ART. IX. Dante, with a new Italian Commentary, By G. BAGLIOLI, Paris, 1818.

The Vision of Dante, translated by the Reverend H. F. CARY, A. M., 3 vol. 18mo, London, 1818.

M. BAGLIOLI’s new work on Dante was announced, in 1816, by subscription, in large quarto, with magnificent paper and characters. The subscription was, it seems, not encouraging ; and, after two years expectation, the author has published his work in a more modest form ; which, indeed, we think the most fair, as well as the most prudent part. If the book be good, it will be useful to a greater number of readers. If it be bad, the buyers will have less cost to regret. Authors now seem desirous of placing their works under the protection of splendid printing, and to have the hope of being immortalized at least by the continuators of Mr. Dibdin’s Decameron.

M. Baglioli’s Dante will form three volumes in large octavo, of which the first is not yet completely printed ; but we have now before us nine sheets of it, which contain the text of eight books of the Inferno, with the Commentary. This is not enough, perhaps, for a complete criticism of the work ; but it sufficiently shows his method, and enables us to determine, that, if he has improved, he has not fundamentally changed the plan of his predecessors. This leads us to give a rapid sketch of the history of the commentators on Dante, and to inquire into the causes of the very little service which they have done to the, poet or the reader. Perhaps our observations may suggest a new method of undertaking, with more advantage, a work which we think necessary ; not only to Italy, but to other nations ; because it is in the age of Dante, and principally from the influence of his genius, that we may date the commencement of the literary history of Europe.

The poem of Dante is like an immense forest, venerable for its antiquity, and astonishing by the growth of trees which seem to have sprung up at once to their gigantic height by the force of nature, aided by some unknown art. It is a forest, curious from the extensive regions which it hides, but frightful from its darkness and its labyrinths. The first travellers who attempted to cross it have opened a road. Those who followed have enlarged and enlightened it ; but the road is still the same ; and the greater part of this immense forest remains, after the labours of five centuries, involved in its primitive darkness. Readers, especially foreign readers, believe, on the faith of the commentators, that they have seen the whole ; like the readers of modern travels, who fancy that they know a country from the descriptions of those who have run through it with a road-book and a dictionary, and return home to publish their tour.

It is said by Warburton in his Preface to Shakespeare, that
the whole a critic can do for an author who deserves his services, is to correct the faulty text, to remark the peculiarities of language, to illustrate the obscure allusions, and to explain ‘the beauties an defects of sentiment or composition.
Perhaps we may prove, in the sequel, that this observation cannot be universally adopted ;—but if it were sufficient in the case of all other poets, it is certain, that, by the most complete and successful application of it to the poem of Dante, a critic would perform only half his task. The first part which relates to the emendation of the text, has been happily enough executed in the native city of the poet, by the Academy della Crusca. That learned body, occupied in studying and purifying their language, naturally sought for its radical treasures in the age of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio. These academicians were almost all Florentines, and had abundant means of collecting various readings. The numerous libraries of Florence were supplied with MSS. of Dante’s poem, of which they collated more than a hundred with the early editions. These various readings were discussed by them for the common interest —for the honour of the poet, the language, and the academy ; by which means they avoided the obstinacy, the acrimony, and the puerile quarrels which the jealousy of individuals has spread among the commentators of Homer and Shakespeare. They thus spared the time of their readers, and saved literature from some ridicule. This academy was not always so wise. They dishonoured themselves in their hostility against Tasso. But in that case they were ambitious of giving laws to genius ; a task for which an assembly of men is peculiarly unfitted. In their emendations of Dante, on the contrary, they needed only a calm and attentive examination, a free discussion, and a mature deliberation on questions purely verbal and grammatical. Academies are in general useful, where the object is only to arrange and preserve the stock of human knowledge. It can be increased only by men of genius—independent of rules and associations, and fearlessly pursuing glory at their own peril. But societies bound by institutions, often obliged to respect and sometimes to flatter governments and powerful individuals, can never display independence of mind, or possess the courage necessary for the exertion of genius. They may, under despotic governments, become instruments in the hands of tyrants for repressing the progress of mind, and narrowing the diffusion of knowledge.

But to return to Dante. The Academy della Crusca have admitted the best of the various readings into their text, and have placed in the margin all that are probable. Their edition is known by the date of 1595.
* It is not improper to inform the general reader, that this edition is disgraced by typographical errors of every sort. It should be left to critics, who are not perplexed by its blunders ; and to collectors, who sometimes prefer editions for the celebrity of their mistakes.
This edition has always been regarded with a sort of veneration ; and the best reprints of it are that of Padua by Comino in 1627, and that of Leghorn in 1807, by Gaetano Poggiali. Of this last, which is printed with exactness and elegance, and which contains a judicious selection of various readings, we have seen two volumes of text, and a third of notes on the Inferno. Whether he has published those on the other parts of the poem, we know not.

Padre Lombardi having examined an ancient Milanese edition of 1478 called the Nido beatina, found in almost every page various readings, which sometimes illustrate, and sometimes embellish the verses, and which he has introduced into his edition, published at Rome in three volumes quarto. But his partiality to his favourite edition is excessive, and sometimes offensive to men of taste. He openly attacks the Academy of Florence ; and he has provoked the pedants. His work is, on the whole, very curious and useful to those who amuse themselves with philology, and who are scrupulous in the choice of words. His principal antagonist is Monsignor Dionisi, canon of Verona, who has attacked him with the animosity of a verbal critic, with the dogmatic tone of a prelate, and the contemptuous air of a patrician. Dionisi declares war against the Nido beatina edition, and all other ancient and modern editions of Dante, without excepting even that of the Academy della Crusca. He has examined many manuscripts unknown to former editors ; but he has unfortunately introduced the most manifest errors of copyists into his own text as newly discovered beauties. After having injured Dante as much as Bentley did Milton, he caused his edition to be splendidly printed by Bodoni, which, indeed, insures the purchase of the book by collectors, but has rendered the author magnificently ridiculous.

