The private memorandum,[37] written in the manuscript Virgil, of this extraordinary man, which is shown in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, may be considered as expressing his most undisguised feelings, as excited by an event which dissolves trifling attachments, while it gives permanence to those of a genuine nature. It was probably intended for no eye but his own. I annex as literal a translation as possible, and from the beauty and ease of their latinity, have been tempted to precede it with the original words. [Footnote 37: I had procured this document from Milan, and translated it for the press, previous to reading the version of it which is given in the Quarterly.] "Laura, propriis virtutibus illustris, et meis longum celebrata carminibus, primum oculis meis apparuit sub primum adolescentiae meae tempus, anno Domini 1327, die 6 mensis Aprilis, in ecclesia sanctae Clarae Avinioni, hora matutina. Et in eadem civitate, eodem mense Aprilis, eodem die 6, eadem hora prima, anno autem Domini 1348, ab hac luce lux illa subtracta est, cum ego forte Veronae essem, heu fati mei nescius! Rumor autem infelix, per literas Ludovici mei, me Parmae reperit, anno eodem, mense Maii, die mane. "Corpus illud castissimum ac pulcherrimum in loco Fratrum Minorum repositum est ipsa die mortis ad vesperam. Animam quidem ejus, ut de Africano ait Seneca, in coelum, unde erat, rediisse, mihi persuadeo. "Haec autem, ad acerbam rei memoriam, amara quadam dulcedine scribere visum est; hoc potissimum loco, qui saepe sub oculis meis redit, ut cogitem nihil esse debere quod amplius mihi placeat in hac vita, et effracto majori laqueo, tempus esse de Babylone fugiendi, crebra horum inspectione, ac fugacissimae aetatis aestimatione, commonear. Quod, praevia Dei gratia, facile erit, praeteriti temporis curas supervacuas, spes inanes, et inexpectatos exitus acriter ac viriliter cogitanti." "Laura, illustrious for her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, first appeared to my eyes, in the time of my early youth, on the morning of the sixth day of April, in the year of our Lord 1327, in the church of St. Clare at Avignon; and in the same month of April, on the same first hour of the morning, in the year of our Lord 1348, that light was removed from this light of day, while I by chance was at Verona, unconscious, alas! of my fate. The unhappy news, however, reached me at Parma, in a letter from my friend Ludovico, on the morning of the 19th of May. "Her most chaste and fair body was buried in the evening of the day of her death, in the convent of the Fratres Minores; but her soul, as Seneca saith of the soul of Africanus, hath returned, I am persuaded, to the heaven from whence it came.