literary men at his court.  He exercised a cunning influence over our poet, and detained him.  Petrarch, knowing that Milan was a troubled city and a stormy court, told the Prince that, being a priest, his vocation did not permit him to live in a princely court, and in the midst of arms.  “For that matter,” replied the Archbishop, “I am myself an ecclesiastic; I wish to press no employment upon you, but only to request you to remain as an ornament of my court.”  Petrarch, taken by surprise, had not fortitude to resist his importunities.  All that he bargained for was, that he should have a habitation sufficiently distant from the city, and that he should not be obliged to make any change in his ordinary mode of living.  The Archbishop was too happy to possess him on these terms.

Petrarch, accordingly, took up his habitation in the western part of the city, near the Vercellina gate, and the church of St. Ambrosio.  His house was flanked with two towers, stood behind the city wall, and looked out upon a rich and beautiful country, as far as the Alps, the tops of which, although it was summer, were still covered with snow.  Great was the joy of Petrarch when he found himself in a house near the church of that Saint Ambrosio, for whom he had always cherished a peculiar reverence.  He himself tells us that he never entered that temple without experiencing rekindled devotion.  He visited the statue of the saint, which was niched in one of the walls, and the stone figure seemed to him to breathe, such was the majesty and tranquillity of the sculpture.  Near the church arose the chapel, where St. Augustin, after his victory over his refractory passions, was bathed in the sacred fountain of St. Ambrosio, and absolved from penance for his past life.

All this time, whilst Petrarch was so well pleased with his new abode, his friends were astonished, and even grieved, at his fixing himself at Milan.  At Avignon, Socrates, Guido Settimo, and the Bishop of Cavaillon, said among themselves, “What! this proud republican, who breathed nothing but independence, who scorned an office in the papal court as a gilded yoke, has gone and thrown himself into the chains of the tyrant of Italy; this misanthrope, who delighted only in the silence of fields, and perpetually praised a secluded life, now inhabits the most bustling of cities!” At Florence, his friends entertained the same sentiments, and wrote to him reproachfully on the subject.  “I would wish to be silent,” says Boccaccio, “but I cannot hold my peace.  My reverence for you would incline me to hold silence, but my indignation obliges me to speak out.  How has Silvanus acted?” (Under the name of Silvanus he couches that of Petrarch, in allusion to his love of rural retirement.) “He has forgotten his dignity; he has forgotten all the language he used to hold respecting the state of Italy, his hatred of the Archbishop, and his love of liberty; and he would imprison the Muses in that court.  To whom can