speculation, the secrets of nature-the phenomena of light, the theory of the planets' motions, the idea and laws of physiology. As a man of learning, he is filled with the thoughts and recollections of ancient fable and history; as a politician, with the thoughts, prognostications, and hopes of the history of the day; as a moral philosopher he has watched himself, his external sensations and changes, his inward passions, his mental powers, his ideas, his conscience; he has far and wide noted character, discriminated motives, classed good and evil deeds. All that the man of society, of travel, of science, of learning, the politician, the moralist, could gather, is used at will in the great poetic structure; but all converges to the purpose, and is directed by the intense feeling of the theologian, who sees this wonderful and familiar scene melting into and ending in another yet more wonderful, but which will one day be as familiar-who sees the difficult but sure progress of the manifold remedies of the Divine government to their predestined issue; and, over all, God and His saints.

So comprehensive in interest is the Commedia. Any attempt to explain it, by narrowing that interest to politics, philosophy, the moral life, or theology itself, must prove inadequate. Theology strikes the key-note; but history, natural and metaphysical science, poetry, and art, each in their turn join in the harmony, independent, yet ministering to the whole. If from the poem itself we could be for a single moment in doubt of the reality and dominant place of religion in it, the plain-spoken prose of the Convito would show how he placed "the Divine Science, full of all peace, and allowing no strife of opinions and sophisms, for the excellent certainty of its subject, which is God," in single perfection above all other sciences, "which are, as Solomon speaks, but queens, or concubines, or maidens; but she is the 'Dove,' and the 'perfect one '-'Dove,' because without stain of strife-' perfect,' because perfectly she makes us behold the truth, in which our soul stills itself and is at rest." But the same passage shows likewise how he viewed all human knowledge and human interests, as holding their due place in the hierarchy of wisdom, and among the steps of man's

perfection. No account of the Commedia will prove sufficient, which does not keep in view, first of all, the high moral purpose and deep spirit of faith with which it was written, and then the wide liberty of materials and means which the poet allowed himself in working out his design.-R. W. CHURCH.

THE CHRISTIANITY OF DANTE.

Dante's Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, are a symbol, an emblematic representation of his Belief about this Universe. It is a sublime embodiment, or sublimest, of the soul of Christianity. It expresses, as in huge world-wide architectural emblems, how the Christian Dante felt Good and Evil to be the two polar elements of this Creation, on which it all turns; that these two differ not by preferability of one to the other, but by incompatibility absolute and infinite; that the one is excellent and high as light and Heaven, the other hideous, black as Gehenna and the Pit of Hell! Everlasting Justice, yet with Penitence, with everlasting Pity,-all Christianism, as Dante and the Middle Ages had it, is emblemed here. Emblemed: and yet with what entire truth of purpose; how unconscious of any embleming! Hell, Purgatory, Paradise: these things were not fashioned as emblems; was there in our Modern European Mind, any thought at all of their being emblems! Were they not indubitable awful facts; the whole heart of man taking them for practically true, all Nature everywhere confirming them? So is it always in these things. Paganism we recognized as a veracious expression of the earnest awe-struck feeling of man towards the Universe; veracious, true once, and still not without worth for us. But mark here the difference of Paganism and Christianism; one great difference. Paganism emblemed chiefly the Operations of Nature; the destinies, efforts, combinations, vicissitudes of things and men in this world; Christianism emblemed the Law of Human Duty, the Moral Law of Man. One was for the sensuous nature; a rude helpless utterance of the first Thought of men,—the chief recognized virtue, Courage, Superiority to Fear. The other was not for the sensuous nature, but for the moral. What a progress is here, if in that one respect only!-T. CARLYLE.

MICHAEL ANGELO ON DANTE.

Into the dark abyss he made his way;

Both nether worlds he saw, and in the might
Of his great soul beheld God's splendor bright,
And gave to us on earth true light of day:
Star of supremest worth with his clear ray,
Heaven's secrets he revealed to our dim sight,
And had for guerdon what the world's spite
Oft gives to souls that noblest grace display.
Full ill was Dante's life-work understood,

His purpose high, by that ungrateful State,
That welcomed all with kindness but the good:
Would I were such, to bear like evil fate,
To taste his exile, share his lofty mood!
For this I'd gladly give all earth calls great.

