[Illustration: Petrarch.]
July 15.--_Saint Swithin._--Swithin, or Swithum, was a bishop of
Winchester who died in 868. He was, if the tradition connected with his
memory is to be believed, a man of sense; for he was above observing one
of the vain distinctions which exist even in our own day. He desired
that he might be buried in the open church-yard, instead of the chancel
of the minster, where the great reposed; and Bishop Hall adds, that he
wished his body to be laid “where the drops of rain might wet his grave;
thinking that no vault was so good to cover his grave as that of
heaven.” This was a wise and a Christian wish; for assuredly the desire
that the worthless body shall be entombed beneath the sacred aisles
where the living come to elevate their thoughts with the hopes of
immortality, is a poor clinging of the soul to the perishable garment
with which it is clothed. The wish of Swithin that his ashes should
speedily mingle with the elements, and that the rains of heaven should
water his grave, showed a humble and a truly religious mind. His monks,
says the tradition, thought more highly of worldly distinctions; and
therefore, upon the good bishop being canonized, resolved to remove his
body from the common cemetery into the choir of their church. This was
to have been done on the 15th of July; but it rained so violently for
forty days that the design was abandoned. Mr. Howard, in his interesting
work on the Climate of London, says, “The tradition is so far valuable
as it proves that the summers in this southern part of our island were
subject a thousand years ago to occasional heavy rains, in the same way
as at present.” The popular superstition connected with St. Swithin’s
day is expressed in a Scotch proverb:--
“Saint Swithin’s day, gif ye do rain,
For forty days it will remain;
Saint Swithin’s day, an ye be fair,
For forty daies ’twill rain nae mair.”
Mr. Howard has taken some pains to ascertain how far the popular notion
is borne out by the fact. In 1807, according to him, it rained with us
on the day in question, and a dry time followed; and the same in 1808.
In 1818 and 1819 it was dry on the 15th, and a very dry time in each
case followed. The other summers, occurring between 1807 and 1819,
appear to have come under the general proposition, “that in a majority
of our summers, a showery period, which, with some latitude as to time
and local circumstances, may be admitted to constitute daily rain for
forty days, does come on about the time indicated by the tradition of
St. Swithin.”
July 20.--The birth-day of FRANCIS PETRARCH, one of the three renowned
fathers of the literature of modern Italy. He was born in 1304, at
Arezzo, in the Florentine territory, the same district which had the
glory of giving birth to his immediate predecessor Dante, and also to
the other member of the illustrious trio, his contemporary and friend
Boccaccio. Petrarch’s father had been a notary in the city of Florence,
but had, like Dante, been banished some time before the birth of his son
in consequence of one of the political convulsions then so frequent.
Being intended by his father for his own profession, he was sent to
study first at Montpellier and afterwards at Bologna; but he soon became
deeply smitten with the charms of the newly-revived literature of
antiquity, Virgil and Cicero stealing most of the hours which were
professedly devoted to more rugged pages. His father is related to have
been so much displeased on discovering how his son employed his time,
that he took his favourite authors from him and threw them into the
fire. This severity, however, failed to make a lawyer of Petrarch. His
father died when he was about two and twenty, and he immediately
abandoned the law altogether. He then chose the church for his
profession; but he never was ordained, although in the latter part of
his life some valuable clerical preferments were bestowed upon him by
the patrons whom he had gained by his poetical fame. The remainder of
Petrarch’s life took much of its colour from an incident which happened
to him in his twenty-seventh year, his meeting at Avignon, in Provence,
with the celebrated Laura, whose name he has rendered in so many
beautiful verses as immortal as his own. After the researches of a long
succession of biographers and critics, all is still uncertainty as to
who or what this lady really was. Many have even believed that Petrarch
spent his life in pouring out his passionate rhymes to a mere ideal
being, or vision of his imagination. The same obscurity hangs over the
very existence of Laura as over that of Dante’s Beatrice. Several
succeeding years were spent by the poet in wandering through Italy and
other countries. He then retired to Vaucluse, a solitary retreat not far
