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planted a monastery), to the number of thusiast or impostor more properly bethirteen, came to the Pope in old and longs to that extraordinary man. Had tem garments, with dishevelled hair and I been intimately conversant with the anshorn beards, and with tears in their son of Abdallah, the task would still be eyes; and on being introduced to the difficult, and the success uncertain; at presence of his Holiness, they fell at his the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly feet, and laid a complaint that the Em- contemplate his shade through a cloud of peror had ejected them from their house religious incense; and could I truly deliat Monte Cassino. This mountain was neate the portrait of an hour, the fleetimpregnable, and indeed inaccessible to ing resemblance would not equally apply any one unless at the will of the monks to the solitary of Mount Hera, to the and others who dwelt on it; however, R. preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror Guiscard, by a device, pretending that of Arabia. From enthusiasm he was dead and being carried thither on to imposture the step is perilous and a bier, thus took possession of the monks' slippery; the dæmon of Socrates af castle. When the Pope heard this, he fords a memorable instance how a wise concealed his grief, and asked the reason; man may deceive himself, how a good to which the monks replied, Because, in man may deceive others, how the conobedience to you, we excommunicated science may slumber in a mixed and the Emperor. The Pope then said, middle state between self-illusion and 'Your obedience shall save you;' on voluntary fraud." which the monks went away without receiving anything more from the Pope." | 16. The battle of Ceperano, near Monte Cassino, was fought in 1265, between Charles of Anjou and Manfred, king of Apulia and Sicily. The Apulians, seeing the battle going against them, deserted their king and passed over to the enemy.

17. The battle of Tagliacozzo in Abruzzo was fought in 1268, between Charles of Anjou and Curradino or Conradin, nephew of Manfred. Charles gained the victory by the strategy of Count Alardo di Valleri, who,

"weaponless himself,

Made arms ridiculous."

Of Ali, the son-in-law and faithful follower of Mahomet, he goes on to say: "He united the qualifications of a poet, a soldier, and a saint; his wisdom still breathes in a collection of moral and religious sayings; and every antagonist, in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was subdued by his eloquence and valour. From the first hour of his mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his brother, his vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second Moses."

55. Fra Dolcino was one of the early social and religious reformers in the North of Italy. His sect bore the name of "Apostles," and its chief, if not only, This valiant but wary crusader persuarled heresy was a desire to bring back the the king to keep a third of his forces in Church to the simplicity of the apostolic reserve; and when the soldiers of Cur-times. In 1305 he withdrew with his radino, thinking they had won the day, followers to the mountains overlooking were scattered over the field in pursuit the Val Sesia in Piedmont, where he was of plunder, Charles fell upon them, and pursued and besieged by the Church routed them. party, and, after various fortunes of vicAlardo is mentioned in the Cento No-tory and defeat, being reduced by “stress velle Antiche, Nov. LVII., as “celebrated of snow" and famine, was taken prisoner, or his wonderful prowess even among the together with his companion, the beau chief nobles, and no less esteemed for his tiful Margaret of Trent. Both were singular virtues than for his courage." burned at Vercelli on the 1st of June, 1307. This "last act of the tragedy is thus described by Mr. Mariotti, Historical Memoir of Fra Dolcino and his Times, p. 290:

31. Gibbon, Ch. L., says: "At the conclusion of the Life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be expected that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should decide whether the title of en

"Margaret of Trent enjoyed the pre

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cedence due to her sex. She was first led out into a spot near Vercelli, bearing the name of Arena Servi,' or more properly Arena Cervi,' in the sands, that is, of the torrent Cervo, which has its confluent with the Sesia at about one mile above the city. A high stake had been erected in a conspicuous part of the place. To this she was fastened, and a pile of wood was reared at her feet. The eyes of the inhabitants of town and country were upon her. On her also were the eyes of Dolcino. She was burnt alive with slow fire.

"Next came the turn of Dolcino: he was seated high on a car drawn by oxen, and thus paraded from street to street all over Vercelli. His tormentors were all around him. Beside the car, iron pots were carried, filled with burning charcoals; deep in the charcoals were iron pincers, glowing at white heat. These pincers were continually applied to the various parts of Dolcino's naked body, all along his progress, till all his flesh was torn piecemeal from his limbs: when every bone was bare and the whole town was perambulated, they drove the still living carcass back to the same arena, and threw it on the burning mass in which Margaret had been consumed."

