literature inspires, and by
a reverence for that posterity which they knew would concern itself with
their affairs.

It was on a journey to Ravenna that BOCCACCIO first heard the news of
PETRARCH'S abandonment of his country, when he thus vehemently addressed
his brother-genius:--

"I would be silent, but I cannot: my reverence commands silence, but my
indignation speaks. How has it happened that Silvanus (under this name he
conceals Petrarch) has forgotten his dignity, the many conversations we
had together on the state of Italy, his hatred of the archbishop
(Visconti), his love of solitude and freedom, so necessary for study, and
has resolved to imprison the Muses at that court? Whom may we trust again,
if Silvanus, who once branded _Il Visconti_ as the Cruel, a Polyphemus, a
Cyclop, has avowed himself his friend, and placed his neck under the yoke
of him whose audacity, and pride, and tyranny, he so deeply abhorred? How
has Visconti obtained that which King Robert, which the pontiff, the
emperor, the King of France, could not? Am I to conclude that you accepted
this favour from a disdain of your fellow-citizens, who once indeed
scorned you, but who have reinstated you in the paternal patrimony of
which you have been deprived? I do not disapprove of a just indignation;
but I take Heaven to witness that I believe that no man, whoever he may
be, rightly and honestly can labour against his country, whatever be the
injury he has received. You will gain nothing by opposing me in this
opinion; for if stirred up by the most just indignation you become the
friend of the enemy of your country, unquestionably you will not spur him
on to war, nor assist him by your arm, nor by your counsel; yet how
can you avoid rejoicing with him, when you bear of the ruins, the
conflagrations, the imprisonments, death, and rapine, which he shall
spread among us?"

Such was the bold appeal to elevated feelings, and such the keen reproach
inspired by that confidential freedom which can only exist in the
intercourse of great minds. The literary friendship, or rather adoration
of BOCCACCIO for PETRARCH, was not bartered at the cost of his patriotism:
and it is worthy of our notice that PETRARCH, whose personal injuries from
an ungenerous republic were rankling in his mind, and whom even the
eloquence of Boccaccio could not disunite from his protector Visconti, yet
received the ardent reproaches of his friend without anger, though not
without m