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THE DECLINE AND FALL
CHAP
LXX.
CHAP. LXX.
Character and coronation of Petrarch . — Restor-ation of the freedom and government of Rome by the tribune Rienzi.—His virtues and vices,his expulsion and death.—Return of the popesfrom Avignon. —Great schism of the West.—Re-union of the Latin church .— Last strugglesof Reman liberty.—Statutes of Rome.—Pinalsettlement of the ecclesiastical state .
In the apprehension of modern times, Petrarch *is the Italian songster of Laura and love. Inthe harmony of his Tuscan rhymes, Italy ap-plauds, or rather adores, the father of her lyricpoetry ; and his verse, or at least his name, isrepeated by the enthusiasm, or affectation ofamorous sensibility. Whatever may be the pri-vate taste of a stranger, his slight and superfi-cial knowledge should humbly acquiesce in thetaste of a learned nation: yet I may hope or pre-sume, that the Italians do not compare the te-dious uniformity of sonnets and elegies, with thesublime compositions of their epic muse, theoriginal wildness of Dante, the regular beautiesof Tasso, and the boundless variety of the in-
* TheMemoires surlaVie de Francois Petrarque (Amsterdam , 1764,1767, 3 vols. in 4to) form a copious, original, and entertaining work, alabour of love, composed from the accurate study of Petrarch and hiscontemporaries ; but the hero is too often lost in the general history ofthe age, and the author too often languishes in the affectation of polite-ness and gallantry. In the preface to his first volume, he enumeratesand weighs twenty Italian biographers, who have professedly treatedof the same subject