"Ed io: Per filosofici argomenti,

E per autorità che quinci scende,

Cotale amor convien che 'n me s' imprenti." Par. xxvi. 25.

Then I By what philosophy hath taught,

:

And by the revelation flowing hence,

This love in me its first impression wrought."

Dante further explains himself:

"Tutti quei morsi

Che posson far lo cuor volger a Dio,

Alla mia caritate son concorsi.

Chè l'essere del mondo, e l'esser mio
La morte ch' el sostenne perch'io viva,
E quel che spera ogni fedel com' io,

Con la predetta conoscenza viva,
Tratto m'hanno del mar dell' amor torto,
E del dritto m'han posto alla riva.

Le frondi onde s' infronda tutto l'orto
Dell' ortolano eterno, am' io cotanto
Quanto da lui a lor di bene è porto.

Sì com' io tacqui, un dolcissimo canto
Risonò per lo cielo; e la mia donna

Dicea con gli altri: Santo, Santo, Santo."

"All powerful spurs that turn the heart to God,

Confederate to make fast my Charity.

The being of the world; and mine own being;
The death which he endured, that I should live ;
And that, which all the faithful hope, as I do;
To the forementioned lively knowledge join'd;
Have from the sea of ill-love saved my bark,
And on the coast secured it of the right.
I love the leaves whence all the garden blooms
Of the eternal Gardener with love

Proportion'd to his gifts to them of good.

I ended and therewith a song most sweet

Wright.

Par. xxvi. 55.

Rang through the spheres; and Holy, Holy, Holy,'
Accordant with the rest, my lady sang."

Cary.

Shortly after this, St. Peter utters the indignant rebuke of his successors in the apostolic see for their intolerable avarice and worldly spirit, denounces the speedy vengeance of heaven, and then delivers his final commands to the poet :"O buon principio,

A che vil fine convien che tu caschi!
Ma l'alta providenza che con Scipio

Difese a Roma la gloria del mondo,
Soccorrà tosto sì com' io concipio :

E tu, figluol, che per lo mortal pondo
Ancor giù tornerai, apri la bocca,

E non asconder quel ch' io non ascondo.",

"O good beginning!

To what a vile conclusion must thou stoop!
But the high providence, which did defend,

Through Scipio, the world's empery for Rome,

Will not delay its succour: and thou, son,

Who through thy mortal weight shalt yet again
Return below, open thy lips, nor hide
What is by me not hidden."

Par. xvii. 59.

Cary.

The examination of Dante by the three apostles is so minute, and his answers are so full, that nothing seems wanting to complete the proof of the soundness of his catholic principles. "Di quella fede che vince ogni errore."

Inf. iv. 48.

Yet the ingenuity of a celebrated critic can discover in it a motive, and draw an inference, very opposite to ours. It is upon it principally that Ugo Foscolo builds his bold hypothesis; in which there is much that is reasonable and probable, but mingled with what is fanciful and unwarranted, and

which if true would reduce the confession of faith to a mere parody, and cast an indelible stain on the poem of Dante.

The hypothesis is briefly this. That Dante's design in writing the Commedia was to hasten a reformation, political and religious; and especially to rouse the Italians to a sense of the necessity of defending religion against the vices of the church; that to increase the influence of his poem, he studied to give it the air of an oracle, and to imitate those popular legends of Visions*, the belief in which was current and inculcated by the monks; that he wished it to appear that, like St. Paul, he was transported to heaven, to hear divine revelations, and to receive an apostolic commission to preach the truth and to spread it over the earth; that this assumption to heaven was an illusion, perhaps, in which he himself believed; that the examination by St. Peter, if not an illusion, is a device to proclaim his faith in the pretended revelations which called for this great reform; that his profession of hope to St. James shows his confidence in its speedy accomplishment; and that his charity as professed to St. John is not unlimited and extended even to his enemies, but confined to the good, and proportioned to their worthiness; nor is it irreconcilable with punishment of the bad and the gratification of revenge. It is further observed by Foscolo, that the three saints who examine Dante are the three who constitute St. Paul an apostle, and that St. Peter consecrates Dante to his mission by the imposition of hands.

*See "La Visione del Monaco Alberico," in the Padua Dante, 1822, vol. v. "Le Purgatoire de St. Patrick," Ozanam, p. 328. " La Vision de St. Paul," Ozanam, p. 343.

Cosi benedicendomi cantando,
Tre volte cinse me*, sì com' io tacqui,
L'apostolico lume, al cui comando

Io avea detto; sì nel dir gli piaqui."

Par. xxiv. 151.

The inventor of a system sees the confirmation of it in everything, and Foscolo can even discover the priestly rite of ordination, and the imposition of hands, in the simple words,

66

so blessing me, the apostolic light clasped me three times." Extravagant as this fancy is, it were harmless if we were allowed to suppose that the new priest was ordained for the laudable purpose of restoring the purity of the religion of St. Peter; but such is not Foscolo's idea, who represents the conviction of Dante to be, that the priesthood and the church were not separable or different, and that to correct them it was necessary to change them; and that his wish therefore was, not merely to effect reform in the conduct of the Church of Rome, but a change in dogma as well as discipline; and to be the founder of a new school of religion, in which the truths revealed to him in heaven should be reconciled with the doctrines of the ancient philosophers.

These are assertions and extravagances, not to say profanations, that seem to affect the poet's religious and moral character; but must be considered as the offspring of a perverted ingenuity, and to rest on no solid foundation, and only deserving of notice from the celebrity of their author.

S. Pietro lo cinse della sua luce; non a dargli missione d' apostolo, di Messia, di Maometto novello (cosa da Dante condannata più volte), ma a coronare la schietta fede di lui. E se uomini quali Dante, Tomaso, Agostino, credono i cristiani misteri, bello è stare con loro, ed aver contro sè i filosofi poveretti del secolo andato.”— Tommaseo.

Foscolo himself desires us to receive them in the meantime only as an hypothesis. In justice to him, we think it necessary to give some of the above singular sentiments more fully and in his own words:- "Tutto questo per ora si starà qui in via d'ipotesi*." "Dante riceveva illusioni a sperare dalla religione, alla quale egli s'era costituito riformatore. E non come quelli che poi si divisero dalla Chiesa del Vaticano ; ma sì per la missione profetica alla quale di proprio diritto, e senza timore di sacrilegio, si consacrò con rito sacerdotale nell' altissimo de' Cieli. Il Poema Sacro fu dettato per quella missione." (Sez. xl.) "Ei per fede sentiva verità emanate dal Cielo a diffondersi e perpetuarsi sovra tutta la terra; e le reconciliava alla filosofia de' pagani; e insieme sentiva le sue disavventure;

'Multoque in rebus acerbis

Acrius advertunt animos ad relligionem.'

Lucretius, iii. 54.

e vedeva le tristissime condizioni d' Italia originate da' dogmi adulterati per libidine d' oro e di regno da' sacerdoti. Così le facoltà tutte quante dell' anima sua s'esercitavano simultaneamente occupate a proteggere la religione dal "pastorale congiunto alla spada" disperatissima impresa! Pur ci vi s'accinse e vi perseverò finchè visse, illuso da forti speranze che gli eventi non tarderebbero a secondarla, e ch' ei non morrebbe innanzi d' esserne rimeritato." (Sez. xli.)

"Il che si fa manifesto segnatamente da' versi intorno a' quali vo discorrendo, e ch' ei di proposito contornò di parecchi altri,

* Discorso sul testo del Poema di Dante. Sezione xlviii. p. 90. Ediz. Londra, 1842.