply, or 
 rather in refutation, "There are hopes in the living, but the 
 dead leave us none." Then says Corydon, "The skies are 
 sometimes serene and sometimes rainy." Battus is comforted ; 
 he adds but dapa-ew, for he perceives on a sudden that the 
 calves are nibbling the olives. Good Battus has forgotten at 
 once all his wishes and regrets for Amaryllis, and would rather 
 
 1 The close of verse thirty-one is printed a re ZolkvpOos; in other edi- 
 tions &, ZaKvvdos. Perhaps both are wrong. The first syllable of ZaKwOos 
 is short, which is against the latter reading; and re would be long be- 
 fore Z, which is against the former. Might not a shepherd who uses the 
 Doric dialect have said AaKwOos? We have heard of a coin inscribed 
 t^aKvvOiwv. In Virgil we read nemorosa Zacynthos ; but it seems impossi- 
 ble that he should have written the word with a Z. 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 313 
 
 have a stout cudgel. His animosity soon subsides, however, 
 and he asks Corydon an odd question about an old shepherd, 
 which Corydon answers to his satisfaction and delight. 
 
 Idyl V. Comatas, a goatherd, and Lacon, a shepherd, ac- 
 cuse each other of thievery. They carry on their recrimina- 
 tions with much spirit ; but the beauty of the verses could 
 alone make the contest tolerable. After the fortieth are sev- 
 eral which Virgil has imitated with little honor to his selection. 
 Theocritus, always harmonious, is invariably the most so in 
 description. This is, however, too long continued in many 
 places ; but here we might wish it had begun earlier and lasted 
 longer. Lacon says, — 
 
 " Sweeter beneath this olive will you sing, 
 By the grove-side and by the running spring, 
 Where grows the grass in bedded tufts, and where 
 The shrill cicada shakes the slumberous air." 
 
 This is somewhat bolder than the original will warrant, but not 
 quite so bold as Virgil's " rumpunt arbusta cicadse." It is 
 followed by what may be well in character with two shepherds 
 of Sybaris, but what has neither pleasantry nor novelty to re- 
 commend it; and the answer would have come with much 
 better grace uninterrupted. Comatas, after reminding Lacon 
 of a very untoward action in which both were implicated, thus 
 replies : — 
 
 " I will not thither : cypresses are here. 
 Oaks, and two springs that gurgle cool and clear ; 
 And bees are flying for their hives, and through 
 The shady branches birds their talk pursue." 
 
 They both keep their places, and look out for an arbitrator 
 to decide on the merit of their songs. Morson, a woodman, is 
 splitting a tree near them, and they call him. There is some- 
 thing very dramatic in their appeal, and in the objurgation that 
 follows. The contest is carried on in extemporary verses, two 
 at a time. After several, Comatas says, "AH my she-goats, 
 excepting two, are bearers of twins ; nevertheless, a girl who 
 sees me among them says, 'Unfortunate creature ! do you milk 
 them all yourself? ' " Lacon, as the words now stand, repHes, 
 " Pheu ! pheu ! " an exclamation which among the tragedians 
 expresses grief and anguish, but which here signifies "Psha, 
 
314 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 psha." Now, it is evident that Comatas had attempted to 
 make Lacon jealous, by telling him how sorry the girl was that 
 he should milk the goats himself without anybody to help him. 
 Lacon in return is ready to show that he also had his good 
 fortune. There is reason therefore to suspect that the name 
 ActKwv should be Adixwv, because from all that precedes we may 
 suppose that Lacon was never possessed of such wealth, and 
 that Comatas would have turned him into ridicule if he had 
 boasted of it. " Psha ! psha ! you are a grand personage with 
 your twin-bearing goats, no doubt ; but you milk them your- 
 self. Now, Damon is richer than you are ; he fills pretty 
 nearly twenty hampers with cheeses." 
 
 This seems indubitable from the following speech of La- 
 con. Not to be teased any more after he had been taunted 
 by Comatas that Clearista, although he was a goatherd, threw 
 apples at him and began to sing the moment he drove his herd 
 by her, Lacon, out of patience at last, says, " Cratidas makes 
 me wild with that beautiful hair about the neck." There 
 could have been no room for this if he had spoken of himself, 
 however insatiable ; for in a later verse Cratidas seems already 
 to have made room for another, — 
 
 'AW* 67^ Evfi-riSevs ipafxai (xeya. 
 
 Finding Damon here in Theocritus, we may account for his 
 appearance in Virgil. No Greek letters are more easily mis- 
 taken one for the other than the capital A for A, and the small 
 K for /x. In the one hundred and fifth verse, Comatas boasts 
 of possessing a cup sculptured by Praxiteles. This is no very 
 grave absurdity in such a braggart : it suits the character. 
 Virgil, who had none to support for his shepherd, makes him 
 state that his is only "divhii opus Alcimedontis." 
 
 It may be remarked, in conclusion, that no other Idyl con- 
 tains so many pauses after the fourth foot, which Hermann 
 calls bucolic ; nearly half of the verses have this cadence. 
 
 Idyl VI. This is dramatic, and is addressed to Aratus. 
 The shepherds Damsetas and Daphnis had driven their flocks 
 into one place, and sitting by a fountain began a song about 
 Polyphemus and Galatea. Daphnis acts the character of 
 Galatea, Damstas of Polyphemus. The various devices of 
 the gigantic shepherd to make her jealous, and his confidence 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 315 
 
 of success in putting them into practice are very amusing. 
 His slyness in giving a secret sign to set the dog at her, and 
 the dog knowing that he loved her in his heart, and pushing his 
 nose against her thigh instead of biting her, are such touches 
 of true poetry as are seldom to be found in pastorals. In the 
 midst of these our poet has been thought to have committed 
 one anachronism. But where Galatea is said to have mistaken 
 the game, when — 
 
 (pevyei (piXeovra Kol oi) (piXiovra SiciKei 
 Kal Thv airb ypafx-fxas Kive7 \i6ov, 
 
 " Seeks him who loves not, him who loves, avoids : 
 And makes false moves," — 
 
 she herself is not represented as the speaker, nor is Polyphe- 
 mus, but Daphnis. It is only at the next speech that either 
 of the characters comes forth in person ; here Damastas is the 
 Polyphemus, and acts his part admirably. 
 
 Idyl VII. The last was different in its form and character 
 from the five preceding; the present is more different still. 
 The poet, on his road to Alexandria with Eucritus and Amyn- 
 tas, meets Phrasidamus and Antigenes, and is invited to ac- 
 company them to the festival of Ceres, called Thalysia. He 
 falls in with Lycidas of Cidon, and they relate their love- 
 stories. This Idyl closes with a description of summer just 
 declining into autumn. The invocation to the Nymphs is in 
 the spirit of Pindar, 
 
 Idyl VIII. ^ The subject is a contest in singing between 
 Menalcas and Daphnis for a pipe. Here are some verses of 
 exquisite simplicity, which Virgil has most clumsily translated : 
 
 " Ego hunc vitulum, ne/orfe recuses, etc. 
 De grege non ausim quidquam deponere tecum, 
 Est mihi namque domi pater, est injiista noverca, 
 Bisque die numerant zxrHoo pecus . . . alter et hmdos^' 
 
 1 The first two lines are the least pleasant to the ear of any in this 
 melodious poet. 
 
 Ad(pVL^i TcD X'^p'^^ \ V ri . . . avvi)VTfro fiovKo\io \ v ti 
 MaAa viixaiv &>s (pa | v ti, etc. 
 
 'Q,s (pavri is found in all editions ; but Pierson has suggested AiScpavre, 
 Diophantus was a friend of Theocritus, addressed in Idyl XXI. 
 
3l6 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 It is evident that Virgil means by " pecus " the sheep only ; 
 " pecora " at this day means a ewe in Italian. Virgil's Me- 
 nalcas had no objection to the robbery, but was afraid of the 
 chastisement. 
 
 The Menalcas of Theocritus says, " I will never lay what be- 
 longs to my father, but I have a pipe which I made myself; " 
 and according to his account of it, it was no ordinary piece of 
 workmanship. Damsetas, it appears, had made exactly such 
 another, quite as good ; and the cane of which it was made cut 
 his finger in making it. They carry on the contest in such 
 sweet hexameters and pentameters as never were heard before 
 or since ; but they finish with hexameters alone. The prize is 
 awarded to Daphnis by the goatherd who is arbitrator. He 
 must have been a goatherd of uncommonly fine discernment. 
 The match seems equal; perhaps the two following verses 
 turned the balance : — 
 
 'AA.\' uTrb tS TreTpq. Ta5' aero fiat, ajKas exoiV tv, 
 'Svyofia fiaX' iffopwv, ray ^tKe\av is a\a. 
 
 Of these, as of those above, we can only give the meaning ; 
 he who can give a representation of them, can give a represen- 
 tation of the sea-breezes : — 
 
 " It never was my wish to have possessed 
 The land of Pelops and his golden store ; 
 But only, as I hold you to my breast, 
 Glance at our sheep and our Sicilian shore." 
 
 Idyl IX. Again Menalcas and Daphnis ; but they must 
 both have taken cold. 
 
 Idyl X. Milo and Battus are reapers. Milo asks Battus 
 what ails him, that he can neither draw a straight furrow nor 
 reap like his neighbors. For simplicity none of the pastorals 
 is more delightful, and it abounds in rustic irony. 
 
 Idyl XI. is addressed to Nikias of Miletus, and appears to 
 have been written in Sicily, by the words 6 KvkXwi]/ 6 Trap yj/juv. 
 It describes the love of Polyphemus for Galatea, his appeal to 
 her, his promises (to the extent of eleven kids and four bear- 
 cubs), and his boast that if he cannot have her, he can find 
 another perhaps more beautiful; for that many are ready 
 enough to play with him, challenging him to that effect, and 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 317 
 
 giggling (KtxAt^oi/Tt) when he listens to them. Virgil's imi- 
 tation of this Idyl is extremely and more than usually feeble. 
 The last verse however of Theocritus is somewhat flat.^ 
 
 Idyl XII. We now arrive at the first of those Idyls of 
 which the genuineness has been so pertinaciously disputed.^ 
 And why? Because forsooth it pleased the author to compose 
 it in the Ionic dialect. Did Burns, who wrote mostly in the 
 Scottish, write nothing in the EngUsh ? With how much bet- 
 ter reason has the competitor of Apollonius and Callimachus 
 deserted the Doric occasionally ! Meleager and other writers 
 of inscriptions mix frequently Ionic forms with Doric. In fact, 
 the most accurate explorers must come at last to the conclusion, 
 that even in the pastoral portion of these Idyls scarcely a single 
 one is composed throughout of unmingled Doric. The ear 
 that is accustomed to the exuberant flow of Theocritus, will 
 never reject as spurious this melodious and graceful poem. 
 Here, and particularly toward the conclusion, as very often 
 elsewhere, he writes in the style and spirit of Pindar, while he 
 celebrates the loves extolled by Plato. 
 
 Idyl XIII. is addressed to Nikias, as the eleventh was. It 
 is not a dialogue ; it is a narrative of the loss of Hylas. The 
 same story is related by Propertius in the most beautiful of his 
 Elegies. 
 
 Idyl XIV. is entitled " Cynisca's Love," and is a dialogue 
 between her husband ^schines and his friend Thyonichus. 
 Cynisca had taken a fancy to Lucos. At an entertainment 
 given by ^schines, a very mischievous guest, one Apis, sings 
 
 1 ^aov 5e Stay' ^ XP"""^" eSuKey. 
 
 " He lived more pleasantly than if he had given gold for it." 
 
 This is barely sense ; nor can it be improved without a bold substi- 
 tution, — 
 
 •^ Xpvffhv exaiv ris. 
 
 Such terminations are occasionally to be found in our poet ; for 
 example, — 
 
 Idyl I. aWa /Jidxev fxoi. Idyl II. offffov iyS diiv. Idyl III. eJ <pi\eeis 
 jue, and three lines farther on, ovvex' exw (xev, etc. 
 
 2 The title of this is " Aites," which among the Thessalians was what, 
 according to the poet in v. 13, ilffirvdXos was among the Spartans, — the 
 one Ttapa, rh rhv ipdifjifvov elaaieiv, the other from elaitvelv rhv epura t^ 
 ayairuvTi. 
 
3l8 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS, 
 
 about a wolf (Avko<s) , who was quite charming, ^schines had 
 had some reason for jealousy before. Hearing Cynisca sigh at 
 the name of Lucos, he can endure it no longer, and gives her 
 a slap in the face, then another, and so forth, until she runs 
 out of the house and takes refuge with her Lucos day and 
 night. All this the husband relates to Thyonichus ; and the 
 verses from the thirty-fourth to the thirty- eighth, OakTr^ <J)lXov, 
 are very laughable. Thyonichus advises that so able a boxer 
 should enter the service of Ptolemy. 
 
 Idyl XV. "The Syracusan Gossips," Never was there so 
 exact, or so delightful a description of such characters. There 
 is a little diversity, quite enough, between Praxinoe and Gorgo. 
 Praxinoe is fond of dress ; conceited, ignorant, rash, abusive in 
 her remarks on her husband, ambitious to display her knowl- 
 edge as well as her finery, and talking absurdly on what she 
 sees about her at the festival of Adonis. Gorgo is desirous of 
 insinuating her habits of industry. There are five speakers, — 
 Gorgo, Praxinoe, Eunoe, an old woman, and a traveller, besides 
 a singing girl who has nothing to do with the party or the 
 dialogue. 
 
 Gorgo. Don't talk in this way against your husband while 
 your baby is by. See how he is looking at you. 
 
 Praxinoe. Sprightly my pretty Zopyrion ! I am not talking 
 of papa. 
 
 Gorgo. By Proserpine, he understands you ! Papa is a jewel 
 of a papa. 
 
 After a good deal of tattle they are setting out for the fair, 
 and the child shows a strong desire to be of the party. 
 
 Gorgo. I can't take you, darling ! There 's a hobgoblin on 
 the other side of the door, and there 's a biting horse. Ay, ay, 
 cry to your heart's content ! Do you think I would have you 
 lamed for life ? Come, come, let us be off ! 
 
 Laughter is irrepressible at their mishaps and exclamations 
 in the crowd. This poem, consisting of one hundred and 
 forty-four verses, is the longest in Theocritus, excepting the 
 heroics on Hercules. The comic is varied and relieved by the 
 song of a girl on Adonis. She notices everything she sees, 
 and describes it as it appears to her. After an invocation 
 to Venus she has a compliment for Berenice, not without an 
 eye to the candied flowers and white pastry, and the pretty 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 319 
 
 little baskets containing mossy gardens and waxwork Adonises, 
 and tiny Loves flying over, — 
 
 Otoi aTjSovidrjes e<pe^6/j.evot iwl SevSpoov 
 HwTWVTai, impvywv Treipci/xevoi u^ov ott' tj^ca. 
 
 "Like the young nightingales, some nestling close, 
 Some plying the fresh wing from bough to bough." 
 
 Idyl XVI. "The Graces." Here Hiero is reminded how 
 becoming is liberality in the rich and powerful ; and here is 
 sometimes a plaintive under-song in the praise. The attributes 
 of the Graces were manifold ; the poet has them in view prin- 
 cipally as the distributors of just rewards. We have noticed 
 the resemblance he often bears to Pindar; nowhere is it so 
 striking as in this and the next. The best of Pindar's odes is 
 not more energetic throughout ; none of them surpass these 
 two in the chief qualities of that admirable poet, — rejection 
 of what is light and minute, disdain of what is trivial, and se- 
 lection of those blocks from the quarry which will bear strong 
 strokes of the hammer and retain all the marks of the chisel. 
 Of what we understand by sublimity he has little ; but he 
 moves in the calm majesty of an elevated mind. Of all poets 
 he least resembles those among us whom it is the fashion most 
 to admire at the present day. The verses of this address to 
 Hiero by Theocritus, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-seventh, 
 are as sonorous and elevated as the best of Homer's ; and so 
 are those beginning at the ninety-eighth verse to the end. 
 
 Idyl XVII. This has nothing of the Idyl in it, but is a 
 noble eulogy on Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Lagus 
 and Berenice, Warton is among the many who would deduct 
 it from the works of our poet. It is grander even than the 
 last on Hiero, in which he appears resolved to surpass all that 
 Pindar has written on the earlier king of that name. It is only 
 in versification that it differs from him ; in comprehensiveness, 
 power, and majesty, and in the manner of treating the subject, 
 the same spirit seems to have guided the same hand. 
 
 Idyl XVIII. "The Epithalamium of Helen." There were 
 two species of epithalamium, — the kqljxtjtikov, such as this, 
 and such likewise as that of Catullus, sung as the bride was 
 conducted to her chamber; and the eyeprtKoj/, sung as she 
 arose in the morning. The poet, in the first verses, introduces 
 
320 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 twelve Spartan girls crowned with hyacinths, who sing and 
 dance about Menelaus. " And so you are somewhat heavy in 
 the knees, sweet spouse ! rather fond of sleep, are you? You 
 ought to have gone to sleep at the proper time, and have let a 
 young maiden play with other young maidens at her mother's 
 until long after daybreak." Then follow the praises of Helen, 
 wishes for her prosperity, and promises to return at the crowing 
 of the cock. 
 
 Idyl XIX. " Kariocleptes, or the Hive-stealer," contains 
 but eight verses. It is the story of Cupid stung by a bee, — 
 the first and last bee that ever stung all the fingers (AaKTuXa 
 ttcivt' vTvivv^(.v) of both hands ; for it is not x^'^pos but -^^^ipZiv. 
 Having said in the first verse that the bee stung him as he was 
 plundering the hive, we may easily suspect in what part the 
 wound was inflicted ; and among the extremely few things we 
 could wish altered or omitted in Theocritus are the words — 
 
 S/fpaSe ■)(jiipSiv, 
 AaKTi/Aa ko.vQ'' virei'v^ep. 'O 3' &\yee. 
 
 All the needful and all the ornamental would be comprised 
 
 m 
 
 Kriplov €K atfiPXciiy <rv\e6ixevov, f)s x^p' ^<pv(T(re, etc. 
 
 Idyl XX. "The Oxherd." He complains 'of Eunica, who 
 holds his love in derision and finds fault with hi3 features, 
 speech, and manners. From plain downright contemptuous- 
 ness she bursts forth into irony, — 
 
 &s aypla TrattrSety, 
 *ils rpv<pephv \a\4eis, &s KooTiKa, p-fi/jLara (ppaffSeis, etc. 
 
 " How rustic is your play ! 
 How coarse your language I " etc. 
 
 He entertains a very different opinion of himself, boasts that 
 every girl upon the hills is in love with him, and is sure that 
 only a " town lady " (which he thinks is the same thing as a 
 "lady of the town ") could have so little taste. There is sim- 
 plicity in this Idyl, but it is the worst of the author's. 
 
 Idyl XXI. " The Fisherman." Two fishermen were lying 
 stretched on seaweed in a wattled hut, and resting their heads 
 against the wall composed of twigs and leaves. Around them 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 321 
 
 were spread all the implements of their trade, which are speci- 
 fied in very beautiful verse. They arose before dawn, and one 
 said to the other, " They speak unwisely who tell us that the 
 nights are shorter in summer when the days are longer, for 
 within the space of this very night I have dreamed innumer- 
 able dreams. Have you ever learned to interpret them ? " 
 He then relates how he dreamed of having caught a golden 
 fish, how afraid he was that it might be the favorite fish of 
 Neptune or Amphitrite. His fears subsided, and he swore to 
 himself that he would give up the sea forever and be a king. 
 " I am now afraid of having sworn any such oath," said he. 
 " Never fear," replied the other ; " the only danger is of dying 
 with hunger in the midst of such golden dreams." 
 
 Idyl XXII. This is the first heroic poem in Theocritus ; it 
 is in two parts. First is described the fight of Polideukes 
 and Amycus ; secondly, of Castor and Lynceus. Of Amycus 
 the poet says that " his monstrous chest was spherical,^'' — 
 ecrc^ai/awTO. 
 
 Omitting this, we may perhaps give some idea of the scene. 
 
 " In solitude both wandered, far away 
 From those they sailed with. On the hills above, 
 Beneath a rocky steep, a fount they saw 
 Full of clear water ; and below were more 
 That bubbled from the bottom, silvery, 
 Crystalline. In the banks around grew pines, 
 Poplars, and cypresses and planes, and flowers 
 Sweet-smelling; pleasant work for hairy bees 
 Born in the meadows at the close of spring. 
 There in the sunshine sat a savage man, 
 Horrid to see ; broken were both his ears 
 With cestuses, his shoulders were like rocks 
 Polished by some vast river's ceaseless whirl." 
 
 ApoUonius and Valerius Flaccus have described the fight of 
 Amycus and Polydeukes. Both poets are clever, Valerius more 
 than usually. Theocritus is masterly. 
 
 Idyl XXIII. " Dyseros, or the Unhappy Lover." The sub- 
 ject of this is the same as the Corydon of Virgil ; but here the 
 statue of Cupid falls on and crushes the inflexible. 
 
 Idyl XXIV. " Herachskos, or the Infant Hercules." There 
 are critics of so weak a sight in poetry as to ascribe this mag- 
 nificent and wonderful work to Bion or Moschus. Hercules is 
 
322 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 cradled in Amphitryon's shield. The description of the ser- 
 pents, of the supernatural light in the chamber, and the proph- 
 ecy of Tiresias, are equal to Pindar and Homer. 
 
 Idyl XXV. "Hercules the Lion- Killer." This will bear no 
 comparison with the preceding. The story is told by Hercules 
 himself, and the poet has taken good care that it should not be 
 beyond his capacity. 
 
 Idyl XXVI. " The Death of Pentheus." Little can be said 
 for this also ; only that the style is the pure antique. 
 
 Idyl XXVII. " Daphnis and the Shepherdess " has been 
 translated by Dryden. He has given the Shepherdess a 
 muslin gown bespangled. This easy and vigorous poet too 
 often turns the country into the town, smells of the ginshop, 
 and staggers toward the brothel. He was quite at home with 
 Juvenal, imitating his scholastic strut, deep frown, and loud 
 declamation. No other has done such justice to Lucretius, to 
 Virgil, to Horace, and to Ovid ; none is so dissimilar to The- 
 ocritus. Wherever he finds a stain, he enlarges its circumfer- 
 ence, and renders it vivid and indelible. In this lively poem 
 we wish the sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth verses were omitted. 
 
 Idyl XXVIII. Neither this nor any one of the following 
 can be called an Idyl. The metre is the pentameter chori- 
 ambic, like Catullus's "Alphene immemor," etc. 
 
 Idyl XXIX. Expostulation against Inconstancy. The metre 
 is the dactylic pentameter, in which every foot is a dactyl, 
 excepting the first, which is properly a trochee ; this however 
 may be converted to a spondee or an iambic, enjoying the 
 same license as the Phaleucian. In the twentieth verse there 
 is a false quantity, where fee is short before ^. 
 
 Idyl XXX. The "Death of Adonis." Venus orders the 
 Loves to catch the guilty boar and bring him before her. 
 They do so ; he makes his defence against the accusation, 
 which is that he only wished to kiss the thigh of Adonis ; and 
 he offers his tusk in atonement, and if the tusk is insufficient, 
 his cheek. Venus pitied him, and he was set at liberty. Out 
 of gratitude and remorse, he went to a fire and burned his 
 teeth down to the sockets. Let those who would pillage 
 Theocritus of his valuables show the same contrition ; we then 
 promise them this poem, to do what they will with. 
 
 The "Inscriptions," which follow, are all of extreme sim- 
 
THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 323 
 
 plicity and propriety. These are followed by the poems of 
 Bion and Moschus. Bion was a native of Smyrna, Moschus 
 (his scholar) of Syracuse. They are called authors of Idyls, 
 but there is nothing of idyl or pastoral in their works. The 
 worst of them, as is often the case, is the most admired. Bion 
 tells us that the boar bit the thigh of Adonis with his tusk, — 
 the white thigh with the white tusk ; and that Adonis grieved 
 Venus by breathing softly while the blood was running. Such 
 faults as these are rarely to be detected in Greek poetry, but 
 frequently on the revival of Pastoral in Italy. 
 
 Chaucer was born before that epidemic broke out which 
 soon spread over Europe, and infected the En^sli poetry as 
 badly as any. The thoughts of our poets in the EUzabethan 
 age often look the stronger because they are complicated and 
 twisted. We have the boldness to confess that we are no 
 admirers of the Elizabethan style. Shakspeare stood alone in 
 a fresh and vigorous and vast creation ; yet even his first-bom 
 were foul offenders, bearing on their brows the curse of a fallen 
 state. Elsewhere, in every quarter, we are at once slumberous 
 and restless under the heaviness of musk and benzoin, and sigh 
 for the unattainable insipidity of fresh air. We are regaled 
 with dishes in which no condiment is forgotten, nor indeed 
 anything but simply the meat ; and we are ushered into 
 chambers where the tapestry is all composed of dwarfs and 
 giants, and the floor all covered with blood. Thomson, in the 
 "Seasons," has given us many beautiful descriptions of inani- 
 mate nature ; but the moment any one speaks in them the 
 charm is broken. The figures he introduces are fantastical. 
 The " Hassan " of Collins is excellent ; he however is surpassed 
 by Bums and Scott ; and Wordsworth, in his " Michael," is 
 nowise inferior to them. Among the moderns no poet, it 
 appears to us, has written an Idyl so perfect, so pure and 
 simple in expression, yet so rich in thought and imagery, as the 
 " Godiva " of Alfred Tennyson. Wordsworth, like Thomson, 
 is deficient in the delineation of character, even of the rustic, 
 in which Scott and Bums are almost equal. But some beau- 
 tiful Idyls might be extracted from the " Excursion," which 
 would easily split into laminae, and the residue might with little 
 loss be blown away. Few are suspicious that they may be led 
 astray and get benighted by following simplicity too far. If 
 
324 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 
 
 there are pleasant fruits growing on the ground, must we there- 
 fore cast aside as unwholesome those which have required the 
 pruning- knife to correct and the ladder to-reach them ? Beau- 
 tiful thoughts are seldom disdainful of sonorous epithets ; we 
 find them continually in the Pastorals of Theocritus ; sometimes 
 we see, coming rather obtrusively, the wanton and indelicate, 
 but never (what poetry most abhors) the mean and abject. 
 Widely different from our homestead poets, the Syracusan is 
 remarkable for a facility that never draggles, for a spirit that 
 never flags, and for a variety that never is exhausted. His 
 reflections are frequent, but seasonable, — soon over, like the 
 shadows of spiring clouds on flowery meadows, and not hanging 
 heavily upon the scene, nor depressing the vivacity of the 
 blithe antagonists. 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 Doering's first edition of Catullus came out nearly half a 
 century before his last edition. When he returned to his 
 undertaking, he found many things, he tells us, to be struck 
 out, many to be altered and set right. We believe we shall 
 be able to show that several are still remaining in these 
 predicaments. 
 
 They who in our days have traced the progress of poetry 
 have pursued it generally not as poets or philosophers, but as 
 hasty observers or cold chronologists. If we take our stand 
 on the Roman world just before the subversion of its free in- 
 stitutions, we shall be in a position to look backward on 
 Greece and forward on Italy and England ; and we shall be 
 little disposed to pick up and run away with the stale com- 
 ments left by those who went before us, but rather to loiter a 
 little on the way, and to indulge, perhaps too complacently, 
 in the freshness of our own peculiar opinions and favorite 
 speculations. 
 
 The last poet who flourished at Rome before the extinc- 
 tion of the republic by the arms of Julius Caesar was Catullus ; 
 and the last record we possess of him is about the defama- 
 tory verses which he composed on that imperishable name. 
 Cicero, to whom he has expressed his gratitude for defending 
 him in a law-suit, commends on this occasion the equanimity of 
 Caesar, who Hstened to the reading of them in his bath before 
 dinner. There is no reason to believe that the poet long sur- 
 vived his father's guest, the Dictator ; but his decease was un- 
 noticed in those^times of agitation and dismay, nor is the date 
 of it to be ascertained. It has usually been placed at the age 
 of forty-six, four years after Caesar's. Nothing is more absurd 
 than the supposition of Martial, which however is but a poeti- 
 cal one, — 
 
 " Si forsan tener ausus est Catullus 
 Magno mittere Passerem Maroni." 
 
326 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 (It is scarcely worth a remark by the way, that si fors2ca. is not 
 Latin ; si forte would be : si and an can have nothing to do 
 with each other.) But allowing that Virgil had written his 
 " Ceiris " and " Culex," two poems inferior to several in the Eton 
 school-exercises, he could not have published his first Eclogues 
 in the lifetime of Catullus ; and if he had, the whole of them 
 are not worth a single Phaleucian or scazon of the vigorous 
 and impassioned Veronese. 
 
 But Virgil is not to be depreciated by us, as he too often 
 has been of late, both in this country and abroad ; nor is he at 
 all so when we deliver our opinion that his Pastorals are almost 
 as inferior to those of Theocritus as Pope's are to his. Even 
 in these, there not only are melodious verses, but harmonious 
 sentences, appropriate images, and tender thoughts. Once 
 or twice we find beauties beyond any in Theocritus; for 
 example, — 
 
 " Ite, capellse ! 
 
 Noil ego vos posthac viridi projectus in antro 
 
 Dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo." 
 
 Yet in other places he is quite as harsh as if he had been ever 
 so negligent. One instance is, — 
 
 " Nunc victi, tristes, quoniam Fors omnia versat, 
 Hos illi (quod nee bene vertat) mittimus hasdos. 
 
