Chapter XIV: Part 14

After this period Monti's labours were chiefly confined to prose, and he is considered in this manner to have greatly benefited the literature of his country. The chief among these are the considerations on the difficulty of well translating the poetry of the Iliad, and several dialogues on the Italian language, full of acute criticism and wit. A circumstance turned his attention still more entirely to the subject of language. The government of Lombardy, wishing to show some encouragement to literature, had ordered the Royal Institute of Milan to occupy itself in the reform of the national dictionary; and Monti was requested by his colleagues to publish his observations on the subject. He obeyed with alacrity. His son-in-law, count Perticari, had devoted much attention to this subject, and he became Monti's associate in the task.

The great question in Italy is, whether the pure and classical language, the only one not wholly barbarous and vulgar, is Italian or Tuscan; a mixture drawn from the various dialects of the peninsula, or solely founded on Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio, and other early Tuscan authors. The academy Della Crusca espoused the latter side of the question, and, forming a dictionary, expunged every word not to be found in the authors named the Trecentisti. Monti, on the contrary, attacked the _ipse-dixits_ of this academy, and, pointing out innumerable errors in their dictionary, undertook, as he called it, a crusade against the Della Crusca.

This is a question that has divided all the talents of Italy, and in which it appears presumptuous in a foreigner to express any decision. Still we may reason from general grounds, and from analogy. Every portion of Italy has a distinct dialect. Immediately on leaving the precincts of any town, an acute ear will detect in the person who lives outside the gate a difference in the form of speech and pronunciation. Many of the towns use a mere _patois_, which has never been written. The Neapolitan, Romagnole, Genoese, and Milanese, each have a dialect, devoid of grace, cacophonous, truncated of vowels, and unintelligible to any but themselves; the Venetian being the only one distinguished for its own peculiar charms. To a stranger the language of the Romans has a great charm: the _bocca Romana_, or Roman pronunciation, is clear, soft, and yet emphatic. Their language is unidiomatic, and therefore easily comprehended. You enter Tuscany, and come upon those terse and idiomatic forms of speech which enraptured Alfieri, and which give so much energy and animation to the expression of sentiment, so much clearness and precision to narration or reasoning. But even these are not admitted by the Della Crusca. The Florentine is still a dialect--the Pisan and the Siennese fall under the same denomination: the principal difference is that the grammar of all the Tuscans is pure, and that you may form your speech on that of the peasantry and servants, without running any risk of falling into errors and vulgarisms. Alfieri used to mingle in the crowds assembled in the market-place of Sienna, there to imbibe from unlearned lips the purest modes of the Italian language. The dictionary Della Crusca was founded therefore on Tuscan, omitting its peculiarities, and carefully registering any innovations that had crept in since the era of the Trecentisti. It is obvious, under this tutelage, that the Italian became, when written, virtually a dead language. No author could adopt the forms of speech he made use of in the common conversation. The language that they heard and spoke when moved by joy, by grief, by love, or anger, was to be modified, corrected, and, so to speak, translated, before it could be put in a book. The living impress of the soul was to be taken from it, and, instead of putting down the word that rose spontaneously to the lips, and ought to have flowed as easily from the pen, the author hunted in the Della Crusca dictionary for authorities, which shackled the free spirit of inspired genius with chains and bolts forged from the works of the old writers, who themselves wrote as they spoke, and created a language, simply by putting down the forcible and graceful expressions then in colloquial use.

Still a great difficulty arises from any deviation from these rules. Was then the Florentine dialect, or the Siennese, or the Pisan, to be the written language of the country? Each city would have rejected its neighbour's, and still more would Lombardisms be regarded with disdain by the inhabitants of the south. Language, pronunciation, idiom, all form a habit to the eye and ear, which, beginning with our very birth, cannot be afterwards discarded. No Tuscan ever would or even could tolerate the introduction of any of the words or phrases belonging to other dialects; and they endure the mistakes of foreigners with less disgust than the uncouth pronunciation of their countrymen of the north and east of the peninsula. Nor will they allow that even the well educated among these use classic modes of speech. This is the point of contention; for their antagonists insist, that they are in as full possession as the Tuscans of pure Italian, drawing it from the same sources— namely, the best writers of the country; and assert that they are as well able to originate new modes of expression, and to turn with as much elegance and force those already in use.

Monti and Perticari both entered heart and soul into this dispute, which speedily roused every literary person in Italy to take one side or the other. The Tuscans, headed by the Della Crusca, were furious that their long-acknowledged supremacy should be questioned; while Monti, resting the merits of his opinion on the great authority of Dante, did not hesitate in his attack. Several letters to his friend Mustoxidi display his earnestness and sincerity in the cause. We extract passages from them, as explanatory of his ideas and characteristic of the man.

