beauty of a young lady who happened to be near him, and he conceived a violent passion for her. The lady's name was Laura. According to the received opinion, supported by documents (for Petrarca himself never mentions her family name), she was the daughter of Audibert of Noves, a small place in the territory of Avignon; she had a considerable fortune, and had been married about two years to Hugh de Sade, a gentleman of Avignon: when Petrarca first saw her she was nineteen years of age. The attractions of Laura's person have been fully described and probably exaggerated by Petrarca. But the qualities of her mind, which he also praises, seem to have been truly remarkable. In her conduct for a long course of years towards her handsome, accomplished, and impetuous admirer, whom she could not help meeting wherever she went, at parties of pleasure, in walking, or at church, she exhibited a rare mixture of firmness and courtesy, of respect for her own character with a considerate regard for her enthusiastic lover. She has been called a coquette, but we ought not to judge the conduct of a Frenchwoman of the fourteenth century by the standard of manners in England or even France in the nineteenth century. To those acquainted with the manners of Italy and Spain even at the present day, the passion of Petrarca for Laura de Sade is nothing uncommon. That the attachment of Petrarca continued to be platonic, was owing to Laura's sense of duty, or to her indifference, or to both; but that it did not drive her lover to madness and ruin was owing to her consummate address, of which we have abundant evidence in Petrarca's own confessions. When he ventured on a declaration, she sternly rebuked him, and avoided his presence; but when she heard that he was ill, she assumed towards him the manners of a friend interested in his welfare; she succeeded in purifying his passion, and in making him satisfied with her conversation, and with giving vent to his feelings in poetry. (Petrarca's Latin Epistle to James Colonna, Bishop of Lombes.') She was probably flattered by his praise, which brought no imputation on her character, and made her the most celebrated woman of her day. Petrarca's sonnets and canzoni in praise of Laura circulated throughout Europe. When Charles of Luxemburg, afterwards the Emperor Charles IV., came on a visit to Avignon, one of his first inquiries was after the Laura celebrated by Petrarca, and being introduced to her in the midst of a large assembly, he respectfully begged to be allowed to kiss her on the forehead as a mark of his esteem. (Petrarca, Sonnet 201.) It was not however without a violent struggle that Petrarca allowed himself to be led by her better judgment. For ten years after he had first seen Laura, his life was one continued strife between his passion and his reason. He left Avignon repeatedly, travelled about, returned, but was still the same. Wishing, if possible, to forget Laura, he formed a connexion with another woman, and had by her a son, and afterwards a daughter. But still his mind recurred perpetually to the object of his first attachment. He took care of his illegitimate children, but broke off the connexion. For several years he fixed his residence at Vaucluse, a solitary romantic valley near Avignon, on the banks of the Sorga, of which he has given some beautiful descriptions.

Meantime, year after year rolled on, and the beauty of Laura faded away. She became the mother of a large family. But Petrarca continued to see her with the eyes of youth, and to those who wondered how he could still admire her, he answered:

"Piaga per allentar d'arco non sana."

attacked by the disease, and she died after three days' illness, on the 6th of April, in the 40th year of her age. Her death, from the account of witnesses, appears to have been placid and resigned, as her life had been. Petrarca has beautifully described her passing away like a lamp which becomes gradually extinct for want of nourishment. (Trionfo della Morte, ch. i.)

When the news reached Petrarca in Italy, he felt the blow as if he had lost the only object that attached him to earth. He wrote on a copy of Virgil, his favourite author, the following memorandum: "It was in the early days of my youth, on the 6th of April, in the morning, and in the year 1327, that Laura, distinguished by her virtues, and celebrated in my verses, first blessed my eyes in the church of Sta. Clara, at Avignon; and it was in the same city, on the 6th of the very same month of April, at the same hour in the morning, in the year 1348, that this bright luminary was withdrawn from our sight, whilst I was at Verona, alas! ignorant of my calamity. The remains of her chaste and beautiful body were deposited in the church of the Cordeliers, on the evening of the same day. To preserve the painful remembrance, I have taken a bitter pleasure in recording it particularly in this book, which is most frequently before my eyes, in order that nothing in this world may have any further attraction for me, and that this great bond of attachment to life being now dissolved, I may, by frequent reflection and a proper estimation of our transitory existence, be admonished that it is high time for me to think of quitting this earthly Babylon, which I trust will not be difficult for me, with a strong aud manly courage, to accomplish." Petrarca's 'Virgil,' with this affecting memorandum, is now in the Ambrosian library at Milan. (Valéry, • Voyages Littéraires.')

