the laws of his humanity, the language of grace and not that of confusion."
The treatise called "La Monarchia" is also written in Latin, hut the period and motive of its composition are disputed—some commentators holding it to he an early work of youth, showing how Dante's mind had taken up the Ghibelline doctrine of a universal monarchy while still in Florence, as there is no allusion in it to his exile; and by others to date from the short reign of Henry of Luxembourg, when the hopes of all the exiled Italians were excited by the advent of a new emperor, bent upon fulfilling those duties of universal supervision and rectification which were to be the special work of the universal monarch. We need not enter into this question, upon which we do not feel capable of pronouncing any opinion; nor, indeed, is it possible to give, in the limited space that remains to us, any clear idea of the intricate and subtle argument—more difficult in its object, and more involved in its reasoning, than either of the previous treatises we have described—with which this question is treated. That monarchy, in this universal sense, is necessary to the wellbeing of the world; that it is the Roman nation alone which has the privilege of giving such an imperial suzerain to Christendom; and that this supreme power is from God only, without any intermediate agency between,—are the principles which, with all the force of reasoning he possesses, Dante sets himself to establish. This piece of special pleading may be supposed to have been of more importance than either of the others, from the fact that it was an active question of the time, though apparently so far-fetched and unreal: and involved battle and murder, and all the penalties of
