respectable in the eyes of every generous reader. There are some pictures of small objects that evince a considerable knowledge of the human heart, and are extremely affecting. The little dog of the lady who falls in love with Ortis may be mentioned as one. The author is in his proper element when he breaks forth into his ethical reflections: how truly he says, "That we are too proud to give our compassion when we feel we can give nothing else."

The love of Ortis is, perhaps, the least interesting portion of the work; there is not importance enough attached to his existence to make it natural that so much importance should be attached to his end. It was difficult, perhaps, to give many attractions to the adventures of an obscure politician; but it is still possible that those of an age and sex more accessible to the tender feelings may be touched by the misfortunes and the heroic despair of the Italian Werter. But Ortis' may boast of having been the first book that induced the females and the mass of readers to interest themselves in public affairs. This was a mighty exploit in a country where one maxim had been for ages the groundwork of education for all classes of society, De Deo parum, de Principe nihil. It is difficult at this day to find in Italy an edition of the Letters of Ortis' altogether exempt from those. mutilations which the revisors of one kind or another have inflicted on this romance. In spite, however, of all their prudent efforts, it has been found impossible to emasculate every page which launches forth invectives against the corruption of the old government, against the foreign usurpation of the new, and lastly against the treachery with which the French general bought and sold the republic of Venice.

Chiari and Piazza, and other common writers, had before published some hundreds of romances, which had been the delight only of the vulgar reader; for those of a more refined taste had resorted to the foreign novels. The 'Letters of Ortis' is the only work of the kind, the boldness of whose thoughts and the purity of whose language, com

bined with a certain easy style, have suited it to the taste of every reader. It cannot be too often remarked that it is principally the style which in all works attracts the admiration of the Italians; and it may here be mentioned that their critics have laid it down as a rule that the elements of their prose are to be collected only in the period between Dante and Machiavelli. This is the opinion of Alfieri.*

Foscolo has followed this rule in his 'Ortis,' and more scrupulously still in the Sentimental Journey,' which he has translated with the words and phrases of the fourteenth century; not, however, to the prejudice of the conversational ease of our Yorick. This work, so popular in all foreign countries, had been twice before translated into Italian; but the torpidity of their style, and their repeated Gallicisms, had consigned these preceding versions to contempt. Foscolo published his translation under the name of Didimo Chierico; and in one of his many notes he gives us the following remarks on his native language:

"Le donne gentili insegnarono al Parroco Yorick, e a me suo Chierico, a sentire, e quindi a parlare men rozzamente; ed io per gratitudine aggiungerò questo avviso per esse. La lingua Italiana è un bel metallo che bisogna ripulire della ruggine dell'antichità, e depurare della falsa lega della moda ; e poscia batterlo genuino in guisa che ognuno possa riceverlo e spenderlo con fiducia, e dargli tal conio che paja nuovo e nondimeno tutti sappiano ravvisarlo. Ma i letterati vostri non raccattano dagli antichi se non se il rancidume, e gli scienziati vi parlano franciosamente. I primi non hanno mente, gli altri non hanno cuore; e per quanti idiomi e' si sappiano, non avranno mai stile."

The preponderance of French power during the reign of Louis XIV., and even in that of Louis XV., had infected the Italian language with an infinity of French phrases and idioms. The consciousness of the extreme corruption induced by the revolution has given rise to a zealous spirit of reform, which has itself degenerated into a superstitious worship of the ancients, and has rather augmented than

* See his answer to Calsabigi, in the edition of his tragedies by Didot.

We con

diminished the licence of the opposite writers.
sequently find many works composed solely of phrases
almost or entirely obsolete, and distinguished neither for
the energy of the old writers nor for the ease of the new.
Others, and they are the majority, terrified by the study of
a language the abundance of whose words and the variety
of whose combinations render it almost insuperable, affect
that sort of style now so common throughout Europe, which
they are pleased to call philosophical, and which, in fact, is
but a jargon neither Italian nor French, but a bad mixture
of both.

If, therefore, good writers are rare in all countries they are more especially so in Italy; for they have to connect the generic characteristics constantly inherent for five centuries in the Italian language, with the specific characteristics of their own times; and this amalgamation, not depending upon any fixed rules, must be contrived solely by the individual talents of each author. This accounts for the surprising diversity which foreigners are apt to observe in the manner of writing employed by the various authors of the same age; and perhaps this same diversity is more remarkable in the prose of Foscolo than of other writers. The Italian author also makes it an article of faith to vary his style according to his subject. Thus there is no less a difference between the letters, the romances, and the orations, than between the history and the epic or lyric poetry of these varied compositions. The 'Ortis' and the Sentimental Journey' resemble each other very little; notwithstanding that the author has followed the same rules of composition, and has always preserved the traits peculiar to his style. As for his 'Discourse for the Congress of Lyons,' it appears evidently written by the same man, but in a different language.