from Avignon, and it was during several studious years which he spent
there that he composed his principal works. The most memorable event of
his life after this was his coronation, in 1340, as poet-laureat in the
Capitol of Rome. “Twelve patrician youths,” says Gibbon, “were arrayed
in scarlet; six representatives of the most illustrious families, in
green robes, with garlands of flowers, accompanied the procession; in
the midst of the princes and nobles, the senator, Count of Anguillara, a
kinsman of the Colonna, ascended the throne; and at the voice of a
herald, Petrarch arose. After discoursing on a text of Virgil, and
thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity of Rome, he knelt before
the throne, and received from the senator a laurel crown, with a more
precious declaration, ‘This is the reward of merit.’ The people shouted,
‘Long life to the Capitol and the Poet!’ A sonnet in praise of Rome was
accepted as the effusion of genius and gratitude; and after the whole
procession had visited the Vatican, the profane wreath was suspended
before the shrine of St. Peter. In the diploma which was presented to
Petrarch, the title and prerogatives of poet-laureat are revived in the
Capitol, after the lapse of thirteen hundred years; and he receives the
perpetual privilege of wearing, at his choice, a crown of laurel, ivy or
myrtle, of assuming the poetic habit, and of teaching, disputing,
interpreting, and composing, in all places whatsoever, and on all
subjects of literature. The grant was ratified by the authority of the
Senate and people, and the character of citizen was the recompense of
his affection for the Roman name.” After these honours he made other
journeys to different parts of Italy, and also to Paris, in 1360, where
he was received with great distinction. An archdeaconry in the church of
Parma, a priory in the diocese of Pisa, and a canonry at Padua, were
also bestowed upon him, as more substantial rewards of his merit and
attestations of the public admiration. Our own Chaucer is supposed to
have met with Petrarch either in 1368, at the marriage of Lionel Duke of
Clarence with the daughter of the Duke of Milan, or more probably in the
beginning of the year 1373, when he is supposed to have gone on an
embassy to Genoa. At this interview Petrarch is thought to have
communicated to the English poet the beautiful and pathetic tale of
Griselda, which he had recently received from his friend Boccaccio, and
had translated from the latter’s Italian into Latin. This translation,
which Warton, in his History of English Poetry, inadvertently affirms
never to have been printed, may be found in several of the old folio
editions of Petrarch’s works. Petrarch, in a letter to Boccaccio, tells
us, says Warton; “that on showing the translation to one of his Paduan
friends, the latter, touched with the tenderness of the story, burst
into such frequent and violent fits of tears, that he could not read to
the end.”
Petrarch spent the last four years of his life at the beautiful mountain
village of Arquà, about twelve miles from Padua; and here he died
suddenly, in all probability of apoplexy, on the 19th of July, 1374,
having just completed his seventieth year. He was found that morning in
his library, with his head resting on a book. Here, too, his remains
were deposited and are still preserved. Many of our readers will
remember Lord Byron’s fine lines on this subject:--
“There is a tomb in Arquà;--reared in air,
Pillared in their sarcophagus, repose
The bones of Laura’s lover: here repair
Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose
To raise a language, and his land reclaim
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes:
Watering the tree which bears his lady’s name
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.
“They keep his dust in Arquà, where he died;
The mountain-village, where his latter days
Went down the vale of years; and ’tis their pride--
An honest pride--and let it be their praise,
To offer to the passing stranger’s gaze
His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain
And venerably simple, such as raise
A feeling more accordant with his strain
Than if a pyramid formed his monumental fame.
“And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
Is one of that complexion which seems made
For those who their mortality have felt,
And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed
In the deep umbrage of a green hill’s shade,
Which shows a distant prospect far away
Of busy cities, now in vain displayed,
For they can lure no further; and the ray
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday.”
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