PETRARCH THE AUTHOR 



and those of us who enjoy Montaigne can perhaps 

 understand, if not share, the pleasure of Petrarch's 

 contemporaries in such displays. But the trouble is 

 that in the case of too many erudite writers they are 

 mere displays, estabhsh nothing, and are apt to betray 

 little discrimination on the part of the quoter. It is to 

 Petrarch's credit that as a scholar he really does show 

 discrimination. He is not a Valla; but he too has a 

 desire to get at the truth, the fact, and not to be led 

 astray by great men. One of his grievances against 

 the scholastics is their fondness for mere verbal quib- 

 bling, for attempting to erect huge structures without 

 much foundation, for their continual citation of Aris- 

 totle as proof positive of a statement. These ignorant 

 men, he claims, are utterly unworthy disciples of a very 

 great but at the same time not infallible teacher. 

 Aristotle, he says, was a man of exalted genius, who 

 not only lectured, but wrote on themes of the greatest 

 importance. How otherwise can we explain so vast an 

 array of works, involving such prolonged labor, and 

 prepared with such supreme care amid so much serious 

 preoccupation ? " Yet in spite of his greatness and 

 his vast knowledge, 1 judge him to have been a man, 

 and therefore subject to ignorance of some things, nay, 

 even of many." 



There is, however, one philosopher whose praises he 

 sings without, or almost without, mental reservation: 

 it is hardly necessary to say that this is Plato. Pe- 

 trarch's advocacy of this sage is a matter of great im- 



27 