 " But now we must stoop 
 
 To the worst in the troop, 
 And must do whatsoever that vagabond wills : 
 
 I wish the old goat 
 
 Had a horn in his throat, 
 And the kids and ourselves were again on the hills." 
 
 Supposing the first of the Eclogues. to have appeared seven 
 years after the death of Catullus, and this poet to have com- 
 posed his earliest works in the lifetime of Lucretius, we cannot 
 but ponder on the change of the Latin language in so short a 
 space of time. Lucretius was by birth a Roman, and wrote in 
 Rome ; yet who would not say unhesitatingly that there is 
 more of what Cicero calls urbane in the two provincials, Virgil 
 and Catullus, than in the authoritative and stately man who 
 leads Memmius from the camp into the gardens of Epicurus. 
 He complains of poverty in the Latin tongue ; but his com- 
 plaint is only on its insufficiency in philosophical terms, which 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 327 
 
 Cicero also felt twenty years later, and called in Greek aux- 
 iliaries. But in reality the language never exhibited such a 
 profusion of richness as in the comedies of Plautus, whose style 
 is the just admiration of the Roman orator. 
 
 Cicero bears about him many little keepsakes received from 
 this quarter, particularly the diminutives. His fondness for 
 them borders on extravagance. Could you believe that the 
 language contains in its whole compass a hundred of these ? 
 Could you believe that an orator and philosopher was likely to 
 employ a quarter of the number? Yet in the various works of 
 Cicero we have counted and written down above a hundred 
 and sixty. Catullus himself has employed them much more 
 sparingly than Cicero, or than Plautus, and always with propriety 
 and effect. The playful Ovid never indulges in them, nor does 
 Propertius, nor does TibuUus. Nobody is wilhng to suspect 
 that Virgil has ever done it ; but he has done it once in — 
 
 " Oscula libavit natas." 
 
 Perhaps they had been turned into ridicule for the misapplica- 
 tion of them by some forgotten poet in the commencement of 
 the Augustan age. Quintilian might have given us information 
 on this : it lay in his road. But whether they died by a natu- 
 ral death or a violent one, they did not appear again as a plague 
 until after the deluge of the Dark Ages ; and then they in- 
 creased and multiphed in the slime of those tepid shallows 
 from which Italy in few places has even yet emerged. In the 
 lines of Hadrian, — 
 
 " Animula, vagula, blandula," — 
 
 they have been greatly admired, and very undeservedly. Pope 
 has made sad work of these. Whatever they are, they did not 
 merit such an experimentum crucis at his hands. 
 
 In Catullus no reader of a poetical mind would desire one 
 diminutive less. In Politian and such people they buzz about 
 our ears insufferably ; and we would waft every one of them 
 away, with little heed or concern, if we brush off together with 
 them all the squashy insipidities they alight on. 
 
 The imitators of Catullus have indeed been peculiarly un- 
 successful. Numerous as they are, scarcely five pieces worth 
 remembrance can be found among them. There are persons 
 
328 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 who have a knowledge of Latinity, there are others who have a 
 knowledge of poetry ; but it is not always that the same judge 
 decides with equal wisdom in both courts. Some hendecasyl- 
 labics of the late Serjeant Lens, an excellent man, a first-rate 
 scholar, and a graceful poet, have been rather unduly praised ; 
 to us they appear monotonous and redundant. We will tran- 
 scribe only the first two for particular notice and illustration : 
 
 " Grates insidiis tuis dolisque 
 Vinclis jam refero lubens solutis." 
 
 Never were words more perplexed and involved. He who 
 brings them forward as classical is unaware that they are closely 
 copied from a beautiful little poem of Metastasio, which J. J. 
 Rousseau has tianslated admirably : — 
 
 " Grazie agli inganni tuoi 
 Alfin respiro, O Nice ! " 
 
 How much better is the single word inganni than the useless 
 and improper insidiis which renders dolis quite unnecessary ! 
 A better line would be — 
 
 " Vincla projicio libens soluta." 
 Or — 
 
 " Tandem projicio soluta vincla." - 
 
 In fact, it would be a very difficult matter to suggest a worse. 
 The most-part of the verses may be transposed in any way 
 whatsoever ; each seems to be independent of the rest. They 
 are good, upright, sound verses enough, but never a sentence 
 of them conciliates the ear. The same objection is justly made 
 to nearly all the modern hendecasyllabics. Serjeant Lens has 
 also given us too many lines for one Phaleucian piece. The 
 metre will admit but few advantageously j it is the very best 
 for short poems. This might be broken into three or four, 
 and almost in any place indifferently. Like the seta equina, 
 by pushing out a head and a tail, each would go on as well 
 as ever. 
 
 In how few authors of hendecasyllabics is there one fine 
 cadence ! Such, for instance, as those in Catullus : — 
 
 " Soles occidere et redire possunt, 
 Nobis qumn semel occidit brevis lux 
 Nox est perpetua una dormienda.'^ 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 329 
 
 And those, — 
 
 " Quamvis Candida millies puella 
 Euntem revocet, manusque collo 
 Ambas injiciens roget morari." 
 
 A.nd twenty more. In the former of these quotations, Catullus 
 had before him the best passage in Moschus, which may be 
 thus translated : — 
 
 " Ah ! when the mallow in the croft dies down, 
 Or the pale parsley or the crisped anise. 
 Again they grow, another year they flourish ; 
 But we, the great, the valiant, and the wise, 
 Once covered over in the hollow earth, 
 Sleep a long, dreamless, unawakening sleep." 
 
 The original verses are as harmonious as almost any in the 
 language. But the epithet which the poet has prefixed to 
 parsley is very undistinguishing. Greek poets more frequently 
 than Latin gave those rather which suited the metre than those 
 which conveyed a pecuhar representation. Neither the x^Vcopa 
 applied to parsley is in any of its senses very appropriate, nor 
 are the ^vda\i% and ovkov to anise, but rather to burrage. 
 
 Catullus has had innumerable imitators in the Phaleucian, but 
 the only dexterity displayed by them in general is in catching a 
 verse and sending it back again like a shuttlecock. Until our own 
 times, there is little thought, little imagination, no passion, no ten- 
 derness, in the modern Latin poets. Casimir shows most genius 
 and most facility ; but Casimir, in his best poem, writes — 
 
 " Sonora buxi filia sutilis." 
 
 Was ever allegory treated with such indignity? What becomes 
 of this tight-laced daughter of a box-tree ? She was hanged. 
 Where ? On a high poplar. Wherefore ? That she might be 
 the more easily come at by the poet. Pontanus too has been 
 praised of late ; but throughout his thick volume there is 
 scarcely a glimpse of poetry. There are certain eyes which, 
 seeing objects at a distance, take snow for sunshine. 
 
 Two verses of Joannes Secundus, almost the only two he 
 has written worth remembering, outvalue all we have imported 
 from the latter ages. They would have been quoted, even 
 from Catullus himself, as among his best, — 
 
 " Non est suaviolum dare, lux mea, sed dare tantum 
 Est desiderium flebile suavioli." 
 
330 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 The six of Bembo on Venice are admirable also. And there 
 are two from two French authors, each worth two Pontanuses. 
 The first is on the Irish, — 
 
 " Gens ratione fiirens et mentem pasta chimaeris." 
 
 The second (but this is stolen from Manilius) on Franklin, his 
 discoveries in electricity, and his energy in the liberation of his 
 country, — 
 
 " Eripuit ccelo fulmen sceptrumque tyranno." 
 
 Another has been frequently quoted from a prize poem by 
 Canning. Such as it is, it also is stolen — and with much in- 
 jury (as stolen things often are) — from the " Nutricia " of 
 Politian, among whose poems one only, that on the death of 
 Ovid, has any merit. This being the only one which is without 
 metrical faults, and the rest abounding in them, a reasonable 
 doubt may arise whether he could have written it, — he who 
 has written by the dozen such as the following ; — 
 
 " Impedis amplexu — " 
 intending hnpedis for a dactyl, — 
 
 " Quando expediret inseris hexametro — " 
 for a pentameter, — 
 
 " Mutare domi-num dom-us hsec nescit suum -— " 
 for an iambic, — 
 
 "Lucreti fuit hoc, et Euripidis — " 
 
 for a Phaleucian ; and in whom we find Plutarchus short in 
 the first syllable, Bis-ve semelve, and Vaticani long in the 
 second syllable twice. 
 
 Milton has been thought like Politian in his hexameters and 
 pentameters. In his Elegies he is Ovidian ; but he is rather 
 the fag than the playfellow of Ovid. Among his Latin poems 
 the scazon " De Hominis Archetypo " is the best. In those 
 of the moderns there is rarely more than one thing missing ; 
 namely, the poetry, which some critics seem to have held for a 
 matter of importance. If we may hazard a conjecture, they are 
 in the right. Robert Smith is the only one who has ascended 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 33 1 
 
 into the higher regions. But even the best scholars, since 
 they receive most of their opinions from tradition, and stunted 
 and distorted in the crevices of a quadrangle, will be slowly- 
 brought to conclude that his poetry is better (and better it surely 
 is) than the greater part of that which dazzles them from the 
 luminaries of the Augustan age. In vigor and harmony of dic- 
 tion, in the selection of topics, in the rejection of little orna- 
 ments, in the total suppression of playful prettinesses, in solidity 
 and magnitude of thought, sustained and elevated by the purest 
 spirit of poetry, we find nothing in the Augustan age of the 
 same continuity, the same extent. We refer to the poem en- 
 titled " Platonis Principia," in which there are a hundred and 
 eleven such verses as are scarcely anywhere together in all the 
 realms of poetry. 
 
 The alcaic ode of the same writer, " Mare Liberum," is not 
 without slight blemishes. For instance, at the beginning, — 
 
 ■■' "Primo Creator spiritus halitu 
 
 Caliginosi regna silentii 
 Turbavit." 
 
 In Latinity there is no distinction between spiritus and halitus ; 
 and if theology has made one, the halitus can never be said to 
 proceed from the spiritus. In the second verse the lyric metre 
 requires silent] for silentn. Cavillers may also object to the 
 elision of qua at the conclusion, — 
 
 " Et rura qtca ingentes Amazon 
 Rumpit aquas, violentus amnis." 
 
 It has never been elided unless at the close of a polysyllable ; 
 as, among innumerable instances, — 
 
 " Obliqua invidia stimulisque agitabat amaris." 
 
 This fact is the more remarkable, since quce and prce are elided ; 
 or, speaking more properly, coalesce. 
 
 Et tibi prse invidia Nereides increpitarent. — Propertius. 
 QtccB omnia bella devoratis. — Catullus. 
 Qu(Z imbelles dant prselia cervi : 
 Qt(ce Asia circum. — Virgil. 
 
 But what ode in any language is more animated or more 
 sublime ? 
 
332 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 In reading the Classics we pass over false quantities, and 
 defer to time an authority we refuse to reason. But never can 
 time acquit Horace of giving us false measure in palus aptaque 
 remis, nor in quomodo. Whether you divide or unite the com- 
 ponent parts of quomodo, — quo and modo, — the case is the 
 same. And as palus is paludis in the genitive case, salus sa- 
 lutis, no doubt can exist of its quantity. Modern Latin poets, 
 nevertheless, have written saluber, Thomas Warton, a good 
 scholar, and if once fairly out of Latinity no bad poet, writes in 
 a Phaleucian — 
 
 " Saluberrimis et herbis." 
 
 There is also a strange false quantity in one of the most ac- 
 curate and profound grammarians, Menage. He wrote an in- 
 scription, in one Latin hexameter, for Mazarin's college, then 
 recently erected, — 
 
 " Has Phoebo et Musis Mazarinus consecrat sedes." 
 
 Every vowel is long before z. He knew it, but it escaped his 
 observation, as things we know often do. We return from one 
 learned man to another, more immediately the object of our 
 attention, on whom the same appellation was conferred. 
 
 Catullus has been called the " learned ; " and critics have 
 been curious in searching after the origin of this designation. 
 Certainly both Virgil and Ovid had greatly more of archaeology, 
 and borrowed a great deal more of the Greeks. But Catullus 
 was, what Horace claims for himself, the first who imported in- 
 to Latin poetry any vast variety of their metres. Evidently he 
 translated from the Greek his galliambic on Atys. The proof 
 is, that " Ty;;zpanum tubam Cybeles " would be opposite to, and 
 inconsistent with, the metre. He must have written Typanum, 
 finding tv-kovov before him. But as while he was in the army 
 he was stationed some time in Bithynia and Phrygia, perhaps 
 he had acquired the language spoken in the highlands of those 
 countries ; in the lowlands it was Greek. No doubt his curiosity 
 led him to the temple of Cybele, and there he heard the an- 
 cient hymns in celebration of that goddess. Nothing breathes 
 such an air of antiquity as his galliambic, which must surely 
 have been translated into Greek from the Phrygian. Joseph 
 Warton in the intemperance of admiration prefers it not only 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 333 
 
 to every work of Catullus, but to every one in the language. 
 There is indeed a gravity and solemnity in it, a fitness and 
 propriety in every part, unequalled and unrivalled. Poetry 
 can however rise higher than these " templa serena," and has 
 risen higher with Catullus. No human works are so perfect as 
 some of his, but many are incomparably greater. Among the 
 works of the moderns, the fables of La Fontaine come nearest 
 to perfection; but are there none grander and higher? 
 
 This intemperance of admiration has been less excusable 
 in some living critics of modern Latin poetry. Yet when we 
 consider how Erasmus, a singiilarly wise and learned man, has 
 erred in his judgment on poetry, saying, while he speaks of Sido- 
 nius ApoUinaris, "Let us listen to our Pindar," we are disposed 
 to be gentle and lenient, even in regard to one who has de- 
 clared his opinion that the elegies of Sannazar "■ may compete 
 with Tibullus." ^ If they may, it can be only in the number 
 of feet ; and there they are quite on an equality. In another 
 part of the volume, which contains so curious a decision, some 
 verses are quoted from the " Paradise Regained " as " perhaps 
 the most musical the author ever produced." Let us pause a 
 few moments on this assertion, and examine the verses referred 
 to. It will not be without its use to exhibit their real charac- 
 ter, because, in coming closer to the examination of Catullus, 
 we shall likewise be obliged to confess, that, elegant and grace- 
 ful as he is to a degree above all other poets in the more 
 elaborate of his compositions, he too is by no means exempt 
 from blemishes in his versification. But in Milton they are 
 flatnesses ; in Catullus they are asperities, — which is the con- 
 trary of what might have been expected from the characters of 
 the men. 
 
 There is many a critic who talks of harmony, and whose 
 ear seems to have been fashioned out of the callus of his foot. 
 "Quotus enim quisque est," as Cicero says, "qui teneat artem 
 numerorum atque modorum ! " The great orator himself, con- 
 summate master of the science, runs from rhetorical into 
 poetical measure at this very place. 
 
 "Numerorum atque modorum" 
 
 ^ Mr. Hallam in the first volume of his " Introduction to the Literature 
 of Europe," p. 597. 
 
334 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 is the same in time and modulation as the verses in Horace, — 
 
 " Miserarum est neque amori 
 Dare ludum neque dulci," etc. 
 
 Well, but what " are perhaps the most musical verses Milton 
 has ever produced? " They are these («' diis placet !') : — 
 
 " Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, 
 When Agrican with all his northern powers 
 Besieged Albracca, as romaitces tell, 
 The city of Gdlldi^hxoxie, from thence to win 
 The fairest of her sex, Angelica 
 His daughter, sought by many prowest knights, 
 Both Paynira and the peers of Charlemagne." 
 
 There is a sad hiatus in "Albracc^, as." On the whole, 
 however, the verses thus unluckily hit upon for harmony are 
 fluent, too fluent; they are feeble in the extreme, and little 
 better than prose, either in thought or expression. Still, it is 
 better to praise accidentally in the wrong place than to censure 
 universally. The passage which is before them leads us to that 
 magnificent view of the cities and empires, the potentates and 
 armies, in all their strength and glory, with which the Tempter 
 would have beguiled our Redeemer. These appear to have 
 left no impression on the critic, who much prefers what every 
 schoolboy can comprehend, and what many -undergraduates 
 could have composed. But it is somewhat, no doubt, to praise 
 that which nobody ever praised before, and to pass over that 
 which suspends by its grandeur the footstep of all others. 
 
 There is prodigious and desperate vigor in the Tempter's 
 reply to our Saviour's reproof: — 
 
 " All hope is lost 
 Of my reception into grace : what worse ? 
 For when no hope is left, is left no fear. 
 If there be worse, the expectation more 
 Of worse torments me than the feeling can. 
 I would be at the worst : worst is my port,^ 
 My harbor, and my ultimate repose, 
 The end I would attain, my final good." 
 
 Yet Milton, in this " Paradise Regained," seems to be sub- 
 ject to strange hallucinations of the ear, — he who before had 
 
 1 A daring critic might suggest fort for port, since harbor makes that 
 word unnecessary. 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 335 
 
 greatly excelled all poets of all ages in the science and display 
 of harmony. And if in his last poem we exhibit his deficien- 
 cies, surely we never shall be accused of disrespect or irrever- 
 ence to this immortal man. It may be doubted whether the 
 Creator ever created one altogether so great, — taking into 
 our view at once (as much indeed as can at once be taken into 
 it) his manly virtues, his superhuman genius, his zeal for truth, 
 true piety, true freedom, his eloquence in displaying it, his 
 contempt of personal power, his glory and exultation in his 
 country's. 
 
 Warton and Johnson are of opinion that Milton is defective 
 in the sense of harmony. But Warton had lost his ear by 
 laying it down on low and swampy places, — on ballads and 
 sonnets ; and Johnson was a deaf adder coiled up in the bram- 
 bles of party prejudices : he was acute and judicious, he was 
 honest and generous, he was forbearing and humane, but he 
 was cold where he was overshadowed. The poet's peculiar 
 excellence, above all others, was in his exquisite perception of 
 rhythm, and in the boundless variety he has given it, both in 
 verse and prose. Virgil comes nearest to him in his assiduous 
 study of it, and in his complete success. With the poetical 
 and oratorical, the harmony is usually in proportion to the 
 energy of passion. But the numbers may be transferred ; thus 
 the heroic has been carried into the Georgics. There are 
 many pomps and vanities in that fine poem which we would 
 relinquish unreluctantly for one touch of nature ; such as, — 
 
 " It tristis arator 
 Moerentem abjungens fraterna morte juvencum. 
 
 " In sorrow goes the ploughman, and leads off 
 Unyoked from his dead mate the sorrowing steer." 
 
 Here however the poet is not seconded by the language. The 
 ploughman cannot be going on while he is in the act of sepa- 
 rating the dead ox from its partner, as the word // and abjun- 
 gens signify. 
 
 We shall presently show that Catullus was the first among the 
 Romans in whose heroic verse there is nothing harsh and dis- 
 sonant. But it is not necessary to turn to the grander poetry 
 of Milton for verses more harmonious than those adduced ; we 
 find them even in the midst of his prose. Whether he is to be 
 
336 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 censured for giving way to his genius in such compositions Is 
 remote from the question now before us. But what magnifi- 
 cence of thought is here ! how totally free is the expression 
 from the encumbrances of amplification, from the crutches 
 and cushions of swollen feebleness ! 
 
 " When God commands to take the trumpet 
 And blow a shriller and a louder blast, 
 It rests not in Man's will what he shall do, 
 Or what he shall forbear." 
 
 This sentence in the " Treatise on Prelaty " is printed in prose : 
 it sounds like inspiration. " It rested not in Milton's will " to 
 crack his organ-pipe, for the sake of splitting and attenuating 
 the gush of harmony. 
 
 We will now give the reason for the " falling sickness " with 
 which several of his verses are stricken. He was too fond of 
 showing what he had read, and the things he has taken from 
 others are always much worse than his own. Habituated to 
 Italian poetry, he knew that the verses are rarely composed of 
 pure iambics, or of iambics mixed with spondees, but contain a 
 great variety of feet, or rather of subdivisions. When he wrote 
 such a line as — 
 
 *' In the bosom of bliss and light of light," — 
 
 he thought he had sufficient authority in Dante, Petrarca, Ari- 
 osto, and Tasso, who wrote — 
 
 Questa selva selvaggia. — Dante. 
 Tra le vane speranze. — Petrarca. 
 Con la gente di Francia. — Ariosto. 
 Canto I'armi pietose. — Tasso. 
 
 And there is no verse whatsoever in any of his poems for the 
 metre of which he has not an Italian prototype. 
 
 The critic who knows anything of poetry, and is resolved to 
 select a passage from the " Paradise Regained," will prefer this 
 other far above the rest, and may compare it, without fear of 
 ridicule or reprehension, to the noblest in the nobler poem : 
 
 " And either tropic now 
 'Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven ; the clouds, 
 From many a horrid rift, abortive poured 
 Fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire. 
 In ruin reconciled ; nor slept the winds 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 3^3/ 
 
 Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad 
 
 From the four hinges of the world, and fell 
 
 On the vexed wilderness, whose tallest pines, 
 
 Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks, 
 
 Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts, 
 
 Or torn up sheer. Ill wast thou shrouded then, 
 
 O patient Son of God ! yet only stood'st 
 
 Unshaken ! Nor yet stayed the terror there : 
 
 Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round 
 
 Environed thee ; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked, 
 
 Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou 
 
 Sat'st unappalled in calm and sinless peace." 
 
 No such poetry as this has been written since, and Httle at 
 any time before. But Homer would not have attributed to the 
 pine what belongs to the oak. The tallest pines have super- 
 ficial roots; they certainly are never "deep as high," — oaks 
 are said to be ; and if the saying is not phytologically true, it is 
 poetically, although the oak itself does not quite send 
 
 '' radicem ad Tartara." 
 There is another small oversight, — 
 
 " yet only stood'st 
 Unshaken." 
 Below we find — 
 
 " Safst unappalled." ^ 
 
 But what verses are the following : — 
 
 " And made him bow to the gods of his wives. . . . 
 Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men. . . . 
 After forty days' fasting had remained. . . . 
 And with these words his temptation pursued. ... 
 Not difficult if thou hearken to me." 
 
 1 But Milton's most extraordinary oversight is in " L'AIlegro," — 
 
 " Hence loathed Melancholy ! 
 Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight bom." 
 
 Unquestionably he meant to have written Erebus instead of Cerberus, 
 whom no imagination could represent as the sire of a goddess. Midnight 
 is scarcely to be converted into one, or indeed into any allegorical per- 
 sonage : and the word " blackest " is far from aiding it. Milton is sin- 
 gularly unfortunate in allegory, but nowhere more so than here. The 
 daughter of Cerberus takes the veil, takes the 
 
 " Sable stole of Cyprus lawn," 
 
 and becomes, now her father is out of the way, 
 
 "A nun devout and pure." 
 
338 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 It is pleasanter to quote such a description as no poet, not 
 even Milton himself, ever gave before, of Morning, — 
 
 " Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar 
 Of thunder, chased the clouds and laid the winds 
 And grisly spectres, which the Fiend had raised 
 To tempt the son of God with terrors dire." 
 
 In Catullus we see morning in another aspect ; not per- 
 sonified. And a more beautiful description, a sentence on 
 the whole more harmonious, or one in which every verse is 
 better adapted to its peculiar office, is neither to be found 
 nor conceived, — 
 
 " Heic qualis flatu placidum mare matutino 
 Horrificans zephyrus proclivas incitat undas, 
 Aurora exoriente vagi sub lumina solis. 
 Quae tarde primum dementi flamine pulsse 
 Procedunt, leni resonant plangore cachinni, 
 Post, vento crescente, magis magis increbescunt, 
 Parpureaque procul nantes a luce refulgent." 
 
 Our translation is very inadequate : — 
 
 " As, by the Zephyr wakened, underneath 
 The sun's expansive gaze the waves move on 
 Slowly and placidly, with gentle plash 
 Against each other, and light laugh ; but soon, 
 The breezes freshening, rough and huge they swell, 
 Afar refulgent in the crimson east." 
 
 What a fall is there from these lofty cliffs, dashing back the 
 waves against the winds that sent them ! what a fall is there to 
 the " wracks and flaws " which Milton tells us — 
 
 " Are to the main as inconsiderable 
 And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze.^'' 
 
 In the lines below, from the same poem, the good and bad 
 are strangely mingled, — the poet keeping in his verse, how- 
 ever, the firmness and majesty of his march : — 
 
 " So saying, he caught him up, and, without wing 
 ^ Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime, 
 
 Over the wilderness and o^er the plain: 
 Till underneath them fair Jerusalem, 
 The holy city, lifted high her towers, 
 And higher yet the glorious temple reared 
 Her pile, far off appearing like a mount 
 Of alabaster, topped with golden spires!''' 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 339 
 
 Splendid as this description is, it bears no resemblance what- 
 soever to the temple of Jerusalem. It is like one of those 
 fancies in which the earlier painters of Florence, Pisa, Lucca, 
 and Siena were fond of indulging, — not for similitude, but for 
 effect. The poets of Greece and Rome allowed themselves no 
 such latitude. The Palace of the Sun, depicted so gorgeously 
 by Ovid, where imagination might wander unrestricted, contains 
 nowhere an inappropriate decoration. 
 
 No two poets are more dissimilar in thought and feeling 
 than Milton and Catullus ; yet we have chosen to place them 
 in juxtaposition, because the Latin language in the time of 
 Catullus was nearly in the same state as the English in the time 
 of Milton. Each had attained its full perfection, and yet the 
 vestiges of antiquity were preserved in each. Virgil and Pro- 
 pertius were in regard to the one poet what Dryden and Waller 
 were in regard to the other : they removed the archaisms, but 
 the herbage grew up rarer and slenderer after those extirpations. 
 If so consummate a master of versification as Milton is con- 
 victed of faults so numerous and so grave in it, pardon will the 
 more easily be granted to Catullus. Another defect is likewise 
 common to both ; namely, the disposition or ordinance of parts. 
 It would be difficult to find in any other two poets, however low 
 their station in that capacity, two such signal examples of dis- 
 proportion as are exhibited in " The Nuptials of Peleus and 
 Thetis " and in " The Masque of Comus." The better part of 
 the former is the description of a tapestry; the better part 
 of the latter are three undramatic soliloquies. In other re- 
 spects, the oversights of Catullus are fewer ; and in " Comus " 
 there is occasional extravagance of expression such as we never 
 find in Catullus, or in the playful Ovid, or in any the least 
 correct of the ancients. For example, we read of 
 
 " The sea-girt isles, 
 That, like to rich and various gems, inlay 
 The unadorned bosom of the deep." 
 
 How " unadorned," if inlaid with " rich and various gems " ? 
 This is a pendant to be placed exactly opposite : — 
 
 " The silken vest Prince Vortigern had on 
 Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won." 
 
340 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 We come presently to 
 
 " The sounds and seas." 
 
 Sounds are parts of seas. Comus, on the borders of North 
 Wales, talks of 
 
 " A green mantling vine, 
 That crawls along the side of yon small hill," 
 and of 
 
 " Plucking ripe clusters." 
 
 Anon we hear of " stabled wolves." What wolves can those 
 be? The faults we find in the poet we have undertaken to 
 review we shall at the same time freely show. 
 
 Carmen I. "Ad Comelium Nepotem." In verse 4 we 
 read — 
 
 " Jam turn aim ausus es." 
 
 We believe the poet, and all the writers of his age, wrote 
 quum. Quoi for cui grew obsolete much earlier, but was al- 
 ways thus spelled by Catullus. The best authors at all times 
 wrote the adverb quum. 
 
 Carmen II. " Ad Passerem Lesbise." In verse 8 we read 
 " a<rquiescat ;" the poet wrote " a^quiescat," which sounds 
 fuller. 
 
 Carmen III. " Luctus in Morte Passeris." ' This poem and 
 the preceding seem to have been admired, both by the ancients 
 and the modems, above all the rest. Beautiful indeed they are. 
 Grammarians may find fault with the hiatus in 
 
 "O factum mak ! O miselle passer!" 
 poets will not. 
 
 We shall now, before we go farther, notice the metre. Reg- 
 ularly the Phaleucian verse is composed of four trochees and 
 one dactyl; so is the Sapphic, but in another order. The 
 Phaleucian employs the dactyl in the second place ; the Sap- 
 phic employs it in the third. But the Latin poets are fonder 
 of a spondee in the first. Catullus frequently admits an iambic ; 
 
 as in 
 
 " Meas esse aliquid putare nugas. 
 Tua nunc opera meae puellse," etc. 
 
 Carmen IV. " Dedicatio PhaseU." This is a senarian, and 
 composed of pure iambics. Nothing can surpass its elegance. 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 34I 
 
 The following bears a near resemblance to it in the beginning, 
 and may be offered as a kind of paraphrase : — 
 
 " The vessel which lies here at last 
 Had once stout ribs and topping mast, 
 And vvhate'er wind there might prevail, 
 Was ready for a row or sail. 
 It now lies idle on its side, 
 Forgetful o'er the waves to glide. 
 And yet there have been days of yore 
 "When pretty maids their posies bore 
 To crown its prow, its deck to trim, 
 And freight it with a world of whim. 
 A thousand stories it could tell, 
 But it loves secrecy too well. 
 Come closer, my sweet girl ! pray do ! 
 There may be still one left for you." 
 
 Carmen V. " Ad Lesbiam." It is difficult to vary our ex- 
 pression of delight at reading the first three poems vs^hich Les- 
 bia and her sparrow have occasioned. This is the last of them 
 that is fervid and tender. There is love in many of the others, 
 but impure and turbid, and the object of it soon presents to 
 us an aspect far less attractive. 
 
