Dante, as he grew up to manhood, and for several years afterwards, continued successfully to pursue his studies in the universities of Padua, Bologna, and Paris. In the latter city he is said to have held various theological disputations, alike creditable to his learning, eloquence, and acuteness; though, from the failure of pecuniary means, he could not remain long enough there to obtain academical honours. On the authority of Giovanni da Serraville, bishop of Fermo, it has been believed that he also visited Oxford, where, as elsewhere, his different exercises gained him,--according to the respective tastes of his admirers,--from some the praise of being a great philosopher, from others a great divine, and, from the rest, a great poet. Serraville, at the request of cardinal Saluzzo and two English bishops, (Nicholas Bubwith, of Bath, and Robert Halam, of Salisbury,) whom he met at the council of Constance, translated Dante's "Divina Commedia" into Latin prose; of which one manuscript copy only, with a commentary annexed, is known to be in existence, in the Vatican library. The extraordinary interest which the two English prelates took in Dante's poem may be regarded as indirect, though of course very indecisive, evidence of his having been personally known at our famous university, and having been honourably remembered there. It is, however, certain that, soon after his decease, the "Divina Commedia" was in high repute among the few in this country who, during the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., in a chivalrous age, cultivated polite letters. This is apparent from the numerous imitations of passages in it by Chaucer, who was then attempting to do for England what his magnificent prototype had recently done for Italy.