ar. Quod, praevia
Dei gratia, facile erit, praeteriti temporis curas supervacuas, spes
inanes, et inexpectatos exitus acriter ac viriliter cogitanti."

"Laura, illustrious for her own virtues, and long celebrated by my
verses, first appeared to my eyes, in the time of my early youth, on the
morning of the sixth day of April, in the year of our Lord 1327, in the
church of St. Clare at Avignon; and in the same month of April, on the
same first hour of the morning, in the year of our Lord 1348, that light
was removed from this light of day, while I by chance was at Verona,
unconscious, alas! of my fate. The unhappy news, however, reached me at
Parma, in a letter from my friend Ludovico, on the morning of the 19th
of May.

"Her most chaste and fair body was buried in the evening of the day of
her death, in the convent of the Fratres Minores; but her soul, as
Seneca saith of the soul of Africanus, hath returned, I am persuaded, to
the heaven from whence it came.

"I have felt a kind of bitter pleasure in writing the memorial of this
mournful event, the rather in this place, which so often meets my eyes,
to the end that I may consider there is nothing left which ought to
delight me in this world; and that I may be reminded by the frequent
sight of these words, and the due appreciation of this fleeting life,
that my principal tie to the world being broken, it is time for me to
fly from this Babylon; which, through the preventing grace of God, will
be an easy task, when I reflect deeply and manfully on the superfluous
cares, the vain hopes, and the unlooked for events of the time past."

This simple and affecting tribute, written, as it evidently seems, under
such solemn impressions, clears the memory of Laura from the imputation
of any thing trifling or criminal, while it sufficiently establishes the
identity of "a nymph," according to Gibbon, "so shadowy, that her
existence has been questioned."

May 14.--We left Avignon this morning, with a more favourable impression
of its cleanliness and comfort than any other town had as yet left on
our minds. The road to Nismes, winding up a hill on the opposite side of
the river, above Fort Villeneuve, is remarkably adapted also to display
its numerous spires, and the grand Gothic mass of the legate's palace,
to the utmost advantage: and we watched with something like regret the
disappearance of these objects over the brow of the hill which we had
ascended, more especially as on th