Here begins a new period of the life of Petrarca, and with it the second part of his love poetry. Hitherto he had written verses in praise of Laura: he now wrote verses" on Laura's death." He fancied himself in frequent communion with her spirit; he describes her as appearing to him in the middle of the night, comforting him, and pointing to heaven as the place of their next meeting. (Sonnet, beginning" Levommi il mio pensier," and the other, "Né mai pietosa madre.") This delusion, if delusion it be, is the last remaining consolation of impassioned minds which have lost all that they valued in this world; and it has at least one beneficial effect, that of rendering life bearable and preventing despair. The second part of Petrarca's poetry is superior to the first in purity of feeling and loftiness of thought. He himself felt this, and he blessed the memory of her who, by the even tenour of her virtue, had been the means of calming and purifying his heart.

More than twenty years after Laura's death, when he was himself fast verging towards the grave, and when he was able to think of her with more composure, he drew from his memory a picture of the heart, the principles, and the conduct of the woman who had made all the happiness and all the misery of his life. He describes Laura as appearing to him through a mist, and reasoning with him on the happiness of death to a well-prepared mind; she tells him that when she died she felt no sorrow except pity for him. On Petrarca entreating her to say whether she ever loved him, she evades the question by saying that, although she was pleased with his love, she deemed it right to temper his passion by the coldness of her looks, but that, when she saw him sinking into despondency, she gave him a look of consolation and spoke kindly to him. "It was by this alternation of kindness and rigour that I have led thee, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy, often wearied in truth, but still I have led thee to where there is no more danger, and I have thus saved us both. There has been little difference in our sympathy, except that thou didst proclaim thine to all the world, and I concealed mine. But complaint does not embitter suffering, nor does silence soften it."

acquired an historical importance, and has been the matter of much controversy. Unable to comprehend feelings with which they were unacquainted, some critics have sneered at the passion of Petrarca for Laura; others have doubted its existence;

sense.

whilst others again have disbelieved the purity of Laura's conduct. We have now however sufficient evidence to establish two facts: that the attachment of Petrarca for Laura was real and lasting; that Laura's conduct was above suspicion. She appears to have been imbued with religious sentiments, united with serenity of mind, self-possession, discretion, and good There have been doubts expressed concerning the identity of the Laura of Petrarca with Laura de Sade, but the evidence is strong in favour of that identity (De Sade, 'Mémoires pour la Vie de F. Pétrarque;' Foscolo, Essays on Petrarch; Baldelli, Del Petrarca e delle sue Opere,' 2nd edition, Fiesole, 1837; and the article "Noves, Laura de," in the Biographie Universelle.')

But the life of Petrarca was not spent in idle though eloquent wailings. He was an active labourer in the field of learning, and this constitutes his real merit and his best title to fame. Besides the works which he wrote, he encouraged literature in others, and he did everything in his power to promote sound studies. Petrarca was a great traveller for his age; he visited every part of Italy, and he went several times to France and Germany, and even to Spain. Wherever he went, he collected or copied MSS., and purchased medals and other remains of antiquity. At Arezzo he discovered the 'Institutions' of Quintilian; at Verona, Cicero's familiar letters; in another place, the Epistles to Atticus; at Liège he found some orations of Cicero, which he transcribed; he also speaks of Cicero's book 'De Gloria,' of Varro's treatise De Rebus Divinis et Humanis,' and of a compilation of letters and epigrams of Augustus, which he had once seen or possessed, but which has not come down to us. (Rerum Memorandarum,' b. i.) He was liberal in lending MSS., and thus several of them were lost. He was the friend and instructor of Boccaccio, John of Ravenna, and other Italian and foreign contemporaries; and he was the founder of the library of St. Mark at Venice. He encouraged Galeazzo Visconti to found the university of Pavia. In his extensive correspondence with the most distinguished persons of his time, he always inculcated the advantages of study, of the investigation of truth, and of a moral conduct; he always proclaimed the great superiority of intellectual over corporeal pleasures. He and his friend Boccaccio are justly considered as the revivers of classical literature in Italy. Petrarca acted an important part in affairs of state. He enjoyed the friendship of several popes, of the Correggio lords of Parma, of the Colonna of Rome, the Visconti of Milan, the Carrara of Padua, the Gonzaga of Mantua, of Robert, king of Naples, and of Charles IV., emperor of Germany. He was invited in turn by them all, was consulted by them, and was employed by them in several affairs of importance. He was sent by the nobles and people of Rome as their orator to Clement VI., in order to prevail on that pope to remove his residence from Avignon to Rome; and he afterwards wrote a Latin epistle to Urban V., Clement's successor, urging the same request, and the pope soon after removed to Rome, at least for a time. In 1340 the senate of Rome sent him a solemn invitation to come there and receive the laurel crown as a reward of his poetical merit. Petrarca accepted the invitation, and, embarking at Marseilles, landed at Naples, where King Robert, himself a man of learning, in order to enhance his reputation, held a public examination in presence of all his court during three days, in which various subjects of science and literature were discussed. At the termination of these meetings, King Robert publicly proclaimed Petrarca to be deserving of the laurel crown, and sent an orator to accompany him to Rome to assist at the ceremony, which took place on Easter-day in the year 1341, when Orso dell' Anguillara, senator of Rome, crowned the poet in the Capitol, in the presence of a vast assemblage of spectators, and in the midst of loud acclamations.

