MEMOIRS OF THE LOVES OF THE POETS: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF WOMEN CELEBRA TED IN ANCIENT AND MODERN POETRY. BY MRS. JAMESON. " Only she that hath as great a share in virtue as in beauty deserve a noble love to serve her, and a true poesie to speak her." HABINGTON'S Casfara. FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION. : BOSTON HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND Cljc Ixtljcr^tBc Press, Cam&rttrge. ENFIN, relevons-nous sous le poids de 1' existence; n donnons pas a nos injustes ennemis, a nos amis ingrats, le triomphe d' avoir abattu nos facultds intellectuelles. Ils reduisent a chercher la celebrite" ceux qui se seraient contends des affections: eh bien! il faut 1'atteindre. Ces essais ambitieux ne porteront point remede aux poines de Tame; mais ils honoreront la vie. La consacrer a 1'espoir toujours trompe" du bonheur, c'es* la rendre encore plus infortune'e. II vaut mieux r^unir tous ses efforts pour descendre avec quelque noblesse, avec quelque reputation, la route qui conduit de la jeunesse a la mort. HADAMK DE STAKU. THE AUTHOR TO THE READER. THESE little sketches (they can pretend to no higher title) are submitted to the public with a feel- ing of timidity almost painful. They are absolutely without any other pretension than that of exhibiting, in a small compass and under one point of view, many anecdotes of biog- raphy and criticism, and many beautiful poetical portraits, scattered through a variety of works, and all tending to illustrate a subject in itself full of interest, the influence which the beauty and virtue of women have exercised dver the characters and writings of men of genius. But little praise or reputation attends the mere compiler, but the pleasure of the task has compensated its difficulty ; " song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy," these " flowers of Paradise," whose growth is not of earth, were all around me ; I had but to gather tnem from the intermingling we Q ds and briars, and to bind them into one sparkling wreath, consecrated to the glory of women and the gallantry of men. The design which unfolded itself before me, as these little sketches extended gradually from a few memoranda into a volume, is not completed ; much has been omitted, much suppressed. If I have paused mid-way in the task, it is not for want of Vlll PREFACE. materials, which offer themselves in almost exhaust- less profusion nor from want of interest in the subject the most delightful in which the imagina- tion ever revelled ! but because I desponded over my own power to do it justice. I know, I feel that it required more extensive knowledge of languages, more matured judgment, more critical power, more eloquence ; only Madame de Stael could have ful- filled my conception of the style in which it ought to have been treated. It was enthusiasm, not pre- sumption, which induced me to attempt it. I have touched on matters, on which there are a variety of tastes and opinions, and lightly passed over ques- tions on which there are volumes of grave " historic doubts ;" but I have ventured on no discussion, still less on any decision. I have been satisfied merely to quote my authorities ; and where these exhibited many opposing facts and opinions, it seemed to me that there was far more propriety and much less egotism in simply expressing, in the first person, what 1 thought and felt, than in asserting absolutely that a thing is so, or is said to be so. Every one has a right to have an opinion, and deliver it with modesty ; but no one has a right to clothe such opin- ions in general assertions, and in terms which seern to insinuate that they are or ought to be universal. I know I am open to criticism and contradiction on a thousand points ; but I have adhered strictly to what appeared to me the truth, and examined con- scientiously aE the sources of information that were open to me. PREFACE. ix The history of this little book, were it worth revealing, would be the history, in miniature, of most human undertakings : it was begun with en- thusiasm ; it has been interrupted by intervals of illness, idleness, or more serious cares ; it has been pursued through difficulties so great, that they would perhaps excuse its many deficiencies ; and now I see its conclusion with a languor almost approach- ing to despair; at least with a feeling which, while it renders me doubly sensitive to criticism, and apprehensive of failure, has rendered me al- most indifferent to success, and careless of praise. I owe four beautiful translations from the Italian, (which are noticed in their proper places,) to the kindness of a living poet, whose justly celebrated name, were I allowed to mention it, would be sub- ject of pride to myself, and double the value of this little book. I have no other assistance of any kind to acknowledge. * * # # # Will it be thought unfemmine or obtrusive, if I add yet a few words ? I think it due to truth and to myself to seize this opportunity of saying, that a little book published some years ago, and now perhaps forgotten, was not written for publication, nor would ever have been printed, but for accidental circumstances. That the title under which it appeared was not given by the writer, but the publisher, who at the time knew nothing of the author. And that several false dates, and unimporfe**t X PREFACE. circumstances and characters were interpolated, to conceal, if possible, the real purport and origin of the work. Thus the intention was not to create an illusion, by giving to fiction the appearance of truth, but, in fact, to give to truth the air of fiction. I was not then prepared for all that a woman must meet and endure, who once suffers herself to be betrayed into authorship. She may repent at leisure, like a condemned spirit ; but she has passed that barrier from which there is no return. C'est assez, I will not add a word more, lest it should be said that I have only disclaimed the title of the Ennuyde) to assume that of the Ennuye'use. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Pag A Poet's Love. , 16 CHAPTER H. Loves of the Classic Poets 19 CHAPTER HE. The Loves of the Troubadours 24 CHAPTER IV. The Loves of the Troubadours (continued) 87 CHAPTER V. Guido Cavalcanti and Mandetta. Cino da Pistoja and Selvaggia 62 CHAPTER VI. Laura 69 CHAPTER VII. Lauraand Petrarch (continued) 74 CHAPTER Vni. Oanteand Beatrice Portinari 87 CHAPTER IX. Dante and Beatrice ! continued) 102 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. Page Chaucer and Philippa Pioard. King James and Lady Jane Beaufort ............................ 107 CHAPTER XI. Lorenzo de' Medici and Lucretia Donati ............ 128 CHAPTER XH. The Fair Geraldine ............................... 144 CHAPTER Ariosto, Ginevra, and Alessandra Strozzi ............ 164 CHAPTER XIV. Spenser's Rosalind. Spenser's Elizabeth ........... 1^9 CHAPTER XV. On the Love of Shakspeare ....................... 183 CHAPTER XVI. Sidney's Stella (Lady Rich) ...................... 190 CHAPTER XVn. COURT AND AGB OP ELIZABETH. Drayton Daniel Drummond Mary, Queen of Scots Clement Marot and Diana de Poictiers Ronsard's Cassandre Ronsard's Marie Ronsard's Helene ......................................... 200 CHAPTER XVHL Leonora d'Este .................................. 218 CHAPTER XIX. Milton and Leonora Baroni ........................ 249 CHAPTER XX. Carew's Celia. Lucy Sacheverel .................. 263 CHAPTER XXT. Waller's Sacharissa. . . . . 278 CONTENTS. Xlll CHAPTER XXII. Page Beauties an 1 Poets in the Reign of Charles I. 285 CHAPTER XXIII. CONJUGAL POETRY. U vid and Perilla Seneca's Paulina Sulpicia Clo- tildo de Surville 291 CHAPTER XXIV. CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) Vittoria Colonna f03 CHAPTER XXV. CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) Veronica Gambara Camilla Valentini Portia Rota Castiglione 318 CHAPTER XXVI. CONJUGAL POETEY (continued.) Doctor Donne and his Wife 327 CHAPTER XXVU. CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) Habington's Castara 838 CHAPTER XXVUL CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) The Two Zappi 353 CHAPTER XTTX. CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) C*ord Lyttelton Prince Frederick Doctor Parnell. . 358 CHAPTER XXX. CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) Klopstock and Meta 869 CHAPTER XXXI. CONJUGAL POETRY (continued.) Bonnie Jean Highland Mary Loves of Burns 88S !dV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXTT. Pagi CONJUGAL POETBY (continued.) Monti andhia Wife 408 CHAPTER XXXTTT. POETS AND BEAUTIES FROM CHARLES n. TO QUEEN ANNS Cowley's Eleanora Maria d'Este Anne Killegrew - Lady Hyde Duchess of Queensbury Granville's Mira Prior's Chloe ... 414 CHAPTER XXXIV. Swift, Stella and Vanessa 431 CHAPTER XXXV. Pope and Martha Blount ; 465 CHAPTER XXXVI. Pope and Lady M. W. Montagu 464 CHAPTER XXXVH. POETICAL OLD BACHELORS. Gray Collins Goldsmith Shenstone Thomson Hammond 478 CHAPTER XXXVKL FRENCH POETS. Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet Madame de Gou- verne" 484 CHAPTER yyyrg. FRENCH POETRY (continued.) Madame d'Houdetot 490 CONCLUSION. Heroines of Modern Poetry 509 LOVES OF THE POETS. CHAPTER I. A POET'S LOVE. Io ti cinsi de gloria, efatta ho dea! OUIDI. OP all the heaven-bestowed privileges of the poet, the highest, the dearest, the most enviable, is the power of immortalizing the object of his love ; of dividing with her his amaranthine wreath of glory, and repaying the inspiration caught from her eyes with a crown of everlasting fame. It is not enough that in his imagination he has deified her that he has consecrated his faculties to her honor- that he has burned his heart in incense upon the altar of her perfections ; the divinity, thus decked out in richest and loveliest hues he places on high, and calls upon all ages and all nations to bow down before her, and all ages and all nations obey I wor- shipping the beauty thus enshrined in imperish- able verse, when others, perhaps as fair, and not less worthy, have gone down unsung, " to dust and 16 A POET'S LOVE. an endless darkness." How many women, who would otherwise have stolen through the shade of domestic life, their charms, virtues, and affections buried with them, have become objects of eternai interest and admiration, because their memory is linked with the brightest monuments of human genius ? While many a high-born dame, who once moved, goddess-like, upon the earth, and bestowed kingdoms with her hand, lives a mere name in some musty chronicle. Though her love was sought by princes, though with her dower she might have enriched an emperor, what availed it? " She had no poet-and she died! " And how have women repaid this gift of immor- tality ? O believe it, when the garland was such as woman is proud to wear, she amply and deeply re- warded him who placed it on her brow. If in re- turn for being made illustrious, she made her lover happy, if for glory she gave a heart, was it not a rich equivalent ? and if not, if the lover was un- successful, still the poet had his reward. Whence came the generous feelings, the high imaginations, the