reached Padua, he retired to Venice, taking his books with | absolutely wrote four books of invectives against physicians him. Soon after his arrival, he offered to bequeath his He valued Dondi, not as a physician but as a philosopher library to the church of St. Mark. The offer was accepted, and he used to tell him so, but Dondi still remained attachel and a large house was assigned for the reception of Petrarca to him. The news of Urban V.'s return to Avignon, and of and his books. This was the beginning of the celebrated his subsequent death, caused much grief to Petrarea, who library of St. Mark, which was afterwards increased by Car- had a great esteem for that pontiff. His successor Gregory dinal Bessarion and others. At Venice, Petrarca was XI., to whom he was also personally known, wrote to Pevisited by his friend Boccaccio, who spent three months in trarca, A.D. 1371, a most kind letter inviting him to his his company. Petrarca passed several years at Venice, court. But Petrarca was unable to move. He was often honoured by the doge and the principal senators, and now seized with fits, and sometimes given up for dead. He wrote and then making excursions to Padua, Milan, and Pavia, to Francisco Brunt, the Apostolic secretary, that he shoul I to visit his friends the Carrara and Galeazzo Visconti. In not ask the pope for anything, but that if his Holiness close 1368 he was present at the marriage of Galeazzo's daughter to bestow on him a living without cure of souls, for he hai Violante with Prince Lionel of England. From Milan he enough to take care of his own soul, to make his old age returned to Padua, where he received a pressing invitation more comfortable, he should feel grateful, though he felt from Pope Urban V., who had fixed his residence at Rome, that he was not long for this world, for he was waning away and who wished to become acquainted with him. Petrarca to a shadow. He was not in want; he kept two horses, and had a great esteem for Urban's character; and he deter- generally five or six amanuenses, though only three at the mined, notwithstanding his age and his infirmities, on a present moment, because he could find no more. He couli journey to Rome; but, on arriving at Ferrara, his strength have more easily obtained painters than transcribers. Alfailed him; he fell into a swoon, and remained for thirty though he would prefer to take his meals alone, or with tu hours apparently dead. Nicholas d'Este, lord of Ferrara, village priest, he was generally besieged by a host of visitors and his brother Hugo, took the greatest care of him, and or self-invited guests, and he must not behave to them as a he was restored to life; but the physicians declared that he miser. He wanted to build a small oratory to the Virgin was unable to proceed to Rome, and he was taken back to Mary, but he must sell or pledge his books for the purp»-e.' Padua in a boat. Petrarca had been long subject to pal- (Variarum Epistolarum, the 43rd.) Some months after pitations and epileptic fits, the consequence of his too great (January, 1372), writing from Padua to his old college application to study. From Padua he removed, in the sum- friend Matthew, archdeacon of Liège, he says, I have beel mer of 1370, to Arquà, a pleasant village in the Euganean infirm these two years, being given up several times, bat Hills, where he enjoyed a pure air and retirement. He still live. I have been for some time at Venice, and now built a house there, and planted a garden and orchard: I am at Padua, performing my functions of canon. I am this is the only residence of the numerous houses which he happy in having left Venice, on account of this war between had at Parma, Padua, Venice, Milan, Vaucluse, and other the republic and the lord of Padua. At Venice I should places, which still remains, and is shown to travellers. In have been an object of suspicion, whilst here I am cherished. this retirement he resumed his studies with fresh zeal. I spend the greater part of the year in the country; I read, Among other things, he wrote his book De sui ipsius et I think, I write; this is my existence, as it was in the time multorum aliorum Ignorantia,' intended as a rebuke to of my youth. It is astonishing that having studied so long. certain Venetian freethinkers who, inflated with the learn- I have learnt so little. I hate no one, I envy no one. In ing which they had gathered from Averroes' 'Commentaries the first season of my life, a time full of error and presumpon Aristotle,' of which a Latin translation had spread into tion, I despised everybody but myself; in a more mature Italy, sneered at the Mosaic account of the creation, and at age I despised myself alone; in my old age I despise almost the Scriptures in general. Four of these young men had everybody, and myself most. . . . Not to conceal anything sought the society of Petrarca while he resided at Venice, from you, I have had repeated invitations from the pope, the and he was at first highly pleased with them; they were ac- king of France, and the emperor, but I have declined theta, complished and witty, and fond of study. But this sympa- preferring my liberty to all.' thy did not last long. Petrarca had no blind veneration for Aristotle, and still less for Averroes; he was a believer in the Scriptures, and moreover he had no great bias for natural history, in which his visitors were skilled, and he used to observe to them that it was of greater importance to 'investigate the nature of man than that of quadrupeds, birds, and fishes.' The four admirers of Aristotle were scandalised at his own freethinking concerning their oracle, and they held a kind of jury among them to decide upon the true merits of Petrarca. The verdict was, that Petrarca was a good kind of a man, but destitute of real learning, Bonus vir, sine literis.' This judginent spread about Venice, and made a great noise. Petrarca at first laughed at it, but his friends took up the business seriously, and urged him to defend himself, which he did in his retirement at Arquà, by the book already noticed. In this work he acknowledges his own ignorance, but at the same time he exposes the ignorance of his antagonists. With regard to Aristotle he says what others have said after him, that he was a great and powerful mind, who knew many things, but was ignorant of many more. As for Averroes, who discarded all revelation, and denied the immortality or rather the individuality of the human soul, Petrarca urged his friend Father Marsili of Florence to refute his tenets. (Epistolæ sine Titulo, the last epistle.) But the tenets of Averroes took root at Venice and at Padua, where many professors, down to the time of Leo X., among others Urbano of Bologna, Nicola Vernia, Agostino Niso, Alessandro Achillini, Pomponacio, and others, professed them, and commented on the works of the Arabian philosopher. It has even been said that Poliziano, Bembo, and others of the distinguished men who gathered round Lorenzo de' Medici and his son Leo X. entertained similar opinions.

