the inhabitants of the Val d' Arno might be said of the greater part of the Italians, nay, of the world. Dante, being once asked why he had put more Christians than Gentiles into Hell, replied, 'Because I have known the Christians better.'"

58. Messer Fulcieri da Calboli of Forlì, nephew of Rinieri. He was Podestà of Florence in 1302, and, being bribed by the Neri, had many of the Bianchi put to death.

64. Florence, the habitation of these wolves, left so stripped by Fulcieri, on his retiring from office, that it will be long in recovering its former prosperity.

81. Guido del Duca of Brettinoro, near Forlì, in Romagna; nothing remains but the name. He and his companion Rinieri were "gentlemen of worth, if they had not been burned up with envy."

87. On worldly goods, where selfishness excludes others; in contrast with the spiritual, which increase by being shared. See Canto XV. 45.

88. Rinieri da Calboli. "He was very famous," says the Ottimo, and history says no more. In the Cento Novelle Antiche, Nov. 44, Roscoe's Tr., he figures thus:

"A certain knight was one day entreating a lady whom he loved to smile upon his wishes, and among other delicate arguments which he pressed upon her was that of his own superior wealth, elegance, and accomplishments, especially when compared with the merits of her own liege-lord, whose extreme ugliness, madam,' he continued, "I think I need not insist upon.' Her husband, who overheard this compliment from the place of his concealment, immediately replied, Pray, sir, mend your own manners, and do not vilify other people.' The name of the plain gentleman was Lizio di Valbona, and Messer Rinieri da Calvoli that of the other."

92. In Romagna, which is bounded by the Po, the Apennines, the Adriatic, and the river Reno, that passes near Bologna. 93. For study and pleasure.

97. Of Lizio and Manardi the Ottimo says: "Messer Lizio di Valbona, a courteous gentleman, in order to give a dinner at Forlì, sold half his silken bedquilt for sixty florins. Arrigo Manardi

was of Brettinoro; he was a gentleman full of courtesy and honour, was fond of entertaining guests, made presents of robes and horses, loved honourable men, and all his life was devoted to largess and good living."

The marriage of Riccardo Manardi with Lizio's daughter Caterina is the subject of one of the tales of the Decameron, V. 4. Pietro Dante says, that, when Lizio was told of the death of his dissipated son, he replied, "It is no news to me, he never was alive."

98. Of Pier Traversaro the Ottimo says: "He was of Ravenna, a man <f most gentle blood;" and of Guido di Carpigna: "He was of Montefeltro,

Most of the time he lived at Brettinoro, and surpassed all others in generosity, loved for the sake of loving, and lived handsomely."

100. "This Messer Fabbro," says the Ottimo, "was born of low parents, and lived so generously that the author (Dante) says there never was his like in Bologna.'

"

IOI. The Ottimo again: "This Messer Bernardino, son of Fosco, a farmer, and of humble occupation, became so excellent by his good works, that he was an honour to Faenza; and he was named with praise, and the old grandees were not ashamed to visit him, to see his magnificence, and to hear his pleasant jests.

104. Guido da Prata, from the village of that name, between Faenza and Forli, and Ugolin d' Azzo of Faenza, according to the same authority, though "of humble birth, rose to such great honour, that, leaving their native places, they associated with the noblemen before mentioned."

106. Frederick Tignoso was a gentleman of Rimini, living in Brettinoro. "A man of great mark," says Buti, “with his band of friends.' According to Ben. venuto, "he had beautiful blond hair, and was called tignoso (the scurvy fellow) by way of antiphrase. The Öttime speaks of him as follows: "He avoided the city as much as possible, as a place hostile to gentlemen, but when he was in it, he kept open house."

107. Ancient and honourable families of Ravenna. There is a story of them in the Decameron, Gior. V. Nov. 8, which is too long to quote. Upon this tale is

founded Dryden's poem of Theodore and

Honoria.

109. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, I. 1:—

"The dames, the cavaliers, the arms, the loves, The courtesies, the daring deeds I sing."

