Note 114 — THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS. (continued 3)

According to the legends of the Catholic Church, this most admired instance of justice opened to Trajan, although a heathen, the gates of salvation. Dante found the scene and the "visible speech" of the widow and Emperor storied on the walls of Purgatory, and has transmitted them in a passage which commends itself hardly less than any in the divine poem.—See Purgatorio, Canto X.