Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong, Seas, mountains, and the horizon's verge for bars, Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth Where-whatsoe'er his fate-he still were hers, His country's, and might die where he had birthFlorence! when this lone spirit shall return To kindred spirits, thou wilt feel my worth, And seek to honor with an empty urn

The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain1-Alas! "What have I done to thee, my people?"" Stern Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass

The limits of man's common malice, for

the Universe, that the occasion of this excuse had never existed; that neither others had committed wrong against me, nor I suffered unjustly; suffered, I say, the punishment of exile and of poverty; since it was the pleasure of the citizens of that fairest and most renowned daughter of Rome, Florence, to cast me forth out of her sweet bosom, in which I had my birth and nourishment even to the ripeness of my age, and in which, with her good-will, I desire, with all my heart, to rest this wearied spirit of mine, and to terininate the time allotted to me on earth. Wandering over almost every part, to which this our language extends, I have gone about like a mendicant, showing against my will the wound with which fortune has smitten me, and which is often imputed to his ill-deserving on whom it is inflicted. I have, indeed, been a vessel without sail and without steerage, carried about to divers ports, and roads, and shores, by the dry wind that springs out of sad poverty, and have appeared before the eyes of many who, perhaps, from some report that had reached them, had imagined me of a different form; in whose sight not only my person was disparaged, but every action of mine became of less value, as well already performed, as those which yet remained for me to attempt."] 1 [About the year 1316, the friends of Dante succeeded in obtaining his restoration to his country and his possessions, on condition that he should pay a certain sum of money, and, entering a church, there avow himself guilty, and ask pardon of the republic. The following was his answer, on this occasion, to one of his kinsmen :-" From your letter, which I received with due respect and affection. I observe how much you have at heart my restoration to my country. I am bound to you the more gratefully, that an exile rarely finds a friend. But, after mature consideration, I must, by my answer, disappoint the wishes of some little minds; and I confide in the judgment to which your impartiality and prudence will lead you. Your nephew and mine has written to me, what indeed had been mentioned by many other friends, that by a decree concerning the exiles, I am allowed to return to Florence. provided I pay a certain sum of money, and submit to the humiliation of asking and receiving absolution; wherein, my Father, I see two propositions that are ridiculous and impertinent. I speak of the impertinence of those who mention such conditions to me : for in your letter, dictated by judgment and discretion, there is no such thing. Is such an invitation to return to his country glorious for Dante, after suffering in exile almost fifteen years? Is it thus, then, they would recompense innocence which all the world knows, and the labor and fatigue of unremitting study? Far from the man who is familiar with philosophy be the senseless baseness of a heart of earth, that could do like a little sciolist, and imitate the infamy of some others, by offering himself up as it were in chains. Far from the man who cries aloud for justice this compromise, by his money, with his persecutors! No, my Father, this is not the way that shall lead me back to my country. But I shall return with hasty steps, if you or any other can open to me a way that shall not derogate from the farme and honor of Dante; but if by no such way Florence can be entered, then Florence I shall never enter. What! shall I not everywhere enjoy the sight of the sun and stars? and may I not seek and contemplate, in every corner of the earth under the canopy of heaven, consoling and delightful truth, without first rendering myself glorious, nay infamous, to the people and republic of Florence? Bread, I hope, will not fail me." Yet he continued to experience "How salt the savor is of others' bread, How hard the passage to descend and climb By others' stairs!"

All that a citizen could be I was; Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war, And for this thou hast warr'd with me.-"Tis done I may not overleap the eternal bar Built up between us, and will die alone,

Beholding with the dark eye of a seer The evil days to gifted souls foreshown, Foretelling them to those who will not hear. As in the old time, till the hour be come When Truth shall strike their eyes through many a tear,

And make them own the Prophet in his tomb3

His countrymen persecuted even his memory: he was ex communicated after death by the Pope.]

"E scrisse più volte non solamente a particolari cittadini del reggimento, ma ancora al popolo, e intra l'altre una Epistola assai lunga che comincia:-* Popule m, quié feci tibi?"-Vita di Dante, scritta da Lionardo Aretina.