glorious fancies, the heavenward aspirations, which raised him above the herd of vulgar men but from the ennobling influence of her he loved ? Through her, the world opened apon him with a diviner beauty, and all na- ture became in his sight but a transcript of the charms of his mistress. He saw her eyes in the stars of heaven, her lips in the half-blown roso A POET'S LOVE. 17 The perfume of the opening flowers was but her breath, that " wafted sweetness round about the world: "the lily was "a sweet thief" that had stolen its purity from her breast. The violet was dipped in the azure of her veins ; the aurorean dews, " dropt from the opening eyelids of the mom," were not so pure as her tears ; the last rose- tint of the dying day was not so bright or so deli- cate as her cheek. Hers was the freshness and bloom of Spring ; she consumed him to languor a* the Summer sun ; she was kind as the bounteous Autumn, or she froze him with her wintry disdain. There was nothing in the wonders, the splendors, or the treasures of the created universe, in heaven or in earth, in the seasons or their change, that did not borrow from her some charm, some glory beyond its own. Was it not just that the beauty she dispensed should be consecrated to her adornment, and that the inspiration she bestowed should be repaid to her in fame ? For what of thee thy poet doth invent, He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give, But found it in thy cheek ; he can afford No praise to thee but what in thee doth live. Then thank him not for that which he doth say, Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay ! SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. The theory, then, which I wish to illustrate, as far as my limited powers permit, is this ; that where 18 A POET'S LOVE. a woman has been exalted above the rest of hef sex by the talents of a lover, and consigned to en- during fame and perpetuity of praise, the passion was real, and was merited ; that no deep or lasting interest was ever founded in fancy or in fiction ; that truth, in short, is the basis of all excellence in amatory poetry, as in every thing else ; for where truth is, there is good of some sort, and whero there is truth and good, there must be beauty, there must be durability of fame. Truth is the golden chain which links the terrestrial with the celestial, which sets the seal of heaven on the things of this earth, and stamps them to immortal- ity. Poets have risen up and been the mere fash- ion of a day, and have set up idols which have been the idols of a day : if the worship be out of date and the idols cast down, it is because these adorers wanted sincerity of purpose and feeling ; their raptures were feigned ; their incense was bought or adulterate. In the brain or in the fancy, one beauty may eclipse another one coquette may drive out another, and, tricked off in airy verse, they float away unregarded like morning vapors, which the beam of genius has tinged with a tran- sient brightness ; but let the heart once be touched, and it is not only wakened but inspired ; the lover kindled into the poet, presents to her he loves his cup of ambrosial praise : she tastes and the woman is transmuted into a divinity. When thp Grecian sculptor carved out his deities in marble, vid left us wondrous and godlike shapes, imper- CLASSIC POETS. 1& Donations of ideal grace unapproachable by modtm skill, was it through mere mechanical superiority ? No ; it was the spirit of faith within, which shad- owed to his imagination what he would represent. In the same manner, no woman has ever been truly, lastingly deified in poetry, but in the spirit of truth and of love ! CHAPTER LOVES OF THE CLASSIC POETb. I AM not sufficiently an antiquarian or scholar to trace the muses " upward to their spring," nei- ther is there occasion to seek out first examples of poetical loves in the days of fables and of demi- gods; or in those pastoral ages when shepherds were kings and poets : the loves of Orpheus and Eurydice are a little too shadowy, and those of the royal Solomon rather too mixed and too mystical for our purpose. To descend then at once to the classical ages of antiquity. It must be allowed, that as far as women are con- cerned, we have not much reason to regard then? with reverence. The fragments of the amatory poetry of the Greeks, which have been preserved to our times, show too plainly in what light we were then regarded ; and graceful and exquisite aa 20 LOVES OF THfi many of them are, they bear about them the taint of degraded morals and manners, and are utterly destitute of that exalted sentiment of respect and tenderness for woman, either individually or as a sex, which alone can give them value in our eyes. I must leave it then to learned commentators to explore and elucidate the loves of Sappho and An- acreon. To us unlearned women they shine out through the long lapse of ages, bright names, and little else ; a kind of half-real, half-ideal impersona- tions of love and song ; the one enveloped in " a fair luminous cloud," the other " veiled in shadow- ing roses ; " and thus veiled and thus shadowed, by all accounts, they had better remain. The same remark, with the same reservation, applies to the Latin poets. They wrote beautiful verses, admirable for their harmony, elegance, and perspicuity of expression ; and are studied as mod- els of stvle in a language, the knowledge of which, as far as these poets are concerned, were best con- fined to the other sex. They lived in a corrupted age, and their pages are deeply stained with its licentiousness ; they inspire no sympathy for their love, no interest, no respect for the objects of it. How, indeed, should that be possible, when their mis- tresses, even according to the lover's painting, were &11 either perfectly insipid, or utterly abandoned and odious ? * Ovid, he who has revealed to raor- *I need scarcely observe, that the following sketch of tne lyr- ical poets of llonio is abridged from the analysis of their works, in Giugu;ue'y Hist >ire Literaire, vol. iii. CLASSIC POETS 21 ral ears " all the soft scandal of the laughing sky," and whose gallantry has become proverbial, repre- sents himself as so incensed by the public and shameless infidelities of his Corinna, that he treats her with the unmanly brutality of some street ruffi an ; in plain language, he beats her. They are then reconciled, and again there are quarrels, coarse reproaches, and mutual blows. At length the lady, as might be expected from such tuition, becoming more and more abandoned, this delicate and poetical lover requests, as a last favor, that she will, for the future, take some trouble to deceive him more effectually ; and the fair one, can she do less ? kindly consents ! Cynthia, the mistress of Propertius, gets tipsy, overturns the supper table, and throws the cups at her lover's head ; he is delighted with her playful- ness : she leaves him, to follow the camp with a soldier ; he weeps and laments : she returns to him again, and he is enchanted with her amiable con- descension. Her excesses are such, that he is reduced to blush for her and for himself ; and he confesses that he is become, for her sake, the laugh- ing stock of all Rome. Cynthia is the only one of these classical loves who seems to have possessed any mental accomplishments. The poet praises, incidentally, her 'talents for music and poetry ; but not as if they added to her charms or enhanced her value in his estimation. The Lesbia* of Catullus * Clodia, the wife of Quintva Metellus Celer. 22 LOfES OF THE whose eyes were red with weeping the loss cf hei favorite sparrow, crowned a life of the most flagi- tious excesses by poisoning her husband. Of the various ladies celebrated by Horace and Tibullus, it would really be difficult to discover which was most worthless, venal, and profligate. These were the refined loves of the classic poets. **.*** The passion they celebrated never seems to have inspired one ennobling or generous sentiment, nor to have lifted them for one moment above the grossest selfishness. They had no scruple in ex- hibiting their mistresses to our eyes, as doubtless they appeared in their own, degraded by every vice, and in every sense contemptible ; beings, not only beyond the pale of our sympathy, but of our toleration. Throughout their works, virtue appears a mere jest : Love stripped of his divinity, even by those who first deified him, is what we disdain to call by that name ; sentiment, as we now understand the word, that is, the union of fervent love with reverence and delicacy towards its object, a thing unknown and unheard of, and all is " of the earth, earthy." **** It is for women I write ; the fair, pure-hearted, delicate-minded, and unclassical "reader will recol- lect that I do not presume to speak of these poeta critically, being neither critic nor scholar; but merely with a reference to my subject, and with a reference to my sex. As monuments of the Ian- CLASSIC POETS. 23 guage and literature of a great and polished people, rich with a thousand beauties of thought and of style, doubtless they have their value and their merit ; but as monuments also of a state of morals inconceivably gross and corrupt ; of the condition of women degraded by their own vices, the vices and tyranny of the other sex, and the prevalence of the Epicurean philosophy, the tendency of which, (however disguised by rhetoric,) was ever to lower the tone of the mind ; considered in this point of view, they might as well have all burned together in that vast bonfire of love-poetry which the Doctors of the Church raised at Constanti- nople : what a flame it must have made ! * * " J'ai ou'i dire dans mon enfance & Demetrius Chalcondyle, hjmme tres instruit de tout ce qui regarde la Grece, qui les Pretres avaient eu assez d'influence sur les Empereurs de Con- stantinople, pour les engager a. braler les ouvrages de nleusieurs anciens poetes Grecs, et en particulier de ceux qui parlaient des amours, &c. * * * Ces pretres, sans doute, montrerent une mal- veillance honteuse envers les anciens poetes; mais Us donnerent une grande preuve d'integrite, de probite, et de religion." ALCYONIUS. This sentiment is put into the mouth of Leo X. at a time when the mania of classical learning was at its height. See Rosco*, (Leo X.,) and Ginguene. 24 THE LOVES OF CHAPTER III. THE LOVES OF THE TROUBADOURS. Gente, che d'amor givan ragionando. PETBARCA. THE irruptions of the northern nations, among whom our sex was far better appreciated than among the polished Greeks and Romans ; the risa of Christianity, and the institution of chivalry, b) changing the moral condition of women, gave also a totally different character to the homage addressed to them. It was in the ages called gothic and bar- barous, in that era of high feelings and fierce passions, of love, war, and wild adventure, that the sex began to take their true station in society. From the midst of ignorance, superstition, and ferocity, sprung up that enthusiasm, that exaggera- tion of sentiment, that serious, passionate, and imaginative adoration of women, which has since, indeed, degenerated into mere gallantry, but was the very fountain of all that is most elevated and elegant in modern poetry, and most graceful and refined in modern manners. The amatory poetry of Provence had the same source with the national poetry of Spain; both were derived from the Arabians. To them we trace not only the use of rhyme, and the various forms of stanzas employed by the early lyric poets, THE TROUBADOURS. 