126 EXAMINATION of an HISTORICAL HTPOTHESIS 



virtue and of honour. Hence, likewife, the warmeft indigna- 

 tion arifes in every ingenuous breaft, on obferving in others a 

 violation oi this rule of candour, in a propenlity to form unfa- 

 vourable ojnnions of condudl or of charafter ; we are prompted 

 eagerly to fcrutinize the foundations of fuch illiberal opinions ; 

 and v?e conceive it a duty we owe to virtue and to honour, a 

 talk enjoined us by the refpetfl due to our common nature, to 

 refute the calumny, expofe the artifices of the aggreflbr, and re- 

 ftore the injured to his juft eftimation. 



Previously to the appearance of the work of the Abbe de 

 Sade, fhofe authors who had written the Life of Petrarch, 

 had, in treating of L a u r a, univerfally acknowledged, that much 

 uncertainty prevailed with regard to the real name, family and 

 rank of this celebrated perfonage. In general, however, we find 

 but two difiirent opinions on this fubjedl. The one is, that her 

 parents were of an honourable family in Provence ; and that 

 her father * refided at a fmall country feat or village in the ter- 

 ritory of Avignon, near tq the fources of the Sorga : the other, 

 that flie was fprung from the houfe of Sade, a daughter of that 

 family, which is of an ancient date, and confiderable rank in 

 the city of Avignon. The former of thefe opinions, which has 

 been adopted by almofl all the Italian authors, is founded on a 

 variety of paflages in the writings of the poet himfelf, of which 

 I fhall afterwards take particular notice. The latter opinion, 



which 



• To this gentleman Veldtello has given the name and title of Henri 

 Chiabau, Lord of Cabrieies. This, however, is founded on too flender an authority 

 to entitle it to credit. It is, in faft, only a conjeflure of Velutello himfelf, who 

 was at pains to fearch the baptifmal regifter of the parifli in which Vauclufe \i 

 fituate ; and, finding that a child of the name of Laura was regiftered as being born 

 to Henri Chiabau, Lord of Cabrieres, on the 4th of June 1314, he thence conclu- 

 ded, there being no other regiilration of that name which could poflibly apply to 

 ♦he objeft of his refeardi, that this, for certain, was the miftrefs of Petrarch. 



