FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[21]Chi s' innamora, siccome voi fateEd ad ogni piacer si lega e scioglieMostra ch'amor leggermente il saetti—son.44.

[21]Chi s' innamora, siccome voi fateEd ad ogni piacer si lega e scioglieMostra ch'amor leggermente il saetti—son.44.

[21]

Chi s' innamora, siccome voi fateEd ad ogni piacer si lega e scioglieMostra ch'amor leggermente il saetti—son.44.

There are some who doubt the reality of Petrarch's love, because it is expressed in numbers; and others, refining on this doubt, profess even to question whether his Laura ever existed, except in the imagination and the poetry of her lover. The first objection could only be made by the most prosaic of commentators—some true "black-letter dog"[22]—who had dustified and mistified his faculties among old parchments. The most real and most fervent passion that ever fell under my own knowledge, was revealed in verse, and very exquisite verse too, and has inspired many an effusion, full of beauty, fancy,and poetry; but it has not, therefore, been counted less sincere; and Heaven forbid it should prove less lasting than if it had been told in the homeliest prose, and had never inspired one beautiful idea or one rapturous verse!

To study Petrarch in his own works, and in his own delightful language; to follow him line by line, through all the vicissitudes and contradictions of passion; to listen to his self-reproaches, his terrors, his regrets, his conflicts; to dwell on his exquisite delineations of individual character and peculiar beauty, his simple touches of profound pathos and melancholy tenderness:—and then believe all to be mere invention,—the coinage of the brain,—a tissue of visionary fancies, in which the heart had no share; to confound him with the cold metaphysical rhymesters of a later age,—seems to argue not only a strange want of judgment, but an extraordinary obtuseness of feeling.[23]

The faults of taste of which Petrarch has been accused over and over again, by those who seem to have studied him as Voltaire studied Shakspeare,—hisconcetti—his fanciful adoration of the laurel, as the emblem of Laura—his playing on the wordsLaura,L'aura, andLauro, hisfreezing flamesandburning ice,—I abandon to critics, and let them make the best of them, as defects in what were else perfection.

These were the fashion of the day: a great genius may outrun his times, but not without bearing about him some ineffaceable impressions of the manners and character of the age in which he lived. He is too witty—"Il a trop d'esprit," to be sincere, say the critics,—"he has a conceit left him in his misery,—a miserable conceit;" but weknow—at leastIknow—how in the very extremity of passion the soul can mock at itself—how the fancy can with a bitter and exaggerated gaiety sport with the heart!—These are faults of composition in the writer, and admitted to be such; but they prove nothing against the man, the poet, or the lover. The reproach of monotony, I confess I never could understand. It is rather matter of astonishment, how in a collection of nearly four hundred poems, all, with one or two exceptions, turning upon the same subject and sentiment, the poet has poured forth such an endless and redundant variety both of thought and feeling—how from the wide universe, the changeful face of all beautiful nature, the treasures of antique learning, and, above all, from his own overflowing heart, he has drawn those lovely pictures, allusions, situations, sentiments and reflections, which have, indeed, been stolen, borrowed, imitated, worn threadbare by succeeding poets, but in him were the fresh and spontaneous effusions of profound feeling and luxuriant fancy. Schlegel very justly observes, that theimpression of monotony may arise from our considering at one view, and bound up in one volume, a long series of poems, which were written in the course of many years, at different times, and on different occasions. Laura herself, he avers, would certainly have beenennuyéeto death with her own praises, if she had been obliged to read over, at one sitting, all the verses which her lover composed on her charms; and I agree with him.

