1801.) 
tangled in its windings, or thofe, who, 
attracted by the fame of Dante, might be 
inclined to adventure into his receffes, and 
with for a clue for the purpofe. Thefe, 
however, would form a fmall portion of 
your readers, the generality of whom muft 
deem their attention ill: beftowed on ac- 
quiring a conception of an imagined fcene 
of horrors below, at a time when the /ur- 
face of our globe unhappily obtrudes on 
the fickening eye of humanity the real 
havock and dire wafte of war, with difeafe, 
wretchedne{s, and want in its train. 
Give me leave to recommend to the no- 
tice of fuch of your readers as cultivate 
Ttalian literature, and may be defirous of 
obtaining an intimate acquaintance with 
the beauties of the oldeft (I {peak of thofe 
only who have juft pretenfions to a 
ty.) and moft original poet of that nation, 
the edition of. La Divina Commedia di 
Dante, publifhed by Antonio Fulgoni, at 
Rome, 1791, in 3vols. 4to.* The notes 
will be found expliclt and illuftrative of 
the text, without the infupportable ver- 
biage of preceding commentators. 
To a very few preliminary remarks of 
the editor, P. B. L. M.C. is fubjoined a 
fucciné& life of the poet, by the Abbate 
Serafi. Ithink it may be regretted he 
did not, in addition, prepare the minds of 
his readers by fome defcription of the lo- 
cality of the regions they have to traverfe, 
as the commentators have imagined them 
to have exifted in the poet’s contemplation. 
Velutelli has been very copious on this 
head, and the plan he deduces from the 
confideration of the ‘context of the poem, 
and of various particular paffages may be 
preferable to that of his predeceflor Anto- 
nio Manetti, which was adopted by Crif- 
toforo Landino; its minutenefs and pro- 
lixity might have been retrenched and 
comprefied, and at the fame time a toler- 
able idea conveyed of what relates to the 
toposraphy of the poet’s excurfions, in- 
fernal, middle, or purgatorial, aerial or 
paradifiacal. 
It cannot be denied, that the fcho- 
liafts of Dante feem to lay claim to a 
fpecies of fecond-fight or intuition ito the 
poet’s cogitations, which they do not de- 
rive from his text, unlefs it be by very 
diro and diftant implication ;—tis true, 
* It isto be regretted that this edition is 
not accompanied by the beautiful defigns 
whic. it appears Mr. Flaxman intended for 
it, engraved at Rome, by Piroli, 1793—the 
plates are faid to be in the poffeflion of Tho 
mas Hope, ef. 
On the Commedia of Dante. 
35 
they may plead the fanétion of a long line 
of precurfers in their fayour, which is 
continued to our own days. 
That learned commentators view 
In Homer more than Homer knew, 
is generally admitted. 
They tell you boldly, that the anti- 
chamber of Hell, which ferves for its 
roof or vault, {preads over 280 miles of 
the earth’s fuperficies, and extends down 
into its bowels to the depth of 2950 miles 
perpendicular. In the middle point of this 
furface, that is 140 miles from each eX- 
tremity, they place Mount Zion, with the 
city of Jerufalem. 
The infernal manfions they reprefent as 
forming, collectively, the figure of an ir- 
regular cone, beginning at the befores 
‘mentioned diftance or depth of 2950 miles, 
and reaching with its point to the centre 
of the globe. 
The perpendicular depth of thefe abodes 
of woe they calculate to be 295 miles, to 
which add the depth of the vault or cavern 
above them, 2950 miles, being the femi- 
diameter of the earth, 3245 miles, each 
mile confifting of 2000 Englith yards. 
With re(pe& to the divilions or depart- 
ments of our infernal inverted cone, they 
may be regarded as fo many flat cylinders 
or mill-ftones laid one over the other, 
with confiderable intervals of {pace be- 
tween them, the higheft and largeft 280 
miles in diameter, and the inferior ones 
diminifhing in their progrefs downwards 
to the head-quarters of Lucifer, at the 
centre of our globe, and dire&tly under 
Jerufalem. 
At this centre our poet and his claffical 
guide (Virgil) after having pervaded the 
varied {cenes of woe and defolation, find 
a convenient fhaft or well which they pur- 
fue till they reach the point direétly oppo- 
fite Jerufalem, in the other hemifphere. 
Emerged into day, after having, if the 
expreilion may be allowed, perambulated 
and penetrated through the entire diameter 
of the earth, they behhld the immenfe Mount 
of Purgatory ring in a pyramidical or co- 
nical fhape to the perpendicular height of 
140 miles, its bafe 990 miles, the plain 
at its top rz miles‘in circumference, | 
Various here again are the departments 
for the purification of the fouls of the de- 
parted, and which wind round the fides of 
the mountain. 
_ Arrived at the fummit, it remains for 
the reader to wing his flight, fecure in the 
good conduct of our bard and his fainted 
Beatrice, to the abodes of blifs which are 
placed in the planetary orbs, agreeably to 
Pi the 
