nd of the same Canto, v. 150;
and the Florentine edition again gives us the original text. It is even
more inexplicable why the so-called translator should have chosen this
course here than in the preceding instance; for he has copied but a line
and a half from Costa, which is not a larceny of sufficient magnitude to
be of value to the thief.

We have noted misappropriations of this sort, beside those already
mentioned, in Cantos II. and III. of the "Purgatory," and in Cantos I.,
II., XV., XVI., XVIII., XIX., and XXIII., of the "Paradise." There are
undoubtedly others which have not attracted our attention.

We have now finished our exposure of the false pretences of these
volumes, and of the character of their author. After what has been said
of them, it seems hardly worth while to note, that, though handsome in
external appearance, they are very carelessly and inaccurately printed,
and that they are totally deficient in needed editorial illustrations.
Such few notes of his own as Signor Tamburini has inserted in the course
of the work are deficient alike in intelligence and in object.

A literary fraud of this magnitude is rarely attempted. A man must be
conscious of being supported by the forces of a corrupt ecclesiastical
literary police before venturing on a transaction of this kind. No shame
can touch the President of the "Academy of the Industrious." His book
has the triple _Imprimatur_ of Rome. It is a comment, not so much on
Dante, as on the low standard of literary honesty under a government
where the press is shackled, where true criticism is forbidden, where
the censorship exerts its power over the dead as well as the living, and
every word must be accommodated to the fancied needs of a despotism the
more exacting from the consciousness of its own decline.

It is to be hoped, that, with the new freedom of Italian letters, an
edition of the original text of Benvenuto's Comment will be issued under
competent supervision. The old Commentator, the friend of Petrarch and
Boccaccio, deserves this honor, and should have his fame protected
against the assault made upon it by his unworthy compatriot.

_Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character_. By E.E. RAMSAY, M.A.,
LL.D., F.R. S.E., Dean of Edinburgh. From the Seventh Edinburgh Edition.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo.

This book was not made, but grew. The foundation was a short lecture
delivered in Edinburgh. It was so popular that it was published in a