language amongst us for that subject; so that not what he has felt, but what he has read, inspires the poet.  Love, such as it exists in Italy, by no means resembles that love which is described by our writers.  It is only in Boccacio’s romance of Fiametta, that according to the best of my recollection, there is to be found an idea of that passion, painted in truly national colours.  Our poets subtilise and exaggerate the sentiment, whilst agreeably to the real Italian character, it is a rapid and profound impression, which rather expresses itself by silent and passionate actions than by ingenious language.  In general our literature is not characteristic of our national manners[23].  We are much too modest, I had almost said too humble a nation to aspire to tragedies taken from our own history, and bearing the stamp of our own sentiments.

“Alfieri, by a singular chance, was transplanted, if I may use the expression, from ancient to modern times; he was born for action, and his destiny only permitted him to write; this constraint appears in the style of his tragedies.  He wished to make literature subservient to a political purpose; undoubtedly his object was noble, but nothing perverts the labours of the imagination so much as having a purpose.  In this nation, where certainly, some erudite scholars and very enlightened men are to be met with, Alfieri was indignant at seeing literature consecrated to no serious end, but merely engrossed with tales, novels, and madrigals.  Alfieri wished to give a more austere character to his tragedy.  He has stript it of all the borrowed appendages of theatrical effect, preserving nothing but the interest of the dialogue.  It appears to have been his wish to place the natural vivacity and imagination of the Italians in a state of penitence; he has however been very much admired for his character and the energies of his soul, which were truly great.  The inhabitants of modern Rome are particularly given to applaud the actions and sentiments of their ancient country; as if those actions and sentiments had any relation to them in their present state.

They are amateurs of energy and independence, in the same manner as they are of the fine pictures which adorn their galleries.  But it is not less true that Alfieri has by no means created what may be called an Italian theatre; that is to say, tragedies of a merit peculiar to Italy.  He has not even characterised the manners of those countries and those centuries which he has painted.  His conspiracy of the Pazzi, his Virginia, and his Philip II., are to be admired for elevation and strength of thought; but it is always the character of Alfieri, and not that of peculiar nations and peculiar times, which are to be discovered in them.  Although there be no analogy between the French genius and that of Alfieri, they resemble each other in this, that both of them give their own colouring to every subject of which they treat.”