Remonstrance was an aggravation, concession a proof, of his delinquency. Both were unavailing, and the voice of friendship could give no other counsel than to be silent and to submit. His disaster was considered as his decease; and his cotemporaries usurped and abused the rights of posterity. Compositions, some unfinished, and none of them intended for the light, were devoted to the greedy gains of literary pirates; and on such documents, no less garbled than the representation of his actions, did his enemies proceed to judgment. These calamities would have overwhelmed guilt, and might confound innocence. But the tried affection of an only sister, the unshaken though unserviceable regard of former associates, and, more than all, his own unconquerable mind, supplied the motive and the means of resistance. He had lost the hope of mercy, he cherished the expectation of justice. This confidence preserved the principle of life; and the sensibility of misfortune gave an irresistible edge and temper to his faculties whenever his spirit emerged from distress. The rays of his genius could not dissipate, but they burst, at intervals, through the gloom of his seclusion, and his countrymen soon found that their poet, although hidden from their sight, was still high above the horizon.

Stanza LIV.

Here repose

Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, &c.

The following anecdotes of Alfieri are from an authentic source, and appear worthy record. The poet was one evening at the house of the Princess Carignani, and leaning, in one of his silent moods, against a sideboard decorated with a rich tea-service of china, by a sudden movement of his long loose tresses, threw down one of the cups. The lady of the mansion ventured to tell him that he had spoilt her set, and had better have broken them all; but the words were no sooner said, than Alfieri, without replying or changing countenance, swept off the whole service upon the floor. His hair was fated to bring another of his eccentricities into play; for, being alone at the theatre at Turin, and hanging carelessly with his head backwards ́over the corner of his box, a lady in the next seat on the other side of the partition, who had, on other occasions, made several attempts to attract his attention, broke into violent and repeated encomiums on his auburn locks, which were flowing down close to her hand. Alfieri spoke not a word, and continued in his posture until he left the theatre. The lady received

the next morning a parcel, the contents of which she found to be the tresses she had so much admired, and which the count had cut off close to his head. There was no billet with the present, but words could not have more clearly expostulated, "If you like the hair, here it is, but for heaven's sake leave me alone."

Alfieri employed a respectable young man at Florence to assist him in his Greek translations, and the manner in which that instruction was received was not a little eccentric. The tutor slowly read aloud and translated the tragedian, and Alfieri, with his pencil and tablets in hand, walked about the room and put down his version. This he did without speaking a word, and when he found his preceptor reciting too quickly, or when he did not understand the passage, he held up his pencil,—this was the signal for repetition, and the last sentence was slowly recited, or the reading was stopped, until a tap from the poet's pencil on the table warned the translator that he might continue his lecture. The lesson began and concluded with a slight and silent obeisance, and during the twelve or thirteen months of instruction, the count scarcely spoke as many words to the assistant of his studies. The Countess of Albany, however, on receiving something like a remonstrance against this reserve, assured the young man that the

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count had the highest esteem for him and his services. But it is not to be supposed that the master felt much regret at giving his last lesson to so Pythagorean a pupil. The same gentleman describes the poet as one whom he had seldom heard speak in any company, and as seldom seen smile. His daily temper depended not a little upon his favourite horse, whom he used to feed out of his hand, and ordered to be led out before him every morning. If the animal neighed, or replied to his caresses with any signs of pleasure, his countenance brightened, but the insensibility of the horse was generally followed by the dejection of the

master.

The tomb of Alfieri in the Santa Croce, is one of the least successful productions of Canova. The whole monument is heavy, and projects itself into the aisle of the church more prominently than becomes the associate of the more modest but richer sepulchres of Michäel Angelo and Machiavelli. The colossal Cybele of Italy weeping over a medallion in low relief, shows the difficulty of doing justice to the mourner and the monument, and may besides be mistaken for the princess of the house of Stolberg, whose name and title have left little room on the inscription for Alfieri himself. They show a little step opposite to the monu

ment, on which the princess herself periodically contemplates her own work and that of Canova. The grief of an amiable woman for the loss of an accomplished man, may be expected to endure; and, to say the truth, the other sex has too long wanted a " pendant" for the twice retold tale of the Ephesian matron.

Stanza LXVI.

But thou, Clitumnus, in thy sweetest wave.

The Clitumnus rises at Le Vene di Campello, or di Piscignano. In the territory of Trevi and that of Foligno, it is called the " Clitunno," and lower down in its course assumes the name of La Timmia. Antiquaries have been careful to measure the exact size of its original fountain, which they find to be eleven Roman palms and ten inches long, and one palm seven inches and a half wide. This source pours from beneath a blind arch in the high road from Foligno to Spoleto, half a mile from the post-house of Le Vene, and gushing into a thousand blue eddies, is soon lost in a bed of giant reeds. The peasants of the neighbourhood say that the stream has many fountains, and although nowhere in the immediate vicinity it is wider than a millbrook, is in many places unfathomable. The Clitumnus has been sung by most of the poets from