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As Petrarch (Irongly refembkd Propertius, in his feeling all the im- 

 portance and elevation of the character of a lover and a poet : fo, thefe 

 authors rejoice alike, in a fort of myfticifm, compounded of the infpira- 

 tions and enthufiafm of love and poetry. They exult in their fufferings, 

 they make a merit of their voluntary felf-abandonment, of their facri- 

 fices of peace and comfort. They pride themfelves, in the being as 

 much diftinguiflied by their forrows as their genius. It is a favourite 

 topic with them, to reprefent how much the charafter of a lover, and 

 a fincere and ardent paffion, tend to fublime the thoughts above felfifli 

 and fordid cares ; how the devoted attachment to a virtuous and high- 

 minded woman contributes to purify the heart, and affcftions ; to en- 

 noble the wilhes ; to reclaim the warm and unreftrained feelings of 

 youth, even through their own ardour, from low and fenfual liberti- 

 nifra, from frivolous amufements, and the purfuit of bafe and unwor- 

 thy objefts. Propertius is the only poet of antiquity, who feems to view 

 love in this advantageous light, and to fpeak of the fair fex, with fomething 

 like rapturous deference, and true refinement. Such language and fentiments 

 feemed to grow out of the manners of chivalry ; and, in faft, Propertius de- 

 ferves to be ftudied as an extraordinary phenomenon, who fliews, in a period 

 when they were generally unknown, the fentimental dignity, or rifes to the 

 fpiritual devotion, which finds, in the love for one, an antidote againft the al- 

 lurements of the reft of the fex ; a prefervative of general morality, an incen- 

 tive to new exertions of genius, and induftry, and new motives for valuing 

 reputation and fame, not for the fake of felf alone, but, in the hope of 

 becoming more worthy of the beloved objeft. All this was well un- 

 derftood in the times of Petrarch, but was little known at the court 

 of Augujius. 



We meet alfo, in Propertius and Petrarch a concurrence in a fort 

 of voluntary humiliation and felf-abafcment, which reveres at a diftance, 



awe-llruck 



