stands Dante as high-priest, and consecrates all modern Art for its vocation. Not as a solitary poem, but representing the whole class of the New Poetry, and itself a separate class, stands the “Divine Comedy,” so entirely unique, that any theory drawn from peculiar forms is quite inadequate to it;—a world by itself, it demands its own peculiar theory. The predicate of Divine was given it by its author, because it treats of theology and things divine; Comedy he called it, after the simplest notion of this and its opposite kind,—on account of its fearful beginning and its happy ending, and because the mixed nature of the poem, whose material is now lofty and now lowly, rendered a mixed kind of style necessary. One readily perceives, however, that according to the common notion it cannot be called Dramatic, because it represents no circumscribed action. So far as Dante himself may be looked upon as the hero, who serves only as a thread for the measureless series of visions and pictures, and remains rather passive than active,—the poem seems to approach nearer to a Romance; yet this definition does not completely exhaust it; nor can we call it Epic, in the usual acceptation of the word, since there is no regular sequence in the events represented. To look upon it as a Didactic poem is likewise impossible, because it is written in a far less restricted form and aim, than those of teaching. It belongs therefore to none of these classes in particular, nor is it merely a compound of them; but an entirely unique, and as it were organic mixture of all their elements, not to be reproduced by any arbitrary rules of art,—an absolute individuality, comparable with itself alone and with naught else. The material of the poem, is, in general terms, the express identity of the Poet’s age;—the interpenetration of the events thereof with the ideas of Religion, Science and Poetry in the loftiest genius of that century. Our intention is not to consider it in its immediate reference to its age; but rather in its universal application and as the archetype of all modern Poetry.