——­’Crudelis ubique
  Lucutus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago.’

....  Quanto ergo excusabilius, si fas esset, possem exclamare ad Omnipotentem quam tu, qui in tempora felicia incidisti, quibus nos omnes nunc viventes in misera Italia possumus invidere?  Ipse ergo, qui potest, mittat amodo Veltrum, quem tu vidisti in Somno, si tamen umquam venturus est.”

“Note the beauty of the metaphor:  for, as in a brothel the human body is sold for a price without shame, so the great harlot, the Court of Rome, and the Imperial Court, sell the liberty of Italy....  All the barbarous nations rush eagerly upon Italy to trample upon her....  And here, Reader, thou shalt excuse me, if, before going farther, I am forced to utter a complaint against Dante.  Would that, O marvellous poet, thou wert now living again!  Where is peace, where is tranquillity in Italy?...  But I may say now of all Italy what thy Virgil said of a single city,—­’Cruel mourning everywhere, everywhere alarm, and the multiplied image of death.’ ...With how much more reason, then, were it but right, might I call upon the Omnipotent, than thou who fellest upon happy times, which we all now living in wretched Italy may envy!  Let Him, then, who can, speedily send the Hound that thou sawest in thy dream, if indeed he is ever to come!”

It would be surprising, but for what we have already seen of the manner in which Signor Tamburini performs his work, to find that he has here omitted all reference to the Church, omitted also the address to Dante, and thus changed the character of the whole passage.

Again, in the comment on Canto XX. of the “Purgatory,” where Benvenuto gives account of the outrage committed, at the instigation of Philippe le Bel, by Sciarra Colonna, upon Pope Boniface VIII., at Anagni, the translator omits the most characteristic portions of the original.

* * * * *

BENVENUTO.

Sed intense dolore superante animum ejus, conversus in rabiem furoris, coepit se rodere totum.  Et sic verificata est prophetia simplicissimi Coelestini, qui praedixerat sibi:  Intrasti ut Vulpes, Regnabis ut Leo, Morieris ut Canis.

TAMBURINI.

L’angoscia per altro la vinse sul di lui animo, perche fu preso da tal dolore, che si mordeva e lacerava le membra, e cosi termino sua vita.  In tal modo nel corso della vita di Bonifazio fu verificata la profezia di Celestino.

* * * * *

“But his intense mortification overcoming the mind of the Pope, he fell into a rage of madness, and began to bite himself all over his body.  And thus the prophecy of the simple-minded Celestine came true, who had predicted to him.  Thou hast entered [into the Papacy] like a Fox, thou wilt reign like a Lion, thou wilt die like a Dog.”

It wilt be observed that the prophecy is referred to by the translator, but that its stinging words are judiciously left out.