Petrarca had ecclesiastical benefices at Parma and at Padua, which were given to him by his patrons of the Correggio and Carrara families, and he spent much of his time between those towns. From Padua he sometimes went to Venice, where he became acquainted with the Doge Andrea Dandolo, who was

distinguished both as a statesman and as a lover of literature. Venice was then at war with Genoa. Petrarca wrote a letter to Dandolo from Padua, in March, 1351, in which he deprecated these hostilities between two Italian states, and exhorted him to peace. Dandolo, in his answer, praised his style and his good intentions; but he defended the right of Venice, after the provocations that she had received from her rival. In the following year, after a desperate battle between the fleets of the two nations in the Sea of Marmara, Petrarca wrote from Vau. cluse, where he then was, to the doge of Genoa, for the same laudable purpose of promoting peace. In the next year, 1353, the Genoese fleet was totally defeated by the Venetians off the coast of Sardinia; and Genoa in its humiliation sought the protection of John Visconti, archbishop and lord of Milan, the most powerful Italian prince of his time. Petrarca was staying at Milan as a friend of Visconti, who had made him one of his councillors, and as such he was present at the solemn audience of the deputies of Genoa and at the act of surrender. In 1354 Visconti sent Petrarca on a mission to Venice to negotiate a peace between the two republics. He was received with great distinction, but failed in the object of his mission. Soon after, John Visconti died, and his three nephews divided his dominion among them. The youngest and the best of them, Galeazzo, engaged Petrarca to remain at Milan near his person. In November, 1354, the Emperor Charles IV. arrived at Mantua from Germany; and he wrote to Petrarca, who had been in correspondence with him before, to invite him to his court. Petrarca repaired to Mantua, spent several days with the emperor, and accompanied him to Milan. Petrarca wished to persuade him to fix his residence in Italy; but the emperor, after being crowned at Milan and at Rome, hastened to return to Germany. However, before he left Italy, peace was proclaimed between Venice and Genoa. In 1356 Petrarca was sent by the Visconti on a mission to the emperor, whom they suspected of hostile intentions towards them. He met Charles at Prague, and having succeeded in his mission, he returned to Milan. In 1360 he was sent by Galeazzo Visconti on a mission to Paris to compliment King John on his deliverance from his captivity in England. He was well received by the king and the dauphin, and after three months spent at Paris he returned to Milan. The next year he left Milan to reside at Padua. The introduction into Italy of the mercenary bands, called "Companies," which the marquis of Montferrat and other Italian princes took into their pay, and which committed the greatest outrages, and the plague which they brought with them into Lombardy, were the reasons which induced Petrarca to remove to Padua. In 1362, the plague having reached Padua, he retired to Venice, taking his books with him. Soon after his arrival, he offered to bequeath his library to the church of St. Mark. The offer was accepted; and a large house was assigned for the reception of Petrarca and his books. This was the beginning of the celebrated library of St. Mark, which was afterwards increased by Cardinal Bessarion and others. At Venice, Petrarca was visited by his friend Boccaccio, who spent three months in his company. Petrarca passed several years at Venice, honoured by the doge and the principal senators, and now and then making excursions to Padua, Milan, and Pavia, to visit his friends the Carrara and Galeazzo Visconti. About 1368 he received a pressing invitation from Pope Urban V., who had fixed his residence at Rome, and who wished to become acquainted with him. Petrarca had a great esteem for Urban's character; and he determined, notwithstanding his age and his infirmities, on a journey to Rome; but, on arriving at Ferrara, his strength failed him ; he fell into a swoon, and remained for thirty hours apparently dead. The physicians declaring that he was unable to proceed to Rome, he was taken back to Padua, where he then resided. From Padua he removed, in the summer of 1370, to Arquà, a pleasant village in the Euganean Hills, where he enjoyed a pure air and retirement. He built a house there, and planted a garden and orchard: this is the only residence of the numerous houses which he had at Parma,

