institution, vanity and fashion made these tribunals (over which princesses sometimes presided, and in which husbands were not permitted to complain of the indifference of their wives) to be sought after and feared. The Comtesse de Champagne, daughter of Louis le Jeune, decided in her tribunal, En amour tout est grace; et dans le mariage tout est necessité: par consequent l'amour ne peut pas 'exister entre gens mariés. The Queen, to whom an appeal was made against such decisions, replied, A Dieu ne plaise que nous soyons assez osées pour contredire les arrêts de la Comtesse de Champagne*.

V. Ir was in the midst of France, in the town where these customs and institutions were popular, and at the epoch when the Jeux Floreaux began to be celebrated in honour of the poets inspired by love-it was with a mind busied with the speculations which ancient philosophy had spread abroad, which the poetry of Italy had already adorned, and which religion had sanctified-it was with a disposition virtuous but restless, and impatient

* The DELLA CRUSCA Academy quotes a manuscript, dated 1408, bearing the title of Libro d'Amore, where a great many of these decisions are registered.

for renown; with an imagination wandering in quest of a happiness independent on the instability of fortune, that Petrarch, at the age of twenty-three years, became enamoured of Laura, who had then hardly completed her nineteenth year. Having met her eyes for the first time in a church, he followed her in the street, still thinking of their uncommon radiancy and beauty, and gazing at a distance at the grace of her port, and at her hair falling in rich profusion of ringlets on her neck

Erano i capei d'oro all' aura sparsi,
Che in mille dolci nodi gli avvolgea;
E il vago lume oltre misura ardea
Di que' begli occhi-

Non era l'andar suo cosa mortale,
Ma d'angelica forma.

Poets, antiquaries, and travellers of all nations, amongst others the Archbishop Beccadelli, with Cardinal Sadoleto, and Cardinal Poole, then the legate of the province, searched all the spots in the country without finding out who Laura was, or whether she had ever existed. Meanwhile, innumerable writers published each an account of Petrarch and Laura, which at once augmented the stock of fiction under the mask of history and car

ried away the generality of readers. The abbé de Sade, towards the year 1760, in examining his family archives at Avignon, brought to light some old testaments and contracts, which, strengthened by many allusions in the different works of Petrarch, led to the conclusion admitted as undeniable even by his Italian opponents*"That Laura was the daughter of Audibert de Noves, and married in her eighteenth year to Hugh de Sade; and that Petrarch became acquainted with her about two years after her marriage."-Those who are still anxious to preserve the poet from the imputation of having sighed for the wife of another, reject the authority of documents; nay, a Scotch critic† contends that an abbreviation, to be found in a Latin manuscript, in which Petrarch says of Laura, Corpus ejus crebris PTBS exhaustum, ought to be interpreted perturbationibus-and if so, we might imagine that the constitution of Laura had sunk under frequent afflictions. But the more direct interpretation of PTBS is partubus; and the words crebris, corpus, exhaustum, combine more grammatically and more logi

* TIRABOSCHI, Storia della Letteratura Ital. vol. v. + Critical and Historical Essay on the Life and Character of Petrarch, Edinburgh, 1812.

cally with it, to express that her constitution was exhausted by frequent child-bearing. The terms Mulier and Femina, by which her lover continually designates her in Latin, instead of Virgo and Puella; and those of Donna and Madonna in Italian, signify more properly a married woman. Donna is also a general term; and being derived from Domina, it is, in poetry, an appellation of respect: but when it is opposed to Giovine, or Vergine, or Donzella, it signifies strictly a married woman, and the poet says of Laura,

La bella giovinetta ch' ora è donna.

VI. It appears that in conversing with her lover she mentioned with candour and delicacy the beauties of her youth, and the curiosity and envy they excited

E quando io fui nel mio più bello stato,
Nell' età mia più verde, a te più cara,
Che a dir e a pensar a molti ha dato.

Her painters, however, owing perhaps to the infancy of their art, seem to have been little inspired with her beauty. To judge by Laura's early portraits, a polished forehead, with black eyes, contrasted with a fair complexion and golden hair, were the only rare ornaments she

Her

had received from nature. Besides the want
of harmony in their proportions, her features
betray the conceit and the archness of a French
countenance, neither enlivened with the at-
tractive warmth of the Italians, nor the cheer-
ful serenity of the English beauties.
lover having never exactly described her, af-
fords to the admirers of his poetry the pleasure
of imagining Laura according to their own
taste, and of estimating her personal endow-
ments more by their effects, than by a distinct
idea of their character. From some touches
here and there in the different writings of Pe-
trarch, it appears that her figure was less em-
bellished with regularity and dignity, than
with a graceful elegance. Her more powerful
charms were derived from her sighs and her
smiles, from the melody of her voice, from the
sweet eloquence of her eyes-

Chi gli occhi di costei giammai non vide,
Come soavemente ella gli gira!

and above all, from the natural mobility of her countenance, on which the mystery of an habitual thoughtfulness was increased by the sudden succession of animation and paleness;

E il viso di pietosi color' farsi,
Non so se vero, o falso, mi parea.