He who should do this would indeed achieve the
perilous seat, for he must combine poesy with doctrine in such cunning
wise that the one lose not its beauty nor the other its severity,--and
Dante has done it. As he takes possession of it we seem to hear the cry
he himself heard when Virgil rejoined the company of great singers,
"All honor to the loftiest of poets!"
Footnotes:
[1] The Shadow of Dante, being an Essay towards studying Himself, his
World, and his Pilgrimage. By Maria Francesca Rossetti.
"Se Dio te lasci, lettor prender frutto
Di tua lezione."
Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1872. 8vo. pp. 296.
[2] The Florentines should seem to have invented or re-invented
banks, book-keeping by double entry, and bills of exchange. The last,
by endowing Value with the gift of fern seed and enabling it to walk
invisible, turned the flank of the baronial tariff-system and made
the roads safe for the great liberalizer Commerce. This made Money
omnipresent, and prepared the way for its present omnipotence.
Fortunately it cannot usurp the third attribute of
Deity,--omniscience. But whatever the consequences, this Florentine
invention was at first nothing but admirable, securing to brain its
legitimate influence over brawn.
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