Novangeletta sovra lale accorta - Score

Francesco Petrarca

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Certain it is, however, that for many years after this period, we find him en- gaged with a keen interest in the politi- cal transactions of the times. After the extinction of the Colonna family, of whom the venerable father, Stephano Colonna, saw no less than seven of his sons, all men of eminent talents and consideration, de- net: He took a warm part in the extraordinary enterprise of Nicola Rienzi, who, on the wild pretence of restoring the ancient li- berty of his country, usurped the govern- ment of Rome, under the title of Tribune ; an enterprise which ended in his own destruction.

It is not, however, my purpose to detail the public life of Petrarch: A most ample account of its particulars may be found in the elaborate work of his biographer, the Abbe de Sade. One of those incidents, which, in the close of his life, gave him the most sensible pleasure, as furnishing strong testimony of the general estimation of his character, was the request of the citizens of Florence, who sent Boccaccio as their deputy, to intimate to him the restitution of his paternal estate in the Tuscan territory, which had been forfeited to the public by the political offence of his father ; and to entreat he would ho- nour Florence with passing his remaining years in that city, as the President of its newly instituted University.

Petrarch died in the 70th year of his age, on the 18th day of July, , at Arqua, in the district of Padua. He en- joyed at his death several ecclesiastical preferments. He was canon of Lombes, archdeacon of Parma, and canon of the cathedral of Padua: He held, however, the office of domestic chaplain to Robert, King of Naples, and to his grand -daughter Queen Joanna ; the former one of the most en- lightened and virtuous of princes.

In short, he lived respected, beloved, and honoured ; and he died universally la- mented. There are two features of his character which do him the greatest ho- nour: The one, that in an age of gross and general ignorance, when not only the scarcity of books, but the prejudices of his contemporaries opposed the cultivation of letters, ' Petrarch, by the force of na- 1 Such was the ignorance and superstition, even of the higher clergy in those days, that one of the bishops made a formal complaint to Pope Clement VI.

The other, that, with a singular moderation of mind, and the pride of an ingenuous spirit, though flattered by the friendship and the familiar correspon- dence of emperors and sovereign princes ; though earnestly solicited to accept of the most honourable and lucrative employ- ments ; and though occasionally devoting which the proofs were, that he passed most part of his time in solitude, and was much addicted to read- ing Virgil. It is to those beautiful verses, in which he has celebrated the accomplish- ments, and bewailed the fate of Laura, that Petrarch has been indebted for his permanent reputation.

His cha- racter, in fact, took its tone from that pre- dominant affection, which influenced his studies, his habits of life, and all his pur- suits and occupations.

Love and its Critics

A love so pure, so ardent, and so lasting, is difficult to he paralleled in the history of human nature. Petrarch was the passionate admirer of Laura for twenty-one years, while she was in life ; and with unabated ardour of af- fection, he is said to have bewailed her loss for twenty-six years after her death. The works of the poet himself bear the strongest testimony that this passion, so remarkable both for its fervency and dura- tion, was an honourable and virtuous flame.

Petrarch aspired to the happiness of being united to Laura in marriage. Such are the ideas that we are led to entertain, from the wri- tings of the poet himself, of the nature and object of his passion ; and such has been the uniform and continued belief of the world with regard to it, from his own days to the present. At length comes into the field, a hardy but most uncourte- ous knight, who, with a spirit very oppo- site to that of the heroes of chivalry, blasts at once the fair fame of the virtu- ous Laura, and the hitherto unsullied ho- nour of her lover ; and, proudly throwing down his gauntlet of defiance, maintains, that Laura was a married woman, the 48 LIFE AND CHARACTER mother of a numerous family; that Pe- trarch, with all his professions of a pure and honourable flame, had no other end in his unexampled assiduity of pursuit, than what every libertine proposes to him- self in the possession of a mistress: The principle of sympathy is a noble part of the constitution of the human mind ; and is, perhaps, the basis of all the social affections.

In forming our opini- ons of the characters and conduct of other men, we involuntarily place ourselves in their situation, and we judge of them as we should wish to be judged ourselves in similar circumstances. Hence, in every doubtful case, where the conduct of ano- ther is found to admit of opposite con- structions, a candid mind will ever give its decision on the side of virtue and of ho- nour. We are prompted eagerly to scrutinize the foundations of such illiberal opinions ; and we conceive it a duty we owe to virtue and to honour, a task enjoined us by the respect due to our common na- ture, to refute the calumny, expose the artifices of the aggressor, and restore the injured to his just estimation.

In the examination of this hypothesis, I laid down to myself certain rules, w. These rules are the fol- lowing: Where a doubtful fact is to be ascer- tained, by bringing together, comparing and weighing the sense of various passa- ges of an author's writings, the construc- tion put on ambiguous expressions ought OF PETRARCH. Where a person's character and man- ner of thinking, feeling, or acting, are clear, from the general tenor of his life and writings, no interpretation ought to be given to doubtful passages of those wri- tings, which contradicts, or is inconsistent with, such character, sentiments, and con- duct.

Where many passages concur to establish the belief of the disputed fact, a single passage, though apparently contra- dictory to that supposition, must not be allowed weight, if it is possible to give it an explanation consistent with that opi- nion which is better supported. In such a case, where many passa- 52 LIFE AND CHARACTER ges concur to establish the belief of a certain fact, and there appear one or two passages in apparent contradiction to that belief, there is room to suspect either an error of transcription or typography; or, if such supposition is excluded, interpolation or fabrication.

In the supposition of interpolation or fabrication, there must of necessity be included a cogent and adequate motive; and, therefore, where such a motive is ut- terly wanting, the supposition is not to be indulged. Where this motive is apparent, the presumption of falsehood is in proportion to the strength of the motive, the facility of executing the deception, and the weight of the opposing evidence. Of such a nature is that hypothesis of the Abbe de Sade, which I shall now proceed to examine.

In ge- neral, however, we find but two different opinions on this subject. The one is, that her parents were of an honourable family in Provence ; and that her father f resided at a small country-seat or village in the territory of Avignon, near the sources of the Sorga: It must be owned, however, that this fact is not abso- lutely authenticated. It is in reality only the proba- ble conjecture of Velutello himself, who was at pains to search the baptismal register of the parish in which Vaucluse is situate ; and, finding that a child of the name of Laura was registered as having been born to Henri Chiabau, Lord of Cabrieres, on the 4th of June, , he thence concluded, there being no other registration of that name which could possibly apply to the object of his research, that this, assuredly, was the mistress of Petrarch.

The former of these opinions, which has been adopted by almost all the Italian authors, is founded on a variety of passa- ges in the writings of the poet himself, of which I shall afterwards take particular notice. The latter opinion, which is that which chiefly prevails at Avignon, where the poet passed a considerable part of his life, is founded on the following circum- stances.

In the Ambrosian Library at Milan, there is preserved a manuscript copy of Virgil, 1 which is said to have been the pro- 1 Now, it is believed, in the national library at Paris, removed amidst the plunder of Italy, by Bo- naparte. One of these, which is written on the first page of the MS. I was then in my early youth. In the same town, on the same day, and at the same hour, in the year , this light, this sun withdrew from the world. I was then at Verona, ignorant of the calamity that had befallen me.

