which the French Calvinists abused
the favour which Henry--and Richelieu afterwards--accorded to them.
Remembering how Calvin himself "dragooned" Geneva, let us be thankful
for the fortune which, in one of the most critical periods of history,
raised to the highest position in Christendom a man who was something
more than a sectarian.

With this brief criticism, we must regretfully take leave of Mr.
Motley's work. Much more remains to be said about a historical treatise
which is, on the whole, the most valuable and important one yet produced
by an American; but we have already exceeded our limits. We trust that
our author will be as successful in the future as he has been in the
past; and that we shall soon have an opportunity of welcoming the first
instalment of his "History of the Thirty Years' War."

March, 1868.

XI. LONGFELLOW'S DANTE. [33]

[33] The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow. 3 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867.

THE task of a translator is a thankless one at best. Be he never so
skilful and accurate, be he never so amply endowed with the divine
qualifications of the poet, it is still questionable if he can ever
succeed in saying satisfactorily with new words that which has once been
inimitably said--said for all time--with the old words. "Psychologically,
there is perhaps nothing more complex than an elaborate poem. The
sources of its effect upon our minds may be likened to a system of
forces which is in the highest degree unstable; and the slightest
displacement of phrases, by disturbing the delicate rhythmical
equilibrium of the whole, must inevitably awaken a jarring sensation."
Matthew Arnold has given us an excellent series of lectures upon
translating Homer, in which he doubtless succeeds in showing that some
methods of translation are preferable to others, but in which he proves
nothing so forcibly as that the simplicity and grace, the rapidity,
dignity, and fire, of Homer are quite incommunicable, save by the very
words in which they first found expression. And what is thus said of
Homer will apply to Dante with perhaps even greater force. With nearly
all of Homer's grandeur and rapidity, though not with nearly all
his simplicity, the poem of Dante manifests a peculiar intensity of
subjective feeling which was foreign to the age of Homer, as indeed to
all pre-Christian antiquity. But concerning this we need not dilate,
as it has often