Europe, and which is described by Boccaccio in the introduction to the
Decameron. The second half of the Canzoniere is the monument of his
glorious sorrow; which is however more calmly, and, to the apprehensions
of many, more convincingly expressed, in the pathetic note to his own
MS. of Virgil, now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It would be unjust
to him not to relate this event in his own words. “Laura, illustrious
for her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, was seen by me
for the first time in my early manhood, in the year 1327, April 6, at
six in the morning, in the church of S. Clara, at Avignon. In the same
city, in the same month of April, on the same sixth day, and at the same
hour, in 1348, this light was taken from the world, while I was at
Verona, alas! ignorant of my unhappy lot. The melancholy news reached me
in a letter from my friend Louis: it found me at Parma the same year,
May 19, in the morning. That body, so chaste, so fair, was laid in the
church of the Minor Friars on the evening of the day of her death. Her
soul, I doubt not, is returned, as Seneca says of Scipio Africanus, to
heaven, whence it came. To preserve the grievous memory of this loss, I
write this with a sort of pleasure mixed with bitterness; and I write by
choice upon this book, which often comes before my eyes, that hereafter
there may be nothing for me to delight in in this life, and that, my
strongest chain being broken, I may be reminded by the frequent sight of
these words, and by the just appreciation of a fugitive life, that it is
time to go forth from Babylon; which, by the help of God’s grace, will
become easy to me by vigorous and bold contemplation of the needless
cares, the vain hopes, the unexpected events which have agitated me
during the time I have spent on earth.” The authenticity of this note
has been contested: to us it bears internal evidence of being genuine,
not merely in the unpretending pathos of the conclusion, but in the
minuteness of the earlier details. It is the luxury of grief to connect
the memory of the dead with our thoughts, and employments, and even
abodes at the moment of their death; and the pen of the literary forger
is not likely to trace so simple and unpretending a statement.
The jubilee of 1350 led Petrarch again to Rome. When he passed through
Arezzo, the principal citizens of the town led him with pride to the
house in which he was born; declaring that nothing had been changed
there, and that the municipal authorities had enforced this scrupulous
respect for the great poet’s birth-place by injunctions to the
successive proprietors of the mansion. Not long afterwards, Boccaccio,
his friend and his compeer in the great literary triumvirate of Italy,
came to him at Padua, to announce in the name of the senate at Florence
that he was restored to his rights of citizenship, and to offer him the
superintendence of the recently established university. Petrarch did not
accept the proposal. Twice in the course of his remaining life his name
is found connected with great events. Admitted to the counsels of Gian
Visconti, he accepted the mission of reconciling the republic of Genoa,
which had yielded to that prince, with the state of Venice, elated by
recent victories. But Petrarch was destined to be unsuccessful as a
statesman. This embassy had no effect; nor were his subsequent efforts
to infuse into the mind of Charles IV. the lessons of magnanimity, when
that weak and avaricious emperor entered Italy, more beneficial either
to Charles or to his country. Once, however, when employed by Galeazzo
Visconti in a subsequent mission to the same prince, he was able to
dissuade him from recrossing the Alps: unless we suppose that the
distracted state of Germany had more to do with keeping the emperor at
home, than the eloquence of the poet, or the skill of the politician.
The second plague in 1362 deprived the now aged poet of the few early
friends who remained to him, Azo of Correggio, and the two who in his
letters are usually denominated Lælius and Socrates, and had, like
himself, been intimate with Jacopo Colonna. He was then resident in
Venice; where, in 1363, Boccaccio came to visit him in company with
Leontius Pilatus of Thessalonica, who had instructed the Florentine
novelist in Greek. At a former period Petrarch had commenced the study
of that language under a Grecian monk named Barlaam; and though now
sixty years of age, he returned to the task with enthusiasm and with
perseverance. He was hospitably and honourably received by the republic,
to which he presented his valuable collection of manuscripts.
