The Letters of Dante. Edited by Paget Toynbee. (Oxford University
Press. 12s. 6d. net.)—Of Dante's Latin epistles thirteen apparently authentic examples survive. The most important of them is the letter addressed to his friend and patron, Can Grande della Scala of Verona, in which the poet describes the general plan of his epic. Dr. Toynbee has pre- pared a scholarly edition of the letters, with a translation. He devotes an interesting appendix to the " curses " or rhyth- mical convention which was observed by cultivated mediaeval writers of Latin prose. It was just as difficult to write this artificial prose, in which accent counted instead of quantity, as to compose hexameters. An understanding of the " cursus " is essential, as Dr. Toynbee shows, to the criticism of Dante's epistolary style. The book is a valuable contribution to the study of Dante, which now has many ardent followers in this country.
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