tients knew well what to make of. And to all these succeeded vapours, which serve the same turn, and furnish occasion of complaint among persons whose bodies or minds ail something, but they know not what, and among the Chinese would pass for mists of the mind or fumes of the brain, rather than indispositions of any other parts. Yet these employ our physicians, perhaps more than other diseases, who are fain to humour such patients in their fancies of being ill, and to prescribe some remedies for fear of losing their practice to others that pretend more skill in finding out the cause of diseases, or care in advising remedies, which neither they nor their patients find any effect of, besides some gains to one, and amusement to the other. This, I suppose, may have contributed much to the mode of going to the waters either cold or hot upon so many occasions, or else upon none besides that of entertainment, and which commonly may have no other effect. And it is well if this be the worst of the frequent use of those waters, which, though commonly innocent, yet are sometimes dangerous, if the temper of the person or cause of the indisposition be unhappily mistaken, especially in people of age. As diseases have changed vogue, so have remedies in my time and observation. I remember at one time the taking of tobacco, at another the drinking of warm beer, proved for universal remedies; then swallowing of pebble stones, in imitation of falconers curing hawks. One doctor pretended to help all heats and fevers by drinking as much cold spring water as the patient could bear; at another time, swallowing a spoonful of powder of sea-biscuit after meals was infallible for all indigestions, and so prevent-. ing diseases. Then coffee and tea began their successive reigns. The infusion or powder of steel have had their turns, and certain drops of several names and compositions: but none that I find have established their authority, either long or generally, by any constant and sensible successes of their reign, but have rather passed like a mode, which every one is apt to follow, and finds the most convenient or graceful while it lasts, and begins to dislike in both those respects when it goes out of fashion."-Sir William Temple's Miscellanea.

THE VESSEL OF THE STATE. "The comparison between a state and a ship has been so illustrated by poets and

orators, that it is hard to find any point wherein they differ; and yet they seem to do it in this, that in great storms and rough seas, if all the men and lading roll to one side, the ship will be in danger of oversetting by their weight; but, on the contrary, in the storms of state, if the body of the people, with the bulk of estates, roll all one way, the nation will be safe. For the rest, the similitude holds, and happens alike to the one and to the other. When a ship goes to sea, bound to a certain port, with a great cargo, and a numerous crew who have a share in the lading as well as safety of the vessel, let the weather and the gale be never so fair, yet if in the course she steers the ship's crew apprehend they see a breach of waters, which they are sure must come from rocks or sands, that will endanger the ship unless the pilot changes his course: if the captain, the master, and pilot, with some other of the officers, tell them they are fools or ignorant, and not fit to advise; that there is no danger, and it belongs to themselves to steer what course they please, or judge to be safe, and that the business of the crew is only to obey: if however the crew persist in their apprehensions of the danger, and the officers of the ship in the pursuit of their course, till the seamen will neither stand to their tackle, hand sails, or suffer the pilot to steer as he pleases, what can become of this ship, but that either the crew must be convinced by the captain and officers of their skill and care, and safety of their course, or these must comply with the common apprehensions and humours of the seamen; or else they must come at last to fall together by the ears, and so throw one another overboard, and leave the ship in the direction of the strongest, and perhaps to perish, in case of hard weather, for want of hands. Just so in a state, divisions of opinion, though upon points of common interest or safety, yet if pursued to the height, and with heat or obstinacy enough on both sides, must end in blows and civil arms, and by their success leave all in the power of the strongest, rather than the wisest or the best intentions; or perhaps expose it to the last calamity of a foreign conquest. But nothing besides the uniting of parties upon one common bottom can save a state in a tempestuous season; and every one, both of the officers and crew, are equally concerned in the safety of the ship, as in their own, since in that alone theirs are certainly involved."-Ibid.

THIS is a noble specimen of Literature for the People. It is just such a book as all who have the dissemination of good taste at heart will gladly welcome. At the same time that it endeavours to place within reach of the people some taste of the great poets of Italy, it is no sketchy superficial work written, as the phrase goes, "down to the public." Had Leigh Hunt chosen his audience from the highest and most cultivated intellects of England, he would not have written with more finish, nor have sifted facts with more delicate scruples. The only difference might have been in more liberal citations from dead and foreign languages, which he would not have translated. It is a work for the people in everything but price. We trust its success will soon render a cheap edition remunerating to the publishers. Meanwhile we will give our readers some account of its contents.

