Seven years before the publication of _Hymn to Satan_, Carducci had become identified, as professor, with the University of Bologna; here he remained until his death--a period of forty-six years of educational service. The first offer from Mamiani, as Minister of Education, was to the Turin Lycée but the poet was unwilling to leave Tuscany. After a little delay the chair of elocution--and later of literature--was open to him at Bologna. His influence upon students of all types was stimulating, always conducive to individual expression and ambition. After the appearance of _Hymn to Satan_ he was in marked disfavor with the government. His liberal ideas were in high favor with the students, however, so that it seemed wise to “make a change” by offering him a position to teach Latin at Naples. Carducci refused on the ground that he was not qualified to teach Latin. He was prohibited from continuing classroom instruction at Bologna, on the ground of “constant opposition to the acts of the Government.” Affairs were quieted by a change of ministers and the poet, wisely, refrained from promulgating political doctrines in the University, or from giving dominance to them in his later volumes of poems, like _Levia grandia_, in 1867, and _Nuove poesie_, in 1873. Mr. Bickersteth has emphasized duly the more restrained, tender note in the later volume, following soon after the loss of his mother and his son. So different were the lyrics from his previous type, so surely did they show the influence of Goethe, Schiller, and Heine, in romanticism, that some critics accused Carducci of being a mere imitator, or even a plagiarist. This challenge aroused his ever-present spirit and he wrote the prose defense, with broad as well as personal comment, _Critica ed arte_. As lecturer, he became yearly more popular and students from distant places hastened to come under his inspiration. He was one of the noteworthy exponents of Dante. When Rome established a chair of Dante Exigesis, Carducci was appointed as professor. Although sorry to lose him at Bologna, the whole country applauded the honor. He hesitated, because he was not in accord with those who interpreted Dante by contemporary political conditions, those who had founded the chair at Rome. Later he became one of “four leading Dante scholars” who gave short courses of lectures each year. At his first lecture there was an effort to make a political demonstration by the anti-Papal party. Among his sentences at this first discourse he said, “Papacy and Empire, their discord and their power, were passing away when Dante was born--Dante who does not pass away.” In an earlier sonnet, published in essays in 1874, he had interpreted what he believed were Dante’s views and the reason for his immortal fame:[48] Dante, whence comes it that my vows and voice, Adoring thy proud lineaments I raise; That, o’er thy verse, which made thee lean and wan, The sun may set, the new dawn finds me still?