 Carmen VI. "Ad Flavium." Whoever thinks it worth his 
 while to peruse this poem, must enclose in a parenthesis the 
 words " Nequicquam taciturn." Taciturn is here a participle : 
 and the words mean, " It is in vain that you try to keep it a 
 secret." 
 
 Carmen VII. " Again to Lesbia." Here, as in all his hen- 
 decasyllabics, not only are the single verses full of harmony, a 
 merit to which other writers of them not unfrequently have at- 
 tained, but the sentences leave the ear no "aching void," as 
 theirs do. 
 
 Carmen VIIL "Ad seipsum." This is the first of the 
 scazons. The metre in a long poem would perhaps be more 
 tedious than any. Catullus, with admirable judgment, has 
 never exceeded the quantity of twenty-one verses in it. No 
 poet, uttering his own sentiments on his own condition in a 
 soliloquy, has evinced such power in the expression of passion, 
 in its sudden throbs and changes, as Catullus has done here. 
 
 In Doering's edition we read, verse 14, — 
 
 " At tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla, 
 Scelesta ! nocte." 
 
342 ' THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 No such pause is anywhere else in the poet. In Scaliger the 
 verses are, — 
 
 " At tu dolebis, quum rogaberis nulla. 
 Scelesta rere, quas tibi manet vita." 
 
 The punctuation in most foreign books, however, and in all 
 English, is too frequent ; so that we have snatches and broken 
 bars of tune, but seldom tune entire. Scaliger's reading is 
 probably the true one, by removing the comma after 7-ere, — 
 
 " Scelesta rere quae tibi manet vita ! 
 {Consider what must be the remainder of your life ! ) " 
 
 Now, certainly there were many words obliterated in the 
 only copy of our author. It was found in a cellar, and under a 
 wine-barrel. Thus the second word in the second line appears 
 to have left no traces behind it ; otherwise, words so different 
 as nocte and rere could never have been mistaken. Since 
 the place is open to conjecture, therefore, and since every 
 expression round about it is energetic, we might suggest an- 
 other reading : — 
 
 " At tu dolebis quum rogaberis nulla, 
 Scelesta! nullo. Quae tibi manet vita? 
 Quis nunc te adibit ? quoi videberis bella ? 
 Quem nunc amabis ? quojus esse diceris? 
 Quern basiabis ? quoi labella mordebis ? 
 At tu, Catulle ! destinatus obdura." 
 
 Which we will venture to translate : — 
 
 " But you shall grieve while none complains, — 
 None, Lesbia ! None. Think what remains 
 For one so fickle, so untrue ! 
 Henceforth, O wretched Lesbia ! who 
 Shall call you dear, — shall call you his ? 
 "Whom shall you love, or who shall kiss 
 Those lips again ? Catullus ! thou 
 Be firm, be ever firm as now." 
 
 The angry taunt very naturally precedes the impatient ex- 
 postulation. The repetition of nullo is surely not unexpected. 
 Nullus was often used absolutely in the best times of Latinity. 
 "Ab nullo repetere," and '■^ nullo aut paucissimis prsesentibus," 
 by Sallust. "Qui scire possum? nullus plus," by Plautus. 
 " Vivis his incolumibusque, liber esse nullus potest," by Cicero. 
 
 It may as well be noticed here that basiare, basium, basiatio. 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 343 
 
 are words unused by Virgil, Propertius, Horace, Ovid, or Ti- 
 buUus. They belonged to Cisalpine Gaul more especially, al- 
 though the root has now extended through all Italy, and has 
 quite supplanted osaduni and its descendants. Bellus has done 
 the same in regard to fortnosiis, which has lost its footing in 
 Italy, although it retains it in Spain, slightly shaken, in hermoso. 
 The saviari and savium of Plautus, Terence, Cicero, and Ca- 
 tullus are never found in the poets of the Augustan age, to the 
 best of our recollection, excepting once in Propertius. 
 
 Carmen IX. " Ad Verannium." Nothing was ever livelier 
 or more cordial than the welcome here given to Verannius on 
 his return from Spain. It is comprised in eleven verses. Our 
 poets on such an occasion would have spread out a larger 
 table-cloth with a less exquisite dessert upon it. 
 
 Carmen X. " De Varri Scorto." Instead of expatiating on 
 this, which contains in truth some rather coarse expressions, 
 but is witty and characteristical, we will subjoin a paraphrase, 
 with a few defalcations : — 
 
 Varrus would take me t' other day 
 
 To see a little girl he knew, 
 Pretty and witty in her way, 
 
 With impudence enough for two. 
 
 Scarce are we seated, ere she chatters 
 
 (As pretty girls are wont to do) 
 About all persons, places, matters — 
 
 " And pray, what has been done for you ? " 
 
 " Bithynia, lady," I replied, 
 
 " Is a fine province for a pretor, 
 For none (I promise you) beside, 
 
 And least of all am I her debtor." 
 
 " Sorry for that ! " said she. " However 
 
 You have brought with you, I dare say, 
 Some litter bearers : none so clever 
 
 In any other part as they. 
 
 " Bithynia is the very place 
 
 For all that 's steady, tall, and straight ; 
 It is the nature of the race. 
 
 Could not you lend me six or eight ? " 
 
 " Why, six or eight of them or so," 
 
 Said I, determined to be grand ; 
 " My fortune is not quite so low 
 
 But these are still at my command." 
 
344 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 " You '11 send them ? " " Willingly 1 " I told her, 
 
 Altho' I had not here or there 
 One who could carry on his shoulder 
 
 The leg of an old broken chair. 
 
 " Catullus ! what a charming hap is 
 
 Our meeting in this sort of way I 
 I would be carried to Serapis 
 
 To-morrow." "Stay, fair lady, stay I 
 
 " You overvalue my intention. 
 
 Yes, there are eight — there may be nine : 
 I merely had forgot to mention 
 
 That they are Cinna's, and not mine." 
 
 Catullus has added two verses which we have not translated, 
 because they injure the poem, — 
 
 " Sed tu insulsa male et molesta vivis 
 Per quam non licet esse negligentem." 
 
 This, if said at all, ought not to be said to the lady. The re- 
 flection might be (but without any benefit to the poetry) made 
 in the poet's own person. Among the ancients however, when 
 we find the events of common life and ordinary people turned 
 into verse, — as here for instance, and in the " Praxinoe " of 
 Theocritus, and in another of his where a young person has 
 part of her attire torn, — we never are bored with prolixity and 
 platitude, in which a dull moral is our best relief at the close of 
 a dull story. 
 
 Carmen XI. " Ad Furium et Aurelium." Furius and Aure- 
 lius were probably the comrades of Catullus in Bithynia. He 
 appears to have retained his friendship for them not extremely 
 long. Here he intrusts them with a message for Lesbia, which 
 they were fools if they delivered, although there is abundant 
 reason for believing that their modesty would never have re- 
 strained them. He may well call these 
 
 " Non bona dicta." 
 
 But there are worse in reserve for themselves, on turning over 
 the very next page. The last verses in the third strophe are 
 printed, — 
 
 " Gallic um Rhenum horribilesf?^^ ulti- 
 mosque Britannos." 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 345 
 
 The enclitic que should be changed to ad, since it could not 
 support itself without the intervention of an aspirate, — 
 
 *' Gallicum Rhenum horribileis ad ulti- 
 mosque Britannos," — 
 
 and the verse " Csesaris visens," etc., placed in a parenthesis. 
 When the poet wrote these Sapphics, his dislike of Caesar had 
 not begun. Perhaps it was occasioned long afterward, by some 
 inattention of the great commander to the Valerian family on 
 his last return from Transalpine Gaul. Here he writes, — 
 
 " Csesaris visens monimenta magni." 
 
 Very different from the contemptuous and scurril language with 
 which he addressed him latterly. 
 
 Carmen XII. "Ad Asinium PoUionem." Asinius PoUio 
 and his brother were striplings when this poem was written. 
 The worst but most admired of Virgil's Eclogues was composed 
 to celebrate the birth of Polho's son, in his consulate. In this 
 Eclogue, and in this alone, his versification fails him utterly. 
 The lines afford one another no support. For instance, this 
 sequence, — 
 
 " Ultima Cum^i venit jam carminis setas. 
 Magnus ab integro sseclorum nascitur ordo, 
 Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna." 
 
 Toss them in a bag and throw them out, and they will fall as 
 rightly in one place as another. Any one of them may come 
 first, any one of them may come last, any one of them may 
 come intermediately ; better that any one should never come 
 at all. Throughout the remainder of the Eclogue, the ampulla 
 of Virgil is puffier than the worst of Statins or Lucan. 
 
 In the poem before us it seems that Asinius, for whose infant 
 the universe was to change its aspect, for whom grapes were to 
 hang upon thorns, for whom the hardest oaks were to exude 
 honey, for whom the rams in the meadows were to dye their 
 own fleeces with murex and saffron, — this Asinius picked 
 CatuUus's pocket of his handkerchief. Catullus tells him he is 
 a blockhead if he is ignorant that there is no wit in such a 
 trick, which he says is a very dirty one, and appeals to the 
 brother, calling him a smart and clever lad. He declares he 
 
346 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 does not mind so much the value of the handkerchief, as 
 because it was a present sent to him out of Spain by his friends 
 Fabullus and Verannius, who united (it seems) their fiscal 
 forces in the investment. This is among the lighter effusions 
 of the volume, and worth as httle as Virgil's Eclogue, though 
 exempt from such grave faults. 
 
 • Carmen XIII. "Ad FabuUum." A pleasant invitation to 
 dinner, as in verse 8, — 
 
 " Plenus sacculus est aranearum." 
 
 It is curious that Doering, so sedulous in collecting scraps of 
 similitudes, never thought of this in Plautus, where the idea and 
 expression too are so alike, — 
 
 " Ita inaniis sunt oppletae atque araneis." 
 Let us offer a paraphrase, — 
 
 " With me, Fabullus, you shall dine, 
 And gaudily, I promise you, 
 If you will only bring the wine, 
 The dinner, and some beauty too. 
 
 " With all your frolic, all your fun, 
 I have some little of my own — 
 And nothing else : the spiders run 
 
 Throughout my purse, now theirs alone." 
 
 He goes on rather too far, and promises his invited guest so 
 sweet a perfume that he shall pray the gods to become all nose ; 
 that is, we may presume, if no one should intervene to correct 
 or divert in part a wish so engrossing. 
 
 Carmen XIV. "Ad Calvum Licinium." The poet seems 
 in general to have been very inconstant in his friendships, but 
 there is no evidence that he ever was estranged from Calvus. 
 This is the more remarkable, as Calvus was a poet, the only 
 poet among his friends, and wrote in the same style. At the 
 close of the poem here addressed to him, properly ending at 
 the twenty-third verse, we find four others appended. They 
 have nothing at all to do with it, they are a worthless fragment ; 
 and it is a pity that the wine- cask, which rotted off and dislo- 
 cated so many pieces, did not leak on and obliterate this, and 
 many similar, particularly the next two. We should then, it 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 347 
 
 may be argued, have known less of the author's character. So 
 much the better. Unless by knowing the evil that is in any 
 one we can benefit him or ourselves or society, it is desirable 
 not to know it at all. 
 
 Carmen XVII. "Ad Coloniara." Here are a few beautiful 
 verses in a very indifferent piece of poetry. We shall tran- 
 scribe them, partly for their beauty, and partly to remove an 
 obscurity : — 
 
 " Quoi quum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella, 
 Et puella tenellulo delicatior hasdo, 
 Asservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis ; 
 Ludere banc sinit ut lubet, nee pili facit uni, 
 Nee se sublevat ex sua parte ; sed velut alnus 
 In fossa Liguri jacet suppernata securi, 
 Tantundem omnia sentiens quam si nulla sit usquam. 
 Talis iste meus stupor nil videt, nihil audit, 
 Ipse qui sit, utrum sit, an non sit, id quoque nescit." 
 
 This is in the spirit of Aristophanes, and we may fancy we 
 hear his voice in the cantilena. Asservanda should be printed 
 adservanda ; and suppernata, siibpernata. Liguri is doubtful. 
 Ligur/j" is the genitive case of Ligur. The Ligurians may in 
 ancient times, as in modern, have exercised their industry out 
 of their own country, and the poorer of them may have been 
 hewers of wood ; then securis Ligur'vs, would be the right in- 
 terpretation. But there are few countries in which there are 
 fewer ditches, or fewer alders, than in Liguria ; we who have 
 travelled through the country in all directions do not remem- 
 ber to have seen a single one of either. It would be going 
 farther, but going where both might be found readily, if we 
 went to the Liger, and read " In fossa LigenV." 
 
 Carmina XVIII., XIX., XX. ''Ad Priapum." The first of 
 these three is a Dedication to the God of Gardens. In the 
 two following the poet speaks in his own person. The first 
 contains only four lines. The second is descriptive, and ter- 
 minates with pleasantry, — 
 
 " O pueri I malas abstinete rapinas ! 
 Vicinus prope dives est, negligensque Priapus ; 
 Inde sumite ; semita haec deinde vos feret ipsa." 
 
 In the third are these exquisite verses : — 
 
 " Mihi corolla picta vere ponitur, 
 Mihi rubens arista sole fervido, 
 
348 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 Mihi virente dulcis uva pampino, 
 Mihique glauca duro oliva frigore. 
 Meis capella delicata pascuis 
 In urbein adulta lacte portat ubera, 
 Meisque pinguis agnus ex ovilibus 
 Gravem domum remittit aere dexteram, 
 Teneraque matre mugiente vaccula 
 Deum profundit ante templa sanguinem." 
 
 We will attempt to translate them : — 
 
 " In spring the many-colored crown, 
 The sheaves in summer, ruddy-brown, 
 The autumn's twisting tendrils green, 
 With nectar-gushing grapes between, — 
 Some pink, some purple, some bright gold, — 
 Then shrivelled olive, blue with cold. 
 Are all for me : for me the goat 
 Comes with her milk from hills remote. 
 And fatted lamb, and calf pursued 
 By moaning mother, sheds her blood." 
 
 The third verse, as printed in this edition and most others, 
 is contrary to the laws of metre in the pure iambic, — 
 
 " Agellulum hunc, sinistra, tiite quam vides." 
 
 And tute is inelegant and useless. Scaliger proposed "sinist^ra 
 ante quem vides." He was near the mark, but missed it ; for 
 Catullus would never have written " sinist^ra." It is very 
 probable that he wrote the verse — 
 
 " Agellulum hunc sinistra, inante quem vides. 
 On the left hand, just before you." 
 
 Inante and exante were applied to time rather than place, but 
 not exclusively. 
 
 Carmen XXII. "Ad Varrum." This may be advantage- 
 ously contracted in a paraphrase, — 
 
 " Suffenus, whom so well you know. 
 My Varrus, as a wit and beau 
 Of smart address and smirking smile, 
 Will write you verses by the mile. 
 You cannot meet with daintier fare 
 Than titlepage and binding are ; 
 But when you once begin to read 
 You find it sorry stuff indeed. 
 And you are ready to cry out 
 Upon this beau, ' Ah! what a lout ! ' 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 349 
 
 No man on earth so proud as he 
 Of his own precious poetry, 
 Or knows such perfect bliss as when 
 He takes in hand that nibbled pen. 
 
 Have we not all some faults like these ? 
 Are we not all Suffenuses ? 
 In others the defect we find, 
 But cannot see our sack behind." 
 
 Carmen XXV. " Ad Thallum." It is hardly safe to steal 
 a laugh here, and yet it is difficult to refrain from it. Some of 
 the verses must be transposed. Those which are printed — 
 
 " Thalle ! turbida rapacior procella. 
 Cum de via mulier aves ostendit oscitantes, 
 Remitte pallium mihi, meum quod involaste — 
 
 ought to be printed — 
 
 " Thalle ! turbida rapacior procella, 
 Remitte pallium mihi, meum, quod involaste 
 Quiim ' deviffj ' mulier aves ostendit oscitantes." 
 
 This shows that Thallus had purloined CatuUus's cloak while 
 he was looking at a nest of owls ; for such are device aves, and so 
 they are called by Ovid. It is doubtful whether the right read- 
 ing is oscitantes, " opening their beaks," or oscinentes, which is 
 applied to birds that do not sing, — by Valerius Maximus to 
 crows, by Livy to birds of omen. In the present case we may 
 believe them to be birds of augury, and inauspicious, as the 
 word always signifies, and as was manifest in the disaster of 
 Catullus and his cloak. In the eleventh verse there is a false 
 quantity, — 
 
 " Inusta turpiter tibi flagella consmbillent." 
 
 Was there not such a, word as contribulo ? 
 
 Carmen XXIX. " Ad Csesarem." This is the poem by which 
 the author, as Cicero remarks, affixes an eternal stigma on the 
 name of Csesar, but which the most powerful and the best tem- 
 pered man in the world heard without any expression of anger 
 or concern. The punctuation appears ill-placed in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth verses, — 
 
 " Quid est ? ait sinistra liberalitas : 
 Parum expatravit. An parura helluatus est ?" 
 
350 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 We would write them, — 
 
 " Quid est, aiii ? Sinistra liberalitas 
 Parum expatravit ? " etc. 
 
 " Where is the harm, do you ask ? What ! has this left- 
 handed liberality of his," etc. 
 
 Carmen XXX. "Ad Alphenum." A poem of sobs and 
 sighs, of complaint, reproach, tenderness, sad reflection, and 
 pure poetry. 
 
 Carmen XXXI. " Ad Sirmionem Peninsulam." Never was 
 a return to home expressed so sensitively and beautifiilly as 
 here. In the thirteenth line we find — 
 
 " Gaudete vosque Lydias lacus undje." 
 
 The " Lydian waves of the lake " would be an odd expression. 
 Although, according to a groundless and somewhat absurd 
 tradition, — 
 
 " Gens Lyda jugis insedit Etruscis, — " 
 
 yet no gens Lyda could ever have penetrated to these Alpine 
 regions. One of the Etrurian nations did penetrate so far, 
 whether by conquest or expulsion is uncertain. But Catullus 
 here calls upon Sirmio to rejoice in his return, and he invites 
 the waves of the lake to laugh. Whoever has seen this beauti- 
 fiil expanse of water, under its bright sun and gentle breezes, 
 will understand the poet's expression ; he will have seen the 
 waves laugh and dance. Catullus, no doubt, wrote 
 
 " Gaudete vosque ' Iz/dias ' lacus undae I 
 Ye revellers and dancers of the lake ! " 
 
 If there was the word ludius, which we know there was, there 
 must also have been ludia. 
 
 Carmen XXXIV. "Ad Dianam." A hymn, of the purest 
 simplicity. 
 
 Carmen XXXV. " Csecilium invitat." It appears that Cse- 
 cilius, Kke Catullus, had written a poem on Cybele. Catullus 
 invites him to leave Como for Verona, — 
 
 " Quamvis Candida millies puella 
 Euntem revocet, manusque coUo 
 Ambas injiciens roget morari." 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 35 1 
 
 Which may be rendered, — 
 
 " Although so passing fair a maid 
 Call twenty times, be not delayed ; 
 Nay, do not be delayed although 
 Both arms around your neck she throw." 
 
 For it appears she was desperately in love with him from the 
 time he had written the poem. Catullus says it is written so 
 beautifully that he can pardon the excess of her passion. 
 
 Carmen XXXIX. " In Egnatium." This is the second 
 time he has ridiculed Egnatius, — a Celtiberian, and overfond 
 of displaying his teeth by continually laughing. Part of the 
 poem is destitute of merit, and indelicate ; the other part may 
 be thus translated, or paraphrased rather : — 
 
 Egnatius has fine teeth, and those 
 
 Eternally Egnatius shows. 
 
 Some criminal is being tried 
 
 For murder, and they open wide ; 
 
 A widow wails her o~nly son, — 
 
 Widow and him they open on. 
 
 'T is a disease, I 'm very sure, 
 
 And wish 't were such as you could cure, 
 
 My good Egnatius ! for what's half 
 
 So silly as a silly laugh ? " 
 
 We cannot agree with Doering that we should read, in 
 verse ii, — 
 
 " Kxit porcus Umber aut obesus Etruscus." 
 
 First, because the porcus and obesus convey the same meaning 
 without any distinction ; and secondly, because the distinction 
 is necessary both for the poet and the fact. The Etrurians 
 were a most luxurious people ; the Umbrians, a pastoral and 
 industrious one. He wishes to exhibit a contrast between these 
 two nations, as he has done in the preceding verse between 
 what is urbane and what is Sabine. Therefore he wrote, — 
 
 " Aut parous Umber aut obesus Hetruscus." 
 
 Carmen XL. "Ad Ravidum." The sixth verse is printed 
 improperly — 
 
 " Quid vis ? qua lubet esse notus optaj ? " 
 Read — 
 
 " Quid vis ? qua lubet esse notus ? opta." 
 
352 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 " Opta," — make your option. 
 
 Carmen XLII, "Ad Quandam." We should not notice 
 this " ad quandam " were it not to correct a mistake of 
 Doering. " Ridentem canis ore Gallicani,^^ — his note on 
 this expression is, " Epitheton ornans, pro quovis cane venatico 
 cujus rictus est latior." No, the " canis gallicus " is the grey- 
 hound, whose rictus is indeed much latior than that of other 
 dogs ; and Catullus always uses words the most characteristic 
 and expressive. 
 
 Carmen XLV. " De Acme et Septimio." Perhaps this poem 
 has been admired above its merit ; but there is one exquisitely 
 fine passage in it, and replete with that harmony which, as we 
 have already had occasion to remark, Catullus alone has given 
 to the Phaleucian metre, — 
 
 " At Acme leviter caput reflectens, 
 
 Et dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos 
 
 Isto purpureo ore suaviata, 
 ' Sic,' inquit, ' mea vita Septimille ! 
 
 Huic uno domino usque serviamus.' " 
 
 Carmen XLVI. " De Adventu Veris." He leaves Phrygia 
 in the beginning of spring, and is about to visit the celebrated 
 cities of maritime Asia. What beauty and vigor of expression 
 is there in — 
 
 " Jam mens prsetrepidans avet vagari, 
 Jam laeti studio pedes vigescunt." 
 
 There is also much tenderness at the close in the short valedic- 
 tion to his companions, who set out together with him in the 
 expedition, and will return (whenever they do return) by vari- 
 ous roads into their native country. 
 
 Carmen L. " Ad Licinium." On the day preceding the 
 composition of this poem, he and Licinius had agreed to write 
 together in dififerent metres, and to give verse for verse. Ca- 
 tullus was so delighted with the performances of Licinius that 
 he could never rest, he tells us, until he had signified it by this 
 graceful little poem. 
 
 Carmen LI. This is a translation from Sappho's ode, and 
 perhaps is the first that had ever been attempted into Latin, 
 although there is another which precedes it in the volume. 
 Nothing can surpass the graces of this, and it leaves us no re- 
 gret but that we have not more translations by him of Sappho's 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 353 
 
 poetry. He has copied less from the Greek than any Latin 
 poet had done before Tibullus. 
 
 The adonic at the close of the second strophe is lost. Many 
 critics have attempted to substitute one. In the edition before 
 us we find — 
 
 " Simul te 
 Lesbia ! adspexi, nihil est super m! 
 Vocis in ore." 
 
 A worse cannot be devised. 
 
 " Quod loquar amens " 
 
 would be better. The ode ends, and always ended, with 
 
 " Lumina nocte." 
 
 Carmen LIII. " De Quodam et Calvo." Calvus, as well 
 as Cicero, spoke publicly against Vatinius. It will be requisite 
 to write out the five verses of which this piece of Catullus is 
 composed, — 
 
 " Risi nescio quern modo in coron^ 
 Qui quum mirifice Vatiniana 
 Meus crimina Calvus explicasset 
 Admirans ait haec manusque tollens, 
 Di magni ! salaputium disertum t " 
 
 Doering's note on the words is this : " Vox nova, ridicula et, 
 ut videbatur, plebeia (^salaputiuin) . CatuUum ad hos versus 
 scribendos impuht." He goes on to put into prose what Ca- 
 tullus had told us in verse, and adds, " Catullus a risu sibi tem- 
 perare non potuit." Good Herr Doering does not see whereas 
 the fun. It lies in the fact of Calvus being a very little man, 
 and in the clown hearing a very little man so eloquent, and 
 crying out, " Heavens above ! what a clever little cocky / " 
 The word should not be written " salapu/ium," but " salapu- 
 j-ium." The termination in um is a signification of endear- 
 ment, as deliciolum for delicice, — and correspondently the ov 
 in Greek ; TracStov, for instance, and TraiSaptov. It cannot be 
 salepygium, as some critics have proposed, because the third 
 syllable in this word (supposing there were any such) would, 
 according to its Greek origin, be short. Perhaps the best 
 reading may be " sal/pusium," from sal and pusius. Rustic 
 terms are unlikely to be compounded with accuracy. In old 
 Latin the word, or words, would be sali (for salis) pusium. 
 
 23 
 
354 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 But / is equivalent to s ; and the modem Italian, which is 
 founded on the most ancient Latin, has putto. 
 Carmen LIV. " Ad Csesarem." . 
 
 " Fuffitio seni recocio." 
 
 On this is the note " Homo recoctus jam dicitur qui in rebus 
 agendis diu multumque agitatus, versatus, exercitatus, et quasi 
 percoctus, rerum- naturam penitus perspexit," etc. 
 
 Surely these qualities are not such as Catullus or Caesar 
 ought to be displeased with. But " senex recoctus " means an 
 old dandy boiled up into youth again in Medea's caldron. In 
 this poem Catullus turns into ridicule no other than personal 
 peculiarities and defects, — first in Otho, then in Libo, lastly 
 in Fuffitius. 
 
 Carmen LVII. "In Mamurram et Caesarem." If Caesar 
 had hired a poet to write such wretched verses as these and 
 swear them to Catullus, he could never in any other way have 
 more injured his credit as a poet. The " Duo Caesaris Anti- 
 Catones," which are remembered as having been so bulky, 
 could never have fallen on Cato so fatally as this Anti-Catullus 
 on Catullus. 
 
 Carimen LXI. " De Nuptiis Juliae et Manlii." Never was 
 there, and never will there be probably, a nuptial song of 
 equal beauty. But in verse 129 there is a 'false quantity as 
 now printed, and quite unnoticed by the editor, — 
 
 " Dese;-tum domini audiens." 
 
 The metre does not well admit a spondee -^ for the second 
 foot ; it should be a trochee, and this is obtained by the true 
 reading, " Des/tum." 
 
 Carmen LXII. Another nuptial song, and properly an epi- 
 thalamium in heroic verse, and very masterly. It seems in- 
 credible, however, that the last lines, beginning, — 
 "At tu ne pugna," — 
 
 were written by Catullus, They are trivial ; and besides, the 
 young singing men never have sung so long together in the 
 former parts assigned to them. The longest of these consists 
 of nine verses, with the choral 
 
 " Hymen, O Hymenaee ! " 
 1 Yet here, in two hundred and thirty-five verses nine begin with it. 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 355 
 
 and the last would contain eleven with it, even after rejecting 
 these seven which intervene, and which, if admitted, would 
 double the usual quantity. We would throw them out because 
 there is no room for them, and because they are trash. 
 
 Carmen LXIII. This has ever been, and ever will be, the 
 admiration of all who can distinguish the grades of poetry. 
 The thirty-ninth verse is printed, — 
 
 " Piger his labentej languore oculos sopor operit." 
 
 The metre will not allow it. We must read, " labant^ lan- 
 guore," although the construction may be somewhat less obvi- 
 ous. The words are in the ablative absolute, — "Sleep covers 
 their eyes, a languor dropping over them." 
 
 Verse 64 should be printed "gymnasj," not "gymnasii." 
 The seventy-fifth and seventy-sixth lines must be reversed, and 
 instead of 
 
 read 
 
 " Geminas 'Z'eorum ' ad aur^s nova nuncia referens 
 Ibi juncta juga resolvens Cybele leonibus 
 Lsevumque pecoris hostem stimulans," 
 
 " Ibi juncta juga resolvens Cybele leonibus, 
 Geminas ' ^orum ' ad zxxreis nova nuncia referens," etc. 
 
 Carmen LXIV. "Nuptise Pelei et Thetidis." Among many 
 excellencies of the highest order, there are several faults and 
 inconsistencies in this heroic poem. In verse 15, — 
 
 " Illaque haudque alia," etc., — 
 
 it is incredible that Catullus should have written " haud^?^^." 
 In verse 3 7 we read, — 
 
 " Pharsaliam coeunt, Pharsalia rura frequentant." 
 
 No objection can be raised against this reading. "Pharsa- 
 liam " is a trisyllable. The i sometimes coalesces with another 
 vowel, as a and do. In Virgil we find, — 
 
 " Stell/o et lucifugis. 
 Aured composuit sponda. 
 Una eademque via. 
 Uno ^<7demque igni. 
 Perque ^rea scuta." 
 
356 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 Verses 58 and the following are out of their order. They 
 stand thus : — 
 
 " Rura colit nemo : mollescunt colla juvencis : 
 Non humilis curvis purgatur vinea rastris ; 
 Non glebam prono convellit vomere taurus : 
 Non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram : 
 Squalida desertis robigo infertur aratris." 
 
