But lastly, to Boccaccio's sanction we must trace a large portion of the
mythological pedantry and incongruous paganisms, which for so long a
period deformed the poetry, even of the truest poets. To such an
extravagance did Boccaccio himself carry this folly, that in a romance
of chivalry, he has uniformly styled God the Father Jupiter, our Saviour
Apollo, and the Evil Being Pluto. But for this there might be some
excuse pleaded. I dare make none for the gross and disgusting
licentiousness, the daring profaneness, which rendered the 'Decameron'
of Boccaccio the parent of a hundred worse children, fit to be classed
among the enemies of the human race; which poisons 'Ariosto'--(for that
I may not speak oftener than necessary of so odious a subject, I mention
it here once for all)--which interposes a painful mixture in the humour
of Chaucer, and which has once or twice seduced even our pure-minded
Spenser into a grossness, as heterogeneous from the spirit of his great
poem, as it was alien to the delicacy of his morals.


PETRARCH.

Born at Arezzo, 1304.--Died 1374.

Petrarch was the final blossom and perfection of the Troubadours. See
Biog. Lit. vol. ii. p.27, &c.

NOTES ON PETRARCH'S [1] SONNETS,

CANZONES, &c.

VOL. I.