that tenderness is rendered still more

om the severity of all the rest of the pas is an instance of those strong contrasts poet very often employs with success. tribute to the maternal shade is short, were casual, and intended to be concealevery one's consciousness but his own, erfectly with the reserve which the whole splays respecting its Author's domestic : for his name is to be found in it but d then its insertion is excused with a ecessity; and when he introduced into it is female friends, we have seen them so in allegory as to be almost disguised public eye, not obtruded on it (1).

erce burst of exultation is rendered fiercer being a mis-application of the words ligion had consecrated to joy and harmowere poured forth by the angelic chorus ounced to the shepherds the birth of our

"Glory be to God, etc. (2)." In more viotrast still is what follows the shriekof the victim's name, and his turning against himself. It must, in great part, n such passages, that obtained popularity

Comment, Canto 1. p. 152.

11. 14.

uisnea snouid nave been selected by Dante demnation. But the reason was the same I pointed out when speaking of Ciacco. In h Circle anger is punished, not the nefarimes which it too often causes; in the same in the third Circle intemperance is so, t any of those lamentable excesses to which rally leads. Argenti was chosen, because he a dangerous brutal impetuosity; which how. ad never betrayed him into any iniquity deepest colour, but many eccentric breaches orum. That ungovernable anger is at every wretched foible, and was peculiarly so, in so ripe for discord as Florence, requires no ation; and Argenti, in giving way to it, was os as interiorly and truly guilty as men who een led by the same passion into deeds of pparent ferocity, than any attributed to him. pets (as well as legislators) are to pronounce ensible grounds. Dante was then most haphis selection of Ciacco and Argenti to exemhe odiousness of intemperance and choler, when uncontaminated by those direr atrociwhich they almost invariably lead. Perhaps ice never since Dante's day, possessed a count for Argenti; a character noted for so ire, and yet unaccused of any desperate action. The wretch's biting himself is an epeated, by Dante in his version of the Psalms

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488

COMMENT

CANTO VIIL

E per dolore se medesmo morde (1). Argenti is the hero of one of Boccaccio's tales (2); in substance-Messer Ciacco (who, it is probable, was the same in Canto vi) and Biondello, two Florentine gentlemen, meeting in the fishmarket, Biondello, who had just purchased two fine lampreys, told Ciacco (what was not true ) that they were for the Chief of the Blacks, Corso Donati. So to him the jocund Ciacco took care to go the next day, in expectation of a splendid dinner. He found there neither company nor lampreys, but a very sorry meal; so, perceiving the jest, he vowed retaliation. Some days afterwards he therefore called a porter, and giving him a flask, told him to go with it to M. Argenti and say that he was sent by Biondello, to have it rubinated with some of his best wine, seeing Mes. ser Filippo Argenti was universally reputed an excellent bottle-painter.' The porter did as he was ordered; keeping beyond the reach of Argenti's which irritated him to madness. In the mean time Ciacco setting out in quest of Biondello, informed him, that his friend, Messer Filippo Argenti, was inquiring for him with sollicitude. Hence a ludicrous, but savage catastrophe. Both hastening to meet, one eagerly inquisitive, and the other boiling with rage at what he had interpreted a gross insult, little Biondello was kicked and cuffed

arm,

(1) Isette Salmi di D. A. 1. 6.

(2) Il Decamerone, Giorn. ix Nov. 8.

GANTO VIII.

through the street, at such an unmerciful rate and so dragged through the kennel, by his gigantick ferocious antagonist, who continued vociferating, 'I'll rubinate you,' that if it had not been for the interference of a crowd, he had been murdered. This story was no fiction; but, like many of the Novelle, was a real event that happened in Florence a very short time before Dante's exile (1). It most naturally recurred to him then to mention Argenti: and perhaps the more so (for who reprehends not more willingly the failings of his enemies, than his friends?) that Argenti belonged to a family, the Adimari, to whose enmity Sacchetti ascribes in a great degree Dante's exile (1).

...

(1) So Benvenuti tells us paulo ante expulsionem auctoris. Perhaps the whole is yet more amusing in his quaint Latin, than in Boccaccio's beautifully measured prose. Argenti stabat totus turbatus, et rodebat se ipsum in animo, existimans quod Blondellus ad postam alicujus fecisset sibi hanc truffam... Erat corpore magnus, fortis, et nervosus, iracundus, et indignans, et dedit illi cum pugno magnum ictum in faciem... Quid est hoc? quid est hoc?... Proditor, bene videbis quid est hoc. Quare rubinare mittis tu ad me? Bene rubinabo te ... et, abjecto caputio, fulminabat manu et linguâ super eum... Omne dixerunt quod fatuè egerat Blondellus mittendo D. Philippo Argenti ribaldum cum flasco et truffis, quia bene debebat scire quod D. Philippus non erat homo mottezandus. ap. Mur. Antiq. Ital. Vol.1. 1043.

(2) Dante had one of the youths of that family severely fined, for prancing on horseback, and holding out his legs so widely, as to be a serious annoyance to the more tranquil passengers, particularly those on foot: -nor was such a slight annoyance at that wild period, when the narrow streets of Florence were barricaded, and full of armed men both borse and foot; and when the city, in fine, was so far more populous than at present. Yet this action of Dante is said to have been sole cause for the hatred of the Adimari; and a principal one for the subsequent exile of Dante, under pretence of his being a White.