of the reality of apparitions, they have no apprehension that he will manifest himself to them in any sensible manner. While this is the case, to describe superhuman beings in the language, and to attribute to them the actions of humanity, may be grotesque, unphilosophical, inconsistent ; but it will be the only mode of working upon the feelings of men, and therefore the only mode suited for poetry. Shakespeare understood this well, as he understood everything that belonged to his art.

this would doubtless have been noble writing. But where would have been that strong impression of reality, which, in accordance with his plan, it should have been his great object to produce? It was absolutely necessary for him to Who does not sympathize delineate accurately "all monstrous, all with the rapture of Ariel, flying afte prodigious things," -to utter what sunset on the wings of the bat, or suckmight to others appear "unutterable," ing in the cups of flowers with the bee. -to relate with the air of truth what Who does not shudder at the caldron of fables had never feigned, to embody Macbeth? Where is the philosopher what fear had never conceived. And who is not moved when he thinks of the I will frankly confess that the vague strange connection between the infernal sublimity of Milton affects me less than spirits and "the sow's blood that hath these reviled details of Dante. We eaten her nine farrow?" But this diffiread Milton; and we know that we cult task of representing supernatural are reading a great poet. When we beings to our minds in a manner which read Dante, the poet vanishes. We shall be neither unintelligible to our inare listening to the man who has re- tellects, nor wholly inconsistent with our turned from "the valley of the dolo- ideas of their nature, has never been rous abyss; we seem to see the so well performed as by Dante. I will dilated eye of horror, to hear td-refer to three instances, which are, dering accents with which he his perhaps, the most striking;-the defearful tale. Considered in this light, the narratives are exactly what they should be,-definite in themselves, but suggesting to the mind ideas of awful and indefinite wonder. They are made up of the images of the earth: they are told in the language of the earth. Yet the whole effect is, beyond expres- The metaphors and comparisons of sion, wild and unearthly. The fact Dante harmonize admirably with that is, that supernatural beings, as long air of strong reality of which I have as they are considered merely with spoken. They have a very peculiar reference to their own nature, excite character. He is perhaps the only our feelings very feebly. It is when poet whose writings become much less the great gulf which separates them intelligible if all illustrations of this from us is passed, when we suspect sort were expunged. His similes are some strange and undefinable relation frequently rather those of a traveller between the laws of the visible and than of a poet. He employs them not the invisible world, that they rouse, to display his ingenuity by fanciful perhaps, the strongest emotions of analogies,-not to delight the reader which our nature is capable. How by affording him a distant and passing nany children, and how many men, glimpse of beautiful images remote from are afraid of ghosts, who are not afraid the path in which he is proceeding,of God! And this, because, though but to give an exact idea of the objects they entertain a much stronger convic- which he is describing, by comparing tion of the existence of a Deity than them with others generally known.

scription of the transformation of the serpents and the robbers, in the twentyfifth canto of the Inferno,-the passage concerning Nimrod, in the thirty-first canto of the same part,-and the mag. nificent procession in the twenty-ninth canto of the Purgatorio.

The boiling pitch in Malebolge was like that in the Venetian arsenal; the mound on which he travelled along the banks of Phlegethon was like that between Ghent and Bruges, but not so large; the cavities where the Simo-servation almost exclusively on human niacal prelates are confined resembled the fonts in the Church of John at Florence. Every reader of Dante will recall many other illustrations of this description, which add to the appearance of sincerity and earnestness from which the narrative derives so much of Its interest.

room.

This

There is another peculiarity in the poem of Dante, which, I think, deserves notice. Ancient mythology has hardly ever been successfully interwoven with modern poetry. One class of writers have introduced the fabulous deities merely as allegorical representatives of love, wine, or wisdom. necessarily renders their works tame and cold. We may sometimes admire their ingenuity; but with what interest can we read of beings of whose personal existence the writer does not suffer us to entertain, for a moment, even a conventional belief? Even Spenser's allegory is scarcely tolerable, till we contrive to forget that Una signifies innocence, and consider her merely as an oppressed lady under the protection of a generous knight.

