ask the critic, Is there any thing so very ridiculous in Mr. Tarver's interpretation? But let us examine this celebrated passage a little more closely.

The meaning of the whole of Dante's introduction to his Poem is confessedly allegorical. Dante was lost in the forest of vice, when he found himself at the foot of a hill upon which the rays of the sun were shining (the hill of virtue, illumined by the rays of reason). Dante forms the resolution of climbing up the hill, but three obstacles opposed his progress: a panther (sensuality), a lion (ambition), and a she wolf (avarice). The first stood before him. By the variety of colours in the panther's skin is meant the variety of objects which the licentious pursue in search of pleasure (i varj capricciosi impeti de' libidinosi-Poggiali). Now if we were to admit that the outward appearance of sensuality was cheering to Dante, it would follow that he was, at the same time, yielding to the attraction of pleasure. Again, as Mr. Cary observes, there is a passage in Canto 16, which is in favour of the general interpretation:

Io aveva una corda intorno cinta

E con essa pensai alcuna volta

Prender la lonza alla pelle dipinta.

..

"I had a cord that braced my girdle round

Wherewith I erst had thought, fast bound, to take
The painted leopard."

It is evident, therefore, that Dante had intended to conquer the panther, or leopard, meaning sensuality, and had even thought of making use, to complete his triumph, of the cord he had round his girdle. Many commentators, and Lombardi among the rest, explain this cord to be that worn by the monks of St. Francis, an order which Dante is said to have entered in early youth. However this may be, the cord is evidently the emblem of mortification and self-restraint, by which alone sensuality can be conquered.

Is it not, after all this, very natural to incline to Mr. Tarver's in terpretation, strengthened by that of almost all the Italian commentators, that Dante hoped to carry off the skin of the panther, as the spolia opima of his triumph over sensuality? What becomes, then, of the critic's joke about catching a panther before breakfast? We recollect having at first differed ourselves from Mr. Tarver, until, the present contention having obliged us to examine with more attention the bearings of the disputed passage, we have come round to his opinion, happy in being convinced of our mistake.

We now come to the second passage in dispute. Dante is speaking of the see of Rome, or papal dignity; and of its mystical husband, the pontiff.

Quella che con le sette teste nacque

E dalle dieci corna eb be argomento

Fin che virtute al suo marito piacque.-Canto xix.

This is a highly-figurative passage. It is generally admitted, that by the seven heads are meant the Seven Sacraments, and that the ten horns mean the Ten Commandments, from which, say Venturi, Biagioli, Zotti, &c., the see of Rome ebbe argomento, that is to say, she derived, or manifested by clear sign, having derived her authority from the Founder of Christianity, as long as her spouse took delight in virtue. The word argomento means proof, token, mark, sign, &c. Mr. Cary has rendered it poetically by " proof of glory;" the meaning is thereby expressed, her proof of glory, or of her glorious origin, being at the same time, also, a proof of her divine authority; but we cannot help thinking Mr. Tarver's version "she who owed her authority to her ten horns" perfectly correct, and well suited to a prose interpretation. The critic says, jocosely, that Mr. T. "kindly gives the lady authority over her husband because she wore ten horns!" but surely the French son autorité, does not, by any means, warrant such a construction; it is the general authority of the See of Rome, and, of course, at the same time, of the Pontiff, and not the authority of the See of Rome over the Pontiff, which could have no meaning. It is well to observe that Mr. Tarver says in his preface, which has so offended the critic, with regard to this passage as well as to the following one, that they are," traduits mot pour mot, (by Mr. Cary,) mais, à mon avis ils n'expliquent pas suffisamment la pensée de l'auteur," he does not say that they are not translated faithfully, but merely that they are not sufficiently

clear.

Allor mi dolsi, e ora mi ridoglio

Quando drizzo la mente à ciò ch' io vidi,
E più lo' ngegno affreno ch' io non soglio;
Perche non corra che virtù nol guidi:

Si che se stella buona o miglior cosa

M' ha dato il ben, ch' io stesso nol m' invidi.-Canto xxvi.

