AN

HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL

ESSAY

ON THE

LIFE AND CHARACTER.

OF

Petrarch.

WITH A TRANSLATION OF A FEW OF HIS

SONNETS.
Goodhousekee, Ale you de, Fraser Tytler, lo!

ILLUSTRATED WITH

PORTRAITS AND ENGRAVINGS.

EDINBURGH:

Printed by James Ballantyne and Co.

FOR JOHN BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH;
AND JOHN MURRAY, LONDON,

1810.

W89

his

KW

TO

THOMAS JAMES MATHIAS, Esq.

WHOSE CLASSICAL TASTE, AND CRITICAL ABILITIES,

DISPLAYED IN VARIOUS BRANCHES

OF POLITE LETTERS;

ARE IN A PARTICULAR MANNER

DISTINGUISHED

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ITALIAN LITERATURE;

THIS ESSAY,

WHICH, IN A MORE IMPERFECT FORM,

WAS HONOURED WITH HIS NOTICE AND APPROBATION,

IS INSCRIBED,

AS A MARK OF THE FRIENDSHIP AND ESTEEM

OF

THE AUTHOR.

M47978

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE greater part of the following Essay appeared in two separate publications; the one, a small pamphlet, published twenty-five years ago, (in 1784,) with a title similar to the present; the other, a Dissertation on an Historical Hypothesis of the Abbé de Sade, which was printed in the fourth volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. These two detached publications are, in the present work, new