his fair favorites in choice Italian, he reserved his knowledge of the learned languages for subjects more serious and important. Nor did he permit the warmth of his constitution, or the sensibility of his heart, great and exquisite as they were, to debauch his mind, or betray him into the most trifling indiscretion, without feeling the keenest compunction and repentance. “I wish,” said he, “that I had a heart as hard as adamant, rather than be so continually tormented by such seducing passions.” The heart of this amiable young man, was, indeed, continually assailed by the crowd of beauties that adorned the papal court; and the power of their charms, and the facility with which his situation enabled them to enjoy his company, rendered him in some degree their captive; but, alarmed by the approaching torments and disquietudes of love, he cautiously avoided their pleasing snares, and continued, previous to the sight of his beloved Laura, to roam “free and unconquered through the wilds of love.” The practice of the civil law was at this period the only road to eminence at Avignon; but Petrarch detested the venality of the profession; and though he practised at the bar, and gained many causes by his eloquence, he afterwards reproached himself with it. “In my youth,” says he, “I devoted myself to the trade of selling words, or rather fabricating falsehoods; but that which we do against our own inclinations, is seldom attended with success; my fondness was for solitude, and therefore I attended the practice of the bar with aversion and disgust.” The secret consciousness however, which he entertained of his own merit, gave him all the confidence natural to youth; and, filling his mind with that lofty spirit which begets the presumption of being equal to the highest achievements, he relinquished the _bar_ for the _church_; but his inveterate hatred of the manners of the Episcopal court prevented his exertions, and retarded his promotion. “I have no hope,” said he, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, “of making my fortune in the court of the vicar of Jesus Christ; to accomplish that, I must assiduously attend the palaces of the great, and practise flattery, falsehood, and deceit.” A task of this kind was too painful to his feelings to perform; not because he either hated the society of men, or disliked advancement, but because he detested the means he must necessarily have used to gratify his ambition. Glory was his warmest wish, and he ardently endeavored to obtain it; not, indeed, by the ways in which it is usually obtained, but by delighting to walk in the most unfrequented paths, and of course, by retiring from the world. The sacrifices he made to solitude were great and important; but his mind and his heart were formed to enjoy the advantages it affords with a superior degree of delight; a happiness which resulted to him from his hatred of a profligate court, and from his love of liberty.