did not sing the Venetian, but the Tuscan verses. ing up and down between them both, so as always The carpenter, however, who was the cleverer of to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequentthe two, and was frequently obliged to prompt his ly stood still and hearkened to the one and to the companion, told us that he could translate the other. original. He added, that he could sing almost "Here the scene was properly introduced. The three hundred stanzas, but had not spirits (morbin strong declamatory, and, as it were, shrieking was the word he used) to learn any more, or to sing sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the at what he already knew: a man must have idle time tention; the quickly succeeding transitions which sa his hands to acquire, or to repeat, and, said the necessarily required to be sung in a lower tone, poor fellow, look at my clothes and at me; I am seemed like plaintive strains succeeding the vocifstarving." This speech was more affecting than erations of emotion or of pain. The other, who bis performance, which habit alone can make listened attentively, immediately began where the attractive. The recitative was shrill, screaming, former left off, answering him in milder or more and monotonous, and the gondolier behind assisted vehement notes, according as the purport of the his voice by holding his hand to one side of his strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty mouth. The carpenter used a quiet action, which buildings, the splendor of the moon, the deep shad he evidently endeavored to restrain; but was too ows of the few gondolas that moved like spirits much interested in his subject altogether to repress. hither and thither, increased the striking pecuFrom these men we learnt that singing is not con- liarity of the scene; and amidst all these circumfined to the gondoliers, and that, although the stances, it was easy to confess the character of this cha it is seldom, if ever, voluntary, there are still wonderful harmony. several amongst the lower classes who are acquainted "It suits perfectly well with an idle, solitary mariwith a few stanzas. ner, lying at length in his vessel at rest on one of It does not appear that it is usual for the per- these canals, waiting for his company, or for a fare, formers to row and sing at the same time. Al- the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat though the verses of the Jerusalem are no longer alleviated by the songs and poetical stories he has casually heard, there is yet much music upon the in memory. He often raises his voice as loud as he Venetian canals; and upon holydays, those strang- can, which extends itself to a vast distance over the ers who are not near or informed enough to dis- tranquil mirror, and as all is still around, he is, as tinguish the words, may fancy that many of the it were, in a solitude in the midst of a large and gondolas still resound with the strains of Tasso. populous town. Here is no rattling of carriages, no The writer of some remarks which appeared in the noise of foot passengers; a silent gondola glides Curiosities of Literature, must excuse his being now and then by him, of which the splashings of twice quoted; for, with the exception of some the oars are scarcely to be heard. phrases a little too ambitious and extravagant, he has furnished a very exact, as well as agreeable, description. "At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown to him. Melody and verse immediately attach the two strangers: he becomes the respon"In Venice, the gondoliers know by heart long sive echo to the former, and exerts himself to be passages from Ariosto and Tasso, and often chant heard as he had heard the other. By a tacit con them with a peculiar melody. But this talent vention they alternate verse for verse; though the seems at present on the decline:-at least, after song should last the whole night through, they en taking some pains, I could find no more than two tertain themselves without fatigue: the hearers, persons who delivered to me in this way a passage who are passing between the two, take part in the from Tasso. I must add, that the late Mr. Berry amusement. once chanted to me a passage from Tasso, in the manner, as he assured me, of the gondoliers. "This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then inexpressibly charming, as it There are always two concerned, who alternate- only fulfils its design in the sentiment of remoteI sing the strophes. We know the melody event-ness. It is plaintive but not dismal in its sound, nally by Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed; it and at times it is scarcely possible to refrain from has properly no melodious movement, and is a sort tears. My companion, who otherwise was not a of medium between the canto fermo and the canto very delicately organized person, said quite unexgurato; it approaches to the former by recitativical pectedly: 'e singolare come quel canto intenerisce, declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, e molto più quando lo cantano meglio.' by which one syllable is detained and embellished. "I was told that the women of Libo, the long "I entered a gondola by moonlight: one singer