d obstinacy is
preparing for her, it closes with threats of her impending ruin and
desolation. This letter is dated from the springs of the Arno, on the
31st of March.

The growing force of the opposition which he encountered delayed the
progress of Henry. Dante, impatient of delay, eager to see the
accomplishment of his hope, on the 16th of April addressed Henry himself
in a letter of exalted prophetic exhortation, full of Biblical language,
and of illustrations drawn from sacred and profane story, urging him not
to tarry, but trusting in God, to go out to meet and to slay the Goliath
that stood against him. "Then the Philistines will flee, and Israel will
be delivered, and we, exiles in Babylon, who groan as we remember the
holy Jerusalem, shall then, as citizens breathing in peace, recall in
joy the miseries of confusion." But all was in vain. The drama which had
opened with such brilliant expectations was advancing to a tragic close.
Italy became more confused and distracted than ever. One sad event
followed after another. In May the brother of the Emperor fell at the
siege of Brescia; in September his dearly loved wife Margarita, "a holy
and good woman," died at Genoa. The forces hostile to him grew more and
more formidable. He succeeded however in entering Rome in May 1312, but
his enemies held half of the city, and the streets became the scene of
bloody battles; St. Peter's was closed to him, and Henry, worn and
disheartened and in peril, was compelled to submit to be ingloriously
crowned at St. John Lateran. With diminished strength and with loss of
influence he withdrew to Tuscany, and laid ineffectual siege to
Florence. Month after month dragged along with miserable continuance of
futile war. In the summer of 1313, collecting all his forces, Henry
prepared to move southward against the King of Naples. But he was seized
with illness, and on the 24th of August he died at Buonconvento, not far
from Siena. With his death died the hope of union and of peace for
Italy. His work, undertaken with high purpose and courage, had wholly
failed. He had come to set Italy straight before she was ready
('Paradiso,' xxxi. 137). The clouds darkened over her. For Dante the cup
of bitterness overflowed.

How Dante was busied, where he was abiding, during the last two years of
Henry's stay in Italy, we have no knowledge. One striking fact relating
to him is all that is recorded. In the summer of 1311 the Guelfs in
Florence, in o