abstruse theories, versed in all the wisdom of his day and in the
history of the past, a believer in God and immortality, in rewards
and punishments, and perpetually soaring to comprehend the
mysteries of existence, and those ennobling truths which constitute
the joy and the hope of renovated and emancipated and glorified
spirits in the realms of eternal bliss. All this is history, and
it is history alone which I seek to teach,--the outward life of a
great man, with glimpses, if I can, of those visions of beauty and
truth in which his soul lived, and which visions and experiences
constitute his peculiar greatness. Dante was not so close an
observer of human nature as Shakspeare, nor so great a painter of
human actions as Homer, nor so learned a scholar as Milton; but his
soul was more serious than either,--he was deeper, more intense
than they; while in pathos, in earnestness, and in fiery emphasis
he has been surpassed only by Hebrew poets and prophets.

It would seem from his numerous biographies that he was remarkable
from a boy; that he was a youthful prodigy; that he was precocious,
like Cicero and Pascal; that he early made great attainments,
giving utterance to living thoughts and feelings, like Bacon, among
boyish companions; lisping in numbers, like Pope, before he could
write prose; different from all other boys, since no time can be
fixed when he did not think and feel like a person of maturer
years. Born in Florence, of the noble family of the Alighieri, in
the year 1265, his early education devolved upon his mother, his
father having died while the boy was very young. His mother's
friend, Brunetto Latini, famous as statesman and scholarly poet,
was of great assistance in directing his tastes and studies. As a
mere youth he wrote sonnets, such as Sordello the Troubadour would
not disdain to own. He delights, as a boy, in those inquiries