“Italy in the days of her power was wholly revived in Dante.  Animated by a republican spirit, warrior as well as poet, he breathed the flame of action among the dead; and his shadows have a more vivid existence than the living here below.

“Terrestrial remembrances pursue them still; their aimless passions devour one another in the heart; they are moved at the past which seems to them less irrevocable than their eternal future.

“One would say that Dante, banished from his country, has transported into imaginary regions the pangs which devoured him.  His shades incessantly demand news from the scene of mortal existence, as the poet himself eagerly enquires after his native country; and hell presents itself to him in the form of exile.

“All, in his eyes, are clothed in the costume of Florence.  The ancient dead whom he invokes, seem to be born again as completely Tuscan as himself.  It was not that his mind was limited—­it was the energy of his soul, that embraced the whole universe within the circle of his thoughts.

“A mystical chain of circles and of spheres conducts him from hell to purgatory, from purgatory to paradise.  Faithful historian of his vision, he pours a flood of light upon the most obscure regions, and the world which he creates in his triple poem is as complete, as animated and as brilliant as a planet newly-discovered in the firmament.

“At his voice the whole earth assumes a poetical form, its objects, ideas, laws and phenomena, seem a new Olympus of new deities; but this mythology of the imagination is annihilated, like paganism, at the aspect of paradise, of that ocean of light, sparkling with rays and with stars, with virtues and with love.

“The magic words of our great poet are the prism of the universe; all its wonders are there reflected, divided, and recomposed; sounds imitate colours, and colours are blended in harmony; rhyme, sonorous or bizarre, rapid or prolonged, is inspired by this poetical divination; supreme beauty of art! triumph of genius! which discovers in nature every secret in affinity with the heart of man.

“Dante hoped from his poem the termination of his exile; he reckoned on Fame as his mediator; but he died too soon to receive the palm of his country.  Often is the fleeting life of man worn out in adversity! and if glory triumph, if at length he land upon a happier shore, he no sooner enters the port than the grave yawns before him, and destiny, in a thousand shapes, often announces the end of life by the return of happiness.

“Thus unfortunate Tasso, whom your homage, Romans, was to console for all the injustice he had suffered; Tasso, the handsome, the gentle, the heroic, dreaming of exploits, feeling the love which he sang, approached these walls as his heroes did those of Jerusalem—­with respect and gratitude.  But on the eve of the day chosen for his coronation, Death claimed him for its terrible festival:  Heaven is jealous of earth, and recalls her favourites from the treacherous shores of Time!