urged Napoleon to separate the mitre from the crown, and to make the legislators, soldiers, magistrates, exclusively Italian. "Create Italian independence," he says, "both for our welfare and your own glory." Towards the close of the same year, Foscolo published "Jacopo Ortis," his first romance known in Italy, which he himself calls "the book of my heart; a work in which I pourtray the times and myself." It is the life history of a noble passionate soul. Superficial critics, seeing only that it is a tale of love and suicide, have styled it an imitation of Werther. But the independent merits of the work must at least be placed apart—its terribly faithful delineation of the mysteries of the human heart, its Turner-like pictures of Italian life and scenery, its keen insight into the sorrows, the divisions, the slavery of a great people. The literary history of this work throws some light on what some will consider a moral blemish. The letters of "Jacopo Ortis" were real letters, written by Foscolo to a friend, about the period of the treaty of Campo Formio, when, so far from yielding to the temptation of suicide, he buried his sorrows in labours in the service of his country. Afterwards he thought of publishing them, but an unscrupulous publisher thought fit to send forth a mutilated edition, containing only such portions as would not be too offensive to the authorities, under the title of "The true History of two unhappy Lovers." Foscolo compelled the offender to acknowledge the fraud, and set himself to restore the work to its original shape. It was not until now that he read Werther, and, as he tells us in the preface to the second edition, borrowed a suggestion as to form; viz., to address all the letters to one person, for the sake of giving greater unity to the work. Beyond the outward coincidence, it seems hard to discover the parallelism. The work was translated into Italian, German, French, and English, and, together with the famous letter to Napoleon, first gave Foscolo a European reputation.
In 1803 Foscolo published a translation of Callimachus' De Comâ Berenices, which he dedicates to Gio. Battista Niccolini. In the following year he was compelled to leave Italy with the Italian division of the army of Boulogne, and his letters abundantly show the zeal with which his military duties were fulfilled. It was at this time that he translated Sterne, and towards the end of 1805 he returned to Italy, and undertook the republication of Montecucculi's military works. Then he retired to Brescia to finish his great poem, "I Sepolcri;" a monument in words—since the Lombards had denied any other—to the memory of the patriot poet, Parini. Next followed a translation of the first book of the Iliad, executed in the spirit of a true poet. In 1808 he accepted the vacant chair of eloquence at Pavia, and chose as the subject of his opening address, "The origin and office of Literature." His classes were frequented by crowds of Italian youth. His last lecture was on "Literary morality," and he took affectionate leave of his students, bidding them remember that the "chief use of literature is to nourish constancy of soul." The professorship being suppressed, Foscolo retired to the lake of Como to write the life of Machiavelli; to continue his poem, "Le Grazie;" and to finish his tragedy, "Agace," represented at the theatre della Scala in Milan, 9th December, 1811. Driven from Milan, he went to Florence, and there completed his third and last tragedy, "Ricciardi," performed at Bologna in September, 1813. But the political events of 1814 drove Foscolo, as he himself says, "almost mad." The last public use he made of his pen was to write the address of the civic guard of Milan to General Macfarlane—"A last plea for national unity." When the treaty of Vienna handed over Venetian Lombardy to Austria, Foscolo, called on to swear allegiance to the emperor, departed for Switzerland, never more to behold his loved Italy. He left behind him a manly letter to General Fiquelmont, which, however, was never delivered. Calumny at this time was rife. It was said that he had secretly sold himself to Austria, and that he was fleeing from his creditors. To his brothers, and one or two friends, he vindicated his integrity in touching words; and then, threatened with blindness, persecuted by the Swiss republic at the bidding of Austria, he penned his magnificent "Discorsi sulla servitù d'ltalia," the motto of which is, "To make Italy, the sections must be unmade." The tone of these discourses is that of a man who feels he has no other means left of serving his country, than by shaping his own life so as to be an example to other men. In 1816, compelled to leave Switzerland, Foscolo betook himself to England, and henceforth his life was one of literary exile, not only from his native land, but from those