o find the very
fibres of Dante's life woven into the texture of the history. The
dream of the _De Monarchia_ was dreamed by Henry as well as by Dante;
but as we read the detail of his failure it is borne in upon us that
he not only did fail but must fail, for his ideal was incapable of
realization. Italy was not ready for him, and had she been ready she
would not have needed him.

Finally, the last pages of our volume, which cover selections from the
portion of Book IX., extending from the death of Henry to the death of
Dante himself, are for the most part inserted for a very special
reason, as to which some little detail is necessary. Strangely enough
they derive their importance not from any interest Dante may have
taken in the events they record, but from the fact that he did not
take enough interest in them to satisfy one of his most ardent
admirers. The editions of Dante's collected works include a
correspondence in Latin hexameters between Johannes de Virgilio and
Dante. Now in the poem that opens this correspondence Johannes refers
to Statius and to Lethe in a manner that proves beyond all doubt that
the whole of the _Purgatorio_ as well as the _Inferno_ was in his
hands. But he alludes to the _Paradiso_--the poem of the
"super-solar" realms which is to complete the record of the "lower"
ones--as not yet having appeared. It therefore becomes a matter of
extreme interest to the Dante student to learn the date of this poem.
Now one of the considerations that led Johannes to address Dante was
the hope of inducing him to choose a contemporary subject for a Latin
poem and so write something worthy of himself and of studious readers!
With this object he suggests a number of subjects:--

"Dic age quo petiit Jovis armiger astra volatu:
Dic age quos flores, quae lilia fregit arator:
Dic Phrygias damas laceratos dente molosso:
Dic Ligurum montes, et classes Parthenopaeas."

"Come! tell thou of the flight by which Jove's armour-bearer
(the Imperial Eagle = Henry VII.) sought the stars. Come!
tell thou of the flowers and lilies (of Florence) crushed by
the ploughman (Uguccione da Faggiuola). Tell of the Phrygian
does (the Paduans) torn by the mastiff's (Can Grande's)
tooth. Tell of the Ligurian mountains (the Genoese) and the
Parthenopaean fleets (of Robert of Naples)."

The correctness and security of the interpretation of this passage
will not be doubted by any