"The necessity of relaxing a little the intensity of the labour I have in hand, led me for a few days among these mountains, where yours of the 2d found me. To fulfil my duty towards government, I have been obliged to publish my remarks on the Della Crusca vocabulary, and the great distinction of which it is necessary to remind the Italians; the distinction I mean between the plebeian dialects, and that dignified language spoken by all the well educated in the country, from the summit of the Alps to the Lilybæum promontory. Founding my opinion on the authority of Dante, in which both Petrarch and Boccaccio concur in a surprising manner, I have undertaken to advocate that dignified Italian which is not spoken but written; and to vindicate the rights of fourteen provinces of Italy against the pretensions of a single one, which, contrary to the principles of the great father of Italian literature, has endeavoured to substitute the language in use in a single city, in short a peculiar dialect, which, however beautiful, is only a dialect, and can never fill the place of that universal language of which the country has need. I do not know whether I shall treat this great cause worthily; but I am convinced that whoever impugns the principles which I establish, must begin by proving that Dante and the other two were mad. I dare not believe that I have obtained a complete victory; but I have laid the foundation-stones on which others of greater talent may one day erect and finish the edifice."

To another friend he writes:--"The treatise of Perticari on the language of the Trecentisti, which will soon be published, is a _chef-d'oeuvre_, displaying great philosophy and acute criticism. I promise you that it will make a great sensation, and that the Crusca with drooping head, _caudamque remulcens_, will not know what to answer."

"Grassi has written an excellent parallel of the Della Crusca dictionary with that of Johnson and the Spanish academy, which are similar in their plan; and you will perceive the Gothic condition of our vocabulary in comparison with others. Assistance and support reach me from all parts of Italy, even from Tuscany; so that I may say that the whole nation sides with me."

With more moderation he writes afterwards,--"We do not wish to rule; but neither reason nor honour permit us to continue slaves. We only desire the right to have a voice in the defence of national rights against municipal pretensions: for the rest, we will take the law from them."

In fact, Monti must have felt the extreme difficulty of the question. In England and France it is just to say, that the language of the well educated all over the country may serve for authority as to language. But the nobility and higher classes in Lombardy and Romagna all speak their unintelligible dialects among themselves; it is only with strangers, and when they write, that they have recourse to Italian. It is impossible, therefore, that what they compose by rule, after study and practice, can be the living language of a people in opposition to a dialect, if you will, which, with few omissions and some change of pronunciation, is the admiration of all who can appreciate the true beauties of style; which is remarkable for passion and fervour combined with concision and sweetness; for idiomatic phrases that realise and stamp as it were the thought, instead of a periphrastic expression which speaks of an idea or notion rather than giving expression to these themselves. Monti was right in throwing aside the classical shackles of the Della Crusca; but there is token in his letters that, in his heart, he at last acknowledged that there was more of the living spirit of true Italian abroad in the colloquial idiom of Tuscany, than in all the well-turned sentences and set phrases of the well educated of the rest of Italy.

We cannot help thinking that Monti must have been very happy during the prosecution of these labours. An active mind abhors repose, when it must "cream and mantle like a standing pool." The aid and sympathy of his amiable and cultivated son-in-law must have shed an infinite charm over his labours, the zeal of his partisans have flattered, the attacks of his enemies have animated him. He believed that he was delivering his country from a superstition which clogged the springs of her literature, and choked up its free course. To a great degree he was in the right, and the proof is in the original and beautiful use made of his theory by the Italian authors of the present day.

Monti, loudly acknowledged to be the first Italian poet of his day, continued to reside at Milan, devoted to literary pursuits, surrounded by a circle of admirers, the chief not so much of a sect, as of Italian literature. Yet he was often attacked, and was by no means tolerant of criticism. His heart, however, was of better grain than his temper, and his violent literary disputes with distinguished contemporaries, with Mazza, Cesarotti, and Bettinelli, terminated in mutual friendship and esteem. Angry when offended, and unmeasured in his expressions of offence, yet the desire of reconciliation on the part of others was always met by him with cordiality and ready forgiveness. He was the more loved and admired the more he was known; one of the charms that attended his intercourse was the beauty of his recitation. To hear him read Virgil or Dante, was to find a deeper pathos in the laments of Dido, new energy in the complaints of Ugolino. Fond of, devoted to his art, there was no pedantry about him: he never thrust it upon the ignorant or frivolous; but with his friends he loved to analyse the essence of poetry, and to discuss the great question then in vogue in Italy of the classic and romantic schools. There is a letter of his to a friend on this subject, passages of which may be quoted as showing his opinions on this subject, opinions which bear the stamp of truth.

