The National Quarterly Review

ART. I.-1. Vita di Vittorio Alfieri, scritta da esso. Milano, 1848. 2. Dissertazione in lode di Vittorio Alfieri. SERAFICO GRASSI. Turin. 3. Biografia di Vittorio Alfieri e delle sue opere. Napoli, 1835. 4. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Alfieri. Written by Himself.

5. Tragedie di Vittorio Alfieri da Asti.

6. The Tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri. LLOYD. London.

Milano.

Translated by CHARLES

7. Euvres dramatiques d'Alfieri traduites en français, par CI.. B. PELITOT. Paris.

THERE is no germ more uncertain in its development than that of genius. Perhaps in the majority of instances it lies dormant forever. Even those who have immortalized themselves by their intellectual productions have in general realized the possession of the divine gift only by accident. This is particularly true of poets. There is scarcely one of the first rank who commenced to write poetry until prompted by some strong passion. So far as is known, it was the indignation of Shakespeare at being arrested for poaching that led him to court the muses. Dante, Tasso, Petrarch, Milton, Spenser, and a host of others, found their inspiration in love.

Most of the other passions have, in turn, served to vivify the germ. Thus, it was pride that made a poet of Alfieri, whose life and works will form the subject of the present paper. Until actuated by the love of distinction, none of

his contemporaries seemed less poetical than he; none to possess less claim to genius; those most disposed to form a favorable estimate of his character regarded his talents as below mediocrity. Nine out of ten of those who knew him in youth gave him credit for no talent that would ever benefit himself or others; nor was his own opinion much more favorable until he began to reflect how pleasant it would be to gain distinction by the labors of the intellect. At first this was but a vague notion; it does not appear that he cared much how the distinction was to be obtained; whether as an historian, an orator, or a poet. He would like to be a Sallust or a Livy, a Cicero or a Cæsar, although he knew but little about any of those great thinkers except from hearsay. As for poetry, it does not seem that he had any taste for it until he became acquainted with French and began to read some works in that language merely for pastime.

He has given us a full account of his life in his Autobiography; * he has, indeed, told us many things which it had been better he had suppressed. His confessions reveal quite as much vice as those of Rousseau, and are far more injurious. The reason of this will sufficiently appear as we proceed. Vittorio Alfieri was born at Asti, in Piedmont, on the 17th of January, 1749-the same year in which Goethe, whom he resembled in more than one feature of his character, also first saw the light. He tells us himself that his parents were "noble, opulent, and wealthy;" but he omits to add that both were illiterate, or nearly so. His father, Antonio, was a nobleman of high rank; and his mother, Monica Maillard di Tournon, was a descendant of a highly respectable Savoyard family. The Count was fiftyfive years of age when he married this lady, who, though quite young at the time, was the widow of the Marquis di Cacherano. At the time of Vittorio's birth his father was sixty years of age. The child having been entrusted to a nurse within two miles of Asti, the fond parent went daily on foot to visit him, careless of the state of the weather, until, being over-heated on one occasion, he caught cold, from which he died in a few days, before the future poet was quite a year old. The influence of all these circumstances are fully described by Alfieri. "Noble birth," he says "was of great service to me in after times, for it enabled me, without incurring the imputation of base and invidious motives,

* Vita di Vitt. Alfieri, scritta da esso.

to disparage nobility for its own sake, to unveil its follies, its abuses, and crimes, while its salutary influence prevented me from ever dishonoring the noble art I professed."

Whether it has had this last effect has often been questioned; nor can the question be very satisfactorily answered at the present day, except it be admitted that it is not dishonorable to violate the confidence of generous friends-female as well as male-sometimes publicly boasting of inflicting irreparable injury on families who had deserved nothing but kindness and good-will. But, without enlarging on this point for the present, let us see what he thought of his other advantages. "Opulence," he says, "made me free and incorruptible to serve only truth. The integrity of my parents never made me feel ashamed that I was born of noble blood. Had either of these things been wanting to my birth it would have lessened the virtue of my works, and I should probably have been either a poor philosopher or a worse man." This shows the spirit in which the autobiography is written; and it is for this purpose-not for its truthfulness-we quote it, since far greater geniuses and benefactors of mankind than Alfieri have been born in poverty and obscurity. But if our author is far more egotistic and boastful than he is judicious or moral in his account of his own life, he is not the less attractive in it to the general reader; for there is no other autobiography of a literary man -not excepting that of Rousseau-more full of romance and at the same time more devoid of all passion, save the ruling one of elevating himself above all others, careless whom he may offend or injure in doing so.

When about six years old his mother placed him under the care of a priest named Don Ivaldi. It is evident, from his own account, that the good father treated him kindly and faithfully. In the brief period of three years he taught him writing and arithmetic, and advanced him in Latin so far that he was able to translate Cornelius Nepos and Phædrus. But what the honest Padre receives for his pains at the hands of his pupil is to be handed down to posterity as an ignoramus so stupid that had Alfieri remained under his tuition any longer the probability was that he would have made him an irreclaimable dunce.

He was not long from under the care of Ivaldi, however, when he was seized by that melancholy which, he says, never entirely left him afterwards. While laboring under one of its attacks, when a mere child, he attempted to commit suicide.

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