row of islands that divides the Adriatic from the placed himself forwards and the other aft, and thus Lagouns, particularly the women of the extreme proceeded to St. Georgio. One began the song; districts of Malamocco and Palestrina, sing in like when he had ended his strophe, the other took up manner the works of Tasso to these and similar the lay, and so continued the song alternately. tunes. Throughout the whole of it, the same notes invari- "They have the custom, when their husbands are ably returned, but, according to the subject matter fishing out at sea, to sit along the shore in the of the strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller evenings, and vociferate these songs, and continue stress, sometimes on one, and sometimes on another to do so with great violence, till each of them can note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the distinguish the responses of her own husband at whole strophe as the object of the poem altered. distance." t "On the whole, however, the sounds were hoarse The love of music and of poetry distinguishes all and screaming they seemed, in the manner of all classes of Venetians, even amongst the tuneful nide uncivilized men, to make the excellency of sons of Italy. The city itself can occasionally furtheir singing in the force of their voice: one seem-nish respectable audiences for two and even three ed desirous of tonquering the other by the strength opera-houses at a time; and there are few events in of his bings; and so far from receiving delight from private life that do not call forth a printed and cirthis scene, (shut up as I was in the box of the gen-culated sonnet. Does a physician or a lawyer take dola,) I found myself in a very unpleasant situation. his degree, or a clergyman preach his maiden ser"My companion, to whom I communicated this mon, has a surgeon performed an operation, would tircumstance, being very desirous to keep up the a harlequin announce his departure or his benefit, redit of his entrymen, assured me that this sing- are you to be congratulated on a marriage, or a ing was very delightful when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got out upon the shore, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the other went In the distance of some hundred paces. They now egan to sing against one another, and I kept walk-to Black's Life of Tamo. • The writer meant Lido, which is not a long row of islands, but a long Island: littus, the shore. + Curiosities of Literature, vol. p. 156, edit 1807; an Appel xxh birth, or a lawsuit, the Muses are invoked to fur- QUATUOR EQUORUM SIGNA A VENEUS · BY nish the same number of syllables, and the individ- ZANTIO CAPTA AD TEMP D MAR ARS aal triumphs blaze abroad in virgin white or party MCCIV POSITA QUE HOSTILIS CUPIDITAS · A colored placards on half the corners of the capital MDCCIIIC ABSTULERAT · FRANC · I · IMP · PACIS The last curtesy of a favorite "prima donna" brings ORRI DATE · TROPHÆUM ·A· MDCCCXV VICTOR down a shower of these poetical tributes from those REDUXIT. upper regions, from which, in our theatres, nothing but cupids and snow-storms are accustomed to de- Nothing shall be said of the Latin, but it may be scend. There is a poetry in the very life of a Venetian, permitted to observe, that the injustice of the Ven which, in its common course, is varied with those etians in transporting the horses from Constantino. surprises and changes so recommendable to fiction, ple was at least equal to that of the French in car. out so different from the sober monotony of north-rying them to Paris, and that it would have been ern existence; amusements are raised into duties, more prudent to have avoided all allusions to either duties are softened into amusements, and every ob- robbery. An apostolic prince should, perhaps, have ject being considered as equally making a part of objected to affixing over the principal entrance of the business of life, is announced and performed a metropolitan church an inscription having a refer with the same earnest indifference and gay assidu-ence to any other triumphs than those of religion. ity. The Venetian gazette constantly closes its Nothing less than the pacification of the world can columns with the following triple advertisement. excuse such a solecism. 6. The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns- After many vain attempts or the part of the Italians entirely to throw off the yoke of Frederic Barbarossa, ard as fruitless attempts of the emperor to make himself absolute master throughout the whole of his Cisalpine dominions, the bloody struggles of four and twenty years were happily brought to a close in the city of Venice. The articles of a treaty had been previously agreed upon between Pope Alexander III. and Barbarossa, and the former having received a safe conduct, had already arrived at Venice from Ferrara, in company with the ambassadors of the king of Sicily and the consuls of the Lombard league. There still remained, however, many points to adjust, and for several days the peace was believed to be impracticable. At this juncture it was suddenly reported that the Emperor had arrived at Chioza, a town fifteen miles from the capital. The