meet with that is not exclusively ascribable to the creative genius of the author. It is true that the popular superstition of the age naturally led the imagination to dwell on the self-embodied visions of an indistinct futurity. . . . But it is in the style and sentiments of the poet that his true originality consists; and where, in the works of preceding and contemporary versifiers, could Dante have discovered any specimens of that severe, yet energetic tone, the voice of nature herself, by which the reader is irresistibly struck even on approaching the vestibule of his immortal fabric? It is in language like this, (of which we should be happy to persuade ourselves that we have been able to retain even a feeble impression,) that he apostrophizes his 'mighty master'. 'Or sei tu quel Virgilio, e quella fonte,' etc. (Inf. c. i.). Art thou that Virgil then? the fountain head Thou art the guide and master of my thought; That crowns my name with deathless praise I brought 1— The terrible inscription on the portal of hell, 'Per me si va nella città dolente,' etc.2 is another passage which arrests the reader forcibly by the austere sublimity of its style. . . . We next turn to a passage, singularly illustrative of the stern spirit of republican faction, which was exalted in the character of Dante by the keen sense of wrongs inflicted by a beloved and ungrateful country. The entrance to hell is thronged by myriads of spirits, of those who, in life, performed their appointed tasks equally without disgrace and without glory, and who are therefore classed as the fit companions of the neutra angels, who were neither rebellious nor faithful to their maker. In his strong and energetic language, he calls them Those miserables, who never truly lived-3 The genius of Dante is in no respect less capable of being duly appreciated through the medium of translation than in the art which he so eminently possessed, 'of painting in words; of representing objects which are the pure creations of fancy, beings or actions out of all nature and out of all possibility, with so much truth and force, that the reader thinks he sees them before him, 2[Inf. iii. 1 ff.] [Inf. i. 79-87.] and, after having read the description once, believes, all his life after, that he has actually beheld them.' Still less credit, we fear, is given to the poet for beauties of a very different sort, and generally considered as the peculiar growth of an age of excessive sensibility-the delineation of the calm and peaceful scenes of inanimate nature, of picturesque objects, and pastoral images. The very nature of the poem seems to exclude ornaments of this description, and, from expecting only the supernaturally terrible and sublime, we are, perhaps, too hastily led to conclude, that nothing else can, by any possibility, have found admission into such a composition. The fact is, however, quite the contrary, and the reader, thus prejudiced, will be astonished to find the frequent opportunities embraced by the poet of introducing into passages, seemingly the most inauspicious for his purpose, such exquisite representations of natural objects, and of the feelings which they are calculated to inspire, as can hardly be equalled by those of any poets in the most advanced period of mental luxury and refinement. The cloud of anger and indignation that for a moment obscures the philosophical serenity of his immortal guide, is thus illustrated by a comparison with the vicissitudes incident to the face of nature in early spring, which conveys, in a few words, to our senses all the freshness, together with all the uncertainty of the season. The miser, who is tormented with the thirst of Tantalus, is thus made perpetually to behold, without tasting, not water only, but Rivulets, that from the verdant hills Of Casentin into the Arno flow, Freshening its current with their cooler rills.2 So the flames, which illuminate the eighth circle of his infernal regions, are Lights, numberless as by some fountain side The silly swain, reposing, at the hour Or orchard-plot, of glow worms emerald bright-3 So the evening hour is attended with all the circumstances of soothing melancholy, with which it is wont to inspire a poetical imagination, in a passage of which the last line probably suggested to Gray the opening of his elegy.* "Twas now the hour when fond desire renews Of tender friends, whom fancy shapes again; 2 Among the most beautiful of the episodes in this admirable part of the poem [the Purgatorio] are the meeting of Dante with his friend, the musician Casella, which Milton has consecrated to the imagination of the English reader, and that with the painter Oderisi da Gubbio, who is condemned to purgatory for having indulged the over-weening pride of art. It is into his mouth that the poet puts those celebrated reflections on the vanity of human endowments, in which he is suspected of having intended to introduce a boast of his own poetical excellence, somewhat at variance with the moral of humility which it is his object to impress. Oh empty pride of human power and skill! Hath veil'd his glory from all mortal eyes.