speaks of them as St. Dominic and St. That what he acts he is compelled to do, Francis.

108. The Griffin, half lion and half eagle, is explained by all the commentators as a symbol of Christ, in his divine and human nature. Didron, in his Christian Iconography, interprets it differently. He says, Millington's Tr., I. 458:

"The mystical bird of two colours is understood in the manuscript of Herrade to mean the Church; in Dante, the biformed bird is the representative of the Church, the Pope. The Pope, in fact, is both priest and king; he directs the souls and governs the persons of men; he reigns over things in heaven. The Pope, then, is but one single person in two natures, and under two forms; he is both eagle and lion. In his character of Pontiff, or as an eagle, he hovers in the heavens, and ascends even to the throne of God to receive his commands; as the lion or king he walks upon the earth in strength and power."

He adds in a note: "Some commentators of Dante have supposed the griffin to be the emblem of Christ, who, in fact, is one single person with two natures; of Christ, in whom God and man are combined. But in this they are mistaken; there is, in the first place, a manifest impropriety in describing the car as drawn by God as by a beast of burden. It is very doubtful even whether Dante can be altogether freed from the imputation of a want of reverence in harnessing the Pope to the car of the Church."

110. The wings of the Griffin extend upward between the middle list or trail of splendour of the seven candles and the three outer ones on each side.

117. The chariot of the sun, which Phaeton had leave to drive for a day, is thus described by Ovid, Met. II., Addison's Tr. :

"A golden axle did the work uphold,
Gold was the beam, the wheels were orbed

with gold.

The spokes in rows of silver pleased the sight,
The seat with party-coloured gems was bright;
Apollo shined amid the glare of light."

Or universal ruin must ensue.
From whence he used to dart his thunder down
Straight he ascends the high ethereal throne,
From whence his showers and storms he used to

pour,

But now could meet with neither storm nor
shower;

Then, aiming at the youth, with lifted hand,
Full at his head he hurled the forky brand,
In dreadful thund'rings. Thus th' almighty sire
Suppressed the raging of the fires with fire."
See also Inf. XVII. Note 107.

121. The three Theological or Evangelical Virtues, Charity, Hope, and Faith. For the symbolism of colours in Art, see Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, quoted Canto VIII. Note 28.

130. The four Cardinal Virtues, Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance. They are clothed in purple to mark their nobility. Prudence is represented with three eyes, as looking at the past, the present, and the future.

133. St. Luke and St. Paul.

136. St. Luke is supposed to have been a physician; a belief founded on Colossians iv. 14, "Luke, the beloved physician." The animal that nature holds most dear is man.

140. The sword with which St. Paul is armed is a symbol of warfare and martyrdom; "I bring not peace, but a sword." St. Luke's office was to heal; St. Paul's to destroy. Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 188, says:

"At what period the sword was given to St. Paul as his distinctive attribute is with antiquaries a disputed point; cer. tainly much later than the keys were given to Peter. If we could be sure that the mosaic on the tomb of Otho the Second, and another mosaic already described, had not been altered in successive restorations, these would be evidence that the sword was given to St. Paul as his attribute as early as the sixth century; but there are no monuments which can be absolutely trusted before the end of the eleventh century; as regards the introduction of the sword since the end of the fourteenth century it has been so generally adopted, that in the devotional effigies I can remember no instance in which it is omitted. When St. Paul is leaning on the sword, it ex

presses his martyrdom; when he holds it aloft, it expresses also his warfare in the cause of Christ: when two swords are given to him, one is the attribute, the other the emblem; but this double allusion does not occur in any of the older representations. In Italy I never met with St. Paul bearing two swords, and the only instance I can call to mind is the bronze statue by Peter Vischer, on the shrine of St. Sebald, at Nurem-population, her May-day dancers, and berg.'

"Beatrice is here presented as the principle of divine beatitude, or that which confers it, and bears a resemblance to the figure of the New Jerusalem seen by St. John descending from 154. Of this canto and those that fol-heaven as a bride adorned for her hus low, Dr. Barlow, Study of the Div. Com., p. 270, says:

of the Christian virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, white and green and red, as was Beatrice, may yet be regarded as a Roman version of her."

window, forty-six angels are represented with long golden hair, white transparent robes, and wings of yellow, red, violet, and green; they are all painted on a background of azure, like the sky, and celebrate with blended voices, or with musical instruments, the glory of Christ. Some have in their hands instruments of different forms, others books of music. The four animals of the Evangelists seem with sonorous voice to swell the acclamations of the hosts of saints; the ox with his bellowing, the lion with his roar, the eagle with his cry, and the angel with his song, accompany the songs of the forty-six angels who fill the upper part of the window. At the head of the procession is an angel who leads the entire company, and, with a little cross which he holds in his hand, points out to all the Paradise they are to enter. Finally, twelve other angels, blue as the heaven into which they melt, join in adoration before the triumph of Christ.

"Dante has given a description of a similar triumph, but marked by some interesting differences. The Florentine poet formed his cortége of figures taken from the Apocalypse and Christian symbolism. At Brou, with the exception of the attributes of the Evangelists, everything is historical. In the sixteenth century, in fact, history began to predomi