A letter I received from my Ludovico, on the 19th of the following month, brought me the cruel informa- tion. Her body, so beautiful, so pure, was deposit- ed, on the day of her death, after vespers, in the church of the Cordeliers. For the purpose of often dwelling on the sad remembrance of so severe a loss, I have written these particulars in a book that comes frequently under my inspection. I have thus pre- pared for myself a pleasure mingled with pain. My loss, ever present to my memory, will teach me, that there is no longer any thing in this life which can af- ford me delight: That it is now time that I should renounce Babylon, since the chain which bound me to it with so tender an attachment, is broken.

Nor will this, with the assistance of Almighty God, be difficult. My mind, turning to the past, will set before me all the superfluous cares that have enga- ged me ; all the deceitful hopes that I have entertain- ed ; and the unexpected and afflicting consequen- ces of all my projects. Animam qui- " dem ejus, ut de Africano ait Seneca, in " ccelum unde erat rediisse mihi persua- " deo.

In one of the chapels of that church, called Capella della Croce, in which was the burial-place of the fami- ly of Sade, they found a large flat stone, which bore no inscription whatever. This, if it afforded no indication of being the grave of Laura, at least gave no proof to the contrary; they therefore opened the grave, in quest of further evidence. At first they perceived nothing but earth, in- termixed with small bones, among which of Marot, published at the Hague, , by the Abbe Langlet du Fresnoy, under the fictitious name of he Chevalier Gordon de Percel.

Examining, however, more minutely, they discovered a little casket of lead, fastened with a brass wire, on opening which, they found a piece of parchment, folded, and sealed with green wax, together with a medal of bronze, on the one side of which was the figure of a very little woman, figura d'una donna picciolissima , in the attitude of un- covering her bosom with hoth her hands ; and around, in the way of legend, were only these four letters, M.

In endeavouring to explain this inscrip- tion, it occurred to Maurice de Seves, that the four letters might probably be thus interpreted, Madonna Laura morta jace. The sealed parchment was, there- fore, next examined ; and, although it is owned that the writing was at first quite illegible, the characters being so defaced, as well they might, after lying two hun- dred years amidst the dissolved materials of a human body , yet Maurice de Seves, by examining it, when exposed to the strong rays of the sun, is said to have at last made out distinctly the following son- net, of which he took a fair transcript: Thus almost literally translated: Here now repose those chaste, those blest remains Of that most gentle spirit, sole in earth!

Morte 7w del verde Lauro svelta e mossa Fresca radice, e il premio de mia guerra Di quattro lustri ; e piu se anchor non erra Mio penser tristo ; e il chiude in pocha fossa.

Martin Bruns, baritone Christoph Hammer, fortepiano

O delicate membra, Diva face Che anchor me cuoci e struggi, inginocchione Qiascun preghi il Signor te accepti in pace. True honour, fame, and beauty, all o'erthrown! Deatli has destroy 'd that Laurel green, and torn Its tender roots ; and all the noble meed Of rny long warfare, passing if aright My melancholy reckoning holds four lustres. Avignon's favour'd soil Has seen thee spring and die ; and here with thee Thy poet's pen, and muse, and genius lies. O lovely, beauteous limbs! O vivid fire, That even in death hast power to melt the soul!

Heaven be thy portion, peace with God on high! It is re- marked, from the evidence of the note on Virgil, that Petrarch was at Parma, at the time when Laura was interred at Avig- non; that the intelligence of her death did not reach him for several weeks: There are, however, many circumstan- ces that tend to bring into doubt, or ra- ther that seem entirely to confute, this fundamental fact, that Laura either died or was buried at Avignon.

The works of the poet, indeed, contain the most positive information that Laura died in the same place where she was born, and where she had passed the greatest part of her life: Duolmi ancor veramente ch'io non nacqui Almen piu presso al tuo fiorito nido ; Ma assai fu bel paese ov' io ti piacqui.

In all things else I deem'd me fortunate, Save that a soil too mean had giv'n me birth. Of this at least with reason I complain'd, That distant far from those fair fields I sprang, Which gave thee being. Yet that soil was fair, Nor meanly deem'd of me, where first we met, And I had power to win thy heart to love. It was impossible that Laura could have termed the city of Avignon umil terreno, or that she could have been ashamed of it as the place of her birth.

Divine Providence, he observes, has thought fit to display its wonders, by choosing its most illustrious instruments, either from a servile condition, or from a low and obscure place of origin. Of this he gives for examples, the mean occupa- tions of the Apostles, the obscurity of the birth-place of our Saviour, who, disdain- ing imperial Rome, chose an inconsidera- ble town of Judea for the place of his na- tivity ; and, lastly, the humble origin of the matchless Laura, that resplendent sun of 1 Epist.

Ed or di picciol borgo un sol n? The situation of this picciol borgo, or small village, is likewise distinctly pointed out. It was in the neighbourhood of the hills that rise above the fountain of Vau- cluse, the spring of the Sorga. The poet sends a present to a friend, of two birds which he had caught, and he accompa- nies the gift with a sonnet, in which the birds are supposed thus to address the person to whom they are sent: In the th sonnet of the 1st part, Almo Sol. So, in the 40th sonnet of the 2d part, the poet says, Quella per cui con Sorga ho cangiat' Arno.

The 17th Canzone, part 1. Ivi k 'I raio cor, e quella che '1 m' invola. Sento 1' aura mia antica; e i dolci colli Veggio apparir onde '1 bel lume nacque Che tenne gli occhi raiei raentr 'al ciel piacque Bramosi e lieti; or li den tristi e molli. Vedove l'erbe,e torbide son 1'acque; E voto e freddo '1 nido in ch' ella giacque. Once more I view those " beautiful hills, whence that resplendent " light arose, which once gave joy to " these eyes, while heaven so pleased to " bless me with her sight ; but now, " alas!

Hoc procul aspexi secreto in littore saxum, Naufragiis tutumque meis aptumque putavi ; Hue raodo vela dedi, nunc montibus abditus istis, Flens mecum enumero transacti temporis annos; Insequitur tainqn ilia iterum, et sua rura retentans, Nunc vigilantis adest oculis, nunc fronte rainaci Instabilem vano ludit terrore soporem.

The Abb6 gives a translation of this very passage of the 7th epistle, but he studiously omits the sua rura retentans. Nothing can be more decisive than the above passages, which clearly intimate that Laura was born in a small village, or country residence, in the neighbourhood of the source of the Sorga. Many passages of the poet's writings contain likewise clear intimation that Laura died in the same place where she was born, and where she had passed the greatest part of her life.

Thus, in the 53d sonnet of the 2d part: E questo '1 nido in che la mia Fenice Mise 1 J aurate e le purpuree penne ; Che sotto le sue ali il mio cor tenne. Veggendo a' colli oscura notte intorno Onde prendesti al ciel 1' ultimo volo. Here thou hast left me " miserable and alone. I view those hills, now " dark and desolate, from whence thou " took'st thy flight to heaven. Valle, che de' lament! River, which my tears so "oft have swelled! Sweet paths, sweet " hills, to me no longer sources of delight!

