have been contented in Tuscany itself, even
had his enemies left him unmolested. Were I to write on his model a
tripartite poem, I think it should be entitled, _Earth, Italy, and
Heaven_.

_Petrarca._ You will never give yourself the trouble.

_Boccaccio._ I should not succeed.

_Petrarca._ Perhaps not: but you have done very much, and may be able
to do very much more.

_Boccaccio._ Wonderful is it to me, when I consider that an infirm and
helpless creature, as I am, should be capable of laying thoughts up in
their cabinets of words, which Time, as he rushes by, with the
revolutions of stormy and destructive years, can never move from their
places. On this coarse mattress, one among the homeliest in the fair
at Impruneta, is stretched an old burgess of Certaldo, of whom perhaps
more will be known hereafter than we know of the Ptolemies and the
Pharaohs; while popes and princes are lying as unregarded as the fleas
that are shaken out of the window. Upon my life, Francesco! to think
of this is enough to make a man presumptuous.

_Petrarca._ No, Giovanni! not when the man thinks justly of it, as
such a man ought to do, and must. For so mighty a power over Time, who
casts all other mortals under his, comes down to us from a greater;
and it is only if we abuse the victory that it were better we had
encountered a defeat. Unremitting care must be taken that nothing soil
the monuments we are raising: sure enough we are that nothing can
subvert, and nothing but our negligence, or worse than negligence,
efface them. Under the glorious lamp entrusted to your vigilance, one
among the lights of the world, which the ministering angels of our God
have suspended for His service, let there stand, with unclosing eyes,
Integrity, Compassion, Self-denial.

_Boccaccio._ These are holier and cheerfuller images than Dante has
been setting up before us. I hope every thesis in dispute among his
theologians will be settled ere I set foot among them. I like Tuscany
well enough: it answers all my purposes for the present: and I am
without the benefit of those preliminary studies which might render me
a worthy auditor of incomprehensible wisdom.

_Petrarca._ I do not wonder you are attached to Tuscany. Many as have
been your visits and adventures in other parts, you have rendered it
pleasanter and more interesting than any: and indeed we can scarcely
walk in any quarter from the gates of Florence without the
recollection of some witty or