met another crimson streamlet issuing from it, and flowing through the sand. Virgil took this opportunity of describing an immense statue that stands within Mount Ida, in Crete-its head of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the middle of brass, the rest of welltempered steel, except the right foot, which is of potter's clay. In every part except the gold, there are fissures, whence proceed tears that form the three rivers of hell-Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon, which finally unite in the Cocytus, the most dreadful of all. We took our way along the bank of this stream, lost sight of the forest, and reached a spot where we were stunned by the noise made by the river falling over a tremendous precipice, which we, too, must descend to reach the next circle. Virgil took the cord which girded my waist, and threw the end of it over. grizzly form appeared climbing up this cord, as dexterously as a sailor returning from lowering an anchor into the deep. Virgil ordered him to advance to the edge.

A saint-like face the latent fiend concealed;

The rest, though half immersed beneath the flood,
Betrayed by serpent form the genuine race.
Nor Turks nor Tatars e'er embroidery wove
On cloth of state with interchanging hues,
Nor o'er her curious loom Arachne spread

More varied tints than marked the speckled form.

A

We had to seat ourselves on the back of this monster to descend the cliff.

As a small ship turns from the land her prow,
So thence the monster loosed, and to the deep
Pointed his horrid head, and launched away.
Behind him stretching out his forkèd tail,
And plying swift his paddles in the air.
Not greater was the dread when Phaeton
The reins let drop, and saw with pale dismay
The world in ruins, and the skies on fire;
Not greater when ill-fated Icarus

Perceived the trusted wings loosed from his loins
By melting of the wax, than was my terror
When first the sailing Fiend forsook the cliff,
Beating with level wing the gulf of hell;
Yet steered he with such easy motion down,
The passage was unfelt, save by the wind,
That breathed as upward tending.

The eighth circle, that of Fraud, is divided into ten gulfs, containing as many classes of deceivers. In one, seducers were kept running in two files, scourged by horned demons. In another,

This figure is understood to represent Time, in each of whose several ages men have had cause to weep, except the first, or Golden Age.

The personification of Fraud.

flatterers were wallowing in filth. In the third, simoniacs were fixed in circular holes in the rock, with their feet uppermost, the soles burning, and the limbs convulsed. One of these betrayed himself as Pope Nicholas III., and my zeal so overcame my fear that I answered him:

'Say, now, what treasures did our Lord demand
Of Peter, when he charged him with the keys?
Surely he asked no more but "Follow me."
Nor Peter, nor the rest, took gold or silver,
When on the forfeit place of the lost soul
Their lots they cast, and lighted on Matthias.
Abide thou, then; well merited thy fate.
Ah Constantine! of how great ill was cause
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains

That the first wealthy bishop gained of thee!'

Nicholas, whether from anger or conscious guilt, became more violently agitated; and Virgil, well pleased with his pupil's spirit, took me in his arms, and conveyed me to the next gulf, where those that pretended on earth to predict future events by means of divination and astrology, appeared walking with their necks twisted round, and their faces turned backwards.

Next we looked down on barterers and public peculators in a lake of boiling pitch, like the caldrons in the arsenal of Venice, when the ships are repairing during the winter. It was not without difficulty that we obtained leave to pass on, and that under an escort of ten demons of the place. Often have I seen military evolutions, clashing tournaments, and tilting jousts; with martial music, and various inventions, native and foreign, but never any such as I now beheld. In the midst of a horrible conflict between the demons that attended and the condemned spirits that surrounded us, we escaped from their guardianship. They pursued us.

The Mantuan caught me in his faithful arms,

And plunging headlong downwards through the waste,
He bore me trembling; as at dead of night

A mother wakes from sleep to see the flames

Fast climbing round, and snatches up her babe,
And flies the nearest way to set him safe,
While but a single garment shields her frame.
Nor speeds the torrent o'er the channelled mound,
Nor hastens when it nears the land-mill's wheel,
With such a pace as then my master urged
Along the rocky edge with helpless me;
Not as a mate accompanying, but a child
Borne in his bosom to the plains below.

We thus reached the gulf occupied by hypocrites, who pace round it continually under the pressure of immense caps and

hoods, which are gilt on the outside, but leaden within. We were addressed by two who had belonged to the order of Joyous Friars of Bologna; and who, having been employed as umpires during a troublous time in Florence, had used their power only for their own aggrandisement. Caiaphas also was there, nailed to a cross, and stretched on the ground, to be trodden by every passenger. But my guide presently left the spot in anger, on account of an attempt made to mislead him. We sought another gulf, but that way was extremely difficult; 'For,' said Virgil—

'For not on downy couch, or 'neath the shade
Of canopy reposing, fame is won.

As morning fogs disperse before the sun,
As close the waves behind the labouring oar,
The laggard soul expires without a name.'

In the compartment of robbers, tormented by venomous serpents, we saw three shades rise up from the gulf, and two serpents of extraordinary shape attach themselves to each of them successively.