After some more adventures and wanderings the old man fixed his
residence at Arquà, a village situated on the Euganean hills, at four
leagues distance from Padua. Here he led a life of abstinence and study,
reposing from the toilsome vicissitudes to which he had been subjected,
but not from his thirst for knowledge and desire of glory. His last
years were solaced by his intimacy with Boccaccio, who seemed to supply
the place of those numerous and valued early friends whom he had
survived, and by the filial attentions of his daughter Francesca. The
last important act of his life was his appearance before the Senate of
Venice, in behalf of Francesco of Carrara, who had been forced to
conclude a humiliating peace with the republic in 1373. It is said that
he was so much awed by the majesty of the assembly, that on the first
day on which he appeared before it, he was unable to deliver his
address. The next day he recovered his spirits, or more probably his
strength, and his speech in behalf of Carrara was loudly applauded. He
returned to his retirement in a failing state of health, and his
complaints were aggravated by imprudence, and disregard of medical
advice. July 18, 1374, he was found dead in his library, his head
resting on an open book. A stroke of apoplexy had thus suddenly
terminated his life. All Padua assisted at his obsequies, and Francesco
of Carrara led the funeral pomp. A marble tomb, which still exists, was
raised to him before the door of the church of Arquà.
Such was the death and such the life of Francesco Petrarca, than whom
few men have exerted more influence over their own times; have
contributed more to form and polish the language of their native land;
or have given a more decided tone to the literature of succeeding
generations. This is not the place to enter into a minute analysis of
his merits as a poet. If he did not create the kind of poetry in which
he excelled, at least he carried it to perfection: if he could not save
his style from being disfigured by feeble imitators, at least he left it
in itself a noble work: if he did not avoid the false conceits and
strained illustrations, which at the rise of a new literature are almost
always found to possess irresistible attractions, he redeemed and even
ennobled them by strains of simple passion, imagination, and melody,
which will live as long as the language in which they are composed. His
Latin writings, on which he wished his reputation to rest, are now much
neglected. They are not indeed calculated for general reading; but they
are highly valuable as records of the time and of the man. His letters
form the most interesting, because the most personal, portion of them.
Few men have laid bare their hearts so completely as Petrarch. His
vanity, his dependence on the sympathy of others, led him to commit to
writing every incident of his life, every turn in the troubled course of
his feelings. But he gains rather than loses by this voluntary exposure.
His Christian faith and Christian principles of philosophy, however
swayed by occasional currents of passion, stand out beautifully amidst
the corruptions of that age. It is as impossible to rise from a perusal
of Petrarch’s poetry, and even more perhaps of his prose, without a
feeling of love for the man, as of admiration for the author.
In early life he was distinguished for beauty, of which he was himself
not insensible; for he left, in his ‘Letter to Posterity,’ a description
of his own person, which we quote from Ugo Foscolo’s translation.
“Without being uncommonly handsome, my person had something agreeable in
it in my youth. My complexion was a clear and lively brown; my eyes were
animated; my hair had grown grey before twenty-five, and I consoled
myself for a defect which I shared in common with many of the great men
of antiquity (for Cæsar and Virgil were grey-headed in youth), and I had
a venerable air, which I was by no means very proud of.” He was then
miserable, Foscolo continues, if a lock of his hair was out of order; he
was studious of ornamenting his person with the nicest clothes; and to
give a graceful form to his feet, he pinched them in shoes that put his
nerves and sinews to the rack. These traits are taken from his own
familiar letters.
The life and writings of Petrarch have been repeatedly illustrated at
great length. The ‘Petrarcha Redivivus’ of Tomasini; the voluminous
‘Mémoires sur Petrarque’ of the Abbé de Sade, who has taken up the
subject as a matter of family history; and the works of Tiraboschi and
Baldelli, are among the best authorities for our author’s history. To
the English, and indeed to every reader, we must recommend the ‘Essays
on Petrarch,’ by Ugo Foscolo; at the end of which there are some
exquisite translations by Lady Dacre. The most complete edition of
Petrarch’s works is the folio published at Bâsle in 1581. Among the
numerous editions of his Italian poems, we may particularize that of
Biagioli, 1822, as containing the notes of Alfieri; and that of Marsard,
printed at Padua, as distinguished alike for its correctness and beauty
of execution.
[Illustration: Tomb of Petrarch at Arquà.]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._
BURKE.
_From a Picture after Sir Joshua Reynolds
in the possession of T. H. Burke Esq^r._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]
[Illustration]
BURKE.