Dante is going to describe the eighth portion of the eighth circle, in which are punished evil counsellors, and those in general who have abused, for evil purposes, the talents they received from Providence. He says, therefore, that in remembering the torments he then saw, he endeavours to control more and more his own mental powers, lest they lead him out of the path of virtue, so that "if my good star, or some higher cause, has endowed me with any thing good, I turn it not to my destruction by abusing it." This is Mr. Tarver's version, prosaic and periphrastical of necessity, as the words nol m' invidi of the text require elucidation; and Mr. T. could not make the sense more clear to the commonest capacity, which was, as we have said repeatedly, his object. In this explanation he agrees with Landino, Vellutello, Venturi, in short, with the principal commentators. Mr. Cary could not, in a highly-poetical version, use a long periphrase, and therefore he translates literally, "I envy not myself the precious boon," by which means the original obscurity of the text is not

removed, but Mr. C. himself adds, in a note, another version, which coincides closely with Mr. Tarver's: "I am more anxious than ever, not to abuse to so bad a purpose those talents, &c." And this is an interpretation consistent with the character of a prose version. The word invidiare may here be understood, destroy or abuse, or wish to destroy or abuse, which is a feeling common to invidious people with regard to those advantages which are possessed by others.

"Amor che al cuor gentil ratto s' apprende."-Canto v.

Mr. T. translates: "Love which gets possession so quickly of a tender heart." Mr. Cary says, " Love that in gentle hearts is quickly learnt." In both, the expressive metaphor of the text is lost: apprendersi here means catches, spreads itself, from the action of fire, which as said in Italian s'apprende all' esca, fastens itself to the tinder. But Mr. T.'s version is, of the two, the most akin to the original; and Mr. Cary himself seems sensible of his having deviated from it, by his saying in a note, " that the reader of the original may not be misled as to the exact sense of the word, 's' apprende,' which I have rendered is learnt,' it may be right to apprize him, that it signifies is caught,' and that it is a metaphor from a thing taking fire." This passage, however, which is one of those that Mr. Tarver quotes in his preface, the critic in the London Magazine has entirely omitted.

Non mi paren men ampj, nê maggiori
Che quei che son nel mio bel San Giovanni,
Fatti per luogo de' battezzatori.-Canto xix.

This passage alludes to local circumstances, which can be best
explained by ocular witnesses; Landino, one of the oldest and best
commentators of Dante, himself a Florentine, and after him, Vellu-
tello, Venturi, Zotti, &c., relate, that in the baptistery of St. John at
Florence, were four dry wells or round boxes excavated in the marble
round the font, and into which the priests descended in order to be
closer to the font itself, when they performed the ceremony of
christening. Daniello, another commentator, says, that in St. Mark's,
at Venice, there is a font constructed on a similar plan to that
which existed at Florence.
These testimonies seem more than
sufficient to explain this passage, if even the words "fatti per luogo
de' battezzatori," did not give evidently the meaning," places made for
those who baptize." It cannot, therefore, apply to the font itself.
Mr. Tarver is, therefore, perfectly correct in translating, "which
were made for the convenience of the priests when they baptize."
He could not give more succinctly an idea of an appendage to ancient
baptisteries, which is no longer to be found in modern churches, and
for which there is no distinctive appellation. The sequel says, that a
child in playing fell into one of these dry wells, and " dentro s' anne-
gava," which means was nearly suffocated," and Vellutello adds,
"it must be understood that he had fallen into it, bent double, so that

66

he was deprived of the power of respiration." This, however, might have happened also by the child falling with his head downwards. The description that Dante gives of the position of the Simoniacs, each of whom is fixed with the head downwards in a hole, out of which his feet emerge, confirms more and more the description we have given of these dry wells, as the dimensions of the baptismal font itself would have been too wide to keep a sinner in that straight position.

Per mille fonti, credo, e più si bagna

Frà Garda a Valdimonica Pennino,

Dell' acqua che nel detto laco stagna.-Canto xx.

Mr. T. translates: "Methinks that betwixt the city of Garda and the valley of Monica, more than a thousand fountains water the sides of the Pennine Alps, and then go to deposit their streams in the lake.” Mr. Cary renders it

Its name Benacus, from whose ample breast

A thousand streams, methinks, and more, between
Camonica and Garda issuing forth

Water the Apennine.

