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The Petrarchist would have loathed the Platonist as a moral Pariah.

Platonic doctrine on Greek love—The asceticism of the Laws—Socrates—His position defined by Maximus Tyrius—His science of erotics—The theory of the Ph�drus: erotic Mania—The mysticism of the Symposium: love of beauty—Points of contact between Platonic paiderastia and chivalrous love: Mania and Joie: Dante's Vita Nuova—Platonist and Petrarchist—Gibbon on the "thin device" of the Athenian philosophers—Testimony of Lucian, Plutarch, Cicero.

The Platonist, as appears from numerous passages in the Platonic writings, would have despised the Petrarchist as a vulgar woman-lover.

The reader must be a true Petrarchist who is unconscious of a general similarity in the character of his sonnets, which, in the long perusal of them, amounts to monotony.

Surrey, while adopting the form of the sonnet, kept quite clear of the Petrarchist's mannerism.