PETRARCH THE CRITIC AND READER 



When he said this, he was thinking of PHny the his- 

 torian, whose historical works were lost. Of historians 

 he was particularly fond, feehng, as he did, that he was 

 a belated man of antiquity who had strayed into un- 

 congenial surroundings, and that authors like Livy and 

 the letter-writing Cicero were the only ones who could 

 tell him about this lost Eden, and perhaps lead him 

 back to it, during the precious hours he spent in their 

 company. In a letter to Livy (one of the previously 

 mentioned letters to dead authors) he says: " I wish 

 to offer you everlasting thanks especially for this, that 

 because of you I often forget present ills; that, while 

 reading you, I picture at my side Cornelius, Scipio 

 Africanus, Brutus, Cato, and have the illusion of 

 living in the midst of these great men." Other Roman 

 historians with whom he was acquainted we can do no 

 more than name: Caesar, Suetonius, Sallust, Justin, 

 Valerius Maximus. It should be reckoned in his favor 

 that he was not taken in by Dictys and Dares, nor by 

 the fabulous accounts of Alexander. 



As regards the church writers, although he set little 

 store by Christian poets, he had the greatest admiration 

 for the prose authors, for Lactantius, for St. Jerome, 

 and above all for St. Augustine, whose Confessions 

 were, one cannot help feeling, his dearest possession. 

 It is not to be expected that he should have been greatly 

 drawn towards the famous schoolmen who were more 

 nearly his contemporaries; but there was one who 

 evidently interested him deeply although he was aware 



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