from being without poetical merit; conceived in a tone of rough energy, it contains almost in every line some allusion to public abuses, or to the bad usage which the writer had encountered. Far from possessing the elegance which characterizes the productions of Petrarch or Boccaccio-more nervous, yet less graceful than those of Cino da Pistoja-too artificial and too good for Antonio Pucci,-who could it be, that at that early period of Italian Literature contrived to convey in such forcible language his view of the disastrous state of public society, and to insinuate in such indignant terms the story of his private misfortunes? It is impossible to read and not regard it as the genuine effusion of one trusting and betrayed-a man of ardent feelings smarting acutely under the keen sense of wrong. It has all the earnestness of truth. The writer feels it hard to endure the injury, where he was entitled to look for far different recompense-" service and honour." He has suffered anguish, "tormento;" he has been compelled to bow to his bitterest foe; imperative reasons forbid him to detail his grounds of complaint, or to denounce its cause. He has confided his fortunes to others, and the trust has been betrayed. He has undergone a severe reverse of fortune, "from high to low :" he has constituted himself the servant of others, in the hope of obtaining "fruit," and finds in the end that he has made no advancement whatever towards his object. He has endeavoured to conciliate men of various moods and tempers, and he has been unsuccessful in the attempt. He has suffered rather for the faults of others, than his own. He has been treated unjustly by some ordinance, "legge." He is at once energetic, satirical, egotistic, unfortunate, vindictive, and reli gious. What Poet of that early epoch satisfies these various conditions? Let the poetry speak for itself. In the notes are given the various readings of Allacci and Ubaldini; in the text, the phraseology of the Harleian MS. is for the most part retained, corrected occasionally by the other copies. We have, however, omitted throughout the letter h, which Florentine transcribers of the early centuries thrust in indiscriminately after every c and g that had a hard sound; a practice which the lower classes of their countrymen retain in their pronunciation to the present day, to the no small disparagement of their beautiful dialect.

27 All.-d' altrui fa in se perire

La virtù e con vicij a dimorare.

17 All.-comenzi. falendo.

22 All.-en paze.
25 Ubald.-buon.

Ubaldini reads the same, only "Le virtudi," instead of "La virtù.”

28 All.-entra. Ubald.-intra.

30 All.-auray. Ubald.-avrai.

29 All.-corrutti.

31 All. and Ubald.-Che sol non sie se tu lor abandoni.

36 All.-prezzo.

37 All.-cusi.

35 All.-tolle. Ubald.-tole. 38 All. and Ubald.-Di quel che fa dee.

39 Harl. MS. omits the "si." All. reads "chi compreso è."

40 Harl. MS.-daro ghanza.

41 Harl. MS.-prosuma valer tanto. All.-the same, only "presume" instead

of "prosuma."

42 All.-pianzer.

43 All.-Perch' omo encappa

tal or e non cade. Ubald.-the same, except "inciampa," for "encappa."

69

Perchè oggi e vil tenuto,

Schivando i vizij, 70 '1 animo71 gentile.72

Grave m' è per inganno ;73

Trovandomi traduto,

Convenirmi star muto,

Richiede74 'l ver talor segreto stile.

Folle fui, quando in falsi75 mi comissi,
Chi vuol fuggir malvagi76 vive solo :
Padre inganna77 figliuolo;

Chi non si fida via miglior79 elegge :

Saggio 80 non son, ma quel ch' altrui promissi
Sempr' ho servato, e dico nullo dolo.82
Vorrei servare ruolo: 83

Dio tratti altrui per qual me84 tratta legge.

-se en don concede. Ubald. omits the "en."

66 All.-doppo monte. Ubald.-dopo morte.

67 Ubald.-trovarlo piano.

Harl. MS.-Guai che pocho mio. All.-Guai o poichè.

09 All.-ozi.

72 All.-zentile.

75 Ubald.-in fals uom.

70 All.-vicij.

73 All.-enganno. All.-en fals om.

71 All.-anemo. 74 All.-Rechere.

77 All. and Harl. MS.-enganna el. 80 Ubald.-Saggio uom.

76 All.-malvasi. Ubald.-malvaggi.
79 Harl. MS.-viemiglioro.

78 All.-men.

81 All.-sempre servay. Ubald.-osservai.

All.-e di zo nullo o dolo.

