Note 4 — JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON

This is doubtless one of the two or three obscure references to Laura, in Petrarch's correspondence. His frigid statement of the case is characteristic of Petrarch the Humanist as contrasted with Petrarch the singer. Compare the fervour of the sonnets with the original of this passage:—Amore acerrimo, sed unico et honesto, in adolescentia laboravi, et diutius laborassem, nisi iam tepescentem ignem mors acerba, sed utilis, extinxisset.