such knowledge I am indeed indebted to an
Italian (the learned Abate Lanci, public Pro-
fessor of oriental tongues at Rome); but his ob-
servations have only appeared in a small pam-
phlet, so that this English comment will be the
first one to do justice to Dante in that respect.
It will be the fault of my execution, (and not of
the plan) if this work fail to be interesting,
not merely to students of Dante, whether in
the original or in a translation, but even to
such as never perused, or intend to peruse the
DIVINE COMEDY, but love desultory reading.
The variety, shortness, and independence of
its articles (if they were well executed) would
render it as fit to be taken up, and thrown
down, and taken up again, as Montaigne's es-
says themselves, or even those treatises of Plu-
tarch and Seneca of which he
says: Il ne fault
pas grande entreprise pour m'y mettre, et les
quitte où il me plaist; car elles n'ont point de
suite et dependance les unes aux aultres (Liv.
2. chap. 10. ). I suppose no one will be so un-
generous, as to suspect me of presuming to
compare myself with Montaigne; except merely
as to the unconnected nature of the parts of
our compositions. There are few historical
anecdotes to render a comment on ancient
poetry interesting; for all that can ever be

known about the Greeks and Romans, has long become generally known: whereas much may be yet discovered from MSS. and rare, printed chronicles in Italy, which are scarcely known in Italy itself, far less in England. If Mr. Roscoe was able to throw light on so late and so enlightened an age as that of the Medici, it would merit small surprise if another Oltremontano could do so with regard to a period far remoter and less investigated. However curious a theme the Pagan mythology is, it has nothing (speaking merely humanly) to compete with Christianity. The Greek and Latin poets lead to a discussion on the former: but Dante to the latter also; for it can never be doubted but his creed (however some of its tenets be. considered) contains the fundamental Christian dogmas; and has been more universally professed, than other form of Christianity. In the Histoire des Républiques Italiennes some doubts are hazarded as to the political consequence of Dante; but these seem much more suggested by a desire of novelty, than a judicious survey of events. A great authority, a nation's voice has long since decided the contrary; and even the historian himself affords manifest grounds for an opinion very different from his own, by showing that Dante had to

any

pay the severe mulct of the confiscation of all his property and outlawry for life for the part which he had taken in politics. Yet he was never minister to an Emperor, in whose archives his letters (like those of one of his predecessors, Pietro della Vigna) might have been preserved; nor ever condescended to become an avowed leader of any of the factions of the day, by whom his writings might have been enthusiastically treasured up. Scarcely half a dozen of his letters have come down to us; but these show, that he was in the habits of intimacy with great Potentates on every interesting question. To the Emperor, to the Cardinals, to the Republic of Florence, to the Lords of Verona, and of Ravenna, etc.— these were the persons to whom the few of his letters, or scraps of letters, which are extant were addressed. Neither Guelphs, nor Ghibellines, nor Blacks, nor Whites could look to him as an implicit adherent, but were alike most conscious that he was ready to oppose their sanguinary acts; the MONARCHIA, though written in defence of the temporal superiority of the Emperor, could not have obtained his assent, since it denied him an armed authority and (what was worse) a right to levy taxes on the Italian municipalities; and the Pope, although devotion to his

spiritual supremacy was most striking in Dante, could not forgive his opposition to his temporal pretensions: with all these more or less his foes, the wonder is not that so few traces of his political career remain, but that any of them do; and most extraordinary must his merits have been, who, depending on no faction at that factious period, could acquire universal reputation on his intrinsic worth alone. Nor do I speak of him as a poet. M. Sismondi is incorrect in stating that his political eminence was an exaggeration of after ages. He had barely expired, when that eminence was emphatically avowed in writings that are still in being: and it was, on the contrary, by those of after ages that it was called in question. When Boccaccio and his immediate predecessors and successors wrote, Dante's superiority as a Politician and Theologian was valued higher than as a poet; and for this, the spiritual parts of his works were explained in the churches, and the political in the public schools of Florence, Bologna, Pisa, Lucca all the free republics of Italy. A slight sketch of his life may be a necessary preliminary to some, and no inconvenient one to most readers.

It was at a period when the Italian republics were in full possession of their boasted, though

sanguinary struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines and the Imperial and Papal factions was at its height ere the modern literature was begotten, or the ancient had emerged from the hiding-places of the monasteries — while the fine arts, under Cimabue, were rather in the very first state of embryo than of existence

it was during this chaos of society, in 1265, that the descendants of one of those old Roman families (the purest source from which any of our European nobility spring) who founded Fiesole, and, after its destruction, established themselves at Florence, produced a son, who was to have a wider and more beneficial influence over the world than any of his Latin ancestors ever had; for he was to give immediate birth to almost all arts and sciences, and to bring at least one of them (poetry) to a high point of perfection: a personage to whom mankind owes much, even in those improvements which appear to be of recent origin, and to whom it has never ceased, more or less, through so many successive centuries, to confess its debt of gratitude - DANte Alighieri. He was an eldest son, and had one brother and sister. How long his mother survived, is not known: but his father certainly died during