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LONDON
C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1879
(_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved_)
_PREFACE._
The five Sermons which form the body of this little book on Dante were
delivered in the ordinary course of my ministry at Little Portland
Street Chapel, in the autumn of 1878, and subsequently at the Free
Christian Church, Croydon, in a slightly altered form.
They are now printed, at the request of many of my hearers, almost
exactly as delivered at Croydon.
The substance of a sixth Sermon has been thrown into an Appendix.
In allowing the publication of this little volume, my only thought is
to let it take its chance with other fugitive productions of the Pulpit
that appeal to the Press as a means of widening the possible area
rather than extending the period over which the preacher's voice may
extend; and my only justification is the hope that it may here and
there reach hands to which no more adequate treatment of the subject
was likely to find its way.
The translations I have given are sometimes paraphrastic, and virtually
contain glosses or interpretations which make it necessary to warn the
reader against regarding them as in every case Dante's _ipsissima
verba_. For the most part the renderings are substantially my own; but
I have freely availed myself of numerous translations, without special
acknowledgment, whenever they supplied me with suitable phrases.
I have only to add the acknowledgment of my obligations to Fraticelli's
edition of Dante's works (whose numbering of the minor poems and the
letters I have adopted for reference), to the same writer's 'Life of
Dante,' and to Mr. Symonds' 'Introduction to the Study of Dante.'