And yet, after quoting both versions, the critic in the London Magazine says, that Mr. Cary's version of this passage" is quoted as erroneous (by Mr. T.) though Mr. Tarver renders the passage in the same manner!" In one, the thousand streams issue from the lake of Garda, and proceed to water the Apennine; while in the other, the streams water first the sides of the Pennine Alps, and then empty themselves into the lake. This is curious similarity indeed!

Now let us see whether Mr. T.'s version is grounded. There is a variance about the second line of the text. Some read with Venturi, "Frà Garda e Val Camonica e Apennino." Now the Apennine here must be entirely out of the question, as the whole immense valley of the Po intervenes between those southern mountains and the lake of Garda. It must be, therefore, the Alps which rise to the north and the north-west of the lake, and from which the lake itself is supplied with water; and although the Alps, which are direct north of the lake of Garda, are, properly speaking, the Alpes Rheticæ of the ancients, yet, as they join the Pennine Alps, and both these denominations being vaguely applied to various parts of the same great chain of Alps, which divides Italy from Tyrol and Switzerland, it is much easier to understand that Dante, who was not an ignoramus in geography, spoke of the Pennine Alps as being in the neighbour hood of the lake of Garda, than that, in order to define the situation of that lake, he should go nearly a hunded miles out of his way, to the south, across the whole plain of Lombardy and the Po, to fetch the Apennines of Tuscany as a boundary to the lake of Garda. But there is another way of explaining the word Pennino; it appears that some of the alpine summits northward of the lake of Garda

were called by the natives, Monte Pennino. Vellutello has been at some trouble to explain this passage, and he gives the following topographic description. "Garda is on the eastern side of the lake of this name; on the opposite side, is Valdimonica, in the territory of Brescia; that part of the lake situated between these two places, (i. e. the three-fourths of its length) extends northward to the foot of a chain of mountains known to the ancients (according to Ptolemy) by the name of Alpes Poenæ, and from which descend a great number of streams which fall afterwards into the lake. Val Camonica," adds he, " is a different place from Valdimonica, and situated in the territory of Bergamo."

This is the most plausible explanation, and Mr. Cary himself has expressed, in a note, doubts of the accuracy of his version. Two things are clear, that the thousand streams cannot water the Apennine, and that they do not issue from the lake of Garda, but rush into it. Dante himself observes, a few lines lower down, that at the southern extremity of the lake, where the fortress of Peschiera is situated, "all the superfluous water, which the lake cannot hold, discharges itself into one river, called Mincio." This water is supplied by the thousand streams which flow from the northern Alps into the lake.

*

*

*

*

Fù *
Augure e diede il punto con Calcanta

In Aulide à tagliar la prima fune.-C. xx.

Mr. Cary's translation is perfectly correct:

*

*

* The seer was he

In Aulis, who, with Calchas, gave the sign
To cut the cable.

Mr. T. says, periphrastically," pointed out the favourable moment for cutting the cables and quitting Aulis." The sense is exactly the same in both versions, only the latter is prosaic and more diffuse. We do not see, therefore, how the critic can call it a mistranslation after Mr. T.'s own fancy? But Mr. Tarver has said, in quoting this passage, that Mr. Cary has not, perhaps, examined scrupulously the historical circumstances, and he adds, in a note, that Virgil, in the Æneid, mentions the seer Eurypylus as being with the Greek army at the siege of Troy, and says nothing of his having given the sign of departure for the Greek fleet from Aulis. Mr. T. must, therefore, infer that Dante was mistaken in making Virgil speak of Eurypylus as being present in the latter place, and that Mr. C. ought to have adverted to this error in a note. Here we differ from Mr. Tarver. Virgil might very well, on his pointing out to Dante the soul of Eurypylus, mention circumstances of his life to which he had not alluded in his Æneid, as, from the circumstance of Eurypylus being at the siege of Troy, it is very probable that he was also at the departure of the Greek expedition against that place. Nor does Virgil's further expression

Euripilo ebbe nome, e così 'l canta
L'alta mia tragedia in aleun luogo,