a watchword to the future:--

_Schiavi or siam si; ma schiavi almen frementi_.

Like Foscolo's, Alfieri's life was a lesson in independence: angry at
the scant measure of freedom in Piedmont, he could never be induced to
go near his sovereign till Charles Emmanuel was staying at Florence as
a proscript. Then the poet went to pay his respects to him, and was
received with the good-humoured banter: 'Well, Signor Conte, here am
I, a king, in the condition you would like to see them all.'

Against the classical, not to say pagan, leanings of these two poets,
a reaction set in with Alessandro Manzoni, the founder of Italian
Romanticism, to which he gave an aspect differing from that which the
same movement wore in France, because he was an ardent Catholic at a
time when Christianity had almost the charm of novelty. His religious
outpourings combine the fervour of the Middle Ages with modern
expansion, and he freed the Italian language from pedantic
restrictions without impairing its dignity. It was once the fashion to
inveigh against Manzoni for, as it was said, inculcating resignation;
but he did nothing of the kind. As a young man he had sung of the
Italians as 'Figli tutti d'un solo Riscatto,' and though he was not of
those who fight either with the sword or the pen, yet that 'Riscatto'
was the dream of his youth and manhood, and the joy of his old age.
His gentleness was never contaminated by servility, and the love for
his country, profound if placid, which appears in every line of his
writings, appealed to a class that could not be reached by fiery
turbulence of thought.

In an age when newspapers have taken the place of books, it may seem