But to return to Alfieri. In the collection of his works, published during his life, of eight vo Tu, grida a Pirro, mi contrasti onore Polyxena, Atto iv. Sc. 2. In the same act Cassandra is suddenly seized with the prophetic fervor, and reveals to Agamemnon the terrors of the future. Simile a te; che ardisca, e tremi, e sia Innocente, nè reo; che la natura Vendichi e offenda;.. ...a che mi rendi, O Febo, lumes, five contain his tragedies, which are known to every one; and the other three are filled with his political works and poems, with which very few persons are acquainted. A long Vendica l'Asia, e la nefanda scure Cade pur sul mio collo. Ah! grazie, O Numi, L'ombre de' miei... Che dissi! Ah! ch' io vaneggio. In the first scene of the fifth act, Polyxena having determined to die, in order to expiate the love which she is ashamed of feeling for her father's murderer, thus takes leave of her sister Cassandra : Certo il mio fato, Non cercarne perchè. Meco sepolto Lasciai la madre. Ah! tu mi guardi, e piangi! Il piacer della morte. The treatise On the Prince and on Literature forms one of these volumes, and may, in point of elegance and force of style, be compared with the best writings in the Italian language. It is rich in thought and high sentiment; and treats, with profound ability and in every view, of that important question, the protection which it is said a prince ought to extend to literature, and the corrupting effects of this patronage upon literary men. extreme bitterness, however, of the author's manner, and the affected style, which is evidently imitated from Machiavelli, take away all our pleasure in the perusal of this book. We are so well acquainted, before commencing it, with the prejudices of the author, that we sometimes combat opinions to which we might have yielded, had they been less roughly presented to us. Alfieri, like Machiavelli, treats every enquiry as a question of utility and not of morality; but his excessive bitterness has at least this advantage, that it does not conceal the contempt which he feels for those who stand in need of his melancholy counsels, and to whom they are addressed. The next volume contains another long dissertation On Tyranny, in which the same faults are observable, with even a greater exaggeration of principle, and with reasoning more palpably false. His panegyric on Trajan, which he supposes to have been written by Pliny, is a very favourable specimen of Alfieri's powers of eloquence, if, indeed, true eloquence can exist, when the author writes under an assumed character, and imagines himself the creature of another age, under the influence of other manners, and of other circumstances. Alfieri also attempted to write an epic in four cantos, in the ottava rima, entitled Etruria Vendicata. The hero is Lorenzino de' Medici, and the catastrophe is the murder of the contemptible Alexander, first duke of Florence. A conspiracy like this is perhaps little fitted to be the subject of an epic poem, in which we rather look for truth and nature, and an acquaintance with the human heart, than for the rich colourings of the imagination. In this poem, although the plot is in itself full of interest, it is yet rendered cold and flat by the ornaments with which the poet has surrounded it. All the supernatural part, the appearance of Liberty, of Fear, and of the shade of Savonarola, produces no other impression than a cold allegory would do. The poet does not appear to feel the truth of his verse any more than his readers. The liberties, also, which are taken with historical facts in the arrangement of the incidents, in the character of Lorenzino, and in the death of Alexander, appear to me to injure, instead of augmenting the effect; and to conclude, the style is absolutely destitute of dignity and of poetical attraction. It is not, however, reasonable to judge Alfieri by a work which he never avowed, and which, in all probability, he regarded as unfinished at the time when it was published without his consent. Five odes on the independence of America, nearly two hundred sonnets, and some other poems in various styles, complete the collection of Alfieri's works, as they were published in his life time. His posthumous productions, which began to make their appearance in 1804, and which extend to thirteen volumes in octavo, have occupied the attention of Italy, and indeed of all the literati of Europe, without adding much to the author's reputation. His Abel, which he whimsically entitled a Tramelogedy, is a composition in which he has attempted to blend together the lyric and the tragic style of poetry, and to unite the melody of the opera with the most powerful workings of the feelings. The allegory, however, is fatiguing upon the stage, and the versification of Alfieri does not possess the loftiness and the fascination which are requisite to adapt it to music. The whole drama is cold and uninteresting. Two tragedies on the story of Alcestes follow one is from Euripides, and is merely a happy translation; the other, which is on the same subject, the poet has recast and treated in his own manner. For ten years Alfieri abstained from writing for the stage. In that interval not only his ideas, but his character itself, sustained a change; he had been softened down by the |