126 EXAMINATION of on HISTORICAL HTPOTHESIS 



virtue and of honour. Hence, likewife, the warmeft indigna- 

 tion arifes in every ingenuous breaft, on obferving in others a 

 violation of this rule of candour, in a propenfity to form unfa- 

 vourable opinions of conduct or of character ; we are prompted 

 eagerly to fcrutinize the foundations of fuch illiberal opinions ; 

 and we conceive it a duty we owe to virtue and to honour, a 

 tafk enjoined us by the refpect due to our common nature, to 

 refute the calumny, expofe the artifices of the aggreflbr, and re- 

 store the injured to his juft eflimation. 



Previously to the appearance of the work of the Abbe de 

 Sade, thofe authors who had written the Life of Petrarch, 

 had, in treating of Lau ra, univerfally acknowledged, that much 

 uncertainty prevailed with regard to the real name, family and 

 rank of this celebrated perfonage. In general, however, we find 

 but two different opinions on this fubjecl:. The one is, that her 

 parents were of an honourable family in Provence ; and that 

 her father * refided at a fmall country feat or village in the ter- 

 ritory of Avignon, near to the fources of the Sorga : the other, 

 that fhe was fprung from the houfe of Sade, a daughter of that 

 family, which is of an ancient date, and confiderable rank in 

 the city of Avignon. The former of thefe opinions, which has 

 been adopted by almoft all the Italian authors, is founded on a 

 variety of paffages in the writings of the poet himfelf, of which 

 I mall afterwards take particular notice. The latter opinion, 



which 



* To this gentleman Veloiello has given the name and title of Henri 

 Chiabau, Lord of Cabrieres. This, however, is founded on too (lender an authority 

 to entitle it to credit. It is, in fact, only a conjecture of Velutello himfelf, who 

 was at pains to fearch the baptifmal regtfter of the parifli in which Vauclufe is 

 fituate •, and, finding that a child of the name of Laura was regiftered as being born 

 to Henri Chiabau, Lord of Cabrieres, on the 4th of June 13 14, he thence conclu- 

 ded, there being no other regiftration of that name which could poffibly apply to 

 *he object of bis refearch, that this, for certain, was the miftrefs of Petrarch. 



