"If he were beautiful As he is hideous now, and yet did dare The earlier commentators represented the colours as expressing the character of differ ent passions, and Cary entertains no doubt that the passage in Dante, thus interpreted,, gave rise to Milton's lines describing Sa to be accomplished. It would be but poor | absence of all good,-or rather the antagoevidence of this having been effected, if we nism of evil to all that can be imagined of found him disguising his feelings. To a good,-was the conception to be exhibited; reader, the overcoming thought is of suffer- and this conception refused to be clothed in ing, and of sympathy for the imagined suf- any anthropomorphic form. The nature of ferer. The poet who has, be it remem- the Evil One was infra-human, and this bered, created the scene, cannot think of it was once the most glorious of the sons of precisely as a reality. We think of the utter God! cold of the region in which he has placed beings who suffer and who live; that cold to us seems a thing external to them, and arbitrarily annexed. He, the creator of the scene, has in it typified the absence of the principle of love, of that which is the living warmth of the human heart. To him it is figurative, and only figurative. We may have, perhaps, the right to say, that as a question of his art, he should have kept distinct the figurative and the literal,—yet on such a question the poet is assuredly less likely to err than the critic; but we have not the right to draw any inference, as has been done, against his moral nature, as such inference must arise solely from the confusion of things in their essence altogether diverse from each other. In this dread region he meets Ugolino, and here, too, he meets some persons whom he is startled at finding among the dead, and yet more startled at learning that they have long been actually dead, although they still seemed to move about and perform all the ordinary duties of life,-demons, in fact, personating them on earth, while they were themselves in the world of punishment and pain. So powerful was this strange satire, that it is said that on the publication of Dante's poem, the men thus described were looked upon with horror and fear; they shrunk from the intercourse of society, and seemed half to believe the statement in the poem. Men said they were dead and would not acknowledge it. They had the appearance and even the smell of corpses. The poets move onward-ghosts of traitors are everywhere met by them, til at last they stand in the actual presence of "the Emperor, who sways the realm of sorrow." Those who remember Milton's "Archangel Fallen," will be little satisfied with the symbol by which Dante would typify all evil. He has sought to exhibit the soul's essence when polluted altogether, -when, in Milton's language, the soul tan: "Each passion dimmed his face, Thrice changed with pale ire, envy, and despair.” Lombardi sees in the colours of the different faces those of the different families of man-a thought at least likely to be that of the poet. The fantastic picture of each of the three heads being engaged in gnawing a traitor is not unlike the description of the idol which Sebastian Munster, in his account of India, calls Deumo:-"Dæmon dextrâ animam ori admovet, sinistrâ autem ex inferiore loco aliam corripit." The woodcut of Deumo in the old book sitting in his temple crowned like the Pope of Rome,-" diademate redimitum caput ejus modo Romanorum pontificum, sed id plus habet quod diadema ternis insignitur cornibus,"is the very image of Dante's Lucifer. The traitors who are thus punished are Judas; and Brutus and Cassius, whose offence, if different in degree, was regarded by Dante as not unlike in kind, the imperial power being in his view of divine appointment. The Italian painters have not shrunk from imitating the scene. The demon with the three heads is at Pisa, painted in fresco by Orgagna; and there also may be seen Bertrand de Borne holding his head as a lantern. When the poets have seen Lucifer, they have beheld the worst that hell has to shew. "Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose They have come also to the centre of the The divine property of her first being." earth, to a point where farther direct proHow far the image of sin-absolute sin-gress is impossible. Here the sound of a here sculptured by Dante, is a symbol cre- rivulet is heard, and along a passage which ated by himself, we are unable to say-but it had excavated through the rock the travelthe conception reminds us of the Hindoo lers make their way. modes of fabling; and the figure of Lucifer himself resembles an Indian idol. The utter "My guide and I this recent pathway chose -Wright. We have in as few words, and with as little of particular detail as we could, stated the general story of the first great division of the poem. We are scarcely surprised when we are told by those who lived nearest to Dante's time, that it was regarded as the account of an actual journey. The changes of climate through which the travellers pass are scarcely greater than are experienced in Italy through a day's journey when passing from the mountain regions to the plain. And when Ampére tells of his having in the morning left the region of wind and cold, and in the evening of the same day coming to Bibbiena, where all was warm and mild, and where he heard a peasant girl singing "Io son la sorella d'Amor," the contrasts, so frequent yet so natural, in the Divine Comedy, are forcibly brought to the mind. This is well expressed by Ampére. The readers of Dante remember the scene, where Adamo of Brescia, in the