has attained a celebrity of which she was destined to know nothing. This
was the famous Beatrice Portinari, daughter of a rich Florentine who
founded more than one charitable institution. She married another man,
and died in her youth; but retained the Platonical homage of her young
admirer, living and dead, and became the heroine of his great poem.

It is unpleasant to reduce any portion of a romance to the events of
ordinary life; but with the exception of those who merely copy from
one another, there has been such a conspiracy on the part of Dante's
biographers to overlook at least one disenchanting conclusion to be
drawn to that effect from the poet's own writings, that the probable
truth of the matter must here for the first time be stated. The case,
indeed, is clear enough from his account of it. The natural tendencies
of a poetical temperament (oftener evinced in a like manner than the
world in general suppose) not only made the boy-poet fall in love, but,
in the truly Elysian state of the heart at that innocent and adoring
time of life, made him fancy he had discovered a goddess in the object
of his love; and strength of purpose as well as imagination made him
grow up in the fancy. He disclosed himself, as time advanced, only by
his manner--received complacent recognitions in company from the young
lady--offended her by seeming to devote himself to another (see the poem
in the _Vita Nuova_, beginning "Ballata io vo")--rendered himself the
sport of her and her young friends by his adoring timidity (see the 5th
and 6th sonnets in the same work)--in short, constituted her a paragon
of perfection, and enabled her, by so doing, to shew that she was none.
He says, that finding himself unexpectedly near her one day in company,
he trembled so, and underwent such change of countenance, that many of
the ladies present began to laugh with her about him--"_si gabbavano di
me_." And he adds, in verse,