Till Nile was hot with agony; thence upon
Simois he looked, the mountain whence he rose,
Antandros, and where Hector sleeps his last,
And ill for Ptolemy shook off his repose.
To Juba, rapid as lightning, next he passed,
Then turned, where you behold your sunset, where
Pompeius yet prolonged the clarion's blast.
Of what he made his next uplifter dare,

Brutus with Cassius barks in hell-pit set,
And Modena and Perugia wailed whilere.
This wails the woful Cleopatra yet,

Who, flying from his face, was of the snake
Enforced, a livid and eager death to get.
In that same hand he made the Red Sea shake;
Therein such peace upon the World he brought
That men the shrine of Janus might forsake.
But that which by the lauded sign was wrought
Till this, and which to follow yet was sure,
Through Earth his realm in his allegiance taught,
Grows in appearance trifling and obscure,

If in third Cæsar's hand the effect you seek
With eyebeam single and intention pure.
For living Justice, that by whom I speak,

Allowed him in the hands of whom I name,
The glory, upon her wrongs the wrath to wreak.
Attend now well, to what discourse I frame.

Next this he scoured with Titus, and repaid
Vengeance for vengeance of the antique blame.
Next, when the Longobardian tooth had preyed
On Holy Church, below that eagle's wing
Came Charles the Great, and triumphed in her aid.
Consider now, if wrong reproach I fling

On whom I named above, and their bad zeal,
Which is the cause, whence your mishaps all spring.
-From Dante's Paradise.-Translated by C. B. CAYLEY.

THE ROSE OF HEAVEN.

O glory of our God, through which I saw
The triumph high of that his kingdom true,
Grant me the power to tell what then I saw !
A Light there is on high which brings to view

Him that creates to those that creatures are,
Who only in that vision peace ensue;
And then it spreads in figure circular

So far and wide, that its circumference

To gird the sun would be too wide by far. All that it shows is one ray's effluence,

Reflected from the Primum Mobile,

Which all its life and power deriveth thence. And as a cliff itself doth mirrored see

In lake that lies below, as if it found

Joy in its wealth of flowers and many a tree,
So, standing o'er that light, all round and round,
Thousands I mirrored saw of every grade,

All who from us their way have thither wound.
And if the lowest rank such glory made,

Think what must be the magnitude immense
Of that bright Rose in furthest petals rayéd;
Nor in the height nor depth was visual sense
Astray, but took the whole wide circuit in,
The measure and the mode of joy intense.
There Far or Near doth neither lose nor win;
For where God rules in full immediate power,
The laws of nature find no place therein.
And in the gold of that eternal Flower,

Which spreads, dilates, and pours its rich perfume
To that Sun, ever in its springtide hour,

As one who fain would speak and yet is dumb,

Me Beatrice drew and said: "Behold

How all the white-robed host have here found room.

See what wide space our city doth enfold;

See how each seat is furnished with its guest,

That few are lacking now within our fold."

In fashion of a white rose glorified

Shone out on me that saintly chivalry,

Whom with his blood Christ won to be His Bride; But the other host, which, as it soars on high, Surveys, and sings, the glory of its love, The goodness, too, that gave it majesty,As swarm of bees that deep in flowers move One moment, and the next again return To where their labor doth its sweetness prove,Dipped into that great flower which doth adorn

Itself with myriad leaves, then mounting, came There where its love doth evermore sojourn. Their faces had they all of living flame,

Their wings of gold, and all the rest was white, That snow is none such purity could claim. And to the flower from row to row their flight They took, and bore to it the peace and glow, Gained by them as they fanned their flanks aright.

Nor did the crowd then moving to and fro,

Between the flower and that which rose above, Impede the sight or splendor of the show; Seeing that the light of God doth freely move Through the whole world, as merit makes it right, So that nought there can hindrance to it prove. This realm, secure and full of great delight, Filled with the hosts of old or later time,

To one sole point turned love alike and sight.

O Trinal Light, that in one star sublime

Dost with thy rays their soul so satisfy,

Look down with pity on our storm-beat clime!

-From Dante's Paradise.-Translated by E. H. PLUMPTRE.

GIOTTO.

"A BOY showed signs of genius; a man fulfilled his early promise; a great painter was for once a prophet in his own country and in his own time; and all that history can tell us of him is that he made bad jokes and had six ugly children." Such is Harry Quilter's summary of the history of Giotto. A meagre biography in truth, and yet the most important part of his life still lives

the far-reaching influence which he exerted on art.

Giotto, or Ambrogiotto di Bondone, was born in Vespignano, near Florence, in 1266 according to some authorities, in 1276 according to others. When, as a boy of ten, tending the sheep on the hillside in Umbria, he was one day attempting to sketch one of his charges on a stone, the great Florentine artist Cimabue was passing through the valley. The evident talent of the boy attracted the attention of the master, who took him to his studio in Florence. It is probable that the associations of his early life in the fields implanted in him that sympathy with nature which marked his whole artistic The first information which we have regarding his art-work is one of those anecdotes which Vasari delights in

career.

recounting. About 1296, Boniface VIII., desiring to add to the decorations of St. Peter's, sent a courtier to Tuscany. When the messenger, who had received designs from various artists in Siena, reached Giotto, the latter drew for him a perfectly accurate circle, with one sweep of his arm. And on seeing this, "the Pope... perceived how far Giotto surpassed all the other painters of his time." Soon after this, the artist went to Rome, but his works in that city have all been destroyed, excepting the famous mosaic of the Navicella (about 1298), and some small portions of the so-called Stefaneschi altar-piece in the sacristy of St. Peter's. About 1300-4 he was painting in the Bargetto, as the Palace of the Podesta in Florence is commonly called. (Here, in his painting of Paradise, the famous portrait of Dante in early manhood was discovered under a coating of whitewash which had concealed it for two centuries.) Following his marriage to one Ciuta di Lapo, came the production of the decorations of the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua, these frescoes in their simplicity being altogether in harmony with the exceedingly plain architecture of the little building. After finishing this work, he appears to have gone to Florence to settle down. However, he still left the city occasionally to execute work in other places. His art-life, in fact, was spent in many parts of Italy: Rome, Florence, Padua, Rimini, Milan, Naples, and Assisi, in which latter place he executed a number of frescoes for the Church of St. Francis.

repre

The striking characteristic in Giotto's paintings is its simplicity and truth to nature. When Giotto appeared upon the scene, painters were employing arbitrary forms of sentation imposed by the traditions of Byzantine art. With Cimabue came perhaps the first visible sign of revolt against time-honored methods, while his pupil, Giotto, boldly and clearly expressed by practice the principle of the relation of art to life. These traditionary influences, having the support of the church, no doubt made it difficult for such tendencies towards a rational manner of painting to gain ground; but we are told that, notwithstanding, the change that Giotto wrought was so important that the artist lived to witness its adoption. In fact, the number of his followers and imitators