put on the face of temperate. We set out, therefore, in the morning early, and as we were walking upon the seashore, and a kindly breeze fanned and refreshed our limbs, and the yielding sand softly submitted to our feet and made it delicious travelling, Cæcilius on a sudden espied the statue of Serapis, and, according to the vulgar mode of superstition, raised his hand to his mouth, and paid his adoration in kisses. Upon which Octavius, addressing himself to me, said: 'It is not well done, my brother Marcus, thus to leave your mseparable companion in the depth of vulgar darkness, and to suffer him, in so clear a day, to stumble upon stones; stones, indeed, of figure, and anointed with oil, and crowned; but stones, however, still they are ;-for you cannot but be sensible that your permitting so foul an error in your friend redounds no less to your disgrace than his.' This discourse of his held us through half the city; and now we began to find ourselves upon the free and open shore. There the gently washing waves had spread the extremest sands into the order of an artificial walk; and as the sea always expresses some roughness in his looks, even when the winds are still, although he did not roll in foam and angry surges to the shore, yet were we much delighted, as we walked upon the edges of the water, to see the crisping, frizzly waves glide in snaky folds, one while playing against our feet, and then again retiring and lost in the devouring ocean. Softly, then, and calmly as the sea about us, we travelled on, and kept upon the brim of the gently declining shore, beguiling the way with our stories."

112. This is the first line of the second canzone of the Convito.

CANTO III.

15. So in Paradiso, XXVI. 139:"The mount that rises highest o'er the sea." 27. The tomb of Virgil is on the promontory of Pausilippo, overlooking the Bay of Naples. The inscription upon it is :

Mantua me genuit: Calabri rapuere: tenet nunc Parthenope: cecini pascua, rura, duces. "The epitaph," says Eustace, Clas

sical Tour, I. 499, "which, though not genuine, is yet ancient, was inscribed by order of the Duke of Pescolangiano then proprietor of the place, on a marble slab placed in the side of the rock opposite the entrance of the tomb, where it still remains." :: Vir.

Forsyth, Italy, p. 378, says: gil's tomb is so called, I believe, on the single authority of Donatus. Donatus places it at the right distance from Naples, but on the wrong side of the city; and even there he omits the grotto of Posilipo, which not being so deep in his time as the two last excavations have left it, must have opened precisely at his tomb. Donatus, too, gives, for Virgil's own composition, an epitaph on the cliff now rejected as a forgery. And who is this Donatus? -an obscure grammarian, or rather his counterfeit. The structure itself resembles a ruined pigeon-house, where the numerous columbaria would indicate a family-sepulchre but who should repose in the tomb of Virgil, but Virgil alone? Visitors of every nation, kings and princes, have scratched their names on the stucco of this apocryphal ruin, but the poet's awful name seems to have deterred them from versifying here."

37. Be satisfied with knowing that a thing is, without asking why it is. These were distinguished in scholastic language as the Demonstratio quia, and the Demonstratio propter quid.

49. Places on the mountainous seaside road from Genoa to Pisa, known as the Riviera di Levante. Of this, Mr. Ruskin, Mod. Painters, III. 243, says:

"The similes by which he illus. trates the steepness of that ascent are all taken from the Riviera of Genoa, now traversed by a good carriage road under the name of the Cornice; but as this road did not exist in Dante's time, and the steep precipices and promontories were then probably traversed by footpaths, which, as they necessarily passed in many places over crumbling and slippery limestone, were doubtless not a little dangerous, and as in the manner they commanded the bays of sea below. and lay exposed to the full blaze of the