 The proper and natural series is, together with the right 
 punctuation, — 
 
 " Rura colit nemo : mollescunt colla juvencis, 
 Non glebam prono convellit vomere taurus ; 
 Squalida desertis robigo infertur aratris. 
 Non humilis curvis purgatur vinea rastris, 
 Non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram," — 
 
 because here the first, the second, and the third refer to the 
 same labor, that of ploughing ; the fourth and fifth to the same 
 also, that of cultivating the two kinds of vineyard. In one 
 kind the grapes are cut low and fastened on poles with bands 
 of withy, and raked between ; in the other they are trained 
 against trees. Formerly the tree preferred was the elm ; at 
 present it is the maple, particularly in Tuscany. The branches 
 are lopped and thinned when the vines are pruned, to let in sun 
 and air. By ignorance of such customs in agriculture, many 
 things in the Classics are mistaken. Few people know the 
 meaning of the words in Horace, — 
 
 " Cum diiplice ficu." 
 
 M'ost fancy it must be the purple fig and the yellow ; but there 
 is also a green one. The ItaHans, to dry their figs the more 
 expeditiously, cut them open and expose them on the pave- 
 ment before their cottages. They then stick two together, and 
 this is duplex ficus. 
 
 We now come to graver faults (and faults certainly the 
 poet's) than a mere transposition of verses. In the palace 
 of Peleus there is a piece of tapestry which takes up the best 
 part of the poem, 
 
 " Hsec vestis priscis hominum variata figuris " 
 
 exhibits the story of Theseus and Ariadne. Their adventures 
 could not have happened five-and-twenty years before these 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 35/ 
 
 nuptials. Of the Argo, which carried Peleus when Thetis fell 
 in love with him, the poet says, as others do, — 
 
 _ '•' Ilia rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten." 
 
 But in the progress of sixty lines we find that vessels had been 
 saiHng to Crete every year, with the Athenian youths devoted 
 to the Minotaur. Castor and Pollux sailed in the Argo with 
 Peleus ; and Helen, we know, was their sister : she was about 
 the same age as Achilles, and Theseus had run away with her 
 before Paris had. But equal inconsistencies are to be detected 
 in the .^neid, a poem extolled, century after century, for pro- 
 priety and exactness. An anachronism quite as strange as this 
 of Catullus is in the verses on Acragas, Agrigentum, — 
 
 " Arduus inde Acragas ostentat maxima longe 
 Mcenia, magnanimum quonda7n generator equorum. 
 
 Whether the city itself was built in the age of ^neas is not the 
 question ; but certainly the breed of horses was introduced by 
 the Carthaginians, and improved by Hiero and Gelon. The 
 breed of the island is small, as it is in all mountainous coun- 
 tries, where the horses are never found adapted to chariots any 
 more than chariots are adapted to surfaces so uneven. 
 
 In verse 83, for " Funera Cecropise," etc., we must read 
 " Pubis Cecropiae." 
 
 In verse 119, " Quae misera," etc., is supposititious. 
 
 In verse 1 78 we read, — 
 
 " Idomeneos-ne petam montes ? at gurgite lato," etc 
 
 Idomeneus was unborn in the earUer days of Theseus. Prob- 
 ably the verses were written, — 
 
 " Idam ideone petam ? Montes (ah gurgite vasto 
 Discernens!) ponti truculentum dividit zequor." 
 
 In verse 191, nothing was ever grander or more awful than 
 the adjuration of Ariadne to the Eumenides, — 
 
 " Quare facta virum multantes vindice peni 
 Eumenides ! quarum anguineo redimita capillo 
 Frons expirantes prcEporiat pectoris iras, 
 Hue, hue adventate ! " 
 
 Verse 199, Doering explains, — 
 
 " Vos nolite pati nostrum vanescere luctum," — 
 
358 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 " bnpunitum manere." What, — her grief ? Does she pray 
 that her grief may not remain tmpunished ? No, she implores 
 that the prayers that arise from it may not be in vain. 
 In verse 2 1 2 we read, — 
 
 " Namque ferunt olim [classi cum moeiiia Divze] 
 Linquentem, natum, ventis concrederet ^Egeus, 
 Talia complexum juveni mandata dedisse." 
 
 The mould of the barrel has been doing sad mischief there. 
 We must read — 
 
 " Namque ferunt, natum ventis quum crederat ^geus." 
 
 In verse 250 we have, — 
 
 " At parte ex alia. 
 
 This scene is the subject of a noble picture by Titian, now in 
 the British Gallery. It has also been deeply studied by Nico- 
 las Poussin. But there is a beauty which no painting can 
 attain in — 
 
 " Plangebant alii proceris tympana palmis, 
 Aut tereti tenues tinnitus mre ciebant." 
 
 Soon follows that exquisite description of morning on the sea- 
 side, already transcribed, and placed by the side of Milton's 
 personification. 
 
 In verse 340 we read, — 
 
 " Nascetur vobis expers terroris Achilles, 
 Hostibus hand te7-go sed forti pectore notiis. 
 Qui perssepe vagi victor certamine cursus 
 Flammea prsevertet celeris vestigia cervi." 
 
 It is impossible that Catullus, or any poet whatever, can have 
 written the second of these. Some stupid critic must have 
 done it, who fancied that the " expers terroris " was not clearly 
 and sufficiently proven by urging the car over the field of 
 battle, and had little or nothing to do in outstripping the stag. 
 
 Verse 329. Rarely have the Fates sung so sweetly as in 
 this verse to Peleus, — 
 
 " Adveniet tibi jam portans optata maritis 
 Hesperus, adveniet fausto cum sidere conjux, 
 Quae tibi flexanimo mentem perfundat amore 
 Languidulosque paret tecum conjungere somnos, 
 Lsevia substernens robusto brachia collo." 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 359 
 
 Carmen LXV. " Ad Hortalum." He makes his excuse to 
 Hortalus for delaying a compliance with his wishes for some 
 verses. This delay he tells him was occasioned by the death 
 of his brother, to whom he was most affectionately attached, 
 and whose loss he laments in several of his poems. In this he 
 breaks forth into a very pathetic appeal to him, — 
 
 " AUoquar? audiero numquam tua facta loquentem ? 
 Nunquam ego te, vita frater amabilior, 
 Adspiciam posthac ! At certe semper amabo, 
 Semper maesta tua carmina morte canam." 
 
 The two following hnes are surely supposititious. Thinking 
 with such intense anguish of his brother's death, he could find 
 no room for so frigid a conceit as that about the Daulian bird 
 and Itylus. This is almost as much out of place, though not 
 so bad in itself, as the distich which heads the epistle of 
 " Dido to ^neas " in Ovid, — 
 
 " Sic, ubi Fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis 
 Ad vada Mseandri concinit albus olor." 
 
 As if the Fates were busied in " calling white swans ! " Ovid 
 never composed any such trash. The epistle in fact begins 
 with a verse (21) of consummate beauty, tenderness, and 
 gravity, — 
 
 " Quod miserse oblitae molli sub veste locatum, 
 Dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur." 
 
 These require another punctuation, — 
 
 " Quod miserse (oblitje molli sub veste locatum)." 
 
 The Germans, to whom we owe so much in every branch of 
 learning, are not always fortunate in their punctuation ; and 
 perhaps never was anything so subversive of harmony as that 
 which Heyne has given us in a passage of Tibullus, — 
 
 " Blanditiis vult esse locum Venus ipsa — " 
 
 Who could ever doubt this fact, — that even Venus herself will 
 admit of blandishments? But Tibullus laid down no such 
 truism. Heyne writes it thus, and proceeds, — 
 
 " querelis 
 Supplicibus, miseris fletibus, ilia favet." 
 
360 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 The tender and harmonious poet wrote not " Blandit/is " but 
 " Bland/tis, — 
 
 " Blanditis vult esse locum Venus ipsa querelis ; 
 Supplicibus, miseris, flentibus, ilia favet." 
 
 Here the " blanditiae " are quite out of the question ; but the 
 " blanditffi querelas " are complaints softly expressed and coax- 
 ingly preferred. 
 
 To return to Catullus. The following couplet is — 
 
 " Atque illud prono prasceps agitur decursu ; 
 Huic nianat tristi conscius ore rubor." 
 
 Manat can hardly be applicable to rubor. We would prefer — 
 
 " Huic inanet in tristi conscius ore rubor," — 
 
 the opposite to " agitur decursu." 
 
 They whose ears have been accustomed to the Ovidian ele- 
 giac verse, and have been taught at school that every pentame- 
 ter should close with a dissyllable, will be apt to find those of 
 Catullus harsh and negligent. But let them only read over, 
 twice or thrice, the first twelve verses of this poem, and their 
 ear will be cured of its infirmity. By degrees they may be led 
 to doubt whether the worst of all Ovid's conceits is not his de- 
 termination to give every alternate verse this syllabic uniformity. 
 
 Carmen LXVL " De Coma Berenices." This is imitated 
 from a poem of CalUmachus, now lost, — perhaps an early ex- 
 ercise of our poet, corrected afterward, but insufficiently. The 
 sixth verse, however, is exquisite in its cadence, — 
 
 " Ut Triviam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans 
 Dulcis amor gyro devocat aerio." 
 
 Verse 27 reads, — 
 
 " Anne bonum oblita es facinus, quo regium adepta es 
 Conjugium, quod non fortior ausit alis.'" 
 
 Berenice is said to have displayed great courage in battle. To 
 render the second verse intelligible, we must admit " alis " for 
 alius, as alid is used for altud in Lucretius. Moreover, we 
 must give " fortior " the expression of strength, not of courage, 
 — 2.% forte throughout Italy at the present time expresses never 
 courage, always strength. The sense of the passage then is, 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 361 
 
 '< Have you forgotten the great action by which you won your 
 husband, — an action which one much stronger than yourself 
 would not have attempted?" For it would be nonsense to 
 say, "You have performed a brave action which a braver ^ex- 
 son would not have dared." In the sense of Catullus are those 
 passages of Sallust and Virgil, — 
 
 " Neque a ' fortissimis ' infirniissi7no generi resist! posse. 
 ' Forti ' fidis equo." 
 
 Verse 65 reads, — 
 
 " Virginis, et saevi contingens namque Leonis Lumina." 
 
 Namque may be the true reading. The editor has adduced 
 two examples from Plautus to show the probability of it, but 
 fails, — 
 
 " Quando h£ec innata est nam tibi." ^ 
 
 " Quid tibi ex filio nam jegre est." 2 
 
 He seems unaware that " nam," in the first, is only a part of 
 quid-nam, the quid being separated ; quando-nam, the same 
 for ecqiiando {ede quando) " tell me when," quianam, etc. ; 
 but namque is not in the like condition, and in this place it is 
 awkward. The nam added to the above words is always an 
 interrogative. 
 
 Carmen LXVII. "Ad Januam," etc. In verse 31 we 
 have, — 
 
 " Atqui non solum se dicit cognitum habere 
 Brixia, Cycnaeae supposita speculse, 
 Flaviis quam 77iolli percurrit fliunine Mela, 
 Brixia Veronse mater amata meae." 
 
 Why should the sensible Marchese Scipione Maffei have taken 
 it into his head that the last couplet is spurious ? What a beau- 
 tiful verse is that in italics ! 
 
 Carmen LXVIII. " Ad Manlium." A rambhng poem quite 
 unworthy of the author. The verses from the beginning of the 
 twenty-sixth to the close of the thirtieth appertain to some 
 other piece, and break the context. Doering has gi^^n a 
 strange interpretation to — 
 
 " Veronse turpe Catullo," etc. 
 
 1 Pers. ii. 5, 13. ^ Bacch. v. 1, 20. 
 
362 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 The trae meaning is much more obvious and much less deU- 
 cate. In the sixty-third we must read "At" for "Ac;" this 
 helps the continuity. After the seventy-third we must omit, as 
 belonging to another place, all until we come to verse 143. 
 Here we catch the thread again. The intermediate lines be- 
 long to two other poems, both perhaps addressed to Manlius, 
 — one relating to the death of the poet's brother, the other 
 on a very different subject : we mean the fragment just now 
 indicated — 
 
 " Quare quod scribis, Veronae turpe Catullo," etc. 
 
 Verse 145 reads, — 
 
 " Sed furtiva dedit miri munuscula nocte, 
 Ipsius ex ipso demta viri gremio." 
 
 The verses are thus worded and punctuated in Doering's 
 edition and others, but improperly. " Mird nocte " is non- 
 sense. We must read the lines thus : — 
 
 " Sed furtiva dedit niiri munuscula nocte 
 Ipsius ex ipso," etc. 
 Or thus, — 
 
 " Sed furtiva dedit media munuscula nocte 
 Ipsius ex ipso demta viri gremio." 
 
 Verse 147, which reads, — 
 
 " Quare illud satis est, si nobis is datur unus, 
 Quem lapide ilia diem candidiore notat," — 
 
 Doering thus interprets : — 
 
 " Quare jam illud mihi satis est, si ilia vel umim diem, quem mecum 
 vixit, ut diem faustum felicemque albo lapide insigniat." 
 
 That the verses have no such meaning is evident from the 
 preceding, — 
 
 " Quse tamen etsi uno non est contenta Catullo 
 Rara verecundse furta feremus herse." 
 
 This aboHshes the idea of one single day contenting him, con- 
 tented as he professes himself to be with little aberrations and 
 infidelities. Scaliger has it, — 
 
 " Quare illud satis est, si nobis za^ datur unis; 
 Quod lapide il!a dies candidiore notat." 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 363 
 
 And it appears to us that Scaliger has given the first line cor- 
 rectly ; but not the punctuation. We should prefer, — 
 
 " Quare illud satis est, si nobis id datur unis 
 Qu^i lapide ilia diem candidiore notrt." 
 
 Verses 69 and 70 read, — 
 
 " Trito fulgentem in limine plantam 
 Innisa arguta constitit in so/ed." 
 
 The slipper could not be arguta while she was standing in it. 
 Scaliger reads " constitz/// solea." The one is not sense; the 
 other is neither sense nor Latin, unless the construction is con- 
 stituit plantam, and then all the other words are in disarray. 
 The meaning is, " She placed her foot against the door, and, 
 without speakifig, rapped it with her sounding slipper." Then 
 the words would be " arguta conticuit solea." 
 In verse 78 we have, — 
 
 " Nil mihi tam valde placeat, Rhamnusia virgo. 
 Quod \.exa.txt invitis suscipiatur heris." 
 
 In Scaliger it is, — 
 
 " Quam temere," etc. 
 
 The true reading is neither, but — 
 
 " Qu^m ut temere." 
 
 Such elisions are found in this very poem and the preceding, — 
 
 " Ne amplius a misero," — 
 and — 
 
 " Qui ipse sui gnati." 
 
 Carmen LXXI. " Ad Virronem." Doering thinks, as others 
 have done, that the poem is against Virro. On the contrary, it 
 is a facetious consolation to him on the punishment of his rival, 
 
 " Mirifice est a te nactus utrumque malum " 
 
 means only " for his offence against you." We have a little 
 more to add on this in CXV. 
 
 Carmen LXXV. "Ad Lesbiam." Here are eight verses, 
 the rhythm of which plunges from the ear into the heart. Our 
 attempt to render them in English is feeble and vain, — 
 
 1 "Quo " for "quod." 
 
364 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 " None could ever say that she, 
 Lesbia, was so loved by me. 
 Never all the world around 
 Faith so true as mine was found : 
 If no longer it endures 
 (Would it did !) the fault is yours. 
 I can never think again 
 Well of you : I try in vain. 
 But — be false — do what you will — 
 Lesbia, I must love you still." 
 
 Carmen LXXVI. "Ad seipsum." They whose ears retain 
 only the sound of the hexameters and pentameters they recited 
 and wrote at school, are very unlikely to be greatly pleased 
 with the versification of this poem. Yet perhaps one of equal 
 earnestness and energy was never written in elegiac metre. 
 Sentences must be read at once, and not merely distichs ; then 
 a fresh harmony will spring up exuberantly in every part of it, 
 into which many discordant verses will sink and lose themselves, 
 to produce a part of the effect. It is, however, difficult to re- 
 strain a smile at such expressions as these from such a man, — 
 
 " Si vitam puriter egi, 
 O Dii ! reddite mi hoc pro pietate mea 1 " 
 
 Carmen LXXXV. " De Amore suo." 
 
 " Odi et amo. Qiiare id faciam, fortasse requiris: 
 Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." 
 
 The words in italics are flat and prosaic ; the thought is beauti- 
 ful, and similar to that expressed in LXXV. 
 
 " I love and hate. Ah ! never ask why so ! 
 I hate and love — and that is all I know. 
 I see 'tis folly, but I feel 'tis woe." 
 
 Carmen XCII. " De Lesbia." The fourth verse is printed — 
 
 " Quo signo ? quasi non totidem mox deprecor illi 
 Assidue" 
 
 " Mox " and " assidue " cannot stand together. Jacobs has 
 given a good emendation, — 
 
 " Quasi non totidem mala deprecor illi," etc. 
 
 Carmen XCIII. "In Csesarem." Nothing can be imagined 
 more contemptuous than the indifference he here affects toward 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 365 
 
 a name destined in all after ages to be the principal jewel in 
 the highest crowns ; and thinking of Csesar's genius, it is diffi- 
 cult to see without derision the greatest of those who assume 
 it. Catullus must have often seen, and we have reason to be- 
 lieve he personally knew, the conqueror of Gaul when he wrote 
 this epigram, — 
 
 " I care not, Caesar, what you are, 
 Nor know if you be brown or fair." 
 
 Carmen XCV. " De Smyrna Cinnse Poetse." There is 
 nothing of this poem, in which Cinna's "■ Smyrna " is extolled, 
 worth notice, excepting the last line ; and that indeed not for 
 what we read in it, but for what we have lost, — 
 
 " Parva mei mihi sunt cordi monumenta . . ." 
 
 The word " monz^menta " is spelled improperly ; it is " mon/- 
 menta." The last word in the verse is wanting ; yet we have 
 seen quoted, and prefixed to volumes of poetry, — 
 
 " Parva mei mihi sunt cordi monumenta laboris." 
 
 But Catullus is not speaking of himself, he is speaking of 
 Cinna ; and the proper word comes spontaneously, " sodalis." 
 Carmen XCIX. " Ad Juventium." 
 
 " Multis diluta labella 
 Guttis abstersisti omnibus articults." 
 
 How few will this verse please ! but how greatly those few ! 
 
 Carmen CI. " Inferise ad Fratris Tumulum," In these 
 verses there is a sorrowful but a quiet solemnity, which we 
 rarely find in poets on similar occasions. The grave and firm 
 voice which has uttered the third, breaks down in the 
 fourth, — 
 
 " Multas per gentes et multa per asquora vectus 
 Adveni has miseras, frater, ad inferias, 
 Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis 
 Et mutiint nequidquam alloquerer cinerem." 
 
 Unusual as is the cadence, the caesura, who would wish it other 
 than it is? If there were authority for it, we would read, in 
 the sixth, instead of — 
 
 " Heu miser indigne frater ademte mihi " — 
 
366 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 " Heu nimis ; " because just above we have, — 
 " Adveni has miseras, frater, ad inferias." 
 
 Carmen CX. " Ad Aufilenam." Doering says, " Utram 
 poetae an scribarum socordm tribuenda sit, qua ultimi hujus car- 
 minis versus laborant, obscuritas, pro suo quisque statuat arbi- 
 trio. Tolli quidera potest hsec obscuritas, sed emendandi genere 
 liderrimo." We are not quite so sure of that ; we are only- 
 sure that we find no obscurity at all in them. The word 
 factum is understood, and would be inelegant if it could have 
 found for itself a place in the verse. 
 
 Carmen CXV. It is requisite to transcribe the verses here 
 to show that Doering is mistaken in two places ; he was at 
 LXXI. in one only, — 
 
 " Prata arva, ingentes sylvas saltusque paludesque 
 Usque ad Hyperboreos et mare ad Oceanum. 
 Omnia magna haec sunt, tamen ipse est 7naxiiims tiltor" 
 
 He quotes LXXI., forgetting that that poem is addressed to 
 Virro, and this to Mamurra, under his old nickname : Mamurra, 
 whatever else he might be, was no viaximus ultor here. The 
 context will show what the word should be. Mamurra, by his 
 own account, is possessor of meadow ground and arable ground, 
 of woods, forests, and mai'shes, from the Hyperboreans to the 
 Atlantic. " These are great things," says Catullus, " but he 
 himself is great beyond them all,''' — '' ipse est maximus, ultra ; " 
 sc. *' Hyperboreas et Oceanum." 
 
 In how different a style, how artificially, with what infinite 
 fuss and fury, has Horace addressed Virgil on the death of 
 Quintilius Varus ! Melpomene is called from a distance, and 
 several more persons equally shadowy are brought forward ; 
 and then Virgil is honestly told that if he could sing and play 
 more blandly than the Thracian Orpheus, he never could reani- 
 mate an empty image which Mercury had drawn off among his 
 " black flock." 
 
 In selecting a poet for examination, it is usual either to extol 
 him to the skies, or to tear him to pieces and trample on him. 
 Editors in general do the former, — critics on editors, more 
 usually the latter. But one poet is not to be raised by casting 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 367 
 
 another under him. Catullus is made no richer by an attempt 
 to transfer to him what belongs to Horace, nor Horace by what 
 belongs to Catullus. Catullus has greatly more than he ; but 
 he also has much, — and let him keep it. We are not at lib- 
 erty to indulge in forwardness and caprice, snatching a deco- 
 ration from one and tossing it over to another. We will now 
 sum up what we have collected from the mass of materials 
 which has been brought before us, laying down some general 
 rules and observations. 
 
 There are four things requisite to constitute might, majesty, 
 and dominion in a poet : these are creativeness, constructive- 
 ness, the sublime, the pathetic. A poet of the first order must 
 have formed, or taken to himself and modified, some great 
 subject. He must be creative and constructive. Creativeness 
 may work upon old materials : a new world may spring from 
 an old one. Shakspeare found Hamlet and Ophelia ; he found 
 Othello and Desdemona, — nevertheless he, the only universal 
 poet, carried this and all the other qualifications far beyond 
 the reach of competitors. He was creative and constructive, 
 he was sublime and pathetic, and he has also in his humanity 
 condescended to the famiUar and the comic. There is nothing 
 less pleasant than the smile of Milton ; but at one time Momus, 
 at another the Graces, hang upon the neck of Shakspeare. 
 Poets whose subjects do not restrict them, and whose ordinary 
 gait displays no indication of either greave or buskin, if they 
 want the facetious and humorous, and are not creative nor sub- 
 lime nor pathetic, must be ranked by sound judges in the sec- 
 ondary order and not among the foremost even there. 
 
 Cowper and Byron and Southey, with much and deep ten- 
 derness, are richly humorous. Wordsworth, grave, elevated, 
 observant, and philosophical, is equi-distant from humor and 
 from passion. Always contemplative, never creative, he delights 
 the sedentary and tranquillizes the excited. No tear ever fell, 
 no smile ever glanced on his pages. With him you are beyond 
 the danger of any turbulent emotion at terror, or valor, or mag- 
 nanimity, or generosity. Nothing is there about him like 
 Burns's " Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled, " or Campbell's 
 " Battles of Copenhagen and Hohenlinden," or those exquisite 
 works which in Hemans rise up hke golden spires among 
 broader but lower structures, — "Ivan" and "Casablanca." 
 
368 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 Byron, often impressive and powerful, never reaches the heroic 
 and the pathetic of these two poems ; and he wants the fresh- 
 ness and healthiness we admire in Burns. But an indomitable 
 fire of poetry, the more vivid for the gloom about it, bursts 
 through the crusts and crevices of an unsound and hollow mind. 
 He never chatters with chilliness, nor falls overstrained into 
 languor ; nor do metaphysics ever muddy his impetuous and 
 precipitate stream. It spreads its ravages in some places, but 
 it is limpid and sparkling everywhere. If no story is well told 
 by him, no character well delineated, — if all resemble one an- 
 other by their beards and Turkish dresses, there is however the 
 first and the second and the third requisite of eloquence, 
 whether in prose or poetry, — vigor. But no large poem of 
 our days is so animated, or so truly of the heroic cast as " Mar- 
 mion." Southey's "Roderick" has less nerve and animation; 
 but what other living poet has attempted, or shown the ability, 
 to erect a structure so symmetrical and so stately? It is not 
 enough to heap description on description, to cast reflection 
 over reflection ; there must be development of character in the 
 development of story; there must be action, there must be 
 passion ; the end and the means must alike be great. 
 
 The poet whom we mentioned last is more studious of clas- 
 sical models than the others, especially in his ." Inscriptions." 
 Interest is always excited by him, enthusiasm not always. If 
 his elegant prose and harmonious verse are insufficient to ex- 
 cite it, turn to his virtues, to his manliness in defence of truth, 
 to the ardor and constancy of his friendships, to his disinter- 
 estedness, to his generosity, to his rejection of title and office, 
 and consequently of wealth and influence. He has labored to 
 raise up merit in whatever path of literature he found it ; and 
 poetry in particular has never had so intelligent, so impartial, 
 and so merciful a judge. Alas ! it is the will of God to de- 
 prive him of those faculties which he exercised with such dis- 
 cretion, such meekness, and such humanity ! 
 
 We digress, — not too far, but too long ; we must return to 
 the ancients, and more especially to the author whose volume 
 lies open before us. 
 
 There is little of the creative, little of the constructive, in 
 him ; that is, he has conceived no new varieties of character, 
 he has built up n6 edifice in the intellectual world, — but he 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 369 
 
 always is shrewd and brilliant ; he often is pathetic ; and he 
 sometimes is sublime. Without the sublime, we have said be- 
 fore, there can be no poet of the first order ; but the pathetic 
 may exist in the secondary, for tears are more easily drawn 
 forth than souls are raised : so easily are they on some occa- 
 sions, that the poetical power needs scarcely to be brought 
 into action ; while on others the pathetic is the very summit of 
 sublimity. We have an example of it in the Ariadne of Catul- 
 lus ; we have another in the Priam of Homer. All the heroes 
 and gods, debating and fighting, vanish before the father of 
 Hector in the tent of Achilles, and before the storm of con- 
 flicting passions his sorrows and prayers excite. But neither 
 in the spirited and energetic Catullus, nor in the masculine and 
 scornful and stern Lucretius, — no, nor in Homer, — is there 
 anything so impassioned, and therefore so subhme, as the last 
 hour of Dido in the ^neid. Admirably as two Greek poets 
 have represented the tenderness, the anguish, the terrific wrath 
 and vengeance of Medea, all the works they ever wrote contain 
 not the poetry which Virgil has condensed into about a hundred 
 verses, — omitting, as we must, those which drop like icicles 
 from the rigid lips of ^neas ; and also the similes which, here 
 as everywhere, sadly interfere with passion. In this place Virgil 
 fought his battle of Actium, which left him poetical supremacy 
 in the Roman world, whatever mutinies and conspiracies may 
 have arisen against him in Germany or elsewhere. 
 
 The Ariadne of Catullus has greatly the advantage over the 
 Medea of Apollonius, for what man is much interested by 
 such a termagant? We have no sympathies with a woman 
 whose potency is superhuman. In general, it may be appre- 
 hended, we like women little the better for excelling us even 
 moderately in our own acquirements and capacities ; but what 
 energy springs from her weaknesses ! what poetry is the fruit 
 of her passions, once perhaps in a thousand years bursting 
 forth with imperishable splendor on its golden bough ! If 
 there are fine things in the Argonautics of Apollonius, there 
 are finer still in those of Catullus. In relation to Virgil, he 
 stands as Correggio in relation to Raphael, — a richer colorist, 
 a less accurate draftsman, less capable of executing grand de- 
 signs, more exquisite in the working out of smaller. Virgil is 
 depreciated by the arrogance of self-sufficient poets, nurtured 
 
 24 
 
370 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 
 
 on coarse fare, and dizzy with home-brewed flattery. Others, 
 who have studied more attentively the ancient models, are 
 abler to show his relative station, and readier to venerate his 
 powers. Although we find him incapable of contriving and 
 more incapable of executing so magnificent a work as the Iliad, 
 yet there are places in his compared with v\'hich the grandest 
 in that grand poem lose much of their elevation. Never was 
 there such a whirlwind of passions as Virgil raised on those 
 African shores, amid those rising citadels and departing sails. 
 When the vigorous verses of Lucretius are extolled, no true 
 poet, no sane critic, will assert that the seven or eight exam- 
 ples of the best are equivalent to this one : even in force of 
 expression, here he falls short of Virgil. 
 
 When we drink a large draught of refreshing beverage, it is 
 only a small portion that affects the palate. In reading the 
 best poetry, moved and excited as we may be, we can take in 
 no more than a part of it ; passages of equal beauty are unable 
 to raise enthusiasm. Let a work in poetry or prose indicating 
 the highest power of genius be discoursed on, probably no two 
 persons in a large company will recite the same portion as 
 having struck them the most forcibly ; but when several pas- 
 sages are pointed out and read emphatically, each listener will 
 to a certain extent doubt a little his own judgment in this one 
 particular, and hate you heartily for shaking it. Poets ought 
 never to be vexed, discomposed, or disappointed, when the 
 better is overlooked and the inferior is commended : much 
 may be assigned to the observer's point of vision being more 
 on a level with the object. And this reflection also will con- 
 sole the artist, when really bad ones are called more simple and 
 natural, while in fact they are only more ordinary and common. 
 In a palace we must look to the elevation and proportions, 
 whereas a low grotto may assume any form and almost any de- 
 formity. Rudeness is here no blemish ; a shell reversed is no 
 false ornament ; moss and fern may be stuck with the root out- 
 ward ; a crystal may sparkle at the top or at the bottom ; dry 
 sticks and fragmentary petrifactions find every\vhere their proper 
 place, and loose soil and plashy water show just what Nature 
 delights in. Ladies and gentlemen who at first were about to 
 turn back, take one another by the hand, duck their heads, 
 .enter it together, and exclaim, "What a charming grotto ! " 
 
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 371 
 
 In poetry, as in architecture, the Rustic Order is proper 
 only for the lower story. 
 