- An idle blast, now this, now that way blown, Our mortal fame is like the grass of hue, That comes and goes, by the same sun decay'd, When from crude earth burst forth the tender blade.3 Whatever may be the sense of this allusion, Dante has not left us to conjecture what was his own opinion of his poetical merits in comparison with those of his contemporaries. Do I behold in thee,' exclaims Bonaggiunta, (one of those early bards who sang of love according to the fashion of the times), 'do I behold in thee the author who has written poems of a new style, beginning 'Donne ch' avete intelletto d' amore?' 1. Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore.' [Purg. viii. 1-6.] 'I am,' replies Dante, 'one who writes when love inspires, and give utterance to the thoughts which he imprints within me.' Alas, my brother!' returns the elder bard, 'I now see what it is that has withheld from myself and the poets of my own time, that new style, that style so sweet and soothing, to which I have listened this day. Your pen only set down the words which Love dictates. It was far otherwise with us; and the more we admitted of ornament from the mere study to please, the further were we removed from that mode of expression which we so admire in you.'1 Few, even among the warmest ådmirers of Dante, have had the enthusiasm to follow him, step by step, through the last division of his stupendous edifice. In the Inferno, the imagination is constantly kept on the stretch by that terrible machinery which the poet sets in motion and supports with unequalled powers. In the Purgatorio, hope is everything and everywhere about us. In both alike, the number of interesting episodes, the pictures of human character, and of objects both real and fantastic, but which we fancy real because they invest ideal beauties with the qualities perceptible to sense,' employ by turns the feeling, the judgment, and the fancy. . . . Nevertheless, it must not be believed that even the ineffable and fatiguing splendours, or the mystical theology of the Paradiso do not occasionally admit the introduction of such natural pictures and such moral reflections as we have already shewn to constitute some of the highest claims of the poet. Nor must we forget either the exquisitely graceful and simple delineation of the ancient manners of Florence, which is intended by him as a vehicle of censure upon those of the age then present, or the melancholy and affecting colours in which he has displayed the miseries of exile, in the poetical prediction of his own banishment.3 The want of a principal action, of a leading point of interest, the continual conflict of images, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and the frequent admission of such as are either low and vulgar or even indecent and disgusting, are faults from which the warmest admirers among his own countrymen do not affect to exempt him. . . (Vol. xi. pp. 10-16.) THOMAS MOORE (1779-1852) [Thomas Moore was the son of a grocer and wine merchant of Dublin, where he was born in 1779. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1799 entered at the Middle Temple with the intention of being called to the bar. In 1803 he was [Purg. xxiv. 49-62.] [Par. xv. 97 ff.] 3 [Par. xvii. 46 ff.] appointed Admiralty Registrar at Bermuda. Finding the office a sinecure he put in a deputy and returned to England by way of the United States and Canada. In 1807 commenced the publication of his Irish Melodies, which continued to appear until 1834; by these songs, which brought in a handsome income, Moore's reputation was established as the national lyrist of Ireland. In 1817 he published Lalla Rookh, his most famous poem, and shortly afterwards, having been rendered liable for a debt of £6000 by the defalcations of his deputy at Bermuda, he took refuge abroad and proceeded on a tour through Italy with Lord John Russell, not returning to England until 1822. After the death of Byron (1824) Moore undertook to write his life, which appeared in 1830 under the title of Life, Letters, and Journals of Lord Byron. In 1835 he received a pension. The first collected edition of his Poetical Works was published in 10 volumes in 1840-1. He died in 1852. His Memoirs, Journals, and Correspondence, edited by Lord John Russell, appeared in 1853-6 in 8 volumes. Moore appears to have been fairly well acquainted with the Divina Commedia. References to it are frequent in his poems and Diary; his Dream of Two Sisters is avowedly a close imitation of a passage from the twenty-seventh canto of the Purgatorio; while another poem is a parody of part of the fifth canto of the Inferno.] 1806. LINES WRITTEN AT THE FALLS OF THE MOHAWK RIVER. Once more, embark'd upon the glittering streams, 1[Inf. xvi. 1.] VOL. II.-2 (Ibid. vol. ii. p. 333.) 2. Vedi che sdegna gli argomenti umani; Sì che remo non vuol, ne altro velo, Dante, Purgator. cant. ii. [31-6]. |