From the Westminster Review. MODERN POETS AND POETRY OF ITALY.* THERE was a time when the literature and the arts of Italy were at once the pride of the nation they adorned and the wonder of surrounding lands. Such a galaxy of genius the world had scarcely ever beheld, and may perhaps never see again. The general belief, indeed, is, that the intellectual, like the material glory of the peninsula, is decayed and faded to revive no more; that after the splendor of the age of Dante, and the scarcely less marvelous Renaissance of that of Ariosto, this race at once so gifted and so unfortunate, must be content to live on the memory of the past; that they must not even hope to serve for a third time as models 1857. Opere complete de Ugo Foscolo. Florence. for mankind. Yet surely it is rash to hazard such a prediction when we remember how strange and marvelous have been the destinies of Italy; to what a hight of power and splendor she has more than once soared, after having sunk as it seemed, into the depths of ignominy. In one form or other she reigned for centuries supreme over Europe. At the very moment when her pride and power as a nation vanished she shone more resplendent than ever in the sphere of intellectual greatness, and imposed her literature and her arts on the civilized world. So long as freedom was not utterly destroyed upon her soil, that soil resounded with the im'mortal strains of her poets. Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, succeeded each other on the breach. When the spirit of Rime scelte di vari poeti moderni. Parigi. 1857. liberty was broken, when speech was for Poeti Italiani. Lugano. 1859. VOL. XLIX-NO. 2 bidden, the genius of Italy took refuge in 10 sculpture, painting, and music, all of which | which preceded them. Be this as it may, expressed, under a thousand varied forms, the plea will not hold good in the present what words dared no longer utter, and if instance. In all the cases adduced, the the two former now are mute for a while, potentate, however absolute, was a namusic, that inarticulate language of the tional potentate, linked to the people soul, still breathes forth the complaints whose destinies he swayed; his interests and the aspirations of the land which has were identified with theirs; he was, in produced so many great men and accom- their eyes, the personification of the realm; plished such mighty deeds. Shall we be- his glory, far from crushing, inspired their lieve that a nation which, at the interval imaginations, for it shed a new splendor of centuries has given to the world a on the land to which both equally beVirgil, a Tasso, an Alfieri, a Galileo, a longed, the ruler and the ruled. MoreColumbus, can have sunk into complete over, under all, literature enjoyed a conintellectual decay? "Let us not insult siderable degree of freedom, and its votathe genius of Italy because it slumbers," ries, courted and honored, basked in the said a celebrated orator.*"The immortal sunshine of supreme favor. But show spark which once lighted it, may have be- us, in any age, one instance where genius come faint and weak, the armed heel of has preserved its energy unscathed in a foreign despots may have trodden it down, nation bowed, like Italy, beneath a foreign but it can not extinguish it, for it is immor- yoke, (for Austria, we know, has been, for tal! It needs but the breath of indepen- forty years, the real mistress of the penindence to shine forth again in all its ancient sula,) more especially where the oppressors lustre." When these words were spoken are inferior in civilization and refinement Italy scarcely gave a sign of life, either to the oppressed. When, too, it is renational or mental; she seemed crushed, membered that every approach towards body and soul; wrapped in a sort of liberty of word or thought has been delethargic slumber. Since then she has nied, alike in Lombardy, Tuscany, Rome, awaked, and who shall deny how much or Modena; that literature and learning there is glorious and encouraging in that have been systematically persecuted, and awakening? Who shall deny that the every noble aspiration punished as a crime, Italian spirit has become strengthened by we shall wonder, not that the intellectual endurance, ennobled by suffering, ripened condition of Italy has fallen to so low an by reflection? We have only to study her ebb, but rather that she has still preserved literature during the last half-century to so much vitality in her degradation.* perceive, that if no mighty genius has sprung up to emulate the fame of a Dante, some durable conquests have been won; that a path has been opened which will probably lead to greater things hereafter. This literature likewise proves beyond a doubt the ever-increasing aspirations of Italy towards unity and independence. This once achieved, may we not hope that the "immortal spark will again shine forth"? We are well aware that liberty alone will not create poets, that poetry owes its being to some mysterious and intangible law which has hitherto baffled our researches. The era of Pericles in ancient, of Lorenzo di Medici and of Louis XIV. in modern times, may perhaps be adduced as an argument that despotism, far from crushing genius, often fosters it. We will not here enter into the muchdebated question how far the lustre to which literature attained at these different epochs may be owing to the era of freedom * Lamartine. The contempt which, rightly or wrongly, has fallen on the Italians as a people has extended itself to their literature. In England especially it is little valued; our poetic affinities incline us towards the north, toward Göthe, Schiller, and the poets of the "Fatherland." Another reason for the neglect into which Italian poetry has fallen among us, is the difficulty attending its study. The Italian minstrels have adopted a language peculiar to themselves, abounding in the most daring inversions, which demand a long and careful study, and for this few of us have either *As soon as Austria became mistress of Lom