London Pub t 28.1829 by Robert Jennings, 62 Cheapside & Giraldou Bovinet, Gallerie Vivienne Faris

PETRARCH'S HOUSE AT ARQUA.

This was his chamber. 'Tis as when he left it;
As if he now were busy in his garden.
And this his closet. Here he sate and read.
This was his chair; and in it, unobserved,
Reading, or thinking of his absent friends,
He passed away, as in a quiet slumber.

ROGERS.

SUFFERING from that restless irritability which too often distinguishes the temperament of genius, Petrarch, though possessing a mansion in almost every country in which he had an ecclesiastical benefice, lived as if he had no home. He has himself described, in touching language, the painful state of mind which prompted him to seek, in change of scene, a relief from the feelings with which he was oppressed: "I am again in France, not to see what I have already seen a thousand times, but to dissipate weariness and disquietude, as invalids seek to do, by change of place." . . . . "Thus I have no place to remain in, none to go to. I am weary of life, and whatever path I take, I find it strewed with flints and thorns. In good truth, the spot which I seek has no existence upon earth; would that the time were come when I might depart in search of a world far different from this, wherein I feel so unhappy-unhappy, perhaps, from my own fault; perhaps from that of mankind; or it may be only the fault of the age in which I am destined to live; or it may be the fault of no one-still I am unhappy."