where a man thus nobly descended is permitted to add the distinction of this "of the" nobler race, to his own family name. The name of Dante, famed above all titles or nobility whatsoever, was the poet's Christian name, or rather the abbreviation of his Christian name, which was Durante—as if we should call our Shakespeare "Will," with no cognomen added. The poet was born in the very heart of the civic strife which always prevailed in Florence, his father being, it is believed, in banishment—one of the fuori-usciti, the turned-out ones, as they were called with picturesque intensity—at the time of his birth. This misfortune happened periodically to all the notable persons in Florence, according as Guelf or Ghibelline, White or Black, the nobles or the people—as the pertinacious quarrel fluctuated, changing perpetually, yet always the same—prevailed. This, however, did not affect the education of the young Alighieri, who was well trained according to the fashion of his time under the care of the famous Brunetto Latini, and with much promise of future eminence. He learned Latin, the language of all culture at the time, and even, it is believed, a little Greek, and the scholastic philosophy of his age, and grew up an accomplished young gallant, full of faculty and ambition. The earlier part of his life is related to us in visionary detail, on its visionary side, in the 'Vita Nuova,' the story of his love, which was the chief inspiration and key-note of his poetry, if not of his entire existence. It is impossible, indeed, to know anything of Dante, either as a man or a poet, without knowing Beatrice, the one love of his life. Even if it might be only the arbitrary whim of his genius to make her the centre of his spiritual world, he has done it so