The six and thirty years which have elapsed since the death of Edmund
Burke are not sufficient to secure a right and impartial sentence on his
character. We are still within the heated temperature of the same
political agitations in which he lived and struggled. We are not,
perhaps our children will not be, qualified to judge him and his
contemporaries, with that calmness with which men weigh the merits of
things and persons who have exerted no perceptible influence over their
own times. It is fortunate, therefore, that the limits of this brief
memoir prescribe rather a succinct statement of unquestioned facts, than
a disputable adjudication between opposite opinions.
Edmund Burke, son of Richard Burke, an attorney in extensive practice in
Dublin, was born in that city, January 1, 1730. Of his early life little
is known with certainty. He appears to have distinguished himself at
Trinity College, Dublin, by his acquirements and talents, especially by
a decided taste and ability for the discussion of subjects relating to
English history and politics. His first literary effort of any
importance was made before he quitted that university, in some letters
directed against a factious writer called Lucas, at that time the
popular idol. These are not preserved. In 1750 he came to London, and
was entered a student of the Middle Temple. It is singular that the idle
rumour, expressly contradicted by himself, of his having completed his
education at St. Omer’s, should be still in some degree accredited by
the author of the article ‘Burke,’ in the Biographie Universelle.
Whether, in 1752 or 1753, he became a candidate for the chair of Logic
at Glasgow, is a more doubtful question: the opinions of Dugald Stewart
and Adam Smith, who took some pains to ascertain the truth, were in the
negative. It is certain, however, that the extraordinary talents of
Burke soon began to attract attention: he wrote in many political and
literary miscellanies, and formed an acquaintance with some
distinguished characters of the time. Among these should be mentioned
Lord Charlemont, Gerard Hamilton, Soame Jenyns, and somewhat later,
Goldsmith, Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, and Hume. His first avowed work, the
‘Vindication of Natural Society,’ was published in 1756, and excited
very general admiration. The imitation of Bolingbroke’s style in this
essay was so perfect, that some admirers of the deceased philosopher are
said to have overlooked the evident signs of irony, and to have believed
it to be a genuine posthumous work. This may appear strange; but it is
surely more strange, that forty years afterwards this ‘Vindication’
should have been republished by the French party, with a view of serving
democratic interests. Before the close of 1756, appeared the
‘Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful,’ which added largely to Burke’s reputation, and procured him
the valuable friendship of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Shortly afterwards, the
public attention being at that time much directed to the American
colonies, was published ‘An Account of the European Settlements in
America,’ of which Burke was probably not the sole, but the principal
author. It was much read, as well on the Continent as in England; and
indeed no inconsiderable portion of it has been incorporated into the
celebrated work of the Abbé Raynal. About this time Burke married the
daughter of Dr. Nugent, an intelligent physician, who had invited him to
his house while suffering under an illness, the result of laborious
application. This union was a source of uninterrupted comfort to him
through life. “Every care vanishes,” he was in the habit of saying,
“when I enter my own home.” A confined income, however, rendered
literary exertion still more indispensable to him than before: and in
1759 ‘The Annual Register,’ that most useful work, for many years
entirely composed by Burke, or under his immediate superintendence, was
undertaken by him in conjunction with Dodsley. At length, in 1765, with
the first Rockingham administration, he entered on a more extensive
sphere of action: being appointed private secretary to the Marquis of
Rockingham, through the recommendation of his friend Mr. Fitzherbert.
Coming now into Parliament as member for Wendover in Buckinghamshire,
Burke became an eminent supporter of the Whig party. The situation of
affairs was critical. Mr. Grenville’s stamp act, a fatal departure from
the policy on which the colonies had been previously governed, had
excited much discontent in America. A strong party, supported by the
evident favour of the court and the general feeling of the country,
urged the necessity of perseverance in this coercive policy. Lord
Chatham and his adherents no less strenuously denied the right of the
Imperial Legislature to impose taxes on America without her own consent.
The Rockingham Whigs adopted a middle course between these extremes.
