s best in
modern life; and St. Thomas Aquinas, his echo, with new harmonies added
the Wagner to Aristotle's Mozart. No--that is going too far!--the
musical comparison fails. "If thou should'st never see my face again,
pray for my soul," is King Arthur's prayer. It is the prayer of Pope
Gregory that saved Trajan.

When we come to the "Purgatorio," like the "Paradiso" too neglected, we
find much that illuminates our minds and touches our hearts. The
"Purgatorio" is not without humour, and it is certainly very human. For
instance, there is the case of the negligent ruler, Nino de' Visconti.
Dante is frankly pleased to meet him, but his address is hardly tactful.
He is evidently surprised to find that Nino is not in Hell,

When he came near to me I said to him;
gentle Judge Nino, how I'm delighted well
that I have seen thee here and not in Hell.

Nino begs that his innocent daughter, Giovanna, may be asked by Dante,
on his return to earth, to pray for him. He is not pleased that his
widow should desire to marry

the Milanese who blazoned a viper on his shield.

He thinks that his wife has ceased to love him as she has discarded her
"white wimples," which, if she marries this inferior person, she may
long for once again! And he adds, rather cynically, for a blessed soul
in Purgatory, that through her one may mightily well

know how short a time love may last in woman, if the eye and the
touch do not keep it alive.

One must admit that there is an element of humour--not for the
victim--in the "Inferno," when Dante puts Pope Boniface VIII. into Hell
three and a half years before he died! Nicholas III., whom Dante thought
guilty of the unpardonable sin of simony, had preceded Boniface; and he
says,

_E se non fosse ch' ancor lo mi vieta
la riverenza delle somme chiavi,
che tu tenesti nella vita lieta
l' userei parole ancor pi[`u] gravi--_

But for consolation, there is no great poem so good as the "Paradiso."

_English and American Verse_

Edmund Clarence Stedman tells us how thrilled the youths of his
generation were when the new poet, Tennyson, "swam into their ken." It
is difficult for the young of to-day to believe this. There is no great
reigning poet to-day; there are great numbers of fair poets, who are
hailed as crown princes by the groups that gather about them. Whatever
the old may say, this is a good sign. Any evidence of a sincere interest
in poe