Notes on the Paradiso of Dante. By the Hon. W.
W. Vernon. With an Introduction by the Bishop of Ripen. 2 vols. (Mac- millan and Co. 21s.)—Mr. Vern on, who dedicates his book to Dr. Edward Moore, one of the most distinguished of Dante scholars, has been able to accomplish a purpose announced six years ago, and to follow up his volumes on the " Inferno " with a similar commentary on the " Paradiso." We may be allowed to congratulate him on the completion of a great work. His plan is to print the text, to give below a running annotation, and to supply a more general comment where it is needed. The student is helped in the most ample way. Canto XXIV., for instance, containing one hundred and fifty-four lines, occupies twenty-nine pages. Nor is the proportion excessive. There are many considerable textual difficulties, and the references to history, theology, and morals require a very large amount of elucidation. Canto IX., which numbers one hundred and forty-two lines, is yet more liberally furnished, for the comments and notes fill forty-five pages. But then it is, from one point of view, of more than common interest. It exemplifies in a very remarkable way the principles on which Dante peopled the various regions of the spiritual world. His rules of canonisation were not a little singular. He sees Clemence, wife of Charles Martel—Mr. Vernon decides emphatically that the wife, not the daughter, is intended—about whom we know very little. Then comes Civaizza, sister of Ezzelino III., of whom Benvennto says that she was recte filia Veneris, semper amerosa, cage. This, however, does not disturb her— "Ma lletamente a me medesma indulge La aigion de ma sorte,"— though, as she quite rightly says, this may seem hard to under- stand, al vostro vol go. Along with Cunizza comes Folgo, who, after a dissolute youth as a troubadour, became Bishop of Toulouse, and, as such, took a prominent part in the crusade against the Albigenses. One thing almost certainly excluded from Paradise, and that was to be a Florentine, whereas of the seventy-nine persons pictured in hell, two-fifths come from Florence.
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