Petrarch flourished so early as the fourteenth century, a fact of which the freshness of his laurels makes us forgetful. Through the friendship of King Robert of Naples, working on the superstructure of exalted merit, he received the purple robe and crown of bay in the full senate of Rome, as poet laureate : the ceremony was most imposing, and is described at length in his life. His mind was stored with classical knowledge; he was in all things far beyond the age in which he lived; he was a good botanist, and a general lover of nature, as well as a labourer in the mines of art; he is one of the earliest coincollectors on record; he despised and refused wealth and the honours of the papal court, preferring his books, and the pretty hermitage at Vaucluse on the Sorbia.

The one great error of his life,—an error, nevertheless, to which he mainly owes his present fame,was a more innocent one than is generally imagined: for however warmly he may have regarded his Laura in the first hours of their friendship, it is certain that their attachment never exceeded the limits of propriety. The unhappy marriage of Laura with Hugues de Sade was the greatest misfortune to the common estimation of Petrarch: but those who will

give themselves the trouble to enquire, will find that the conduct of the Platonic lovers was most pure, noble, and religious.

Without professing to attempt an exact translation, the writer has appended a few thoughts of Petrarch in English verse to show how just and generous were his sentiments: the first is to his beloved Laura: the next to a young poet, who asked him whether it was worth while to persevere in working the ungainful soil of Parnassus.

My Laura, my love, I behold in thine eyes
Twin daystars that Mercy has given,
To teach me on earth to be happy and wise
And guide me triumphant to heaven.

Their lessons of love thro' a lifetime have taught

My bosom the pureness of thine,

They have roused me to virtue, exalted my thought,

And nerved me for glory divine:

They have shed on my heart a delightful repose,
All else it hath barr'd from its portal,
So deeply the stream of my happiness flows,
I know that my soul is immortal.

Sloth, and the sensual mind hath driven away
All virtues from the world: where'er I range
I note on every side a wicked change;
Our steps are now unlit by heavenly ray:

The poet, walking in his crown of bay,

Is pointed at for scorn; the selfish herds Of mammon-worshippers insulting say

"Where is the gain in all these metred words? Your crowns of bay and myrtle are but leaves." And so philosophy goes starv'd and lone, And Vice is glad, while widowed Virtue grieves. Still be not thou disheartened, generous one, Follow that path, which entered ne'er deceives, But leads if not to earth's, to heaven's throne.

After all then, according to the complaint of Petrarch, we of the nineteenth century are not so poetically degenerate as is commonly supposed, for as little in his age, as in our's, could Horace have written with any truth his "Quem tu Melpomene:" nay, it is a great question whether he could have done so even in his own Augustan era, had he not been a favourite courtier, as well as the Muses' worshipper; the fashion set by a royal patron gives immediate fame, but, unless it be really deserved, time will strip the daw of his feathers: King Robert, and Emperor Octavian, could not have handed down their laureates to admiring after-ages, if Petrarch and Horace had not been in themselves legitimate monarchs of the lyre, paragons of poetry and learning, true swans of Helicon, born with music in their souls. Time is the great arbiter of literary rights; its discriminating stream, drowning thousands in oblivion, carries on the one or two, and throws

them forth upon the shore of immortality; the whirlpools of that river overwhelm all things but the buoyancy of real talent; true bread cast upon its waters is found after many days: and although posthumous fame be not reducible to money's-worth, the man must have sunk very far into the slough of worldliness, who can account the wages paid by posterity to excellence, as poor and valueless amends for the meanness of their ancestors. The spirit of Milton, if yet it wots of earthly fame, has been long since richly compensated for the insult put upon the travail of his genius in that Paradise Lost was sold by him, when living, for ten pounds! The estimate of cotemporaries may be thirty pieces of silver, but of those who come after, uncounted gold. The children of those who slew the prophets, build the prophets'

tombs.

COLUMBUS.

THY Soul was nerved with more than mortal force, Bold mariner upon a chartless sea,

With none to second, none to solace thee, Alone, who daredst keep thy resolute course

Thro' the broad waste of waters, drear and dark,

Mid wrathful skies, and howling winds, and worse The prayer, the taunt, the threat, the muttered curse Of all thy brethren in that fragile bark :

For on thy brow, throbbing with hopes immense, Had just ambition set his royal mark, Enriching thee with noble confidence

That having once thy venturous sails unfurl'd No danger should defeat thy recompense

The god-like gift to man of half a world.