25 out b) a strange revolution, it was fiom the East, where women are now held in seclusion, as mere soulless slaves of the passions and caprices of their masters, that the sentimental devotion paid to our sex in the chivalrous ages was derived.* The poetry of the Troubadours kept alive and enhanced the tone of feeling on which it was founded ; it was cause and effect reacting on each other; and though their songs exist only in the collections of the antiquarian, and the very language in which they wrote has passed away, and may be accounted dead, so is not the spirit they left behind: as the founders of a new school of amatory poetry, we are under obligations to their memory, which throw a strong interest around their personal adventures, and the women they celebrated. The tenderness of feeling and delicacy of ex- pression in some of these old Provencal poets, are the more touching, when we recollect that the writers were sometimes kings and princes, and often knights and warriors, famed for their hardi- hood and exploits. William, Count of Poitou, our Richard the First, two Kings of Arragon, a King of Sicily, the Dauphin of Auvergne, the Count de Foix, and a Prince of Orange, were professors of the " gaye science." Thibault,f Count of Prov- * Sismondi Literature du Midi. f- Thibault fut Roi galant etvaloureux, Ses hauts faits et son rangn'ont rien fait pour sa gloire; Mais il fat chansonnier et ses couplets heureux. Nous ont conserve sa memoire. ANTH. DE MONBT 26 THE LOVES OF ence and King of Navarre, was another of these royal and chivalrous Troubadours, and his lais and his virelais were generally devoted to the praises of Blanche of Castile, the mother of Louis the Ninth the same Blanche whom Shakspeare Las introduced into King John, and decked out in panegyric far transcending all that her favored poet and lover could have offered at her feet.* Thibault did, however, surpass all his contempora- ries in refinement of style : he usually concludes his chansons with an envoi, or address, to the Virgin, worded with such equivocal ingenuity, that it is equally applicable to the Queen of Heaven, or to the queen of his earthly thoughts, " La Blanche couvonne." There is much simplicity and elegance in the following little song, in whicL the French has been modernized. Las ! si j' avals pouvoir d'oubller Sa beaut6, son bien dire, Et son tres doux regarder Finirait mon martyre ! Mais las! mon coeur je n'en puis oter; Et grand affolage M'est d'espdrer Mais tel servage Donne courage A tout endurer. * Tf lusty Lore should go in quest of beauty, Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch*? If zealous Love should go in search of virtue, Where should he find it purer than in Blanche? If Love, ambi ious, sought a match of birth, Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanche 9 THE TROUBADOURS. 27 Et puis comment oublier Sa beaute", son bien dire, Et son tres doux regarder? Mieux aime mon martyre? " Princesses and ladies of rank entered the hste of poesy, and vanquished, on almost every occasion, the Troubadours of the other sex. For instance, that Countess of Champagne, who presided with such eclat in one of the courts of love ; Beatrice, Countess of Provence, the mother of four queens, among whom was Berengaria of England ; Clara d'Anduse, one of whose songs is translated by Sismondi ; a certain Dame Castellosa, who in a pathetic remonstrance to some ungrateful lover, assures him that if he forsakes her for another, and leaves her to die, he will commit a heinous sin before the face of God and man ; that charming Comtesse de Die, of whom more presently, and others innumerable, " tout hommes que femmes, la pluspart gentilshommes et Seigneurs de Places, amoreux des Roynes, Imperatrices, Duchesses, Marquises, Comtesses, et gentils-femmes ; desquelles les maris s'estimaient grandement heureux quand nos poetes leurs addressaient quelque chant nou- veau et notre langue Provencal." The said poetg being rewarded by these debonnaire husbands with rich dresses, horses, armor, and gold :* and by the ladies with praise, thanks, courteous words, and La plus honourable recompence qu'on pouvait faire aux dita poetcs, etait qu'on leur fournissait de draps, chevaux, armure, el urgent. 58 THE LOVES OF sweet smiles, ami very often, " altra cosa piu cara." The biography of these Troubadours generally commences with the same phrase Such a one was " gentilhomrne et chevalier," and was " pris d'amour " for such a lady, always named, who was the wife of such a lord, and in whose honor and praise he composed " maintes belles et doctes chansons." In these " chansons," for all the ama- tory poetry of those times was sung to music, we have love and romantic adventure oddly enough mixed up with piety and devotion, such as were the mode in an age when religion ruled the imagi- nation and the opinions of men, without in any degree restraining the passions or influencing the conduct. One Troubadour tells us, that when he beholds the face of his mistress, he crosses himself with delight and gratitude ; another pathetically entreats a priest to dispense him from his vows of love to a certain lady, whom he loved no longer ; the lady being the wife of another, one would imagine that the dispensation should rather have been required in the first instance. Arnaldo de Daniel, unable to soften the obdurate heart of his mistress, performs penance, and celebrates six (or as some say, a thousand) masses a day, " en priant Dieu de pouvoir acquerier la grace de sa dame," and burns lamps before the Virgin, and consecrates tapers for the same purpose : the lady with whom he was thus piously in love, was Cyberna, the wife of Guillaume de Bouille. This was something like the incantations and sacrifices of the classic poeta THE 1ROUBADOURS. 2& who familiarly mixed up their mythology with their amours ; but in a spirit as diffeient as the allegori- cal cupid of these chivalrous poets is from the winged and wanton deity of the Greeks and Ro- mans. Pierre Vidal sees a vision of Love, whom he describes as a young knight, fair and fresh as the day, crowned with a wreath of flowers instead of a helmet; and mounted on a palfrey as white as snow, with a saddle of jasper, and spurs of chalcedony ; his squires and attendants are Mercy, Pudeur, and Loyaute. Sir Cupid on horseback, with his saddle and his spurs, attended by Gentle- ness, Modesty, and Good Faith, is a novel divinity. Thus, among the Greeks, Love was attended by the Graces, and among the Troubadours by the Virtues. In the same spirit of allegory, but touched with a more classic elegance, we have Petrarch's Cupid, driving his fiery car in triumph, followed by a shadowy host of captives to his power, the heroes who had confessed and the poets who had Bung his might. Vidi un vittorioso e sommo duce, Pur com' un di color ch' in Campidoglio Trlonfai carro a gran gloria conduce. ***** Quattro destrier via piu che neve bianchi : Sopr' un carro di foco nn garzon crudo Con arco in mano, e con saette a' fianchi. And yet more finished is Spenser's " Masque of Cupid," in the third book of the Fairy Queen SO THE LOVES OF where Love, as in the antique gem, is mounted on a lion, preceded by minstrels, carolling A lay of love's delight with sweet concent, attended by Fancy, Desire, Hope, Fear, and Doubt ; ttnd followed by Care, Repentance, Shame, Strife, Sorrow, &c. The vivid colors in which these im- aginary personages are depicted, the image of the god " uprearing himself," and looking round with disdain upon the troop of victims and slaves who surround him, the rattling of his darts, as he shakes them in defiance and in triumph, and " claps on nigh his colored wings twain," forms altogether a most finished and gorgeous picture ; such as Ru- bens should have painted, as far as his pencil, rain- bow dipt, could have reflected the animated pageant o the eye. The extravagance of passion and boundless de- votion to the fair sex, which the Troubadours sang in their lays, they not unfrequently illustrated by their actions ; and while the knowledge of the first is confined to a few antiquarians, the latter still survive in the history and the traditions of their province. One of these (Guillaume de la Tour) having lost the object of his love, undei*- went, during a whole year, the most cruel and unheard-of penances, in the hope that Heaven might be won to perform a miracle in his favor, and restore her to his arms ; at length he died broken- liearted on her tomb.* Another,f beloved by a * Millot, vol. ii. p. 148. t Richard de Barbeeiau. THE TROUBADOURS. 31 certain princess, in some unfortunate moment breaks his vow of fidelity, and unable to appease the in- dignation of his mistress, he retires to a forest, builds himself a cabin of boughs, and turns hermit, having first made a solemn vow that he will never leave his solitude till he is received ink favor by his offended love. Being one of the most cele- brated and popular Troubadours of his province, all the knights and the ladies sympathize with his misfortunes : they find themselves terribly ennuyes in the absence of the poet who was accustomed to vaunt their charms and their deeds of prowess ; and at the end of two years they send a deputation, entreating him to return, but in vain : they then address themselves to the lady, and humbly solicit the pardon of the offender, whose disgrace in her sight has thrown a whole province into mourning. The princess at length relents, but upon conditions which appear in these unromantic times equally extraordinary and difficult to fulfil. She requires tnat a hundred brave knights, and a hundred fair dames, pledged in love to each other, (s'aimant d'amour) should appear before her on their knees, and with joined hands supplicate for mercy : the conditions are fulfilled : the hundred pair of lovers are tound to go through the ceremony, and the Troubadour receives his pardon.