to fly precipitately into the profundities of a pathless valley, where, fays the poet, the fun was filent. Mi ripingeva dove'l fol tace'. In the middle of a vaft folitude he perceives a spectre, of whom he implores pity and help. The spectre haftens to his cries: it was the shade of Virgil, whom Beatrix, Dante's mistress, had sent, to give him courage, and to guide him into the regions of hell". Virgil begins a long discourse with Dante; and expoftulates with him for chufing to wander through the rough obfcurities of a barren and dreary vale, when the top of the neighbouring mountain afforded every delight. The converfation of Virgil, and the name of Beatrix, by degrees diffipate the fears of the poet, who explains his fituation. He returns to himself, and compares this revival of his strength and spirits to a flower smitten by the froft of a night, which again lifts its shrinking head, and expands its vivid colours, at the first gleamings of the morning-fun. Qual' il fioretti dal notturno gelo Dante, under the conduct of Virgil, penetrates hell. But he does not on this occafion always avail himself of Virgil's descriptions and mythologies. At least the formation of Dante's imageries are of another school. He feigns his hell to be a prodigious and almost bottomlefs abyfs, which from its aperture to its lowest depth preserves a rotund fhape: or rather, an im I INF. CANT. i. The fame bold metaphor occurs below, CANT. v. Evenni in luogo d'ogni LUCE MUTO. See fupr. vol. ii. p. 219. "CANT. ii. In another part of the INFERNO, Virgil is angry with Dante, but is foon reconciled. Here the poet compares himself to a cottager in the early part of a promifing spring, who looks out in the morning from his humble fhed, and fees the fields covered with a fevere and unexpected frost. But the fun foon melts the ground, and he drives his goats afield. CANT. XXIV. This poem abounds in comparisons, Not one of the worst is a comic one, in which a perfon looking fharply and eagerly, is compared to an old taylor threading a needle. INF. CANT. XV. menfe menfe perpendicular cavern, which opening as it defcends into different circles, forms fo many diftinct fubterraneous regions. We are ftruck with horror at the commencement of this dreadful adventure. The first object which the poet perceives is a gate of brass, over which were inscribed in characters of a dark hue, di colore ofcuro, these verses. Per me fi và nella città dolente : La fomma Sapienzia, e l'primo Amore °. Se non eterne, el io duro eterno. Laffate ogni fperanza voi ch'entraste P. That is, " By me is the way to the woeful city. By me is "the way to the eternal pains. By me is the way to the "damned race. My mighty maker was divine Juftice and "Power, the Supreme Wisdom, and the First Love. Before "me nothing was created. If not eternal, I shall eternally re"main. Put away all hope, ye that enter." There is a fevere folemnity in these abrupt and comprehensive fentences, and they are a striking preparation to the scenes that enfue. But the idea of fuch an infcription on the brazen portal of hell, was suggested to Dante by books of chivalry; in which the gate of an impregnable enchanted caftle, is often infcribed with words importing the dangers or wonders to be found within. Over the door of every chamber in Spenfer's necromantic palace of Bufyrane, was written a threat to the champions who prefumed to attempt to enter. This total exclufion of hope from He means the Platonic Egws. The Italian expofitors will have it to be the Holy Ghoft. P CANT. iii. 9 FAIR. Qu. iii, xi. 54. VOL. III. Hh hell hell, here fo finely introduced and fo forcibly expreffed, was probably remembered by Milton, a difciple of Dante, where he defcribes, Regions of forrow, dolefull fhades, where peace I have not time to follow Dante regularly through his dialogues and adventures with the crouds of ghosts, antient and modern, which he meets in the course of this infernal journey. In these interviews, there is often much of the party and politics of his own times, and of allufion to recent facts. Nor have I leisure particularly to display our author's punishments and phantoms. I obferve in general, that the ground-work of his hell is claffical, yet with many Gothic and extravagant innovations. The burning lakes, the foffes, and fiery towers which furround the city of Dis, and the three Furies which wait at its entrance, are touched with new ftrokes. The