But where the mind has been liberally and elegantly cultivated, where much sensibility and strength of passion are present, and the misfortunes occurring, turn upon the loss of some tender and beloved connexion, in this case, what may be called the luxury of grief is more fully and exquisitely displayed. That mild and gentle sorrow, which, in the bosom of the good, and of the feeling, succeeds the strong energies of grief, is of a nature so soothing and grateful, so friendly to the soft emotions of the soul, that those, whose friendship, or whose love the hand of fate has severed, delight in the indulgence of reflections which lead to past endearment, which, dwelling on the virtues, the perfections of the dead, breathe the pure spirit of melancholy enthusiasm.

-ask the faithful youth

Why the cold urn of her, whom long he loved,

So often fills his arms, so often draws

His lonely footsteps at the silent hour

To

pay the mournful tribute of his tears? Oh, he will tell thee that the wealth of worlds Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego That sacred hour, when, stealing from the noise Of care and envy, sweet remembrance sooth,

With virtue's kindest looks, his aching breast,

And turns his tears to rapture.

AKENSIDE.

Here, every thing which tends to soften and refine the mind, to introduce a pensive train of thought, and call the starting tear, will long and ardently be cherished. Music, the solace of the mourner, that food of tender passion, which, while it sweetly melts the soul, corrects each harsh and painful feeling, will ever to the wretched be a source of exquisite sensation. Those writers who have touched the finest chords of pity, who mingling the tenderest simplicity with the strongest emotions of the heart, speak the pure language of nature, have elegantly drawn the effects of music on the mind; the Fonrose of Marmontelle, the Maria of Sterne, and the Julia de Roubignè of Mackenzie, but more especially the Minstrel of Beattie, sweetly evince this delightful and bewitching melancholy which so blandly steals upon the children of sorrow.

That the contemplation of nature, of the various features of the sublime and of the beautiful, often lead to reflections of a solemn

and serious cast, is a circumstance well established; and on this account, the possession of romantic and sequestered scenery is a requisite highly wished for by those who mourn the loss of a beloved object. The gloomy majesty of antique wood, the awful grandeur of o'erhanging rock, the frequent dashing of perturbed water, throw a sombre tint around, which suits the language of complaining grief. Perhaps to the wild and picturesque beauties of Valchiusa we owe much of the poetry, much of the pathos of Petrarch, the perpetuity of whose passion for Laura was, without doubt, greatly strengthened by such a retreat; where, free from interruption, he could dwell upon the remembrance of her virtue and her beauty, could invoke her gentle spirit, and indulge the sorrows of his heart. How strongly its romantic scenery affected him, how vividly it brought to recollection those long-lost pleasures when, in the company of his beloved Laura, he wandered amid its friendly shades, and hung upon the music of her lips, every reader of sensibility will judge from the following beautiful translation of the 261st. sonnet, transcribed from an anonymous Essay on the Life and Character of Petrarch.

ON THE PROSPECT OF VALCHIUSA.

Thou lonely vale, where in the fleeting years

Of tender youth I breath'd my am'rous pain; Thou brook, whose silver stream receiv'd my tears, Thy murmurs joining to my sorrowing strain,

I come, to visit all my former haunts again!

O green-clad hills, familiar to my sight!
O well-known paths where oft I wont to rove,
Musing the tender accents of my love!

Long use and sad remembrance now invite,
Again to view the scenes which once could give de-
light.

Yes, ye are still the same—To me alone

Your charms decay; for she, who to these eyes Gave nature beauty, now for ever gone,

Deep in the silent grave a mould'ring victim lies!

Pathetic, almost to pain, must have been the impression on the susceptible mind of Petrarch, and, indeed, on every mind alive to pity and struggling with distress such scenery will ever produce sensations of a similar kind: how delightful to the bosom of sadness, are the still sweet beauties of a moon-light evening, and who, that has a heart to feel, is not struck by the soft and tender scenery of a Claude, whose

setting suns diffuse such an exquisite melancholy, and whose shadowy fore-grounds drop such a grateful gloom, as are peculiarly captivating to the mind of taste and sensibility.

But nothing will better prove how greatly avaricious the soul of Petrarch was of this mingled perception of pleasure and of pain, this luxury of grief, than presenting the reader with a note translated from the margin of a manuscript of Virgil, preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and formerly in Petrarch's possession It is enriched with many latin annotations in the poet's hand-writing, and on the first page is the following interesting passage.

"Laura, illustrious by the virtues she possessed, and celebrated, during many years, by my Verses, appeared to my eyes for the first time, on the sixth day of April, in the year thirteen hundred and twenty-seven, at Avignon, in the church of St. Claire, at six o'clock in the morning. I was then in my early youth. In the same town, on the same day, and at the same hour, in the year thirteen hundred and forty-eight, this light, this sun, withdrew from