* The story of Peyre de Ruer, " gentilhomme et Trobadour," might be termed a satirical romance, did we not know that it is a plain fact, related with * Millot, vol. iii. p. 86. Guinguen, vol. i. p- 280 32 THE LOVES Ol< perfect simplicity. He devotes himself to a lady of the noble Italian family of Carraccioli, and in her praise he composes, as usual, " maintes belles et doctes chansons : "but the lady seems to have had a taste for magnificence and pleasure ; and the poet, in order to find favor in her eyes, expends his patrimony in rich apparel, banquets, and joustes in her honor. The lady, however, continues inex- orable ; and Peyre de Kuer takes the habit of a pilgrim and wanders about the country. He ar- rives in the holy week at a certain church, and desires of the cure permission to preach to his con- gregation of penitents : he ascends the pulpit, and recites with infinite fervor and grace one of his wn chansons d'amour, for, says the chronicle, " autre chose ne spavait" " he knew nothing better." The people, mistaking it for an invocation to the Virgin Mary or the Saints, are deeply affected and edified ; eyes are seen to weep that never wept before ; the most impenitent hearts are suddenly softened : he concludes with an exhortation in the same strain and then descending from the pulpit, places himself at the door, and holding out his hat for the customary alms, his delighted congregation fill it to overflowing with pieces of silver. Peyer de Ruer forthwith casts off his pilgrim's gown, and in a new and splendid dress, and with a new song in his hand, he presents himself before the lady of his love, who, charmed by his gay attire not less than by his return, receives him most gra- ciously, and bestows on him " maintes caresses." THE TROUBADOURS. 83 1 nrist observe that the biographer of this Peyei de Kuer, himself a churchman, does not appear in the least scandalized or surprised at this very novel mode of recruiting his finances and obtaining the favor of the lady ; but gives us fairly to understand, that after such a proof of layaute, he should have thought it quite contrary to all rule if she had still rejected the addresses of this gentil Troubadour. Jauffred (or Geffrey) de Rudel is yet more famous, and his story will strikingly illustrate the manners of those times. Rudel was the favorite minstrel of Geffrey de Platagenet. Bretagne, the elder brother of our Richard Coeur de Lion, and like the Royal Richard, a patron of music and poetry. During the residence of Rudel at the court of England, where he resided in great honor and splendor, caressed for his talents, and loved for the gentleness of his manners, he heard con- tinually the praises of a certain Countess of Tri- poli, famed throughout Europe 'for her munificent hospitality to the poor Crusaders. The pilgrims and soldiers of the Cross, who were returning way- worn, sick, and disabled, from the burning plains of Asia, were relieved and entertained by this de rout and benevolent Countess ; and they repaid her generosity, with all the enthusiasm of grati- tude, by spreading her fame throughout Christen- dom. These reports of her beauty and her beneficence, constantly repeated, fired the susceptible fancy of Rudel : without having seen her, he fell passion- 34 THE TROVES OP ately in love with her, and unable to bear any longer the torments of absence, he undertook a pilgrimage to visit this unknown lady of his love, iu company with Bertrand d'Allamanon, anothei celebrated Troubadour of those days. He quitted the English court in spite of the entreaties and expostulations of Prince Geffrey Platagenet, and sailed for the Levant. But so it chanced, that fall- ing grievously sick on the voyage, he lived only till his vessel reached the shores of Tripoli. The Countess being told that a celebrated poet had just arrived in her harbour, who was dying for her love, immediately hastened on board, and taking his hand, entreated him to live for her sake. Rudel, already speechless, and almost in the agonies of death, revived for a moment at this unexpected grace; he was just able to express, by a last effort, the excess of his gratitude and love, and expired in her arms : thereupon the Countess wept bitterly, and vowed herself to a life of penance for the loss she had caused to the world.* She * " Dopuis ne fut jamais veue faire bonne chere," says the old chronicle. I am tempted to add the description of the first and last interview of the Countess and her lover in the exquisite old French, of which the antique simplicity and naivete are untrans- latable. " En cet estat fut conduit au port de Trypolly, et 1& arrive, son compagnon feist (Jit) entendre i la Comtesse la venue de Pelerin malade. La Comtesse estant venue en la nef, prit le poete par l:i main ; et lui, sachant que c'estait la Comtesse, incontinent apret ledoult et graciex accueil, recouvra ses esprits, la temercia de c qu'elle lui avait recouvre la vie, et lui diet: ' Tres illustre et ver tueuse priucesse je ne plaindrai point la inort orcsrjue' at ni THE TROUBADCUR8. 35 commanded that the last song which Rudel had composed in her honor, should be transcribed in letters of gold, and carried it always in her bosom ; and his remains were enclosed in a magnificent mausoleum of porphyry, with an Arabic inscrip- tion, commemorating his genius and his love for her. It is in allusion to this well-known story, that Petrarch has introduced Rudel into Trionfo d' Amore. Gianfre Rudel ch' uso la vela e '1 rerao, A cercar la suo morte. The song which the minstrel composed when he fell sick on this romantic expedition, and found his strength begin to fail, and which the Countess wore, folded within her vest, to the end of her life', is extant, and has been translated into most of the languages of Europe ; of these translations Sismon- di's is the best, preserving the original and curious arrangement of the rhymes, as well as the piety, Dai'vete, and fenderness of the sentiment. Irrite" dolent partirai Si ne vois cet amour de loin, Et ne sais quand je le verrai Car sont par trop nos terres loin. Dieu, qui toutes choses as fait Et formas cet amour si loin, Donn;> force a mon cceur, car ai pouvant achever son propos, sa maladie s'algrissant et augment- ant, rendit 1'esprrc entre les mains de ta Comtesse. Vies des plui <4Ubres PoUtes Proven<;am, p. 24. |<3 THE LOVES OF L'espoir de voir m' amour au kin. Ah, Seigneur, tenez pour bien vrai L' amour qu'ai pour elle de loin. Car pour un bien que j'en aural J'ai mille maux, tant je suis loin. Ja d'autr' amour ne jouirai Sinon de cet amour de loin Qu'une phis belle je n'en S9ais En lieu qui soit ni pres ni loin ! Mrs, Piozzi and others have paraphrased this little song, but in a spirit so different from the an- tique simplicity of the original, that I shall venture to give a version, which has at least the merit of being as faithful as the different idioms of the lan- guages will allow; I am afraid, however, that it will not appear worthy of the tonor which the Countess conferred on it. " Grieved and troubled shall I die, If 1 meet not my love afar; Alas ! I know not that I e'er Shall see her for she dwells afar. God! that didst all things create, And formed my sweet love now afar; Strengthen my heart, that I may hope To behold her face who is afar. Lord ! believe how very true Is my love for her, alas ! afar, Tho' for each joy a thousand pains I bear, because I am so far. Bertram! d'Allamanon, whom I have mentioned as the companion of Rudel on his romantic expe- dition, has left us a little hallad, remarkable for the THE TROUBADOURS. 8? extreme refinement of the sentiment, which is quite a la Petrarque : he gives it the fantastic title of a demi chanson, for a very fantastical reason : it is thus translated in Millot, (vol. i. p. 390.) Another love I'll never have, Save only she who is afar, For fairer one I never knew In places near, nor yet afar." " On veut savoir pourquoi je fais une demi chan- son ? c'est parceque je n'ai qu'un demi sujet de chanter. II n'y a d'amour que de ma part ; la dame que j'aime ne veut pas m'aimer ! mais au de- faut des oui qu'elle me refuse, je prendrai les non qu'elle me prodigue : esperer aupres d'elle vaut mieux que jouir avec tout autre!" This is exactly the sentiment of Petrarch : Pur mi consola, che morir per lei Meglio e che gioir d'altra But it is one of those thoughts which spring in the heart, and might often be repeated without once being borrowed. CHAPTER IV. THE LOVES OF THE TROUBADOURS. CONTINUED. IN striking contrast to the tender and gentle Etudel, we have the ferocious Bcrtrand de Born : 38 THE LOVES or he, loo, was one of the most cele orated Trouba- dours of his'time. As a petty feudal sovereign, he was, partly by the events of the age, more by his own fierce and headlong passions, plunged in con- tinual wars. Nature, however, had made him a poet of the first order. In these days he would have been another Lord Byron ; but he lived in a terrible and convulsed state of society, and it was only in the intervals snatched from his usual pur- suits, that is, from burning the castles, and ravag- ing the lands of his neighbours, and stirring up re- bellion, discord, and bloodshed all around him, that he composed a vast number of lays, serventes, and chansons ; some breathing the most martial, and even merciless spirit ; others devoted to the praise and honor of his love, or rather loves, as full of submissive tenderness and chivalrous gallantry. He first celebrated Elinor Plantagenet, the sister of his friend and brother in arms and song, Rich- ard Coeur de Lion ; and we are expressly told that Richard was proud of the poetical homage ren- dered to the charms of his sister by this knightly Troubadour, and that the Princess was far from being insensible to his admiration. Only one of the many songs addressed to Elinor has been pre- served ; from which we gather, that it was com- posed by Bertrand in the field, at a time when his army was threatened with famine, and the poet himself was suffering from the pangs of hunger. Elinor married the Duke of Saxony, and Bertrand chose for his next love the beautiful Maenz de t'HK TROUBADOURS. 3S Mcntagi.ac, daughter of the Viscount of Turenne and wife of Talleyrand de Perigord. The lad) accepted his service, and acknowledged him as her Knight ; but evil tongues having attempted to sow dissension between the lovers, Bertrand addressed to her a song, in which he defends himself from the imputation of inconstancy, in a style altogether characteristic and original. The warrior poet, borrowing from the objects of his daily cares, am- bition and pleasure, phrases to illustrate and en- hance the expression of his love, wishes " that he may lose his favorite hawk in her first flight ; that a falcon may stoop and bear her off, as she sits upon his wrist, and tear her in his sight, if the sound of his lady's voice be not dearer to him than all the gifts of love from another."" That he may stumble with his shield about his neck ; that his helmet may gall his brow ; that his bridle may be too long, his stirrups too short ; that he may be forced to ride a hard-trotting horse, and find his groom drunk when he arrives at his gate, if there be a word of truth in the accusations of his enemies : that he may not have a denier to stake at the gaming-table, and that the dice may never more be favorable to him, if ever he had swerved from his faith : that he may look on like a dastard, and see his lady woced and won by another ; that the winds may fail Lim at sea ; that in the battle he may be the first to fly, if he who has slandered him does not lie in his throat," &c., and so on through %even or eight stanzas. 