Ozanam's Dante [pp. 790-795]

OZAN4AM' S DANTE.
feelings could read it through without disgust, and that its most
serious charges are totally unsupported by a tittle of contemporary testimony. The venerable Protestant Camden relates that
Buchanan in his last illness expressed the wish "that he might live
so long till, by recalling the truth, he might even with his blood
wipe away those aspersions which he had, by his bad pen, unjustly cast upon Mary."
If the limits of this article permitted it we could accumulate
evidence on evidence to demonstrate that the unfortunate Mary
Stuart was the most slandered woman whose memory lives in
history; but we believe that we have said enough to convince
the reader of the truth of Walter Scott's assertion in his History
of Scotland, which we have already quoted, and which we repeat
as a proper conclusion-" that the direct evidence produced in
support of Mary's alleged guilt was liable to such important
objections that it could not now be admitted to convict a felon
of the most petty crime."
OZANAM'S DANTE.
"WHATEVER greatness the nineteenth century may claim
will appear, on closely considering the state of the case, to arise
from this, that it is a new beginning of the ages of faith. A
thing most strange, yet undeniable!" So says a hopeful writer
of the present day.
Philosophy tells us that " the soul of man was made for truth"
— let us add, not only to seek, but to find and rejoice in it. It
was Pilate, the unjust judge, prepared to condemn the innocent
in spite of the lights accorded to him from within and without,
who, despairing of verity, asked our Lord, "What is truth?"
and then waited for no answer. Let us hope that Pilate may not be
the figure of our questioning age, that it may not finally merit the
woe menacing "isolated generations which, not'having received
the heritage of instruction, or having repudiated it, are obliged,
frail and mortal as they are, to begin afresh the work of the ages."
Encouraging signs of the times are certainly found in the
facts that St. Thomas has been officially' reinstated in his due
place in philosophical studies, and that during the past fifty years
the students of Dante have been steadily on the increase. The
Angelic Doctor is being placed within reach of English-speaking
people who find him difficult of access in the original Latin, but
we are still awaiting a thorough English commentary on the
[Sept.,
790