lazar-house of one of the infernal prisons, tells how his sufferings are aggravated by the phantoms of water and green-fields which his imagination creates : "Li ruscelletti, che de' verdi colli their heads from below flowing water, and by the village gleaner, whose toil is suspended by the fervour of the sun, pursuing her labour in dreams. The beauty of this picture is dwelt on by Dr. Carlyle in the notes to his admirable edition of the Inferno. If Dante has to tell of sunrise in purgatory, he will at the same time inform you of the aspect of the heavens in Italy and at Jerusalem, and accompany his description with images of evening twilight. He is a wanderer in a strange land-so much a stranger, that he more than once loses his way, and is maliciously misdirected, in the kind of practical wit which is represented as in a peculiar sense devilish. There are parts of their road, too, where, like mere scramblers among rocks, he and Virgil are obliged to make use of their hands as well as their feet, and sprawl along on all-fours. That he is a stranger is forever brought before us-often by the perpetual recurrence of his thoughts to the country which he has left. The very legends he is told,--the same that are everywhere still common through the south of Europe, serve to verify his narrative. A mountain is dislodged, the effect, as he says, of earthquake or of some landslip; and he is told by his fellow-traveller, that when he had been in the country before, compelled thither by witchcraft, the ruin had not existed; that on our Saviour's death, when he descended to hell, an earthquake had produced the rent. Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno In the valley of the Arno, travellers are still Facendo i lor Canali e freddi e molli told the same tradition, to account for the Sempre mi stanno innanzi, e non indarno; fissures of the rocks. Addison saw "at Cajeta Chè l'immagine lor via piu m'asciuga the rock of marble, said to be cleft by an Che 'l male, ond' io nel volto mi discarno."* earthquake at our Saviour's death. There Ampére tells us,-" C'est un des charmes is written over the chapel-door that leads de cette course du Casentin que le passage into the crack, Ecce terræ motus factus espresque subit des sauvages horreurs de la magnus.' In every account of the Holy nature Alpestre et des rigueurs de la vie mo- Places at Jerusalem, we find the same tranacale a ce que la nature, et la vie Italienne dition. The dangers he incurred are among a de plus brillant, de plus animé de plus the things which keep up the feeling of the doux. Ainsi dans la Divine Comédie, une journey having been a real one; and, oddly image gracieuse, une comparaison riante enough, we are unable to take such refuge in vous console des terreurs de l'enfer, ou vous utter unbelief of the story, however marveldélasse des sublimes contemplations du pa- lous parts of it may appear, as comes to our radis." Through Dante's poem the effect of aid when the Mandevilles of the days of old, contrast appears to be constantly aimed at. or of our own days, draw too much on our Flashes of fire are falling around in one place, and his language is as if he was de-port the literal. The events have occurred place, and his language is as if he was de- credulity. The allegorical truth comes to supscribing a snow-shower. In the region of because there is a cause which the imaginaeternal ice, the sufferers are described by the tion feels adequate for their occurrence. image of frogs panting with heat, putting up Through the Inferno, though the entrance to it is through a wood, trees are but rarely mentioned, though in the Purgatory, where we have the daylight and the soil of earth, they are everywhere; yet nothing can be more striking than the Grove of Suicides, in the second compartment of the seventh circle. We had always thought both it, and the "The brooks that gush from every greenwood hill In Casentine towards Arno, keeping fresh And cool, and soft their chanels, haunt me still, And haunt not vainly for their semblance nesh, Doth much more parch me than the maladies That so impoverish my face in flesh."--Cayley. What does nesh mean? We do not know the word. "As in that season, where the sun least veils while Straining, pursued them, till the flame alone passage in Virgil which suggested it,-of Dante was most fond of employing, and men transformed into trees, too fanciful even because in it he seems to have prepared for for the creation of poetry. But the fault is the second part of his poem,-the Purgatory. not in the poet seeing more than nature ex- The passage opens with the mention by the hibits in those analogies, but in our seeing poet of his own corrupt nature requiring less. In the life of an artist and poet who continual check, as being in danger, through though born in England found a home in sympathy with what seems to be, but is not, America, which became his country, we find Good,-of "running where virtue guides the following passage, which assuredly has a not." Then follows a picture of great beaufoundation in outward truth. Treading ty, which we give in Cary's words :the mosses of the forest, my attention has often been attracted by the appearance of action and expression of surrounding objects, especially of trees. I have been led to reflect upon the fine effects they produce, and to look into the causes. They spring from some resemblance to the human form. . There is an expression of affection in intertwining branches, of despondency in the drooping willow. In sheltered spots trees have a tranquil air, and assimilate with each other in form and character. So with men secluded from the world. They have an equality seldom broken by originality of character; expose them to adversity and agitations, and a thousand original charac- When the reader is told that each flame conters start forth, battling for existence or su- tained a sinner-that all this scene of appapremacy. On the mountain summit, ex-rent beauty conceals real suffering, he may posed to the blast, trees grasp the crags first feel the same impatience as we ourwith their gnarled roots, and struggle with selves did with the author for so strangely the elements with wild contortions."