breathes angry defiance to all tyrants; he consigns
even popes to the torments he created. He ridicules fools; he exposes
knaves. He detests oppression; he is a prophet of liberty. He sees into
all shams and all hypocrisies, and denounces lies. He is temperate in
eating and drinking; he has no vices. He believes in friendship, in
love, in truth. He labors for the good of his countrymen. He is
affectionate to those who comprehend him. He accepts hospitalities, but
will not stoop to meanness or injustice. He will not return to his
native city, which he loves so well, even when permitted, if obliged to
submit to humiliating ceremonies. He even refuses a laurel crown from
any city but from the one in which he was born. No honors could tempt
him to be untrue unto himself; no tasks are too humble to perform, if he
can make himself useful. At Ravenna he gives lectures to the people in
their own language, regarding the restoration of the Latin impossible,
and wishing to bring into estimation the richness of the vernacular
tongue. And when his work is done he dies, before he becomes old
(1321), having fulfilled his _vow_. His last retreat was at Ravenna, and
his last days were soothed with gentle attentions from Guido da Polenta,
that kind duke who revived his fainting hopes. It was in his service, as
ambassador to Venice, that Dante sickened and died. A funeral sermon was
pronounced upon him by his friend the duke, and beautiful monuments were
erected to his memory. Too late the Florentines begged for his remains,
and did justice to the man and the poet; as well they might, since his
is the proudest name connected with their annals. He is indeed one of
the great benefactors of the world itself, for the richness of his
immortal legacy.

Could the proscribed and exiled poet, as he wandered, isolated and
alone, over the vine-clad hills of Italy, and as he stopped here and
there at some friendly monastery, wearied and hungry, have cast his
prophetic eye down the vistas of the ages; could he have seen what
honors would be bestowed upon his name, and how his poem, written in
sorrow, would be scattered in joy among all nations, giving a new
direction to human thought, shining as a fixed star in the realms of
genius, and kindling into shining brightness what is only a reflection
of its rays; yea, how it would be committed to memory in the rising
universities, and be commented on by the most learned expositors in all
the schools of Eur