It appears to me that the very impression of Petrarch's individual character, and the circumstances of his life, on the whole mass of his poetry, are evidence of the truth of his attachment, and the reality of its object. He was by nature a poet; his love was, therefore, poetical: he loved "in numbers, for the numbers came." He was an accomplished scholar in a pedantic age,—and his love is, therefore, illustrated by such comparisons and turns of thought as were allied to his habitual studies. He had a fertile and playful fancy, and his love is adorned by all the luxuriance of his imagination. He had been educated for the professionof the Civil Law, "per vender parole anzi mensogne,"—to sell words and lies, as he disdainfully expressed it,—and his love is mixed up with subtile reasonings on his own hapless state. He was a philosopher, and it is tinged with the mystic reveries of Platonism, the favourite and fashionable philosophy of the age. He was deeply religious, and the strain of devotional and moral feeling which mingles with that of passion, or of grief,—his fears lest the excess of his earthly affections should interfere with his eternal salvation,—his continual allusions to his faith, to a future existence, and the nothingness and vanity of the world,—are not so many proofs of his profaneness, but of his sincerity. He was suspicious, irritable, and susceptible; subject to quick transitions of feeling; raised by a word to hope—plunged by a glance into despair; just such a finely-toned instrument as a woman loves to play on;—and all this we have set forth in the contradictions, the self-reproaches, the little daily vicissitudes which are events and revolutions in a life of passion; a life, which whenexhibited in the rich and softening tints of poetry, has all the power of strong interest, united to the charm of harmony and expression; but in the reality, and in plain prose, cannot be contemplated without a painful compassion. "The day may perhaps come," says Petrarch in one of his familiar letters,[24]"when I shall have calmness enough to contemplate all the misery of my soul, to examine my passion, not however, that I may continue to love her—but that I may love thee alone, O my God! But at this day, how many obstacles have I yet to surmount, how many efforts have I yet to make! I no longer love as I did love, but still I love; I love in spite of myself—in lamentations and in tears. I will hate her—No!—I must still love her!" Seven years afterwards he writes,—"my love is extreme, but it is exclusive and virtuous—virtuous!—no!—this disquietude, these suspicions, these transports, this watchfulness, this utter weariness of every thing, are not signs of a virtuous love!"What a picture of an impassioned and distracted heart!

And who was this Laura, the illustrious object of a passion which has filled the wide universe from side to side with her name and fame? What was her station, her birth, her lineage? What were her transcendant qualities of person, heart, and mind, that she should have swayed, with such despotic and distracting power, one of the sovereign spirits of the age? Is it not enough that we acknowledge her to have been Petrarch's love—as chaste as fair?

And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dignifyA woman, so she is good, what does it signify?

In the present case, it signifies much:—we are not to be put off with a witty or satirical couplet:—the insatiable curiosity which Laura has excited from age to age—the volumes which have been written on the subject—are a proof of the sincerity of her lover; for nothing but truth could ever inspire this lasting and universal interest.But without diving into these dry disputations, let us take Laura's portrait from Petrarch himself, drawn, it will be said, by the partial hand of a poetic lover:—true; but since Laura is interesting to us from the charms she possessed in his eyes, it were unfair to seek her portraiture elsewhere.

Laura was of high birth and station, though her life was spent in retirement and domestic cares;

In nobil sangue, vita umile e quete.

Her father, Audibert de Noves, was of thehaute noblesseof Avignon, and died in her infancy, leaving her a dowry of 1000 gold crowns, (about 10,000 pounds)—a magnificent portion for those times. She was married at the age of eighteen to Hugh de Sade, a man of rank equal to her own, and of corresponding age, but not distinguished by any advantages either of person or mind. The marriage contract is dated in January, 1325, two years before her first meeting with Petrarch: and in it, her mother, the Lady Ermessende, and brother John de Noves, stipulate to pay thedower left by her father; and also to bestow on the bride two magnificent dresses for state occasions; one of green, embroidered with violets; the other of crimson, trimmed with feathers. In all the portraits of Laura now extant, she is represented in one of these two dresses, and they are frequently alluded to by Petrarch. He tells us expressly, that when he first met her at matins in the Church of St. Claire, she was habited in a robe of green, spotted with violets.[25]Mention is also made of a coronal of silver, with which she wreathed her hair; of her necklaces and ornaments of pearl. Diamonds are not once alluded to, because the art of cutting them had not then been invented. From all which, it appears that Laura was opulent, and moved in the first class of society. It was customary for the women of rank, in those times, to dress with extreme simplicity on ordinary occasions, but with the most gorgeous splendour when they appeared in public. There are some beautiful descriptions of Laura surrounded by her young female companions,divested of all her splendid apparel, in a simple white robe and a few flowers in her hair; but still pre-eminent over all by her superior loveliness. From the frequent allusions to her dress, and Petrarch's angry apostrophes to her mirror, because it assisted to heighten charms already too destructive,[26]we may infer that Laura was not unmindful of the cares of the toilette.