Yes, ye are still the same: Carpe iter, qua nodosis impexa capistris Colla bourn, crebrasque canum sub limine parvo Videris excubias, gilvosque ad claustra molossos: Hie locus tua damna tegit ; jamque aspice contra, Hie Galatea sita est. The question, at Avignon. But, from many passages of the poet's writings, it appears, that his first interview with Lau- ra was in a solitary walk in the fields.

Thus, in the 8th Ballatta, part 1. So, likewise, sonnet Una Candida cerva sopra T erba Verde, m' apparve con duo coma d'oro, Fra due riviere a Torabra d'un alloro. And yet more clearly, in the 3d of his Latin eclogues: Daphne, ego te solam deserto in littore primum Aspexi ; dubius hominemne Deaniue viderem. To this ques- tion we shall certainly not long hesitate for an answer, when we consider, that the Abbe" He Sade. Con- venoit-il qu'il parlar de 1'eglise de Ste Claire en ra- peliant la premiere poque de son amour? Un poete qui parle de ces choses-la, est bien-aise d'egayer la scrtie; il n'ira pas la placer dans une eglise: If this mode of rea- soning is to be admitted, it is equally effectual against those passages which the Abbe has brought in sup- port of his own hypothesis, as those which militate against it ; arid tends, indeed, to invalidate the whole evidence brought from the poems of Petrarch in proof of any part of his history.

It is impossible to suppose, that numberless passages, inter- spersed through the works of Petrarch, indicating the place of Laura's birth and death, all naturally connected with the subject treated of, though some fur- nishing their evidence not in positive terms, but only by inference, should every one of them be fabricated ; and that the forger should have been able to insert all these fabricated passages in every one of the manuscripts of the author's works which are to be found in Europe. Nor even, should we allow this strange under- taking to have been practicable, is it pos- sible to figure a motive capable of indu- cing to the attempt.

But this reasoning will not apply to those proofs which are brought to show that Laura was born and died at Avignon. The manuscript note on Virgil and the sonnet said to have been found in the grave, stand evidently in a very diffe- rent predicament. Here the forgery was easy ; the motive to it strong and alluring. At the distance of two hundred years from the death of Petrarch, it was no difficult matter for the possessor of this manuscript of Virgil which is said to exhibit a great number of notes on its margin, in the ge- nuine hand-writing of the poet, to have fabricated one additional note in imitation of that hand-writing, of which he had be- OF PETRARCH.

Of both forgeries the mo- tive was probably the same, which insti- gated the Abbe de Sade to the compila- tion of his elaborate work, the desire of vindicating to this house the relation to so celebrated a personage as the Laura of Pe- trarch: Two or three persons, zealous in this research, unite their endeavours for that purpose, and their investigation is naturally directed to the family burial- place, which is a chapel of that church called Capella della Croce. Among other monuments in this chapel, a flat grave- stone is discovered, which bears no in- scription; and, on opening the grave, some bones are found, and a casket, con- taining a medal and a parchment.

The medal has on it, the figure of a very little woman. Here, say our antiquaries, is, in all probability, the figure of Laura. The point, then, being already settled that this must be the grave of Laura, the parchment, to be sure, must contribute its relative evidence to the same effect. This parchment, however, is found at first to be utterly illegible: The wonder representing only a single figure, could accurately determine the size or stature of the person repre- sented. But the parch- ment thus unaccountably preserved is said to have been actually found.

It could not, however, be read without the aid of the strongest light. It therefore was not read in the little dark chapel of the church. Sinistra ingressus habet altare muro adstructum, ante quod, sub grand! He had already given his opinion on the le- gend of the medal, which ascertained Laura's relation to the grave. His credit, therefore, as an antiquary, is at stake to support this opinion, by the further evi- dence of the rotten parchment ; and next day he produces a fairly written sonnet, which he declares to have copied from the original, of which, with much pains, he had at length been able to decypher the characters.

The original is never after- wards heard of.

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A sonnet, indeed, written on parchment, is preserved at this day among the archives of the family of Sade, which they pretend to be the original, found in the grave, and regard according- ly as a most precious document. But, though mutilated a little, to give it the air. The sonnet or epitaph itself is gene- rally esteemed a poor composition ; and the Italian authors are indignant that it should ever have been suspected to come from the hand of Petrarch: The truth of all these latter circumstances may be admitted in perfect consistence with the supposition that the sonnet itself was a forgery.

If the note on Virgil is authentic, the medal and sonnet are forgeries ; and vice versa, if the latter are authentic, the note on Virgil is a for- gery. We learn from the note, that Laura died at Avignon, on the sixth of April, and that she was buried there on the same day ; ipso die mortis ad vesperam a precaution perhaps necessary from the nature of her disease. But that a medal of bronze, with a sculptured image and inscription, should have been moulded and cast in the space of a few hours to be inclosed in the same casket and coffin, is a fact that we may fairly pronounce to exceed all belief.

If, on the other hand, this medal and parchment were actually found in the grave, and this grave was in reality the grave of Laura, we must utterly renounce the belief that she was buried on the same day on which she died; and in that case we must abandon the note on Virgil as a forgery.

You will not, I believe, be so thoroughly " convinced as the biographer seems to be, of the au- 4t thentic discovery of Laura's body, and the sonnet " placed on her bosom. If the proofs on both sides are impartially weigh- ed, I am much deceived, indeed, if any person, competent to judge of this species 1 In nobii sangue vita humile e queta, Son. Witb what propriety, or consistence with truth, could the poet have thus expressed himself of Laura de Noves, the wife of a person of high rank, and who had passed the whole of her life in all the gaiety and splendour of the court of Avignon?

Still less would the pious Petrarch have borrowed a scripture ex- pression, addressed to the Saviour of the world, St John's Gospel, chap. The arguments by which the Abbe de Sade has endeavoured to invalidate the positive evidence contained in the writings of Petrarch, that Laura was born, lived and died in an obscure retreat in the country, are not undeserving of attention ; as they are strong examples of that laboured so- phistry, which is usually employed when one endeavours to support a weak or false hypothesis.

Avignon, says the Abbe, though a city of some celebrity, was far inferior in splendour to many of the Italian cities ; and the mind of Petrarch, being filled with the idea of their magnificence, might not unnaturally have termed the former picciol borgo. He was born at Arezzo, an inconsiderable town in the Florentine ter- ritory; and he was no more than seven years of age, when he, together with his whole family, removed to Avignon.

This city, therefore, was at any rate the most splendid he had ever seen ; unless, perhaps, he had had a transient glimpse of Florence on his journey. It could, indeed, be only a distant prospect ; for his father was then in a state of banishment from that capital, and durst not enter it. We may judge, then, with what propriety Petrarch could have given the epithet of picciol borgo to Avignon, then the seat of the papal resi- dence, the perpetual resort of the most splendid embassies from all the sovereigns of Europe ; and rendered illustrious, as the Abbe de Sade himself informs us, by fre- 10 OF PETRARCH.