Gorgons, the Hydra, the Chimera, Cerberus, the ferpent of Lerna, and the rest of Virgil's, or rather Homer's, infernal apparitions, are dilated with new touches of the terrible, and fometimes made ridiculous by the addition of comic or incongruous circumstances, yet without any intention of burlesque. Because Virgil had mentioned the Harpies in a single word only', in one of the lothfome groves which Dante paffes, confifting of trees whofe leaves are black, and whofe knotted boughs are hard as iron, the Harpies build their nefts". Non frondi verdi, ma di color fosco, Cacus, whom Virgil had called Semifer in his seventh book, PAR. L. i. 65. See CANT. ix. vii. * Gorgones, HARPYIÆQUE, Vi. 289. "CANT. xiii. appears appears in the shape of a Centaur covered with curling fnakes, and on whose neck is perched a dragon hovering with expanded wings ". It is fuppofed that Dante took the idea of his INFERNO from a magnificent nightly representation of hell, exhibited by the pope in honour of the bishop of Oftia on the river Arno at Florence, in the year 1304. This is mentioned by the Italian critics in extenuation of Dante's choice of so strange a fubject. But why should we attempt to excufe any abfurdity in the writings or manners of the middle ages? Dante chofe this fubject as a reader of Virgil and Homer. The religious MYSTERY represented on the river Arno, however magnificent, was perhaps a spectacle purely orthodox, and perfectly conformable to the ideas of the church. And if we allow that it might hint the fubject, with all its inconfiftencies, it never could have furnished any confiderable part of this wonderful compound of claffical and romantic fancy, of pagan and christian theology, of real and fictitious history, of tragical and comic incidents, of famiJiar and heroic manners, and of fatirical and fublime poetry. But the groffeft improprieties of this poem discover an originality of invention, and its abfurdities often border on fublimity. We are surprised that a poet should write one hundred cantos on hell, paradise, and purgatory. But this prolixity is partly owing to the want of art and method: and is common to all early compofitions, in which every thing is related circumftantially and without rejection, and not in those general terms which are ufed by modern writers. Dante has beautifully enlarged Virgil's fhort comparison of the fouls lingering on the banks of Lethe, to the numerous leaves falling from the trees in Autumn. Come d'Autumno fi levan le foglie L'un appreffo del'altra, infin che'l ramo Similmente, il mal feme d'Adamo Per cenni, com'augel per fuo richiamo". In the Fields inhabited by unhappy lovers he fees Semiramis, Achilles, Paris, and Triftan, or fir Triftram. One of the old Italian commentators on this poem fays, that the last was an English knight born in Cornovaglio, or Cornwall, a city of England 2. Among many others of his friends, he fees Francifca the daughter of Guido di Polenta, in whofe palace Dante died at Ravenna, and Paulo one of the fons of Malatefta lord of Rimini. This lady fell in love with Paulo; the paffion was mutual, and she was betrothed to him in marriage: but her family chofe rather that she should be married to Lanciotto, Paulo's eldest brother. This match had the most fatal consequences. The injured lovers could not diffemble or ftifle their affection: they were furprised, and both affaffinated by Lanciotto. Dante finds the shades of these diftinguished victims of an unfortunate attachment at a distance from the reft, in a region of his INFERNO defolated by the most violent tempefts. He accosts them both, and Francifca relates their history: yet the converfation is carried on with fome difficulty, on account of the impetuofity of the storm which was perpetually raging. Dante, who from many circumstances of his own amours, appears to have poffeffed the most refined fenfibilities about the delicacies of love, enquires in what manner, when in the other world, they first communicated their paffion to each other. Francifca anfwers, that they were one day fitting together, and reading the romance of LANCELOT; where two lovers were represented in the fame critical fituation with themselves. Their changes of colour and countenance, while they were reading, often tacitly betrayed J CANT. iii. 2 In the fixteenth Canto of the PARADISO, king Arthur's queen GENEURA, who belongs to fir Triftram's romance, is mentioned. |