Walter Scott enjoy an easy royalty. They were never at a loss; they were never hampered nor tired; their imagination was 'aye ready.' Their experience, no doubt, aided them, and is visible in their work; but they did not cling to it; they felt quite sure of their way; whether they had experience to guide them or not, they were not afraid of stumbling or going wrong. Some men can relate a story of real life with admirable clearness; but they become helpless when required to put together out of their own brain an imaginative relation. Will it be deemed rank heresy if I say that the author of the Commedia appears to have been wanting in constructive power? There is an air of paradox about such an assertion; and yet in truth the Paradiso or the Inferno, architecturally considered, is rather a crazy erection. inventiveness; but his mind was intensely and magnificently realistic. Give him something to work upon, -the legends of Catholic Europe, his own experience, his love, his hate, stories of Italian lovers, stories of Italian tyrants, and he could reproduce it in an imperishable shape. The legend became to him a veritable fact, which he saw and felt, in which he believed, to which all his senses bore witness. So he assimilated the legends and allegories of the middle ages, and made them credible. That the author of In Memoriam has portrayed a vast variety of characters is true; but it cannot be doubted that his genius is rather lyrical and didactic than dramatic. His characters, unlike Topsy, do not 'grow.' The different men and women are Dante had little finely discriminated; but they are discriminated by the reflective, rather than fired and quickened by the dramatic, faculty. And the same observation will be found to apply, more or less, to every poet who has resorted, habitually and familiarly, to this form of poetry. In their essential features, therefore, these memorial poems, whether written in the thirteenth century or in the nineteenth, have much in common. The development and progress of the story are invariably very similar. There are the trifles which love makes dear; the joy and the pain of memory; the bitter abandonment of loss; the low beginnings of content; the love which rises over death. Yet the spirit in which they are composed is often curiously and widely dissimilar; and marks with special distinctness the epoch to which each belongs. The Vita Nuova is as characteristically the work of the thirteenth century as is In Memoriam of the nineteenth. I shall speak more at large of these contrasts presently in the meantime a word or two of explanation about Dante's poem, and Mr. Rossetti's translation. : In the Vita Nuova, Dante relates with grave simplicity the story of his love for Beatrice. He tells us how he first saw Beatrice at the beginning of her ninth year; how often in his boyhood he had gone in search of 'this youngest of the angels;' how nine years after he had first beheld her, it happened that the same wonderful lady appeared to him dressed all in pure white, and saluted him with so virtuous a bearing that he seemed then and there to behold the very limits of blessedness; how she looked when sitting where words were to be heard of the Queen of Glory; how, deceived by a false and evil rumour, she, who was the destroyer of all evil and the queen of all good, denied him her most sweet salutation in the which alone was my blessedness;' how he became dumb in her presence; how he grieved when her father died; how she came into such favour with all men that when she passed anywhere folk ran to behold her, and when she was gone by it was said of many-'This is not a woman, but one of the beautiful angels of heaven;' how she bred in those who looked upon her a soothing quiet beyond any speech; how she died, and how for him by her death the city sat solitary; how afterwards a lady pitied him, and how he began to fail in his allegiance to his own lady, until there rose up in me on a certain day about the ninth hour, a strong visible phantasy, wherein I seemed to behold the most gracious Beatrice habited in that crimson raiment which she had worn when I first beheld her; also she appeared to me of the same tender age as then ;' how thereafter it was given unto him to behold a very wonderful vision; wherein I saw things which determined me that I should say nothing further of this most blessed one, until such time as I could discourse more worthily concerning her. And to this end I labour all I can, as she well knoweth. Wherefore, if it be His pleasure through whom is the life of all things, that my life continue with me a few years, it is my hope that I shall yet write concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman. After the which, may it 6 seem good unto Him who is the Master of grace, that my spirit should go hence to behold the glory of its lady -to wit, of that blessed Beatrice who now gazeth continually on His countenance qui est per omnia secula benedictus. Laus Deo.'* This is the story of the Vita Nuova, if story it can be called, and this story Mr. Rossetti has rendered with simplicity, tenderness, and admirable literalness of thought and language. He translates as patiently and truthfully as he paints, and to say so is to say not a little. Nor are the loftier passages beyond his range; in his firm strength there is a composure that is characteristic of Dante. The man who can use the English language as it is used in these translations from the Italian has in himself the makings of a poet. From this brief sketch of the construction and of the The ex Of all love stories the Vita Nuova,-the simple relation of a reserved and mystic passion,-is the least sensuous. perience which the modern poet relates is very different. He has told his love: he has pressed his lady's cheek: he has clasped her to his heart. Nay more, he has stood beside her dying bed; she has spoken words of comfort to him; her last smile rested upon his face. When Death severs such a bond the bitter and the sweet are mixed. It is hard to be parted from what was so dear; but she knew that you loved her better than life; and this intense communion assuages to her the pain of death, and to you the bitterness of separation. Although after Beatrice's death, Dante has but her salutation to fall back upon,—' in which alone was there any beatitude for me,'-yet it may be said quite truly that in one sense death brought these two closer together. It ripened into a sacred and lofty, if mystical, affiance, what, while she abode on earth, could be at best a fanciful tie. poetry of the Vita Nuova, it is obvious that such a work, however similar in its broader outlines, must present many points of contrast to the memorial poetry written by later poets, especially by those who belong to our own age. It may be interesting to note briefly wherein they agree, and wherein they disagree. There are one or two points in which there is a clear agreement. There is little or no description of Beatrice in the Vita Nuova. She is, in so far as direct presentment is concerned, formless and colourless. The Vita Nuova is not a love poem in the ordinary sense of the term, in the sense of Anacreon, or Catullus, or Thomas Moore. There are none of the traditions of amatory verse; no red lips, nor blue eyes, nor brown hair, nor peach-like bloom. Dante seldom rises beyond the dulce loquentem, dulce ridentem of Horace's Lalage. It is her most sweet speech and her marvellous smile' which hold him captive; that smile whereof he says, 'I say not of this last how it operates upon the hearts of others, because memory cannot retain this smile nor its operation,' so marvellous is it. We see little of her besides; a few hints relating to qualities scarcely more sensuous are all that we are favoured with. 'My lady carries love within her eyes; all that she looks on is made pleasanter.' She hath that paleness of the pearl that's fit in a fair woman.' Tennyson is even more reserved. Only once, so far as I recollect, does he vaguely allude to the person of his friend,— And over that ethereal brow |