She was in person a fair Madonna-like beauty with soft dark eyes, and a profusion of pale golden hair parted on her brow, and falling in rich curls over her neck. He dwells on the celestial grace of her figure and movements, "l' andar celeste."

Non era l' andar suo cosa mortaleMa d' angelica forma.

He describes the beauty of her hand in the 166th sonnet,—

O bella man che mi distringi il core.

And the loveliness of her mouth,—

La bella bocca angelica.

The general character of her beauty must have been pensive, soft, unobtrusive, and even somewhat languid:

L' angelica sembianza umile e piana—L' atto mansueto, umile e tardo—

the last line is exquisitely characteristic. This extreme softness and repose must have been far removed from insipidity; for he dwells also on the rare and varying expression of her loveliness, "Leggiadria singolare e pellegrina;"—the lightning of her smile, "Il lampeggiar dell' angelico riso;"—and the tender magic of her voice, which was felt in the inmost heart, "Il cantar che nell' anima si sente." She had a habit of veiling her eyes with her hand, and her looks were generally bent on the earth, "o per umiltade o per orgoglio." In the portrait of Laura, which I saw at the Laurentian Library at Florence, the eyes have this characteristic downcast look. Her lover complains also of a veil, which she was fond of wearing. Wandering in the country, one summer's day, he sees a young peasant-girl washinga veil in the running stream; he recognises the very texture which had so often intervened between him and the heaven of Laura's beauty, and he trembles as if he had been in the presence of Laura herself. This little incident is the subject of the first Madrigal.

He describes her dignified humility, "l' umiltà superba;"—her beautiful silence, "il bel tacere;"—her frequent sighs, "i sospir soavemente rotti;"—her sweet disdain and gentle repulses, "dolci sdegni, placide repulse;"—the gesture which spoke without the aid of words, "l'atto che parla con silenzio." The picture, it must be confessed, is most finished, most delicate, most beautiful;—supposing only half to be true, it is still beautiful. But far more flattering, and more honourable to Laura, is her lover's confession of the influence which her charming character possessed over him; for it is certain that we owe to Laura's exquisite purity of mind and manners, the polished delicacy of the homage addressed to her. Passing over, of course, the circumstance of her being a married woman,and therefore not a proper object of amorous verse,—there is not in all the poetry she inspired, a line or sentiment which angels might not hear and approve. Petrarch represents her as expressing neither surprise nor admiration at the self-sacrifice of Lucretia, but only wondering that shame and grief had not anticipated the dagger of the Roman matron. He describes her conversation, "pien d'intelletti dolci ed alti," and her mind ever serene, though her countenance was pensive, "in aspetto pensoso, anima lieta." He tells us that she had raised him above all low-thoughted cares, and purified his heart from all base desires. "I bless the place, the time, the hour, when I presumed to lift my eyes upon her,—I say, O my soul, thankful shouldst thou be that hast been deemed worthy of such high honour—for from her spring those gentle thoughts which shall lead thee to aspire to the highest good, and to disdain all that the vulgar mind desires."

I' benedico il loco e 'l tempo e l'oraChe si alti miraron gli occhi mici;E dico: anima, assai ringraziar deiChe fosti a tanto onor degnata allora.....*....*....*....*Da lei ti vien l' amoroso pensieroChe, mentre 'l segui all' Sommo ben t'inviaPoco prezzando quel ch' ogni uom desia.

I' benedico il loco e 'l tempo e l'oraChe si alti miraron gli occhi mici;E dico: anima, assai ringraziar deiChe fosti a tanto onor degnata allora.

....*....*....*....*

Da lei ti vien l' amoroso pensieroChe, mentre 'l segui all' Sommo ben t'inviaPoco prezzando quel ch' ogni uom desia.

Every generous feeling, every noble and elevated sentiment, every desire for improvement, he refers to her, and to her only:

S' alcun bel fruttoNasce di me, da voi vien prima il seme.Io per me son quasi un terreno asciuttoColto da voi; e 'l pregio è vostro in tutto.canzone 8.

