turn to thine own breast, and see if any part of thee rejoice in peace. Of what avail Justinian's curb of law, with none to stride the saddle of command, except to shame thee more? Alas! ye priests, who should be at your prayers, leaving to Cæsar the high seat of rule, did ye read well the word of God to you, see ye not how the steed grows wild and fell by long exemption from the chastening spur, since that ye placed your hands upon the rein? O German Albert! who abandonest, wild and untamed, the steed thou should'st bestride, may the just sentence from the stars above fall on thy race in dire and open guise, that he who follows thee may see and fear. For, drawn by lust of conquest otherwhere, thou and thy sire, the garden of the empire have ye left a prey to desolation. Come, thou insensate one, and see the Montagues and Capulets, Monaldi, Philippeschi, for all whom the past has sadness or the future fear. Come, come, thou cruel one, and see oppression trampling on thy faithful ones, and heal their ills.... Come thou, and see thy Rome, who weeps for thee, a lonely widow crying day and night, "My Cæsar, wherefore hast thou left me thus?" Come, see how love here governs every heart! Or if our sorrows move thee not at all, blush for thine own fair fame.—Nay, let me say it: O Thou God Most High, Thou Who wast crucified for us on earth, are Thy just eyes turned otherwhither now? Or in the depth of counsel dost Thou work for some good end, clean cut off from our ken? For all Italia's lands are full of tyrants, and every hind—so he be factious—grows Marcellus-high.'[17]

Such was the cry for deliverance which went up from Dante's heart to the Emperor. Picture his hopes when Henry VII. came with the blessing of the Pope, who had had more than his fill of French influence at last, to bring peace and order into Italy; picture the exultation with which he learnt alike from Henry's deeds and words that he was just, impartial, generous, and came not as a tyrant, not as a party leader, but as a firm and upright ruler to restore prosperity and peace; picture his indignation when the incurable factiousness and jealousies of the Italian cities, and of Florence most of all, thwarted the Emperor at every step; picture the bitterness of his grief when, after struggling nigh three years in vain, Henry fell sick, and died at Buonconvento. In Paradise the poet saw the place assigned to 'Henry's lofty soul—his who should come to make the crooked straight, ere Italy was ready for his hand;' but the dream of his throne on earth was broken for ever.[18]

Henry died in 1313. This blow was followed by the fall of Uguccione when he seemed almost on the point of realising some of Dante's dearest hopes. The poet and the warrior alike found refuge at Verona now, with Can Grande della Scala, to whom Dante dedicated the third cantica of his Comedy, the Paradise.[19] Did the exile's hopes revive again at the Court of Verona? Did the gallant and generous young soldier whose gracious and delicate hospitality called out such warm affection from his heart,[20] seem worthy to accomplish that great mission in which Uguccione and Henry had failed? It is more than probable that such thoughts found room in Dante's sorrow-laden heart. And yet we cannot but suppose that while his certainty remained unshaken that in God's good time the deliverer would come, yet the hopes which centred in any single man must have had less and less assurance in them as disappointment after disappointment came.

Be this as it may, near the close of his life Dante was still able to make Beatrice testify of him in the courts of Heaven: 'Church militant has not a son stronger in hope than he. God knows it.'[21] Simple as these words are, yet by him who has scanned Dante's features and pondered on his life, they may well be numbered amongst those moving and strengthening human utterances that ring like a trumpet through the ages and call the soul to arms.

But were Dante's hopes all concentrated on the advent of that political Messiah who was not to come in truth till our own day? Had it been so, the 'Divine Comedy' would never have been born.

When Dante realised his own helplessness in the struggle against the panther of Florence, the lion of France, and the wolf of Rome, when he saw that to reorganise his country and remodel the social and political conditions of life would need the strong hand and the keen sword of some great hero raised by God, he also saw that for himself another way was opened, an escape from that wild forest into which his feet had strayed, an escape which it must be the task of his life to point out to others, without which the very work of the hero for whom he looked would be in vain.

The deadly forest represented moral as well as political confusion; the sunlit mountain, moral as well as political order; and the beasts that cut off the ascent, moral as well as political foes to human progress.

From this moral chaos there was deliverance for every faithful soul, despite the lion and the wolf; and though the noble hound came not to chase the foul beasts back to Hell, yet was Dante led from the forest gloom even to the light of Heaven.

And how was he delivered? By Divine grace he saw Hell and Purgatory and Heaven—so was he delivered. He saw the souls of men stripped of every disguise, he saw their secret deeds of good or ill laid bare. He saw Popes and Emperors, ancient heroes and modern sages, the rich, the valiant, the noble, the fair of face, the sweet of voice; and no longer dazzled, no longer overawed, he saw them as they were, he saw their deeds, he saw the fruits of them. So was he delivered from the entanglements and perplexities, from the delusions and seductions of the world, so were his feet set upon the rock, so did he learn to sift the true from the false, to rise above all things base, and set his soul at peace, even when sorrow was gnawing his heart to death. He, while yet clothed in flesh and blood, went amongst the souls of the departed, 'heard the despairing shrieks of spirits long immersed in woe, who wept each one the second death; saw suffering souls contented in the flames, for each one looked to reach the realms of bliss, though long should be the time,' and lastly he saw the souls in Heaven, and gazed upon the very light of God.[22]

All this he saw and heard under the guidance of human and Divine philosophy, symbolised, or rather concentrated and personified, in Virgil and Beatrice.

Of Virgil, and the unique position assigned to him in the Middle Ages, it is impossible here to speak at length. Almost from the