So much for the history of emendatory criticism on Dante. As to the second part of Warburton’s suggestion,
to remark the peculiarities of language,
the ancient editors, from the sons of Dante, who were the first to illustrate the poem of their father, till the edition of Della Crusca, did not consider such remarks as necessary. The Academy did much ; but their remarks on the phraseology of Dante are scattered over their voluminous Dictionary. Volpi collected all the peculiar words and phrases of Dante in an Index, with such words and phrases of modern Italian as he thought equivalent, but without observation. Lombardi has done more than all the rest ; but his grammatical notes are more founded on rules, than on the genius of the language, though the poem was written two hundred years before the earliest Italian grammar. Volumes might be formed of the various works of literature, the discussions, the conjectures, the long dissertations, which in the last three centuries have been written on words and phrases of Dante, but they are dispersed, either in perishable pamphlets, or in folios buried in libraries.

The third part of the editor’s duty,
to illustrate the obscure allusions,
has been executed with more care than success. All the other great poems in the world, taken together, have, perhaps, not so many allusions as the single work of Dante. He comprehends the whole history of his age—all that was then known of art, literature, and science—the usages and morals of his time, and their origin in preceding ages—together with theological opinions, and the great influence which they then exercised over the mind and actions of men. His allusions are rapid, various, multiplied—succeeding each other with the rapidity of flashes of lightning, which leaves short intervals of darkness between them. He describes all human passions—all actions—the vices and the virtues of the most different scenes. He places them in the despair of hell—in the hope of purgatory—and in the blessedness of paradise. He observes men in youth—in manhood—and in old age. He has brought together those of both sexes—of all religions—of all occupations—of all nations—and of all ages ; yet he never takes them in masses—he always presents them as individuals. He speaks to every one of them—he studies their words—he watches their countenances. He often paints a great character by his inaction. Jordello, who had led a very active life, and who, after having made every effort for his country, died despairing of the fate of Italy, is met by Dante in purgatory. While a crowd of ghosts, curious about the affairs of the world, followed the poet to learn news from him, Jordello kept aloof.
Esso non ne diceva alcuna cosa
Ma lasciavane andar, sempre guardando
A guisa di leon quando si posa.—Purg., Canto VI, 64.
* Scarce moving with slow dignity his eyes,
He spoke not aught, but let us onward pass,
Eying us as a lion on his watch.—Cary’s Dante, II, 24.
Let it be remarked, that he has not before named Jordello. He gives no reason for his disdainful silence ; and he leaves his reader to discover in the chronicles what we have said on the character of this illustrious personage. The poet condenses into three lines, and often into one, the history of a prince’s life. In speaking of St. Celestino, who refused the papacy at the suggestion of Urban VIII, his successor, he describes him without mention of his name.
Colui
Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto.
* I Saw
And knew the shade of him, who to base fear
Yielding, abjured his estate.
Cary’s Dante, I, 11.
Infern., Cant. III, 60.
In the twentieth Canto of the Purgatorio, he traces the genealogy of the Capets, their acts and crimes ; the influence of the Kings of France on the church and on Italy, from Hugh Capet to Louis, X.—and this history, comprehending a period of 347 years, is contained in fifty lines. Dante was declared enemy of all the Capets ; and he finishes by invoking the vengeance of God on their heads.
Oh Signor mio quando saro Jo lieto
A veder la vendetta che nascosa
Fa dolce l’ira tua nel tuo secreto.
† O Sovran Master, when shall I rejoice
To see the vengeance which thy wrath well pleased
In secret silence broods.—Cary’s Dante, II. 92.

In this last verse we find a sentiment as old as Homer, who tells us, that
vengeance is the pleasure of the gods,
and that
a great king digests his wrath in his inmost parts, and hides it till the appointed time of its bursting on the enemy.
‡ Κρεισσων γαρ βασιλευς. ὁτε χωσεται ανδρι χερηι.
Ειπερ γαρ τεχολοντε και αντημαρ καταπεψη
Αλλα γε και μετοπισθεν. εχει κοτον οφρα, τελεσσε
Εν στηθεσσιngr οισι.—Iliad. I. 81. Iliad. A, 80, et seqq.
Tacitus thus describes feelings somewhat similar.
Infensus memoria—et adversum eludentes se quisque ultione et sanguine explebant.
—Ann. IV. 25. Homer makes a reflection on human nature. Tacitus blends the same sentiment with the narrative of a fact, by the three words ‘ Memoria, Ultione, Explebant. ’ In Dante, it is the passionate exclamation of a man who has long brooded over his own indignation.

