CANTO IL.

of Paradise) all the weapons of eloquence are put in requisition; not even excepting daring sarcasms, which, were it not for the important cause in which they are employed, would not escape reproof, as unworthy of the majesty of the place. For instance, after threatening the iniquitous Pontiff (whose wars, he says, were carried on not by the sword, but by a denial of the bread of life, that is, by an abuse of excommunications written, as he adds, only for the purpose of being razed as soon as their political object was gained) with the anger of the Apostles, who though martyred are not dead, he suggests to him, as a characteristic reply, the gross impiety, that he cared nothing about the Apostles; his hopes being all placed in S. Iohn-the-Baptist who was put to death for a dancing girl (Herod's daughter): by which is meant that they were placed in the gold florins of Florence, a coin that bore the image of that eremite: What once was sword-work now is done

By a denial of that bread

The Sire of Mercy keeps from none:

O thou, who writest but to cancel, dread
The planters of the vine thou seek'st to cut!
Nor Paul nor martyred Peter's dead.

But answer bold: my hopes are put
In the great Eremite alone,

Who bled in Jewry for a slut ;

To me your Paul and fisherman's unknown (1).

(1) Parad. Canto xviii.

CANTO II.

And, reproving the luxury of the priesthood, who, however, had not as yet learned to loll in their chariots, as they did afterwards;

Came Cephas, and came poor and bare
The Vessel elect in lowliest gait,
Unshod, content with any fare;
Not such our modern Pastors' state

With squires and toilets and to saddle-bow
Raised with labour Oh! men of weight!
Whose mantles down their palfreys flow,

A single hide upon a pair of brutes! —
How far thy patience, Heaven, can go (1)!

But, since the subject on which we are touching is so necessary to be fully comprehended before going farther, I will not apologize for illustrating it by a passage from the Monarchia; both because the words are of Dante himself, and because I know no words of any writer which put the matter in a clearer light.

Having shown, in the preceding two books, that the Emperor is the rightful successor to the Imperial dignity, he, in the third, undertakes to prove, that there is no earthly Sovereign superior to him. But let me observe that, when he advocates that Imperial jurisdiction, he lays distinctly down what he understands by it; that is, an acknowledged superiority, not absolute power: and, far from any thing like military sway, he

(1) Parad. Canto XXI.

CANTO 11.

jealously contends, that the Emperor should not even be permitted to interfere with the particular constitutions of the country- animadvertendum sane, quod cum dicitur humanum genus potest regi per unum supremum principem, non sic intel. ligendum est, ut ab illo uno prodire possint municipia et leges municipales. Habent namque nationes, regna, et civitates inter se proprietates quas legibus differentibus regulari oportet. If the various nations, realms, and states of Italy were thus to have their own legislatures, and that there only was to be, for the common utility, a common chief to maintain the public concord, (as is continually repeated by Dante in pre-conformity to the sound, whig principle, cited more than once in the same page, that the people is not created for the sovereign, but on the contrary the sovereign for the people, non enim gens propter regem, sed e converso rex propter gentem -) then indeed the Emperor was, in point of substantial force, to be little more than what the President is in the United States, and the desire of our poet was really that of a federal commonwealth; which, if it had taken place, would have insured the independence of Italy and have suppressed the intestine conflicts between those 'democracies oligarchies, and tyrannies that equally reduce the human kind into servitude, as is evident' democratiæ, oligarchiæ, atque tyrannides quæ in servitutem cogunt genus humanum, ut

every

where most

CANTO 11.

ubique patet. It is no fault of his, therefore, if we must traverse the Atlantic for a model of federalism; which alone, perhaps, could have conferred durability on those turbulent republics and principalities, always in revolution and with a large portion of their population exiled, and whose sanguinary rapacity was at such a pitch, that they could never rest from petty yet cruel and obstinate wars undertaken, if there was no more plausible pretence to be discovered, for any thing however ridiculous, even for an old water-bucket (1). The reason for selecting the Emperor as that common Italian chief was obviously, because, as legitimate heir to the Roman diadem, he was the only individual in whose favour it was possible that the Italians might have united. In the third book he thus continues: 'Confiding in the promises made to Daniel, that the Divinity will be himself a buckler to the advocates of truth; putting on the armour of faith, according to the admonition of S. Paul; heated with that burning coal, which one of the Seraphim took from the celestial altar and applied to the lip of Isaiah; and strengthened by the arm of Him, who, with his blood, redeemed us from the powers of darkness; I advance to the struggle in order to chase iniquity and lies from the face of the earth. Why should I fear? Spoke not the spirit of the co-eternal Father and Son, by the

(1) La Secchia Rapita.

CANTO II.

mouth of David, « the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance, and shall not be afraid of evil tidings? (1) » Between two great luminaries am I called on to pronounce, between the Roman Pontiff and the Roman Prince; and to decide whether this latter (whom I have shown to be a legitimate Monarch) be dependant immediately upon God, or only mediately, through the interposition of the Vicar of God, I mean, of the suc cessor of S. Peter, who truly is the bearer of the keys of the kingdom of heaven'....... And, having substantiated several irrefragable, but in our age superfluous arguments, touching the difference between spiritualities and temporalities, which it has ever been the chief policy of the Papacy to confuse, he thus winds up the whole 'Wherefore, imbued with the reverence that a pious child owes to his father, that a pious child owes to his mother, pious towards Christ, pious towards the Church, pious towards its Pastor, pious towards all the professors of the Christian religion, I say (to uphold what is the truth) that, of all earthly creatures, man alone is created for a double end, a corruptible one and an incorruptible. Unerring Providence then has destined him to a twofold felicity; that of this life, which is figured by the terrestrial Paradise, and which is attainable by the exercise of philosophy and virtue, and that of eter

(1) Psalms ex11. 6.