"4. Quando si dà il caso, che piu testi concorrono a fissare la credenza di uncerto fatto, e che apparisca un testo o due contradire apparentemente a quella credenza, vi è luogo di sospettare (to be sure there is; or else what is the use of criticism?) o un errore di copia, o di stampa; oppure, se tal supposizione non è ammissibile, si può credere esser ciò uno interpolazione, o una fali fi cazione." Excellent i'faith! Why did not his Lordship turn editor at once? He might have written a better Greek play than Mr. Burges, and what is more, have proved it to be Euripides' own, which the latter gentleman did not think even worth his while to attempt. Far be it from us to think for one moment of plunging ourselves and our gentle readers into the midst of "that Serbonian bog Between Damiata and Mount Casius old, And here we cannot but be glad to find our inclinations strengthened and justified by the authority of so learned an Italian as Ugo Foscolo. Loth are we to crush the airy creations of fancy, or do despite unto the gentle spirit of en thusiasm! Why need we question the accuracy of an antagonist Abbé? "Une grotte écartée avait frappé mes yeux : " Why should one be sceptical on the information any more than on the delicacy of Madame Deshoulières ? "Dans cet antre profond, où, sans d'autres témoins, Del'amoureux Petrarque adoucir le martyre; Dans cet antre, où l'amour tant de fois fut vainqueur, "Yet as to his really meeting Laura at Vaucluse, he retired there (thither), in the hope,' as he says, to extinguish by solitude and study the flame which was consuming me. Unfortunate wretch! the remedy served only to exasperate the disease. My meditations were about her alone whom I wished to avoid * Epèt. Famil. Lib. viii, Ep. 3. • When I think of her-and when is it that I do not think of her! -I look around my solitude, my eyes bathed in tears. I feel that I am one of those unfortunate beings whose passion can feed on memory alone, who has no consolation but his tears; but who still desires to weep alone— *››› "Amor col rimembrar sol mi mantiene Ed io son di quei che il pianger giova- Che le lagrime mie si spargan sole." P. 25. "Poets, antiquaries, and travellers of all nations, amongst others the Archbishop Beccarelli, with Cardinal Sadoleto, and Cardinal Poole, then the legate of the province, searched all the spots in the country without finding out who Laura was, or whether she had ever existed. Meanwhile innumerable writers published each an account of Petrarch and Laura, which at once augmented the stock of fiction under the mask of history, and carried away the generality of readers. The Abbé de Sade, towards the year 1760, in examining his family archives at Avignon, brought to light some old testaments and contracts, which, strengthened by many allusions in the different works of Petrarch, led to the conclusion admitted as undeniable even by his Italian opponent +-" That Laura was the daughter of Audibert de Noves, and married in her eighteenth year to Hugh de Sade; and that Petrarch became acquainted with her about two years after her marriage." Those who are still anxious to preserve the poet from the imputation of having sighed for the wife of another, reject the authority of documents; nay, a Scotch critic (videlicet the noble canonist aforesaid) contends, that an abbreviation, to be found in a Latin manuscript, in which Petrarch says of Laura, corpus ejus crebris PTB S exhaustum, ought to be interpreted perturbationibus-and if so, we might imagine that the constitution of Laura had sunk under frequent afflictions. But the more direct interpretation of P TBS is partubus; and the words crebris, corpus exhaustum, combine more grammatically and more logically with it, to express that her constitution was exhausted by frequent childbearing. The terms Mulier and Femina, by which her lover continually designates her in Latin, instead of Virgo and Puella; and those of Donna and Madonna in Italian, signify more properly a married woman. Donna is also a general term; and being derived from Domina, it is, in poetry, an appellation of respect: but when it is opposed to Giovine, or Vergine, or Donzella, it signifies strictly a married woman, and the poet says of Laura, "La bella giovinetta ch'ora è donna." P. 10. Epèt. Famil. Lib. xxii. Ep. 8. Tirabochi Storia. vol. v. But it matters little to us in the 19th century to ascertain who or what Laura really was; the poetry in which she is celebrated is our only concern, and that poetry may be understood and fully felt as well if it should be ultimately discovered that she was a blear-eyed washing woman. We believe Laura to have actually lived, and to have been a very beautiful woman, but she might have been otherwise without disparagement to the warmth and sincerity of Petrarch's love. When we said that this poet was not generally understood, we did not mean that there were any peculiar difficul ties in his style, but that few persons were intimately conversant with the theory upon which all his writings are founded, and that fewer still could sympathize with him when that theory was understood. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that it cannot be comprehended, except in the proportion it is felt; that it is no cold and solitary effort of the brain, but the warm and complex emanation of the entire man. It is indeed a high and noble stretch of the pure imagination, and to ardent and exalted minds it seems the natural development of their internal workings, and the appropriate consummation of their human being. But the great majority of mankind are made of coarser stuff and more earthly materials; and as they may be, and as thousands are, good and religious citizens upon a homelier scale, they are not unfrequently inclined to ridicule that as unnatural and absurd, which is in fact most strictly in accordance with the essential nature of the soul, and springs, and ever must spring, from the force of the abstract reason. We trust we shall be excused if we say a few words upon the character of this theory. Its name, foundation, and faint outline, proceed from Plato; its substance and vivifying spirit from Christianity. We reverence the shade of that wonderful genius as much as any man, and we hope we have profited by the study of his writings; we therefore refrain from withdrawing the veil which his admirers would do well never to disturb. It is utterly impossible, and it will for ever be so, to defend that to which we allude. Let us be grateful for the superior illumination of Spirit which makes so many of us doubt its existence. But without adverting to the object, we may safely admire the texture of the Platonic theory of love. The whole of this theory, as it is to be found in the Timæus and Parmenides is beside our more immediate purpose; the speeches in the Symposium will supply us with the materials for this more confined branch of it. We are happy to avail ourselves of the following very energetic translation. "Our souls emanate from God, and unto him they return again. They are pre-existent to our bodies in other worlds." (Or as Wordsworth so finely puts it in verse; "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; And cometh from afar ; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come "The most tender and the most beautiful inhabit Venus, the brightest and the purest of the planets, called the third heaven. They are more or less perfect, and the most perfect love those which are most perfect also. They are connected together in pairs by a predestined and immutable sympathy: without partaking of the sensual perturbations of the body, they are necessitated to follow it blindly, led by fatality or chance, for the procreation of the species. Each soul burns with the desire of finding its companion; and, when they do meet together in their pilgrimage on earth, their love becomes so much the more ardent, because the matter by which they are enclosed prevents their re-union. On these occasions their pleasures, their sufferings, their ecstacies, are inexpressible: each endeavours to make itself known to the other; a celestial light burns in the eyes; an immortal beauty beams in the countenance; the heart feels less tendency to earth, and they mutually incite each other to the exaltation and purification of their virtue. In proportion as they love each other, they are lifted towards God, who is their common origin; and, in proportion as they feel the pains of their exile upon earth, and their captivity in matter, they desire to be freed, in order that they may unite eternally in heaven." P. 5. We consider this as it were the first stage of the theory; it has its beauties and its deficiencies; in particular, the love is not human; it is merely an inter-appetency of Spirits, and that too springing from a predestined and immutable sym pathy *" Dante and Petrarch may exemplify the second or middle stage, when the love had become human, but was, for the most part, uninspired with any real passion. Hence there is a *"This would be as bad as marriage at once. "The Comtesse de Champagne, daughter of Louis le Jeune, decided in a Cour d'Amour, En amour tout est grace; et dans le mariage tout est necessité: par consequent L'amour,-ne peut pas exister entre gens maries. The Queen, to whom an appeal was made against this decision, replied, A Dieu ne plaise que nous soyons assez osées pour contredire les arréls de la Comtesse de Champagne." P. 9. want of depth in Petrarch's love; it alternates too apparently between the more fanciful addresses of the Troubadours, and the metaphysical heights of Plato. He is a Platonic lover, or an Italian courtier, as the humour suits him. Thus for instance SONETTO CLVIII. "Siccome eterna vita èx veder dio, Nè più si brama, nè bramar più lice, Più non dimanderei: chè s' alcun vive I' perchè non della vostr' alma vista ?” And then these exquisite lines "E por pianger ancor con più diletto, E le braccia gentili, E gli atti suoi soavemente alteri, E i dolci sdegni alteramente umíli, E '1 bel giovonie petto Torre d'alto intelletto; Mi celari questi luoglia alpestri e feri." Canz. IV. Dante must have suggested to Petrarch the comparison in the sonnet we have quoted, or it is a curious coincidence, which, with regard to an inferior poet, we should have been disposed to doubt. BALLATA I. "Poichè saziar non posso gli occhi miei Chi io diverrò beato lei guardando. A guisa d' Angel che di sua natura, Stando su in altura, Diven beato, sol vedendo Iddio, Guardando la figura |