 They who have listened, patiently and supinely, to the ca- 
 tarrhal songsters of goose-grazed commons, will be loath and 
 ill-fitted to mount up with Catullus to the highest steeps in the 
 forests of Ida, and will shudder at the music of the Corybantes 
 in the temple of the Great Mother of the Gods. 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 Scarcely on any author, of whatever age or country, has 
 there so much been written, spoken, and thought, by both 
 sexes, as on the subject of this criticism, — Petrarca. 
 
 The compilation by Mr. Campbell is chiefly drawn together 
 from the French. It contains no criticism on the poetry of his 
 author, beyond a hasty remark or two in places which least 
 require it. He might have read Sismondi and Ginguen^ more 
 profitably. The author of the " Introduction to the Literature 
 of Europe " had already done so ; but neither has he thrown 
 any fresh light on the character or the writings of Petrarca, or, 
 in addition to what had already been performed by those two 
 judicious men, furnished us with a remark in any way worth 
 notice. The readers of Italian, if they are suspicious, may 
 even suspect that Mr. Campbell knows not very much of the 
 language. Among the many apparent causes for this suspicion, 
 we shall notice only two. Instead of " Friuli," he writes the 
 French word " Frioul ; " and instead of the " Marca di Ancona," 
 the "Marshes." In Italian, a marsh is paliide or padule ; 
 whereas marca is the origin of marchese, — the one a co7ifine ; 
 the other a defender of a confine, or lord of such a territory. 
 
 Whoever is desirous of knowing all about Petrarca, will 
 consult Muratori and De Sade ; whoever has been waiting for 
 a compendious and sound judgment on his works at large, will 
 listen attentively to Ginguene ; whoever can be gratified by a 
 rapid glance at his works and character, will be directed by the 
 clear-sighted follower of truth, Sismondi ; and whoever reads 
 only English, and is contented to fare on a small portion of 
 recocted criticism in a long excursion, may be accommodated 
 by Mrs. Dobson, Mr. Hallam, and Mr. Campbell. 
 
 It may seem fastidious and affected to write, as I have done, 
 his Italian name in preference to his English one ; but I think 
 it better to call him as he called himself, as Laura called him, 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 373 
 
 as he was called by Colonna and Rienzi and Baccaccio, and in 
 short by all Italy, for I pretend to no vernacular familiarity 
 with a person of his distinction, and should almost be as ready 
 to abbreviate Francesco into Frank, as Petrarca into Petrarch. 
 Besides, the one appellation is euphonious, the other quite the 
 reverse. 
 
 We EngHshmen take strange liberties with Itahan names. 
 Perhaps the human voice can articulate no sweeter series of 
 sounds than the syllables which constitute Livorno ; certainly 
 the same remark is inapplicable to Leghorn. However, we are- 
 not liable to censure for this depravation ; it originated with 
 the Genoese, the ancient masters of the town, whose language 
 is extremely barbarous, not unlike the Provencal of the Trou- 
 badours. With them the letter g, pronounced hard, as it al- 
 ways was among the Greeks and Romans, is common for v : 
 thus lagoro for lavoro. 
 
 I hope to be pardoned my short excursion, which was only 
 made to bring my fellow-laborers home from afield. At last 
 we are beginning to call people and things by their right 
 names. We pay a little more respect to Cicero than we did 
 formerly, calling him no longer by the appellation of Tully ; we 
 never say Laurence, or Lai de Medici, but Lorenzo. On the 
 same principle, I beg permission to say Petrarca and Boc- 
 caccio, instead of Petrarch and Boccace. These errors were 
 fallen into by following French translations ; and we stopped 
 and recovered our footing only when we came to Tite-live and 
 Aulugelle ; it was then indeed high time to rest and wipe our 
 foreheads. Yet we cannot shake off the illusion that Horace 
 was one of us at school, and we continue the friendly nick- 
 name, although with a whimsical inconsistency we continue to 
 talk of the Horatii and Curiatii. Ovid, our earlier , friend, 
 sticks by us still. The ear informs us that Virgil and Pindar 
 and Homer and Hesiod suffer no worse by defalcation than 
 fruit-trees do ; the sounds indeed are more euphonious than 
 what fell from the native tongue. The great historians, the 
 great orators, and the great tragedians of Greece have escaped 
 unmutilated ; and among the Romans it has been the good 
 fortune, at least so far as we are concerned, of Paterculus, 
 Quintus Curtius, Tacitus, Catullus, Propertius, and TibuUus to 
 remain intact by the hand of onomaclasts. Spellings, whether 
 
374 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 of names or things, should never be meddled with, save where 
 the ignorant have superseded the learned, or where analogy 
 has been overlooked by these. The courtiers of Charles II. 
 chalked and charcoaled the orthography of Milton. It was 
 thought a scandal to have been educated in England, and a 
 worse to write as a republican had written. We were the sub- 
 jects of the French king, and we borrowed at a ruinous rate 
 from French authors, but not from the best. Eloquence was 
 extinct, a gulf of ignominy divided us from the genius of Italy, 
 the great master of the triple world was undiscovered by us, 
 and the loves of Petrarca were too pure and elevated for the 
 sojourners of Versailles. 
 
 Francesco Petrarca, if far from the greatest, yet certainly the 
 most celebrated of poets, was born in the night between the 
 nineteenth and twentieth day of July, 1304. His father's 
 name was Petracco ; his mother's, Eletta Canigiani. Petracco 
 left Florence under the same sentence of banishment as his 
 friend Dante Ahghieri, and joined with him and the other 
 exiles of the Bianchi army in the unsuccessful attack on that 
 city the very night when, on his return to Arezzo, he found a 
 son born to him : it was his first. To this son, afterward so 
 illustrious, was given the name of Francesco di Petracco. In 
 after life the sound had something in it which he thought 
 ignoble ; and he converted it into Petrarca. The wise and 
 virtuous Gravina, patron of one who has written much good 
 poetry, and less of bad than Petrarca, changed in like manner 
 the name of Trapasso to Metastasio. I cannot agree with him 
 that the sound of the Hellenized name is more harmonious, — 
 the reduplication of the syllable tas is painful ; but I do agree 
 with Petrarca, whose adopted form has only one fault, which is, 
 that there is no meaning in it. 
 
 When he was seven months old he was taken by his mother 
 from Arezzo to Incisa, in the Val-d'Arno, where the life so 
 lately given was nearly lost. The infant was dropped into the 
 river, which is always rapid in that part of its course, and was 
 then swollen by rain into a torrent. At Incisa he remained 
 with her seven years. The father had retired to Pisa; and 
 now his wife and Francesco, and another son born after, 
 named Gherardo, joined him there. In a short time however 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 375 
 
 he took them to Avignon, where he hoped for employment 
 under Pope Clement V. In that crowded city lodgings and 
 provisions were so dear that he soon found it requisite to send 
 his wife and children to the small episcopal town of Carpen- 
 tras, where he often went to visit them. In this place Fran- 
 cesco met Convenole, who had taught him his letters, and who 
 now undertook to teach him what he knew of rhetoric and 
 logic. He had attained his tenth year when the father took 
 him with a party of friends to the fountain of Vaucluse. Even 
 at that early age his enthusiasm was excited by the beauty and 
 solitude of the scene. The waters then flowed freely ; habita- 
 tions there were none but the most rustic, and indeed one 
 only near the rivulet. Such was then Vaucluse ; and such it 
 remained all his lifetime, and long after. The tender heart is 
 often moulded by localities. Perhaps the purity and singleness 
 of Petrarca's, his communion with it on one only altar, his 
 exclusion of all images but one, result from this early visit to 
 the gushing springs, the eddying torrents, the insurmountable 
 rocks, the profound and inviolate solitudes of Vaucluse. 
 
 The time was now come when his father saw the necessity 
 of beginning to educate him for a profession ; and he thought 
 the canon law was likely to be the most advantageous. Con- 
 sequently he was sent to Montpelier, the nearest university, 
 where he resided four years, — not engaged, as he ought to 
 have been, among the jurisconsults, but among the Classics. 
 Information of this perversity soon reached Petracco, who has- 
 tened to the place, found the noxious books, and threw them 
 into the fire ; but, affected by the lamentations of his son, he 
 recovered the Cicero and the Virgil, and restored them to him, 
 partially consumed. At the age of eighteen he was sent from 
 Montpelier to Bologna, where he found Cino da Pistoja, to 
 whom he applied himself in good earnest, not indeed for his 
 knowledge as a jurisconsult, in which he had acquired the 
 highest reputation, but for his celebrity as a poet. After two 
 more years he lost his father ; and the guardians, it is said, were 
 unfaithful to their trust. Probably there was httle for them to 
 administer. He now returned to Avignon, where, after the 
 decease of Clement V., John XXII. occupied the popedom. 
 Here his Latin poetry soon raised him into notice^ for nobody 
 in Avignon wrote so good ; but happily, both for himself and 
 
3/6 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 many thousand sensitive hearts in every age and nation, he 
 soon desired his verses to be received and understood by one 
 to whom the Latin was unknown. 
 
 " Benedetto sia il giorno, e '1 mese, e I'anno ! 
 
 Blessed be the day, and month, and year 1 " 
 
 Laura, daughter of Audibert de Noves, was married to Hugh 
 de Sade, — persons of distinction. She was younger by three 
 years than Petrarca. They met first on Good Friday, in the 
 convent-church of Saint Claire, at six in the morning. That 
 hour she inspired such a passion, by her beauty and her 
 modesty, as years only tended to strengthen, and death to 
 sanctify. The incense which burned in the breast of Petrarca 
 before his Laura might have purified, one would have thought, 
 even the court of Avignon ; and never was love so ardent 
 breathed into ear so chaste. The man who excelled all others 
 in beauty of person, in dignity of demeanor, in genius, in ten- 
 derness, in devotion, was perhaps the only one who failed in 
 attaining the object of his desires. But cold as Laura was in 
 temperament, rigid as she was in her sense of duty, she never 
 was insensible to the merits of her lover. A light of distant 
 hope often shone upon him and tempted him onward, through 
 surge after surge, over the depths of passion. -Laura loved ad- 
 miration, as the most retired and most diffident of women do ; 
 and the admiration of Petrarca drew after it the admiration 
 of the world. She also, what not all women do, looked for- 
 ward to the glory that awaited her, when those courtiers and 
 those crowds and that city should be no more, and when of all 
 women the Madonna alone should be so glorified on earth. 
 
 Perhaps it is well for those who delight in poetry that Laura 
 was inflexible and obdurate ; for the sweetest song ceases when 
 the feathers have lined the nest. Incredible as it may seem, 
 Petrarca was capable of quitting her : he was capable of be- 
 lieving that absence could moderate, or perhaps extinguish, his 
 passion. Generally the lover who can think so has almost 
 succeeded ; but Petrarca had contracted the habit of writing 
 poetry, — and now writing it on Laura, and Laura only, he 
 brought the past and the future into a focus on his breast. All 
 magical powers, it is said, are dangerous to the possessor : none 
 is more dangerous than the magic of the poet, who can call be- 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 37/ 
 
 fore him at will the object of his wishes ; but her countenance 
 and her words remain her own, and are beyond his influence. 
 
 It is wonderful how extremely few, even of Italian scholars 
 and natives of Italy, have read his letters or his poetry entirely 
 through. I am not speaking of his Latin ; for it would indeed 
 be a greater marvel if the most enterprising industry succeeded 
 there. The thunderbolt of war — " Scipiades fulmen belli " — 
 has always left a barren place behind. No poet ever was for- 
 tunate in the description of his exploits ; and the least fortunate 
 of the number is Petrarca. Probably the whole of the poem 
 contains no sentence or image worth remembering. I say 
 probably ; for whosoever has hit upon what he thought the 
 best of it has hit only upon v/hat is worthless, or else upon 
 what belongs to another. The few lines quoted and applauded 
 by Mr. Campbell are taken partly from Virgil's ^neid, and 
 partly from Ovid's Metamorphoses. I cannot well believe 
 that any man living has read beyond five hundred lines of 
 "Africa;" I myself, in sundry expeditions, have penetrated 
 about thus far into its immeasurable sea of sand. But the 
 wonder is that neither the poetry nor the letters of Petrarca 
 seem to have been, even in his own country, read thoroughly 
 and attentively; for surely his commentators ought to have 
 made themselves masters of these, before they agitated the 
 question, — some whether Laura really existed, and others 
 whether she was flexible to the ardor of her lover. Speaking 
 of his friends, Socrates and Laelius, of whose first meeting with 
 him I shall presently make mention, he says, — 
 
 " Con costor colsi '1 glorioso ramo 
 Onde forse anzi tempo ornai le tempie. 
 In memoria di quella ch' i' tant' amo : 
 Ma pur di lei che il cuor di pensier m' empie 
 Non potei coglier mai ratno ne foglie ; 
 Si fur' le sue radici acerbe ed empie." 
 
 I cannot render these verses much worse than they actu- 
 ally are, with their " tempo " and " tempie," and their " radici 
 empie ; " so let me venture to offer a translation : — 
 
 " They saw me win the glorious bough 
 That shades my temples even now, 
 Who never bough nor leaf could take 
 From that severe one, for whose sake 
 So many sighs and tears arose — 
 Unbending root of bitter woes." 
 
3/8 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 There is a canzone to the same purport, to be noticed in 
 its place ; and several of his letters could also be adduced in 
 evidence. We may believe that although he had resolved to 
 depart from Avignon for a season, he felt his love increasing 
 at every line he wrote. Such thoughts and images cannot be 
 turned over in the mind and leave it perfectly in composure. 
 Yet perhaps when he had completed the most impassioned 
 sonnet, the surges of his love may have subsided under the oil 
 he had poured out on his vanity ; for love, if it is a weakness, 
 was not the only weakness of Petrarca, and when he had per- 
 formed what he knew was pleasing in the eyes of Laura, he 
 looked abroad for the applause of all around. 
 
 Giacomo Colonna, who had been at the university of Bologna 
 with him, had come to Avignon soon after. It was with Co- 
 lonna he usually spent his time ; both had alike enjoyed the 
 pleasures of the city, until the day when Francesco met Laura. 
 To Giacomo was now given the bishopric of Lombes, in reward 
 of a memorable and admirable exploit, among the bravest that 
 ever has been performed in the sight of Rome herself. When 
 Lewis of Bavaria went thither to depose John XVIII. , Giacomo 
 Colonna, attended by four men in masks, read publicly in the 
 Piazza di San Marcello the bull of that emperor's excommuni- 
 cation and dethronement, and challenged to single combat any 
 adversary. None appearing, he rode onward to the stronghold 
 of his family at Palestrina, the ancient Preneste. His reward 
 was this little bishopric. When Petrarca found him at Lombes, 
 in the house of the bishop he found also two persons of worth, 
 who became the most intimate of his friends, — the one a 
 Roman, Lello by name, which name the poet Latinized to 
 Lselius ; the other from the borders of the Rhine, whose ap- 
 pellation was probably less tractable, and whom he called Soc- 
 rates. Toward the close of autumn the whole party returned 
 to Avignon. 
 
 In the bosom of Petrarca love burned again more ardently 
 than ever. It is censured as the worst of conceits in him that 
 he played so often on the name of Laura, and many have sus- 
 pected that there could be little passion in so much allusion. 
 A purer taste might indeed have corrected in the poetry the 
 outpourings of tenderness on the name ; but surely there is a 
 true and a pardonable pleasure in cherishing the very sound of 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 379 
 
 what we love. If it belongs to the heart, as it does, it belongs 
 to poetry, and is not easily to be cast aside. The shrub recall- 
 ing the idea of Laura was planted by his hand : often that he 
 might nurture it was the pen laid by ; the leaves were often 
 shaken by his sighs, and not unfrequently did they sparkle with 
 his tears. He felt the comfort of devotion as he bent before 
 the image of her name. But he now saw little of her, and was 
 never at her house ; it was only in sm.all parties, chiefly of la- 
 dies, that they met. She excelled them all in grace of person 
 and in elegance of attire. Probably her dress was not the 
 more indifferent to her on her thinking whom she was about to 
 meet ; yet she maintained the same reserve, — the nourisher of 
 love, but not of hope. 
 
 Restless, forever resdess, again went Petrarca from Avignon. 
 He hoped he should excite a little regret at his departure and 
 a desire to see him again soon, if not expressed to him before 
 he left the city, yet conveyed by letters or reports. He pro- 
 ceeded to Paris, thence to Cologne, and was absent eight 
 months. On his return, the bishop, whom he expected to 
 meet, was neither at Avignon nor at Lombes. His courage and 
 conduct were required at Rome, to keep down the rivals of his 
 family, the Orsini. Disappointed in his visit and hopeless in 
 his passion, the traveller now retired to Vaucluse ; and here he 
 poured in solitude from his innermost heart incessant strains of 
 love and melancholy. 
 
 At Paris he had met with Dionigi de' Ruperti, an Augustine 
 monk, born at Borgo San Sepolcro near Florence, and esteemed 
 as one of the most learned, eloquent, philosophical, and reU- 
 gious men in France. To him Petrarca wrote earnestly for 
 counsel ; but before the answer came he had seen Laura. A 
 fever was raging in the city, and her life was in danger. Bene- 
 dict XII., to whom he addressed the least inelegant of his 
 Latin poems (an exhortation to transfer the Roman See to 
 Rome) , conferred on him, now in the thirtieth year of his age, 
 a canonry at Lombes. But the bishop was absent from the 
 diocese, and again at Rome. Thither hastened Petrarca, and 
 was received at Capraniccia, a castle of the Colonnas, not only 
 by his diocesan, but likewise by Stefano, senator of Rome, to 
 which city they both conducted him. His stay here was short ; 
 he returned to Avignon, but inflamed with unquenchable love, 
 
380 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 and seeking to refresh his bosom with early memories, he re- 
 tired to Vaucluse. Here he purchased a poor cottage and a 
 small meadow ; hither he transferred his books, and hither 
 also that image which he could nowhere leave behind. Sum- 
 mer, autumn, winter, he spent among these solitudes ; a fisher- 
 man was his only attendant, but occasionally a few intimate 
 friends came from Avignon to visit him. The bishop of Cav- 
 aillon, Philippe de Cabassoles, in whose diocese was Vaucluse, 
 and who had a villa not far off, here formed with him a lasting 
 friendship, and was worthy of it. During these months the 
 poet wrote the three canzoni on the eyes of Laura, which some 
 have called the "Three Graces," but which he himself called 
 the " Three Sisters." The Italians, the best-tempered and the 
 most polite of nations, look rather for beauties than faults, and 
 imagine them more easily. A brilliant thought blinds them to 
 improprieties, and they are incapable of resisting a strong ex- 
 pression. Enthusiastic criticism is common in Italy ; ingenious 
 is not deficient, correct is yet to come. 
 
 About this time Simone Memmi of Siena, whom some with- 
 out any reason whatsoever have called a disciple of Giotto, 
 was invited by the Pope to Avignon, where he painted an apart- 
 ment in the pontifical- palace, just then completed. Petrarca 
 has celebrated him, not only in two sonnets, but also in his 
 letters, in which he says, " Duos ego novi pictores egregios, — 
 Joctium Florentinum civem, cujus inter modernos fama ingens 
 est, et Simonem Senensem." 
 
 Had so great an artist been the scholar of Giotto, it would 
 have added to the reputation of even this illustrious man, a 
 triumvir with Ghiberti and Michelangelo. These, although 
 indeed not flourishing together, may be considered as the first 
 triumvirate in the republic of the arts ; Raphael, Correggio, and 
 Titian the second. There is no resemblance to Giotto in the 
 manner of Simone, nor does Ghiberti mention him as the dis- 
 ciple of the Florentine. No man knew better than Ghiberti 
 how distinct are the Sanese and the Florentine schools. Si- 
 mone Memmi, the first of the modems who gave roundness 
 and beauty to the female face, neglected not the graceful air 
 of Laura. Frequently did he repeat her modest features in the 
 principal figure of his sacred compositions ; and Petrarca was 
 alternately tortured and consoled by the possession of her por- 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 38 I 
 
 trait from the hand of Memmi. It was painted in the year 
 
 1339, so that she was thirty- two years old ; but whether at the 
 desire of her lover, or guided by his own discretion, or that in 
 reality she retained the charms of youth after bearing eight or 
 nine children, she is represented youthful and almost girlish 
 whenever he introduces her. 
 
 With her picture now before him, Petrarca thought he could 
 reduce in number and duration his visits to Avignon, and might 
 undertake a work sufficient to fix his attention and occupy his 
 retirement. He began to compose in Latin a history of Rome, 
 from its foundation to the subversion of Jerusalem. But almost 
 at the commencement the exploits of Scipio Africanus seized 
 upon his enthusiastic imagination, and determined him to 
 abandon history for poetry. The second Punic War was the 
 subject he chose for an epic. Deficient as the work is in 
 all the requisites of poetry, his friends applauded it beyond 
 measure. And indeed no small measure of commendation is 
 due to it ; for here he had restored in some degree the plan 
 and tone of antiquity. But to such a pitch was his vanity ex- 
 alted, that he aspired to higher honors than Virgil had received 
 under the favor of Augustus, and was ambitious of being 
 crowned in the capitol. His powerful patrons removed every 
 obstacle ; and the senator of Rome invited him by letter to his 
 coronation. A few hours afterward, on the 23d of August, 
 
 1340, another of the same purport was delivered to him from 
 the University of Paris. The good king Robert of Naples had 
 been zealous in obtaining for him the honor he solicited ; and 
 to Naples he hastened, ere he proceeded to Rome. 
 
 It was in later days that kings began to avoid the conversa- 
 tion and familiarity of learned men. Robert received Fran- 
 cesco as became them both ; and on his departure from the 
 court of Naples presented to him the gorgeous robe in which, 
 four days afterward, he was crowned in the capitol. At the 
 close of his life he lamented the glory he had thus attained, 
 and repined at the malice it drew down on him. Even in the 
 hour of triumph he was exposed to a specimen of the kind. 
 Most of those among the ancient Romans to whom in their 
 triumphal honors the laurel crown was decreed, were exposed 
 to invectives and reproaches in their ascent ; fescennine verses, 
 rude and limping, interspersed with saucy trochaics, were gen- 
 
382 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 erally their unpalatable fare. But Petrarca, the elect of a 
 senator and a pope, was doomed to worse treatment. Not on 
 his advance, but on his return, an old woman emptied on his 
 laurelled head one of those mysterious vases which are usually 
 in administration at the solemn hour of night. Charity would 
 induce us to hope that her venerable age was actuated by no 
 malignity, but there were strong surmises to the contrary ; nor 
 can I adduce in her defence that she had any poetical vein, by 
 which I might account for this extraordinary act of inconti- 
 nence. Partaking, as was thought by the physicians, of the 
 old woman's nature, the contents of the vase were so acrimo- 
 nious as to occasion baldness ; her caldron, instead of restor- 
 ing youth, drew down old age, or fixed immovably its odious 
 signal. A projectile scarcely more fatal, in a day also of 
 triumph, was hurled by a similar enemy on the head of Pyrrhus. 
 The laurel decreed in full senate to Julius Csesar, although it 
 might conceal the calamity of baldness, never could have pre- 
 vented it ; nor is it probable that either his skill or his fortune 
 could have warded off efficaciously what descended from such 
 a quarter. The Italians, who carry more good humor about 
 them than any other people, are likely to have borne this catas- 
 trophe of their poet with equanimity, if not hilarity. Perhaps 
 even the gentle Laura, when she heard of it, averted the smile 
 she could not quite suppress. 
 
 I will not discuss the question, how great or how little was 
 the glory of this coronation, — a glory which Homer and 
 Dante, which Shakspeare and Milton, never sought, and never 
 would have attained. Merit has rarely risen of itself, but a 
 pebble or a twig is often quite sufficient for it to spring from 
 to the highest ascent. There is usually some baseness before 
 there is any elevation. After all, no man can be made greater 
 by another, although he may be made more conspicuous by 
 title, dress, position, and acclamation. The powerful can only 
 be ushers to the truly great ; and in the execution of this office 
 they themselves approach to greatness. But Petrarca stood far 
 above all the other poets of his age ; and incompetent as were 
 his judges, it is much to their praise that they awarded due 
 honor to the purifier both of language and of morals. With 
 these, indeed, to solicit the wife of another may seem inconsis- 
 tent ; but such was always the custom of the Tuscan race, and 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 383 
 
 not always with the same chastity as was enforced by Laura. 
 As Petrarca loved her, — 
 
 " Id, Manli ! non est turpe, magis miserum est." 
 
 Love is the purifier of the heart ; its depths are less turbid than 
 its shallows. In despite of precepts and arguments, the most 
 sedate and the most religious of women think charitably, and 
 even reverentially, of the impassioned poet. Constancy is the 
 antagonist of frailty, exempt from the captivity and above the 
 assaults of sin. 
 
 There is much resemblance in the character of Petrarca to 
 that of Abelard. Both were learned, both were disputatious, 
 both were handsome, both were vain ; both ran incessantly back- 
 ward and forward from celebrity to seclusion, from seclusion to 
 celebrity; both loved unhappily; but the least fortunate was 
 the most beloved. 
 
 Devoted as Petrarca was to the Classics, and prone as the 
 Italian poets are to follow and imitate them, he stands apart 
 with Laura ; and if some of his reflections are to be found in 
 the sonnets of Cino da Pistoja, and a few in the more precious 
 reliquary of Latin Elegy, he seems disdainful of repeating in 
 her ear what has ever been spoken in another's. Although a 
 cloud of pure incense rises up and veils the intensity of his 
 love, it is such love as animates all creatures upon earth, and 
 tends to the same object in all. Throughout life we have been 
 accustomed to hear of the Platonic : absurd as it is everywhere, 
 it is most so here. Nothing in the voluminous works of Plato 
 authorizes us to affix this designation to simple friendship, to 
 friendship exempt from passion. On the contrary, the philos- 
 opher leaves us no doubt whatever that his notion of love is 
 sensual.-' He says expressly what species of it, and from what 
 
 1 A mysterious and indistinct idea, not dissipated by the closest view 
 of the original, led the poetical mind of Shelley into the labyrinth that en- 
 compassed the garden of Academus. He has given us an accurate and 
 graceful translation of the most eloquent of Plato's dialogues. Consist- 
 ently with modesty he found it impossible to present the whole to his 
 readers ; but as the subject is entirely on the nature of love, they will dis- 
 cover that nothing is more unlike Petrarca's. The trifles, the quibbles, 
 the unseasonable jokes of what is exhibited in very harmonious Greek, 
 and in English nearly as harmonious, pass uncensured and unnoticed by 
 the fascinated Shelley. So his gentleness and warmth of heart induceo. 
 
384 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 bestowers, should be the reward of sages and heroes, — " Dii 
 meUora piis ! " 
 
 Besides Sonnets and Canzoni Petrarca wrote " Sestine ; " so 
 named because each stanza contains six verses, and each poem 
 six stanzas, to the last of which three lines are added. If the 
 terza-rima is disagreeable to the ear, what is the sestina, in 
 which there are only six rhymes to thirty-six verses, and all 
 these respond to the same words ! Cleverness in distortion 
 can proceed no further. Petrarca wearied the popes by his 
 repeated solicitations that they would abandon Avignon : he 
 never thought of repeating a sestina to them, — it would have 
 driven the most obtuse and obstinate out to sea, and he never 
 would have removed his hands from under the tiara until he 
 entered the port of Civita-Vecchia. While our poet was thus 
 amusing his ingenuity by the most intolerable scheme of rhym- 
 ing that the poetry of any language has exhibited, his friend 
 Boccaccio was occupied in framing that very stanza, the ottava- 
 rima, which so delights us in Berni, Ariosto, and Tasso. But 
 Tasso is most harmonious when he expatiates most freely, 
 "numerisque fertur lege solutis," — for instance, in the 
 " Aminta," where he is followed by Milton in his " Lycidas." 
 
 We left Petrarca not engaged in these studies of his retire- 
 ment, but passing in triumph through the capital of the world. 
 On his way toward Avignon, where he was ambitious of display- 
 ing his fresh laurels, he stayed a short time at Parma with Azzo 
 da Correggio, who had taken possession of that city. Azzo was 
 among the most unprincipled, ungrateful, and mean of the 
 numerous petty tyrants who have infested Italy. Petrarca's 
 love of liberty never quite outrivalled his love of princes, — for 
 which Boccaccio mildly expostulates with him, and Sismondi, 
 as liberal, wise, and honest as Boccaccio, severely reprehends 
 him. But what other, loving as he loved, would have urged in- 
 cessantly the return to Italy, the abandonment of Avignon ? At 
 times, beyond a doubt, he preferred his imperfect hopes to the 
 complete restoration of Italian glory ; but he shook them like 
 
 him to look with affection on the poetry of Petrarca, — poetry by how 
 many degrees inferior to his own ! Nevertheless, with justice and pro- 
 priety he ranks Dante higher in the same department, who indeed has 
 described love more eloquently than any other poet, excepting (who 
 always must be excepted) Shakspeare. Francesca and Beatrice open all 
 the heart, and fill it up with tenderness and with pity. 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 385 
 
 dust from his bosom, and Laura was less than Rome. Shall we 
 refuse the name of patriot to such a man? No ! those alone 
 will do it who have little to lose or leave. Sismondi, who never 
 judges harshly, never hastily, passes no such sentence on him. 
 
