tion of "_amoroso drudo_." But what a
minion, and how loving! With fire and sword and devilry, and no wish (of
course) to thrust his own will and pleasure, and bad arguments, down
other people's throats! St. Dominic was a Spaniard. So was Borgia.
So was Philip the Second. There seems to have been an inherent
semi-barbarism in the character of Spain, which it has never got rid of
to this day. If it were not for Cervantes, and some modern patriots, it
would hardly appear to belong to the right European community. Even
Lope de Vega was an inquisitor; and Mendoza, the entertaining author of
Lazarillo de Tormes, a cruel statesman. Cervantes, however, is enough to
sweeten a whole peninsula.]

[Footnote 12: What a pity the reporter of this advice had not humility
enough to apply it to himself!]

[Footnote 13:

"O sanguis meus, o superinfusa
Gratia Dei, sicut tibi, cui
Bis unquam coeli janua reclusa?"

The spirit says this in Latin, as if to veil the compliment to the poet
in "the obscurity of a learned language." And in truth it is a little
strong.]

[Footnote 14:

"Che dentro a gli occhi suoi ardeva un riso
Tal, ch' io pensai co' miei toccar lo fondo
De la mia grazia e del mio Paradiso."

That is, says Lombardi, "I thought my eyes could not possibly be more
favoured and imparadised" (Pensai che non potessero gli occhi miei
essere graziati ed imparadisati maggiormente)--_Variorum edition of
Dante_, Padua, 1822, vol. iii. p. 373.]

[Footnote 15: Here ensues the famous description of those earlier times
in Florence, which Dante eulogises at the expense of his own. See the
original passage, with another version, in the Appendix.]

[Footnote 16: Bellincion Berti was a noble Florentine, of the house of
the Ravignani. Cianghella is said to have been an abandoned woman,
of manners as shameless as her morals. Lapo Salterelli, one of the
co-exiles of Dante, and specially hated by him, was a personage who
appears to have exhibited the rare combination of judge and fop. An old
commentator, in recording his attention to his hair, seems to intimate
that Dante alludes to it in contrasting him with Cincinnatus. If so,
Lapo might have reminded the poet of what Cicero says of his beloved
Caesar;--that he once saw him scratching the top of his head with the tip
of his finger, that he might not discompose the locks.]

[Footnote 17:

"Chi ei si furo, e onde venner quivi,
Piu e tacer che ragionare onesto."

Som