Miss Rossetti comes commended to our interest, not
only as one of a family which seems to hold genius by the tenure of
gavelkind, but as having a special claim by inheritance to a love and
understanding of Dante. She writes English with a purity that has in it
something of feminine softness with no lack of vigor or precision. Her
lithe mind winds itself with surprising grace through the metaphysical
and other intricacies of her subject. She brings to her work the refined
enthusiasm of a cultivated woman and the penetration of sympathy. She has
chosen the better way (in which Germany took the lead) of interpreting
Dante out of himself, the pure spring from which, and from which alone,
he drew his inspiration, and not from muddy Fra Alberico or Abbate
Giovacchino, from stupid visions of Saint Paul or voyages of Saint
Brandan. She has written by far the best comment that has appeared in
English, and we should say the best that has been done in England, were
it not for her father's _Comento analitico_, for excepting which her
filial piety will thank us. Students of Dante in the original will be
grateful to her for many suggestive hints, and those who read him in
English will find in her volume a travelling map in which the principal
points and their connections are clearly set down.
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