I saw that it became fainter and vaguer as it receded farther from me, and it vanished before it reached the wood of evergreen laurels.

Then I understood the meaning of the words, "The dead have no life, but that which the living lend them," and I walked slowly through the pale meadow to the gate of horn.
I affirm that all in this writing is true.* * There is in Marbodius's narrative a passage very worthy of notice, viz., that in which the monk of Corrigan describes Dante Alighieri such as we picture him to ourselves to-day.
The miniatures in a very old manuscript of the "Divine Comedy," the "Codex Venetianus," represent the poet as a little fat man clad in a short tunic, the skirts of which fall above his knees.

As for Virgil, he still wears the philosophical beard, in the wood-engravings of the sixteenth century.
One would not have thought either that Marbodius, or even Virgil, could have known the Etruscan tombs of Chiusi and Corneto, where, in fact, there are horrible and burlesque devils closely resembling those of Orcagna.

Nevertheless, the authenticity of the "Descent of Marbodius into Hell" is indisputable.

M.du Clos des Lunes has firmly established it.