who had certainly studied the gospel, must have been conscious that he
not only was inhumane, but that he betrayed a more vindictive spirit
than any pope or prelate who is enshrined within the fretwork of his
golden grating.

_Boccaccio._ Unhappily, his strong talon had grown into him, and it
would have pained him to suffer amputation. This eagle, unlike
Jupiter's, never loosened the thunderbolt from it under the influence
of harmony.

_Petrarca._ The only good thing we can expect in such minds and
tempers is good poetry: let us at least get that; and, having it, let
us keep and value it. If you had never written some wanton stories,
you would never have been able to show the world how much wiser and
better you grew afterward.

_Boccaccio._ Alas! if I live, I hope to show it. You have raised my
spirits: and now, dear Francesco! do say a couple of prayers for me,
while I lay together the materials of a tale; a right merry one, I
promise you. Faith! it shall amuse you, and pay decently for the
prayers; a good honest litany-worth. I hardly know whether I ought to
have a nun in it: do you think I may?

_Petrarca._ Cannot you do without one?

_Boccaccio._ No; a nun I must have: say nothing against her; I can
more easily let the abbess alone. Yet Frate Biagio ... that Frate
Biagio, who never came to visit me but when he thought I was at
extremities or asleep.... Assuntina! are you there?

_Petrarca._ No; do you want her?

_Boccaccio._ Not a bit. That Frate Biagio has heightened my pulse when
I could not lower it again. The very devil is that Frate for
heightening pulses. And with him I shall now make merry ... God
willing ... in God's good time ... should it be His divine will to
restore me! which I think He has begun to do miraculously. I seem to
be within a frog's leap of well again; and we will presently have some
rare fun in my _Tale of the Frate_.

_Petrarca._ Do not openly name him.

_Boccaccio._ He shall recognize himself by one single expression. He
said to me, when I was at the worst:

'Ser Giovanni! it would not be much amiss (with permission!) if you
begin to think (at any spare time), just a morsel, of eternity.'

'Ah! Fra Biagio!' answered I, contritely, 'I never heard a sermon of
yours but I thought of it seriously and uneasily, long before the
discourse was over.'

'So must all,' replied he, 'and yet few have the grace to own it.'

Now mind, Francesco! if it should please the Lord to call me u