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◄ Oh, that is the old French for foin; and hay used to be sold here. Then, there were famous schools here in the old days; Abélard used to lecture here.' I was delighted to find the traditions of the place still surviving, though I cannot say whether she was right about Abélard, whose name may have become merely typical; it is not improbable, however, that he may have made and annihilated many a man of straw, after the fashion of the doctors of dialectics, in the Fouarre. His house was not far off on the Quai Napoléon in the Cité; and that of the Canon Fulbert on the corner of the Rue Basse des Ursins. Passing through to the Pont au Double, I stopped to look at the books on the parapet, and found a voluminous Dictionnaire Historique, but, oddly enough, it contained neither Sigier's name, nor Abélard's. I asked a ruddy-cheeked boy on a doorstep if he went to school. He said he worked in the daytime, and went to an evening school in the Rue du Fouarre, No. 5. That primary night school seems to be the last feeble descendant of the ancient learning. As to straw,

I saw none except a kind of rude straw matting placed round the corner of a wine-shop at the entrance of the street; a sign that oysters are sold within, they being brought to Paris in this kind of matting."

138. Buti interprets thus: "Lecturing on the Elenchi of Aristotle, to prove some truths he formed certain syllogisms so well and artfully, as to excite envy." Others interpret the word invidiosi in the Latin sense of odious, - truths that were odious to somebody; which interpretation is supported by the fact that Sigier was summoned before the primate of the Dominicans on suspicion of heresy, but not convicted. 147. Milton, "At a Solemn Musick:

Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy;
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse;
Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;
And to our high-raised fantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent,

Aye sung before the sapphire-colored throne

To Him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee ;

Where the bright Seraphim, in burning row,

Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow;

And the cherubic host, in thousand quires,
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms

Singing everlastingly :

That we on earth, with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;

As once we did, till disproportioned sin

Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed

In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

Oh, may we soon again renew that song,

And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long

To his celestial concert us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!

CANTO XI

1. The Heaven of the Sun continued. The praise of Saint Francis by Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican.

4. Lucretius, Nature of Things," book 11. 1, Good's translation:

How sweet to stand, when tempests tear the main,
On the firm cliff, and mark the seaman's toil!

Not that another's danger soothes the soul,
But from such toil how sweet to feel secure !
How sweet, at distance from the strife, to view
Contending hosts, and hear the clash of war!
But sweeter far on Wisdom's heights serene,
Upheld by Truth, to fix our firm abode ;
To watch the giddy crowd that, deep below,
Forever wander in pursuit of bliss ;

To mark the strife for honors and renown,

For wit and wealth, insatiate, ceaseless urged

Day after day, with labor unrestrained.

16. Thomas Aquinas.

20. The spirits see the thoughts of men in God, as in

canto VIII. 87:

Because I am assured the lofty joy

Thy speech infuses into me, my Lord,

Where every good thing doth begin and end,
Thou seest as I see it.

25. Canto x. 94:

The holy flock

Which Dominic conducteth by a road
Where well one fattens if he strayeth not.

26. Canto x. 112.

Where knowledge

So deep was put, that, if the true be true,
To see so much there never rose a second.

"And when Jesus

32. The Church. Luke xx. 46: had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and having said thus, he gave up the ghost."

34. Romans VIII. 38: « For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

35. Saint Francis and Saint Dominic. Mr. Perkins, "Tuscan Sculptors," 1. 7, says: "In warring against Frederic, whose courage, cunning, and ambition gave them ceaseless cause for alarm, and in strengthening and extending the influence of the Church, much shaken by the many heresies which had sprung up in Italy and France, the popes received invaluable assistance from the Minorites and the Preaching Friars, whose orders had been established by Pope Innocent III. in the early part of the century, in consequence of a vision, in which he saw the tottering walls of the Lateran basilica supported by an Italian and a Spaniard, in whom he afterwards recognized their respective founders, Saints Francis and Dominic. Nothing could be more opposite than the means which these two celebrated men employed in the work of conversion; for while Saint Francis used persuasion and tenderness to melt the hard-hearted, Saint Dominic forced and crushed them into submission. Saint Francis,

