at of worthiness, which is
attained by virtue. These are the topics of the illustrious poets in the
vulgar tongue; and of these, among the Italians, Cino da Pistoia has
treated of love, and his friend (Dante) of rectitude.

The remainder of the second book is given to the various forms of
poetry,--the canzone, the ballata, the sonnet,--and to the rules of
versification. The work breaks off unfinished, in the middle of a
sentence. There were to have been at least two books more; but, fragment
as it is, the treatise is an invaluable document in the illustration of
Dante's study of his own art, in its exhibition of his breadth of view,
and in its testimony to his own consciousness of his position as the
master of his native tongue, and as the poet of righteousness. He failed
in his estimate of himself only as it fell short of the truth. He found
the common tongue of Italy unformed, unstable, limited in powers of
expression. He shaped it not only for his own needs, but for the needs
of the Italian race. He developed its latent powers, enlarged its
resources, and determined its form. The language as he used it is
essentially the language of to-day,--not less so than the language of
Shakespeare is the English of our use. In his poetic diction there is
little that is not in accord with later usage; and while in prose the
language has become more flexible, its constructions more varied and
complex, its rhythm more perfected, his prose style at its best still
remains unsurpassed in vigor, in directness, and in simplicity.
Changeful from generation to generation as language is, and as Dante
recognized it to be, it has not so changed in six hundred years that his
tongue has become strange. There is no similar example in any other
modern literature. The force of his genius, which thus gave to the form
of his work a perpetual contemporaneousness, gave it also to the
substance; and though the intellectual convictions of men have changed
far more than their language, yet Dante's position as the poet of
righteousness remains supreme.

It is surprising that with such a vast and difficult work as the 'Divine
Comedy' engaging him, Dante should have found time and strength during
his exile for the writing of treatises in prose so considerable as that
on the Common Tongue, and the much longer and more important book which
he called 'Il Convivio' or 'Il Convito' (The Banquet). It is apparent
from various references in the course of the work