The air of the Euganean hills did not prove sufficient to restore Petrarca to health. His physician Dondi told him that his diet was too cold; that he ought not to drink water, nor eat fruit and raw vegetables, nor fast, as he often did. But Petrarca had no faith in medicine. He

In September, 1373, peace was made between Venre and Francis of Carrara, lord of Padua. One of the editions was that the latter should send his son to Venice t ask pardon and swear fidelity to the republic. The lord of Padua begged Petrarca to accompany his son. Petrarca appeared before the senate, and pronounced a discourse en the occasion, which was much applauded. After his retura to Padua he wrote his book, De Republica optime adminis tranda, which he dedicated to his patron and friend Francis of Carrara.

The following year his health grew worse; a slow fever consumed his frame. He went as usual to Arquà for the summer. On the morning of the 18th of July, one of the servants entered his library and found him sitting moti nless, with his head leaning on a book. As he was often for whole hours in that attitude, the people of the house at first took no notice of it, but they soon perceived that ther master was quite dead. The news of his death soon reached Padua. Francis of Carrara, accompanied by all the note lity of Padua, the bishop and chapter, and most of the clergy repaired to Arquà to attend the funeral. S.xicon doctors of the university bore his remains to the parish church of Arquà, where his body was interred in a cipel which Petrarca had built in honour of the Virgin Mary. Francesco da Brossano, his son-in-law, raised him a marte monument supported by four columns; and in 1667 his bust in bronze was placed above it. On one of the columns the following distich was engraved :—

Invent requiem; spes et fortuna valete; Nil mili vobiscum est, iulite nunc alios. Petrarca had had two natural children, a son and a daughter. The son died before his father. The daughter, Tullia, marned, in her father's lifetime, Francesco da Brossano, a Milanese gentleman, whom Petrarca made his heir. He left legacies to various friends, and among others to Boccaccio, who did not survive him long. Te pritas of Petrarca are numerous, but they differ from one a ther; that which is considered the most authentic is at

Padua, in the Episcopal palace, above the door of the b.ary. It is a fresco painting, which was cut out of the wall of the house of Petrarca at Padua, when it was pulled down in 1581. (Valéry, Voyages Littéraires.) An engraving of it is given at the head of the handsome edition of Petrarca's verses by Marsand.

Rome, and also to several friends; 3, Eclogues or Bucolics, which are acknowledged by himself to be allegorical, and were in fact, like Boccaccio's eclogues, satires against the powerful of his time, and especially against the Papal court of Avignon.

