Produced by Curtis Weyant, Diane Monico, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) DANTE DANTE _SIX SERMONS_ BY PHILIP H. WICKSTEED M.A. [Illustration] LONDON C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1879 (_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved_) _PREFACE._ The five Sermons which form the body of this little book on Dante were delivered in the ordinary course of my ministry at Little Portland Street Chapel, in the autumn of 1878, and subsequently at the Free Christian Church, Croydon, in a slightly altered form. They are now printed, at the request of many of my hearers, almost exactly as delivered at Croydon. The substance of a sixth Sermon has been thrown into an Appendix. In allowing the publication of this little volume, my only thought is to let it take its chance with other fugitive productions of the Pulpit that appeal to the Press as a means of widening the possible area rather than extending the period over which the preacher's voice may extend; and my only justification is the hope that it may here and there reach hands to which no more adequate treatment of the subject was likely to find its way. The translations I have given are sometimes paraphrastic, and virtually contain glosses or interpretations which make it necessary to warn the reader against regarding them as in every case Dante's _ipsissima verba_. For the most part the renderings are substantially my own; but I have freely availed myself of numerous translations, without special acknowledgment, whenever they supplied me with suitable phrases. I have only to add the acknowledgment of my obligations to Fraticelli's edition of Dante's works (whose numbering of the minor poems and the letters I have adopted for reference), to the same writer's 'Life of Dante,' and to Mr. Symonds' 'Introduction to the Study of Dante.' P. H. W. _June 1879._ _CONTENTS._ PAGE I. DANTE: AS A CITIZEN OF FLORENCE 1 II. DANTE: IN EXILE 29 III. HELL 59 IV. PURGATORY 89 V. HEAVEN 119 APPENDIX 145 I DANTE'S LIFE AND PRINCIPLES _I. AS A CITIZEN OF FLORENCE_ There are probably few competent judges who would hesitate to give Dante a place of honour in the triad of the world's greatest poets; and amongst these three Dante occupies a position wholly his own, peerless and unapproached in history.