Our readers may remember that Mr. Gladstone, in a letter
to Mr. Macmillan on the Life of F. D. Maurice, refers to him an being, to quote Dante's expression about St. Dominic, a "spiritual splendour." The passage to which Mr. Gladstone re- fers is in the XIth Canto of the " Paradiso," lines 38 and 39 :— "L'altro per sapienza in terra fue Di cherubica luce uno splendore."
The lines are not easy to translate into modern English with anything like the force and effect of the original ; but Colonel Maurice's own rendering, we believe, is this :—
" The other—Wisdom guiding from his birth— Shone with a spirit's splendour here on earth."
And this, perhaps, conveys sufficiently the effect of the moral splendour to which Mr. Gladstone referred. At least, we have. not yet come across a more effective rendering.
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