Three mistakes, as it seems to me, pervade most of the estimates,
critical or uncritical, of the _Heptameron_, the two first of old date,
the third of recent origin. The first is that it is a comparatively
feeble imitation of a great original, and that any one who knows
Boccaccio need hardly trouble himself to know Margaret of Navarre. The
second is that it is a loose if not obscene book, disgraceful for a lady
to have written (or at least mothered), and not very creditable for
any one to read. The third is that it is interesting as the gossip of
a certain class of modern newspapers is interesting, because it tells
scandal about distinguished personages, and has for its interlocutors
other distinguished personages, who can be identified without much
difficulty, and the identification of whom adds zest to the reading. All
these three seem to me to be mistakes of fact and of judgment. In
the first place, the _Heptameron_ borrows from its original literally
nothing but plan. Its stories are quite independent; the similarity of
name is only a bookseller's invention, though a rather happy one; and
the personal setting, which is in Boccaccio a mere framework, has here
considerable substance and interest.
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