83 All.-Vorey posare e volo. 84 All. and Ubald.-mi.

Ubald.-e dico nullo dolo.

Ubald. reads "vorrei," instead of "vorey."

I.

Woe to the man, by torture bow'd,
Forbid to speak his grief aloud;
Who in the furnace must the while
Smooth his wrung features to the smile!
Woe to the man whose agony
Must leave unnamed his enemy;
Compell'd before his fellest foe
His haughty, humbled frame to bow!
Woe-Woe to him, the wretch who hath
Set his whole weal on others' faith;
Fearing each wind, without a hope
To see defined his being's scope,
He falleth from his high estate
Low in the dust disconsolate!

Woe to the slave, the voluntary slave,

Who friendship forming straight the fruit would crave.

By specious views of interest led astray,

He finds too late his labour thrown away.

II.

Hard 'tis to brook the injury

}

Whence honour and respect should be.
Hard too, to upright mind, to rue
The just rebuke, the censure true,
To faults perchance of others due.
Hard with the vicious to remain,
And yet your innocence retain ;
For use will weaken constancy,
Vain e'en on virtue to rely,
Best to abandon them and fly!

Hard 'tis, but oh! most chiefly to the good,
To please of different men the various mood.
Discord ensues; and lo! your plans are cross'd,
Your hopes confounded and your labour lost.

III.

Fool he whose longings pleasure crave,

Who constitutes himself its slave;
Who right defends not, since the sway
Fortune can give or take away.

Fool, who, unpaid the price, would fain
From him who sells his purpose gain;
Or who expects offended foe

Guerdon will yield, and not the blow.
Fool he, the arrogant and vain,
Pleased his own merits to maintain,
Who throws a scornful glance on all,
And deems who trips must always fall.
Fool too, who, when the injurious act is o'er,
Would pardon ask, and so offend still more;
Nor know that where no grievous harm is done,
The wrong'd one rather would not see the wrong.

IV.

Wise he who always in his need
Measures his strength before the deed;
So doth the clerk, with caution meet,
First check the account, then give receipt.

Wise he who steels his soul to dare
The ills the changing seasons bear,
And subjects unto reason's pow'r
Passion that fadeth with the flow'r.
Wise, who would not by garments scan,
But value by his acts the man ;
Who can by outward show see plain
The mind how shallow and how vain.
Wise, who, in peril when the wild winds rave,
And the loud ocean threats the wat'ry grave,
And when no mortal strength avails to save,
Still firmly trusts in God without alarm,
That to the tempest shall succeed the calm.

V.

Woe-Woe, that lightest breath may ne'er
My cruel nameless wrong declare;
All gentle worth, of vice the foe,
Now in the dust is trampled low.
Hard 'tis to find my trust betray'd,
Of others' treach'ry victim made;

Tho' hush'd my voice, and mute my tongue,
Still"secret style" doth ask the wrong.
Fool, fool, the false for friends to own;
Who'd shun the bad, must dwell alone.
The father his own son deceives,
Safest his course who none believes.
Wise I am not, but that my promise spoke,
No wily art I used, no faith I broke.

Still would I wish to tread the path I trod :

As law of man treats me, so treat thou others, God!

This Canzone, both in the ancient MS. volume and in the printed Harleian Catalogue, is ascribed to Dante, although it is not even mentioned in any printed edition of his works. The transcriber, whoever he was, inserted it in his volume, and entitled it “ Canzone di Dante,” -influenced probably by its terse phraseology, its adoption of pithy epigrammatic and proverbial sayings, (the Comedy abounds with such,) its bitterness, its energy, its artificial construction, its strange mixture of vindictive and religious feeling, the remarkable line with which it concludes, and its accordance in many particulars with ascertained facts in the life of Dante. And if there are some allusions which do not, at the present day, appear to be so explicable,-and, indeed, the period which intervenes between Dante's ceasing to act with the Bianchi and his appearance in the character of a decided Ghibellin is very obscure to us,—still that probably was not so at the time when the MS. was transcribed. According to many biographers of Dante, he separated himself from the Bianchi about the year 1304; the cause assigned is the ill-will borne to him on account of his having dissuaded them from assembling their friends in the winter of that year, the consequence being, that before the summer arrived they were dispersed and

* "Richiede 'l ver," say all the texts, otherwise it might be suspected that the word ought to be read by the change of a single letter, ' richiude.'