emolish
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.

_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 preserving 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 adulation: 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 s