S' alcun bel fruttoNasce di me, da voi vien prima il seme.Io per me son quasi un terreno asciuttoColto da voi; e 'l pregio è vostro in tutto.

canzone 8.

He gives us in a single line the verybeau idéalof a female character, when he tells us that Laura united the highest intellect with the purest heart, "In alto intelletto un puro core." He dwells with rapture on her angelic modesty, which excited at once his reverence and his despair; but he confesses that he still hopes something from the pitying tenderness of her disposition.—

Non è sì duro cor, che lagrimando,Pregando, amando, talor non si smovaNè sì freddo voler, che non si scalde.

The attachment inspired by such a woman was not likely to be lessened by absence, or removed by death itself; and it is certain that the second part of the Canzonière of Petrarch, written after the death of Laura, is more beautiful than the first part: in a more impassioned style, a higher tone of feeling, with far fewer faults, both of taste and style.

It will be said perhaps that "the picture of such a mind as Petrarch's, enslaved and distracted by a dreaming passion, employed even in his declining years, in writing and polishing love verses, is a pitiable subject of contemplation; that if he had not left us his Canzonière, he would probably have performed some other excelling work of genius, which would have crowned him with equal or superior glory; and that if he had never been the lover of Laura, he would have been no less that master-spiritwho gave the leading impulse to the age in which he lived, by consecrating his life, his energies, all his splendid talents, to the cultivation of philosophy and the fine arts, the extension of learning and liberty, and the general improvement of mankind."

I doubt this, and I appeal to Petrarch himself.

I believe there is no version into English of the 48th Canzone. If Lady Dacre had executed it—and in the same spirit as the "Chiare, fresche e dolce acque," and the "Italia mia," the reader had been spared my abortive prose sketch, which will give as just an idea of the original as a hasty penciled outline of one of Titian's or Domenichino's masterpieces would give us of all the magic colouring and effect of their glorious and half-breathing creations.

In this Canzone, Petrarch, in a high strain of poetic imagery, which takes nothing from the truth or pathos of the sentiment, allegorises his own situation and feelings: he represents himself as citing the Lord of Love, "Suo empio e dolce Signore," before the throne of Reason, and accusinghim as the cause of all his sufferings, sorrows, errors, and misspent time. "Throughhim(Love) I have endured, even from the moment I was first beguiled into his power, such various and such exquisite pain, that my patience has at length been exhausted, and I have abhorred my existence. I have not only forsaken the path of ambition and useful exertion, but even of pleasure and of happiness: I, who was born, if I do not deceive myself, for far higher purposes than to be a mere amorous slave! ThroughhimI have been careless of my duty to Heaven,—negligent of myself:—for the sake of one woman I forgot all else!—me miserable! What have availed me all the high and precious gifts of Heaven, the talents, the genius which raised me above other men? My hairs are changed to grey, but still my heart changeth not. Hath he not sent me wandering over the earth in search of repose? hath he not driven me from city to city, and through forests, and woods, and wild solitudes?[27]hath he notdeprived me of peace, and of that sleep which no herbs nor chaunted spells have power to restore? Through him, I have become a bye-word in the world, which I have filled with my lamentations, till by their repetition I have wearied myself, and perhaps all others."

To this long tirade, Love with indignation replies: "Hearest thou the falsehood of this ungrateful man? This is he who in his youth devoted himself to the despicable traffic of words and lies, and now he blushes not to reproach me with having raised him from obscurity, to know the delights of an honourable and virtuous life. I gave him power to attain a height of fame and virtue to which of himself he had never dared to aspire. If he has obtained a name among men, to me he owes it. Let him remember the great heroes and poets of antiquity, whose evil stars condemned them to lavish their love upon unworthy objects, whose mistresses were courtezans and slaves; while for him, I chose from the whole world one lovely woman, so gifted by Heaven with all female excellence, that her likeness isnot to be found beneath the moon,—one whose melodious voice and gentle accents had power to banish from his heart every vain, and dark, and vicious thought. These were the wrongs of which he complains: such is my reward for all I have done for him,—ungrateful man! Upon my wings hath he soared upwards, till his name is placed among the greatest of the sons of song, and fair ladies and gentle knights listen with delight to his strains:—had it not been for me, what had he become before now? Perhaps a vain flatterer, seeking preferment in a Court, confounded among the herd of vulgar men! I have so chastened, so purified his heart through the heavenly image impressed upon it, that even in his youth, and in the age of the passions, I preserved him pure in thought and in action;[28]whatever of good or great ever stirred within his breast, he derives from her and from me. From the contemplation of virtue, sweetness, and beauty, inthe gracious countenance of her he loved, I led him upwards to the adoration of the first Great Cause, the fountain of all that is beautiful and excellent;—hath he not himself confessed it? And this fair creature, whom I gave him to be the honour, and delight, and prop of his frail life"—

