tors, but their coarse manners, while, from the weakness of his character, the influence of the artful monk became complete over his mind, who laboured to instil into him notions of the validity of his own personal title to the crown. The anonymous Author of the life of Joanna, does not, however, give the slightest hint from what historical sources he derives this fact. Robert, foreseeing that immediately upon his death, the Hungarians would seize the reins of government, adopted an expedient, which could only serve to palliate the evils he dreaded --that of causing allegiance to be sworn to Joanna alone, thus leaving to Carobert the title only of king-consort.

Robert was styled by Petrarch, the Solomon of his age, and some resemblance might be traced between the character of our James the First and the Neapolitan monarch. Through his influence, the Poet of Vaucluse obtained the laurel crown from the Roman senate. It should seem, however, that although the Italian poems of Petrarch were so popular that they were repeated and sung by all classes, it was his Latin works, and particularly his Africa, a poem seldom read in modern times, and of which a complete analysis may be found in the excellent work of M. Ginguénet (Hist. Litt. d'Italie, tom. 2.) that he was indebted for the poetic laurel. Several anecdotes of Petrarch have been judiciously introduced, and nothing that relates to that enchanting poet can be uninteresting.

• In his youth he was so remarkable for his personal beauty as to be pointed at in the streets and public assemblies. His figure was peculiarly elegant, his features noble and regular, his complexion florid, and his eyes were remarkably fine and expressive. Prizing these advantages to their full value, he was, in early life, somewhat of what we moderns would call a fop in his dress. In a letter written to his brother when the hey-day of youth was over, he recalls to his recollection their former anxiety about dress when they used to spend half the day in arranging to advantage the luxuriant tresses it was then customary for men to wear. "Do you remember," continues he“ our wearing white robes, in which the smallest fold ill-placed would have been a subject of sincere sorrow! When our shoes, which would not admit of the smallest wrinkle, which were made so tight that we suffered martyrdom, and which, in the end, would have made me lame, had I not at length discovered, that it was better to consult the comfort of my own feelings than to please the eyes of others. Then when we passed through the streets, what care, what study to avoid the sudden gusts of wind that might have deranged our curled locks, and the spots of mud that would have soiled the lustre of our robes !”

• The life of Petrarch was unmarked by the greater vicissitudes of fortune, and a continued course of even and moderate prosperity was unalloyed by any affliction except that arising in the course of nature

from the loss of friends. Perhaps no individual unpossessed of rank, riches, or political power, ever acquired such respect and consideration from his contemporaries. Kings, emperors, and popes, admitted him to familiarity and friendship, as if rather honoured than honouring, and received the freedom of his remonstrances with a degree of good temper not less admirable than surprizing: The deference ren

. dered by all ranks of men to the learning and worth of Petrarch, is not less creditable to the age in which he lived than to himself.'

Petrarch was the guest of Robert, and during his sojourn at Naples, was honoured with the greatest attention by the king. Anxious to gratify his prevailing tastes, the monarch accompanied him on visits to several interesting objects near Naples, Lamong others, to what is traditionally called the tomb of Virgil, and the Grotto of Pausilippo.

• Virgil is still considered by the populace of Naples to have been a magician, and was at this period so reputed all over Europe, even by the higher orders, and this opinion was then so firmly established at Naples, that it was scarcely safe to attack it. When Pope Innocent VI. believed Petrarch to deal in magic because he studied the works of Virgil, it was more from an idea of the unholy nature of his writings than from the rarity of the power of comprehending them. Robert, on the contrary, fell into the opposite extreme, and despised them altogether as possessing no other merit than beauty of expression.

