revealed into the unfathomable and mysterious and unrevealed
regions of the second death?

After various wanderings in France and Italy, and after an interval
of three years, Dante produced the second part of the poem,--the
Purgatorio,--in which he assumes another style, and sings another
song. In this we are introduced to an illustrious company,--many
beloved friends, poets, musicians, philosophers, generals, even
prelates and popes, whose deeds and thoughts were on the whole
beneficent. These illustrious men temporarily expiate the sins of
anger, of envy, avarice, gluttony, pride, ambition,--the great
defects which were blended with virtues, and which are to be purged
out of them by suffering. Their torments are milder, and amid them
they discourse on the principles of moral wisdom. They utter noble
sentiments; they discuss great themes; they show how vain is wealth
and power and fame; they preach sermons. In these discourses,
Dante shows his familiarity with history and philosophy; he unfolds
that moral wisdom for which he is most distinguished. His scorn is
now tempered with tenderness. He shows a true humanity; he is more
forgiving, more generous, more sympathetic. He is more lofty, if
he is not more intense. He sees the end of expiations: the
sufferers will be restored to peace and joy.

But even in his purgatory, as in his hell, he paints the ideas of
his age. He makes no new or extraordinary revelations. He arrives
at no new philosophy. He is the Christian poet, after the pattern
of his age.

It is plain that the Middle Ages must have accepted or invented
some relief from punishment, or every Christian country would have