La cui mirabil vita

Meglio in gloria del ciel si canterebbe,

was inspired by love for all created things, in the most insignificant of which he recognized a common origin with himself,

The little lambs hung up for slaughter excited his pity, and the captive birds his tender sympathy; the swallows he called his sisters, sororculae meae, when he begged them to cease their twitterings while he preached; the worm he carefully removed from his path, lest it should be trampled on by a less careful foot; and, in love with poverty, he lived upon the simplest food, went clad in the scantiest garb, and enjoined chastity and obedience upon his followers, who within four years numbered no less than fifty thousand; but Saint Dominic, though originally of a kind and compassionate nature, sacrificed whole hecatombs of victims in his zeal for the Church, showing how far fanaticism can change the kindest heart, and make it look with complacency upon deeds which would have formerly excited its abhorrence."

37. The Seraphs love most, the Cherubs know most. Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologiae," 1. quaestio cvIII. 5, says, in substance, that the Seraphim are so called from burning; according to the three properties of fire, namely, continual motion upward, excess of heat, and of light. And again, in the same article, that Cherubim, being interpreted, is plenitude of knowledge, which in them is fourfold; namely, perfect vision of God, full reception of divine light, contemplation of beauty in the order of things, and copious effusion of the divine cognition upon others.

40. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, here celebrates the life and deeds of Saint Francis, leaving the praise of his own saint to Bonaventura, a Franciscan, to show that in heaven there are no rivalries nor jealousies between the two orders, as there were on earth.

43. The town of Ascesi, or Assisi, as it is now called, where Saint Francis was born, is situated between the rivers Tupino and Chiasi, on the slope of Monte Subaso, where Saint Ubald had his hermitage. From this mountain the summer heats are reflected, and the cold winds of winter blow through the Porta Sole of Perugia. The towns of Nocera and Gualdo are neighboring towns, that suffered under the oppres sion of the Perugians.

Ampère, "Voyage Danicsque," p. 256, says: "Having been twice at Perugia, I have experienced the double effect

of Mount Ubaldo, which the poet says makes this city feel the cold and heat.

Onde Perugia sente freddo e caldo,

that is, which by turns reflects upon it the rays of the sun, and sends it icy winds. I have but too well verified the justice of Dante's observation, particularly as regards the cold temperature, which Perugia, when it is not burning hot, owes to Mount Ubaldo. I arrived in front of this city on a brilliant autumnal night, and had time to comment at leisure upon the winds of the Ubaldo, as I slowly climbed the winding road which leads to the gates of the city fortified by a pope.'

50. Revelation, vII. 2: " And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God." These words Bonaventura applies to Saint Francis, the beautiful enthusiast and Pater Seraphicus of the Church, to follow out whose wonderful life through the details of history and legend would be too long for these notes. A few hints must suffice.

Saint Francis was the son of Peter Bernadone, a wool merchant of Assisi, and was born in 1182. The first glimpse we catch of him is that of a joyous youth in gay apparel, given up to pleasure, and singing with his companions through the streets of his native town, like Saint Augustine in the streets of Carthage. He was in the war between Assisi and Perugia, was taken prisoner, and passed a year in confinement. On his return home a severe illness fell upon him, which gave him more serious thoughts. He again appeared in the streets of Assisi in gay apparel, but meeting a beggar, a fellow soldier, he changed clothes with him. He now began to visit hospitals and kiss the sores of lepers. He prayed in the churches, and saw visions. In the church of Saint Damiano he heard a voice say three times, «Francis, repair my house, which thou seest falling." In order to do this, he sold his father's horse and some cloth at Foligno, and took the money to the priest of Saint Damiano, who to his credit refused to receive it. Through fear of his father, he hid himself; and when he reappeared in the streets was so ill clad that the boys pelted him and called him mad. His father shut him up in his house; his mother set him free. In the presence of his father and the Bishop he re