Shakespeare unfolds the character of his persons, and presents them under all the variety of forms which they can naturally assume. He surrounds them with all the splendour of his imagination, and bestows on them that full and minute reality which his creative genius could alone confer. Of all tragic poets, he most amply develops character. On the other hand, Dante, if compared not only to Virgil, the most sober of poets, but even to Tacitus, will be found never to employ more than a stroke or two of his pencil, which he aims at imprinting almost insensibly on the hearts of his readers. Virgil has related the story of Eurydice in two hundred verses ; Dante, in sixty verses, has finished his masterpiece—the Tale of Francesca da Rimini. The history of Desdemona has a parallel in the following passage of Dante. Nello della Pietra had espoused a lady of noble family at Sienna, named Madonna Pia. Her beauty was the admiration of Tuscany, and excited in the heart of her husband a jealousy, which, exasperated by false reports and groundless suspicions, at length drove him to the desperate resolution of Othello. It is difficult to decide whether the lady was quite innocent ; but so Dante represents her. Her husband brought her into the Maremma, which, then as now, was a district destructive to health. He never told his unfortunate wife the reason of her banishment to so dangerous a country. He did not deign to utter complaint or accusation. He lived with her alone, in cold silence, without answering her questions, or listening to her remonstrances. He patiently waited till the pestilential air should destroy the health of this young lady. In a few months she died. Some chroniclers, indeed, tell us, that Nello used the dagger to hasten her death. It is certain that the survived her, plunged in sadness and perpetual silence. Dante had, in this incident, all the materials of an ample and very poetical narrative. But he bestows on it only four verses. He meets in Purgatory three spirits ; one was a captain who fell fighting on the same side with him in the battle of Campaldino ; the second, a gentleman assassinated by the treachery of the House of Este ; the third was a woman unknown to the poet, and who, after the others had spoken, turned towards him with these words.
Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia ;
Siena mi fe, disfecemi Maremma.
Salsi colui che inanellata pria
Disposando m’avea con la sua gemma.
Purgat., Cant. V, et ult.
* Ah, when thou to the world shalt be returned
Remember me.
I once was Pia. Sienna gave me life ;
Maremma took it from me. That he knows !
Who me with jewelled ring had first espoused.
Cary’s Dante, II, 22.

Yet these few words draw tears from those who know the fate of this young woman. Her first desire to be recalled to the remembrance of her friends on earth is very affecting. Her modest request, her manner of naming herself, and of describing the author of her sufferings, without any allusion to his crime, and merely by the pledges of faith and love which attended their first union, are deeply pathetic. The soft harmony of the last verses, full of gay and tender remembrances, forms a most striking contrast with the ideas of domestic unhappiness, of death and of cruelty, which must rise in the reader’s imagination.

He has not treated every subject so laconically. In the history of Count Ugolino, and in that of Francesca da Rimini, he paints on a larger scale. There are, perhaps, in the poem, thirty passages of equal energy and extent. But he generally compresses his narration in the manner which we have pointed out. He often speaks of anecdotes, of men and of crimes not mentioned by any contemporary writer ; and it is for these reasons that a commentary on his allusions would have been impracticable, if, fortunately for us, it had not been commenced soon after his death.

He died in 1321 ; and, in 1334, we find mention made of a commentary by his sons Peter and James, and another anonymous writer. In 1350, Visconti, Archbishop of Milan, formed a commission of six scholars, namely, two philosophers, two theologians, and two Florentine men of letters, to compose a commentary on Dante, which they completed. Petrarch, also, is said to have written commentaries on his great predecessor : but of this there seems no evidence. In 1373, the republic of Florence elected Boccaccio to explain Dante to his fellow-citizens. He delivered lectures on this subject, in which he poured forth the knowledge which he had accumulated during a long life. His digressions are fine and instructive ; his style more sober than in his more known works, without losing the richness and elegance which distinguish him. But he died before he had expounded above a third of the Inferno. Florence continued to nominate professors ; and her example was imitated by other cities. The Latin commentary of Benvenuto of Imola, who lectured on Dante at Bologna in 1375, is rich in historical anecdotes. The greater part of these numerous commentaries remain unpublished in the libraries of Italy ; and only a part of Benvenuto of Imola has been published by Muratori in his Italian antiquities. All these inedited commentaries supplied the editors of the next age with the means of explaining allusions, which, our readers will be pleased to recollect, is the only point of view under which we at present consider the history of the commentators on Dante.

Among the fathers of the council of Constance, were two English prelates, Nicholas, Bishop of Bath, and Robert, Bishop of Salisbury, who, with Cardinal Amadeo de Saluces, requested John de Saravalla, Prince Bishop of Fermo, to explain Dante to them. He translated the poem into Latin prose, and subjoined notes. We learn, from the Dedication, that he began his work on the 1st February 1416, and finished it in a year and a fortnight. It has never been printed ; but, a few years ago, a manuscript copy was extant in the Vatican library ; and we mention it only to remark, that, at the time of the Council of Trent, Dante was a writer, of whom no Bishop would dare to avow that he was the commentator. We subjoin a passage from this manuscript,
* ‘ Dantes dilexit Theologiam sacram in qua diu studuit in Oxoniis in Regno Angliæ ’. In the next page, he says, ‘ Dantes in juventute sese dedit omnibus artibus liberalibus, studens eas et Padue, et Bononie, demum Oxoniis et Parisiis, ubi fecit multos actus mirabiles in tantum quod ab aliquibus dicebatur magnus Philosophus, ab aliquibus magnus Theologus, ab aliquibus magnus Poeta ’. It is probable that the Italian Bishop received this information, true or false, from his English brethren, especially as the conclusion of the above passage has much the air of a literal translation from an English original.
from which it should seem, that Dante had come to Oxford to pursue his studies in that celebrated school. But we must add, that the Bishop lived more than a century after the Poet, and that he is the only writer who speaks of this journey to England.