Venetians rose tumultuously, and inThe Lombards took the alarm, and departed towards sisted upon immediately conducting him to the city. Treviso. The Pope himself was apprehensive of some disaster if Frederic should suddenly advance upon him, but was reassured by the prudence aud address of Sebastian Ziani, the Doge. Several embassies passed between Chioza and the capital, until, at last, the Emperor relaxing somewhat of his pretensions, "laid aside his leonine ferocity, and put on the mildness of the lamb." The St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood Stand,Stanza xi. line 5. The lion has lost nothing by his journey to the Invalides but the gospel which supported the paw that is now on a level with the other foot. The On Saturday, the 23d of July, in the year 1177, horses also are returned to the ill-chosen spot six Venetian galleys transferred Frederic, in great whence they set out, and are, as before, half hidden pomp, from Chioza to the island of Lido, a mile under the porch of St. Mark's church. from Venice. Early the next morning the Pope, Their history, after a desperate struggle, has been accompanied by the Sicilian ambassadors, and by satisfactorily explored. The decisions and doubts the envoys of Lombardy, whom he had recalled of Erizzo and Zanetti, and lastly, of the Count Le- from the main land, together with a great opold Cicognara, would have given them a Roman concourse of people, repaired from the patri extraction, and a pedigree not more ancient than archal palace to St. Mark's church, and solemnly the reign of Nero. But M. de Schlegel stepped in absolved the Emperor and his partisans from the to teach the Venetians the value of their own treas- excommunication pronounced against him. ures, and a Greek vindicated, at last and for ever, Chancellor of the Empire, on the part of his mas the pretension of his countrymen to this noble pro- ter, renounced the anti-popes and their schismatic duction. Mr. Mustoxidi has not been left without adherents. Immediately the Doge, with a great a reply; but, as yet, he has received no answer. It suite both of the clergy and laity, got on board the should seem that the horses are irrevocably Chian, galleys, and waiting on Frederic, rowed him in and were transferred to Constantinople by Theodo- mighty state from the Lido to the capital. The sius. Lapidary writing is a favorite play of the Emperor descended from the galley at the quay of Italians, and has conferred reputation on more than the Piazetta. The Doge, the patriarch, his bishone of their literary characters. One of the best ops and clergy, and the people of Venice with their specimens of Bodoni's typography is a respectable crosses and their standards, marched in solemn provolume of inscriptions, all written by his friend Pac- cession before him to the church of Saint Mark. ciaudi. Several were prepared for the recovered Alexander was seated before the vestibule of the horses. It is to be hoped the best was not selected, basilica, attended by his bishops and cardinals, by when the following words were ranged in gold letters above the cathedral porch. • "Quibus axlitia, imperator, operante co, qui corda principum cui val et quando vult numiliter inclinat, leonina feritate deposits, ovh.am mag • Sui quattro cavilli della Basilica di 8. Marco in Venezia. Lettera di suetudinem indiit.” Romuakli Salernitani Chronicon. apud Stripe the Andrea Mustoxidi Corcirese. Padua per Bettonie compag... 1816. Ital. Tom. VII. p. 229. the patriarch of Aquileja, by the archbishops and tied together, and a drawbridge or ladder let down bishops of Lombardy, all of them in state, and from their higher yards to the walls. The Doge was dothed in their church robes. Frederic ap- one of the first to rush into the city. Then was pros hemoved by the Holy Spirit, venerating completed, said the Venetians, the prophecy of the the Aly in the person of Alexander, laying Erythræan sibyl. "A gathering together of the ade his imperial dignity, and throwing off his powerful shall be made amidst the waves of the mantle, ce prostrated himself at full length at the Adriatic, under a blind leader; they shall beset the fert of he Pope. Alexander, with tears in his goat-they shall profane Byzantium-they shall eyes, raised in benignantly from the ground, blacken her buildings-her spoils shall be dispersed; kissed arm, blessed him; and immediately the a new goat shall bleat, until they have measured Germans of the train sang, with a loud voice, We out and run over fifty-four feet, nine inches, and a praise thee, O Lord,' The Emperor then taking half."