"A poet," he writes, "ought to paint the nature which he beholds. I applaud the poetry of the North, which is in perfect accord with the gloomy atmosphere from which it receives its inspiration. But Italian poetry, born of a glad and happy sky, is mad when she would robe herself in clouds, and study to paint a nature of which she can form no idea except from imagination. And besides, should poetry, whose chief use is to delight (and, in the miserable state of human beings, to delight is to serve), ought she to appear rough and frowning, ruled by pedantry and crabbed philosophy? Is it possible that no one knows how to distinguish the office of poet from that of philosopher? It is one thing to speak to the senses, another to speak to the intellect. Naked and dry truth is the death of poetry; for poetry and fiction are the same, and fable being only truth disguised, this truth must be ornamented by flowers to be gladly received. You scattered fresh and beautiful roses over your poetic meditations when you speak of Greece and Rome; but, when you leave these fields of perennial poetic beauty, and say that the thoughts of the Greeks ran around in a narrow circle of images, and after uttering this falsehood, you throw yourself with loosened reins into the praise of the romantic school, then, my noble friend (pardon me if I frankly declare my opinion), you are no longer the same. Had I been at your side when you wrote your tender adieu to the gods of Greece, I should have persuaded you not to continue it--nor to irritate the shade of Schiller--of that Schiller whom, next to Shakspeare, I admire. Do you not know that his best and favourite ode is entitled the 'Gods of Greece?' in which he manifests his indignation against those who have expelled them from the kingdom of the muses, and prays that they may be recalled to adorn life and poetry. I conversed much with lord Byron during the fifteen days' stay which he made at Milan. Do you know that he trembled with rage when any one chanced, fancying that they paid him a compliment, to praise the romantic school. Yet, in the sense in which we understand it, no one was more romantic than he. But he disdained the name, hating to find himself mixed up with the crowd of fools who dishonour that noble school. I do not wish to play the preceptor with you, but allow the true friendship that binds me to you to conclude with a counsel which for many years I have myself followed, _inter utrumque vola_; and, leaving the squabbles of party, let us use our best endeavours to write good verses."

We may add to this profession of the poet's faith with regard to the classic and romantic schools, that Monti considered Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare as the first poets of the world; thus giving proof of the justness of his taste, and demonstrating that originality and truth were appreciated by him at their just value. Next to these three kings of the art he placed Virgil, whom he loved as the friend of his boyhood. He preferred Tacitus and Livy among the Latin prose writers, and Machiavelli among the Italians. His opinions on these subjects were delivered without arrogance, and without presuming to institute an unappealable decision.

The count and countess Perticari resided principally at Pescara; but they held frequent intercourse with Monti at Milan. In the winter of 1821-22, Perticari having made some stay at Milan, Monti accompanied him on his return home. Several of his letters to his wife written during this excursion are published; and we cannot resist the temptation of giving them to the reader, affording as they do demonstrations of his affectionate heart, and of the pleasure he took in the society of his amiable relative. The first of these is dated from Verona, 7th October, 1821.

"I never made a merrier journey. We were six in company: a Brescian, a Veronese, a Paduan, Mercandante, and us two. Day had scarcely dawned, when we began to examine each other, and snuff-boxes went their amicable round. An instant confidence sprung up among us, which led to much chat and pleasantry. So gay were we, that we did nothing but laugh in chorus till we arrived at the gates of Verona. Perticari and I ordered that our luggage should be carried to the inn; being determined to remain free. But the signore Mosconi, and Persica, had already left word at the best inns that there was no room for Perticari and Monti; and, at the moment when we arrived in the diligence, the countess Clarina and her daughter, and the count, got into their carriage to meet and run away with us, as if we had been two beautiful birds. Poor Mariano, who was accompanying the porter with our luggage to the hotel, was pounced upon by the son of the countess, ordered to turn right about and to follow him, he knew not whither; not daring to resist, and fearing that his commander was a custom-house officer. In short, it was not possible to resist the gentle violence put upon us, and the cordial entreaties of my dear friend the countess; and here we are welcomed, feasted, and honoured beyond measure.

"It was our intention only to remain three days at Verona, but we have been obliged to promise not to go till Sunday. The countess means to accompany us half-way on the road to Vicenza, where we shall arrive by noon, and on Monday evening we shall be at Bassano, three hours' journey only from Vincenza; thence to Passagno, and on to Padua, whence you shall hear from us."

"Venice, November 20. 1821.

"Not to leave you any longer waiting for news of us, I seize a moment when every one is asleep (it being only five in the morning) to tell you that yesterday we arrived safely at Venice. It would be a too long-winded egotism to relate to you the kindness, the politeness, the friendly contests, with which we have been every where welcomed. We had been expected here for several days with impatience, and, at the moment of our arrival, chance brought us into immediate contact with the baron Tordero, who embraced us with indescribable delight. It being known that we were going to call on the countess Albrizzi, an assembly gathered together there; nor can I describe to you the demonstrations of joy with which we were welcomed by that celebrated lady, and all her agreeable friends. We remained till eleven, and should have staid longer had not hunger (for we had not dined) recalled us to our inn; that, and the circumstance that our friends, who had accompanied us from Padua, were waiting for us. The merriment at table was prolonged till one in the morning; so you see I have barely had three hours' sleep, and yet I never was so well in my life."

"Pesaro, December 7. 1821.

"At length, yesterday, at the stroke of the ave-maria, we arrived, safe and sound, at Pesaro, to the immense joy of our Constance; a joy, nevertheless, mingled with bitterness, because her mother had not chosen to accompany us: a circumstance which grieves me also, because I fear that the severity of the winter, at Milan, which is here mild, may be injurious to you. But, since you have been pleased to disappoint our hopes, at least take particular care of your health, and do not expose yourself to cold.

"Surrounded by visits and compliments, I have no time at present for more. Let it suffice that my health is flourishing, and that I hope that yours is the same. Constance and Giulio embrace you fondly. Addio, addio!"

The following letter does not concern personal topics; but gives so lively a picture of Italian manners, that it is well worthy to be extracted:--

"Pesaro, January 12. 1822.

