diminutive. It stood alone in a boundless plain. There was
nothing near it from which he could calculate its magnitude. But
when the camp was pitched beside it, and the tents appeared like
diminutive specks around its base, he then perceived the
immensity of this mightiest work of man. In the same manner, it
is not till a crowd of petty writers has sprung up that the merit
of the great masterspirits of literature is understood.

We have indeed ample proof that Dante was highly admired in his
own and the following age. I wish that we had equal proof that
he was admired for his excellencies. But it is a remarkable
corroboration of what has been said, that this great man seems to
have been utterly unable to appreciate himself. In his treatise
"De Vulgari Eloquentia" he talks with satisfaction of what he has
done for Italian literature, of the purity and correctness of his
style. "Cependant," says a favourite writer of mine,(Sismondi,
Literature du Midi de l'Europe.) "il n'est ni pur, ni correct,
mais il est createur." Considering the difficulties with which
Dante had to struggle, we may perhaps be more inclined than the
French critic to allow him this praise. Still it is by no means
his highest or most peculiar title to applause. It is scarcely
necessary to say that those qualities which escaped the notice of
the poet himself were not likely to attract the attention of the
commentators. The fact is, that, while the public homage was
paid to some absurdities with which his works may be justly
charged, and to many more which were falsely imputed to them,--
while lecturers were paid to expound and eulogise his physics,
his metaphysics, his theology, all bad of their kind--while
annotators laboured to detect allegorical meanings of which the
author never dreamed, the great powers of his imagination, and