and would of itself be sufficient to justify us in ascribing to its lamented author that perfection of masculine understanding, and female grace and acuteness, which are so rarely to be met with apart, and never, we believe, were before united,

ART. II. Osservazioni Intorno alla Questione sopra la Originalita del Poema di Dante. Di F. CANCELLIERI. Roma, 1814. Observations concerning the Question of the Originality of the Poem of Dante. By F. CANCELLIERI.

THE THE limits of a late Number precluded us from entering, as fully as we would have wished, into the subject of Dante. We resume it the more willingly, from our having just received a work, published two or three years ago in Italy, but almost unknown in England, having for its object to ascertain, whether this great poet was an inventor, or an imitator only. The continental antiquaries and scholars have eagerly laid hold of a manuscript, said to have been discovered about the beginning of the present century, and affording evidence, according to some persons, that he had borrowed from others the whole plan and conception of his wonderful work. The question, indeed, is of ancient date; and, long before such value had been set upon this manuscript, was so perplexed and prolonged, as now to call for definitive elucidation. We trust we shall place our readers in a condition to decide it for them

selves.

An extract, or rather a short abstract of an old Vision, written in Latin, appeared in a pamphlet published at Rome in 1801, with an insinuation, that the primitive model of Dante's poem had at length been discovered. Some reader of new publications transmitted the intelligence of this discovery to a German journalist, who received it as of the utmost importance; and from him, a writer in a French paper, (the Publiciste of July 1809), transcribed, embellished, and diffused it over all Europe, through the medium of his universal language. Having nothing to do with politics, every body received it upon the faith of the author of the pamphlet, by whom alone the old manuscript had been read; and it was immediately settled, among the wits and critics of the day, that Dante was but the versifier of the ideas of others. Mr Cancellieri, a professed black-letter scholar, and animated, no doubt, with a laudable zeal for religion as well as literature, published the Vision entire in 1814, on the return of his Holiness to Rome. He ac

companied it with an Italian translation, the whole comprising some sixty pages, preceded by twice that number of pages of his own remarks. In this ample dissertation, the question, however, is merely glanced at;--and all that its readers can make out with certainty is, that the learned author had selected this curious subject chiefly to astonish the world by his multifarious erudition, in a book which might have been not inaptly entitled- De rebus omnibus, et de quibusdam aliis,' It must be acknowledged, however, that, amidst the unbounded variety of his citations, we meet with some things which it is agreeable to know; but they have so little to do with Dante, that we are really but little beholden to him on the present occasion; and have been obliged to refer to many other authori ties, in order to disentangle ourselves from the perplexities into which he had brought us.

Mr Cancellieri apprises us that there existed two famous Alberics, both monks of Monte-Cassino;-but he thought it immaterial to add, that the first was one of the few monks to whom the civilization of the world is not without obligations-he having, in the midst of the barbarism of the 11th century, written trea, tises upon logic, astronomy, and music. * His works probably contributed more to form the mind of Dante, than the Visions of the other to form the plan of his poem.

The latter Alberic was born about the year 1100, soon after the death of the former. When in his 9th year, he fell sick, and remained in a lethargy for nine days. Whilst in this state, a dove appeared to him, and catching him by the hair lifted kim up to the presence of Saint Peter, who, with two angels, conducted the child across Purgatory, and, mounting thence from planet to planet, transported him into Paradise, there to contemplate the glory of the blessed. His vision restored him to perfect health;-the miraculous cure was published to the world;-the monks received the child at Monte-Cassino;-and, because he repeated his vision tolerably well, and was of a rich family, they devoted him to Saint Benedict, before he had reached his 10th year. He lived from that time in constant penitence, tasting neither flesh or wine, and never wearing shoes; and the monastery had thus the glory of possessing a living saint, who, by his virtue, confirmed the belief that he had seen Purgatory and Paradise.

They took care to have the vision of Alberic reduced to write ing, first by one of their own lettered brethren, and, some years after, by Alberic himself, assisted by the pen of Peter the Deacon, of whom there are yet remaining some historical pieces

* Mabillon, An. Bened. vol. 5, b. 65.

which occasionally throw light upon the darkness of that age. We subjoin what he says of Alberic in his own words. †

If there existed but this one vision before the time of Dante, there might be some ground for presuming, that it suggested to him the idea of his poem. But the truth is, that such visions abounded from the very earliest ages of Christianity. Saint Cyprian had visions,-Saint Perpetua had visions,-end both, with many others, were declared divine by Saint Augustine. The revelations of cach turned upon the doctrine which each thought the best for establishing the faith. Accordingly, the creed written for the church over which he presided, by Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, was dictated to him in a vision by Saint John the Evangelist. But the zeal of the early bishops was soon replaced by the interested views of their successors. About the 10th century, the great object was, to establish the doctrine of Purgatory, in which the period of expiation was shortened in favour of souls, in proportion to the alms given by their heirs to the Church. The monk Alberie describes Purgatory with minuteness, and sees Hell only at a distance. All those visions, having the same object, resembled each other; and whoever will take the trouble to examine the legends of the saints, and archives of the monasteries, will find hundreds, of the same epoch, and the same tenor. It may be said, that Dante either profited by all, or by none; but, if there be any one to which he can be supposed to be indebted more than another, it is the vision of an English monk, not named by any one that we know, though told circumstantially by Mathew Paris. * The English monk, like the Italian, gives no description of Hell, but, like Dante, describes his Purgatory as a mount;-the passage from Purgatory to Paradise, a vast garden, intersected by delightful woods, as in our poet: Both had their visions in the holy week ;-both allot the same punishments to the same infamous crimes, with some other points of resemblance, which those who are curious may find in Mathew Paris. The vision related by that historian, suffices to give an idea of

