Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ... MADRIGAL, ETC. 205 Thou aimed--she in her robe and flowing hair, Seated where grass and flowers her bare feet hide; "By her I am unpitied, thou defied. Her prisoner I; if pity only guide Thy well-strung bow, and but one arrow thine, 0 take revenge for thy sake and for mine. V.--From Petrarch. Madrigal. 12312344 A beauteous angel, circumspect of wing, From heaven descended to this verdant shore, As I passed heedless to my fate unseen. And seeing me guideless, friendless, wandering, She stretched a silken snare my way before, Where the fresh grass had made the pathway green.1 Nor did it vex me to be made her prize, So sweet the light that issued from her eyes. 1 This is another indication that Petrarch fell in love with Laura not in Avignon, but in the country.--See No. VII. VI.--On The Literary Habits Of Petrarch's Time. Many passages in Petrarch's, letters illustrate the literary habits of his time, and the difficulties of multiplying books before the invention of printing. Petrarch v usually kept five or six copyists at work, but, as he remarks in one of Ms later letters, "now only three, on account of the difficulty of getting good ones. Illuminators are less rare." He frequently complains of the professional scribes--" They promise much, perform little, finish nothing, and spoil all." "If you have not received my verses, it is not on account of my negligence, but of that of the copyists, who constantly disappoint me, so that my studies suffer greatly on their account. They not only break their promises, but keep the trifles entrusted to them, pretending they are lost; so that I must either become thenslave or cease to employ them." In apologising to a friend for having kept his Cicero upwards of four years, in order that he might copy...
