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 Waiting on the Boss
A Short Instalove Office Romance

Carly Keene

Thistle Knoll Publishing

 Copyright © 2021 Carly Keene

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not
intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by Dog-Eared Author Services

 Contents
Title Page
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
EPILOGUE
READ THE REST OF THE BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
About The Author
 CHAPTER ONE
JUSTINE

“Big afternoon for you!” my old friend and now-colleague, Andrea, whispers gleefully across the
top of the cubicle I’ve been assigned for the length of this marketing campaign for Hopedale Hospital.
My stomach rolls with nerves. “Andrea, you really shouldn’t be up on your desk like that.”
Andrea rolls her eyes exactly the way she used to when we were in high school together, but she
gets down and comes around the side of my cubicle. “They should’ve gotten you a better desk instead
of shoving you all in with the admin people. You’re a consultant. You got your MBA and everything!
You deserved a fancy desk.” She looks at the clock. “Gotta go collate some survey responses. Best of
luck!” She gives me two thumbs up and disappears.
It would’ve been nice to have a fancy desk, yeah. Still, this is the first campaign I’ve run on my
own.
Well, mostly on my own. I’m still reporting progress to my boss at Blue Ridge Creative Marketing,
but he’s letting me manage the campaign myself, and I’m proud of that. Hopedale’s senior management
chose the content that I proposed, so my boss decided it would be an ideal first solo project for me.
Things are going well. Three weeks into a thirteen-week campaign and we’re already getting a
strong response from the patient surveys. Today’s the day that I meet with the hospital management
face-to-face to catch them up on our early progress, as well as the next steps in the process.
And now I have to go up two floors to the senior executive meeting room and talk to the bigwigs.
Including the CEO.
Which is just overwhelming me. Because he’s my teenage crush.

When my boss selected my proposal and I found out that I was going to head up the project, I went
digging around for information on the C-level management I’d be reporting to. I pulled up the list and
there it was, his name, right at the top.
Miles Peterson. New CEO, just promoted from within after the former CEO jumped ship for a big
urban-market hospital. Thirty-four years old. BS in Healthcare Management, MBA in Accounting,
local Rivertown boy, active with this charity and that community group. No mention of a wife or
family.
Holy crap, Miles Peterson.
Who roomed with my older brother Jake their senior year at university, and who right from the first
minute was really nice to Jake’s little sister, almost-fourteen with braces and acne and wildly frizzy
hair that I hadn’t yet learned how to cope with.
Miles Peterson, even twelve years ago, was tall and handsome and smart and poised and confident
and nice to people.
I saw him a handful of times over that year: when we moved Jake into the honors dorm. Parents’
Weekend. Picking up Jake for semester break. Taking Jake back for spring semester. At Easter his
parents were on a cruise, so Jake invited him to our house. Miles had conversations with me at the
dinner table. He asked my opinion on books I was reading. He never laughed at me.
The last time I saw him was graduation. He’d smiled so beautifully at me and tried his mortarboard
on my head, and when Jake teased me for the way my hair poofed out under it, Miles didn’t laugh. He
said, “In eight years, it will be you graduating, and everybody will be so proud.”
“You think so?”
“You’re gonna be awesome,” he’d said, with conviction. He smiled once more, enough to make my
eyes go starry, and then he walked off with a knot of his friends. I stared at his back until I could no
longer see him.
I never forgot him.
I wanted to be like him. I wanted to grow up and marry him. I wanted him to give me my first kiss,
and lots more after that. I daydreamed that he’d ask to escort me to my prom. I wrote his name all
over my notebooks.
(Yeah, I know. Cut me some slack here, I was thirteen.)
He was too old for me, and way, way out of my league, but how I enjoyed that feeling. It was way
better than mooning over One Direction and the cast of the Twilight movies like the rest of my friends.
I hadn’t kept up with him on social media or anything. I think I wanted him to stay perfect in my
memory, to be that Great First Crush. To stay worthy.

I’ve seen him at a distance, or in a meeting or two, in the few weeks I’ve been here on-site at the
hospital. We were introduced at one meeting, where I shook his hand and told him I was excited about
the project, and he’d said, “I’m looking forward to it,” smiled, and left for another meeting. Clearly
he doesn’t remember me.
Oh, well. I couldn’t really expect him to.
No matter how long I’ve been measuring other guys against him and found them all falling short in
comparison.
But I’ll be sitting right across from him at the big executive conference table in just a few minutes. I
think the only thing I can do is try to be professional and hide the fact that my inner teen is shrieking
SQUEEEEE!
My smartwatch notifies me it’s time to go, so I make sure I don’t have lipstick on my teeth, pick up
my presentation folder, and head for the elevator. When it arrives at the top floor, I take a deep breath.
It’s go time.
Marie, one of the C-level PAs, gives me a smiling welcome and a bottle of water before escorting
me into the small conference room. Five people are sitting there, and one of them is Miles Peterson. I
try not to stare.
But I notice that he’s still tall and handsome. He’s still got those smiling blue-gray eyes. The air
seems electric, and the sight of him in a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up is giving me all
kinds of body feels teenage me could never have imagined.
Thank god I’m not wearing a skirt, because my underwear might be juuuust a wee bit damp right
now. And instead of being super-nervous, now I’m just trying to distract myself from the fact that I
(still) want to climb Miles Peterson like he’s a tree.
How long will I have to wait until he notices me?
I remind myself that I am a professional, and start in with my presentation.
 CHAPTER TWO
MILES

With the second meeting of the day wrapping up after lunch, I check my digital calendar. Next on
the agenda is, surprise, another meeting. Meetings take up a good portion of my workday, and the rest
of it seems to always be reviewing financial data.
This one’s with my senior executives to hear a report from the marketing representative from Blue
Ridge Creative. I was really pleased that we chose a local company; they had the best proposal and
the next-to-lowest bid, and I really liked the way their slogan incorporated the medical aspect of our
business and the human-touch aspect. That’s important to me.
It’s especially important to me that this marketing initiative succeeds.
Not to mention that if we lose patients to our competition, that doesn’t make me look great to the
stockholders. I know there was some concern about promoting me from Operations to CEO. Not
enough experience, my detractors said. Thirty-four is too young.
But I’m determined to do a good job. I’ve been completely focused on my career my entire
professional life, and I’m prepared to lead this company I know I can focus and inspire the hospital’s
human resources to excel, and I think this marketing campaign’s slogan—“It’s all in how we treat
you”—applies both to patients and to employees.
I’m so focused on our mission that I take a minute to react when the conference room door opens
and our marketing rep walks in and introduces herself.
I’ve met her before. A few weeks ago, I think, but it was a rushed moment when I had no time to
really notice her.
I take time to look at her now. Average height. Sandy-blonde hair that is obviously curly, but pulled
back away from her face and corralled into a low bun. Professional appearance. Natural makeup.
Pretty.
Really pretty.
She looks familiar somehow, and not in the “Didn’t I meet you at a professional mixer thing a few
months ago?” sort of way. In a long-ago, happy-memory way. I can’t place it. Justine Hill. Justine. It’s
triggering something I should know, but I can’t quite pull it up.
The whole time she’s giving us the report on early results of our patient survey, I’m puzzling over
it. Those greeny-gold eyes, and the light in them. The shy but confident way she smiles.
I should remember her.
She wraps up the short presentation and asks if there are any questions she can answer. My chief
medical officer, Dr. Young, asks how much of his staff’s time is taken up by the survey, and she
explains that.
The finance guy, Don Willis, is looking skeptical. That’s nothing new. He’d been hoping to get
promoted to CEO himself, I think, and he’s been second-guessing my decisions at every turn. He turns
to me and says, “Look, Miles, I’m still not convinced we need to be advertising medical care. It
seems unnecessary. I don’t know why we’re not spending this money on, I don’t know, hiring more
nurses.”
I’m looking at Justine Hill when he says it, and I see her face fall at the near-insult.
 That’s when I know her. I remember her face in just that expression, when her older brother said
something dismissive to her, and my heart squeezes.
She’s Jake Hill’s little sister. Jake was my college roommate, and a generally okay guy, but I never
thought he gave his younger sister any credit for anything.
To the CFO, I say, “Well, a couple of things, Don. One, the other hospital in town has stepped up
their advertising for the last six months. We’re comparable in pricing structure and level of care, but
if they’re marketing, we can’t afford not to market as well. Two, I really want us to home in on how
patient experience is reflected in the public’s perception. What people think of us matters.”
Don’s still not convinced. “I’m going to remind you that if there’s no margin, there’s no mission.
We can’t afford to take our focus off patient care to advertise the hospital. I don’t think we can market
medical care like fast food, or oil changes.”
“You’re right, Mr. Willis.” Justine Hill breaks in. “Medical care is marketed differently. Instead,
we make sure the Rivertown area is aware that this hospital focuses on patient experience. That here,
we give our patients the best care, from check-in through their procedures and all the way to bill pay.
Everybody needs to know that, and we’re just telling them.”
She’s every bit as sharp as she’d seemed as a young teen. I’m impressed.
Don works his eyebrows around, but he finally nods. “That’s fair.”
“If it works the way it should,” I add, “we’ll be able to add some more nurses. Maybe expand the
pediatric specialties, too.”
“Amen,” the chief nursing officer says, grinning at me.
That breaks up the meeting. Don shakes Justine’s hand and tells her to keep up the good work. CNO
Louise Willis congratulates Justine on a concise report. Everybody heads out.
Except me. I catch Justine’s arm as she starts to scoot past me. “I’ve just realized who you are.
You’re Jake’s sister.”
She turns, her lovely eyes wide. “You remember me?”
I can’t help smiling. “You’ve certainly grown up, Justine.” After I say it, I hear how it sounds: like
I’m flirting with her.
I can’t do that.
And as I’m thinking that in my position I can’t flirt with her, it occurs to me that I, um, want to.
I like the way her arm feels under my hand. I like the way she’s looking at me. I like her wide Julia
Roberts mouth. I like those forest-floor eyes of hers. I like the way her hair seems like it would have
a life of its own, if she let it down.
I like all of that. A lot.
I like it so much that I make myself stop touching her.
For fuck’s sake, I’m her boss. Or her client, whichever way you want to look at it.
I can’t be thinking the things I’m thinking.
I’ve let go of her, but I haven’t stopped staring. Nor has she stopped staring back, and I wonder if
I’m scaring her. I try to find my voice and ask her something innocuous, but just then, my PA, Trudy,
bustles in with a load of papers in her arms.
“Here’s today’s mail, Mr. Peterson. Would you like it on your desk, or you want to whip through it
in here while you wind up?”
Trudy is efficient, that’s for sure.
“Um—my desk, please.”
She sets a smaller stack in front of me. “And here are letters to sign. If you don’t mind, I’d like to
get these out this afternoon.”
 I do most of my correspondence by email, but there are always official documents. I sigh. I sit
down.
Trudy hands me a pen. “Thank you, sir.”
Justine echoes her. “Thank you, Mr. Peterson.” She smiles awkwardly, and goes on out the door.
I sign documents, but half my mind is on the woman who just left the room.
 CHAPTER THREE
JUSTINE