from love strong as death, and jea- incomparable style, the most loathsome lousy cruel as the grave! What is it objects of the sewer and the dissectingthat we go forth to see in Hamlet? Is it a reed shaken with the wind? A small celandine? A bed of daffodils? Or is it to contemplate a mighty and wayward mind laid bare before us to the inmost recesses? It may perhaps be doubted whether the lakes and the hills are better fitted for the education of a poet than the dusky streets of a huge capital. Indeed, who is not tired to death with pure description of scenery? Is it not the fact, that external objects never strongly excite our feelings but when they are contemplated in reference to man, as illustrating his destiny, or as influencing his character? The most beautiful object in the world, it will be allowed, is a beautiful woman. But who that can analyze his feelings is not sensible that she owes her fascination less to grace of outline and delicacy of colour, than to a thousand associations which, often unperceived by ourselves, connect those qualities with the source of our existence, with the nourishment of our infancy, with the passions of our youth, with the hopes of our age, with elegance, with vivacity, with tenderness, with the strongest of natural instincts, with the dearest of social ties?

To those who think thus, the insensibility of the Florentine poet to the beauties of nature will not appear an unpardonable deficiency. On mankind no writer, with the exception of Shakespeare, has looked with a more penetrating eye. I have said that his poetical character had derived a tinge from his peculiar temper. It is on the sterner and darker passions that he delights to dwell. All love, excepting the half mystic passion which he still felt for his buried Beatrice, had palled on the fierce and restless exile. The sad story of Rimini is almost a single exception. I know not whether it has been remarked, that, in one point, misanthropy seems to have affected his mind as it did that of Swift. Nauseous and revolting images seem to have had a fascination for his mind; and he repeatedly places before his readers, with a.. the energy of his

Those writers who have, more judiciously, attempted to preserve the personality of the classical divinities have failed from a different cause. They have been imitators, and imitators at a disadvantage. Euripides and Catullus believed in Bacchus and Cybele as little as we do. But they lived among men who did. Their imaginations, if not their opinions, took the colour of the age. Hence the glorious inspiration of the Baccha and the Atys. Our minds are formed by circumstances: and I do not believe that it would be in the power of the greatest modern poet to lash himself up to a degree of enthusiasm adequate to the production of such works.

Dante alone, among the poets of later times, has been, in this respect, neither an allegorist nor an imitator; and, consequently, he alone has introduced the ancient fictions with effect. His Minos, his Charon, his Pluto, are absolutely terrific. Nothing can be more beautiful or original than the use which he has made of the river of Lethe. He has never assigned to his mythological characters any functions inconsistent with the creed of the Catholic Church. He has related nothing concerning them which a good Christian of that age might not believe possible. On

this account, there is nothing in these passages that appears puerile or pedantic. On the contrary, this singular use of classical names suggests to the mind a vague and awful idea of some mysterious revelation, anterior to all recorded history, of which the dispersed fragments might have been retained amidst the impostures and superstitions of later religions. Indeed the mythology of the Divine Comedy is of the elder and more colossal mould. It breathes the spirit of Homer and Eschylus, not of Ovid and Claudian.

many men of genius have panegyrized and imitated them!

The style of Dante is, if not his highest, perhaps his most peculiar excel· lence. I know nothing with which it can be compared. The noblest models of Greek composition must yield to it. His words are the fewest and the best which it is possible to use. The first expression in which he clothes his thoughts is always so energetic and comprehensive, that amplification would only injure the effect. There is probably no writer in any language who This is the more extraordinary, since has presented so many strong pictures Dante seems to have been utterly igno- to the mind. Yet there is probably no rant of the Greek language; and his writer equally concise. This perfecfavourite Latin models could only have tion of style is the principal merit of served to mislead him. Indeed, it is the Paradiso, which, as I have already impossible not to remark his admira- remarked, is by no means equal in tion of writers far inferior to himself; other respects to the two preceding and, in particular, his idolatry of Virgil, parts of the poem. The force and who, elegant and splendid as he is, has felicity of the diction, however, irresisno pretensions to the depth and origi- tibly attract the reader through the nality of mind which characterize his theological lectures and the sketches of Tuscan worshipper. In truth, it may be ecclesiastical biography, with which laid down as an almost universal rule this division of the work too much that good poets are bad critics. Their abounds. It may seem almost absurd minds are under the tyranny of ten thou- to quote particular specimens of an sand associations imperceptible to others. The worst writer may easily happen to touch a spring which is connected in their minds with a long succession of beautiful images. They are like the gigantic slaves of Aladdin, gifted with matchless power, but bound by spells so mighty that, when a child whom they could have crushed touched a talisman, of whose secret he was ignorant, they immediately became his vassals. It has more than once happened to me to see minds, graceful and majestic as the Titania of Shakespeare, bewitched by the charms of an ass's head, bestowing on it the fondest caresses, and crowning it with the sweetest flowers. I need only mention the poems attributed to Ossian. They are utterly worthless, except as an edifying instance of the success of a story without evidence, and of a book without merit. They are a chaos of words which present no image, of images which have no archetype;-they are without form and void; and darkness is upon the face of them. Yet how