Le Roi de Mayorque et le Dauphin de Vien- nois y avoient mdnie des demeures fixes. Le palais du Roi de Naples etoit ou Ton voit a-pre'sent le mo- nastere de St Ursule, qu'ori appelle les Royales, par- cequ'elles hahitent le palais d'un Roi. If she had been born at Avignon, it certain- ly must have merited, in her eyes, a very different estimation from that of an umil which ravaged Italy and the south of France, in the year , and of which Boccaccio has given, in the introduction to his Decamerone, a most eloquent and impressive description, cut off, in the space of three months, a hundred and twenty thousand of the in- habitants of Avignon, It is possible, however, that this might be meant of the territory of Avignon.

Yet such, we have seen, the poet describes to have been her estimation of the place of her birth ; the only circumstance, she says, respect- ing her origin, of which she had reason to be ashamed.

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To this we shall answer by a single ques- tion, which has been well put by M. In tutte Veiltre cose, Dove Sorga e Durenza in maggior vaso Congiungori le lor chiare e torbide acque ; Ivi, ond' a gli occhi miei el bel lurae nacque. It is not found in the best manuscripts of the works of Petrarch ; nor have Velutello, Gesualdo, or Bembo, given it a place in their edi- tions of his poems. But, secondly, Even supposing it ge- nuine, the description there given does by no means mark precisely the situation of Avignon.

The Sorga and the Durance do not join their streams at Avignon. These rivers, therefore,, though they unite their streams by both falling into the Rhone, do not mark out Avignon as the point of junction, but rather serve to describe a district termed the Venaimriy which comprehends the country for several miles adjacent to Avig- non; and, therefore, the description is equally indicative of Faucluse and of Ca- brieres, as it is of Avignon. But this passage, supposing it genuine, will find its best explanation by a similar one, which occurs in the 10th of the poet's Latin eclogues, entitled Laurta occidens; in which he bewails the death of his mis- tress under his favourite allusion of a Lau- rel: Hie mihi, quo fueram Tusco translates ab Arno, Sic hominum res fata rotant, fuit aridulum rus, Dura colui indigne, atque operi successit egestas.

Has ego delicias et opes, haec regna putavi. Here, amidst the rocks and " thickets of oak, near the borders of the " stream grew a most beautiful Laurel. In this spot was my kingdom, and here I found my supreme delight. In the 13th Canzone Se T pensier , the poet addresses himself to a rivulet or fountain, on the borders of which his mis- tress was wont frequently to walk.

In the 14th Canzone Chiarefresche e dolci acque , he addresses the same stream, in which he says, she was often wont to bathe her beau- tiful limbs. It is undoubtedly to the same sequestered scene tbat he refers in the th sonnet: Lietijiori, efelici, e ben nate erbc Che madonna pensando premer sole; Piaggia, ch'ascolti sue dolci parole,. E del bel piede alcun vestigio serbe ; Schietti arboscelli, e verdifrondi acerbe ; Amorosette e pallide viole ; Ombrose sehe, ove percote il sole Che -vifa co' suoi raggi alte, e superbe ; O soave contrada ; Opurofiume, Che bagni il suo bel viso, e gli occhi chiari.

E prendi qualita dal vivo lume; Quanta v'invidio gli atti onesti e cari! Nonjia in voi scoglio omai che per costume D'arder con la miajiamma non impari. Ye leafy shrubs, Pale violets ; ye dark and solemn groves, Sweet region of delight; and thou pure stream, That ow'st thy lustre to that beauteous face And lovely eyes which thy clear waters laved I How do I envy you, thrice happy scenes, That oft have witness'd all her actions fair, And gestures forni'd of grace and innocence!

The commentators, in endeavouring to identify the scenery to which these poems refer, have, with great appearance of pro- bability, supposed the stream here men- tioned to be either the fountain of Vau- cluse and stream of the Sorga, or the rivu- let of Coulon, near Cabrieres, where Laura is believed to have dwelt; and to be the same stream in which, when following the OF PETRARCH.

This, one should imagine, were suffici- ently obvious. But this supposition, con- tradicting his theory, appears to the Abbe de Sade quite unnatural and absurd. He finds, or figures to himself, a bason or pond in a garden close by the walls of Avignon, which corresponds to a miracle with every 1 TJn di cacciando si, com' io solea, Mi mossi; e quella fera beila e cruda In una fonte ignuda Si stava, quando '1 sol plu forte ardea. As to the rivulet of Coulon, says he, it is no less than a milt and a half distant from Cabrieres, a cir- cumstance which puts its pretensions out of the question ; as this would have been rather too long a walk for a lady, pro- menade un pen forte pour une dame ; and Petrarch himself must have crossed a steep hill, and walked at least four miles and a half, before he could have seen her there.

In a similar strain of weak and incon- clusive reasoning, this author attempts to invalidate the evidence of the sonnet with which Petrarch accompanies his pre- sent of the birds,, x caught at the foot of those hills where lay the birth-place of Laura. Part of the city of Avignon, says the Abbe, is situated on a rocky emi- 1 See Supra, p. Ill nence; and although the foot of that rock is now all built over, and includ- ed within the precincts of the city, yet, in those days, it might have been open ground, and Petrarch might there have amused himself in fowling, and might have caught the birds in question.

So likewise, in the d sonnet II can- tar nuovo, where the poet describes the pleasures of the morning in the country, the vallies resounding with the sweet song of the birds, and the murmuring of the clear rivulets, x and tells, that, rising early 1 II cantar nuovo, e '1 pianger de gli augelli In su'l di fanno risentir le valli, E '1 raormorar de' liquidi cristalli Giu per lucidi freschi rivi e snelli. I' gli ho veduti alcun giorno ambedui Levarsi insieme, e 'n un punto e 'n un hora Quel far le stelle, e questo sparir lui.

On the other side of it is the " burial-place of Galatea. It was necessary, therefore, to take off the force of this strong piece of evidence. Nothing is more clear, say the advocates for this hypothesis ; the oxen yoked by the neck are the friars of the convent, tliefratres minor es, quiferunt jugum obedientia, laboris et religionis ; the dogs guarding the door are the same friars, both dogs and oxen , who may well be termed dogs, because they bark so much in their sermons ; frequentes vigilias canum, pradicantium scilicet et latrantium.

Carpe mam hacparte guts ducet wos ad locum Fratrum minorum, quia ibi videbis sepulcrum Lau- retee: Carpe viam hac parte qua tu videbis, Colla bourn nodata capistris, id est Fratrum minorum gui ferunt jugum obediently laboris et religionis: Ergo aspice quia Me est Laureta, arnica Petrarca, qua natura wi- hil creavit pulchrius, nisi amor noster fallat. The Abbe de Sade remarks upon this, that M. The Abbe de Sade endeavours to prove, that the mistress of Petrarch was Laura de Noves, the daughter of Audibert de Noves, a gentleman of noble birth in Pro- vence ; that she was'born at Avignon, in or ; that she was married, in , to Hiigh de Sade, the representa- tive of a very ancient and honourable fa- mily in the territory of Avignon, to whom phe bore eleven children; that she died at Avignon, in the year , and was in- terred in the burial-place of the house of Sade, in the Church of the Cordeliers in that city.

