passport, and I have had it legitimately from those who could give it; we wish to pass, and by Heaven, we will pass!’”

The crowd was surprised, and before they had recovered Alfieri and the Countess had driven past the barriers and were safely on their way. They had left Paris none too soon. Two days later the same authorities that had granted the passports confiscated the horses, furniture, and books that Alfieri had left behind in Paris and declared both the Countess and Alfieri refugee aristocrats. The fact that they were both foreigners appeared to be of no importance. It was well that they had gone. The Countess was too illustrious a personage to have escaped for long the fury of the fast-gathering mob, and had she been lost Alfieri would have shared her fate.

Florence thenceforth became the home of the Countess and of Alfieri. He wrote desultorily, commenting upon what he had seen in France, but for the most part devoted himself to a study of the classics. In 1795, when he was forty-six years of age, he started to learn Greek, and was so fired with the desire that in a short time he had added an intimate knowledge of Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to that he already had of the Latin authors. He was so much interested in the “Alcestis” of Euripides that he wrote an original drama based on the same theme. He was described at this time as of a tall and commanding figure, with a face of intelligence, and the look of one born to command, rather than obey. His forehead was broad and lofty; his red hair fell in thick masses around it.

The restless youth had changed to a methodical, studious man, he arranged his day by rule, and followed that rule exactly. Only one event disturbed him, and that was the occupation of Florence by French troops. He had distrusted the French while he lived among them, now when they came to hold Florence in subjection his hatred of tyranny bade him despise them. He refused to receive the call of the French general who, having read his works, was anxious to meet him. On the correspondence which passed between them in reference to this matter Alfieri wrote, “Dialogue between a lion in a cage, and his crocodile guardian.”

When he had fled from France he had been compelled to leave some of his printed works behind him, and he was now in fear lest their appearance and eager appeal for liberty should seem to ally him with the Revolutionary cause. Above all things he condemned the French Revolution. To avoid this possibility he now advertised in the Italian papers a disclaimer, warning the public against any edition of his writings except such as he himself issued. With this formal announcement he had to be content.

Alfieri had determined to write no more tragedies, and turned to composition of comedies, of which he had six nearly completed when his health failed. He rested for a time and then resumed his methodical life of study and work. He was advised to give himself more recreation, but was too obstinate to adopt any plan but his own. His health gave way again, and neglecting the physician’s advice, he tried to minister to his own illness. Gradually he grew weaker, and on October 3, 1803, he died. He was buried in the Florentine church of Santa Croce, and his monument, carved by Canova, rises between the tombs of Michael Angelo and Machiavelli. An inscription states by whom the memorial was erected. “Louisa, Princess of Stolbergh, Countess of Albany, to Vittorio Alfieri of Asti, 1810.” In 1824 she was buried in Santa Croce.

In his will Alfieri left everything to the Countess. Their love had grown deeper with time. She wrote to a friend, “You know, by experience, what it is to lose a person with whom we have lived for twenty-six years, who has never given us a moment of displeasure, whom we have always adored, respected, and venerated.” Each, tormented alone, had found happiness finally in their united life.

What was Alfieri’s part in the growth of that spirit which was preparing to set Italy free? Why did Mazzini later point him out as one of the great sources of inspiration for his “Young Italy”? We must remember that literature and the drama are more closely related to Italian public opinion than they are with us, that the appearance of a new book or play is often a vital subject to a ministry. What the people read they felt, and it was Alfieri who first showed them the immorality of national servitude. One of his best critics has said that when Alfieri first turned his glance toward the Italian stage, it presented anything but a hopeful aspect. “The degradation of a people enslaved under a foreign yoke, and without political life, could not fail to make itself felt in the theater as in the more extended arena of public affairs. No high effort of mind could be born amid such circumstances. A stage without authors soon ceases to have actors. When actors and authors both are wanting an audience will not easily be found. Thus it was, thus it had been in Italy through many troubled years. The opera,—the seductive, but enervating opera,—carried to great perfection by Metastasio, was almost alone in possession of the popular taste.... Alfieri’s first thought was to improve the taste of his countrymen, by blending the amusement they were accustomed to with something better.... Instead of attempting reform by easy stages, he determined to attempt everything at once.... It was something more than an improvement of the stage that he attempted; it was the improvement of his countrymen; the regeneration of his country!... Throughout nearly all his tragedies and his prose works, the leading idea by which he was animated stood plainly out. Several pieces he specially calls tragedies of liberty. They well deserve the name. He never tired in his denunciations of tyranny, in his invectives against oppression. These were themes upon which the more he spoke, the more eloquent he became.”

The dramas themselves, built in strict accordance with the three unities of classic taste, may seem strangely stiff and unemotional to us, but they carried an immense appeal to the Italian of the last century. They spoke a new voice and stirred a new spirit in their hearers. The voice once heard, the spirit once born, the new idea grew rapidly. Within a few years after Alfieri’s death eighteen editions of his works had passed through the press. Two great theaters, one at Milan and one at Bologna, were built by men eager to present his tragedies. The influence of his writings was tremendous; the minds of Italians from Piedmont to Sicily were stirred to a higher pitch than they had been for many centuries.

Alfieri’s character had many defects, at best his life was unmoral, but having regard to the society into which he was born and the early training he received, more was scarcely to be looked for. He was passionate, reckless, and untutored in all self-control, yet he harnessed himself to a work which possessed his fancy and in its service became the devotee of study and control. Like his life his writings lack peace and broad philosophy, but on the other hand they gain from his peculiar nature a certain domineering force. Giuseppe Arnaud in his criticism on the patriotic poets of Italy says, “Whoever should say that Alfieri’s tragedies, in spite of many eminent merits, were constructed on a theory opposed to grand scenic effects and to one of the two bases of tragedy, namely, compassion, would certainly not say what was far from the truth. And yet, with all this, Alfieri will still remain the dry, harsh blast which swept away the noxious miasmas with which the Italian air was infected. He will still remain that poet who aroused his country from its dishonorable slumber, and