 So pleased was Petrarca with his residence at Parma that he 
 purchased a house in the city, where he completed his poem of 
 " Africa." He was now about to rejoin at Lombes his friend 
 and diocesan, — whom he saw in a dream, pale as death. He 
 communicated this dream to several persons ; and twenty-five 
 days afterward he received the intelligence of its perfect truth. 
 Another friend, more advanced in years, Dionigi di Borgo San 
 Sepolcro, soon followed. Before the expiration of the year he 
 was installed archdeacon of Parma. Soon after this appoint- 
 ment, Benedict XH. died, and Clement VI. succeeded. This 
 pontiff was superior to all his predecessors in gracefulness of 
 manners and delicacy of taste, and at his accession the corrup- 
 tions of the papal court became less gross and offensive. He 
 divided his time between literature and the ladies, — not quite 
 impartially. The people of Rome began to entertain new and 
 higher hopes that their city would again be the residence of 
 Christ's vicegerent. To this intent they delegated eighteen 
 of the principal citizens, and chose Petrarca, who had received 
 the freedom of the city on his coronation, to present at once a 
 remonstrance and an invitation. The polite and wary pontiff 
 heard him complacently, talked affably and familiarly with him, 
 conferred on him the priory of Migliorino ; but, being a French- 
 man, thought it gallant and patriotic to remain at Avignon. 
 Petrarca was little disposed to return with the unsuccessful del- 
 egates. He continued at Avignon, where his countryman Sen- 
 nuccio del Bene, who visited the same society as Laura, and 
 who knew her personally, gave him frequent information of her, 
 though little hope. 
 
 Youth has swifter wings than Love. Petrarca had loved 
 Laura sixteen years ; but all the beauty that had left her 
 features had settled on his heart, immovable, unchangeable, 
 eternal. Politics could, however, at all times occupy him, — 
 not always worthily. He was induced by the pope to under- 
 take a mission to Naples, and to claim the government of that 
 kingdom on the part of his holiness. The good king Robert 
 was dead, and had bequeathed the crown to the elder of his 
 
 25 
 
386 FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 
 
 two granddaughters. Giovanna, at nine years of age, was be- 
 trothed to her cousin Andreas of Hungary, who was three years 
 younger. She was beautiful, graceful, gentle, sensible, and fond 
 of literature ; he was uncouth, ferocious, ignorant, and gov- 
 erned by a Hungarian monk of the same character, Fra Rupert. 
 It is deplorable to think that Petrarca could ever have been 
 induced to accept an embassy of which the purport was to de- 
 prive of her inheritance an innocent and lovely girl, the grand- 
 daughter of his friend and benefactor. She received him with 
 cordiality, and immediately appointed him her private chap- 
 Iain. His departure, he says, was hastened by two causes, — 
 first, by the insolence of Fra Rupert, which he has well de- 
 scribed ; and secondly, by an atrocious sight, which also he 
 has commemorated. He was invited to an entertainment, oi 
 which he gives us to understand he knew not at all the nature. 
 Suddenly he heard shouts of joy, and " turning his head," he 
 beheld a youth of extraordinary strength and beauty, covered 
 with dust and blood, expiring at his feet. He left Naples 
 without accomplishing the dethronement of Giovanna, or (what 
 also was intrusted to him) the liberation from prison of some 
 adherents of the Colonnas, — robbers no doubt, and assassins, 
 who had made forays into the Neapolitan territory, for all per- 
 sons of that description were under the protection of the Col- 
 onnas or the Orsini. His failure was the cause of his return, 
 and not the ferocity of a monk and a gladiator. 
 
 Petrarca went to Parma on his way back to Avignon. The 
 roads were dangerous ; war was raging in the country. His 
 friend Azzo had refused to perform the promise he had made 
 to Lucchino Visconti, by whose intervention he had obtained 
 his dominion, which he was to retain for five years and then 
 resign. Azzo, Petrarca found, had taken refuge with Mastino 
 della Scala, at Verona ; and he embarked on the Po for that 
 city. His friends hastened him forward to Avignon, — some 
 by telling him how often the pope had made inquiries about 
 him ; and others, that Laura looked melancholy. On his return 
 Clement offered him the office of Apostolic secretary ; it was a 
 very laborious one, and was declined. 
 
 Laura, pleased by Petrarca' s return to her, was for a time 
 less rigorous. Within the year, Charles of Luxemburg, soon 
 after made em.peror, went to Avignon. Knowing the celebrity 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 387 
 
 of Laura, and finding her at a ball, he went up to her and 
 kissed her forehead and her eyes, "This sweet and strange 
 action," says her lover, " filled me with envy." Surely, to him 
 at least the sweetness must have been somewhat less than the 
 strangeness. She was now indeed verging on her fortieth year ; 
 but love is forgetful of arithmetic. The following summer, 
 Francesco for the first time visited his only brother Gherardo, 
 who had taken the monastic habit in the Chartreuse of Mon- 
 trieu. On his return he went to Vaucluse, where he composed 
 a treatise "De Otio Religiosorum," which he presented to the 
 monastery. 
 
 Very different thoughts and feelings now suddenly burst up- 
 on him. Among the seventeen who accompanied him in the 
 deputation inviting the pope to Rome, there was another be- 
 sides Petrarca chosen for his eloquence. It was Cola Rienzi. 
 The love of letters and the spirit of patriotism united them in 
 friendship. This extraordinary man, now invested with power, 
 had driven the robbers and assassins, with their patrons the 
 Orsini and Colonnas, out of Rome, and had estabUshed (what 
 rarely are found together) both liberty and order. The dig- 
 nity of tribune was conferred on Rienzi ; by which title Petrarca 
 addressed him, in a letter of sound advice and earnest solici- 
 tation. Now the bishop of Lombes was dead he little feared 
 the indignation of the other Colonnas, but openly espoused 
 and loudly pleaded the cause of the resuscitated common- 
 wealth. The cardinal was probably taught by him to believe, 
 that by his influence with Rienzi he might avert from his 
 family the disaster and disgrace into which the mass of the 
 nobility had fallen. " No family on earth," says he, " is dearer 
 to me ; but the republic, Rome, Italy, are dearer." 
 
 Petrarca took leave of the prelate, with amity on both sides 
 undiminished ; he also took leave of Laura. He could not 
 repress, he could not conceal, he could not moderate his grief, 
 nor could he utter one sad adieu. A look of fondness and 
 compassion followed his parting steps ; and the lover and 
 the beloved were separated forever. He did not think it, else 
 never could he have gone ; 'but he thought a brief absence 
 might be endured once more, rewarded as it would be with an 
 accession to his glory, — and precluded from other union with 
 him, in his glory Laura might participate. 
 
388 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 Retired, and thinking of her duties and her home, sat Laura ; 
 not indifferent to the praises of the most celebrated man aUve 
 (for her heart in all its regions was womanly) , but tepidly tran- 
 quil, or moved invisibly, and retaining her purity amidst the 
 uncleanly stream that deluged Avignon. We may imagine that 
 she sometimes drew out and unfolded on her bed the apparel, 
 long laid apart and carefully preserved by her, in which she 
 ■ first had captivated the giver of her immortality ; we may im- 
 agine that she sometimes compared with him an iUiterate, 
 coarse, morose husband, — and perhaps a sigh escaped her, 
 and perhaps a tear, as she folded up again the cherished 
 gown she wore on that Good Friday. 
 
 On his arrival at Genoa, Petrarca heard of the follies and 
 extravagances committed by Rienzi, and instead of pursuing his 
 journey to Rome, turned off to Parma. Here he learned that 
 the greater part of the Roman nobility, and many of the Co- 
 lonnas, had been exterminated by order of the tribune. Un- 
 questionably they had long deserved it ; but the exercise of 
 such prodigious power unsettled the intellect of Rienzi. In 
 January the poet left Parma for Vienna, where on the 25 th 
 (1348) he felt the shock of an earthquake. In the preceding 
 month a column of fire was observed above the pontifical pal- 
 ace. After these harbingers of calamity came that memorable 
 plague, to which we owe the immortal work of Boccaccio, — 
 a work occupying the next station, in continental Uterature, to 
 the " Divina Commedia," and displaying a greater variety of 
 powers. The pestilence had now penetrated into the northern 
 parts of Italy, and into the southern of France ; it had ravaged 
 Marseilles, it was raging in Avignon. Petrarca sent messenger 
 after messenger for intelligence. Their return was tardy ; and 
 only on the 19th of May was notice brought to him that Laura 
 had departed on the 6th of April, at six in the morning, — the 
 very day, the very hour, he met her first. Beloved by all about 
 her for her gentleness and serenity, she expired in the midst of 
 relatives and friends. But did never her eyes look round for 
 one who was away? And did not love, did not glory, tell him 
 that in that chamber he might at least have died ? 
 
 Other friends were also taken from him. Two months after this 
 event he lost Cardinal Colonna ; and then Sennuccio del Bene, 
 the depositary of his thoughts and the interpreter of Laura's. 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 389 
 
 The Lord of Mantua, Luigi Gonzaga, had often invited Pe- 
 trarca to his court, and he now accepted the invitation. From 
 this residence he went to visit the hamlet of Pietola, formerly 
 Andes, the birthplace of Virgil. At the cradle of her illustrious 
 poet the glories of ancient Rome burst again upon him ; and 
 hearing that Charles of Luxemburg was about to cross the Alps, 
 he addressed to him an eloquent exhortation, De pacificandct 
 Italia. After three years the emperor sent him an answer. The 
 testy republican may condemn Petrarca, as Dante was con- 
 demned before, for inviting a stranger to become supreme in 
 Italy ; but how many evils would this step have obviated ! 
 Recluses and idlers, and often the most vicious, had been ele- 
 vated to the honors of demigods ; and incense had been wafted 
 before the altar, among the most solemn rites of religion, to 
 pilferers and impostors. As the Roman empire, with all the 
 kingdoms of the earth, was sold under the spear by the Prsto- 
 rian legion, so now, with title-deeds more defective, was the 
 kingdom of heaven knocked down to the best bidder. It was 
 not a desire of office and emolument, it was a love of freedom 
 and of Roman glory, which turned the eyes of Petrarca, first 
 in one quarter, then in another, to seek for the deliverance 
 and regeneration of his native land. 
 
 No preferment, no friendship, stood before this object. In 
 the beginning Petrarca exhorted Rienzi to the prosecution of 
 his enterprise, and augured its success. But the vanity of the 
 tribune, like Bonaparte's, precipitated his ruin. Both were so 
 improvident as to be quite unaware that he who continues to 
 play at double or quits must at last lose all. Rienzi, different 
 from that other, was endowed by Nature with manly, frank, and 
 generous sentiments. Meditative but communicative, studious 
 but accessible, he would have followed, we may well believe, 
 the counsels of Petrarca, had they been given him personally. 
 Cautious but not suspicious, severe but not vindictive, he might 
 perhaps have removed a D'Enghien by the axe, but never a 
 L'Ouverture by famine. He would not have banished, he 
 would not have treated with insolence and indignity, the great- 
 est writer of the age from a consciousness of inferiority in in- 
 tellect, as that other did in Madame de Stael. With that other, 
 similarity of views and sentiments was no bond of union ; he 
 hated, he maligned, he persecuted, the wisest and bravest who 
 
390 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 would not serve his purposes ; patriotism was a ridicule, honor 
 was an insult to him, and veracity a reproach. The heart of 
 Rienzi was not insane. Instead of ordering the murder, he 
 would have condemned to the gallows the murderer of such a 
 inan as Hofer. In his impetuous and eccentric Course he car- 
 ried less about him of the Middle Ages than the pestilent me- 
 teor that flamed forth in ours. Petrarca had too much wisdom, 
 too much virtue, to praise or countenance him in his pride and 
 insolence ; but his fall was regretted by him, and is even still 
 to be regretted by his country. It is indeed among the great- 
 est calamities that have befallen the human race, condemned 
 for several more centuries to lie in chains and darkness. 
 
 In the year of the jubilee (1350) Petrarca went again to 
 Rome. Passing through Florence, he there visited Boccaccio, 
 whom he had met at Naples. What was scarcely an acquain- 
 tance grew rapidly into friendship ; and this friendship, honor- 
 able to both, lasted throughout life, unbroken and undiminished. 
 Both were eloquent, both richly, endowed with fancy and imag- 
 ination ; but Petrarca, who had incomparably the least of these 
 qualities, had a readier faculty of investing them with verse, — 
 in which Boccaccio, fond as he was of poetry, ill succeeded. 
 There are stories in the " Decameron " which require more 
 genius to conceive and execute than all the poetry of Petrarca ; 
 and indeed there is in Boccaccio more variety of the mental 
 powers than in any of his countrymen, greatly more deep 
 feeling, greatly more mastery over the human heart, than in 
 any other but Dante. Honesty, manliness, a mild and social 
 independence, rendered him the most delightful companion 
 and the sincerest friend. 
 
 Petrarca on his road through Arezzo was received with all 
 the honors due to him ; and among the most dehcate and ac- 
 ceptable to a man of his sensibility was the attendance of the 
 principal inhabitants in a body, who conducted him to the 
 house in which he was born, showing him that no alteration 
 had been permitted to be made in it. Padua was the place to 
 which he was going. On his arrival he found that the object 
 of his visit, Giovanni da Carrara, had been murdered ; never- 
 theless, he remained there several days, and then proceeded to 
 Venice. Andrea Dandolo was doge, and war was about to 
 break out between the Venetians and the Genoese. Petrarca, 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 39 1 
 
 who always wished most anxiously the concord and union of 
 the Italian States, wrote a letter to Dandolo, powerful in 
 reasoning and eloquence, dissuading him from hostilities. The 
 poet on this occasion showed himself more provident than the 
 greatest statesman of the age. On the 6th of April, the third 
 anniversary of Laura's death, a message was conveyed to him 
 from the republic of Florence restoring his property and his 
 rights of citizen. Unquestionably he who brought the message 
 counselled the measure, and calculated the day. Boccaccio 
 again embraced Petrarca. 
 
 It was also proposed to establish a university at Florence, 
 and to nominate the illustrious poet its rector. Declining the 
 office, he returned to Vaucluse, but soon began to fancy that 
 his duty called him to Avignon. Rome and all Italy swarmed 
 with robbers. Clement, from the bosom of the Vicomtesse de 
 Turenne, consulted with the cardinals on the means of restor- 
 ing security to his dominions. Petrarca too was consulted, 
 and in the most elaborate and most eloquent of his writings he 
 recommended the humiliation of the nobles, the restoration of 
 the republic, and the enactment of equal laws. 
 
 The people of Rome however had taken up arms again, 
 and had elected for their chief magistrate Giovanni Cerroni. 
 The privileges of the popedom were left untouched and un- 
 questioned ; not a drop of blood was shed ; property was 
 secure ; tranquillity was established, Clement, whose health 
 was declining, acquiesced. Petrarca, disappointed before, was 
 reserved and silent. But his justice, his humanity, his grati- 
 tude were called into action elsewhere. 
 
 Ten years had elapsed since his mission to the court of 
 Naples. The king Andreas had been assassinated, and the 
 queen Giovanna was accused of the crime. Andreas had 
 alienated from him all the Neapolitans excepting the servile, 
 which in every court form a party, and in most a majority. 
 Luigi of Taranto, the queen's cousin, loved her from her child- 
 hood, but left her at that age. Graceful and gallant as he was, 
 there is no evidence that she placed too implicit and intimate 
 a confidence in him. Never has any great cause been judged 
 with less discretion by posterity. The pope, to whom she 
 appealed in person, and who was deeply interested in her 
 condemnation, with all the cardinals and all the judges unani- 
 
392 FRANCESCO PETRARCA., 
 
 mously and unreservedly acquitted her of participation or con- 
 nivance or knowledge. Giannone, the most impartial and 
 temperate of historians, who neglected no sources of informa- 
 tion, bears testimony in her behalf. Petrarca and Boccaccio, 
 men abhorrent from every atrocity, never mention her but with 
 gentleness and compassion. The writers of the country, who 
 were nearest to her person and her times, acquit her of all 
 complicity. Nevertheless, she has been placed in the dock by 
 the side of Mary Stuart. It is as certain that Giovanna was 
 not guilty as that Mary was. She acknowledged before the 
 whole Pontifical Court her hatred of her husband, and in the 
 simphcity of her heart attributed it to magic. How different 
 was the magic of Othello on Desdemona ! and this too was 
 believed. 
 
 If virtuous thoughts and actions can compensate for an irre- 
 coverable treasure which the tomb encloses, surely now must 
 calm and happiness have returned to Petrarca's bosom. Not 
 only had he defended the innocent and comforted the sorrow- 
 ful, in Giovanna ; but with singular care and delicacy he recon- 
 ciled two statesmen whose disunion would have been ruinous 
 to her government, — AcciajoH and Barili. Another generous 
 action was now performed by him, in behalf of a man by whom 
 he and Rome and Italy had been deceived. Rienzi, after 
 wandering about for nearly four years, was cast into prison at 
 Prague, and then delivered up to the pope. He demanded to 
 be judged according to law, which was refused. The spirit 
 of Petrarca rose up against this injustice, and he addressed a 
 letter to the Roman people, urging their interference. They 
 did nothing. But it was believed at Avignon that Rienzi, the 
 correspondent and friend of Petrarca, was not only an eloquent 
 and learned man, but (what Petrarca had taught the world to 
 reverence) a poet. This caused a relaxation in the severity 
 of his confinement, subsequently his release, and ultimately his 
 restoration to power. 
 
 Again the office of apostolic secretary was offered to Pe- 
 trarca; again he declined it; again he retired to Vaucluse. 
 Clement died ; Innocent was elected, — so illiterate and silly 
 a creature that he took the poet for a wizard because he read 
 Virgil. It was time to revisit Italy. Acciajoli had invited him 
 to Naples, Dandolo to Venice ; but he went to neither. Gio- 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 393 
 
 vanni Visconti, Archbishop of Milan, had duly succeeded his 
 brother Lucchino in the sovereignty. Clement, just before his 
 decease, sent a nuncio to him, ordering him to make choice 
 between the temporal and spiritual power. The duke-arch- 
 bishop made no answer ; but on the next Sunday, after cele- 
 brating pontifical Mass in the cathedral, he took in one hand 
 a crozier, in the other a drawn sword, and "Tell the Holy 
 Father," said he, " here is the spiritual, here the temporal : 
 one defends the other." Innocent was unlikely to intimidate 
 a prince who had thus defied his predecessor. Giovanni Vis- 
 conti was among the most able statesmen that Italy has pro- 
 duced, and Italy has produced a greater number of the greatest 
 than all the rest of the universe. Genoa, reduced to extremi- 
 ties by Venice, had thrown herself under his protection ; and 
 Venice, although at the head of the Italian league, guided by 
 Dandolo and flushed with conquest, felt herself unable to con- 
 tend with him. Visconti, who expected and feared the arrival 
 of the emperor in Italy, assumed the semblance of moderation. 
 He engaged Petrarca, whom he had received with every mark 
 of distinction and affection, to preside in a deputation with 
 offers of peace to Dandolo. The doge refused the conditions, 
 and Visconti lost no time in the prosecution of hostilities. 
 These were so successful that Venice was in danger of falling ; 
 and Dandolo died of a broken heart. In the following month 
 died also Giovanni Visconti. The emperor Charles, who had 
 deceived the hopes of the Venetians by delaying to advance 
 into Italy, now crossed the Alps, and Petrarca met him at 
 Mantua. Finding him, as usual, wavering and avaricious, the 
 poet soon left him, and returned to the nephews and heirs of 
 Visconti. He was induced by Galeazzo to undertake an em- 
 bassy to the emperor. Ill disposed as was Charles to the 
 family, he declared that he had no intention of carrying his 
 arms into Italy. On this occasion he sent to Petrarca the 
 diploma of Count Palatine, in a golden box, which golden box 
 the Count Francesco returned to the German chancellor, and 
 he made as little use of the title. 
 
 Petrarca now settled at Garignano, a village three miles from 
 Milan, to which residence he gave the name of Linterno, from 
 the villa of Scipio on the coast of Naples. Fond as he was of 
 the great and powerful, he did not always give them the prefer- 
 
394 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 ence. Capra, a goldsmith of Bergamo, enthusiastic in admira- 
 tion of his genius, invited him with earnest entreaties to honor 
 that city with a visit. On his arrival the governor and nobility- 
 contended which should perform the offices of hospitality to- 
 ward so illustrious a guest ; but he went at once to the house 
 of Capra, where he was treated by his worthy host with princely 
 magniiicence, and with dehcate attentions which princely mag- 
 nificence often overlooks. The number of choice volumes in 
 his library and the conversation of Capra were evidences of a 
 cultivated understanding and a virtuous heart. In the winter 
 following (1359) Boccaccio spent several days at Lintemo, 
 and the poet gave 'him his Latin Eclogues in his own hand- 
 writing. On his return to Florence, Boccaccio sent his friend 
 the " Divina Commedia," written out likewise by himself, and 
 accompanied with profuse commendations. 
 
 Incredible as it may appear, this noble poem, the glory of 
 Italy, and admitting at that time but one other in the world to 
 a proximity with it, was wanting to the library of Petrarca. 
 His reply was cold and cautious : the more popular man, it 
 might he thought, took umbrage at the loftier. He was 
 jealous even of the genius which had gone by, and which bore 
 no resemblance to his own except in the purity and intensity 
 of love, for this was a portion of the genius in both. Petrarca 
 was certainly the very best man that ever was a very vain one : 
 and vanity has a better excuse for itself in him than in any other, 
 since none was more admired by the world at large, and par- 
 ticularly by that part of it which the wisest are most desirous 
 to conciliate, turning their wisdom in full activity to the eleva- 
 tion of their happiness. Laura, it is true, was sensible of little 
 or no passion for him ; but she was pleased with his, and stood 
 like a beautiful Cariatid of stainless marble at the base of an 
 image on which the eyes of Italy were fixed. 
 
 Petrarca, like Boccaccio, regretted at the close of life not 
 only the pleasure he had enjoyed, but also the pleasure he 
 had imparted to the world. Both of them, as their mental 
 faculties were diminishing and their animal spirits were leaving 
 them apace, became unconscious how incomparably greater 
 was the benefit than the injury done by their writings. In 
 Boccaccio there are certain tales so coarse that modesty casts 
 them aside, and those only who are irreparably contaminated 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 395 
 
 can receive any amusement from them ; but in the greater 
 part what truthfulness, what tenderness, what joyousness, what 
 purity ! Their levities and gayeties are like the harmless light- 
 nings of a summer sky in the delightful regions they were 
 written in. Petrarca, with a mind which bears the same pro- 
 portion to Boccaccio's as the Sorga bears to the Arno, has 
 been the solace of many sad hours to those who probably were 
 more despondent. It may be that at the time when he was 
 writing some of his softest and most sorrowful complaints, his 
 dejection was caused by dalliance with another far more indul- 
 gent than Laura. But his ruling passion was ungratified by 
 her ; therefore she died unsung, and, for aught we know to the 
 contrary, unlamented. He had forgotten what he had de- 
 clared in Sonnet 17, — 
 
 " E, se di lui forse altra donna spera, 
 Vive in speranza debile e fallace, 
 Mio, perche sdegno cio ch' a voi displace, etc. 
 
 If any other hopes to find 
 
 That love in me which you despise, 
 Ah ! let her leave the hope behind : 
 
 I hold from all what you alone should prize." 
 
 It can only be said that he ceased to be a visionary ; and 
 we ought to rejoice that an inflammation of ten years' recur- 
 rence sank down into a regular fit, and settled in no vital part. 
 Yet I cannot but wish that he had been as zealous in giving 
 instruction and counsel to his only son — a youth whom he 
 represents in one of his letters to have been singularly modest 
 and docile — as he had been in giving it to princes, emperors, 
 and popes, who exhibited very little of those qualities. 
 While he was at his villa at Linterno, the unfortunate youth 
 robbed the house in Milan, and fled. We may reasonably 
 suppose that home had become irksome to him, and that 
 neither the eye nor the heart of a father was over him. Gio- 
 vanni was repentant, was forgiven, and died. 
 
 The tenderness of Petrarca, there is too much reason to 
 fear, was at all times concentrated in self. A nephew of his 
 early patron Colonna, in whose house he had spent many 
 happy hours, was now deprived of house and home, and being 
 reduced to abject poverty had taken refuge in Bologna. He 
 
396 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 had surely great reason to complain of Petrarca, who never in 
 his journeys to and fro had visited or noticed him, or, rich as 
 he was in benefices by the patronage of his family, offered him 
 any succor. This has been excused by Mr. Campbell : it may 
 be short of turpitude, but it is farther, much farther, from gen- 
 erosity and from justice. Never is mention made by him of 
 Laura's children, whom he must have seen with her, and one 
 or other of whom must have noticed with the pure delight of 
 unsuspicious childhood his fond glances at the lovely mother. 
 Surely in all the years he was devoted to Laura, one or other of 
 her children grieved her by ill-health, or perhaps by dying ; for 
 virtue never set a mark on any door so that sickness and sor- 
 row must not enter. But Petrarca thought more about her 
 eyes than about those tears that are usually the inheritance of 
 the brightest, and may well be supposed to have said in some 
 inedited canzone, — 
 
 " What care I what tears there be, 
 If the tears are not for me ? " 
 
 His love, when it administered nothing to his celebrity, was 
 silent. Of his two children, a son and a daughter, not a word 
 is uttered in any of his verses. How beautifully does Ovid, 
 who is thought in general to have been less tender, and was 
 probably less chaste, refer to the purer objects of his affection, — 
 
 "Unica nata, mei justissima causa doloris," etc. 
 
 Petrarca's daughter lived to be the solace of his age, and 
 married happily. Boccaccio, in the most beautiful and inter- 
 esting letter in the whole of Petrarca's correspondence, men- 
 tions her kind reception of him, and praises her beauty and 
 demeanor. Even the unhappy boy appears to have been by 
 nature of nearly the same character. According to the father's 
 own account, his disposition was gentle and tractable ; he was 
 modest and shy, and abased his eyes before the smart witti- 
 cisms of Petrarca on the defects his own negligence had caused. 
 A parent should never excite a blush, nor extinguish one. 
 
 Domestic cares bore indeed lightly on a man perpetually 
 busy in negotiations. He could not but despise the emperor, 
 who yet had influence enough over him to have brought him 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 397 
 
 into Germany. But bands of robbers infested the road, and the 
 plague was raging in many of the intermediate cities. It had 
 not reached Venice, and there Petrarca toolc refuge. ' Wherever 
 he went, he carried a great part of his library with him ; but he 
 found it now more inconvenient than ever, and therefore he 
 made a present of it to the republic, on condition that it 
 neither should be sold nor separated. It was never sold, it 
 was never separated ; but it was suffered to fall into decay, and 
 not a single volume of the collection is now extant. While 
 he was at Verona, his friend Boccaccio made him another 
 visit, and remained with him three summer months. The 
 plague deprived him of Lselius, of Socrates, and of Barbato. 
 Among his few surviving friends was Philip de Cabassoles, now 
 patriarch of Jerusalem, to whom he had promised the dedi- 
 cation of his treatise on " Solitary Life," which he began at 
 Vaucluse. 
 
 Urban V., successor to Innocent, designed to reform the dis- 
 cipline of the Church, and Petrarca thought he had a better 
 chance than ever of seeing its head at Rome. Again he wrote 
 a letter on the occasion, learned, eloquent, and enthusiastically 
 bold. Urban had perhaps already fixed his determination. 
 Despite of remonstrances on the side of the French king, and 
 of intrigues on the side of the cardinals, whose palaces and 
 mistresses must be left behind. Urban quitted Avignon on the 
 30th of April, 1367, and, after a stay of four months at Viterbo, 
 entered Rome. Before this event Petrarca had taken into his 
 house, and employed as secretary, a youth of placid temper and 
 sound understanding, which he showed the best disposition to 
 cultivate. His name was Giovanni Malpighi, better known 
 afterward as Giovanni da Ravenna. He was admitted to the 
 table, to the walks, and to the travels of his patron, enjoying far 
 more of his kindness and affection than, at the same time of 
 life, had ever been bestowed upon his son. Petrarca superin- 
 tended his studies, and prepared him for the clerical profes- 
 sion. Unexpectedly one morning this youth entered his study, 
 and declared he would stay no longer in the house. In vain 
 did Petrarca try to alter his determination ; neither hope nor 
 fear moved him, and nothing was left but to accompany him 
 as far as Venice. Giovanni would see the tomb of Virgil ; 
 he would visit the birthplace of Ennius ; he would learn 
 
398 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 Greek at Constantinople. He went however no farther than 
 Pavia, where Petrarca soon followed him, and pardoned his 
 extravagance. 
 
 Urban had no sooner established the holy see at Rome 
 again than he began to set Italy in a flame, raising troops in 
 all quarters, and directing them against the Visconti. The 
 emperor too, in earnest, had resolved on war. But Bernabo 
 Visconti, who knew his avarice, knew how to divert his arms. 
 He came into Italy, but only to lead the pope's palfrey and 
 to assist at the empress's coronation. Urban sent an invita- 
 tion to Petrarca; and he prepared, although in winter, to re- 
 visit Rome. Conscious that his health was decUning, he made 
 his will. To the Lord of Padua he bequeathed a picture of 
 the Virgin by Giotto, and to Boccaccio fifty gold florins for 
 a cloak to keep him warm in his study. 
 
