Lords of Ravenna. There he still rests, in a small, solitary chapel, built, not by a Florentine, but a Venetian. Florence, that mother of little love,' asked for his bones; but rightly asked in vain-his place of repose is better in those remote and forsaken streets by the shore of the Adrian Sea," hard by the last relics of the Roman Empire,-the mausoleum of the children of Theodosius, and the mosaics of Justinian-than among the assembled dead of S. Croce, or amid the magnificence of S. Maria del Fiore. The Commedia, at the first glance, shows the traces of its author's life. It is the work of a wanderer. The very form in which it is cast is that of a journey, difficult, toilsome, perilous, and full of change. It is more than a working out of that touching phraseology of the middle ages, in which the way' was the technical theological expression for this mortal life, and 'viator,' meant man in his state of trial, as 'comprehensor,' meant man made perfect-as having attained to his heavenly country. It is more than merely this. The writer's mind is full of the recollections and definite images of his various journeys. The permanent scenery of the Inferno and Purgatorio, very variously and distinctly marked, is that of travel. The descent down the sides of the Pit, and the ascent of the Sacred Mountain, show one familiar with such scenes-one who had climbed painfully in perilous passes, and grown dizzy on the brink of narrow ledges over sea or torrent. It is scenery from the gorges of the Alps and Apennines, or the terraces and precipices of the Riviera. Local reminiscences abound;-the severed rocks of the Adige valley-the waterfall of S. Benedetto-the crags of Pietra-pana and S. Leo, which overlook the plains of Lucca and Ravenna-the fair river' that flows among the poplars between Chiaveri and Sestri-the marble quarries of Carrara -the 'rough and desert ways between Lerici and Turbia,' and those towery cliffs, going sheer into the deep sca at Noli, which travellers on the Corniche road some thirty years ago, may yet remember with fear. Mountain experience furnished that picture of the traveller caught in an Alpine mist and gradually climbing above it; seeing the vapours grow thin, and the sun's orb appear faintly through them; and issuing at 'These notices have been carefully collected by Pelli, who seems to have left little to glean, (Memorie, &c. Ed. 2da, 1823.) A few additions have been made by Gerini (Mem. Stor. della Lunigiana), and Troya (Veltro Allegorico), but they are not of much importance. Arrivabene (Secolo di Dante), has brought together a mass of illustration which is very useful, and would be more so, if he were more careful, and quoted his authorities. Balbo, arranges these materials with sense and good feeling; though, as a writer, he is below his subject. A few traits and anecdotes may be found in the novelists-as Sacchetti. last into sunshine on the mountain top-the light of sunset lost already on the shores below : 'Ai raggi, morti già nei bassi lidi :' or that image of the cold dull shadow under the Alpine fir: 'Un'ombra smorta Qual sotto foglie verdi e rami nigri or of the large snow-flakes falling without wind, among the mountains 'Come di neve in Alpe senza vento.' He delights in a local name and local image- the boiling pitch, and the clang of the shipwrights in the arsenal of Venicethe sepulchral fields of Arles and Pola-the hot-spring of Viterbo -the hooded monks of Cologne-the dykes of Flanders and Padua the Maremma, with its rough brushwood, its wild boars, its snakes and fevers. He had listened to the south wind among the pine-tops, in the forest by the sea at Ravenna. He had watched under the Carisenda tower at Bologna, and seen the driving clouds give away their motion to it, and make it seem to be falling; and had noticed how at Rome, the October sun sets between Corsica and Sardinia. His images of the sea are as numerous and definite-the ship backing out of the tier in harbour, the diver plunging after the fouled anchor, the mast rising, the ship going fast before the wind, the water closing in its wake, the arched backs of the porpoises the forerunners of a gale, the admiral watching everything from poop to prow, the oars stopping altogether at the sound of the whistle, the swelling sails becoming slack when the mast snaps and falls.' And nowhere could we find so many of the most characteristic and strange sensations of the traveller touched with such truth. Every one knows the lines which speak of the sinking of heart on the first evening of travel at sea, or at the sound of the distant bell; the traveller's morning feelings are not less delicately noted-the strangeness on first waking in the open air with the sun high; morning thoughts, as day by day he wakes nearer home; the morning sight of the sea beach, quivering in the early light; the irresolution and lingering, before setting out3- 'Noi eravam lunghesso 'l mare ancora, Come gente che pensa al suo cammino, Che va col cuore, e col corpo dimora.' He has recorded equally the anxiety, the curiosity, the suspicion with which, in those times, stranger met and eyed stranger Inf. 17, 16, 31; Purg 24; Par. 2; Inf. 22; Purg. 30; Par. 25; Inf. 7. on the road; but a still more characteristic trait is to be found in those lines where he describes the pilgrim's first look round the church of his vow, and his thinking how he shall tell of it : ‘E quasi peregrin che si ricrea or again, in that description, so simple and touching, of his thoughts while waiting to see the relic for which he left his home: Quale è colui che forse di Croazia Che per l'antica fama non si sazia, Ma dice nel pensier, fin che si mostra ; Of these years then of disappointment and exile the Divina Commedia' was the labour and fruit. A story in Boccaccio's life, told with some detail, implies indeed that it was begun, and some progress made in it, while Dante was yet in Florence-begun in Latin, and he quotes three lines of it-continued afterwards in Italian. This is not impossible; indeed the germ and presage of it may be traced in the Vita Nuova. The idealized saint is there, in all the grace of her pure and noble humbleness, the guide and safeguard of the poet's soul. She is already in glory with Mary the queen of angels. She already beholds the face of the Everblessed. And the envoye of the Vita Nuova is the promise of the Commedia. After this sonnet,' (in which he describes how beyond the widest sphere of heaven his love had beheld a lady receiving honour, and dazzling by her glory the unaccustomed spirit) After this sonnet there appeared to me a marvellous vision, in which I saw things which made me resolve not to 