“E se ben ti ricorda, e vedi lume, Vedrai te somigliante a quella inferma, Che non può trovar posa in su le piume, Ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma.” It is hardly too much to say that one cannot turn over a couple of pages of any book which Dante may conceivably have read without coming on some passage which one feels certain he had read, or at the very least containing some information which one feels certain he possessed. A real “Dante’s library”[2] would comprise pretty well every book in Latin, Italian, French, or Provençal, “published,” if we may use the term, up to the year 1300. Of course a good many Latin books were (may one say fortunately?) in temporary retirement at that time; but even of these, whether, as has been suggested, through volumes, now lost, of “Elegant Extracts,” or by whatever other means, more was evidently known than is always realised. We must, however, beware of treating Dante merely as a repertory of curious lore or museum of literary _bric-à-brac_--a danger almost as great as that of looking at him from a purely æsthetic point of view. He had no doubt read more widely than any man of his age, and he is one of the half-dozen greatest poets of all time. But his claim on our attention rests on even a wider basis than these two qualities would afford. He represents as it were the re-opening of the lips of the human race: “While I was musing, the fire kindled, and at last I spake with my tongue.” The old classical literature had said its last word when Claudian died; and though men continued to compose, often with ability and intelligence, the histories and chronicles which practically formed the only non-theological writings of the so-called “Dark Ages,” letters in the full sense of the term lay dormant for centuries. Not till the twelfth century was far advanced did any signs of a re-awakening appear. Then, to use a phrase of Dante’s, the dead poetry arose, and a burst of song came almost simultaneously from all Western Europe. To this period belong the Minnesingers of Germany, the Troubadours of Provence, the unknown authors of the lovely romance--poetical in feeling, though cast chiefly in a prose form--_Aucassin et Nicolete_, and of several not less lovely English ballads and lyrics. Even the heavy rhymed chronicles begin to be replaced by romances in which the true poetic fire breaks out, such as the _Nibelungen Lied_ (in its definitive form) and the _Chronicle of the Cid_.