Ne'er did the ivy firmer clasp the elm,

Than round the human limbs the monster twined.
His own; and, as they both had been of wax,
Each melted into other, blending hues,
And seeming each its changing form to lend,
Till what was either now appeared no more.

And these robbers were distinguished citizens from the banks of the Arno.

Florence, exult! thy glorious name resounds

O'er land and sea, and through the depths of hell;
For these thy sons I found, a robber band,

Chanting thy praise beneath-what praise to thee!
While deepest shame covered my burning brow.

Evil counsellors, who had prostituted their talents in devising schemes of mischief, were wreathed in flames.

Each fiery column bore a sentenced soul,

And wrapped the victim round in viewless chains,
While smoky whirlwinds veiled him from the sight.

Another gulf included alchymists, forgers, and other deceivers, who were afflicted with plague and loathsome disease. Here saw the incestuous Myrrha, the traitor Simon, the wife of Potiphar, and some criminals of recent times in Italy, mingling together, quarrelling, and insulting one another. Following the sound of a tremendous horn, we were led towards the ninth and last circle, which encloses four kinds of traitors. The shore was turreted by giants.

Embodied thus around the dread abyss
With half their horrid length upreared, they stood,
And proudly faced the flaming bolts of Jove;
But nearer now the lineaments deform

Of one I marked, and shrunk with pale dismay.
In length and bulk the monstrous visage seemed
As doth the pine upon the Roman fane
Of Great St Peter's; and the other bones
Of such proportion, that from where the bank
Girded his waist, such height his stature rose,
That three tall Frieslanders had vainly striven
With their long arms to reach but to his hair.

Such a being easily lifted us both with one hand, as though we
had been a single burden, and set us down in the depths of the
infernal abyss. This is the region of ice, the abode of traitors.
As o'er the wave peeps out the croaking frog
When the soft influence of the spring it hails,
Just so enshrined in ice the spirits stood
With chattering teeth, and stony eyes aghast,
While each his face held downward.

We conversed with some of them, and then a new horror

appeared.

Far thence, a hideous pair, together clung,

Still on the head before the hindmost hung

With fastened fangs, and quaffed the streaming gore;

Just where the hairy scalp begins to join

The suppliant's bending neck, with rage canine
The furious cannibal his captive tore.

The Furies thus, by sad Ismeno's flood,
Saw Tydeus quench his ire in hostile blood.

O thou! whom man's benignant race disclaims,

I cried, awhile thy horrid feast forego!

Say why the eternal fibres seem to grow,

And why the hideous wound for ever streams?

'Perhaps the old tradition of his crime
Lies buried long beneath the rust of time;
Be mine at least to tell, in open day,

The traitor's deeds, and clear thy injured name:
For the long passes to eternal fame

Are ever open to the Muse's lay.'

Slowly the sinner left his bloody meal,
Then, gazing upwards from the depths of hell,
He smoothed the clotted hair, and thus replied:

6 Mortal! thou bid'st me recollect my doom,
A horrid scene! that lives beyond the tomb,
And stops my speech with sorrow's 'whelming tide.

'And oh! if aught it grieves the sentenced dead,
In other worlds their infamy to spread,

Attend-but first the gushing tear will flow;
I know not whence thou art, nor whose command
Sent thee, a mortal, to the frozen strand,

To view the wonders of the world below.

'Thou speak'st the Tuscan tongue! then, mortal, hear A story yet unknown to human ear!

The sad detail of Ugolino's fate :

Here the cursed prelate, by whose arts I fell,
Still feeds my vengeance in the depths of hell,
The joint betrayer of my parent state.

Haply thy young remembrance yet may trace
The deadly rancour of Sismondi's race,

And how this prelate fanned the general flame :
The man who first my confidence abused;
Yes, traitor, thou! 'twas thou thy friend accused,
Led him astray, and then 'divulged his shame.

But to thyself, and to the fiends alone,
The consummation of my woes are known.
How terrible and long I felt my fate!
When in the doleful tower of famine pent,
For treason built, a gloomy tenement,

With my four guiltless sons I drooping sat.

The first sad night I passed unknown to sleep,
The circling hours beheld me wake and weep;
Till through an opening of my gloomy jail,
When now the flaming couriers of the night
On day's fair confines quenched their waning light,
The morning stole with ominous dawn and pale.
That moment first beheld my eyelids close,
A short, sad respite to my lingering woes;
But dire prophetic dreams the curtain drew,

And shewed my doom at large! Methought I stood
And saw a wolf along the plain pursued,

While this infernal priest the bugle blew.

"Thence with her whelps she sought the Julian steep, But Lanfranc seemed the woody pass to keep;

Sismondi's chiefs and those of Gualand's name, Their fleet and famished pack of blood-hounds joined, Which closed the trembling prey before, behind;

Fastened at once, and tore the savage game.

'Ere smiling morn had purpled o'er the sky I woke, and heard my children faintly cry,