Ginguené, in his 'Histoire Littéraire,' and others, have enThe works of Petrarca are of three kinds: 1, his Italian deavoured to find the key to these allegories. The sixth and poetry, chiefly concerning Laura; 2, his Latin poetry; 3, his seventh eclogues are evidently directed against Clement VI., Latin prose. His Italian poetry, called 'Il Canzoniere, or and the twelfth, entitled Conflictatio,' has also some violent Rime di Petrarca,' consists of above 300 sonnets, about fifty invectives against the Papal court. This circumstance has canzoni, and three short poems, in terza rima, styled Trionfo given rise to strange surmises, as if Petrarca were a secret d'Amore,' Trionfo della Morte,' and 'Trionfo della Fama.' heretic, an enemy of the church of Rome, belonging to some Petrarca's 'Canzoniere' has gone through more than three supposed secret society. We know from Petrarca's own hundred editions, with and without notes and commentaries. letters, especially those styled 'sine titulo,' that he spoke very The best is that edited by Professor Marsand, 2 vols. 4to., plainly to his friends concerning the disorders and vices of Padua, 1819-20, with a biography of Petrarca, extracted the Papal court, which he called the modern Babylon, the from his own works. The character of his poetry is well Babylon of the west. He says that Jesus Christ was sold known. Its greatest charm consists in the sweetness of every day for gold, and that his temple was made a den of numbers, enlivened by a variety, a rapidity, and a glow thieves; but we also evidently see that in all these invectives which no Italian lyric has ever possessed in an equal degree. he spoke of the discipline of the Church, or rather of the The power of preserving and at the same time of diversifying abuses of that discipline, and not of the dogmas, things which the rhythm belongs to him alone; his melody is perpetual, have been often confounded, both by the advocates and the and yet never wearies the ear. His canzoni (a species of enemies of Rome. Petrarca, like many other observing men composition partaking of the ode and the elegy, the character of that and the succeeding century, could not be blind to the and form of which are exclusively Italian) contain stanzas enormous abuses existing in the Church; but their indignasometimes of twenty lines. He has placed the cadences tion was poured out against the individuals who fostered however in such a manner as to allow the voice to rest at the those abuses, and they never thought of attacking the fabric end of every three or four verses, and has fixed the recur- itself. This was especially the case in Italy. There might rence of the same rhyme and the same musical pauses at be in that country secret unbelievers and scoffers at revelaintervals sufficiently long to avoid monotony, though suffi- tion, but there were no heretics. There were many who ciently short to preserve harmony. It is not difficult there-openly charged the pope and his court with heinous crimes, fore to give credit to his biographer, Filippo Villani, when but who at the same time felt a sort of loathing at the very he assures us "that the musical modulation of the verses name of heretic or schismatic. The influence of traditional which Petrarch addressed to Laura flowed so melodiously, veneration for the authority of the Church, the persuasion that even the most grave could not refrain from repeating of its infallibility, remained, although divested of all devothem. Petrarch poured forth his verses to the sound of his tion, of all enthusiasm, of all respect even for the person of lute, which he bequeathed in his will to a friend; and his the head of that Church. voice was sweet, flexible, and of great compass."'. (Foscolo, Essays on Petrarch, On the Poetry of Petrarch.) That in Petrarca's sonnets there is too much ornament, that he indulges too much in metaphors, that his antitheses are often forced, and his hyperboles almost puerile, all this is true; and yet there is so much delicacy and truth in his descriptions of the passion of love and of its thousand affecting accessories which he brings before the mind of the reader, that he awakens many associations and recollections in every heart, and this is perhaps the great secret of the charm of his poetry, notwithstanding its perpetual egotism. There is much to choose among his sonnets, many of which, especially those which he wrote after Laura's death, are far superior to the rest in loftiness of thought and expression. He borrowed little from the Latin poets, and much from the Troubadours; but his finest imitations are drawn from the sacred writings. He improved the ma terials in which the Italian language already abounded, and he gave to that language new grace and freshness. No term which he has employed has become obsolete, and all his phrases may be and still are used in the written language. Far inferior to Dante in invention, depth of thought, and in boldness of imagery, Petrarca is superior to him in softness and melody. Dante was a universal poet; he describes all passions, all actions; Petrarca paints only one passion, but be paints it exquisitely. Dante nerves our bearts against adversity and oppression; Petrarca wraps us in soft melancholy, and leads us to indulge in the error of depending upon the affections of others, and his poetry, chaste though it be, is apt to have an enervating influence on the minds of youth. At a more mature age, when man is sobered by experience, Petrarca's poetry produces a soothmg effect, and, by its frequent recurrence to the transitoriness of worldly objects, may even have a beneficial moral influence. There are some of his canzoni which soar higher than the rest in their lyric flight, especially the one which begins 'Italia mia,' and which has been often quoted; and another which he wrote in 1333, when a new crusade was in contemplation. His beautiful canzone, or 'Ode to the Virgin,' with which he closes his poetry about Laura, is also greatly admired for its sublimity and pathos.