Padua, Venice, Milan, Vaucluse, and other places, which still remains, and is shown to travellers. In this retirement he resumed his studies with fresh zeal. Among other things, he wrote his book 'De sui ipsius et multorum aliorum Ignorantia,' intended as a rebuke to certain Venetian freethinkers who, inflated with the learning which they had gathered from Averroes' Commentaries on Aristotle,' of which a Latin translation had spread into Italy, sneered at the Mosaic account of the creation, and at the Scriptures in general. In this work Petrarca acknowledges his own ignorance, but at the same time he exposes the ignorance of his antagonists. With regard to Aristotle he says that he was a great and powerful mind, who knew many things, but was ignorant of many more.' As for Averroes, who discarded all revelation, and denied the immortality or rather the individuality of the human soul, Petrarca urged his friend Father Marsili of Florence to refute his tenets. (Epistolæ sine Titulo,' the last epistle.) But the tenets of Averroes took root at Venice and at Padua, where many professors, down to the time of Leo X., adopted them, and commented on the works of the Arabian philosopher. It has even been said that Poliziano, Bembo, and others of the distinguished men who gathered round Lorenzo de' Medici and his son Leo X. entertained similar opinions.

The air of the Euganean Hills did not restore Petrarca to health; and the news of Urban V.'s return to Avignon, and of his subsequent death, caused him much grief. His successor, Gregory XI., to whom he was also personally known, wrote to Petrarca, A.D. 1371, a most kind letter, inviting him to his court. But Petrarca was unable to move. He was often

seized with fits, and sometimes given up for dead. He wrote to Francisco Bruni, the Apostolic secretary, that "he should not ask the pope for anything, but that if his Holiness chose to bestow on him a living without cure of souls, for he had enough to take care of his own soul, to make his old age more comfortable, he should feel grateful, though he felt that he was not long for this world, for he was waning away to a shadow. He was not in want; he kept two horses, and generally five or six amanuenses, though only three at the present moment, because he could find no more. He could have more easily obtained painters than transcribers. Although he would prefer to take his meals alone, or with the village priest, he was generally besieged by a host of visitors or self-invited guests, and he must not behave to them as a miser. He wanted to build a small oratory to the Virgin Mary, but he must sell or pledge his books for the purpose." (Variarum Epistolarum,' the 43rd.) Some months after (January, 1372), writing from Padua to his old college friend Matthew, Archdeacon of Liège, he says, "I have been infirm these two years, being given up several times, but still live. I have been for some time at Venice, and now I am at Padua, performing my functions of canon. I am happy in having left Venice, on account of this war between the republic and the lord of Padua. At Venice I should have been an object of suspicion, whilst here I am cherished. I spend the greater part of the year in the country; I read, I think, I write; this is my existence, as it was in the time of my youth. It is astonishing that, having studied so long, I have learnt so little. I hate no one, I envy no one. In the first season of my life, a time full of error and presumption, I despised everybody but myself; in a more mature age I despised myself alone; in my old age I despise almost everybody, and myself most.... Not to conceal anything from you, I have had repeated invitations from the pope, the king of France, and the emperor, but I have declined them, preferring my liberty to all." In September, 1373, peace was made between Venice and Francis of Carrara, lord of Padua. One of the conditions was that the latter should send his son to Venice to ask pardon and swear fidelity to the republic. The lord of Padua begged Petrarca to accompany his son. Petrarca appeared before the senate, and pronounced a discourse on the occasion, which was much applauded. After his return to Padua he wrote his book, De Republica optime administranda,' which he dedicated to his patron and friend Francis of Carrara.