Christopher Landinus, a commentator on Virgil, published also commentaries on Dante. He lived near the time of the discovery of printing, when verbal criticism became a separate study. He was a man of great erudition, who has multiplied quotations, expanded the too diffuse commentaries of his forerunners, and expatiated on the allegories, the theological opinions and the scholastic philosophy of the Poet ; but, like his successor in the next age, Alexander Velutello, has done nothing to illustrate the poetical beauties. These commentators have been little read since their own time. About the beginning of the sixteenth century, the popularity of Dante underwent some fluctuations. The exclusive taste for Grecian and Roman literature which flourished under Leo X, disposed the critics of that period to look down upon Dante as an irregular and barbarous writer. Boccaccio and Petrarca had become the sole models of Italian composition—for taste had already been tainted by effeminacy.
‡ See Sperone Speroni’s Funeral Oration on Bembo.
The Orlando Inamorato and the Orlando Furïoso amused more, and fatigued less. The reformation had set Europe on fire, and Dante had dared to condemn even Popes to Hell. In ‘ the Paradise, ’ St Peter himself utters a sublime invective against the temporal power of the church. In a Latin work on monarchy, the Poet had maintained the superiority of the Emperors over the Popes ; and Protestant writers quoted his authority as
§ Bayle, Art. Dante.
one of the Witnesses of the Truth.

Towards 1550, the Jesuits possessed themselves of the education of Italy ; and they systematically decried a writer likely to produce effects on the opinions and on the character of youth so irreconcileable with their policy. Three men of genius, however, even at that time, professed their admiration of him. The first was Sperone Speroni, a writer now little read, but considered in his own time as the oracle of philosophy and literature, and still deserving to be regarded as a model of vigour and elegance in Italian prose. Michael Angelo had filled a copy of Dante with drawings, which he lost in a sea voyage.
* Vasari, VI, 245.
Torquato Tasso being asked who was the greatest poet of Italy, answered ‘ Dante ’.
† Serassi, in the second edition of the Life of Tasso, mentions a copy of Giolito’s edition of Dante, of which the margins were filled with remarks on the style of the poem in the handwriting of Tasso.

From 1600 to 1730, Dante had no commentators, and few editions.
‡ From 1473 to the edition of La Crusca, Haim enumerates 44 editions. From 1598 to the edition of Volpi in 1727, he only mentions 5. This enumeration must be understood to refer only to rare or important editions ; for about 1620, Francesco Cionacci, a noble Florentine, published a catalogue of 452 editions extant in his time. Since the Revolution, editions of Dante have succeeded each other with astonishing rapidity.
The Spanish government, and the ascendancy of monks, had enervated the national mind ; while the popular taste was corrupted by the poetry which then reigned in Spain. Dante, of whom no edition had been allowed at Rome till the middle of the eighteenth century, could at such a period hope for no toleration. It may be observed, that during the same time Machiavel had few editions. The bad taste of the writers called in Italy Seicentisti, began indeed to be purified towards the conclusion of this period ; but, from the quaintness and extravagance of Marini, the reformers of literature ran to the opposite extreme of a slavish subjection to rules, either arbitrary or at most of a secondary importance. They wrote as if only to avoid faults ; and the nation, broken down by every species of slavery, no longer had the faculty of admiring the free and daring exertion of sublime genius. The Jesuits were indefatigable in their hostility to Dante. Venturi, who made an useful abridgement of the most necessary explanatory notes, accompanied it by critical remarks ; in which, agreeably to the maxims of his order, he labours to exaggerate the faults, and to detect the impiety of the poet. Bettinelli in his Virgilian Letters, an ingenious but tasteless book, ridicules Dante as the most barbarous of poets. Tiraboschi, who was also a Jesuit, examines the life of Petrarch with great historical exactness, expatiates with zeal and at length on his merit ; and contents himself with a few dates and some very vague criticism on Dante. The same historian who bestows twenty pages on the Jesuit Possevino, employs only four on the private and publio life, on the opinions and works of Machiavel.

It was after the fall of the Jesuits that Lombardi a Franciscan, incensed at their malignity and false taste, ventured to undertake his commentary on Dante. He was of the same order with Ganganelli, the pope who suppressed the Jesuits. But it was more easy to suppress than to extinguish the literary and religious prejudices which they had established in Italy. Pius VI., then employed in the defence of the doctrines of the see of Rome against Joseph II., Leopold in Tuscany, and against the Jansenism which predominated in the universities both of Tuscany and Lombardy, was not favourable to an antipapal poet. Lombardi might have observed the accomplishment of his author’s prophecy—
Giunta e la Spada
Col Pasturale, è l’uno è l’altro insieme
Per viva forza mal convien che vada.
Purgat., XVI, 119.
* the sword
Is grafted on the crook ; and, so conjoined,
Each must perforce decline to worse, unaw’d
By fear of other. Cary’s Dante, II, 73.

But he did not even venture to put his name in the title-page. He ventures only on his initials, with a vignette, exhibiting a portrait of Dante with a somewhat obscure inscription, intimating that he also was in danger from the power which had trampled on Kings and Emperors. We know none of the circumstances of his life which could throw light on this intimation. But it is certain that his friend Angelucci who appeared as the editor of his work, was imprisoned in 1794 for his political opinions.

In these circumstances we must not wonder at the circumspection with which he conducts that part of his plan which consists in the defence of Dante. We have already spoken of his emendations and grammatical remarks. His explanations are clear and sometimes new, though he does not often venture to quit the beaten track. He had not sufficient taste and sensibility to discern the delicacy, or to feel the tenderness of the historical allusions. The prose of his notes is dry, and, though concise, the want of elegance makes it appear diffuse. After all, it is the most useful historical commentary yet printed on Dante.

