the champions of national independence. But it can hardly be doubted, in spite of the taunts of Dante, that the chief cause of her eminence in literature was the readiness with which she learned its language. We have some evidence that, before the close of the thirteenth century, not only her scholars wrote, but her merchants corresponded, in what may almost be called modern Italian.* It is true that the famous encyclopædist Brunetto Latini compiled his Tresor in French, and alleged as one reason that "French is more delectable and more common than most other languages;" but his other reason must not be forgotten, he was then an exile in France. When, with other Guelphs, he returned to Florence in 1265, he did better service to the new-born Dante than drawing his horoscope; he translated works of Cicero and Sallust, and contributed greatly to form the language as well as the ideas of his fellow-citizens. died in 1294, about the time of the appearance of the Vita Nuova. Dante's sonnet to him, "sent with the Vita Nuova," is generally considered spurious; and certainly, if Dante judged his master then as he did a few years later, he could hardly have thought Brunetto likely to relish a work of such pure spiritualism: the readers of the "Inferno" will understand us.† We suspect that the same doubt must have occurred to Mr. Rossetti, but that his happy version of the presentation sonnet seduced him into believing it genuine. He has not given us any of Brunetto's own poetry, as being "neither very poetical nor well adapted for extract." However that may be, the Tesoretto is very curious, and it helped to suggest the scheme of the Commedia.

He

Dante da Maiano is remarkable for little more than for scoffing at the first publication of his great namesake, and for (Troubadour-like) courting a poetess whom he never saw, called Nina Siciliana, or Dante's Nina. But we must show more respect to Guido Cavalcanti. Like most of his learned contemporaries, he is said to have studied under Brunetto Latini, and no doubt his master deserves some of the credit of his metaphysical canzone on the Nature of Love. Mr. Rossetti calls it "perhaps the very worst of Guido's productions." It is, indeed, nothing but an academic essay obscured by metre and tricks of rhyme; but at the time it was regarded as a masterpiece of sublety and ingenuity, and (like some Spanish lovepoems of the fifteenth century) it was glorified by the commentaries of many doctors. Thus the change begun by Guinicelli

*See a letter from a Florentine wool-merchant to the agent in London, and the remarks upon it by Emiliani-Giudici, Storia della Lett. Ital. i. 78.

+"Inferno," XV. As to the authenticity of the sonnet, we confess that Foscolo quotes it without any apparent misgivings,-Prose Lett. iv. 175.

was completed by Cavalcanti, and the fantastical conceits of chivalry gave way to those of the university. But Cavalcanti's poems, for the most part, are far more poetical. His personal reputation had a sort of Byronic splendour about it. Although a dashing partisan leader, both in debate and in battle, and glowing with the pride of noble birth and manly beauty, he inclined, when the fight was over, to fling away from those who courted him, and stroll among the tombs in solitude. It was rumoured that he, like his father, was given to sceptical speculations. If it were so, he probably kept the doubts to himself; the poems that remain are untinctured by them. Indeed, some have been ascribed to him that are partly religious and sufficiently orthodox; four of them, stately canzoni, appear in the present volume. From those which are certainly genuine, Mr. Rossetti has chosen several biographical sonnets, the touching "ballata," written in exile at Sarzana, a few sentimental love-lyrics, and two sparkling pastorals. We presume that Ugo Foscolo was thinking of the latter when he said that Cavalcanti, unlike his contemporaries, is sometimes as jovial as Anacreon; but he was perhaps unaware that their spirit was clearly caught from the Provençal "Pastorettas." The sonnets interchanged among the members of "Dante's Circle" are highly interesting: they chaff one another, often sharply enough, for false conceits and amorous inconstancies. "Guido" (says Villani the chronicler) “had many of the virtues of philosophy, but he was too touchy and passionate," and also (we must add) too fond of love-intrigues. The earlier chronicler, Dino Compagni, figures here as a poetical monitor, and "reproves Guido for his arrogance in love;"" only,"

he says,

"Only on thine own face thou turn'st thine eyes,
Fairer than Absalom's account'st the same;
And think'st, as rosy moths are drawn by flame,
To draw the women from their balconies."

Our limits will only allow us to deal with the more serious treatment of love, and so we will quote a sonnet that might well have been written by Dante and translated by Spenser; it is "A Rapture concerning his Lady."

"Who is she coming, whom all gaze upon,

Who makes the air all tremulous with light,
And at whose side is Love himself? that none
Dare speak, but each man's sighs are infinite.
Ah me! how she looks round from left to right,
Let Love discourse: I may not speak thereon.
Lady she seems of such high benison

As makes all others graceless in men's sight.
The honour which is hers cannot be said;
To whom are subject all things virtuous,

While all things beauteous own her deity.
Ne'er was the mind of man so nobly led,
Nor yet was such redemption granted us

That we should ever know her perfectly."

Guido Cavalcanti is classed by Ugo Foscolo among those who force men to admire, and yet leave posterity without any full proofs of the justice of such admiration. After all, his name would have been well-nigh forgotten but for his happily catching the flood of one eventful tide. In the year 1283 (when he may have been about 33), the Florentine literati discussed the merits of a new anonymous sonnet describing an enigmatical love-vision. The allegory was hardly attractive except as a riddle, but there was the sound of true poetry in the verses. Guido sought out the author, and found that it was a youth of eighteen, even Dante Alighieri. From that time they "held sweet converse together." Guido confirmed Dante in his preference for the vulgar tongue, and urged his arguments with such characteristic warmth, that Dante calls him unfriendly towards Virgil himself. We hope that it is not true that they became estranged; at all events, Dante suffered for his first friendship. Guido was a leader of the Whites, and both factions were driven out of Florence in the memorable year 1300, when Dante was chief Prior of the Republic. The Whites were soon permitted to return from Sarzana (in the Genoese) on the plea of ill health, and shortly afterwards Guido died. Under the auspices of Charles of Valois, the Blacks finally triumphed in April 1302; they charged Dante with partiality, and banished him for life.