 Such was his debility, Petrarca could proceed no farther 
 than Ferrara, and thought it best to return to Padua. For the 
 benefit of the air he settled in the hamlet of Arqua, where he 
 built a villa, and where his daughter and her husband Fran- 
 cesco di Brossano came to live with him. Urban died, and 
 was succeeded by Gregory XL, who would have added to the 
 many benefices held already by Petrarca; and the poet in 
 these his latter days was not at all averse to the gifts of fortune. 
 His old friend the bishop of Cabassoles, now a cardinal, was 
 sent as legate to Perugia. Petrarca was desirous of visiting him, 
 and the rather as the prelate's health was declining ; but be- 
 fore his own enabled him to undertake the journey, he had 
 expired. 
 
 One more effort of friendship was the last reserved for him. 
 Hostilities broke out between the Venetians and Francesco da 
 Ferrara, aided by the king of Hungary, who threatened to aban- 
 don his cause unless he consented to terms of peace. Venice 
 now recovered her advantages, and reduced Francesco to the 
 most humihating conditions : he was obliged to send his son to 
 ask pardon of the republic. To render this less intolerable, he 
 prevailed on Petrarca to accompany the youth, and to plead his 
 cause before the senate. Accompanied by a numerous and a 
 splendid train, they arrived at the city ; audience was granted 
 them on the morrow. But fatigue and illness so affected Pe- 
 trarca that he could not deliver the speech he had prepared. 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 399 
 
 Among the many of his compositions which are lost to us is this 
 oration. Happily there is preserved the friendly letter he wrote 
 to Boccaccio on his return, — the last of his writings. During 
 the greater part of his lifetime, though no less zealous than 
 Boccaccio himself in recovering the works of the Classics, he 
 never had read the " Divina Commedia ; " nor, until this period 
 of it, the "Decameron," — the two most admirable works the 
 Continent has produced from the restoration of learning to the 
 present day. Boccaccio, who had given him the one, now gave 
 him the other. In his letter of thanks for it, he excuses the 
 levity of his friend in some places, attributes it to the season of 
 life in which the book was written, and relates the effect the 
 story of Griseldis had produced, not only on himself, but on 
 another of less sensibility. He even learned it by heart, that 
 he might recite it to his friends ; and he sent the author a 
 Latin translation of it. Before this, but among his latest com- 
 positions, he had written an indignant answer to an unknown 
 French monk who criticised his letter to Urban, and who had 
 spoken contemptuously of Rome and Italy. Monks generally 
 know at what most vulnerable part to aim the dagger, and the 
 Frenchman struck Petrarca between his vanity and his patriot- 
 ism. A greater mind would have looked down indifferently on 
 a dwarf assailant, and would never have lifted him up even for 
 derision. The most prominent rocks and headlands are most 
 exposed to the elements ; but those which can resist the vio- 
 lence of the storms are in little danger from the corrosion of 
 the limpets. 
 
 On the 1 8th of July, 1374, Petrarca was found in his 
 library, his brow upon a book he had been reading : he was 
 dead. 
 
 There is no record of any literary man, or perhaps of any 
 man whatsoever, to whom such honors, — honors of so many 
 kinds, and from such different quarters and personages, — have 
 been offered. They began in his early life, and we are walk- 
 ing at this hour in the midst of the procession. Few travellers 
 dare to return from Italy until they can describe to the attentive 
 ear and glistening eye the scenery of the Euganean hills. He 
 who has loved truly, and above all he who has loved unhappily, 
 approaches, as holiest altars are approached, the cenotaph on 
 the little columns at Arqua. 
 
400 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 The Latin works of Petrarca were esteemed by himself more 
 highly than his Italian.^ His Letters and his Dialogues, " De 
 Contemptu Mundi," are curious and valuable. In the latter he 
 converses with Saint Augustine, to whom he is introduced by 
 " Truth," the same personage who appears in his " Africa," and 
 whom Voltaire also invokes to descend on his little gravelly 
 Champ de Mars, the " Henriade." The third dialogue is about 
 his love for Laura, and nobly is it defended. He wrote a treatise 
 on the ignorance of one's self and others {inultoriini), in which 
 he has taken much from Cicero and Augustine, and in which 
 he afterward forgot a little of his own. " Ought we to take it 
 to heart," says he, "if we are ill-spoken of by the ignorant and 
 malicious, when the same thing happened to Homer and De- 
 mosthenes, to Cicero and Virgil?" He was fond of follow- 
 ing these two, — Cicero in the number of his epistles, Virgil in 
 eclogue and in epic. 
 
 Of his twelve Eclogues, which by a strange nomenclature 
 he also called Bucolics, many are satirical. In the sixth and 
 seventh Pope Clement is represented in the character of Mitio. 
 In the sixth Saint Peter, under the name of Pamphilus, re- 
 proaches him for the condition in which he keeps his flock, and 
 asks him what he has done with the wealth intrusted to him. 
 Mitio answers that he has kept the gold arisipg from the sale 
 of the lambs, and that he has given the milk to certain friends 
 of his. He adds that his spouse, very differeYit from the old 
 woman Pamphilus was contented with, went about in gold and 
 jewels. As for the rams and goats, they played their usual 
 gambols in the meadow, and he himself looked on. Pamphi- 
 lus is indignant, and tells him he ought to be flogged and sent 
 to prison for life. Mitio drops on a sudden his peaceful char- 
 acter, and calls Pamphilus a faithless runaway slave, deserving 
 the fetter and the cross. In the twelfth eclogue, under the ap- 
 pellations of Pan and Arcticus, are represented the kings of 
 France and England. Arcticus is indignant at the favors Pan 
 receives from Faustula (Avignon). To King John the pope 
 
 ^ It is incredible that Julius Csesar Scaliger, who has criticised so vast 
 a number of later poets quite forgotten, and deservedly, should never have 
 even seen the Latin poetry of Petrarca. His words are : " Primus, quod 
 equidem sciam, Petrarca ex lutulenta, barbaric os coelo attollere ausus est, 
 cujiis, quemadmodum diximus alibi, qiiod nihil videre lictterit, ejus viri cas- 
 tigationes sicut et alia multa, relinquam studiosis." (Poet. 1. vi. p. 769). 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 4OI 
 
 had remitted his tenths, so that he was enabled to continue the 
 war against England, which ended in his captivity. 
 
 Petrarca in all his Latin poetry, and indeed in all his Latin 
 compositions, is an imitator, and generally a very unsuccessful 
 one j but his versification is more harmonious than any since 
 Boethius, and his language has more the air of antiquity and 
 more resembles the better models. 
 
 We now come to his Italian poetry. In this he is less defi- 
 cient in originality, though in several pieces he has imitated 
 too closely Cino da Pistoja, — " Mille dubj in un di," for in- 
 stance, in his seventh canzone. Cino is crude and enigmatical ; 
 but there is a beautiful sonnet by him addressed to Dante, 
 which he wrote on passing the Apennines, and stopping to 
 visit the tomb and invoke the name of Selvaggia. Petrarca 
 late in life made a collection of sonnets on Laura ; they are 
 not printed in the order in which they were written. The first 
 is a kind of prologue to the rest, as the first ode of Horace is. 
 There is melancholy grace in this preliminary piece. The third 
 ought to have been the second ; for after having in the first 
 related his errors and regrets, we might have expected to find 
 the cause of them in the following, — we find it in the third. 
 " Di pensier in pensier," " Chiare dolci e fresche acque," " Se 
 11 pensier che mi strugge," " Benedetto sia il giorno," " Solo e 
 pensoso," are incomparably better than the "Tre Sorelle " by 
 which the Italians are enchanted, and which the poet himself 
 views with great complacency. These three are upon the eyes 
 of Laura, The seventh canzone, the second of the " Sorelle," 
 or, as they have often been styled, the "Grazie," is the most 
 admired of them. In this, however, the ear is offended at 
 "Qual air al/a." The critics do not observe this sad caco- 
 phony. And nothing is less appropriate than, — 
 
 " Ed al fuoco gentil ond' io tiitt'' ardo." 
 The close is, — 
 
 " Canzon ! Tuna Sorella e poco inanzi, 
 ^- E 1' altra sento in quel medesmo albergo 
 
 Apparecchiarsi, ond' io piii carta verge." 
 
 This ruins the figure. What becomes of the Sorella, and the 
 albergo, and the apparecchiarsi ? The third is less celebrated 
 than the two elder sisters. 
 
 26 
 
402 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 Muratori, the most judicious of Italian commentators, gives 
 these canzoni the preference over the others ; but it remained 
 for a foreigner to write correctly on them, and to demonstrate 
 that they are very faulty. I find more faults and graver than 
 Ginguene has found in them ; but I do not complain with him 
 so much that the commencement of the third is heavy and 
 languid, as that serious thoughts are intersected with quibbles 
 and spangled with conceits. I will here remark freely, and in 
 some detail, on this part of the poetry of Petrarca. 
 
 SoNETTO XXL It will be difficult to find in all the domains 
 of poetry so frigid a conceit as in the conclusion of this 
 sonnet, — 
 
 " E far delle sue braccia a se stess' ombra." 
 
 Strange that it should be followed by the most beautiful he 
 ever wrote, — 
 
 " Solo e pensoso," etc. 
 
 Canzone I. 
 
 " Ne mano ancor m' agghiaccia 
 L' esser coperto poi di bianche piume, 
 Ond' io presi col suon color di cigno ! " 
 
 How very inferior is this childish play to^ Horace's ode, in 
 which he also becomes a swan ! 
 
 Canzone III. Among the thousand offices which he attrib- 
 utes to the eyes is carrying the keys. Here he talks of the 
 sweet eyes carrying the keys of his sweet thoughts. Again he 
 has a peep at the keyhole in the seventh^ — 
 
 "Quel cuor ond' hanno i begli occhi la chiave." 
 
 He also lets us into the secret that he is really fond of com- 
 plaining, and that he takes pains to have his eyes always full 
 of tears, — 
 
 " Ed io son un di quei ch' il pianger ^/(JZ'rt;, 
 E par ben ch' io m' ingegno 
 Che di lagrime pixgni 
 Sien gli occhi miei." 
 
 SoNETTO XX. Here are Phoebus, Vulcan, Jupiter, CcBsar, 
 Janus, Saturn, Mars, Orion, Neptune, Juno, and a chorus of 
 Angels ; and they have only fourteen lines to turn about in ! 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 403 
 
 Canzone IV. The last part has merit from " E perche un 
 poco." 
 
 SoNETTO XXXIX. In this beautiful sonnet, as in almost 
 every one, there is a redundancy of words ; for instance, — 
 
 " Benedetto sia il giorno, e '1 mese, e 1' anno, 
 E la stagion, e '/ tempo." 
 
 SoNETTO XL. is very serious. It is a prayer to God that his 
 heart may be turned to other desires, and that it may re- 
 member how on that day He was crucified. 
 
 Sestina III. With what derision would a poet of the 
 present day be treated who had written such stuff as — 
 
 " E pel bel petto 1' htdurato ghiaccio 
 Clie trae dal mio si dolor osi venti." 
 
 SoNETTO XLIV. " L'aspetto sacro " is ingenious, yet with- 
 out conceits. 
 
 Canzone VIII. So far as we know, it has never been re- 
 marked (nor indeed is an Italian Academia worth a remark) 
 that the motto of the Academia della Crusca, " II piu bel fior 
 ne coghe," is from 
 
 " E, le onorate 
 Cose cercando, il piu bel fior ne coglie." 
 
 SoNETTO XLVI. Here he wonders whence all the ink can 
 come with which he fills his paper on Laura. 
 
 SoNETTO L. In the fourteenth year of his passion, his 
 ardor is increasing to such a degree that he says, " Death 
 approaches . . . and life flies away" — 
 
 " Che la morte m'appressa . . . eU viver fugge." 
 
 We beheve there is no instance where life has resisted the 
 encounter. 
 
 SoNETTO LIX. This is very different from all his others. 
 The first part is poor enough ; the last would be interesting if 
 we could believe it to be more than imaginary. Here he 
 boasts of the impression he had made on Laura, yet in his last 
 canzone he asks her whether he ever had. The words of this 
 sonnet are, — 
 
 " Era ben forte la nemica mia, 
 E lei viddi io ferita in mezzo al core.'" 
 
404 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 But we may well take all this for ideal, when we read the very 
 next, in which he speaks of being free from the thraldom that 
 had held him so many years. 
 
 SoNETTO LXVI. The conclusion from " Ne mi lece ascol- 
 tar " is very animated ; here is greatly more vigor and incita- 
 tion than usual. 
 
 Canzone IX. It would be difficult to find anywhere, except 
 in the rarest and most valuable books, so wretched a poem as 
 this. The rhymes occur over and over again, not only at the 
 close, but often at the fifth and sixth syllables, and then 
 another time. Metastasio has managed best the redundant 
 rhymes. 
 
 SoNETTO LXXIII. The final part, " L' aura soave," is ex- 
 quisitely beautiful, and the harmony complete. 
 
 SoNETTO LXXXIV. " Quel vago impallidir" is among the 
 ten best. 
 
 Canzone X. In the last stanza there is a lightness of move- 
 ment not always to be found in the graces of Petrarca. 
 
 Canzone XI. This is incomparably the most elaborate work 
 of the poet, but it is very far from the perfection of " Solo e 
 pensoso." The second and third stanzas are inferior to the 
 rest; and the "fera bella e mansueta " is quite unworthy of 
 the place it occupies. 
 
 Canzone XIII. is extremely beautiful, until we come to 
 
 " Pur ti medesmo assido, 
 Me f reddo, pietra morta in pietra viva" 
 
 Sonetto XCV. "Pommi ovi '1 Sol" is imitated from 
 Horace's " Pone me pigris," etc. 
 
 SoNETTO XCVIII. Four verses are filled with the names of 
 rivers, excepting the monosyllables non and e. He says that 
 all these rivers cannot slake the fire that is the anguish of his 
 heart, — no, nor even ivy, fir, pine, beech, or juniper. It is by 
 no means a matter of wonder that these subsidiaries lend but 
 little aid to the exertions of the fireman. 
 
 SoNETTO ex., — 
 
 " O anime gentili ed amorose " 
 
 has been imitated and improved upon by Redi, in his 
 " Donne gentili, divote d' anaore." 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 405 
 
 SoNETTO CXI. No extravagance ever surpassed the invoca- 
 tion to the rocks in the water, requiring that henceforward 
 there should not be a single one which had neglected to 
 learn how to burn with his flames. He himself can only go 
 farther in 
 
 SoNETTO CXIX, where he tells us that Laura's eyes can 
 burn up the Rhine when it is most frozen, and crack its hardest 
 rocks. 
 
 SoNETTO CXXXII. In the precarious state of her health, he 
 fears more about the disappointment of his hopes in love thaa 
 about her danger. 
 
 SoNETTo CXLVIII. His descriptions of beauty are not 
 always distinct and correct ; for example, — 
 
 " Gli occhi sereni e le stellanti ciglia 
 La bella bocca angelica . . . de perle 
 Piena, e di rose . . . e di dolci parole.'^ 
 
 In this place we shall say a little about " occhi " and •'' ciglia." 
 First, the sense would be better and the verse equally good if, 
 transposing the epithets, it were written — 
 
 " Gli occhi stellanti e le serene ciglia." 
 
 The Italian poets are very much in the habit of putting the 
 eyelashes for the eyes, because " ciglia " is a most useful rhyme. 
 The Latin poets, contented with oculi, ocelli, and lumina, 
 never employ cilia, of which indeed they appear to have made 
 but little account. Greatly more than a hundred times has 
 Petrarca inserted " eyes " into the first part of his sonnets ; it 
 is rarely that we find one without its occhi. They certainly are 
 very ornamental things; but it is not desirable for a poet to 
 resemble an Argus. 
 
 Canzone XV. The versification here differs from the others 
 but is no less beautiful than in any of them. However, where 
 Love appears in person, we would rather that Pharaoh, Rachel, 
 etc., were absent. 
 
 SoNETTO CLVII. He tells us on what day he entered the 
 labyrinth of love, — 
 
 " Mille trecento ventisette apputtto 
 Suir ora prima il di setto d'Aprili." 
 
406 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 This poetry has very unfairly been taken advantage of, in a book 
 
 " Written by William Prynne Esquier, the 
 Year of our Lord sixteen hundred thirty-three." 
 
 SoNETTO CLVIII. He has now loved twenty years. 
 
 SoNETTO CLXI. The first verse is rendered very inharmonious 
 by the csesura and the final word having syllables that rhyme. 
 " Tutto '1 dipiango," "e per la notte ^uando," "lagnmando," 
 and " consnma7tdo " are considered as rhymes, although rhymes 
 should be formed by similarity of sound and not by iden- 
 tity. The Italians, the Spaniards, and the French reject this 
 canon. 
 
 SoNETTO CLXXXVII, on the present of two roses, is light 
 and pretty. 
 
 SoNETTO CXCII. He fears he may never see Laura again. 
 Probably this was written after her death. He dreams of her 
 saying to him, " Do you not remember the last evening, when 
 I left you with your eyes in tears ? Forced to go away from 
 you, I would not tell you, nor could I, what I tell you now. 
 Do not hope to see me again o?i earth." This most simple and 
 beautiful sonnet has been less noticed than many which a pure 
 taste would have rejected. The next is a vision of Laura's 
 death. There are verses in Petrarca which will be uttered by 
 many sorrowers through many ages. Such, for instance, are — 
 
 " Non la conobbe il mondo mentre 1' abbe, 
 Conobbila io chi a pianger qui rimasi." 
 
 But we are hard of belief when he says — 
 
 " Pianger cercai, non gib, dal pianto onore." 
 
 There are fourteen more sonnets, and one more canzbne in 
 the first series of the " Rime ; " but we must here close it. 
 Of the second, third, and fourth series we must be contented 
 with fewer notices, for already we have exceeded the limits we 
 proposed. They were written after Laura's death, and contain 
 altogether somewhat more than the first alone. Many of the 
 poems in them are grave, tender, and beautiful ; there are the 
 same faults, but fewer in number, and less in degree. He 
 never talks again, as he does in the last words of the first, of 
 carrying a laurel and a column in his bosom, — the one for 
 fifteen, the other for eighteen years. 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 40/ 
 
 Ginguene seems disinclined to allow a preference to this 
 second part of the Canzoniere ; but surely it is in general far 
 more pathetic, and more exempt from the importunities of 
 petty fancies. He takes the trouble to translate the wretched 
 sonnet (XXXIII. Part II.) in which the waters of the river are 
 increased by the poet's tears, and the fish (as they had a right 
 to expect) are spoken to. But the next is certainly a most 
 beautiful poem, and worthy of Dante himself, whose manner 
 of thinking and style of expression it much resembles. There 
 is a canzone in dialogue which also resembles it in sentiment 
 and feeling, — 
 
 " Quando soave mio fido conforto," etc. 
 
 The next again is imitated from Cino da Pistoja : what a 
 crowd of words at the opening ! — 
 
 " Quel antico mio dolce empio signore." 
 
 It is permitted in no other poetry than the Italian to shovel up 
 such a quantity of trash and triviality before the doors. 
 
 But rather than indulge in censure, we will recommend to 
 the especial perusal of the reader another list of admirable 
 compositions, — "Alma felice," "Anima bella," " Ite rime 
 dolenti," "Tornami a mente," " Quel rossignol," " Vago augel- 
 letto," " Dolce mio caro," " Gli angeli," " Ohime ! il bel viso," 
 "Che debbo io far," "Amor! se vuoi," "O aspettata," "An- 
 ima, che dimostra," " Spirto gentil," "Italia mia." Few in- 
 deed, if any, of these are without a flaw; but they are of 
 higher worth than those on which the reader, unless fore- 
 warned, would spend his time unprofitably. It would be a 
 great blessing if a critic deeply versed in this literature (like 
 Carey) would pubhsh the Italian poets with significant marks 
 before the passages worth reading ; the more worth, and the 
 less. Probably it would not be a mark of admiration, only 
 that surprise and admiration have but one between them, 
 which would follow the poet's declaration in Canzone XVIII., 
 that " if he does not melt away it is because fear holds him 
 together." After this foolery he becomes a true poet again, 
 " O coUi ! " etc. ; then again bad, " You see how many colors 
 love paints my face with." 
 
 Nothing he ever wrote is so tender as a reproach of Laura, 
 
408 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 
 
 after ten years' admiration, — " You are soon grown tired of 
 loving me ! " 
 
 There is poetry in Petrarca which we have not yet adverted 
 to, in which he has changed the chords Kat r^v \vpy]v a-n-aa-av, — 
 such as " Fiamma del ciel," " L' avara Babilonia," " Fontana 
 di dolor." The volumes close with the " Trionfi." The first, 
 as we might have anticipated, is " II Trionfo d' Amore." The 
 poem is a vile one, stuffed with proper names. The " Triumph 
 of Chastity " is shorter, as might also be anticipated, and not 
 quite so full of them. At the close, Love meets Laura, who 
 makes him her captive, and carries him in triumph among the 
 virgins and matrons most celebrated for purity and constancy. 
 The " Triumph of Death " follows. 
 
 This poem is truly admirable. Laura is returning from her 
 victory over Love ; suddenly there appears a black flag, fol- 
 lowed by a female in black apparel, and terrible in attitude 
 and voice. She stops the festive procession, and strikes 
 Laura. The poet now describes her last moments, and her 
 soft sleep of death, in which she retains all her beauty. In the 
 second part she comes to him in a dream, holds out her hand, 
 and invites him to sit by her on the bank of a rivulet, under 
 the shade of a beech and a laurel. Nothing in this most beau- 
 tiful of languages is so beautiful, excepting the lines of Dante 
 on Francesca, as these, — 
 
 " E quella man' gia tanto desiata, 
 A me, parlaiido e sospirando, porsel'^ 
 
 Their discourse is upon death, which she tells him should 
 be formidable only to the wicked, and assures him that the 
 enjoyment she receives from it is far beyond any which life 
 has to bestow. He then asks her a question, which he alone 
 had a right to ask her, and only in her state of purity and 
 bliss — 
 
 " She sighed, and said, ' No ; nothing could dissever 
 My heart from thine, and nothing shall there ever. 
 
 If, thy fond ardor to repress, 
 I sometimes frowned (and how could I do less ?), 
 If now and then my look was not benign, 
 
 'T was but to save my fame and thine ; 
 And, as thou knowest, when I saw thy grief, 
 
 A glance was ready with relief.' 
 
FRANCESCO PETRARCA 4O9 
 
 " Scarce with dry cheek 
 These tender words I heard her speak. 
 * Were they but true ! ' I cried. She bent the head, 
 
 Not unreproachfully, and said, 
 ' Yes, I did love thee ; and whene'er 
 I turned away mine eyes, 't was shame and fear ; 
 A thousand times to thee did they incline, 
 But sank before the flame that shot from thine.' " 
 
 He who the twentieth time can read unmoved this canzone 
 never has experienced a love which could not be requited, and 
 never has deserved a happy one. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 iENEiD, easy to show twenty bad pas- 
 sages, worse in the Georgics, 48. 
 
 Ajax and Dido, 23. 
 
 Allegory, delight of frivolous minds, 126. 
 
 Andreas, king, assassinated, 391. 
 
 Annihilation, preferable to damnation, 
 105. 
 
 Apocalypse, 94. 
 
 Asabel, "Parable of," 292-294. 
 
 Assuntina, confession, absolution, 75. 
 
 Atheist, tolerant, Catholic intolerant, 104. 
 
 Attic tragedians, method of, 13. 
 
 Auditors and readers love not the author's 
 but their own opinion repeated, 40. 
 
 Authors, life and writings contrasted, 16 ; 
 glory of, best secured by unstinting 
 criticism after death, 41 ; dead, in- 
 creased estimation of, 89. 
 
 Babylonians, Macedonians, Romans, 
 prove no resurrection to a fallen 
 nation, 34. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 263. 
 
 Barnett, Ephraim, takes down the testi- 
 mony of Shakspeare, his 145; memor- 
 andum prefixed thereto, 145 ; his " Post 
 Scriptum," 245. 
 
 Beatrice, changes color, 66 ; character of, 
 82. 
 
 Bible, its phraseology, 25 7. 
 
 Blake, Admiral, 263 ; his patriotism, 
 265 ; abstained from party and thought 
 only of his country, 265 ; his action at 
 Cadiz as glorious as any of Nelson's, 
 265 ; is neglected in England by Arts 
 and authorities, 265 ; fought for a 
 country without a king, 265 ; among 
 the founders of freedom, 285. 
 
 Boccaccio, Giovanni, illness of, i ; re- 
 ceives Petrarca and Frate Biagio, i ; 
 masses said for him, 2 ; describes the 
 nurse Assuntina, 2 ; his promise to 
 Petrarca, 2 ; holocaust of the " De- 
 cameron," 2 ; not jealous of Dante, 2 ; 
 story of the truffle dog, 7 ; his dis- 
 temper of the eyes, 10; opinion of 
 Florentine girls, 1 1 ; is advised to weed; 
 out his "Decameron," 12; compares 
 the great poet to the original man of 
 the Platonists, 16 ; he is double, 16 ; 
 his opinion on the Greeks and Romans, 
 27; on the birthplace of great poets, 
 28 ; his blessing on Francesco, 28 ; 
 views of philosophy and religion, 31 ; 
 reflections upon death, 34 ; his visit 
 to Rome, 35 ; his canons of criticism, 
 39 ; his reception by Seniscalco, 41 ; 
 his friend, Acciaioli, 41 ; his view of 
 the Psalms of David, 47 ; of the sonnet, 
 48 ; of the horses of the ancients, 52 ; 
 education completed in France, 72 ; 
 prefers his own country, 73 ; his opin- 
 ion of Beatrice, 82 ; of tragedy, 82 ; 
 opinion of the Englishman and French- 
 man, 87 ; of Florentines, 88 ; remarks 
 on bariaarous towns, 88; visit to the 
 villa of Dante, 90 ; his lines, " Depart- 
 ure from Fiametta," 95 ; reflections 
 upon a chest of letters, 96 ; his story 
 of the Nun and Fra Biagio, 100; re- 
 flections upon the Catholic religion, 
 
 105 ; his last morning with Petrarca, 
 
 106 ; prayer to the Virgin, 107 ; lines 
 on return of health, 107 ; annunciation 
 of his health, 112 ; his verses, " To my 
 Child Car lino," 115; his books in the 
 tower of Certaldo, 117; resolves to 
 preserve the "Decameron," 117; in- 
 vention of macaroni in his day, 117; 
 his prayer to Laura and Fiametta, 117; 
 his vision, 11S-120; his cat, 122; his 
 
412 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 emphasis of sympathy, 124; died a 
 good Catholic, 128 ; the alleged jeal- 
 ousy of Boccaccio and Petrarca, 133 ; 
 always called Petrarca his master, 136 ; 
 picture of the gentle Ermissenda, 136 ; 
 his immortal work, 388 ; friendship for 
 Petrarca, 390; relative quality of their 
 genius, 390 ; sends " Divina Com- 
 media" to Petrarca, 394; mistaken 
 regrets at the close of his life, 394 ; 
 not appreciated, 399. 
 
 Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury, discon- 
 tented politicians, 25S. 
 
 Bonaparte, seldom just toward an enemy, 
 251 ; his "Catechism" adapted to the 
 Middle Ages, 252 ; a squanderer of 
 national resources, 252; his military 
 blunders, 253 ; loses all by over- 
 grasping, 255. 
 
 Books, how the best affect the public, 
 
 ^44- ... 
 
 Brougham, Lord, his opinion of Csesar, 
 Cromwell, and Milton, 249; glances at 
 greatness, 256; his manner distorted 
 by sarcasm, 25S ; variety and greatness 
 of his talents, 258. 
 
 Byron, not a " mere rhymer," 269 ; char- 
 acteristics of his poetry, 368. 
 
 Burke, the wisest except Bacon, 260, 
 
 C^SAR, Landor's admiration of, 249 ; 
 excellence of his style, 249 ; compared 
 to Cromwell, 250. 
 
 Campbell, poet, reference to, 263 ; his 
 compilation of Petrarca, 372. 
 
 Canning, his brilliancy, 260 ; term 
 " scamp " applied to him, 270. 
 
 Catholicism, " touched to the quick," 
 67. 
 
 Cato, the sole guardian of purgatory, 38. 
 
 Catullus, sketch of his life, 325 ; poems 
 edited by Dcering, 325 ; contempo- 
 raries and imitators, 326-328 ; criti- 
 cism of his poetry, 326-365 ; poetry 
 better than most of the Augustan age, 
 331; called the " learned," 332 ; com- 
 pared to Milton, 333-338 ; compared 
 to La Fontaine, 333 ; translates Sap- 
 pho's ode, 351 ; compared to Virgil, 
 
 369, 370- 
 Canonico Casini, a worthy priest, 74. 
 Certaldo, an old burgess of, 102. 
 Charles of Luxemburg, his " sweet, 
 
 strange action," 387. 
 
 Church, the, luxury and rapacity of, 31. 
 
 Churches, Anghcan and Catholic, rela- 
 tion of, discussed, 131. 
 
 Cicero, his energy not always in the 
 right place, 256. 
 
 City, founder of, less than a poet, 87. 
 
 Clement VI., superior to his predeces- 
 sors, 385 ; confers a priory on Petrarca, 
 
 385. 
 
 Clergy, Anglican, triple duties of, 130. 
 
 Colhns, William, excellence of his " Has- 
 san," 323 ; surpassed by Burns and 
 Scott in idylic poetry, 323. 
 
 Colonna, Giacomo, friend of Petrarca, 
 37S ; his bravery, 378; made bishop 
 of Lombes, 378. 
 
