It will be a relief, perhaps, instead of a disappointment, to the readers of this appalling story, to hear that Dante’s particulars of it are as little to be relied on as those of the Paulo and Francesca.  The only facts known of Ugolino are, that he was an ambitious traitor, who did actually deliver up the fortified places, as Dante acknowledges; and that his rivals, infamous as he, or more infamous, prevailed against him, and did shut him up and starve him and some of his family.  But the “little” children are an invention of the poet’s, or probably his belief, when he was a young man, and first heard the story; for some of Ugolino’s fellow-prisoners may have been youths, but others were grown up—­none so childish as he intimates; and they were not all his own sons; some were his nephews.

And as to Archbishop Ruggieri, there is no proof whatever of his having had any share in the business—­hardly a ground of suspicion; so that historians look upon him as an “ill-used gentleman.”  Dante, in all probability, must have learnt the real circumstances of the case, as he advanced in years; but if charity is bound to hope that he would have altered the passage accordingly, had he revised his poem, it is forced to admit that he left it unaltered, and that his “will and pleasure” might have found means of reconciling the retention to his conscience.  Pride, unfortunately, includes the power to do things which it pretends to be very foreign to its nature; and in proportion as detraction is easy to it, retraction becomes insupportable.[3]

Rabelais, to shew his contempt for the knights of chivalry, has made them galley-slaves in the next world, their business being to help Charon row his boat over the river Styx, and their payment a piece of mouldy bread and a fillip on the nose.  Somebody should write a burlesque of the enormities in Dante’s poem, and invent some Rabelaesque punishment for a great poet’s pride and presumption.  What should it be?

* * * * *

No.  IV.

PICTURE OF FLORENCE IN THE TIME OF DANTE’S ANCESTORS.

  Fiorenza dentro da la cerchia antica,
  Ond’ ella toglie ancora e Terza e Nona,
  Si stava in pace sobria e pudica.

  Non avea catenella, non corona,
  Non donne contigiate, non cintura
  Che fosse a veder piu che la persona.

  Non faceva nascendo ancor paura
  La figlia al padre, che ’l tempo e la dotte
  Non fuggian quindi e quindi la misura.

  Non avea case di famiglia vote
  Non v’era giunto ancor Sardanapalo
  A mostrar cio che ’n camera si puote.

  Non era vinto ancora Montemalo
  Dal vostro Uccellatojo, che com’ e vinto
  Nel montar su, cosi sara nel calo.

  Bellincion Berti vid’ io andar cinto
  Di cuojo e d’osso, e venir da lo specchio
  La donna sua sanza ’l viso dipinto: 

  E vidi quel de’ Nerli e quel del Vecchio
  Esser contenti a la pelle scoverta,
  E le sue donne al fuso ed al pennecchio.