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lesson to submit with resignation, if not with humility, to his lot. Thus time passed on; and when his fiftieth year drew near, hope, which had so long been banished from his heart, returned; and in the restoration of the Ghibellines to power he saw once more a prospect of being recalled to Florence. So, indeed, he might have been, but under conditions which he could consider only in the light of an insult; for he was required to present himself on his arrival in the city in the church of San Giovanni-the same church where, so many years before, he had appeared amidst the applause of the citizens, to give thanks for victory over their enemies-and there to implore pardon in the sight of all the people. To those who exhorted him to return, he wrote in a strain which did not fail to reanimate the hatred of the Guelphs towards him, and his exile was confirmed. Deprived at last of all prospect of return to Florence, he looked forward to the publication of his poem as the only means of enlightening the Italian people with regard to him.

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"A few months after Dante's death, his sons and other of his disciples searched oftentimes among his papers, in order to see if they could unable to discover the remaining cantos. Therefind the conclusion of his great work, but were upon his friends became almost angry that God should have seen fit to remove him from the world before he had accomplished the little that remained to be done in order to bring his poem to a conclusion. After having at last given up the search in despair, Jacopo and Piero, the sons of Dante, who were both of them poets, were just beginning to entertain the intention of finin their power to do so, when Japoco, who was ishing their father's work, in so far as it might be much more anxious and earnest about the matter than his brother, had a wonderful vision, which not only put an end to the presumptuous idea he had indulged, but revealed to him where the remaining thirteen cantos were concealed. A worthy man, whose name was Piero Giardino, and who for a long time previously had been one of Dante's most ardent disciples, relates that in the eighth month after the day of his While diligently engaged in the com- master's death, Jacopo went to his house one pletion of the Commedia he found time to night at the hour which we call mattutino, and write a treatise, Della Volgare Eloquenza, told him that that very night, a little before the the title of which sufficiently explains it- above-mentioned hour, Dante, his father, had self. This, the last of his works, was pro-appeared to him in his sleep, clothed in glistenduced during his residence in Ravenna, The closing act of his life was not more fortunate than those which had preceded it. Sent by his host, Guido da Polenta, the nephew of that Francesca da Rimini to whom the poet had already given in his Inferno so divine an apotheosis, on a mission to Venice, he was unable to bring the affairs he had been sent to negotiate to a successful result; and so overcome was he by this apparent implacability of fortune, that he fell into a state of profound and painful depression, and in the September of 1321, on the day of the Santa Croce, and the fifty-sixth year of his age, laid down the heavy burden of his life. He was sumptuously interred at the cost of Guido, under whose roof he had for so long found a home.

Thus, in the full maturity of his powers, this great man passed away, God alone knows under what anguish of soul, what yearning love and sorrow for the country which had treated him so ungratefully and eruelly. But he, being dead, was destined yet to speak, and with a voice which should resound throughout all ages.

ing raiment, white as snow, his face shining with unaccustomed and glorious light; and that on his asking him whether he still lived, it had seemed to him that he had replied yes, but with the true life, not with ours. That moreover, it had seemed to him that he had inquired whether he had finished his work before passing away to the true life, and if so, where the cantos which for in vain, might be found. To which queswere wanting, and which they had so long sought tions it had seemed to him that he heard his father's voice a second time in reply, and that his answer was: 'Yes, I will furnish them.' And then it had seemed to him that he had taken him by the hand, and led him into the chamber where it had been his wont to sleep when he lived in this life; and that taking out a panel in the wall, he had said: 'It is here -that which you have been searching for so diligently.' And having said these words, it had seemed to him that at one and the same moment both Dante and sleep had departed from him. That these things having happened he had felt as if he could not help immediately coming to Piero to tell him of them, and to ask been revealed to him, and which he well rehim to go with him to seek the place which had membered, and then they should see whether it was a true spirit or a lying vision which had appeared to him. On which, the night having not yet passed, Piero arose, and they went to