higher spheres of literature in which he had hitherto dwelt. Welcomed by Sir William Rose, with whom he had contracted a friendship in Italy, he was speedily recognized by the literary leaders of the day, Lord John Russell, Lord Holland, Samuel Rogers, and others, as a worthy expounder of his country's literature. Henceforth the demand on him was for criticism, rather than for the creations of his own genius; but criticism like his no other Italian, perhaps, has ever achieved. He commenced his labours for the Quarterly, the Edinburgh, and other reviews; but a severe illness attacked him just in time to render more desperate the struggle with poverty which now commenced. On the death of his mother in May, 1817, he seems to have felt that nothing remained to bind him to life; and at this time he contemplated going to the Ionian Isles, there to aid in the formation of a literary institution. But a fall from a horse, and afterwards the impossibility of obtaining a passport, prevented him from taking this step. While suffering from the accident just named, he wrote his two first articles on "Italian Literature in the thirteenth century," and on Dante, for the Edinburgh, No. lviii. In his letters to the Donna Gentile, we find him building bright visions of earning by this labour, in a few years, a sum sufficient to carry out his darling plan of publishing the Italian classics, with critical and biographical elucidations, and with special reference to the political causes which have swayed the history of literature. His fortunes, in a pecuniary sense, were far different; but though embarrassed by debt, he was never disgraced thereby. His favourite poem, "Le Grazie"—a marvellous echo of the old Greek rhythm, pressed into the service of nobler and newer conceptions—was resumed; but, at his death, he left it incomplete. More pressing work occupied his time. In 1818, Signor G. Maurojanni invited him to write the history of the fortunes and cession of Parga. He expended on the preparation of this work above £300. He employed facts and documents which had been communicated to him by friends, some of them many years before, and others recently. After the book had been printed, to use Foscolo's own words, "the revolutions improvised by the Spaniards and Italians provoked the Holy Alliance to amplify by still more violent tyranny the application of its dogma, and induced me to suppress it." He had good reason to fear that his friends who had furnished the information might suffer, and this natural explanation suffices of itself to refute the stupid calumny, that he was bribed by Lord Castlereagh to withhold the book, which now forms the fifth volume of his works. Although pressed by creditors at this time, he thus incurred a debt of £161 to the publisher, Murray. 'His letter to Lord John Russell, to whom the book is dedicated, accompanying the unfinished sheets, sets at rest the wretched calumny, which has been too readily received even by such men as Tommaseo. Another accusation, equally base, may here be noticed—that of having palmed off on Lord Holland spurious productions as genuine letters of Petrarch; the fact being that the letters in question had been in Lord Holland's possession many years before Foscolo saw them. Between 1819 and 1822 he wrote an article on Petrarch, printed privately; another for the Quarterly Review, January, 1820; and later, an essay "On Petrarch," with beautiful translations of the sonnets by Lady Dacre (Murray). In 1822 his daughter by an English lady in Flanders, was restored to him; and her cheerful, loving service, tended not a little to brighten the dreary struggle with debt and difficulty, from which he only extricated himself a few months before his death. In 1823 he gave a series of lectures on Italian literature, and the whole of the proceeds, about £770, went to his creditors. It is not always that literary poverty affords so little ground for the vulgar sneer as in Foscolo's case. His difficulties arose, first from the dissipation of his own little property, and his daughter's, owing to his exile; then from the suppression of the book above alluded to; and lastly, from the failure of three successive publishers to pay his hard-earned pittance. Although compelled to pay largely for the translation of his articles into English, he struggled, and successfully, to avoid the degradation of receiving aid even from those who would have felt honoured in bestowing it; and his last words, written shortly before his death, show that he died free from debt, and left his beloved daughter not quite helpless. In his favourite residence, Digamma cottage on the Thames, after his creditors had sold off the furniture, he wrote a preface for a new edition of Homer, which, unhappily, is lost; an article on the lyric poems of Tasso; one on Michelangelo; one on Federigo
