Dante Studies and Researches. By Paget Toynbee, D.Litt. (Methuen and
Co. 10s. 6d. net.)—It is impossible to do justice in any available space to the industry and learning which Dr. Toynbee has brought to bear upon his subject. The contents may be divided into essays—i.e., longer disquisition'', varying from thirty-seven pages to four—and short notes on passages in Dante's writings. The general subject is the sources from which the poet drew his knowledge and the books to which references, more or less obscure, may be traced. Thus the first and longest paper gives the original, with a translation, of the Lancelot romance which figures in the story of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. Another class of topics may be represented by "Dante's Theories as to Spots on the Moon." It might have been as well, perhaps, in connection with this, to mention Plutarch's curious treatise, "De Facie quae in Orbe Lnnae apparel Commentaries." Of the notes, we may mention that on "Li Tre Tarquinii," which attributes the phrase to a reminiscence of Virgil, who in Aeneid, VI., reckons Servius Tuning among the Tarquinii. The term " Semplice Lombardo" used of Guido da. Castel (" Purg.," XVI., 126) is explained as equivalent to "honest usurer." " Gnizzante " ("Inferno," XV., 21) is shown to be Wissant, not Cadsand. Some of these matters may seem but trifles, but they indicate the indispensable habit of careful and exhaustive study.
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