Volpi was a learned man ; but Italian was not his principal study. Mr Poggiali has studied it more deeply. The brevity adopted by both, in their excellent editions of Padua and Leghorn, has left no room for narrative commentary—indispensable to the illustration of a poem in which the anecdotes of an obscure age are accumulated, and often only hinted at.

On the last head of Warburton’s description of the critical office—that of explaining
the beauties and defects of sentiment and composition
—we must at once say, that, in truth, nothing has been done. It is indeed a task, of which the due, or even tolerable execution requires, in the case of Dante, a combination of talents which can hardly be united in the same individual. He who undertakes this part of criticism has two duties to fulfil. The first, and by far the most easy, relates to the general plan of a work—its end, the style, the progress which the language makes under the author—his original inventions and imitations—the degree in which he has improved on his models, or fallen short of them—and the instruction or amusement which he has imparted to his contemporaries or posterity. The second is far more difficult, and, in its utmost extent, impracticable. It consists in a minute exposition of all the separate beauties and defects of a poem, from page to page, often from verse to verse, and sometimes from word to word. The critic must display beauties, so that they shall be felt by those who did not feel them in the poet ; and he must explain the causes of pleasure to those who are delighted without knowing how. Minute and argumentative as this analysis may often be, its object would be defeated if it were to extinguish the fire of poetry ; and the reader, in reasoning with the critic, must never cease to feel with the poet.

A critic may attempt, like the celebrated Gravina, to prove that the ‘ Italia Liberata ’ of Trissino is the finest epic poem since the Iliad ; and that the Giuresalemme Liberata of Tasso is neither well imagined nor well written. The book of Gravina is a fine exertion of talent. It is written with elegance. His principles are just, his applications happy ; and, as long as he confines himself to the analysis of the general plan of celebrated Epic poems, he appears to succeed. But, when all is done, the poem of Trissino reposes in libraries ; and the reader, whose curiosity leads him to read a page, coldly shuts and replaces the volume. Tasso is reprinted every year. He is always indeed criticized ; but he is always read. It is by the examination of particular beauties, continual, varied, inexhaustible, which lead the reader on from page to page, which flow into his heart, and are treasured in his memory, that the merit of the greatest poets must be measured. It is by such beauties that Ariosto compels his reader to go on in spite of inequality and disorder. It is to them that Virgil owes his superiority.
* A foreigner of great literary distinction assures us, that, in an attentive perusal of Shakespeare, he finds little to displease him ; that, on the contrary, in spite of his preference of the tragic system of the Greeks, he is continually moved ; that he meets, in every page, subjects of admiration and meditation. But, when he sees the same tragedies on the stage, the art of the actors, and the illusion of the theatre, serve only to make him see more clearly what he thinks faults. He is not only cooled, but sometimes repelled. The reason which he gives for this difference is, that, in reading, he can feel and see all the beauties of thought and style. He is charmed by originality and variety ; his attention is more directed to verses and sentiments, than to the action. But in the theatre, as his ear is not habituated to our pronunciation, he loses the strength and delicacy of the diction. He sees only the outline of events. He follows the action, divested of the attractions of style. When he thus loses all the particular beauties which Shakespeare often draws from the depths of human nature, he returns to his original taste, and once more prefers Sophocles.
Many critics have, it is true, attempted this minute analysis of a poem. But it has two great difficulties, which have, in general, proved insurmountable obstacles to their success. In the first place, it regards the workings of the imagination and the heart, which are minute, rapid, evanescent and innumerable—sufficient to confound the head of the steadiest speculator. In the second place ; it ends in system, when it does not arise from it ; and for that reason seldom fails to deceive the critic and his readers. A system founded on exclusive admiration of the classics, has produced the barren rules of the schools, and prejudices which still influence literature. Rules, founded on the practice of Petrarch, in the 16th century raised Bembo and Molza to the rank of poetical models, while Dante was forgotten ; and the revival of his fame has occasioned the establishment of new rules for poetry. In a manuscript of Petrarch, published by Ubaldini, there is a single line, in which we find forty-four alterations made in various days, and even years ; for Petrarch marked, on the margin of his manuscripts, not only the years, but the months, days and hours, when he retouched his poems.

The changes in this verse do not appear to the common reader essential either to the thought, the expression, or the harmony. Yet so, on a calm revisal, the poet must have considered them. Every man familiar with the art must perceive, that, during these changes, the heart, the head and the ear of the writer, must have performed many operations. The business of the critic is to discover the reasons which determined the poet finally to fix on the line as it now stands in his printed text. But how difficult it is to find these reasons ! and yet, how can the beauty of the verse be explained without them ? If we had the manuscript, with the various alterations of the noblest passages of great poets, something might doubtless he done. We have in our possession, the variations in a very fine stanza of Ariosto, which he altered a hundred times. If we should ever have occasion to speak of that poet, we shall avail ourselves of these alterations to illustrate his manner of writing. But, in the other fine stanzas, which seem as if they flowed from inspiration, his mind must have gone through a like progress, though so rapidly, that he was himself almost unconscious of its action. The verses of great poets are always the result of a long series of thoughts, emotions, remembrances and images, compared, combined, rejected or selected. The strength, the quickness, and the number of impressions made on the mind ; the promptitude of recollection ; the facility of combining fact with feeling and thought, together with the powers of comparison and selection, constitute the greater part of what is called Genius. A man of genius seems to be inspired, because his mental operations are so much more rapid than those of other men. To develop the beauties of a poem, the critic must go through the same reasonings and. judgments which ultimately determined the poet to write as he has done. But such a critic would be a poet. His ardent and impatient genius would never submit to the cold labour of criticism. Such a man might, however, analyze some passages, and at least describe the sensations with which he had himself perused them ; which must surpass, in depth and vivacity, the sensations of an unpoetical mind. Johnson laughs at the notion,
that a poet is to be published only by a poet ;
—and, in what relates to emendation, and grammatical or explanatory notes, he is certainly right. Critics may assist us in generalities ; but, when we come to particulars, which are the soul of poetry, their aid becomes of little value. Great poets concentrate their ideas, and embody their feelings in images. Critics take them to pieces, in order to ascertain their texture. Poets, who are also critics, often exhibit a strange mixture of analysis and imagery.

