tention of communicating it to you. I gladly pass on, gladly and quickly, as Dante himself passes on, to a more welcome and less disreputable apparition, who answers, when questioned as to who and what he is, that man he is not, but man he was; that his parents were of Lombardy, and all his folk of Mantuan stock; that he lived in the age of the Great Cæsar and the fortunate Augustus; that he was а poet-Poeta fui-sang of the just and right-minded son of Anchises, the pious Æneas, who came to Italy and founded a greater city even than Troy, when proud Ilium was levelled to the dust. In the presence of Virgil, we forget the embarrassing symbolism of the preceding passage, and believe once more; and, when Dante addresses him in lines of affectionate awe, that you all know by heart, and with repeating which all lovers of poets and poetry console themselves when the prosaic world passes on the other side, every doubt, every misgiving, every lingering remnant of incredulity is dismissed, and we are prepared, nay, we are eager, to take the triple journey, along two-thirds of which Virgil tells Dante he has been sent by the Imperador che lassù regna, the Ruler of the Universe, to conduct him. Prepared we are, nay, eager, I say, to hear the disperate strida of the spiriti dolenti, the wailings of despair of the eternally lost, and the yearning sighs of those "che son contenti nel fuoco," who are resigned to purgatorial pain, and scarce suffer from it, since they are buoyed up by the hope of finally joining the beate genti, and, along with the blessed, seeing the Face of God. "Allor si mosse, ed io gli tenni dietro," says Dante in the closing line of this, the First Canto of the "Divina Com. media."

"Then moved he on, and I paced after him."

Could you have a more realistic touch? So realistic, so real, is it, in the Realm of the Ideal, that, just as Dante followed Virgil, so we follow both, humble and unquestioning believers in whatever may be told us.

I am not unaware that, in an age in which the approval of inflexibly avenging justice consequent on wrongdoing is less marked and less frequent than sentimental compassion for the wrongdoer, the punishments inflicted in the Inferno for the infraction of the Divine Law, as Dante understood it, are found repellent by many persons, and agreeable to few. I grant that they are appalling in their sternness; nor was Dante himself unconscious of this, for does he not describe Minos as "scowling horribly" as the souls of the damned came before him for judgment, and for discriminating consignment to their alloted circle of torture. Always terse, and therefore all the more terrible, he nevertheless exhausts the vocabulary of torment in describing the doloroso ospizio, the dolorous home from which they will never return. As Milton speaks of the "darkness visible" of Hell, so Dante, before him, writes of it as "loco d' ogni luce muto," a place silent of light, but that wails and moans like a tempestuous sea, battered and buffeted by jarring winds, finally designated

"La bufera infernal, che mai resta."

non

"The infernal hurricane that ceases never."

Of those who are whirled about by it, "di qua, di là, di gìù, di su," hither and thither, upward and downward, he writes the awful line:

"Nulla speranza gli conforta mai."

"They have no hope of consolation

ever,

Or even mitigation of their woe."

stract description of punishment that precedes it, and the detailed account of pitiless penalty that follows it, in succeeding cantos; and the absolute fusion of the ideal and the real in the woeful story imparts to it a verisimilitude irresistible even by the most unimaginative and incredulous. Rimini, Ravenna, Malatesta, are names so familiar to us all, that any story concerning them would have to be to the last degree improbable to move our incredulity. But who is it that is not prepared to believe in the sorrows of a love-tale?

"Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,

Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth."

It is the greatest of all masters of the human heart, the greatest and wisest teacher concerning human life, who tells us that; and Dante, who in this respect is to be almost as much trusted as Shakespeare himself, makes Francesca, with her truly feminine temperament, say:

"Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,

Mi prese del costui piacer si forte, Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona."

"Love that compels all who are loved to love,

Entangled both in such abiding charm, That, as you see, he still deserts me not."

As we hear those words, it is no longer Rimini, Ravenna, Malatesta, Paola, Francesca, that arrest our attention and rivet it by their reality. We are enthralled by the ideal realism, or realistic idealism, call it which you will, of the larger and wider world we all inhabit, of this vast and universal theatre, of whose stage Love remains

to-day, as it was yesterday, and will remain forever, the central figure, the dominant protagonist.

