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holding out an example to Oriental students) it be considered an admissable license, then on no possible occasion could it be so plausibly introduced as on the present. For in no mouth could the characteristic harshness of the Hebrew be more becoming, than in that of the 'swoln lipt' (quella enfiata labbia), wolfish Plutus; nor any fiend be with greater reason represented as uttering the most ancient language of which we have any remains. That Dante believed the Hebrew to be the most ancient, we have his own words in more than one passage of his Grammar: 'Hebrew was the tongue of the first man (1).' Nor should any one suppose that this is in contradiction with the declaration which we shall find him cause Adam to make, that the language which he used was 'all worn out' (tutta spenta (2)) before the building of Babel; for it shall appear, that this is to be understood as a kind of poetical hyperbole, not as an absolute affirmation: it only signifies that Hebrew, which at first was universally spoken, had already fallen from its purity before the great confusion of tongues. But that, however corrupted, it was not extinguished, either before or after the tower of Babel, (being still transmitted by the Jews) we know to have been a thesis formally sustained by our Author; since he thus expresses

(1) Fuit ergo Hebraicum idioma id, quod primi loquentis labia fabricaverunt. De Vulgari Eloquio, Lib. 1. cap. 6.

(2) Parad. Canto XXVI. V. 124.

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CANTO VII.

himself in the same grammatical essay mentioned immediately above: this form of speech which had been spoken by Adam, and by all his children until the building of Babel, descended as a peculiar inheritance to the Hebrews, in order that our Saviour, when born among them, might speak not the language of confusion, but of beauty and grace. The chosen few to whom this sacred idiom was intrusted were of the seed of Sem, from whom proceeded the people of Israel, who down to the moment of their dispersion continued to employ this most ancient of tongues (1).' This opinion recorded so tenaciously is referable to the controversy between scholars, as to whether the books of Moses were originally written in Hebrew, or Chaldaic it appears to be in order to decide in favour of the former, that Dante asserts its superior antiquity; and not from a wish to pronounce between the Syriac, Samaritan, and Phænician, which be apparently considered as only dialects

(1) Hac forma locutionis locutus est Adam; hac forma locuti sunt omnes posteri ejus usque ad ædificationem turris Babel; hauc formam locutionis hæreditati sunt filii Heber, qui ab eo dicti sunt Hebræi. • Each class of workmen' (he says) was inflicted with a separate language; bricklayers with one, carpenters with another, etc. In proportion to their alacrity in building, was the deformity of the tongue allotted to them. With a few who took no part in the fabric the sacred idiom was still left. ' Quibus autem sanctum idioma remansit... hæc minima pars fuit de semine Sem... de qua ortus est populus Israel qui antiquissima locutione sunt usi usque ad suam dispersionem. De Vulgari Eloquio, Lib. 1. cap. 6 -- 7.

CANTO VII.

of Hebrew; as indeed they probably were (1). It is curious to observe how frequently is the proverb exemplified of there being nothing new under the sun! A solemn proposal, of which the Edinburgh Review (2) speaks highly, has been made to the Asiatic Society by a learned peer of France and member of the Institut, to adapt the Roman letters to the various Oriental languages (3). But I dare say, M. de Volney was little aware that his plan had been put into practice so many ages since; and that of the five tongues, Persian, Turkish, Syriac, Arabic, and Hebraic, which he writes in European characters, the old Tuscan poet had already preceded his inven tion with regard to two the two principal of them. Whether such a device be approved of or not, as likely to be of any general benefit either to science or commerce, the defence of Dante in his particular circumstances rests upon more substantial ground, that of experience. For to nothing else than its being written as it was, can we attribute the preservation of his verse down to this day: had the copyists been doomed to labour at words, of which not only the meaning was hidden to them, but with whose letters they were also unacquainted, it would have been altogether impossible for

(1) Of these Contiguous Countries the letters and the language, always analogous, were once probably the same. Ed. Rev. No. LXIV. (2) Id. Id.

(3) L' Alphabet Européen appliqué aux langues Asiatiques, etc. Par C. F. Volney, Comte et Pair de France et membre de l'Institut.

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any intelligible traces to have been retained; and the Divine Comedy would have been really disfigured with the ridiculous mummery of which it has been so ridiculously accused. As things stand however, it is credible that we have the Hebrew verse free of any adulteration, and precisely as it came from the Author's pen; which is more than can be said of much of the Italian. His own expectations might have been still more flattering; and when he used these letters through condescension to the illiterate (who might have been disgusted at strange hieroglyphics totally illegible to them, but not so at a barbarous exclamation which they could read though without understanding it, that inhuman dissonance being uttered by a fiend) I dare say he thought they would be no secret to the learned; and, universal learning increased, it was not unnatural if he believed that his Hebrew would not only be explained, but at last be transcribed in its original form. As to the conservation of his verse, arguing thus, we see he argued rightly; but not so, as to the flourishing of the tongue in which it was composed. Petrarch and Boccaccio instead of improving on his example, and so gathering in all the springs of ancient lore, turned the stream of fashion in a beautiful but narrowed channel; and consequently the erudition of the East has almost dried up, not acquired force, in Italy. The illiterate solution, which it is probable Dante meant as a mere temporary tribute to

CANTO VII.

the ignorance of his age, has not only contented his countrymen ever since, but when at last the discovery of the truth is made and published, they are so unprepared to appreciate it, that it is slightly or not at all mentioned in two or three editions of the Divine Comedy made quite recently: and my own (I mean this Comment) will be the first to present it in its clear light. Let then their bard have justice, albeit tardily, done to him: and without pretending that his Orientalisms enhance his reputation as a poet, let him have credit for something superior to any gifts of imagination devoted patriotism and learning; for the first may be given in vain, but each of the two latter argues virtuous cultivation of the mind. These engaged him to employ various incentives to quicken his fellow-citizens to knowledge and wisdom; and one road to wisdom was certainly to study the compo sitions of Asia, the birth-place of their religion and of every art and science: for if with a similar patriotic intention we shall find him citing the Provençal, we must acknowledge that it agreed better with his own taste to cite Hebrew; since, though the former might have been more fitting. for the intellects of his audience, and pleasing to his ear from its melody, it could never have been the favourite language of one, who, though sweet and tender when he pleased, was much oftener sublime; and who therefore rather belonged to the schools of Greece and of the East, than of France;