Hear and wonder! I have in the first place read Boccacio's Decameron, a tale of a hundred cantos.

He is a wonderful writer.

Whether he tells in humorous or familiar strains the follies of the silly Calandrino, or the witty pranks of Buffalmacco and Bruno, or sings in loftier numbers Dames, knights, and arms, and love, the feats that spring From courteous minds and generous faith, or lashes with a noble severity and fearless independence the vices of the monks and the priestcraft of the established religion, he is always elegant, amusing, and, what pleases and surprises most in a writer of so unpolished an age, strikingly delicate and chastised.

I prefer him infinitely to Chaucer.

If you wish for a good specimen of Boccacio, as soon as you have finished my letter, (which will come, I suppose, by dinner-time,) send Jane up to the library for Dryden's poems, and you will find among them several translations from Boccacio, particularly one entitled "Theodore and Honoria." But, truly admirable as the bard of Florence is, I must not permit myself to give him more than his due share of my letter.