is is the second, and direct part of the reply nte's demand. All those whose crowns apshaven were Popes and Cardinals; for it is regard to these that avarice uses its fullest ure (2). ' Lombardi accuses the Academy of lucing the false reading of uses' ( usa ) inof ( usò )' used;' but in this he seems to be wrong. It was not merely on the authority e majority of M. S. S. nor to avoid elision of an ted vowel (for that such a poetic licence ometimes admissable, they well knew), but se the context pointed it out as the true ng, that the Academicians preferred it. The cal delicacy which thus interposes to lessen scandal' of Dante is futile; except it could at ame time erase the other much harsher inwes, which are up and down in the poem, st the clergy of his day. He must be justified by softening down his expressions, but by ing he had reason to employ the harshest: hat his great ancestor tells him positively to the whole truth without reserve (3).' D. 428. Soverchio, quasi andante sopra lo cerchio, cioè all'orlo del vaso. i, Comento, Vol. 1. p. 146. Mr. Cary leaves out this metaphor. does he introduce the characteristic term tonsures' (chercuti) mere in his version of the passage. Paradise, Canto XVII. Biagioli, Comento, vol. 1. P. 146. though free fr a class notorio ble is the imp men of talents such indeed is distinguish the When therefor Church in Dant and profound p ed himself with dinals, and Pop nous to the Sta was holy and ho 'that made both I the dignitaries of the evils they co not behold men without either lea too ignorant and smallest village, a which they prostit ing with most exo trocious injustice, ing it prodigally in h free from the cares of wife and family, had receded from evangelical simplicity during ages previous to the reformation, as to be s notorious for avarice and prodigality, is a ot more severely denounced by any than by lic writers themselves; and it is to those vices of them attribute the reformation. Irresistithe impulse' (says Madame de Staël) 'which f talents feel to attack the strongest; and ndeed is the sign by which we may ever guish the effervescence of real genius. therefore we recollect the potency of the h in Dante's day and his own rigid morals ofound piety, it is no wonder that he expressmself with vehemence against Priests, Carand Popes; if their conduct was really rui to the State and disgraceful to religion. 'It ly and honest indignation,' writes Landino, ade both Dante and Petrarch thunder against gnitaries of their own communion. But Alas! Is they combated exist still: for who does hold men rather brutes than men it either learning or morals, who, though norant and vicious to merit a curacy in the st village, are raised to elevated stations; they prostitute in the vilest manner, amassth most exorbitant avarice, by the most ais injustice, huge treasure; and soon spend. prodigally in such unheard-of debauchery CANTO VIL and revels, that in comparison with them Sardanapalus and Heliogabalus were temperate Saints (1)?* -If there exist in the world' (exclaims Boccaccio) 'people immersed beyond all measure in avarice they are our great Prelates; who give, nay fling away Archbishoprics, Bishoprics, Abbeys, and the other benefices of our sacred Church upon idiots, drunkards, gluttons, and wicked furious men contaminated with every description of enormous vice; and these they are who lead Christendom to hell (2). This religious poet might well then have expressed himself as he did. But another line of Madame de Stael's actions and writings should be judged with a reference to their dates' may imply that his asperity would have been otherwise directed, had he lived nearer to the present time. Wherever vice appeared with the most triumphant effrontery, thither would have been pointed his dauntless, heaven-inspired pen. Wherever justice was most grossly outraged, whether under pretence of religion, or of civil freedom, he would have resented the profanation: and if it be against pretenders to the former that we find him most emphatic, we shall discern the reason in the date. ' The Clergy were the direst offenders during his life: but had they been persecuted in their turn, and exposed to at least as much violence and insult as ever they exerted, there is evidence (1) Comento, p. 43. (2) Id. vol: u p. 49. GANTO VII. ver be the attributes imparted to that ethereal race, in this one point all men agree- philosophers, Pagans, Jews and every sect of Christianity that they must be endowed with virtue and happiness.' Thus far Dante. Of those aëreal substances, ideas, intelligences, deities, or angels, there is one (says Dante, culling a glorious figure for his poetry, from reasoning which I have just translated from his prose) whose duty it is to preside over the species of worldly honours, and to keep these (like the spheres themselves) in continual rotation: and this celestial regent, by men called Fortune, heedless alike of votaries and revilers, has her entire soul occupied in keeping up the revolution of the orb confided to her care by the universal Creator, and in the conscious enjoyment of her own immortal beatitude. Such, in substance, is the picture of Fortune which is about to be laid before us: and certainly it is with the utmost truth that it gained panegyrick as most grand; for, laying aside the blind-folded image of the Ancients, it presents us with another that preserves all the beauties of their Muse and remedies her oversights; by teaching her to unite most disordered chance with the most unlimited avowal of the superintendence of an omni-present Providence; and by thus reconciling (what never should have been divided) the sweetest poetry, the best of ethics, and the loftiest philosophical speculations. Had 444 COMMENT CANTO VIL this passage been seen by Cicero, he would not have any longer exclaimed against the unworthiness of attributing any thing divine to a being so rash and inconstant as fortune (1). A Goddess with banded eyes may be believed ignoble; but not so, this happy impassible handmaid of an infinite Jehovah. 'Nor is (says Landino) 'the impossibility of resisting Fortune any argument against the freedom of the will: for we are at liberty to court her favours or not. They are certainly most fugitive: but if, disregarding them, we apply ourselves to the cultivation of our own minds, we gain a treasure of which no power can deprive us. This only is what can truly be called our property: for of all the things in the world the soul alone, as Plato affirms, is independent. The variety of objects that we behold are kept in continual revolution by other created substances superior to them; even the inferior spheres of heaven are influenced by the higher ones; but our soul, though exiled for a moment into this fragile body, has no other superior than the Divinity himself of whom it is a particle. But if we choose to woo the gifts of Fortune, let us be prepared for the instability that is unavoidable: so, may a traveller choose whether to undertake his journey by land or by water; but if he determines on the latter, it behooves him to steel his heart against the fluctua (1) Quam nemo ab inconstantia êt temeritate sejunget: quæ digna eerte non sunt Deo. Nat. Deor. 1. 3. P. XXIV. |