over the doom of his own brother. I do not read the passage so. If Corso Donati was damned, Forese was no longer brother of his; and to declare, and approve of, the judgment of God is not savage exultation." Indeed I think the passage was put there just to show this phase of truth.

66

Yet a third objection lies in Dante's vigorous condemnation of Popes, Cardinals, and other dignitaries, and his opposition to the Temporal Power. In our present days of good discipline, hemmed round as we are with foes, such language hardly seems orthodox. We must however remember that Dante never dreamt he should in the future be read, admired, and even claimed, by heretics and infidels. He spoke with the freedom a man uses in his own household. Ever since the ship of the Church was lightened by the cargo being thrown overboard in the sixteenth century, no Pope has come within measurable distance of deserving the censure of his children. But in Dante's days it was not so. There were grievous scandals, and it behoved every strong and true man to speak out. True, Dante's personal application of censure was much warped by political considerations; but his moral attitude was correct. With regard to his condemnation of the Temporal Power, he had much excuse for his error. The earthly sovereignty was divinely conferred upon the Popes to prevent the exercise of the spiritnal power being ever crushed in the rough and tumble of the struggle of the nations. It was vitally necessary during the barbaric break-up of the Roman Empire it is equally necessary now amid the hopeless division of modern nations. In Dante's time, on the one hand he saw the Temporal Power being misused for earthly purposes, and on the other hand he had a vision of a Universal Christian Empire which should go hand in hand with the Church, doing with the sword what she was doing with the crozier. It was a poet's dream, and a noble one; but it was only a dream. Certainly he had no thought of an Italy, a rival and opponent of other Christian nations, violently dispossessing the rightful rulers of Rome and hampering their spiritual authority. We can easily find whereabouts in his Inferno the sternly just poet would now place the Garibaldis and Victor Emmanuels who so loudly claim him as their own.

Yet we must not suppose that, when all difficulties are smoothed away and objections answered, Imagination is the whole of what

Dante will give us. His excellences are many and various. Of all poets he is the most spiritual. Milton is a pagan compared to him. Dante could never have perpetrated that huge blunder of the Paradise Lost, where the rebellious angels manufacture cannon wherewith to storm the heights of heaven. Dante could never have introduced the Eternal Father "arguing like a Presbyterian divine." Dante would never have made Satan his most interesting hero. We have had in our own days a poem which, for this quality, is worthy to be studied with the Divina Commedia, and which I feel assured has not yet risen to its full acknowledgment in English Literature-Newman's Dream of Gerontius. I should not be surprised if some day this were to become a greater favourite iu Italy than in England: it will remind them there of Dante.

I have said nothing of Dante's Beatrice. I almost feel as if I should apply to her the epitaph which the chivalrous Francis I. wrote for Petrarch's Laura

O gentil Ame, estant tant estimée,
Qui te pourra louer qu'en se taisant?

Dante promised in early life that he would say things of her that had never been said of woman before; and he magnificently kept his word. His devotion to her is almost too ethereal for discussion; it would need a Coventry Patmore to describe it. Certain it is that we have here the very ideal of the chivalry of the Middle Ages. The world says that each sex should be to the other a means of pleasure: Christian chivalry says that each sex is to the other a vehicle of the grace of God.

Akin to this delicate chivalry is Dante's exquisite sense of courtesy. A man becomes more of a gentleman for knowing the Commedia. One of the greatest differences between Paradiso and Inferno lies in the courtesy of the former and the rudeness of the latter. Contrast the request of Beatrice, the Donna gentil, to Virgil, with the rough speech of Charon to his guests. And Dante himself is a very model of the virtue throughout the pilgrimage, thereby lending the poem no small portion of its charm.

The beauties of his language must be mainly taken on trust by English readers: still we may as well know of what nature they are. One characteristic is consummate ease. He himself

said that he had never been obliged to go out of his way for the sake of a rhyme. He combines, as no other writer has ever done, simplicity with profundity. In him, beauties of the very depths are often brought to the surface by some simple but unexpected phrase. There is, for example, a world of theology in the sentence, Such keenness from the living ray I met,

That, if mine eyes had turned away, methinks

I had been lost.

