to living thoughts and feelings, like Bacon, among boyish
companions; lisping in numbers, like Pope, before he could write prose;
different from all other boys, since no time can be fixed when he did
not think and feel like a person of maturer years. Born in Florence, of
the noble family of the Alighieri, in the year 1265, his early education
devolved upon his mother, his father having died while the boy was very
young. His mother's friend, Brunetto Latini, famous as statesman and
scholarly poet, was of great assistance in directing his tastes and
studies. As a mere youth he wrote sonnets, such as Sordello the
Troubadour would not disdain to own. He delights, as a boy, in those
inquiries which gave fame to Bonaventura. He has an intuitive contempt
for all quacks and pretenders. At Paris he maintains fourteen different
theses, propounded by learned men, on different subjects, and gains
universal admiration. He is early selected by his native city for
important offices, which he fills with honor. In wit he encounters no
superiors. He scorches courts by sarcasms which he can not restrain. He
offends the great by a superiority which he does not attempt to veil. He
affects no humility, for his nature is doubtless proud; he is even
offensively conscious and arrogant. When Florence is deliberating about
the choice of an ambassador to Rome, he playfully, yet still arrogantly,
exclaims: "If I remain behind, who goes? and if I go, who remains
behind?" His countenance, so austere and thoughtful, impresses all
beholders with a sort of inborn greatness; his lip, in Giotto's
portrait, is curled disdainfully, as if he lived among fools or knaves.
He is given to no youthful excesses; he lives simply and frugally. He
rarely speaks unless spoken to; he is absorbed apparently in thought.
Without a commanding physical person, he is a marked man to everybody,
even when he deems himself a stranger. Women gaze at him with wonder and
admiration, though he disdains their praises and avoids their
flatteries. Men make way for him as he passes them, unconsciously.
"Behold," said a group of ladies, as he walked slowly by them, "there is
a man who has visited hell!" To the close of his life he was a great
devourer of books, and digested their contents. His studies were as
various as they were profound. He was familiar with the ancient poets
and historians and philosophers; he was still better acquainted with the
abstruse speculations of the schoolmen