rary enjoyments, he died. Every thing is
preserved with a reverential care that does honour to the
people; and his chair, like less holy and less credible
relics, is inclosed in a wire-frame, to prevent the
dilapidations of the curious. I believe these things to be
genuine. I believe in the local traditions that point out his
study, and his kitchen, and his dying chamber.--Petrarch was
all but idolized in his own time, and his fame has known no
diminution; therefore these affectionate recollections of him
have always been treasured there for the gratification of his
pilgrims, and with a becoming reverence themselves, the people
naturally set apart as sacred all that belonged to him. I have
noticed the compactness of his few rooms, and their separation
from the larger apartments--they have also a separate
communication by a small elegant flight of steps into the
garden, as you may see in Prout's drawing. If the rooms were
not an addition, and it did not suggest itself at the moment
to look attentively, I believe these little architectural and
ornamental steps to have been; and as we know he did meddle
with brick and mortar, by building a small chapel here, the
conjecture is not improbable;--it is but a conjecture, and
remains for others to confirm or disprove.

A little wild, irregular walk runs, serpent like, all round
the garden, which, situated at the head of the valley, is shut
in by the hills--itself a wilderness of luxuriance and beauty.
It was a glorious evening, and every thing in agreement with
our quiet feeling. I am not an enthusiast, and to you I need
not affect to be other than I am; but I have felt this day
sensibly, and shall remember it for ever. Petrarch's fame is
worth the noise and nothing of all the men-slayers since Cain!
It is fame indeed, holy and lovely, when the name and
reputation of a man, remembered only for wisdom and virtue,
shall have extended into remote and foreign kingdoms with such
a sound and echo, that centuries after a stranger turns aside
into these mountains to visit his humble dwelling. It is the
verification of the prediction of Boccaccio--"This village,
hardly known even at Padua, will become famous through the
world." I do not presume to offer a eulogy on Petrarch as a
writer, but as a man. In all the relations of son, brother