Here the sense is suddenly broken off in the middle of a line. Petrarch utters a cry of horror, and exclaims—"Yes, you gave her to me, but you have also taken her from me!"

Love replies with sweet austerity—"Not I—butHe—the eternal One—who hath willed it so!"

After this, it will be allowed, I think, that it is to Laura we owe Petrarch; and that if the recompense she bestowed on him was not exactly that which he sought,—yet in fame, in greatness, in virtue, and in happiness, she well and richly repaid the adoration he lavished at her feet, and the glorious wreath of song with which he has circled her brows!

FOOTNOTES:[22]See Pursuits of Literature.[23]In a private letter of Petrarch to the Bishop of Lombes, occurs the following passage—(the Bishop, it appears, had rallied him on the subject of his attachment.) "Would to God that my Laura were indeed but an imaginary person, and my passion for her but sport!—Alas! it is rather a madness!—hard would it have been, and painful, to feign so long a time—and what extravagance to play such a farce in the world! No! we may counterfeit the action and voice of a sick man, but not the paleness and wasted looks of the sufferer; and how often have you witnessed both in me!"—Sade, vol. i. p. 281.[24]Quoted by Foscolo.[25]Canz. xv. Son. 10.[26]See Son. 37, 38, &c.[27]Foscolo remarks the restless spirit which all his life drove Petrarch, like a perturbed spirit, from one residence to another.[28]Here Petrarch seems to have forgotten himself; he was notalwaysimmaculate.

[22]See Pursuits of Literature.

[23]In a private letter of Petrarch to the Bishop of Lombes, occurs the following passage—(the Bishop, it appears, had rallied him on the subject of his attachment.) "Would to God that my Laura were indeed but an imaginary person, and my passion for her but sport!—Alas! it is rather a madness!—hard would it have been, and painful, to feign so long a time—and what extravagance to play such a farce in the world! No! we may counterfeit the action and voice of a sick man, but not the paleness and wasted looks of the sufferer; and how often have you witnessed both in me!"—Sade, vol. i. p. 281.

[24]Quoted by Foscolo.

[25]Canz. xv. Son. 10.

[26]See Son. 37, 38, &c.

[27]Foscolo remarks the restless spirit which all his life drove Petrarch, like a perturbed spirit, from one residence to another.

[28]Here Petrarch seems to have forgotten himself; he was notalwaysimmaculate.

Much power of lively ridicule, much coarse wit,—principally French wit,—has been expended on the subject of Laura's virtue; by those, I presume, who under similar circumstances would have found such virtue "too painful an endeavour."[29]Much depraved ingenuity has been exertedto twist certain lines and passages in the Canzonière into a sense which shall blot with frailty the memory of this beautiful and far-famed being: once believe these interpretations, and all the peculiar and graceful charm which now hangs round her intercourse with Petrarch vanishes,—the reverential delicacy of the poet's homage becomes a mockery, and all his exalted praises of her unequalled virtue, and her invincible chastity, are turned to satire, and insult our moral feeling.

But the question, I believe, is finally set atrest, and it were idle to war with epigrams. All the evidence that has been collected, external and internal, prose and poetry, critical and traditional, tends to prove, first, that Laura preserved her virtue to the last; and, secondly, that she did not preserve it unassailed; that Petrarch, true to his sex,—a very man, (as Laura has been called avery woman,) used at first every art, every effort, every advantage, which his diversified accomplishments of mind and person lent him, to destroy the very virtue he adored. He onlyhintsthis in his poetry, just sufficiently to enhance the glory which he has thrown round his divinity; but he speaks more plainly in prose.

