"Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet." Milton.

In a review of Italian literature, Dante has a double claim to
precedency. He was the earliest and the greatest writer of his
country. He was the first man who fully descried and exhibited
the powers of his native dialect. The Latin tongue, which, under
the most favourable circumstances, and in the hands of the
greatest masters, had still been poor, feeble, and singularly
unpoetical, and which had, in the age of Dante, been debased by
the admixture of innumerable barbarous words and idioms, was
still cultivated with superstitious veneration, and received, in
the last stage of corruption, more honours than it had deserved
in the period of its life and vigour. It was the language of the
cabinet, of the university, of the church. It was employed by
all who aspired to distinction in the higher walks of poetry. In
compassion to the ignorance of his mistress, a cavalier might now
and then proclaim his passion in Tuscan or Proven‡al rhymes. The
vulgar might occasionally be edified by a pious allegory in the
popular jargon. But no writer had conceived it possible that the
dialect of peasants and market-women should possess sufficient
energy and precision for a majestic and durable work. Dante
adventured first. He detected the rich treasures of thought and
diction which still lay latent in their ore. He refined them
into purity. He burnished them into splendour. He fitted them
for every purpose of use and magnificence. And he has thus
acquired the glory, not only of producing the finest narrative
poem of modern times but also of creating a language,