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that case, the very reason which impelled him to seek an asylum with John Visconti, would be that which could not be acknowledged.

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While at Milan he was employed to negotiate peace between Venice and Genoa, a mission which could not but have been grateful to him, and at the same time he received a present, doubtless to him beyond all price, a Greek Homer. At Milan Petrarch remained, until the arrival of the Emperor Charles, who entered Italy on the death of John Visconti. Petrarch, who had already been his correspondent, was now received by Charles with great respect, and the enthusiastic poet prophesied that the independence of Italy would soon be accomplished by agency of a German Cæsar. But although Charles did not fulfil the poet's high expectations, he ever continued his warm friend, and, in 1357, bestowed on him the rather incongruous honor of a count-palatine of the German empire. Meanwhile he took up his residence on the banks of the Adda, and tranquilly pursued his literary occupations, and the education of his son. In a letter to his friend Settimo, he describes his mode of life very minutely; remarks that but for constant occupation he fears he should fall into sin, and adds, I depend on the grace of heaven, without which I should infallibly fall as I 'fell in former times. All my reliance is on Christ.' It was probably about this time that the following sonnet, which so strongly marks his increased devotional feelings, was written.

'Love held me one-and-twenty years enchain'd,
His flame was joy-for hope was in my grief;
For ten more years I wept without relief,
When Laura with my heart, to Heav'n attain'd.
'Now weary grown, my life I had arraign'd,
That, in its error, check'd (to my belief)
Blest virtue's seeds-now, in my yellow leaf,
I grieve the mis-spent years, existence stain'd.

Alas! it might have sought a brighter goal
In flying troublous thoughts, and winning peace;
Oh Father! I repentant seek thy throne:

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Thou, in this temple hast enshrin'd my soul,
Oh bless me yet, and grant its safe release!
Unjustified-my sin I humbly own.'

-One Hundred Sonnets, p. 255.

Although advanced in years, Petrarch was once more sent on a political mission. It was to Paris, to congratulate John, King of France, on the termination of his captivity in England. On his return he proceeded to Venice, and made that republic a noble present, that of his library, his son, to whom probably

VOL. X.

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he might once have thought of bequeathing it, having grown up a profligate young man, and dying ere he had attained his twenty-third year. From his daughter Francesca, he, however, received much comfort; she attended her illustrious father in his latter years, and after her marriage he resided near her. From the year 1371, Petrarch's health began to decline; his death, however, did not take place until the night of the 18th of June, 1374. On the following morning his servants went into his library to call him as usual, and found him sitting with his head reclining on a book. They were unwilling to disturb him, but perceiving no motion, they approached, and found that he was dead. The following sonnet, believed to be the last he ever wrote, forms the best conclusion to his life.

I mourn the wasted life I had begun

In loving that, was doom'd alas! to die;
Whilst vain the wings Heav'n gave, that I might fly,
And soaring-leave the track I nobly won.

'Oh Thou! invisible! immortal one!
Who seest the grief my spirit should defy;
Oh! that thy grace my weakness may supply,
Support the soul that knows not ill to shun.

'Tho' war and tempest mark my earthly course,
Oh! let a peaceful haven greet its close-

Tho' vain my life-a Christian let me die!

Thou knowst thou art alone my soul's resource,

Oh guard the life thy mercy yet bestows,

And when in death, thine aid do not deny !'-Ib. p. 257.

In the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-one, when full five centuries have ratified the claim, it would be indeed a work of supererogation to demand for Francis Petrarch a high place among the poets of Europe. Still, although that place has been conceded to him by universal assent, there are not wanting critics who view him as a poet of the imagination rather than of the heart, and who characterize his life-long devotion to Laura as an extravagance almost bordering upon insanity. Such opinions, we think, may be traced to ignorance of the state of feeling among the inhabitants of Europe during the middle ages. Not bound as now in a sevenfold chain of cold conventionalities, men then felt vehemently, and acted with an impulse to which modern times afford no parallel. Is it, indeed, so very strange that in an age when men rushed with overmastering enthusiasm to fight for the Holy Land, that a sparkle of the same enthusiasm should lend itself to other objects? We can distinctly perceive its traces in the eager

devotion with which the young scholar pledged his whole life to the pursuit of knowledge, which led him to spend thirteen years, as John of Salisbury informs us, in merely initiatory studies, and to call it 'paradise ;'-which sent a host of students to besiege the desolate habitation of Abelard, axe in hand, demanding leave to cut down the trees, and build a rude dwelling, that under it they might listen to his voice; that sent crowds in the following century on long and painful pilgrimage to listen to Peter Lombard, or to the metaphysical subtleties of St. Thomas Aquinas. Surely if the canon law and dialectics could awaken so much enthusiasm among the young and ardent, the bright eyes of the young poet's ladye-love might well awaken a yet deeper feeling. Thus, viewed in reference to the general enthusiasm of the period, chivalry with its most devoted hommage aux dames,' is natural enough.

