FRANCESCO PETRARCH.

1304-1374.

LAURA.

As Petrarch was at his devotions in the church of Santa Clara of Avignon, on the morning of the 6th of April, 1327, he saw a lady near him in a green mantle sprinkled with violets. Her youth and beauty impressed him; he forgot the sacredness of the time and place, and, giving himself up to the feelings which she inspired, was soon in love with her. He awoke from his reverie when the service was over, and finding her gone, followed her and learned her name. It was Laura de Sade. She belonged to a noble Provençal family, and was the wife of Hugo de Sade, a rich citizen of Avignon. This last intelligence, which ought to have discouraged Petrarch, does not seem to have affected him much, for he was a priest, and could not have married her, even if she had been free. We are not told what her emotions were when she discovered, as she soon did, that she was loved by another than her husband, but considering the character of that gentleman, who had a habit of scolding her until she wept, it could not have grieved her very deeply. She did not exactly encourage Petrarch, for she was a good wife and mother, with a keen eye to the proprieties of life; but neither did she discourage him. As long as he kept within bounds, she admitted him to her society and friendship, but when he forgot himself, as he sometimes did, and devoured her with passionate looks, her virtue took the alarm, and she withdrew; or, if that were not always practicable, covered her face with a veil. Their meetings were probably few and far between, or we should have heard more of them from Petrarch, who was as communicative in all that related to her as he well could be. It was her absence that made him a lover and a poet; in her presence he was a silent madman. He poured out his soul in song in the solitude of his study, ransacking heaven and earth for metaphors and comparisons. Her eyes were stars, her hair sunbeams. She was the Air; she was the Laurel. Her smile was his life, her frown his death. He ran up and down the gamut of passion as no poet before had ever done, and made himself and Laura famous, wherever the Italian language was spoken or read. Some of his friends doubted the reality of his passion, as they well might after reading some of his glittering conceits; others even questioned the existence

of Laura, greatly to Petrarch's surprise. "As to Laura," he wrote to the Bishop of Lombes, who bantered him on the subject, in 1335, "would to Heaven that she were only an imaginary personage, and my passion for her only a pastime! Alas! it is a madness which it would be difficult and painful to feign for any length of time; and what an extravagance it would be to affect such a passion! One may counterfeit illness by action, by voice, and by manner, but no one in health can give himself the true air and complexion of disease. How often have you yourself been witness of my paleness and my sufferings! I know very well that you speak only in irony; it is your favorite figure of speech; but I hope that time will cicatrize the wounds of my spirit, and that Augustine, whom I pretend to love, will furnish me with a defence against a Laura, who does not exist." He tried to divert his mind by travel, and made an extensive tour, but to no purpose; he returned to Avignon as he left it-the lover of Laura. He then took a mistress, as was the fashion of clerical gentlemen of his time, but neither her blandishments, nor the children she bore him, effected his cure. At last he determined to remove from Avignon. He bought a cottage at Vaucluse, a wild and picturesque spot near the windings of the Sorgue. Here he repaired with his books, and devoted himself to study and meditation. He commenced his great Latin epic, AFRICA," and planned a history of Rome from Romulus down to Titus Vespasian. He was a happy man as long as he kept at work, but the moment he became idle his thoughts reverted to Laura. He found some consolation in the society of his friends, but unfortunately they seldom came to see him, for travelling even short distances was difficult then. He threw aside his books, and took to rambling about Vaucluse-the very worst thing he could have done, for one day in the course of his rambles he found himself at Avignon. It was accidental, no doubt— a piece of absent-mindedness on his part, but somehow it did not end here, for a few days after he found himself at Avignon again, and this time in the neighborhood of Laura's house! She met him in the street, coquette that she was, and whispered, “Petrarch, you are tired of loving me." Tired of loving her-it was impossible! And to prove it he went home and wrote her a sonnet. About this time he was visited by Simone Martini, of Sienna, a pupil of Giotto, famous for taking spirited likenesses. He sat to Simone for his portrait, and was so much pleased with it when it was finished, that he persuaded him to paint him a miniature of Laura, which miniature he ever after carried about with him.

Twenty years passed, and his passion was unabated. Laura had aged somewhat in that time, having borne her husband ten children; but it made no difference to Petrarch. Her wise chastity towards him had kept her young in his eyes. He had enjoyed no favours, not even a kiss: the most that she had granted him was her hand, which she had once permitted him to hold for a little while!

In 1347, he made up his mind to depart for Italy. "Before he left Avignon, he went to take leave of Laura. He found her at an assembly which she often frequented. 'She was seated,' he says, ' among those ladies who are generally her companions, and appeared like a beautiful rose surrounded with flowers smaller and less blooming.' Her air was more touching than usual. She was dressed perfectly plain, and without pearls or garlands, or any gay colour. Though she was not melancholy, she did not appear to have

her wonted cheerfulness, but was serious and thoughtful. She did not sing as usual, nor speak with that voice that used to charm every one. She had the air of a person who fears an evil not yet arrived. 'In taking leave of her,' says Petrarch, I sought in her looks for a consolation of my sufferings. Her eyes had an expression which I had never seen in them before. What I saw in her face seemed to predict the sorrows that threatened me."

