CANTO VIE this passage been seen by Cicero, he would not have any longer exclaimed against the unworthiness of attributing any thing divine to a being so rash and inconstant as fortune (1). A Goddess with banded eyes may be believed ignoble; but not so, this happy impassible handmaid of an infinite Jehovah. 'Nor is' (says Landino) 'the impossibility of resisting Fortune any argument against the freedom of the will: for we are at liberty to court her favours or not. They are certainly most fugitive: but if, disregarding them, we apply ourselves to the cultivation of our own minds, we gain a treasure of which no power can deprive us. This only is what can truly be called our property: for of all the things in the world the soul alone, as Plato affirms, is independent. The variety of objects that we behold are kept in continual revolution by other created substances superior to them; even the inferior spheres of heaven are influenced by the higher ones; but our soul, though exiled for a moment into this fragile body, has no other superior than the Divinity himself of whom it is a particle. But if we choose to woo the gifts of Fortune, let us be prepared for the instability that is unavoidable: so, may a traveller choose whether to undertake his journey by land or by water; but if he determines on the latter, it behooves him to steel his heart against the fluctua (1) Quam nemo ab inconstantia et temeritate sejunget: quæ digna certe non sunt Deo. Nat. Deor. 1. 3. p. xxiv. CANTO VII. ting nature of the elements (1).' This metaphorical reasoning Landino borrowed from Boëtius (2). I know, a rhymester of the age of Dante cavilled against this portrait of Fortune; as if the making her necessarily roll round her orb were an interference with the free will of man and the omnipotence of the Divinity. But I believe few philoso¬ phical minds but will allow, that it affords on the contrary the most conciliatory theory ever invented to reconcile opinions on the most difficult point which ever employed the human understanding. The wisdom beyond wisdom beaming, Who made the heavens, made each a guide To minister the radiant streaming And circles of creation wide; And also placed a Queen o'er chance Of mundane splendors with their tide Of phantasms Matter no whit your plots on plot; She orders, sees, foresees the whole. Her orb that never finds a goal She keeps and must still fleetly tost; While human fates as fleetly roll. Yea! this is she whom slanders long have crost: Pure, holy Fair so crucified! And most by those who owe her most. (1) Landino, Comento, p. 45. (2) Si ventis vela commiteres, non quo voluntas peteret, flatus impelleret, permovereris. De Consol. Lib. n. Cap. 1. CANTO VII. But such she hears not: — wheeling wide Her sphere the primal race divine among; Conscious, like them, of bliss and nought beside. Latet anguis in herbâ (1). 'Gods applied to Fortune and similar intelligences' (come gli altri Dei) was, in all likelihood, introduced by Dante as a repetition of what he observed in the passage which I just cited from the Convito, that the Gods and Goddesses of Paganism, however ignorantly adored by the vulgar, were not truly honored by the best of the Ancients otherwise than as secondary causes; and were indeed little more to them, than what Angels are to the Moderns. They were then, as they now are, instruments working the will of a single omnipotent Being, whether named Fate, or Destiny, Jove, or Jehovah. We must not be astonished at Dante's letting slip no occasion of apology for the Greeks and Romans; for it was his favourite theme to mingle fondest respect for Antiquity with a most enthusiastic attachment to Christianity. The former of these feelings rendered him very quick in apprehending any thing to the honor of Paganism, and perhaps somewhat blind to its defects: the latter, by being tempered with the other, produced that fervent but tolerating piety which I premised we should find to be (1) Virgil, Ecl. u. v. 93. GANTO VII. one of his distinguishing features; and which might have enslaved his reason to his imagination, had he not been a man of the world habitually conversant with business. As it was, it formed a rare compound of philosophy, theology, poetry and politics; in each of which departments he may have some rivals, but scarcely one superior. Sua sapientia et virtute gaudet, says Cicero speaking of the life of the Deity (1): but it is of Boëtius that the entire of this beautiful passage breathes much; whose volume we should recognise as one of Dante's habitual companions, even if he had not told us it. 'Riches, honors, and all such' (Boetius exclaims in the person of Fortune) 'are within my jurisdiction, and, like slaves, they know their Mistress (2).' How inferior to the verses of Dante, are rendered even these noble ones of Horace, by the mere epithets of reproval which they contain; reproval so severely stigmatized by the other, as the sacrilegious vociferation of men, who forget how much they are beholden to the Angel they insult. Fortuna sævo læta negotio, et Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax, (1) Nat. Deor. lib. 1. p. xìx. (2) Dominam famulæ cognoscunt. Consol. Phil. Lib. 11. cap. 2. Transmutat incertos honores Nunc mihi, nunc aliis benigna (1)! CANTO VIL. This passage of the Divine Comedy appears manifestly to have been paraphrased by Guido Cavalcanti; and I remark it, because it furnishes an additional corroboration of Boccaccio's statement, that Dante had composed the seven first Cantos of this poem before his exile from Florence. Guido died ere then; but that he shonld have perused the Cantos, however secret they were kept from all other eyes, was natural. He was more of a philosopher than of a poet; so he gives rather the morality, than the sweet fancy of his friend (2). The night is dropping' of Virgil is here imitated, in order to mark the hour. Night is said to begin to drop, when it is past mid-night; forming what Macrobius tells us, under the name of media noctis inclinatio, was the first of the twelve parts into which the Romans divided their civil day. Dante therefore does nothing more than simplify the Virgilian phrase, and, instead of night, put the stars themselves every star begins to drop:' and this has the advantage of keeping the reader in mind of the time more effectually, by making (1) Carm. 1. 3. Od. 23. (2) Il moto, il corso, e l'opra di Fortuna E quanto in lei s'aduna Moto riceve dal primo Motore, ec. Rime p. 52-60. f |