Ever since Miles Peterson recognized me the other day, I’ve been seeing him numerous times at
work. Just in passing, I’ve run into him in the elevator, or the parking lot, or even in the hospital
cafeteria. He always stops to greet me.
I try not to let it go to my head, but it’s going to my head. I’ve been dreaming about him.
And each dream gets a little sexier.
I sit at my desk and try to remember the one I had this morning. Something about going to a dance
with him, and feeling his hand warm against my bare back, and then kissing . . . and then we were
somewhere dark, and we were naked. Embarrassing in daylight, but oh so naughty-licious.
Andrea’s voice rouses me from my daydream. “Hey, want to get some lunch? I’m starving.”
“S-sure,” I say, my voice a little husky. “Let me just grab my jacket.” I don’t just want my suit
jacket because my ID and wallet are in the pocket; I want it mostly because thinking about Miles has
made my nipples poke against the thin material of my blouse.
We head down in the elevator, and Andrea suggests going out for lunch. “I’d love to go grab
something and come back. It’s meatloaf day in the cafeteria.”
So we go to Mindy’s for sandwiches and iced tea, and it’s nice to chat with a friend. “Anybody
special?” she asks, chomping on her turkey-and-muenster on a bagel thin. “No boyfriend?”
I blush. “No.”
“Me neither.” She shrugs. “Although there are some seriously hot EMTs in and out of the ER
downstairs, you know. I might have to barge in there sometime and ask a few of the cute ones for their
digits.”
“Why not?” I suggest. “I mean, not for me. I’m not that bold. But you are.” I take another bite of my
Cuban sandwich.
Andrea smiles. “Didn’t I see the boss flirting with you in the parking garage today? You know he’s
single. And really fine.”
I choke on my sandwich. “The boss?”
“The big boss. Mr. Peterson.” Andrea waggles her eyebrows at me. “Of course, he’s technically
not your boss, but still.”
I can feel my cheeks getting hot.
“It looked flirty,” Andrea probes. “Was it?”
“No! It was . . . perfectly aboveboard. He told me that I looked really nice with my hair down.”
Andrea gives me a pitying look. “That’s pretty flirty for work.”
“We weren’t at work!”
“Did it make you uncomfortable?” Andrea asks, suddenly serious. “Did it feel like harassment or
something?”
“No! He was just being nice!”
“Okay,” she says, and drops the subject to chat about the new grocery store over on Vinton Road.
As we’re entering the administrative offices, we run into Miles Peterson.
“Andrea and Justine,” he says, sounding pleased. “Enjoy your lunch break?”
 “Oh, yes, Mr. Peterson.” Andrea says. “I didn’t know you knew my name.”
“As long as I’ve been at Hopedale? Of course I know your name! I don’t know all the medical
staff,” he says, “but the admin people, I do.”
I can’t help smiling. He’s just so damn nice.
“Justine, if you have a minute,” he says, those gray-blue eyes locked onto mine. “Can I have a word
with you—in private?”
Andrea and I exchange a brief glance, and I set down my purse. “Of course, Mr. Peterson.”
“Miles,” he says firmly, ushering me out of the Admin area and down the hall. “I’m sorry to
interrupt your day, but I had a question for you. Are you familiar with the Charity Ball?”
“Vaguely,” I answer, puzzled. “I’ve heard of it. Dinner-dance thing.”
“Would you be interested in accompanying me?”
My mouth drops open. No sound comes out of it; I’m too stunned.
“Everything totally aboveboard,” he assures me, hands up. “Nothing untoward. It’s just—look, I
usually take my mother to this thing, because she loves dressing up and dancing and my dad would
rather chew tinfoil. But she twisted her ankle at Zumba class yesterday and she insists she’s not going
to the ball if she can’t wear high heels.”
“Oh.”
My imagination is running away with me. Me, on a date with Miles Peterson. A ball. Dressing up
and dancing.
With him.
“You’d be doing me a tremendous favor,” he adds. “Tickets are already purchased.”
I drag my imagination away from myself in a glamorous frock, being swept across the floor by
Miles in a tuxedo. “Well, but don’t you have anyone else to ask?” After I say it, I cringe. “I don’t
mean—”
“I don’t really date,” he says. “Look, if you don’t want to go, no hard feelings. I understand it’s
short notice, I get that.”
I have a nice formal dress, last worn about four years ago to a college dance. I bite my lip.
“I just thought it would be nice to really get to know each other. You were a pretty impressive
teenager. I’m glad to see you come into your own.”
“Yes,” I say in a rush, unable to resist any longer. “I’d love to go. Thank you.”
He smiles, and I melt. “That’s wonderful. I’ll email you with the details, if that’s okay.”
“Of course.”
“Great! I’ll shoot you all the info this afternoon. And thanks, Justine.”
“It was very kind of you to ask me,” I reply as sedately as possible.
He smiles, waves, and heads toward the elevator.
I whirl around and duck into the ladies’ room, where I scream into a hand towel in excitement.
 CHAPTER FOUR
MILES

I don’t know why I asked Justine to the Charity Ball.

Except that she’s bright, and beautiful, and optimistic, and hopeful and confident and a breath of
fresh air.
Not to mention that I keep having thoughts about her body that are definitely not safe for work.
I shouldn’t have done that. I barely know her. She probably thinks I’m too old for her. And I’m in a
weird sort of position of authority, too, somewhere between boss and client. If she wanted to say no,
would she feel free to turn me down?
FUCKING HELL.
What do I do now?
I go into my office, close the door, lean against it, and silently scream. Dammit, what have I done?
I pace around my office long enough to start feeling guilty about not getting any work done, and
only then do I pull up my endless list of emails. My PA Trudy, that model of efficiency, has already
sorted them into folders for me, but there’s a personal one from my buddy Kennedy Waite asking if
I’m going to be at the Ball. Kennedy and I did our MBAs at the same time, and we’ve stayed friends.
He’s the business/finance guy for TechBridge Development, the biggest software company in the
valley. I start to email him back, but the tone of his message that makes me pick up my phone and call.
After a brief hey-how-are-you greeting, he gets right to it. “So you’re going to the Ball, right? Any
chance you’re going stag and we could buddy up?” He sounds hopeful.
“Well, no, actually—”
“You’re bringing your mother again?”
“Well, no, actually I have a date.” I think of Justine’s face.
“Are you seeing somebody?” Kenn sounds aghast. “I thought we were going to be the last straight
bachelor holdouts.”
It’s funny. I always thought I’d meet the right girl . . . someday . . . but that day hadn’t come yet.
Now, though, I don’t want to wait anymore.
Because Justine’s the right girl. I don’t know how I know, I just know. All this boss-subordinate
crap is getting in the way, but Justine’s my girl.
I know it.
“I’m not seeing anybody yet, technically. But I asked this very special girl, I mean woman, to go as
a favor to me since my mom can’t go, and she said she would.”
“Wow. What a romantic.”
“Well, you don’t have a date,” I point out. “And I didn’t want to scare her. She’s a consultant
working for the hospital on an assignment.” I remember something. “Hey, your buddy Carson, didn’t
he marry his secretary or something?”
Kennedy laughs. “Yeah. He had the hots for Lexie from the day we hired her at TechBridge! The
way they looked at each other, we all knew they were gonna get together.”
“Yeah, sure. Well, did they have any trouble because she worked for him?” I twiddle a pen
anxiously in my fingers.
 “Well, she wound up quitting the PA job and moving into a different field,” Kennedy says. “So tell
me about the very special girl consultant, huh?”
I can’t talk about Justine without getting doofy. “Maybe you’ll just meet her on Saturday.”
“Maybe I will. I’ll just have to find a date,” he says morosely.
“Put that first-class brain on it,” I advise. “See you this weekend.”
We hang up.
I can’t concentrate. I keep seeing Justine’s face. I keep thinking about how her breasts would feel in
my hands, how her mouth would taste. I wonder about the texture of her skin. I imagine the wet heat of
her pussy.
Damn it, how can I work like this?
And how can I protect her professional reputation, given that I feel like this about her?

Saturday comes too soon. I don’t know how Justine spends the intervening days, but I use my spare
time to get ready. I pick up my tux from the dry cleaner’s. I get a haircut. I shine my dress shoes.
When I pick her up, she looks stunning. Her gorgeous curls are partly gathered up at the top of her
head, and partly flowing down her back. Her smoky-blue dress shows off her toned arms and just
enough cleavage to make me think about her breasts, but I rein myself in. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you,” she says, giving me a glance through her eyelashes.
Instant boner. Great.
We have cocktails at the hotel, walking around and greeting people. I see Kennedy on the other side
of the room, with a date. I see his colleagues from TechBridge with their own dates. We have a
cordial chat with my CFO, Don Willis, and his wife Tammy. We bump into Justine’s boss, Michael
Hudd, and his partner. Michael’s gaze seems to bounce accusingly from my face to Justine’s and I can
see her cheeks color.
Might as well nip this in the bud.
“I’m sure you know how professional Justine is,” I say casually to Michael. “Everyone at
Hopedale is very impressed with her.”
“Great to hear!” Michael enthuses. “So you two, um, get along well?”
“Quite well,” Justine says with composure. “By the way, did you get my progress report yesterday
afternoon?”
“Absolutely. I hadn’t had a chance to look at your data and respond, but it seems laid out correctly
and clearly. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Justine’s blinding smile makes me catch my breath.
At dinner, she and I do some networking. The awards and recognition ceremony goes quickly and
smoothly, honoring several local charities and presenting them with funding checks. We chat a lot
during dinner. Favorite holiday? She loves Thanksgiving; I’m a sucker for Christmas. Favorite cake
flavor? She loves carrot cake—the more raisins and nuts, the better—and I love chocolate. Favorite
flower? I ask. She blushes. Yellow roses, she says, and then teases me into telling her that I have a
thing for old-fashioned pink peonies.
And then the lights go down on the dance floor. They’re playing classic hits from the 1950s through
the ‘80s, because this event skews toward an older demographic. I look at Justine. “Would you like to
dance?”
I hold my breath. If she feels uncomfortable, she’ll brush off the request.
Her cheeks go pink again, and she smiles. “I’d love to.”
When our hands touch this time, the electric spark between us begins to take over. We dance. Her
cheeks go pink and her eyes sparkle, and I can only think about kissing her. I can smell her perfume,
all lemons and flowers. I can’t get enough of it.
As the night goes on and people start to drift away, the music shifts into love songs. The people that
have left were here for networking. The people that stay are enjoying their night out, and they’re
dancing.
I dance with Justine, wondering at the ways of the universe.
“I’m surprised that you’re still single,” she says softly, relaxed in my arms, her head on my
shoulder. “I mean, you’re quite the catch.”
“I was . . . pretty focused when I was younger. Pretty driven, too. I wanted to succeed. You know
that my dad’s a banker?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“It’s true. I’ve felt like I needed to feel like my parents were proud of me, and I really pushed
myself to be recognized. I’ve poured a lot of my time into school, and then into work, and I’ve
skipped vacations, and—you know what, Justine, it feels like a stupid way to live. I mean, my family
always had enough money, but our house was full of love. Most of my friends from college are long
since married, with families.”
She raises her head to look at me. I keep talking. “I want that too, but I know my life needs to
change. Now that I’m not pursuing advancement so vigorously, I feel like I can shift my priorities.”
She’s quiet for a moment, but I can feel the tension in her back. She finally asks, “Why me? Why
did you ask me?”
I could tell her that it was just convenience, but that would be a lie. “I didn’t know I was waiting
for you, until you showed up in my life.”
I can barely keep my hands in safe-for-work places. She presses even closer to me, looks up into
my eyes, and although we say nothing, we communicate in ways beyond words.
It’s not my imagination. It’s real, this thing between us.
We dance until the lights come up and the announcer bids everyone good night.
I look into her eyes again.
“Take me home?” she whispers.
 CHAPTER FIVE
JUSTINE

“Take me home,” I whisper to Miles.