bardo-Venetia, in 1814, all liberty of word and prove how well the minion of Austria follows the time or patience. So we turn coldly away and take for granted what detractors both abroad and at home are continually repeating, or have at least been repeating till the present moment, that Italian modern poetry is weak, affected, and inflated; even as we have been in the habit of repeating, that modern Italians, the countrymen of Balbo, Gioberti, Manin, Cavour, are all either triflers or conspirators, opera-singers or revolutionists. Manzoni is known to us, principally if not solely, by his Promessi Sposi. To Leopardi's productions we are almost strangers. With two of the Italian poets of the nineteenth century alone are we familiar, Silvio Pellico and Ugo Foscolo. The long and cruel imprisonment of the former, and its narrative in his Prigioni, have done more to win him our sympathies than his verses; all his compositions, though distinguished by exquisite taste and delicacy, are deficient in force and virility. His Francesca de Rimini, still one of the most popular of Italian tragedies, owes its success rather to the elegance and purity of style than to loftiness of sentiment or development of character. It is possible, indeed, that had he not been struck down by the implacable vengeance of Austria, in the very bloom of manhood, his tone of mind might have acquired more strength and vigor. His gentle spirit was completely broken by suffering and captivity; and from the moment of his deliverance to that of his decease, but a few months ago, he remained in complete retirement, abjuring all publicity, political and literary. Despite the favor which the Prigioni still enjoys, and deservedly, from the touching simplicity of the recital and the evangelic resignation of the narrator, the impression is, on the whole, painful and enervating. We pity that long and cruel martyrdom, we admire that utter abnegation of human will, but we feel with a gifted contemporary, if Italy had such virtues only, all hope for her would be over-that nothing would remain but to weep upon her tomb. No! the duty of the patriot is not to bow humbly to injustice; it is to renew in the holy cause of liberty and independence the protestation of Galileo in that of truth"E pur si muove." Widely different from Silvio Pellico was Ugo Foscolo. Haughty, vain-glori * Edgar Quinet. ous, but resolute and undaunted, he formed a striking contrast to his no less gifted friend and contemporary.* Foscolo's correspondence, first published in 1854, while dissipating to a certain degree the haze of romance which had hitherto encircled him, elevated his character in the eyes of all right-thinking men. It showed him as he really was; neither the ideal hero to which his partisans had exalted him, nor the sensual debauchee his enemies had painted him. To a certain degree, indeed, he partook of both characters; he was at once the stoic and the sybarite, the martyr and the man of pleasure. His genius and his virtues were alike of a high order, but they were alike incomplete. His private life is far from stainless; in youth he was the sport of every passion, in riper years he was often headstrong, imperious, querulous; but these were only spots on a nature of noble mold. To Italy his name will ever be sacred, and with justice; for he loved her with no common love, "not wisely," perhaps, "but too well," and rather than seal what he believed, and rightly, was her death-warrant, he sacrificed all-country, home, friends and fortune! Foscolo was born at Zantè, of one of the most ancient of Venetian families. One of his ancestors had been generalissimo in the last Candian war. But, like the city of the sea herself, little was left him save the recollection of former greatness. Foscolo's mother was a Greek, and the boy was nourished from his cradle in the love of liberty and democracy. Burning for action, he fretted impatiently at the listless existence to which he seemed condemned. Venice, indeed, was still an independent state; but the degree of decrepitude and corruption into which she had fallen made the young republican blush to call himself her son. So stood matters when the waves of the French Revolution broke over Italy. Foscolo hailed it with rapture, and no sooner was the Cisalpine republic proclaimed than he flew to breathe this new air of liberty. The treaty of Campo-Formio, by which his native city was handed over to Austria, inspired him with little indignation *Silvio Pellico had been the intimate friend of Foscolo in youth, despite the dissimilitude of their aided the exile by sending him sums of money unnatures, and before his own captivity he frequently der the pretext that they were the profits of his works. This chords that vibrate the most powerfully and still less sympathy; his fatherland | down beneath the iron yoke of foreign was not Venice, but Italy; not Italy as oppression. The success of the romance she really existed, but as his imagination was immense, for it touched the two loved to picture her, regenerated, united, and independent. Entering into one of the corps formed by the French, he shared in the perils and glories of the campaigns of 1797-98, distinguished himself at Castiglione, and was promoted to the rank of captain at Marengo. After a while, however, his enthusiasm for the French began to cool; he found them less convenient allies than he had anticipated; the hopes they had excited were but partially fulfilled. So, laying down the sword, he turned to more peaceful pursuits. To while away the time-perhaps to forget his deceptions political and amorous, for the latter were not wanting -he began to write a romance. It was a safety-valve for his impetuous nature. The leading idea and the title of his work he owed to chance. A student in the University of Padua, Jacopi Ortis by name, had committed suicide; the cause was enveloped in mystery. By some it was attributed to baffled love, by others to despairing patriotism. Foscolo, whose philosophy partook more of the