Petrarca's Latin poetry consists, 1, of the 'Africa,' an epic on the exploits of Scipio in the second Punic war, a dull sort of poem, with some fine passages: it was however much admired at the time; 2, Epistles, in verse, addressed to several popes, for the purpose of urging their return to

Petrarca was not a man of extremes: his dislike of the Papal court of Avignon originated in two feelings, one of honest indignation against its corruptions, and another of national or rather classical attachment to Rome, which made him urge with all his powers of persuasion the return of the head of the Church to a residence in that city. When he spoke of Babylon, he alluded to the captivity of the Jews, to which he compared the residence of the popes at Avignon. Of several popes, such as Urban VI. and Gregory XI., he speaks in his letters with great respect and personal attachment. He went to Rome expressly to attend the jubilee of 1350, and, as he states in his letters to Boccaccio (Epistolæ Familiares), for the sake of obtaining the plenary indulgence, and with a firm resolve of putting an end to his career of sin.' He had an accident on the road, which made him lame, and which he said was a salutary punishment for his sins. He gives some account of that jubilee, and of the vast number of pilgrims who resorted to Rome on the occasion. After having visited the churches and performed his devotions, he wrote that he had now become free from the plague of concupiscence, which had tormented him till then, and that in looking back to his past life, he shuddered with shame.' (Epistolæ Seniles, viii. 1.) So much for those who would persuade us that Petrarca was a concealed heretic. His hostility was local and personal; it was directed against Avignon, and not against Rome; against the corrupt dignitaries of the church, not against the Church itself. Petrarca however, although religiously disposed, was far from superstitious. He was one of the few of his age who spurned astrology, and yet, strange to say, a cardinal had nearly persuaded Pope Innocent VI. that he was a magician, because he was familiar with strange books, a very serious charge in those times. Petrarca's letter of advice to Boccaccio, when he thought of turning monk, is a lasting monument of sound religion and good sense.

The Latin Epistles of Petrarca are the most important of his prose writings. We have no Italian prose of his except two or three letters to James Colonna, the autographs of which are now in the possession of Lord Holland, and which show that he was not much in the habit of corresponding in that language. Petrarca's Epistles are very numerous; they embrace a stormy and confused period of nearly half a century, for the history of which many of them afford ample and trustworthy materials. Petrarca was one of the earliest and most enlightened travellers of modern Europe; he was

PETRELS, the English name for the Procellarıdı, x family of oceanic birds, well known to the seaman when fa. from the land, and with which his superstition was once more busy than it is now; but even at the present day they are not unfrequently regarded as ominous, and many hard-a-weather old quarter-master still looks upon Mother Carey's Chickens as the harbingers of a storm.

