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22, severe, high-fantastical as Shakespeare would have the lover's dreams, this wonderful story is of a love unshared, unanswered, yet undiscouraged, not only no response coming from the object of the passion, but no idea even or anticipation of reply.

We have the story of the first meeting of these two whose names were never henceforth to be sundered, from two sources—first from Dante himself, and again in the poetic narrative of so sympathetic a historian as Boccaccio. They met at a great entertainment given by Folco Portinari, the father of the child Beatrice, in his big palace round the corner, over the way from where the Alighieris lived, to which the little Dante accompanied his parents when he was nine years old. The 'Vita Nuova' begins with a description of this meeting:—

"Nine time already, since my birth, had the heaven of light returned to wellnigh the same point in its orbit, when to my eyes was first revealed the glorious lady of my soul, even she who was called Beatrice by many who wist not wherefore she was so called. She was then of such an age, that during her life the starry heavens had advanced towards the East the twelfth part of a degree; so that she appeared to me about the beginning of her, and I beheld her about the end of my, ninth year. Her apparel was of a most noble colour, a subdued and becoming crimson, and she wore a cincture and ornaments befitting her childish years. At that moment (I speak it in all truth) the spirit of life which abides in the most secret chamber of the heart began to tremble with a violence which showed horribly in the minutest pulsations of my frame. And tremulously it spoke these words—'Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi! Behold a god stronger than I, who cometh to lord it over me!' And straightway the animal spirit who abides in the upper chamber, whither all the spirits of the senses