The Trinity is then revealed to the poet at the intercession of St. Bernard, which he describes as three great circles of different colours but of similar dimensions. 'God, the first source, being reached and seen, nothing more can be desired, since He is Alpha and Omega. The work ends in God who is blessed for evermore.'

The poem ends abruptly, and the last two sections of the 'Commedia' lack the interest of the Infernofew even of Dante's keenest admirers caring to follow him throughout the last part, though there are passages of great excellence; in the second part there is more to admire, the earlier and later cantos being considered the best, the intermediate ones being dull and heavy. The whole has, however, always been considered an epic of the highest order. The poet is himself the hero, and perhaps in no poem ever written has an author so completely revealed his own character and feelings; the simplicity of the style, however, is such as to do away with any idea of egotism on the part of the writer. As if conscious of his own inferior wisdom, he is ever accompanied by a superior intelligence, and is continually receiving instruction and enlightenment. The Christian and Pagan systems of theology and

worship are sometimes curiously intermingled, and in this respect alone does the Commedia' bear any affinity to the German Nibelungenlied. In Dante's treating the heathen gods as something more than mere imaginary beings he had some show of authority, for in all patristic literature we find the Fathers writing of them as devils or fallen angels, and Dante takes none of them out of the Inferno-he finds them there, and there only.

'Ginguéné has remarked the singular variety as well as beauty of Dante's angels. In the Inferno, the devils insolently refuse the poet and his guide an entrance into the city of Dis: an angel comes sweeping over the Stygian lake to enforce it—the noise of his wings makes the shore to tremble, and is like a crashing whirlwind, such as beats down the trees, and sends the peasants and their herds flying before it. The heavenly messenger, after rebuking the devils, touches the portals of the city with his wand-they fly open; and he returns the way he came without uttering a word to the two companions. His face was that of one occupied with other thoughts. This angel is announced by a tempest. Another, who brings the souls of the departed to Purgatory, is first discovered

at a distance, gradually disclosing white splendours, which are his wings and garments. He comes in a boat, of which his wings are the sails; and as he approaches, it is impossible to look him in the face for its brightness. Two other angels have green wings and green garments, and the drapery is kept in motion, like a flag, by the vehement action of the wings. A fifth has a face like the morning star, casting forth quivering beams. A sixth is of lustre so oppressive, that the poet feels a weight on his eyes before he knows what is coming. Another's presence affects the senses like the fragrance of a May morning; and another is in garments dark as cinders, but has a sword in his hand too sparkling to be gazed at.'—Leigh Hunt.

'The great characteristic excellence of Dante is elevation of sentiment, to which his compressed diction and the emphatic cadences of his measure admirably correspond. We read him, not as an amusing poet, but as a master of moral wisdom, with reverence and awe. Fresh from the deep and serious, though somewhat barren studies of philosophy, and schooled in the severer discipline of experience, he has made of his poem a mirror of his mind and life, the register of his solicitudes and sorrows, and of the speculations in

which he sought to escape their recollection.

The

banished magistrate of Florence, the disciple of Brunetto Latini, the statesman accustomed to trace the varying fluctuations of Italian faction, is for ever before our eyes. For this reason, even the prodigal display of erudition, which in an epic poem would be entirely misplaced, increases the respect we feel for the poet, though it does not tend to the reader's gratification. Except Milton, he is much the most learned of all the great poets, and, relatively to his age, far more learned than Milton. In one so highly endowed by nature, and so consummate by instruction, we may well sympathise with a resentment which exile and poverty rendered perpetually fresh. The heart of Dante was naturally sensible, and even tender; his poetry is full of simple comparisons from rural life; and the sincerity of his early passion for Beatrice pierces through the veil of allegory which surrounds her. But the memory of his injuries pursues him into the immensity of eternal light; and, in the company of saints and angels, his unforgiving spirit darkens at the name of Florence.'— Hallam.

Tradition has it that Dante owed much of the beauty of the Commedia ' to the inspiration of a dream :

this may or may not be; the poet writes his poem as a vision; but critics have been very much divided in opinion as to the object he had in writing it. Critical dissertations on Dante are almost as numerous as those to which Homer himself has given birth; the Italian, like the Greek poet, having been the subject of the highest eulogium and the most severe invective. One of these critics, Gabrielle Rossetti, wrote a work entitled the 'Comento Analitico' (1826), in which he tried to show that Dante and all the Italian poets of the Middle Ages used a style in which they veiled their hatred of the Papacy, and concealed true religion under the form of a woman beloved by them. Whatever may be thought of Rossetti's opinion, his work called forth an immensity of hostile criticism, and was the foundation of a new school of interpretation of Dante, which has even yet numerous followers in Italy.

Editions and translations of the Commedia ' have been numerous, the German being considered the best and most faithful; the English translations are exceedingly plentiful—the extracts in this epitome are from that by Wright. The translation of Cary enjoys the precedence as the first English one; but from those who now attempt to render Dante into English verse