Such was the bold appeal to elevated feelings, and such the keen reproach inspired by that confidential freedom which can only exist in the intercourse of great minds. The literary friendship, or rather adoration of BOCCACCIO for PETRARCH, was not bartered at the cost of his patriotism: and it is worthy of our notice that PETRARCH, whose personal injuries from an ungenerous republic were rankling in his mind, and whom even the eloquence of Boccaccio could not disunite from his protector Visconti, yet received the ardent reproaches of his friend without anger, though not without maintaining the freedom of his own opinions. PETRARCH replied, that the anxiety of BOCCACCIO for the liberty of his friend was a thought most grateful to him; but he assured Boccaccio that he preserved his freedom, even although it appeared that he bowed under a hard yoke. He hoped that he had not to learn to serve in his old age, he who had hitherto studied to preserve his independence; but, in respect to servitude, he did not know whom it was most displeasing to serve, a tyrant like Visconti, or with Boccaccio, a people of tyrants[A]. [Footnote A: These interesting letters are preserved in Count Baldelli's "Life of Boccaccio," p. 115.] The unity of feeling is displayed in such memorable associates as BEAUMONT and FLETCHER; whose labours are so combined, that no critic can detect the mingled production of either; and whose lives are so closely united, that no biographer can compose the memoirs of the one without running into the history of the other. Their days were interwoven as their verses. MONTAIGNE and CHARRON, in the eyes of posterity, are rivals; but such literary friendship knows no rivalry. Such was Montaigne's affection for Charron, that he requested him by his will to bear the arms of the Montaignes; and Charrot evinced his gratitude to the manes of his departed friend, by leaving his fortune to the sister of Montaigne.