Pagan than of the Christian element, had always maintained the right of man to put an end to his existence when it became a burden. He selected Ortis as his hero, because he found it easy to identify himself with him, and thus give vent to his own burning and tumultuous thoughts. In many respects, Jacopi Ortis resembles Werther. But in the German romance, love, and love alone, absorbs the mind of the hero and drives him to self-destruction. In the Italian, that passion is shared by another not less ardent, patriotism. In Werther there are few incidents; nothing to draw our attention from the principal figures and the main action. Werther destroys himself because she whom he loves is the bride of another. Not so - Ortis. There are in him two men, as in Foscolo himself. It is the phantom of an expiring country, as well as that of a rival, which places the dagger in his hand. Thus, there is not the same degree of universal truth in the Italian as the German romance. In every land and age there are men driven by disappointed affection to suicide, while those who are urged to the fatal step by despairing patriotism belong only to peculiar periods and to countries, happily few, bowed แ Cypress and cedar mingled in the breeze Their faint perfume; o'er the sepulchral urn Bending eternal shade. The precious vase Embalmed the votive tear; devoted friends Sought in their loving care to steal a beam From the bright sun to cheer that night of gloom, For still the dying eye with lingering glance Turns to the orb of day. The last faint breath | rejecting the imperial favors he every stream On beds of violets and of amaranths, came To offer a libation on the tomb, Or whisper to the dead his secret woes, Inhaled a fragrance sweet as that which breathes In the blessed regions of the Elysian fields." where repeated the declaration) he beheld a powerful kingdom established in the very center of Italy, the government of which was confided to the Italians themselves; he beheld a national army in a country which for fourteen centuries had possessed none, and six millions of Italians united beneath a standard which bore the national colors; he saw equal justice every where administered, men of letters protected, encouraged, seated at the counFoscolo's tragedies, though for a time cil-board and at the senate. This was not, most popular, are now nearly forgotten. indeed, all that had been promised, but it The thoughts are noble and the language was much, and Foscolo had the good sonorous and eloquent, but the scenes and sense to preceive that his countrymen, situations are generally forced and unna- degraded and stupified by centuries of tural, and the personages deficient in servitude, effeminacy, corruption, must be warmth and passion. This, strange to regenerated ere they could be restored to say, is eminently the fault of Italian tra- national unity or complete independence. gedy. It was that of Alfieri himself, He felt, therefore, that the fate of Italy who, in his desire to avoid the reproach was bound up with that of the Empire. of effeminacy, exaggeration, or meretri- He saw at once through the falsehood of cious ornament, so often addressed to his the fair promises made by the Austrians countrymen, carried severe simplicity be- and their allies. He lamented the blindyond even the limits the Greeks had as-ness of his countrymen-he predicted the signed it. The outlines of his characters result. For himself, his duty was clear; are always nobly and vigorously drawn, he resumed the sword and joined the army but they are often deficient both in relief under the Viceroy Eugene. After the and in coloring, while the excessive laco- fall of the kingdom of Italy, Foscolo ofnism and terseness which is the main fered his resignation. The regency of characteristic of the great Piedmontese Milan replied by conferring on him the poet, prevents that development of the brevet of chef d'escadron. But he felt passion, that revealing of the inmost soul, his part was over. From that moment which can alone excite and maintain the till his departure for exile he remained a interest of the spectator. The tragedies silent but a sad spectator of those events of Alfieri are perhaps more fitted for the which were to plunge his country into a closet than the stage. Foscolo has not misery and degradation deeper than she attained the beauties of his model, while had ever before known. Meanwhile arhe has exaggerated his defects; but as rived the turning-point in his own destiny. his dramas, whatever their subject, always He was called on to take the oath of allebreathe patriotic ardor and national en- giance to Austria. With his sentiments thusiasm, they obtained great, if ephemeral this was impossible. Openly to refuse success. Foscolo had been appointed to was dangerous. Nothing remained but the chair of eloquence instituted by Napo- to temporize. He affected to yield -orleon, and all seemed to smile on him, when dered his uniform, and, seizing an opporhe was called from his theatrical and liter-tunity, escaped over the frontiers to Switary success to take part in a more stirring zerland. My honor and conscience," he drama. It was September, 1813. That writes, "forbid my swearing allegiance to gigantic power which had bade defiance Austria. My mother-you will not conto Europe had begun to totter beneath a demn me, for you yourself have inspired mightier than mortal hand. Foscolo had me with these sentiments, and bade me not loved Napoleon; he had never con- guard them untainted." When he left his cealed his feelings, but he was too clear- native soil, Foscolo's literary career may sighted not to discern all that wonderful be said to have terminated. man had done and was doing for Italy. mind was full of vast projects a history Not only did he see great works accom- of contemporary Italy, a translation of plished, agriculture encouraged, commerce Homer, epic poems, tragedies-all floated extended, but (it is to his honor that while before him in bright array; but the ne 66 True, his |