gether to the house in which Dante had lived Meanwhile, all who had any pretensions at the time of his death; and having roused to intelligence studied it assiduously, and him who lived there, and being received into he who had not read it was accounted a the dwelling, they went to the place which had man of no understanding, Huomo senza been pointed out to Jacopo, and there they found a piece of tapestry nailed against the ragione e bestiale. How is it, then, it will wall, and gently raising it they saw in the wall a be asked, that notwithstanding the deep window which until then had never been seen and wonderful impression produced by by any of them, neither had they ever known Dante's work, notwithstanding its popu that there was one in that place; and there larity and the triumph which it achieved they found some manuscripts, all of which, throughout Italy, none of the results folowing to the dampness of the place in which lowed which it had been the aim of the they lay, were covered with mould, and would have become illegible had they remained there poet to bring about? Signor Giudici remuch longer. And clearing away the mould plies to the inquiry by reminding us that which clung to the paper, they found that it almost immediately after Dante's death contained the thirteen cantos they had so long the Guelphic principle struck root deeper been seeking for in vain." than ever amongst the Italian people. And though the idea contained in the poem could not but enlighten the minds of the Ghibellines, still the effect was but as that of a flash of lightning, which only serves to render more palpable the darkness which for one moment it illumes. While, however, the poem was sterile as to its effects, the extraordinary genius of the poet conquered the course of events, and rendered him the favorite author of both Guelphs and Ghibellines, and the pride of the whole nation; but the wor ship which was paid him slackened when Italy fell into the profound stupor which not only deprived her of her glorious dreams but almost extinguished her life. Then it was that, all political studies being interdicted, the Divina Commedia was studied merely for its rhetoric and its grammatical elegancies, and as a subject of debate for a circle of savants. But hardly had the nation again begun to give signs of life, when the poet was once more regarded as the regenerator of the Italian people. Perhaps, says Signor Giudici, the time is not far distant, unless hope deceives me, when the great idea contained in this poem will be the means of restoring Italy, and here, in Florence, in this beautiful city, a grateful people will raise to him a temple to which, from every part of the Peninsula, his worshipers will flock to offer vows to their regenerator.

Of course it was said by those who denied the truth of Jacopo's vision, that it was a mere invention, intended to have the effect of giving weight to the words of the Commedia, and forcing the people to listen to them, as to one speaking with divine authority. If indeed any such idea had been entertained by Dante or his disciples, the effect it had been their desire to produce must have more than equaled their expectations. Scarcely fifty years had elapsed after Dante had passed to the "true life," ere the very same Guelphic party which had exiled him from Florence, deprived him of his property, and sentenced him to be burnt alive, decreed that his poem should be publicly read in all the churches, and commented upon in the same manner as the Bible. His portrait, the work of Domenico di Michelino, a disciple of Angelico da Fiesole, had a place assigned to it forever in the cathedral of his beloved Florence; throughout Italy the poem was read as a devotional exercise on holy-days; and the simple title of Commedia, the only one given to it by Dante, received the addition of Divina. No sooner had it appeared than a crowd of commentators were at work upon it, settling on its pages as did the plague of locusts on the plains of Egypt. It was treated as though it had been a second Apocalypse; all sorts of different meanings were attached to it; even the most obvious allusions to cotemporary events were imagined to contain some secondary and mysterious signification; and thus counsel was darkened by words without knowledge. Even the most intimate friends and disciples of Dante gave it out that the poem was above human comprehension, and that the author intended that so it should be.

Into Signor Giudici's commentary upon the Commedia we have not space to enter at any great length. The principle he has followed is to read it by the light of Dante's life, by the history of the times, and the love which the poet bore towards his country. All fanciful explanations he puts on one side, and where the primary signification is plain, does not seek to give

it another and a mysterious meaning. | clesiastical idea he saw that the germ of Throughout his comments he ever seeks all good and evil lies; on it depends the to bear in mind Dante's explanation of the fate of Christianity. In the imperial and subject and plan, as given in his letter to Papal power he beheld two active princiCan Grande. Keeping this clue firmly in ples; in the democratic, a passive princihis hand, he proceeds through the laby- ple, which, being without a full and exact rinth of the poem. His theory is, that the consciousness of its own nature and duDante of the Commedia typifies humanity ties, is always in a position to receive an redeemed by the blood of Christ, believ- impulse from whichever side is strongest ; ing in the revelation, and obedient to the and therefore it becomes by turns the inlaws of Christ. Looking at the poem strument and the victim of evil. And as from another point of view, he considers the religious element is stronger than that Dante is intended to be the symbol either of the other for good or for evil, of the Italian race, which has strayed from Dante was led to conclude that if it could the right path, and is wandering in a be purified, peace would be restored to wood of barbarism-or, in other words, of Italy, and the people placed in the right a corrupt democracy-whence it is at- way to become once more a nation. tempting to free itself, and to attain to a state of rest and peace, by means of two guides — Virgil, who represents human reason; and Beatrice, who typifies Divine revelation, and by whom it is at last awakened to a knowledge of its true condition, and of the remedy whereby it may become regenerate. Moreover, the poem contains a picture of the vicissitudes through which the Church had passed, and the state to which she had been reduced by the machinations of wicked men. Af ter having dwelt upon her miseries and sin, the poet, bursting forth in inspired strains, announces the advent of a Messiah who shall destroy all her enemies, make her blush over her degradation, raise her from her servitude, purify her by penitence, and restore her again to her Lord. Such then, in Signor Giudici's opinion, is the scope of Dante's poem such the mission with which he had been charged by the Apostle in those solemn words:

"E tu figliuol, cher per lo mortal pondo
Ancor giù tornerai, apri la bocca,
E non asconder quel ch'io non ascondo."

As regards the form which Dante gave to his poem, we need scarcely say that he chose it as being in accordance with the Italian mind; a form which had become sanctified in a certain degree on account of its being so frequently used by the fathers of the Church. During the poet's lifetime the Florentines had assisted at a representation of the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso; thus, Dante not only selected the form as the one most in harmony with the spirit of the time, but he chose the subject from materials which lay close at hand; and it being just at that period that hosts of pilgrims were flocking to Rome for the jubilee, Dante in like manner undertook a pilgrimage to the unseen world, in order to make known to men the past, present, and future destinies of the human race.

After having explained his views as to the scope and meaning of the whole poem, Signor Giudici gives us some admirable observations on its several portions, and we greatly regret that we have not space for an example of his criticism.

We have now fulfilled our promise, and carried our readers to the era at which But there are yet other meanings con- the Italian language received its full detained in this wonderful poem. It is the velopment. Henceforth a crowd of disspirit of the times incarnated-the learn- tinguished names arise to illustrate its ing, the philosophy of ages united in one literature, names which are too familiar to divine song of sublimest harmony. In it render it necessary that we should recount we see the progress of the world up to them here. But before taking leave of the period at which it was written. With our subject altogether, we would once his eagle eye, and through the divine in- again cast a glance upon Dante's birthtuition of genius, Dante pierced the mean- place, and on the efforts which have been ing of the "open secret" which was hid- made of late by its citizens to do him den from all around him. He fixed his honor. Even in the time of Boccaccio, gaze on but one thing, indeed-the con- great had been the desire of the Florentest between good and evil; but that one tines to have the remains of Dante transthing comprehends all others. In the ec-ferred to Florence, and in the time of Leo

X. they repeated the request; whilst Michael Angelo wrote a letter to the Pope in which he besought him to permit him to raise a monument worthy of the Divine Poet in the place of his birth. But it seemed good to his Holiness that Dante should ever rest on Ravenna, that city already so rich in the relics of martyrs, and the sepulcher of so many emperors and illustrious men. Once more, after the lapse of so many years, the citizens of Florence have been busying themselves to do honor to him who is the glory of their nation, not only by raising a monument to his memory, but by reestablishing the chair founded for the study of his poem. Looking forward to the results which an enlightened study of the Commedia may produce, Signor Giudici says:

"Here in this glorious land, where every thing recalls a remembrance, every monument testifies of some deed of greatness; here, in this city, the center of letters throughout the Peninsula; where from the most remote regions of the world, thousands of strangers have congregated to admire her magnificence and beauty the institution of a school where a knowledge of the times in which the poet lived, illustrated by his poem, would be dispensed, would be an event which would form an era in the annals of the literature of the nineteenth century to be

only equaled by the triumph won by science in the creation of a chair to the illustrious Galileo."

