y. The
charge of peculation which his enemies brought against this great poet,
the world has universally scouted with an indignation that does it
honour. He himself seems never to have condescended to allude to it;
and a biographer would feel bound to copy his silence, had not the
accusation been so atrociously recorded. But, on the other hand, who
can believe that a man so capable of doing his fellow-citizens good and
honour, would have experienced such excessive enmity, had he not carried
to excess the provocations of his pride and scorn? His whole history
goes to prove it, not omitting the confession he makes of pride as his
chief sin, and the eulogies he bestows on the favourite vice of the
age--revenge. His Christianity (at least as shewn in his poem) was not
that of Christ, but of a furious polemic. His motives for changing his
party, though probably of a mixed nature, like those of most human
beings, may reasonably be supposed to have originated in something
better than interest or indignation. He had most likely not agreed
thoroughly with any party, and had become hopeless of seeing dispute
brought to an end, except by the representative of the Caesars. The
inconsistency of the personal characters of the popes with the sacred
claims of the chair of St. Peter, was also calculated greatly to disgust
him; but still his own infirmities of pride and vindictiveness
spoiled all; and when he loaded every body else with reproach for the
misfortunes of his country, he should have recollected that, had his own
faults been kept in subjection to his understanding, he might possibly
have been its saviour. Dante's modesty has been asserted on the ground
of his humbling himself to the fame of Virgil, and at the feet of
blessed spirits; but this kind of exalted humility does not repay a
man's fellow-citizens for lording it over them with scorn and derision.
We learn from Boccaccio, that when he was asked to go ambassador
from his party to the pope, he put to them the following useless and
mortifying queries--"If I go, who is to stay?--and if I stay, who is to
go?" [21] Neither did his pride make him tolerant of pride in others.
A neighbour applying for his intercession with a magistrate, who had
summoned him for some offence, Dante, who disliked the man for riding in
an overbearing manner along the streets (stretching out his legs as wide
as he could, and hindering people from going by), did intercede with the
magistrate, but it