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Rh mystical lady Philosophy, who also beguiled his sorrows and consoled his heart after the death of his first love. It is not for want of explaining, however, that this bewilderment exists; for the second book, consisting of sixteen chapters, is given up to a minute and careful examination of the poem, very similar in character—though much more extended and minute—to the explanations attached to the sonnets in the 'Vita Nuova,' and entering with still more subtle analysis into every line and every possible question that could arise. The beginning, which we have quoted, gives occasion for a full statement of the astronomical system, afterwards so largely gone into in the "Paradise," of which it is locally the foundation—which is very interesting to those students who have leisure and love sufficient to lead them to compare the earlier with the later work, and to perceive how the first idea thus shadowed forth in the 'Convito' attained its full development in the description of Heaven, written many years later. Except this scholarly interest, however, it cannot be said to be otherwise attractive, though there are many beautiful passages, of which we may take the following as a fine example. The poet has been led to the question of immortality by his own account of his lady in heaven:—

"But as the immortality of the soul is here implied, I will make a digression upon that subject; since discoursing of that, I may most fitly terminate all that has been said concerning that living and blessed Beatrice, of whom I intend to talk no more in this book. And to begin, I say that among all brutalities, that of him who believes that after this life there is no other, is the most stupid, vile, and dangerous; for if we turn to the writings of philosophers or of other wise authors, all agree in this, that some portion of