ters have erred in considering Petrarch's attachment as
visionary, others, who have allowed the reality of his passion, have
been mistaken in their opinion of its object. They allege that Petrarch
was a happy lover, and that his mistress was accustomed to meet him at
Vaucluse, and make him a full compensation for his fondness. No one at
all acquainted with the life and writings of Petrarch will need to be
told that this is an absurd fiction. Laura, a married woman, who bore
ten children to a rather morose husband, could not have gone to meet him
at Vaucluse without the most flagrant scandal. It is evident from his
writings that she repudiated his passion whenever it threatened to
exceed the limits of virtuous friendship. On one occasion, when he
seemed to presume too far upon her favour, she said to him with
severity, "I am not what you take me for." If his love had been
successful, he would have said less about it.

Of the two persons in this love affair, I am more inclined to pity Laura
than Petrarch. Independently of her personal charms, I cannot conceive
Laura otherwise than as a kind-hearted, loveable woman, who could not
well be supposed to be totally indifferent to the devotion of the most
famous and fascinating man of his age. On the other hand, what was the
penalty that she would have paid if she had encouraged his addresses as
far as he would have carried them? Her disgrace, a stigma left on her
family, and the loss of all that character which upholds a woman in her
own estimation and in that of the world. I would not go so far as to say
that she did not at times betray an anxiety to retain him under the
spell of her fascination, as, for instance, when she is said to have
cast her eyes to the ground in sadness when he announced his intention
to leave Avignon; but still I should like to hear her own explanation
before I condemned her. And, after all, she was only anxious for the
continuance of attentions, respecting which she had made a fixed
understanding that they should not exceed the bounds of innocence.

We have no distinct account how her husband regarded the homage of
Petrarch to his wife--whether it flattered his vanity, or moved his
wrath. As tradition gives him no very good character for temper, the
latter supposition is the more probable. Every morning that he went out
he might hear from some kind friend the praises of a new sonnet which
Petrarch had written on his wife; and, when he came back to din