CANTO VII. may interest a few, curious, literary antiquaries to learn as much as can be discovered on a subject of which so little is ever discoverable the birth and growth of one of the standard poems of the world. It is most true, that there is nothing in the verse we are commenting, that any more proveth our Author interrupted his work for several years, and then took it up in this place, than many similar phrases in Ariosto argue he left off and continued his poem at intervals; which were in contradiction with fact (1). Had we no other testimonies than that line of Villani, and this verse of Dante himself, we might expunge them as opposite qualities, rather ciphers, and fairly confess we know nothing of the matter. Nor is it less unreasonable to argue from the Ghibellinism in the first seven Cantos, that they were written after their author became a Ghibelline - after his exile. They savour neither of Ghibellinism, nor Guelphism; for on the only occasion wherein those factions are mentioned, the leaders of both book then must have been some of Dante's songs- either his Rime, or his Vita Nuova. My carpenter, however inharmonious in the music of his recitativo, made at least no breaches in it: but the ass-driver broke the metre every now and then with Ar-ri! addressed to his asses, So Dante happening to pass by, and having his meditations chased and his ears wounded by that dissonance, discharged his cane suddenly upon the poor ass-driver's shoulders, crying out to him fellow, I never wrote that Ar-ri!' Franco Sachetti, Nov. 114-115. Ammirato, Ist. Lib. xiv.-Negri, Ist. Scritt. Fior. (1) As for example: Tornando al lavoro che vario ordisco. Orlando Fur. Canto xvi. St. 5. CANFO V111. are emphatically condemned (1): Truth is, Dante was no more a Guelph before exile, than a Ghibelline after it: for his resistance to the French and Papal dominations, and scheme of according the Emperor an unarmed presidency, in order to unite the various Italian states in one great federal Republic, no more shows him a Ghibelline ; than his fighting against the furious Ghibelline faction at Campaldine, and his entering Florence amongst the white Guelphs, shows him a Guelph. It is not easy to perceive, why the investigation of where and when these Cantos were composed should ever have become aggrandized, from its natural insignificance, into a question of party. Yet so it is: the Florentines sustain that these portions of the Divine Comedy date previous to their Author's exile from home; the Veronese deny it. Neither of those people should be desirous of aggravating the ingratitude of their ancestors, but rather of palliating it; and considering their illtreatment of Dante, their shame is enhanced the more proofs are accumulated of his having sought to do them honor. The weight of obligation under which Florence labours in his regard were vast enough; without super-adding epic poetry: and that he bad served her faithfully during years both with sword and pen; fighting her pen; fighting her great battle in Campaldine, regulating her diplomacy in a (1) Hell, Comment, Canto vii. p. 378. CANTO VIt. variety of ways, and bequeathing her an immortal language, both prose and verse, in his Vita Nuova, merited a far different requital than he received. How much he exerted himself in both her home and foreign affairs may be gathered, not only from his having been so often ambassador and once a Prior of the Republic, but from the story circulated by his enemies, and which may very well be true without doing him any discredit; for none can result from his being so immersed in meditation on his public duties, as to fall into absence. A vain desire of dividing himself into two, in order to serve his country more effectually, was the enthusiasm of patriotism, not arrogance (1). Dante was a Florentine by birth, education, and predilection; was long its most distinguished minister; was in his thirty-seventh year when forced from it by political misfortunes; ere which, he had already published enough to prove him the most learned character of his age. Nothing subsequent can make him more or less a Tuscan; and whether he composed a few Cantos during his rambles, or ere he left home, neither detracts from nor adds to the just pride of his countrymen. He adopted not any other land: nor even ever fixed his abode in another for any considerable period. To excuse the iniquitous return made by their ancestors to such devotedness; to show there was at least some (1) Hell, Comment, Canto vi. p. 357 -Note. CANTO VIll. reasonable pretext for expelling their excellent citizen with contumely; for disregarding his letters (one of which opens so affectingly, O my people! what have I done to thee? (1)'); for decreeing his exile should be perpetual, unless he bought his recall with his dishonor; for confiscating his pro. perty; and for sentencing him to be burnt alive without further trial, if taken to endeavour to disprove, or soften down these opprobrious misdeeds would be more creditable to Florentines, than to contend that a few Cantos of this poem were composed within their walls. It would even be more to the purpose, did they erect at this day some tardy monument to the memory of the most famous personage their City ever produced. But Florence, is and always was characteristically ungrateful to its heroes; and has not yet attempted to propitiate the insulted manes of any one of its illustrious triumvirs, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio. Their bones repose at a distance from their native town; where the traveller is amazed at not finding the slightest sepulchral memorial to recall their names: And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust; as of yore The Cæsar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, Did but of Rome's best son remind her more (2). (1) Popule mi! quid feci tibi? Manetti, Vita Dantis. (2) Childe Harold, Canto Iv. st. 59. CANTO Vil. The Veronese, (though in a much slighter degree) are in a predicament of a similar kind: and it better becomes them to explain away the insults which Dante suffered in their town, than to blazon their own ancestors' ingratitude by representing the visit with which he honored them as long, or the verses which he composed during it as numerous. That at the board of a tyrant whom they misname great, such scurrility should have been directed against the greatest man of that age, is what requireth explanation; and to show that this was not so grossly the case as is usually recorded, is what would really exculpate both Verona and the family of La Scala. The ingenuity of the Marchese Maffei would have been patriotically employed, had it sought, either to liberate Verona at the expense of its boy-despot, by showing that not being a free republic, like Florence, it were not fair to hold the people responsible for his inurbanity; or to controvert the authority of Petrarch (1), and make us disbelieve the tales of the servants at Court receiving orders to gather the bones round the table and fling them under Dante's chair, and of Can's having asked Dante publicly on another occasion, how it came to pass that he was less admired by every one than the court jester or fool (2). Or if (1) Rer. Mem. 1. 4. (2) To such ribaldry the Poet certainly replied in the sarcastic tone it merited—that if his appetite was greedy in leaving much bones, theirs was greedier in leaving none; and that as to predilection for a |