The following year his health grew worse; a slow fever consumed his frame. He went as usual to Arquà for the summer. On the morning of the 18th of July one of the servants entered his library and found him sitting motionless, with his head leaning on a book. As he was often for whole hours in that attitude, the domestics at first took no notice of it, but they soon perceived that their master was quite dead. The news of his death soon reached Padua. Francis of Carrara, accompanied by all the nobility of Padua, the bishop and chapter, and most of the clergy, repaired to Arquà, to attend the funeral. Sixteen doctors of the university bore his remains to the parish church of Arquà, where his body was interred in a chapel which Petrarca had built in honour of the Virgin Mary. Francesco da Brossano, his son-in-law, raised him a marble monument supported by four columns; and in 1667 his bust, in bronze, was placed above it. On one of the columns the following distich was engraved :—

"Inveni requiem; spes et fortuna valete ; Nil mihi vobiscum est, ludite nunc alios." Petrarca had two natural children, a son and a daughter. The son died before his father. The daughter, Tullia, married, in her father's lifetime, Francesco da Brossano, a Milanese gentleman, whom Petrarca made his heir. He left legacies to various friends, aud among others to Boccaccio, who did not survive him long. The portraits of Petrarca are numerous, but they differ from one another; that which is considered the most authentic is at Padua, in the episcopal palace, above the door of the library. It is a fresco painting, which was cut out of the wall of the house of Petrarca at Padua, when it was pulled down in 1581. (Valéry, 'Voyages Littéraires.') An engraving of it is given at the head of the handsome edition of Petrarca's verses by Marsand.

The works of Petrarca are of three kinds: 1, his Italian poetry, chiefly concerning Laura; 2, his Latin poetry; 3, his Latin prose. His Italian poetry, called 'Il Canzoniere,' or 'Rime di Petrarca,' consists of above 300 sonnets, about 50 canzoni, and 3 short poems, in terza rima, styled 'Trionfo d' Amore,' Trionfo della Morte,' and 'Trionfo della Fama.' Petrarca's 'Canzoniere' has gone through more than 300 editions, with and without notes and commentaries. The best is that edited by Professor Marsand, 2 vols. 4to., Padua, 1819-20, with a biography of Petrarca, extracted from his own works. The character of Petrarca's poetry is well known. Its greatest charm consists in the sweetness of numbers, "enlivened by a variety, a rapidity, and a glow which no Italian lyric has ever possessed in an equal degree. The power of preserving and at the same time of diversifying the rhythm belongs to him alone; his melody is perpetual, and yet never wearies the ear. His canzoni (a species of composition partaking of the ode and the elegy, the character and form of which are exclusively Italian) contain stanzas sometimes of twenty lines. He has placed the cadences however in such a manner as to allow the voice to rest at the end of every three or four verses, and has fixed the recurrence of the same rhyme and the same musical pauses at intervals sufficiently long to avoid monotony, though sufficiently short to preserve harmony. It is not difficult therefore to give credit to his biographer, Filippo Villani, when he assures us 'that the musical modulation of the verses which Petrarch addressed to Laura flowed so melodiously, that even the most grave could not refrain from repeating them. Petrarch poured forth his verses to the sound of his lute, which he bequeathed in his will to a friend; and his voice was sweet, flexible, and of great compass.' (Foscolo, Essays on Petrarch, 'On the Poetry of Petrarch.) That in Petrarca's sonnets there is too much ornament, that he indulges too much in metaphors, that his antitheses are often forced, and his hyperboles almost puerile, all this is true; and yet there is so much delicacy and truth in his descriptions of the passion of love, and of its thousand affecting accessories, that he awakens associations and recollections in every heart, and this is perhaps the great secret of the charm of his poetry, notwithstanding its perpetual egotism. There is much to choose among his sonnets, many of which,

