eathing pages of Boccaccio, it inclines one to wish that we possessed
two biographies of an illustrious favourite character; the one strictly
and fully historical, the other fraught with those very feelings of the
departed, which we may have to seek in vain for in the circumstantial
and chronological biographer. Boccaccio, indeed, was overcome by his
feelings. He either knew not, or he omits the substantial incidents of
Dante's life; while his imagination throws a romantic tinge on
occurrences raised on slight, perhaps on no foundation. Boccaccio
narrates a dream of the mother of Dante so fancifully poetical, that
probably Boccaccio forgot that none but a dreamer could have told it.
Seated under a high laurel-tree, by the side of a vast fountain, the
mother dreamt that she gave birth to her son; she saw him nourished by
its fruit, and refreshed by the clear waters; she soon beheld him a
shepherd; approaching to pluck the boughs, she saw him fall! When he
rose he had ceased to be a man, and was transformed into a peacock!
Disturbed by her admiration, she suddenly awoke; but when the father
found that he really had a son, in allusion to the dream he called him
Dante--or _given! e meritamente_; _perocche ottimamente, siccome si
vedra procedendo, segui al nome l'effetto_: "and deservedly! for
greatly, as we shall see, the effect followed the name!" At nine years
of age, on a May-day, whose joyous festival Boccaccio beautifully
describes, when the softness of the heavens, re-adorning the earth with
its mingled flowers, waved the green boughs, and made all things smile,
Dante mixed with the boys and girls in the house of the good citizen who
on that day gave the feast, beheld little Brice, as she was familiarly
called, but named Beatrice. The little Dante might have seen her before,
but he loved her then, and from that day never ceased to love; and thus
Dante _nella pargoletta eta fatto d'amore ferventissimo servidore_; so
fervent a servant to love in an age of childhood! Boccaccio appeals to
Dante's own account of his long passion, and his constant sighs, in the
_Vita Nuova_. No look, no word, no sign, sullied the purity of his
passion; but in her twenty-fourth year died "la bellissima Beatrice."
Dante is then described as more than inconsolable; his eyes were long
two abundant fountains of tears; careless of life, he let his beard grow
wildly, and to others appeared a savage meagre man, whose aspect was so
changed, that while