It is unpleasant to reduce any portion of a romance to the events of ordinary life; but with the exception of those who merely copy from one another, there has been such a conspiracy on the part of Dante’s biographers to overlook at least one disenchanting conclusion to be drawn to that effect from the poet’s own writings, that the probable truth of the matter must here for the first time be stated.  The case, indeed, is clear enough from his account of it.  The natural tendencies of a poetical temperament (oftener evinced in a like manner than the world in general suppose) not only made the boy-poet fall in love, but, in the truly Elysian state of the heart at that innocent and adoring time of life, made him fancy he had discovered a goddess in the object of his love; and strength of purpose as well as imagination made him grow up in the fancy.  He disclosed himself, as time advanced, only by his manner—­received complacent recognitions in company from the young lady—­offended her by seeming to devote himself to another (see the poem in the Vita Nuova, beginning “Ballata io vo")—­rendered himself the sport of her and her young friends by his adoring timidity (see the 5th and 6th sonnets in the same work)—­in short, constituted her a paragon of perfection, and enabled her, by so doing, to shew that she was none.  He says, that finding himself unexpectedly near her one day in company, he trembled so, and underwent such change of countenance, that many of the ladies present began to laugh with her about him—­“si gabbavano di me.”  And he adds, in verse,

  “Con l’altre donne mia vista gabbate,
  E non pensate, donna, onde si mova
  Ch’io vi rassembri si figura nova,
  Quando riguardo la vostra beltate,” &c.  Son. 5.

“You laugh with the other ladies to see how I look (literally, you mock my appearance); and do not think, lady, what it is that renders me so strange a figure at sight of your beauty.”

And in the sonnet that follows, he accuses her of preventing pity of him in others, by such “killing mockery” as makes him wish for death ("la pieta, che ’l vostro gabbo recinde,” &c.)[7]

Now, it is to be admitted, that a young lady, if she is not very wise, may laugh at her lover with her companions, and yet return his love, after her fashion; but the fair Portinari laughs and marries another.  Some less melancholy face, some more intelligible courtship, triumphed over the questionable flattery of the poet’s gratuitous worship; and the idol of Dante Alighieri became the wife of Messer Simone de’ Bardi.  Not a word does he say on that mortifying point.  It transpired from a clause in her father’s will.  And yet so bent are the poet’s biographers on leaving a romantic doubt in one’s mind, whether Beatrice may not have returned his passion, that not only do all of them (as far as I have observed) agree in taking no notice of these sonnets, but the author of the treatise entitled Dante and the Catholic