La molta gente e le diverse piaghe
Avean le luci m 'e s' inebriate,
Che dello stare a piangere eran vaghe.

So were mine eyes inebriate with the view
Of the vast multitude, whom various wounds
Disfigur'd, that they long'd to stay and weep.

CARY.


Nor have I now room for any specific comparison of Dante with Milton.
But if I had, I would institute it upon the ground of the last canto of
the Inferno from the 1st to the 69th line, and from the 106th to the
end. And in this comparison I should notice Dante's occasional fault of
becoming grotesque from being too graphic without imagination; as in his
Lucifer compared with Milton's Satan. Indeed he is sometimes horrible
rather than terrible,--falling into the [Greek (transliteration):
misaeton] instead of the [Greek (transliteration): deinon] of
Longinus;[3] in other words, many of his images excite bodily disgust,
and not moral fear. But here, as in other cases, you may perceive that
the faults of great authors are generally excellencies carried to an
excess.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Coleridge here notes: "I will, if I can, here make an
historical movement, and pay a proper compliment to Mr. Hallam."
Ed.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. Coleridge here notes: "Here to speak of Mr. Cary's