dearly. Whether he had any premonition of the evil days that were coming, or any fear that he might not he permitted to return to his home, we have no means of telling. He had attained high importance and influence; but he had also, it would appear, made many enemies, being a man of imperious character as well as of lofty genius, and in both senses impatient of the common crowd with all their self-seeking and petty motives. Several stories are told of him, especially by Boccaccio, which indicate a certain scornful indifference as to whether the people surrounding him knew or not his sense of superiority to them. For example, he was overheard to say, when there was question of some embassy, "If I go, who will remain? and if I stay, who will go?" showing a contempt of his fellows which a popular assembly was little likely to brook. Another story that is told of him (and told by a contemporary as one of the chief causes of his banishment) is curiously characteristic. He was requested, it is said, to intercede with one of the magistrates, who was his friend, for a young gallant of the Adimari family who had got himself into some petty scrape. It occurred to Dante, however, while on his way upon this friendly office, to reflect upon the general conduct of the young man, which was so rude, presumptuous, and unmannerly as to have produced many previous breaches of the laws of the Republic more serious than the trifling one which had got him into trouble. This did not lead the poet to abandon his mission, but modified it strangely. He went on in his abstract way—"I have come to intercede for young Adimari, he is a neighbour of mine," he said; and without other preface proceeded to set forth to the astonished magistrate the more serious faults of the young reveller,
