ungrateful country. The entrance to hell is thronged by myriads of spirits, of those who, in life, performed their appointed tasks equally without disgrace and without glory, and who are therefore classed as the fit companions of the neutral angels, who were neither rebellious nor faithful to their maker. In his strong and energetic language, he calls them

Those miserables, who never truly lived

No record of their names is left on high,

Mercy and justice spurn them and refuse.

Take we no note of them-Look, and pass by!

The genius of Dante is in no respect less capable of being duly appreciated through the medium of translation than in the art which he so eminently possessed, of painting in words; of representing objects which are the pure creations of fancy, beings or actions out of all nature and out of all possibility, with so much truth and force, that the reader thinks he sees them before him, and, after having read the description once, believes, all his life after, that he has actually beheld them.' Still less credit, we fear, is given to the poet for beauties of a very different sort, and generally considered as the peculiar growth of an age of excessive sensibility-the delineation of the calm and peaceful scenes of inanimate nature, of picturesque objects, and pastoral images. The very nature of the poem seems to exclude ornaments of this description, and, from expecting only the supernaturally terrible and sublime, we are, perhaps, too hastily led to conclude, that nothing else can, by any possibility, have found admission into such a composition. The fact is, however, quite the contrary, and the reader, thus prejudiced, will be astonished to find the frequent opportunities embraced by the poet of introducing into passages, seemingly the most inauspicious for his purpose, such exquisite representations of natural objects, and of the feelings which they are calculated to inspire, as can hardly be equalled by those of any poets in the most advanced period of mental luxury and refinement.

The cloud of anger and indignation that for a moment obscures the philosophical serenity of his immortal guide, is thus illustrated by a comparison with the vicissitudes incident to the face of nature in early spring, which conveys, in a few words, to our senses all the freshness, together with all the uncertainty of the season. The miser, who is tormented with the thirst of Tantalus, is thus made perpetually to behold, without tasting, not water only, but

Rivulets, that from the verdant hills

Of Cassentin into the Arno flow,

Freshening its current with their cooler rills.

So the flames, which illuminate the eighth circle of his infernal regions, are

Lights, numberless as by some fountain side

The silly swain, reposing, at the hour
When beams the day-star with diminish'd pride,
When the sunn'd bee deserts each rifled flower
And leaves to humming gnats the populous void,
Beholds in grassy lawn, or leafy bower,

Or orchard-plot, of glow-worms emerald bright

So the evening hour is attended with all the circumstances of soothing melancholy, with which it is wont to inspire a poetical imagination, in a passage of which the last line probably suggested to Gray the opening of his elegy.

'Twas now the hour when fond desire renews

To him who wanders o'er the pathless main,
Raising unbidden tears, the last adieus

Of tender friends, whom fancy shapes again;
When the late parted pilgrim thrills with thought
Of his lov'd home, if o'er the distant plain
Perchance, his ears the village chimes have caught,
Seeming to mourn the close of dying day.*

On the entrance into Purgatory M. Ginguené thus eloquently expresses himself:

Si jamais l'inspiration se fit sentir dans les chants d'un poëte, c'est certainement dans les premiers vers que Dante laisse échapper avec une sorte de ravissement, en quittant l'enfer pour des régions moins affreuses, où du moins l'espérance accompagne et adoucit les tourmens. Son style prend tout-à-coup un éclat, une sérénité qui annonce son nouveau sujet. Ses métaphores sont toutes empruntées d'objets riants. Il prodigue sans effort les riches images, les figures hardies, et donne à la langue toscane un vol qu'elle n'avait point eu jusqu'alors, et qu'elle n'a jamais surpassé depuis.'-Toute cette première division de la seconde partie du poëme est, comme on voit, fertile en descriptions et en scènes dramatiques. Les descriptions partout y sont d'une richesse, qu'une sèche analyse peut à peine laisser entrevoir; les cieux, les astres, les mers, les campagnes, les fleurs, tout est peint des couleurs les plus fraîches et les plus vives. Les objets surnaturels ne coûtent pas plus au poëte que ceux dont il prend le modèle dans la nature. Ses anges ont quelque chose de céleste; chaque fois qu'il en introduit de nouveaux, il varie leurs habits, leurs attitudes, et leurs formes!'-Tom. ii, p. 127-147.

