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DANTE AND LUCRETIUS.

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I think, certainly, that it, especially in the

You must not think that I am wholly an armadillo or rhinocerean, insensible to the merits of Dante, from what I have said. I think that his "Divina Commedia” is one of the great poems of the world; but of all the great poems of the world, I think it the least abounding in grace, and loveliness, and splendour. There is no strain in it so fine as the address to Venus at the beginning of Lucretius' great poem; scarce anything so brightly beautiful as passages in Goethe's great drama. the religious spirit displayed in Purgatorio," is earnest and deep, but far from pure or thoroughly elevated. If you set up a claim for Dante, that his is the great Catholic Christian mind, then ȧpioraμaiI am off, and to a great distance. The following description of Carlyle seems to me to point at what is Dante's characteristic power:-"The very movements in Dante. have something brief, swift, decisive-almost military. The fiery, swift Italian nature of the man-so silent, passionate with its quick, abrupt movements, its silent, pale rages-speaks itself in these things." Yes; it is in this fiery energy, these "pale rages," that Dante's chief power shows itself, as it seems to me, not in genial beauty and lovingness, not in a wide, rich spirit of philosophy. You compare a passage in the "Aids to Reflection" to the conclusion of Canto I. of the "Paradiso." They are indeed in a neighbouring region of thought; but as neighbours often quarrel violently when they come into close contact, so I think would these if strictly compared. S. T. C. in this passage speaks of the scale of the creation— how each rank of creatures exhibits in a lower form what is more fully and nobly manifested in the rank above. Of this, Dante says not a word. How should he? The thought is founded on facts of natural history unknown in his day, and a knowledge of zoology in particular, to which his age had paid no attention. The chief beauty of

Q

my father's aphorism consists, I think, in the striking manner in which instances of his remark are particularized, and the poetic elegance with which they are described. Then he proceeds to a concluding reflection, which is spiritual indeed-no mere fancy, but a solid truth. But Dante's passage ends with that confusion of the material and the spiritual which my father made it his business to drive out of the realms of thought as far as his eloquence could drive it. The next canto-the Beatrician lecture on the spots in the moon-I think now, as I thought when I first read it, the very stiffest oatmeal porridge that ever a great poet put before his readers, instead of the water of Helicon. If it were ever such sound physics, it would be out of place in a poem; and its being all vain reasoning and false philosophy makes it hardly more objectionable than it is on another score.

October 29.-For saying that Dante's spots-of-the-moon doctrine is, as the commentators say, a mere fandonia and garbuglio, we have no less authority than Newton. Canto III. you put your own opinions into. But I must not enter the field of Spirit versus Matter. I only beseech your attention to this point. God is a Spirit, and yet He is Substance, and the Head and Fountain of all Substance, and the Son is of one Substance with the Father. If the tendency of the whole creation, when not dragged down by sin, is upward to the Creator, then surely there is a progress away from matter into spirit. This I believe to be Platonism, and this Platonism Schelling, Coleridge, and others have tried to revive. You oppose to them Mediavalism, or the semi-Pagan doctrine of the primitive Christians, converts from Paganism, and both parties appeal to Scripture. We think the Bible plainly teaches that flesh and blood, however smartened up, cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but that things, such as eye of man hath not seen, nor ear heard, are prepared by God for them

that love Him. It is true we cannot here, in this life, image to ourselves that kingdom. God Himself tells us that we cannot, both in Gospel and Epistle. However, few new books would give me so great delight, as a full, wide particular criticism from your pen, of Dante, Milton, (yes, I would trust you with him, you could not but do him glory and honour, in spite of yourself, when you took him up, though you might have thought you were going to depreciate him), and Wordsworth.

Herbert keeps me busy. He writes continually about his studies, asking for explanations, advice, and so forth. He is learning Icelandic, of which he brags greatly, and is reading Dante, Tasso, and Ariosto. I sent him a sheet of Dantian interpretations lately. I take the political view of the beasts in the 1st Canto, instead of the merely moral. Dante's politics are very remarkable. Born a Guelf, he became the most intense and vehement Ghibelline. It was Ghibellinism that perverted his mind into that strange judgment of Brutus and Cassius.

CHAPTER XVI.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., MISS FENWICK, MISS ERSKINE, MISS MORRIS, MISS TREVENEN: January-July, 1847.

I.

Characters of Milton, Charles the First, and Oliver Cromwell.

TO AUBREY DE VERE, Esq., Curragh Chase.

Chester Place, January, 1847.-To rebel against a tyrant, himself a rebel against the laws and liberties of his country, and a traitor to its constitution, is no disgrace to Milton's memory. Both parties were wrong and both were right in my opinion-the struggle was to be, and on either side there was much error and much wrongdoing, from a blindness, under the circumstances, scarce avoidable. Charles I pity, admire, but do not deeply respect. Cromwell I respect more, but do not venerate. He was a man of great firmness, courage, ability. Charles had personal not moral courage-he had both. I think he was sincere and patriotic at first, but became in some measure corrupted, just as Artevelde became corrupted in the course of his career.

II.

A Visit to Bath-Her Son's Eton Successes-Schoolboy Taste-The Athanasian Creed-Doctrine of the Filial Subordination not contained in it-The Damnatory Clauses-Candour in Argument.

To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

8, Queen Square, Bath, March 20th, 1847.-My dear John, -Here we are at Bath, in the commodious temporary abode of Miss Fenwick, with my dear old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth. Our journey on Thursday was a bright and pleasant one. Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth were waiting to welcome us at the station, and most affectionate was their

greeting. Mr. Wordsworth has always called me his child, and he seems to feel as if I were such indeed.

Since I wrote the first page of this letter, I have had to answer two notes from Edward on a very pleasant occasion; the first told me that Herbert was in the number of the select, and also that he had gained the essay prize in a very distinguished manner; the second announced, with very hearty congratulations, that he had been declared the medallist, Whymper being the Newcastle scholar. I could not help thinking with special keenness of feeling on those who are gone, who would have shared with me and E. in the pleasure of this success; but it is best, for my final welfare at least, that all is as it is, and that the advantages of this world and its drawbacks have ever been mingled in my portion. It is a great addition to the pleasure to feel that Herbert's success gives real delight to others besides myself. Anything of the kind. is received at St. M-s quite as a little triumph. Edward says that to Latin composition and the general improvement of his taste he must chiefly address himself during the next year. His taste will certainly bear a great deal of improvement during many a year to come, for the formation of a sound literary taste is a matter of time. His taste, taking the word in a positively good sense, as the appreciation of what is excellent, is now in fragments, not a general embryo, apparently, but much more developed in parts than on the whole. He has a much better notion of the true merits of ancient writers than of modern ones-modern subjectivity he does not understand in the least, hence his preference of Southey's poetry to that of Wordsworth.

Mr. Dodsworth asked me in his last call what I thought of the article on Development in the "Christian Remembrancer." I mentioned to him, among some other part objections, a statement toward the end which seems