Of coc recess, o'er which the mantling vine smell of well-cleft cedar, and of fra incense, that were burning, shed odo.. through the island: but she within was singing with a beautiful voice, and, going over the web, wove with a golden shuttle. But a flourishing wood sprung up around her grot, alder and poplar, and sweet-smelling cypress. There also birds with spreading wings slept, owls and hawks, and wide-tongued crows of the ocean, to which maritime employments are a care. There a vine in its prime was spread about the hollow grot, and it flourished with clusters. But four fountains flowed in succession with white water, turned near one another, each in different ways; but around there flour 2. Ruskin, Mod. Painters, III. 219: "As Homer gave us an ideal landscape, which even a god might have been pleased to behold, so Dante gives us, fortunately, an ideal landscape, which is specially intended for the terrestrial paradise. And it will doubtless be with some surprise, after our reflections above on the general tone of Dante's feelings, that we find our-ished soft meadows of violets and of selves here first entering a forest, and that even a thick forest. parsley. There indeed even an immortal coming would admire it when he beheld, and would be delighted in his mind; there the messenger, the slayer of Argus, standing, admired." ; And again, at the close of the same book, where Ulysses reaches the shore at Phæacia :— "This forest, then, is very like that of Colonos in several respects,-in its peace and sweetness, and number of birds; it differs from it only in letting a light breeze through it, being therefore somewhat thinner than the Greek wood; the tender lines which tell of the voices "Then he hastened to the wood; and of the birds mingling with the wind, and | found it near the water in a conspicuous of the leaves all turning one way before, place, and he came under two shrubs, it, have been more or less copied by (which sprang from the same place; one every poet since Dante's time. They are, so far as I know, the sweetest passage of wood description which exists in literature." Homer's ideal landscape, here referred to, is in Odyssey V., where he describes the visit of Mercury to the Island of Calypso. It is thus translated by Buckley : Immediately then he bound his beautiful sandals beneath his feet, ambrosial, golden; which carried him both over the moist wave, and over the boundless earth, with the breath of the wind. . . . . Then he rushed over the wave like a bird, a sea-gull, which, hunting for fish in the terrible bays of the barren sea, dips frequently its wings in the brine; like unto this Mercury rode over many waves. But when he came to the distant island, then, going from the blue sea, he went to the continent; until he came to the great cave in which the fair-haired Nymph dwelt; and he found her within. A large fire was burning on the hearth, and at a distance the of wild olive, the other of olive. Neither the strength of the moistly blowing winds breathes through them, nor has the shining sun ever struck them with its beams, nor has the shower penetrated entirely through them: so thick were they grown entangled with one another; under which Ulysses came." The wood of Colonos is thus described in one of the Choruses of the Edipus Coloneus of Sophocles, Oxford Tr., Anon. : "Thou hast come, O stranger, to the seats of this land, renowned for the steed; to seats the fairest on earth, the chalky Colonus; where the vocal knightingale, chief abounding, trills her plain tive note in the green vales, tenanting the dark-hued ivy and the leafy grove of the god, untrodden [by mortal foot], teeming with fruits, impervious to the sun, and unshaken by the winds of every storm; where Bacchus ever roams in revelry companioning his divine nurses. And ever day by day the narcissus, with its beauteous clusters, burst into bloom by heaven's dew, the ancient coronet of the mighty goddesses, and the saffron with golden ray; nor do the sleepless founts that feed the channels of Cephissus fail, but ever, each day, it rushes o'er the plains with its stainless wave, fertilizing the bosom of the earth; nor have the choirs of the Muses spurned this clime; nor Venus, too, of the golden rein. And there is a tree, such as I hear not to have ever sprung in the land of Asia, nor in the mighty Doric island of Pelops, a tree unplanted by hand, of spontaneous growth, terror of the hostile spear, which flourishes chiefly in this region, the leaf of the azure olive that nourishes our young. This shall neither any one in youth nor in old age, marking for destruction, and having laid it waste with his hand, set its divinity at naught; for the eye that never closes of Morian Jove regards it, and the blueeyed Minerva." We have also Homer's description of the Garden of Alcinoüs, Odyssey, VII., Buckley's Tr. — "But without the hall there is a large garden, near the gates, of four acres ; but around it a hedge was extended on both sides. And there tall, flourishing trees grew, pears, and pomegranates, and apple-trees producing beautiful fruit, and sweet figs, and flourishing olives. Of these the fruit never perishes, nor does it fail in winter or summer, lasting throughout the whole year; but the west wind ever blowing makes some bud forth, and ripens others. Pear grows old after pear, apple after apple, grape also after grape, and fig after fig. There a fruitful vineyard was planted: one part of this ground, exposed to the sun in a wide place, is dried by the sun; and some grapes] they are gathering, and others they are treading, and further on are unripe grapes, having thrown off the flower, and others are slightly changing colour. And