With
Dante, taking him as a guide and companion in our privater moods, we
may, even in the natural body, pass through the world of spirit.
It will be a good indication of the improvement in the intellectual
disposition of our people, when the study of Dante becomes more
general. Meanwhile, on the part of his few students in America, we
would offer our thanks to Lord Vernon and to Mr. Panizzi for the aid
which the liberality of the one and the skill and learning of the other
have given to us, and for the honor they have done to the memory of our
common Author and Leader.
_Notes of Travel and Study in Italy_. By CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. Boston:
Ticknor & Fields. 1860. pp. x., 320.
There is, perhaps, no country with which we are so intimate as with
Italy,--none of which we are always so willing to hear more. Poets and
prosers have alike compared her to a beautiful woman; and while one
finds nothing but loveliness in her, another shudders at her fatal
fascination. She is the very Witch-Venus of the Middle Ages. Roger
Ascham says, "I was once in _Italy_ myself, but I thank God my abode
there was but nine days; and yet I saw in that little time, in one
city, more liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble city
of London in nine years.
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