last discovered and visited so fearfully this hitherto exempted city.  On the 8th of August, the same year, a servant of mine returning from Milan brought me a rumour (which on the 18th of the same fatal month was confirmed by a servant of Dominus Theatinus) of the death of my Socrates, my companion, my best of brothers, at Babylon (Avignon, I mean) in the month of May.  I have lost my comrade and the solace of my life!  Receive, Christ Jesus, these two, and the five that remain, into thy eternal habitations!]

[Footnote L:  Petrarch’s words are:  “civi servare suo;” but he takes the liberty of considering Charles as—­adoptively—­Italian, though that Prince was born at Prague.]

[Footnote M:  Most historians relate that the English, at Poitiers, amounted to no more than eight or ten thousand men; but, whether they consisted of eight thousand or thirty thousand, the result was sufficiently glorious for them, and for their brave leader, the Black Prince.]

[Footnote N:  This is the story of the patient Grisel, which is familiar in almost every language.]

[Footnote O:  Cercato ho sempre solitaria vita.—­Sonnet 221, De Sade, vol. ii. p. 8.]

[Illustration:  LAURA.]

PETRARCH’S SONNETS,

ETC.

TO LAURA IN LIFE.

SONNET I.

Voi, ch’ ascoltate in rime sparse il suono.

HE CONFESSES THE VANITY OF HIS PASSION

      Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hear
    Of those sad sighs with which my heart I fed
    When early youth my mazy wanderings led,
    Fondly diverse from what I now appear,
    Fluttering ’twixt frantic hope and frantic fear,
    From those by whom my various style is read,
    I hope, if e’er their hearts for love have bled,
    Not only pardon, but perhaps a tear. 
    But now I clearly see that of mankind
    Long time I was the tale:  whence bitter thought
    And self-reproach with frequent blushes teem;
    While of my frenzy, shame the fruit I find,
    And sad repentance, and the proof, dear-bought,
    That the world’s joy is but a flitting dream.

    CHARLEMONT.

      O ye, who list in scatter’d verse the sound
    Of all those sighs with which my heart I fed,
    When I, by youthful error first misled,
    Unlike my present self in heart was found;
    Who list the plaints, the reasonings that abound
    Throughout my song, by hopes, and vain griefs bred;
    If e’er true love its influence o’er ye shed,
    Oh! let your pity be with pardon crown’d. 
    But now full well I see how to the crowd
    For length of time I proved a public jest: 
    E’en by myself my folly is allow’d: 
    And of my vanity the fruit is shame,
    Repentance, and a knowledge strong imprest,
    That worldly pleasure is a passing dream.