there are all kinds of beds laid out in order, to the furthest part of the ground, flourishing throughout the whole year and in it are two fountains, one is spread through the whole garden, but the other on the other side goes under the threshold of the hall to the lofty house, from whence the citizens are wont to draw water." Dante's description of the Terrestrial Paradise will hardly fail to recall that of Mount Acidale in Spenser's Faerie Queene, VI. x. 6 :— It was an Hill plaste in an open plaine, In which all trees of honour stately stood, His silver waves did softly tumble downe, Thereto approch; ne filth mote therein drowne: See also Tasso's Garden of Armida, in the Gerusalemme, XVI. 20. Chiassi is on the sea-shore near Ravenna. "Here grows a spacious pine forest," says Covino, Descr. Geog., p. 39, "which stretches along the sea between Ravenna and Cervia." 25. The river Lethe. 40. This lady, who represents the Active life to Dante's waking eyes, as Leah had done in his vision, and whom Dante afterwards, Canto XXXIII. 119, calls Matilda, is generally supposed by the commentators to be the celebrated Countess Matilda, daughter of Boniface, Count of Tuscany, and wife of Guelf, of the house of Suabia. Of this marriage Villani, IV. 21, gives a very strange account, which, if true, is a singular picture of the times. Napier, Flor. Hist., I. Ch. 4 and 6, gives these glimpses of the Countess : "This heroine died in 1115, af er a reign of active exertion for herself and Baroncione, and in her sixty-ninth year, the Church against the Emperors, which this celebrated woman breathed her last, generated the infant and as yet nameless after a long and glorious reign of incesfactions of Guelf and Ghibelline. Matilda sant activity, during which she displayed endured this contest with all the enthu- a wisdom, vigour, and determination of siasm and constancy of a woman, com- character rarely seen even in men. She bined with a manly courage that must bequeathed to the Church all those patriever render her name respectable, whe-monial estates of which she had previ ther proceeding from the bigotry of the ously disposed by an act of gift to age, or to oppose imperial ambition in Gregory the Seventh, without, however, defence of her own defective title. Acany immediate royal power over the cording to the laws of that time, she cities and other possessions thus given, could not as a female inherit her father's as her will expresses it, 'for the good of states, for even male heirs required a her soul, and the souls of her parents.' royal confirmation. Matilda therefore, having no legal right, feared the Emperor and clung to the Popes, who already claimed, among other prerogatives, the supreme disposal of kingdoms. 66 The Church had ever come forward as the friend of her house, and from childhood she had breathed an atmosphere of blind and devoted submission to its authority; even when only fifteen she had appeared in arms against its enemies, and made two successful expeditions to assist Pope Alexander the Second during her mother's lifetime. "Whatever may now be thought of her chivalrous support, her bold defence, and her deep devotion to the Church, it was in perfect harmony with the spirit of that age, and has formed one of her chief merits with many even in the present. Her unflinching adherence to the cause she had so conscientiously embraced was far more noble than the Emperor Henry's conduct. Swinging between the extremes of unmeasured insolence and abject humiliation, he died a victim to Papal influence over superstitious minds; an influence which, amongst other debasing lessons, then taught the world that a breach of the most sacred ties and dearest affections of human nature was one means of gaining the approbation of a Being who is all truth and beneficence. "No wonder, then, that in a superstitious age, when monarchs trembled at an angry voice from the Lateran, the habits of early youth should have mingled with every action of Matilda's life, and spread an agreeable mirage over the "Matilda's object was to strengthen prospect of her eternal salvation: the the chief spiritual against the chief tempower that tamed a Henry's pride, a poral power, but reserving her own Barbarossa's fierceness, and afterwards independence; a policy subsequently withstood the vast ability of a Frederic, pursued, at least in spirit, by the Guelmight without shame have been rever-phic states of Italy. She therefore pro enced by a girl whose feelings so har-tected subordinate members of the monized with the sacred strains of ancient Church against feudal chieftains, and its tradition and priestly dignity. But from head against the feudal Emperor. True whatever motive, the result was a con- to her religious and warlike character, tinual aggrandizement of ecclesiastics; she died between the sword and the in prosperity and adversity; during life crucifix, and two of her last acts, even and after death; from the lowliest priest when the hand of death was already cold to the proudest pontiff. on her brow, were the chastisement of revolted Mantua, and the midnight celebration of Christ's nativity in the depth of a freezing and unusually inclement "The fearless assertion of her own independence by successful struggles with the Emperor was an example not overlooked by the young Italian communities winter." under Matilda's rule, who were already accused by imperial legitimacy of poli-Tr. :tical innovation and visionary notions of government. "Being then at a place called Monte Diverts herself in these delicious shades ; 50. Ovid, Met. V., Maynwaring's "Here, while young Proserpine, among the maids, The dart too faithful, and too deep the wound. Fired with a mortal beauty, she disdains To haunt th' Idalian mount, or Phrygian plains. She seeks not Cnidos, nor her Paphian shrines, Nor Amathus, that teems with brazen mines: Even Heaven itself with all its sweets unsought, Adonis far a sweeter Heaven is thought." 