The reader of Dante must not look for the heart-stirring and animated narrative—the constant interest—the breathless suspense, which hurries us along the rapid current of the Iliad. There are no councils of the gods; no messengers winging their way through the clouds; no combats of chiefs; no cities to storm; no fields to win. It is the infernal regions which the poet, under the guidance of his great leader, Virgil, visits; it is the scene of righteous retribution through which he is led; it is the apportionment of punishment and reward to crime or virtue, in this upper world, that he is doomed to witness. We enter the city of lamentation—we look down the depths of the bottomless pit—we stand at the edge of the burning lake. His survey is not a mere transient visit like that of Ulysses in Homer, or of Æneas in Virgil. He is taken slowly and deliberately through every successive circle of Malebolge; descending down which, like the visitor of the tiers of vaults, one beneath another, in a feudal castle, he finds every species of malefactors, from the chiefs and kings whose heroic lives were stained only by a few deeds of cruelty, to the depraved malefactors whose base course was unrelieved by one ray of virtue. In the very conception of such a poem, is to be found decisive evidence of the mighty change which the human mind had undergone since the expiring lays of poetry were last heard in the ancient world; of the vast revolution of thought and inward conviction which, during a thousand years, in the solitude of the monastery, and under the sway of a spiritual faith, had taken place in the human heart. A gay and poetic mythology no longer amazed the world by its fictions, or charmed it by its imagery. Religion no longer basked in the sunshine of imagination. The awful words of judgment to come had been spoken; and, like Felix, mankind had trembled. Ridiculous legends had ceased to be associated with the shades below—their place had been taken by images of horror. Conscience had resumed its place in the direction of thought. Superstition had lent its awful power to the sanctions of religion. Terror of future punishment had subdued the fiercest passions—internal agony tamed the proudest spirits. It was the picture of a future world—of a world of retribution—conceived under such impressions, that Dante proposed to give; it is that which he has given with such terrible fidelity.

Melancholy was the prevailing characteristic of the great Italian's mind. It was so profound that it penetrated all his thoughts; so intense that it pervaded all his conceptions. Occasionally bright and beautiful ideas flitted across his imagination; visions of bliss, experienced for a moment, and then lost for ever, as if to render more profound the darkness by which they are surrounded. They are given with exquisite beauty; but they shine amidst the gloom like sunbeams struggling through the clouds. He inherited from the dark ages the austerity of the cloister; but he inherited with it the deep feelings and sublime conceptions which its seclusion had generated. His mind was a world within itself. He drew all his conceptions from that inexhaustible source; but he drew them forth so clear and lucid, that they emerged, embodied as it were, in living images. His characters are emblematic of the various passions and views for which different degrees of punishment were reserved in the world to come; but his conception of them was so distinct, his description so vivid, that they stand forth to our gaze in all the agony of their sufferings, like real flesh and blood. We see them—we feel them—we hear their cries—our very flesh creeps at the perception of their sufferings. We stand on the edge of the lake of boiling pitch—we feel the weight of the leaden mantles—we see the snow-like flakes of burning sand—we hear the cries of those who had lost the last earthly consolations, the hope of death:—

"Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai
Risonavan per l' aer senza stelle,
Perch' io al cominciar ne lacrimai.
Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
Parole di dolore, accenti d' ira,
Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle
Facevano un tumulto, il qual s' aggira
Sempre 'n quell' aria senza tempo tinta,
Come la rena quando 'l turbo spira.
* * *
Ed io: maestro, che è tanto greve
A lor che lamentar li fa si forte?
Rispose: dicerolti molto breve.
Questi non hanno speranza di morte."
Inferno, c. iii.

"Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans,
Resounded through the air pierced by no star,
That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues,
Horrible languages, outcries of woe,
Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse,
With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds,
Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls
Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd,
Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.
* * *
I then: Master! What doth aggrieve them thus,
That they lament so loud? He straight replied:
That will I tell thee briefly. These of death
No hope may entertain."
Cary's Dante, Inferno, c. iii.

Here is Dante portrayed to the life in the very outset. What a collection of awful images in a few lines! Loud lamentations, hideous cries, mingled with the sound of clasped hands, beneath a starless sky; and the terrible answer, as the cause of this suffering, "These have not the hope of death."

The very first lines of the Inferno, when the gates of Hell were approached, and the inscription over them appeared, paints the dismal character of the poem, and yet mingled with the sense of divine love and justice with which the author was penetrated.

"Per me si va nella città dolente;
Per me si va nell' eterno dolore;
Per me si va tra la perduta gente:
Giustizia mosse 'l mio alto Fattore;
Fecemi la divina Potestate,
La somma Sapienza e 'l primo Amore.
Dinanzi a me non fur cose create,
Se non eterne; ed io eterno duro:
Lasciate ogni speranza voi che 'ntrate."
Inferno, c. iii.

"Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
Cary's Dante, Inferno, c. iii.