Those stormy-blue eyes flash at me, and I melt. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers to me. The thrill
of knowing that he thinks I’m beautiful sweeps me up and makes my body long for his. I’ve waited so
long for him. I’m stunned to realize that he’s been waiting for me, too.
While we’re waiting for the valet to bring his car around, he strokes my cheek. Tucks a wisp of
hair behind my ear. “I should have known you the minute I saw you,” he says, “by your beautiful hair.”
“You’re not telling me you fell in love with my frizzy hair when I was an awkward teen,” I say
dryly, but my heart is thumping with excitement.
“Your hair is gorgeous. No, I didn’t fall in love with you, not then. That would have been kinda
creepy, don’t you think? But somehow I knew you were significant. I knew you would grow up to be
special.”
Special? Is that all?
The valet hands him his keys, and he helps me into the passenger seat.
Pulling out of the parking lot, he glances at me. “What? Tell me what you’re thinking. I get the
feeling you’re upset. What did I say?”
I look down at my hands, at the nervous way I’m twisting my fingers together. I open my mouth and
then close it.
“Am I moving too fast?” he asks, and now he sounds nervous. “I don’t mean to. I know it’s a lot, to
find out that your brother’s friend thinks he’s in love with you.”
“You think you love me?”
He’s quiet, negotiating a turn onto a busy street. “I’d like to pull back and not scare you, but—yeah.
Yeah, I cannot shake the feeling that you are The One. Yeah, I am in love with you. We can take it
slow, but that’s how I feel.”
Warmth steals over my body. “Because I’ve had a major, major crush on you since the first time I
met you. I’m embarrassed by how long I’ve had this crush. But Miles, I’ve been waiting on you for
my whole adult life.”
He glances at me, eyes wide, then pushes down on the accelerator. “I’m not going fast enough. I
really need to be kissing you right now.”
The minute we stop outside my apartment, he turns to me. I’m ready.
This kiss blows my mind.
It’s everything I have ever dreamed of: sweet, tender, full of desire. I’m very aware of my dress
where it touches my breasts, and I can already feel that my panties are damp. The kiss goes on and on,
kisses blending into kisses, broken by kisses on my face and my neck, then continued by more deep
mouth kisses. I can’t get enough of him. I love the feel of his hair on my fingers. I’m captivated by his
smell. I had no idea that cedar, soap, and skin was such a lethal combination.
When he reaches for my breast, I can’t help moaning. “Can we go in?” he whispers.
I shake my head to clear it. “Yeah. Yeah, we should.”
It takes me longer than normal to unlock my door, because my hands are shaking. It doesn’t help that
Miles is kissing the back of my neck. But once we’re inside, I close my door and I’m in his arms
immediately. “I want you so much,” he says, kissing that incredible spot where my neck meets my
shoulder. My knees stop working, so it’s a good thing I’m leaning against the door.
I untie his bow tie, unfasten his vest, try undoing his shirt buttons until I realize they’re studs, and
give up. He laughs, all the while kissing the tops of my breasts where the edge of my dress lies
against them, and unfastens them himself. Kicks off his shoes. Leans down to help me take my high-
heeled sandals off, and it is seriously the sexiest thing I have ever experienced, bar none. Getting oral
from my college boyfriend wasn’t this erotic. As I step out of the shoes, his fingers trail up my calves,
then up to the back of my knee, making me shudder with desire.
“I want to touch you,” he says, his voice low and hoarse. “I want to kiss you all over.” His mouth
moves from the top of my breast down to where my nipple is poking out under the bodice, and then he
sucks my nipple right through the beaded fabric. A noise comes out of me I’ve never heard before,
and forget taking off my shoes, this is now the sexiest move I’ve experienced.
“Bedroom,” I gasp. “Down the hall.”
Miles picks me up, bridal fashion, and carries me down the hall, turning sideways so I don’t hit my
head. He drops me right onto my bed, and fumbles around for the light switch. I turn on the bedside
lamp. He jerks his shirt off, revealing a sexy six-pack I hadn’t known was under his clothes. “So
beautiful,” he says in apparent awe, looking at me sprawled on my bed in a formal gown. “Take your
hair down, Justine. I want to see your hair spread out on the pillows. I want to know this is real.”
“It’s real,” I say, my voice low and hoarse too. “I can hardly believe it, but it’s real.”
He strips off his tuxedo pants and stands there in the lamplight, the bulge in his boxers impressive.
“Unzip me,” I whisper. My dress didn’t allow a bra, but I’m wearing silky smoke-blue panties
almost the same color as the dress. I can feel that they’re soaked through already.
“Roll over,” he whispers back. When I do, he hums appreciatively. “Fuck, you are gorgeous,
Justine. Front and back. Hair to toes. Damn.” He unzips my dress down to my lower back, then slips
the straps off my shoulders. “Roll back now, sweetheart, so we can get this off you.”
I sit up instead, letting the bodice of my dress fall to my waist. Letting him look at me. He sucks in
a breath, then looks up to meet my gaze, a sweet, dizzied, longing expression on his face.
“I want you too,” I say, and get off the bed just long enough to allow my dress to fall to the floor.
“Come here,” he says, and that dizzy expression is gone, replaced by pure desire. He reaches for
me, and I step to the side of the bed as he pulls me to him, kissing first one breast and then the other.
Sucking one nipple and then the other. I sigh with pleasure. He pulls me onto his lap, straddling him.
There are still two layers of fabric between us, but that bulge is unmistakable. I align my crotch over
it, and I move on him, delighting in the way he gasps just before I take his head in my hands and kiss
him.
This sexual assertiveness is not my usual style. I would have said it wasn’t romantic, and maybe
it’s not, but this is how I feel at the moment. He keeps telling me I’m beautiful. Keeps saying I’m the
one.
I believe him. I want him. Why shouldn’t I get what I want?
I want Miles. I want Miles everywhere, all over me, in me, with me. I want him forever.
Right now will do for right now.
His hands slide from my breasts down to my hips, helping me grind on him. When I break the kiss
for a breath, I can see the top of his cock peeking out from his boxers, and my mouth waters. I slide
down to the floor on my knees, and I tug his boxers down to let him loose. “Please?”
He lifts his hips so I can pull his underwear off. I lean forward to take him into my mouth. He’s
long and very excited; I’m wet and very excited too, and I love the slightly salty taste of him. I love
the way he groans as I fist his length, sucking him.
“Not too much, baby,” he warns. “Justine, I swear . . . oh fuck, not too much.”
I let him slide from between my lips, but leave my hand on him, pumping slowly. “Am I being too
—aggressive?”
“I love it that you want me as much as I want you,” he says, and bends to kiss me. “But it’s your
turn, baby. I’ve been thinking about your pussy for too long to ignore it now.” He practically flings me
up onto my bed and kneels between my legs, tugging my underwear down. “Oh fuck,” he says again.
“Look at you. So beautiful, head to toe, pussy included.”
His fingers are stroking my wet folds and I go mindless with pleasure. His tongue is warm on my
nipples, and his fingers are expert on my clit, and I’m so wound up that it seems only a brief moment
before I’m crying out with the strongest orgasm I can remember. As I get my breath back, he kisses
me. “Feel good, sweetheart?”
I tug his body on top of mine. “I need all of you. Now. Please, Miles. I’m on the pill.”
He says my name, kissing me again. I could moan at the feeling of his cock, all hard and velvety
smooth, against my inner lips. He rubs the head of it back and forth over my clit, and it revs me up
again, so close to another climax. I can’t stop making noises.
Then he’s inside me, filling me up, making us joined and whole. “I love you, Justine.”
“I love you, Miles.”
The feel of him. The slick, exquisite sensation of our most sensitive parts moving together. It’s so
incredible.
I urge him on with my hands and my hips. He moves a little faster, a little harder, and I can feel
myself getting even wetter while he grows even harder. So close . . .
So close . . .
And the world explodes in glitter and fireworks.
 CHAPTER SIX
MILES