The evidence of these latter facts we have already seen. It is clear, positive, and unambiguous. It might, therefore, be sufficient to rest the matter here without farther argument ; for an hypothesis must fall of itself, when the main props, on which it is built are demolished. But I am tempted to go a great deal farther: The opinion that she was connected with it by marriage, was never entertained by any one of the family, till v it found its origin in the whimsical vanity of this author of the Memoires, the Abbe de Sade, who has endeavoured, in this ela- borate work, to convince the world, that he himself is actually sprung from the body of the illustrious Laura.

That she was a daughter of the house of Sade, had been a tradition, though, as we have seen, a very ill-founded one, for some centuries. Now we are certain," adds Velu- tello, " that Petrarch's Laura died in the " year At this time, therefore, when it may be presumed the relation in which this celebrated person stood to their house, if there was any truth in it at all, must have been better known than it is now, we find there is not the smallest idea of that hypothe- sis, which the learned Abbe is so anxi- ous to establish, namely, that she was connected with his family by marriage.

Instead of being the wife of a M. One should have naturally imagined, that this gentleman, so proud of his an- cestry, might have remained content with that portion of renown which appears to have satisfied his forefathers, the attribu- ting to their house, the honour of having produced this illustrious lady.

On the contrary, a ri- gid moralist would infallibly decide, that more real honour accrued to a family from having produced the pure, the chaste, the coy, the maiden Laura, the model of female dignity and propriety, the object of an ardent, but virtuous affection to the most illustrious character of the age; than from having acquired by marriage, a con- nection with a lady, who, whatever were her personal charms, had no title to the praise of exalted virtue, or of true female dignity; who, while joined in wedlock to a respectable husband, and the mother of eleven children, continued for above twen- ty years, to put in practice every artifice of a finished coquette, to ensnare the affec- tion, and keep alive the passions, of a gal- lant, whose attachment, from the celebri- OF PETRARCH.

I must indeed acknowledge, that these notions are drawn from a system of morals with which the Abbe de Sade and most of his countrymen are but very little ac- quainted. I know that, in the opinion of most Frenchmen, a handsome married woman derogates not in the slightest de- gree from the rules either of virtue or of strict propriety, while she amuses her- self with the gallant attentions of all the young men of her acquaintance ;?

Petrarch besieged her with ardent and importunate solicita- tions, which had for their object the or- dinary rewards of a lover. She never ac- tually dishonoured her husband's bed; but she made no scruple to avow to her lover that her heart was sensible to his flame; though at times she found it ne- cessary to feign a rigour and coldness of demeanour, in order the better to keep speaking of Avignon, he says: I talked, sang, whistled; but it was all a rather hollow effort, and soon ceased. The great house looked gloomy and impenetrable, the moonlight appeared sick and sad, the birch-boughs rustled in a dreary way.

We went up the steps in no jubilant mood. I crossed the piazza at once, looked in at the farthest window, and saw there my own image, though far more faintly than in the sunlight. Severance then joined me, and his reflected shape stood by mine. Something of the first ghostly impression was renewed, I must confess, by this meeting of the two shadows; there was something rather awful in the way the bodiless things nodded and gesticulated at each other in silence.

Still, there was nothing more than this, as Severance was compelled to own; and I was trying to turn 4. It was, as I fancied, that of a woman, but was totally enveloped in a very full cloak, reaching to the ground, with a peculiarly cut hood, that stood erect and seemed half as long as the body of the garment. I had a vague recollection of having seen some such costume in a picture. Of course, I dashed round the corner of the house, threaded the birch-trees, and stood on the eastern piazza.

No one was there. Without losing an instant, I ran to the garden wall and climbed it, as Severance had done, to look into Paul's cottage. That worthy was just getting into bed, in a state of complicated deshabille, his blackbearded head wrapped in an old scarlet handkerchief that made him look like a retired pirate in reduced circumstances. He being accounted for, I vainly traversed the shrubberies, returned to the western piazza, watched awhile uselessly, and went home with Severance, a good deal puzzled.

That I had seen the figure there was no doubt. It was not a reflected image, for we had no companion. It was, then, human. After all, thought I, it is a commonplace thing enough, this masquerading in a cloak and hood. Some one has observed Severance's nocturnal visits, and is amusing himself at his expense. The peculiarity was, that the thing was so well done, and the figure had such an air of dignity, that somehow it was not so easy to make light of it in talking with him.

I went into his room, next day. His sickheadache, or whatever it was, had come on again, and he was lying on his bed. Rutherford's strange old book on the Second Sight lay open before him. But Severance did not seem to enjoy. For several days after he was laid up in earnest; but instead of getting any mental rest from this, he lay poring over that preposterous book, and it really seemed as if his brain were a little disturbed. Meanwhile I watched the great house, day and night, sought for footsteps, and, by some odd fancy, took frequent observations on the gardener and his wife.

Failing to get any clew, I waited one day for Paul's absence, and made a call upon the wife, under pretence of hunting up a missing handkerchief,- for she had been my laundress. I found the handsome, swarthy creature, with her six bronzed children around her, training up the Madeira vine that made a bower of the whole side of her little, black, gambrel-roofed cottage. On learning my errand, she became full of sympathy, and was soon emptying her bureau-drawers in pursuit of the lost handkerchief. As she opened the lowest drawer, I saw within it something which sent all the blood to my face for a moment.

It was a black cloth cloak, with a stiff hood two feet long, of precisely the pattern worn by the. I turned almost fiercely upon her; but she looked so innocent as she stood there, caressing and dusting with her fingers what was evidently a pet garment, that it was really impossible to denounce her. Here broke in the eldest boy, named John, aged ten, a native American, and a sailor already, whom I had twice fished up from a capsized punt. Portegees wear them hoods. As she spoke, she dropped it with a cry, and a little mouse sprang from the skirts, and whisked away into some corner.

We found that the little animal had made its abode in the heavy woollen,. This contained, moreover, a small family of mouselets, who certainly had not taken part in any midnight masquerade. The secret seemed more remote than ever, for I knew that there was no other Portuguese family in the town, and there was no confounding this peculiar local costume with any other. Returning to Severance's chamber, I said nothing of all this. He was, by an odd coincidence, looking over a portfolio of Fayal sketches made by himself during his late voyage.

Among them were a dozen studies of just such capotes as I had seen,-some in profile, completely screening the wearer, others disclosing women's faces, old or young. He seemed to wish to put them away, however, when I came in.

Really, the plot seemed to thicken; and it was a little provoking to understand it no better, when all the materials seemed close to one's hands. A day or two later, I was summoned to Boston. Returning thence by the stage-coach, we drove from Tiverton, the whole length of the island, un.

The heavens were filled with ten thousand separate masses of cloud, varying in shade from palest gray to iron-black, borne rapidly to and fro by upper and lower currents of opposing wind. They seemed to be charging, retreating, breaking, recombining, with puffs of what seemed smoke, and a few wan sunbeams sometimes striking through for fire. Wherever the eye turned, there appeared some flying fragment not seen before; and yet in an hour this noiseless Antietarn grew still, and a settled leaden film overspread the sky, yielding only to some level lines of light where the sun went down.