Though zoologists have differed as to the genera to be included in this extraordinary group, they have been pretty well agreed as to the forms which should be congregated in it.

an eye-witness of many important events; he corresponded | 8vo.; Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarque, avec des Pièces with kings, emperors, popes, statesmen, and men of learn- justificatives,' 3 vols. 4to, Amsterdam, 1746; Foscolo, ing. His Letters have not been sufliciently noticed by Essays on Petrarch.' historians: many of them are scattered MSS. in various libraries, and we have no complete edition of them arranged in order of time. Those which have been published are classed as follows:-1,Epistolæ de Rebus Familiaribus,' in viii. books; 2, De Rebus Senilibus,' written in Petrarca's old age, in xvi. books; 3, one book Ad Viros quosdam ex Veteribus Illustriores,' these epistles are addressed to various historical characters of antiquity; 4, one book Variarum Epistolarum;' 5, one book Epistolarum sine Titulo.' To this last book Petrarca had prefixed a curious preface, in which he says, that well knowing truth to be odious to the world, especially in times of corruption, he had taken the precaution of writing the Bucolics in an ambiguous kind of style, in order that their real sense might be understood only by the few, and that for a similar consideration he now has collected in one separate book certain letters written to several friends at various times and upon different occasions, in order that they might not be scattered through the body of his correspondence, and be the means of having the whole condemned. Those who wished to read them would thus know where to find them, and those who thought that they ought to be suppressed, might exclude them from the rest of the collection.'

Professor Levati, of Milan, has composed out of the Epistles of Petrarca a work descriptive of the manners and history of his age, in which he gives copious extracts translated into Italian: Viaggi di Francesco Petrarca in Francia, in Germania, ed in Italia,' 5 vols. 8vo., Milan, 1820. This work was severely criticised in the Biblioteca Italiana,' | vol. xxiii. and xxiv. It is however an entertaining book, containing considerable information concerning Petrarca and his times which is not collected in any other work. Professor Meneghelli, of Padua, published in 1818, Index F. Petrarcha Epistolarum quæ duæ sunt, et quæ adhuc ineditæ; but his list, as he himself admits, is not complete. Domenico de Rossetti, of Trieste, has published a bibliography of the works of Petrarca, their various editions, commentators, &c., and he has also edited a biography of Petrarea by his friend Boccaccio. Serie cronologica di edizioni delle Opere di Petrarca,' Trieste, 1834.

The prose works of Petrarca, besides those already mentioned, are: 1, ‘De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ,' libri ii. ; 2, De Vita Solitariâ,' lib. ii.; 3, De Otio Religiosorum,' lib. ii.; 4, Apologia contra Gallum; 5, De Officio et Virtutibus Imperatoris 6, Rerum Memorandarum,' libri iv. In this work, in which he has imitated Valerius Maximus, without however borrowing from him, Petrarca quotes a vast number of facts from antient and modern history, each illustrative of some principle of moral philosophy; it is in fact a treatise of practical ethics. 7, 'De vera Sapientiâ,' being dialogues between a sophist and an uneducated man. 8, De Contemptu Mundi,' being imaginary dialogues between the author and St. Augustin. Petrarea had studied the Latin fathers attentively. 9, Vitarum Virorum illustrium Epitome. Another and ampler work of Petrarca under the same title, of which the one just mentioned is only an abridgement, has remained inedited, but an imperfect Italian translation, by Donato degli Albanzoni, was published at Venice, in 1527. (D. de Rossetti, Petrarca, Giulio Celso, e Boccaccio, illustrazione Bibliologica, Trieste, 1828.) 10, 'De Vitâ Beatâ.' 11, 'De Obedientiâ ac Fide Uxoriâ.' 12, Itinerarium Syriacum.' 13, Several orations, De Avaritia vitandâ,' De Libertate capescendâ, &c. Of his Latin style the following judgment is given by an Italian scholar: In modelling his style upon the Roman writers, he was unwilling to neglect entirely the Fathers of the Church, whose phraseology was more appropriate to his subjects; and the public affairs being, at that period, transacted in Latin, he could not always reject many of those expressions which, although originating from barbarous ages, had been sanctioned by the adoption of the universities, and were the more intelligbie to his readers. In sacrificing gravity he gained freedom, fluency, and warmth; and his prose, though not a model for imitation, is beyond the reach of imitators, because it is original and his own.' (Foscolo On the Poetry of Petrarch.') Petrarea's 'Opera Omnia' were published at Basle, in 1581, 2 vols. folio. Biographies of Petrarca have been written by Villani, Vergerio, Tomasini, Leonardo Aretino, and many others: the best are-Baldelli Del Petrarca e delle sue Opere,' 2 vols

