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 * Opere complete de Ugo Foscolo. Florence. 1857. 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, Pe trarch, 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 which preceded them. Be this as it may, the plea will not hold good in the present instance. In all the cases adduced, the potentate, however absolute, was a national potentate, linked to the people whose destinies he swayed; his interests were identified with theirs; he was, in their eyes, the personification of the realm; his glory, far from crushing, inspired their imaginations, for it shed a new splendor on the land to which both equally belonged, the ruler and the ruled. Moreover, under all, literature enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom, and its votaries, courted and honored, basked in the sunshine of supreme favor. But show us, in any age, one instance where genius has preserved its energy unscathed in a nation bowed, like Italy, beneath a foreign forty years, the real mistress of the peninsula,) more especially where the oppressors are inferior in civilization and refinement to the oppressed. When, too, it is remembered that every approach towards liberty of word or thought has been denied, alike in Lombardy, Tuscany, Rome, or Modena; that literature and learning have been systematically persecuted, and every noble aspiration punished as a crime, we shall wonder, not that the intellectual condition of Italy has fallen to so low an ebb, but rather that she has still preserved so much vitality in her degradation.* sculpture, painting, and music, all of which expressed, under a thousand varied forms, what words dared no longer utter, and if the two former now are mute for a while, music, that inarticulate language of the soul, still breathes forth the complaints and the aspirations of the land which has produced so many great men and accomplished such mighty deeds. Shall we believe that a nation which, at the interval of centuries has given to the world a Virgil, a Tasso, an Alfieri, a Galileo, a Columbus, can have sunk into complete intellectual decay? "Let us not insult the genius of Italy because it slumbers," said a celebrated orator.*"The immortal spark which once lighted it, may have become faint and weak, the armed heel of foreign despots may have trodden it down, 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 independence to shine forth again in all its ancient lustre." When these words were spoken Italy scarcely gave a sign of life, either national or mental; she seemed crushed, body and soul; wrapped in a sort of lethargic slumber. Since then she has awaked, and who shall deny how much there is glorious and encouraging in that awakening? Who shall deny that the Italian spirit has become strengthened by endurance, ennobled by suffering, ripened by reflection? We have only to study her literature during the last half century to 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 cpochs 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 lished by order of the provisional government, 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 contempo. rary,* 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. |