Among My Books. Second Series

by James Russell Lowell

[122] We should prefer here,

"Nor inspirations won by prayer availed,"

as better expressing Nè l'impetrare spirazion. Mr. Longfellow's translation is so admirable for its exactness as well as its beauty that it may be thankful for the minutest criticism, such only being possible.

[123] Which he cites in the Paradiso, VIII. 37.

[124] Dante confesses his guiltiness of the sin of pride, which (as appears by the examples he gives of it) included ambition, in Purgatorio, XIII. 136, 137.

[125] Convito, Tr. II. c. 11.

[126] Purgatorio, XXVIII.

[127] Purgatorio, XXVIII. 40-44; Convito, Tr. III. c. 13.

[128] Purgatorio, XXVII. 94-105.

[129] Psalm li. 2. "And therefore I say that her [Philosophy's] beauty, that is, morality, rains flames of fire, that is, a righteous appetite which is generated in the love of moral doctrine, the which appetite removes us from the natural as well as other vices." (Convito, Tr. III. c. 15.)