and labors of thirty years," says the Abbate, "recurred to him, and
what was yet more wonderful, he repeated in order, from memory, a good
number of Greek verses from the beginning of Hesiod, which he had read
but once. These he said over to the Signora Contessa, who sat by his
side, but it does not appear, for all this, that there ever came to
him the thought that death, which he had been for a long time used to
imagine near, was then imminent. It is certain at least that he made
no sign to the contessa though she did not leave him till morning.
About six o'clock he took oil and magnesia without the physician's
advice, and near eight he was observed to be in great danger, and the
Signora Contessa, being called, found him in agonies that took away
his breath. Nevertheless, he rose from his chair, and going to the
bed, leaned upon it, and presently the day was darkened to him, his
eyes closed and he expired. The duties and consolations of religion
were not forgotten, but the evil was not thought so near, nor haste
necessary, and so the confessor who was called did not come in time."
D'Azeglio relates that the confessor arrived at the supreme moment,
and saw the poet bow his head: "He thought it was a salutation, but it
was the death of Vittorio Alfieri."


II

I once fancied that a parallel between Alfieri and Byron might be
drawn, but their disparities are greater than their resemblances, on
the whole. Both, however, were born noble, both lived in voluntary
exile, both imagined themselves friends and admirers of liberty,
both had violent natures, and both indulged the curious hypocrisy of
desiring to seem worse than they were, and of trying to make out a
shocking case for themselves when they could. They were men who hardly