my
mortification and suffering, he was to me in life the cause of deep and
unceasing solicitude, and in death of poignant grief. The news reached
me on the evening of the 13th of the same month that he had fallen at
Milan, in the general mortality caused by that unwonted scourge which at
last discovered and visited so fearfully this hitherto exempted city. On
the 8th of August, the same year, a servant of mine returning from Milan
brought me a rumour (which on the 18th of the same fatal month was
confirmed by a servant of _Dominus Theatinus_) of the death of my
Socrates, my companion, my best of brothers, at Babylon (Avignon, I
mean) in the month of May. I have lost my comrade and the solace of my
life! Receive, Christ Jesus, these two, and the five that remain, into
thy eternal habitations!]

[Footnote L: Petrarch's words are: "civi servare suo;" but he takes the
liberty of considering Charles as--adoptively--Italian, though that
Prince was born at Prague.]

[Footnote M: Most historians relate that the English, at Poitiers,
amounted to no more than eight or ten thousand men; but, whether they
consisted of eight thousand or thirty thousand, the result was
sufficiently glorious for them, and for their brave leader, the Black
Prince.]

[Footnote N: This is the story of the patient Grisel, which is familiar
in almost every language.]

[Footnote O: Cercato ho sempre solitaria vita.--Sonnet 221, De Sade,
vol. ii. p. 8.]

[Illustration: LAURA.]

PETRARCH'S SONNETS,

ETC.

TO LAURA IN LIFE.

SONNET I.

_Voi, ch' ascoltate in rime sparse il suono._

HE CONFESSES THE VANITY OF HIS PASSION

Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hear
Of those sad sighs with which my heart I fed
When early youth my mazy wanderings led,
Fondly diverse from what I now appear,
Fluttering 'twixt frantic hope and frantic fear,
From those by whom my various style is read,
I hope, if e'er their hearts for love have bled,
Not only pardon, but perhaps a tear.
But now I clearly see that of mankind
Long time I was the tale: whence bitter thought
And self-reproach with frequent blushes teem;
While of my frenzy, shame the fruit I find,
And sad repentance, and the proof, dear-bought,
That the world's joy is but a flitting dream.

CHARLEMONT.

O ye, who list in scatter'd verse the sound
Of all those sighs with which my heart I fed,
Wh