+ Tanta usque in hodiernum abstinentia, tanta morum gravitate pollet, ut pœnas peccatorum perspexisse, et pertimuisse, et gloriam sanctorum vidisse nemo quis dubitet: Non enim carnem, non adipem, non vinum, ab illo tempore usque nunc, Deo annuente, assumpsit; calciamento nullo penitus tempore utitur; et sic, in tanta cordis, ac corporis contritione, et humilitate usque nunc in hodiernum, in hoc Casinensi cœnobio perseverat, ut multa illum quæ alios laterent vel metuenda, vel desideranda vidisse, etiamsi lingua taceret, vita loqueretur. (De Viris illustr. Casin.)

* Hist. Ang. ad an. 1196. €

all the others; and proves, indeed, that there existed, at that time, a systematic style for working, in this way, upon popular credulity. The English monk also had his vision immediately after a long and dangerous malady, and in a state of lethargy and inanition, which lasted nine days, also followed by a miraculous cure.

It is sufficiently probable, that Dante had read the history of Mathew Paris, the historian having died before the birth of the poet; and still more probable, that he had read the vision of Alberic. The resemblance which we have pointed out between the visions of the two monks, and the infinity of other visions of the same kind, show that there was then established, in the popular belief, a sort of Visionary mythology, which Dante adopted in the same manner as the mythology of Polytheism had been adopted by Homer. Besides, the discovery of the manuscript of the Vision of Alberic, about which so much noise has been made for the last eighteen years, really took place about a century ago. It is mentioned, but without much stress, by Mazzuchelli, Pelli, and Tiraboschi. * Mr Bottari was the first who confronted it with the poem of Dante, in the year 1753; and the vanity which turns the heads of so many erudite persons, when they make discoveries to their own infinite surprise, made him imagine he had discovered, in Dante, diverse close imitations of the manuscript. The following is one of his great instances. Dante calls the Devil the great worm,' (Inferno, Cant. 31.), and therefore he must have copied from Alberic, who saw a great worm that devoured souls.' Monsignor Bottari was a prelate; the author of the pamphlet is a Benedictine abbot; Mr Cancellieri is a good Catholic, and all three are antiquarians. How has it escaped them, that the Devil is called the serpent in the Scriptures, and that ' worm' was constantly used for 'serpent' by the old Italian writers? Shakespeare indeed uses it in the same sense, in Anthony and Cleopatra;' and Johnson, in his note upon the passage, adduces a variety of other instances, in which the term was so employed. Another alleged imitation is, that in Purgatory an eagle grasps Dante with his talon, and raises him on high, in the same manner as Alberic had been caught by the hair, and lifted up by a dove.-Here, too, three pious persons have forgotten their Bible. In the two chapters of Daniel, retained in the Vulgate, Habakkuk is thus caught and lifted up by an angel; and the prophet Ezekiel says, chap. viii. v. 3. And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock ' of mine head, and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and

6

290.-Pelli Memor. pag. 122.

6

the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God,' It is certain that ingenuity and erudition will discover resemblances in things the most different from each other. In the passage of Sterne, which is so beautiful, so original, and so well known, of the recording angel washing out the oath with a tear, we doubt not that Doctor Ferriar would have detected a plagiarism from Alberic, had that ingenious person seen the 18th section of the manuscript. We give an abstract of the passage, for the use of the Doctor's next edition. A demon holds a book, in which are written the sins of a particular man; and an angel drops on it, from a phial, a tear which the sinner had shed in doing a good action; ⚫ and his sins are washed out."

It is possible that Dante may have taken some ideas here and there from the Visions which abounded in his age. There are involuntary plagiarisms, which no writer can wholly avoid; -for much of what we think and express is but a new combination of what we have read and heard. But reminiscences in great geniuses are sparks that produce a mighty flame; and if Dante, like the monks, employed the machinery of visions, the result only proves, that much of a great writer's originality may consist in attaining his sublime objects by the same means which others had employed for mere trifling. He conceived and executed the project of creating the Language and the Poetry of a nation-of exposing all the political wounds of his countryof teaching the Church and the States of Italy, that the impru dence of the Popes, and the civil wars of the cities, and the consequent introduction of foreign arms, must lead to the eternal slavery and disgrace of the Italians. He raised himself to a place among the reformers of morals, the avengers of crimes, and the asserters of orthodoxy in religion; and he called to his aid Heaven itself, with all its terrors and all its hopes, in what was denominated by himself

the Sacred work, that made

Both Heaven and Earth copartners in his toil. '

Il poema sacro

Al qual ha posto mano e Cielo e Terra.' Parad. Cant. 25. To explain how he executed his vast design, it appears to us indispensable that we should give a slight sketch of the political and religious state of Italy at the period when he wrote.

Robertson has described Europe, in the middle ages, as peopled with slaves attached to the soil, who had no consolation. but their Religion: And this indeed was, for many centuries, th great instrument of good and of evil even in temporal concerns. The feudal lords were restrained only by the fear of Heaven,and the monarch had no army but such as that military aristoracy supplied: The canon law was the only instrument by