Didron, describing the painting of the Triumph of Christ in the Church of Notre Dame de Brou, Christian Iconography, Millington's Tr., I. 315, says:"In the centre of all rises the Hero of the Triumph, Jesus Christ, who is seated in an open car with four wheels. He alone is adorned with a nimbus formed of rays, departing from each point of the head, and which illumines everything around. With one glance he embraces the past which precedes, and the future which is to succeed him. His face resembles that drawn by Raphael and the masters of the period of Renaissance, agreeing with the description given by Lentulus and Damascenus; it is serious and gentle. In the centre of the chariot is placed a starry globe traversed by the ecliptic, on which the twelve signs of the zodiac are brilliantly figured. This globe is symbolic of the world, and forms a throne for Christ: the Son of God is seated on its summit. The car is placed upon four wheels, and drawn by the four attributes or symbols of the Evangelists. The angel of St. Matthew, and the eagle of St. John, are of celestial whiteness; the lion of St. Mark, and the ox of St. Luke, are of a reddish yellow, symboliz-nate over symbolism, which in the thiring the earth on which they dwell. The eagle and angel do, in fact, fly; while the lion and the ox walk. Yet upon the painted window all the four have wings. A rein of silver, passing round the neck of each of the four symbols, is attached to the pole of the chariot. The Church, represented by the four most elevated religious potentates, by the Pope, the Cardinal, the Archbishop, and Bishop, or by the four chief Fathers, St. Gregory, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and S★ Augustine, drives the four-wheeled car, and, in conjunction with the Evangelists, urges it onward. Jesus guides his triumph, not holding reins, but shedding blessings from his right hand wherever he passes. "The entire assemblage of persons represented on the window are seen marching onwards, singing with joy. Within the spaces formed by the mullions which trellis the upper part of the

teenth and fourteenth centuries had reigned supreme. Dante, who was a politic poet, drew the triumph, not of Christ, but of the Church; the triumph of Catholicism rather than of Chris tianity. The chariot by which he represents the Church is widowed of Christ, whose figure is so important on the window of Brou; the chariot is empty, and Dante neither discovered this deficiency, nor was concerned to rectify it; for he was less anxious to celebrate Christ and his doctrine, for their own sake, than as connected with the organization and administration of the Church. He described the car as drawn by a griffin, thereby representing the Pope, for the griffin unites in itself the charac teristics of both eagle and lion. Now the Pope is also twofold in character; as priest he is the eagle floating in the air; as king, he is a lion, walking upon the

earth. The Ultramontane poet regarded the Church, that is the Papacy, in the light of an absolute monarchy; not a limited monarchy as with us, and still less a republic, as amongst the schismatics of Greece and of the East. Consequently, while, at Brou, the Cardinal, the Archbishop, and Bishop assist the Pope in guiding the car of the Church, in the Divina Commedia,' the Pope is alone, and accepts of no assistance from the other great ecclesiastical dignitaries. At Brou the car is guided by the Evangelists, or by their attributes; ecclesiastical power is content merely to lend its aid. According to the Italian poet, the Evangelists, although present at the Triumph, do not conduct it; the Pope is himself the sole guide of the Church, and permits neither the Evangelists to direct nor ecclesiastics to assist him. The Pope seems to require no assistance; his eye and arm alone are sufficient for him."

CANTO XXX.

I. In this canto Beatrice appears. The Seven Stars, or Septentrion of the highest heaven, are the seven lights that lead the procession, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, by which all men are guided safely in things spiritual, as the mariner is by the Septentrion, or Seven Stars of the Ursa Minor, two of which are called the "Wardens of the Pole," and one of which is the Cynosure, or Pole Star. These lights precede the triumphal chariot, as in our heaven the Ursa Minor precedes, or is nearer the centre of rest, than the Ursa Major or Charles's Wain. In the Northern Mythology the God Thor is represented as holding these constellations in his hand. The old Swedish Rhyme Chronicle, describing the statues in the church of Upsala, says:—

"The God Thor was the highest of them; He sat naked as a child,

Seven stars in his hand and Charles's Wain."

Spenser, Faerie Queene, I. ii. 1:—

By this the northern wagoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the steadfast starre
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,

But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that in the wide deep wandering arre.'

"

with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon."

17. At the voice of so venerable an old man.

19. The cry of the multitude at Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Matthew xxi. 9: "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

21. Æneid, VI. 833: "Give me lilies in handfuls; let me scatter purple flowers."

25. Milton, Parad. Lost, I. 194 :

"As when the sun new-risen Shines through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams.'

32. It will be observed that Dante makes Beatrice appear clothed in the colours of the three Theological Virtues described in Canto XXIX. 121. The white veil is the symbol of Faith; the green mantle, of Hope; the red tunic, of Charity. The crown of olive denotes wisdom. This attire somewhat resembles that given by artists to the Virgin. "The proper

dress of the Virgin," says Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Madonna, Introd., liii., "is a close, red tunic, with long sleeves, and over this a blue robe or mantle.... Her head ought to be veiled."

35. Beatrice had been dead ten years at the date of the poem, 1300.

36. Fully to understand and feel what is expressed in this line, the reader must call to mind all that Dante says in the Vita Nuova of his meetings with Beatrice, and particularly the first, which is thus rendered by Mr. Norton in his New Life of Dante, p. 20:

'Nine times now, since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost to the same point in its gyration, when first appeared before my eyes the glorious lady of my mind, who was called Beatrice by many who did not know why they thus

called her. She had now been in this life so long, that in its course the starry heaven had moved toward the east one of the twelfth parts of a degree; so that about the beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth year saw her. She appeared to me clothed in a most noble colour, a becoming and modest crimson, and she was girt and adorned in the style that became her extreme youth. At that

11. Song of Solomon iv. 8: "Come instant, I say truly, the spirit of life,

"At that instant, the spirit of the soul, which dwells in the high chamber to which all the spirits of the senses bring their perceptions, began to marvel greatly, and, addressing the spirits of the sight, said these words: Apparuit jam beatitudo vestra,- -Now hath appeared your bliss.' At that instant the natural spirit, which dwells in that part where the nourishment is supplied, began to weep, and, weeping, said 3these words: Heu miser! quia fre- That's bolted by the northern blast twice o'er." quenter impeditus ero deinceps,- Woe

is me wretched! because frequently And Midsummer Night's Dream :