We shall not enter into the question, whether Pope had most taste or genius. Perhaps he was destined by nature for bold invention ; but in fact he has, in general, imitated with taste. The same thing may be said of Horace, Vida, and Boileau. Pope, like them, was a critic as well as a poet. It is a curious observation, that no poet of the first rank has ever spoken of the mechanism of his art, while poets of inferior station have laboriously displayed its rules in verse. Pindar declares, that a great poet, like
the eagle, soars by his natural strength, and leaves beneath him the ignoble birds who seem to animate each other by their hoarse cries.
Horace, on the contrary, is always teaching us how the wings are to be managed. Pope lived in the philosophical age of Bayle and Locke ; and English poetry, after shining forth in the originality of Shakespeare, having combined the genius of the Greek, Latin, and Italian classics in Milton, and having displayed its various treasures in Dryden, began to form itself upon the models of the French school. Among the French poets, imagery and feeling are smothered by reflection. Pope could not resist his habit of analysis, even in the translation of Homer, who, of all poets, is least disposed to turn aside to speculate. Perhaps these deviations of Pope from the character of his author, have contributed to the popularity of the English Iliad. But it is not here our object to censure the taste of various ages and nations. It is enough for us to prove, in fact, that Homer, Virgil, and Dante, have, in their pictures, left much to the imagination of the reader ; that it is easy to feel their beauties, and very difficult to analyze them ; and that, when poetry is made by system, it may display artificial beauties,—but those of nature disappear.

In the scene where Venus leads Helen to Paris, Homer shows his knowledge of the heart of a woman agitated by a passion which she strives in vain to conquer. Helen regrets her family, and is ashamed of her situation. She resists the suggestions of Venus, bitterly bewails the infamy of her condition, and warmly desires to return to her husband, though she expects only the contempt of Greece. Venus tells her that her return would not heal the animosities between Greece and Asia ; that war would still continue ; and that Helen herself would perish by a cruel death. It is after this dialogue that Helen, wrapped up in her veil, follows the goddess in silence. The reader is left to feel the struggles of this woman’s reason against her passion. Homer does not explain them. He contents himself with saying, at the beginning of the dialogue, that as soon as Helen heard of the danger of Paris, and was reminded of his beauty, her heart was moved ; and that, when she discovered that it was Venus. who spoke to her, she was seized with fright—
She spoke, and Helen’s secret soul was moved ;
She scorn’d the champion, but the man she loved.

The first line of this couplet is in Homer, and only tells the fact. The second is added by Pope, to explain the intention of Helen and Homer. But the whole interest of the succeeding dialogue vanishes with this explanation. The passion of Helen becomes that of a libertine ; and her remonstrances against the counsels of Venus seem gross hypocrisy. But the true Helen of Homer, throughout the Iliad, is considered as a woman, who, by her beauty, approaches the divinity. The gods, in forming so beautiful a creature, ordain that she should be admired with a species of adoration. The, war, and the evils of which she is the, cause, are attributed to the will of Heaven. Homer puts these sentiments into the mouth of Priam, rendered the most unfortunate of men by the war, and no longer of an age to be moved by beauty. Not a murmur is mentioned of the Trojans or of the Greeks against the source of their woes. Her husband laments her fate ; and old Nestor, not moved by the same sentiments, speaks of her with the same pity. Paris declares that he had, like a pirate, carried her from Sparta. She never seems to open her mouth without a blush. It was a character very difficult to be painted. Homer has employed in the picture the utmost delicacy of pencil, and the deepest knowledge of human nature. When she bewails the death of Hector, she says,
He never reproached me ;—he hindered others from reproaching me.
A sublime sentiment, which describes at once the noble character of Hector, and all the remorse of the soul of Helen. She lives with Paris, from a sort of union of fatality and despair. She loves him ; but she desires to escape from him. Her character in the Odyssey agrees with this representation of her in the Iliad. The Helen of Homer is always the same. The reasonings of the critics make her different from herself. The slightest change in delicate features destroys the physiognomy—
She scorned the champion, but the man she loved.
This is the illicit love of a modern lady of fashion ; but it is not that of the amorous queen whom Homer saw in his imagination, and perhaps partly also in the manners of his age.

Othello, justifying himself against the charge of having seduced Desdemona, tells the Senate,
She loved me for the dangers I had past,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
He tells the fact, and adds the simple reflection which immediately flows from experience and feeling. In such passages, it is impossible to contemplate without astonishment the genius of Shakespeare, which veils the depth of his observation by the simplicity of nature. The passage is thus translated by Delille—
Elle aimoit mes malheurs ; moi j’aimais ses larmes,
L’Amour et la Pitié confondoient ses charmes.
Shakespeare seems only to give to Othello the characteristic features of a savage hero, who repays, with all his affection, those who love and admire him, and with all his vengeance those who betray or despise him. The Senate understood Othello. It may be doubted whether they would have understood, or at least felt the cold generalities which make the metaphysical commentary of Delille. Yet the readers of most of the capitals of Europe, at this day, would probably prefer the couplet of Delille.

