especially, is a very whirlwind of emotions, passions,
and events. If it had not been a Dante that was
creating them, the poetical situation would have been
destroyed and the figures stifled, the work becoming
dry and empty owing to the superabundance of the
subject-matter. But Dante possesses the art of draw-
ing his figures even in a limited space. At times they
remain sketches, though sketches by a master hand;
but frequently the few traits suffice to bring before our
mind the entire and complete picture, with all its de-
tails. Dante is the great master of poetic expression:
with his energetic style, he is able to condense a world
of ideas and feelings in a single word, in an image that
carries us away and places us in the midst of the situ-
ation.

At the very beginning of the Commedia, in the
midst of the thorny allegories, the reader is fascinated
by the sympathetic figure of Virgil, and by the gentle
opening conversation between him and his charge.
The fourth canto describes the privileged sojourn of
the great heathens in Limbo, and expresses in a most
fascinating manner Dante's deep reverence for an-
tiquity, and, at the same time, the consciousness he
has of his own merit, when he tells how he was him-
self introduced by Virgil into the circle of the five
great poets as a sixth. He felt that he was destined
to revive an art that had been so long lost, and just
pride such as this pleases us in the case of a man of
genius. The general impression of this situation is
vivid, -- the noble gathering, all the heroes and sages,
and, in their midst, their great admirer and disciple.
But the individual figures are not yet clearly dis-
tinguished; the poet gives little more than a number

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