came when the distinguished African generals were brought face to face with the student of war in a mighty conflict by which they were submerged. Hamley lived but sixty-nine years, and for nearly sixteen years of his army service was unemployed. For him, in the prime of his intellect, no military post could be found, and it was left to a foreign Government to pay him the compliment of recognition. It is true that the British Army does not provide scope for genius like that of Moltke; but the above contrast is not the less painfully significant. England has too frequently discarded the services of her most distinguished sons.

Failing the opportunities which have been freely provided for infinitely less capable soldiers, Hamley will be best remembered as the most brilliant military writer that this country has yet produced, and as a teacher who set before the British Army a new standard of attainment. The student of the future who, discriminating between the shadow and the substance, attempts to trace the source of the great advance of military science in this country during the latter part of the nineteenth century, will be led back by sure steps to The Operations of War.'

Time will bring its gentle revenge, and the lack of Algerian prestige, which possibly militated against Hamley's career, will seem a pitifully small thing in view of the rich legacy which he has bequeathed to the Army.

ART.

ART. II.-1. The New Life of Dante Alighieri.

by Charles Eliot Norton. Boston, 1867.

Translated

2. La Vita Nuova di Dante Alighieri. Riscontrata su Codici e Stampe, preceduta da uno studio su Beatrice, e seguita da illustrazioni, per cura di Alessandro d'Ancona, Professore di Lettere Italiane nella R. Università di Pisa. Pisa, 1872. 3. La Vita Nuova di Dante Allighieri. Ricorretta coll' ajuto di testi a penna, ed illustrata, da Carlo Witte. Leipzig,

1876.

4. Beatrice. Geist und Kern der Dante'schen Dichtungen. Von G. Gietmann, S.J. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1889.

5. La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri. Riveduta nel testo e commentata da G. A. Scartazzini. Volume quarto: Prolegomeni. Leipzig, 1890.

6. Tutte le Opere di Dante Alighieri. Nuovamente rivedute nel testo, da Dr. E. Moore. Oxford, 1894.

WH

HEN Boccaccio promulgated the statement that Dante's Beatrice was the daughter of Folco Portinari, he gave an impulse to the literal interpretation of the Vita Nuova,' and the movement has not yet spent itself. Ever since that early time the Portinari family has shared in the interest which attaches to everything that is historically connected with the great mediaval poet. And by a sort of natural congruity, though not by a necessary consequence, the romantic story of the poet's love for Beatrice has been understood in a personal and matter-of-fact sense. The Vita Nuova' is interpreted as a record of occurrences; a record which, though blended with a fantastic mysticism, is yet thought to be substantially historical and autobiographical. On this view, the motive of the Vita Nuova' is rooted in Dante's love for Beatrice Portinari; and as the Commedia' is inseparable from the 'Vita Nuova,' the whole of that vast design and lifelong study, which these two works together represent, is deduced as a natural consequence from that passion which the sight of Beatrice Portinari kindled in the breast of Dante when he was in the ninth year of his age.

We will not stop to discuss how far this is natural or possible. We can imagine (in the abstract) almost any train of consequences resulting from the excitement of a master passion in early youth. But this does not make it possible for us to believe that such a man as Dante ever sat down to compose a deliberate revelation of his most inward feelings, like that contained in the 'Vita Nuova,' if taken in a matter-of-fact sense. It may indeed

be

be alleged that he has made himself and his thoughts public enough in the Commedia'; but this publicity is dramatic, and it is limited to matters of universal interest; whereas, in all things domestic and personal, Dante has maintained a dignified reticence. He has told us nothing about father or mother, brother or sister; nothing about his wife and children, or the circumstances of his marriage. The only occasion on which he can be said to have broken through this habitual reserve, is in the matter of his exile; and in this, even if it could be reckoned private and personal, there is the consideration that his feelings were too poignant to be repressed.

When objections of this kind are raised against the literal acceptation of the story of the Vita Nuova,' the ready answer from the literalist side has been that we must not judge of Dante as we might of ordinary men, for that he was as much their superior by the force of his emotions as he was by his intellectual gifts. The superiority of Dante may be admitted; but this consideration does not remove our difficulty. And to speak more generally, we are not favourably disposed towards any argument which is based upon the differences between the great poet and the rest of mankind. For all art, and all criticism, must depend upon, and must make their appeal to, the common elements of the human mind.

Meantime, it is to be noted that the progress of historical criticism has tended to undermine the authority of Boccaccio. It is of small avail that documentary evidence about the Portinari family is collected. This family is undoubtedly historical, but what is the statement of Boccaccio worth, which identified the Beatrice of Dante with Beatrice Portinari? In the fourth volume of Scartazzini's larger edition of the 'Divina Commedia,' containing the Prolegomeni, no feature is more prominent than the discredit which is cast upon Boccaccio as a biographer of Dante. He is treated as a mere romancer, one who is destitute of the historical sense, who took no pains to ascertain the truth even when it was easily accessible to him; rarely is a statement of his found worthy of credit; as a rule his assertions are unworthy of notice, he is a fluent and vain talker, -a ciarliere, which comes nigh to charlatan. Boccaccio has been the chief support of the literalist cause; but now this is the character adjudged to him by Scartazzini, who himself still adheres to the literal side, although he rejects Boccaccio's evidence concerning Beatrice Portinari.