Of all the translators of Dante with whom we are acquainted, Mr Cary is the most successful ; and we cannot but consider his work as a great acquisition to the English reader. It is executed with a fidelity almost without example ; and, though the measure he has adopted, conveys no idea of the original stanza, it is perhaps the best for his purpose, and what Dante himself would have chosen, if he had written in English and in a later day. The reasons, which influenced the mind of our own Milton would most probably have determined the author of the Inferno.

Some years ago, Mr. Hayley published a translation of the three first Cantos of that Poem, in which he endeavoured to give an idea of Dante’s peculiar manner, by introducing his triple rhyme. It was written with a considerable degree of spirit and elegance ; but we cannot much regret that he proceeded no further. The difficulties which he had to encounter were almost insurmountable ; at least he has led us to think so, by his many deviations from the text. Of these there is a remarkable instance in the third Canto. When the poet enters in at the gate, his ears are instantly assailed by a multitude of dismal sounds, among which he distinguishes
Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle.
Voices deep and hoarse,
With hands together smote.

The last circumstance, the most striking of them all, is entirely passed over by Mr Hayley. Mr Pope himself indeed could furnish many a parallel from his far famed translations ; and one of his most flagrant transgressions has never, to our knowledge, been pointed out. Penelope, in the Odyssey, (XIX, 597. and XXIII, 19.), twice mentions Troy, the source of all her misfortunes, in a manner the most natural and affecting, giving to that city the epithet of bad, and describing it as a place not to be named, though, in the hurry of her grief, she herself has just named it. A circumstance so beautiful and characteristic could not well be overlooked ; but no notice is taken of it by the translator.

Cowper asserts it as his opinion, that
a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible ;
and we must confess that we have never seen one. A translator has no occasion to forge fetters for himself. He has enough to wear already ; and, do what he will, they will for ever weigh him down. Mr Pope attempted to cover his with flowers ; but he could not conceal them. Sometimes, indeed, he throws them off altogether ; but then he ceases to be a translator of Homer. No adventitious ornament—no invention can supply the place of truth and exactness to him who wants to know how men thought and felt in past ages. Who would consent to exchange the story of Joseph and his Brethren, as it is told in our Bibles, for the most elegant version of it by Mr Pope ?

Of such offences we cannot accuse Mr Cary. Throughout he discovers the will and the power to do justice to his author. He has omitted nothing, he has added nothing ; and though here and there his inversions are ungraceful, and his phrases a little obsolete, he walks not unfrequently by the side of his master, and sometimes perhaps goes beyond him. We may say in the language of that venerable Father of Italian Poetry,
Hor ti riman, lector, sopra’l tuo banco ;
Drieto pensando accioche si preliba, &c. Paradiso X.
Now rest thee, reader ! on thy bench, and muse
Anticipative of the feast to come ;
So shall delight make thee not feel the toil.

Perhaps there is no description so sublime in the Purgatory, as that of the discovery and expulsion of the Serpent in the Eighth Canto. How delightfully it opens with that passage from which Gray has borrowed the first line of his Elegy !
Now was the hour that wakens fond desire
In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful hearts,
Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewel ;
And pilgrim newly on his road with love
Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far,
That seems to mourn for the expiring day.

In the Ninth Canto, the Angel of God unlocks the gate ; and the verses, that follow, are not unworthy of Milton.
As in the hinges of that sacred ward
The swivels moved, ——————
Harsh was the grating.
Attentively I turned,
Listening the thunder, that first issued forth ;
And “ We praise thee, O God ”, methought I heard
In accents blended with sweet melody.
The strains came o’er mine ear, e’en as the sound
Of choral voices, that in solemn chant
With organ mingle, and, now high and clear,
Come swelling, now float indistinct away.

In no writer, not even in Homer, have the similes more life and variety than in Dante ; and they are for the most part given with the truest touches in the translation. We shall select two or three that may convey perhaps a less gloomy idea of him than generally prevails among us.
As from a troop of well-ranked. chivalry
One knight, more enterprising than the rest,
Pricks forth at gallop, eager to display
His prowess in the first encounter proved ;
So parted he from us with lengthened strides,
And left me on the way with those two spirits,
Who were such mighty marshals of the world. Purgatory, 24.
As on their road
The thoughtful pilgrims, overtaking some
Not known unto them, turn to them, and look,
But stay not ; thus, approaching from behind,
They eyed us as they passed. Ibid. 23.
When from their game of dice men separate,
He, who hath lost, remains in sadness fixed,
Revolving in his mind, what luckless throws
He cast : but meanwhile all the company
Go with the other ; one before him runs,
And one, behind, his mantle twitches, one
Fast by his side bids him remember him.
He stops not ; and each one, to whom his hand
Is stretched, well knows he bids him stand aside ;
And thus he from the press defends himself.
E’en such was I in that close crowding throng ;
And turning so my face around to all,
And promising, I ’scaped from it with pains. Ibid. 6.
Then as a troop of maskers, when they put
Their vizors off, look other than before,
The counterfeited semblance thrown aside ; &c. Paradise, 30.

Dante must have loved hawking. He paints his bird always to the life.
On his feet
The falcon first looks down, then to the sky
Turns, and forth stretches, eager for the food
That wooes him thither. Purgatory, 19.
And again,
Like to a falcon issuing from the hood,
That rears his head, and claps him with his wings,
His beauty and his eagerness bewraying. Paradise, 19.