40 THE LOVES OF Bcrtrand ie Born exercised in his Lme a fatal influence on the counsels and politics of England. A close and ardent friendship existed between him and young Henry Plantagenet, the eldest son of our Henry the Second ; and the family dissensions which distracted the English Court, and the unnat- ural rebellion of Henry and Richard against their father, were his work. It happened some time after the death of Prince Henry, that the King of England besieged Bertrand de Born in one of his castles : the resistance was long and obstinate, but at length the warlike Troubadour was taken pris- oner and brought before the King, so justly in- censed against him, and from whom he had cer- tainly no mercy to expect. The heart of Henry was still bleeding with the wounds inflicted by his ungrateful children, and he saw before him, and in his power, the primary cause of their misdeeds and his own bitter sufferings. Bertrand was on the point of being led out to death, when by a single word he reminded the King of his lost son, and the tender friendship which had existed between them.* The chord was struck which never ceased to vibrate in the parental heart of Henry ; burst- ing into tears, he turned aside, and commanded Bertrand and his followers to be immediately set al liberty ; he even restored to Bertrand his castle and his lands, " in the name of his dead son" It ia euch traits as these, occurring at every page, whicfc * Le Roi lui demande, " S'il a perdu raison ? il hii repond * Helas, oui ! c'est depuis lamorc du Prince Henri, votre fils! '* THE TROUBADOURS. 41 lend to ttie chronicles of this stormy period an in terest overpowering the horror they would otherwise excite : for then all the best, as well as the worst of human passions were called into play. Jn this tem- pestuous commingling of all the jarring elements of society, we have those strange approximations of the most opposite sentiments, implacable re- venge and sublime forgiveness ; gross licentious- ness and delicate tenderness; barbarism and re- finement ; treachery and fidelity which remind one of that heterogeneous mass tossed up by a stormy ocean ; heaps of pearls, unvalued gems, wedges of gold, mingled with dead men's bones, and all the slimy, loathsome, and monotonous pro- duction of the deep, which during a calm remain together concealed and unknown in its unfathomed abysses. To return from this long similitude of Bertrand de Born : he concluded his stormy career in a manner very characteristic of the times ; for he turned monk, and died in the odor of sanctity. But neither his late devotion, nor his warlike hero- ism, nor his poetic fame, could rescue him from the severe justice of Dante, who has visited his crimes and his violence with so terrible a judgment, that we forget, while we thrill with horror, that the primes were real, the penance only imaginary. Dante, in one of the circles of the Inferno, meets Bertrand de Born carrying his severed head, lan- tern wise, in his hand ; the phantom lifts it up by vhe hair, and the ghastly lips unclose to confess the 42 THE LOVES OF cause and the justice of this horrible and unheard of penance. Or vedi la pena molesta Tu che spirando vai veggendo i morti; Vedi s'alcuna e grande come questa. E perche tu di me novella porti, Sappi ch' i' son Bertram dal Bornio, quelli Che diedi al Re giovane i ma' conforti I' feci '1 padre e '1 figlio in se ribelli : * * * * Perch' io partii cosl giunte persone, Partito porto il mio cerebro, lasso ! Dal suo principio ch 'e 'n questo troncone. Cosl s'osserva in me lo contrappasso.* Now behold This grievous torment, thou, who breathing goest To spy the dead : behold, if any else Be terrible as this, and that on earth Thou may'st bear tidings of me, know that I Am Bertrand, he of Born, who gave King John The counsel mischievous. Father and son I set at mutual war: - Spurring them on maliciously to strife. For parting those so closely knit, my brain Parted, alas ! I carry from its source That in this trunk inhabits. Thus the law Of retribution fiercely works in me.f Pierre Vidal, whose description of love I have quoted before, was one of the most extraordinary * Inferno, c. xxviii. t Carey's translation of Dante. Mr. Carey reads Re Giovarma, instead of Re giovane : King John, instead of Prince Henry. THE litOUBADOURS 43 2haracters of his time, a kind of poetical Don Q.uixotte: his brain was turned with love, poetiy, and vanity : he believed himself the beloved of all the fair, the mirror of knighthood, and the prince of Troabadours. Yet in the midst of all his extrav- agances, he possessed exquisite skill in his art, and was not surpassed by any of the poets of those days, for the harmony, delicacy, and tenderness of his amatory effusions. He chose for his first love the beautiful wife of the Viscomte de Marseilles : the lady, unlike some of the Princesses of her time, distinguished between the poet and the man, and as he presumed too far on the encouragement be- stowed on him in the former capacity, he was ban- ished : he then followed Kichard the First to the crusade. The verses he addressed to the lady from the Island of Cyprus are still preserved. The folly of Vidal, or rather the derangement of his imagi- nation, subjected him to some of those mystifications which remind us of Don Quixotte and Sancho, in the court of the laughter-loving Duchess. For in- stance, Richard and his followers amused them- selves at Cyprus, by marrying Vidal to a beautiful Greek girl of no immaculate reputation, whom they introduced to him as the niece of the Greek Emperor. Vidal, in right of his wife, immediately took the title of Emperor, assumed the purple, ordered a throne to be carried before him, and played the most fantastic antics of authority. Nor was this the greatest of his extravagances : on hia return to Provence, he chose for the second object 44 THE LOVES OF of his amorous and poetical devotion, a lady whose name happened to be Louve de Penautier : in her honor he assumed the name of Loup, and farther to merit the good graces of his " Dame." and to do honor to the name he had adopted, he dressed himself in the hide of a wolf, and caused himself to be hunted in good earnest by a pack of dogs : he was brought back exhausted and half dead to the feet of his mistress, who appears to have been more moved to merriment than to love by this new and ridiculous exploit. In general, however, the Troubadours had sel- dom reason to complain of the cruelty of the ladies to whom they devoted their service and their songs. The most virtuous and illustrious women thought themselves justified in repaying, with smiles and favors, the poetical adoration of their lovers ; and this lasted until the profession of Trou- badour was dishonored by the indiscretions, follies, and vices of those who assumed it. Thus Peyrols, a famous Provencal poet, who was distinguished in the court of the Dauphin d'Auvergne, fell passion- ately in love with the sister of that Prince, (the Baronne de Mercoeur,) and the Dauphin, (himself a Troubadour) proud of the genius of his minstrel and of the poetical devotion paid to his sister, de- sired her to bestow on her lover all the encourage- ment and favor which was consistent with her dig- nity. The lady, however, either misunderstood her instructions, or found it too difficult to obey them the seducing talents and tender verses of THE TROUBADOURS. 45 this gentil Troubadour prevailed over her digrity : Peyrols was beloved ; but he was not sufficiently discreet. The sudden change in the tone and style of his songs betrayed him, and he was banished. A great number of his verses, celebrating the Dame de Mercoeur, are preserved by St. Palaye, and translated by Mi Hot. Bernard de Ventradour was beloved by Elinor de Guienne, afterwards the wife of our Henry the Second, and the mother of Richard the First : I have before observed the poetical penchants of all Elinor's children, which they seem to have in- herited from their mother. Sordello of Mantua, whose name is familiar to all the readers of Dante, as occurring in one of the finest passages of this great poem,* was an Italian, but like all the best poets of his day, wrote in the Provencal tongue : he is said to have carried off the sister of that modern Phalaris, the tyrant Ez- zelino of Padua. There is a very elegant ballad (ballata) by Sordello, translated in Millet's collec- tion ; it is properly a kind of rondeau, the first line being repeated at the end of every stanza ; " Helas ! a quoi me servent mes yeux ? " " Alas ! wherefore have I eyes ? " It describes the pleas- ures of the Spring, which are to him as nothing, 'n the absence of the only object on which his eyea can dwell with delight The arrangement of the rhymes in this pastoral song is singularly elegant and musical. * Purgatorio, c. T! 46 THE LOVES OP Lastly, as illustrating the history of the amatory poetry of this age, I extract from Nostradamus * the story of the young Countess de Die ; she loved and was beloved by the Chevalier d'Adhemar : (ancestor I presume to that Chevalier d'Adhemar who figures in the letters of Madame de Sevigne.) It was not in this case the lover who celebrated the charms of his mistress, but the lady, who, being an illustrious female Troubadour, " docte en poe'sie," celebrated the exploits and magnanimity of hti lover. The Chevalier, proud of such a distinction, caused the verses of his mistress to be beautifully copied, and always carried them in his bosom ; and whenever he was in the company of knights and ladies, he enchanted them by singing a couplet in his own praise out of his lady's book. The pub- licity thus given to their love, was quite in the spirit of the times, and does not appear to have in- jured the reputation of the Countess for immacu- late virtue,f which Adhemar would probably have defended with lance and spear, against any slander- ous tongue which had dared to defame her. The conclusion of this romantic story is melan- * Vies des plus celebres poe'tes Provencaux. t Agnes de Navarre Comtesse de Foix, was beloved by Quillauiue de Machaut, a French poet; he became jealous, and she sent hei own confessor to him to complain of the injustice of his suspicions, and to swear that she was still faithful to him. She required, also, of her lover, to write and to publish in verse the history of their love ; and she preserved, at the same tune, in the eyes of ne* husband and of the world, the character of a virtuous Princess See Foscolo Eaanya on Petrarch.. THE THOTJBADOURS. 