In the episode of Ugolino, (_Inferno,_ xxxiii.,) the verse which has given rise to more comment, perhaps than any other is that (the 26th) in which the Count says, according to the usual reading, that the narrow window in his tower had shown him many moons before he dreamed his evil dream: _Più lune già, quand' i' feci il mal sonno,_ "Many moons already, when I had my ill slumber." But another reading, found in a majority of the early MSS. and editions, including those of Jesi and Mantua gives the variation, _più lume;_ while the editions of Foligno and Naples give _lieve_, which, affording no intelligible meaning, must be regarded as a mere misprint. In spite of the weight of early authority for _lume_, the reading _lune_ is perhaps to be preferred, as giving in a word a brief expressive statement of a weary length of imprisonment,--while _lume_ would only serve to fix the moment of the dream as having been between the first dawn and the full day. It is rare that the difference between an _n_ and an _m_ is of such marked effect. In the sixth canto of _Purgatory_, verse 58, Virgil says, "Behold there a soul which _a posta_ looks toward us." Such at least is the common reading, and the words _a posta_ are explained as meaning _fixedly._ But this signification is somewhat forced, _a posta_, or _apposta_, being more properly used with the meaning of _on purpose_ or _deliberately_,--and the first four editions supply a reading without this difficulty, and one which adds a new and significant feature to the description. They unite in the omission of the letter _a_. The passage then bears the meaning,--"But behold there a soul which, _fixed_, or _placed_, alone and all apart, looks toward us." This reading, beside being supported by the weight of ancient authority, finds confirmation, in the context, in the terms in which Sordello's aspect is described: "How lofty and disdainful didst thou stand! how slow and decorous in the moving of thy eyes!" A curious example of the mistakes of the old copies is afforded in the charming description of the Terrestrial Paradise in the twenty-eighth canto of the _Purgatory_. Dante says, that the leaves on the trees, trembling in the soft air, were not so disturbed that the little birds in their tops ceased from any of their arts,-- che gli augelletti per le cime Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte. The lines are so plain that a mistake is difficult in them; but, of our four editions, the Jesi is the only one which gives them correctly. Foligno and Naples read _angeleti_ for _augelletti_, while Mantua gives us the astonishing word _intelletti_. Again, in line 98 of the same canto, all four read, _exaltation dell' acqua_, for the simple and correct _esalazion dell' acqua_. And in line 131, for _Eunoe si chiama_, Jesi supplies the curious word _curioce si chiama_.