PETRARCH THE AUTHOR 



something of which he was ignorant .... I have 

 chosen as a title of my volume. Letters of Familiar Inter- 

 course — that is, letters in which there is httle anxious 

 regard to style, but where homely matters are treated 

 in a homely manner." Well and good, but he goes on 

 to say: " Sometimes, when it is not inappropriate, there 

 may be a bit of simple narration, or a few moral maxims 

 such as Cicero was accustomed to introduce into his 

 letters ''; and this jarring note is repeated in his letter 

 to LaeUus, in, 20: " Why, brother, do you complain of 

 having nothing to write ? Really, though I can never 

 believe that a man so well informed, intelligent, and 

 eloquent as you can lack material for a letter, I prefer 

 to accept any true or fictitious excuse rather than 

 attribute your silence to the veil of forgetfulness. Now 

 this is what I ask of you — something which many have 

 asked of their friends, and, among those I have read, 

 first of all Cicero — write that you had nothing to write. ^^ 

 Now, it is a great pity that Petrarch, whose admira- 

 tion for Cicero was so intense, and who divined his 

 pecuhar charm, should not have tried to obtain that 

 grace, rather than imitate Cicero's use of maxims and 

 morahzing, and in general follow if anything a Httle 

 more closely Seneca; but then it was not until 1345 that 

 he came into possession of a large number of Cicero's 

 letters — that is, about halfway between the opening 

 and closing members of his own first collection. Pliny 

 the younger, if we are to beUeve Nolhac, he never read; 

 but he abnost certainly knew the correspondence of 