The feelings of love and reverence for Dante which still exist in the breast of some of his countrymen, have never found, however, more noble and fitting expression than in the verses written by Giacomo Leopardi-on whose lips, it has been said, have died the accents of Dante-when it was contemplated to raise the monument to which we have referred. With Leopardi closes an epoch glorious in the annals of Italian literature: and with his name, Signor Giudici concludes his history. In his last lecture the author tells us why he has not brought down his work to the period in which we live, and gives a résumé of the opinions he has endeavored to advocate. Whilst mourning over the wretched state in which his country has been so long plunged, he expresses his hope and belief that the time will come when it will please God again to bid Italy arise. Then art, regenerated with her, will once more spread her wings, and taking a higher flight than she has ever done before, will build up glorious monuments equal to, if not surpassing, any that were raised in days gone by.

of the world appeared to flow into the treasuries of Rome, when the production of gold from the Roman mines in Illyria and Spain suddenly ceased, and for a long period the world received no new acces sion of metallic wealth. Jacob, in his "History of the Precious Metals," has computed the quantity of gold and silver in the Roman Empire for several years, and shows the rate of diminution to which the enormous wealth of the Augustan period was subject. The highest amounts are as follows:

ROMAN WEALTH.-The wealth of the | Up to the time of Augustus, the wealth Romans was immense, as may be inferred from some historical incidents. When Cæsar was killed on the Ides of March Anthony owed £320,000, which he paid before the Kalends of April out of the public money, and squandered (according to Adams) more than £5,600,000. Cæsar himself, before he set out for Spain, was in debt to the extent of £2,018,000. Lentulus possessed £3,229,166. Claudius, a freedman, saved £2,500,000. Augustus obtained from the testamentary dispositions of his friends (some people will leave their fortunes to their sovereigns) no less than £32,291,666 sterling. Tiberius left at his death the enormous sum of £21,796,875, which Caligula is said to have squandered in a single year. Vespasian estimated at his accession that the money which the maintenance of the Com

A.D.

14

50

122

194

266

410

Amount.

£358,000,000

322,200,000

259,182,000

209,937,420

163,749,804

107,435,924

The decline had reached, in the year

monwealth required was £352,916,000. | 806, to the sum of £33,674,256.

From Titan.

MANY THOUGHTS ON MANY THINGS.*

MARRIAGE has in it less of beauty, but more of safety, than the single life; it hath not more ease, but less danger; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens, but is supported by all the strengths of love and charity; and those burdens are delightful. Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself. Celibacy, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity; but marriage. like the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower, and labors and unites into societies and republics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the world with delicacies, and obeys their king, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world.

The marriage-life is always an insipid, a vexatious, or a happy condition. The first is, when two people of no genius or taste for themselves meet together, upon such a settlement as has been thought reasonable by parents and conveyancers, from an exact valuation of the land and cash of both parties. In this case the young lady's person is no more regarded than the house and improvements in purchase of an estate; but she goes with her fortune, rather than her fortune with her. These make up the crowd or vulgar of the rich, and fill up the lumber of the human race, without beneficence towards those below them, or respect towards those above them.

The vexatious life arises from a conjunction of two people of quick taste and resentment, put together for reasons well

* Many Thoughts on Many Things: being a Treasury of Reference, consisting of Selections from the Writings of the Known Great and the Great Unknown. Compiled and Analytically Arranged by Henry Southgate. 4to, 656 pp. London: George Routledge & Co.

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known to their friends, in which especial care is taken to avoid (what they think the chief of evils) poverty, and insure to them riches, with every evil besides. These good people live in a constant constraint before company, and too great familiarity alone. When they are within observation, they fret at each other's carriage and behavior; when alone, they revile each other's person and conduct. In company, they are in purgatory; when only together, in a hell.

The happy marriage is, where two persons meet and voluntarily make choice of each other, without principally regarding or neglecting the circumstances of fortune or beauty. These may still love in spite of adversity or sickness: the former we may, in some measure, defend ourselves from; the other is the portion of our very make.

There is no one thing more lovely in this life, more full of the divine courage, than when a young maiden, from her past life, from her happy childhood, when she rambled over every field and muir around her home; when a mother anticipated her wants and soothed her little cares, when brothers and sisters grew, from merry playmates, to loving, trustful friends; from Christmas gatherings and romps, the summer festivals in bower or garden; from the rooms sanctified by the death of relatives; from the secure backgrounds of her childhood, and girlhood, and maidenhood, looks out into the dark and unilluminated future away from all that, and yet, unterrified, undaunted, leans her fair cheek upon her lover's breast, and whispers: "Dear heart! I can not see, but I believe. The past was beautiful, but the future I can trust— with thee!"

When a young wife leaves the society of her own kindred, and goes to reside among those of her husband, she passes under a new set of influences, favorable wishes. If she finds their sentiments haror unfavorable, to her character and monious with her own, and if both are

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