uence of Petrarch,
he importuned him to be his public defender. Our poet, as we have seen,
had studied the law, but had never followed the profession. "It is not
my vocation," he says, in his preface to his Familiar Epistles, "to
undertake the defence of others. I detest the bar; I love retirement; I
despise money; and, if I tried to let out my tongue for hire, my nature
would revolt at the attempt."

But what Petrarch would not undertake either from taste or motives of
interest, he undertook at the call of friendship. He pleaded the cause
of Azzo before the Pope and Cardinals; it was a finely-interesting
cause, that afforded a vast field for his eloquence. He brought off his
client triumphantly; and the Rossis were defeated in their demand.

At the same time, it is a proud trait in Petrarch's character that he
showed himself on this occasion not only an orator and a lawyer, but a
perfect gentleman. In the midst of all his zealous pleading, he stooped
neither to satire nor personality against the opposing party. He could
say, with all the boldness of truth, in a letter to Ugolino di Rossi,
the Bishop of Parma, "I pleaded against your house for Azzo Correggio,
but you were present at the pleading; do me justice, and confess that I
carefully avoided not only attacks on your family and reputation, but
even those railleries in which advocates so much delight."

On this occasion, Azzo had brought to Avignon, as his colleague in the
lawsuit, Guglielmo da Pastrengo, who exercised the office of judge and
notary at Verona. He was a man of deep knowledge in the law; versed,
besides, in every branch of elegant learning, he was a poet into the
bargain. In Petrarch's many books of epistles, there are few letters
addressed by him to this personage; but it is certain that they
contracted a friendship at this period which endured for life.

All this time the Bishop of Lombes still continued at Rome; and, from
time to time, solicited his friend Petrarch to join him. "Petrarch would
have gladly joined him," says De Sade; "but he was detained at Avignon
by his attachment to John Colonna and his love of Laura:" a whimsical
junction of detaining causes, in which the fascination of the Cardinal
may easily be supposed to have been weaker than that of Laura. In
writing to our poet, at Avignon, the Bishop rallied Petrarch on the
imaginary existence of the object of his passion. Some stupid readers of
the Bishop's letter, in subsequent times,