The 'Divina Commedia' is a system of moral, political, and theological truths, with arbitrary personal exemplifications, which are not, in my opinion, allegorical. I do not even feel convinced that the punishments in the Inferno are strictly allegorical. I rather take them to have been in Dante's mind 'quasi'-allegorical, or conceived in analogy to pure allegory. I have said, that a combination of poetry with doctrines, is one of the characteristics of the Christian muse; but I think Dante has not succeeded in effecting this combination nearly so well as Milton. This comparative failure of Dante, as also some other peculiarities of his mind, in 'malam partem', must be immediately attributed to the state of North Italy in his time, which is vividly represented in Dante's life; a state of intense democratical partizanship, in which an exaggerated importance was attached to individuals, and which whilst it afforded a vast field for the intellect, opened also a boundless arena for the passions, and in which envy, jealousy, hatred, and other malignant feelings, could and did assume the form of patriotism, even to the individual's own conscience. All this common, and, as it were, natural partizanship, was aggravated arid coloured by the Guelf and Ghibelline factions; and, in part explanation of Dante's adherence to the latter, you must particularly remark, that the Pope had recently territorialized his authority to a great extent, and that this increase of territorial power in the church, was by no means the same beneficial movement for the citizens of free republics, as the parallel advance in other countries was for those who groaned as vassals under the oppression of the circumjacent baronial castles. [1] By way of preparation to a satisfactory perusal of the 'Divina Commedia', I will now proceed to state what I consider to be Dante's chief excellences as a poet. And I begin with: I. Style--the vividness, logical connexion, strength and energy of which cannot be surpassed. In this I think Dante superior to Milton; and his style is accordingly more imitable than Milton's, and does to this day exercise a greater influence on the literature of his country. You cannot read Dante without feeling a gush of manliness of thought within you. Dante was very sensible of his own excellence in this particular, and speaks of poets as guardians of the vast armory of language, which is the intermediate something between matter and spirit:-- Or se' tu quel Virgilio, e quella fonte, Che spande di parlar sì largo fiume? Risposi lui con vergognosa fronte. O degli altri poeti onore e lume, Vagliami 'l lungo studio e 'l grande amore, Che m' han fatto cercar lo tuo volume. Tu se' lo mio maestro, e 'l mio autore: _Tu se' solo colui, da cu' io tolsi Lo bello stile, che m' ha fatto onore._ ('Inf'. c. 1. v. 79.)