sort of love, in fact, built on a violation of the seventh commandment, which he represents as an action not only quite worthy of, but highly becoming to a gentleman. Adultery and fornication,—fornication and adultery,—are the alpha and omega of his stories. Take up any portrait of Boccaccio: you observe at a glance the sensual character of his face. His life appears to have been truly reflected in his tales. The grace and elegance of his style and language we need not wish to dispute: polished libertinism will fortunately find few upholders in the present day,—
"Grieved to condemn, the Muse must still be just,
Nor spare melodious advocates of lust."
Boccaccio, indeed, as one of the architects and as the first adorner of the Italian language, and Boccaccio as the parent of that 'mud-volcanic explosion' already spoken of, are two different men. But great as are the philological services for which his countrymen are indebted to him, they constitute a claim to gratitude which is more than counterbalanced by the evil voice with which he swayed their minds towards effeminate weakness and base desire—by his blind and worse than blind guidance of the spiritually blind.
In 1348, when the plague raged in Florence, our author, describes the retirement to a neighbouring rural district of seven ladies and three gentlemen, connected by the ties of friendship. For the enlivenment of their solitude—ladies and gentlemen of our author's description considering rural solitude to be synonymous with Tartarean gloom—they form a scheme of each telling daily in succession some tale they may remember. Over this assembly the several members of it preside in turn as king or queen. This regal office invests its possessor with the prerogative of appointing the general subject for the narratives of the day. In all these subjects, however, there is a marked uniformity: throughout the book with a few honourable exceptions, such as the tale of
"The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,"
