information possessed by the Sibyl would be the property of Virgil also; and there is no doubt that both were credited with a knowledge of the miraculous star. Nor did Virgil's authorship of the fourth Eclogue fail to increase in his case that feeling of compassion for the misfortune of having been, as it were, born too soon, which was aroused for many ancient writers, whose moral merits would have drawn them within the circle of the new religion, had they flourished at a more propitious epoch. It was believed at a very early period that St. Paul had visited Virgil's tomb at Naples; and the following lines, embodying the feeling just referred to, were sung in the mass of the Apostle's church at Mantua down to the end of the fifteenth century : 'Ad Maronis mausoleum Ductus, fundit super eum: Poetarum maxime!' The reputation of Virgil had been linked to Christianity on its literary side, in the fourth and fifth centuries, through the fashion of composing centos from his works on Biblical themes -albeit all the really distinctive points of our religion were in these unavoidably omitted. These fruits of a misdirected ingenuity—which appear to have employed the same class of minds as now distinguish themselves in acrostics-are deservedly forgotten, but were at one time so popular that Pope Gelasius was obliged to warn the faithful that they had no canonical authority. The fourth Eclogue was variously treated, but always continued to occupy the attention of Christendom. It was embodied in a Greek translation in the discourse of Constantine Ad Sanctos. Whether the Emperor really spoke it in Greek or not, the fact of the story, and the alterations which were made in the translation with the manifest object of bringing it into still greater harmony with Biblical ideas, testify to the general adhesion of the Christians of that day to this belief. Lactantius agreed that the Eclogue had a Christian signification, but considered it as referring to the millennium. St. Augustine admitted it as a genuine prophecy, dwelling particularly on the remission of sins apparently predicted in the thirteenth and fourteenth lines. St. Jerome ridiculed the entire notion; but it flourished nevertheless, for St. Paul had referred to heathen poets, and though the supposed Sibylline books were forgeries after the facts, this could not be said of the Eclogue, the the date of which was unchallenged. Hence the story took its place, not only in popular credence, but among preachers and learned men, and Virgil henceforth is also among the prophets. Verses of the Eclogue were said to have converted Statius and others; nor was art behindhand in giving currency to the legend. Mr. Street found Virgil sculptured in the stalls of the Cathedral of Zamora among the worthies of the Old Testament ; he may be seen in a picture by Vasari at Rimini; a line from the Eclogue is placed over the head of the Cumæan Sibyls in Raffaelle's picture in the church of S. M. della Pace at Rome; and we learn from Mrs. Jameson* that there is an early picture of the Nativity in which David and the Prophets are singing and dancing round, and Virgil leads the concert with a fiddle. Christian poets, Sedulius for example, imitate and sometimes copy the inscriptions of Virgil in painting Hell or Paradise; and his verses are to be found in the burial-places of the catacombs along with the cross and monogram of Christ.† In the poem 'L'Intelligenza,' attributed to Dino Compagni, and probably written about 1282, in the description of the 'Palazzo di Madonna,' a certain painting is mentioned as representing the Sibyl Femonöe, who repeated the responses of Apollo :' 6 'Che delle dieu sibille fu quella And Sannazarius, in his poem 'De Partu Virginis,' does not hesitate to put the whole of the fourth Eclogue into the mouth of the shepherds at the Nativity. To pass from these general considerations, which might have operated upon any writer who had conceived the idea of such a poem as the 'Divina Commedia,' we may advert to others which were peculiarly calculated to influence such a mind as a study of Dante's other works reveals to us. In three chapters which form a valuable contribution to general literary history, but which we have no space minutely to analyse, Signor Comparetti sketches some of the more striking characteristics of the period immediately preceding Dante. No one, we think, who reads them will fail to gain clearer notions than he ever had before of the peculiar light in which Virgil must have appeared to the great Florentine, and of the reasons which we may almost say necessitated the position of the former in the 'Divina Commedia.' It will be seen that this resulted from no * History of Our Lord,' vol. i. p. 251. Place and painter not mentioned. † See Boissier, 'La Religion Romaine,' vol. i. p. 352. Vol. 139.-No. 277. G mere mere individual preference of a favourite author, but was dictated by a variety of reasons, arising out of the precedent conditions of thought, education, and general culture surrounding the writer of that great poem. The renown of Virgil as the prophet of the Saviour, as the describer of another world of reward and punishment, as the unquestioned authority on all the departments of scholastic education, as the bard of that empire the renewal of which was the dream of his disciple,made him altogether the most conspicuous figure that could fill the vision of a literary genius, whether for imitation or rivalry. On the other hand, a mind like that of Dante, which had really absorbed into itself all the science and philosophy with which Virgil had been credited, and was conscious of the vast powers which were destined to revolutionise the literature of Italy, must have felt that no prosecution of its grand scheme was open to it of which Virgil should not form an integral part. That he should be passed over as one whose day was gone by and whom it was time to supersede was impossible; but he might be associated with the work of a younger generation in thought, literature, and politics, and in the spiritual sphere might look over the borders of that paradise which it had not been given to him to enter. This conception was executed partly with the freedom of Dante's individual genius, partly under the limitations imposed by the conditions of his age and country. In many respects he was a pure medievalist, looking upon universal history, for instance, exclusively from the Jewish standpoint as regarded ancient, from the Christian as regarded modern times; Jerusalem was the centre of one world, Rome of the other, and the history of both met in one point, the birth of Christ. We lay stress on the fact that the supposed foundation of Rome was contemporary with the reign of David.