Petrarch, also a character I never contemplate but with increasing sensibility, formed his mind, and rendered it capable of transacting the most complicated political affairs, by the habit he acquired in solitude. He was, indeed, what persons frequently become in solitude, choleric, satirical, and petulant: and has been severely reproached with having drawn the manners of his age with too harsh and sombrous a pencil, particularly the scenes of infamy which were transacted at the court of Avignon, under the pontificate of Clement VI.; but he was a perfect master of the human heart, knew how to manage the passions with uncommon dexterity, and to turn them directly to his purposes. The abbe de Sades, the best historian of his life, says, “he is scarcely known, except as a tender and elegant poet, who loved with ardor, and sung, in all the harmony of verse, the charms of his mistress.” But was this in reality the whole of his character?--Certainly not. Literature, long buried in the ruins of barbarity, owes the highest obligations to his pen; he rescued some of the finest works of antiquity from dust and rottenness; and many of those precious treasures of learning, which have since contributed to delight and instruct mankind, were discovered by his industry, corrected by his learning and sagacity, and multiplied in accurate copies at his expense. He was the great restorer of elegant writing and true taste; and by his own compositions, equal to any that ancient Rome, previous to its subjugation, produced, purified the public mind, reformed the manners of the age, and extirpated the prejudices of the times. Pursuing his studies with unremitting firmness to the hour of his death, his last work surpassed all that had preceded it. But he was not only a tender lover, an elegant poet, and a correct and classical historian, but an able statesman also, to whom the most celebrated sovereigns of his age confided every difficult negotiation, and consulted in their most important concerns. He possessed, in the fourteenth century, a degree of fame, credit, and influence, which no man of the present day, however learned, has ever acquired. Three popes, an emperor, a sovereign of France, a king of Naples, a crowd of cardinals, the greatest princes, and the most illustrious nobility of Italy, cultivated his friendship, and solicited his correspondence. In the several capacities of statesman, minister, and ambassador, he was employed in transacting the greatest affairs, and by that means was enabled to acquire and disclose the most useful and important truths. These high advantages he owed entirely to solitude, with the nature of which as he was better acquainted than any other person, so he cherished it with greater fondness, and resounded its praise with higher energy; and at length preferred his leisure and liberty to all the enjoyments of the world. Love, to which he had consecrated the prime of life, appeared,