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NOTES.

Page 165. (Line 1.) Simon Magus wished to purchase of St. Peter the power of conferring the Holy Spirit. See Acts, viii. 18, 19, 20. He is mentioned in the Paradiso, canto xxx. 148, as thrusting down to a lower depth Pope Boniface. That the Popes are here spoken of, as forming the train of Simon Magus, is evident by the context. "Simony, or the corrupt purchase of spiritual benefices, was the characteristic reproach of the clergy in the eleventh century.”—Hallam. Middle Ages, cap. vii. (5.) Your crimes must be made known with the voice of a trumpet.

Page 166. (Line 17.) The church of St. John the Baptist at Florence. The accident mentioned by Dante had caused him to be charged with sacrilege.

Page 167. (Line 49.) The punishment assigned to murderers was to be buried alive topsy turvy. Some of the most hardy would refuse to listen to the friar who came to confess them; but after they were fixed in the hole, and the earth thrown in, would recal the friar, in order to gain a short respite from death. (53.) The punishment assigned to each Pope is to be fixed in a hole upside down, there to remain till the arrival of his successor, who takes his place-he himself being thrust still deeper. Pope Nicholas in this situation mistakes Dante for Pope Boniface the Eighth coming to succeed him, and expresses his surprise at seeing him some years sooner than he had expected, and standing in an upright position, instead of being ready to be thrust head-first into the hole he himself then occupied. (56.) The Lady Fair represents the Church, which has been impiously called the spouse of the Pope.

Page 168. (Line 69.) Nicholas III. was created Pope in 1277. -He was of the Orsini family, aud hence calls himself the son of the bear. He was a man of learning, but excessively eager to promote his family. (72.) "We take pains to heap up things that are useful to our life, and get our death in the purchase; the person is snatched away, and the goods remain." -Jeremy Taylor. (77.) Pope Boniface VIII. For the man ner in which he obtained the popedom from St. Celestine, see notes, canto iii. 60. "After he was raised to the pontificate," says Sismondi," Boniface manifested the two prevailing traits of his character, pride without bounds, and passion, which bordered upon fury, whenever he met with opposition."-Hist. des Repub. Ital. cap. 24. For his conduct to the family of the Colonna, see notes, canto xxvii. 70. Dante here calls him "the prince of modern Pharisees;" and Villani, who is inclined to favour him, says " he had no scruples of conscience in the acquisition of wealth, to aggrandize the church and enrich his own relations; that he made bishops and archbishops of many of his friends and confidants, and cardinals of two of his nephews who were extremely young." (79.) Twenty years elapsed between the death of Nicholas and that of Boniface; but only eleven between the death of the latter and that of Clement V. (82.) Clement V.,-who by the favour of Philip the Fair, King of France, was promoted from the archbishoprick of Bordeaux in 1305. By his desire, in order that the future Popes might be more under the influence of France, he transferred the seat of government to Avignon. See Purg. xxxii. 158. Guicciardini, speaking of Pope Clement, whom he calls a good Pope, adds, " I mean not apostolical goodness; for in those days he was esteemed a good Pope that did not exceed the wickedness of the worst of men."

Page 169. (Line 85.) See Maccabees, 2nd book, iv. 7, 8, 10. As Antiochus granted the desire of Jason at the price he offered, so Clement V. obtained the popedom by conceding to the terms of Philip the Fair. (93.) "And he said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."- St. Matthew, iv. 19. (94.) "Then Peter said: Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee.”—Acts, i. 25. Compare Paradiso, xxii. 88. (106.) i.e. The Pope, who styles himself the husband of the Church, has intrigued and made alliances for impure and sordid purposes with the kings of the earth. See Revelations, xviii. 2, 3, &c., also notes to canto i. 49, 100.

Page 170. (Line 112.) St. Paul tells us, "that covetousness is idolatry.”—Coloss. iii. 5. See also Eph. v. 5, and Hosea, viii. 4. (I15.) This passage has been thus translated by Milton: "Ah, Constantine, of how much ill was cause Not thy conversion, but those rich domains That the first wealthy Pope received of thee." A similar passage in the Orlando Furioso was also thus translated by him: "Then passed we to a flowery mountain green, Which once smelt sweet, now stinks so odiously; This was the gift, if you the truth will have, That Constantine to good Sylvester gave." "It was among the first effects of the conversion of Constantine to give not only a security, but also a legal sanction to the territorial acquisitions of the Church."-Hallam. Middle Ages, chap. vii. Dante, however, though he frequently alludes to this supposed donation, (see Inf. xxvii. 94; Par. xx. 60,) shows his disbelief of it in the De Monarchid, b. iii.; and Gibbon says of it, "This memorable gift was first introduced to the world by an epistle of Adrian I. who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the liberality, and revive the name of the great Constantine. According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was healed of the leprosy,

and purified in the waters of baptism by St. Sylvester, the Roman bishop; and never was physician more gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his intention of founding a new capital in the east; and resigned to the Popes the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the west..... The Emperors were incapable of discovering the forgery that subverted their rights. In the revival of letters and liberty the fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of Laurentius Valla, an eloquent critic and Roman patriot."-Decline and Fall, chap. 49.

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CANTO XX.

ARGUMENT.

In the fourth division are punished those, who, while living, pretended to foretel future events. Their faces are twisted behind, so that they are constrained to walk backwards. Amphiaraus. Tiresias. Aruns. Manto. Michael Scot, &c.

NEW sufferings must my verse proceed to tell,

Forming the twentieth canto of this book,

Which treats of those who are immersed in hell.

Now, all intent, my sight was cast below,
As of the yawning gulf a view I took,
Bedew'd with sorrows of severest woe:
And round about that valley did mine eyes
See people coming, silent and in tears—
With step like their's who chaunt the litanies.
When deeper fell my sight that pit within,

In wondrous mode distorted each appears,
From where the chest commences, to the chin;

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