moreover, a better scholar and a man of truer feeling. Coming to
Venice from Zante, in 1793, he witnessed the downfall of a system
which Venetians do not yet know whether to lament or execrate; and he
was young and generous enough to believe that Bonaparte really
meant to build up a democratic republic on the ruins of the fallen
oligarchy. Foscolo had been one of the popular innovators before the
Republic perished, and he became the secretary of the provisional
government, and was greatly beloved by the people. It is related that
they were so used to his voice, and so fond of hearing it, that one
day, when they heard another reading in his place, they became quite
turbulent, till the president called out with that deliciously
caressing Venetian familiarity, _Popolo, ste cheto; Foscolo xe
rochio_! "People, be quiet; Foscolo is hoarse." While in this office,
he brought out his first tragedy, which met with great success; and
at the same time Napoleon played the cruel farce with which he had
beguiled the Venetians, by selling them to Austria, at Campo-Formio.
Foscolo then left Venice, and went to Milan, where he established
a patriotic journal, in which a genuine love of country found
expression, and in which he defended unworthy Monti against the
attacks of the red republicans. He also defended the Latin language,
when the legislature, which found time in a season of great public
peril and anxiety to regulate philology, fulminated a decree against
that classic tongue; and he soon afterward quitted Milan, in despair
of the Republic's future. He had many such fits of disgust, and in one
of them he wrote that the wickedness and shame of Italy were so great,
that they could never be effaced till the two seas covered her. There
was fighting in those days, for such as had stomach for it, in every
part of Italy; and Foscolo, being enrolled in the Italian Legion, was
present at the battle of Cento, and took part in the defense of Genoa,
but found time, amid all his warlike occupations, for literature. He