recte et honeste curriculum vivendi a naturâ datum confecerit, ad illum astrum quocum aptus fuerit, revertetur."-Cicero. Frag. de Universo. Thus Shakspeare, 1st pt. Henry VI. act i, sc. 1. "A far more glorious star thy soul will make Than Julius Cæsar, &c. And, Spenser, Hymn to Love. "But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray For it is heavenly born, and cannot die, Being a parcel of the purest sky." (27.) The answer to the first question commences line 67. In reply to the second, Beatrice here shows that Plato's philosophy is not applicable to heaven; and that angels and. spirits are said, humanly speaking, to have different mansions assigned them, merely to show their different degrees of glory. Page 32. (Line 37.) Viz. “Piccarda and Constance :-not that this lunar sphere is chosen by them, but to signify that as it is the lowest and farthest from God, they enjoy but a small degree of glory among the blessed saints."-Costa. (43.) "The sacred poets were under the necessity of speaking of God in a manner adapted to human conceptions, and of attributing to him the actions, the passions, and the faculties of man...in conformity with the weakness of the human understanding." -Louth. Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, vol. i. p. 359. In his mode of illustration, Dante imitates St. Paul." St. Paul likens the different degrees of glory which the blessed shall enjoy to the different degrees of splendour in the heavenly bodies, as one star differeth from another.'"-1 Cor. xv. 41. Bp. Van Mildert. Works, vol. vii. p. 497. "It is true, whilst our souls are confined to these bodies, they can have no distinct perception of things without the help of fancy, and those corporeal ideas, and as it were images of things, which being seated in the body, must necessarily die and perish with it.” -Bishop Bull. Serm. iii. (48.) The allusion is to the Archangel Raphael, Tobit v. 4. (55.) i.e. "It may be, that Plato merely attributes an influence to the heavenly spheres." According to this interpretation, Plato's meaning is the same with Dante's; who proceeds to say that this Platonic doctrine, taken literally, and not in the spiritual sense, formerly led the greater part of the world astray,-causing them to deify heroes, and pay idolatrous worship to the stars. "This Workman, whose Servitor Nature is, being in truth but only One, the Heathens imagining to be more, gave him in the sky the name of Jupiter ....in the water the name of Neptune, &c....even so many guides of nature they dreamed of, as they saw there were heads of things natural in the world."-Hooker. Eccl. Pol. i. 3. Page 33. (Line 67.) The argument is, "Credo quia impos. sibile." If the question related," continues Dante, "to other truths above human comprehension, I would merely exhort you to believe."-Lombardi. (83.) “He bids Laurence renounce Christ, and prepares against the stubborn courage of that Deacon's breast, dreadful tortures; and when the first proves fruitless, he proceeds to fiercer. He tears and shreds his limbs with continued scourging; next he gives orders to broil them over the fire, so that, being stretched on the red-hot bars, first on one side, then on the other, the torment might be the greater, and the punishment more protracted."—Serm. of St. Leo. Page 34. (Line 97.) See last canto, line 117. i.e. "What Piccarda there related of Constance seems to contradict my account; but this arises from not considering that there are two species of Will,-one that gives way to expediency— another, that is absolute and unchangeable. Thus Constance might be said to retain in her heart an affection for the veil forcibly torn from her; but she did not encounter death rather than yield, or return to the convent when in her power." (103.) "Of Alcmæon, "facto pius et sceleratus eodem," as Ovid calls him, Met. ix. 409, see note to Purg. xii. 49. Page 35. (Line 115.) Beatrice, personifying Wisdom, is the stream whose eloquent current derived from God, "the fountain of all truth," laid to rest Dante's doubts. Thus, in the Inferno, canto i. 80,-" Or sie tu quel Virgilio, e quella fonte, che spande di parlar si largo fiume." (118.) The expression, "O Sovereign dearling," is adopted from Spenser,-Hymn to Heavenly Beauty, as the nearest transcript of the original, "O Amanza del primo Amante." (124) "Still something is wanted on which the heart may securely repose-some better portion which cannot be taken away; which may be commensurate with the vast capacities of an immortal soul. This something is true religion-the love of God and the love of men. ....The reason why man grows sick of every object, and engages in such a multitude of pursuits, is, because he retains the idea of his lost happiness, which not finding in himself, he seeks through the whole circle of external things, but always seeks without success, because indeed we cannot find it in ourselves, nor in the creatures, but in God alone.”—Bp. Jebb, Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 44. "If the soul of man did serve only to give him being in that life, then things appertaining to this life would content him, as we see they do other creatures....So that nature, even in this life, doth plainly claim and call for a more divine protection.”—Hooker, Eccl Polity, i. ii. (127.)“ Therein,”—i.e. within divine truth. Our capability of arriving at truth, and knowing God, is inferred from our innate desire of knowledge. "Had we not this capability," says Dante, our faculties would be bestowed in vain, which cannot be." "Is it probable that God should frame the hearts of all men desirous of that which no man may attain? It is an axiom of nature that desire cannot utterly be frustrate.... and man's desire, being natural, would be frustrate, if there were not some further thing wherein it might rest at length contented."-Hooker. Eccl. Pol. i. 11. See note i. 76. 66 Page 36. (Line 139.) Beatrice has before been described as "sorridente negli occhi santi," canto iii. 24.-now, con gli occhi pieni di faville d'amor;" and in the ensuing cantos, she is described with such glowing expressions, that in her face the Paradise of Dante has been deemed to exist;- -an idea supported by the following passage in the Convito of the Poet: -"Beatrice represents the divine Science, i.e. Wisdom, illuminated with all the light of God. In her face are displayed the pleasures of Paradise; i.e. in her eyes, and in her smile." Hence Beatrice becomes a theme on which the poet descants in descriptions of endless variety and beauty, after the manner of the Scriptures." She is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty. ....She is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.... God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom. For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars being compared unto light, she is found before it." -Wisdom, vii. 25, &c. CANTO V. ARGUMENT. DANTE enters the planet Mercury, or second heaven, where a number of Spirits greet him, and offer to answer his enquiries. "IF wrapt in Love's extatic flame, I glow 1 With splendour, not endur'd by mortal eye, So that thy powers of vision I o'erthrow, Of the eternal Sun-whose beauteous face 7 |