especially those which he wrote after Laura's death, are far superior to the rest in loftiness of thought and expression. He borrowed little from the Latin poets, and much from the Troubadours; but his finest imitations are from the sacred writings. He improved the materials in which the Italian language already abounded, and he gave to that language new grace and freshness. No term which he employed has become obsolete, and all his phrases may be and still are used in the written language. Far inferior to Dante in invention, depth of thought, and in boldness of imagery, Petrarca is superior to him in softness and melody. Dante was a universal poet; he describes all passions, all actions; Petrarca paints only one passion, but he paints it exquisitely. Dante nerves our hearts against adversity and oppression; Petrarca wraps us in soft melancholy, and leads us to indulge in the error of depending upon the affections of others, and his poetry, chaste though it be, is apt to have an enervating influence on the minds of youth. At a more mature age, when man is sobered by experience, Petrarca's poetry produces a soothing effect, and, by its frequent recurrence to the transitoriness of worldly objects, may even have a beneficial moral influence. There are some of his canzoni which soar higher than the rest in their lyric flight, especially the one which begins Italia mia,' and which has been often quoted; and another which he wrote in 1333, when a new crusade was in contemplation. His beautiful canzone, or 'Ode to the Virgin,' with which he closes his poetry about Laura, is also greatly admired for its sublimity and pathos.

Petrarca's Latin poetry consists, 1, of the 'Africa,' an epic on the exploits of Scipio in the second Punic war, a dull sort of poem, with some fine passages: it was however much admired at the time; 2, Epistles, in verse, addressed to several popes, for the purpose of urging their return to Rome, and also to several friends; 3, Eclogues or Bucolics, which are acknowledged by himself to be allegorical, and were, in fact, like Boccaccio's eclogues, satires against the powerful of his time, and especially against the papal court of Avignon.

Ginguené, in his Histoire Littéraire,' and others, have endeavoured to find the key to these allegories. The sixth and seventh eclogues are evidently directed against Clement VI., and the twelfth, entitled Conflictatio,' has also some violent invective against the papal court. This circumstance has given rise to strange surmises, as if Petrarca were a secret heretic, an enemy of the church of Rome, belonging to some supposed secret society. We know from Petrarca's own letters, especially those styled "sine titulo," that he spoke very plainly to his friends concerning the disorders and vices of the papal court, which he called the modern Babylon, the Babylon of the West. He says that Jesus Christ was sold every day for gold, and that his temple was made a den of thieves; but we also evidently see that in all these invectives he spoke of the discipline of the church, or rather of the abuses of that discipline, and not of the dogmas-things which have been often confounded, both by the advocates and the enemies of Rome. Petrarca, and many other observing men of that and the succeeding century, could not be blind to the enormous abuses existing in the church; but their indignation was poured out against the individuals who fostered those abuses, and they never thought of attacking the fabric itself. This was especially the case in Italy. There might be in that country secret unbelievers and scoffers at revelation, but there were no heretics. There were many who openly charged the pope and his court with heinous crimes, but who felt a sort of loathing at the very name of heretic or schismatic.

Petrarca was not a man of extremes: his dislike of the papal court of Avignon originated in two feelings, one of honest indignation against its corruptions, and another of national or rather classical attachment to Rome, which made him urge with all his powers of persuasion the return of the head of the church to a residence in that city. Of several popes, such as Urban VI. and Gregory XI., he speaks in his letters with great respect and personal attachment. He went to Rome expressly to attend the jubilee of 1350, and, as he

states in his letters to Boccaccio ('Epistolæ Familiares'), for the sake of obtaining the plenary indulgence, and "with a firm resolve of putting an end to his career of sin." He gives some account of that jubilee, and of the vast number of pilgrims who resorted to Rome on the occasion. After having visited the churches and performed his devotions, he wrote that " he had now become free from the plague of concupiscence, which had tormented him till then, and that in looking back to his past life, he shuddered with shame." ('Epistolæ Seniles,' viii. 1.) So much for those who would persuade us that Petrarca was a concealed heretic. But Petrarca, though religiously disposed, was far from superstitious. He was one of the few of his age who spurned astrology, and yet, strange to say, a cardinal had nearly persuaded Pope Innocent VI. that he was a magician, because he was familiar with strange books-a very serious charge in those times. Petrarca's letter of advice to Boccaccio, when he thought of turning monk, is a lasting monument of sound religion and good sense.

