Note K — THE LIFE OF PETRARCH. (continued 2)

Translation.—In the twenty-fifth year of his age, after a short though happy existence, our John departed this life in the year of Christ 1361, on the 10th of July, or rather on the 9th, at the midhour between Friday and Saturday. Sent into the world to my mortification and suffering, he was to me in life the cause of deep and unceasing solicitude, and in death of poignant grief. The news reached me on the evening of the 13th of the same month that he had fallen at Milan, in the general mortality caused by that unwonted scourge which at last discovered and visited so fearfully this hitherto exempted city. On the 8th of August, the same year, a servant of mine returning from Milan brought me a rumour (which on the 18th of the same fatal month was confirmed by a servant of Dominus Theatinus) of the death of my Socrates, my companion, my best of brothers, at Babylon (Avignon, I mean) in the month of May. I have lost my comrade and the solace of my life! Receive, Christ Jesus, these two, and the five that remain, into thy eternal habitations!