* 8. But is not Doria's menace come to pass ? Stanza xiii. lines 3 and 4. the Pore by the right hand, led him to the church, Dandolo died on the first day of June, 1205, hav tad having re eived his benediction, returned to the ing reigned thirteen years, six months, and five dical palace." The ceremony of humiliation was days, and was buried in the church of St. Sophia, repeated the uext day. The Pope himself, at the at Constantinople. Strangely enough it must sound, request of Frederic, said mass at St. Mark's. The that the name of the rebel apothecary who received Emperor again laid aside his imperial mantle, and, the Doge's sword, and annihilated the ancient gov taking a wand in his hand, officiated as verger, driv- ernment, in 1796-7, was Dandolo. mg the laity from the choir, and preceding the pontiff to the altar. Alexander, after reciting the gospel, preached to the people. The Emperor put self close to the pulpit in the attitude of listening, and the pontiff, touched by this mark of his attention, for he knew that Frederic did not underAfter the loss of the battle of Pola, and the stand a word he said, commanded the patriarch of Aquleja to translate the Latin discourse into the taking of Chioza on the 16th of August, 1379, by German tongue. The creed was then chanted, the united armament of the Genoese and Francesco Frederic made his oblation and kissed the Pope's reduced to the utmost despair. An embassy was da Carrara, Signor of Padua, the Venetians were feet, and, mass being over, led him by the hand to white horse. He held the stirrup, and would sent to the conquerors with a blank sheet of paper, have led the horse's rein to the water side, had not praying them to prescribe what terms they pleased, and leave to Venice only her independence. The the Pope accepted of the inclination for the per- Prince of Padua was inclined to listen to these proformance, and affectionately dismissed him with his benediction. Such is the substance of the account posals, but the Genoese, who after the victory at Pola, had shouted "to Venice, to Venice, and long left by the archbishop of Salerno, who was present live St. George," determined to annihilate their at the ceremony, and whose story is confirmed by every subsequent narration. It would be not worth rival, and Peter Doria, their commander in chief, so minute a record, were it not the triumph of lib-returned this answer to the suppliants: "On God's faith, gentlemen of Venice, ye shall have no peace ety as well as of superstition. The states of Lom- from the Signor of Padua, nor from our commune bardy owed to it the confirmation of their privi- of Genoa, until we have first put a rein upon those leges; and Alexander had reason to thank the Almighty, who had enabled an infirm, unarmed old unbridled horses of yours, that are upon the porch of your evangelist St. Mark. When we have bridled man, to subdue a terrible and potent sovereign.† them, we shall keep you quiet. And this is the pleasure of us and of your commune. As for these my broth ers of Genoa. that you have brought with you to give up to us, I will not have them: take them back; for, in a few days hence, I shall come and let them out of prison myself, both these and all the others." In fact, the Genoese did advance as far as MalaThe reader will recollect the exclamation of the mocco, within five miles of the capital; but their Highlander, Oh, for one hour of Dundee! Henry own danger and the pride of their enemies gave Dandolo, when elected Doge, in 1192, was eighty- courage to the Venetians, who made prodigious ef five years of age. When he commanded the Vene- forts, and many individual sacrifices, all of them tans at the taking of Constantinople, he was concarefully recorded by their historians. Vettor Piscquently uinety-seven years old. At this age he sani was put at the head of thirty-four galleys. The anneted the fourth and a half of the whole empire Genoese broke up from Malamocco, and retired to of Romania, for so the Roman empire was then Chioza in October; but they again threatened Vencalled, to the title and to the territories of the Ven- ice, which was reduced to extremities. At this etian Doge. The three-eighths of this empire were time, the 1st of January, 1380, arrived Carlo Zeno, preserved in the diplomas until the dukedom of Gi- who had been cruising on the Genoese coast with ovanni Dolino, who made use of the above desig-fourteen galleys. The Venetians were now strong tation in the year 1357.§ 7. Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo! Dandolo led the attack on Constantinople in person. two ships, the Paradise and the Pilgrim, were the adored Romuald of Salerno. In a second sermon which Aral preshed on the first day of August, before the Emperor, Ferneta dhe prodigal son, and himself to the forgiving father. : Mr. Fuchs onitted the important @, and has written Romani Decline and Fall, cap. xi. note 9. But the title enough to besiege the Genoese. Doria was killed on the 22d of January by a stone bullet one hundred and ninety-five pounds weight, discharged from a bombard called the Trevisan. Chioza was then closely invested: five thousand auxiliaries, among whom were some English Condottieri, commanded by one Captain Ceccho, joined the Vene "Fiet potentium in aquis Adriaticis congregatio, cœco præduce, Hir by Dame runs thus in the chronicle of his namesake, the Doge cam ambigent, Byzantium prophanabunt, axdificia denigraount; spolia Andrea Ducali titulo ariditis, "Quartæ partis et dimilia totius dispergentur, Hircus novus balabit usque dum LIV pedes et IX pollicea, And. Dand Chronicon. cap. ii. pars xxxvii. ap. et semis pramensurati discurrant." [Chronicon, ibid. pars xxxiv.] thy, Halton, page 331 And the Romanie is served in the Bież of the Dogs, Indeed the continental possessions of the Gpere in Karupe were then generally known by the name of Romania, tappellatum is in the maps of Turkey as applied to "hrace, minuation of Dandolo's Chronicle, ibid. page 496. Mr. not to include Dolfino, following Banudo, who says, "il Bale si vao final Doge Giovanni Do'Ano. See e de' Duchi di 4. Rez ital. . xxii. 530. 