I have finished the Paradiso of Dante, and feel as if I had made a most important addition to the small store of my acquisitions. To have read the Inferno is not to have read Dante; his genius shows itself under so very different an aspect in each of his three poems. The Inferno will always be the most popular, because it is the most- indeed the only one that is at all-entertaining. Human nature is so delightfully constituted that it can never derive half the pleasure from any relation of happiness that it does from one of misery and extreme suffering. Then there is a great deal of narrative, of action in the Inferno, and very little in the two other parts. Notwithstanding all this, I think the impression produced on the mind of the reader by the two latter portions of the work much the most pleasing. You impute a finer, a more exquisite (I do not mean a more powerful), intellectual character to the poet, and, to my notion, a character more deeply touched with a true poetical feeling.

The Inferno consists of a series of pictures of the most ingenious, the most acute, and sometimes the most disgusting bodily sufferings. I could wish that Dante had made more use of the mind as a source and a means of anguish. Once he has done it with beautiful effect, in the description of a Barattiere, I believe, who compares his miserable state in hell with his pleasant residence on the banks of the Arno, and draws additional anguish from the comparison. In general, the sufferings he inflicts are of a purely physical nature. His devils and bad spirits, with one or two exceptions, which I remember you pointed out, are much inferior in moral grandeur to Milton's. How inferior that stupendous, overgrown Satan of his to the sublime spirit of Milton, not yet stripped of all its original brightness. I must say that I turn with more delight to the faultless tale of Francesca da Polenta than to that of Ugolino, or of any other in the poem. Perhaps it is in part from its being in such a dark setting, that it seems so exquisite by contrast. The long talks in the Purgatorio and the dismal disputations in the Paradiso certainly lie very heavy on these parts of the work; but then this very inaction brings out some of the most conspicuous beauties in Dante's composition.

In the Purgatorio we have, in the first ten cantos, the most delicious descriptions of natural scenery, and we feel like one who has escaped from a dungeon into a rich and beautiful country. In the latter portions of it he often indulges in a noble tone of moral reflection. I look upon the Purga1 "My friend says, with some hesitation, 'a Barattiere, I believe.' It was in fact a Falsificatore '- — a counterfeiter—and not a barrator or peculator. The barrators are found in the twenty-first canto of the Inferno; but the beautiful passage here alluded to is in the thirtieth."-- G. T.

torio, full of sober meditation and sweet description, as more à l'Anglaise than any other part of the Commedia. In the Paradiso his shocking argumentations are now and then enlivened by the pepper and salt of his political indignation, but at first they both discouraged and disgusted me, and I thought I should make quick work of the business. But upon reading further, thinking more of it, I could not help admiring the genius which he has shown in bearing up under so oppressive a subject. It is so much easier to describe gradations of pain than of pleasure, - but more especially when this pleasure must be of a purely intellectual nature. It is like a painter sitting down to paint the soul. The Scriptures have not done it successfully. They paint the physical tortures of hell, fire, brimstone, etc., but in heaven the only joys, i.e., animal joys, are singing and dancing, which to few people convey a notion of high delight and to many are positively disagreeable.

Let any one consider how difficult, nay impossible, it is to give an entertaining picture of purely intellectual delight. The two highest kinds of pure spiritual gratification which, I take it, a man can feel, at least, I esteem it so, are that arising from a consciousness of a reciprocated passion (I speak as a lover), and, second, one of a much more philosophic cast, that arising from the successful exertion of his own understanding (as in composition, for instance). Now Dante's pleasures in the Paradiso are derived from these sources. Not that he pretends to write books there, but then he disputes like a doctor upon his own studies, — subjects most interesting to him, but unfortunately to no one else. . .

In all this, however, there was a great want of action, and Dante was forced, as in the Purgatorio, to give vent to his magnificent imagination in other ways. He has therefore made use of all the meagre hints suggested metaphorically by the Scriptures, and we have the three ingredients, light, music, and dancing, in every possible and impossible degree of diversity. The Inferno is a sort of tragedy, full of action and characters, all well preserved. The Paradiso is a great melodrama, where little is said, but the chief skill bestowed upon the machinery, the getting up, and certainly there never was such a getting up, anywhere. Every canto blazes with a new and increased effulgence. The very reading of it by another strained my poor eyes. And yet, you never become tired of these gorgeous illustrations, it is the descriptions that fatigue.

Another beauty, in which he indulges more freely in the last than in the other parts, is his unrivalled similes. I should think you might glean from the Paradiso at least one hundred all new and appropriate, fitting, as he says, "like a ring to a finger," and most beautiful. Where are there any comparisons so beautiful?

I must say I was disappointed with the last canto; but then, as the Irishman said, I expected to be. For what mortal mind could give a portrait of the Deity? The most conspicuous quality in Dante, to my notion, is simplicity. In this I think him superior to any work I ever read, unless it be some parts of the Scriptures. Homer's allusions, as far as I recollect, are not taken from as simple and familiar, yet not vulgar objects, as are Dante's, — from the most common, intimate relations of domestic life, for instance, to which Dante often with great sweetness of nature alludes.