Perhaps our driver was looking toward the sky more than to his own affairs, for, just as all this ended a wheel gave out, and we had to stop in Portsmouth for repairs. By the time we were again in motion, the changing wind had brought up a final thunder-storm, which broke upon us ere we reached our homes. It was rather an uncommon thing, so late in the season; for the lightning, like other brilliant visitors, usually appears.

The coach set me down at my own door, so soaked that I might have floated in. I peeped into Severance's room, however, on the way to my own. Strange to say, no one was there; yet some one had evidently been lying on the bed, and on the pillow lay the old book on the Second Sight, open at the very page which had so bewitched him and vexed me. I glanced at it mechanically, and when I came to the meaningless jumble, "In thunder two," a flash flooded the chamber, and a sudden fear struck into my mind.

Who knew what insane experiment might have come into that boy's head? With sudden impulse, I went down stairs, and found the whole house empty, until a stupid old woman, coming in from the wood-house with her apron full of turnips, told me that Severance had been missing since nightfall, after being for a week in bed, dangerously ill, and sometimes slightly delirious. The family had become alarmed, and were out with lanterns, in search of him. It was safe to say that none of theni had more. It was something, however, to know where to seek him.

Meeting two neighboring fishermen, I took them with me. As we approached the well-known wall, the blast blew out our lights, and we could scarcely speak. The lightning had grown less frequent, yet sheets of flame seemed occasionally to break over the dark, square sides of the house, and to send a flickering flame along the ridge-pole and eaves, like a surf of light. A surf of water broke also behind us on the Blue Rocks, sounding as if it pursued our very footsteps; and one of the men whispered hoarsely to me, that a Nantucket brig had parted her cable, and was drifting in shore.

As we entered the garden, lights gleamed in the shrubbery. To my surprise, it was Paul and his wife, with their two oldest children, -these last being quite delighted with the stir, and showing so much illumination, in the lee of the house, that it was quite a Feast of Lanterns. They seemed a little surprised at meeting us, too; but we might as well have talked from Point Judith to Beaver Tail as to have attempted conversation there. I therefore went inside, with Paul's household, leaving the fishermen without. Never shall I forget that search.

As we went from empty room to room, the thunder seemed rolling on the very roof, and the sharp flashes of lightning appeared to put out our lamps and then kindle them again. We traversed the upper regions, mounting by a ladder to the attic; then descended into the cellar and the wine-vault. The thorough bareness of the house, the fact that no bright-eyed mice peeped at us from their holes, no uncouth insects glided on the walls, no flies buzzed in the unwonted lamplight, scarcely a spider slid down his damp and trailing web,-all this seemed to enhance the mystery.

The vacancy was more dreary than desertion: We found ourselves speaking in whispers; the children kept close to their parents; we seemed to be chasing some awful Silence from room to room; and the last apartment, the great drawing-room, we really seemed loath to enter. The less the rest of the. Even as we entered, a blast of air from a broken pane extinguished our last light, and it seemed to take many minutes to rekindle it. As it shone once more, a brilliant lightningflash also swept through the window, and flickered and flickered, as if it would never have done. The eldest child suddenly screamed, and pointed with her finger, first to one great window and then to its opposite.

My eyes instinctively followed the successive directions; and the double glance gave me all I came to seek, and more than all. Outside the western window lay Severance, his white face against the pane, his eyes gazing across and past us, - struck down doubtless by the fallen tree, which lay across the piazza, and hid him from external view.

Opposite him, and seen through the eastern window, stood, statue-like, the hooded figure, but with the great capote thrown back, showing a sad, eager, girlish face, with dark eyes, and a good deal of black hair,- one of those faces of peasant beauty such as America never shows, -faces where ignorance is almost raised into re.

Contrasted with Severance's wild gaze, the countenance wore an expression of pitying forgiveness, almost of calm; yet it told of wasting sorrow and the wreck of a life. Gleaming lustrous beneath the lightning, it had a more mystic look when the long flash had ceased, and the single lantern burned beneath it, like an altar-lamp before a shrine.

I was too much alarmed about Severance to care for aught else, and quickly made my way to the western piazza, where I found him stunned by the fallen tree, -injured, I feared, internally,-still conscious, but unable to speak. With the aid of my two companions I got him home, and he was ill for several weeks before he died.

During his illness he told me all he had to tell; and though Paul and his family disappeared next day, perhaps going on board the Nantucket brig, which had narrowly escaped shipwreck,- I afterwards learned all the remaining. Severance, while convalescing at a country-house in Fayal, had fallen passionately in love with a young peasant-girl, who had broken off her intended marriage for love of him, and had sunk into a half-imbecile melancholy when deserted. She had afterwards come to this country, and joined her sister, Paul's wife.

Paul had received her reluctantly, and only on condition that her existence should be concealed. This was the easier, as it was one of her whims to go out only by night, when she had haunted the great house, which, she said, reminded her of her own island, so that she liked to wear thither the capote which had been the pride of her heart at home.

On the few occasions when she had caught a glimpse of Severance, he had seemed to her, no doubt, as much a phantom as she seemed to him. On the night of the storm, they had both sought their favorite haunt, unconscious of each other, and the friends of each had followed in alarm. I got traces of the family afterwards at Nantucket, and later at Narragansett, and had reason to think that Paul was employed, one summer, by a. The affair was hushed up, and very few, even among the neighbors, knew the tragedy that had passed by them with the storm.

After Severance died, I had that temporary feeling of weakened life which remains after the first friend or the first love passes, and the heart seems to lose its sense of infinity. His father came, and prosed, and measured the windows of the empty house, and calculated angles of reflection, and poured even death and despair into his crucible of commonplace; the mother whined in her feebler way at home; while the only brother, a talkative medical student, tried to pooh-pooh it all, and sent me a letter demonstrating that Emilia was never in America, and that the whole was an hallucination.

I cared nothing for his theory; it all seemed like a dream to me, and, as all the actors but myself are gone, it seems so still. The great house is yet unoccupied, and likely to remain so; and he who looks through its western window may still be startled by the weird image of himself. This is the end of my story. If I sought for a moral, it would be hard to attach one to a thing so slight. It could only be this, that shadow and substance are always ready to link themselves, in unexpected ways, against the diseased imagination; and that remorse can make the most transparent crystal into a mirror for its sin.

T HE October days grow rapidly shorter, and brighten with more concentrated light. It is but half past five, yet the sun dips redly behind Conanicut, the sunset-gun booms from our neighbor's yacht, the flag glides down from his mainmast, and the slender pennant, running swiftly up the opposite halyards, dances and flickers like a flame, and at last perches, with dainty hesitation, at the mast-head. A tint of salmon-color, burnished into long undulations of lustre, overspreads the shallower waves; but a sober gray begins to steal in beneath the sunset rays, and will soon claim even the brilliant foreground for its own.

Pile a few more fragments of drift-wood upon the fire in the. You seem, in your scarlet boating-dress, Annie, like some bright tropic bird, alit for a moment beside that other bird of the tropics, flame. Thoreau thought that his temperament dated from an earlier period than the agricultural, because he preferred woodcraft to gardening; and it is also pleasant to revert to the period when men had invented neither saws nor axes, but simply picked up their fuel in forests or on ocean-shores.