The first volume comprises Dante and Pulci; the second, Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso. The plan is to give a careful biographical notice of the poet, with a criticism upon his works and style, by way of introduction to the specimens.

No. 13.

And these specimens are unlike all specimens hitherto published, in being stories, having a complete interest as such, and giving a real image of the poet's manner. Nothing is more delusive than extracts. Great poets suffer by them; because works of art cannot be judged of piecemeal small poets gain by them; because their works are piecemeal. Now in the case of Dante, Leigh Hunt has felt that extract would be insufficient; accordingly he has given us in marvellous prose the Divine Comedy' as a whole, omitting only "long tedious lectures of scholastic divinity and other learned absurdities of the time," and "compressing the work in other passages not essentially necessary to the formation of a just idea of the author." The result has been a lasting benefit. All persons may now learn a great deal of Dante, and that in an agreeable manner. The translation by Mr. Cary, though a work of considerable merit, has the very serious drawback of not being very readable. He has made Dante walk upon Miltonic stilts. But the style of Milton, like the bow of Ulysses, is too

ghty for other hands. Let us open eigh Hunt's volume anywhere, and see how Dante's direct, nervous, compact, but simple verses, are rendered into prose.

We have done so. It is no figure of speech when we say that we opened the volume at random, and alighted upon this passage, in which the primitive simplicity of Dante is admirably given :—

"The poet's attention was now drawn off by a noise of lamentation, and he perceived he was approaching the city of Dis. The turrets glowed vermilion with the fire within it, the walls appeared to be of iron, and moats were round about them. The boat circuited the walls till the travellers came to a gate, which Phlegyas, with a loud voice, told them to quit the boat and enter. But a thousand fallen angels crowded over the top of the gate, refusing to open it, and making furious gestures. At length they agreed to let Virgil speak with them inside; and he left Dante for a while standing in terror without. The parley was in vain. They would not let them pass. Virgil, however, bade his companion be of good cheer, and then stood listening and talking to himself, disclosing by his words his expectation of some extraordinary assistance, and at the same time his anxiety for its arrival. On a sudden, three raging figures rose over the gate, coloured with gore. Green hydras twisted about them; and their fierce temples had snakes instead of hair.

"Look,' said Virgil. The furies! The one on the left is Megara; Alecto is she that is wailing on the right; and in the middle is Tisiphone.' Virgil then hushed. The furies stood clawing their breasts, smiting their hands together, and raising such hideous cries, that Dante clung to his friend.

"Bring the Gorgon's head!' cried the furies, looking down; 'turn him to adamant!'

"Turn round,' said Virgil, and hide thy face; for if thou beholdest the Gorgon, never again wilt thou see the light of day.' And with these words he seized Dante and turned him round himself, clapping his hands over his companion's eyes.

"And now was heard coming over the water a terrible crashing noise, that made the banks on either side of it tremble. It was like a hurricane, which comes roaring through the vain shelter of the woods, splitting and hurling away the boughs, sweeping along proudly in a huge cloud of dust, and

making herds and herdsmen fly before it. 'Now stretch your eyesight across the water,' said Virgil, letting loose his hands ;-' there where the foam is thickest.' Dante looked, and saw a thousand of the rebel angels, like frogs before a serpent, swept away into a heap before the coming of a single spirit, who flew over the tops of the billows with unwet feet. The spirit frequently pushed the gross air from before his face, as if tired of the base obstacle; and as he came nearer, Dante, who saw it was a messenger from heaven, looked anxiously at Virgil. Virgil motioned him to be silent and bow down.

"The angel, with a face full of scorn, as soon as he arrived at the gate, touched it with a wand that he had in his hand, and it flew open.

"Outcasts of heaven,' said he, despicable race! whence this fantastical arrogance? Do ye forget that your torments are laid on thicker every time ye kick against the fates? Do ye forget how your Cerberus was bound and chained till he lost the hair off his neck like a common dog?'

"So saying, he turned swiftly and departed the way he came, not addressing a word to the travellers. His countenance had suddenly a look of some other business, totally different from the one he had terminated." This is wonderful writing; and the whole poem abounds with such passages, and finer.