Mr Cary reminds us sometimes of Shakespeare,—oftener of Milton ; but, in his anxiety to imitate them, he becomes more antiquated than either ; and we hope, that, when he republishes his translation, which, we trust, he soon will, in a larger and more legible character, he will think proper to modernize the language a little, and give more simplicity and sweetness to many parts of it. In that beautiful simile,
Then seemed they like to ladies, from the dance
Not ceasing, but suspense, in silent pause,
Listening till they have caught the strain anew. Paradise, X.
—surely the word suspense is obscure and unpleasing. Milton uses it indeed in like manner ; but why not avoid, when we can, the perplexity that must always arise from using the same word as an adjective and a substantive ? We do not disapprove of the judicious use of old words. Far from it. They are, in their place, most becoming ; and, in the present instance, throw a sober colouring over the whole, which we should be sorry to lose. If Dante himself were to appear among us, should we not expect to find his beard and his tunic after an ancient fashion, and much as they are represented in that old painting in the Duomo at Florence ?

But, when Dante is the subject, our readers may require something of a darker complexion than what we have given them ; and we shall conclude with two extracts from the Inferno. The pathetic story of Francesca, before mentioned, is known to all ; and all can, in some degree, form a judgment of the translation.
When I had heard my sage instructor name
Those dames and knights of antique days, o’erpowered
By pity, well-nigh in amaze my mind
Was lost ; and I began—“ Bard, willingly
I would address those two together coming,
Which seem so light before the wind ”. He thus ;
“ Note thou, when nearer they to us approach,
Then by that love which carries them along
Entreat ; and they will come ”. Soon as the wind
Swayed them toward us, I thus framed my speech ;
“ O wearied spirits ! come, and hold discourse
With us, if by none else restrained ”. As doves
By fond desire invited, on wide wings
And firm, to their sweet nest returning home,
Cleave the air, wafted by their will along ;
They came——— - - - - - - - - -
Then, turning, I to them my speech addressed,
And thus began—“ Francesca ! your sad fate
Even to tears my grief and pity moves.
But tell me, in the time of your sweet sighs,
By what and how Love granted that ye knew
Your yet uncertain wishes ? ” She replied :
“ No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when misery is at hand. That knows
Thy learned instructor. Yet so eagerly
If thou art bent to learn the primal root
From whence our love got being, I will do,
As one, who weeps and tells his tale. One day
For our delight we read of Lancelot,
How him Love thralled. Alone we were, and no
Suspicion near us. Ofttimes by that reading.
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue
Fled from our altered cheeks. But at one point
Alone, we fell. When of that smile we read,
The wish’d-for smile, so rapturously kissed
By one so deep in love, then he, who ne’er
From me shall separate, at once my lips
All trembling kissed. The book and writer both
Were Love’s purveyors. In its leaves that day
We read no more. Canto V.

The same observation applies still more strongly to the unrivalled tale of Ugolino ; which Michael Angelo is said to have delighted in. There is a bas-relief of his on the subject.
How cruel was the murder shalt thou hear,
And know if he have wronged me. - - -
Before the dawn, amid their sleep, I heard
My sons, for they were with me, weep, and ask
For bread. Right cruel art thou, if no pang
Thou feel at thinking what my heart foretold ;
And if not now, why use thy tears to flow ?
Now had they wakened ; and the hour drew near
When they were wont to bring us food ; the mind
Of each misgave him through his dream, and I
Heard at its outlet underneath locked up
The horrible tower. Then, uttering not a word
I looked upon the faces of my sons.
I wept not ; so all stone I felt within.
They wept ; and one, my little Anselm, cried ;
“ Thou lookest so !—Father, what ails thee ? ” Yet
I shed no tear, nor answer’d all that day
Nor the next night, until another sun
Came out upon the world. When a faint beam
Had to our doleful prison made its way,
And in four countenances I descry’d
The image of my own, on either hand
Through agony I bit, and they who thought
I did it through desire of feeding, rose
O’ th’ sudden, and cried : “ Father, we should grieve
Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us : thou gav’st
These weeds of miserable flesh we wear,
And do thou strip them off from us again ”.
Then, not to make then sadder, I kept down
My spirit in stillness. That day and the next
We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth !
Why open’dst not upon us ? When we came
To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet
Outstretch’d did fling him, crying, “ Hast no help
For me, my father ! ” There he, died, and e’en,
Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three
Fall one by one ’twixt the fifth day and sixth :
Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope
Over them all, and for three days aloud
Call’d on them who were dead. Then, fasting got
The mastery of grief. ” Thus having spoke,
Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth
He fasten’d, like a mastiff’s ’gainst the bone
Firm and unyielding. Canto xxxiii.

When such stories are related by such a poet as Dante,
the world will not willingly let them die.
Yet, not very long before he appeared, what a darkness prevailed over Europe !—when there was a high-constable of France who could not read, and when there were Kings who could only make the sign of the cross in confirmation of their charters. Even then, however, as an elegant writer
§ Mrs Barbauld. We rejoice in this opportunity to express our high sense of her talents. The greatest and most accomplished statesman of the age always spoke of them with admiration. Her songs he could repeat by heart ; and her essay ‘ against Inconsistency in our Expectations ’, he justly considered as equal to any thing of the kind in any language.
has observed, the Muses, with their attendant arts (in strange disguise indeed, and uncouth trappings) were not idle in the cloister. Statuary carved a madonna or a crucifix ;—Painting illuminated a missal ;—Eloquence made the panegyric of a saint ;—and History composed a legend. Still they breathed ; and were ready, at any happier period, to emerge from obscurity with all their native charms and undiminished lustre.