gives a description of John, which is neither very flattering to the youth, nor calculated to give us a favourable opinion of his father’s mode of managing his education.  By his own account, it appears that he had never brought the boy to confide in him.  This was a capital fault, for the young are naturally ingenuous; so that the acquisition of their confidence is the very first step towards their docility; and, for maintaining parental authority, there is no need to overawe them.  “As far as I can judge of my son,” says Petrarch, “he has a tolerable understanding; but I am not certain of this, for I do not sufficiently know him.  When he is with me he always keeps silence; whether my presence is irksome and confusing to him, or whether shame for his ignorance closes his lips.  I suspect it is the latter, for I perceive too clearly his antipathy to letters.  I never saw it stronger in any one; he dreads and detests nothing so much as a book; yet he was brought up at Parma, Verona, and Padua.  I sometimes direct a few sharp pleasantries at this disposition.  ’Take care,’ I say, ‘lest you should eclipse your neighbour, Virgil.’  When I talk in this manner, he looks down and blushes.  On this behaviour alone I build my hope.  He is modest, and has a docility which renders him susceptible of every impression.”  This is a melancholy confession, on the part of Petrarch, of his own incompetence to make the most of his son’s mind, and a confession the more convincing that it is made unconsciously.

In the summer of 1352, the people of Avignon witnessed the impressive spectacle of the far-famed Tribune Rienzo entering their city, but in a style very different from the pomp of his late processions in Rome.  He had now for his attendants only two archers, between whom he walked as a prisoner.  It is necessary to say a few words about the circumstances which befell Rienzo after his fall, and which brought him now to the Pope’s tribunal at Avignon.

Petrarch says of him at this period, “The Tribune, formerly so powerful and dreaded, but now the most unhappy of men, has been brought hither as a prisoner.  I praised and I adored him.  I loved his virtue, and I admired his courage.  I thought that Rome was about to resume, under him, the empire she formerly held.  Ah! had he continued as he began, he would have been praised and admired by the world and by posterity.  On entering the city,” Petrarch continues, “he inquired if I was there.  I knew not whether he hoped for succour from me, or what I could do to serve him.  In the process against him they accuse him of nothing criminal.  They cannot impute to him having joined with bad men.  All that they charge him with is an attempt to give freedom to the republic, and to make Rome the centre of its government.  And is this a crime worthy of the wheel or the gibbet?  A Roman citizen afflicted to see his country, which is by right the mistress of the world, the slave of the vilest of men!”