sent race of French writers, (of the lighter kind,) are translators,-the next will be mere imitators. We already begin to return them the compliment, of imposing a foreign school upon their taste, which is evident from the verses of La Martine, their most popular living poet. Blackwood's Magazine.

CHARACTER OF PETRARCH.

NATURE had doomed Petrarch to such a necessity of interchanging affections, that he never seemed happy unless when loving or being loved. Affection, in his eyes, levelled the inequalities of education and fortune, and, in spite of his yearning for solitude, he was solus sibi, totus omnibus; omnium locorum, omnium horarum, omnium fortunarum,omnium mortalium homo. He speaks in the same terms of the peasant and his wife, who waited on him at Vaucluse, as he uses when recording the good qualities of his powerful friends." He was my counsellor, and the keeper of all my most secret designs; and I should have lamented his loss still more grievously, had I not been warned by his advanced age, that I could not expect long to retain possession of such a companion. In him, I have lost a confidential servant, or, rather, a father, in whose bosom I had deposited my sorrows for these fifteen years past; and his humble cottage was to me as a temple. He cultivated for me a few acres of indifferent land. He knew not how to read,

yet he was also the guardian of my library. With anxious eye he watched over my most rare and ancient copies, which, by long use, he could distinguish from those that were more modern, or of which I myself was the author. Whenever I consigned a volume to his custody, he was transported with joy; he pressed it to his bosom with sighs; with great reverence he repeated the author's name, and seemed as if he had received an accession of learning and happiness from the sight and touch of a book. His wife's face was scorched by the sun, and her body extenuated by labour; but she had a soul of the most candid and generous nature. "Under the burning heat of the dogstar, in the midst of snow, and of rain, she was found from morning till evening in the field, whilst even a greater part of the night was given to work than to repose. Her bed was of straw; her food was black bread, frequently full of sand; and her drink was water, mixed with vinegar; yet she never appeared weary or afflicted, never shewed any desire of a more easy life, nor was even heard to complain of the cruelty of destiny, and of mankind."

It was on account of his natural benevolence, that Petrarch seemed free from that feeling by which almost all men of letters, if not during the whole, at least, in some moments of their lives, are inwardly humiliated. The mystical tradition of Apollo flaying his competitor, is related by a Greek antiquary, with such praises of the musical skill of Marsays, and with such imputations of trickery and cruelty on the god of poetry, that it was probably an allegory, not so much of the chastisement merited by presumptuous ignorance, as of

the vindictive jealousy of scholars. The protestations, which Petrarch mingles with the confessions of his other failings, and which he repeats in his old age,"that envy never dwelt in his heart," sprang from one of the countless illusions which bewilder us, precisely when we fancy that our own heart can hide nothing from our penetration. Envy remained dormant, because no one about Petrarch was pre-eminent enough to awaken it. He uttered rarely the name, and affected never to peruse the works, of Dante; and if he cannot always avoid speaking of his predecessor, it is to record less his excellencies than his faults. With respect to his contemporaries, Petrarch was so far above jealousy himself, that he often contrived to extinguish it among them. But whenever his interference was not attended with success, he lamented it as an undeserved misery, to which, however, he submitted, perhaps, from the ambition of displaying his superiority. To this trait of his character he seems to allude in some lines which, undoubtedly, were prompted by his own experience.

With anxious toil, he, through his lengthen❜d life,

The copious flood of eloquence applied,

In vain! to quench of learned hands the strife;

For with the growth of arts, grew envious pride.
Wisdom herself but fann'd the raging pest,

And urg'd its venom o'er the inflated breast.

Although his vanity was gratified at the expense of his peace, his mediation in the literary quarrels was grounded on the generous principle," that they who burn with the love of their country, being essentially virtuous, are formed by nature for indissoluble friendship." But lofty maxims, when proclaimed amongst

people with whom they are impracticable, inevitably provoke ridicule; and Petrarch, by reproving those who laughed at his advice, in some measure justified the jest against him. A literary club of young men at Venice, brought him to a formal trial, for having usurped and exercised an illegal jurisdiction over all questions of learning. They appointed, from their own body, judges and counsel; and after hearing the pleadings for the prosecution, and the defence, they decided that Petrarch's crime consisted only in being a good sort of man. Of this farce no one, save Petrarch himself, took any serious notice. To repel the insinuation, he composed a large book, which has actually forced posterity to join in the merriment of his accusers.

Thinking that mankind conspired, not so much against him as against wisdom and virtue, his character acquired a tint of misanthropy by no means natural to him. All those who approached him nearly, perceived that he had more of fear than hatred, more of pity than contempt, for man. Indeed, the propensity to be useful to others, although too loudly professed, was born with him, and, instead of being abated by the selfishness of old age, it grew into an anxiety which ceased only with his life. When one of his friends was persecuted, he wrote to him:-"Take your choice, either come and find an asylum under my roof, or you will compel me to come into France for your protection." The lessons of early adversity, which harden selfish dispositions, had taught the generous heart of Petrarch to feel for the sufferings of others; and shunning-like all men, who are merely busied with their own feelings and intellectual faculties the exertion

necessary for the acquirement and preservation of riches," he was led, in the fearlessness of youth, to spend for the benefit of others, nearly all of the scanty inheritance he derived from his parents, who died in exile. He bestowed one part as a dowry on his sister, who married at Florence, and gave up the other to two deserving friends, who were in indigent circumstances. He lent even some classic manuscripts, which he called his only treasures, to his old master, that he might pawn them: in this manner, Cicero's books DE GLORIA were irrecoverably lost. If his presents were declined, he attached some verses to them, which compelled his friends to accept them; and he distributed his Italian poetry as alms amongst rhymesters and ballad singers. As he advanced in years, the sovereign contempt for riches which he continued to profess, was more apparent than real, especially towards the end of his career: yet he never forgot those who looked to him for aid, which he always bestowed with kindness. Among the many legacies of his testament, he left to one of his friends his lute, that he might sing the praises of the Almighty; to a domestic, a sum of money, intreating him not to lose it at play, as usual; to his amanuensis, a silver goblet, recommending him to fill it with water in preference to wine; and Boccacio, a winter pelisse, for his nocturnal studies. Nor did he wait till death had compelled him to be liberal. "In good truth," he writes to Boccacio, "I know not what you mean, by answering that you are my debtor in money. Oh! if I were able to enrich you !-but for two friends like ourselves, who possess but one soul, one house is sufficient."