• What is called the grotto of Pausilippo is a passage cut in the mountain, about a mile in length, and when visited by Petrarch, was low, narrow, darker still than in modern times, and nearly suffocating with dust. It was, however, held so sacred, that robbers and murderers avoided its precincts, and it was never known to have been the scene of crime. The supposed tomb of Virgil stands near the entrance ; a laurel, said to have sprung from it, shaded the hallowed spot for centuries, until it was destroyed by the fall of a poplar from the mountain in 1668. When Petrarch arrived at the entrance of the grotto, Robert asked him if he did not think, like every body else, that Vir. gil had made this excavation by the force of incantations. This question embarrassed him for a moment, as he knew the tradition was held sacred by the Neapolitan nobles who accompanied the king; but laughing at the snare which Robert had laid for him, he replied, “ I knew Virgil was a poet, but I never before understood he was a sorcerer! besides, I see the marks of the chisel.” Robert approved the reply by a movement of his head, and agreed there was nothing of sorcery in the matter.' pp. 156, 7.

Boccaccio's attachment to Maria of Sicily, Robert's natural daughter, is most fantastically accounted for. It seems, that

• Three days after the departure of Petrarch for his coronation, whilst the imagination of Boccaccio was still exalted by the circumstance, he found himself, on the eve of the same festival, in a church of the same name as that in which Laura had first appeared to her lover's view, and he sought amongst the assembled beauties (unconsciously perhaps) the distinguished fair one who was to be the mistress of his heart :-his eyes were attracted by the exquisite beauty of Maria, and at the shrine of her charms he consecrated the offspring of his genius.'

We do not pretend to solve the enigma of this mysterious passion. This falling in love with malice prepense, baffles our comprehension; it is one of those untried sentiments that acknowledge none of the ordinary laws of pathology; undefinable as a dream, the mere fume of that mystical absurdity which has been dignified with the name of Platonic, because a sounding epithet was wanting to designate so vain and senseless a chimera. It is sickening to be told, that, by some secret sympathies, the identity of a festival, or of the name of two churches, could have prompted a man of sense to look for a distinguished fair one, who was to reign the lady of his thoughts, and that his eyes singled out a person, to whom he had never spoken, to act the part of a mistress ;-all this too without his being in the slightest degree conscious of what he was doing. The plain, unsophisticated mode of considering these things, and talking of them, as Prior says in the song, • like folks of this world, leads to a much simpler conclusion. Chivalry had still left its traces in every court of Christendom, and the artificial gallantry of that period required some nominal object of adoration, as the peg on which the poet was to hang his sonnets, or the romance-writer his exaggerated descriptions of female beauty. In truth, though Petrarch's ardent nature might have rendered him an exception, the singling out of such a mistress must be considered as little more than a dedication of the poem or of the romance to the lady whose charms, by this most ingenious flattery, are celebrated throughout the work, instead of occupying the space of a dedicatory epistle at the beginning.

The king and queen, and the duke and dutchess of Calabria, with the young princess Maria, resided at this time at Castel Novo, near the sea. The castle communicated with extensive gardens, and with the mole which formed the port of Naples, and which was then the favourite scene of the cavalcade of the younger branches of the royal family and the nobility.

• A considerable degree of magnificence began now to distinguish the interior ornaments of the residences of the great, especially in the south of Europe. The walls were hung with velvet, satin, or damask, or painted in a regular series of stories from Scripture, or from the innumerable romances then in vogue, and the windows were

frequently glazed with that brilliant painted glass which modern art has vainly endeavoured to emulate.

Whilst the walls of palaces were thus sumptuously decorated, the floors were generally neglected. When carpets were used they were of silk or velvet, corresponding with the hangings; but these were rare, and spread partially, in the oriental fashion, for the comfort of individuals of rank. The brick or marble floors were generally strewed (at least in summer) with rushes or odoriferous herbs, or the flower of the yellow broom when in season, which thence became the em blem of humility. Vases of flowers were also a favourite ornament of both their eating and sleeping apartments, as appears from the Decameron; and Petrarch in one of his sonnets compares Laura to a vase of gold, filled with white and red roses fresh culled by virgin hands. With less elegant taste, gold and silver plate embossed or enchased with elaborate designs, was ostentatiously displayed on buffets, under canopies of cloth of gold or silver. Mirrors of great beauty fabricated at Venice were much esteemed, and occasionally lent their useful aid to the ladies' toilet. The beds of the great were placed in alcoves ascended by steps, and the hangings and counterpanes were embroidered in gold.

