the cloak of religion; before deciding as to your particular case I should like to see the messenger." "But why," he continues, "do we despise things well known in order to be impressed by what is hidden from us? Did you not know without this monk that the time of your life was measured—a thing that every child could tell? Do not saints and philosophers teach you the same? Ought not man to long for death every day so as to detach himself from material things, and to ascend a height beyond the foul breath of earthly desire? Of the advice you have received retain what is good; divest your spirit of mundane cares, and reform your life and mind. But do not abandon, I implore you, your studies, the healthy food of a healthy mind, although distasteful and nauseous to the weak stomach." Sooner than allow the library of so distinguished a man to be dispersed, he declares his own willingness to become its purchaser, but at the same time exhorts Boccaccio not to part with it. The letter ends with an affectionate invitation to his friend to live with him in his own house, "sufficiently large to shelter two men of the same heart under the same roof." The fact that Boccaccio continued his Homeric studies with Leontio Pilato (during whose stay at his house the just-related incident might have happened) proves his amenability to good advice; and it ought not to be forgotten that to Petrarch's salutary interference, the literary world owes the important historical and mythological works of Boccaccio's later years.
It remains to look at one more scene of this passionless drama—a scene full of tenderness and gentle melancholy. In 1368, after an absence from Italy, Boccaccio once more intended to visit his friend to thank him for some liberal assistance recently received. Petrarch at that time was living with his married daughter in Venice, but on arriving Boccaccio found that both the father of the lady and her husband, Franceschino da Brossano, were absent from home. Tullia, however (this is the name given to Petrarch's daughter by Boccaccio in the letter containing the incident), received him kindly, and placed her house and her father's library at his disposal. But with a delicacy hardly perhaps to be expected from the author of the "Decameron" Boccaccio declined the lady's hospitality in the absence of her husband, thinking that neither his grey hairs nor the considerable rotundity of his figure would sufficiently protect Tullia from the suspicions of the wicked. Soon afterwards Franceschino returned, and his offer the poet now gladly accepted, and stayed with the young couple for some time. Boccaccio then mentions Tullia's little daughter, who, he adds, in her face and in her pretty childish ways, reminded him of his own little girl dead long ago; and it is touching to read his confession to Petrarch, how with great difficulty he tried to hide his tears from the parents.
On the morning of July 19, 1374, Petrarch was found dead in his library, with his head resting on a book. A stroke of apoplexy had suddenly killed him. In his last will he left to Boccaccio, with a slight touch of humour one might almost think, "fifty Florentine gold florins to buy a winter coat for his nightly studies and lucubrations." The letter from Franceschino da Brossano announcing his fatherin-law's death, reached Boccaccio at Certaldo, his native place, where he possessed some property. He was slowly recovering from a severe illness, and this new shock completely prostrated him. In his answer to Franceschino he pours forth the fulness of his grief. He deplores Italy who has lost such a son, the surviving friends who are left without a pilot on the ocean of life. Only his extreme weakness prevents him from visiting a tomb enshrining a heart "the seat of the muses, the sanctuary of philosophy, of eloquence, of artistic perfection."
Life henceforth had no attraction for him, and he longed for death and reunion with his friend; but one duty remained unfulfilled, a duty to his memory. Petrarch's Latin epic, "Africa," has already been mentioned in these pages. It was begun at an early age, and, like Goethe's "Faust," it remained the object of its author's love and care almost till his last day. He went on incessantly altering and correcting it with all the severity of his selfcritical nature. "Africa mea," he writes to Boccaccio at an advanced age, " qua tunc juvmis notior jam famosiorque quam've!lem y cur is postea multis ac gravibus pressa consenuit" At one time he was so dissatisfied with his work that it narrowly escaped death by burning. But in spite of all this anxiety the opus magnum^ of Petrarch's life remained unfinished at his death. A large portion, however, was known to be extant, and the learned world was eagerly looking forward to its speedy publication. A rumour reached Boccaccio that owing to the negligence of Petrarch's heirs, the manuscript had been tampered with by illiterate scribblers. Im-
