Seated at the root of the great Tree of Humanity, she bids him take note of the prophetic vision which symbolizes the history of the church. Of the sanctity of the tree, she thus admonishes him:

This whoso robs,
This whoso plucks, with blasphemy of deed
Sins against God, who for His use alone
Creating, hallowed it.

Dante drinks now of a stream whose sweetness can never satiate, and from that holy wave returns,

Regenerate,
Pure, and made apt for mounting to the stars.

It appears to me quite simple and natural that the image of the poet's earthly love, long lost from physical sense, should prompt the awakening of his higher nature, which, obscured, as he confesses, by the disorders of his mortal life, asserts itself with availing authority when Beatrice, the beloved, becomes present to his mind. All progress, all heavenly learning, is thenceforth associated with her. High as he may climb, she always leads him. Where he passes as a stranger, she is at home. Where he poorly guesses, she wholly knows. Nor does he part from her until he has attained the highest point of spiritual vision, where he sees her throned and crowned in immortal glory, and above her, the lovely one of Heaven,—the Virgin Mother of Christ. What he sees after this, he says, cannot be told with mortal tongue.

Here vigor failed the towering fantasy,
But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel,
In even motion, by the love impelled
That moves the sun in heaven and all the stars.

Two opposite points in great authors give us pleasure; viz., the originality of their talent or genius, and the catholicity of their sentiments and interest,—in other words, their likeness and their unlikeness to the average of humanity. We are delighted to find Plato at once so modern and so ancient, his prevision and prophecy needing so little adaptation to make them germane to the wants of our own or of any other time, his grasp of apprehension and comparison so peculiar to himself, so unrivalled by any thinker of any time. In like manner, the mediæval pictures drawn by Dante delight us, and the bold daring of his imagination. At the same time, the perfectly sound and rational common sense of many of his utterances seems familiar from its accordance with the soundest criticism of our own time:—

Florence within her ancient circle set,
Remained in sober, modest quietness.
Nor chains had she, nor crowns, nor women decked
In gay attire, with splendid cincture bound,
More to be gazed at than the form itself.
Not yet the daughter to the father brought
Fear from her birth, the marriage time and dower
Not yet departing from their fitting measure.
Nor houses had she, void of household life.
Sardanapalus had not haply shown
The deeds which may be hid by chamber walls.
I saw Bellincion Berti go his way
With bone and leather belted. From the glass
His lady moved, no paint upon her face.
I saw the Lords of Norti and del Vecchio content,
Their household dames engaged with spool and spindle.

The theory of the good old time, we see, is not a modern invention.

Dante inherits the great heart of chivalry, wise before its time in the uplifting of Woman. The wonderful worship of the Virgin Mother, in which are united the two poles of womanhood, completed the ideal of the Divine Human, and cast a new glory upon the sex. Can we doubt that knight and minstrel found a true inspiration in the lady of their heart? A mere pretence or affection is a poor thing to fight for or to sing for. Men will not imperil their lives for what they know to be a lie.