[Dante died at Ravenna in 1321, in the palace of his patron, Guido Novello da Polenta, who testified his sorrow and respect by the sumptuousness of his obsequies, and by giving orders to erect a monument, which he did not Lieta complete. His countrymen showed, too late, that the knew the value of what they had lost. At the beginn the next century, they entreated that the mortal retauns of their illustrious citizen might be restored to them, and deposited among the tombs of their fathers. But the people of Ravenna were unwilling to part with the sad and hookable memorial of their own hospitality. No better success attended the subsequent negotiations of the Florentinesfer the same purpose, though renewed under the auspices of Leo X., and conducted through the powerful mediation of Michael Angelo.

Never did any poem rise so suddenly into notice, after the death of its author, as the Divina Coinmedia. About 'Le year 1350, Giovanni Visconti, Archbishop of Milan, selected six of the most learned men in Italy.-two divites, two philosophers, and two Florentines,-and gave the in charge to contribute their joint endeavors towards the copilation of an ample comment, a copy of which is preserve! in the Laurentian library. At Florence, a public lecture was founded for the purpose of explaining a poem, which was at the same time the boast and the disgrace of the city The decree for this institution was passed in 1373; and in that year Boccaccio was appointed, with a salary of a tur dred florins, to deliver lectures in one of the churches On the first of their poets. The example of Florence was speedily followed by Bologna, Pisa, Piacenza, and Vente It is only within a few years that the merits of this great and original poet were attended to and made known in this country. And this seems to be owing to a translation of C very pathetic story of Count Ugolino; to the judicious and spirited summary given of this poem in the 31st section of the History of English Poetry; and to Mr. Hayley's trans lations of the three cantos of the Inferno. "Darte be lieved," says Ugo Foscolo," that, by his sufferings on earth, he atoned for the errors of humanity

'Ma la bontà divina ha si gran braccia,
Che prende ciò che si rivolge a lei.'
So wide arms

Hath goodness infinite, that it receives
All who turn to it.'-

And he seems to address Heaven in the attitude of a worshipper, rather than a suppliant. Being convinced that Man is then truly happy when he freely exercises al als energies,' he walked through the world with an assured step, keeping his vigils'

So that nor night nor slumber with close stealth
Convey'd from him a single step in all
The goings on of time.'

He collected the opinions, the follies, the vicissitudes, the miseries, and the passions that agitate mankind: and let behind him a monument, which, while it humbles us by the representation of our own wretchedness, should make us glory that we partake of the same nature with such a mal, and encourage us to make the best use of our fleeting ex istence."]

Queste parole da lor ci fur porte.
Da ch' io intesi quell' anime offense
Chinai il viso, e tanto il tenni basso
Fin che il Poeta mi disse: "Che pense?"
Quando risposi incomminciai: "Ahi lasso!
Quanti dolci pensier, quanto desio
Menò costoro al doloroso passo!"
Poì mi rivolsi a loro, e parlai io,

E cominciai: Francesca, i tuoi martiri
A lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio.
Ma dimmi al tempo de' dolci sospiri
A che, e come concedette Amore
Che conosceste i dubbiosi desiri?
Ed ella a me nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria; e ciò sa il tuo dottore.
Ma se a conoscer la prima radice

Del nostro amor tu hai cotanto affetto
Farò come colui che piange e dice.
Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto
Di Lancillotto, come Amor lo strinse:
Soli eravamo, e senza alcun sospetto.
Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse

3

Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso:
Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.
Quando leggemino il disiato riso

Esser baciato da cotanto amante,
Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,
La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante:

Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisseQuel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante. Mentre che l' uno spirto questo disse, L'altro piangeva sì che di pietade Io venni men così com' io morisse, E caddi come corpo morto cade.

