charm for Benedict and Bernard, and which almost offset the barbarism
and misery of the Middle Ages,--to many still regarded as "ages of
faith,"--Dante seemingly forgets his wrongs; and in the company of her
whom he adores he seems to revel in the solemn ecstasy of a soul
transported to the realms of eternal light. He lives now with the angels
and the mysteries,--

"Like to the fire
That in a cloud imprisoned doth break out expansive.

* * * * *

"Thus, in that heavenly banqueting his soul
Outgrew himself, and, in the transport lost,
Holds no remembrance now of what she was."

The Paradise of Dante is not gloomy, although it be obscure and
indefinite. It is the unexplored world of thought and knowledge, the
explanation of dogmas which his age accepted. It is a revelation of
glories such as only a lofty soul could conceive, but could not
paint,--a supernal happiness given only to favored mortals, to saints
and martyrs who have triumphed over the seductions of sense and the
temptations of life,--a beatified state of blended ecstasy and love.

"Had I a tongue in eloquence as rich as is the coloring in fancy's
loom,
'Twere all too poor to utter the least part of that enchantment."

Such is this great poem; in all its parts and exposition of the ideas of
the age,--sometimes fierce and sometimes tender, profound and infantine,