Even after death had placed the last seal on his misery, we see him devoting to the cause of the human mind all the strength and energy which love and sorrow had spared.
He lived the apostle of literature;--he fell its martyr:--he was found dead with his head reclined on a book.
Those who have studied the life and writings of Petrarch with attention, will perhaps be inclined to make some deductions from this panegyric.
It cannot be denied that his merits were disfigured by a most unpleasant affectation.

His zeal for literature communicated a tinge of pedantry to all his feelings and opinions.

His love was the love of a sonnetteer:--his patriotism was the patriotism of an antiquarian.

The interest with which we contemplate the works, and study the history, of those who, in former ages, have occupied our country, arises from the associations which connect them with the community in which are comprised all the objects of our affection and our hope.

In the mind of Petrarch these feelings were reversed.