But the chief magnificence of the great was displayed in their own personal attire, which varying in fashion from day to day, and differing in every different capital, may be described as ludicrous or splendid according to the scene or occasion chosen.

Of the male sex, some wore party-coloured dresses, made short and tight; others long robes trailing in the dirt; but the mantles and robes of ceremony were always long and flowing, and the ground of a single colour, usually purple or crimson. The French fashion, generally adopted in Italy in 1342, Villani states to have been as follows: A tight and short vest which could not be put on without assistance, being laced behind, a girdle of leather like the girth of a horse with a splendid buckle and tongue, and a magnificent purse or pouch in the German fashion. The hood in the fashion of a buffoon, with capes descending to the middle, or lower, with his hood and mantle adorned with quantities of embroidery and fringes. The bands of the hood are so long as to reach the ground, and are occasionally wrapped round the head to keep out the cold; they wear their beards long and flowing, to appear more terrific to their enemies in war. The cavaliers wear a surcoat or robe tight above the girdle, and the ends of the sleeves touching the ground, bordered with ermine or miniver."

The loose hanging sleeves were adopted by the Italian ladies from these surcoats, and both sexes wore girdles, coronets, and collars (or carcanets as they were called) of gold, silver, or gems, the women also wearing pendants in their ears. If to the dress of the male sex, described by the Florentine historian, we add the shoes with toes so long as to be fastened to the knees with gold chains, and carved at the extreme point with the representation of a church window, a bird, or some fantastic device, the dress of the head and feet will throw the whole figure into a sufficiently ridiculous masquerade. These long

toed shoes are said to have been invented by Fulk, count of Anjou, to hide an excrescence on one of his feet. The clergy preached against the preposterous fashion with as much vehemence and as little success as they did against more serious errors, on the idea that is was contrary to the Scripture, which says, no man by taking thoughs can add a cubit to his stature; but this text might, with more justice, have been applied to the high-heeled shoes, or the high conical caps with streamers of silk falling to the ground with which it was the pleasure of the diminutive amongst the fair sex to add to their stature. This, however, was not the only artifice of the toilet which they were accused of practising ; many used white and red paint, others wore false hair, or coloured their own with saffron to imitate the golden tresses of poetry, and some amongst the Southern beauties, whose locks, too obstinately sable for this latter expedient, wore thick fringes of white and yellow silk hanging over their faces.'

We are sorry that we cannot insert the interesting detail of the manners of this period, when every one rose with the sun, ate his first meal at the third hour of the natural day, and his second at the ninth. Froissart, St. Palaye, “ Les Honneurs de la Cour," and the “ Customs of France" compiled by the Countess of Furnès, (the last two books well known to the lovers of black letter,) have supplied our Author with much entertaining matter illustrative of the prevailing manners of Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

"A brief space of fifteen years of happiness was permitted to Joanna, to enjoy these various delights, ere the storms which had been so long gathering on all sides, burst with overwhelming violence upon her devoted head. Lively, bold, and prompt, in her intellectual powers; cheerful, generous, confiding, and affectionate, in her disposition, she possessed all the qualities most natural and most engaging in youth: and as yet happy in the protection and idolizing fondness of her grandfather, in the society of her sister, in the real or feigned attachment of all around her, she enjoyed, in happy unconsciousness of the future, the magnificence befitting her rank, and the vivacious pleasures of her age; now listening with filial reverence to the lessons of the royal sage, or poring over the wisdom of antiquity; now lending a pleased attention to the strains of the minstrel, or leading the graceful dance, the splendid cavalcade, or the games and pastimes of her young companions. All historians have concurred in extolling the exquisite beauty of her person, the eloquence of her speech, and the majestic graces of her air and manner, Boccaccio was so impressed with the exalted qualities of her mind, and the beneficence of her disposition, that he gives but five words to describe that personal beauty to which alone many succeeding writers have done justice --yet these five words convey, that she was “ fair and goodly to look on," of a graceful presence, of a cheerful and beautiful countenance. Brantome, the enthusiastic admirer of every princess of French ex

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