So far we have seen, by illustrations purposely taken from passages in the "Inferno" and the "Purgatoria" familiar to all serious readers of the "Divine Comedy," how Dante, by realistic touches, makes us believe in the Ideal, and how, by never for long quitting the region of the Ideal, he reconciles us to the most accurate and merciless realism. But there is a third Realm to which he is admitted, and whither he transports us, the "Paradiso." Some prosaically precise person would, perhaps, say that the thirtieth canto of the "Purgatorio" is not a portion of the "Paradiso." you know better, for in it Beatrice appears to her poet-lover:

But

"sotto verde manto, Vestita di color di fiamma viva," "In mantle green, and girt with living light,"

while angelic messengers and ministers from Heaven round her scatter lilies that never fade; and when Dante, overcome by the celestial vision, turns to Virgil with the same instinctive feeling of trust

"Col quale il fantolin corre alla mamma,

Quando ha paura”

trust such as is shown by a little child hurrying to its mother when afraid, and exclaims, translating a line of Virgil's own

"Conosco i segni dell' antica fiamma," "O how I know and feel, and recognize

The indications of my youthful love;"

he finds that Virgil, dolcissimo padre, his gentle parent and guide, has left

"Questi si tolse a me, e diesse altrui."

"This man from me withdrew himself, and gave

Himself to others."

What think you of that as a realistic treatment of the Ideal? If there be any among my audience, members of the sex commonly supposed to be the wiser, who but partly feel and imperfectly apprehend it, then let them ask any woman they will what she thinks of it, and she will answer, "It is supreme, it is unapproachable."

After such an illustration of the power of Dante over one of the main secrets of fascination in great poetry, it is unnecessary to go in search of more. With illustrating my theme of this evening I have done, and it only remains to add a few words of repetition and enforcement of what has been already indicated, lest perchance, if they were omitted, my meaning and purpose should be misapprehended or overlooked. Did you happen to observe that, a little while back, I used the phrase, "the ideal realism, or realistic idealism, call it which you will"? But now, before concluding, let me say, what has been in my mind all along, and has been there for many years, that great poetry consists of the combination of ideal Realism, realistic Idealism, and Idealism pure and simple. Upon that point much might be said, and perhaps some day I may venture to say it. In all ages the disposition of the more prosaic minds-by which term I do not mean minds belonging to persons devoid of feeling, or even of sentiment, but persons destitute of the poetic sense, or of what Poetry essentially is-has been to incline, in works of fiction, whether in prose or verse to Realism pure and simple; and the present Age, thanks to the invention of photography and the dissemination of novels that seek to describe persons and things such as

either the

they are or are supposed to be, has a peculiar and exceptional leaning in that direction. The direction is a dangerous one, for the last stage of Realism pure and simple in prose fiction is the exhibition of demoralized man and degraded woman. In poetry, thank Heaven, that operation is impossible. No doubt, it is possible in verse, just as it is possible in prose, and perhaps even more so; and there are persons who will tell you that it is Poetry. But it is not, and never can be made such. Poetry is idealized Real, the realistic Ideal, or the Ideal pure and simple. In other words, as I long since endeavored to show, Poetry is Transfiguration. Attempts are made in these days, as we all well know, to get you to accept Realism pure and simple as the newest and most inspired utterance of the Heavenly Maid. But they will not be successful. In that great hall of the Vatican, whither throng pilgrims from every quarter of the world, and to whose walls Raphael has bequeathed the ripest and richest fruits of his lucid, elevated, and elevating genius, is a presentation of the Muse. She is seated on a throne of majestic marble. Her feet are planted on the clouds, but her laurelled head and outstretched wings are high in the Empyrean, and

The National Review.

round her maiden throat is a circlet enamelled with the unageing stars. With one hand she cherishes the lyre, with the other she grasps the Book of Wisdom; and her attendants are, not the sycophants of passing popularity, but the eternal angels of God, upholding a scroll wherein are inscribed the words, Numine afflatur. She sings, only when inspired. That is the Muse for me. Surely it is the Muse for you. At any rate it was the Muse of Dante; the Muse that inspired the "Divina Commedia” through his love for Beatrice. As an old English song has it, ""Tis love that makes the world go round," a homely truth that Dante idealized and transfigured in the last line of his immortal poem,

"L'Amor che muove il Sole e l'altre stelle."

"Love,

That lights the sun and makes the planet sing;"

love of Love, love of Beauty, love of Virtue, love of Country, love of Mankind; or, as one might put it in this age of physical discovery:

"Electric Love illuminates the world."

Alfred Austin.

Frederick Langbridge.