tion, accorded with the description given by tradition of that placed over Laura. The grave was accordingly opened, and in addition to some bones a small casket of lead was found, fastened with a brass wire and containing a piece of parchment, and a bronze medal having on one side a miniature of a woman, and round it the four letters M L M I. The parchment contained a sonnet which, on being deciphered, proved to be one in praise of Laura. Though evidently not written by Petrarch, it was as evidently by some friend and admirer of the poet. At all events the only information it contained was that this "green and beautiful laurel sprang up and died in the city of Avignon."

The Abbé admits that neither the casket nor the parchment gives any intimation as to whether Laura was married or single, but he claims, with good reason, that the fact of her grave being in the part of the church belonging to the Sade family, is strong evidence by itself. IIe next proceeds to show that in his Latin works Petrarch always calls Laura mulier and fœmina (woman or matron), never virgo or puella (maiden or girl), and the argument is certainly a forcible one-much more so than the additional one which maintains that in his Italian works the poet calls her madonna or donna, and never virgine or donzella; for the Italians are by no means so particular in making these distinctions between matron and maid as the ancient Romans.

In sonnets 162 and 185 Petrarch complains that jealousy often deprived him of the pleasure of seeing Laura. The Abbé holds that he could not have meant the jealousy of her parents, brothers or sisters, since the term gelosia is never applied to them by any correct Italian writer or speaker. Again the Abbé says, that if Laura had been unmarried Petrarch would not have entitled the poem composed in honor of her Trionfo della Casteta, but Trionfo della Verginita, for all his examples are taken from married women, with the sole exception of a vestal virgin. Finally the Abbé claims that one of Petrarch's dialogues with St. Augustine settles the question as to Laura's marriage, since in it the poet expresses his regret that Laura's constitution had been exhausted by frequent child

bearing-corpus ejus crebies partubus exhaustum. This might reasonably have been said of a lady by no means robust, who had eleven children. In several of the earlier manuscripts partubus is abbreviated to ptubs. This, the Abbé thinks, makes his case all the stronger, because it is in accordance with the characteristic modesty of Petrarch. And here he

had two reasons for avoiding to write out in full a word which some might regard as indelicate; he was afraid of offending Laura by using such, and he believed that an indelicate word should not be used in a dialogue with a saint like Augustine.*

His opponents, however, take a different view of the case. They cannot deny the abbreviation, but they maintain that it is not that of partubus, but of perturbationibus-mental disquietude. At one time the dispute became so warm that the question was submitted to experts, men who were at once good latinists and experienced manuscript students, and the result was that Caperonnier, Boudet and Bezot, of the King's Library at Paris, confirmed the reading of the Abbé as cor

rect.

It would lead us too far to give even the most cursory examination of the various other criticisms made on his arguments, either by those who claim that Laura was a heartless, coquettish maid, those who maintain that she was a prudish maid who never meant to marry any one, or those who, while insisting that she was never married, are equally positive in alleging that she was in every sense the willing mistress of Petrarch.

Some who oppose the theory of the Abbé place much stress on the fact that nowhere does the poet speak of any of Laura's children, or of her husband. Others who accept that theory blame Petrarch for the omission. He is also censured for having made no reference in any of his sonnets to his daughter, Francesca, who was the solace of his oid age, and whom Boccacio praises, in one of his most interesting letters, for her beauty, sweetness of disposition, and modesty. But there is nothing in either circumstance incompatible with his being kind and affectionate; on the contrary, both, taken in connection with the poet's comparative indifference to the charms of other ladies, only prove the more conclusively the all-absorbing character of his passion for Laura.

But even if the limits of our article permitted us to scrutinize these various theories, it would be needless to do so at the present day, since, as we have already remarked, the opinion now almost universally entertained by critics and biographers is that Laura was a married woman-a modest and prudent, though beau tiful and kind-hearted, matron. And this is almost to say, in other words, that the Abbé de Sade may be regarded as having fully succeeded in proving, that whatever honor there was to the husband of Laura in having a wife capable of inspiring such a passion as that of Petrarch, that honor is due to Hugh de Sade, and proportionately to the whole De Sade family.

