I have reserved until the end of my instances of the corporeal, or human, capacities of ghostly bodies, as presented to us in the Drama, the sense of sight, because, as Statius says, the construction of that sense in the fictitious body is the highest outcome of the plastic power of the disembodied soul, and also because there is one passage in the poem which, taken by itself, might suggest a greater difference than, I think, really exists between the sight of ghosts and that of living men. Virgil, when he first meets Statius, says to him. that he has been fetched from the vast gorge of Hell to show (things) to Dante, because, inasmuch as he is not yet dead, 'his soul, which is thy sister and mine, in coming upward could not come alone, since it does not look at (things) in our manner' (Perocch' al nostro modo non adocchia). I do not think that this is intended to imply any difference of physical vision between Dante and the ghosts. If the words al nostro modo' are meant to contrast Dante's sight with that of ghosts generally, I think that they imply only that he requires an interpreter to explain what he sees in Hell and Purgatory. If the words are meant to contrast his sight with that of Virgil and Statius only, they may, of course, be purely symbolical. In any case, I do not think that they furnish evidence of physical difference between the sight of men and ghosts sufficient to rebut the abundant evidence throughout the poem to the contrary effect. The eyes of Cæsar are hawk-like, that is to say, dark and brilliant, as described by Suetonius; and those of the other ghosts in the noble castle' move slowly and majestically as in life. The violent ghosts, in the third round of the seventh circle of Hell, have the same difficulty as Dante has in seeing through the vapour. They looked at him, he says, as men look at one another of an evening when there is no moonlight. And the same is the case with the wrathful ghosts in the thick smoke on the third ledge of Purgatory. Ugolino returns to his horrible meal with distorted eyes; and, perhaps, one of the most terrific pictures in the whole poem is that of Ciacco, squinting, staring, bowing, and tumbling back into the cold mud, sodden with everlasting rain, hail, and snow.

And now let us briefly consider how far Dante's ghosts comply with the statement of Statius respecting their incorporeal or divine capacities, such as memory, intelligence, and will, which, he says, are more acute after than before death.

Many examples of their acute memory might be cited, such as that of Ciacco, who, fourteen years after his death, instantly recollects Dante, who was only twenty years old when Ciacco died; or of Francesca, who remembers every detail of her fall; or of Count Ugolino, who recalls and depicts with the most vivid word-painting the minutest events of the appalling eight days in the Famine Tower at Pisa. But, perhaps, the most striking instance of memory is that furnished by Ulysses, who after the lapse of many centuries

recollects not only all the particulars, geographical and other, of his last and fatal voyage, but even the very words in which he addressed his devoted band of comrades before they started for the Pillars of Hercules. In the case of Dante's ghosts memory is not only that link between the stages of experience of a conscious being which carries with it the sense of individuality and personality, but it is also an important element in the punishment of the damned and the purification of the redeemed. The damned have it always with them, more bitter, more precise, and more far-reaching than in life. The redeemed are not freed from it until they have been washed in the River of Oblivion, in preparation for their departure from Purgatory and their entrance into Paradise.

The sense of shame for sin, which memory recalls, shows itself not only in the ghosts in Purgatory, but even more strongly in the case of some of those in Hell. The infamous Venedico, who, for a very small advantage, procured his sister to do that to which Claudio, to save his life, tried in vain to bring Isabella, struggles to prevent Dante from recognising him. And even the sacrilegious thief Vanni Fucci, the most audacious of all the ghosts in Hell, shows shame. This feeling is in some of the ghosts overcome by a still more powerful feeling, the longing to be remembered on earth among the living; but not in all, as in the contrary instance of Guido da Montefeltro. Mental emotions, such as wonder, curiosity, and regret, are in some ghosts so powerful as to make them cease to feel for the moment the most bitter physical agony, as we see from the case of Mosca and other promoters of discord in the ninth pit of Malebolge.

As regards knowledge, the intelligence of ghosts, both in Hell and Purgatory, is far greater than that of living men. They are aware of things that have happened on earth since they died; as in the case of Ulysses, who, though closely imprisoned in his shroud of flame, knows the new name given by Æneas to a promontory in the Mediterranean. Even the vilest sinners among them can foretell future events on earth. The simoniacal Pope, Nicholas, foresees when the still more venal Pope, Boniface, will take his place, and when the yet viler Pope, Clement, will displace Boniface. The blasphemous scoundrel Vanni Fucci foretells the events of the next four or five years in Pistoia, Lucca, and Florence. Even the false prophet Mahomet himself is able to send a message of warning to Dolcino of what was to happen to him in seven years' time. In one point of knowledge, however, there would seem to be a difference between ghosts in Hell and those in Purgatory. Those in Hell can see events on earth which are distant from them, whether past or future, while they are wholly ignorant of what is happening there at the present or any near point of time. But there is ground for supposing that those in Purgatory are not under this disability, since Forese, who had been dead less than five years, and had made only a

death-bed repentance of his life-long indulgence in a deadly sin, knows that he owes his speedy advancement to the sixth ledge to the prayers and other devotions of his widow. Mr. Vernon, indeed, appears to think that Ciacco's answers to Dante's three questions show some knowledge of present events on earth, and, so far, are inconsistent with Farinata's statement on this subject. But I confess that it does not appear to me to be necessary to take this view. I think that two of the three questions may fairly be regarded as relating to the past, and the third to the future.

