-r 5 6 EXAMINATION of an HISTORICAL HTPOTHESIS 



her petit manege of alternate favours and rigours to turn the 

 head of an infatuated enamorato y whofe pafTion 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- 

 accomplifhed Laura, and fuch the refpe&able and virtuous Pe- 

 trarch. How abfurd, how difgufting, how contemptible the 

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



But let us now examine the particulars of that evidence on 

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

 characters 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 fhort abftracT: of the arguments which 

 he has drawn from the works of the poet himfelf, to fhew 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 : Prefque tout le monde a cru que Laure etoit file. 

 li Velutello lays it down as a propofition abfolutely certain, 

 " Per cofa certahflbbiamo da tenere cbe nonfojfe mai maritata. Ne- 

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

 " a married woman. Petrarch himfelf expreffes it in fuch a 

 " manner as to put it beyond all queftion. 



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

 " works, always mulier and fcemina^ and never virgo or puella J 

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



" vergine 



i 



* In a fmall pamphlet, entitled " An EJfay on the Life and CharaEier of Pe- 

 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 Laura to be a 

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

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

 f-lrengthened by additional matter of proof from the writings of Petrarch. 



