No More Learning

Yet the vigour, the
arrangement, and the perspicuity of the ideas in these canzoni of
Petrarch, the tone of conviction and melancholy in which the patriot
upbraids and mourns over his country, strike the heart with such force,
as to atone for the absence of grand and exuberant imagery, and of the
irresistible impetus which peculiarly belongs to the ode.

Petrarch's principal Italian poem that is not thrown into the shape of
the sonnet is his Trionfi, or Triumphs, in five parts. Though not
consisting of sonnets, however, it has the same amatory and constant
allusions to Laura as the greater part of his poetry. Here, as
elsewhere, he recurs from time to time to the history of his passion,
its rise, its progress, and its end. For this purpose, he describes
human life in its successive stages, omitting no opportunity of
introducing his mistress and himself.

1. Man in his youthful state is the slave of love. 2. As he advances in
age, he feels the inconveniences of his amatory propensities, and
endeavours to conquer them by chastity. 3. Amidst the victory which he
obtains over himself, Death steps in, and levels alike the victor and
the vanquished. 4. But Fame arrives after death, and makes man as it
were live again after death, and survive it for ages by his fame. 5. But
man even by fame cannot live for ever, if God has not granted him a
happy existence throughout eternity.
Thus Love triumphs over Man;
Chastity triumphs over Love; Death triumphs over both; Fame triumphs
over Death; Time triumphs over Fame; and Eternity triumphs over Time.

The subordinate parts and imagery of the Trionfi have a beauty rather
arabesque than classical, and resembling the florid tracery of the later
oriental Gothic architecture. But the whole effect of the poem is
pleasing, from the general grandeur of its design.

In summing up Petrarch's character, moral, political, and poetical, I
should not stint myself to the equivocal phrase used by Tacitus
respecting Agricola: _Bonum virum facile dixeris, magnum libenter_, but
should at once claim for his memory the title both of great and good. A
restorer of ancient learning, a rescuer of its treasures from oblivion,
a despiser of many contemporary superstitions, a man, who, though no
reformer himself, certainly contributed to the Reformation, an Italian
patriot who was above provincial partialities, a poet who still lives in
the hearts of his country, and who is shielded from oblivion by more
generations than there were hides in the sevenfold shield of Ajax--if
this was not a great man, many who are so called must bear the title
unworthily. He was a faithful friend, and a devoted lover, and appears
to have been one of the most fascinating beings that ever existed. Even
when his failings were admitted, it must still be said that _even his
failings leaned to virtue's side_, and, altogether we may pronounce that

His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man! "

[Footnote A: Before the publication of De Sade's "Memoires pour la vie
de Petrarque" the report was that Petrarch first saw Laura at Vaucluse.
The truth of their first meeting in the church of St. Clara depends on
the authenticity of the famous note on the M. S. Virgil of Petrarch,
which is now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. ]

[Footnote B: Petrarch, in his dialogue with St. Augustine, states that
he was older than Laura by a few years. ]

[Footnote C: "The Floral games were instituted in France in 1324. They
were founded by Clementina Isaure, Countess of Toulouse, and annually
celebrated in the month of May.