The Latin Epistles of Petrarca are the most important of his prose writings. We have no Italian prose of his except two or three letters to James Colonna, which show that he was not much in the habit of corresponding in that language. Petrarca's Epistles are very numerous; they embrace a stormy and confused period of nearly half a century, for the history of which many of them afford ample and trustworthy materials. Petrarca was one of the earliest and most enlightened travellers of modern Europe; he was an eye-witness of many important events; he corresponded with kings, emperors, popes, statesmen, and men of learning. His Letters have not been sufficiently noticed by historians: many of them are scattered MSS. in various libraries, and we have no complete edition of them arranged in order of time. Those which have been published are classed as follows:-1,Epistolæ de Rebus Familiaribus,' in viii. books; 2, De Rebus Senilibus,' written in Petrarca's old age, in xvi. books; 3, one book Ad Viros quosdam ex Veteribus Illustriores;' (these epistles are addressed to various historical characters of antiquity;) 4, one book Variarum Epistolarum ;' 5, one book Epistolarum sine Titulo,' Professor Levati, of Milan, has composed out of the Epistles of Petrarca a work descriptive of the manners and history of his age, in which he gives copious extracts translated into Italian: Viaggi di Francesco Petrarca in Francia, in Germania, ed in Italia,' 5 vols. 8vo., Milan, 1820. Professor Meneghelli, of Padua, published in 1818, Index F. Petrarchæ Epistolarum quæ editæ sunt, et quæ adhuc ineditæ;' but his list, as he himself admits, is not complete. Domenico de' Rossetti, of Trieste, has published a bibliography of the works of Petrarca, their various editions, commentators, &c., and he has also edited a biography of Petrarca by his friend Boccaccio. Serie Cronologica di Edizioni delle Opere di Petrarca,' Trieste, 1834.

There are other prose works of Petrarca, besides those already mentioned. Of his Latin style the following judgment is given by an Italian scholar: "In modelling his style upon the Roman writers, he was unwilling to neglect entirely the fathers of the church, whose phraseology was more appropriate to his subjects; and the public affairs being, at that period, transacted in Latin, he could not always reject many of those expressions which, although originating from barbarous ages, had been sauctioned by the adoption of the universities, and were the more intelligible to his readers. In sacrificing gravity, he gained freedom, fluency, and warmth; and his prose, though not a model for imitation, is beyond the reach of imitators, because it is original and his own." (Foscolo On the Poetry of Petrarch.') Petrarca's Omnia' were published at Basle, in 1581, 2 vols. folio. Biographies of Petrarca have been written by Villani, Vergerio, Tomasini, Leonardo Aretino, and many others: the best areBaldelli Del Petrarca e delle sue Opere,' 2 vols., 8vo. ; 'Mémoires pour la Vie de Petrarque, avec des Pièces justificatives,' 3 vols. 4to., Amsterdam, 1764; Foscolo, Essays on Petrarch.'

Opera

UNDER the name of Asia we at present comprehend all the countries to the east of Europe and northern Africa. The same name was also applied by the Greeks to the countries bordering on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and extending thence indefinitely eastward. Herodotus confesses that he is unable to account for the origin of the name. Homer (II. ii. 461) mentions an Asian plain lying near the shores of the Ægean Sea between Ephesus and Sardis; and the traditions of the Lydians speak of a king Asius. Hence it seems probable that this name was originally applied to a small district on the western coast of Asia Minor; and in the progress of time, as the countries east of it became known to the Greeks, the name of Asia became co-extensive with their discoveries,❘ till at length it was customary to designate by it one of the great divisions of our globe.

At present the name of Asia Minor, or Anatolia, is given to the large tract of country which is bounded on the north by the Black Sea, on the west by the Archipelago, and on the south by the eastern portion of the Mediterranean.

I. Asia as known to the Greeks and Romans.-From the earliest records of European history, the Homeric poems, we learn that an intercourse existed, before the war of Troy, between the inhabitants of Europe and Asia. But as far as we can infer from our authorities, it was more of a hostile than a pacific nature. Commercial exchange seems to have been nearly confined to a few Phoenician vessels which visited the islands of the Archipelago and some ports of Greece, and even with them piracy appears to have been as important an object as commerce. Though the Phoenicians visited the ports of Greece, the inhabitants of that country went only to a few places on the western coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps occasionally to Tyre; and their geographical knowledge of Asia was consequently circumscribed within very narrow limits. But confined as their navigation was for a long time, it at last contributed to bring about the settlement of the Greek colonies in Ionia; and this event was followed by another of greater importance in a geographical point of view, namely, the extension of the navigation of these colonies to the countries round the Black Sea, and the exclusion of the Phoenicians from the commerce of this part of the world. The subjection of the Greek colonies in Asia Minor to the kings of Lydia seems not to have injured their commerce, and it doubtless extended their knowledge at least as far as the Halys, the boundary of the kingdom of Croesus, and perhaps somewhat beyond it.

