"The requests of a friend," he said, on this occasion, "are always chains upon me." Petrarch arrived, for the sixth time, at Vaucluse on the 27th of June, 1351.

He first announced himself to Philip of Cabassoles, Bishop of Cavaillon, to whom he had already sent, during his journey, some Latin verses, in which he speaks of Vaucluse as the most charming place in the universe.

"When a child," he says, "I visited it, and it nourished my youth in its sunny bosom.

When grown to manhood, I passed some of the pleasantest years of my life in the shut-up valley.

Grown old, I wish to pass in it my last years." The sight of his romantic hermitage, of the capacious grotto which had listened to his sighs for Laura, of his garden, and of his library, was, undoubtedly, sweet to Petrarch; and, though he had promised Boccaccio to come back to Italy, he had not the fortitude to determine on a sudden return.