Fire is a thing which comes so near us, and combines itself so closely with our life, that we enjoy it best when we work for it in some way, so that our fuel shall warm us twice, as the country people say, - once in the getting, and again in the burning. Yet no work seems to have more of the flavor of play in it than that of collecting drift-wood on some convenient beach, or than this boat-service of ours, Annie, when we go wandering from island to island in the harbor, and glide over sea-weed groves and the habitations of crabs, -or to the. Then we voyaged, you remember, to that further cave, in the solid rock, just above lowwater-mark, a cell unapproachable by land, and high enough for you to stand erect.

There you wished to play Constance in Marmion, and to be walled up alive, if convenient; but as it proved impracticable on that day, you helped me to secure some bits of drift-wood instead. Longer voyages brought waifs from remoter islands,- whose very names tell, perchance, the changing story of mariners long since wrecked, — isles baptized Patience and Prudence, Hope and Despair. And other relics bear witness of more distant beaches, and of those wrecks which still lie, sentinels of ruin, along Brenton's Point and Castle Hill.

To collect drift-wood is like botanizing, and one soon learns to recognize the prevailing species, and to look with pleased eagerness for new. It is a tragic botany indeed, where, as in enchanted gardens, every specimen has a voice, and, as you take each from the ground, you expect from it a cry. And from what a garden it comes! As one walks round Brenton's Point after an autumnal storm, it seems as if the passionate heaving of the waves had brought wholly new tints to the surface, hues unseen even in dreams before, greens and purples impossible in serener days.

These match the prevailing green and purple of the slate-cliffs; and Nature in truth carries such fine fitnesses yet further. For, as we tread the delicate seaside turf, which makes the farthest point seem merely the land's last bequest of emerald to the ocean, we suddenly come upon curved lines of lustrous purple amid the grass, rows on rows of bright muscle-shells, regularly traced as if a child had played there,- the graceful high-water-mark of the terrible storm. It is the crowning fascination of the sea, the consummation of such might in such infantine delicacy. You may notice it again in the summer, when our bay is thronged for miles on miles with inch-long jelly-fishes, - lovely creatures, in shape like disembodied gooseberries, and shot through and through in the sunlight with all manner of blue and golden glistenings, and bearing tiny rows.

There is less of gross substance in them than in any other created thing,- mere water and outline, destined to perish at a touch, but seemingly never touching, for they float secure, finding no conceivable cradle so soft as this awful sea. They are like melodies amid Beethoven's Symphonies, or like the songs that wander through Shakespeare, and that seem things too fragile to risk near Cleopatra's passion and Hamlet's woe. Thus tender is the touch of ocean; and look, how around this piece of oaken timber, twisted and torn and furrowed, —its iron bolts snapped across as if bitten, -there is yet twined a gay garland of ribbon-weed, bearing on its trailing stem a cluster of bright shells, like a mermaid's chatelaine.

Thus adorned, we place it on' the blaze. As night gathers without, the gale rises. It is a season of uneasy winds, and of strange, rainless storms, which perplex the fishermen, and indicate rough weather out at sea. As the house trembles and the windows rattle, we turn towards the fire with a feeling of safety.

Representing the fiercest of all dangers, it yet expresses security and comfort. There is a positive demonstrative force in an open fire, which makes it your fit ally in a storm. Settled and obdurate cold may well be encountered by the quiet heat of an invisible furnace. But this howling wind might depress one's spirits, were it not met by a force as palpable, —the warm blast within answering to the cold blast without.

The wide chimney then becomes the scene of contest: I know not how else we can meet the elements by a defiance so magnificent as that from this open hearth; and in burning drift-wood, especially, we turn against the enemy his own ammunition. For on these fragments three elements have already. Water racked and strained the hapless ships, air hunted them, and they were thrown at last upon earth, the sternest of all.

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Now fire takes the shattered remnants, and makes them a means of comfort and defence. It has been pointed out by botanists, as one of Nature's most graceful retributions, that, in the building of the ship, the apparent balance of vegetable forces is reversed, and the herb becomes master of the tree, when the delicate, blue-eyed flax, taking the stately pine under its protection, stretches over it in cordage, or spreads in sails. But more graceful still is this further contest between the great natural elements, when this most fantastic and vanishing thing, this delicate and dancing flame, subdues all these huge vassals to its will, and, after earth and air and water have done their utmost, comes in to complete the task, and to be crowned as monarch.

I come back from every evening stroll to this gleaming blaze; it is a domestic lamp, and shines for me everywhere. To my imagination it burns. I fancy that others too perceive the light, and that certain huge visitors are attracted, even when the storm keeps neighbors and friends at home. For the slightest presage of foul weather is sure to bring to yonder anchorage a dozen silent vessels, that glide up the harbor for refuge, and are heard but once, when the chain-cable rattles as it runs out, and the iron hand of the anchor grasps the rock. It always seems to me that these unwieldy creatures are gathered, not about the neighboring lighthouse only, but around our ingle-side.

Welcome, ye great winged strangers, whose very names are unknown! This hearth is comprehensive in its hospitalities; it will accept from you either its fuel or its guests; your mariners may warm themselves beside it, or your scattered timbers may warm me. Strange instincts might be supposed to thrill and shudder in the ribs of ships that sail toward the beacon of a drift-wood fire. A single shock, and all that magnificent fabric may become mere fuel to prolong the flame. Here, beside the roaring ocean, this blaze represents the only receptacle more vast than ocean. We say, " unstable as water.

It is the most tremendous physical force that man can use. See how thoroughly it does its work, even when domesticated: The Greek proverb says, that "the sea drinks up all the sins of the world. But its task is left incomplete: In the Norse Edda, when the gods try their games, they find themselves able to out-drink the ocean, but not to eat like the flame. Logi, or fire, licks up food and trencher and all. This chimney is more voracious than the sea. Give time enough, and all which yonder depths contain might pass through.

We recognize this when we have anything to conceal. Deep crimes are buried in earth, deeper are sunk in water, but the deepest of all are confided by trembling men to the profounder secrecy of flame. If every old chimney could narrate the fearful deeds whose last records it has cancelled, what sighs of undying passion would breathe from its dark summit, what groans of guilt! Those lurid sparks that whirl over yonder house-top, tossed aloft as if fire itself could not contain them, may be the last embers of some written scroll, one rescued word of which might suffice for the ruin of a household, and the crushing of many hearts.

But this domestic hearth of ours holds only, besides its drift-wood, the peaceful records of the day, - its shreds and fragments and fallen leaves. As the ancients poured wine upon their flames, so I pour rose-leaves in libation; and each morning contributes the faded petals of yesterday's wreaths.

All our roses of this season have passed up this chimney in the blaze. Their delicate veins were 5 G. For holding, with Bettina, that every flower which is broken becomes immortal in the sacrifice, I deem it more fitting that their earthly part should die by a concentration of that burning element which would at any rate be in some form their ending; so they have their altar on this bright hearth. Let us pile up the fire anew with drift-wood, Annie. We can choose at random; for our logs came from no single forest. It is considered an important branch of skill in the country to know the varieties of firewood, and to choose among them well.