"You have reason to complain of the infrequency of my letters, but I study and write continually; and when I am buried among my books, with a pen in my hand, you know how difficult it is to draw me away, and ought to forgive me.

"I am delighted to hear that, notwithstanding the clouds and snow that infest Milan at this season, your health had not yet suffered. I entreat you to take the greatest care of it. Mine is perfect. I never enjoyed so benignant a winter. It is so mild, that I am dressed now as I am accustomed to do at Milan in October.

"For the sake of making a longer letter, I will relate an anecdote which will make you laugh.

"There is an ancient custom still existing at Fano, ten miles from Pesaro, of celebrating a bull-fight at this season; to which a great concourse of people resort from the surrounding towns. A few days ago the first celebration took place. A truly ferocious bull was turned into the arena. It is a law, that whoever chooses to attack the animal may descend into the lists. No one dared expose himself to this infuriated creature, and all the dogs who ventured to assail him were tossed and killed. At length a peasant presented himself, and, to the wonder of all, approached the tremendous animal. He boldly went close to him; and the bull became quite mild, allowing himself to be patted and stroked, while he licked the hand that caressed him; every one was astonished, when, all of a sudden, a fellow among the spectators starts up, and calls out, 'The man is a sorcerer!' 'A sorcerer! a magician!' exclaimed several others in a fury. 'Burn the magician! burn the magician!' every one exclaims. The president of the games is also persuaded that this prodigy can only be the work of the devil; and he sends four soldiers, who seize on the magician, drag him from the lists, and throw him into prison. The poor fellow asked the cause of this violence; he was told, 'You are a magician; you will be hanged and burnt!' 'What are you saying about a magician?' cried the man; 'does not his excellency and his reverence know that the bull let me touch him because he knew me? I am his master.' This testimony, being confirmed by several who knew the man to be the master of the bull, and who took oaths to this effect, ought to have cured the president of his folly; but the poor magician is still in prison, and they are still disputing what to do with him."

At the same time that Monti writes thus to his wife, his letters to his other friends are equally full of the pleasure he enjoyed at this time. "You will like to know," he writes to one, "how I am passing my life. Most happily; but not in idleness. Happily, because I am with my children; and enjoy a season so mild and serene, that winter resembles the opening of spring. Not in idleness, because I pursue my studies, and mean to give a last, short, critical treatise."

But a few months after, in the July of the same year, 1822, Monti again visited Pesaro, in circumstances that form a painful contrast with the tranquil and domestic happiness that occasioned him so much pleasure during his former one. Perticari had died, suddenly, and Monti went to assist and console his sorrowing daughter. He thus writes, on this occasion, to his friend Mustoxidi, in a letter dated Pesaro, 30th July, 1822:--

"You will have heard from my wife the pitiable state in which I found my poor Constance. My arrival has produced a happy change in this unfortunate creature: my coming was like a sunbeam on a flower beaten down by the tempest. But, again, her mind is distracted, sleep flies from her eyes, and her health suffers dreadfully. I must applaud the kind attentions of her mother-in-law, who is an angel of goodness. But I perceive that the only way to preserve her from the most dangerous consequences of excessive grief, is to take her from a place too full of shocking associations. And I would not delay my journey, but for the new regulation of the pontifical police, which does not permit any one to leave these states without a passport countersigned by the Austrian ambassador at Rome. As soon as I obtain this I shall set out, and conduct this dear object of my compassion to the arms of her mother."

This was a wound not easily healed, and never to be forgotten. In the spring of the following year Monti still alludes to his loss with the keenest grief. "Your letter," he writes to a friend, "afforded me infinite pleasure and consolation. For a long time I have lived a wretched life under the rod of adversity; and it is only when I enjoy the society of some person dear to me, or hear from them, that I become a little cheerful, and my spirits revive. Such has been the effect, dear friend, of your letter to your poor Monti--poor indeed in every way, and very unhappy. Unhappy in the death of Giulio; unhappy in the ill health of Constance, who is wasting away with grief; unhappy in myself, as I am deaf, old, and almost blind. For my eyes, owing to my over-use of them in reading and writing by candle-light, are fallen into their old state."