excellence which is diffused over all his hundred cantos. I will, however, instance the third canto of the Inferno, and the sixth of the Purgatorio, as passages incomparable in their kind. The merit of the latter is, perhaps, rather oratorical than poetical; nor can I recollect anything in the great Athenian speeches which equals it in force of invective and bitterness of sarcasm. have heard the most eloquent statesman of the age remark that, next to Demosthenes, Dante is the writer who ought to be most attentively studied by every man who desires to attain oratorical eminence.

DANTE AND MILTON.

I

From the Essays of T. B. Macaulay. The only poem of modern times which can be compared with the Paradise Lost is the Divine Comedy. The subject of Milton, in some points, resembled that of Dante; but he has treated it in a widely different manner. We cannot, we think, better illustrate our opinion

respecting our own great poet, than by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan literature.

Nimrod. "His face seemed to me as long and as broad as the ball of St. Peter's at Rome; and his other limbs were in proportion; so that the bank which concealed him from the waist downwards nevertheless showed so much of him, that three tall Germans would in vain have attempted to reach to his hair." We are sensible that we do no justice to the admirable style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Cary's translation is not at hand; and our version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning.

The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often discernible only to the initiated. Their value depends less on what they directly represent than on what they remotely suggest. However strange, however grotesque, may be the appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the colour, the sound, the smell, the taste; he counts the numbers; he measures the size. His similes are the illustrations of a traveller. Unlike those of other poets, and especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain, business-like manner; not for the sake of any beauty in the objects from which they are drawn ; not for the sake of any ornament which they may impart to the poem; but simply in order to make the meaning of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself. The ruins of and the precipice which led from the sixth together; and such a stench was issuing the seventh circle of hell were like those forth as is wont to issue from decayed of the rock which fell into the Adige on limbs." the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlegethon was like that of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of St. Benedict. The place where the heretics were confined in burning tombs resembled the vast cemetery of Arles.

Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh book of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes refuge in indistinct but solemn and tremendous imagery. Despair hurrying from couch to couch to mock the wretches with his attendance, Death shaking his dart over them, but, in spite of supplications, delaying to strike. What says Dante? "There was such a moan there as there would be if all the sick who, between July and September, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, Sardinia, were in one pit to

We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office of settling precedency between two such writers. Each in his own department is incomparable; and each, we may remark, has wisely, o. fortunately, taken a subject adapted to Now let us compare with the exact exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest details of Dante the dim intimations of advantage. The Divine Comedy is a Milton. We will cite a few examples. personal narrative. Dante is the eyeThe English poet has never thought of witness and ear-witness of that which he taking the measure of Satan. He gives relates. He is the very man who has us merely a vague idea of vast bulk. heard the tormented spirits crying out In one passage the fiend lies stretched for the second death, who has read the out huge in length, floating many a dusky characters on the portal within rood, equal in size to the earth-born which there is no hope, who has hidden enemies of Jove, or to the sea-monster his face from the terrors of the Gorgon, which the mariner mistakes for an island. who has fled from the hooks and the When he addresses himself to battle seething pitch of Barbariccia and Drag against the guardian angels, he stands hignazzo. His own hands have grasped like Teneriffe or Atlas: his stature the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His own reaches the sky. Contrast with these feet have climbed the mountain of expiadescriptions the lines in which Dante tion. His own brow has been marked has described the gigantic spectre of by the purifying angel. The realer