ng a new translation. But we were soon satisfied that
his trickery had gone farther than this, and that he had inserted the
notes of these editors to fill up his own pages, without the slightest
regard to their correspondence with or disagreement from the original
text. It is impossible to discover the motive of this proceeding; for
it certainly would seem to be as easy to translate, after the manner
in which Signor Tamburini translates, as to copy the words of other
authors. Moreover, his thefts seem quite without rule or order: he takes
one note and leaves the next; he copies a part, and leaves the other
part of the same note; he sometimes quotes half a page, sometimes only a
line or two in many pages. Costa's notes on the 98th and 100th verses
of Canto XXI. of the "Paradise" are taken out without the change of a
single word, and so also his note on v. 94 of the next Canto. In this
last instance we have the means of knowing what Benvenuto wrote,
because, although the passage has not been given by Muratori, it is
found in the note by Parenti, in the Florentine edition of the "Divina
Commedia" of 1830. "Vult dicere Benedictus quod miraculosius fuit
Jordanem converti retrorsum, et Mare Rubrum aperiri per medium, quam
si Deus succurreret et provideret istis malis. Ratio est quod utrumque
praedictorum miraculorum fuit contra naturam; sed punire reos et
nocentes naturale est et usitatum, quamvis Deus punierit peccatores
AEgyptios per modum inusitatum supernaturaliter Jordanus sic nominatur
a duobus fontibus, quorum unus vocatur JOR et alius vocatur DAN: inde
JORDANUS, ut ait Hieronymus, locorum orientalium persedulus indagator.
_Volto ritrorso;_ scilicet, versus ortum suum, vel contra: _el mar
fugire;_ idest, et Mare Rubrum fugere hinc inde, quando fecit viam
populo Dei, qui transivit sicco pede: _fu qui mirabile a vedere;_ idest,
miraculosius, _chel soccorso que,_ idest, quam esset mirabile succursum
divinum hic venturum ad puniendos perversos." Now this whole passage is
omitted in Signor Tamburini's work; and in its place appears a literal
transcript from Costa's note, as follows: "Veramente fu piu mirabile
cosa vedere il Giordano volto all' indietro o fuggire il mare, quando
cosi volle Iddio, che non sarebbe vedere qui il provvedimento a quel
male, che per colpa de' traviati religiosi viene alia Chiesa di Dio."

Another instance of this complete desertion of Benvenuto, and adoption
of another's words, occurs just at the e