a ship without a pilot, was tossed about on the waves of political disaster, and not until long centuries later, in the year 1870, did the poet's dream of a united Italy find its realization.

The whole period of the exile is so obscured by myth and fiction that it is difficult to separate the true from the false. Almost every city in Italy claims the honor of his presence, and Belgium and France, and even England, are said to have been visited by him. The poet's movements during this period are shrouded in obscurity; yet from time to time the mist rolls away and we catch a glimpse of the wanderer climbing some mountain pass, wending his way through plain and valley, or, like a lost soul from the spirit world, threading the crowded streets of some great city. Legend has been busy with the poet's life and has woven many a beautiful story of these days of exile. It is said that at the close of a long summer's day a stranger, weary and travel-stained, knocked at the door of the monastery of Santa Croce, near Spezia, which is situated on the hills which look out over the blue waters of the Mediterranean, just above the spot where, long years afterward, the body of Shelley was washed ashore. When asked what he desired the only response the stranger made was, Pace, pace". "Peace, peace." But, leaving aside tradition, we know that Dante spent some time in the University of Bologna, where he studied hard and his eyes became weak, so that the "stars were dimmed with a kind of whiteness." We know that he visited also Padua, where he lived in the street of St. Laurence and must have met Giotto, who was at that time engaged on the frescoes in the Church of the Madonna dell' Arena.

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It was in the beautiful city of Verona, with its old palaces, marble-faced churches, lofty towers, and picturesque old bridge, that Dante found his first refuge in the palace of Can Grande della Scala. The story of Romeo and Juliet is said to have occurred in Verona in 1302, a few years before Dante's arrival; and we love to think that the poet who has immortalized the touching story of Francesca da Rimini's love and death knew that other story of love unto death which forms the subject of Shakespeare's tragedy. Dante was heartily welcomed by the head of the noble Ghibelline family of the Scaligers, and lived probably a number of years with him. He is said to have owned property at Gargnano, near Verona, where he wrote the Purgatory. His daughter married into the Veronese family of Serego, the descendants of whom are still living. We can almost see the sad and melancholy figure of the poet as he moved silently among the brilliant courtiers of the court of Can Grande, looking so stern and grim that the women in the streets whispered to each other, "Ecco l' uomo che è stato nell' inferno". "Behold the man who has been in hell."

It was during these years of trial and sorrow that his conversion took place. Hitherto he had rejoiced in the pride of intellect, had recognized only human reason, and had sought for earthly happiness and honor.

He

says himself that pride and envy had been his special sins. But now that all earthly happiness failed him and the star of hope had set forever, he turned to thoughts of the eternal world and became a humble seeker after divine wisdom and illuminating grace. Converted and shuddering at the horrors of eternal perdition which he had escaped, he wrote the Divine Comedy, to warn others of the inevitable consequences of their sins and to lead them up the steep heights of Purgatory, to the life with God on high.

In the year 1316 Florence announced that all exiles would be allowed to return, but on humiliating conditions. These conditions were, first, that they should pay a certain sum of money; second, that they should wear paper mitres on their heads as a sign of infamy and march to the Church of St. John, and there make an offering for their crimes. Many yielded, and Dante's friends urged him to yield likewise. But the poet, preferring exile to self-abasement, even with return to Florence, wrote the following letter full of noble independence and indignation: "This is not the way to return to my country, O my Father. If another shall be found by you, or by others, that does not derogate from the fame and honor of Dante, that will I take with no lagging steps. But if Florence is entered by no other path, then never will I enter Florence. What! Can I not look upon the face of the sun and the stars everywhere? Can I not meditate anywhere under the heavens upon most sweet truths, unless I first render myself inglorious, nay ignominious, to the people and state of Florence? Nor, indeed, will bread be lacking."1

Long before the inroads of the barbarians had driven the inhabitants of Padua and the neighboring cities to seek refuge among the lagoons of the northern Adriatic, and so to found the city of Venice, another city had been built on the shores of the Adriatic, where the waters of the Po mingled with the salt waves of the sea around its very walls. This city was Ravenna, and was chosen by the Emperor Augustus for one of his two naval stations. But to-day the sea has receded and left the city four miles inland, while a forest of pines occupies the site where Roman fleets once lay at anchor. In this strange, weird old city Dante Alighieri found his last refuge and final resting-place. Here in the palace of Guido Novello da Polenta, the ruins of which can still be seen, he found a permanent home and kind friends and protectors. From time to time he made journeys and visits to neighboring towns and villages. We are told that he would spend whole days in the vast forest of pines, brooding over Florence and her civil wars and meditating cantos of his poem. It was a familiar sight to the people of Ravenna, that figure slightly bent, with gait gentle and grave, always clad in becoming garments, and with face

1 Letters of Dante, translated by C. S. Latham, Boston, 1892, pp. 185, 186,

melancholy and thoughtful. But it was only after long years, when Florence had vainly begged for the ashes of him she had martyred, that they knew what an honor had been bestowed on their city when the "divine poet came to live and die in their midst. In the year 1321 the republic of Venice was at war with the lord of Polenta, and Dante was sent thither to sue for peace. On his return he fell seriously ill, and died September 14, 1321. When the modern traveller arrives in Ravenna, before visiting the mosaics of San Vitale or the tomb of Galla Placidia, he inquires the way to Dante's tomb. The inscription on it, in barbarous Latin, is said to have been composed by the poet himself. The last two lines breathe a bitter melancholy:

"Hic claudor Dantes, patriis extorris ab oris,
Quem genuit parvi Florentia mater amoris

"

"Here lie I, Dante, an exile from my native land, born of Florence, a mother of little love." The monument is poor and unworthy; and yet this fact is forgotten in the presence of the mortal remains of him whose life was made so bitter and sad by hate and injustice, and who, in the words of another, "has built himself an eternal dwelling, a monument more durable than bronze or marble, a vast city peopled with his creations and filled with his glory."

