he never acted
in a more cool and calculating spirit in his life. "I did but burn the
ships behind me that I might fight the better. I am never so calm," he
added, "or so thoroughly master of myself, as when most in earnest; and
this is not generally the character of a Parisian."

Such was the serious, brave, and resolute spirit of Giacomo. But he had
other qualities than those which made him the most popular student bf the
university; and as a proof of this, we need only mention that he was the
intimate friend of Petrarch, at this time also a student at Bologna.
Though despatched to this university by his father for the express purpose
of prosecuting the study of the law, Petrarch was wrapt up in his Latin
classics and his poetry; and it was precisely in our brave and handsome
cavalier that he found the companion who most completely sympathised with
him in his pursuits, and most correctly appreciated his nascent genius.

These two friends had been walking together in silence for some time under
the long colonnades which then, as now, lined the streets of Bologna. A
more noble pair have rarely traversed those colonnades. The poet,
remarkable for his beauty, was in his youth very studious of elegance in
his dress; and the short velvet cloak, with its border of gold or silver
lace, was always thrown over his slight, but finely moulded figure, with a
grace which would have satisfied the eye of a painter. From time to time
he might be seen to brush away, or to shake off, the specks of dust which
had settled on it, or to re-adjust, by a movement intended to appear
unconscious, the folds of its drapery. His companion, taller, and of a
somewhat larger build, and far more costly in his attire, though utterly
unoccupied with it, walked "like one of the lions" by his side.

"My dear Giacomo," said Petrarch, breaking the long silence, "what has
befallen you? Not a word--certainly not _two_ in any coherent succession,
have you uttered for the last hour."

"Neither to-day, nor yesterday!" muttered Giacomo to himself, certainly
not in answer to his friend,--"Neither to-day, nor yesterday--perhaps, she
means never to go to mass again."

"What are you talking, or rather, thinking of?"

"What I am always thinking of, my dear Petrarch,--what I shall never cease
thinking of till it prove my destruction--which some spirit of divination
tells me that it will."

"Really, really, Giacomo," said his friend, "you show in this a most
insa