The last volume of the "Proposta" was published in July, 1823; and, this last prosaic labour finished, the imagination of Monti awoke again, and he turned his thoughts once more to the composition of poetry. He restored the true reading to the "Convito" of Dante, which he prized as the basis and authority of his own theories concerning the Italian language. He wrote, also, the idyl on the nuptials of Cadmus; and then contemplated the completion of his poem of the "Feroniade," which he had begun many, many years ago at Rome. When he was secretary to don Luigi Braschi, duke of Nemi, and nephew of Pius VI., he was accustomed to accompany his patron in his hunting expeditions: the usual course of these excursions was the Pontine marshes, near Terracina, a spot abundant in game. There is a fountain in that neighbourhood, supposed to be that anciently dedicated to the Diva Ferronia, at which the hunters were accustomed to drink to refresh themselves. The sight of that insalubrious marshy tract of land, the drainage of which had just been undertaken by the pope, for the purpose of restoring it to agriculture, awoke in Monti the idea of paying his debt of gratitude to the house of Braschi, by commemorating this munificent work; he instantly began his task, and named his poem from the guardian genius of the place. The circumstances of the times interrupted his design: it became more profitable to celebrate the ambition of Napoleon than the piety of a captive priest; and the work was neglected, thrown aside, and almost forgotten. During the last years of the poet's life, his friends solicited him to finish it. Perhaps, when many years and many changes had made much of his past life appear like an unconnected dream, the memory of his early years came before him with all that charm and vividness which youth often assumes in the eyes of age; and he was glad to recur to a forgotten monument of bygone times. He yielded, therefore, to the request of those about him, and had almost finished, when first disease, and afterwards death, put an end to all his designs. It was early in the year 1826 that he had thus renewed his poetic existence, resolving not again to abandon it while his imagination remained vigorous; but in the very opening of this enthusiasm, while every fear was distant, and his active mind gladly met, each morning, the series of duties and labour which he imposed on himself, he was seized by an illness, through which every scheme and every hope was calamitously overthrown.

On the 9th of April, at about eleven o'clock, when he had retired, rather to study than repose, a sudden apoplexy attacked him; and no medical aid, nor any care, could restore him again to health. He lost the use of his left side, and the vital powers appeared mortally attacked. The news spread through Milan, and struck every one with grief; the population crowded round his door, and this public demonstration of kindness sensibly affected him. His mind remained clear and strong throughout the attack, nor was he without sanguine hopes of recovery. In the April succeeding his first seizure, we find him writing to a friend: "I burn with a desire to revisit Florence before I die; consequently I have resolved, next June, to go to the mud baths of Albano, near Padua, whence I hope to receive a renewal of my strength sufficient for my journey." These mud baths, however, were pronounced hurtful instead of beneficial to his disorder, and he never went. Still hope was alive, and he lingered on until the autumn of 1828, his life being consumed in a slow martyrdom: his death-bed was attended by his wife and disconsolate daughter, whom, even to the last, he sought to cheer by words of affection, and by smiles when he could not speak. He expired on the 13th of October, 1828, at the age of seventy-four.

The genius of Monti would, in times of less public excitement, have adorned his name with the highest praise; and his faults would never have been called into view. The studious and imaginative bent of his mind would have led him to cultivate letters and poetry; and we should glory in the exalted fancy of a creative poet, without any shame for the man. His domestic character was amiable; he was zealous for his friends, grateful for benefits; generous, kind, and true in all the ordinary intercourse of life: but neither reverence for genius, nor attachment to the man, ought to blind us to his political tergiversation, or to suppose that there is virtue in that inborn slavishness of spirit that could see no degradation in praising those whom he reprobated in his heart, and in commemorating with applause acts the most injurious to the common cause of humanity. There is retribution in our own consciences for all our faults, and Monti felt this: his love of glory was great, and he was often pained by being reminded of his political apostacies; but too often, when irritated by censure, he was willing to cast the blame upon others, instead of admitting his own want of rigid public integrity.

But take away this error, and, as a private character, Monti merited the affection and esteem of all. The only fault of his disposition was irritability and an inclination to anger; but he redeemed it by the candour of his acknowledgments, and the uprightness of his conduct. Warmth of heart and warmth of temper are too apt to be united in the same disposition; but the kindness of his nature was rendered even more apparent by this defect of temperament. He was sensitive to injury, and his indignation was proportionate to his quick sense of injustice; but, though his anger took the appearance of sternness and severity, it never led him to injure another, but evaporated in words, and might be said to agitate the surface, but never penetrated into the depths, of his mind. He was never guilty of an act of revenge,--on the contrary, he often benefited those who injured him. His mind was, in short, of a uniform texture; and what it wanted in dignity and grandeur was compensated for by gentleness, tenderness, and ready sympathy with the sufferings of others. He was beyond measure charitable to those in distress; and infinite and unwearied compassion, we are told by one who knew him well, was his prominent characteristic. The poor gladly celebrated the charities he strove to conceal. This virtue sprung, doubtless, from early habits acquired under the roof of his benevolent parents. He was simple as a child in the midst of worldliness, and the good faith and sincerity of his friendships were without a flaw.

"In person," the same friend informs us who has furnished the public with the principal documents on which this memoir is founded, "he was tall and handsome: his forehead ample; the shape of his face regular; and his eyes, gleaming from beneath his arched and full brows, shone at once with a vivacious and soft light, which commanded both affection and respect. An air of melancholy was diffused over his countenance, to which the habits of reflection would have given a severe and even disdainful expression, had not the sweetest smile illuminated it with the gracious light of love. His carriage was dignified, his mien serious, and his whole aspect was that of a man of talent, and of one warmed and softened by the benevolence and affectionateness of his disposition."

We may conclude with this description of the outward man, emanating from one who revered and loved him as a preceptor and a friend. The world, in the days succeeding to those of revolution and preceding those of reform, was much divided between those who despaired and those who hoped. The latter now triumph; but Monti died before the milder light dawned on the world, and while change appeared inevitably accompanied by bloodshed and misery. His compassionate heart preferred the peace of submission, both for himself and others, to the suffering attendant on defeated struggles; and errors springing from so humane a source may be forgiven, even by those whose ardent natures lead them to overlook the toil and danger of the journey, in the hope of attaining the accomplishment of their desires.