I think it was a fortunate thing for the world that the first poem in modern times was founded on a subject growing out of the Christian religion, or more properly on that religion itself, and that it was written by a man deeply penetrated with the spirit of its sternest creed. The religion indeed would have had its influence sooner or later upon literature. But then a work like Dante's, showing so early the whole extent of its powers, must have had an incalculable influence over the intellectual world, influence upon literature almost as remarkable as that exerted by the revelation of Christianity upon the moral world.

an

It is to Prescott's credit that he saw, at his first reading, the points. in which the Purgatorio and the Paradiso are superior to the Inferno. This is often not seen by the reader until he knows well the entire poem. In other things, however, Prescott shows himself but a novitiate. For example, he has extravagant praise to bestow on Cary's translation, expressing himself of the opinion that "Dante would have given him a place in his ninth heaven, if he could have foreseen his translation." He does not quite approve of the liberties Cary takes, yet commends him for giving "the spirit of the original, the true Dantesque manner." We must not be surprised at this overestimate of Cary; Coleridge, Southey, and Macaulay went equally wide of the mark in their estimates of him. Would that it were possible for any translation to give at once the spirit and the manner of the original.

1 "No such personification can be effected without the illustration from physical objects, and how degrading are these to our conceptions of Omnipotence! The repeated failures of the Italians who have attempted this in the arts of design are still more conspicuous. Even the genius of Raphael has only furnished another proof of the impotence of his art."- From Prescott's reply to Da Ponte. Lowell, on the contrary, finds nothing in all poetry approaching the imaginative grandeur of Dante's vision of God.

AMERICAN DANTE BIBLIOGRAPHY.

NOTE. The plan of the present list calls for but little explanation. Its purpose is for historical rather than scholarly or literary ends. It aims at completeness (but, of course, does not attain it), and many of the items have no value or interest apart from that derived from their date or authorship. The style of entry adopted was fixed upon only after considerable thought. In deciding various questions of form, I have been favored with the opinions of Mr. W. C. Lane.

No notice is taken of the purely eclectic literature (except when the article or review is of American origin), nor of American reprints of English works containing essays on, translations from, or homage to Dante; only when the latter have been printed separately in this country do they come within the scope of the present list. Thus, Byron's "Prophecy of Dante," Philadelphia, 1821, is entered, but no mention is made of the same poem as embodied in the four-volume edition of Byron's works printed in New York the same year. Reissues of American works from stereotyped plates, although commonly spoken of by the publishers as separate editions, are here, as far as practicable, referred to under the notice of the first appearance of the work in that form or edition; otherwise we should have a score of entries for Longfellow's translation. No mention is made of English works, printed in England, and for trade purposes bound in this country with the imprint of an American publisher. Of the numerous "editions" of Cary's translation bearing the imprint of American publishers, I have only entered such as I could assure myself have been printed in this country from type or from American plates. Copies of nearly all these trade ventures in Cary are to be found in the Harvard College Library; a list of them was given in the last report of the Dante Society.

Reviews of American works are grouped together under the entry of the book in question. Notices and short reviews of foreign works are grouped together chronologically, forming footnotes to the domestic literature of the respective years. Works by American authors published abroad are regularly included, as are also foreign articles on American writers. The earlier entries are furnished with fuller notes than the more familiar literature of recent years seemed to call for. I have carried the bibliography into Canada, Mexico, and South America, but here the entries must, I am sure, be very incomplete.

When the books referred to are neither in the Harvard College Library (HCL), nor in the Boston Public Library (BPL), I have generally indicated, by

means of abbreviations, the location of a copy. Thus, AL is the Astor Library, BA the Boston Athenæum, BM the British Museum, BUL the Brown University Library (Harris Collection of American Poetry), CCL the Columbia College Library, CUL the Cornell University Library (Fiske Dante Collection), LL the Lenox Library, ML the Marsh Library of the University of Vermont, PHS the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and PLC the Philadelphia Library Company.

1807.

Il canto xxxiii [vv. 1-84] di Dante. Recitato dalla Signora E. B. (In Storia compendiosa della vita di Lorenzo da Ponte, scritta da lui medesimo. A cui si aggiunge la prima letteraria conversazione tenuta in sua casa, il giorno 10 di marzo, dell' anno 1807, in New York, consistente in alcune composizioni italiane, sì in verso che in prosa, tradotte in inglese da' suoi allievi. New York, J. Riley & Co. 1807. pp. 50-53.)

12°.

With this note : "The translation of this divine piece of poetry . . . will be published in the second conversazione." I have never seen a second part and do not believe it was ever issued. The above is Da Ponte's first American publication; Sabin makes no mention of it. The New York Historical Society has long had a copy and the BPL has recently been presented with one by Mr. Allen A. Brown.

[Welles, Benjamin.]

Dante Alighieri. (In the Monthly anthology. vol. iv, pp. 253-255.)

(Boston.) May, 1807.

Character, (The) of Dante.

1816.

(In the Portfolio. July, 1816. pp. 61-63.) In an extended review of Sismondi's work "On the literature of the south of Europe."

Hunt, (James Henry) Leigh. The story of Rimini; a poem. Boston, Wells & Lilly; Philadelphia, M. Carey. 1816. 16°. 16°. pp. xvi + 85.

CUL; PLC.

Reviewed [by William Tudor] in the North American review, July, 1816, vol. iii, pp. 272-283; in the Portfolio, Dec. 1817, p. 517.

"The Story of Rimini' had not long appeared when I received a copy of it, which looked like witchcraft. It was the identical poem, in type and appearance, bound in calf, and sent me without any explanation; but it was a little smaller. I turned it over a dozen times, wondering what it could be, and how it could have originated. The simple solution of the puzzle I did not consider,