In the time of Dante all the three, often in amalgamation, generally in conflict, agitated the public mind.

The preceding generation had witnessed the wrongs and the revenge of the brave, the accomplished, the unfortunate Emperor Frederic the Second,--a poet in an age of schoolmen,--a philosopher in an age of monks,--a statesman in an age of crusaders.

During the whole life of the poet, Italy was experiencing the consequences of the memorable struggle which he had maintained against the Church.

The finest works of imagination have always been produced in times of political convulsion, as the richest vineyards and the sweetest flowers always grow on the soil which has been fertilised by the fiery deluge of a volcano.

To look no further than the literary history of our own country, can we doubt that Shakspeare was in a great measure produced by the Reformation, and Wordsworth by the French Revolution?
Poets often avoid political transactions; they often affect to despise them.