The peasants, hearing him call the domicile _Linterno_, corrupted the word into _Inferno_, and, from this mispronunciation, the place was often jocularly called by that name.
Petrarch was scarcely settled in this agreeable solitude, when he received a letter from his friend Settimo, asking him for an exact and circumstantial detail of his circumstances and mode of living, of his plans and occupations, of his son John, &c.

His answer was prompt, and is not uninteresting.

"The course of my life," he says, "has always been uniform ever since the frost of age has quenched the ardour of my youth, and particularly that fatal flame which so long tormented me.

But what do I say ?" he continues; "it is a celestial dew which has produced this extinction.

Though I have often changed my place of abode, I have always led nearly the same kind of life.