where the re-discoverer of Christ for the Middle Ages— Da Cristo preso l’ ultimo sigillo Che le sue membra due anni portarno.[375] ... Valour, and sincerity, and simplicity. The Casentino of Dante and St. Francis recalls to us the golden principles which alone make life worth living now. Patriotism, keen and fervid as that whose echoes rang just now thro’ the ancient hall at Poppi: but “Patriotism is not enough.” Readiness to lay down one’s life for a Cause: that is the temper which has saved civilisation from utter shipwreck: but is it securely saved? Purity of purpose, sincerity in speech and conduct—_sancta simplicitas_—ready to cast away earthly privilege, to face joyfully the call to “low living and high thinking,” and to find freedom in fewness of material possessions and richness of moral and spiritual endowment—that is the temper eagerly embraced by Francis and his followers, loyally accepted by Dante, exile and pilgrim; and it is the only temper which can adapt itself to live happily in a denuded world: the temper which, when saturated with the passion of loving service as was that of “Christ’s Poor Man” may hope, Franciscan-wise, to heal the world’s wounds, to assuage its quarrels, and to build up better and more strongly that which has been broken down. BEATI MITES; QUONIAM IPSI POSSIDEBUNT TERRAM. BEATI PACIFICI: QUONIAM FILII DEI VOCABUNTUR. VIII THE LAST CRUSADE Pero ch’ me venia “Resurgi e Vinci.” —_Par._ xiv. 125. It is a far cry from Dante Alighieri to Torquato Tasso: from thirteenth-century Florence to seventeenth-century Ferrara. Yet Tasso is, poetically, a direct descendant of the great Florentine, down the line of Petrarca and Ariosto. His Italian represents the utmost legitimate development of Dante’s language, beyond which lies decadence. The purity, if not the exuberance, of his style and the grandeur of his epic treatment flows direct from the fountain-head of _Italianità_—the _Divine Comedy_; and the great poem has left its clear impress now and again upon the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, in haunting phrases. Thus the “fierce Circassian,” in Canto x. 56 of the _Gerusalemme_, assumes the attitude of Sordello in _Purg._ vi. 66— A guisa di leon quando si posa; and two Cantos further on (x. 59) we have a reminiscence of _Purg._ iii. 9, the dignity of Virgil’s sensitive conscience, when Armida’s dupes stand abashed before Gottofredo— Vergognando tenean basse le fronti Ch’ era al cor piccol fallo amaro morso. Dante and Tasso alike wrote for all time, and wrote in circumstances of personal straitness and distress: each gave to the world his best, out of the treasure of a bleeding heart; and if Tasso’s work cannot compare for grandeur of conception with Dante’s immortal epic of the spiritual liberty of Man, yet it too has Liberty for its theme, and a background ideal and spiritual.