47 choly. Adhemar heard a false report, that the Countess, whose purity and constancy he had so proudly maintained, had cast away her smiles on a rival : he fell sick with grief and bitterness of heart : the Countess, being informed of his state, set out, accompanied by her mother, and a long train of knights and ladies, to visit and comfort him with assurances of her fidelity ; but when she appeared at his bedside and drew the curtain, it was already too late : Adhemar expired in her arms. The Countess took the veil in the convent of St. Ho- nore, and died the same year of grief, says the chronicle ; and to conclude the tragedy charac- teristically, the mother of the young Countess ouried her in the same grave with her lover, ani raised a superb monument to the memory of both. The Countess de Die was one of the ten ladies who formed the Court of Love, held at Pierrefeu, (about 1194,) and in which Estifanie de Baux pre- sided. These Courts of Love, and the scenes they gave rise to, were certainly open to ridicule ; the " belles et subtiles questions d'amour" which were there solemnly discussed, and decided by ladies of rank, were often absurd, and the decisions something worse: still, the fanciful influence they gave to women on these subjects, and the gallantry they in- troduced into the intercourse between the sexes, had a tendency to soften the manners, to refine the language, and to tinge the sentiments and pas- ions with a kind of philosophical mysticism. But 48 THE LOVES OF these gay and gallant Courts of Love, the Proven- 9al Troubadours, their lays, which for two centuries had been the delight of all ranks of people, and had spread music, love, and poetry through the land; their language, which had been the chosen dialect of gallantry, in every court in Europe, were at once swept from the earth. The glory of the Proven9al literature began when Provence was raised to an independent Fief, under Count Berenger I. about the year 1100 ; it lasted two entire centuries, and ended when that fine and fertile country became the scene of the horrible crusade against the Albigenses ; when the Inquisition sent forth its exterminating fiends to scatter horror and devastation through the land, and the wars and rapacity of Charles of Anjou, its new possessor, almost depopulated the country. The language which had once celebrated deeds of love and heroism, now sang only of desolation and despair. The Troubadours, in a strain worthy of their gentle and noble calling, generally advocated the par 4 , of the Albigenses, and the oppressed of whatever faith ; and in many provinces, in Lorn- bardy especially, their language was interdicted, lest it might introduce heretical or rebellious prin- ciples ; gradually it fell into disuse, and at length into total oblivion. The Troubadours, no longer welcomed in castle or in hall, where once They poured to lords and ladies gay, The unpremeditated lay, THE TROUBADOURS. 49 were degraded to wandering minstrels and itinerant jugglers. An attempt was made, about a century later, (1324) by the institution of the Floral Games at Thoulouse, to keep alive this high strain of poetical gallantry. They were formerly celebrated with great splendor, and a shadow of this institu- tion is, I believe, still kept up, but it has degener- ated into a mere school of affectation. The original race of the Troubadours was extinct long before Clemence d'Isaure and her golden violet were thought of. I cannot quit the subject of the Troubadours without one or two concluding observations. To these rude bards we owe some new notions of poetical justice, which never seem to have occurred to Horace or Longinus, and are certainly more magnanimous, as well as more true to moral feel- ing, than those which prevailed among the polished Greeks and Romans. For instance, the generous Hector and the constant Troilus are invariably exalted above the subtle Ulysses and the savage Achilles. Theseus, Jason, and jiEneas, instead of being represented as classical heroes and pious favorites of the gods, are denounced as recreant knights and false traitors to love and beauty. In the estimation of these chivalrous bards, a woman's tears outweighed the exploits of demi-gods ; all the glory of Theseus is forgotten in sympathy for Ariadne ; and ^Eneas, in Jhe old ballads and ro- mances, is not, after all his perfidy, dismissed to happiness and victory, but is plagued by the fiends, BO THE LOVES OP haunted by poor Dido's " grimly ghost,*' and finally, doomed to perish miserably.* Nor doea Jason fare better at their hands; in all the old poets he is consigned to just execration. In Dante, we have a magnificent and a terrible picture ol him, doomed to one of the lowest circles of hell, amid a herd of vile seducers, who betrayed the trusting faith, or bartered the charms of women Demons scourge him up and down, without mercy or respite, in vengeance for the wrongs of Hypsipyl and Medea. Guarda quel grande che viene per dolor, non par lagrima spanda; Quanto aspetto reale ancor ritiene ! Quelli e Giasone Con segni e con parole ornate Isifile inganno Tal colpa a tal martiro lui condanna, Ed anche di MEDEA si fa vendetta. INFERNO, C. 18 " Behold that lofty shade, who this way tends, And seems too woe-begone to drop a tear; How yet the regal aspect he retains ! *T is Jason He who with tokens and fair witching wor d Hypsipyle beguil'd iSuch is the guilt condemns him to this pain ; Here too Medea's injuries are avenged!" CAREY. And Chaucer in relating the same story, begins with a burst of generous indignation : * Percy's Reliques. THE TROUBADOURS. 51 Thou root* of false lovers, Duke Jason, Thou slayer, devourer, and confusion Of gentil women, gentil creatures ! The story of this double perfidy is told and com- tiented on in the same chivalrous feeling ; and the old poet concludes with characteristic tenderness and simplicity This was the mede of loving, and guerdon .That Medea received of Duke Jason, Eight for her truth and for her kindnesse, That loved him better than herself I guesse ! And lefte her father and her heritage ; And of Jason this is the vassalage That in his dayes were never none yfound, So false a lover going on the ground. It is in the same beautiful spirit of reverence to the best virtues of our sex, that Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, who sacrificed her life to prolong that of her husband, is honored above all other heroines of classical story. She has even been elevated into a kind of presiding divinity, a second Venus, with nobler attributes, and in her new existence is feigned to be the consort and companion of Love himself. Another peculiarity of the poetry of the middle ages, was the worship paid to the daisy, (la Mar- guerite,) as symbolical of all that is lovely in women. Why so lowly a flower should take prece* * Root, i. e. example or beginner. 52 THE LOVES OF dence of the queenly lily and the sumptuous rose is not very clear ; but it seems to have originated with one of the old Proven9al poets, whose mis- tress bore the name of Marguerite ; and afterwards it became a fashion and a kind of poetical my- thology.* Thus in the " Flower and the Leafe" of Chau- cer, the ladies and knights of the flower approach singing a chorus in honor of the Daisy, of which the burden is " si douce est la Marguerite " CHAPTER V. GUIDO CAVALCANTI AND MANDETTA, CINO DA PISTOJA AND SELVAGGIA. AMATORY poetry was transmitted from the Pro- ven9als to the Italians and Sicilians, among whom the language of the Troubadours had long been cultivated, and their songs imitated, but in style yet more affected and recherche. Few of the Italian poets who preceded Dante, are interesting even in a mere literary point of view : of these, only one or two have shed a reflected splendor round the object of their adoration. Guido Caval * See the notes to Chaucer, the works of Froissart, and M tnoirs sur les Troubadours. THE TROUBADOURS. 58 canti, the Florentine, was the early and favoiite friend of Dante : being engaged in the factions of his native city, he was forced on some emergency to quit it ; and to escape the vengeance of the pre- vailing party, he undertook a pilgrimage to San Jago. Passing through Tolosa, he fell in love with a beautiful Spanish girl, whom he has celebrated under the name of Mandetta : In un boschetto trovai pastorella Piu che la stella bella al naio parere, Capegli avea biondetti e riceiutelli. Some of his songs and ballads have considerable grace and nature, but they were considered by himself as mere trifles. His grand work on which his fame long rested is, a u Canzone sopra 1'Amore," in which the subject is so profoundly and so philo- sophically treated, that seven voluminous com- mentaries in Latin and Italian have not yet enabled the world to understand it. The following sonnet is deservedly celebrated for the consummate beauty of the picture it pre- sents, and will give a fair idea of the platonic ex- travagance of the time. Chi e questa che vien ch' ogni uom la mira ! Che fa tremar di caritate 1' a're ? E mena seco amor, si che pavlare Null' uom ne puote; ma ciascun sospira? AM dio/ che sembra quando gli occhi gira! Dicak Ainor, ch' io nol saprei contare; 54 THE LOVES OF Cotanto d' uroilta donna mi pare Che ciascun' altra inver di lei chiam' ira. Non si porria contar la sua piacenza; Che a lei s'inchina ogni gentil virtute, E labeltate per sua Dea la mostra. Non e si alta gia la mente nostra E non s'e posta in noi tanta salute Che propriamente n' abbian conoscenza' LITERAL TRANSLATION. " Who is this, on whom all men gaze as she approach- eth! who causeth the very air to tremble around her with tenderness? who leadeth Love by her side in \vhose presence men are dumb; and can only sigh? Ah! Heaven ! what power in every glance of those eyes ! Love alone Can tell ; for I have neither words nor skill ! She alone is the Lady of gentleness beside her, all others seem ungracious and unkind. Who can describe her sweetness, her loveliness ? to her every virtue bows, and beauty points to her as her own divinity. The mind of man cannot soar so high, nor is it sufficiently purified by divine grace to understand and appreciate all her perfec- tions!" The vagueness of this portrait is a part of its oeauty : it is like a lovely dream and probably uever had any existence, but in the fancy of the Poet. Cino da Pistoia enjoyed the double reputation of being the greatest doctor and teacher of the civil law, and the most famous poet of his time*. He was also remarkable for his personal accom- plishments and his love of pleasure. There is a THE TKOUBADOURS. 55 son net which Dante addressed to Cino, reproaching him with being inconstant and volatile in love.