They lingered in sunny Provence, and in the dark forest-land of the
Minnesingers. In the great capitals, as Rome, Berlin, Paris, London,--in
smaller capitals, as Florence, Weimar, and Boston,--in many a village
which had a charm for them, as Stratford-on-Avon, Ferney, and Concord
in Massachusetts,--in the homes of wonderful suffering, as Ferrara and
Haworth.--on many enchanted waters, as the Guadalquivir, the Rhine,
the Tweed, the Hudson, Windermere, and Leman,--in many a monastic nook
whence had issued a chronicle or history, in many a wild birthplace of a
poem or romance, around many an old castle and stately ruin, in many a
decayed seat of revelry and joyous repartee,--through the long list
of the nurseries of genius and the laboratories of art, they wandered
pensive and strangely affected. At length they rested from their journey
to hold a council on modern literature. The long results of Christian
time were unrolled before them as in a chart. They beheld the dawn of a
new historic day, marked by songs of fantastic tenderness, and unwieldy,
long, and jointless romances and poems, like the monsters which played
in the unfinished universe before the creation of man. The Muses smiled
with a look more of complaisance than approval, as they reviewed the
army of Troubadours and Minnesingers and the crowd of romancers who
followed in their train. They decided that the joyous array of early
mediæval literature was full of promise, though something of its tone
and temper was past the comprehension of pagan goddesses. The legends of
saints and pictures of martyrdoms were especially mysterious to them,
and they regarded them raptly, not smilingly, and bowed their heads.
Anon their eyes rested on an Italian city, where uprose, as if in
interstellar space, an erect figure, with a piercing eye, pleasant as
Plato's voice. His countenance was fixed upon the empyrean, and a more
than Minerva-like form hovered above him, interpreting the Christian
universe; and as he wrote what she dictated, the verses of his poem were
musical even to the Muses. Dante, Beatrice, and the "Divine Comedy,"