January 1893.
ON THE HEPTAMERON,
WITH SOME NOTICE OF PRECEDENT COLLECTIONS OF TALES IN FRANCE, OF THE
AUTHOR, AND OF HER OTHER WORKS.
It is probable that every one who has had much to do with the study of
literature has conceived certain preferences for books which he knows
not to belong absolutely to the first order, but which he thinks to have
been unjustly depreciated by the general judgment, and which appeal to
his own tastes or sympathies with particular strength. One of such books
in my own case is _THE HEPTAMERON_ of Margaret of Navarre. I have read
it again and again, sometimes at short intervals, sometimes at longer,
during the lapse of some five-and-twenty years since I first met with
it. But the place which it holds in my critical judgment and in my
private affections has hardly altered at all since the first reading.
I like it as a reader perhaps rather more than I esteem it as a critic;
but even as a critic, and allowing fully for the personal equation, I
think that it deserves a far higher place than is generally accorded to
it.
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