Farther on he adds:

"Divested of all fables which ignorance, prejudice, or open calumny involved it in, Dolcino's scheme amounted to nothing more than a reformation, not of religion, but of the Church; his aim was merely the destruction of the temporal power of the clergy, and he died for his country no less than for his God. The wealth, arrogance, and corruption of the Papal See appeared to him, as it appeared to Dante, as it appeared to a thousand other patriots before and after him, an eternal hindrance to the union, peace, and welfare of Italy, as it was a perpetual check upon the progress of the human race, and a source of infinite scandal to the piety of earnest believers..

"To this clear mission of Italian Protestantism Dolcino was true throughout. If we bring the light of even the clumsiest criticism to bear on his creed, even such as it has been summed up by the ignotance or malignity of men who never

utter his name without an imprecation, we have reason to be astonished at the little we find in it that may be construed into a wilful deviation from the strictest orthodoxy. Luther and Calvin would equally have repudiated him. He was neither a Presbyterian nor an Episcopalian, but an uncompromising, stanch Papist. His was, most eminently, the heresy of those whom we have designated as literal Christians.' He would have the Gospel strictly-perhaps blindlyadhered to. Neither was that, in the abstract, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of the Romanism of those timeswitness St. Francis and his early flockprovided he had limited himself to make Gospel-law binding upon himself and his followers only. But Dolcino must needs enforce it upon the whole Christian community, enforce it especially on those who set up as teachers of the Gospel, on those who laid claim to Apostolical succession. That was the error that damned him.”

Of Margaret he still further says, referring to some old manuscript as authority:

"She was known by the emphatic appellation of Margaret the Beautiful. It is added, that she was an orphan, heiress of noble parents, and had been placed for her education in a monastery of St. Catherine in Trent; that there Dolcino-who had also been a monk, or at least a novice, in a convent of the Order of the Humiliati, in the same town, and had been expelled in consequence either of his heretic tenets, or of immoral conduct-succeeded, neverthe less, in becoming domesticated in the nunnery of St. Catherine, as a steward or agent to the nuns, and there accom plished the fascination and abduction of the wealthy heiress."

59. Val Sesia, among whose mountains Fra Dolcino was taken prisoner, is in the diocese of Novara.

73. A Bolognese, who stirred up dissensions among the citizens.

74. The plain of Lombardy sloping down two hundred miles and more, from Vercelli in Piedmont to Marcabo, a village near Ravenna.

76. Guido del Cassero and Angio lello da Cagnano, two honourable citizens of Fano, going to Rimini by invitation

of Malatestino, were by his order thrown into the sea and drowned, as here prophesied or narrated, near the village of Cattolica on the Adriatic.

85. Malatestino had lost one eye.
86. Rimini.

89. Focara is a headland near Cattolica, famous for dangerous winds, to > be preserved from which mariners offered up vows and prayers. These men will not need to do it; they will not reach that cape.

102. Curio, the banished Tribune, who, fleeing to Caesar's camp on the Rubicon, urged him to advance upon Rome. Lucan, Pharsalia, I., Rowe's Tr.:

"To Casar's camp the busy Curio fled;
Curio, a speaker turbulent and bold,
Of venal eloquence, that served for gold,
And principles that might be bought and sold.

To Casar thus, while thousand cares infest,
Revolving round the warrior's anxious breast,
His speech the ready orator addressed.

'Haste, then, thy towering eagles on their

way; When fair occasion calls, 'tis fatal to delay."" 106. Mosca degl' Uberti, or dei Lamberti, who, by advising the murder of Buondelmonte, gave rise to the parties of Guelf and Ghibelline, which so long divided Florence. See Canto

X. Note 51.

134. Bertrand de Born, the turbulent Troubadour of the last half of the twelfth century, was alike skilful with his pen and his sword, and passed his life in alternately singing and fighting, and in stirring up dissension and strife among his neighbours. He is the author of that spirited war-song, well known to all readers of Troubadour verse, beginning "The beautiful spring delights me well,

When flowers and leaves are growing; And it pleases my heart to hear the swell Of the birds' sweet chorus flowing In the echoing wood; And I love to see, all scattered around, Pavilions and tents on the martial ground; And my spirit finds it good, To see, on the level plains beyond, Gay knights and steeds caparison'd; "and ending with a challenge to Richard Coeur de Lion, telling his minstrel Papiol to go

"And tell the Lord of Yes and No' That peace already too long has been."

