2: Canto xv. 88.]

[Footnote 3: For the doubt apparently implied respecting the district,
see canto xvi. 43, or the summary of it in the present volume. The
following is the passage alluded to in the philosophical treatise
"Risponder si vorrebbe, non colle parole, ma col coltello, a tanta
bestialita." _Convito,--Opere Minori_, 12mo, Fir. 1834, vol. II. p. 432.
"Beautiful mode" (says Perticeri in a note) "of settling questions."]

[Footnote 4: _Istorie Fiorentine, II_. 43 (in _Tutte le Opere_, 4to,
1550).]

[Footnote 5: The name has been varied into _Allagheri_, _Aligieri_,
_Alleghieri_, _Alligheri_, _Aligeri_, with the accent generally on the
third, but sometimes on the second syllable. See Foscolo, _Discorso sul
Testo, p_. 432. He says, that in Verona, where descendants of the poet
survive, they call it _Aligeri_. But names, like other words, often
wander so far from their source, that it is impossible to ascertain it.
Who would suppose that _Pomfret_ came from _Pontefract_, or _wig_ from
_parrucca_? Coats of arms, unless in very special instances, prove
nothing but the whims of the heralds.

Those who like to hear of anything in connexion with Dante or his
name, may find something to stir their fancies in the following grim
significations of the word in the dictionaries:

"_Dante_, a kind of great wild beast in Africa, that hath a very hard
skin."--_Florio's Dictionary_, edited by Torreggiano.

"_Dante_, an animal called otherwise the Great Beast."--_Vocabolario
della Crusca, Compendiato_, Ven. 1729.]

[Footnote 6: See the passage in "Hell," where Virgil, to express his
enthusiastic approbation of the scorn and cruelty which Dante chews to
one of the condemned, embraces and kisses him for a right "disdainful
soul," and blesses the "mother that bore him."]

[Footnote 7: _Opere minori_, vol iii 12. Flor. 1839, pp. 292 &c.]

[Footnote 8: "Beatrix quitta la terre dans tout l'eclat de la jeunesse
et de la virginite." See the work as above entitled, Paris, 1840, p. 60.
The words in Latin, as quoted from the will by the critic alluded to in
the _Foreign Quarterly Review_ (No._ 65, art. _Dante Allighieri_), are,
"Bici filiae suae et uxori D. (Domini) Simonis de Bardis." "Bici" is
the Latin dative case of Bice, the abbreviation of Beatrice. This
employment, by the way, of an abbreviated name in a will, may seem to
go counter to the deductions respecting the name of Dante. And it
may really do so. Yet a will is not an