onson--a diminutive that would assuredly not have been
used by grave people on occasions like those mentioned, though a wit of
the day gave the masons a shilling to carve "O rare Ben Jonson!" on his
grave stone. On the other hand, if given at the font, the name of Ben
would have acquired all the legal gravity of Benjamin. In the English
Navy List, not long ago, one of our gallant admirals used to figure as
"Billy Douglas."

Of the mother of Dante nothing is known except that she was his father's
second wife, and that her Christian name was Bella, or perhaps surname
Bello. It might, however, be conjectured, from the remarkable and only
opportunity which our author has taken of alluding to her, that he
derived his disdainful character rather from his mother than father.[6]
The father appears to have died during the boyhood of his illustrious
son.

The future poet, before he had completed his ninth year, conceived a
romantic attachment to a little lady who had just entered hers, and who
has attained a celebrity of which she was destined to know nothing. This
was the famous Beatrice Portinari, daughter of a rich Florentine who
founded more than one charitable institution. She married another man,
and died in her youth; but retained the Platonical homage of her young
admirer, living and dead, and became the heroine of his great poem.

It is unpleasant to reduce any portion of a romance to the events of
ordinary life; but with the exception of those who merely copy from
one another, there has been such a conspiracy on the part of Dante's
biographers to overlook at least one disenchanting conclusion to be
drawn to that effect from the poet's own writings, that the probable
truth of the matter must here for the first time be stated. The case,
indeed, is clear enough from his account of it. The natural tendencies
of a poetical temperament (oftener evinced in a like manner than the
world in general suppose) not only made the boy-poet fall in love, but,
in the truly Elysian state of the heart at that innocent and adoring
time of life, made him fancy he had discovered a goddess in the object
of his love; and strength of purpose as well as imagination made him
grow up in the fancy. He disclosed himself, as time advanced, only by
his manner--received complacent recognitions in company from the young
lady--offended her by seeming to devote himself to another (see the poem
in the _Vita Nuova_, beginning "Ballata io vo")--rendered him