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He was

"Bertrand de Born," says the old Provençal biography, published by Ray. nouard, Choix de Poésies Originales des Troubadours, V. 76, was a chatelain of the bishopric of Périgueux, Viscount of Hautefort, a castle with nearly a thousand retainers. He had a brother, and would have dispossessed him of his inheritance, had it not been for the King of England. He was always at war with all his neighbours, with the Count of Périgueux, and with the Viscount of Limoges, and with his brother Constantine, and with Richard, when he was Count of Poitou. a good cavalier, and a good warrior, and a good lover, and a good troubadour; and well informed and well spoken; and knew well how to bear good and evil fortune. Whenever he wished, he was master of King Henry of England and of his son; but always desired that father and son should be at war with each other, and one brother with the other. And he always wished that the King of France and the King of England should be at variance; and if there were either peace or truce, straightway he sought and endeavoured by his satires to unde the peace, and to show how each was dishonoured by it. And he had great advantages and great misfortunes by thus exciting feuds between them. He wrote many satires, but only two songs. Giraud de Borneil the wives of Bertrand King of Aragon called the songs of de Born's satires. And he who sang for him bore the name of Papiol. And he was handsome and courteous ; and called the Count of Britany, Rassa; and the King of England, Yes and No'; and his son, the young king, Marinier.

The

And he

set his whole heart on fomenting war and embroiled the father and son of England, until the young king was killed by an arrow in a castle of Bertrand de Born.

"And Bertrand used to boast that he had more wits than he needed. And when the King took him prisoner, he asked him, 'Have you all your wits, for And he you will need them now?' answered, 'I lost them all when the young king died.' Then the king wept, and pardoned him, and gave him robes, and lands, and honour And he

lived long and became a Cistercian against him. They were, Henry, sur monk."

Fauriel, Histoire de la Poésie Provençale, Adler's Tr., p. 483, quoting part of this passage, adds:

"In this notice the old biographer indicates the dominant trait of Bertrand's character very distinctly; it was an unbridled passion for war. He loved it not only as the occasion for exhibiting proofs of valour, for acquiring power, and for winning glory, but also, and even more, on account of its hazards, on account of the exaltation of courage and of life which it produced, nay, even for the sake of the tumult, the disorders, and the evils which are accustomed to follow in its train. Bertrand de Born is the ideal of the undisciplined and adventuresome warrior of the Middle Age, rather than that of the chevalier in the proper

named Curt-Mantle, and called by the Troubadours and novelists of his time "The Young King," because he was crowned during his father's life; Richard Coeur-de-Lion, Count of Guienne and Poitou; Geoffroy, Duke of Brittany; and John Lackland. Henry was the only one of these who bore the title of king at the time in question. Bertrand de Born was on terms of intimacy with him, and speaks of him in his poems as lo Reys joves, sometimes lauding and sometimes reproving him. One of the best of these poems is his Complainte, on the death of Henry, which took place in 1183, from disease, say some accounts, from the bolt of a crossbow say others. He complains that he has lost "the best king that was ever born of mother ;" and goes on to say, "King of the courteous, sense of the term." and emperor of the valiant, you would See also Millot, Hist. Litt. des Trou-have been Seigneur if you had lived badours, I. 210, and Hist. Litt. de la France par les Bénédictins de St. Maur, continuation, XVII. 425.

longer; for you bore the name of the Young King, and were the chief and peer of youth. Ay! hauberk and sword, and beautiful buckler, helmet and gonfalon, and purpoint and sark, and joy and love, there is none to maintain them!" See Raynouard Choix de Poésies, IV. 49.

