ing, the heart of so impassioned a character should not be regulated by principles of greater consistency. In many other poets this defect might pass unobserved; but circumstances have thrown the fullest light upon the versatility of Monti, and his glory, as a poet, is attached to works which display him in continual opposition to himself. Writing in the midst of the various Italian revolutions, he has constantly chosen political subjects for his compositions, and he has successively celebrated opposite parties, in proportion to their success. Let us suppose, in his justification, that he composes as an improvisatore, and that, his feelings, becoming highly excited by the given theme, he seizes the political ideas it suggests, however foreign they may be to his individual sentiments.*[1] In these political poems, the object and purport of which are so different, the invention and manner are, perhaps, but too similar. The Basvigliana, or Poem on the Death of Basville, is the most celebrated; but, since its appearance, it has been discovered that Monti, who always imitated Dante, has now also very frequently imitated himself.
Hugh Basville was the French Envoy, who was put to death at Rome by the people, for attempting, at the beginning of the Revolution, to excite a sedition against the Pontifical government. Monti, who was then the poet of the Pope, as he has since been of the Republic, supposes, that, at the moment of Basville's death, he is saved, by a sudden repentance, from the condemnation which his philosophical principles had merited. But, as a punishment for his guilt, and a substitute for the pains of Purgatory, he is
- ↑ * The observation of a French author (le Censeur du Dictionnaire des Girouettes) on the general versatility of poets, seems so peculiarly appropriate to the character of Monti, that it might almost be supposed to have been written for the express purpose of such an application —"Le cerveau d'un poète est d'une cire molle et flexible, où s'imprime naturellement tout ce qui le flatte, le séduit, et l'alimente. La muse du chant n'a pas de parti; c'est une étourdie sans consequence qui folâtre également et sur de riches gazons et sur d'arides bruyères. Un poète en délire chante indifferemment Titus et Thamasp, Louis 12me, et Cromwell, Christine de Swède, et Fanchon la Vielleuse."