* Apparently, this was after the death of the beau tiful Ricciarde del Selvaggi; or, as he calls her, his Selvaggia : she was of a noble family of Pistoia, her father having been gonfaliere, and leader of the faction of the Bianchi ; and she was also cele- brated for her poetical talents. It appears from a little madrigal of hers, which has been preserved, that though she tenderly returned the aifection of her lover, it was without the knowledge of her haughty family. It is not distinguished for poetic power, but has at least the charm of perfect frank- ness and simplicity, and a kind of abandon that is quite bewitching. A MESSER CINO DA PISTOJA. Gentil mio sir, lo parlare amoroso Di voi si in allegranza mi mantene, Che dirvel non poria, ben lo sacciate ; Perche del mio amor sete jjiojoso, Di cib grand' allegria e gio' mi vene, Ed altro mai non haggio in volontate Fnor del vostro piacere ; Tutt' hora fate la vostra voglienza : Haggiate previdenza Voi, di celar la nostra desienza. " My gentle love and lord ! those tender words Of thine so fill my conscious heart with joy * Chi s' innamora, siccome TO! fate Ed ad ogm piacer si lega e scioglie Mostra ch' amor leggermente il seatt?. Sow. 44 56 THE LOVES OF I cannot speak it but thou know'st it well; Wherefore do thon rejoice in that deep love I bear thee, knowing that I have no thought But to fulfil thy will and crown thy wish ; Watch thou and hide our mutual hope from all! " Meantime the parents of Bicciarda were exiled from Pistoia, by the faction of the Neri. They took refuge from their enemies in a little fortress among the Apennines, whither Cino followed them, and was received as a comforter amid their dis- tresses. Probably the days passed in this dreary abode, among the wild and solitary hills, when he assisted Ricciarda in her household duties, and in aiding and consoling her parents, were among the happiest of his life ; but the winter came, and with it many privations and many hardships. Their mountain retreat was ill calculated to defend them against the fury of the elements : Ricciarda drooped under the pressure of misery a:ad want, and her parents and her lover watched the gradual extinc- tion of life saw the rose-hue fade from her cheek, and the light from her eye, till she melted from their arms into death ; then they buried her with tears, in a nook among the mountains. Many years afterwards, when Cino had reached the height of his fame, and had been crowned with wealth and honors by his native city, he had occa- sion to cross the Apennines on an embassy, and causing his suite to travel by another road, he made a pilgrimage alone to the tomb of his lost Selvaggia. This incident gave rise to the mos* THE TROUBADOURS 57 rtriking of all his compositions, which with great pathos and sweetness describes his feelings, when he flung himself down on her humble grave, to weep over the recollection of their past happiness lo fu' in sulT alto e in sul beato monte, Ove adorai baciando il santo sasso, E caddi in su quella pietra, oime lasso ! Ove 1' onestra pose la sua fronte ; E ch' ella chiuse d' ogni virtu il fonte Quel giorno clie di morte acerbo passo Fece la donna dello mio cor, lasso I Gia piena tutta d' adornezze conte. Quivi chiamai a questa guisa Amore : " Dolee mio Dio, fa che quinci mi traggia La morte a se, che qui giace il mio cor! " Ma poi che non m' intese il mio signore, Mi disparti, pur chiamando, Selvaggia ! L'alpe passai, con voce di dolore. The circumstance in the last stanza, " I rose up and went on my way, and passed the mountain summit, crying aloud ' Selvaggia ! ' in accents of despair," has a strong reality about it, and no doubt was real. Her death took place about 1316. In the history of Italian poetry, Selvaggia is distinguished as the " bel numer' una" " the fair number one" of the four celebrated women of that century The others were Dante's Beatrice, Petrarch's Laura, and Boccaccio's Fiammetta. Every one who reads and admires Petrarch, will remember his beautiful Sonnet on the Death of Qino, beginning " Piangete Donne." b8 THE TROUBADOURS. Perch& 1' nostro amoi-oso messer Ciixo Novellainente s'e da noi partito. In the venerable Cathedral at Pistoia, there ia an ancient half-effaced bas-relief, representing Cino, surrounded by his disciples, to whom he is explaining the code of civil law ; a little behind stands the figure of a female veiled, in a pensive attitude, which is supposed to represent Bicciarda de' Selvaggi. All these are alluded to by Petrarch in the Tri- oiifo d'Amore. Ecco Selvaggia, Ecco Gin da Pistoja: Guitton d'Arezzo, Ecco i due Guidi che gia furo in prezzo. The two Guidi are, Guido Guizzinello, and Guido Cavalcanti. Guitone was a famous monk, who is said to have invented the present form of the sonnet : to him also is attributed the discovery cf counterpoint, and the present system of musical notation. Of Conti's mistress nothing is known, but that she had the most beautiful hand in the world, whence the volume of poems written by her lover in her praise, is entitled, La Bella Mano, the fair hand. Conti lived some years later than Petrarch. I mention him merely to fill up the list of those anoint minor poets of Italy, whose names and are still celebrated. LAURA 56 CHAPTER VI. LAURA. THERE are some who doubt the reality of Pe- trarch's love, because it is expressed in numbers ; and others, refining on this doubt, profess even to question whether his Laura ever existed, except in the imagination and poetry of her lover. The first objection could only be made by the most pro- saic of commentators some true " black-letter dog," * who had dustified and mystified his facul- ties among old parchments. The most real and most fervent passion that ever fell under my own knowledge, was revealed in verse, and very exqui- site verse too, and has inspired many an effusion, full of beauty, fancy, and poetry ; but it has not, therefore, been counted less sincere ; and Heaven forbid it should prove less lasting than if it had been told in the homeliest prose, and had never inspired one beautiful idea or one rapturous verse ! To study Petrarch in his own works, and in his own delightful language ; to follow him line by line through all the vicissitudes and contradictions of passion ; to listen to his self-reproaches, his terrors, his regrets, his conflicts ; to dwell on his exquisite delineations of individual character and peculiar beauty, his simple touches of profound pathos and * See Pursuits of Literature 60 LAURA. melancholy tenderness; and then believe all to be mere invention, the coinage of the brain, a tissue of visionary fancies, in which the heart had no share ; to confound him with the cold metaphys- ical rhymesters of a later age, seems to argue not only a strange want of judgment, but an ex- traordinary obtuseness of feeling.* The faults of taste of which Petrarch has been accused over and over again, by those who seem to have studied him as Voltaire studied Shakspeare, his concetti his fanciful adoration of the' laurel, as the emblem of Laura his playing on the words Laura, L'aura, and Lauro, his freezing flames and burning ice, I abandon to critics, and let them make the best of them, as defects in what were else perfection. These were the fashion of the day:, a great genius may outrun his times, but not without bear- ing about him some ineffaceable impressions of the manners and characters of the age in which he lived. He is too witty " II a trop d'esprit," to be sincere, say the critics, " he has a conceit left him in his misery, a miserable conceit ; " but we * In a private letter of Petrarch to the Bishop of Lombes, oc- curs the following passage (the Bishop, it appears, had rallied him on the subject of his attachment.) " Would to God that my Laura were indeed but an imaginary person, and my passion fo; her but sport! Alas! it is rather a madness! hard would it have been, and painful, to feign so long a time and what extrav- agance to play such a farce in the world ! No ! we may coun- terfeit the action and voice of a sick man, but not the palenesi Rnd wasted looks of the sufferer; and how often have you wit oessed both in me." Sade, vol. i. p. 281. LAURA. 61 know at least /know how in the very extremity of passion the soul can mock at itself how the fancy can, with a bitter and exaggerated gayety, sport with the heart ! These are faults of compo- sition in the writer, and admitted to be such ; but they prove nothing against the man, the poet, or the lover. The reproach of monotony, I confess I never could understand. It is rather matter of astonishment, how, in a collection of nearly four hundred poems, all, with one or two exceptions, turning upon the same subject and sentiment, the poet has poured forth such an endless and redun- dant variety, both of thought and feeling how from the wide universe, the changeful face of all beautiful nature, the treasures of antique learning, and, above all, from his own overflowing heart, he has drawn those lovely pictures, allusions, situa- tions, sentiments, and reflections, which have, in- deed, been stolen, borrowed, imitated, worn thread- bare by succeeding poets, but in him were the fresh and spontaneous effusions of profound feeling and luxuriant fancy. Schlegel very justly ob- serves, that the impression of monotony may arise from our considering at one view, and bound up in one volume, a long series of poems, which were written in the course of many years, at different times and on different occasions. Laura herself, he avers, would certainly have been ennuyee to death with her own praises, if she had been obliged to read over, at one sitting, all the verses which her lovef loinposed on her charms ; and I agree with him. 62 LAURA. It appears to me that the very impression of Petrarch's individual character, and the circum* stances of his life, on the whole mass of bis poetry, are evidence of the truth of his attachment, and the reality of its object. He was by nature a poet ; his love was, therefore, poetical : he loved " in numbers, for the numbers came." He was an accomplished scholar in a pedantic age, and his love is, therefore, illustrated by such comparisons and turns of thought as were allied to his habitual studies. He had a fertile and playful fancy, and his love is adorned by all the luxuriance of his imagination. He had been educated for the pro- fession of the Civil Law, " per vender parole anzi mensogne," to sell words and lies, as he disdain- fully expressed it, and his love is mixed up with subtile reasonings on his own hapless state. He was a philosopher, and it is tinged with the mystic reveries of Platonism, the favorite and fashionable philosophy of the age. He was deeply religious, and the strain of devotional and moral feelin<> O which mingles with that of passion, or of grief, his fears lest the excess of his earthly affections should interfere with his eternal salvation, his con- tinual allusions to his faith, to a future existence, and the nothingness and vanity of the world, are not so many proofs of his profaneness, but of his sin- cerity. He was suspicious, irritable, and suscepti- ble ; subject to quick transitions of feeling ; raised by a word to hope plunged by a glance into de- pair; just such a finely-toned instrument as a LAURA. 63 woman loves to play on ; and all this we have set forth in the contradictions, the self-reproaches, the little daily vicissitudes which are events and revo- lutions in a life of passion ; a life which, when ex- hibited in the rich and softening tints of poetry, has all the power of strong interest, united to the charm of harmony and expression ; but in the reality, and in plain prose, cannot be contemplated without a painful compassion. " The day may perhaps come," says Petrarch in one of his familiar letters,* " when I shall have calmness enough to contemplate all the misery of my soul, to examine my passion, not, however, that I may continue to love her but that I may love thee alone, O my God ! But at this day, how many obstacles have I yet to surmount, how many efforts have I yet to make ! I no longer love as I did love, but still I love ; I love in spite of myself in lamentations and in tears. I will hate her no ! I must still love her!" Sevon years afterwards he writes, " my love is extreme, but it is exclusive and virtu- ous virtuous ! no ! this disquietude, these suspi- cions, these transports, this watchfulness, this utter weariness of every thing, are not signs of a virtu- ous love ! " What a picture of an impassioned and distracted heart ! ***** And who was this Laura, the illustrious object of a passion which has filled the.wide universe from side to side with her name and fame ? What was * Quoted by Foscolo. 