Lacordaire, too, tells us how his whole being thrilled every time he read the inscription on the gate of Hell, because of the words il primo Amore appearing there

Through me you pass into the city of woe

To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primæval love.

One need hardly dwell on the forcefulness of Dante's speech-as Carlyle puts it, "one smiting word; and then there is silence, nothing more said." Take as a specimen this thunderbolt for Florence

I, who then

From human to divine had passed, from time

Unto eternity, and out of Florence

To justice and to truth, how might I choose

But marvel to ?

But I think I have said enough of this "mystic unfathomable song "; enough at least to show that, just as no Englishman can be regarded as completely educated if he knows not how to appreciate Shakespeare, so no Catholic should think himself completely educated till he has learnt to love Dante. And I cannot close better than by letting one of his own countrymen sing his praise :

*Aleardo Aleardi, as quoted by Miss Phillimore in her admirable essay on the Paradiso." What lofty throne God in His glory has assigned to thee, Dante, I know not. I know that thy Italy has placed thee on the most sublime. I know that in the days of baseness she ever forgot thee; but in the days of hope she reads thy book. Henceforward she forgets thee no more."

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

SISTER MARY STANISLAUS MAC CARTHY, O.S.D. [Born December 26, 1849; died August 11, 1897.]

WHE

WHEN one within thy convent-home would die,
Thine ever was the soft, low, soothing voice
That bade the mourners lift their hearts on high
And in their sister's joyful change rejoice.

Whene'er sad hearts had need to be consoled,
Thy soul's rich music, held in check too long,
By thy meek modesty too well controlled,

Would at love's bidding overflow in song.

And now fond grief would fain with simplest rhyme
To thee in turn affection's tribute pay;
For Heaven has taken thee before thy time,
As in our selfish love we dare to say.

We thought that earth for many a year to come
Would brighter, purer, for thy presence be;
But He who loves thee best has called thee home-
Sad, sad for us, but oh, how well for thee!

Thy gentle mother died long years ago;
Thy poet-sire came back, near thee to die.
May these and all whom thou didst love below,
Sharing, increase thy happiness on high.

Thou hadst not much to change ere thou wert fit
For heavenly converse in that spirit sphere :
Thy nature, radiant, playful, keen of wit,
Was as ethereal as an angel's here.

Thy voice was sweet enough for cherub choir,
Thy heart burned brightly as the seraphim;
That heart glowed, e'en on earth, with heavenly fire
That voice on earth sang many a heavenly hymn.

Of solid judgment and of knowledge wide,
Gay as a child, and just as free from guile :
The old would shelter fondly at thy side,

The young would bask, delighted, in thy smile.

All hearts have loved thee, but God loves thee best:
He could not leave thee longer to our care.
Take her, O God, into Thy home of rest.

Sweet Sister, pray for us and love us there.

M. R.

THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT.

or,

THIRTY YEARS AGO.

ONE

CHAPTER XXI.

VINCENT COMES TO MONA.

NE Saturday evening in the middle of November, to the Madam's extreme pleasure, Vincent Talbot arrived, as wet and in as excellent spirits as a youthful retriever emerging from a river.

"Dear Madam, I did not think I would ever get out," he exclaimed. "Didn't the Governor keep me to my trumps, and I was afraid to strike. By Jove! I was longing for a run on the hills. I have vacation now until Tuesday, and the Taylors are coming out to-morrow.

"I didn't think I'd ever see any of you again," said the Madam. "So George has come home ?”

"Yes he returned yesterday. He was delayed in Dublin longer than he thought. When did you see Father Garrett?

We must have a day on the mountain."

Indeed, I have not seen him for the last fortnight. There is a messenger going to Monalena this moment. I will first send a line to ask him and Nell to dinner to-morrow. Ethna, dear,

will you write a note while I am giving directions?"

Ethna wrote a few lines to Nell O'Malley, the curate's sister, and the boy was despatched to the village.