The fifth circle, of the Avaricious and Prodigal, follows much the same rule as the fourth, except that here the instances of virtue are recited in the day, those of sin at night, so that Dante does not actually hear the latter. In this case the souls lie prostrate. The Gluttonous, in the sixth circle, are punished by having to pass under trees laden with fruit, which they cannot reach; and the examples and warnings are conveyed by voices among the branches of these trees. The seventh circle follows the fashion of the fourth, except that the souls (who are punished by fire for having in life failed to hold in due restraint the flames of passion) seem to address the warning reminiscences to each other as they meet in the circuit. An instance of the system on which the examples are introduced has been given from the first circle. Perhaps that for the sixth is even more typical. On first entering this they come to a tree, among the branches of which a voice is heard recording the conduct of the Virgin at the feast in Cana, when “she thought more of the success of the banquet than of her own mouth;” the custom of drinking only water prevalent among the Roman women, and the abstemiousness of Daniel and the Baptist. Then, after passing through a portion of the circle, and holding converse with its inmates, they reach another tree, from which a second voice comes to them bidding them remember the trouble that came from the drunkenness of the Centaur at the wedding of Pirithous, and the rejection by Gideon of the men who had drunk immoderately. This coupling of a classical and Scriptural instance is quite invariable. To pass on to the subject of the light thrown upon Dante’s speculative views in the _Purgatory_. It is not too much to say that from that point of view it is the most important division of the whole poem. This, perhaps, follows naturally from its subject. The Purgatorial existence bears more affinity to the life of this world than does that of those who have reached their eternal abode; and human affections and human interests still have much of their old power. This, then, would naturally be the division in which questions arising from the conditions of man’s life with men would be likely to suggest themselves.