Of the Abbe de S A D E. 183 



Gto. In the dialogue above quoted, [De contempt u mund'i, 

 Dial. -5.), where St Augustine is introduced reafoning with the 

 poet, and endeavouring to convince him of the errors of his paft 

 life, and particularly to difluade him from the indulgence of his- 

 paflion for Laura, to which he was as much a flave after her 

 death as he had been during her life, the holy father makes ufe 

 of every argument that can be drawn both from religion and 

 morality : Would he have omitted the ftrongeft of all argu- 

 ments ? Would he have forgotten to urge that Laura was the 

 wife of another ; and, confequently, that his paffion was a crime 

 both in the fight of GO0 and man ? Yet, to this purpofe, there 

 is not a fingle word in the whole of that variovis and labour- 

 ed argument. 



7«o. It will be in vain for a difciple of this new hypothefis 

 to attempt its juftification, upon the principle that the love of 

 Petrarch, being entirely of a refined and Platonic nature, 

 might innocently have for its objedl a married woman, and the 

 mother of a family. The author of the Memoires himfelf aban- 

 dons that ground of argument *, which, indeed, cannot be 

 maintained in any confiftency with thofe fentiments which the 

 poet himfelf has avowed in many parts of his works. The love 

 of Petrarch was no otherwife diflinguifhed from an ordinary 

 pafilion than by its fervency and duration. He felt for Laura 

 the fame emotions, which an ardent but honourable lover feels 

 for a mofl beautiful, amiable and accomplifhed miflrefs. He 

 admired the graces of her mind, he reverenced her virtues, and 

 he was enamoured of the beauties of her perfon. He owns 

 that he paflionately defired the reward of his love in the poflTef- 

 fion of this treafure. ■ The poet, who expreffes himfelf thus rap- 

 turoufly in the language of ordinary human love, muft abandon 

 all pretenfions to a Platonic aflPedion : 



A a 2 . Con. 



* Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarque, vol. i. note zu 



