already referred to. It is written in Latin, no doubt with the intention of reaching and convincing the educated public, upon whom it was most necessary to impress the excellence and use of the common tongue: as well as for the simple reason that Latin was the natural language of thought, the 'Vita Nuova' being little more than a daring youthful rebellion against rule, justified by an exceptional subject, and the 'Convito' a sequel to the 'Vita Nuova.' The arguments with which it begins have already been to some degree anticipated in the 'Convito,' which indeed contains the germ of much that is afterwards worked out in detail. We shall not attempt to enter into these arguments. The entire work of Dante is the most convincing of all arguments as to the majesty and nobleness of the language which he did so much to establish, and which has, ever since the 'Divine Comedy' appeared in it, been recognised as one of the greatest, and perhaps absolutely the most melodious and beautiful, of European languages. It is unnecessary to say that the work discusses this question with the minutest elaboration of dialectical skill, proving its many uses, its homely dignity, its ready adaptation to human need. Beginning with the fact that man alone has the privilege of this gift of speech, and that the first speech used was Hebrew, he travels by that stronghold of confusion and darkness the Tower of Babel, downwards to the formation of the three languages of Oc, Oil, and Si, and through the dialects of Italy, to the necessity for a single supreme standard of Italian, in which all lofty subjects might be worthily discussed; adding thereafter a learned disquisition on metres and measures, and all the technical framework of poetry. We give the following brief extract from the chapter
