was entirely unjust, nefarious in the sight of God and man. He tried what
was in him to get reinstated; tried even by warlike surprisal, with arms in
his hand: but it would not do; bad only had become worse. There is a
record, I believe, still extant in the Florence Archives, dooming this
Dante, wheresoever caught, to be burnt alive. Burnt alive; so it stands,
they say: a very curious civic document. Another curious document, some
considerable number of years later, is a Letter of Dante's to the
Florentine Magistrates, written in answer to a milder proposal of theirs,
that he should return on condition of apologizing and paying a fine. He
answers, with fixed stern pride: "If I cannot return without calling
myself guilty, I will never return, _nunquam revertar_."

For Dante there was now no home in this world. He wandered from patron to
patron, from place to place; proving, in his own bitter words, "How hard is
the path, _Come e duro calle_." The wretched are not cheerful company.
Dante, poor and banished, with his proud earnest nature, with his moody
humors, was not a man to conciliate men. Petrarch reports of him that
being at Can della Scala's court, and blamed one day for his gloom and
taciturnity, he answered in no courtier-like way. Della Scala stood among
his courtiers, with mimes and buffoons (_nebulones ac histriones_) making
him heartily merry; when turning to Dante, he said: "Is it not strange,
now, that this poor fool should make himself so entertaining; while you, a
wise man, sit there day after day, and have nothing to amuse us with at
all?" Dante answered bitterly: "No, not strange; your Highness is to
recollect the Proverb, _Like to Like_;"--given the amuser, the amusee must
also be given! Such a man, with his proud silent ways, with his sarcasms
and sorrows, was not made to succeed at court. By degrees, it came to be
evident to him that he had no longer any resting-place, or hope of benefit,
in this earth. The earthly world had cast him forth, to wander, wander; no
living heart to love him now; for his sore miseries there was no solace