is not easy for us to appreciate the boldness and sincerity of these conceptions. Many of them, since the days of Petrarch, have been overstrained and made ridiculous by false pretensions. Besides, the whole point of view has been appropriated; and men invariably undervalue what they feel they cannot lose. It is only by comparing Petrarch's own philosophy of literature with the dulness of the schoolmen in their decadence, and with the stylistic shallowness of subsequent scholars, that we come to comprehend how luminous and novel was the thesis he supported. [Footnote 24: See the four books of Invectives, _Contra Medicum quendam_, and the treatise _De sui ipsius et aliorum Ignorantiâ_. Page 1038 of the last dissertation contains a curious list of frivolous questions discussed by the Averrhoists. Cf. the letter on the decadence of true learning, _Ep. Var._ 31, p. 1020; the letter to a friend exhorting him to combat Averrhoism, _Epist. sine titulo_, 18, p. 731; two letters on physicians, _Epist. Rerum Senilium_, lib. xii. 1 and 2, pp. 897-914; a letter to Francesco Bruno on the lies of the astrologers, _Epist. Rer. Sen._ lib. i. 6, p. 747; a letter to Boccaccio on the same theme, _Epist. Rer. Sen._ lib. iii. 1, p. 765; another on physicians to Boccaccio, _Epist. Rer. Sen._ lib. v. 4, p. 796. Cf. the Critique of Alchemy, _De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ_, p. 93.] [Footnote 25: In comparing the orator and the poet, Petrarch gives the palm to the former. He thought the perfect rhetorician, capable of expressing sound philosophy with clearness, was rarer than the poet. See _De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ_, lib. ii. dial. 102, p. 192.] [Footnote 26: See, among other passages, _Inv. contra Medicum_, lib. i. p. 1092. 'Poetæ studium est veritatem veram pulchris velaminibus adornare.' Cf. p. 905, the paragraph beginning 'Officium est ejus fingere,' &c.] [Footnote 27: See the preface to the _Epistolæ Familiares_, p. 570. 'Scribendi enim mihi vivendique unus (ut auguror) finis erit.'] [Footnote 28: For his lofty conception of poetry see the two letters to Boccaccio and Benvenuto da Imola, pp. 740, 941. _Epist. Rerum Senilium_, lib. i. 4, lib. xiv. 11.]