150 EX AM IN At ION of an HISTORICAL HTPOTHESIS 



admitted, on all hands, that Laura is figured under the name 

 of Galatea : but the yoked oxen, and the watch-dogs guard- 

 ing the entry of a fmall houfe, how can they poflibly be applied 

 to a church in the city of Avignon, or indeed to any thing elfe 

 than a farm-houfe in the country? Nothing is more clear, 

 fay the advocates for this hypothefis ; the oxen yoked by the 

 neck are the friers of the convent, the f rat res minor es, qui fe runt 

 jugum obedientiie, laboris et religionis ; the dogs guarding the door 

 are the ikme friers, (both dogs and oxen), who may well be 

 termed dogs, becaufe thej b^uk {o much in their fermons ; fre- 

 quentes vigilias canum, pradicantium fcilicet et latrnntitm. 



I PRESUME I have^ given a fufficieht fpecimen of the Abb6 de' 

 Sade's ingenuity in accommodating and bending to his own 

 purpofe thofe pafTages of the poet's writings which are in the 

 mod direfl contradidlion to his hypothefis ; nor would an un- 

 prejudiced critic defire a more fatisfying proof of its futility, 

 than the miferable fliifts to which its defenders are put in order 

 to fupport it. This hypothefis, however, rauft yet be more 

 thoroughly canvafled ; and, for that purppie, J,;begin wit^-. a 

 brief detail of its whole particulars. ,: ,..,: : 



The Abbe de Sade endeavours to prove, that the miftrefs of 

 Petrarch was Laura de Noves, the daughter of Audibert de 

 NovEs, a gentleman of noble birth in Provence; that fhe was 

 born at Avignon, in 1307 or 1308; that fhe was married, in 

 1325, to Hugh de Sadf, the reprefentative of a very ancient 

 and honourable family in the territory of Avignon, to whom fhe 

 bore eleven children ; that fhe died at Avignon, in the year 

 1348, and was interred in the burial-place of the houfe of Sade, 

 in the Chvu-ch of the Cordeliers in that city. The Abbe, who 

 is himfelf a younger fon of that family, has proved the whole 

 of thofe leading ci re urn fiances, in the hiflory of his progenitrix 

 Laura de Noves, by authentic documents in the archives of 

 the houfe of Sadk ; and he has particularly ellablrflied the cer- 

 tainty 



