the Troubadour would not disdain to own.  He delights, as a boy, in those inquiries which gave fame to Bonaventura.  He has an intuitive contempt for all quacks and pretenders.  At Paris he maintains fourteen different theses, propounded by learned men, on different subjects, and gains universal admiration.  He is early selected by his native city for important offices, which he fills with honor.  In wit he encounters no superiors.  He scorches courts by sarcasms which he can not restrain.  He offends the great by a superiority which he does not attempt to veil.  He affects no humility, for his nature is doubtless proud; he is even offensively conscious and arrogant.  When Florence is deliberating about the choice of an ambassador to Rome, he playfully, yet still arrogantly, exclaims:  “If I remain behind, who goes? and if I go, who remains behind?” His countenance, so austere and thoughtful, impresses all beholders with a sort of inborn greatness; his lip, in Giotto’s portrait, is curled disdainfully, as if he lived among fools or knaves.  He is given to no youthful excesses; he lives simply and frugally.  He rarely speaks unless spoken to; he is absorbed apparently in thought.  Without a commanding physical person, he is a marked man to everybody, even when he deems himself a stranger.  Women gaze at him with wonder and admiration, though he disdains their praises and avoids their flatteries.  Men make way for him as he passes them, unconsciously.  “Behold,” said a group of ladies, as he walked slowly by them, “there is a man who has visited hell!” To the close of his life he was a great devourer of books, and digested their contents.  His studies were as various as they were profound.  He was familiar with the ancient poets and historians and philosophers; he was still better acquainted with the abstruse speculations of the schoolmen.  He delighted in universities and scholastic retreats; from the cares and duties of public life he would retire to solitary labors, and dignify his retirement by improving studies.  He did not live in a cell, like Jerome, or a cave, like Mohammed; but no man was ever more indebted to solitude and meditation than he for that insight and inspiration which communion with God and great ideas alone can give.

And yet, though a recluse and student, he had great experiences with life.  He was born among the higher ranks of society.  He inherited an ample patrimony.  He did not shrink from public affairs.  He was intensely patriotic, like Michael Angelo; he gave himself up to the good of his country, like Savonarola.  Florence was small, but it was important; it was already a capital, and a centre of industry.  He represented its interests in various courts.  He lived with princes and nobles.  He took an active part in all public matters and disputations; he was even familiar with the intrigues of parties; he was a politician as well as scholar.  He entered into the contests between Popes and Emperors respecting the independence