in this part of the work, betrays a
deplorable want of it.

_Petrarca._ Perfection of poetry! The greater is my wonder 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 cancelling
it, if this had been his intention. Much however as I admire his
vigour and severity of style in the description of Ugolino, I
acknowledge with you that I do not discover so much imagination, so
much creative power, as in the Francesca. I find indeed 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 hospitals, schools of anatomy, will afford
us nearly the same sensations, 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
always is in Aeschylus 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._ Prithee, 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 indiscriminately.
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 entrusted 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 overs