his memory. "The last age,"
writes Hobhouse, in 1817 (note 18 to Canto IV. of _Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage_, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 496), "seemed inclined to
undervalue him.... The present generation ... has returned to the
ancient worship, and the _Danteggiare_ of the northern Italians is
thought even indiscreet by the more moderate Tuscans." Dante was in the
air. As Byron wrote in his Diary (January 29, 1821), "Read Schlegel
[probably in a translation published at Edinburgh, 1818]. Not a
favourite! Why, they talk Dante, write Dante, and think and dream Dante
at this moment (1821), to an excess which would be ridiculous, but that
he deserves it."

There was, too, another reason why he was minded to write a poem "on the
subject of Dante." There was, at this time, a hope, if not a clear
prospect, of political change--of throwing off the yoke of the Bourbon,
of liberating Italy from the tyrant and the stranger. "Dante was the
poet of liberty. Persecution, exile, the dread of a foreign grave, could
not shake his principles" (Medwin, _Conversations_, 1824, p. 242). The
_Prophecy_ was "intended for the Italians," intended to foreshadow as in
a vision "liberty and the resurrection of Italy" (_ibid_., p. 241). As
he rode at twilight through the pine forest, or along "the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood," the undying past inspired him
with a vision of the future, delayed, indeed, for a time, "the flame
ending in smoke," but fulfilled after many days, a vision of a redeemed
and united Italy.

"The poem," he says, in the Preface, "may be considered as a metrical
experiment." In _Beppo_, and the two first cantos of _Don Juan_, he had
proved that the _ottava rima_ of the Italians, which Frere had been one
of the first to transplant, might grow and flourish in an alien soil,
and now, by way of a second venture, he proposed to acclimatize the
_terza rima_. He was under the impression that Hayley, whom he had held
up to ridicule as "for ever feeble, and for ever tame," had been the
first and last to try the measure in English; but of Hayley's excellent
translation of the three first cantos of the _Inferno_ (_vide post_, p.
244, note 1), praised but somewhat grudgingly praised by Southey, he had
only seen an extract, and of earlier experiments he was altogether
ignorant. As a matter of fact, many poets had already essayed, but
timidly and without perseverance, to "come to the test in the
metrification" of the