"Untouched by my prayers, unvanquished by my arguments, unmoved by my flattery, she remained faithful to her sex's honour; she resisted her own young heart, and mine, and a thousand, thousand, thousand things, which must have conquered any other. She remained unshaken. A woman taught me the duty of a man! to persuade me to keep the path of virtue, her conduct was at once an example and a reproach;and when she beheld me break through all bounds, and rush blindly to the precipice, she had the courage to abandon me, rather than follow me."[30]

But whether, in this long conflict, Laura preserved her heart untouched, as well as her virtue immaculate; whether she shared the love she inspired; or whether she escaped from the captivating assiduities and intoxicating homage of her lover, "fancy-free;"—whether coldness, or prudence, or pride, or virtue, or the mere heartless love of admiration, or a mixture of all together, dictated her conduct, is at least as well worth inquiry, as the exact colour of her eyes, or the form of her nose, upon which we have pages of grave discussion. She might have beencoquette par instinct, if notpar calcul; she might have felt, with femininetacte, that to preserve her influenceover Petrarch, it was necessary to preserve his respect. She was evidently proud of her conquest: she had else been more or less than woman; and at every hazard, but that of self-respect, she was resolved to retain him. If Petrarch absented himself for a few days, he was generally better treated on his return.[31]If he avoided her, then her eye followed him with a softer expression. When he looked pale from sickness of heart and agitation of spirits, Laura would address him with a few words of pitying tenderness. He thanks her in those exquisite lines, which seem to glow with all the renovation of hope,

Volgendo gli occhi al mio novo coloreChe fa di morte rimembrar le gentePietà vi mosse, onde benignamenteSalutando teneste in vita il core.La frale vita ch'ancor meco alberga,Fu de' begli occhi vostri aperto dono,E della voce angelica soave![32]

Volgendo gli occhi al mio novo coloreChe fa di morte rimembrar le gentePietà vi mosse, onde benignamenteSalutando teneste in vita il core.

La frale vita ch'ancor meco alberga,Fu de' begli occhi vostri aperto dono,E della voce angelica soave![32]

He presumes upon this benignity, and is againdashed back with frowns. He flies to solitude,—solitude!—Never let the proud and torn heart, wrung with the sense of injury, and sick with unrequited passion, seek that worst resource against pain, for there grief grows by contemplation of itself, and every feeling is sharpened by collision. Petrarch sought to "mitigate the fever of his heart" amid the shades of Vaucluse, a spot so gloomy and so solitary, that his very servants forsook him; and Vaucluse, its fountains, its forests, and its hanging cliffs, reflected only the image of Laura.

L'acque parlan d'amore, e l'aura, e i ramiE gli augeletti, e i pesci e i fiori e l'erba;Tutti insieme pregando ch' io sempr'ami![33]

He is driven again to her feet by his own insupportable thoughts—and in terror of himself;—

Tal paura ho di ritrovarmi solo!

He endeavours to maintain in her presence that self-constraint she had enjoined. He assumes a cold and calm deportment, and Laura, as she passes him, whispers in a tone of gentle reproach, "Petrarch! are you so soon weary of loving me?" (ten or eleven years of adoration were, in truth, nothing—to signify!) At length, he resolved to leave Laura and Avignon for ever; and instead of plunging into solitude, to seek the wiser resource of travel and society. He announced this intention to Laura, and bade her a long farewell; either through surprise, or grief, or the fear of losing her glorious captive, she turned exceedingly pale, a cloud overspread her beautiful countenance, and she fixed her eyes on the ground. This was to her lover an intoxicating moment; in the exultation of sudden delight, he interpreted these symptoms of relenting, this "vago impallidir," too favourably to himself. "She bent those gentle eyes upon the earth, which in their sweet silence said,—to me at least they seemed to say,—'who takes my faithful friend so far from me?'"

Chinava a terra il bel guardo gentile,E tacendo dicea, com' a me parve—"Chi m'allontana il mio fedele amico?"