112. Brettinoro, now Bertinoro, is a small town in Romagna, between Forlì and Cesena, in which lived many of the families that have just been mentioned. The hills about it are still celebrated for their wines, as its inhabitants were in old times for their hospitality. The following anecdote is told of them by the Ottimo, and also in nearly the same words in the Cento Novelle Antiche, Nov. 89:

"Among other laudable customs of the nobles of Brettinoro was that of hospitality, and their not permitting any man in the town to keep an inn for money. But there was a stone column in the middle of the town," (upon which were rings or knockers, as if all the front-doors were there represented), "and to this, as soon as a stranger made his appearance, he was conducted, and to one of the rings hitched his horse or hung his hat upon it; and thus, as chance decreed, he was taken to the house of the gentleman to whom the ring belonged, and honoured according to his rank. This column and its rings were invented to remove all cause of quarrel among the noblemen, who used to run to get possession of a stranger, as now-a-days they almost run away from him."

"Bagna

found

Her trunk too heavy to forsake the ground: Her joints are all benumbed, her hands are pale,

And marble now appears in every nail.
As when a cancer in the body feeds,
And gradual death from limb to limb proceeds,
So does the chillness to each vital part
Spread by degrees, and creeps into her heart;
Till hardening everywhere, and speechless
grown,

She sits unmoved, and freezes to a stone.
But still her envious hue and sullen mien
Are in the sedentary figure seen.”

147. The falconer's call or lure, which he whirls round in the air to attract the falcon on the wing.

148. Ovid, Metamorph., I., Dryden's Tr. :

"Thus, while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies."

150. Beaumont and Fletcher, Th Laws of Candy, IV. 1:

"Seldom despairing men look up to heaven, Although it still speaks to 'em in its glories; For when sad thoughts perplex the mind of man,

There is a plummet in the heart that weighs And pulls us, living, to the dust we came from."

CANTO XV.

1. In this canto is described the ascent to the Third Circle of the mountain. The hour indicated by the peculiarly Dantesque introduction is three hours before sunset, or the beginning of that division of the canonical day called Vespers. Dante states this simple fact with curious circumlocution, as if he would imitate the celestial sphere in this scherzoso movement. The beginning of

101.

Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, who used his power so nobly as to make the people forget the usurpation by which he had attained it. Among his good deeds was the collection and preservation of the Homeric poems, which but for him might have perished. He was also the first to found a public library in Athens. This anecdote is told by Valerius Maximus, Fact. ac Dict., VI. 1.

106. The stoning of Stephen. Acts vii. 54: "They gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him. ... And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge! And when he had said this, he fell asleep.",

117. He recognizes it to be a vision, but not false, because it symbolized the truth.

2.

CANTO XVI.

I. The Third Circle of Purgatory, and the punishment of the Sin of Pride. Poor, or impoverished of its stars by clouds. The same expression is ap plied to the Arno, Canto XIV. 45, to indicate its want of water.

19. In the Litany of the Saints:"Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the word, spare us, O Lord.

"Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.

"Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us ! "

27. Still living the life temporal, where time is measured by the calendar.

of him in the Cento Novelle Antiche, Nov. 41, 52, hardly worth quoting.

It is doubtful whether the name of Lombardo is a family name, or only indicates that Marco was an Italian, after the fashion then prevalent among the French of calling all Italians Lombards. See Note 124.

Benvenuto says of him that he " was a man of noble mind, but disdainful, and easily moved to anger."

Buti's portrait is as follows: "This Marco was a Venetian, called Marco Daca; and was a very learned man, and had many political virtues, and was very courteous, giving to poor noblemen all that he gained, and he gained much; for he was a courtier, and was much beloved for his virtue, and much was given him by the nobility; and as he gave to those who were in need, so he lent to all who asked. So that, coming to die, and having much still due to him, he made a will, and among other bequests this, that whoever owed him should not be held to pay the debt, saying, 'Whoever has, may keep.'

