worth mentioning that Picus was the father of Faunus, and Faunus of Tarquitus: it is thus easy to see how Macaulay's thought advanced from Picus to the death of Lausulus. In Regillus, as we have already hinted, there is less to detain us than in Horatius; the main interest of the literary detective in the former poem is to trace the reminiscences of Homer rather than those of Livy or Virgil. Yet there is something to reward our search even here. A Caeso or Kaeso among the Fabii is what we should expect to find. One of the many Kaesos of that family was the leader of the three hundred and six Fabii who held the fortress of the Cremera so gloriously against Veii, and perished with the exception of a single boy; a tale, by the way, on which Macaulay dwells at length in his preface. Rex of Gabii1, again, refers us to the kingly office of the priest. We may compare the well-known Rex sacrificulus of Rome, or the Rex nemorensis of Nemi, to whom Macaulay himself refers in the characteristically exact lines: Aricia's trees, Those trees in whose dim shadow And shall himself be slain. Tullus of Arpinum (stanza 36), also, is obviously an ancestor of Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great glory of that little town. Not far from Arpinum was the legendary home of Tullus Hostilius. 1 For Juno's shrine cp. Aen. VII. 682, and other passages. Black Auster1, the famous steed of Herminius, is of course named from the south-west wind-a natural name for a horse: but is it impossible that Macaulay was thinking of Aquilo (north wind), the ancient Eclipse which won the first prize a hundred and thirty times, and whose grandson Hirpinus was equally successful? (Martial III. 63; Juvenal VIII. 63; see Prof. Mayor's note). Matthew Arnold, it will be remembered, in his anxiety to score a point over Frank Newman, called the Lays "pinchbeck ballads." Like most ballads, as we have admitted, they fail to reach the height of imaginative poetry: as Leigh Hunt told Macaulay himself in his famous begging-letter, they want the aroma that breathes from the Faerie Queene. Their moving impulse was perhaps political rather than ethereal. Proud Tarquin was to him a sort of James the Second; Valerius an earlier Schomberg; Titus was the Duke of Berwick; Julius was Sarsfield, and Regillus a luckier Steinkirk: nay, the Sublician Bridge was the bridge over the Gette, which William, retreating before Luxemburg, crossed so unwillingly2. Had there been no British significance in these old Roman stories, nay, had they not possessed a specially Whig significance, Macaulay would never have retold them with such spirit. But though his inspiration thus came as much from Constitu 1 Nigerrimus Auster, Georgics 111. 278. 2 "The enemy pressed on him so close that it was with difficulty that he at length made his way over the Gette. A small body of brave men, who shared his peril to the last, could hardly keep off the pursuers as he crossed the bridge." (History, Chapter xx, describing Landen, 1693.) Who can doubt that Macaulay thought of Horatius as he wrote these words? Nay, four or five lines below, he actually refers to Horatius by name. tion Hill as from Helicon, it is a high and genuine inspiration nevertheless. Within their range, and considered from the point of view of their aim, the Lays are not far from perfection. And if they be judged by the skill with which, by an epithet, by a rhyme, by a mere proper name, they call up trains of pleasing associations, surely "pinchbeck" is the very last word to use in order to characterise them. Long may it be before the British people is too "superior" to enjoy them! X Chaucer as a Critic of Dante ́N days like these, when so much that has happened is scarcely a subject for pleasant contemplation, it I is a harmless amusement to picture to oneself what might have happened if things had been a little different. We have all spent time over such questions as “If Napoleon had won Waterloo," "If Hannibal had attacked Rome after Cannae," and the like. Similarly, in places where the current Punch was not to be had, we have found a good substitute in wondering what the Rape of the Lock would have been like if Milton had written it, or what sort of affair Bishop Butler would have made of A Tale of a Tub; nay, we have sometimes been so greatly daring as to speculate on the possible nature of a Don Juan written by Mrs Hannah More. This exercise, as the Dean of St Paul's says of prophesying, at any rate does no one any harm. We have experienced a converse kind of pleasure when our thoughts, as they have sometimes done, have started automatically guessing the character of an Excursion by Sterne, or picturing the sort of Divine Comedy we might have had if Chaucer had taken Dante's theme in hand. There would have been less sublimity, fewer flights of high imagination, not so many purple patches, and, in general, less intensity, profundity, and power; but there would have been more geniality and more CHAUCER AS A CRITIC OF DANTE 167 humour; nor are we sure that the result would not have been more satisfactory. For example, had Chaucer gone a pilgrimage, not to Canterbury but to Hell, he would have shown a much greater human sympathy than Dante with the poor victims whom he met. Like Gunga Din, he would have thrown water on the flames, and would, when Virgil was not listening, have whispered that, after all, Hellgate was not so very well guarded, and that, despite appearances, there was perhaps a way out. The man who understood the hunting propensities of the Monk, and was not shocked by the vulgarities of the Miller or the embezzlements of the Manciple, would have found something consoling to say to a Nicholas the Third, and have made excuses for Boniface the Eighth himself. Nay, one may well suspect that he would have shown some of Tillotson's feeling even towards the great Author of Evil, and would have contrived to let us see that he is not so bad as he is painted. If Lucifer has done wrong he has suffered for it, and may in time obtain a remission of his sentence. Again, far from a democrat as Chaucer was, his wide and universal humanity would have found time for interviews not merely with the great but with the small; not merely with the Farinatas and the Montefeltros, but with the poor clerks, cooks, and tapicers whom Dante apparently despised too heartily even to damn them. In a word, a collaboration between Dante and Chaucer would have produced a Shakspere. Poets are not always good critics; but there is a |