II.

I have purposely said nothing yet of Dante's relations with Beatrice Portinari, but have reserved the whole subject for discussion in connection with the New Life. Leaving one side several scientific treatises in Latin, nearly all Dante's literary activity is recorded in the trilogy composed of the Vita Nuova, or the New Life, the Convito or the Banquet, and the Divine Comedy. In studying these works we can trace three distinct phases in the development of the character and genius of the author. In the New Life we see a young man full of enthusiastic devotion to poetry and study, filled with a pure, idealized love for a noble woman, and led by this love to confiding faith in God, and to love and charity for all the world. Toward the end of this book we catch a glimpse of a change in his mind and ideas, which forms a transition toward the second period, represented by the Banquet. This is a fragment of a larger work, to have been completed in fifteen parts, of which only four were written. It is a sort of commentary on the poet's philosophical and lyrical poems, and is an encyclopædic disquisition on the philosophy and science of the times. Here we see Dante full of passionate love for science, struggling with doubts, and relying on human reason as the sole means of obtaining happiness and fame. We no longer find the simple faith and peace c

early days, but struggles and conflicts with temptations and grief. The third and last period shows us the poet, crushed by sorrow and chastened by suffering, returning to his God for peace and comfort, and, having reached a haven of quiet and safety himself, sending out a warning cry to all men to save them from their sin and folly.

The New Life is one of the strangest books in all literature. It is the story of a young man's love for a girl, told in quaint naïve style, full of affectation, yet tender and touching. The love that fills its pages is utterly free from passion and desire, unlike that love

"

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue."

It is the love of the age of chivalry, of the "courts of love" in Toulouse, the love that drove the troubadour Geoffrey Rudel over land and sea, until he had found the lady whom he had seen only in his dreams. The book itself is a small one, occupying in the present edition only forty-four pages. It is broken up into forty-three short chapters or paragraphs,1 and consists of mingled prose and verse a chante-fable, as the old French would have called it. It opens with the first meeting of Dante and Beatrice when both were about nine years old, and ends with the death of Beatrice, in 1290. It can roughly be divided into three parts, the first containing the description of Beatrice's charms and influence, with a series of little events and thoughts suggested by them; the second part deals with the spiritual virtues of Beatrice, her death, and Dante's grief; while the last part is occupied with an episode which has produced an endless amount of discussion - that of a gentle lady who caused him to lose for a time the memory of Beatrice. The book closes with the poet's repentance for this brief desertion, and the resolution to devote his life to sounding the praise of her who had been to him the symbol of all that is good and holy.

Dante before his eighteenth year had written a number of lyrical poems celebrating the beauty of Beatrice. At her death, wishing to raise a monument to her, he gathered together the various poems he had written in her honor during her life. At the beginning of each poem he writes an introduction in prose, explaining how the idea of the poem came into his mind; and then at the end he places a commentary in quaint, scholastic language. The events described are half historical, half mystical. The book is altogether subjective; it deals with feelings alone and introduces us to a strange, ideal world. We see vague figures move across the stage, we catch glimpses of weddings, funerals, churches, social gatherings, but all seen through a dim, vaporous twilight, like a picture by Burne-Jones or Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It resembles real life as moon

1 This division into paragraphs has been made only in modern times.

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light resembles sunlight or as water is to wine." In spite of the artificial surroundings, the affectation, the quaint conceits, and pedantic commentaries, it all moves us deeply. We feel that the sentiment is genuine and the love noble and true. We know that the man who wrote this simple story of love fought with the bravest at Campaldino; that he spent his whole life in exile rather than submit to dishonor. We know, too, that he was a man of wide knowledge, a leader of men, an uncompromising foe to tyranny, as well as a tender lover. It is the thought of all this that invests the New Life with such peculiar interest.

It is hard for us of the nineteenth century to realize the strange joy with which the people of the Middle Ages welcomed the return of spring. With the budding of the flowers and the singing of the birds a thrill of delight ran through the medieval world. The songs of German minnesinger and French troubadour are full of the praise of spring, and almost all old romances begin with April or May, Easter or Pentecost. Thus, the reader will remember, Reineke Fuchs opens at "Pfingsten, das liebliche Fest," and Chaucer's pilgrims set out for Canterbury

"Whan that Aprillë with his schowrës swoote

The drought of Marche had perced to the roote."

Springtime at Florence is full of radiant loveliness. The fields and gardens about the city are covered with flowers of every kind and color and they are brought into the city and offered for sale, piled up in grea masses against the old stone palaces. The air is soft and clear, and the sky is of that dolce color d'oriental zaffiro, "that sweet color of orienta sapphire," that Dante speaks of in the Purgatory. No wonder, then that the return of spring was celebrated at Florence by special festivitie in the days of old.

It was at one of these spring festivals that Dante first met Beatrice. I the opening paragraphs of the New Life he describes the scene i quaint, mystic, and scholastic language, in which you will note the rol played by the figure nine.1

From the time of his first meeting, Beatrice was all in all to him. Lik every lover from the dawn of time, he sought all opportunities of seein her. He tells us that her love made his heart noble and gay and full holy charity. It impelled him to love his neighbors and to forgive tho who offended him. She became the symbol of all that is good on ear and lifted his soul to the love of the highest good, which is God. It h been argued that Beatrice is only an allegory; but it seems to me impo sible to harmonize this theory with all the personal details which we ha of her. She is a woman of flesh and blood, modest, gentle, dignifie and grave:

1 See § II.