of certain feelings. It is probable that they had this feeling, at least in germ‚1 for human nature remains more or less the same in all ages.

Only what constitutes the great fundamental difference between the ancient and the modern world in this question, is that the latter has discovered the infinite possibilities of Nature in art, not merely as suggesting a few metaphors to poetry or decorations formed of birds and garlands and flowers to painting, but as one of the most important, independent fields for art to work in. distinction is a matter of observation and knowledge; anything else is a matter of mere speculation.

This

The above remarks apply likewise to Dante. While we find but little actual evidence of a sentimental feeling for Nature in his works, we may conclude that he did possess some such feeling as we have to-day, only not so highly developed, not so self-conscious, and especially not regarded as of such high importance in

art.

In the first canto of the Inferno, we are told

1 Cf. Humboldt, Cosmos, ii. 372 ff. (Bohn's ed.); also, Burckhardt, ii. 15.

that the morning hour and the sweet season of spring combined to give courage to the mind of the wanderer; and the melancholy which the twilight hour brings in its train is admirably rendered in the description of the Valley of Princes in Purgatory. He knew, too, that the effect of an action is increased when the

scenery harmonises with it. The gloom and horror of Dante's lost condition is heightened by the dark forest in which he has gone astray; the beautiful scenery on the seashore in Purgatory is typical of the hope and joy of the souls that are there punished. So, too, the death and post-mortem fate of Buonconte is enhanced by showing us the body tossed about and rolled along by the turbid waters of the flood.

Whether it be true or not that Dante climbed mountains for the sake of the view, as Burckhardt claims, no one who knows thoroughly the Divina Commedia, who is acquainted with the really large number of beautiful touches of Nature it contains, can help believing that the man who could paint such striking pictures must have had an appreciation of and a genuine love for their beauty. No mere intellectual interest or physical enjoyment could

account for the exquisite language in which the stars are described, or for such expressions as we find scattered all over the Divina Commedia, referring to the various phenomena of Nature.

Burckhardt, 44, 70, 76, 79, 91, Cicero, 2, 23,