orld
had wanted one of the most notable words ever spoken or sung. Florence
would have had another prosperous Lord Mayor; and the ten dumb
centuries continued voiceless, and the ten other listening centuries
(for there will be ten of them and more) had no 'Divina Commedia' to
hear! We will complain of nothing. A nobler destiny was appointed for
this Dante; and he, struggling like a man led towards death and
crucifixion, could not help fulfilling it. Give _him_ the choice of
his happiness! He knew not, more than we do, what was really happy,
what was really miserable.

In Dante's Priorship, the Guelf-Ghibelline, Bianchi-Neri, or some
other confused disturbances rose to such a height, that Dante, whose
party had seemed the stronger, was with his friends cast unexpectedly
forth into banishment; doomed thenceforth to a life of woe and
wandering. His property was all confiscated and more; he had the
fiercest feeling that it was entirely unjust, nefarious in the sight
of God and man. He tried what was in him to get reinstated; tried even
by warlike surprisal, with arms in his hand: but it would not do; bad
only had become worse. There is a record, I believe, still extant in
the Florence Archives, dooming this Dante, wheresoever caught, to be
burnt alive. Burnt alive; so it stands, they say: a very curious civic
document. Another curious document, some considerable number of years
later, is a Letter of Dante's to the Florentine Magistrates, written
in answer to a milder proposal of theirs, that he should return on
condition of apologizing and paying a fine. He answers, with fixed
stern pride:--"If I cannot return without calling myself guilty, I
will never return (_nunquam revertar_)."

For Dante there was now no home in this world. He wandered from patron
to patron, from place to place; proving, in his own bitter words, "How
hard is the path (_Come e duro calle_)." The wretched are not cheerful
company. Dante, poor and banished, with his proud earnest nature, with
his moody humors, was not a man to conciliate men. Petrarch reports of
him that being at Can della Scala's court, and blamed one day for his
gloom and taciturnity, he answered in no courtier-like way. Della
Scala stood among his courtiers, with mimes and buffoons (_nebulones
ac histriones_) making him heartily merry; when turning to Dante, he
said:--"Is it not strange, now, that this poor fool should make
himself so entertaining; while you, a wise man, sit there d