The last great incorporeal capacity mentioned by Statius as being even more powerful in ghosts than in men is will. This capacity is a yet more potent instrument than that of memory in the punishment of the damned and the purification of the redeemed. How much more powerful is the will of a ghost in Hell than that of a living man is seen in the case of Farinata, who does not permit the torture of his red-hot tomb to subdue his pride, his disdain, or his party spirit; in the case of Jason, who, in the first pit of Malebolge, maintains his regal aspect and will not weep, in spite of the cruel blows which the scourges of the horned demons inflict on his naked and distorted body; and in the case of Vanni Fucci, who, immediately after his resuscitation from the torture of combustion, makes an indecent gesture at God. And it is the strength of this inextinguishable will which, as Virgil tells Capaneus, increases the measure of the punishment of the damned. In Purgatory, as we learn from one of the most beautiful and impressive scenes in the whole poem, it is the struggle between this will, on the one hand, and the better element in the soul of man-namely, progressive desire on the other, which is the main instrument of purification. Virgil and Dante are passing along the fifth ledge of Purgatory, when they feel the whole mountain rock and tremble beneath them, as in an earthquake, and hear a cry from the ghosts all round them of Glory to God in the highest,' like that which the shepherds heard when keeping watch over their flocks by night in the fields of Bethlehem. This they are told, soon after, by Statius-to the completion of whose period of expiation the tremor and the cry were due-takes place whenever the will of a ghost in Purgatory has been so chastened by the desire for purification that the ghost feels itself fitted to mount upwards towards Paradise. And it is the final submission of this will, or rather, perhaps, its entire loss of individuality and its complete conformity, unification, and identification with the will of God, which is the ultimate and supremest effect of redemption.

A few words in conclusion as to the further change which awaits these ghosts at the Great Day. We learn from the tenth and thirteenth cantos of Hell, as well as from other passages, that all the ghosts, whether in Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven, will on that day have to assemble for re-incarnation and final judgment in the valley

of Jehoshaphat. There are, as St. John in the eighth heaven of Paradise bids Dante inform the world, only two Beings who have lived on earth and yet retain their bodies of flesh, and are not ghosts, namely, Christ and His Mother. All others that have been born into this world will have to resume their bodies of flesh, and, except in the case of suicides, who, for a reason which almost sounds like an antiquated maxim of common law, are not allowed to re-enter those bodies, but are to hang them up on the trees in which they are incorporated, will re-inhabit the flesh. And those fleshly bodies will have a more acute sense both of pleasure and of pain than could be felt by æthereal bodies. The open tombs of the Epicureans will be closed up, so that they have no further access to the air. Such power of foreknowledge as the lost souls have will cease, since for them there will be no future. And there are few more impressive things, even in this wonderful poem, than the tremendous contrast between the foreboding with which the damned, and the longing with which the redeemed, ghosts—as Dante learns from Solomon in the fourth heaven of Paradise-look forward to their re-incarnation.

D. R. FEARON.

1899

WHILE WAITING IN A FRIEND'S ROOM

For

I HAVE many vices and few virtues, and I often think that through my life I have suffered more from the latter than the former. example, I am a punctual man, and when I make an appointment for a certain day and hour, I keep it; but I never find that anybody else does. I am now sitting in a friend's house, wondering why he has made a mistake in the hour, if not in the day, of our settled meeting (though, to give the devil his due, when he did appear he gave a very good reason for his delay). Many people would lose their temper, but I am trying to keep mine by taking in all the objects of interest I see around me in a room singularly interesting.

The house was built by Adam-most people would call him Adams, which is always annoying to an accurate and somewhat pedantic mind. The Brothers Adam, as is well known, worked towards the end of the last century, building that terrace on the Thames which, out of compliment to them, has since been called the Adelphi. Not only were these brothers architects of the highest order in the Italian school, but they were the forerunners of the Universal Providers of the present day, for in addition to their architectural skill they decorated houses and designed furniture of all kinds, as can be seen by any one visiting the large collection of their designs preserved at the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn.

The room where I ought to be losing my temper and am not is a beautiful specimen of the Adam type: richly decorated ceiling, cornice and moulding; polished mahogany doors, and a lovely chimneypiece of carved white marble with inlaid plaques of verdantique. In the beautiful cornice the criticising eye may discern cracks which have not been caused by time, but by the results of a never-ending civilisation which, in the shape of an underground railway, is burrowing its mole-like course under the house.

There are so many books on the shelves of a Chippendale bookcase that I am educating myself by reading the backs of them, and making believe I know what they contain; after all, it is only what we are doing every day with the men and women with whom we are brought in contact. What do we know of the inner thoughts and lives of half our friends? But we love to see them well and carefully dressed, as we do to see the books beautifully bound; and,