The genus Procellaria of Linnæus was formed by that great zoologist for the Petrels, and it is closely fol lowed by his genus Diomedea (Albatrosses), between which and the Petrels there are many points of resemblance both in their structure and their pelagic habits. In the article LARIDE, to which family so many ornithologists have referred the Petrels, will be found the opinions of most of the leading writers who had then written upon the subject.*

The Prince of Musignano (Geographical and Compar 3tice List, 1838) makes the Procellarida the thirty-fourth family of the birds, and places them between the Larida and the Colymbide. The Prince's Procellaridæ (European and American only) consist of the genera Diomedea, Pry cellaria, Puffinus, and Thalassidroma.

Mr. G. R. Gray (List of the Genera of Birds, 1ste) makes the Diomedeine the first subfamily of the Larida This subfamily comprehends the genera Pelecanındes, Putfinus, Daption, Thalassidroma, Wagellus, Procellarii, Diomedea, and Prion.

M. Temminck, in his Manuel' (2nd part, 1820), arranges all the Petrels under the generic name Procellaria, Linn. but divides them into the following sections *——

Temm.nck

Swallow-like Petrels (Pétrels Hirondelles).
Procellaria Pelagica and Leachii.
admits the genera Procellaria, Puffinus, and Thalassidromi.
In the 4th part of his Manuel' (1840),
Pelecanoïdes. (Lacépède.)

This is the genus Haladroma of Illiver, and the genu
Puffinuria of Lesson.

The last-named author states that his reason for changing the generic name of the only species which serves as the type of this genus is the uncertainty in which he finds himself as to what is really the genus Pelecanoides of Lacepède, or Haladroma of Illiger. Some strong shades of difference, he observes, appeared to exist between the characters given by these authors and those which he cites, and he further says that he has seen nothing of the small membranous and dilatable pouch, which ought to exist under the lower mazdible. The sole species above alluded to he records as Puffinuria Garnoti, Less. (Zool. de la Coq., pl. 46; Pruenlaria urinatrix, Gmel.?)

Mr. G. R. Gray gives Procellaria, Gm., Haladroma, lâ, and Puffinuria, Less., as synonyms of Pelecanoïdes; ali refers, without a query, to P. Urinatrix, Gm. (Forst., Drue, t. 88-from which our cut is taken) as the species,

Generic Character.-Bill enlarged, composed of man pieces soldered together, the edges smooth and re ente..n ̧ ̧ the upper demi-bill composed of two pieces, furnished w.iL feathers at the base up to the nostrils, which are very ope... forming an oval circle, the aperture of which is above. separated one from the other by a simple internal partition.; this partition supports a slight ledge which divides ea.h nasal fossa in half; the enlarged portion of the upper dembill goes beyond the lower mandible, and terminates at tie contraction of the bill, which is narrow, convex, very mua curved, and very robust. The lower mandible is forlad equally of two soldered pieces; that of the edge is narrow, inserted in the upper demi-bill; that below is formed by

In the article LARIDE, vol. xtit., p. 333, right hand column, line 35 from Le top, for * Herondelles,' read' Hirondelles,'

† See post. p. 15.

two branches, slightly convex, separated outwards, where the | space is filled by a very small and rather indistinct naked skin; the extremity of the mandible is convex on the edges, concave below, and sharp. First and second quills, which are the longest, equal; third and fourth rather shorter. Tail small, nearly equal, pointed, formed of twelve feathers. Tarsi moderate, weak, furnished with small areolated scutella; three anterior toes enveloved in an entire membrane; hind-toe wanting. (Less.)

M. Garnot describes the sole species above noticed, as follows:-Size of the Blue Petrel, from the extremity of the bill to the tail, 8 inches. The plumage has no brilliancy; a blackish-brown on the upper part of the back glazed with a slight tint of blue and a lustrous white on all the fore- Generic Character.-General characters those of the true parts of the body are the two colours which it presents. Petrels, from which Puffinus is distinguished by the bill Beneath the wings, as well as on the sides, the hue is greyish-being longer, by the extremity of the lower mandible, which white. follows the curvature of the upper, and by the tubular nostrils opening not by a common aperture, but by two distinct orifices.