On his return to Avignon, a few months afterwards, Laura received him with evident pleasure; but he is not, therefore, moreavançé; all this was probably the refined coquetterie of a woman of calm passions; but not heartless, not really indifferent to the devotion she inspired, nor ungrateful for it.

Petrarch has himself left us a most minute and interesting description of the whole course of Laura's conduct towards him, which by a beautiful figure of poetry he has placed in her own mouth. The passage occurs in theTrionfo di Morte, beginning, "La notte che segui l'orribil caso."

The apparition of Laura descending on the morning dew, bright as the opening dawn, and crowned with Oriental gems,

Di gemme orientali incoronata,

appears before her lover, and addresses him withcompassionate tenderness. After a short dialogue, full of poetic beauty and noble thoughts,[34]Petrarch conjures her, in the name of heaven and of truth, to tell him whether the pity she sometimes expressed for him was allied to love? for that the sweetness she mingled with her disdain and reserve—the soft looks with which she tempered her anger, had left him for long years in doubt of her real sentiments, still doating, still suspecting, still hoping without end:

Creovvi amor pensier mai nella testa,D' aver pietà del mio lungo martireNon lasciando vostr' alta impresa onestà?Che vostri dolci sdegni e le dolc' ire—Le dolci paci ne' begli occhi scritte—Tenner molt' anni in dubbio il mio desire.

Creovvi amor pensier mai nella testa,D' aver pietà del mio lungo martireNon lasciando vostr' alta impresa onestà?

Che vostri dolci sdegni e le dolc' ire—Le dolci paci ne' begli occhi scritte—Tenner molt' anni in dubbio il mio desire.

She replies evasively, with a smile and a sigh,that her heart was ever with him, but that to preserve her own fair fame, and the virtue of both, it was necessary to assume the guise of severity and disdain. She describes the arts with which she kept alive his passion, now checking his presumption with the most frigid reserve, and when she saw him drooping, as a man ready to die, "all fancy-sick and pale of cheer," gently restoring him with soft looks and kind words:

"Salvando la tua vita e'l nostro onore."

She confesses the delight she felt in being beloved, and the pride she took in being sung by so great a poet. She reminds him of one particular occasion, when seated by her side, and they were left alone, he sang to his lute a song composed to her praise, beginning, "Dir più non osa il nostro amore;" and she asks him whether he did not perceive that the veil had then nearly fallen from her heart?[35]

She laments, in some exquisite lines, that she had not the happiness to be born in Italy, the native country of her lover, and yet allows that the land must needs be fair in which she first won his affection.

Duolmi ancor veramente, ch'io non nacquiAlmen più presso al tuo fiorito nido!—Ma assai fu bel päese ov'io ti piacqui.

In another passage we have a sentiment evidently taken from nature, and exquisitely graceful and feminine. "You," says Laura, "proclaimed to all men the passion you felt for me: you called aloud for pity: you kept not the tender secret for me alone, but took a pride and a pleasure in publishing it forth to the world; thus constraining me, by all a woman's fear and modesty, to be silent."—"But not less is the pain because we conceal it in the depths of the heart, nor the greater because we lament aloud: fiction andpoetry can add nothing to truth, nor yet take from it."

Tu eri di mercè chiamar già rocoQuand'io tacea; perchè vergogna e temaFacean molto desir, parer si poco;Non è minor il duol perch' altri 'l prema,Ne maggior per andarsi lamentando:Per fizïon non cresce il ver, nè scema.

Petrarch, then all trembling and in tears, exclaims, "that could he but believe he had been dear to her eyes as to her heart, he were sufficiently recompensed for all his sufferings;" and she replies, "that will I never reveal!" ('quello mi taccio.') By this coquettish and characteristic answer, we are still left in the dark. Such was the sacred respect in which Petrarch held her he so loved, that though he evidently wishes to believe—perhapsdidbelieve, that he had touched her heart, he would not presume to insinuate what Laura had never avowed. The whole scene, though less polished in the versification than some of his sonnets, is written throughout with all the flow and fervour of real feeling. It receivedthe poet's last corrections twenty-six years after Laura's death, and but a few weeks previous to his own.