Portarelli thinks that this Marco may be Marco Polo the traveller; but this is inadmissible, as he was still living at the time of Dante's death.

57. What Guido del Duca has told him of the corruption of Italy, in Canto XIV.

64. Ovid, Metamorph., X., Ozell's Tr. :—

"The god upon its leaves The sad expression of his sorrow weaves, And to this hour the mournful purple wears Ai, ai, inscribed in funeral characters."

67. See the article Cabala, at the end of Paradiso.

69. Boëthius, Cons. Phil., V. Prosa 29 Ridpath's Tr. :

every being distinguished with this faculty is endowed with judgment to perceive the differences of things; to discover what he is to avoid or pursue. Now what a person esteems desirable, he de

sires; but what he thinks ought to be avoided, he shuns. Thus every rational creature hath a liberty of choosing and rejecting. But I do not assert that this liberty is equal in all beings. Heavenly substances, who are exalted above us, have an enlightened judgment, an incorruptible will, and a power ever at command effectually to accomplish their 1 desires. With regard to man, his immaterial spirit is also free; but it is most at liberty when employed in the contemplation of the Divine mind; it becomes less so when it enters into a body; and is still more restrained when it is imprisoned in a terrestrial habitation, composed of members of clay; and is reduced, in fine, to the most extreme servitude when, by plunging into the pollutions of vice, it totally departs from reason: for the soul no sooner turns her eye from the radiance of supreme truth to dark and base objects, but she is involved in a mist of ignorance, assailed by impure desires; by yielding to which she increases her thraldom, and thus the freedom which she derives from nature becomes in some measure the cause of her slavery. But the eye of Providence, which sees everything from eternity, perceives all this; and that same Providence disposes everything she has predestinated, in the order it deserves. Homer says of the sun, It sees everything and hears everything.'

As

Also Milton, Parad. Lost, II. 557 :"Others apart sat on a hill retired,

In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." See also Par. XVII. Note 40. 70. Boëthius, Cons. Phil., V. Prosa 3, Ridpath's Tr.:

66 But I shall now endeavour to demonstrate, that, in whatever way the chain of causes is disposed, the event of things which are foreseen is necessary; although prescience may not appear to be the necessitating cause of their befalling. For example, if a person sits, the opinion formed of him that he is seated is of necessity true; but by inverting the phrase, if the opinion is true that he is seared, he must necessarily sit. In both cases, then, there is a necessity; in the

latter, that the person sits; in the former, that the opinion concerning him is true: but the person doth not sit, because the opinion of his sitting is true, but the opinion is rather true because the action of his being seated was antecedent in time. Thus, though the truth of the opinion may be the effect of the person taking a seat, there is, nevertheless, a necessity common to both. The same method of reasoning, I think, should be employed with regard to the prescience of God, and future contingencies; for, allowing it to be true that events are foreseen because they are to happen, and that they do not befall because they are foreseen, it is still necessary that what is to happen must be foreseen by God, and that what is foreseen must take place. This then is of itself sufficient to destroy all idea of human liberty." "The wise man

78. Ptolemy says, shall control the stars ;" and the Turkish proverb, “ Wit and a strong will are superior to Fate."

79. Though free, you are subject to the divine power which has immediately breathed into you the soul, and the soul is not subject to the influence of the stars, as the body is.

84. Shakespeare, Lear, V. 3:— "And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies.'

92. Convito, IV. 12: "The supreme desire of everything, and that first given by nature, is to return to its source; and since God is the source of our souls, and maker of them in his own likeness, as is written, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,' to him this soul chiefly desireth to return. And like as a pilgrim, who goeth upon a road on which he never was before, thinketh every house he seeth afar off to be an inn, and not finding it so, directeth his trust to the next, and thus from house to house until he reacheth the inn; in like manner our soul, presently as she entereth the new and untravelled road of this life, turneth her eyes to the goal of her supreme good; and therefore whatever thing she seeth that seemeth to have some good in it, she believeth to be that. And because her knowledge at fust is imperfect, not being experienced nor