made a
sketch in a short time, but did not finish it till twenty years
afterwards, when he dedicated and presented it to the Bishop of
Cavaillon.

It is agreeable to meet, in Petrarch's life at the shut-up valley, with
any circumstance, however trifling, that indicates a cheerful state of
mind; for, independently of his loneliness, the inextinguishable passion
for Laura never ceased to haunt him; and his love, strange to say, had
mad, momentary hopes, which only deepened at their departure the
returning gloom of despair. Petrarch never wrote more sonnets on his
beloved than during the course of this year. Laura had a fair and
discreet female friend at Avignon, who was also the friend of Petrarch,
and interested in his attachment. The ideas which this amiable
confidante entertained of harmonizing success in misplaced attachment
with honour and virtue must have been Platonic, even beyond the feelings
which Petrarch, in reality, cherished; for, occasionally, the poet's
sonnets are too honest for pure Platonism. This lady, however, whose
name is unknown, strove to convince Laura that she ought to treat her
lover with less severity. "She pushed Laura forward," says De Sade, "and
kept back Petrarch." One day she recounted to the poet all the proofs of
affection, and after these proofs she said, "You infidel, can you doubt
that she loves you?" It is to this fair friend that he is supposed to
have addressed his nineteenth sonnet.

This year, his Laura was seized with a defluxion in her eyes, which made
her suffer much, and even threatened her with blindness. This was enough
to bring a sonnet from Petrarch (his 94th), in which he laments that
those eyes which were the sun of his life should be for ever eclipsed.
He went to see her during her illness, having now the privilege of
visiting her at her own house, and one day he found her perfectly
recovered. Whether the ophthalmia was infectious, or only endemic, I
know not; but so it was, that, whilst Laura's eyes got well, those of
her lover became affected with the same defluxion. It struck his
imagination, or, at least, he feigned to believe poetically, that the
malady of her eyes had passed into his; and, in one of his sonnets, he
exults at this welcome circumstance.[J] "I fixed my eyes," he said, "on
Laura; and that moment a something inexpressible, like a shooting star,
darted from them to mine. This is a present from love, in which I
rejoice. How delightful it is thus to cu