Mind blown.
Mind.
Fucking.
Blown.
I don’t have words for how I’m feeling about Justine now. At first, I just had admiration for her,
having seen her transform from awkward teen to confident young woman.
And then, I had all the mushy, soft, romantic, sweet feelings about her.
Now, having made love with her like this? I’m fucking addicted.
I would be her sexual slave. Anything she wanted. Anything for her.
I fall asleep in her bed, naked, tucked around her, smelling her hair and her skin.
And when I wake, she’s still there. Still smelling gorgeous, with an undertone of warm skin under
the perfume. Still a delectable armful of deliciously naked woman. I stroke her side from her ribcage
down her hip, very lightly.
She stirs. I do it again, and I kiss her neck. She makes a little noise that tells me she’s awake. I
nibble her earlobe and gently squeeze her breast. “So,” she says dreamily, “it’s you.”
“It’s me.” I play with her nipple, which grows taut under my fingers. “I’m here with you.”
She shifts in the bed, turning her head back to me for a kiss. “Where else should you be?”
“Nowhere in the world. I belong with you.”
“We belong together.” She wiggles her bottom against me, and my cock, already awake, is suddenly
swollen with need. “Mmm,” she says, and her voice is affectionately amused. “Somebody’s happy to
see me.” She lifts her top leg to allow my shaft to slip up against her bare pussy, and we both hum
with appreciation.
“Very happy. You look so beautiful, and you feel so good.” I keep grinding on her, but I let my hand
drift down to her crotch to play with her little button. She’s wet inside—I can feel her juices against
my dick—so I lift her leg a little higher to dip inside her opening and slick up my fingers before
moving them back to her clit. The more I rub her pearl, the wetter she gets, until her body starts to
tremble and her breathing gets fast and shallow. She’s close. “I want you to come, baby. Come for me,
‘Tine.
“Don’t stop what you’re doing,” she says, her voice shaking. “But I need you inside me, too.”
She doesn’t have to ask twice. I keep rubbing, but I lift her leg a little higher to get room to slide in.
She’s so ready now that it’s easy, and fuck, she feels so good. I can see how tight her nipples are. I’m
rock-hard inside her tunnel, and I’m not stopping until we’ve both reached paradise.
Her hand moves down to rest on top of mine, and she shows me a slightly altered angle. It makes a
difference immediately, because she gasps and pushes her hips back against me. I pump faster. She
keeps moaning, until I feel her inner muscles clamping down on my cock with her orgasm, and it
pushes me over the edge, too.
Seeing my cum drip out of Justine’s pussy has to be the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
She’s all bare and pink and glistening, and decorated with my cream. Holy shit. I tell her how sexy
she is, and she smiles at me.
“Good,” she says. “I’m glad you don’t still think of me as Jake’s geeky little sister.”
“Oh, no. Not since I saw you all grown up.” I grab some tissues from the box beside the bed, and
clean her up. “No. There was a time when I saw you but didn’t really see you . . . and then I saw you,
and nothing was ever the same.”
“Well, now you’ve seen all of me.” She sounds slightly apprehensive.
“I couldn’t be more grateful, believe me.”
This time, we turn off the light. When we wake, it’s morning. We start the day with kisses, and
because she looks good enough to eat, I feast between her legs. Two orgasms later, I’m on my back
and she’s riding me, her perfect small breasts jiggling. The sight is just too much for me; I finish too
fast for her to get a third orgasm.
She says I owe her one.
I tell her she’s already ahead.
She insists. I don’t complain. We laugh about it.
Since the day started with kisses and lovemaking, we keep it going. Kisses throughout breakfast.
Lovemaking before we order in lunch. Kisses in the parking lot of my apartment building, when I stop
there to pick up clothes for myself. Lovemaking when we get back to her place.
The whole weekend goes like that, until Sunday night. We’re eating takeout Chinese at her place,
and she’s using chopsticks far more easily than I’ve ever been able to manage. I tell her I admire her
for that.
She smiles briefly and goes back to her Kung Pao Chicken. I’ve become so accustomed to her
wide, happy smile that I immediately miss it when it disappears. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She doesn’t look at me.
“Bullshit. There’s something.”
I can see the effort she makes to brush it off. “No, it’s fine. It’s been a wonderful weekend.”
“It’s changed everything,” I tell her candidly. “When I look at you, I see my future.”
This time, her smile is natural. She leans over to kiss me. “I love you, Miles.”
“I love you, too.” I consider a moment. “You’re not worried about Jake, are you? I wouldn’t think
he’d be a problem.”
“Jake?” She blinks twice, then shakes her head. “No. No, Jake’s not a problem.”
“And I liked your parents. I think they liked me.”
“Oh yes.”
“And I’m certain my parents would like you.”
“I’d love to meet them.”
All the right responses. None of the heart. I don’t know what’s wrong.
She asks me to go home Sunday, after we make love once more. She says she wants to get a good
night’s rest, that she’s got a busy day at work tomorrow, producing some reports for her boss at the
marketing company.
I kiss her and tell her I’m looking forward to Monday. “Can I take you to lunch?”
She shakes her head. “I really will be busy tomorrow. Sleep well, Miles.”
“You’re worried about work? It’ll be fine. Really.”
“Goodnight, Miles.”
 CHAPTER SEVEN
JUSTINE

I can’t imagine what going to work at the hospital is going to be like today.
The Charity Ball is likely to take up a lot of space in the newspaper. There may be pictures.
I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that . . . it’s just that I keep wondering if everybody knows I
slept with Miles.
It’s what I wanted. Always wanted. Still want, if I’m being honest.
What I don’t want? People assuming that I won a contract by sleeping with the boss. It’s career
death. It’s snickering behind my back for the rest of my life, unless I totally quit my job and become a
stay-at-home wife.
At Miles’s career level, there are a lot of those wives-who-lunch. I’d bet money that CFO Don
Willis’s wife doesn’t work. If my boss at Blue Ridge Creative wasn’t gay, he might even have a little
wifey at home.
I don’t want to be a little wifey. I want to continue my career. Be Miles’s wife, and maybe the
mother of his children, someday? Yes. Little wifey with no job of her own, no creative outlet? No,
thanks.
I don’t know how to say this to Miles. I know he’s picked up on my mood being off, but I just.
Don’t. Know. How to say it.
I go in to the admin office at the hospital early, and gather up a slew of materials so I can do my
report elsewhere. Then I leave and drive over to Blue Ridge, and take back my regular desk. I
prepare my reports for Michael. I drop them on his desk, and then I go back to mine and brood.
I silence my phone. At lunch, I eat a protein bar at my desk and brood some more, and then I take
my phone off silent and check my messages.
Two from Andrea at Hopedale. Two from my mother. Seven from Miles. I don’t read those.
While I have my phone in front of me, my mother calls. Ugh. I love my mom, but I know she wants
to ask about the Charity Ball, and I don’t want to open that can of worms. I let it go to voice mail.
It rings again, almost immediately. Mom again.
Dammit.
Okay, I give up. I answer it. “Yes, Mom, what do you want?”
“I want to know why you’re not answering your phone!” she says. “And why you didn’t tell me you
were going to the charity thing with that nice boy Miles. That is Jakey’s old roommate from college,
isn’t it? I didn’t realize until now that he’s the CEO of the place where you’re working!”
“You sound excited.”
“I am! Darlin’, there’s a picture of you in the Times, dancing with Miles, and you look so happy!
Now tell me everything!”
Oh hell no.
But somehow, without my saying that, Mom backs down. “Well, not everything. I expect you got a
nice good-night kiss, but you don’t have to tell me that. I do need to know if you’re going out with him
again. I remember you had such a crush on him when you were young, not surprising when he was so
handsome and so nice to you back then, but still. It was almost an obsession.”
 “I grew up, Mom.”
“And you got to go out with Prince Charming,” Mom says, laughing. Then she stops. “Unless he
turned out to not be Prince Charming at all.”
“No, that’s not—”
“If he wasn’t a gentleman to you, you let me know, and I’ll go kick his ass.”
My jaw drops. “Mother! Language!”
“Never mind him being a high-powered businessman, if he’s hurt my little girl in some way I’ll hurt
him back. Not kidding, Justine. Are you okay?”
I pause, and wait, and finally heave a sigh. “I am okay, Mom. He was a gentleman.” Such a
gentleman, I lost track of my orgasms, Mother. “I’m just worried about work. I want to make sure
everyone knows I didn’t get this contract because he liked me.”
“Well, of course not. First, he is a gentleman. And second, you earned it.”
I blink. Then, I smile. “Yes, I did. I earned it. Hey, Mom, I need to go, but can we do lunch next
Sunday? I’d like that.”
“Wonderful! I’ll make your favorites.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Of course I do. And then I’ll tell you all the gossip at the school board office.” Mom is a PA