[Footnote 52: Maffei; Storia della Litteratura Italiana.]

[Footnote 53: Bonetti.]

UGO FOSCOLO

1778-1827.

The most necessary quality of an author is, that he should impress us with the conviction that he has something to say. In reading his pages, we ought to feel that he puts down the overflowing of his mind--ideas and notions which, springing up spontaneously, force a birth for themselves from the womb of silence, and acquire an existence through their own native energy and vitality. An author, therefore, is a human being whose thoughts do not satisfy his mind, ruminated on merely in his own isolated bosom: he requires sympathy, a world to listen, and the echo of assent from his fellow-creatures. But this is not all. Few men can be excited by a mere abstraction, by the images of their own mind, and the desire of communicating them for the benefit of their fellow-creatures. Pride or vanity mingle essentially in the fabric of a writer's mind: the pride which leads him to desire to build up an enduring monument for his name, formed from his own compositions; or the vanity that leads him to introduce himself to the reader, and to court the notoriety which usually attends those who let the public into the secret of their individual passions or peculiarities.

The three great authors of modern Italy form a singular contrast to each other, as to their apparent motives for authorship. Alfieri, proud, independent, and gloomy, sought at once to honour his own name, to exalt and refine his countrymen, and to produce such works as would benefit his species; while the vehement passions of his own soul were their primal source and inspiration. Monti was a poet of the imagination. He wrote because the imagery, the melody, the aerial fabric of poesy were a part of his essence. The subjects of his poems were of less consequence, in his eyes, than the well treating them, or the variety, grandeur, and fantastic ideality displayed in his verses. Thus, at the word of command, he could celebrate the usurper, taint the struggles of a noble and free nation, and adorn the naked form of despotism with garments of beauty. Foscolo, on the contrary, was impelled to produce and reproduce himself: and yet to this assertion we must put some limit, for Foscolo was a man of learning and taste, and he was capable of giving light to compositions formed by the rules of art, and adorned by the graces culled from an intimate knowledge of the finest of human works. But vanity was still the mainspring,--a vanity accompanied by honesty of principle and independence of soul, and yet which was vanity--the worship of self--the making his own individuality the mirror in which the world was reflected.

Ugo Foscolo was born in the island of Zante, about the year 1778. The Ionian isles had long been under the dominion of Venice. The family of Foscolo was of Venetian origin; and his father was a surgeon in the navy of the republic. Little is known of his early years. He seldom mentioned them in conversation, though his imagination sometimes delighted to recur to the sunny land of his birth, and to regret it. In one of his sonnets he exclaims,--

Ne più mai toccherò le sacre sponde Ove il mio corpo fanciulletto giacque Zacinto mia, che te specchi nell' onde Del Greco mar.

Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio, O materna mia terra; a noi prescrisse Il fato illacrimata sepoltura.

O! never more shall I thy sacred shores Approach, where my young limbs first sprung to life, Beloved Zante! who look'st upon the waves Of the Greek sea; and thou the song alone May'st claim of thy lost son, maternal land! For fate to him decrees an unwept tomb.

The Ionian islands were at that time held as colonies of the Venetian government, and tyrannised over by the most odious and oppressive laws. Among others, no schools nor colleges were allowed to exist, and the youth of the islands were sent to Venice for the purposes of education. At an early age, therefore, Foscolo repaired to the parent city. His father, it would seem, was at this time dead, for we hear only of his mother, to whom he was always tenderly attached; and it appears that she, also, transferred herself to Venice at the same period. Foscolo seldom mentioned his family, with the exception of his mother. He had two brothers, one who died, it is reported by his own hand, about the year 1797; the other enlisted as a soldier, and rose, from his good conduct and valour, to the rank of captain of dragoons.

When boyhood was passed, Foscolo was sent to the university of Padua, and studied under Cesarotti. There was great dissimilarity in the tastes and literary opinions of the master and pupil; and thus Foscolo soon displayed his original and independent turn of mind. Cesarotti explained and commented upon Homer, and undertook at the same time to emend and improve the verses of the father of poetry. He preferred Voltaire to Euripides, and Ossian to Homer. While a great portion of ridicule attaches itself to such paradoxes, the real learning and extensive reading of the professor benefited his scholars; and by liberating them from the narrow system of instruction which had subsisted for many years, he introduced them, as it were, from the paled and guarded park of classical literature, to the wilds, the moors, the incult mountains, in short, to all the vast variety of unfettered nature.

Foscolo, though taught by the advocate of Ossian, was all his life a worshipper of Homer. Studious, as well as ardent in his literary pursuits, he became a critical scholar; and, admiring not only Greek poetry, but the fabric and machinery which constitute its structure, he modelled his own poetic productions on them, and made ancient mythology, and allusions to classical history, the props as well as the ornaments of his verses. At the same time he admitted Cesarotti's rules with regard to the Italian language, and abandoned the dialect of the Trecentisti,--so long held up as a model, and yet which had become a dead tongue,--to form an animated, simple, living language, introducing into it phrases and words of modern use; expressions for ever on the lips of the Italians, though heretofore banished from their pens.

