E s' io al vero son timido amico, I, the whilst I scal'd With Virgil, the soul-purifying mount, My father! well I mark how time spurs on O ye thrice holy Virgins! for your sakes Arise to aid me; while the verse unfolds Things, that do almost mock the grasp of thought. And, if I am a timid friend to truth, I fear my life may perish among those To whom these days shall be of ancient date. CARY'S Transl. And from a letter of Dante lately discovered *, it appears that about the year 1316, his friends succeeded in obtaining his restoration to his * APPENDIX, No. VI. country and his possessions, on condition that he compounded with his calumniators, avowed himself guilty, and asked pardon of the commonwealth. The following was his answer on the occasion, to one of his kinsmen, whom he calls Father,' because, perhaps, he was an ecclesiastic; or, more probably, because he was older than the poet. XVII. "FROM your letter, which I received with due respect and affection, I observe how much you have at heart my restoration to my country. I am bound to you the more gratefully, since an exile rarely finds a friend. But, after mature consideration, I must, by my answer, disappoint the wishes of some little minds; and I confide in the judgment to which your impartiality and prudence will lead you. Your nephew and mine has written to me, what indeed had been mentioned by many other friends, that, by a decree concerning the exiles, I am allowed to return to Florence, provided I pay a certain sum of money, and submit to the humiliation of asking and receiving absolution; wherein, father, I see two propositions that are ridiculous and impertinent. I speak of the impertinence of those who mention such conditions to me; for, in your letter, dictated by judgment and discretion, there is no such thing. Is such an invitation to return to his country glorious for Dante, after suffering in banishment almost fifteen years? Is it thus, then, they would recompence innocence which all the world knows, and the labour and fatigue of unremitting study? Far from the man who is familiar with philosophy, be the senseless baseness of a heart of earth, that could act like a little sciolist, and imitate the infamy of some others, by offering himself up as it were in chains. Far from the man who cries aloud for justice, be this compromise, for money, with his persecutors. No, father, this is not the way that shall lead me back to my country. But I shall return with hasty steps, if you or any other can open me a way that shall not derogate from the fame and honour of Dante; but if by no such way Florence can be entered, then Florence I will never enter. What! shall I not every where enjoy the sight of the sun and stars? and may I not seek and contemplate, in every corner of the earth under the canopy of heaven, consoling and delightful truth, without first rendering myself inglorious, nay infamous, to the people and republic of Florence? Bread, I hope, will not fail me."-Yet he continued to experience, How salt the savour is of others' bread, How hard the passage to descend and climb His countrymen persecuted even his memory; he was excommunicated after death by the Pope, and his remains were threatened to be disinterred and burnt, and their ashes scattered to the wind*. Petrarch closed his life with the reputation of a saint, for whom Heaven performed miracles†; and the Venetian Senate made a law against those who purloined his bones, and sold them as relics. XVIII. INDEED we might imagine that Petrarch by faithfully and generously discharging all the social duties towards every body about him, and by constantly endeavouring to subdue his passions, was esteemed virtuous and felt happy. Virtuous he was; but he was more unhappy than Dante, who never betrayed that restlessness and perplexity of soul which lowered Petrarch in his own estimation, and made him exclaim in his last days, "In my youth I despised all the world but myself; BARTOLUS, Lex de rejudicandis reis, ad cod. 1. + Ea res...miraculo ostendit divinum illum spiritum Deo familiarissimum.-VILLANI, Vit. Petr. sul fine. TOMASINI, Petrarcha Redivivus, pag. 30. in my manhood I despised myself; now I despise both the world and myself*." Had they lived in habits of intercourse, Dante would have possessed over his competitor that superiority, which all men, who act from predetermined and unalterable resolutions, have over those who yield to variable and momentary impulses. Dante Petrarch might have said, with Conscienza m'assicura La buona compagnia, che l'uom francheggia Conscience makes me firm, The boon companion who her strong breast-plate And bids him on and fear not. CARY'S Transl. But his ardent aspirations after moral perfection, and the despair of attaining it, made Petrarch look forward "with trembling hope" to the day that should summon him to the presence of an inexorable Judge. Dante believed, that by his sufferings on earth he atoned for the errors of humanity-that So wide arms Hath goodness infinite, that it receives * Senil. Lib. 13. Ep. 7. |