"But when," he said to the sympathizing Frate Ilario, "I recalled the condition of the present age, and knew that those generous men for whom, in better days, these things were written, had abandoned (_ahi dolore_) the liberal arts into vulgar hands, I threw aside the delicate lyre which armed my flank, and attuned another more befitting the ears of moderns." It seems strange that he should have thus regretted what to us seems a noble and original opportunity of double creation--poem and language.

What Dante thus bewailed was his real warrant for immortality.
Had he written his great work in Latin, it would have been consigned, with the Italian latinity of the middle ages, to oblivion; while his Tuscan still delights the ear of princes and lazzaroni.

Professorships of the Divina Commedia are instituted in Italian universities, and men are considered accomplished when they know it by heart.
What Dante had done, not without murmuring, Chaucer did more cheerfully in England.

Claimed by both universities as a collegian, perhaps without truth, he certainly was an educated man, and must have been sorely tempted by Latin hexameters; but he knew his mission, and felt his power.

With a master hand he moulded the language.