There is to me a convincing ring about the comment of the _Anonimo Fiorentino_ on _Purg._ iv. 106. When Belacqua makes excuses for his laziness on the ground of the Aristotelian dictum that “by repose and quiet mind the mind attains to wisdom,” Dante retorts: “Certainly, if repose will make a man wise, you ought to be the wisest man on earth!” A like readiness of wit, in a moment where all depended on readiness, is evinced in the story of his reply to the Florentine envoy who was sent to Porciano to demand his extradition. “Is Dante Alighieri still at Porciano?” asked the messenger who met the fore-warned exile on the road, in the act of escaping. “When I was there, he was there,” was the non-self-committing response: “quand io era, v’ era’.”[110] The stories told of Dante, if they do not suggest a genial and convivial temperament, do suggest a ready and caustic wit. But it is time to turn to Dante’s own works, and taste for ourselves. The _Divina Commedia_ is the criterion by which most would judge him, and on this we shall spend the bulk of the space at our disposal; but no discussion of this or any other aspect of Dante’s literary genius can afford to neglect the field of his minor works, which are, in this particular case, of not a little importance. The _Convivio_ (if we may anticipate) supplies us, among other things, with Dante’s own idea of what laughter should be; and the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ furnishes a practical illustration of his treatment of a subject like _patois_ which lends itself to humorous handling even in a serious treatise. These three works not only cover a large proportion of Dante’s total literary remains, but they are also representative of his three chief styles of writing: Poetry, Italian Prose, and Latin Prose. In opening the _Divina Commedia_ one would venture to issue a further warning on the mistake of limiting the field of observation to the _Inferno_, or of allowing its temper and atmosphere too great a place in our estimate of the characteristics of Dante. Whatever he was to the women of Verona, Alighieri is to us much more than “the man who goes down to Hell and comes up again at will.” Yet now and then even educated Italians, if you mention Dante’s name, are apt to make it clear that they knew him mainly as the creator of two episodes—_Paolo and Francesca_ and _Conte Ugolino_; and there is a real danger among Englishmen—amply illustrated in Dr. Paget Toynbee’s _Dante in English Literature_—of laying too much stress on the _Inferno_, even if they do not confine themselves to it.