rty and intellectual
freedom--for poverty and greatness! But what he felt within him of the
promptings of ambition, the assurance of fame, the consciousness of
genius, he had too much modesty to express. He could not do justice to
himself, without appearance of overweening pride. It was better to be
silent than to say but half.

It was the remembrance of this visit which, on the present occasion, made
him listen with a painful curiosity to every step upon the stairs. And now
a step _was_ heard. It came nearer and nearer, higher and higher--a rapid
step which never paused an instant till it reached his own door. A loud
knocking followed. But this time it was no spy upon his literary hours.
On opening the door, a fellow-student, breathless with haste, rushed into
the room, and related the tragical event which had taken place at the
house of their common friend Giacomo.

Petrarch immediately descended and ran to meet his friend. He found him
already a prisoner! The Podesta, willing, however, to treat the unhappy
student with as much lenity as possible, had converted his own apartments
into his prison. He well knew, also, the honourable character of his
prisoner; the granting this indulgence enabled him to exact his word of
honour not to escape, and he probably judged, considering the extreme
popularity of Giacomo in the university, that this was a greater security
for his safe custody than any walls, or any guard, which he had at his
command in Bologna.

Petrarch was horror-struck when he came fully to apprehend the extreme
peril to which his friend had exposed himself. Whatever were his motives,
he had committed, in fact, a capital offence, and one to be classed
amongst the most heinous; it was the crime of abduction he had
perpetrated, and for which he stood exposed to the penalty of death. The
poet fell weeping into the arms of his friend.

"Alas!" said Giacomo, "she would not hear me!" The inflexibility of
Constantia was still the only grief that dwelt upon his mind. "She stood
there--on that spot--I could kiss the traces of her footstep could I see
them--cold, cold as the statue--I might have prayed with better hope to
the sculptured marble!"

But Petrarch did not limit his kind offices to sympathy and lamentation.
Meditative as he was by character, and little habituated to what is called
the business of life, he saw clearly the grave nature of his friend's
position. The crime which Giacomo had actually committed