Unfortunately, there is no edition of the "Divina Commedia" which can claim any special authority,--none which has even in a small degree such authority as belongs to the first folio of Shakspeare's plays. The text, as now received, rests upon a comparison of manuscripts and early printed editions; and as affording to scholars the means of an independent critical judgment upon it, a knowledge of the readings of these earliest editions is indispensable. But reprints of old books are proverbially open to error. The reprint of the first folio Shakspeare is so full of mistakes as to be of comparatively little use. The character of the Italian language is such that inaccuracies are both easier and more dangerous than in English. Unless the reprint of the first four editions were literally correct, it would be of little value. To secure this correctness, so far as was possible, Lord Vernon engaged Mr. Panizzi, the chief librarian of the British Museum, to edit the volume. A more competent editor never lived. Mr. Panizzi is distinguished not more for his thorough and appreciative acquaintance with the poetic literature of his country than for the extent and accuracy of his bibliographical knowledge and the refinement of his bibliographic skill. There can be no doubt that the reprint is as exact as the most rigid critic could desire. It is a monument of patience and of unpretending labor, as well as of typographic beauty,--the work of the editor having been well seconded by that well-known disciple of Aldus, Mr. Charles Whittingham. Nor is it only in essential variations that these four texts are important, but also in the illustration which their different spelling and their varying grammatical forms afford in regard to the language used by Dante. At the time when these editions appeared, the orthography of the Italian tongue was not yet established, and its grammatical inflections not in all cases definitely settled. Printing had not yet been long enough in use to fix a permanent form upon words. Moreover, the misprints themselves, which in these early editions are very numerous, often give hints as to the changes which they may have induced, or as to the misplacing of letters most likely to occur, and consequently most likely to lead to unobserved errors of the text. The style of the printing in these first editions, and the aid it may give, or the difficulty it may occasion, are hardly to be understood without an extract. We open at _Paradiso_, xv. 70. Cacciaguida has just spoken to his descendant, and then follows, according to the Foligno, the following passage:-- Io mi uolfi abeatrice et quella udio pria chio parlaffi et arofemi un cenno che fece crefcer lali aluoler mio Poi cominciai con leefftto elfenno come laprima equalita napparfe dun pefo per ciafchun di noi fi fenno Pero chel fole che nallumo et arfe colcaldo et conlaluce et fi iguali che tutte fimiglianze fono fcarfe.