We are told that, on leaving college, Foscolo hesitated whether to enter the clerical profession, which held out the prospect of competency to its followers; but he was fortunately turned aside from a profession whose narrow rules and arbitrary laws were in direct opposition to his impetuous and independent disposition. Instead of assuming the tonsure, Foscolo resolved to follow in the steps of Alfieri, and to acquire fame as a tragedian. [Sidenote: 1797. Ætat. 19.] He produced his drama of "Thyestes" at the early age of nineteen; and it may be said to be a creditable production for a youth. It is from his after works that we judge that it was not inexperience, but an absolute defect of a certain species of talent, that made this boy's tragedy a mere bald imitation of those of his illustrious predecessor. Alfieri was not a fanciful poet; his talent lay in developing plot, animating dialogue, and interesting the reader by the clash of passion, or the concentrated feelings of a single person. Foscolo possessed far more of the peculiar spirit of poetry; but it was of didactic poetry. He could not invent incident, nor describe any feelings but such as originated in his own heart. "Thyestes," founded on one of the domestic crimes of the unfortunate house of Pelops, possesses all the faults of Alfieri's tragedies. He imitated him in producing only a few personages on the scene; so that, as a critic observes, it seems as if it were written just after the deluge, when the human race congregated by threes and fours: obscurity of plot is added to this simplicity of action, and the purpose and aim of the poet is never clearly discerned. One scene follows another, not because produced by the antecedent one, but because it is necessary that something should be said and done, or all would be at a full stop. The language is clear and energetic; but, as we are uninterested by the ideas which it conveys, this must appear a very secondary merit.

"Thyestes," however, succeeded in the theatre; and, as success in representation is certainly the test of dramatic merit, we might suppose some latent energy in its concoction, unapparent to the reader, but that its success appears to have arisen from political feeling. It was acted for the first time on January 4. 1797, in the theatre of St. Angelo at Venice, to a vast concourse of spectators, and was repeated with applause for nine consecutive nights. The extreme youth of the author filled the audience with admiration, and he was called for after the representation. We cannot well discern the political allusions that gave it its chief interest, except that the name of king and tyrant are made synonymous; a style, it might be imagined, neither distasteful nor injurious to a republican government, however aristocratic. It would appear, however, that this avidity for liberal sentiments was the cause of its temporary success; for it was never again acted on any stage in Italy.

Adversity meanwhile was hanging over the head of the poet. The fall of Venice, which occurred in the autumn of the same year, deprived him of the very name of country. Hatred of the Austrian is a sentiment profoundly engraved in every Italian heart; and when Venice was made over by treaty to the German despot, Foscolo became a voluntary exile. Whether he was in danger of being marked out in any of the lists of proscription does not appear; but as it is evident that he is the hero of his "Letters of Jacopo Ortis," we gather from that book, that his friends feared for his personal liberty if he remained, and besought him to shelter himself, while there was yet time, from the enmity of the new government. "I have left Venice," Ortis writes, "to avoid the first and most violent persecutions. How many victims remain! We Italians ourselves bathe our hands in Italian blood. Let what will happen to me! Since I despair of good, either for myself or my country, I can await in tranquillity a prison or death."

All these letters are full of the indignant struggles, and the sorrow, as well as of the opinions which ruled the heart of Foscolo, as he found himself driven a wanderer from his home, sometimes lamenting his own misfortunes, sometimes those of his country.

"How many of our fellow-citizens repent their flight from home," he writes, "and mourn! for what can we expect except indigence and indignity--or, at the best, that brief and sterile compassion which uncivilised nations offer to the stranger exile? And where shall I seek an asylum--in Italy? Unhappy land! and can I behold those who have robbed, scorned, and sold us, and not weep with rage? Oh! if the tyrants were one only, and if the slaves were less abject, my hand would suffice. But those who now blame me for cowardice would then accuse me of crime; and the prudent would lament over, not the heroism of one resolved, but the frenzy of a desperate man. What can be done between two powerful nations, who, from being sworn, ferocious, and eternal enemies, colleague to enslave us? and where force alone does not avail, the one cajoles us with the name of liberty, the other with that of religion; and we, debased by ancient servitude and new-born licence, groan, betrayed, enslaved, famished, and yet not roused, either by treason or famine. Ah! if I could, I would destroy my house and all dear to me, and myself with them; I would leave nothing for the tyrants to triumph over. Were there not people who, to escape the Romans, robbers of the world, gave to the flames their dwellings, their wives, their children, and themselves, burying their sacred independence among the glorious ashes of their country?"

