COLLEGE

HARVARU

APR 3 1888

LIBRARY.

Minot Sund.

I

Ballantyne Press

BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

TO

OUR SOVEREIGN LADY,

Victoria,

BY THE GRACE OF GOD,

QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

AND

EMPRESS OF INDIA,

This Volume,

PUBLISHED IN A YEAR OF JUBILEE

HAPPIER THAN THAT OF WHICH DANTE WROTE,
IS DEDICATED,

BY HER MAJESTY'S GRACIOUS PERMISSION.

VITA NUOVA.

To bear the burden of an Empire's care,
The ruler of a people proud and free,

This was the New Life, Lady, given to thee,
When yet the dawn of youth was gleaming fair.
Then came a Newer Life, more rich and rare,

Soul knit with soul, abiding unity,

The open page where all the world might see The pattern of a bliss beyond compare. Then through the vale of shadows thou wast led, Bearing thy Cross, though wearer of a Crown: Men might have deemed that hope and joy had fled, That thou must walk alway with eyes cast down. Lo! yet a NEW LIFE waits thee ere the night: Calm and serene, at eventide 'tis light.

PREFACE.

THE appearance of this volume has been delayed by illness and by some grave anxieties. The kindness of the friends who have helped me in seeing it through the press has, I hope, been a sufficient safeguard against the imperfections which might otherwise have resulted from these causes. Among those friends I have, as before, to tender my special thanks to Mr. J. A. Picton, M.P., the Rev. H. W. Pereira, and Colonel Gillum for many valuable suggestions, and to add to their names, as regards the present volume, those of Mr. C. J. Pickering, and Dr. R. Garnett of the British Museum. For valuable help given in connexion with special points I have to thank Cardinal Manning and Father William Lockhart, Mr. H. J. S. Cotton, Mr. Ernest Newton, Mr. Reginald Barratt. I wish also to make a grateful acknowledgment of the loving labour of Mr. Pereira in the preparation of the Indices of both volumes, which add in no small measure to the completeness of the work.

In translating the Minor Poems, I have thought it best to follow the order of Fraticelli's edition, as being at least an attempt at the chronological arrangement which throws most. light on Dante's life and character, and have, with one or two exceptions, confined myself to those which he has received as genuine. My limits have not allowed me to discuss in detail the arguments for or against the authenti