She nevertheless goes on to relieve her brother-in-law from all imputation of having seduced her. Alone, and unconscious of their danger, they read a love-story together. They gazed upon each other, pale with emotion; but the secret of their mutual passion never escaped their lips :-

"Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse
Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso ;

Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse."
The description of two happy lovers in the story was the
ruin of Francesca. It was the romance of Lancilot and
Genevra, wife of Arthur, King of England:-

"Quando leggemmo il disiato riso

Esser baciato da cotanto amante,

Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,
La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante."

After this avowal, she hastens to complete the picture with one touch which covers her with confusion

"Quel giorno più non vi leggemino avante." She utters not another word!-and yet we fancy her before us, with her downcast and glowing looks; whilst her lover stands by her side, listening in silence and in tears. Dante, too, who had hitherto questioned her, no longer ventures to inquire in what manner her husband had put her to death; but is so overawed by pity, that he sinks into a swoon. Nor is this to be considered as merely a poetical exaggeration. The poet had probably known her when a girl, blooming in innocence and beauty under the paternal roof. This, we think, is the true account of the overwhelming sympathy with which her form overpowers him. The episode, too, was written by him in the very house in which she was born, and in which he had himself, during the last ten years of his exile, found a constant asylum.-MACAULAY. "I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid; A little cupola, more neat than solemn, Protects his dust,-but reverence here is paid

To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column:
The time must come when, both alike decay'd,
The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume,
Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth,
Before Pelides' death, or IIomer's birth."

Don Juan, Canto iii.] 1["In omni adversitate fortunæ infelicissimum genus infortunii est fuisse felicem."-Boctius. Dante himself tells us,

These were the accents utter'd by her tongue.— Since I first listen'd to these souls offended, I bow'd my visage, and so kept it till [bended, "What think'st thou ?" said the bard; when I unAnd recommenced: "Alas! unto such ill

How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstasies,
Led these their evil fortune to fulfil!"
And then I turn'd unto their side my eyes,

And said, " Francesca, thy sad destinies
Have made me sorrow till the tears arise.
But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs,
By what and how thy love to passion rose,
So as his dim desires to recognise?"
Then she to me: "The greatest of all woes
Is to remind us of our happy days'
In misery, and that thy teacher knows."
But if to learn our passion's first root preys
Upon thy spirit with such sympathy,

I will do even as he who weeps and says.-
We read one day for pastime, seated nigh,
Of Lancilot, how love enchain'd him too.
We were alone, quite unsuspiciously.
But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue
All o'er discolor'd by that reading were:
But one point only wholly us o'erthrew;
When we read the long-sigh'd-for smile of her,
To be thus kiss'd by such devoted lover,"
He who from me can be divided ne'er
Kiss'd my mouth, trembling in the act all over.
Accursed was the book and he who wrote!
That day no further leaf we did uncover.”-
While thus one spirit told us of their lot,

The other wept, so that with pity's thralls
I swoon'd as if by death I had been smote,
And fell down even as a dead body falls."

that Boetius and Cicero de Amicitia were the two first books that engaged his attention.]

["In some of the editions it is 'dirò,' in others 'farm :an essential difference between saying' and 'doing,' which I know not how to decide. Ask Foscolo. The d-d ear tions drive me mad."-Lord Byron to Mr. M.]

[One of the Knights of Arthur's Round Table, and the lover of Genevra, celebrated in romance. See Southey's King Arthur," vol. i. p. 52. Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, makes out for the knight both a local habitation and a name. "The name of Lancelot," he says, "is an ap pellation truly British, and significative of royalty; Lance being a Celtic term for a spear, and Leod, Lod, or Lot, unporting a people. He was therefore (!) a British sovere: and since he is denominated Lancelot of the Lake, perlaj (!) he resided at Coccium, in the region Linnis, and was the monarch of Lancashire; as the kings of Creones, living a Selma, on the forest of Morven, are generally denominated sovereigns of Morven; or, more properly, was King of Cheshire, and resided at Pool-ton Lancelot, in the hundred of Wirrall." See also Ellis's Specimens of early Romances, vol. i. p. 271.]