In the episode of Francesca da Rimini, Mr. Barlow has recently attempted to give currency to a various reading long known, but never accepted, in the line (_Inferno_, v. 102) in which Francesca expresses her horror at the manner of her death. She says, _il modo ancor m' offende_, "the manner still offends me." But for _il modo_ Mr. Barlow would substitute _il mondo_, "the world still offends me,"--that is, as we suppose, by holding a false opinion of her conduct. Mr. Barlow's suggestions are always to be received with respect, but we cannot but think him wrong in proposing this change. The spirits in Hell are not supposed to be aware of what is passing upon earth; they are self-convicted, (_Purgatory_, xxvi. 85, 86,) and Francesca being doomed to eternal woe, the world could not do her wrong by taxing her with sin; while, further, the shudder at the method of her death, lasting even in torment, seems to us a far more imaginative conception than the one proposed in its stead. Our four texts read _elmodo_. In the famous simile (_Inferno_, iii. 112-114) in which Dante compares the spirits falling from the bank of Acheron to the dead leaves fluttering from a bough in autumn, giving, as Mr. Ruskin says, "the most perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feebleness, passiveness, and scattering agony of despair," our common texts have infin che il ramo Rende alla terra tutte le sue spoglie, "Until the branch gives to the earth all its spoils"; but the texts of Jesi and Mantua, as well as those of the Bartolinian and the Aldus, and many other early authorities, here put the word _Vede_ in place of _Rende_, giving a variation which for its poetic worth well deserves to be marked, if not to be introduced into the received text. "Until the branch sees all its spoils upon the earth" is a personification quite in Dante's manner. A confirmation of the value of this reading is given by the fact that Tasso preferred it to the more common one, and in his treatise on the "Art of Poetry" praises it as full of energy. The value of this work of Lord Vernon's to the students of Dante, in enabling them to secure accuracy in their statements in regard to the early texts, has been illustrated to us by finding that Blanc, in his useful and excellent "Vocabolario Dantesco," has not unfrequently fallen into error through his inability to consult those first editions. For example, in the line, (_Inferno_, xviii. 43,) _Perciò a figuralo i piedi affissi_, as it is commonly given, or, _Perciò a firgurarlo gli occhi affissi_, as it appears in some editions, Blanc, who prefers the latter reading, states that _gli occhi_ is found in _"toutes les anciennes éditions."_ But the truth is, that those of Foligno and Naples read _ipedi_, that of Jesi has _in piedi_, and that of Mantua _i pie_. The Aldine of 1502 is the earliest edition we have seen which has _gli occhi_.