CANTO VIT.

taminated with a still worse description of the same iniquity -- pent up anger, or hate.' This is of a piece with what we shall see in the river of blood' of a future Canto; where the sufferers are plunged more or less or less deeply according to their gradations in the same crime, tyrauny (1). The ira of the Latins was divided into ira, and lenta ira. It is the first is on the surface of Styx. Greek, with characteristic abundance, has several words to express each of these two angers. 'Op (ira vehementior) has a peculiar application to the flounderers on the top of the pool; for it is derived from opέyoua (porrectis manibus vel pedibus captoto struggle with hands or legs widely extended (2).'

I am quite of Daniello's opinion, that it is the second and worse description of anger that is below the surface sticking in the hellish mud (3). We call it hate." With a furious man thou shalt not go." It is an implacability of nature with which' (thus Boccaccio) the Tuscans are cursed above all other Italians, and the Florentines above all other Tuscans. The Florentines never pardon (4). Yet Dante's manner of rendering his idea is

(1) Inferno, Canto XII. v. 124.

(2) Lexicon Eruest..

(3) Comento, p. 54.

(4) Comento, vol 1. p. 56.

CANTO VII.

somewhat defective in clearness; for (accidioso fummo) lazy smoke' induces many to contend that it is no description of anger, but merely sloth that is stifling in the bottom of Styx. But why make sloth more criminal than anger? Dante does quite the contrary in Purgatory: nor would he have subverted there, the ethical scale which he had adopted here. Besides, the slothful are evidently included among the despicable crew who ne'er were living yet' (che mai non fur vivi (1)) and whom we saw in the Vestibule. The epithet 'sor. rowful' ( tristi ) applied to haters, has a twofold propriety; from hate being always melancholy, and from sorrowful' (tristo) and wicked' (scellerato) being most commonly employed as synonimes in Italian. The 'lazy smoke of hate' comes near the Latin ira lenta, and still near the vis ( ira permanens) of the Greeks. But the situation in which these haters are, being buried in the mud, is so naturally suggested by another Greek name for deep hate, xóros (ira vetus), that I can scarcely forbear affirming that Dante had it in his mind. Κότος is a derivative of κείμαι ( jaceo, vel sepultus sum) to lie buried (a).' It were to make our Author more habitually familiar with Greek than I ever intended (3): yet the coincidence of the wrathful striking about their members (non

(1) Inferno, Canto 111. v. 64.

(2) Lexicon Ernest.

(3) Hell, Comment, Canto in. p. 200.

CANTO VII.

pur con mano, ma con la testa, piedi, ec.) with the original signification of opy, and of that of haters with the radical meaning of xoros, makes me doubt, whether it would not be far more difficult to believe in such circumstances being casual, than to allow Dante was a little more versed in Greek, than was at first imagined.

Z. 1xxx.

I said there was a path close under the wall and bordering the lake (1). It is along that path they now go.

(1) Pag. 450.

then noticed both the nature of its denizens and its form and dimensions. We left our travellers winding along the narrow path that skirts the baleful lake, and at length coming in sight of a tower situated on that same path. They still walk along the water's brim, and reach the tower whose summit long attracted their attention from its two small flames that incessantly kept up a telegraphic correspondence with another beacon-light far away over Styx. The meaning of these signals is soon revealed by the arrival of a boat; for this shows, that they served to inform the inhabitants of the lower circles of the approach of an additio nal lodger, for whom the infernal pinnace was to be dispatched. Under this error, the rugged mariner' rows quickly up; and is obliged to embark Virgil and Dante and convey them to the City in the centre of the lake — in crossing which they have an adventure with one of its wild swimmers.

GANTO VIII.

At the gate of the town they land, but are denied admittance by its demoniac guard; and the Canto closes with the appearance of a glorious creature coming down from the better regions of hell to their assistance.

We are come to the proper place for proving, what I more than once premised, that the first Cantos of this poem were written before their Author's exile from Florence. Let me observe however, the line before us does not in itself convey any internal evidence in favour of what I advance, any more than this passage often quoted from Villani does against it: 'Dante while in exile wrote many songs, letters, and the Comedy (1). What does this imply ( if taken with the fair latitude to be conceded to the composer, not of a biographical memoir, but of an universal history) but simply, that Dante wrote the chief part of the Divine Comedy during his exile? —a position that is undeniable. His reputation, not only in science and politics, but in poetry, was fully established long previous to his exile; if he had never written a word of his COMEDY, he would still have been the founder of Italian poetry. He showed he was conscious of this from the very opening of this poem, by asserting that his beautiful Virgilian style had already secured his fame:

(1) Gio. Villani, Ist. Lib. 1x. cap. 135.