d at Ravenna in 1321.

Dante is among the very few who have created the national poetry of
their country. For notwithstanding the polished elegance of some earlier
Italian verse, it had been confined to amorous sentiment; and it was yet
to be seen that the language could sustain, for a greater length than
any existing poem except the Iliad, the varied style of narration,
reasoning, and ornament. Of all writers he is the most unquestionably
original. Virgil was indeed his inspiring genius, as he declares
himself, and as may sometimes be perceived in his diction; but his tone
is so peculiar and characteristic, that few readers would be willing at
first to acknowledge any resemblance. He possessed, in an extraordinary
degree, a command of language, the abuse of which led to his obscurity
and licentious innovations. No poet ever excelled him in conciseness,
and in the rare talent of finishing his pictures by a few bold touches;
the merit of Pindar in his better hours. How prolix would the stories of
Francesca or of Ugolino have become in the hands of Ariosto, or of
Tasso, or of Ovid, or of Spenser! This excellence indeed is most
striking in the first part of his poem. Having formed his plan so as to
give an equal length to the three regions of his spiritual world, he
found himself unable to vary the images of hope or beatitude, and the
Paradise is a continual accumulation of descriptions, separately
beautiful, but uniform and tedious. Though images derived from light and
music are the most pleasing, and can be borne longer in poetry than any
others, their sweetness palls upon the sense by frequent repetition, and
we require the intermixture of sharper flavours. Yet there are detached
passages of great excellence in this third part of Dante's poem; and
even in the long theological discussions which occupy the greater
proportion of its thirty-three cantos, it is impossible not to admire
the enunciation of abstract positions with remarkable energy,
conciseness, and sometimes perspicuity. The first twelve cantos of the
Purgatory are an almost continual flow of soft and brilliant poetry. The
last seven are also very splendid; but there is some heaviness in the
intermediate parts. Fame has justly given the preference to the Inferno,
which displays throughout a more vigorous and masterly conception; but
the mind of Dante cannot be thoroughly appreciated without a perusal of
his entire poem.

The most forced and unnatural turns, t