But there is one of his theories which we think it must be admitted the good Abbé has not proved, namely, that his honored ancestor was a very jealous man. Had he been jealous at all it would have been scarcely possible for his wife to have had interviews with Petrarch so often as she confessedly had, those interviews sometimes occurring at her own house, sometimes at the residences of mutual friends, and sometimes in the beautiful Valley of Vaucluse. Still less could she have openly received frequent presents from her lover; not to mention those beautiful and tender sonnets, so full of passion, of which there must have been a new one almost every day for a long period, and of which neither the author nor the subject was unknown to any intelligent citizen of Avignon. The clear inference from all these circumstances is that Hugh de Sade viewed the whole matter pretty much as the good Abbé has done. The vanity of the former was flattered by the love of so distinguished a man for his wife. Let those who regard this as improbable ask themselves, is it anything more so than the course of the Abbé would have seemed to those unacquainted with the facts? We are bound to believe that if the latter had a wife he would have felt honored on finding that so great a man as Petrarch, or even one not quite so great, was in love with her, in the habit of writing sonnets proclaiming that love to the world, praising the charms, both physical and intellectual, which inspired it, and at the same time in the habit of meeting her from time to time for the purpose of

expostulating with her on her cruelty!* Since all this would evidently have been a source of delight to the descendant, why may it not be believed that it was equally so to the ancestor, except it be held that the Sade family have become more philosophical, less sensitive and less selfish in the nineteenth century, in affairs of the heart, than they were at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

Leaving this problem to be solved by those who have more time and inclination to discuss it than we have, we proceed to show that, however profound was the passion of Petrarch for Laura, it allowed him sufficient time not only to write copiously and elegantly on various other subjects as well as love, but also to gain the esteem and friendship of kings and emperors, bishops and archbishops, cardinals and popes. On reaching this stage of our discussion the first fact that occurs to us is that whatever were the relations between Petrarch and Laura they caused no public scandal. Otherwise the poet would not have been openly admired and petted as he was by so many of the highest dignitaries of the church, including three successive popes. It should be remembered that, not only did more than one pontiff and several cardinals eagerly seek his society while his passion for Laura was at its maximum height and most generally known; he was also favored with several benefices in the church, and still more important honors were offered to him which he did not accept, Instance the position of Apostolic Secretary, offered to him, it seems, by more than one pope, but declined, because it would

* If we are to believe the poet himself, and there seems no good reason why we should not, he never loved any other woman; although he admits more than once that he was from time to time on terms of close intimacy with several. Be this as it may, we find in sonnet xvii. the following:

E, se di lui forse altra donna spera,

Vive in speranza debole e fallace,

Mio, perche sdegno cio ch' a voi dispiciace, etc.

If any other hopes to find

That love in me which you despise,

Ah! let her leave the hope behind;

I hold from all what you alone should prize.

occupy more of his time than he was willing to divert from his favorite studies. True, both his Latin and Italian poems contain many severe sarcasms on the papacy. He it was who first called the spiritual capital of Christendom the modern Babylon. This, indeed, is the name he most frequently calls Avignon, the corruption of which he denounces in many a fine sonnet, and in language as unequivocal as ever Luther, Calvin, or John Knox has applied to papal Rome.

His being an archdeacon, canon, prior, etc., did not prevent him from freely criticising the condition of the church in prose as well as in poetry, in Latin* as well as in Italian. Thus comparing the two spiritual capitals with each other, he says that in great Rome there were two lions, in little Avignon there are eleren -Cum in magna Roma duo fuerint leones, in parva Avignone sunt undecim. Petrarch, like Luther, had expected great things from the general Jubilee, but the former, like the latter, tells us that he saw certain things at the Jubilee which excited his hatred much more than his pleasure-Post Jubiliæum sic me adhuc viridem, pestis ille deseruit, ut incomparibiles magis odi mihi sit quam fuerit voluptati. What disgusted Petrarch most was the consecration to a bishopric of a person notoriously and ridiculously unfit to be a deacon. This consecration the poet does not hesitate to stigmatize as a farce, and in one of his letters to Rienzi he assigns it as one of his reasons for declining the position of Latin secretary to the Sacred College. In another letter written to his friend,

* In the sixth and seventh of his Latin eclogues, Petrarch exhibits Clement VI. in the character of Mitio, and makes St. Peter reproach him, under the name of Pamphilius, for the condition in which he keeps his flock. He also inquires rather sarcastically what he has done with the great wealth intrusted to him. Mitio replies that he has kept the gold arising from the sale of the lambs, and that he has given the milk to certain friends of his. As for the rams and goats, they played their usual gambols in the meadow, and as long as they let him alone he was content to look on at their performances. This satire had not been long written when some officious person called the attention of the Pope to it. But Clement VI., who was himself a scholar, a man of fine taste, and at the same time possessed of good sense and a kind disposition, instead of resenting the freedom of the poet, conferred on him the rich priory of Migliorino.