* associating thoughts which are connected by In the 16th canto, where Dante describes no natural link, and resent what seems a conthe fall of Phlegethon, he brings before the spicuous act of arbitrary cruelty on the eye that of the Montone at Forli. He has poet's part. One must dwell on the passage to tell how he himself is borne to the plain before he will be disposed to admit, as a sufbeneath; he vouches for the precise truth ficient answer to this objection, that the poet of what he relates,-as if here and here only would point out the true character of those the reader could have any doubt, everything brilliant distinctions, which are the object of else was so probable. We have not now ambition in rank, and which he himself could time to speak of Geryon, or of the mode in not behold without an admiration which he which the monster is won and subdued to felt to be dangerous. The lights which shine the travellers' service. Geryon seems to have with most brilliance contain sinners remembeen some such crocodile as Mr. Waterton bered for the greatest frauds. The wily rode, but Dante's had wings as well as feet, Ulysses was one. Of him adventures are and is related to the dragons and hippogriffs related here which Homer has not recorded. of romance. The scene in which Dante be- He gets tired of home,-neither reverence holds the sufferings of Pope Nicholas the for his old father, nor love of his old wife, Third, and anticipates those of Boniface and has overcome the passion for wandering and Clement, is one which we may find some the thirst for adventure which had become a future opportunity of recurring to, as we part of his nature. Traditions which Pliny think it has not been quite understood, and preserves describe him as the founder of Lis as a good deal illustrative of it, if we under- bon, and Dante sends him on a voyage of disstand rightly the circumstances of the situa covery which would seem almost prophetic tion, does not appear to have been present of the heroic expeditions of the Portuto those who have translated or commented on the poem. We must, however, say a word on the passage in which Ulysses is introduced, both because it exhibits something of the kind of contrast which we have spoken of as among the resources of his art which * Life of Thomas Cole, New-York, 1853. guese, To the dawn "Each star of the other pole Night now beheld," the existence of the constellation, which in after days was called the Cross of the South; and there is no occasion either to ascribe his mention of them to inspiration, as some would say, or resolve the phenomenon into stars of the poet's own creation, for the purpose of sustaining the character of the cardinal virtues which he makes them typify. With Vespucci and with Humboldt we hold them to be actual stars; and not the less for this in the allegorical or secondary sense-the primary one, no doubt, in the poet's thought-do they personate the virtues of active life. "Here we are nymphs, And in the heaven are stars," is of greater moment than would at first appear. The site of the terrestrial paradise is the language which they are made to was one of the questions which, in Dante's utter, when the mysteries of the poem are day, and long after, deeply engaged inquirers partially unfolded. None of the translators of every class; and there were two theories have succeeded in communicating the effect respecting it, each of which had its advocates of the opening of this part of the poem. among the Fathers of the Church. By one The freshness, the novelty of every objectclass it was sought for in the inhabited world, the bounding spirits of the visitors, when and looked for in the East; by the second they enter on this unknown region, to be in the other hemisphere, then regarded as felt must be read in Dante's own language. uninhabited, and guarded from access by In this part of Dante both Piazza's Latin unnavigable seas. Such stories as this of translation and Streckfuss's German have, it Ulysses were now and then told. The seems to us, wholly failed. Cary's bark thought that lands existed, not inhabited by sinks too deep, and takes in too much water, living men, soon passed into this-that they but he is better than any other that we have were inhabited by the dead, and a locality seen-greatly better. was thus found for elysian fields and fortunate islands, where the heroes of olden time pursued the enjoyments which death had interrupted. The land where Ulysses suffered shipwreck, was the foot of the mountain on the summit of which Dante supposed the terrestrial paradise to be placed, and along the sides of which, divided into seven stages, those who had escaped the toils and sufferings of earth ascended-the soul, at each stage, becoming cleansed from one of "the seven mortal sins," to use the language of the scholastic divinity.