ical means.

Father Dionisio, upon his arrival at Naples, impressed the King with so
favourable an opinion of Petrarch that Robert wrote a letter to our
poet, enclosing an epitaph of his Majesty's own composition, on the
death of his niece Clementina. This letter is unhappily lost; but the
answer to it is preserved, in which Petrarch tells the monarch that his
epitaph rendered his niece an object rather of envy than of lamentation.
"O happy Clementina!" says the poet, "after passing through a transitory
life, you have attained a double immortality, one in heaven, and another
on earth." He then compares the posthumous good fortune of the princess
to that of Achilles, who had been immortalized by Homer. It is possible
that King Robert's letter to Petrarch was so laudatory as to require a
flattering answer. But this reverberated praise is rather overstrained.

Petrarch was now intent on obtaining the honour of Poet Laureate. His
wishes were at length gratified, and in a manner that made the offer
more flattering than the crown itself.

Whilst he still remained at Vaucluse, at nine o'clock in the morning of
the 1st of September, 1340, he received a letter from the Roman Senate,
pressingly inviting him to come and receive the crown of Poet Laureate
at Rome. He must have little notion of a poet's pride and vanity, who
cannot imagine the flushed countenance, the dilated eyes, and the
joyously-throbbing heart of Petrarch, whilst he read this letter. To be
invited by the Senate of Rome to such an honour might excuse him for
forgetting that Rome was not now what she had once been, and that the
substantial glory of his appointment was small in comparison with the
classic associations which formed its halo.

As if to keep up the fever of his joy, he received the same day, in the
afternoon, at four o'clock, another letter with the same offer, from
Roberto Bardi, Chancellor of the University of Paris, in which he
importuned him to be crowned as Poet Laureate at Paris. When we consider
the poet's veneration for Rome, we may easily anticipate that he would
give the preference to that city. That he might not, however, offend his
friend Roberto Bardi and the University of Paris, he despatched a
messenger to Cardinal Colonna, asking his advice upon the subject,
pretty well knowing that his patron's opinion would coincide with his
own wishes. The Colonna advised him to be crowned at Rome.

The custom of conferring this honour had, for