Incredulous alike of hope and fear,
Death shall bring rest and honor to my bier.

[Illustration: UGO FOSCOLO.]

Cantu thinks that Foscolo succeeded, by imitating unusual models, in
seeming original, and probably more with reference to the time in
which he wrote than to the qualities of his mind, classes him with the
school of Monti. Although his poetry is full of mythology and classic
allusion, the use of the well-worn machinery is less mechanical than
in Monti; and Foscolo, writing always with one high purpose, was
essentially different in inspiration from the poet who merchandised
his genius and sold his song to any party threatening hard or paying
well. Foscolo was a brave man, and faithfully loved freedom, and he
must be ranked with those poets who, in later times, have devoted
themselves to the liberation of Italy. He is classic in his forms, but
he is revolutionary, and he hoped for some ideal Athenian liberty for
his country, rather than the English freedom she enjoys. But we cannot
venture to pronounce dead or idle the Greek tradition, and we must
confess that the romanticism which brought into literary worship the
trumpery picturesqueness of the Middle Ages was a lapse from generous
feeling.




ALESSANDRO MANZONI


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