■ts6 EXAMINATION of an HISTORICAL HTPOTHESIS 



her petit manege of alternate favovirs and rigours to turn the 

 head of an infatuated enamorato^ whofe paflion was in itfelf an 

 affront to virtue and morality, and amufe him for a lifetime 

 with the expectation of favours which fhe is determined never 

 to grant. Such, in the fyftem of the Abbe de Sade, is the all- 

 accomplifbed LAVRA,and fuch the refpeftable and virtuous Pe-^ 

 TRARCH. How abfurd, how difgufting, how contemptible the 

 one : how weak, how culpable, how diflionourable the other ! 



But let us now examine the particulars of that evidence on 

 which this author has built an hypothefis, fo degrading to thofe 

 charaders whom the world has hitherto united to venerate and 

 admire. 



The Abbe de Sade has, in a note at the end of the firft vo- 

 lume of his work, given a fliort abftrad of the arguments which 

 he has drawn from the works of the poet himfelf, to fliew that 

 the Laura of Petrarch was a married woman. I fhall take 

 them in the order in which they are given *. 



" Almost all the world," fays he, " has believed that Laura 

 " was unmarried : Prefqtte tout le monde a cru que Laure etoit fille. 

 -" Yel^vtello lays it dovvn::a.s,a propofition abfolutely cei'tain, 

 " Per c.ofa,certahflbbiamo da teaere che nonfojfe mai maritata. Ne- 

 " verthelefs," fays he " it is an undoubted truth that fhe was 

 " a married woman. Petrarch himfelf exprefles ^it ia A>ch a 

 " manner as to put it beyond all queftion. 'i\?:v,d vb;? '•.''\' 



" imb, In fpeaking of Laura, he terms her, in his Latin 

 " works, always tnulier and fcemina, and never viygo or puella j 

 " and in his Italian works, always madonna or donna, and never 



" vergine 



,,,,* In a fmall pamphlet, entitled " An EJfay on the Life and CharaBer of Pl> 

 TRARCH," written by the author of thefe Remarks, and printed in 1784, a brief 

 fummary is given of the Abbe de Sade's arguments proving Laijra to-be a 

 married woman, to which the anfwers are in fubflance much the fame with what 

 the reader wiiU find here, though they are now given in a more ample form, and 

 ftrengihened by additional matter of proof from the writings of Petrarch. 



