tion of those whose profession was to sing or recite the verses
of the troubadours or the romances of chivalry.]

[Footnote 5: See Boccaccio, _Decamerone_, Giorn. vi, Nov. 9, for an
entertaining picture of Florentine festivities.]

[Footnote 6: The feeling which moved Florence thus to build herself
into beauty was one shared by the other Italian republican cities at
this time. Venice, Verona, Pisa, Siena, Orvieto, were building or
adding to churches and palaces such as have never since been
surpassed.]

[Footnote 7: Cicognara, _Storia della Scultura_, II. 147.]

[Footnote 8: Guido Guinicelli will always be less known by his own
verses than by Dante's calling him

------"father
Of me and all those better others
Who sweet chivalric lovelays formed."
_Purg._ xxvi. 97-99.

And Guido Cavalcanti, "he who took from this other Guido the praise of
speech," (_Purg._ xi. 97,) is more famous as Dante's friend than as a
poet.]

[Footnote 9: _Purgatory_, xxiv. 53-60.]

[Footnote 10: _Decamerone_, Giorn. vi. Nov. 9. _Logician_ is here to be
understood in an extended sense, as the student of letters, or _arts_,
as they were then called, in general.]

* * * * *

AT SEA.

The night is made for cooling shade,
For silence, and for sleep;
And when I was a child, I laid
My hands upon my breast, and prayed,
And sank to slumbers deep:
Childlike as then, I lie to-night,
And watch my lonely cabin light.

Each movement of the swaying lamp
Shows how the vessel reels:
As o'er her deck the billows tramp,
And all her timbers strain and cramp
With every shock she feels,
It starts and shudders, while it burns,
And in its hinged socket turns.

Now swinging slow, and slanting low,
It almost level lies;
And yet I know, while to and fro
I watch the seeming pendule go
With restless fall and rise,
The steady shaft is still upright,
Poising its little globe of light.

O hand of God! O lamp of peace!
O promise of my soul!--
Though weak, and tossed, and ill at ease,
Amid the roar of smiting seas,
The ship's convulsive roll,
I own, with love and tender awe,
Yon perfect type of faith and law!

A heavenly trust my spirit calms,
My soul is filled with light:
The ocean sings his solemn psalms,
The wild winds chant: I cross my palms,
Happy as if, to-night,
Und