ts rocks and fountain, its associations, and
even its eatables; for some travellers have dwelt on the subject of its
excellent bisque, or crayfish soup, and its eels, a solace, no doubt,
to[34] that gentle degree of melancholy, which Fielding affirms to be a
whet to the appetite.

[Footnote 34: "And do not forget the toasted cheese." Vide _Matilda
Pottingen_ in "The Rovers."]

"And, says the anatomic art,
The stomach's very near the heart;"

as Peter Pindar also maintains. Some also, with an accuracy worthy
Moubrays treatise on domestic fowls, have informed us that the hens near
the fountain of Vaucluse are peculiarly prolific in fine eggs, and so
on. For my own part, I may as well honestly confess that I am more
partial to the memory of Petrarch as a philosopher, a patriot, and
reviver of ancient learning, than as the Werter of Troubadours, though
in the latter capacity he has stood unrivalled for five hundred years. I
must own, also, that the hermitage whither he retired to stifle his
rebellious passion for the wife of another, however melancholy and
impressive the ideas may be which it would of itself excite, is
poisoned, in my mind, by the pestilent frivolities with which the
mawkish of all ages have defaced its sombre features, in violation of
truth and sound feeling. What syllables of dolour the forgotten
Della-Cruscan school may have yelled out on the subject, is not worth
ascertaining, and probably recollected by few or none. The French, who
with all their ingenuity, are not very apt at comprehending the madness
of contemplative minds, have caricatured the shade of poor Petrarch most
woefully, and[35] the Abbe Delille (peace to his ashes!) has teazed the
innocent trees of Vaucluse with embarrassing questions, fitter for the
mouths of Susanna's elders. Under such blighting influence, the stern
rocks of Vaucluse are transformed into a sentimental tea-garden, the
high-minded and melancholy Petrarch into a more ingenious Piercie
Shafton, and the virtuous Laura, who probably never saw the place, into
a starched Gloriana of the old school, paraded and gallanted round it
with all due form. It is, perhaps, a judgment on Petrarch's adulterous
Platonism, that it has laid him open to impertinences like these, which
would torture his sensitive ghost almost as keenly as oblivion itself,
and which very strongly remind one of Punch's intrusion at a tragedy.
Such ideas cannot be engrafted on the [36]Nonwenwerder, or