[To be continued.]

* * * * *

“THE NEW LIFE” OF DANTE.

[Continued.]

II.

Were the author of the “Vita Nuova” unknown, its story of youth and love would still possess a charm, as standing in the dawn of modern literature,—­the first book in which modern sentiment finds free expression.  It would be of interest, as contrasted with the later growth of the sentimental element in literature, which speedily exhibits the influence of factitious feeling, of self-conscious effort, and of ambitious display.  The sentiment of the “Vita Nuova” is separated by the wide gulf that lies between simplicity and affectation from the sentimentality of Petrarch’s sonnets.  But connected as it is with Dante’s life,—­the first of that series of works in which truth, intensity, and tenderness of feeling are displayed as in the writings of no other man,—­its interest no longer arises merely from itself and from its place in literature, but becomes indissolubly united with that which belongs by every claim to the “Divina Commedia” and to the life of Dante.

When the “Vita Nuova” was completed, Dante was somewhat less than twenty-eight years old.  Beatrice had died between two and three years before, in 1290; and he seems to have pleased himself after her loss by recalling to his memory the sweet incidents of her life, and of her influence upon himself.  He begins with the words:—­

“In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be read is found a rubric which says:  Incipit Vita Nova [’The New Life begins’].  Under which rubric I find the words written which it is my intention to copy into this little book,—­if not all of them, at least their meaning.”

This introduction, short as it is, exhibits a characteristic trait of Dante’s mind, in the declaration of his intention to copy from the book of his memory, or, in other words, to write the true records of experience.  Truth was the chief quality of his intellect, and upon this, as upon an unshaken foundation, rest the marvellous power and consistency of his imaginations.  His heart spoke clearly, and he interpreted its speech plainly in his words.  His tendency to mysticism often, indeed, led him into strange fancies; but these, though sometimes obscure, are never vague.  After these few words of preface, the story begins:—­

“Nine times now, since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost to the same point in its gyration, when first appeared before my eyes the glorious lady of my mind, who was called Beatrice, by many who did not know why they thus called her.[A] She had now been in this life so long, that in its time the starred heaven had moved toward the east one of the twelve parts of a degree;[B] so that about the beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth year saw her.  She appeared to