I fastened on with my own hands in such a way that it could not fall.' But he was not discouraged, and took heart, and went into battle like any other baron, without the royal insignia, in order not to be recognized. But short while it lasted, for his forces were already in flight; and they were routed and Manfredi slain in the middle of the enemy; and they were driven into the town by the soldiers of King Charles, for it was now night, and they lost the city of Benevento. And many of Manfredi's barons were made prisoners, among whom were the Count Giordano, Messer Piero Asino degli Uberti, and many others, whom King Charles sent captive into Provence, and there had them put to death in prison; and he imprisoned many other Germans in different parts of the kingdom. And a few days afterwards the wife of Manfredi and his children and his sister, who were in Nocera de' Sardini in Apulia, were taken prisoners by Charles; these died in prison. And for more than three days they made search after Manfredi; for he could not be found, nor was it known if he were dead, or a prisoner, or had escaped; because he had not worn his royal robes in the battle. And afterwards he was recognized by one of his own camp-followers, from certain marks upon his person, in the middle of the battle-field ; and he threw him across an ass, and came shouting, 'Who will buy Manfredi?' for which a baron of the king beat him with a cane. And the body of Manfredi being brought to King Charles, he assembled all the barons who were prisoners, and asked each one if that was Manfredi; and timidly they answered yes. Count Giordano smote himself in the face with his hands, weeping and crying, 'O my lord!' whereupon he was much commended by the French, and certain Bretons besought that he might have honourable burial. Answered the king and said, I would do it willingly, if he were not excommunicated'; and on that account he would not have him laid in consecrated ground, but he was buried at the foot of the bridge of Benevento, and each one of the army

threw a stone upon his grave, so that a great pile was made. But afterwards, it is said, by command of the Pope, the Bishop of Cosenza took him from tha grave, and sent him out of the king dom, because it was Church land. And he was buried by the river Verde, at the confines of the kingdom and the Campagna. This battle was on a Fri day, the last day of February, in the year one thousand two hundred and sixty-five."

Villani, who in his account of the battle copies Malispini almost literally, gives in another chapter, VI. 46, the following portrait of Manfredi; but it must be remembered that Villani was a Guelph, and Manfredi a Ghibel line.

"King Manfredi had for his mother a beautiful lady of the family of the Marquises of Lancia in Lombardy, with whom the Emperor had an intrigue, and was beautiful in person, and like his father and more than his father was given to dissipation of all kinds. He was a musician and singer, delighted in the company of buffoons and courtiers and beautiful concubines, and was always clad in green; he was generous and courteous, and of good demeanour, so that he was much be loved and gracious, but his life was wholly epicurean, hardly caring for God or the saints, but for the delights of the body. He was an enemy of holy Church, and of priests and monks, confiscating churches as his father had done; and a wealthy gentleman was he, both from the treasure which he inherited from the Emperor, and from King Conrad, his brother, and from his own kingdom, which was ample and fruitful, and which, so long as he lived, notwithstanding all the wars he had with the Church, he kept in good condition, so that it rose greatly in wealth and power, both by sea and by land."

This battle of Benevento is the same as that mentioned Inf. XXVIII. 10.

"At Ceperano, where a renegade Was each Apulian."

113. Constance, wife of the Em peror Henry the Sixth.

115. His daughter Constance, who

was married to Peter of Aragon, and was the mother of Frederic of Sicily and of James of Aragon.

124. The Bishop of Cosenza and Pope Clement the Fourth.

131. The name of the river Verde reminds one of the old Spanish ballad, particularly when one recalls the fact that Manfredi had in his army a band of Saracens :

"Rio Verde, Rio Verde,

Many a corpse is bathed in thee,
Both of Moors and eke of Christians,
Slain with swords most cruelly."

132. Those who died "in contumely of holy Church," or under excommunication, were buried with extinguished and inverted torches.

CANTO IV.

6. Plato's doctrine of three souls: the Vegetative in the liver; the Sensative in the heart; and the Intellectual in the brain. See Convito, IV. 7.

15. See Convito, II. 14, quoted Par. XIV. Note 86.

25. Sanleo, a fortress on a mountain in the duchy of Urbino; Noli, a town in the Genoese territory, by the sea-side; Bismantova, a mountain in the duchy of Modena.

36. Like Christian going up the hill Difficulty in Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress: "I looked then after Christian to see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and knees, because of the steepness of the place."

43. More than forty-five degrees.

61. If the sun were in Gemini, or if we were in the month of May, you would see the sun still farther to the Aorth.

64. Rubecchio is generally rendered red or ruddy. But Jacopo dalla Lana says: "Rubecchio in the Tuscan tongue signifies an indented mill-wheel." This interpretation certainly renders the image more distinct. The several signs of the Zodiac are so many cogs in the great wheel; and the wheel is an image which Dante more than once applies to the celestial bodies.

71. The Ecliptic. See Inf. XVII., Note 107.

73. This, the Mountain of Purgatory; and that, Mount Zion.

83. The Seven Stars of Ursa Major, the North Star.

109. Compare Thomson's description of the "pleasing land of drowsy-head,” in the Castle of Indolence:

"And there a season atween June and May, Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned,

A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.'

