This is indeed a rare distinction.

His detractors must acknowledge that it could not have been acquired by a poet destitute of merit.

His admirers will scarcely maintain that the unassisted merit of Petrarch could have raised him to that eminence which has not yet been attained by Shakspeare, Milton, or Dante,--that eminence, of which perhaps no modern writer, excepting himself and Cervantes, has long retained possession,--an European reputation.
It is not difficult to discover some of the causes to which this great man has owed a celebrity, which I cannot but think disproportioned to his real claims on the admiration of mankind.

In the first place, he is an egotist.

Egotism in conversation is universally abhorred.