We well recollect the raptures of Anacharsis amidst the vales of Tempe, and the verdant steeps of Delphi; and we expected some burst of feeling from a young Greek, as he approached the Parthenope of the poets-that city too of Greek extraction, and while he was travelling over a country which, if contemplated by the mind as well as the eye, recals at the same instant the greatest vicissitudes of polity and empire, and the still more awful vicissitudes of external nature; the spots where the masters of the world built those magnificent villas, in which they respired from the cares of state and the tumults of ambition; the most magnificent scene fitted up by nature for man's delightful use,' the countless smiles of the waters as they sparkle in the bay,

ποντι κύματος Αναρίθμον γελασμα,

while Vesuvius, rising in the back-ground of the picture, gives a stern but not unpleasing grandeur to the landscape. All this he observes with the apathy of the mule he was bestriding, and falls into a fit of prosing about academies, and scholars, and Saracens, and Arabians, and Aristotle, and Hippocrates; and makes no other reflection than that the region through which he journeyed, furnished wines to the Roman table!

Enough, perhaps too much, has been said to shew that, considered as a fiction, Mr. Mills's book is a total failure. The most efficient cause of that failure, however, we consider to be this; that he has never actually visited the countries which his supposed traveller describes, and has breathed only its delicious atmosphere in his library, and conversed with its scholars and artists only through the cold medium of books. A book about China or Japan might, indeed, be got up from similar sources. But Italy is so nearly connected with us by the intercourses of travel, of letters, and of commerce, that a mere chamber-journey through that interesting region is necessarily dull and insipid. There is, moreover, a certain lightness and airiness of expression, characteristic of a rapid succession of images and ideas, which will always cause a considerable contrast between the actual observations of the traveller committed to his notebook, and the elaborate and analytic form of set dissertations. Nor can Italian criticism be cultivated with success out of Italy. The remark applies even to that species of criticism which is conversant with productions that may be said to belong to an almost dead language-the language of Dante and Boccaccio. For it is only in Italy that an Italian student can be supplied with the abundance of books which he requires,

and, what is of still greater moment, with that traditional knowledge which floats in the memories of literary men.

We have said much in the way of censure, but this is by no means incompatible with a large share of commendation; and we are always glad to escape from the less pleasing parts of our duty, to the gentler office of pointing out merits. The Author's criticisms are entitled to considerable, though not uniqualified praise. Mr. Mills is not an original author; every page of his work, indeed, has served but to revive in our memories facts or reflections that had been long familiar to us. But to compile with taste, is no mean merit; and we can with a safe conscience recommend the work to those who have not the means of consulting the larger collections, or are unable to read them in their own language.

The commentaries on Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, form the best portions of the two volumes. That on the former of this great triumvirate, is correct and copious, but incomplete, we venture to affirm, from the omission of a most important feature in the estimate of that great poet. Dante (and no appreciation of his powers can do him justice if this circumstance be overlooked) was the first architect of his own poetical diction. His choice lay between the various dialects which had grown in Italy. He levied also considerable contributions on the Latin and the Provençal, and, when he wanted a new word, did not scruple to invent one. The assiduous study of Virgil furnished him with those concise and energetic, and at. the same time picturesque expressions, which were not to be found in his native idiom-an idiom which, before it had received such noble engraftings from his genius, was little more than the organ of vulgar and familiar speech, and never soared to higher or nobler sentiments, than those of gallantry and love. Add to this, that the great poem of Dante is without example in the intellectual history of nations. It was a creation out of chaos. And while every other liberal art which then burst into life, received successive improvements,-while the sculpture, the painting, the architecture of the period were wholly surpassed, even to the extinction of their fame, by the more ripened glories of a succeeding age,-the Divina Commedia of Dante has always stood alone, equally superior to all that went before, and all that came after it.

are partly attributable to
Indignation against his
He dipped his pen in the
He joined

The fire and energy,' says Mr. Mills, the perturbed state of its author's mind. country gave new vigour to his feelings. gall of his anger as well as in the pure stream of Helicon. the bitterness of his soul to the sweetness of poesy. He was animated both by his muse and his resentment. But if the

injustice of

the Florentines kindled his indignation, Florence herself was ever dear to his heart. He could keenly satirise the government by contrasting the versatility of its principles with the stability of the ancient republics; Athens and Sparta, he asserts, made slow progress in civil improvements compared with Florence, who used such wondrous subtlety, that the thread woven in October scarcely reached to the middle of November. Dante lamented the depravity of the times wherein he lived: he thought with fondness of those pure days when his native city made no false boast of embroidered damsels; when there was no zone more attractive than the form which it embraced; when mothers handled the spindle, and their faces were coloured by nature, not art.

E le sue donne al fuso, et al pennecchio.'

And now the times were such, that it was the preacher's task to command the unblushing dames of Florence to veil those beauties which even women of barbarian countries concealed. But the former days were chiefly happier than the present, because then

"Every one was certain of burial in his native land." How deep the misery of his exile-how affectionate his love for Florence must have been-if a satisfaction like this were the subject of Dante's meditations!' Vol. I. pp. 227-229.