Among the most beautiful of the episodes in this admirable part of the poem are the meeting of Dante with his friend, the musician Casella, which Milton has consecrated to the imagination of the

Che paia' giorno pianger che si muore, penzi

*

reader,* and that with the painter Oderisi da

Gubbio, who is condemned to purgatory for having indulged the overweening pride of art. It is into his mouth that the poet puts those celebrated reflections on the vanity of human endowments, in which he is suspected of having intended to introduce a boast of his own poetical excellence, somewhat at variance with the moral of humility which it is his object to impress.

Oh empty pride of human power and skill!
How soon the verdure on thy summit dies,
If no dark following years sustain it still!

Thus Cimabue the painter's honour'd prize
To Giotto yields; a happier rival's fame

Hath veil'd his glory from all mortal eyes.-
Who now repeats that elder Guido's name?
Another wears the poet's envied crown-
Perhaps this fleeting present hour may claim

One who shall bear from both their vain renown.
The world's applause is but a passing wind,

An idle blast, now this, now that way blown,
And changing name with every point assign'd, &c.
Our mortal fame is like the grass of hue,

That comes and goes, by the same sun decay'd,
From which it life, and health, and freshness drew,

When from crude earth burst forth the tender blade.

Whatever may be the sense of this allusion, Dante has not left us to conjecture what was his own opinion of his poetical merits in comparison with those of his contemporaries. Do I behold in thee,' exclaims Bonaggiunta, (one of those early bards who sang of love according to the fashion of the times,†) do I behold in thee the author who has written poems of a new style, beginning • Donne, ch'avette intelletto d amore ?‡

6

I am,' replies Dante, one who write when love inspires, and give utterance to the thoughts which he imprints within me.' Alas, my brother! returns the elder bard, I now see what it is that has withheld from myself and the poets of my own time, that new style, that style so sweet and soothing, to which I have listened this day. Your pen only set down the words which Love dictates. It was far otherwise with us; and the more we admitted of orna

.

*Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured airs, &c.

*

Dante must give Fame leave to set thee higher

Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,

*

Met in the milder shades of purgatory.-MILTON-Sonnets.

Qui avait fait, selon l'usage de ce temps, beaucoup de poésies amoureuses où il n'y avait point d'amour.'

This is the first line of one of Dante's most admired Canzoni.

We removed

ment from the mere study to please, the further were
from that mode of expression which we so admire in you.'

Few, even among the warmest admirers of Dante, have had the enthusiasm to follow him, step by step, through the last division of his stupendous edifice. In the Inferno, the imagination is constantly kept on the stretch by that terrible machinery which the poet sets in motion and supports with unequalled powers. In the Purgatorio, hope is every thing and every where about us. In both alike, the number of interesting episodes, the pictures of human character, and of objects both real and fantastic, but which we fancy real because they invest ideal beauties with the qualities perceptible to sense,' employ by turns the feeling, the judgment, and the fancy.

'Le Paradis n'offre presqu'aucune de ces ressources. Tout y est éclat et lumière. Une contemplation intellectuelle y est la seule jouissance. Des solutions de difficultés et des explications de mystères remplissent presque tous les dégrés par où l'on arrive à la connaissance intime et à l'intuition éternelle et fine du souverain bien. Cela peut être admirable sans doute, mais cela est trop disproportionné avec la faiblesse de l'entendement, trop étranger à ces affections humaines qui constituent éminemment la nature de l'homme, peut-être enfin trop purement céleste pour la poésie, qui dans les premieres âges du monde fut, il est vrai, presque uniquement consacrée aux choses du ciel mais qui, depuis longtemps, ne peut plus les traiter avec succès, si elle ne prend soin d'y mêler des objets, des intérêts et des passions terrestres.'-Ginguené, tom. ii. p. 197.

