nation. In cleanliness he is a very nun; albeit in
that quality which lies between cleanliness and godliness, there is a
smack of Fra Biagio about him. What is that book in your hand?

_Petrarca._ My breviary.

_Boccaccio._ Well, give me mine too ... there, on the little table in
the corner, under the glass of primroses. We can do nothing better.

_Petrarca._ What prayer were you looking for? let me find it.

_Boccaccio._ I don't know how it is: I am scarcely at present in a
frame of mind for it. We are of one faith: the prayers of the one will
do for the other: and I am sure, if you omitted my name, you would say
them all over afresh. I wish you could recollect in any book as dreamy
a thing to entertain me as I have been just repeating. We have had
enough of Dante: I believe few of his beauties have escaped us: and
small faults, which we readily pass by, are fitter for small folks, as
grubs are the proper bait for gudgeons.

_Petrarca._ I have had as many dreams as most men. We are all made up
of them, as the webs of the spider are particles of her own vitality.
But how infinitely less do we profit by them! I will relate to you,
before we separate, one among the multitude of mine, as coming the
nearest to the poetry of yours, and as having been not totally useless
to me. Often have I reflected on it; sometimes with pensiveness, with
sadness never.

_Boccaccio._ Then, Francesco, if you had with you as copious a choice
of dreams as clustered on the elm-trees where the Sibyl led Aeneas,
this, in preference to the whole swarm of them, is the queen dream for
me.

_Petrarca._ When I was younger I was fond of wandering in solitary
places, and never was afraid of slumbering in woods and grottoes.
Among the chief pleasures of my life, and among the commonest of my
occupations, was the bringing before me such heroes and heroines of
antiquity, such poets and sages, such of the prosperous and the
unfortunate, as most interested me by their courage, their wisdom,
their eloquence, or their adventures. Engaging them in the
conversation best suited to their characters, I knew perfectly their
manners, their steps, their voices: and often did I moisten with my
tears the models I had been forming of the less happy.

_Boccaccio._ Great is the privilege of entering into the studies of
the intellectual; great is that of conversing with the guides of
nations, the movers of the mass, the regulators of the unruly will,
stiff, in its