The progress of geographical knowledge, which hitherto had been very slow, was accelerated by the establishment of the Persian monarchy, B.C. 559. The different states into which western Asia had hitherto been divided, and which had much impeded the commercial intercourse of its inhabitants, were incorporated into the extensive Persian empire, which comprehended nearly all the countries between the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and the Belur-Tagh on the east, the Caspian Sea on the north, and the mountains which border the valley of the Indus on the south: these countries were inhabited by twenty-nine different nations. The Greek colonies on the coast of Asia Minor, upon the overthrow of the Lydian kingdom by Cyrus, had been compelled to submit to the Persian monarch, which circumstance soon led to the intimate acquaintance of the Greeks with Asia beyond the limits of Asia Minor. We may judge of the rapid progress made by the Ionian Greeks in their knowledge of Asia, when we find that hardly fifty years after the foundation of the Persian monarchy,

No. 11.

Aristagoras, the governor of Miletus, the most commercial and powerful of these 'colonies, was able to produce at Sparta a copper tablet or map (Herod. v. 49)—the first of which we have any distinct record*-on which the countries and military stations between Ionia and Susa, one of the residences of the Persian king, were exhibited. About the same time the Persian dominion over all the above-mentioned countries being firmly established, a regular plan of administration was formed by Darius the son of Hystaspes: this king probably caused a geographical and statistical account of the whole empire to be composed, a custom common in Asia at more recent periods, as the Ayin-i-Akbari of the Mogul emperors shows, and one still in use in the Chinese empire. Some such work as this must have existed in Persia, for otherwise we can hardly account for the geographical description of the empire which Herodotus has inserted in his history (iii. 89, &c.; vii. 61, &c.) The sketch of the Greek Historian enables us to form a pretty exact idea of all the countries subject to the Persian monarchs, and even of those which he had not an opportunity of examining personally. His information about the countries of Asia beyond the boundaries of the Persian empire is scanty, and much less exact: as it was acquired by oral communication with travellers and traders, it is not surprising that it is often incorrect and mixed with extravagant stories, though even these sometimes contain valuable facts, and the Greek Historian never gives a hearsay report as anything but what it is.

Before the time when Herodotus wrote, the Persian empire had become stationary. Accordingly we find that the geographical knowledge of the Greeks, for more than a century, did not advance beyond the ancient boundaries of that empire. But as the intercourse, both hostile and pacific, between the Greeks and Persians had during that period considerably increased, their knowledge of the different provinces composing the Persian empire was also enlarged. The most valuable information of this kind we find embodied in Xenophon's 'Anabasis, or the Expedition of the Ten Thousand.'

It was usual for the Persian kings to have Greek physicians about their persons, as we see in the instance of Democedes (Herod. iii. 129, &c.), Ctesias, and others. Such men had of course considerable opportunities for acquiring exact information. If the work of Ctesias had come down to us entire, we might have formed a better estimate of the value of his history of Persia, now known to us solely by the extracts of Photius, Diodorus of Sicily, and a few other writers.

The foundation of this extensive empire had proved advantageous to the diffusion of geographical knowledge among the Greeks of Europe and Asia: its destruction also was favourable to the progress of geography. By the conquests of Alexander, the remoter provinces of the Persian monarchy, of which a great part till then had only been known in such general outlines as those given by Herodotus, and by the vague information of individuals, were at once opened to the Greeks, who had been prepared for increasing their geographical information by their education and previous habits. The operations of military expeditions and the observations of military men have always rendered signal services to geography. Alexander attempted to cross the boundaries of the Persian empire on the north and on the south; and though his success was limited in the former quarter, the Greeks began from that time to have some notion of the nomadic tribes beyond the Jaxartes (SirSihon), who then, as at present, wandered about in those * Anaximander is said by Agathemerus to have made the first maps.

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