the letters of Cicero were in Latin, and with them Petrarch wished to have his own compared. He was, evidently, always thinking more of the public than of his correspondent; and, in fact, the public were often in possession of the letter before his friend. The bearer of an elegantly-written epistle, well knew that he should flatter the vanity of the writer by communicating it; and he therefore often openly read it, and even gave copies of it, before it reached its destination. We find, in his correspondence, that several letters were lost in consequence of their too great fame.

It is difficult to say, whether the extended reputation which Petrarch enjoyed, during the course of a long life, is more glorious to himself, or to his age. We have elsewhere mentioned the faults of this celebrated man; that subtlety of intellect which frequently led him to neglect true feeling, and to abandon himself to a false taste; and that vanity which too often induced him to call himself the friend of cruel and contemptible princes, because they flattered him. But, before we part with him, let us once more take a view of those great qualities which rendered him the first man of his age;, that ardent love for science, to which he consecrated his life, his powers, and his faculties; and that glorious enthusiasm for all that is high and noble in the poetry, the eloquence, the laws, and the manners of antiquity. This enthusiasm is the mark of a superior mind. To such a mind, the hero becomes greater by being contemplated; while a narrow and sterile intellect reduces the greatest men to its own level, and measures them by its own standard. This enthusiasm was felt by Petrarch, not only for distinguished men, but for every thing that is great in nature, for religion, for philosophy, for patriotism, and for freedom. He was the friend and patron of the unfortunate Rienzi, who, in the fourteenth century, awakened for a moment the ancient spirit and fortunes of Rome. He appreciated the fine arts as well as poetry; and he contributed to make the Romans acquainted with the rich monuments of antiquity, as well as with the manuscripts, which they possessed. His passions were tinctured with a sense of religion which induced him to worship all the glorious works of the Deity, with which the earth abounds; and he believed, that in the woman whom he loved, he saw the messenger of that Heaven, which thus revealed to him its beauty.

He enabled his contemporaries to estimate the full value of the purity of a passion, so modest and so religious as his own; while, to his countrymen, he gave a language worthy of rivalling those of Greece and of Rome, with which, by his means, they had become familiar. Softening and ornamenting his own language by the adoption of proper rules, he suited it to the expression of every feeling, and changed, in some degree, its essence. He inspired his age with that enthusiastic love for the beauty, and that veneration for the study of antiquity, which gave it a new character, and which determined that of succeeding times. It was, it may be said, in the name of grateful Europe, that Petrarch, on the eighth of April, 1341, was crowned by the senator of Rome, in the Capitol; and this triumph, the most glorious which was ever decreed to man, was not disproportioned to the authority which this great poet was destined to maintain over future ages.

CHAPTER XI.

BOCCACCIO.-ITALIAN LITERATURE, AT THE CLOSE OF THE FOURTEENTH, AND DURING THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

THE fourteenth century forms a brilliant æra in Italian literature, highly honourable to the human intellect, and is distinguished, beyond any other period, for the creative powers of genius which it exhibited. The germ of literature also existed in other countries. The poetry of this epoch which has survived to us, possesses a charm, derived from the dawn of civilization, in its novelty, vigour, and freshness of imagination; but it belongs rather to the age which gave it birth than to any individual. The songs of the South of France, the chivalrous tales of the North of Europe, the romances of Spain, and the pastorals of Portugal, bear a national character, which pleasingly reminds us of the spirit and manners of the time; but they do not strike us as the work of a powerful genius, nor awake in us an attachment to any individual poet. It was not thus with Italy. The culture of the mind was, at least, as far advanced there, as in France and Spain; but in the midst of their numerous con-temporaries, three writers, who, each in his own sphere, gave

a new impulse to their native tongue, were especially remarkable. These men afforded models which were ardently followed in other countries, and raised to themselves memorials which the most distant posterity will regard with delight. At the opening of this century, Dante gave to Europe his great poem; the first which, since the dawn of letters, could bear a comparison with the ancient epic. The lyric muse again strung her lyre at the call of Petrarch; and Boccaccio was the creator of a style of prose, harmonious, flexible, and engaging, and alike suitable to the most elevated and to the most playful subjects. The last mentioned member of this illustrious triumvirate cannot, indeed, be ranked so high as his two contemporaries, since the prose style, of which he was the author, is not of so elevated a class as the efforts of the muse, and the formation of the language of common life seems less to require the higher powers of genius. His chief work, moreover, is sullied by immorality; and the eloquence of his expression is too frequently allied to an improper levity. Yet that energy of mind which enabled him to give birth to a style of prose at once so pure, so elegant, and so harmonious, when no model for it existed either in the Italian, or in any other language of the age, is not less deserving of admiration, than those inspirations of genius which awoke and gave rules. to the higher strains of poetry.