working for the school board, and what dirt she doesn’t know isn’t worth discussing. “You could
bring Miles, if the circumstances warrant,” she says, hesitant again. “I’ll leave that up to you. Bring
him if you like, just let me know whether he’s coming or not.”
I think very briefly about Miles’s face when he’s coming, then shake it off. “I’ll let you know. Love
you.”
“Love you, babygirl.”
She hangs up.
I think about Miles. Miles and me. I think about my life without him, and what it would be with
him.
I’m being silly.
I deserved that contract; I do good work; I didn’t sleep my way into this job. That’s the truth,
whether anybody thinks otherwise or not. The truth is just the truth.
And the truth is, I love Miles.
I’ve always loved Miles.
I still love Miles.
I’ll always love Miles.
I take a deep breath, and stand up, taking my jacket and my purse with me. I have someplace to be. I
leave a note on Michael’s desk telling him I’m going back to Hopedale, and of course I’m available
to discuss the project with him at any time.
Then I head for the front door.
Only to find both Michael and Miles in the lobby. “Ah. Here she is now,” Michael says, very
avuncular and jolly. “Justine, here’s our client.”
Client, my ass. Miles is standing there with a bouquet of what looks like two dozen yellow roses.
He looks like a boyfriend.
“I’m here in a non-client capacity,” Miles says.
Michael makes a mock-shocked face like, No! You don’t say! “I’ll leave you two to—”
“No,” Miles says, and puts out a hand to Michael’s arm. “If you don’t mind staying just a minute, I
wanted to make sure it’s absolutely clear that not only is Justine a valued contributor to our joint
marketing project, she is entirely professional, and I’d be happy to recommend her to anyone. I want
it clearly understood that her career should not be compromised by our relationship.”
Michael raises his eyebrows. “Okay. I understand that clearly.”
“It was after she started working with Hopedale that I got to know her, and then came to love her.
And I want to ask her to marry me,” Miles says.
My jaw drops.
“Will you?” he says to me, very tenderly, dropping to one knee. “I don’t have a ring yet. I thought
we could pick it out together. But I love you, Justine.”
He stops there.
Tears have begun to trickle down my cheeks.
“You’re crying,” he says, and his face flushes. “Oh god. I didn’t mean to ruin this, I swear I didn’t.
Justine, I’m—”
“Happy tears,” I explain. “Yes. Yes, I will marry you.”
He stands and takes me into his arms. The receptionist, and Michael, and other coworkers at Blue
Ridge Creative all clap.
And when he kisses me, I know it’s what I’ve been waiting for all of my life.
 EPILOGUE
MILES, THREE YEARS LATER
“That was delicious,” I say to my beautiful wife, pushing my plate away with a sigh. “We are really
getting good at this cooking thing.” Before we started dating, I barely cooked, but watching her pore
over cookbooks and learn how to cut veggies made me realize that I shouldn’t expect Justine to do it
all. Besides, I like cooking. I like planning meals together and sharing the kitchen with her. Dinner
tonight was that recipe made famous on the short-video platform, penne pasta with feta and cherry
tomatoes. We added some grilled chicken and sauteed spinach.
Yeah, domesticity. Some of my friends might laugh, since I held out so long, but I’m not sorry. I’m
where I need to be, with the person I need most in my life.
“We are getting good,” she says, her eyes sparkling.
“Didn’t you like the wine?” I say, sipping the last of my glass of Sauv Blanc and nodding toward
her untouched glass.
“I just wasn’t in the mood for wine,” she says carelessly, and gets up from the table to clear it.
“No, I’ll do that. You’ve worked as long as I have this week.”
“Well, I’ll put away the leftovers, then,” she says.
I catch her around the waist and kiss her. Moving around our kitchen together smoothly, knowing
each other’s moves—it’s like a dance. I ask the virtual assistant to play my “Upbeat Love Songs”
playlist, and as soon as the kitchen is all squared away and clean, I take my love into my arms.
We dance.
“I’ve been wondering,” Justine says, “whether we might start looking for a house soon. Maybe
something close to the hospital?”
“Really? I thought you liked this place.”
“I do. But there’s only one bedroom. Maybe it’s time to upgrade.”
“Maybe it is. Want to start looking this weekend?”
She nods. I tell Alexa to dim the lights.
Justine laughs. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Maybe. Is it working?”
She reaches up to kiss me. “Just like always. Just like all the sweet things you do for me.”
I kiss her back. At some point, we stop dancing and concentrate on the kissing, and at some point
after that, we drift into the bedroom, still kissing. I slip her black work dress off over her head,
thrilled at how she looks in that glorious red lacy underwear. “You’re so fucking gorgeous, woman.”
She just smiles, and unfastens her bra to let me see her beautiful perky tits.
I enjoy the feel of her breasts in my hands, the weight of them and the soft roundness of them, and I
love the way her head rolls back when I take a nipple into my mouth, laving the tight peak with my
tongue.
She moans. I lick her other nipple. “So good,” she pants. I strip off my shirt and kick off my socks,
then ditch my suit pants. “Oh, you want me,” she says, stroking my steel-hard dick through my boxers.
“I always want you. Get on the bed, Justine.” She slips her underwear off, and I can smell the
sweetness of her pussy juices. “And you want me, baby.” I can’t help the way my voice goes hoarse
with need.
 She spreads her thighs for me. “Dessert.”
I feast on her slick pink valley, nipping at her little bud with my lips and then working it with my
tongue, making her cry out in pleasure. I slip two fingers inside her slit, finding that good spot and
stroking her there, and I can feel the tension in her thighs. I need to make her come.
I love making her come.
Her hips thrust toward me, and she gasps. “Don’t stop! Don’t stop, I’m gonna come—oh, fuck,
Miles—”
It is a privilege to watch her climax. But one is not enough. I stroke her through the peak and down
the other side, and then when she’s getting her breath back, I roll her over and smack one butt cheek.
“On your knees, sweet girl. You need another orgasm.”
She looks back at me over her shoulder. “Oh yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.” I smack her other butt cheek, and yank my boxers all the way off, letting my
increasingly-desperate cock loose. “I’m gonna give it to you. I know you love it like this.”
“Mmm,” she says, arching her back to me so I can see her pussy, all glistening pink and ready for
me. I tease her with the head of my cock, slipping it just inside her channel and then out, over her clit
and then back to her opening, and doing it all over again. She hums with pleasure, and then I feel her
fingers guiding my head back to her little button, rubbing it over the stiff nub. Back and forth, back and
forth, and then she presses my swollen cock just inside her passage. “I need you,” she says.
I give her all of me in one deep thrust, and she moans again. I can feel her fingers working over her
clit, and I love looking down at her body while we fuck, seeing my shaft stroking those pink folds of
hers. Seeing her glorious hair spread out over her shoulders. She moans again, and I can tell that she’s
getting close to another climax. Her sugar walls grip me tighter, and I grip her ass cheeks and thrust
harder. Fuck, I’m going to come soon. “Please, baby,” I beg. “Please come. Please come—” and she
does. Her pussy milks my cock as she cries out with pleasure, her little rose opening and closing in
those contractions, and I let go. I coat her cervix in my seed. I mark her as mine.
When I pull out, I collapse on the bed and curve my body around her, caressing her tits. “You get
enough?”
She raises my hand to her lips to kiss it, then places it back on her breast. “For now.”
We lie together, panting. “Can I tell you something?” Justine asks, her voice tentative.
“You can tell me anything.”
“We really need to move.”
Huh. “Well . . .if you feel that strongly about it, we can move it up the timeline. I thought we would
wait until we were ready to start a family, and the timing is your decisio—”
“I’m pregnant,” she says.
I roll her over toward me, searching her face. “You are?”
She nods, her eyes full of tears.
“Are you crying?”
“Happy tears,” she assures me. “I want to keep working after the baby’s born.”
“We’ll make it work,” I promise her. “You sure you’re okay?”
“It was a little bit of a surprise, but—yes. I’m so happy, Miles. I’ve dreamed about this for so long.
I waited for you for so long.”
“No more waiting, sweetheart,” I say, my own eyes full. I blink my own tears away and kiss her.
“I’m so excited to make a family with you! I love you so much. I’m so happy you waited for me.”
“No more waiting,” she says, and we kiss.
Together. Forever. And now anchored by a little person made up of each of us. My heart swells
with happiness.
 READ THE REST OF THE BOOKS IN THIS
SERIES
This October meet the bosses who deserve a little something special for Boss’s Day. #TheBoss is
a multi-author standalone short romance series with guaranteed HEAs, no cliffhangers, and no
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The next book in the series is Ava Pearl’s Spying on the Boss.