* Dante believed to a great extent in the theological, allegorical, and scholastic value of the ancient writers, and though his knowledge was more extensive it was essentially of the same kind as that of his day. His scholarship is not first-rate in Latin, and it is difficult to believe that he knew Greek, though the fact of his having obtained a theological degree at Paris has sometimes been supposed to prove this. But, though he had not emancipated himself from all the prejudices with which a man of the thirteenth century took up an author like Virgil, he had realised one great fact *E tutto questo fu in uno temporale che David nacque e nacque Roma: cive che Enea venne di Troia in Italia che fu origine della nobilissima città romana, come testimoniano le scritture.'-Convito, vol. iv. p. 5. which had in his time come to be almost forgotten, viz., that Virgil, Statius, Lucan, and others were poets. Casting off the common prejudices against their paganism, he felt their power and sweetness as he might have done at the present day. Where he uses ancient facts or traditions, it is in no spirit of servile imitation, but as one who has completely assimilated his material, and can deal with it like its original owners, even to the extent of enlarging its mythological phraseology. 6 It is in accordance with this mastery of the ancient writers that in his mind Italy is but the continuation of Rome, not the new and distinct nation we have in modern times been educated to consider it. His view of the ancient Latin world was not an abstract and literary, but a practical one, as of a power which was not dead, but as alive as when Euryalus and Nisus and Turnus, and the virgin Camilla died in its behalf.' His sympathy with Virgil was fellow-feeling for one who was not so much an ancient author as his own countryman, the poet of the empire whose centre of gravity was still in Rome. Roman, Latin, and Italian were to him all one, and he does honour to the poet whom all honour, who showed' what our tongue could do,' and who taught him the beautiful style' which has gained him honour from others. Dante's Virgil, therefore, is not the real Virgil of the Augustan age, but the ideal Virgil of the thirteenth century. Still Dante's conception of him is no mere repetition of medieval notions, nor does it appear to be indebted either to any of the old allegorists like Fulgentius, or to any of the biographers, except, perhaps, to Donatus, and to him only for facts. Whatever conception was in Dante's mind, it was clearly seized and consistently followed out. A poet of less judgment would not so firmly have distinguished the provinces which are respectively assigned to Dante, to Statius, and to Beatrice, but would probably have softened off the summary return of Virgil to Limbo which is now implied. All through, however, we feel that keen sympathy of the poet for the poet, which makes Dante linger longest in such company, and with his master yield, in the Purgatorio, to the fascination of Casella's song. This sympathy, combined with Virgil's Italian origin, may answer a question sometimes asked, why Dante should not have chosen as a guide 'il gran maestro di color che sanno?'surely the supreme representative of medieval and every other learning. It is enough to say that the master alluded to was a philosopher, and not a poet. The Dantesque Virgil is, as Signor Comparetti remarks, a measure of the degree to which Dante adhered to or deserted the ideas of his age. He does not, indeed, restore the exact type of the Augustan poet, but consciously ennobles and completes it. That some of the singular legends of which we shall have to speak were then current is manifest from a curious legend in a poem by his friend Cino da Pistoia.* But these he must designedly have passed by, for if he had believed Virgil to be a magician he would, instead of adopting him as a guide, have been obliged to place him in the fourth Bolgia, where, in fact, he does place the mythic foundress of Virgil's own citythe sorceress Manto. And the imputation of epicureanism which was made against Virgil in his own time, and is not extinct even at the present day,† he either did not know or wished to discountenance, for the only allusion he makes to the Epicureans is that they denied the existence of a future state. There is a curious and obscure passage in the ninth book of the Inferno,' which, if we are to take it in its obvious meaning as a record through Dante of one of Virgil's spiritual experiences, would undoubtedly furnish strong reason for the choice of the latter as a guide. We refer to the lines in which, in answer to Dante's inquiry whether souls from Limbo are ever permitted to descend into the lower circles, Virgil reassures him by declaring that he has once already visited the circle of Judas, in obedience to the spells of Erichtho. Signor Comparetti quotes this passage, but only for the purpose of warning us against the commentators who have seen in it a reference to Virgil's necromantic reputation. In this he may be right. But it is noteworthy that Virgil says nothing of any obstacles on his previous journey, whereas when he is in Dante's company the Furies offer a resistance so fierce that the interposition of an angel is required to clear the way. In other words, he would appear to have been unopposed when obeying the commands of a Pagan sorceress, but violently withstood when acting under the orders of a Christian saint. The reference made by some commentators to the passage in Lucan, where Erichtho conjures up the spirit of a dead soldier to predict the event of the war, introduces a needless difficulty into the passage; for at the period Lucan refers to, Virgil must have been still alive, whereas it is clear that at the time, whenever it was, that Dante refers to, 'O sommo vate, quanto mal facesti A venir qui: non t' era me' morire Quando la mosca per l'altre fuggire Ove ogni vespa doverria venire A punger quei che su ne' boschi stanno.' † See Teuffel's 'Roman Literature,' section on Virgil. he |