as, in addition to the natural turpitude of the case, he not only violated the laws of humanity and justice, but also those of friendship, confidence and honor.

At sight of his boy in such a situation-upon hearing his piercing cries and the fierce threats of the assassin, tears of the most bitter anguish flowed fast down the fond father's cheeks. But his sworn faith to his king-the safety of his country-and the indignation naturally excited by so execrable a deed-struggled with his nature, and eventually triumphed :—thus constituting him a perfect hero against the iniquity of man and the severity of fortune. "I begat no son," exclaimed the heart-riven Guzman, "that he should be employed against my country. On the contrary, I begat a son for my country, in order that he might act against her enemies. If Don Juan give him death, to me will he give glory; to my child eternal life; and to himself eternal infamy in this world, and condemnation in that to come. And, further, that it may be seen how far it is from my intention to surrender the place, and falter in my duty-I herewith fling my steel, if perchance a weapon should be wanting to complete this most atrocious deed." He then drew the war-knife which he carried at his belt-hurled it in the midst of the enemy's camp, and retired within the walls of the castle.

Seating himself as usual at dinner with his wife, he struggled violently to repress his feelings, in order that they might not be betrayed on his countenance. Meanwhile the Infant, foaming with rage and disappointment, had caused his innocent victim to be beheaded; when the soldiers on the walls, who had been witnesses of the inhuman sacrifice, burst into loud and fearful outcries. The unhappy Guzman went out at the noise, and being but too well aware of the cause whence it originated, returned forthwith to the table, saying with great composure, "I was fearful that the enemy had entered Tarifa." Shortly after this tragical event, the Moors, despairing of overcoming the constancy of which he had given such devoted proof, and not daring to await the succor that was on its road to him from Seville, raised the siege, which had already lasted six months, and set sail for the coast of Africa,

without partaking of any other reward than the ignominy and horror which their execrable conduct so well merited.

The fame of this heroic deed resounded throughout Spain, and reached the ears of the king at a time when he was lying sick at Alcalá de Henares. He immediately wrote to our hero from that place in demonstration of the gratitude he felt for his splendid defence of Tarifa. In this letter, he compares him to Abraham, and confirms the appellation of "Bueno," which had already been conferred upon him by the people for his virtues; and promising to reward him in proportion to his loyalty, invited him to come and see him: adding, that illness alone prevented him from setting out to meet him in person.

So soon as our hero had disengaged himself from the host of friends and relatives who arrived from all parts of the country to testify their admiration of his heroism, he entered Castile, attended by a numerous retinue. As he passed along the roads, the people followed him in crowds, pointing him out to their children as an object of veneration; while even the modest retiring maiden, banishing her fears, pressed forward to be gratified with a sight of this most noble warrior, who had given so great and signal a proof of his high virtue and integrity. Upon his arrival at Alcalá, the whole court went out to meet him by the king's desire-and Sancho, when he received him, turning to the courtiers and those by whom he was surrounded, said to them, "Learn, cavaliers, to perform good works; you here behold a model." To these and other gracious expressions of his favor, Sancho added some splendid gifts and privileges; and it was at this moment that he gave to him and his descendants, in perpetuity, the whole of the land bordering upon Andalusia, between the mouths of the Guadalquivir and the Guadalete.-M. J. QUINTANA.

DANTE ALIGHIERI lives by and in his "Divine Comedy." That famous poem stands as his one great achievement, and in it and his Vita Nuova is revealed as much of the poet's inner life as we shall probably ever know. Even in these, fact and fiction are so closely interwoven that it is difficult to separate them. All that his numerous biographers -copying one from the other, in many caseshave been able to give us are a few incontestable facts, and a thick padding of conjectures.

