[36] This sounds at first pedantic; but it must be remembered that at this very time Petrarch was studying Seneca, and writing a Latin poem on the history of Scipio: thus the ideas were fresh in his mind. [37] The hypothesis I have assumed relative to Laura's character, her married state, and the authenticity of the MS. note in the Virgil, have not been lightly adopted, but from deep conviction and patient examination: but this is not the place to set arguments and authorities in array--Ginguené and Gibbon against Lord Byron and Fraser Tytler. I am surprised at the ground Lord Byron has taken on the question. As for his characteristic sneer on the assertion of M. de Bastie, who had said truly and beautifully--"qu'il n'y a que la vertu seule qui soit capable de faire des impressions que la mort n'efface pas," I disdain, in my feminine character, to reply to it; I will therefore borrow the eloquence of a more powerful pen:--"The love of a man like Petrarch, would have been less in character, if it had been less ideal. For the purposes of inspiration, a single interview was quite sufficient. The smile which sank into his heart the first time he ever beheld Laura, played round her lips ever after: the look with which her eyes first met his, never passed away. The image of his mistress still haunted his mind, and was recalled by every object in nature. Even death could not dissolve the fine illusion; for that which exists in the imagination is alone imperishable. As our feelings become more ideal, the impression of the moment indeed becomes less violent; but the effect is more general and permanent. The blow is felt only by reflection; it is the rebound that is fatal. We are not here standing up for this kind of Platonic attachment, but only endeavouring to explain the way in which the passions very commonly operate in minds accustomed to draw their strongest interests from constant contemplation."--_Edinburgh Review._ CHAPTER VIII. ON THE LOVE OF DANTE FOR BEATRICE PORTINARI. Had I taken chronology into due consideration, Dante ought to have preceded Petrarch, having been born some forty years before him,--but I forgot it. "Truth," says Wordsworth, "has her pleasure-grounds, Her haunts of ease And easy contemplation;--gay parterres And labyrinthine walks; her sunny glades And shady groves for recreation framed." And such a haunted pleasure-ground of beautiful recollections, would I wish my subject to be to myself and to my readers; where we shall be priviledged to wander at will; to pause or turn back; to deviate to this side or to that, as memory may prompt, or imagination lead, or illustration require.