PETRARCH. THE traveller between Rome and Florence, by the Per ugia road, usually makes a noon-halt at Arezzo; and the ragged urchins of that decayed town, press eagerly around him and vociferously contend for the honour of being his guide to the house of Petrarch. In a few moments he stands before a homely, grey building, in a narrow and rude thoroughfare, upon the front of which is a marble tablet that proclaims it to be the humble dwelling where the poet was born, July 20th, 1304. An incident like this is apt to give an almost magical impulse to the wanderer's thoughts. As he proceeds on his way through a lonely country, over which broods the mellow atmosphere of the South, he is long haunted by the tale of human love thus vividly recalled to his memory. He muses, perhaps, with delight and wonder, upon the celestial power of genius which can thus preserve for the reverence and sympathy of after generations, one among the countless experiences of the heart. Literature has performed no more holy or delightful tasks than those dedicated to Affection. The minds are few that can bring home to themselves, with any cordial or benign effect, either the lessons of history or the maxims of philosophical wisdom. Uncommon clearness and strength of intellect are necessary in order to appropriate such teachings. But the heart, with its ardent impulses and divine instincts—its pleadings for sympathy, its tender regrets, its insatiable |