 Commandment, cast down by the liter- 
 ary from over their communion table, 
 
 134- . . 
 
 Communities, small, morals and hap- 
 piness of, 69. 
 
 Confessors, circuitous ways of, 'j']. 
 
 Crimes against society, most heinous, 
 
 133- 
 
 Criticism, its province and office, 39. 
 
 Critics, their office in bringing to light 
 the writings of others, 44. 
 
 Cromwell, his sincerity, 250; next to 
 Alfred as a ruler, 250 ; the shadow of 
 his name, 254 ; Landor's inscription 
 for a statue of, 258 ; bravely humane 
 and tranquilly energetic, 265 ; greater 
 than all things btlt his country, 265 ; 
 vindicated the nation from double 
 slavery, that of prince and priesthood, 
 265 ; his body treated as the vilest 
 malefactor's, 265. 
 
 Crown and gallows, sovereign remedy, 
 172. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dante, commandment kept in regard 
 to him, 3; a twentieth of the "Di- 
 vina Commedia " good, 4; sixteen 
 twentieths of the Inferno and Purga- 
 torio detestable, 4; apology for him, 
 6 ; a string of satires, 6 ; imprecations 
 of the Pisans, 6; best apology for his 
 poetical character, 6; his best thirty 
 lines, 16; his own features reflected in 
 Ugliono, 16; his story of Francesca, 
 16 ; Inferno immoral and impious, 17; 
 his exultation and merriment over suf- 
 fering, 17; compared with ^schylus 
 and Homer, iS ; his powers of lan- 
 guage prodigious, 20 ; his description 
 
INDEX. 
 
 413 
 
 of Mahomet, 21 ; Inferno compared 
 to Homer, 22 ; Inferno, architectural 
 fabric of, 22 ; compared with the 
 Odyssea, 23 ; Purgatorio and Para- 
 diso, pictures from church and chapel 
 walls, 23; discussion of, resumed, 36 ; 
 estimate of him by the Florentines, 
 45 ; had no suspicion of his own su- 
 periority, 46 ; no tautologies in his 
 poetry, 46 ; his relation to Virgil, 48 ; 
 discussion of, resumed, 62 ; Paradiso 
 preferred to the other sections, 63 ; 
 reverence of his name, 88 ; conversa- 
 tion with Giotto, 88 ; compared with 
 Boccaccio, 98 ; his habit of vitupera- 
 tion, 99 ; grand by his lights, not shad- 
 ows, 103; he borrowed less from his 
 predecessors than the Roman poets 
 did from theirs, 104. 
 
 Death lays his rose on the cheek, 277. 
 
 "Decameron," stories of, compared with 
 the poetry of Petrarca, 390. 
 
 " De Monarchia," 94. 
 
 " Divina Commedia," 394, 399 ; its 
 place in literature, 399. 
 
 Drake, Admiral, 263. 
 
 Dreams, peculiarities of Landor's, 286. 
 
 " Earth, Italy, and Heaven," tripartite 
 
 poem, loi. 
 Egypt, fatal to the renown of conque- 
 rors, 251. 
 Emoluments of the bishopric of London 
 
 more than that of twelve cardinals, 
 
 130. 
 England, her generals and admirals, their 
 
 rank and services, 263. 
 English history, suppression of living 
 
 figures in, 265. 
 English nation, undue interest in politics, 
 
 264. 
 Englishmen, character of, 85 ; compared 
 
 with Italians, 87; always prefer the 
 
 true and modest to the false and 
 
 meretricious, 254. 
 Engraver, his work rejected by the editor, 
 
 144. 
 Ennius and Lucilius, 21. 
 Episcopacy, persecuting and intolerant, 
 
 250. 
 Epitaph, " He loved," better than " He 
 
 killed," 44. 
 Example, bad, of a great man, 5. 
 Expression, clearness of, 13. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fame and celebrity, difference of, 125. 
 
 Florentines, first syllable in proper names 
 omitted, 29. 
 
 Florentine girls, their mode of dress cen- 
 sured, 10. 
 
 Fortune, ill, many ties, — good, few and 
 fragile ones, 22. 
 
 Fox (C. J.), his genius and many ac- 
 complishments, 270. 
 
 French, its "nasty nasalities," 62. 
 
 Friendship and Fortune, 115 ; metaphor- 
 ical description of, 287; has all the 
 attributes of love, except the bow, 
 quiver, and arrows. 
 
 Galeotto, present meaning of the ap- 
 pellation, 37. 
 
 Gargarelli, Maria, story of, 79. 
 
 Genius, flaw in the title-deeds, 104. 
 
 Germans, compared with the French, 72. 
 
 Ghibellines, Guelphs, and the " Decam- 
 eron," 102. 
 
 Girls, naturally pure-minded, 77. 
 
 Giovanna, queen, acquitted of crime by 
 the pope, 392. 
 
 Giovanni da Ravenna, interest of Pe- 
 trarca in, 397. 
 
 Giovanni Visconti, defies the pontificate, 
 
 393- 
 
 Glaston, Doctor, his admonition to the 
 clergy, 208; his advice to young men 
 in regard to poetry, 22S ; Sir Thomas 
 Lucy advises Shakspeare to study his 
 verse, 229. 
 
 Good out of evil, gift of elevated minds, 
 97 ; good things often passed and 
 forgotten, when lacking dignity and 
 beauty, 256. 
 
 Gough, Sir Silas, chaplain of Sir Thomas 
 Lucy, 151 , assists at the examination 
 of Shakspeare, 151 ; his skill in venison 
 tested, 152; threatens Shakspeare with 
 banishment, 153; urgent for the pris- 
 oner's committal, 155; suggests pair- 
 ing of the ears, and branding of the 
 forehead, 187 ; jealous of the reputa- 
 tion of his sermons, 198 ; his encoun- 
 ter of wit with Shakspeare, 204 ; quotes 
 the dean's song of the " Two Jacks," 
 230 ; his opinion on epitaphs, 234 ; 
 urges the abandonment of Hannah 
 Hathaway, 241 ; visits Hannah Hath- 
 
414 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 away's mother, 245 ; threatens to 
 force Shakspeare's father to prosecute 
 him for horse-stealing, 245 . 
 
 Greatness, pernicious to keep up the il- 
 lusion of in wicked men. 
 
 Great men, tutelar, 262. 
 
 Great thoughts, reappearance of, 104. 
 
 Grief, " great grief, few tears," 157. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphu?, the greatest king 
 the world ever beheld, 264. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hatred and pity, compared, 82. 
 Heads of confession, a mouthful, 132. 
 Heart and imagination, office of, in 
 
 poetry, 98. 
 Hell, inscription on portal of, 23. 
 Hemans, Mrs., reference to, 263 ; " Ivan " 
 
 and " Casablanca," 367. 
 Heroines, in Spanish convents, only 
 
 French, 280. 
 Heroism, some in Spanish cities, 280. 
 Historians, English, 262. 
 History, its part in criticism, 91. 
 Hofer, the greatness of his patriotism, 
 
 251 ; compared to Washington and 
 
 Kosciusco, 284 ; " the death of," 283- 
 
 285. 
 Holy Church, improvement upon con- 
 fession, "J"]. 
 Holy Virgin, worship of, 66 ; prayer to, 
 
 107. 
 Homer, lived prior to letters in Greece, 
 
 26. 
 Honor, laws of, in France, 214. 
 Horace, felicity in the choice of words, 
 
 94. 
 Horace's "Journey to Brundusium," 39. 
 Hymns to the Creator, earliest poetry, 
 
 25. 
 Hyperboreans, mounted instruments in 
 
 use, 27. 
 
 Ice, in summer, 66. 
 
 Ideas, their expression nearly the same 
 when they strike like chords of sym- 
 pathy, 256. 
 
 Imagination and fancy, backward flight 
 of, 36. 
 
 Imitation, not weakness but sympathy, 
 104. 
 
 Inez, a character in "Santander," 
 272-281. 
 
 Innocence, found only in little children, 
 
 67. 
 Intellectuality, compared with sympathy, 
 
 124. 
 Invective, office of, 104. 
 Italy, government of, 70 ; every man's 
 
 land, JT^ ; swarms with robbers, 391 ; 
 
 number and ability of her statesmen, 
 
 393- 
 
 Italian, advantages in versification com- 
 pared with the Latin, 52. 
 
 Italians, their good nature, 382. 
 
 J- 
 
 Jenner, his place as a benefactor, 259. 
 " Jeribohaniah," 295-297. 
 Jesus Christ, compared with Jupiter, 38. 
 Johnson, Dr., his prejudices, 335. 
 
 K. 
 
 King, should never be struck unless in 
 
 a vital part, 253. 
 Kosciusko, 284. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lampooners, character of, 92. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, his defence 
 against the "Quarterly Review," 267; 
 never called Bonaparte a " blockhead," 
 nor Pitt a "villain," nor Fox a 
 "scoundrel," nor Canning a "scamp," 
 268, 269 ; few writers less obnoxious 
 to rudeness, 270 ; remembers the fable 
 of Phsedrus, 270, 271. 
 
 Landseer, Edwin, exercises dominion 
 over all the beasts of the field, 399. 
 
 Laura, daughter of Audibert de No- 
 ves, 376 ; was married to Hugh de 
 Sade, 376 ; the passion of Petrarca 
 awakened on the marriage morn, 376; 
 the sonnets addressed to her, 376 ; 
 some doubted her existence, 377 ; her 
 name played upon by her lover, 378 ; 
 seldom met her lover, 379 ; excelled 
 all the ladies of her day in grace of 
 manner, 379 ; her life in danger, 379; 
 meets her lover, 379 ; three canzoni 
 on the eyes of Laura, the " Three 
 Graces," 380 ; Simone Memmi incorpo- 
 rates her features into his sacred com- 
 positions, 380; her portrait painted in 
 1339, when she was thirty-tvsro years old, 
 381 ; retains the charms of youth when 
 
INDEX. 
 
 415 
 
 the mother of nine children, 3S1; in- 
 formation of her is conveyed to her 
 lover, 385 ; reports of her melan- 
 choly, 3S6 ; is pleased with the return 
 of Petrarca, 386 ; Charles of Luxem- 
 burg salutes her at a ball, 38 7 ; excites 
 the envy of her lover, 38 7; in her 
 fortieth year, 387; final separation 
 of the lovers, 387; gazes upon the 
 bridal robe in which she captivated 
 the author of her immortality, 388 ; 
 her husband illiterate, coarse, morose, 
 388 ; news of her death conveyed to 
 Petrarca, 388 ; dies on the day and 
 the hour of their first meeting, — her 
 marriage morn, 388 ; third anniver- 
 sary of her death, 391 ; compared to a 
 Cariatid of stainless marble, 394 ; no 
 mention of her children by her lover, 
 396; celebrated in the dialogues of 
 Petrarca, 400 ; sonnets on her death, 
 408, 409. 
 
 Leghorn, the name, how originated, 373. 
 
 Logic, an old shrew, 13. 
 
 Love, the, of Petrarca, Boccaccio, and 
 Dante, 96. 
 
 Lucretius, vituperation of, 104 ; his vig- 
 orous verses, 370, 
 
 Lucy, Sir Thomas, his examination of 
 Shakspeare, 151 ; threatens to rid 
 the country of him, 153; examines 
 Joseph Carnaby, 159; commands the 
 papers taken from the prisoner to be 
 read, 167 ; advises the lad to study, 
 168 ; criticisms on " The Maid's 
 Lament," 171 ; misconstrues Shak- 
 speare's dialogue between two shep- 
 herds, 1 75 ; his exhortation to Shak- 
 speare, 1 76 ; examines Euseby Treen, 
 a witness, 178; reproves the prisoner 
 for personating royal characters, 183 ; 
 expounds the dignity of bucks, swans, 
 and herons, 185 ; is minded to save 
 Shakspeare, 186; good saying attrib- 
 uted to, by Shakespeare, 187 ; his dia- 
 logue with the prisoner in regard to 
 Dr. Glaston, 191 ; inquires if Shak- 
 speare is popishly inclined, 202 ; de- 
 clares to Sir Silas that the boy shall 
 not be hanged, 205 ; his verses on 
 Chloe, 219 ; on the same with a quince, 
 222 ; with a gillyflower, 223 ; compli- 
 mented by Queen Elizabeth on his 
 verses, 224 ; quotes Sir Everard Star- 
 key's lines on FannyCarew, 231; quotes 
 Mistress Anne Nanfan's answer to his 
 poetical address, 237; and his reply, 
 
 238; insists upon Shakspeare's aban- 
 doning Hannah Hathaway, 242 ; is 
 disappointed, 243. 
 
 M. 
 
 Madonna Laura, 112. 
 
 " Maid's Lament, The," contents of the 
 second paper found in the pockets of 
 Shakspeare, 169. 
 
 Man of genius, avoid censure of, before 
 the young, 89. 
 
 Man, guiltless, may feel the pangs of the 
 guilty, 157. 
 
 Manufacturing town of England, con- 
 tains more crime than the four con- 
 tinents, 131. 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 263. 
 
 Marsyas, flayed by Apollo, 89. 
 
 Mazarine, ruler of France, twisted about 
 Cromwell's finger, 254. 
 
 Memmi, Simone, character of his art, 
 380 ; paints the portrait of Laura, 3S1. 
 
 Mermaid, song of, 165. 
 
 Merman, song of, 166. 
 
 Meretrice, 94. 
 
 Merit, its origin, 382. 
 
 Merits, first discovered among the 
 church-yard nettles, 43. 
 
 Milton, the energy and elegance of his 
 English, 256 ; style, stateliness of, 
 257; compared to Pohtian, 330; his 
 " Paradise Regained," 333, 334, 336; 
 Wharton's and Johnson's opinion of, 
 335 ; " Treatise on Prelaty," 336; his 
 extraordinary oversight, 337 n. ; com- 
 pared to Homer, 337 ; to Catullus, 339 ; 
 " Comus," extravagance of, 339. 
 
 "Miser Catulle" and '' Sirmio," most 
 perfect poems in the Latin tongue, 52. 
 
 Monarchy universal, not practicable, 67. 
 
 Moscow, its jealousy of St. Petersburg, 
 
 253- 
 Mugnone villa of Dante, 90. 
 Muscovite empire, its extremities easily 
 
 broken off, 253. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nafan, Mistress, her answer to Sir 
 Thomas Lucy's poetical idea, 237. 
 
 Names, the spelling of, not to be rashly 
 meddled with, 374. 
 
 Napoleon, why Frenchmen honor him, 
 26^. 
 
4i6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Nations, discussion of, 70, 72. 
 Needles, in the age of Elizabeth, 168 «. 
 Nelson, Admiral, 263. 
 Nero, the pestilential dogstar, 9 ; mo- 
 tive for burning Rome, 9. 
 Nightingale, estimation of, in Italy, 85. 
 
 O. 
 
 OuDiNOT, his grenadiers frighten the 
 
 menagerie of monkeys, 254. 
 Ovid, had the finest imagination of all 
 
 the ancient Romans, 51 ; truest tact 
 
 in judging poetry, 51. 
 
 Papacy, the, usurpation of, 65 ; cause 
 of Italian misery, 70. 
 
 Parent, duties of, 396. 
 
 Parliament, issue of Act of Grace in re- 
 gard to eating, 129. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, how popular, 260 ; 
 changed his sentiments honestly and 
 always for the better, 260 ; refused the 
 title of nobility, 260; not enriched by 
 the spoils of his country, 260 ; con- 
 trasted with Walpole, 260 ; a man 
 virtuous and friendly in private, 260 ; 
 a monument proposed at public ex- 
 pense, 261 ; schools and almshouses 
 the best inscription to his memory, 
 261. 
 
 " Pentameron," reasons for publishing 
 it, ix ; the booksellers say it must be 
 called by this title, ix ; translated by 
 the best hand, ix ; the five dialogues 
 written by neither of the interlocutors, 
 xi ; the "Interviews" took place in 
 Boccaccio's villa, xi ; authentic ac- 
 count of what passed between the 
 author's countrymen, Giovanni and 
 Francesco, xi ; death of Giovanni three 
 years after the "Interviews," xii ; 
 death of Francesco three months later, 
 xii. 
 
 Persia conquered yet rises again, 35. 
 
 Petrarca, Francesco, his banishment 
 from Florence, 2 ; malice and de- 
 traction strangers to him, 4 ; views 
 on the structure of sentences, 12 ; 
 compares the Italian with the Latin 
 language, 12 ; his advice to Boccaccio 
 in regard to style, 13 ; remarks on 
 men of high and low stature, 13 ; 
 
 opinion of great painters, poetry, and 
 criticism, 14 ; his idea of what is 
 Ciceronian, 14 ; criticism of " Lisa- 
 betta and Gismonda," 18 ; good poem, 
 definition of, 19; assertion that the 
 poet builds better than he knows, 19 ; 
 is crowned in the capital of the 
 Christian world, 21 ; the ties which 
 bound him to Dante, 22 ; banishment 
 of the two families on the same day, 
 22 ; saw Dante but once, 22 ; views 
 on the subjugation of nations, 30 ; 
 gives the Florentine method of pro- 
 per names, 30 ; view of the Church, 
 31 ; memory of Laura, 33 ; reflections 
 on love, 34 ; gives the view of the 
 ancients in regard to indecency, 44 ; 
 comparison of Virgil and Dante, 51 ; 
 Sunday morning at Certaldo, 54-59 ; 
 is called the Crowned Martyr, 60 ; 
 quaternion, 95 ; found dead in his 
 library, 135 ; last words of, 135 ; his 
 daughter, Ermissenda, 136 ; reasons 
 for not Anglicizing his name, .372 ; 
 his ancestry, 374 ; changes his name 
 from Petracco, 374 ; taken to Vau- 
 cluse, J 75 ; his early love of the 
 classics, 375 ; educated at Montpelier, 
 375 ; first attempts at poetry, 376 ; 
 poetry neglected by Italian scholars, 
 377 ; his " Africa," its barrenness, 
 377; invited to Naples, 381 ; crowned 
 laureate at Rome,' 382 ; ill treated by 
 the populace, 382 ; is alsove the poets 
 of his age, 382 ; his resemblance to 
 Abelard, 383 ; love of liberty, 384 ; his 
 dream, 385 ; made private chaplain to 
 Queen Giovanna, 386 ; declines the 
 office of Apostolic secretary, 386 ; 
 leaves Naples, 386 ; is disappointed in 
 Rienzi, 387 ; takes his farewell of 
 Laura, 387 ; visits his birthplace, 
 391 ; honors paid to him, 391 ; his 
 property restored by the Republic of 
 Florence, 391 ; is regarded as a wiz- 
 ard by pope Innocent, 392 ; his em- 
 bassy by the emperor Charles, 393 ; 
 resides at Linterno, 393 ; is jealous of 
 Dante's genius, 394 ; his children, 
 lack of interest in, 395 ; illness at 
 Venice, 398. 
 
 Phffidrus, fable of, 270. 
 
 Philosophers, deserve a monument, 262 ; 
 in most places unwelcome, 262. 
 
 Pievano Grigi to the reader, 128. 
 
 Pindar, and Attic tragedians, method of, 
 13- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 417 
 
 Pitt, wars with France to please the 
 king, 269. 
 
 Platonic, its true meaning, 383. 
 
 "Flatonis Principia," poem, 331. 
 
 Pleasure, sensation of health after long 
 confinement, 1 1 2. 
 
 " Plica Polonica," 89. 
 
 Poetry, its origin, 25 ; hymns to the 
 Creator, 25 ; early hymns called upon 
 the Deity for vengeance, 25 ; Chryses 
 in the Iliad, 25; David in the 
 Psalms, 25 ; level countries unfavor- 
 able to its production, 27 ; beauties as 
 well as blemishes considered, 37 ; com- 
 pared with music, 48 ; like game, im- 
 forbidden to persons of condition, 214. 
 
 Poet, what constitutes a great one, 103. 
 
 Poets, those gone only warm us, those 
 that remain fever us, 21 ; their mu- 
 tual estimates, 136 ; compared to 
 adders, 168. 
 
 Pope, infallibility of, 66. 
 
 Popery, praying for the dead, 1 70. 
 
 Potency of the French tragic verse, 216. 
 
 Power, one-man, 8. 
 
 Praise, echo of, 14; and censure, the 
 generous and ungenerous usef of, 21. 
 
 Prayers for rain on every Sabbath, 130. 
 
 Priesthood, its iniquity tending to the 
 utter abandonment of religion, 31. 
 
 Princes, their one apothegm, 68. 
 
 O. 
 
 " Quarterly Review," Landor's con- 
 troversy with, 268. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, her talk with Earl of 
 Essex, 146. 
 
 R. 
 
 Raffaellino degli Alfani, story 
 of, 121. 
 
 Republics, spirit of, omnipresent, 68. 
 
 Rhetoric, escape from, 13. 
 
 Richard de Bury, his great learning, 85. 
 
 Richard the Thhd, his service to the 
 nation, 264. 
 
 Rienzi, his vanity, 389 ; likeness to 
 Napoleon, 389 ; regret for his fall, 
 390 ; imprisoned at Prague, 392 ; his 
 restoration to power, 392. 
 
 Rodney, Admiral, 263. 
 
 Rome, accursed, doomed to eternal ster- 
 ility, 34 ; goose only not degenerated. 
 
 35 ; last city to rise from the dead, 
 35; wretched days of, 71. 
 Romily, Samuel, the sincerest patriot of 
 his day, 260. 
 
 Saint Francesco and Poverty, 21. 
 
 Saint Simon Peter's divinity, examina- 
 tion of the poet, 64. 
 
 Santander, a story of, 272-2S2. 
 
 Seniscalco, absolute ruler, yet absolute 
 master of his time, 41. 
 
 Sentence, most beautiful in all Latinity, 
 
 94- 
 
 Ser Geofreddo (Chaucer), greatest genius 
 of English literature, 87. 
 
 Shakspeare, William, is one of four pre- 
 eminently great men, 137; cause of 
 his hegira, 141 ; motive in writing, 141 ; 
 criticism of his Jew, 147 ; attends thefu- 
 neral of Spenser, 147 ; not permitted to 
 throw his pen and poem into the grave 
 with the other poets, 148 ; is recognized 
 as player, not as author, 148 ; Jacob's 
 letter concerning him concluded, 148 ; 
 is raised to the company of the Queen's 
 Players, 148; his examination, 151 ; 
 brought into the great hall at Charle- 
 cote, 151 ; accused of deer stealing, 
 151 ; venison table produced against 
 him, 151 ; his appeal to Sir Thomas, 
 151; view of prayer, 151 ; retort to 
 Sir Silas Gough, 156 ; dialogue be- 
 tween him. Sir Thomas, and Sir Silas, 
 157; he begs to be committed, 157; 
 witnesses summoned against him, 15S ; 
 he finds a bit of discrepancy in the 
 testimony, 159; outline of plays found, 
 164, 71. ; recites " The Mermaid," and 
 "The Merman," 166; papers found 
 in his pockets, 167; "The Owlet," 
 167 ; is advised by Sir Thomas Lucy, 
 168; his poem "The Maid's La- 
 ment," 169; is threatened with the 
 gallows, 172 ; he moves them to tears, 
 174; is accused of counterfeiting kings 
 and queens, 183; it goeth against Sir 
 Thomas to hang him, 185 ; his com- 
 mitment proposed, 186 ; his reply to 
 Sir Thomas deserves letters of gold, 
 187; Sir Thomas says he shall not 
 die, 187; Sir Silas suggests pairing of 
 the ears and branding of the forehead, 
 187 ; Sir Thomas begs to know how 
 he may cease to disgrace the county. 
 
 27 
 
4i8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 1S7; he points out the conflicting tes- 
 timony, 1S7 ; makes his own plea, 
 18S ; flaw in tlie testimony of Treen, 
 189; is accused of suborning the wit- 
 nesses, 190 ; his narration, 192 ; dia- 
 logue between him and the Oxford 
 preacher, 193 ; dines with Dr. Glas- 
 ton, 194; reports the sermon of Dr. 
 Glaston to Sir Thomas, 197 ; not po- 
 pishly inclined, 202 ; encounter of wit 
 with Sir Silas, 203, 204 ; is advised by 
 Sir Thomas Lucy to copy the French 
 drama and avoid tragedy and comedy, 
 215 ; his verses on a "Sweet Brier," 
 220 ; lines to Sir Thomas, 224 ; ad- 
 vice in case of sparing his life, 229 ; 
 song of the " Two Jacks," 230; his 
 release commanded by Sir Thomas, 
 242 ; is warned against the company 
 of Hannah Hathaway, 242 ; the Book 
 of Life placed in his hands, he must 
 touch it with both lips, 242 ; is com- 
 manded to swear, 243 ; his vow not to 
 forget or desert his Hannah, 243 ; in- 
 cites the wrath of Sir Silas and Sir 
 Thomas, 243 ; his sudden flight, 244, 
 twelve days after the flight, 245 ; Han- 
 nah's doleful plight about him, 245 ; 
 his mother and Hannah admonished 
 to forget him, 245 ; the sorrel mare 
 on which he fled his father's, 245 ; ac- 
 cused of horse-stealing, 245 ; his father 
 bound over as his prosecutor at the 
 next assizes, 245 ; the futurity of his 
 genius, 255 ; is called the only uni- 
 versal poet, 367. 
 
 Shelley, reference to, 383, «. 
 
 Sidney, Philip, 263. 
 
 Simon and Master Adam, dialogue be- 
 tween, 39. 
 
 Sincerity, hatred of, 112. 
 
 Solitude and Nature, influence of, 84. 
 
 Sonnet, the, adapted to the languor of 
 love, 48 ; how poetasters are using it, 
 49. 
 
 Sophocles, i^Eschylus, Homer, 98. 
 
 Southey, his hostility to Bonaparte, 269 ; 
 studious of classical models, 368 ; mer- 
 its of his "Roderick" as compared 
 with "Marmion," 368. 
 
 Sovereigns, their relative greatness, 262. 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, fugitive from Ire- 
 land, 146 ; compared with ancient and 
 modern poets, 146 ; interview between 
 Spenser and Essex, 146 ; his death, 
 146. 
 
 Statues, places most suitable for, 259. 
 
 Story, two ways of completion, 129. 
 Style, usually foUovys the conformation 
 of the mind, 257. 
 
 Tautology, bad in all tongues and all 
 times, 47 ; Psalms of David, 47. 
 
 Tennyson's "Godiva," 323. 
 
 Theocritus, Idyls of, 301-324; best 
 German editions of, 301 ; doubts of 
 genuineness, 301 ; sketch of his life, 
 304 ; imitated by Virgil, 305 ; by Mil- 
 ton, 307 ; compared with Milton, 308 ; 
 Virgil's translations, 312 ; has little 
 sublimity, 319; beautiful thoughts in 
 his Pastorals, 324. 
 
 Theology, the mother of violence, 262 ; 
 kings were her lackeys, 262. 
 
 Thomson, James, beautiful descriptions 
 in his "Seasons," 323; deficient in 
 delineation of character, 323. 
 
 Thought, does not separate man from 
 the brutes, — brutes think, 256. 
 
 Thoughts, renovating and cheerful, 35. 
 
 Thrace and Scythia, lands of fable, 26. 
 
 Thracians, worn-out wonders, 27. 
 
 Time, powerless over thoughts in their 
 cabinet of words, loi ; reckoned in 
 sleep as in heaven, 118. 
 
 Tower at Certaldo, description of, 117. 
 
 Towns, barbarous, , do not know their 
 own great men, — the towns of Italy 
 reverence theirs, 88. 
 
 Tradition, we admire by it, 14. 
 
 Treen, Euseby, a witness against Shak- 
 speare, 178; his evidence, 179; his 
 fright on beholding the deer-stealers, 
 182. 
 
 Truth, only unpleasant in its novelty, 
 46 ; gagged by theology, 262. 
 
 U. 
 
 Urban, Pope, fixes his residence at 
 
 Rome, 397. 
 Usurpers, often the greatest and best of 
 
 princes, 264. 
 
 V. 
 
 Venice, is among cities what Shak- 
 
 speare is among men, 285. 
 Verses, stolen, get bruised and bitten 
 
 like stolen apples, 103. 
 Virgil and Hesiod compared, 47 ; Virgil 
 
INDEX. 
 
 419 
 
 frost-bitten, 47 ; his kindness to dumb 
 
 creatures, 53. 
 Virtue cannot drive out sickness and 
 
 sorrow, 396. 
 Vow, fulfilment of, 8. 
 
 W. 
 
 Walpole, Robert, his talent for busi- 
 ness, 260. 
 
 Warnings, given at all times of life, 43. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 263 ; his de- 
 spatches, knowledge, sense, and wis- 
 dom displayed in, 267; cannot make 
 his actions greater than they are, 26S ; 
 Landor commends the purity, concise- 
 ness, and manhness of his style, 268. 
 
 Westminster Abbey, not suitable for 
 statues of warriors and statesmen, 261. 
 
 Wilkes, John, excited more enthusiasm 
 than Hampden, 264. 
 
 Women, foibles of, 11. 
 
 Words, last of the preacher and the 
 hanged, 206. 
 
 Wordsworth, William^ his " Michael," 
 323 ; beauty of his idyls in the " Ex- 
 cursion," 323 : always contemplative, 
 but never creative, 367. 
 
 Work and recreation, offices compared, 
 
 10!. 
 
 Writers, celebrated, how to speak of 
 them publicly, 64. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zeno, worthy a place in the gallery of 
 Lucullus, 262. 
 
 University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 

p|Sl.iiffl 
 
 -iii...^'