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—ROSSETTI.

Much might be said of many other precursors of Dante, but space admonishes us to restrict ourselves to two—Guido delle Colonne, a Sicilian, chiefly known for his Latin romance on the Fall of Troy, but also a vernacular lyrist of considerable merit; and Rustico di Filippo (1200-1274), eulogised by Brunetto Latini as a man of great worth, but whose place among poets is mainly that of a satirist. Very biting are his lines on a certain Messer Ugolino, a member by anticipation of what Carlyle called “the Heaven and Hell Amalgamation Society,” “who has good thoughts, no doubt, if they would stay,” and

Would love his party with a dear accord If only he could once quite care for it.

One other writer among Dante’s predecessors may be mentioned, not for his claims as a poet, but as a man so illustrious that he honoured poetry even by attempting what he was unqualified to perform. He is no less a man than St. Francis of Assisi, whoseSong of the Creatures is pronounced by Renan “the most perfect expression given by the modern world of its feeling for religion.”