Bertrand de Born, if not the best of the Troubadours, is the most prominent and striking character among them. His life is a drama full of romantic interest; beginning with the old castle in Gascony," the dames, the cavaliers, the arms, the loves, the courtesy, the bold emprise ;" and ending in a Cister-is cian convent, among friars and fastings, and penitence and prayers.

In the Bible Guiot de Provins, Barbazan, Fabliaux et Contes, II., 518, he spoken of as

ᏞᎥ

"li jones Rois,

proux, li saiges, li cortois." 135. A vast majority of manuscripts In the Cento Novelle Antiche, XVIII., and printed editions read in this line, XIX., XXXV., he is called il Re GioRe Giovanni, King John, instead of Revane; and in Roger de Wendover's Giovane, the Young King. I en Boc- Flowers of History, A.D. 1179—1183, caccio's copy, which he wrote out with "Henry the Young King." his own hand for Petrarca, has Re Giovarni. Out of seventy-nine Codici examined by Barlow, he says, Study of the Divina Commedia, p. 153, “Only five were found with the correct reading -re giovane. The reading re giovane is not found in any of the early editions, nor is it noticed by any of the early commentators." See also Ginguené, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, II. 586, where the subject is elaborately discussed, and the note of Biagioli, who takes the opposite side of the question.

Henry II. of England had four sons, all of whom were more or less rebellious

It was to him that Bertrand de Born "gave the evil counsels," embroiling him with his father and his brothers. Therefore, when the commentators challenge us as Pistol does Shallow, "Under which king, Bezonian? speak or die!" I think we must answer as Shallow does, "Under King Harry."

137. See 2 Samuel xvii. 1, 2 :

"Moreover, Ahithophel said unto Absalom, let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night. And I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid

and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the King only."

Dryden, in his poem of Absalom and Achitophe, gives this portrait of the latter:

"Of these the false Achitophel was first; A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close designs and crooked counsels fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfix'd in principles and place; In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace: A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er inform'd the tenement of clay." Then he puts into the mouth of Achitophel the following description of Absa

low:

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"Justice infallible

Punishes forgers,"

and falsifiers of all kinds. This Canto is devoted to the alchemists.

27. Geri del Bello was a disreputable member of the Alighieri family, and was murdered by one of the Sacchetti. His death was afterwards avenged by his brother, who in turn slew one of the Sacchetti at the door of his house.

29. Bertrand de Born.

35. Like the ghost of Ajax in the Odyssey, XI. "He answered me not at all, but went to Erebus amongst the other souls of the dead."

36. Dante seems to share the feeling of the Italian vendetta, which required retaliation from some member of the injured family.

44

Among the Italians of this age," Says Napier, Florentine Hist., I. Ch. VII., "and for centuries after, private offence was never forgotten until revenged, and generally involved a suc

cession of mutual injuries; vengeance was not only considered lawful and just, but a positive duty, dishonourable to omit; and, as may be learned from ancient private journals, it was sometimes allowed to sleep for five-andthirty years, and then suddenly struck a victim who perhaps had not yet seen the light when the original injury was inflicted."

46. The Val di Chiana, near Arezzo, was in Dante's time marshy and pestilential. Now, by the effect of drainage, it is one of the most beautiful and fruitful of the Tuscan valleys. The Maremma was and is notoriously unhealthy; se: Canto XIII. Note 9, and Sardinia would seem to have shared its ill repute.

57. Forgers or falsifiers in a general sense. The "false semblaunt" of Gower, Confes. Amant., II :—

"Of fals semblaunt if I shall telle,
Above all other it is the welle

Out of the which deceipte floweth." They are registered here on earth to be punished hereafter.

59. The plague of Ægina is described by Ovid, Metamorph. VII., Stonestreet's Tr. :

"Their black dry tongues are swelled, and

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creep

O'er heaps of dead, and straight augments the heap;

Another, while his strength and tongue prevailed,

Bewails his friend, and falls himself bewailed;
This with imploring looks surveys the skies,
The last dear office of his closing eyes,
But finds the Heav'ns implacable, and dies."

The birth of the Myrmidons, "wha still retain the thrift of ants, though now transformed to men," is thus given in the same book :

"As many ants the num'rous branches bear, The same their labour, and their frugal care⚫

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