Nor is this unity characteristic only of the _Divina Commedia_. All the
works of Dante, with the possible exception of the _De vulgari Eloquio_
(which is unfinished), are component parts of a Whole Duty of Man
mutually completing and interpreting one another. They are also, as truly
as Wordsworth's "Prelude," a history of the growth of a poet's mind. Like
the English poet he valued himself at a high rate, the higher no doubt
after Fortune had made him outwardly cheap. _Sempre il magnanimo si
magnifica in suo cuore; e cosi lo pusillanimo per contrario sempre si
tiene meno che non e._[79] As in the prose of Milton, whose striking
likeness to Dante in certain prominent features of character has been
remarked by Foscolo, there are in Dante's minor works continual allusions
to himself of great value as material for his biographer. Those who read
attentively will discover that the tenderness he shows toward Francesca
and her lover did not spring from any friendship for her family, but was
a constant quality of his nature, and that what is called his revengeful
ferocity is truly the implacable resentment of a lofty mind and a lover
of good against evil, whether showing itself in private or public life;
perhaps hating the former manifestation of it the most because he
believed it to be the root of the latter,--a faith which those who have
watched the course of politics in a democracy, as he had, will be
inclined to share.
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