of the Abbe de S A D E. 143 



Abbe de Sa be mentions a ihrewd conjedure of the Superior of 

 the Convent, " that they had been fold to fome Seigneur Anglois" 

 Monks are very dexterous in the fabrication of all forts of re- 

 lics, and it was no bad poHcy of the Fratres Minores, to attradl 

 the notice of ftrangers to their convent, by the exhibition of a 

 medal and a lead box, the evidences of a curious and difputed 

 point of hiftory : nor is it at all improbable, that afterwards a 

 knavifti friar, more ftudious of his own intereft than that of his 

 convent, might have purloined thofe precious relics, and got 

 his own price for them. 



Such is the hiftory of thofe celebrated documents, which are 

 faid to prove the place of Laura's birth and death to have been 

 Avignon, and to afcertain that her grave was in the chapel 

 of the church of the Cordeliers in that city, and in the burial- 

 place of the family of Sade. I have ftated fairly the whole of 

 this evidence, which refts entirely on the manufcript note on 

 Virgil and this miferable fonnet ; and I leave that evidence to 

 be balanced by thofe numberlcfs pafTages of the poet's undoubt- 

 ed and authentic writings, which moft unequivocally affert, 

 that Laura was neither born, nor died, nor was buried, at 

 Avignon ; but that ftie was born in a fmall village or country 

 refidence in the neighbourhood of Vauclufe, wherelhe palTed 

 her life in ti-anquil and humble retirement * ; that fhe died there, 

 and was buried in the fame place. If the proofs on both fides 



T 2 are 



• In nohil fatigue vita humih e qaeta, Son. l8o. Part. i. 



Non la conohbe il mondo mentre I ' hebbe : 



Conobbil' io ch' a pianger qui rimaji. Son. 67. Part. 2, 



With what propriety or confidence with truth t:oiild the poet have thus exprelTed 

 hinafelf of Laura de Noves, the wife of a perfon of high rank, and who had paffed 

 the whole of her life in all the gaiety and fplendour of the court of Avignon ? Still 

 lefs would the pious Petrarch have borrowed a Scripture expreflion, addrefled to 

 the Saviour of the world, (St John's Go/pel, chap. xvii. v. 25.) and applied it, 

 falfely too, to the objeft of an adulterous paffion. 



