Seven cantos of the "Inferno" are understood to have been written before the author's banishment; it is manifest, however, that if this were the case they must have been considerably altered afterwards; indeed the whole character of the poem, however the original outline may have been followed, must have undergone a very remarkable, and (afflictive as the occasion may have been for himself) a very auspicious change, from his misfortunes. To the latter, his poem owes many of its most splendid passages, and almost all its personal interest; an interest wherein consists, if not its _principal_, its _prevailing_ and preserving charm. Had the whole been composed in prosperity, amidst honours, and affluence, and learned ease, in his native city, it would no doubt have been a mighty achievement of genius; but much that enhances and endears both its moral and its fable could never have been suggested, indeed would not have existed, under happier circumstances. That moral, indeed, is often as mistaken as that fable is monstrous; but the one and the other should be judged according to the times. The poet's romantic and unearthly love to Beatrice would have wanted that sombre and terrible relief which is now given to it by the gloom of his own character, the expression of his feelings under the sense of unmerited wrongs, invectives thundered out against his persecutors, and exposures of atrocities which were every-day deeds of every-day men, in those distracted countries, of which his poem has left such fearful records.