“From your letter, which I received with due respect and affection, I observe how much you have at heart my restoration to my country.  I am bound to you the more gratefully, inasmuch as an exile rarely finds a friend.  But after mature consideration, I must, by my answer, disappoint the wishes of some little minds; and I confide in the judgment to which your impartiality and prudence will lead you.  Your nephew and mine has written to me, what indeed had been mentioned by many other friends, that, by a decree concerning the exiles, I am allowed to return to Florence, provided I pay a certain sum of money, and submit to the humiliation of asking and receiving absolution:  wherein, my father, I see two propositions that are ridiculous and impertinent.  I speak of the impertinence of those who mention such conditions to me; for in your letter, dictated by judgment and discretion, there is no such thing.  Is such an invitation, then, to return to his country glorious to d. all.  (Dante Allighieri), after suffering in exile almost fifteen years?  Is it thus they would recompense innocence which all the world knows, and the labour and fatigue of unremitting study?  Far from the man who is familiar with philosophy be the senseless baseness of a heart of earth, that could act like a little sciolist, and imitate the infamy of some others, by offering himself up as it were in chains:  far from the man who cries aloud for justice, this compromise by his money with his persecutors.  No, my father, this is not the way that shall lead me back to my country.  I will return with hasty steps, if you or any other can open to me a way that shall not derogate from the fame and honour of d.  (Dante); but if by no such way Florence can be entered, then Florence I shall never enter.  What! shall I not everywhere enjoy the light of the sun and stars? and may I not seek and contemplate, in every corner of the earth, under the canopy of heaven, consoling and delightful truth, without first rendering myself inglorious, nay infamous, to the people and republic of Florence?  Bread, I hope, will not fail me.” [15]

Had Dante’s pride and indignation always vented themselves in this truly exalted manner, never could the admirers of his genius have refused him their sympathy; and never, I conceive, need he either have brought his exile upon him, or closed it as he did.  To that close we have now come, and it is truly melancholy and mortifying.  Failure in a negotiation with the Venetians for his patron, Guido Novello, is supposed to have been the last bitter drop which made the cup of his endurance run over.  He returned from Venice to Ravenna, worn out, and there died, after fifteen years’ absence from his country, in the year 1231, aged fifty-seven.  His life had been so agitated, that it probably would not have lasted so long, but for the solace of his poetry, and the glory which he knew it must produce him.  Guido gave him a sumptuous funeral, and intended to give him