641. "Alla fe di Dio, Signori Veneziani, non haverete mai pace dal Sig nore di Paloua, ne dal nostro commune di Genova, se primieramente nos mettemo le briglie a quelli vostri cavalli sfrenati, che sono su la Reza del Voatro Evangelista S. Marco. Imbrenati che gi havremo, or farema stare in buona price. E questa e la intenzione nostra, e del vosti o commune, Questi miei fratelli Genevosi che havele menati con voi per domarci, non à voglio; rimanetegh in dietro perche io intendo da qui e pochi giorni verar gli a riscuoter, dalle lostre prigioni, e loro e gli altri." tians. The Genoese in their turn, prayed for con-1spectacle of a whole nation loaded with recent ditions, but none were granted, until, at last, they chains. Their liveliness, their affability, and that surrendered at discretion; and, on the 24th of June, happy indifference which constitution alone can 380, the Doge Contarini made his triumphal entry give, for philosophy aspires to it in vain, have not into Chioza. Four thousand prisoners, nineteen sunk under circumstances; but many peculiarities galleys, many smaller vessels and barks, with all of costume and manner have by degrees been lost, the ammunition and arms, and outfit of the expedi- and the nobles, with a pride common to all Italians tion, fell into the hands of the conquerors, who, who have been masters, have not been persuaded to had it not been for the inexorable answer of Doria, parade their insignificance. That splendor which would have gladly reduced their dominion to the was a proof and a portion of their power, the city of Venice. An account of these transactions would not degrade into the trappings of their sub is found in a work called the War of Chioza, written jection. They retired from the space which they by Daniel Chinazzo, who was in Venice at the time. had occupied in the eyes of their fellow-citizens; their continuance of which would have been a symp 9. tom of acquiescence, and an insult to those whe suffered by the common misfortune. Those who remained in the degraded capital might be said rather to haunt the scenes of their departed power, than to live in them. The reflection, "who and what enthralls," will hardly bear a comment from one who is, nationally, the friend and the ally of the conqueror. It may, however, be allowed to say thus much, that to those who wish to recover their inde pendence, any masters must be an object of detestation; and it may be safely foretold that this unprofitable aversion will not have been corrected The "Planter of the Lion." Stanza xiv. line 3. Plant the Lion-that is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the republic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon-Piantelone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon. 10. Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must Stanza xv. lines 7 and 8. 11. Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse! Stanxa xvi. line 3. The story is told in Plutarch's life of Nicias 12. And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's an The population of Venice at the end of the sever-before Venice shall have sunk into the slime of her teenth century amounted to nearly two hundred choked canals. thousand souls. At the last census, taken two years ago, it was no more than about one hundred and three thousand, and it diminishes daily. The commerce and the official employments, which were to be the unexhausted source of Venetian grandeur, have both expired.† Most of the patrician mansions are deserted, and would gradually disappear, had not the government, alarmed by the demolition of seventy-two, during the last two years, expressly Stanza xviii. line 5. forbidden this sad resource of poverty. Many rem- Venice Preserved; Mysteries of Udolpho; the nants of the Venetian nobility are now scattered Ghostseer, or Armenian; the Merchant of Venice; and confounded with the wealthier Jews upon the Othello. banks of the Brenta, whose palladian palaces have sunk, or are sinking in the general decay. Of the "gentiluomo Veneto," the name is still known, and that is all. He is but the shadow of his former self, but he is polite and kind. It surely may be Tannen is the plural of tanne, a species of fir pe pardoned to him if he is querulous. Whatever may have been the vices of the republic, and although culiar to the Alps, which only thrives in very rocky the natural term of its existence may be thought by parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishOn these spots it grows to a foreigners to have arrived in the due course of mor- ment can be found. tality, only one sentiment can be expected from the greater height than any other mountain tree. 13. But from their nature will the tannen grow Stanza xx. lines 1 and 2. 