pressions, the intentional licentiousness
of which is but imperfectly veiled by an attempt at humour.

Boccaccio has been accused of plagiarism, particularly by French
critics, who correctly state that the subjects of many stories in the
_Decameron_ are borrowed from their literature. A similar objection
might be raised against Chaucer, Shakespeare, Goethe (in _Faust_), and
indeed most of the master minds of all nations. Power of invention is
not the only nor even the chief criterion of a great poet. He takes his
subjects indiscriminately from his own fancy, or from the consciousness
of his and other nations. Stories float about in the air, known to all
yet realized by few; the poet gathers their _disjecta membra_ into an
organic whole, and this he inspires and calls into life with the breath
of his genius. It is in this sense that Boccaccio is the creator of
those innumerable beautiful types and stories, which have since become
household words amongst civilized nations. No author can equal him in
these contributions to the store of international literature. There are
indeed few great poets who have not in some way become indebted to the
inexhaustible treasure of Boccaccio's creativeness. One of the greatest
masterpieces of German literature, Lessing's _Nathan the Wise_, contains
a story from Boccaccio (_Decameron_, Day 1st, tale iii.), and the list
of English poets who have drawn from the same source comprises, among
many others, the names of Chaucer, Lydgate, Dryden, Keats and Tennyson.

For ten years Boccaccio continued to reside in Florence, leaving the
city only occasionally on diplomatic missions or on visits to his
friends. His fame in the meantime began to spread far and wide, and his
_Decameron_, in particular, was devoured by the fashionable ladies and
gentlemen of the age. About 1360 he seems to have retired from the
turbulent scenes of Florence to his native Certaldo, the secluded charms
of which he describes with rapture. In the following year took place
that strange turning-point in Boccaccio's career which is generally
described as his conversion. It seems that a Carthusian monk came to him
while at Certaldo charged with a posthumous message from another monk of
the same order, to the effect that if Boccaccio did not at once abandon
his godless ways in life and literature his death would ensue after a
short time. It is also mentioned that the revelation to the friar on his
deathbed of a secret known only