Giovanni Boccaccio was born at Paris, in 1313, and was the natural son of a merchant of Florence, himself born at Certaldo, a castle in the Val d'Elsa, in the Florentine territory. His father had intended him for a commercial life, but before devoting him to it, indulged him with a literary education. From his earliest years, Boccaccio evinced a decided predilection for letters. He wrote verses, and manifested an extreme aversion to trade. He revolted equally at the prospect of a commercial life, and the study of the canon law, which his father was desirous of his undertaking. To oblige his father, however, he made several journeys of business; but he brought back with him, instead of a love for his employment, a more extended information, and an increased passion for study. He at length obtained permission to devote himself wholly to literature, and fixed on Naples as his place of residence, where letters then flourished under the powerful protection of Robert, the reigning monarch. He

was quickly initiated in all the sciences at that time taught. He acquired also the rudiments of the Greek tongue, which, though then spoken in Calabria, was an abstruse study with the early scholars. In 1341, he assisted at the celebrated examination of Petrarch, which preceded his coronation at Rome; and, from that time, a friendship arose between him and the poet, which terminated only with their lives. At this period, Boccaccio, distinguished no less for the elegance of his person than for the brilliancy of his wit, and devoted to pleasure, formed an attachment to a natural daughter of King Robert, named Maria, who for several years had been the wife of a Neapolitan gentleman. This lady he has celebrated in his writings, under the name of Fiammetta. In the attachment of Boccaccio, we must not look for that purity or delicacy which distinguished Petrarch in his love for Laura. This princess had been brought up in the most corrupt court of Italy; she herself partook of its spirit, and it is to her depraved taste that the exceptionable parts of the Decameron, a work undertaken by Boccaccio in compliance with her request, and for her amusement, are to be attributed. On his side, Boccaccio probably loved her as much from vanity as from real passion; for, although distinguished for her beauty, her grace, and her wit, as much as for her rank, she does not seem to have exercised any extraordinary influence on his life; and neither the conduct nor the writings of Boccaccio afford evidence of a sincere or profound attachment. Boccaccio quitted Naples in 1342, to return to Florence. He came back again in 1344, and returned for the last time in 1350. From that year, he fixed himself in his native country, where his reputation had already assigned him a distinguished rank. His life was thenceforth occupied by his public employments in several embassies; by the duties which his increasing friendship to Petrarch imposed on him; and by the constant and indefatigable labours to which he devoted himself for the advancement of letters, the discovery of ancient manuscripts, the elucidation of subjects of antiquity, the introduction of the Greek language into Italy, and the composition of his numerous works. After taking the ecclesiastical habit, in 1361, he died at Certaldo, in the mansion of his ancestors, on the twenty-first of December, 1375, at the age of sixty-two.

The Decameron, the work to which Boccaccio is at the present day indebted for his highest celebrity, is a collection of one hundred Novels or Tales. He has ingeniously united them, under the supposition of a party formed in the dreadful pestilence of 1348, composed of a number of cavaliers, and young, intelligent, and accomplished women, retired to a delightful part of the country, to escape the contagion. It was there agreed that each person, during the space of ten days, should narrate, daily, a fresh story. The company consisted of ten persons, and thus the number of stories amounted to one hundred. The description of the enchanting country in the neighbourhood of Florence, where these gay recluses had established themselves; the record of their walks, their numerous fêtes, and their repasts, afforded Boccaccio an opportunity of displaying all the treasures of his powerful and easy pen. These stories, which are varied with infinite art, as well in subject as in style, from the most pathetic and tender to the most sportive, and, unfortunately, the most licentious, exhibit a wonderful power of narration; and his description of the plague in Florence, which serves as an introduction to them, may be ranked with the most celebrated historical descriptions which have descended to us. The perfect truth of colouring; the exquisite choice of circumstances, calculated to produce the deepest impression, and which place before our eyes the most repulsive scenes, without exciting disgust; and the emotion of the writer, which insensibly pervades every part, give to this picture that true eloquence of history which, in Thucydides, animates the relation of the plague in Athens. Boccaccio had, doubtless, this model before his eyes; but the events, to which he was a witness, had vividly impressed his mind, and it was the faithful delineation of what he had seen, rather than the classical imitation, which served to develope his talent.

We

One cannot but pause in astonishment, at the choice of so gloomy an introduction to effusions of so gay a nature. are amazed at such an intoxicated enjoyment of life, under the threatened approach of death; at such irrepressible desire in the bosom of man to divert the mind from sorrow; and at the torrent of mirth which inundates the heart, in the midst of horrors which should seem to wither it up. As long as we feel delight in nourishing feelings that are in unison with