14. Venetians themselves. At no time were the subjects of the republic so unanimous in their resolution to rally round the standard of St. Mark, as when A single star is at her side, and reigns it was for the last time unfurled; and the cowardice With her o'er half the lovely heaven, and the treachery of the few patricians who recomStanza xxviii. lines 1 and 2. mended the fatal neutrality were confined to the perThe above description may seem fantastical or sons of the traitors themselves. The present race can- exaggerated to those who have never seen an Oriennot be thought to regret the loss of their aristocrat-tal or an Italian sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly ical forms, and too despotic government; they think sufficient delineation of an August evening (the only on their vanished independence. They pine eighteenth) as contemplated in one of many rides away at the remembrance, and on this subject sus- along the banks of the Brenta near La Mira. pend for a moment their gay good humor. Venice may be said in the words of the Scripture, "to die daily; and so general and so apparent is the decline, as to become painful to a stranger, not reconciled to the sight of a whole nation expiring as it were before his eyes. So artificial a creation, having Stanza xxx. lines 8 and 9. lost that principle which called it into life and sup- Thanks to the critical acumen of a Scotchman, ported its existence. must fall to pieces at once, and we now know as little of Laura as ever. The dis sink more rapidly t it rose. The abhorrence of coveries of the Abbé de Sade, his triumphs, his slavery which drove the Venetians to the sea, has, sneers can no longer instruct or amuse. We must since their disaster, forced them to the land, where not, however, think that these memoirs are as they may be at least overlooked amongst the crowd much a romance as Belisarius or the Incas, although of dependants, and not present the humiliating "Chronaca delia guerra di Chozac," &c. Script. Rer. Italic. tom. xv pp. 699 to 804. 15. Watering the tree which bears his lady's name With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. See an Historical and Critical Essay on the Life and Chamor Petrarch; and a Dissertation on an Historica! Hypothesis of the Abbe de Sade: the first appeare! about the year 1784; the other is inertert in the ↑ "Nonnullorum & nobilitate immensæ sunt opes, adeo ut vix æstimari, fourth volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and possint: id quod tribus è rebus oritur, parsimonia, commercio, atque riz both have been incorporated into a wark, published under the first title t Imumentis, que è Repub. percipiunt, que hanc ob causam diuturna foro Ballantyne 1810. indirer."-8 >e de Principatibus Italie, Tractatus edit. 1631. ↑ Mémoires pour la Vie di Pótrarque. we are told so by Dr. Beattie, a great name, but a land perverse, that it absorbed him quite and little authority. His "labor" has not been in mastered his heart.* The rain, notwithstanding his "love" has, like most In this case, however, he was perhaps alarmed other passions, made him ridiculous. The hypoth- for the culpability of his wishes; for the Abbe de ss which overpowered the struggling Italians, and Sade himself, who certainly would not have been tarried along less interested critics in its current, is scrupulously delicate if he could have proved his W out We have another proof that we can be descent from Petrarch as well as Laura, is forced never sure that the paradox, the most singular, and into a stout defence of his virtuous grandmother. therefore having the most agreeable and authentic As far as relates to the poet, we have no security ar, will not give place to the reestablished ancient for the innocence, except perhaps in the constancy prejudice. of his pursuit. He assures us in his epistle to posIt seems, then, first, that Laura was born, lived, terity, that, when arrived at his fortieth year, he ded, and was buried, not in Avignon, but in the not only had in horror, but had lost all recollection country. The fountains of the Sorga, the thickets and image of any "irregularity." But the birth of Cabricres, may resume their pretensions, and the of his natural daughter cannot be assigned earlier exploded de la Bastie again be heard with compla- than his thirty-ninth year; and either the memory cency. The hypothesis of the Abbe had no stronger or the morality of the poet must have failed him, props than the parchment sonnet and medal found when he forgot or was guilty of this slip. on the skeleton of the wife of Hugo de Sade, and weakest argument for the purity c this love las the manuscript note to the Virgil of Petrarch, now been drawn from the permanence of effects, which in the Ambrosial library. If these proofs were both survived the object of his passion. The reflection incontestable, the poetry was written, the medal of Mr. de la Bastie, that virtue alone is capable of composed, cast, and deposited within the space of making impressions which death cannot efface, is twelve hours: and these deliberate duties were per- one of those which everybody applauds, and every formed round the carcass of one who died of the body finds not to be true, the moment he examines plague, and was hurried to the grave on the day of his own breast or the record of human feeling.