Petrarch replied: “Your anxiety is vain: I am resolved to continue where I am. I ride here safely at anchor; and all the hurricanes of eloquence shall never drive me from it. How then can you expect to persuade me to change this resolution, merely by placing before my eyes the deviations of my youth which I ought to forget; by describing an illicit passion which left me no other resource than a precipitate flight; and by extolling the meretricious advantages of a handsome person, which too long occupied my attention. These are follies I must no longer think of. I am now rapidly approaching toward the last goal on the course of life. Objects more serious and important now occupy my thoughts. God forbid, that, listening to your flattering observations, I should again throw myself into the snares of love, again put on a yoke which so severely galled me!--The natural levity of youth apologizes, in some degree, for the indiscretions it creates; but I should despise myself, if I could now be tempted to revisit either the bower of love, or the theatre of ambition. Your suggestions, however, have produced a proper effect; for I consider them as the oblique censures of a friend upon my past misconduct. The solicitudes of the gay and busy world no longer disturb my mind; for my heart has tenaciously rooted all its fibres in this delightful solitude, where I rove at large, free and unconstrained, without inquietude or care. In summer I repose upon the verdant turf beneath the shade of some embowering tree, or saunter along the enamelled boarders of a cool, refreshing stream. At the approach of autumn I seek the woods, and join the muses’ train. This mode of life is surely preferable to a life at court, where nothing but disgusting jealousies and corroding cares exist. I have now, in short, no wish, except that, when death relieves me both from pleasure and from pain, I may recline my head upon the bosom of a friend, whose eyes, while he performs the last office of closing mine, will drop a deploring tear upon my departing spirit, and convey my remains, with friendly care, to a decent tomb in my native country.” These were the sentiments of _the philosopher_: but, after a short interval _the man_ returned once again to the city of Avignon, and only visited his retreat at Vaucluse occasionally. Petrarch, however, by these continued endeavors to subdue the violence of his passion, acquired a sublimity and richness of imagination, which distinguished his character, and gave him an ascendency over the age in which he lived, greater than any of the literati have since attained. To use the expression of the poet, he was capable of passing, with the happiest facility, “From grave to gay, from lively to severe:”