No More Learning

Petrarch represents her as a woman of weak
understanding, disposed to gallantry, but incapable of greater crimes.
Her history reminds us much of that of Mary Queen of Scots. Her youth
and her character, gentle and interesting in several respects, entitle
her to the benefit of our doubts as to her assent to the death of
Andrew. Many circumstances seem to me to favour those doubts, and the
opinion of Petrarch is on the side of her acquittal.

On his arrival in Naples, Petrarch had an audience with the Queen
Dowager; but her grief and tears for the loss of her husband made this
interview brief and fruitless with regard to business. When he spoke to
her about the prisoners, for whose release the Colonnas had desired him
to intercede, her Majesty referred him to the council. She was now, in
reality, only a state cypher.

The principal prisoners for whom Petrarch was commissioned to plead,
were the Counts Minervino, di Lucera, and Pontenza. Petrarch applied to
the council of state in their behalf, but he was put off with perpetual
excuses. While the affair was in agitation he went to Capua, where the
prisoners were confined. "There," he writes to the Cardinal Colonna, "I
saw your friends; and, such is the instability of Fortune, that I found
them in chains. They support their situation with fortitude. Their
innocence is no plea in their behalf to those who have shared in the
spoils of their fortune. Their only expectations rest upon you. I have
no hopes, except from the intervention of some superior power, as any
dependence on the clemency of the council is out of the question.
The
Queen Dowager, now the most desolate of widows, compassionates their
case, but cannot assist them. "

Petrarch, wearied with the delays of business, sought relief in
excursions to the neighbourhood. Of these he writes an account to
Cardinal Colonna.

"I went to Baiae," he says, "with my friends, Barbato and Barrilli.
Everything concurred to render this jaunt agreeable--good company, the
beauty of the scenes, and my extreme weariness of the city I had
quitted. This climate, which, as far as I can judge, must be
insupportable in summer, is delightful in winter. I was rejoiced to
behold places described by Virgil, and, what is more surprising, by
Homer before him. I have seen the Lucrine lake, famous for its fine
oysters; the lake Avernus, with water as black as pitch, and fishes of
the same colour swimming in it; marshes formed by the standing waters of
Acheron, and the mountain whose roots go down to hell. The terrible
aspect of this place, the thick shades with which it is covered by a
surrounding wood, and the pestilent odour which this water exhales,
characterize it very justly as the Tartarus of the poets. There wants
only the boat of Charon, which, however, would be unnecessary, as there
is only a shallow ford to pass over. The Styx and the kingdom of Pluto
are now hid from our sight. Awed by what I had heard and read of these
mournful approaches to the dead, I was contented to view them at my feet
from the top of a high mountain. The labourer, the shepherd, and the
sailor, dare not approach them nearer. There are deep caverns, where
some pretend that a great deal of gold is concealed; covetous men, they
say, have been to seek it, but they never return; whether they lost
their way in the dark valleys, or had a fancy to visit the dead, being
so near their habitations.

"I have seen the ruins of the grotto of the famous Cumaean sybil; it is a
hideous rock, suspended in the Avernian lake. Its situation strikes the
mind with horror.