He wrote this Discourse' at the injunction of his Government, when Bonaparte, in the year 1801, convoked at Lyons the Notables of the Cisalpine Republic. The directions given to the orator were to pronounce a panegyric; but Foscolo adopted a different course. He pre

1

sented a moving picture of the wretched state of the laws, of the armies, of the finances, and of the moral condition of the new republic. The sects, both old and new, that distracted their country-the priests, the nobles, the democrats, the partisans of foreign usurpation, the adulatory writers, the libellists, the defrauders of the public revenue, the monopolists, who profited by the sale of the national property, are all handled with the same severity. The following description of the masters of the republic, if it degrades the nation in one respect, exalts it on the other hand; for there must be something great in a people which can produce a single man who dares, in the cause of virtue, to paint his countrymen in such colours.

"Uomini nuovi ci governavano, per educazione nè politici, nè guerrieri (essenziali doti ne' capi delle republiche); antichi schiavi, novelli tiranni, schiavi pur sempre di se stessi e delle circonstanze che nè sapeano nè voleano domare; fra i pericoli e l'amor del potere ondeggianti, tutto perplessamente operavano; regia autorità era in essi, ma per inopia di coraggio e d'ingegno, nè violenti nè astuti; conscj de' propri vizj, e quindi diffidenti, discordi addossantisi scambievoli vituperj; datori di cariche, e palpati, non temuti: alla plebe esosi come potenti; e come imbecilli, spregiati: convennero conjatanza di publico bene e libidine di primeggiare ma nè pensiero pure di onore; vili con gli audaci, audaci coi vili, spegneano le accuse coi beneficj e le querele con le minaccie; e per la sempre imminente rovina, di oro puntellati con la fortuna, di brighe con i proconsoli, e di tradimenti con i principi stranieri.”

The chief cause of this general depravity he attributes to the absence of Bonaparte in Egypt, which allowed the French Directory to tyrannise over Italy, and to pillage her provinces, not only by their own missions and generals, but by the appointment of magistrates, timid, ignorant, and avaricious, some of whom were to be found in that government which had assigned to Foscolo the pleasing. duties of pronouncing their panegyric.*

The praises bestowed by the orator upon the hero who was to remedy their national wrongs, magnificent as they

* See his Dedication-" Ai Membri del comitato del Governo."

are in some respects, are still associated with the boldest maxims, and with predictions which are seldom hazarded in the hour of victory. With what satisfaction may Foscolo now look back upon the following prophetic warning!

"A ciascuno di tuoi pregi la storia contrappone e Tiberio solenne politico, e Marco Aurelio Imperadore filosofo, e Papa Leone X. ospite delle lettere. Che se molti di questi sommi, scarchi non vanno di delitti, uomini e mortali erano come sei tu, e non le speranze o il tremore de' contemporanei, ma la imperterrita posterità le lor sentenze scriveva su la lor sepultura. Infiniti ed illustri esempj hanno santificata oramai quella massima de' sapienti: niun uomo doversi virtuoso predicare e beato anzi la morte."

After describing the distress of his country, the speaker, who calls himself Giovine non affatto libero, proposes certain remedies, and those he would apply not only to Italy, but to maintain the renown of that hero whose future glory he declares to depend principally on the durable independence of a nation which he had rescued from the slavery and disgrace of ages. Foscolo afterwards published this 'Discourse,' with the following motto from Sophocles;—“ MY

SOUL GROANS FOR MY COUNTRY, FOR MYSELF, AND ALSO FOR THEE."

This discourse is not more than eighty pages, and, notwithstanding it is an historical composition, maintains a certain impetuosity and gravity of style which overwhelm and fatigue the attention. The events are hinted at, not detailed; the development concerns only their causes and their results. This brevity might be agreeable to those who had been spectators of, or actors in, the short and transitory scene; but foreign readers, and even those Italians removed by time or place from the original action, are left in the dark. It would be difficult to prove that the style of Tacitus, which Foscolo has not only copied but exaggerated with the devotion of a youth enchanted by his model, can be well adapted to this sort of composition. The English, who have perhaps run into the opposite extreme, will be astonished to hear that this Discourse' was particularly esteemed by the critics on account of its