to have understood and appreciated Dante far better than did Dante’s countryman Ariosto. It is thus possible to read Dante without a very wide acquaintance with Italian literature in general. Then, again, beginners need not be at too much pains to follow out the often very elaborate symbolism. On a first reading take the story as it stands. Let the dark wood and the three beasts, and the hill illuminated by the rising sun, remain what they profess to be, until you see the broad outlines of the poem. There are quite enough passages of purely human interest to occupy you at first. Francesca, Farinata, the Counts of Montefeltro, father and son, Ugolino, the assembled princes awaiting their time to enter Purgatory, the great panegyrics of St. Francis and St. Dominic, these and the like are the “purple patches” on which the beginner’s attention should be fixed. The student who has gone through the poem on these lines will by the end of it be ripe for a more thorough reading and a fuller commentary. Among modern commentaries the fullest is that of Dr. Scartazzini. He is a guide whose judgement is perhaps not always quite equal to his erudition; but his Commentary (in four volumes, including the _Prolegomeni_) is almost indispensable to the advanced student. He has also published an abridgement in one volume. Those who read German should make acquaintance with the translation and notes of the late King John of Saxony, who wrote under the name of Philalethes, as well as with those of Dr. Witte. Both these deal fully with historical matters, “Philalethes” also going very fully into the theology. In the present writer’s edition some attempt is made to clear up obscure points of allegory, and to show the extent of Dante’s debt to Greek philosophy. Attention is also called to questions of grammar and philology, which have been somewhat neglected by the Italian and German commentators. APPENDIX II. DANTE’S USE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE