CANTO 11.

and made the funds sole criterion of its justice or injustice; in lieu of the cry of patriotism are heard the prognostics of the stock-broker; and for valour and constancy, the state of the exchange. How far this despicable disease has hitherto succeeded in breaking up society, I need not inquire; but that to it, much more than to any intemperate theories of sceptics or materialists, are to be ascribed the worst disasters of the past century, I have no difficulty in asserting.

I have strayed from the literal interpretation of the text; not from its spirit. Dante foresaw the ruin which Plutus was bringing on his country: and its actual state is a complete verification of my reasonings. There is no where more individual independence than in Italy; no where less political freedom. The links of society hang so loosely, that they are scarcely felt by individuals; while the nation is in hopeless thraldom - - hopeless not on occount of the governors, but the but the governed. Sismondi undertakes a difficult cause, when he would make the mercantile body more friendly to liberty than the proprietors of the soil. The latter (he says) must crouch to the enslaver of their native land to which they are irremediably attached; while the former fly from it, and seek for freedom elsewhere. But what kind of patriotism is that which flies from its country in her utmost distress? Such egoists are incapable of being real freemen: and are much more likely to

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sow the seeds of slavery in each free shore to which they resort, on account of those commercial advantages which liberty always possesses; and from which shore they will quickly retire, on those advantages diminishing by the breaking out of that pestilential slavery of which they had themselves imported the first germ a selfish, insatiable thirst of gold. Instead of bearing freedom, they bear its bane; their circumnavigation is infection. According to M. Sismondi's theory, they must have long since fled from Italy; but they first ruined her. It was a merchant who openly enslaved her most flourishing Republic - Florence. In a great country there is full room for both the followers of commerce and the landed proprietors. Why represent their interests at variance? Their true interests are essentially the same : it is unjust to both to undervalue either. Practically, a wise legislature will preserve as much as possible an equality between them the rapidly accumulating riches of one class being balanced by the hereditary honours of the other: but in speculation, the natural defenders of the soil must be avowed to be the owners of the soil, and real patriots those who have no hopes beyond their country; not men who are ready to seek another home, and retire before slavery instead of hazarding a mortal combat.

CANTO Vil.

H.

-- XXI.

The tiercet literally is: Ah! heavenly Justice, who can put together all the new labours and sufferings which I beheld? Why doth a mortal error produce such ruin?'-The first part refers to the impossibility of describing in a few verses the various horrors that presented themselves. Some make who refer to the Dispenser of those torments: but it could not have been meant to ask who he is, since the exclamation itself begins by telling us heavenly Justice,' giustizia di Dio (1). The second part of the tiercet embraces a far more momentous question the doctrine of future rewards and punishments; a discussion so awful and complex, that it is a consolation to defer, if not entirely escape it. Recollecting Dante's own words, it is the primary, allegorical scope of the entire poem to elucidate it (2). Waving for the present the main subject - conceding the exis

(1) The verse is printed as an interrogation in the Cominiana and all the most esteemed editions; as indeed, the particle chi requires. Yet M. Cary translates it like a mere exclamation, adducing Landino as his authority, who makes chi the same is che. Landino's words are not very clear. The two contested interpretations are as I have given: chi potrebbe ristringere in pochi versi, ec.? or chi raduna in questo luogo dell' inferno tanti travagli ec? This second is subject to the objection adduced by me - that of putting a question which the very first words of the tiercet precludes, as well as the context of the entire poem: quasi che Dante, o non sapesse, o negasse essere la divina vindice Giustizia che ivi aduna tutti quei guai. Poggiali, Ed. Livorn. 1807, vol. 3. p. 93.

(2) Hell, Comment, Canto 1. p. 63,

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I

tence of the eternal castigations of Tartarus descend to a corollary from it. The text being in the singular number a mortal error' (nostra colpa) appears to some to be a demand, whether it be possible that a single error can merit such varieties of ever-lasting torment? Infinite woe can only be made for infinite crime. This is certain. After this, it is superfluous to distinguish between singular and plural. Of degrees in infinitude we can have no idea. According to human comprehension, we can scarcely avoid assenting to the position of the Stoics, that all crimes are equal; except by doing, what seems to me much wiser, confessing we know nothing of the matter. It may be practically useful to pronounce on the extent of any guilt from what we see of it; on such appearances the legislator must act the temporal by the infliction of temporal punishments, the spiritual by the threat of future ones; but theoretically, few things lead to greater confusion in reasoning. It is the invisible mind that makes the sin, not the visible act. But since the act of the mind precedes the visible act, the entire guilt is equally incurred, whether it be indicated by any act visible to us, or not: still more does it follow, that if the entire guilt may exist previous. to any visible act, it may previous to several. The eye of Him who is to judge immaterial creatures has no need of material acts. It reads the spirit, and may or may not permit good or evil to be re

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vealed by one or many overt, corporeal actions. In every case the merit or demerit of the spirit (which is truly the only merit or demerit) remains precisely the same. The law, that is the will of an eternal infinite Being must be infinite and eternal. Its prescriptions may vary, but they are only its form. Its substance can know no change. As long as those prescriptions exist, they partake of the infinitude that prescribes them. To contravene them then is infinitely wrong; nor in that infinitude can I have a notion of any gradations. These may, perhaps, exist; but my fi nite powers cannot conceive them. If an infinite Being ordains a statute (whatever it seem in our eyes, great or small) it must be infinite, and any breach of it be infinite too; nor can I have any conception of its deserving more or less than in-. finite punishment; in which I can recognise no degrees either of alleviation or severity. Such degrees may be; but they are not within the grasp of mortal perception. The only question then is whether an infinite Being has given a law, or not. If he has, it is a line in the ‘over-stepping of which (and in it alone) guilt consists; and however you advance after, this advance' (Cicero avers) has nothing to do with your over-stepping of the line. In this consists guilt, in the infraction of the law (without a reference to its apparent importance or unimportance ); and when once this infrac tion takes place, the guilt is completed. Every sin