-Nothing in language or in conception can be more beautiful than the opening of the Purgatory. It is still night, but night at the approach of morning, when, after their toilsome journey from the centre of the earth, our travellers have reached this new world It is still starlight, aud Dante sees "Four stars, ne'er seen before but by the ken Of our first parents." The next scene,-and with this we must close, describes another group coming to the shores of the island; these are Casella, two friends of Dante, "whom he wooed to sing, Met in the milder shades of Purgatory," and some others, to whom a jubilee gave the occasion of making the voyage. They look round in wonder at every object; they come to inquire their way of Virgil, but are told that he and Dante are equally with themselves strangers. Attention is thus directed to Dante, and when they see that he is a living man, there is no end of their wonder. "The spirits, Who from my breathing had perceived I lived, Grew pale with wonder. As the multitude Flock round a herald sent with olive branch, To hear what news he brings, and in their path, Tread one another down; even so at sight Of me those happy spirits were fixed, each one Forgetful of its errand to depart Where, cleansed from sin, it might be made all fair." When Amerigo Vespucci afterwards voyaged in these seas, no longer hidden from men, he tells us that he remembered the passage in Frederick Tennyson's "Golden City "* Dante, and looked for the four stars. Old suggests something not unlike, and surely not globes constructed by the Arabs, as Hum-less beautiful, boldt tells us, exhibited these stars. From these, and from traditions preserved among * Days and Hours. By Frederick Tennyson. the Venetians, Dante might have learned London, 1854. Soon as the gray prow touched upon the sands, They took those storm-beat mariners by the hand, Up to the golden Citadel they fare, And as they go their limbs grow full of might, We Casella sings-a poem of Dante's. wish that we had room for that canzone, "Amor che nella mente mi ragiona," as we think it in many respects illustrative of this portion of the Divine Comedy; but we have exceeded our space. We wish, too, we could find room for Longfellow's translation of the lines in which the pilot angel is described, though our readers can easily refer to them. per's best style is equalled-all its earnestness, all its satirical power, and all its energy. We cannot give extracts to prove this; but such readers as look to the 29th canto of the Paradise will thank us for the reference. The translations which have led us to the subject of Dante are in rhyme, and the Terza rima is adopted. We incline to think that a metre with less constraint of rhyme-say such as Milton's Lycidas, which avoids the formality of the stanza, and allows occasion. ally the total absence of rhyme-would be found more pleasing to the reader. ART. VII.-Poems. By MATTHEW ARNOLD. It is not very long since two volumes of poetry, by "A," "The Strayed Reveller" and "Empedocles on Etna," passed under our review. If we return so soon to this author it is because his present work comes to us enriched by new and interesting poems, together with an Essay, remarkable for its vigorous contrast between ancient and modern poetry, and endorsed on its titlepage no longer by the abstraction "A," but by a well-known and honourable surname, The date of Fox How and the name of Arnold will awaken interest in many hearts, which remember the earnest voice that once spoke from that retirement. They will The history of the Divine Comedy illus-listen perhaps in hope of hearing the tones trates the fortunes of poetry. Dante's own that once stirred them prolonged to a generation and those which immediately younger generation. But the resemblance succeeded valued it chiefly for the Inferno. There can be little doubt that the other por. tions of the poem are those which now give greatest pleasure. Mr. Cary commenced by translating the Purgatory and Paradise, and added the Inferno not to leave his work incomplete. This seems to express his feeling with respect to the interest of the respective parts. Mr. Wright has expressed the same opinion in distinct words; he advises the students of Dante "not to dwell on the horrors of the Inferno, but to speed their flight with the poet to the calm regions of the Purgatorio, and the sublime rapture of the Paradiso." We ourselves agree with these great authorities, inclining, however, to prefer the Purgatorio to the other parts. hardly reaches beyond date and name. These poems so little recall, either in subject, form, or sentiment, the works of the late Dr. Arnold, that they will derive small favour from hereditary association, but must stand or fall by their intrinsic merit. The most rapid glance at Mr. Arnold's poems must convince every reader that they are the work of a man of undeniable power and high culture; nor can any one fail to perceive the author's fine eye for beauty and the artistic mould in which all his poems are cast ;-for his whole mind is of the cultivated and artistic order, and it is to a place among the learned and artistic poets that he aspires. Learned and artistic poets? some one may exclaim. Is it not the very essence Of the translations, that with which we are of the poet that he is a child of nature, one best acquainted is Cary's. It does not quite who works without aid of learning or of satisfy us, as the style too much reminds us art? True, the poetic soul is the first indisnot only of Milton, but of particular passages pensable condition-that without which in Milton, and is always somewhat more there can be no poet. But starting from elevated than Dante's. There are some ad- this common basis, one order of poets sings mirable passages, however, in which Cow-straight from their own heart, in the native |