noble," he asserts, than "that which the Romans call grammatica," from the fact that it is the first which we all use "in imitation of our nurse," and that it is natural; whereas the other must be acquired by time and assiduous study. But even in this elaborate argument there is a half-tone of apology. Granting that it might be permissible enough to sing love-songs or even hymns in the vulgar speech, the world had still to be taught that such an everyday medium was good enough for high themes of imagination and divine philosophy; and this was the first effectual lesson which Dante impressed upon the mind of his time. The literature of Italy was founded upon his great poem, still its noblest work. And indirectly by forming and giving dignity and worship to one European language, he emancipated all. The father of modern literature has thus an inalienable right to take the lead in the great line of writers who have made the countries of Christendom known to each other, and who furnish at once the clearest and surest revelation of the races in whose hands, for the last five hundred years, has lain all the progress of the world.
The translations in English of the 'Divine Comedy' are numerous. Perhaps the best known, and the one which has held its ground most steadily, is that of Cary, which, though somewhat turgid in its long strain of blank verse, and giving no idea of the triple rhyme of the original, is in the main good and faithful. Other translations, each with its excellent points, have been made by Messrs Wright, Cayley, Rossetti, and recently by Mr Longfellow and Mrs Ramsay. Most striking of all is the literal prose translation of Dr Carlyle, who unfortunately has not gone beyond the "Inferno." It is from