• Poetical comparisons with rural scenery abound in every description. The views of external nature which Dante has given, are par. ticularly observable; for no Italian or Sicilian poets before his time had painted the fine scenery they lived in. There are some passages as beautiful and sublime as those which I have mentioned: and, perhaps, our admiration of the Divina Commedia proceeds rather from the excellence of particular parts than from the strength of the whole. Dante's rich and energetic sentiments impress themselves on the mind. His pregnant brevity is convenient for solitary meditation and conversational quotation. The misfortune is, that we feel no interest in the story. Although Dante is in the course of his journey perpetually shedding tears and fainting with terror, still our confidence in the sufficiency of Virgil's guardianship is so complete, that we are not alarmed for our hero's safety. It is sufficient to be told once, that the two poets pass with slow and solemn steps through the solid temperament of darkness, conversing in few and brief sentences on the life to come. But we soon become wearied with the mention of roads and bridges, circles, abysses, precipices, and rocks. We are pleased, however, when Dante meets with, and expresses, gratitude to his old master, Brunetto Latini, and reverentially bends his head:

capo chino

Tenea com' uom che reverenti vada.

Or, when Virgil saves his charge with parental care; him to exertion by such noble lines as these:

• Omai convien, che tu cosí ti spoltre,

Disse 'l Maestro; che seggendo in piuma, slabire

In fama non si vien, nè sotto coltre,! an erogerwi Sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma

Cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia,

Qual fummo in aere, ad in acqua la schiuma, tiện

INFERNO. CANTO 24

The reader feels no interest for Beatrice. She is too visionary, mystical, and allegorical to excite any sentiment in our minds. Although we are told that she grows more bright and beautiful the higher she ascends into heaven, still we affix no ideas to such seraphic charms, and cannot sympathize with a metaphysical abstraction. For the innumerable flitting shadows in the drama, our interest is equally faint. The mixture of profane and sacred characters is offensive to good taste. The legend is as much borrowed from, as real history. With all Dante's endeavour to vary the punishments of hell, still there is left upon the mind only one general impression of horror and disgust. There is nothing that can raise or soften the feelings in a description of liquid pitch, boiling blood, gales of fire and snow, the mixing of the bodies of men and serpents, and the cries and shrieks of the damned. A picture of corporeal sufferings must be repulsive, whether it be drawn in a sermon or a poem, by a minor friar or by Dante. Would that the author of the Inferno had described the characters, the councils, and the actions of the Prince of Darkness! But his description of Lucifer, his making him a beast rather than a being of intellectual energy, checks the wish. Nor do I greatly admire his account of the demons, in the twenty-first canto of the Inferno. What can be more offensive to delicacy than the conclusion of that canto?

The Purgatory is only an adumbration of the Inferno: for sinners of the same description are in both worlds. In the former place, however, they are persons who repented before they died; but in the more doleful regions of Hell, they are offenders who perished obdurate in their violations of the laws of Heaven.

The Paradise is not, I believe, often read, even by Italians themselves. The want of passion is more felt in this part of the poem than in the preceding cantos. In resolving to make, at all hazards, the third book as long as each of the others, Dante did not consider the dangers of prolixity.

Metaphysical and scholastic subtleties appear occasionally in the Purgatory, but they abound to satiety in the Paradise. Poetry, the language of passion, is ill calculated for discussions on the nature of angels, free will, original sin, and the mysteries of redemption. The various astronomical remarks, and the occasional medical theories, are

not, apparently, of heavenly or of scientific origin. We feel no poetical pleasure in being perpetually told of blazes of light, and the singing of hosannahs. We pass through planets, and moons, and suns, without finding any thing wonderful or distinguishing. We are wearied by theological symbols, and crosses extending over all the heavens. The inability of man to describe celestial bliss ought to have repressed the muse of Dante; but the pious humility of confessing ignorance was no part of the religion of the time. Consistently with the best principles of religion, Dante has made tranquillity one species of happiness. But tranquillity is a point, and admits of no description. Call in recollection, and ideas of pain as well as of pleasure are summoned up. Anticipations will be either of hope or of fear, agreeably to the cast of mind and circumstances of the individual. In every case tranquillity will be changed into restlessness. Dante's notion that happiness consists in knowledge is beautiful and philosophical. But when we find that this knowledge is the Aristotelian philosophy in a degraded state, or the miserable theology of the monks, or academical distinctions between moral and speculative virtue, our understandings are not much enlightened, and the conclusions we draw are not very suitable to the dignity of the subject.

If the character of his times had led him to a happier theme, and had his learning been that of the sixteenth instead of the thirteenth century, our admiration of Dante's genius would be greater than what it is. We read the Divina Commedia as a task, and feeling that the invisible world is a subject, which even the genius of the great Florentine cannot describe, we wish that he had treated of matters purely of terrestrial interest. His religion is not the pure Gospel, his philosophy is not divine, and the awfulness of his subject should have forbidden him from making his book a political satire. But so beautiful are his rural images, so fine are his occasional paintings of the workings of passion; he is so energetic and so pathetic; his moral strain is so sublime, (except when he inculcates revenge as a sacred duty), and his satire is so keen, as to impress upon his poem a character of merit so far transcending all former attempts at rhyme in the Italian language, that we hail him as the father of his country's poetry, and apply to him his praise of Virgil,-that his fame will be co-existent with the world's duration:

'O anima cortese

Di cui la fama ancor nel mondo dura,

E durerà quanto 'l moto lontana.' Vol. I. pp. 235–240. We were pleased to observe that Mr. Mills gives this great poet due credit for those more softened charms of the art, which are requisite to delineate the calm and the tranquil, the repose of inanimate nature, the bland and home-felt delights known only to those who are enamoured of picturesque and rural imagery. They who take up the Divina Commedia in the expectation that it abounds only in that which is supernaturally sublime and terrific, will be surprised at meeting with passages