In fact, there is an influence stronger than the authority of Boccaccio, even when supported by the date of the death of Beatrice. There is the marvellously realistic air of the narra

tion, which seems so spontaneous, so concrete, and so convincing, that in spite of the poetical and mystical accompaniments, it carries the reader captive, and inclines him to accept the sentence of D'Ancona, that the Vita Nuova' is 'una ingenua e piena confessione di ciò che v'era di più intimo e segreto nel cuore del amante.' ('La Vita Nuova,' p. xxviii.)

The allegoristic interpretation has a venerable pedigree, whether the indirect and negative evidence of Pietro, the son of Dante, be allowed or not. The way was prepared for it in the fifteenth century by the criticism of Filelfo, who maintained that Beatrice was a purely imaginary character. It was not, however, until 1723 that an allegorical interpretation was systematically expounded, when Dr. Anton Maria Biscioni published the prose works of Dante, with an important Preface, in which he maintained that Beatrice was a symbolical figure for Wisdom (Sapienza). This essay is marked not only with originality, but also with sobriety of tone and judgment.

This is more than can be said of the allegoristic interpreters generally. In the last generation Gabriel Rossetti took the subject in hand, and demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the Vita Nuova' is a Ghibelline pamphlet disguised in a symbolic cryptogram. Judging by the efforts that were made to combat this theory (one of them by Arthur Hallam was praised by R. W. Church), we gather that it was treated seriously at the time; but it need not detain us now, for it has long held no other place in literature than that of a curiosity.

Of all the studies which have been produced on the lines laid down by Biscioni, the most developed is that by Gietmann, which is quoted at the head of this article. He sees in Beatrice a constant symbol of the Church, and this interpretation he pursues with an exacting uniformity. His thoughtful exposition almost always rewards the reader, even in those parts where it is not convincing. In fact, the author attempts too much; and in his endeavour to make something for his theory out of every incident in the 'Vita Nuova,' he goes beyond what is required in the interpretation of an allegory, and proceeds as if he were engaged in the solution of a prolonged enigma.*

But, leaving other systems, we will endeavour to set forth the allegoristic interpretation as we understand it, and in this attempt we must begin with an historical statement, which is of the greatest moment. It is a broad feature of that vernal era of

* This elementary misapprehension is shared by both sides alike. One of the incessant arguments of the literalist against the allegorist is this: How do you account for the multitude of realistic details to which an allegorical meaning cannot be assigned?'

modern

modern poetry which produced Dante as its chief exponent, that the very best work of the period was couched in allegory. From the twelfth to the fourteenth century the most original poems, the poems which were most rich in observation of human character and conduct, whether in Latin or in vernacular tongues, were allegorical. This is a safe assertion, and one that is above question. Time has long ago decided for us which are to be called the best works of that period. Those vernacular works which are still in repute, 'Reynard the Fox,' the 'Romaunt of the Rose,' and 'Piers the Plowman,' are all allegorical. To these must be added the 'Pearl,' an allegorical poem of the fourteenth century, which has been restored to literature by Mr. Gollancz, in his edition of 1891; and in like manner also the Latin poem of 'Anticlaudianus,' by Alanus de Insulis, metaphysician and poet in the twelfth century, -a name which, however obscure to us now, had great vogue among the learned in his day and long afterwards. The latter was an allegorical poem, to which we shall have occasion to return later. The realistic transition of the fourteenth century was the first warning note of the Renaissance, and since that time the tendency to Realism has steadily increased, while the revolt from allegory has engendered a positive aversion to that species of composition.

And as the present temper of the public is unfavourable to allegory, so it naturally happens that the literalists reap from this circumstance a certain polemical advantage. It is usual with that school to discredit the allegorical interpretation with a certain depreciatory tone, as if 'mere allegory' were unworthy of the subject under consideration. A temporary advantage may thus be gained, but it can hardly be permanent, because the foundation is weak. To judge a work of the thirteenth century by the standards and prejudices of the nineteenth, is uncritical; it must be measured by the standard of taste which prevailed in its own day, and by that standard allegorical composition was in the highest rank of honour.

The authority of Boccaccio has conspired with the modern distaste for allegory to favour the prevailing acquiescence in the literalistic interpretation of the Vita Nuova.' For it is the Vita Nuova' that is the battle-ground of this controversy. No serious difference of opinion exists concerning the Beatrice of the 'Divina Commedia.' She is allowed on all hands to be a symbolical figure; but this function is taken by the literalists to be a development out of the Beatrice of the Vita Nuova,' in which narrative they maintain that she is a real person. The literalists do not deny the presence of allegory