It has been already intimated, that, though in all the logomachies of the schools Dante was an eager and skilful disputant, yet he was left behind by none of his contemporaries in those personal accomplishments which became his station. In the mean while he cultivated with constitutional ardour and diligence those higher qualifications, which, in the sequel, enabled him to serve his country as a citizen, a soldier, and a magistrate, under circumstances that called forth all his talents, valour, firmness, wisdom, and discretion; though, judging from the issue, the latter failed him oftener than the former. Eloquent, brave, and resolute he always was; but not always wise and discreet. This, indeed, might be presumed; for in the pursuit of distinction,--instead of attaching himself to the selfish and mercenary professions which oftenest lead to wealth, power, and family aggrandisement,--he preferred those generous studies which most exalt, enrich, and adorn the mind, but yet, while they gratify the taste of their votary, rather advance him in moral and intellectual eminence than to temporal and substantial prosperity. These, therefore, were exercises calculated to awaken and display the energies and resources of a temper formed to conceive, attempt, and achieve great things, so far--and perhaps so far only--as depended on his individual exertions. In the solitary case wherein he had official authority to direct difficult public affairs he failed so irrecoverably, that, during the residue of his life, he was more a sufferer than an actor in the troubles of those hideous times. Italy, it must be observed, was still distracted with strife, in every form that strife could assume, between the factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines;--the former, adherents of the pope; the latter, of the emperor of Germany. These factions not only arrayed state against state, but frequently divided people of the same province, the same city, and the same family against one another, in the most violent and implacable hostility,--hostility, violent in proportion as it was irrational, and implacable in proportion as it was unnatural; being, in every instance, and on both sides, contrary to the interests of their respective communities. Lombardy, especially since the Cisalpine conquests of Charlemagne, had never ceased to be a snare to his successors. The popes, who at first had affected spiritual dominion only, after the grant of territorial possessions, by that deed of Constantine to Silvester, which, having disappeared from earth, may be found, according to the veritable testimony of Ariosto, in the moon, the receptacle of all lost things[7], gradually aspired to secular power. But all their ambition and influence failed, in the end, to spread their secular sovereignty beyond those provinces adjacent to Rome, which they yet retain by courtesy of the catholic potentates of Europe.