Dante. THE fortunes of Dante received so strong a colouring both from his own character and that of the times in which he lived, that could the story of a life be described in a single picture, that in which his were painted would be one of the most remarkable in existence. He was at once the father of a literature and the creator almost of a language the poet who first boldly led the way to a spiritual world of imagination, scarcely yet known to genius itself, and at the same time one of the sternest and most active politicians of his age and country. The family of Dante could boast of great an |