123. "He loved also in life," says Ar rivabene, Commento Storico, 584, "a certain Belacqua, an excellent maker of musical instruments."

Benvenuto da Imola says of him: "He was a Florentine who made guitars and other musical instruments. He carved and ornamented the necks and heads of the guitars with great care, and sometimes also played. Hence Dante, who delighted in music, knew him intimately." This seems to be all that is known of Belacqua.

133. Measure for Measure, II. 2 :

I. There is an air of reality about this passage, like some personal reminiscence of street gossip, which gives perhaps a little credibility to the otherwise incre dible anecdotes of Dante told by Sacchetti and others ;--such as those of the ass-driver whom he beat, and the blacksmith whose tools he threw into the street for singing his verses amiss, and the woman who pointed him out to her companions as the man who had been in Hell and brought back tidings of it.

38. Some editions read in this line mezza notte, midnight, instead of prima notte, early nightfall.

Of meteors Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. pt. 3, ch. 107, writes: "Likewise it often comes to pass that a dry vapour, when it has mounted so high that it

or a star which falls."

And

Milton, Parad. Lost, IV. 556, scribing the flight of Uriel, says :—

"Swift as a shooting star

In Autumn thwarts the night, when vapours
fired

Impress the air, and show the mariner
From what point of his compass to beware
Impetuous winds.'

66. Shakespeare's "war 'twixt will and will not," and "letting I dare not wait upon I would."

67. This is Jacopo del Cassero of Fano, in the region between Romagna and the kingdom of Naples, then ruled by Charles de Valois (Charles Lackland). He was waylaid and murdered at Oriago, between Venice and Padua, by Azzone the Third of Este.

74. Leviticus, xvii. 2: "The life of the flesh is in the blood."

75. Among the Paduans, who are called Antenori, because their city was founded by Antenor of Troy. Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. ch. 39, says: "Then Antenor and Priam departed thence, with a great company of people, and went to the Marca Trevisana, not far from Venice, and there they built another city which is called Padua, where lies the body of Antenor, and his sepulchre is still there."

79. La Mira is on the Brenta, or one of its canals, in the fen-lands between Padua and Venice.

88. Buonconte was a son of Guido di Montefeltro, and lost his life in the battle of Campaldino in the Val d'Arno. His body was never found; Dante imagines its fate.

Ruskin, Mod. Painters, III. 252, remarks :

"Observe, Buonconte, as he dies, crosses his arms over his breast, pressing them together, partly in his pain, partly in prayer. His body thus lies by the river shore, as on a sepulchral monument, the arms folded into a cross. The rage of the river, under the influence of the evil demon, unlooses this cross, dashing the body supinely away, and rolling it over and over by bank and bottom.

'Giovanna nor none else have care for me.'

There is, I feel assured, nothing else like it in all the range of poetry; a faint and harsh echo of it, only, exists in one Scottish ballad, 'The Twa Corbies.'" 89. The wife of Buonconte.

92. Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, p. 241, thus speaks of the battle of Campaldino: "In this plain of Campaldino, now so pleasant and covered with vineyards, took place, on the 11th of June, 1289, a rude combat between the Guelphs of Fiorence and the fuorusciti Ghibel lines, aided by the Aretines. Dante fought in the front rank of the Florentine cavalry; for it must needs be that this man, whose life was so complete, should have been a soldier, before being a theologian, a diplomatist, and poet. He was then twenty-four years of age. He himself described this battle in a letter, of which only a few lines remain. 'At the battle of Campaldino,' he says, 'the Ghibelline party was routed and almost wholly slain. I was there, a novice in arms; I had great fear, and at last great joy, on account of the divers chances of the fight.' One must not see in this phrase the confession of cowardice, which could have no place in a soul tempered like that of Alighieri. The only fear he had was lest the battle should be lost. In fact, the Florentines at first seemed beaten ; their infantry fell back before the Aretine cavalry; but this first advantage of the enemy was its destruction, by dividing its forces. These were the vicissitudes of the battle to which Dante alludes, and which at first excited his fears, and then caused his joy."

96. The Convent of Camaldoli, thus described by Forsyth, Italy, p. 117: "We now crossed the beautiful vale