But to-night we have the whole Atlantic shore for our wood-pile, and the Gulf Stream for a teamster. Every foreign tree of rarest name may, for aught we know, send its treasures to our hearth.

Logwood and satinwood may mingle with cedar and maple; the old cellarfloors of this once princely town are of mahogany, and why not our fire? I have a very indistinct impression what teak is; but if it means something black and impenetrable and nearly in. It must be owned, indeed, that timbers soaked long enough in salt-water seem almost to lose their capacity of being burnt.

Perhaps it was for this reason that, in the ancient "lyke-wakes" of the North of England, a pinch of salt was placed upon the dead body, as a safeguard against purgatorial flames. Yet salt melts ice, and so represents heat, one would think; and one can fancy that these fragments should be doubly inflammable, by their saline quality, and by the unmerciful rubbing which the waves have given them.

I have noticed what warmth this churning process communicates to the clotted foam that lies in tremulous masses among the rocks, holding all the blue of ocean in its bubbles. After one's hands are chilled with the water, one can warm them in the foam. These drift-wood fragments are but the larger foam of shipwrecks. What strange comrades this flame brings together!

As foreign sailors from remotest seas may sit and chat side by side, before some boardinghouse fire in this seaport town, so these shapeless. It is written in the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma, that, "as two planks, floating on the surface of the mighty receptacle of the waters, meet, and having met are separated forever, so do beings in this life come together and presently are parted.

And with what wondrous voices these strayed wanderers talk to one another on the hearth! They bewitch us by the mere fascination of their language. Such a delicacy of intonation, yet such a volume of sound. The murmur of the surf is not so soft or so solemn. There are the merest hints and traceries of tones,- phantom voices, more remote from noise than anything which is noise; and yet there is an undertone of roar, as from a thousand cities, the cities whence these wild voyagers came.

Watch the decreasing sounds of a fire as it dies, - for it seems croel to leave it, as we do, to die alone. I watched beside this hearth last night. As the fire sank down, the little voices. Then it said, " Hush I" two or three times, and there came something so like a sob that it seemed human; and then all was still. If these dying voices are so sweet and subtile, what legends must be held untold by yonder fragmnents that lie unconsumed!

Photography has familiarized us with the thought that every visible act, since the beginning of the world, has stamped itself upon surrounding surfaces, even if we have not yet skill to discern and hold the image. And especially, in looking on a liquid expanse, such as the ocean in calm, one is haunted with these fancies.

I gaze into its depths, and wonder if no stray reflection has been imprisoned there, still accessible to human eyes, of some scene of passion or despair it has witnessed; as some maiden visitor at Holyrood Palace, looking in the ancient metallic mirror, might start at the thought that perchance some lineament of Mary Stuart may suddenly look out, in desolate and forgotten beauty, mingled with.

And if the mere waters of the ocean, satiate and wearied with tragedy as they must be, still keep for our fancy such records, how much more might we attribute a human consciousness to these shattered fragments, each seared by its own special grief. Yet while they are silent, I like to trace back for these component parts of my fire such brief histories as I share. This block, for instance, came from the large schooner which now lies at the end of Castle Hill Beach, bearing still aloft its broken masts and shattered rigging, and with its keel yet stanch, except that the stern-post is gone, - so that each tide sweeps in its green harvest of glossy kelp, and then tosses it in the hold like hay, desolately tenanting the place which once sheltered men.

The floating weed, so graceful in its own place, looks but dreary when thus confined. They tried to beat into the. Twice they tacked across, making no progress; and then, to save their lives, ran the vessel on the rocks and got ashore. After they had left her, a higher wave swept her off, and drifted her into a little cove, where she has ever since remained. There were twelve wrecks along this shore last winter, - more than during any season for a quarter of a century. I remember when the first of these lay in great fragments on Graves Point, a schooner having been stranded on Cormorant Rocks outside, and there broken in pieces by the surf.

She had been split lengthwise, and one great side was leaning up against the sloping rock, bows on, like some wild sea-creature never before beheld of men, and come there but to die. So strong was this impression that when I afterwards saw men at work upon the wreck, tearing out the iron bolts and chains, it seemed like torturing the last moments of a living thing.

At my next visit there was no person in sight; another companion fragment had. A little farther on there was a brig ashore and deserted. A fog came in from the sea; and, as I sat by the graves, some unseen passing vessel struck eight bells for noon. For a moment I fancied that it came from the empty brig, - a ghostly call, to summon phantom sailors. That smouldering brand, which has alternately gleamed and darkened for so many minutes, I brought from Price's Neck last winter, when the Brenton's Reef Light-ship went ashore.

Yonder the oddly shaped vessel rides at anchor now, two miles from land, bearing her lanterns aloft at fore and main top. She parted her moorings by night, in the fearful storm of October 19, ; and I well remember, that, as I walked through the streets that wild evening, it seemed dangerous to be out of doors, and I tried to imagine what was going on at sea, while at that very moment the light-ship was driving on toward me in the darkness.

It was thus that it happened:. Beginning about three o'clock, this new wind had risen almost to a hurricane by six, and held with equal'fury till midnight, after which it greatly diminished, though, when I visited the wreck next morning, it was hard to walk against the blast. The light-ship went adrift at eight in the evening; the men let go another anchor, with forty fathoms of cable; this parted also, but the cable dragged, as she drifted in, keeping the vessel's head to the wind, which was greatly to her advantage.

The great waves took her over five lines of reef, on each of which her keel grazed or held for a time. She came ashore on Price's Neck at last, about eleven. It was utterly dark; the sea broke high over the ship, even over her lanterns, and the crew could only guess that they were near the land by the sound of the surf. The captain was not on board, and the mate was in command, though his leg had been broken while holding the tiller.

There seemed every chance that the ship would go to pieces before daylight. At last one of the crew, named William Martin, a Scotchman, thinking, as he afterwards told me, of his wife and three children, and of the others on board who had families - and that something must be done, and he might as well do it as anybody, - got a rope bound around his waist, and sprang overboard.

I asked the mate next day whether he ordered Martin to do this, and he said, "No, he volunteered it. I would not have ordered him, for I would not have done it myself.

His trust was repaid. Struggling in the mighty surf, he sometimes felt the rocks beneath his feet, sometimes bruised his hands against them. At any rate he got on shore alive, and, securing his rope, made his way over the moors to the town, and summoned his captain, who was asleep in his own house. They returned at once to the spot, found the line still.

When I saw the vessel next morning, she lay in a little cove, stern on, not wholly out of water, — steady and upright as in a dry-dock, with no sign of serious injury, except that the rudder was gone. She did not seem like a wreck; the men were the wrecks. As they lay among the rocks, bare or tattered, scarcely able to move, waiting for low tide to go on board the vessel, it was like a scene after a battle.

They appeared too inert, poor fellows, to do anything but yearn toward the sun. When they changed position for shelter, from time to time, they crept along the rocks, instead of walking. They were like the little floating sprays of sea-weed, when you take them from the water and they become a mere mass of pulp in your hand. Martin shared in the general exhaustion, and no wonder; but he told his story very simply, and showed me where he had landed. Citations are based on reference standards.

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