They parted, never to meet again, for in the following spring Laura died of the plague. Her death shocked Petrarch, who made a note of it in his Virgil, which is now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. "Laura, illustrious for her virtues, and for a long time celebrated in my verses, for the first time appeared to my eyes on the 6th of April, 1327, in the church of St. Clara, at the first hour of the day. I was then in my youth. In the same city, and at the same hour, in the year 1348, this luminary disappeared from our world. I was then at Verona, ignorant of my wretched situation. Her chaste and beautiful body was buried the same day, after vespers, in the church of the Cordeliers. Her soul returned to her native mansion in Heaven. I have written this with a pleasure mixed with bitterness, to retrace the melancholy remembrance of 'MY GREAT Loss.' This loss convinces me that I have nothing now left worth living for, since the strongest cord of my life is broken. By the grace of God I shall easily renounce a world where my hopes have been vain and perishing. It is time for me to fly from Babylon, when the knot that bound me to it is untied."

-an old

There are many portraits of Laura, but none, I fancy, that can be relied upon as being authentic. The one that I have selected comes the nearest to the descriptions of her by Petrarch and his biographers. It is from Tomasini's "PETRARCHA REDIVIVVS"Latin work on the love of Petrarch and Laura, and is probably a copy of the portrait painted by Simone of Sienna. So, at least, I gather from the rather obscure text.

TO LAURA IN LIFE.

HE CONFESSES THE VANITY OF HIS PASSION.

Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hear
Of those sad sighs with which my heart I fed
When early youth my mazy wanderings led,
Fondly diverse from what I now appear,
Fluttering 'twixt frantic hope and frantic fear,
From those by whom my various style is read,
I hope, if e'er their hearts for love have bled,

Not only pardon, but perhaps a tear.

But now I clearly see that of mankind

Long time I was the tale: whence bitter thought

And self-reproach with frequent blushes teem:
While of my frenzy, shame the fruit I find,
And sad repentance, and the proof, dear-bought,
That the world's joy is but a flitting dream.

CHARLEMONT.

HE BLAMES LOVE FOR WOUNDING HIM ON A HOLY DAY.

'Twas on the morn, when heaven its blessed ray
In pity to its suffering master veiled,
First did I, Lady, to your beauty yield,

Of your victorious eyes th' unguarded prey.
Ah! little recked I that, on such a day,
Needed against Love's arrows any shield;
And trod, securely trod, the fatal field:

Whence, with the world's, began my heart's dismay.
On every side Love found his victim bare,
And through mine eyes transfixed my throbbing heart;
Those eyes which now with constant sorrows flow:
But poor the triumph of his boasted art,

Who thus could pierce a naked youth, nor dare

To you in armour mailed even to display his bow! WRANGHAM.

ON THE PORTRAIT OF LAURA, PAINTED BY SIMON MEMMI.

Had Policletus seen her, or the rest
Who, in past time, won honour in this art,
A thousand years had but the meaner part
Shown of the beauty which o'ercame my breast.
But Simon sure, in Paradise the blest,
Whence came this noble lady of my heart,
Saw her, and took this wondrous counterpart,
Which should on earth her lovely face attest.
The work, indeed, was one, in heaven alone
To be conceived, not wrought by fellow-men,

Over whose souls the body's veil is thrown:
'Twas done of grace; and failed his pencil when
To earth he turned our cold and heat to bear,
And felt that his own eyes but mortal were.

MACGREGOR.

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE.

That window where my sun is often seen
Refulgent, and the world's at morning hours;
And that where Boreas blows, when winter lowers,
And the short days reveal a clouded scene;
That bench of stone, where, with a pensive mien,
My Laura sits, forgetting beauty's powers;

Haunts where her shadow strikes the walls or flowers,
And her feet press the paths or herbage green :
The place where Love assailed me with success ;
And spring, the fatal time that, first observed,
Revives the keen remembrance every year;
With looks and words, that o'er me have preserved
A power no length of time can render less,
Call to my eyes the sadly-soothing tear.

PENN.

HE IS BEWILDERED AT THE UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL OF LAURA.

As Love his arts in haunts familiar tried,
Watchful as one expecting war is found,
Who all foresees, and guards the passes round,
I in the armour of old thoughts relied:

Turning, I saw a shadow at my side.

Cast by the sun, whose outline on the ground
I knew for hers, who (be my judgment sound)
Deserves in bliss immortal to abide.
I whispered to my heart, Nay, wherefore fear?
But scarcely did the thought arise within,