Dante was one of the greatest poets the world ever saw. He arose at a troubled and eventful time to utter the voice of his epoch, and to utter it in such a marvellous tone, that succeeding generations have listened to it often with idolatrous admiration, always with enthusiasm. Little matters it what errors, theological or moral, the great singer promulgated. Poets are privileged teachers; they enshrine even error in so much beauty that it becomes a sort of truth. We are so charmed with the Syren's voice that we disregard her meaning. Absurdities and dogmas, which in prose would rouse scorn and persecution, are accepted in poetry as "beautiful exceedingly."

Leigh Hunt has overlooked this. He is so horrified at the opinions occasionally put forth by Dante-he is so disgusted with the poet's fanaticism and intolerance, that he becomes an intolerant critic, and treats the poet as if he were a teacher, not a singer. This has made

him somewhat ungenerous to Dante. Let us hasten to add, however, that he makes strenuous efforts to counterbalance his depreciation of the man by his praises of the poet. The notice of Dante's Life is carefully written; and, in spite of the fault of denigration which runs through it, contains some things that are new and much that is admirable.

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence on the 14th of May, 1265, sixty-three years before the birth of Chaucer. His family came from a Roman stock-the race of Frangipani. Of his parents nothing is known. Nor has the affectionate minuteness of biographers been able to rake up any satisfactory details concerning his infancy and boyhood. The only interesting fact connected with his boyhood is his early love for Beatrice. He was in his ninth year when this romantic attachment began: an attachment which was hereafter to become a byword, and a never-failing illustration of the devotedness of poets and the fickleness of women. Petrarch's Laura and Dante's Beatrice are enshrined in poetical tradition. He who dares to reduce such poetry to commonplace by an impertinent inquiry into facts, must expect to sustain the indignation of those who cherish romance in preference to truth. Nevertheless, the historian cannot hesitate. He writes history, not romance; facts are therefore more important to him than fiction. And if he be wise he will console himself with the reflection that, after all, truth is the most romantic, when once we accommodate our vision to it. No popular error has ever been destroyed without introducing in the shape of truth a much more poetical story. And so we think it will be when the real truth is acknowledged respecting Dante and Beatrice. First let us hear Leigh Hunt on this subject, for he has something new to say :

"It is unpleasant to reduce any portion of a romance to the events of ordinary life; but, with the exception of those who merely copy from one another, there has been such a conspiracy on the part of Dante's biographers to overlook at least one disenchanting conclusion to be drawn to that effect from the poet's own writings, that the probable truth of the matter must here for the first

time be stated. The case, indeed, is clear enough from his own account of it. The natural tendencies of a poetical temperament (oftener evinced in a like manner than the world in general suppose) not only made the boy-poet fall in love, but, in the truly Elysian state of the heart at that innocent and adoring time of life, made him fancy he had discovered a goddess in the object of his love. He disclosed himself, as time advanced, only by his manner-received complacent recognitions in company from the young lady-offended her by seeming to devote himself to another (see the poem in the Vita Nuova, beginning Ballata io vo') -rendered himself the sport of her and her young friends by his adoring timidity (see the fifth and sixth sonnets in the same work) -in short, constituted her a paragon of perfection, and enabled her, by so doing, to show that she was none. He says, that finding himself unexpectedly near her one day in company, he trembled so, and underwent such a change of countenance, that many of the ladies present began to laugh with her about him-'si gabbavano di me.' And he adds, in verse,—

'Con l' altre donne mia vista gabbate
E non pensate, donna, onde si mova
Ch' io vi rassembri sì figura nova,
Quando riguardo la vostra beltate,' &c.
Son. 5.

("You laugh with the other ladies to see how I look [literally, you mock my appearance]; and do not think, lady, what it is that renders me so strange a figure at sight of your beauty.')

"And in the sonnet that follows he accuses her of preventing pity of him in others, by such killing mockery' as makes him wish for death (la pietà, che l' vostro gabbo recinde,' &c.).

"Now it is to be admitted that a young lady, if she is not very wise, may laugh at her lover with her companions, and yet return his love, after her fashion; but the fair Portinari laughs, and marries another. Some less melancholy face, some more intelligible courtship, triumphed over the questionable flattery of the poet's gratuitous worship; and the idol of Dante Alighieri became the wife of Messer Simone de' Bardi. Not a word does he say on that mortifying point. It transpired from a clause in her father's will. And yet so bent are the poet's biographers on leaving a romantic doubt on one's mind, whether Beatrice may not have returned his passion, that not only do all of them (as far as I have observed) agree in taking no notice of these sonnets, but the author of the