The tranquillity of solitude, however, may, to a mind disposed to resign itself with humility to all the dispensations of heaven, be found not disadvantageous to the perturbations of love. A lover whom death has bereaved of the dear object of his affection, seeks only those places which his favorite inhabited; considers every other as desert and forlorn; and expects that death alone is able to stop the torrent of his tears. Such an indulgence of sorrow, however, cannot be called a resignation to the will of God. A lover of this description is attached solely to the irrecoverable object of his increasing sorrows. His distracted mind fondly hopes that she may still return; he thinks he hears her soft enchanting voice in every breeze; he sees her lovely form approaching, and opens his expecting arms to clasp her once again to his still throbbing breast. But he finds, alas! his hopes are vain: the fancy-breathing form eludes his grasp, and convinces him that the delightful vision was only the light and love-formed phantom of his sorrow-sickened mind. A sad remembrance of her departed spirit is the only comfort of his lingering life: he flies to the tomb where her mortal remains were deposited, plants roses round her shrine, waters them with his tears, cultivates them with the tenderest care, kisses them as emblems of her blushing cheeks, and tastes, with sighing transports, their balmy fragrance as the fancied odor of her ruby lips. It must afford infinite pleasure to every philosophic mind, to reflect on the victory which the virtuous Petrarch gained over the passion that assailed his heart. During his retreat into Italy from love and Laura, his friends in France used every endeavor to induce him to return. One of them wrote to him:--“What demon possesses you;--How could you quit a country in which you indulged all the propensities of youth, and where the graceful figure which you formerly adorned with so much care, procured you such unbounded admiration?--How can you live thus exiled from Laura, whom you love with so much tenderness, and whose heart is so deeply afflicted by your absence?”