Times of Dante, Mrs. Bunbury's Tr., II. 218, describes this region as follows: "The monastery is built on the steepest mountains of Umbria. Catria, the giant of the Apennines, hangs over it, and so overshadows it that in some months of the year the light is frequently shut out. forests leads to the ancient hospitium of A difficult and lonely path through the these courteous hermits, who point out the apartments where their predecessors lodged Alighieri. We may read his name repeatedly on the walls; the marble effigy of him bears witness to the

way, to denote that through martyrdom the spirits had ascended to God; and in Jupiter, the Eagle, as a sign of the Empire; so here he places a golden stairway, to denote that the ascent of these souls, which was by contemplation, is more supreme and more lofty than any

other."

35. Shakespeare, Macbeth, III. 2 :— “The crow

Makes wing to the rooky wood." Henry Vaughan, The Bee :

"And hard by shelters on some bough Hilarion's servant, the wise crow.'

And Tennyson, Locksley Hall :

The

of the great Italian is preserved from age to age in that silent retirement. Prior Moricone received him there in 1318, and the annals of Avellana relate this event with pride. But if they had been silent, it would be quite sufficient Dante's description of it, to be assured to have seen Catria, and to have read that he ascended it. There, from the woody summit of the rock, he gazed upon his country, and rejoiced in the thought that he was not far from her. He struggled with his desire to return to her; and when he was able to return, he banished himself anew, not to submit to dishonour. Having descended the moun⚫ tain, he admired the ancient manners of the inhabitants of Avellana, but he

43. The spirit of Peter Damiano.
46. Beatrice.

63. Because your mortal ear could not endure the sound of our singing, as your mortal eye could not the splendour of Beatrice's smile.

81. As in Canto XII. 3:-"Began the holy millstone to revolve." 90. As in Canto XIV. 40:

"Its brightness is proportioned to its ardour,

The ardour to the vision; and the vision
Equals what grace it has above its worth."

106. Among the Apennines, east of Arezzo, rises Mount Catria, sometimes called, from its forked or double summit, the Forca di Fano. On its slope stands the monastery of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana. Troya, in his Veltro Allegorico, as quoted in Balbo's Life and

who appeared to him to have lost their old virtues. At this time, and during his residence near Gubbio, it seems that he must have written the five cantos of the Paradiso after the twentieth; because when he mentions Florence in the twentyfirst canto he speaks of Catria, and in what he says in the twenty-fifth, of wishing to receive his poetic crown at his baptismal font, we can perceive his hope to be restored to his country and his beautiful fold (ovile) when time should have overcome the difficulties of the manner of his return."

Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, p. 265, describes his visit to the monastery of Fonte Avellana, and closes thus:

"They took particular pleasure in leading us to an echo, the wonder of Avellana, and the most powerful I ever heard. It repeats distinct'y a whole line of verse, and even a line and a half. I

amused myself in making the rocks ddress to the great poet, whom they had seen wandering among their sumunits, what he said of Homer,

"Onorate l'altissimo poeta."

The line was distinctly articulated by the voice of the mountain, which seemed to be the far-off and mysterious voice of the poet himself.

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In order to find the recollection of Dante more present than in the cells, and even in the chamber of the inscription, I went out at night, and sat upon a stone a little above the monastery. The moon was not visible, being still hidden by the immense peaks; but I could see some of the less elevated summits struck by her first glimmerings. The chants of the monks came up to me through the darkness, and mingled with the bleating of a kid lost in the mountains. I saw through the window of the choir a white monk prostrate in prayer. I thought that perhaps Dante had sat upon that stone, that he had contemplated those rocks, that moon, and heard those chants always the same, like the sky and the mountains."

110. This hermitage, according to Butler, Lives of the Saints, II. 212, was founded by the blessed Ludolf, about twenty years before Peter Damiano came to it.

112. Thus it began speaking for the third time.

121. St. Peter Damiano was born of a poor family at Ravenna, about 988; and, being left an orphan in his childhood, went to live with an elder brother, who set him to tending swine. Another brother, who was a priest at Ravenna, took compassion on him, and educated him. He in turn became a teacher; and, being of an ascetic turn of mind, he called himself Peter the Sinner, wore a hair shirt, and was assiduous in fasting and prayer. Two Benedictine monks of the monastery of Fonte Avellana, passing through Ravenna, stopped at the house where he lodged; and he resolved to join their brotherhood, which he did soon afterward. In 1041 he became Abbot of the monastery, and in 1057, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia. In 1062 he returned to Fonte Avellana; and in

1072, being "fourscore and three years old," died on his way to Rome, in the convent of our Lady near Faenza.

