In the second place, the accusation
of looseness is wildly exaggerated. There is one very coarse but not
in the least immoral story in the _Heptameron_; there are several broad
jests on the obnoxious cloister and its vices, there are many tales
which are not intended _virginibus puerisque_, and there is a pervading
flavour of that half-French, half-Italian courtship of married women
which was at the time usual everywhere out of England. The manners are
not our manners, and what may be called the moral tone is distinguished
by a singular cast, of which more presently. But if not entirely a book
for boys and girls, the _Heptameron_ is certainly not one which Southey
need have excepted from his admirable answer in the character of author
of "The Doctor," to the person who wondered whether he (Southey) could
have daughters, and if so, whether they liked reading. "He has
daughters: they love reading: and he is not the man I take him for if
they are not 'allowed to open' any book in his library." The last error,
if not so entirely inconsistent with intelligent reading of the book as
the first and second, is scarcely less strange to me.
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