§ her death. These documents, therefore, are too Such apothegms can do nothing for Petrarch or for decisive: they prove not the fact, but the forgery. the cause of morality, except with the very weak Either the sonnet or the Virgilian note must be a and the very young. He that has made even a falsification. The Abbe cites both as incontestably little progress beyond ignorance and pupilage can. true, the consequent deduction is inevitable-they not be edified with anything but truth. What is are both evidently false. called vindicating the honor of an individual or a Secondly, Laura was never married, and was a nation, is the most futile, tedious, aud uninstructive haughty virgin rather than that tender and prudent of all writing; although it will always meet with wite, who honored Avignon by making that town more applause than that sober criticism, which is the theatre of an honest French passion, and played attributed to the malicious desire of reducing a off for one and twenty years her little machinery of great man to the common standard of humanity. alternate favors and refusals upon the first poet It is, after all, not unlikely, that our historian was of the age. It was, indeed, rather too unfair that a right in retaining his favorite hypothetic salvo, female should be made responsible for eleven chil- which secures the author, although it scarcely saves dren upon the faith of a misinterpreted abbreviation, the honor of the still unknown mistress of Petrarch. and the decision of a librarian. It is, however, satisfactory to think that the love of Petrarch was not platonic. The happiness which he prayed to possess but once and for a moment was surely not of the mind, and something so very real as a 16. They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died. marriage project, with one who has been le Petrarch retired to Arqua immediately on his recalled a shadowy nymph, may be, perhaps, detectes turn from the unsuccessful attempt to visit Urban V. at Rome, in the year 1370. and, with the excep in at least six places of his own sonnets.** The love of Petrarch was neither platonic nor poetical; tion of his celebrated visit to Venice, in company and if in one passage of his works he calls it with Francesco Novello da Carrara, he appears to "amore veementeissimo ma unico ed onesto," he have passed the four last years of his life between confesses, in a letter to a friend, that it was guilty previous to his death he was in a state of continual that charming solitude and Padua. For four months languor, and in the morning of July the 19th, in the year 1374, was found dead in his library chair, with his head resting upon a book. The chair is still shown among the precious relics of Arqua, which, from the uninterrupted veneration that has been attached to every thing relative to this great man from the moment of his death to the present hour have, it may be hoped, a better chance of authenticity than the Shaksperian memorials of Stratford upon Avon. * Lunde, by Ser W. Forbes, t. ii. p. 106. led his memoirs "a labor of love," "See Decline and Fuf, ang 1x2. u bad leve swayed the suspicions of Mr. Horace Walpole, When in 1763. Par mane, cette alternative de faveurs et de rigueurs bien ngagée, un case temire et sage amuse, pendant vingt et un ans, le plus pe & sm detle, sans faire la moindre brèche à son honeur." Máni guns la Vo de Pitrique, Préface aux Français. The Italian editor Lesku fizon of Petrarch, who has translated Lord Woodhousele, Made the "festendre et sage," "rafinata avets." Riflessioni 1 Laura, p. 234, vol. iii, et. 18!1. Arqua (for the last syllable is accented in pronunciation, although the analogy of the English language has been observed in the verse), is twelve miles from Padua, and about three miles on the [ M = 6 are with St. Augustin, Petrarch has described Laura as having right of the high road to Rovigo, in the bosom of ■ bolyfuner! with repetend plube. The old editors read an printed "Quella rea e perversa passione che solo tutto mi occupava e m2 rogna bus tan Mr. Capperoni, librarian to the French king u. 1762, Ce MS in de Parts (brary, made an attestation that on hi et m's seat cire, pariatas exhaustum." De Sade joined the names of nel cuore." VB, an! Boy with Mr. Capperonier, and in the whole discussion * pula, home if a downright literary rogue. See Riflessioni, 7. J. Thomas Aquinas is callex in to settle whether Petrarch's mischase might of a continent wit "Pambon, quanto lodar ti del Navesti quel ch' i sal una vorrei." Sonnettu 58 quando giunse a Simon l'alto concetto. Is Rimme, the par i. pag 189, edit. Ven. 1756. Bdard, A., p 291. ↑ Arion dishonesta are his words, "A questi confessione cosi sincera diede forse occasione una nuova caduta ch' es fece." Tiraboschi, Storia, § c. tom. v. lib, iv. par. ii. pag. 492. "Il n'y a que la vertu seule qui soit capable de faire des impressions que la mort n'efface pas." M. de Bimard, Baron de la Bustie, in the Mer oires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres for 1740 and 1751. Se aiso Riflessioni, &c., p. 295. "And if the virtue or pruder.ce of Laura was inexorable, he enjoyed and might boast of enjoying the nymph of poetry." Decline and Pill, cap ixx. p. 327, vol. xii. oct. Perhaps the if is here meant for although |