The few really undoubtable facts of his life are soon. recounted: born in Florence in 1265 (probably late in May or early in June), he enjoyed a good education (guided and influenced by Brunetto Latini), turned his attention early to poetry, and appears to have practiced painting and perhaps also music to some extent. He was married, about 1292, to Gemma Donati, who bore him four or more children. He took active part in the political affairs of Florence, and is described as an ardent, though rather doctrinaire politician. As that republican city obliged its nobles to be merchants before taking political office, he entered the guild of the Arte degli Speziali (Art of the Physicians), and in 1300 was

elected prior. To this election Dante afterward dated back all his ills and misfortunes. Dante also served the state as a soldier, being present at the battle of Campaldino, and at the taking of Caprona. It is said that he acted as ambassador at various times, and that while absent in Rome with three others on an embassy to the Pope, he was banished from Florence by the "Neri." At all events, banished he was (in January, 1302), in consequence of the party disturbances of the "Blacks" and "Whites" (Neri and Bianchi), and later sentences were also passed against him. After that he lived at various places, spending some time at the schools of Bologna and Paris, and writing his Divina Commedia and other works.

Being driven from the Guelf party, Dante, with large views concerning a liberated and united Italy, was, after some years of unrest, seized with disgust at his agitating fellow-exiles. Thus he abandoned the world of politics, and turned back to his literary pursuits. His own statements about his life in exile are general and indefinite; but his biographers have given free rein to their fancy in well-rounded accounts which name Lunigiana, Padua, Casentine on the Arno, Forli, Paris, the Convent of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana (where much of the "Divine Comedy" is supposed to have been written), Lucca, Verona, and finally Ravenna, as the various stages in the wanderings of this strange genius, whose pride and courage faltered not in all his tribulations. When Henry VIII., Count of Luxemburg, had succeeded Albert, in 1308, as Emperor of Germany, and in 1311 assumed the iron crown of Lombardy, Dante urged him by letter to advance on Florence, which city he attacked in terms of most furious vituperation. With Henry's death, in 1313, Dante's last hopes of returning to his natal city were shattered, and he retired to the mountains of Gubbio. Florence he never again entered, either in life or in death, although, like other exiles, he conspired to return. But when the Florentines, in 1311, recalled the banished Guelfs, Dante was among those excluded from the amnesty.

At his final refuge, Ravenna, marsh fever ended his life on the 14th of September, 1321. "There he rendered his

weary spirit to God," says Boccaccio, "not without great sorrow of Guido and generally of all the citizens. And there can be no doubt that he was received into the arms of his most noble Beatrice, with whom, in the presence of Him who is the chief good, leaving all miseries of the present life, they now most lightsomely live in that happiness to which there comes no end." But the glorious tomb projected for his grave by his patron at Ravenna, Count Guido da Polenta, was never raised. It remained for Bernardo Bembo to erect a sepulchre in 1483, with a bas-relief executed by Pietro Lombardo. The tomb underwent several restorations and renovations; so in 1672, 1780 and 1865. On the last named occasion, Dante's bones, which had been missing for some time, were rediscovered. It was not until centuries after his death, that Florence made tardy reparation by setting up an enormous catafalque in marble in Santa Croce. But the attempts to recover Dante's remains were unsuccessful: buried in Ravenna, he remains an exile even in death.

Beside the Vita Nuova and the Divina Commedia, Dante wrote also a number of minor works, among which are his treatise De Monarchia (a defence of imperialism) in Latin; an "Epistle to Can Grande"; a book De Vulgari Eloquentia (dealing with Italian as a literary language) and the Convito ("Banquet "), both of them incomplete; a treatise De Aqua et Terra (remarkable in its statements of scientific truths unknown at that time, and therefore believed by some commentators to be a forgery); and to him have been ascribed a large number of smaller poems, of which many are genuine and some spurious.

Such are the simple facts of the life and works of Dante. But the deeper inner life of this "Prince of Poets," this creator of the poetical language of the Italians, may be divided into two periods: that of the Vita Nuova and his youthful love for Beatrice, and that in which the "Divine Comedy" was composed, that grand, tremendous vision of "Hell," "Purgatory" and "Paradise," through which the poet passes to a contemplation of the Holy Trinity.

Dante, as the story runs, first met his Beatrice (commonly assumed to have been the daughter of Folco Portinari) at a