PREFACE.
The following story is founded on a passage in Dante, the substance of which is contained in the concluding paragraph of the second canto. For the rest of the incidents, generally speaking, the praise or blame remains with myself. The passage in question—the episode of Paulo and Francesca—has long been admired by the readers of Italian poetry, and is indeed the most cordial and refreshing one in the whole of that singular poem the Inferno, which some call a satire, and some an epic, and which, I confess, has always appeared