72. When Xerxes invaded Greece he crossed the Hellespont on a bridge of boats with an army of five million. So y the historians. On his return he ossed it in a fishing-boat almost alone, -" a warning to all human arrogance.' Leander naturally hated the Hellespont, having to swim it so many times. The last time, according to Thomas Hood, he met with a sea nymph, who, enamoured of his beauty, carried him to the bottom of the sea. See Hero and Leander, stanza 45 : "His eyes are blinded with the sleety brine, His ears are deafened with the wildering noise ; He asks the purpose of her fell design, But foamy waves choke up his struggling voice, Under the ponderous sea his body dips,. And Hero's name dies bubbling on his lips. "Look how a man is lowered to his grave, A yearning hollow in the green earth's lap ; So he is sunk into the yawning wave, The plunging sea fills up the watery gap; Anon he is all gone, and nothing seen, But likeness of green turf and hillocks green. "And where he swam, the constant sun lies sleeping, Over the verdant plain that makes his bed; And all the noisy waves go freshly leaping, Like gamesome boys over the churchyard dead; The light in vain keeps looking for his face, Now screaming sea-fowl settle in his place." 80. Psalm xcii. 4: "For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work : I will triumph in the works of thy hands." 87. Canto XXI. 46:— "Because that neither rain, nor hail, nor snow, Nor dew, nor hoar-frost any higher falls Than the short, little stairway of three steps.' 94. Orly six hours, according to Adam's own account in Par., XXI. 139: "Upon the mout which highest o'er the wave Rises was 1, vit life or pure or sinful, From the first to that which is the second, As the sun change quadrant, to the sixth." 102. Above the gate described in Canto IX. 146. Virgil and Statius smile at this allusion to the dreams poets. name If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine 47. The general form which objects they resemble each other. may have in common, and by which 49. The faculty which lends discourse to reason is apprehension, or the faculty by which things are first conceived. See 2. St. Mark has the LION, because he Canto XVIII. 22:— Some commentators interpret them as the seven Sacraments of the Church; others, as the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. 78. Delia or Diana, the moon; and her girdle, the halo, sometimes seen around it. 83. Revelation iv. 4: "And round about the throne were four and twenty seats and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold." These four and twenty elders are supposed to symbolize here the four and twenty books of the Old Testament. The crown of lilies indicates the purity of faith and doctrine. 85. The salutation of the angel to the Virgin Mary. Luke i. 28: "Blessed art thou among women.' Here the words are made to refer to Beatrice. 92. The four Evangelists, of whom the four mysterious animals in Ezekiel are regarded as symbols. Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 99: "The general application of the Four Creatures to the Four Evangelists is of much earlier date than the separate and individual application of each symbol, which has varied at different times; that propounded by St. Jerome, in his commentary on Ezekiel, has since his time prevailed universally. Thus, then,-1. To St. Matthew was given the CHERUB, or human semblance, because he begins his Gospel with the human generation of Christ; or, according to others, because in his Gospel the human nature of the Saviour is more insisted on than the divine. In the most ancient mosaics, the type is human, not angelic, for the head is that of a man with a beard. has set forth the royal dignity of Christ; or, according to others, because he begins with the mission of the Baptist, the voice of one crying in the wilderness,'which is figured by the lion: or, according to a third interpretation, the lion was allotted to St. Mark because there was, in the Middle Ages, a popular belief that the young of the lion was born dead, and after three days was awakened to vitality by the breath of its sire; some authors, however, represent the lion as vivifying his young, not by his breath, but by his roar. In either case the application is the same; the revival of the young lion was considered as symbolical of the resurrection, and Mark was commonly called the 'historian of the resurrection.' Another commentator observes that Mark begins his Gospel with 'roaring,'-'the voice of one crying in the wilderness;' and ends it fearfully with a curse,-'He that believeth not shall be damned;' and that, therefore, his appropriate attribute is the most terrible of beasts, the lion. 3. Luke has the Ox, because he has dwelt on the priesthood of Christ, the ox being the emblem of sacrifice. 4. John has the EAGLE, which is the symbol of the highest inspiration, because he soared upwards to the contemplation of the divine nature of the Saviour." 100. Ezekiel i. 4: "And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof, as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot; and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass." 105. In Revelation iv. 8, they are described as having "each of them six wings;" in Ezekiel, as having only four. 107. The triumphal chariot is the Church. The two wheels are generally interpreted as meaning the Old and New Testaments; but Dante, Par. XII, 106, |