their showing diligence at all other times. Applause, as soon as it is out of the mouth, is dispersed into the air, and vanishes; but when the hearers grow better, this brings an incorruptible and immortal reward both to the speaker and the hearer. The praise of your acclamation may render the orator more illustrious here, but the piety of your souls will give him greater confidence before the tribunal of Christ. Therefore, if any one love the preacher, or if any preacher love his people, let him not be enamored with applause, but with the benefit of the hearers."

103. Lapo is the abbreviation of Jacopo, and Bindi of Aldobrandi, both familiar names in Florence.

107. Milton, Lycidas, 113 :

How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies' sake

Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!

Of other care they little reckoning make,

Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest!

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least

That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw:

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed;

But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread :

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said:

But that two-handed engine at the door

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.

115. Cowper, Task, II. :

He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware

Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful

To court a grin, when you should woo a soul;

To break a jest, when pity would inspire

Pathetic exhortation; and t' address

The skittish fancy with facetious tales,

When sent with God's commission to the heart!

For a specimen of the style of popular preachers in the Middle Ages, see the story of Frate Cipolla, in the Decame

rone, Gior. VI. Nov. 10.

Menin's Prédicatoriana.

See also Scheible's Kloster, and

118. The Devil, who is often represented in early Christian art under the shape of a coal-black bird. See Didron, Christ. Iconog., I.

124. In early paintings the swine is the symbol of St. Anthony, as the cherub is of St. Matthew, the lion of St. Mark, and the eagle of St. John. There is an old tradition that St. Anthony was once a swineherd. Brand, Pop. Antiquities, I. 358, says :

"In the World of Wonders is the following translation of an epigram:

Orce fed'st thou, Anthony, an heard of swine,

And now an heard of monkes thou feedest still:

For wit and gut, alike both charges bin:

Both loven filth alike; both like to fill

Their greedy paunch alike. Nor was that kind

More beastly, sottish, swinish than this last.

All else agrees; one fault I onely find,

Thou feedest not thy monkes with oken mast.

"The author mentions before, persons who runne up and downe the country, crying, Have you anything to bestow upon my lord S. Anthonie's swine?'"

Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, II. 380, remarks: "I have read somewhere that the hog is given to St. Anthony, because he had been a swineherd, and cured the diseases of swine. This is quite a mistake. The hog was the representative of the demon of sensuality and gluttony, which Anthony is supposed to have vanquished by the exercises of piety and by divine aid. The ancient custom of placing in all his effigies a black pig at his feet, or under his feet, gave rise to the superstition that this unclean animal was especially dedicated to him, and under his protection. The monks of the Order of St. Anthony kept herds of consecrated pigs, which were allowed to feed at the public charge, and which it was a profanation to steal or kill: hence the proverb about the fatness of a Tantony pig.' Halliwell, Dict. of Arch. and Prov. Words, has the fol lowing definition: "ANTHONY-PIG. The favorite or smallest pig of the litter. A Kentish expression, according to

Grose.

To follow like a tantony pig.' i. e. to follow close at one's heels. Some derive this saying from a privilege enjoyed by the friars of certain convents in England and France, sons of St. Anthony, whose swine were permitted to feed in the streets. These swine would follow any one having greens or other provisions, till they obtained some of them; and it was in those days considered an act of charity and religion to feed them. St. Anthony was invoked for the pig."

Mr. Howells, Venetian Life, p. 341, alludes to the same custom as once prevalent in Italy: "Among other privileges of the Church, abolished in Venice long ago, was that ancient right of the monks of St. Anthony Abbot, by which their herds of swine were made free of the whole city. These animals, enveloped in an odor of sanctity, wandered here and there, and were piously fed by devout people, until the year 1409, when, being found dangerous to children, and inconvenient to everybody, they were made the subject of a special decree, which deprived them of their freedom of movement. The Republic was always opposing and limiting the privileges of the Church!"

