with blood which, mixed with tears, was caught by disgusting worms at
their feet--" (Inferno III, 33. Grandgent's translation.) In reading
that description of the punishment of the lukewarm, one cannot fail to
observe that not one is called by name. Because they "lived without
infamy and without glory" their name deserves to be lost forever to
the world.

Of the renown of Dante's own name our poet has no misgivings. He reveals
himself as a man having supreme confidence in his own powers. Boccaccio
represents him as saying when he was with his party at the head of the
government of the republic of Florence, and when there was question of
sending him on an embassy to Rome, "If I go, who stays? And if I stay,
who goes?" "As if he alone," is the comment of Boccaccio, "was worth
among them all, and as if the others were nothing worth except through
him." It is certain that Dante put a high valuation upon his genius, an
estimate due, perhaps, to the belief he held, like Napoleon, in the
potency of his star. He was born under the constellation of the Gemini
and to them in gratitude for his self-recognized talent he gives praise:

"O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius whatso'er it be,
With you was born, and hid himself with you,
He who is father of all mortal life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air."
(Par. XXII, 112)

Certain it is that Dante acted on the counsel which, addressed to
himself, he puts into the mouth of his beloved teacher, Brunetto Latini,
"Follow thy star and thou cans't not miss the glorious port." (Inf., XV,