tions but by the spiritual sympathy of a compassionate lady. It is impossible to entertain the least doubt of the reality of an episode described by himself with such tenderness of self-excuse and poignancy of self-reproach, but to admit it is to admit the actuality of all the rest of the Vita Nuova:
"The salt stream that did sorrowfully flow,
Speeded, ye Eyes, from your deep springs apace,
Gave marvel unto all who such long space
Beheld you weeping, as yourselves do know.
Now fear I that all such ye would forgo,
If I upon my own part would be base,
And not all shift and subterfuge displace,
Reminding you of her who made your woe.
Your levity lays load of heavy thought
Upon me, sore disquieted with dread
Of her who looks on you in wistful wise.
By nothing less than Death should you be wrought
E'er to forget your Lady who is dead;
Thus saith my heart, and afterward it sighs."
Dante appears to say that he entirely overcame this rather regrettable than reprehensible lapse from his ideal, and we believe him. If so, the pitiful lady cannot be identified with Gemma Donati, whom, at latest in 1293, if she had really borne him seven children by 1300, he married by the persuasion of his friends. The Vita Nuova was in all probability written by this time, and from its conclusion we learn that Dante was even then preparing to celebrate Beatrice in the Divina Commedia, It is therefore exceedingly improbable that he would have wedded one at all likely to impair or efface the freshness of her image in his soul; and though his union with Gemma was apparently untroubled by discord, it probably lacked all consecration but the ceremonial. It
