Chapter CLXXX: Section LXXIV: TWELFTH CAPITAL. This has been very interesting, but is

grievously defaced, four of its figures being entirely broken away, and the character of two others quite undecipherable. It is fortunate that it has been copied in the thirty-third capital of the Renaissance series, from which we are able to identify the lost figures.

_First side_. Misery. A man with a wan face, seemingly pleading with a child who has its hands crossed on its breast. There is a buckle at his own breast in the shape of a cloven heart. Inscribed "MISERIA."

The intention of this figure is not altogether apparent, as it is by no means treated as a vice; the distress seeming real, and like that of a parent in poverty mourning over his child. Yet it seems placed here as in direct opposition to the virtue of Cheerfulness, which follows next in order; rather, however, I believe, with the intention of illustrating human life, than the character of the vice which, as we have seen, Dante placed in the circle of hell. The word in that case would, I think, have been "Tristitia," the "unholy Griefe" of Spenser--

"All in sable sorrowfully clad,
Downe hanging his dull head with heavy chere:

* * * * *

A pair of pincers in his hand he had,
With which he pinched people to the heart."

He has farther amplified the idea under another figure in the fifth canto of the fourth book:

"His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade,
That neither day nor night from working spared;
But to small purpose yron wedges made:
Those be unquiet thoughts that carefull minds invade.

Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent,
Ne better had he, ne for better cared;
With blistered hands among the cinders brent."

It is to be noticed, however, that in the Renaissance copy this figure is stated to be, not Miseria, but "Misericordia." The contraction is a very moderate one, Misericordia being in old MS. written always as "Mia." If this reading be right, the figure is placed here rather as the companion, than the opposite, of Cheerfulness; unless, indeed, it is intended to unite the idea of Mercy and Compassion with that of Sacred Sorrow.