64 LAURA, her station, her birth, her lineage? What were her transcendent qualities of person, heart, and mind, that she should have swayed, with such des- potic and distracting power, one of the sovereign spirits of the age ? Is it not enough that we ac- knowledge her to have been Petrarch's love as chaste as fair ? And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dignify A woman, so she is good, what does it signify ? In the present case, it signifies much ; we are not to be put off with a witty or satirical couplet : the insatiable curiosity which Laura has excited from age to age the volumes which have been written on the subject are a proof of the sincerity of her lover; for nothing but truth could ever inspire this lasting and universal interest. But without diving into these dry disputations, let us take Laura's portrait from Petrarch himself, drawn, it will be said, by the partial hand of a poetic lover : true ; but since Laura is inter- esting to us from the charms she possessed in his eyes, it were unfair to seek her portraiture else- where. Laura was of high birth and station, though her life was spent in retirement and domestic cares In nobil sangue, vita umile e quete. Her father, Audibert de Noves, was of the haute noblesse of Avignon, and died in her infancy, leav- ing her a dowry of 1000 gold crowns, (about LAURA. 65 10,000 pounds,) a magnificent portion for those times. She was married at the age of eighteen to Hugh de Sade, a man of rank equal to her own, and of corresponding age, but not distinguished by any advantages either of person or mind. The marriage contract is dated in January, 1325, two years be- fore her first meeting with Petrarch : and in it, her mother, the Lady of Ermessende, and brother John de Noves, stipulate to pay the dower left by her father ; and also to bestow on the bride two magnificent dresses for state occasions ; one of green, embroidered with violets ; the other of crim- son, trimmed with feathers. In all the portraits of Laura now extant, she is represented in one of these two dresses, and they are frequently alluded to by Petrarch. He tells us expressly, that when he first met her at matins in the Church of St. Claire, she was habited in a robe of green, spotted with violets.* Mention is also made of a coronal of silver with which she wreathed her hair ; of her necklaces and ornaments of pearl. Diamonds are not once alluded to, because the art of cutting them had not then been invented. From all which, it appears, that Laura was opulent, and moved in the first class of society. It was customary for the women of rank, in those times, to dress with extreme simplicity on ordinary occasions, but with the most gorgeous splendor when they appeared in public. There are some beautiful descriptions of Laura surrounded by her young female compan- * Canz. XT. Sonnet 10. 5 66 LAURA. ions, divested of all her splendid apparel, in *. simple white robe and a few flowers in her hair- but still preeminent over all by her superior loveliness. From the frequent allusions to her dress, and Petrarch's angry apostrophes to hex mirror, because it assisted to heighten charms al- ready too destructive,* we may infer that Laura was not unmindful of the cares of the toilet. She was in person a fair Madonna-like beauty, with soft dark eyes, and a profusion of pale golden hair parted on her brow, and falling in rich curls over her neck. He dwells on the celestial grace of her figure and movement, " 1' andar celeste." Non era 1' andar suo cosa mortale Ma d' angelica forma. He describes the beauty of her hand in the 166th sonnet, bella man che mi distringi il core And the loveliness of her mouth, La bella bocca angelica. The general character of her beauty must have been pensive, soft, unobtrusive, and even some- what languid : L' angelica sembianza umile e piana L' atto mansuetto, umile e tardo the last line is exquisitely characteristic. This ex> LAURA. treme softness and repose must have been far re- moved from insipidity ; for he dwells also on the rare and varying expression of her loveliness " Leggiadria singolare e pellegrina ; " the light- ning of her smile, " II lampeggiar dell' angelico riso ; " and the tender magic of her voice, which was felt in the inmost heart, " II cantar che nell' anima si sente." She had a habit of veiling her eyes with her hand, and her looks were generally| bent on the earth, " o per umiltade o per orgoglio." In the portrait of Laura, which I saw at the Lau- rentian Library at Florence, the eyes have this characteristic downcast look. Her lover complains also of a veil, which she was fond of wearing. Wandering in the country, one summer's day, he sees a young peasant-girl washing a veil in the run- ning stream ; he recognizes the very texture which had so often intervened between him and the heaven of Laura's beauty, and he trembles as if he had been in the presence of Laura herself. This little incident is the subject of the first Mad- rigal. He describes her dignified humility, " 1' umilt superba ; " her beautiful silence, " il bel tacere ; " her frequent sighs, u i sospir soavemente rotti ; " - her sweet disdain and gentle repulses, " dolci sdegni, placide repulse ; " the gesture which spoke without the aid of words, " 1' atto che parla con si- Icnzio." The picture, it must be confessed, is most finished, most delicate, most beautiful : supposino 68 LAURA. more flattering, and more honorable to Laura, h her lover's confession of the influence which he? charming character possessed over him; for it is certain that we owe to Laura's exquisite purity of mind and manners, the polished delicacy of the homago Addressed to her. Passing over, of course, the circumstance of her being a married woman, and therefore not a proper object of amorous verse, there is not in all the poetry she inspired, a line of sentiment which angels might not hear and approve. Petrarch represents her as express- neither surprise nor admiration at the self sac- e of Lucretia, but only wondering that shame and grief had not anticipated the dagger of the Roman matron. He describes her conversation, " pien d'intelletti dolci ed alti," and her mind ever serene, though her countenance was pensive, " in aspetto pensoso, a nima lieta." He tells us that she had raised him above all low-thoughted cares, and purified his heart from all base desires. " I bless the place, the time, the hour, when I presumed to lift my eyes upon her, I say, O my soul, thankful shouldst thou be that hast been deemed worthy of such high honor for from her spring those gentle thoughts which shall lead thee to aspire to the high- est good, and to disdain all that the vulgar mind desires." I' benedico il loco e '1 tempo e 1' ora Che si alti miraron gli occhi miei; E dico: anima, assoi ringraziar dei Che fosti a tanto onor degnata allora * * * * * LAURA. ft* Da lei ti vien 1' amoroso pensiero Che, mentre '1 segui all' Sommo ben t' invia Poco prezzando quel ch' ogni uom desia. Every generous feeling, every noble and ele- vated sentiment, every desire for improvement, ho refers to her, and to her only : S' alcun bel frutto Nasce di me, da voi vien prima il seme, lo per me son quasi un terreno asciutto Colto da voi; e'l pregio e vostro in tutto. CANZONE 8. He gives us in a single line the very beau of a female character, when he tells us that united the highest intellect with the purest heart, " In alto intelletto un puro core." He dwells with rapture on her angelic modesty, which excited at once his reverence and his despair ; but he con- fesses that he still hopes something from the pitying tenderness of her disposition. Non e si duro cor, che lagrimando, Pregando, amando, talor non si smova Ne si freddo voler, che non si scalde. The attachment inspired by such a woman was not likely to be lessened by absence, or removed by death itself; and it is certain that the sec- ond part of the Canzoniere of Petrarch, written \fter the death of Laura, is more beautiful than the first part : in a more impassioned style, a higher tone of feeling, with far fewer faults, both of taste and stvle. It will be said perhaps that " the picture of sw;b a mind as Petrarch's, enslaved and distracted by a dreaming passion, employed even in his declining years, in writing and polishing love verses, is a pitiable subject of contemplation ; that if he had not left us his Canzoniere, he would probably have performed some other excelling work of genius, which would have crowned him with equal or su- perior glory ; and that if he had never been the lover of Laura, he would have been no less that master-spirit who gave the leading impulse to the age in which he lived, by consecrating his life, his energies, all his splendid talents, to the cultivation of philosophy and the fine arts, the extension of learn- ing and liberty, and the general improvement of mankind." I doubt this, ^d I appeal to Petrarch himself. I believe there is no version into English of the 48th Canzone. If Lady Dacre had executed it and in the same spirit as the " Chiare, fresche e dolce acque," and the " Italia mia," the reader had been spared my abortive prose sketch, which will give as just an idea of the original as a hasty pen- cilled outline of one of Titian's or Domenichino's master-pieces would give us of all the magic color- ing and effect of their glorious and half-breathing creations. In this Canzone, Petrarch, in a high strain of poetic imagery, which takes nothing from the truth or pathos of the sentiment, allegorizes his own situation and feelings: he represeats himself as citing the Lord of Love, " Suo empio e dolce Sig- nore," before the throne of Reason, and accusing him as the cause of all his sufferings, sorrows, errors, and misspent time. " Through him (Love) I have endured, even from the moment I was first beguiled into his power, such various and such ex- quisite pain, that my patience has at length been exhausted, and I have abhorred my existence. I have not only forsaken the path of ambition and useful exertion, but even of pleasure and of hap- piness: I, who was born, if I do not deceive my- self, for far higher purposes than to be a mere amorous slave ! Through him I have been careless of my duty to Heaven, negligent of myself: for the sake of one woman I forgot all else ! me mis- erable ' What have availed me all the high and precious gifts of Heaven, th^ talents, the genius, which raised me above other men ? My hairs are changed to gray, but still my heart changeth not. Hath he not sent me wandering over the earth in search of repose ? hath he not driven me from city to city, and through forests, and wrods, and wild solitudes ? * hath he not deprived me of peace, and of that sleep which no herbs nor chanted spells have power to restore ? Through him, I have become a by-word in the world, which I have filled with my lamentations, till, by their repetition, ] have wearied myself, and perhaps all others." * Foscolo remarks the restless spirit which all his life drove P *