ess, this convent
has survived the fury of the times, and is still entire. The description
of the first meeting of Laura and Petrarch is perhaps the best, because
the most simple and unlaboured part of his works.--"It was on one of the
lovely mornings of the spring of the year, the morning of April 6th,
1327, that being at matins in the convent of St. Claire, I first beheld
my Laura. Her robe was green embroidered with violets. Her features, her
air, her deportment, announced something which did not belong to mortal.
Her figure was graceful beyond the imagination of a poet--her eyes
beamed with tenderness, and her eye-brows were black as ebony. Her
golden ringlets, interwoven by the fingers of Love, played upon
shoulders whiter than snow. Her neck, in its harmony and proportion, was
a model for painters; and her complexion breathed that life and soul
which no painters can give When she opened her mouth, you saw the beauty
of pearls, and the sweetness of the morning rose. The mildness of her
look, the modesty of her gait, the soft harmony of her voice, must be
seen and felt to be conceived. Gaiety and gentleness breathed around
her, and these so pure and happily attempered, as to render love a
virtue, and admiration a kind of divine tribute."

Our curiosity naturally passed from the convent of St. Claire to the
church of the Cordeliers, where Laura is reputed to have reposed in
peace. Her tomb is in a small chapel, dark, damp, and even noisome: it
is indicated only by a flat unadorned stone. The inscription, which is
in Gothic letters, is rendered illegible by time. The congenial nature
of Francis the First of France caused the tomb to be opened, and a
leaden box was found, containing some bones, and a copy of verses, the
subject of which was the attachment of the two lovers. Petrarch, with
all his conceits, which are sometimes as cold as the snows on Mount
Ventoux, well merits his reputation. His verses are polished, and his
thoughts almost always elegant and poetical. He must not be judged, on
the point of a correct taste, with those who followed him. He was the
first, as it were, in the field; he is to be considered as an original
poet in a dark age; or, according to his own beautiful comparison, as a
nightingale singing through the thick foliage of the beech tree.
Petrarch was truly an original; I know no one to whom he can be
compared. He has no resemblance to any English, French, or Italian. He
has more ease, more