Nevertheless, it must not be believed that even the ineffable and fatiguing splendours, or the mystical theology of the Paradiso do not occasionally admit the introduction of such natural pictures and such moral reflections as we have already shewn to constitute some of the highest claims of the poet. Nor must we forget either the exquisitely graceful and simple delineation of the ancient manners of Florence, which is intended by him as the vehicle of censure upon those of the age then present, or the melancholy and affecting colours in which he has displayed the miseries of exile, in the poetical prediction of his own banishment. Among the general observations which conclude M. Ginguené's critical analysis, we find a happy illustration of the principle with which we set out, that Dante is to be judged by himself alone.

Le poëme de Dante,' he says, 'a cela de particulier, que, seul de son espèce, n'ayant point eu de modèle, et ne pouvant s'en servir, seg beautés sont toutes au profit de l'art, et ses défauts n'y sont d'aucun danger. Quel poëte aujourd'hui, ayant à peindre un enfer, y mettrait des objets ou dégoûtants, ou ridicules, ou d'une exagération gigantesque, tels que ceux que nous y avons vus, et surtout tels que ceux que je n'ai osé y faire voire? Quel poëte, voulant représenter le séjour cé

leste, figurerait en croix ou en aigle, sur toute la surface d'une planète, d'inuombrables légions d'ames bienheureuses, ou les ferait couler en torrent? Quel autre préfèrerait d'expliquer sans cesse des dogmes plutôt que de peindre des jouissances et d'inaltérables félicités? Il en est ainsi des autres vices de composition que l'on aperçoit aisément dans la Divina Commedia, et sur lesquel il est par conséquent inutile de s'appésantir. Tom. ii. p. 252.

The want of a principal action, of a leading point of interest, the continual conflict of images, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and the frequent admission of such as are either low and vulgar or even indecent and disgusting, are faults from which the warmest admirers among his own countrymen do not affect to exempt him. The hasty and illiberal judgments of Voltaire on all subjects of foreign literature are now too thoroughly appreciated to excite even indignation. It is seldom, however, that a French critic can be found so superior to the influence of his name and authority as to feel, like M. Ginguené, the real character of a poet whom he has affected to consign to the perpetual contempt of an enlightened age and nation.

Il ne faut oublier que Dante créait sa langue; il choisissait entre les différents dialectes nés à la fois en Italie, et dont aucun n'était encore décidémment la langue italienne; il tirait du latin, du grec, du français, du provençal, des mots nouveaux; il empruntait surtout de la langue de Virgile ces tours nobles, serrés et poétiques qui manquaient entièrement à un idiome borné jusqu'alors à rendre les choses vulgaires de la vie, ou tout au plus, des pensées et des sentiments de galanterie et d'amour. Il faut se rappeler encore qu'en donnant à son poëme le nom de Commedia, par de motifs que j'ai précédemment expliqués, il se réserva le privilège d'écrire dans ce style moyen et même souvent familier qui est en effet celui de la comédie, et que ce fut pour ainsi dire à son insu, ou du moins sans projet comme sans effort, qu'il s'éleva si souvent. jusqu'au sublime.'

It is a just remark that the age of Dante was, by an extraordinary coincidence of circumstances as well as talent, the period at which almost all the liberal arts burst into life at once in the free Country of Tuscany. Yet the fame of the first revivers of painting, sculpture, architecture, was surpassed by that of their immediate successors, and has been totally eclipsed by the greater glories of the following age, while the poetical art alone soared at once to a height which the Tusean language can never hope again to attain. 'Dante starts up a giant among the pygmies; not only effacing all that had preceded him, but filling alone a rank of which none that follow can hope to dispossess him. Even Petrarch, the tender, the elegant, the divine, does not surpass him in the graceful, and has nothing that approaches him in the