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Bringing the Heat (Rivertown Rowdies baseball series)

Heart Doctors

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Short sweet steamy alpha male-curvy girl enemies-to-lovers romance. No cheating, no cliffhanger,
always an HEA. Book 10 in the Blue Collar Hometown Hotties series, but can be read as a
standalone.

MINDY:
Guys don't generally stare at me at the gym. I'm not one of those slender, fit girls.
Even more unusual, the staring guy is super-hot.
I'm so disconcerted that I snap at him.
When I find out he's the guy I've hired to build an outdoor seating area at my restaurant, I have a
choice to make: be angry, or be professional?
I decide on professional.

XANDER:
The super-hot curvy girl who clapped back at me this morning for staring at her turns out to be my
new client.
I’m relieved that she’s treating me in a businesslike way, and I guess we bury the hatchet.
But I can’t stop thinking about her.
When she might be in danger, I can’t help stepping in to protect the woman I think of as mine.
The question is, when will she realize I’m hers?

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 About The Author
Carly Keene

Carly Keene writes short romance packed full of hot instalove between sexy, assertive men and the
fantastic, curvy women they fall in love with—stories as sweet and steamy as a vanilla latte, served
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She’s a small-town girl who lives in Virginia with her husband and a bat-crap crazy dog.
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Aristotle. The Second Book attacks, with a good deal of acerbity, and
some wire-drawing, but also with learning, acuteness, and common-
sense, the Aristotelian doctrine of Imitation, and the philosopher’s
order and distribution of poetic kinds. The Third follows this up by an
inquiry whether, in a general way, Poetry is Imitation at all; the Fourth
by one whether the poet is an imitator. And the conclusion of the
three, enforced with great dialectical skill, and with a real knowledge
of Greek criticism,—that of Plato, Longinus, and the Rhetoricians, as
well as Aristotle’s,—is that Poetry is not Imitation, or at any rate that
Imitation is not proper and peculiar to poets. In which point it will go
hard but any catholic student of literature, however great his respect
for Aristotle, must now “say ditto” to Patrizzi.
In his Fifth Book Patrizzi tackles a matter of far greater importance
—for after all the discussion, “Is Poetry Imitation, or is it not?” is very
mainly a logomachy. As Miss Edgeworth’s philosophic boy remarks,
“You may call your hat your cadwallader,” when you have once
explained that by this term you mean “a black thing that you wear on
your head.” But the question of this Fifth Book, “Whether Poetry can
be in prose?” is of a very different kind. It goes, not to words but to
things, and to the very roots of them; it involves—if it may not be said
actually to be—the gravest, deepest, most vital question of literary
criticism itself; and on the answer given to it will turn the further
answer which must be given to a whole crowd of minor questions.
On this point il gran Patricio has at least this quality of greatness,
that he knows his own mind with perfect clearness, and expounds it
as clearly as he knows it. His conclusion[128] is, “That verse is so
proper and so essential to every manner of poetry that, without
verse, no composition either can or ought to be Poetry.” This is
refreshing, whether we consider that Patrizzi has taken the best way
of establishing his dogma or not. He proceeds as usual by posing
and examining the places—four in number—in which Aristotle deals
with the question; and discusses them with proper exactness from
the verbal point of view, dwelling specially, as we should expect, on
the term ψιλὸς for prose. Then, as we should expect also, he enters
into a still longer examination of the very obscure and difficult
passage about the Mimes and the Socratic Dialogues. To say that
the argument is conducted in a manner wholly free from quibbling
and wire-drawing would perhaps be too much. Patrizzi—and his
logic is certainly not the worse for it—was still in the habit of bringing
things to directly syllogistic head now and then; and of this modern
readers are too often impatient. But he does succeed in convicting
Aristotle of using language by no means wholly consistent; and he
succeeds still better in getting and keeping fast hold of that really
final argument which made De Quincey so angry when Whately so
forcibly put it[129]—the argument that from time immemorial
everybody, who has had no special point to prove, when speaking of
a poem has meant something in verse, that everybody, with the
same exception, has called things in verse poems.
Our author’s acuteness is not less seen in the selection and
treatment of the subject of his Sixth Book, which is the intimately
allied question—indeed, the same question from another point of
view—“Whether the Fable rather than the verse makes the property
of the poem?” He is equally uncompromising on this point; and has
of course no difficulty in showing—against Plutarch rather than
Aristotle—that “fable” in the sense of “made-up subject” is not only
not necessary to Poetry, but does not exist in any of the most
celebrated poems of the most celebrated poets.[130] But he is not
even yet satisfied in his onslaught on the Four Places. He devotes a
special Book (VII.—it is true that all the constituents of this group of
books are short) to Aristotle’s contrast of Empedocles and Homer,
labelling the latter only as poet, the former as rather Physiologist.
And with this he takes the same course, convicting Aristotle, partly
out of his own mouth,[131] partly by citing the “clatter” (schiamaccio)
which even his own commentators had made on this subject. And,
indeed, at the time even the stoutest Aristotelians must have been
puzzled to uphold a judgment which, taken literally, would have
excluded from the name of poetry the adored Georgics of old, and
the admired Syphilis of recent, times.
But, indefatigable as he is, he is still not “satiate with his victory,”
and in the Eighth Book attacks yet another facet of the same great
problem, “Whether Poetry can be based upon, or formed from,
History?” This was, as we have seen, a question which had already
interested the Italians much; and Patrizzi in handling it draws nearer
and nearer to his controversy with Tasso, whom he here actually
mentions. He has little difficulty in showing that Aristotle’s contrast
between Poetry and History itself by no means denies historical
subjects to the poet, and that Aristotle is not at all responsible for, or
in accordance with, Plutarch’s extravagant insistence on “mendacity”
as a poetic proprium. “All the materials comprised in Art, or Science,
or study,” says he[132] (in that manner of his which we have already
called refreshing, and which we shall meet again seldom in this
volume), “can be suitable subjects for poetry and poems, provided
that they be poetically treated.” Verily, a gran Patricio!
The subject of the Ninth Book is less important and more purely
antiquarian, but interesting enough. It discusses the question
whether ancient poetry necessarily involved “harmony” and “rhythm,”
and what these terms exactly mean—dancing and gestic
accompaniment being considered as well as music. Patrizzi decides,
sensibly enough on the historical comparison, that all these things,
though old and not unsuitable companions of poetry, are in no sense
formative or constitutive parts of Poetry itself.[133]
The title-question of the Tenth Book is, “Whether the modes of
Imitation are three?” He discusses this generally, and specially in
regard to narrative and dramatic delivery of the poetic matter, and
then passes in an appendix (which, however, he declares to be part
The Trimerone on of the book) to the Trimerone of reply to Tasso.
Tasso. This is a necessarily rather obscure summary,
with some quotations, of a fuller controversy between the two,
complicated by glances at the other literature of the Gerusalemme
quarrel, especially at the work of Camillo Pellegrino.[134] To
disentangle the spool, and wind it in expository form, is out of the
question here. Fortunately the piece concludes with a tabular
statement[135] of forty-three opposition theses to Pellegrino and
Tasso. A good many of these turn on rather “pot-and-kettle”
recriminations between Homerists and Ariostians; but the general
principles of comparative criticism are fairly observed in them, and
there is no acerbity of language. In fact, although on some of the
points of the controversy Patrizzi took the Della Cruscan side, it does
not seem to have interrupted his friendship with Tasso, who attended
his lectures,[136] and whose funeral he attended.
 The intrinsic importance of Patrizzi’s criticism may be matter of
opinion; but it will hardly be denied that both its system and its
conclusions are widely different from those of nearly all the Italian
critics whom we have yet considered, though there may be
approaches to both in Cinthio on the one hand and in Castelvetro on
Remarkable the other. The bickering with Aristotle on particular
position of points is of much less importance than the constant
Patrizzi. implicit, and not rare explicit, reliance on the historic
method—on the poets and the poems that exist, the ideas of poetry
conveyed by common parlance, the body of the written Word in
short, and not the letter of the written Rule. I am not sure that Patrizzi
ever lays down the doctrine that “Rules follow practice, not practice
rules,” with quite the distinctness of Bruno in the passage cited
above.[137] But he makes a fight for it in a passage of the Trimerone,
[138]
and his entire critical method involves it more or less. If he does
not quote modern literature much, it is obviously because the
controversy in which he was mixing took its documents and texts
mainly from the ancients; but he is so well acquainted with the
modern literature, not merely of his own language, that he actually
cites[139] Claude Fauchet’s Origines de la Poésie Française, which
had appeared in 1581. That his interest in the whole matter may
have been philosophical rather than strictly, or at least exclusively,
literary is very possible—he was actually a Professor of Philosophy;
but however this may be, he has hit on the solid causeway under the
floods, and has held his way steadily along it for as far as he chose
to go. Nay, in the sentence which has been chosen for the epigraph
of this Book, he has kept it open for all to the end of Poetry and of
Time.
There are, however, few propositions in literature truer than this—
Sed contra that it is of no present use to be wise for the future.
mundum. If a man chooses the wisdom of the morrow, he
must be content for the morrow to appreciate him—which it does not
always, though no one but a poor creature will trouble himself much
about that. Patrizzi had a really considerable reputation, and
deserved it; but in matters literary he was two hundred years in front
of his time, and his time avenged itself by taking little practical notice
of him.[140] The critical writers of the last fifteen or twenty years of the
century are fairly numerous; and though none of them can pretend to
great importance, the names of some have survived, and the
writings of some of these are worth examination, certainly by the
historian and perhaps by the student. But the general drift of them is
usually anti-Patrician and pro-Aristotelian, in that very decidedly
sophisticated interpretation of Aristotle which was settling itself down
The latest upon the world as critical orthodoxy. Among them
group of we may mention one or two which, though actually
sixteenth- earlier than Patrizzi, are later than Castelvetro, and
century
will help to complete, as far as we can here attempt
Critics.
it, the conspectus of that remarkable flourishing time
of Italian critical inquiry which actually founded, and very nearly
finished, the edifice of European criticism generally for three
centuries at least. The authors to whom we return are Partenio,
Viperano, Piccolomini, Gilio da Fabriano, and Mazzoni; those to
whom we proceed are Jason Denores, Gabriele Zinano, and
Faustino Summo. This latter, who, with an odd coincidence of name,
date, and purport, does really sum up the sixteenth century for
Aristotle, and so govern the decisions of the seventeenth and
eighteenth, had been immediately preceded in the same sense by
Buonamici,[141] Ingegneri,[142] and others.
Partenio, like Minturno and some others, gave his thoughts on the
Partenio. subject to the world in both “vulgar” and “regular”;[143]
but the two forms, while not identical, are closer
together than is sometimes the case, though there is in the Latin a
curious appended anthology of translation and parallel in the two
languages. He is rather a formal person (as indeed may be judged
from his particular addiction to Hermogenes as an authority), but he
is not destitute of wits. Throughout he quotes Italian as well as Latin
examples, and refers to Italian critics such as Trissino; while in one
place he gives something like a regular survey of contemporary Latin
poetry by Italians from Pontanus to Cotta. He lays special stress on
the importance of poetic diction; he thinks that Art can and should
improve nature; but he is as classical as the stiffest perruque of the
French anti-Romantic school in believing Aristotle and Horace to
contain everything necessary to poetical salvation.
Viperano.
 Viperano[144] (who by a natural error is sometimes cited as
Vituperano) somewhere makes the half-admission, half-boast,
scripsimus autem varios libros de variis rebus, and is indeed a sort
of rhetorical bookmaker who oscillates between instruction and
epideictic. This character is sufficiently reflected in his De Arte
Poetica. He had some influence—even as far as Spain (v. inf.)
Piccolomini’s book,[145] which is a compact small quarto of 422
pages, differs in arrangement from Castelvetro’s merely in not giving
the Greek—the particelle of the original in translation being followed
Piccolomini. by solid blocks of annotationi. The author was of
that well-known type of Renaissance scholar which
aspired to a generous if perhaps impossible universalism; and as he
puts this encyclopædic information at the service of his notes, they
are naturally things not easily to be given account of in any small
space, or with definite reference to a particular subject. That
Piccolomini, however, was not destitute of acuteness or judgment to
back his learning, reference to test passages will very easily show.
He has not allowed the possible force of the μᾶλλον, for instance, to
escape him in the Homer-and-Empedocles passage referred to a
little earlier—indeed Maggi had put him in the right way here. But, in
this and other cases, he is somewhat too fond of “hedging.” “We
must remember this; but we must not forget that,” &c. The inspiriting
downrightness of Scaliger on the one side, and Patrizzi on the other,
is not in him; and we see the approach, in this subject also, of a time
of mere piling up of authorities, and marshalling of arguments pro
and con, to the darkening rather than the illumination of judgment.
The Topica Poetica of Giovanni Andrea Gilio da Fabriano[146]
comes well next to Piccolomini, because the pair are characteristic
examples of the two parallel lines in which, as we have seen
Gilio. throughout, Italian criticism proceeds during the century.
In plan it presents no inconsiderable resemblance to that
work of our own Puttenham (v. infra) which followed it at no great
interval; but it is, as its special title will have indicated to the expert,
even more definitely rhetorical. In fact, it must be one of the very
latest treatises in which, on the partial precedent of antiquity, Poetics
are brought directly under Rhetoric. We actually start with accounts,
illustrated by poetical examples in the vernacular, of the Deliberative,
Demonstrative, and Judicial kinds; we pass thence to Invention,
Imitation, and Style; and thence again to Decorum, the Proper, and
so forth, all still illustrated from the vulgar tongue mainly, but with a
Latin example here and there. And this finishes the short First Book.
The longer Second is the most strictly “topical,” with its sections (at
first sight bewildering to the modern non-expert mind) on Definition
and Etymology, on Genus and Species, on Example and Induction,
on Proceeding from Less to Greater and from Greater to Less, on
Amplification, Authority, Custom, and Love. The Third is wholly on
Figures of Speech, and the Fourth on Tropes or Figures of “Conceit.”
The poetical illustration is all-pervading, and there is an odd
appendix of sonnets from ladies of Petrarch’s time. The book is
chiefly worth notice here because, as has been said, it is one of the
latest—perhaps, with the exception of Puttenham’s own, the actually
latest—of its special subdivision that we shall have to notice,—the
subdivision, that is to say, in which the literature handled is
absolutely subordinate to an artificial system of classification, in
which the stamped and registered ticket is everything, so that, when
the critic has tied it on, his task is done.
Giacomo Mazzoni is perhaps better known[147] than at least some
of the subjects of this chapter, owing to his connection with Dante.
Mazzoni He first, in 1573, published at Cesena a brief Difesa di
. Dante of some fifty folios, in fairly large print, and followed
it up fourteen years later with an immense Della Difesa, containing
750 pages of very small print without the index. The points of the
actual Difesa are not uncurious—such as an argument that
discourses on Poetry are not improper for the philosopher, and that
Dante is a particularly philosophical poet, in fact encyclopædic. From
the Imitation point of view the Comedy can be easily defended, as it
is a real following of action, and not the mere relation of a dream:
and as dealing with costume (manners) it is a comedy, not a tragedy
or heroic poem. The Della Difesa, on the other hand, is a wilderness
of erudition and controversy, arranged under abstract heads (“how
the poets have conducted themselves towards the predicaments of
Time and Place,” &c.), and diverging into inquiries and sub-inquiries
of the most intricate character—the trustworthiness of dreams,[148]
the opinions held of them in antiquity, the nature and kinds of
allegory, Dante’s orthodoxy—in short, all things Dantean, and very
many others. If I cannot with Mr Spingarn[149] discover “a whole new
theory of poetry” in the Difesa itself, I am ready to admit that almost
anything might be discovered in the Della Difesa.
The Poetica of Jason Denores[150] is remarkable from one point of
view for its thoroughgoing and “charcoal-burner” Aristotelianism,
from another for the extraordinary and meticulous precision of its
typographical arrangements. How many sizes and kinds of type
Denores there are in Jason’s book I am not enough of an expert in
. printing to attempt to say exactly: and the arrangement of
his page is as precious as the selection of his type. Sometimes his
text overflows the opened sheet, with decent margins indeed but
according to ordinary proportions; at others (and by no means
always because he requires side-notes) it is contracted to a canal
down the centre, with banks broader than itself. It is, however, when
Denores comes to the tabular arrangement and subdivision of
statement and argument, in which nearly all these writers delight,
that he becomes most eccentric. As many divisions, so many parallel
columns; under no circumstances will his rigid equity give one
section the advantage of appearing on the recto of a leaf while the
others are banished to the verso. This is all very well when the
divisions are two or three or even four. But when, as sometimes
happens, there are six or even eight, the cross-reading of the parallel
columns is at once tempting and conducive to madness. As each
column is but some half-inch broad, almost every word longer than a
monosyllable has to be broken into, and as only a single em of
space is allowed between the columns, there is a strong temptation
to “follow the line.” By doing this you get such bewilderments as