The first age of Italian poetry closes with Cavalcanti; for Cino da Pistoia was rather younger than Dante, and usually ranks with him among the writers of the fourteenth century,— the Trecentisti. The same is the case with some half-dozen more of the sixty names which are enrolled in Mr. Rossetti's remarkable volume. In the first part, there are forty-four, almost all quite unknown to the public; and many readers, we are sure, have been grateful to the translator for the short biographical notices, and only wished them longer. Mr. Rossetti has a healthy distaste for glosses; but they are more necessary than he seems to be aware of in introducing a new literature. We think that some bewilderment might have been spared by arranging his poets into groups, not so much according to dates, as to country and peculiarities of style; and a few critical sentences at the head of each group would have thrown light upon the bearings, and led the reader on with interest. But every

Inf. x. 63. The allusion occurs in the passage where Dante tells Cavalcante that his conductor is that man "whom your Guido had in disdain;" and Cavalcante repeats the ominous words "he had," and falls back into the fiery tomb.

man to his vocation. Mr. Rossetti is a poet,-about that there can be no question, and it will be long before we find another true English poet who has absolutely lived with the Italians of the thirteenth century. He is not without his affectations and favourite tricks of speech and metre; but a man of character is always more or less of a mannerist, and we learn in the end not only to tolerate, but to relish the mannerisms of genius. Moreover, a great deal of his mannerism is due to the originals; so that we will not much complain of the frequent recurrence of pet archaisms, like "ruth," "dule," and "guerdon," even when pietanza,* doglienza, and guiderdone, are not found in the Italian; nor of a few shuffling parentheses; nor of rhymes without any corresponding pause in the sense or cadence; nor of half a hundred verses with such an ending as "tell thee of," or "knoweth of;" but we are now and then vexed with Mr. Rossetti when he mars the effect of a fine strophe by a lame conclusion,-as, for instance, in the "Gentle heart" of Guinicelli (str. i. ver. 8-10):

"For love hath his effect in gentleness

Of very self; even as

Within the middle fire the heat's excess.”

Some may admire what we consider flaws, and at the worst they are only trifling. When there is a special call for grace or power, Mr. Rossetti is seldom wanting. We feel confident that the English students of pure poetry will long associate his name with Dante's Vita Nuova.

The Vita Nuova is not obscure, and "it is written in very choice Italian." It may be asked, Why translate it at all? We will play the Scot for a moment, and begin our answer with two questions, How long is it since Cary taught us to do more than talk about Dante? and, during all these years, how many Dantean students have glanced at the Vita Nuova? A book eminently beautiful and interesting, it has lain neglected; and why? Because it has been untranslated. We have heard, indeed, of an American translation, but it was privately printed; and the poems separately have been done into blank verse by Mr. C. Lyell; but something more attractive was needed to arouse the public attention. Accordingly, at the beginning of this year, two translations appeared nearly simultaneously; Mr. Martin's is agreeable, and would be valuable if it stood alone; but, as far as the feat can be done, Mr. Rossetti has enriched our literature with Dante's own work. To enter into it would require a separate article; but we are bound to give some

For pietà and doglia. All the early Italians were fond of these desinences in -anza and -enza, though the critics affect to call them Sicilianisms or Provençalisms.

account of it here, and to notice at least two misleading statements that have been made about it.

First, then, the reader need not fear that he must study the Convito in order to understand the Vita Nuova. Let us consider the circumstances under which the two books were written. It appears that, about the years 1291-4, Cavalcanti persuaded Dante to arrange and illustrate his early poems, and to do so throughout in the vulgar tongue; thus grew the Vita Nuova. It contains the story of his love for Beatrice, and his sorrow for her death; and, towards the end of it, he tells how, looking up at a window, he was cheered by the face of a compassionate lady, and how he addressed a few sonnets to her, and how his thoughts soon reverted entirely to Beatrice. This episode is the only connexion between the two works. Ten years later Dante was in exile; he had published several canzoni, addressed to a nameless lady; and he now commenced* a treatise called the Convito, partly (he himself informs us) to prove that these love-poems were not derogatory to his constancy or to his mature manhood, and that this lady was no other than Philosophy. He certainly connects the consoling apparition of philosophy with that of the lady at the window in such a manner as to leave us in some doubt as to her bodily existence; but he makes no further allusion to the Vita Nuova beyond saying that Beatrice lives in heaven and in his soul, and winding up with these words, "I say and affirm that the lady of whom I was enamoured after my first love was the most beautiful and honourable daughter of the Emperor of the Universe, to whom Pythagoras has given the name of Philosophy." In short, his love was that of a poet, and it was devoted to ideal beauty; in manhood he sought for his ideal throughout creation, but in youth he had found it centred in Beatrice Portinari.

Again we warn the reader against supposing that the Beatrice of the Vita Nuova and of the Commedia are absolutely identical. To a great extent they are the same. Thanks to death, her young image had suffered no change in the poet's mind. But the mind that reflected it was changed indeed. Dante had married, and had seven children, though little domestic bliss, they say. His wife's relations were his bitterest enemies; and she took refuge with them when they burned her husband's house. He tried to forget his ruin in the study of the sciences; and Beatrice was half dimmed in his eyesight by the

* Fraticelli shows reason for supposing that some of it was written not long after the Vita Nuova; but, at any rate, Dante tells us that it was not begun till the death of Beatrice had driven him to seek consolation in Cicero and Boethius.