'speak more of this blessed one, until such time as I should be ' able to indite more worthily of her. And to attain to this, I 'study to the utmost of my power, as she truly knows. So that, if it shall be the pleasure of Him, by whom all things live, that my life continue for some years, I hope to say of her that which never hath been said of any woman. And afterwards, may it please Him, who is the Lord of kindness, that my soul may go 'to behold the glory of her lady, that is, of that blessed Beatrice, 'who gloriously gazes on the countenance of Him, qui est per ' omnia secula benedictus.' It would be wantonly violating probability, and the unity of a great life, to suppose that this purpose, though transformed, was ever forgotten or laid aside. The poet knew not what he was promising, what he was pledging himself to -through what years of toil and anguish he would have to seek the light and the power he had asked; in what form his high ven ture should be realized. The Commedia is the work of no light resolve, and we need not be surprised at finding the resolve and the purpose at the outset of the poet's life. We may freely accept the key supplied by the words of the Vita Nuova. The spell of boyhood is never broken, through the ups and downs of life. His course of thought advances, alters, deepens, but is continuous. From youth to age, from the first glimpse to the perfect work, the same idea abides with him, 'even from the flower, till the grape was ripe.' It may assume various changes,—an image of beauty, a figure of philosophy, a voice from the other world, a type of heavenly wisdom and joy,-but still it holds, in selfimposed and willing thraldom, that creative and versatile and tenacious spirit. It was the dream and hope of too deep and strong a mind to fade and come to nought-to be other than the seed of the achievement and crown of life. But, with all faith in the star and freedom of genius, we may doubt whether the prosperous citizen would have done that which was done by the man without a home. Beatrice's glory might have been sung in grand though barbarous Latin to the literati of the fourteenth century; or a poem of new beauty might have fixed the language and opened the literature of modern Italy; but it could hardly have been the Commedia. That belongs, in its date and its greatness, to the time when sorrow had become the poet's daily portion and the condition of his life. The Commedia is a novel and startling apparition in literature. Probably it has been felt by some, who have approached it with the reverence due to a work of such renown, that the world has been generous in placing it so high. It seems so abnormal, so lawless, so reckless of all ordinary proprieties and canons of feeling, taste, and composition. It is rough and abrupt; obscure in phrase and allusion, doubly obscure in purpose. It is a medley of all subjects usually kept distinct: scandal of the day and transcendental science, politics and confessions, coarse satire and angelic joy, private wrongs, with the mysteries of the faith, local names and habitations of earth, with visions of hell and heaven. It is hard to keep up with the ever changing current of feeling, to pass as the poet passes, without effort or scruple, from tenderness to ridicule, from hope to bitter scorn or querulous complaint, from high-raised devotion to the calmness of prosaic subtleties or grotesque detail. Each separate element and vein of thought has its precedent; but not their amalgamation. Many had written visions of the unseen world, but they had not blended with them their personal fortunes. S. Augustine had taught the soul to contemplate its own history, and had traced its progress from darkness to light; but he had not interwoven with it the history of Italy, and the consummation of all earthly destinies. Satire was no new thing; Juvenal had given it a moral, some of the Provençal poets a political, turn; S. Jerome had kindled into it fiercely and bitterly even while expounding the Prophets; but here it streams forth in all its violence, within the precincts of the eternal world, and alternates with the hymns of the blessed. Lucretius had drawn forth the poetry of nature and its laws; Virgil and Livy had unfolded the poetry of the Roman empire; S. Augustine, the still grander poetry of the history of the City of God; but none had yet ventured to weave into one the three wonderful threads. And yet the scope of the Italian poet, vast and comprehensive as the issue of all things, universal as the government which directs nature and intelligence, forbids him not to stoop to the lowest caitiff he has ever despised, the minutest fact in nature that has ever struck his eye, the merest personal association which hangs pleasantly in his memory. Writing for all time, he scruples not to mix with all that is august and permanent in history and prophecy, incidents the most transient, and names the most obscure; to waste an immortality of shame or praise on those about whom his own generation were to inquire in vain. Scripture history runs into profane; Pagan legends teach their lesson side by side with Scripture scenes and miracles: heroes and poets of Heathenism, separated from their old classic world, have their place in the world of faith, discourse with Christians of Christian dogmas, and even mingle with the Saints; Virgil guides the poet through his fear and his penitence to the gates of Paradise. This feeling of harsh and extravagant incongruity, of causeless and unpardonable darkness, is perhaps the first impression of many readers of the Commedia. But probably, as they read on, there will mingle with this a sense of strange and unusual grandeur, arising not alone from the hardihood of the attempt, and the mystery of the subject, but from the power and the character of the poet. It will strike them that words cut deeper than is their wont; that from that wild uncongenial imagery, thoughts emerge of singular truth and beauty. Their dissatisfaction will be chequered, even disturbed-for we can often bring ourselves to sacrifice much for the sake of a clear and consistent view-by the appearance, amid much that repels them, of proofs undeniable and accumulating of genius as mighty as it is strange. Their perplexity and disappointment may grow into distinct condemnation, or it may pass into admiration and delight; but no one has ever come to the end of the Commedia without feeling that if it has given him a new view and specimen of the wildness and unaccountable waywardness of the human mind, it has also added, as few other books have, to his knowledge of its feelings, its capabilities, and its grasp, and suggested larger |