CANTO 111.

strictly Christian, and the other a picture for a most celebrated Christian temple. I know not whether such authorities are decisive: but it will be pardonable to think so, until some poet, painter, philosopher, or preacher present us with a less imperfect emblem of a region of everlasting misery than any of which the world is yet possessed.

This metaphor is from the Aeneid

Quam multa in sylvis autumni frigore primo
Lapsa cadunt foglia (1). . . .

as

but it has not so perfect an application there, here for Virgil designates only the number of the ghosts by it, but Dante both their number and the gradual manner in which they drop down into the boat; for autumnal leaves do not fall together, but by little and little ad una ad una

according as they acquire full maturity, until at last each branch has rendered up all its robes to mother earth: so that I think M. Biagioli has a right to call this passage superiore di gran lunga a quella del Poeta Latino (2).

The original of this too belongs to Virgil, and forms the continuation of the verses cited in the last comment

(1) Lib. vi. v. 3og.

(2) Comento. vol. 1. p. 66,

CANTO II.

aut ad terram gurgite ab alto

Quam multæ glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus annus Trans pontum fugat et terris immittit apricis . The common way of understanding com' augel per suo richiamo (1) (and in my opinion certainly the true one) is as birds to their decoy.' For augel is here a noun collective, as avis is in Aquino's translation of the same passage

..inque arctos sociæ velut illice cantu

Se laqueos adstringit avis, mala gurgitis atri
Progenies sic complet aquas:

and richiamo means not only what hawkers call technically a lure, but a bird-call, or anything used to decoy birds (2). Here then Dante alluded to a field sport, which was, and is still common in Italy: and if his phraseology must be allowed to be inharmonious and jejune in comparison with his sweet original (3), yet the idea suggested by him is more apposite as a metaphor, and as poetical in itself. It was bold and good taste to

(1) Come gli uccelletti si gittano al paretajo, o al boschetto invitati dal canto degli augelli di gabbia, o per altro suono. Biagioli, Veuturi, ec, ec.

(2) Qualunque allettamento al quale si gittano per natura gli uccelli. Vocabolario §. 1.

(3) It may not however be fastidious criticism to remark, that apricis in the Latin introduces a confusion of images. The sorrowful condition of the ghosts was the matter to be impressed, and therefore any thing suggesting a pleasing notion was at best superfluous. The Homeric application of the similitude is liable to no such objection. In leaving out apricis, did not Dante borrow from Virgil with more discrimination, than Virgil from Homer?

CANTO IT.

substitute a usual Italian pastime, for a sight rather belonging to Greece or Egypt than to Italy, a flight of birds beyond sea: and the observation made in the preceding Article (of Dante's simile express ing not only the number, but the mode of embarcation of the souls) is still more applicable here. Nor do I apprehend that any one, who has ever witnessed the diversion to which I allude will deny that few things can bear more resemblance with each other than the picture intended to be given, of the spirits fluttering along the bank, or causeway, and at last dropping down one by one into the river, with the little birds, that, after chirping and flitting about for a while, are seen to dip almost always one by one into the decoy-grove.

Those who would translate it 'as a falcon to the lure (1)' deprive it of its best qualities, whether considered with reference to the purpose for which Dante employed it, or to the Latin of which it is clearly an imitation. A falcon gives no idea of the

(1) Mr. Cary, whose version is "as falcon at his call," cites Velutello as his authority; but he might have cited a far better one, Boccaccio (Comento. Vol. 1. p. 155 ). But Boccaccio was no fowler: nor Mr. Cary an Italian one, or he would have known that the commou explanation is what I have given, and not as his note avers “as a bird that is enticed to the cage by the call of another". One bird inveigling another to the cage would be as liable, as a falconer with his hawk, to the objection of individualizing what was meant to be general. They would equally reduce the simile within inadequate dimensions. Had he even consulted his dictionary, he would have learned that neither paretajo nor boschetto means cage but 'the place where nets are placed to catch birds'- dove si distendono le reti per prendere uccelletti. Vocabolario.

CANTO IE

-

crowds of souls; nor of quam multæ glomerantur aves. I might have remained unaware of the peculiar justness of the figure, as it is usually received, had I never been out fowling with Tuscans: but the very first time I was so, it was my irresistible conviction that Dante here alluded to their mode of decoying; and that nothing could better represent at once both the multiplicity and the movements of his airy personages. A small round bushy grove Boschetto on an easy eminence is preserved for this amusement, and (being smeared with bird-lime, and prepared with decoy-birds, and nets, and men artfully concealed, who keep sounding their bird-calls) any one who stands outside of the treacherous grove soon sees the poor, deceived, feathery family gather on the neighbouring trees and after hopping about from branch to branch with many chirps, begin to fly into the vocal ambush exactly one after another —— una ad una-in a hurried, half-reluctant, and very remarkable manner. Prodigious flocks of them are sometimes thus caught; and, although there be varieties amongst them, yet one may well specify thrushes, because these are what are mostly taken; so that the grove itself is named 'a grove to catch thrush es (1),'

(1) Boschetto diciamo anche all'uccellare dove si pigliano i tordi. Vocabolario. §.

CANTO 117.

X.

CXXV1.

This self-sacrifice of the conscious culprits in order to be poetically fine must be allegorical of something morally true. Is it then morally true that bad men after death court the eternal castigation of their wickedness? So at least Dante held, upon many great authorities, but particularly Origen, who attributes even the devil's innability of salvation to want of will rather than of power (1). The types of future rewards and punishments are various in various ages and countries; and are better, or less calculated to affect the imagination. The grossest perhaps are the most impressive on gross minds: but those who have meditated on the human soul will require that the emblem of her retribution should partake of her immaterial nature; the more they spiritualize this, the more they will labour to make that also purely spiritual; and the higher the fancy is elevated, the less capable it becomes of furnishing sensible images of that soul, that Paradise, that Hell: so that at last we may have recourse to considering Paradise and Hell as qualities which the soul may acquire in perpetuity. When intimately connected with infinite joy, she will be her own Paradise-with infinite woe, her own Hell. Our conceptions at least (for the mystery is inscrutible) can scarcely

(1) nolit magis quam non possit, dum scelerum rabies jam libido est et delectat. De Principiis. Lib. 1. Cap. vin.