Thus passionately attached to liberty, Foscolo was not to be deluded by the false halo that then surrounded the name of Bonaparte, or by the fallacious promises of the French republican crusaders. "Another set of lovers of their country," he writes, "lament loudly. They exclaim that they are betrayed and sold; but, if they had armed themselves, they might have been conquered, but never had been betrayed; and if they had defended themselves to the last drop of blood, the conquerors could not have sold, nor would the conquered have sought to buy, them. Many of our countrymen imagine that freedom can be bought with money. They fancy that foreign nations come from a disinterested love of justice to slaughter each other mutually on our fields, for the sake of liberating Italy. But will the French, who have rendered the divine theory of public liberty execrable, become Timoleons for our sakes? Many, meanwhile, confide in the young hero, sprung from Italian blood, born where our language is spoken. But I expect nothing useful or noble from a cruel and base mind. What is it to me that he has the strength and roar of the lion, if he have the soul of a fox--and glories in it? Yes! base and cruel; nor are these epithets exaggerated. Has he not sold Venice, with open and boasted barbarity? Selim I., who caused 30,000 Circassian warriors, who had surrendered, confiding in his faith, to be massacred on the shores of the Nile; and Nadir Shah, who, in our time, massacred 300,000 Indians, are more atrocious, but less contemptible. With these eyes I saw a democratic constitution signed by the young hero; yes, it was subscribed by his own hand, and sent by Passeriano to Venice for acceptance; and at that very time the treaty of Campo Formio was already confirmed and ratified: Venice was sold; and the confidence which the hero fostered in us all, has filled Italy with proscriptions and exiles. I do not blame the reasons of state, through which nations are sold like flocks of sheep; it was ever so, and so will it ever be: but I grieve for my country, which I have lost. '_He was born Italian, and will one day regenerate his country_:' others may believe this,--I never can. I replied, and shall always reply, 'Nature made him a tyrant, and a tyrant cares not for his country, nor does he possess one.'"

Ruminating on all these violent and bitter feelings, the offspring of patriotism and adversity, Foscolo took the road to Tuscany. "In this blessed land," he writes, "poetry and letters first awoke from barbarism. Wherever I turn, I behold the houses where were born, and the turf that covers, those renowned Tuscans; and I fear at every step to tread on their remains. Tuscany is a garden, its inhabitants are naturally courteous, the sky serene, and the air full of life and health; but I am not happy here. I hope always for better things on the morrow, when I shall reach another town: but to-morrow arrives, and I pass from city to city; and this state of exile and solitude grows each day more unendurable. We Italians are foreigners and exiles even in Italy; and scarcely do we leave our little native territory, than neither understanding, nor fame, nor blameless habits can shelter us; and we are lost if we endeavour to distinguish ourselves. Our very fellow-citizens look upon all Italians who are not natives of their own town, and on whose limbs the same chains do not hang, as strangers." Thus Tuscany afforded no asylum to the fugitive. He desired to see no one in Florence except Alfieri; and the retired and reserved habits of the count prevented his seeking his acquaintance. He saw him, as he describes in one of his poems, wandering silently along the most solitary bank of the Arno, gazing anxiously on earth and heaven; but, finding nothing living that could warm his heart, he took refuge in the aisles of Santa Croce, while wished-for death overspread his countenance with pallid hues."[54] The silence and the concentrated melancholy of Alfieri made a deep impression on the mind of his admirer; and Foscolo sought afterwards to imitate it in his own person, forgetful that his natural impetuosity and vehemence were very dissimilar to the gloom and pride of his model.

From Florence, Foscolo pursued his way to Milan, which was then the capital of the Cisalpine republic, and imparted its rights of citizenship to all the wandering patriots of Italy. The new republic afforded a strange spectacle: formed upon notions of Greek and Roman liberty, picked up from learned priests, mingled with modern notions of freedom, it displayed the most ridiculous anachronisms; and its members, all Italians, yet strangers to each other, and regarding with oblique looks all those born in a different city, met without amalgamating. The young found hope and life in the new stage on which they were permitted to act a part; and though ridicule and blame might be attached to many of their public actions, still the more sanguine lovers of their country hoped that, when the first springtide of enthusiasm should ebb, prudence, unanimity, and strength would be the first born of national independence. Foscolo, however, was not among those. Irascible and misanthropic, and sensitively alive to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, he saw the evils around him, and desponded.

One of the advantages derived from this new capital was, that it served to draw together the most distinguished Italians within the walls of the same city. Each town of the peninsula sent some man esteemed for his talents; and names, scattered before over the surface of the country, now congregated together. Foscolo had thus an opportunity of becoming acquainted with all his more illustrious countrymen. In his "Letters of Jacopo Ortis," he mentions Parini especially with reverence and affection; and he became intimate also with Monti, who then displayed fervour in the cause of liberty, while his inward dislike for the members of the actual government must have accorded with the sentiments of Foscolo. Two decrees, passed at that time, served, indeed, to show that blame deservedly attached itself to them: one was the law enacted to deprive of office all those who had formerly written against liberty--an act of despotism levelled expressly against Monti; the other was the sentence passed by the great council against the Latin language: whether it was because Latin was the language of their religion and the priests, or from mere stupid barbarism, they passed a decree to prohibit its being taught in the public schools. Foscolo saw, in the languages of the ancient world, not only the root of all our knowledge, but also the most splendid monuments of human intellect: he knew how fallacious and trivial all translations are; he was imbued to the heart with a love of classic lore; and he saw, in the suppression of the Latin, the paramount influence of the French language. No wonder that he, as well as every well-educated man, regarded such a law and its promulgators with mingled scorn and disgust.