“gue do-diEdip-di Laio, ttappas-menosia ra il Poe mu tio lipo,

per,” &c.,

a moderate dose of which should suffice to drive a person of some

imagination, and excessive nerves, to Bedlam. Read straight,
however, Denores is much more sedative, not to say soporific, than
exciting: and his dealings with Tragedy, the Heroic Poem, and
Comedy have scarcely any other interest than as symptoms of that
determination towards unqualified, if not wholly unadulterated,
Aristotelianism which has been remarked upon.
Il Sogno, overo della Poesia, by Gabriele Zinano,[151] dedicated at
Reggio on the 15th October 1590 to the above-mentioned Ferrando
Zinano. Gonzaga of Guastalla, is a very tiny treatise, written with
much pomp of style, but apparently unnoticed by most of
the authorities on the subject. The author had studied Patrizzi (or
Patrici, as he, too, calls him), and was troubled in his mind about
Imitation, and about the equivocal position of Empedocles. He
comforts himself as he goes on, and at last comes to a sort of
eclectic opportunism, which extols the instruction and delight of
poetry, admits that it can practically take in all arts and sciences, but
will not admit fable as making it without verse, or verse without fable,
and denies that both, even together, make it necessarily good. The
little piece may deserve mention for its rarity, and yet once more, as
symptomatic of the hold which critical discussion had got of the
Italian mind, Zinano is evidently full of the Deca Istoriale and the
Deca Disputata, but alarmed at their heresies.
Paolo Beni, the antagonist of Summo, the champion of prose for
tragedy as well as for comedy, and a combatant in the controversy
over the Pastor Fido, which succeeded in time, and almost equalled
in tedium, that over the Gerusalemme, will come best in the next
Book; and though I have not neglected, I find little to say about,
Mazzone da Correa[152] and others.[153] A sign of the times is the
Miglionico, somewhat earlier I Fiori della Poesia[154] of Mazzone
&c. da Miglionico (not to be confounded with the above-
mentioned Mazzoni), a tightly packed quarto of five hundred pages,
plus an elaborate index. This is a sort of “Bysshe” ante Bysshium—a
huge gradus of poetic tags from Virgil, Ovid, and Horace, arranged
ready for anybody who wishes to pursue the art of poetry according
to the principles of Vida. Here you may find choice of phrases to
express the ideas of “going to bed for the purpose of sleeping,” of
“black and beautiful eyes,” of “shoes that hurt the feet,” and of
“horses that run rapidly.” It was inevitable that this manual at once
and reductio ad absurdum of the mechanic Art of Poetical Imitation
should come—indeed, others had preceded Mazzone, for instance
Fabricius, in Germany (see next Book). But one cannot help invoking
a little woe on those by whom it came.
Summo. The twelve Discorsi[155] of Faustino Summo
manage to cover as many questions in their 93
leaves: the end of Poetry; the meaning of the word philanthropia;[156]
the last words (the purgation clause) of the Definition of Tragedy; the
possibility of a happy ending; the representation of atrocities and
deaths; the admissibility of true fables; the necessity of unity of
action; the propriety of drama in prose; furor poeticus; the sufficiency
of verse to make poetry; the legitimacy of tragi-comedy and pastoral;
and the quality of the Pastor Fido. Summo gives us our last word
here with singular propriety. He is not quite Aristotelian to the point of
infallibility, and his orthodoxy is what may be called a learned
orthodoxy—that is to say, he is careful to quote comments or
arguments of many of the writers whom we have mentioned in this
chapter and the last, from Trissino to Denores, and of a few whom
we have not. But in him this orthodoxy is in the main constituted: it is
out of the stage of formation and struggle; and it is ready—all the
more so that many of its documents have already passed with
authority to other countries and languages—to take its place as the
creed of Europe.

97. My copy is the second edition (apud Petrum Santandreanum,

s. l., 1581).
98. This joke requires a little explanation and adaptation to get it
into English. The Latin is miror majores nostros sibi tam iniquos
fuisse ut factoris vocem maluerint oleariorum cancellis
circumscribere. In fact, Fattojo and Fattojano, if not fattore, do mean
in Italian “Oil-Press” and “Oil-Presser.”
99. Scaliger goes so far as to say that “it would be better never to
have read” the Symposium and the Phædrus, because of their taint
with the Grœcanicum scelus.
100. The decision of this is all the more remarkable that Scaliger
does not, as unwary moderns might expect, make verse the form of
Poetry, but the matter. Feet, rhythm, metre, these are the things that
Poetry works in, her stuff, her raw material. The skill of the poet in its
various applications is the form. A very little thought will show this to
be the most decisive negation possible of the Wordsworthian heresy
—anticipated by many sixteenth-century writers, from Italy to
England, and though not exactly authorised, countenanced by the
ancients, from Aristotle downwards—that verse is not essential in
any way.
101. One cannot help thinking that this distinction, which is quite
contrary to those entertained by Aristotle and Quintilian, must have
been influenced by the cadences of the modern languages—Italian
and French—with which Scaliger was familiar. In both, but especially
in French, the actual “measuring-off” of syllables was the be-all and
end-all of metre, the easements provided in English and German by
syllabic equivalence being in French refused altogether, in Italian
replaced only by the more meagre aid of syncope and apocope.
102. As, even throughout the neo-classic age, very orthodox neo-
classics admitted, especially in the “Musæus v. Homer” case.
103. Varietas poetices κομητικὴ, sicut Cypassis Corinnæ. The text
has κομωτικὴ, which I do not find.
104. Spingarn, p. 172. “Disinterested treatment” of practical
problems, such as poems certainly are, “wholly aside from all
practical considerations,” sometimes leads to awkward results.
105. Mr Spingarn (p. 94) apparently states that he “formulated”
them, but the gist of the next two pages fully corrects this slip or
ambiguity; and he has himself pointed out with equal decision and
correctness that the French assumption contained in the phrase,
Unités Scaligériennes, is unfounded.
106. P. 365.
107. Vienna, 1570. My copy is the second enlarged and improved
issue, which appeared at Basle five years later. I have also the
companion edition of Petrarch (Basle, 1582), and the Opere Varie
Critiche, published, with a Life, by Muratori, in 4to (Lione, 1727).
Besides these he wrote an “exposition” of Dante, which was lost, and
he is said, by Muratori, to have been never tired of reading, and
discovering new beauties in, Boccaccio. Bentley, Diss. on Phal., ed.
1817, p. liii, defending Castelvetro against Boyle, says that “his
books have at this present time such a mighty reputation, that they
are sold for their weight in silver in most countries of Europe.” I am
glad that this is not true now, for the Poetic by itself weighs nearly 3
lb. But Europe often makes its valuations worse. I have seen, though
not bought, a copy for a shilling in these days.
108. See the curious remarks of Salviati, printed from MS. by Mr
Spingarn (op. cit., p. 316). Salviati thinks that Castelvetro too often
wrote to show off subtlety of opinion, and to be not like other people.
109. Op. Var., p. 83 sq.
110. Op. Var., pp. 288-306.
111. In fact, he subordinates the first to the other two. They make it
necessary. In order to appreciate his views, it is necessary to read
the commentary on all the Aristotelian places concerned, and also
on that touching Epic.
112. P. 101.
113. Poet. d’Arist., p. 278.
114. Poet. d’Arist., pp. 585, 586.
115. Ibid., p. 576.
116. Ibid., p. 23.
117. Poet. d’Arist., p. 545. It is fair to say that the ban is only
pronounced in reference to a single point—the management of
speeches.
118. Ibid., p. 23.
119. Poet. d’Arist., p. 158.
120. It is perhaps well to meet a possible, though surely not
probable objection “Do you deny ranks in poetry?” Certainly not—but
only the propriety of excluding ranks which do not seem, to the
censor, of the highest.
121. At Venice, but ad instanza of a Ferrarese bookseller.
122. These pieces form the major part of Cesare Guasti’s Prose
Diverse di T. T. (2 vols., Florence, 1875).
123. For instance, my attention was drawn by Mr Ker to the fact
that the description of the subject of the third original Discorso given
at the end of the second (f. 24 original ed. vol. i. p. 48, Guasti) does
not in the least fit the actual contents, while the missing matter is
duly supplied in the later book (i. 162 sq., Guasti).
 124. For instance in the opening of the first Discorsi (f. 2, verso):
Variamente tessendolo, di commune proprio, e di vecchio novo il
facevano.
125. Bruno himself, in more places than one, takes the same line;
indeed his statement in the Eroici Furori, that “the rules are derived
from the poetry, and there are as many kinds and sorts of true rules
as there are kinds and sorts of true poets,” is the conclusion of the
whole matter, and would have done his friend Sidney a great deal of
good. (The passage may be found at p. 38 of the first vol. of the
translation by I. Williams (London, 1887, or in the original, ed.
Lagarde, p. 625).) But Bruno’s genius, as erratic as it was brilliant,
could not settle to mere Rhetoric.
126. Especially when they are contrasted with the
superciliousness (v. supra) of Lilius Giraldus and Scaliger.
127. It would be rather interesting to know whether the Furor
Poeticus of the second part of the Return from Parnassus has
anything to do with Patrizzi. There need be no connection, of course;
but the correspondence of England and Italy at this time in matters
literary was so quick and intimate that there might have been.
Patrizzi’s book appeared in the probable year of Shakespeare’s
going to London, and of the production of Tamburlaine. Bruno had
then left England.
128. Deca Disputata, p. 122.
129. See Whately, Rhetoric, III. iii. 3, p. 216 (ed. 8, London, 1857),
and De Quincey, Rhetoric (Works, ed. Masson, x. 131).
130. Deca Disputata, p. 134 sq.
131. Of course an Aristotelian advocate may justly point out that
the Master after all only says μᾶλλον ἢ ποιητὴν, without absolutely
denying the latter title to Empedocles.
132. Deca Disputata, p. 175.
133. Deca Disputata, p. 192.
134. Who had been pars non minima in the exaltation of Tasso
and depreciation of Ariosto. See Spingarn, pp. 122, 123; and
Serassi, Vita di Tasso (Rome, 1785), pp. 331-348.
135. Deca Disputata, pp. 246-249.
136. This was long after the publication of the Trimerone (1586),
and when Patrizzi had been translated from Ferrara to a newly
founded chair of Platonic Philosophy at Rome, V. Serassi, op. cit., p.
475.
137. P. 95.
138. Pp. 221, 222. Of course it is possible to take exception even
to poeticamente—to ask “Yes; but what is this?” But the demurrer is
only specious. The very adverbial form shifts the sovereignty from
the subject to the treatment.
139. Ibid., p. 235.
140. The way in which Patrizzi is referred to after the lapse of a
century by Baillet and Gibert (v. inf., p. 320) shows at once the sort
of magni nominis umbra which still made itself felt, and the absence
of any definite knowledge to give body to the shade. For his dealings
with Rhetoric, see next Book, p. 329.
141. Discorsi Poetici, 1597.
142. Poesia Rappresentativa, 1598.
143. Della Imitatione Poetica, Venice, 1560; De Poetica Imitatione,
ibid., 1565.
144. His De Arte Poetica seems to have first appeared at Antwerp
in 1579: I know it in his Opera, Naples, 1606.
145. Annotationi di M. Alessandro Piccolomini nel Libro della
Poetica d’Aristotele: Vinegia. The dedication to Cardinal Ferdinand
dei Medici is dated Ap. 20, 1572, from Piccolomini’s native town of
Sienna, where he became co-adjutor-archbishop. Some of Salviati’s
MS. observations, printed by Mr Spingarn, seem to show that even
Piccolomini’s contemporaries regarded him as a little too polymathic,
while his Raffaella exhibits the less grave side of the Renaissance.
But he was now getting an old man, and died six years later at the
full three score and ten.
146. In Venetia, 1580. Why has Time, in the title-page woodcut of
this, an hour-glass as head-dress, but a scourge instead of a scythe
in his hand?
147. Milton had read Mazzoni, and cites him.
148. There is a large folding table of the causes and kinds of
visions.
149. Op. cit., p. 124.
150. Padua, 1588. Denores (whose name is often separated into
“de Nores”) was, like Patrizzi, a Professor of Philosophy, and, like
Piccolomini, very polymathic and polygraphic. He had a year earlier
published a Discourse (which I have not) on the Philosophical
Principles of poetical kinds, and had very much earlier still, in 1553,
commented the Epistola ad Pisones. His son Pietro was an
affectionate and attentive disciple of Tasso’s in his last days at
Rome.
151. I have not found much about Zinano near to hand, nor have I
thought it worth while to go far afield in search of him. Tiraboschi
(vii., 1716, 1900) names him as a poet-miscellanist in almost every
kind. My copy, of 42 duodecimo pages, has been torn out of what
was its cover, and may have been its company.
152. His Explanationes de Arte Poetica (Rome, 1587) are simply
notes on Horace.
153. I have not yet been able to see L. Gambara, De Perfecta
Poeseos Ratione (Rome, 1576), and I gather that Mr Spingarn was
in the same case, as he refers not to the book, but to Baillet.
According to that invaluable person (iii. 70), Gambara must have
been an early champion of the uncompromisingly religious view of
Poetry which appears in several French seventeenth-century writers,
and in our own Dennis. The poet is not even to introduce a heathen
divinity.
154. Venice, 1592-93.
155. Padua, 1600.
156. Cf. Butcher, op. cit., p. 297 and note.
 CHAPTER IV.