But however devoted the services of the knights of northern Europe might appear, they were left far behind by those of the south; and beyond even these, were the extravagances of the troubadours. Now we must remember that Petrarch was the nursling of these, and to the reader acquainted with their poems, the most far-fetched of Petrarch's concetti are natural, in comparison with their extravagant fancies, while their proffers of eternal devotion to their chosen ladies border upon profaneness. In the present day, were a writer gifted like Petrarch to arise, and to possess, as very likely he might, as devoted an attachment to his ladye-love, his constant dwelling on her perfections would be a fertile source of ridicule to those critics whose inverted vision dwells on defects and passes over beauties; but to the readers of Petrarch's days (and critics there were none) his homage to Laura awakened their sympathy and their love. Little more than a century before, a troubadour, Geoffry Rudel, had fallen in love with the portrait of an unknown beauty-he gazed on it, he dwelt on it for years, until his health sunk, and life was fast ebbing away. Just then he learnt that the original of the portrait was a noble damsel, the lady of Tripoly. Sick as he was, he immediately set sail to that port, and he was carried ashore just on the point of death. The noble lady, hearing his sad story, hastened to the shore, and took him by the hand. He opened his eyes, gazed on the beauty he had come so far to behold, thanked her, and expired. This tale, of which we have no reason to doubt the truth, made a deep impression on a susceptible age, and the mournful fate of the young troubadour and the fair lady of Tripoly became the subject of many a lay, sung and listened to with interest in the days of Petrarch. Could the homage of Petrarch, then, to the living, well-known Laura, seem so strange to them? And then the love which followed her to heaven appealed

strongly to the religious sympathies of a devout though superstitious age, and thus not only comparatively moral England, but licentious Italy, and profligate Provence, joined in admiring homage to that poet who first combined love and religion in close and harmonious union.

The high station which Petrarch, as a poet, has maintained for so long a period, while all his other works have passed into oblivion, is proof of his real merit. Although the character of Europe is so altered, he is still the great exemplar of modern amatory poetry, and his sonnets are the streams from whence every lofty and pure-minded young poet has drank inspiration. Who may estimate the amount of good which Europe at large has received from the influence of Petrarch on her literature? Who can tell the lofty thoughts, the noble aspirations, which have been awakened in the hearts of the young and susceptible by his exquisite numbers?

With Mr. Campbell's life of Petrarch we can scarcely express ourselves pleased. The information respecting Italy will be interesting to those who are wholly unacquainted with its history, but to others, it can only serve the purpose of enlarging the work. There is a sarcasm, too, about many of his remarks which detracts seriously from the interest we might otherwise feel; and the scoffing manner in which such solemn subjects as the duration of future punishment and the 'beatific vision,' are alluded to, are, to say the least, in very bad taste. Still there are passages replete with eloquence, when Mr. Campbell turns his back on politics and religion, and keeps to poetry alone. With the Hundred Sonnets' of Mrs. Wollaston we have been greatly pleased; the translation is astonishingly close, and trammelled as the writer has been by adhering to Petrarch's rigid versification, we are astonished still more at it. We cannot, however, but regret that she has done so, since by allowing herself a greater variety of rhyme, she would have succeeded, we think, in transfusing somewhat more of Petrarch's sweetness of diction into them. We thank Mrs. Wollaston heartily for what we are sure has been to her a labor of love, and fully sympathize in her desire to awaken in the present age a fervent admiration and respect for the man, who by his works has shed an unquenched and unquenchable lustre upon that which has 'passed away,' and who we sincerely believe to have exercised a most important and beneficial influence over the whole civilized world.

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Art. V. The Pictorial History of England, Illustrated, &c. Vols. III. and IV. pp. 912 and 856. Knight. London.

THES

HESE volumes include the history of our country from the death of Elizabeth to that of George the Second: the first contains the reigns of the Stuarts, and treats of a portion of our history which is still looked at by all classes with equal interest, though perhaps with somewhat different feelings.

In our notice of a former volume we confined our attention almost exclusively to the history of the condition and improvement of the people; because one chief use of history consists in the exemplification of the effects which government produces on the prospects, advancement, and happiness of mankind; and because we feel a disinclination to wade through scenes of war, and bloodshed, and bad faith, and persecution; and to linger amongst causes evil in themselves, though happily for man they have resulted, and doubtless will result, in good.

The history of the Stuarts forms, however, an exception to our rule. The disorders of their times were not occasioned by foreign wars for useless aggrandisement; nor by national resistance to the invasion of a foreign foe; but by an uncompromising assertion of the common rights of man, and of those great principles on which alone a nation should be governed. A glance, then, at the general features of the time, with an occasional illustration of character or motive, is what we intend to give.

The war of extermination, between the houses of York and Lancaster, had extirpated the greater number of the high nobility of England; and the firm and depressing policy of Henry the Seventh reduced the remainder to a state of comparative subjection. In the reign of Henry the Eighth the royal prerogative was triumphant-the hyperbole of Salmasius, that the people of England played with the heads of kings as though they were tennis balls, was almost literally true as applied to Henry and the heads of his nobility. In the reign of Elizabeth, though this expensive taste was more sparingly indulged, the prestige of royalty remained; the nobles were subservient, and the people, though they began to understand their rights, were equally afraid to assert them. The state of affairs as regarded domestic plots and disturbances, and the necessary direction and employment of the public mind, in repelling foreign aggression, and preserving the integrity of the kingdom, upon which all other things depended, prevented the people from inquiring too nicely into the state of their rights and privileges, which they were called upon to defend, and not

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