Of his life at Fonte Avellana, Butler, Lives of the Saints, (Feb. 23,) II. 217, says: "Whatever austerities he prescribed to others he was the first to practise himself, remitting nothing of them even in his old age. He lived shut up in his cell as in a prison, fasted every day, except festivals, and allowed himself no other subsistence than coarse bread, bran, herbs, and water, and this he never drank fresh, but what he had kept from the day before. He tortured his body with iron girdles and frequent disciplines, to render it more obedient to the spirit. He passed the three first days of every Lent and Advent without taking any kind of nourishment whatsoever; and often for forty days together lived only on raw herbs and fruits, or on pulse steeped in cold water, without touching so much as bread, or anything which had passed the fire. Á mat spread on the floor was his bed. He used to make wooden spoons and such like useful mean things to exercise himself at certain hours in manual labour."

122. It is a question whether Peter Damiano and Peter the Sinner are the same person, or whether by the latter is meant Peter Onesti of Ravenna; for both in their humility took that name. The solution of the question depends upon the reading fui or fu in this line; and of twenty-eight printed editions consulted by Barlow, fourteen were for fui, and fourteen for fu. Of the older commentators, the Ottimo thinks two distinct persons are meant; Benvenuto and Buti decide in favour of one.

Some persons

Benvenuto interprets thus: "In Catria I was called Peter Damiano, and I was Peter the Sinner in the monastery of Santa Maria in Porto at Ravenna on the shore of the Adriatic. maintain, that this Peter the Sinner was another monk of the order, which is evidently false, because Damiano gives his real name in Catria, and here names himself [Sinner] from humility."

Buti says: "I was first a friar called Peter the Sinner, in the Order of Santa Maria ...... And afterwards he went from there to the monastery at the

hermitage of Catria, having become a monk."

125. In 1057, when he was made Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia.

127. Cephas is St. Peter. John i. 42: "Thou art Simon the son of Jona; Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation, a stone.' The Ottimo seems to have forgotten this passage of Scripture when he wrote: Cephas, that is, St. Peter, so called from the large head he had (cephas, that is to say, head)."

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64

The mighty Vessel of the Holy Spirit is St. Paul. Acts ix. 15: He is a chosen vessel unto me."

129. Luke x. 7: "And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire."

130. The commentary of Benvenuto da Imola upon this passage is too striking to be omitted here. The reader may imagine the impression it produced upon the audience when the Professor first read it publicly in his lectures at Bologna, in 1389, eighty-eight years after Dante's death, though this impression may have been somewhat softened by its being delivered in Latin:

"Here Peter Damiano openly rebukes the modern shepherds as being the opposite of the Apostles before-mentioned, saying,

Now some one to support them on each side
The modern shepherds need';

for their mantles are so long, ample, and capacious, that they cover man and horse. Hence, he says,

'So that two beasts go underneath one skin';

that is the beast who carries, and he who is carried, and is more beastly than the lived at the present day he might have beast himself. And, truly, had the author changed this phrase and said,

'So that three beasts go underneath one skin'; namely, cardinal, concubine, and horse; as I have heard of one, whom I knew well, who used to carry his concubine to hunt on the crupper of his horse or mule. And truly he was like a horse or mule, in which there is no understanding; that is, without reason. On account of these things, Peter in anger cries out to God,

'O Patience, that dost tolerate so much!'"

142. A cry so loud that he could not distinguish the words these spirits

uttered.

CANTO XXII.

1. The Heaven of Saturn continued ; and the ascent to the Heaven of the Fixed Stars.

31. It is the spirit of St. Benedict that speaks.

left;

that is, so fat and corpulent. I have seen many such at the Court of Rome. And this is in contrast with the leanness of Peter and Paul before mentioned.

'And to hold their trains,'

because they have long cloaks, sweeping the ground with their trains. And this too is in contrast with the nakedness of the afore-mentioned Apostles. And therefore, stung with grief, he adds,

'They cover up their palfreys with their cloaks,' fat and sleek, as they themselves are;

nal and of Thomas Aquinas, rises Monte Cassino, celebrated for its Benedictine monastery. The following description of the spot is from a letter in the London Daily News, February 26, 1866, in which the writer pleads earnestly that this monastery may escape the doom of all the Religious Orders in Italy, lately pronounced by the Italian Parliament.

"The monastery of Monte Cassino stands exactly half-way between Rome and Naples. From the top of the Monte Cairo, which rises immediately above it, can be seen to the north the summit of Monte Cavo, so conspicuous from Rome; and to the south, the hill of the Neapo litan Camaldoli. From the terrace of the monastery the eye ranges over the