TIMERS SPP I Oe RE, a ee

The Love of God. 127

heard of the great Italian poet Dante. Now
Dante in his Convito or ‘“ Banquet” tells his
readers that writings may be underftood, and there-
fore ought to be explained in four different fenfes
or meanings. There is firft the literal fenfe; fe-
condly, the allegorical; thirdly, the moral; and
fourthly, the anagorical. Now I know you can’t
explain this laft word to me, for I would wager a
large fum that you never tafted of Dante’s Ban-
quet—no, not fo much as the fmalleft crumb from
it; and therefore how /hould you know what he
means by the anagorical fenfe? Give me leave to
have the honour of enlightening yous then. The
anagorical is what the dictionaries call the anago-
gical fenfe. A fenfe beyond this world; a fenfe
above the fenfes ; a {piritual fenfe making common
things divine. It is hard to be arrived at and dif-
ficult of comprehenfion. Now in the matter of
the nice little boy’s queftion about the Giant and
the carraway feed, (for none but a nice little boy
could have excogitated any thing fo comical), I
have fet my heart upon talking to you about it in
the four above mentioned fenfes. And having al-
ready defcanted on the Jiteral fenfe, I had juft
made an affertion which appertained to the allego-
rical fenfe, when you fo inopportunely interrupted
me, My Ombra Adorata, with your fharp obferva-
tion about nonfenfe: fo now we will go on in
peace and quietnefs, if you pleafe.

In an allegorical fenfe the world is full of giants
who cannot fee carraway feeds.

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