They repealed the stamp act, declaring at the same time that the right
of taxation resided inalienably in Parliament. Their administration was
short-lived. Lord Chatham succeeded them in power, at the head of that
“dovetailed” cabinet which Burke has so admirably satirised in his
‘Speech on American Taxation.’ His influence was little more than
nominal, and in spite of it, schemes for raising a revenue in America
were soon revived. From these measures, the public attention was for a
short time diverted by the domestic agitation caused by the proceedings
against Wilkes, the disputed election in Middlesex, and the mysterious
letters of Junius. The shadow of that name was at the time believed by
many to rest on Burke: a supposition long since rejected, and supported
by scarce any evidence; though his power as a writer, and his known
facility in disguising his style, gave some degree of plausibility to
the supposition. In his own name, and without any disguise, he came
forward to attack the ministry of the Duke of Grafton, in a political
treatise, entitled, ‘Thoughts on the Present Discontents.’ This has been
termed the Whig Manual, and certainly contains the ablest exposition
ever given of the principles held by that party for a long series of
years. Shaken by this and other attacks, the Duke retired, and left the
state under the guidance of a minister, whose merits have been
overshadowed by the disastrous circumstances in which he was involved.
From this time commenced that long and brilliant opposition, which, from
a very low condition of numbers and influence, gradually worked its way
through the most momentous parliamentary struggles; and by a continued
display of powers the most accomplished, and union the most effective,
gained an ultimate victory, first over popular prepossessions, and then
over royal obstinacy. The court party were so inferior in eloquence and
genius, that their arguments are little remembered, while the speeches
of the Whigs are in every body’s hands. They felt the importance of the
contest deeply, or they would not have been animated to their
extraordinary exertions. But the wisest of them could not foresee the
prodigious extent of those consequences, which, within the duration of
their own lives, resulted from their endeavours. It was much for them to
look forward to the independence of America. What would it have been to
contemplate the spread of popular principles in Europe, and that mighty
revolution which has changed the balance of society? No member of the
opposition contributed so largely as Burke to their final triumph.
During the latter years of the war, indeed, his fame as a debater was
eclipsed by the rising genius of Charles Fox, to whom he willingly
yielded the office of leader of the Whig party. But the talents of Fox
had been trained and nourished by the wisdom of Burke; and in the
speeches published at different periods by the latter, on American
taxation [1774], and on conciliation with America [1775], and his Letter
to the Sheriffs of Bristol [1777], (written on the occasion of a
temporary secession of the Rockingham party from Parliament,) the
friends of freedom found a magazine of invaluable weapons. In 1774 Burke
was elected member of Parliament for Bristol; but six years afterwards
he was unable to procure his reelection for that borough, the people
being displeased with his recent votes in favour of Irish trade and of
the Roman Catholics. His popularity was in a great measure restored by
the famous Bill of Economical Reform, brought forward by him in 1782,
when paymaster of the forces under the second Rockingham ministry, after
the overthrow of Lord North. The death of the Marquis of Rockingham
produced a schism among the Whigs; Lord Shelburne was appointed his
successor, and the Rockingham division resigned their places. They soon
returned to them, by means of that strange junction of force with Lord
North, emphatically termed _The Coalition_, which raised a general cry
of indignation throughout the country. Burke always vindicated this
step, both at the time, and when the state of things which led to it had
long passed away; but it is generally supposed that he did not counsel
it, and was only induced to give in his adhesion by the urgent
entreaties of his political friends.
The celebrated East-India Bill, of which Burke is said to have been
partly the author, and upon which he pronounced one of his most
magnificent orations, was fatal to the coalition. William Pitt, called
at the age of twenty-four to occupy the first place in the counsels of
his sovereign, fought an arduous but finally victorious fight against
the Whig majority in the Commons. A dissolution followed; the new House
supported the new Ministers; and a second long period of Whig opposition
began, during which Fox was the acknowledged leader of the party, and
was warmly supported in that capacity by Burke. The most important event
of this second great division of Burke’s parliamentary life is
undoubtedly the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Throughout the long
debates on the accusations brought against the Governor of India, and
afterwards throughout the trial itself, which began in 1788 and was not
concluded until 1795, Burke was indefatigable. Never, perhaps, has
greater oratorical genius been displayed than by that combination of
great men who were appointed managers of the impeachment. Yet all their
efforts failed to establish their case on a secure foundation. History
still hesitates to decide with confidence on the guilt or innocence of
Hastings. It is agreed, however, that the violence of Burke’s
proceedings on this trial was often unworthy of the situation he held
and the cause he advocated. When with harsh tones and a look more
expressive of personal than political hatred he bade Mr. Hastings kneel
before the court, it is said that Fox whispered to his friends, “In that
moment I would rather have been Hastings than Burke.”