An Introduction to the Study of Dante. By John Addington
Symonds. (Adam and Charles Black. 7s. 6d.)—This book was first published more than a quarter of a century ago ; the second edition appeared in 1891; the preface to the third, dated March 21st, 1893, was written at Venice a few weeks before the author's death. This preface was, as Mr. Horatio F. Brown, under whose care this fourth edition appears, tells us, "the last of his writings for the press," even as the book itself was the serious be- ginning of his career. The time for criticising such a book is long since past ; but what a wonderful achiev ement it is for a young man I Take this, for instance :—" But that species of the sublime which distinguishes Isaiah, Job, St. Paul, St. John, Eschylus, Lucretius, Milton, Pindar, which owes its effect to the width rather than to the profundity of the seer's vision, to the vastness sather than the distinctness of his images, to the comprehensive- ness rather than the intensity of his genius, is not to be found in Dante."
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