When at Milan, I was taken, as a matter of course, to visit the Ambrosian library. At the time I was ill in health, dejected and indifferent; and I only remember being led in passive resignation from room to room, and called upon to admire a vast variety of objects, at the moment when I was pining for rest; when to look, think, speak, or move, was pain,—when to sit motionless and gaze out upon the sunshine, seemed to me the only supreme blessedness. In such moments as these, we can have sympathies with nature, but not with old books and antiquities. I have a most confused recollection both of the locality and the contents of this famous collection; but there were two objects which roused me from this sullen stupor, and indelibly impressed my imagination and my memory; and one of these was the celebrated copy of Virgil, which had been the favouritecompanion and constant study of Petrarch, containing that memorandum of the death of Laura, in his own handwriting, which, after much expenditure of paper, and argument, and critical abuse, is at length admitted to be genuine. I knew little of the controversy this famous inscription had occasioned in Italy,—though I was aware that its authenticity had been disputed: but as a homely proverb saith,seeing is believing; to look upon the handwriting with my own eyes, would have made assurance double sure, if in that moment I needed such assurance. I do not remember reasoning or doubting on the subject;—but gushing up like the waters of an intermitting fountain, there was a sudden flow of feeling and memory came over my heart:—I stood for some moments silently contemplating the name ofLaura, in the pale, half-effaced characters traced by the hand of her lover; that name with which his genius and his love have filled the earth: confused thoughts of the mingling of vanity and glory,—of the "poco polvere che nulla sente," and the immortality of deified beauty, were crowded inmy mind. When all were gone, I turned back, and gave the guide a small gratuity to be allowed to do homage to the name of Laura, by pressing my lips upon it. The reader smiles at this sentimental enthusiasm; so would I, if time had not taught me to respect, as well as regret, what it has taken from me, and never can restore.

The memorandum has often been quoted; but this account of the love of Petrarch would not be complete were it omitted here. It runs literally thus:—

"Laura, illustrious by her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, I beheld for the first time, in my early youth, on the 6th of April, 1327, about the first hour of the day, in the church of Saint Claire in Avignon: and in the same city, in the same month of April, the same day and hour, in the year 1348, this light of my life was withdrawn from the world while I was at Verona, ignorant, alas! of what had befallen me. The terrible intelligence was conveyed in a letter from Louis, and reachedme at Parma the 19th of May, early in the morning.

"Her chaste and beautiful remains were deposited the same day after vespers, in the Church of the Fratri Minori (Cordeliers). Her spirit, as Seneca said of Scipio Africanus,[36]has returned, doubtless, to that heaven whence it came.

"To preserve the memory of this afflicting loss, it is with a bitter pleasure I record it here, in this book which is ever before my eyes, that nothing in this world may hereafter delight me: and that the chief tie which bound me to life being broken, I may, by frequently looking on these words, and thinking on this transitory existence, be prepared to quit this earthly Babylon, which, with the help of the divine grace, and the constant and manly recollection of those fruitless desires, and vain hopes, and sad vicissitudeswhich have so long agitated me, will be an easy task."

Laura died of the plague, which then desolated Avignon, and terminated the life of the sufferer on the third day. The moment she was seized with the fatal symptoms, she dictated her will; and notwithstanding the pestilential nature of her disorder, she was surrounded to the last by her numerous relations and friends, who braved death rather than forsake her.

Her tomb was discovered and opened in 1533, in the presence of Francis the First, whose celebrated stanzas on the occasion are well known.

Of the fame, which even in her lifetime, the love and poetical adoration of Petrarch had thrown round his Laura, a curious instance is given which will characterise the manners of the age. When Charles of Luxemburgh (afterwards Emperor) was at Avignon, a grand fête was given, in his honour, at which all the noblesse were present. He desired that Petrarch's Laura should be pointed out to him; and when she was introduced, he made a sign with his handthat the other ladies present should fall back; then going up to Laura, and for a moment contemplating her with interest, he kissed her respectfully on the forehead and on the eyelids. Petrarch alludes to this incident in the 201st sonnet, the last line of which shows that this royal salutation was considered singular.

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