unless there is some change." At another time he said, "I am surrounded
with difficulties, and must yield either life or honour; and can you ask
me which I will give up?" I have now before me a letter of Foscolo's,
which, after enumerating a long series of evils, concludes thus:--"Thus,
if I have not underwent the doom of Tasso, I owe it only to the strength
of my nerves that have preserved me."

The following sonnet was written by Ugo Foscolo, in English, and
accompanied the Essays on Petrarch, in the edition of that work which
was printed for private circulation. It was omitted when the volume was
subsequently published, and is consequently known to very few:


TO CALLIRHOE, AT LAUSANNE.

Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd.
But, oh! I wak'd.----MILTON.


I twine far distant from my Tuscan grove,
The lily chaste, the rose that breathes of love,
The myrtle leaf, and Laura's hallow'd bay,
The deathless flowers that bloom o'er Sappho's clay;
For thee, Callirhoe! yet by love and years,
I learn how fancy wakes from joy to tears;
How memory, pensive, 'reft of hope, attends
The exile's path, and bids him fear new friends.
Long may the garland blend its varying hue
With thy bright tresses, and bud ever new