WHAT IS LOVE?

Love and the gentle heart are one same thing,
Even as the wise man in his ditty saith:
Each, of itself, would be such life in death
As rational soul bereft of reasoning.
'Tis Nature makes them when she loves: a king
Love is, whose palace where he sojourneth

Is called the Heart; there draws he quiet breath
At first, with brief or longer slumbering.

Then beauty seen in virtuous womankind

Will make the eyes desire, and through the heart
Send the desiring of the eyes again;

Where often it abides so long enshrin'd

That Love at length out of his sleep will start.

And women feel the same for worthy men.
-Translated by D. G. ROSSETTI.

THE LOVELINESS OF BEATRICE.

My lady carries love within her eyes;

All that she looks on is made pleasanter;
Upon her path men turn to gaze at her;
He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise,
And droops his troubled visage, full of sighs,

And of his evil heart is then aware:

Hate loves, and pride becomes a worshiper.
O women, help to praise her in somewise.
Humbleness, and the hope that hopeth well,

By speech of hers into the mind are brought,
And who beholds is blessed often whiles,
The look she hath when she a little smiles
Cannot be said, nor holden in the thought;
'Tis such a new and gracious miracle.

-Translated by D. G. ROSSETTI.

THE EXILE'S MESSAGE TO FLORENCE.

Dear country, worthy of triumphal fame,

Mother of high-souled sons,

Thy sister's grief thine own is far above;

He, of thy children, feeleth grief and shame,—
Hearing what traitorous ones

Do in thee, more, as he the more doth love.
Ah me! how prompt ill-doers are to move
In thee, forever, plotting treachery,

With squint and envious eye,

Showing thy people still the false for true.

Lift up the sinking hearts, and warm their blood!

Upon the traitor's brood

Let judgment fall, that so with praises due

That grace may dwell in thee, which now complains,

Wherein all good its source and home attains.

Thou reignedst happy in the fair past days,
When each that was thine heir

Sought that all virtues may thy pillars be;
Home of true peace and mother of all praise,

Thou in one faith sincere

Wert blest, and with the sisters four and three.*
And now these fair forms have abandoned thee,
In mourning clad, with vices all o'erdone,
Thy true Fabricii gone:

Haughty and vile, of true peace deadly foe;

*The four cardinal virtues of natural ethics, Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and the three supernatural graces, Faith, Hope, Charity.

Dishonored one, hot faction mirroring still,

Since Mars thy soul doth fill;

Thou doom'st true souls to Antenôra's woe,*
Who follow not the widowed lily's spear,

And those who love the most have most to fear.

Thin out that evil baleful root in thee

Nor pity thou thy sons,

Who have thy fair flowers made all foul and frail,
And will thou that the virtues victors be,

So that thy faithful ones,

Now hidden, rise with right, and sword in hand,
Follow where still Justinian's beacons stand,

And thine unrighteous and revengeful laws
Correct, as wisdom draws,

That they may gain the praise of heaven and earth.
Then with thy riches honor and endow

What sons best homage show,

Nor lavish them on those of little worth;

So that true Prudence and her sisters may

Dwell with thee still, nor thou disown their sway.

Serene and glorious, on the whirling sphere

Of every creature blest,

If thou dost this, thou shalt in honor reign,

And thy high name, which now with shame we hear,

On thee, Fiorenza, rest.

And soon as true affection thou shalt gain,

Blest shall the soul be, born in thy domain.
Thou wilt deserve all praise and majesty,

And the world's ensign be;

But if thy pilot thou refuse to change,

Then greater storms, and death predestinate

Expect thou as thy fate,

And through thy paths, all discords wild shall range.

Choose thou then now, if peace of brotherhood,

Or wolf-like raven make most for thy good.

Boldly and proudly now, my Canzon, so,

Since love thy steps doth guide;

Enter my land, for which I mourn and weep,

And thou wilt find some good men there, though low

* According to Dante, Antenora was that part of Hell assigned to traitors.