THE CRITICISM OF THE PLÉIADE.

THE ‘RHETORICS’ OF THE TRANSITION—SIBILET—DU BELLAY—THE
‘DÉFENSE ET ILLUSTRATION DE LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE’—ITS
POSITIVE GOSPEL AND THE VALUE THEREOF—THE ‘QUINTIL
HORATIEN’—PELLETIER’S ‘ART POÉTIQUE’—RONSARD: HIS GENERAL
IMPORTANCE—THE ‘ABRÉGÉ DE L’ART POÉTIQUE’—THE ‘PREFACES
TO THE FRANCIADE’—HIS CRITICAL GOSPEL—SOME MINORS—
PIERRE DE LAUDUN—VAUQUELIN DE LA FRESNAYE—ANALYSIS OF
HIS ‘ART POÉTIQUE’—THE FIRST BOOK—THE SECOND—THE THIRD—
HIS EXPOSITION OF ‘PLÉIADE’ CRITICISM—OUTLIERS: TORY, FAUCHET,
ETC.—PASQUIER: THE ‘RECHERCHES’—HIS KNOWLEDGE OF OLDER
FRENCH LITERATURE, AND CRITICISM OF CONTEMPORARY FRENCH
POETRY—MONTAIGNE: HIS REFERENCES TO LITERATURE—THE
ESSAY ‘ON BOOKS.’

There is, perhaps, no more remarkable proof of the extraordinarily

germinal character of Italian literature than the influence which it
exercised on France in the department with which we here deal. It is
The Rhetorics needless to say that the subsequent story of French
of the literature has shown how deep and wide is the
Transition. critical vein in the French literary spirit. But up to the
middle of the sixteenth century this vein was almost absolutely
irrepertum—whether sic melius situm or not. A few Arts of Poetry
and Rhetoric had indeed been introduced across the Channel long
before we had any on this side, as we should expect in a language
so much more advanced than English, and as we have partly seen in
the preceding volume. The Art de dittier of Eustache Deschamps, at
the end of the fourteenth century, had been followed[157] throughout
the fifteenth by others, some of them bearing the not uninteresting or
unimportant title of “Seconde Rhétorique,” as distinguishing Poetics
from the Art of Oratory. The chief of these,[158] almost exactly a
century later than the treatise of Deschamps, used to be assigned to
Henri de Croy, and is now (very likely with no more reason) handed
over to Molinet. But they were almost entirely, if not entirely,
occupied with the intricacies of the “forms” of ballade, &c., and
included no criticism properly so called.
The spirit and substance of these treatises seems to have been
caught up and embodied, about the year 1500, in another Rhetoric,
[159]
which became very popular, and was known by such titles as the
“Flower” or “Garden of Rhetoric,” but the author of which is only
known by one of those agreeably conceited noms de guerre so
frequent at the time, as “‘l’Infortunaté’” Its matter appeared, without
much alteration or real extension, in the works of Pierre Fabri[160] and
Gratien du Pont (1539),[161] and the actual birth of French criticism
proper is postponed, by most if not all historians, till the fifth decade
of the century, when Pelletier translated the Ars Poetica of Horace in
1545, while Sibilet wrote an original Art Poétique three years later,
and just before Du Bellay’s epoch-making Défense.
There is little possibility of difference of opinion as to the striking
Sibilet. critical moment presented to us by the juxtaposition, with
but a single twelvemonth between, of Sibilet and Du
Bellay. The importance of this movement is increased, not lessened,
by the fact that Sibilet himself is by no means such a copyist of
Gratien du Pont as Du Pont is of Fabri, and Fabri of the unknown
“Unfortunate,” and the “Unfortunate” of all his predecessors to
Deschamps. He does repeat the lessons of the Rhetorics as to verse
and rhyme, and so forth. He has no doubt about the excellence of
that “equivocal” rhyme to which France yet clings, though it has
always been unpleasing to an English ear. And (though with an
indication that they are passing out of fashion) he admits the most
labyrinthine intricacies of the ballade and its group.[162]
But he is far indeed from stopping here. He was (and small blame
to him) a great admirer of Marot, and he had already learnt to
distrust that outrageous “aureation” of French with Greek and Latin
words which the rhétoriqueurs had begun, which the intermediate
school of Scève and Heroet were continuing,[163] and which the
Pléiade, though with an atoning touch of elegance and indeed of
poetry, was to maintain and increase, in the very act of breaking with
other rhétoriqueur traditions. He delights in Marot’s own epigrams,
and in the sonnets of Mellin de Saint-Gelais; and he is said to have
anticipated Ronsard in the adoption of the term “ode” in French,
though his odes are not in the least Pindaric (as for the matter of that
Ronsard’s are not). The epistle and the elegy give fresh intimation of
his independent following of the classics, and he pays particular
attention to the eclogue, dwells on the importance of the “version”
(translation from Greek or Latin into French verse), and in the
opening of his book is not very far from that half-Platonic, half anti-
Platonic, deification of Poetry which is the catch-cry of the true
Renaissance critic everywhere. There is not very much real, and
probably still less intentional, innovation or revolt in Sibilet; and it is
precisely this that makes him so valuable. Fabri and Gratien du Pont
are merely of the old: in no important way do the form and pressure
of the coming time set their mark on them. Du Bellay is wholly of the
new: he is its champion and crusader, full of scorn for the old. Sibilet,
between them, shows, uncontentiously, the amount of leaning
towards sometimes revised or exotic novelty, and away from
immediate and domestic antiquity, which influenced the generation.
The position of the Défense et Illustration de la Langue Française
may be said to be in the main assured and uncontested, nor do I
think it necessary to make such a curious dictum as that it is “not in
any true sense a work of literary criticism at all” the subject of much
Du Bellay. counter-argument. In that case most undoubtedly
the De Vulgari Eloquio, of which it has been not
much less strangely held to be little more than a version adapted to
the latitude of Paris, is not such a work either. I think it very likely that
Du Bellay knew the De Vulgari, which Trissino had long before
published in Italian; but both the circumstances and the purpose of
the two books seem to me as entirely different as their position in
literary criticism seems to me absolutely secure.
Whether this be so or not, Du Bellay’s circumstances are perfectly
well known, and his purpose is sun-clear, alike before him and
The Défense et before his readers. He is justifying the vulgar
Illustration de la tongue,[164] but he is justifying it as Ascham and
Langue Française. his friends were doing in England; with the
proviso that it shall be reformed upon, strengthened by, and
altogether put to school to, the classical languages in the first place,
with in the second (and here Ascham would not have agreed) Italian
and even Spanish. His dealing is no doubt titularly and ostensibly
directed to the language; but his anxieties are wholly concentrated
on the language as the organ of literature—and specially of poetry.
That he made a mistake in turning his back, with the scorn he
shows, on the older language itself, and even on the verse-forms
which had so long occupied it, is perfectly true. This is the besetting
sin of the Renaissance—its special form of that general sin which, as
we said at the outset, doth so easily beset every age. But his
scheme for the improvement is far more original; and, except in so
far as it may have been faintly suggested by a passage of Quintilian,
[165]
had not, so far as I know, been anticipated by any one in ancient
or modern times. Unlike Sibilet, and unlike preceding writers
generally, he did not believe so very much in translation—seeing
justly that by it you get the matter, but nothing, or at least not much,
more.[166] He did not believe in the mere “imitation” of the ancients
either. I cannot but think that M. Brunetière[167] has been rather unjust
in upbraiding Du Bellay with the use of this word. He does use it: but
he explains it. He wishes the ancients to be imitated in their
processes, not merely in their results. His is no Ciceronianism; no
“Bembism”; none of that frank advice to “convey” which Vida had
given before him, and to which, unluckily, his master Ronsard
condescended later. “How,” he asks, “did Greek and Latin become
such great literary languages?” Were they always so? Not at all. It
was due to culture, to care, to (in the case of Latin at least) ingenious
grafting of fresh branches from Greek. So is French to graft from
Greek, from Latin, from Italian, from Spanish even—so is the
essence of the classics and the other tongues to be converted into
the blood and nourishment of French.[168]
Is this “not in any pure sense literary criticism at all”? Is this
“young” and “pedantic” and “too much praised” by (of all Sauls
Its positive gospel and among the prophets!) Désiré Nisard? I
the value thereof. have a great respect for Mr Spingarn’s
erudition; I have a greater for M. Brunetière’s masterly insight and
grasp in criticism; but here I throw down the glove to both. That Du
Bellay was absolutely wrong in his scorn for ballade and rondeau
and other “épiceries” I am sure; that his master was right in looking
at least as much to the old French lexicon as to new constructions or
adoptions I am sure. But Du Bellay (half or all unawares, as is the
wont of finders and founders) has seized a secret of criticism which
is of the most precious, and which—with all politeness be it spoken
—I venture to think that M. Brunetière himself rather acknowledges
and trembles at, than really ignores. This free trade in language, in
forms, in processes,—this resolute determination to convert all the
treasures of antiquity and modernity alike into “food” for the literary
organism, “blood” for the literary veins, marrow for the literary bones,
—is no small thing. It may not be the absolute and sole secret of
literary greatness. But we can almost see that Greek, the most
perfectly literary of all languages for a time, withered and dwindled
because it did not pursue this course; that Latin followed it on too
small a scale; above all, that English owes great part of its strength,
and life, and splendid flourishing of centuries, to it. Du Bellay
preached, perhaps more or less unconsciously, what Shakespeare
practised—whether consciously or unconsciously we need neither
know nor care, any more than in all probability he knew or cared
himself.
No doubt all languages and all literatures have not the digestive
strength required to swallow poison and food, bread and stones,
almost indiscriminately, assimilating all the good, and dismissing
most if not all of the evil. There are not, and never have been in
England, wanting people, from the towering head of Swift down to
quite creeping things of our own time, who have been distressed by
“mob” and by “bamboozle,” by “velleity” and by “meticulous.” No
doubt in France the objection has been still greater, and perhaps
better founded on reason. But these propositions will not affect, in
the slightest degree, the other proposition that Du Bellay, in the
Défense, stumbled upon, and perhaps even half-consciously
realised, that view of literature, and of language as the instrument of
literature, which will have the whole to be mainly un grand peut-être
—a vast and endless series of explorations in unknown seas, rather
than a mathematical or chemical process of compounding definite
formulas and prescriptions, so as to reach results antecedently
certain. Very far would it have been from Nisard, who was no doubt
bribed by the militant classicism of the Pléiade, to have given his
praise had he thought this: I am even prepared to admit that Du
Bellay himself would probably not have thanked me for the