16 
kered parts I cut out, as my former 
instructions directed. My young trees 
I scrape in the same manner as the 
branches of the old, where there is 
any moss or unhealthy appearance b 
being much cracked and hide bound, 
1 found it of great use; and if there is 
a want of wood, I take my knife and 
score through the rinds from the 
branches to the bottom of the stock, 
which will give a quantity of young 
wood: but if there is plenty to score, 
I would check these bearing. I found 
the scraping beneficial to most trees. I 
have proved it with a mulberry tree that 
was very much cracked, (though a 
young tree); I scraped it to the bottom 
of the crack, but not to injure the 
middle rind, and found it greatly im- 
proved the following year; some very 
old myrtle trees had a great deal of 
loose, outward rindand moss, I scraped 
them on the same principle with the 
same advantage. In stone fruit trees 
great care is required, as they are very 
much subject to gum, but scraping the 
bough does good, without going too 
deep. My soil of earth is a very strong 
clay, which is a great cause of some of 
my young trees not thriving well and 
cankering; others do well and flourish. 
I have observed on the gravelly soil, 
the same injury, and it would be a 
great benefit to the public if the nur- 
serymen would make it their stndy to 
find out a stock that would thrive best 
on those soils, and give information 
through your useful Magazine to the 
public, the advantage would be very 
great. a Wie 
——— 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
VAUCLUSE—PETRARCH.— dn error of 
all the Commentators respecting his 
principal Ode Corrected. 
URING a temporary residence at 
4 Avignon, in the autumn of 1815, 
I visited Vaucluse, and the supposed 
scene of one of Petrarch’s best odes, the 
celebrated fountain of that name. 
At the back of the valley, within a 
huge mass of rock, is a cavern, with an 
eutrance arch about eighty feet in depth 
and sixty feet in width. Near the 
centre of this cave is an oval basin 
from which rises the celebrated spring 
that supplies the Sorgue. The wafer 
being tolerably low, we were enabled 
to explore this extraordinary spot. Not 
far from the source of the river, on 
the summit of an almost inaccessible 
rock, stands a ruin of the wall of Pe- 
trarch’s castle. The story which as- 
Viiucluse — Petrarch. 
[Feb. J, 
signed to the poet this fabric as a resi- 
dence, with a subterranean passage 
from thence to the house of his far- 
famed mistress, has been long cousi- 
dered as a fable. The castle belonged 
in those days to the Bishop of Cavaillon. 
The attentive reader of Petrarch will 
readily discover from his poetry, that 
so far from ever having lived, there is 
no evidence of her having, on any one 
occasion, even visited Vaucluse. 
The site of the small habitation 
which Petrarch had built near to this 
spot, and which in one of his letters he 
compares to the houses of Cato and 
Fabricius, is now occupied by a paper 
mill. The peasantry have the name of 
Petrarch constantly on their lips, but 
seem to be totally unacquainted with 
any thing that relates to him, beyond 
the fact of his having caused several 
spots in this neighbourhood to be 
called after him; such as Petrarch’s 
castle, Petrarch’s fount, &e. 
A very extraordinary error has been 
circulated by the various critics, and 
commentators on Petrarch’s writings 
which deserves the consideration of all 
the admirers of the poet. It is the 
assumption that the ode, (perhaps the 
most beautiful, certainly the least arti- 
ficial of all Petrarch’s compositions, ) 
beginning 
Chiare, fresche, e dolci acque 
was addressed to the Fountain of Vau- 
cluse. 
Besides the fact already premised of 
Lanra’s never having resided at or even 
visited Vaucluse, there are other cir- 
cumstances which conduce to deter- 
mine the absurdity of this universally 
received opinion on this subject. The’ 
poem itself affords evidence sufficient 
that it was never intended to refer to 
the fountain of Vaucluse. We are 
told in the outset of this piece, that 
Laura was in the habit of bathing. her 
beauteous limbs in the clear and limpid 
waters to which it may be supposed to 
be inscribed : 
Chiare, fresche, e dolci acque 
Ove le bella membra 
Pose colei, che sola a me par donna, &c. 
and moreover, that green and graceful 
boughs showered their blossoms into 
her lap as she sat beside it (in the hu- 
mility of transcendant loveliness) and 
covered her with a cloud of flowers : 
Da’ be rami scendea. 
Dolce ne la memoria, 
Una pioggia di fior sovra ’] suo grembo 3 
Ed ella si sedea 
Umile in tanta gloria, 
Coverta gia de Pamoroso nembro, &e. : 
: an 