126. Giving false indulgences, without the true stamp upon them, in return for the alms received.

130. The nature of the Angels.

134. Daniel vii. 10: "Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him."

136. That irradiates this angelic nature.

138. The splendors are the reflected lights, or the Angels. 140. The fervor of the Angels is proportioned to their capacity of receiving the divine light.

CANTO XXX.

1. The ascent to the Empyrean, the tenth and last Heaven. Of this Heaven, Dante, Convito, II. 4, says: "This is the sovereign edifice of the world, in which the whole world is included, and outside of which nothing is. And it is not in space, but was formed solely in the primal Mind, which the

Greeks call Protonoe. This is that magnificence of which the Psalmist spake, when he says to God, 'Thy magnificence is exalted above the heavens."

Milton, Par. Lost, III. 56:

Now had the Almighty Father from above,

From the pure empyrean where he sits

High throned above all highth, bent down his eye,

His own works and their works at once to view.

About him all the sanctities of heaven

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received

Beatitude past utterance.

2. The sixth hour is noon, and when noon is some six thousand miles away from us, the dawn is approaching, the shadow of the earth lies almost on a plane with it, and gradually the stars disappear.

10. The nine circles of Angels, described in Canto XXVIII.

38. From the Crystalline Heaven to the Empyrean. Dante, Convito, II. 15, makes the Empyrean the symbol of Theology, the Divine Science: "The Empyrean Heaven, by its peace, resembles the Divine Science, which is full of all peace; and which suffers no strife of opinions or sophistical arguments, because of the exceeding certitude of its subject, which is God. And of this he says to his disciples, 'My peace I give unto you; my peace I leave you'; giving and leaving them his doctrine, which is this science of which I speak. Of this Solomon says: "There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number; my dove, my undefiled, is but one.' All sciences he calls queens and paramours and virgins; and this he calls a dove, because it is without blemish of strife; and this he calls perfect, because it makes us perfectly to see the truth in which our soul has rest."

42. Philippians iv. 7: "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding."

43. The Angels and the souls of the saints.

45. The Angels will be seen in the same aspect after the last judgment as before; but the souls of the saints will wear "the twofold garments," spoken of in Canto XXV. 92, the spiritual body, and the glorified earthly body.

61. Daniel vii. 10: “A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him." And Revelation xxii. 1: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."

64. The sparks are Angels, and the flowers the souls of the blessed.

66. For the mystic virtues of the ruby, see Canto IX. Note 69.

76. For the mystic virtues of the topaz, see Canto XV. Note 85.

90. "By the length," says Venturi, "was represented the outpouring of God upon his creatures; by the roundness, the return of this outpouring to God, as to its first source and ultimate end."

99. Dante repeats the word vidi, I saw, three times, as a rhyme, to express the intenseness of his vision.

100. Buti thinks that this light is the Holy Ghost; Philalethes, that it is the Logos, or second person of the Trinity; Tommaseo, that it is Illuminating Grace.

124. Didron, Christ. Iconog., I. 234, says: "It was in the centre, at the very heart of this luminous eternity, that the Deity shone forth. Dante no doubt wished to describe one of those roses with a thousand petals, which light the porches of our noblest cathedrals, the rose-windows, which were contemporaneous with the Florentine poet, and which he had no doubt seen in his travels in France. There in fact, in the very depth of the chalice of that rose of colored glass, the Divine Majesty shines out resplendently."

129. The word convent is here used in its original meaning of a coming together, or assembly.

136. The name of Augustus is equivalent to Kaiser, Cæsar, or Emperor. In Canto XXXII. 119, the Virgin Mary is called Augusta, the Queen of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Empress of "the most just and merciful of empires."

137. This is Henry of Luxemburg, to whom in 1300 Dante was looking as the regenerator of Italy. He became Emperor in 1308, and died in 1311, ten years before Dante. See Purg. VI. Note 97, and XXXIII. Note 43.

142. At the Curia Romana, or Papal court.