academic honours proffered by his native city, and tells us of the marble calmness of visage he preserved before others, when his heart was torn by conflicting passions. His stern independence was, however softened by gentler sentiments. At school he carefully concealed his superior dresses from the eyes of his less fortunate companions, and his best sympathies were excited for the King of Sardinia, whom he so contemned at home, when he saw him dethroned and in exile. He could never sell anything. Even when forced to part with his horses in travelling, he gave them to his banker or some casual acquaintance. Friendship and love were necessities of his being. Without their cheering and sustaining influences, he could not apply his mind with any success; and when deprived for a time of such genial companionship, his distress was so great that he resorted at once to his old solace-constant change of scene. In early life his attachments were variable. He was involved in a duel in London on account of an amour, and was ever flying from one place to another on the wings of passion. But as his intellectual course became settled, a similar permanency seemed to regulate his affections. The light hair and dark eyes of the countess of Albany and especially her superior mind and high tone of feeling fixed the love of Alfieri for twenty-five years, while Gori Gandinelli of Sienna, and the Abbe di Caluso of Turin, were his firm and congenial friends, from whom death alone divided. him.

Alfieri's tragedies strongly reflect his character. The personages are few and generally animated by single passions. The language is terse, direct and emphatic, and the whole style formal and impassioned. There is scarcely any attempt at delicate colouring. All is defined and abrupt. His method seems to have been to dwell upon a theme until it warmed his fancy, boldly sketch its con

ception, and then versify and elaborate it. We find scarcely any of that marvellous and delicate insight into human nature, those refined shades of character, which distinguish Shakspere. Isolated sentiments are forcibly portrayed-certain states of mind powerfully delineated, but the creations are rather in outline or relievo than naturally coloured or varied with the detail of life. Stern resolves and intense feeling find sententious and striking expression in the mouths of his heroes, but a certain phase rather than the whole sphere of their natures is presented. Impressive and elegant often to a most attractive degree is the dialogue; but little of the living interest is imparted which characterizes the best English tragedies. "If," says a distinguished critic, "the muse of Metastasio is a love-sick nymph, the muse of Alfieri is an Amazon. He gave her a Spartan education; he aimed at being the Cato of the theatre." Much of Italian modern poetry is so enervating in its tone as to possess no attraction for a Saxon mind. Alfieri introduced a new agency in this respect. No small portion of his tragedies is imbued with his own consciousness. Not only do they breathe dire anathemas against Papal usurpation and popular submission, but there is a certain. elevating energy, a strength and firmness of manner in the very style, that braces though it may sometimes chill the heart. Herein has the proud tragedian conveyed his best lesson. This hard moulding of his conceptions echoes and reflects the principles upon which he lived. His life and tragedies are the scripture of the nobler minds among the youth of Italy. From them they fortify their souls against the enslaving tendencies of despotism; and learn to aim at independence of feeling and an uncompromising course of life. Such admirers of Alfieri honour him next to Dante. They gaze with profound interest on his portrait in the Florence gallery and

the house he so long occupied on the Lung 'Arno. They walk reverently through the street which bears his name at Turin, and visit his tomb in Santa Croce, adorned by the chisel of Canova, as the shrine of liberty as well as of genius.

CRABBE.

ABOUT the period of the Gordon riots, so vividly described in Barnaby Rudge, a young man might have been observed, at the first glimmer of day, restlessly pacing to and fro on Westminster Bridge. Thus George Crabbe passed the night succeeding his application to Burke. It was the last of several appeals he had made to the distinguished men of the day, for relief from the inroads of poverty and encouragement in his devotion to the muse He felt, during those wearisome hours, that the crisis of his fate had arrived. Bravely for many months he had struggled on in the perilous career of a literary adventurer. Like so many men of genius then "gathered to the kings of thought," he had come to London with a stock of poems and a manly heart, trusting to find his way, at length, in that vast metropolis, if not to honourable distinction, at least to usefulness and competence. He had vibrated from the door of the wealthy to the bookseller's counter, from his humble lodgings to the pawnbroker's shop, and hitherto without success. His spirits were elevated and soothed, at this critical season, by the love of one who became the genial companion of his days. My heart," says one of his letters, "is humbled to all but villany, and I would live, if honestly, in any situation. ** Hope, vanity, and the muse will certainly contribute something towards a light heart; but love and the god of love can only throw a beam of glad

ness on a heavy one.". Happily his claims were recognised and his merits appreciated by Burke, and from his first interview with that generous man his prosperity dates. The early life of Crabbe was passed chiefly at a fishing village on the coast of Suffolk. Nature there was rude and sterile, his fellow beings uncultivated and almost savage, and their lives given to cheerless toil. Yet sometimes a boat's shadow on the sand or a fierce smuggler basking in the sun, would suggest images worthy of Salvator's pencil. If there was in that secluded hamlet less restraint upon human passion, its exhibition was often more affecting and suggestive. If fertile grace was wanting in the scenery, there was something grand in its desolation. It is not surprising that many years after his native spot had been abandoned,- in the bosom of his family, on a beautiful inland domain, Crabbe felt one summer day, such an irrepressible desire to behold the sea, that he suddenly mounted his horse and rode forty miles to the nearest coast. A harsh father and a kind mother, menial labour and stolen hours of desultory reading, the companionship of rough mariners and the love of a charming girl, occasional rhyming and long, solitary walks, an apprenticeship to a village Galen, and the thousand dreams that haunt the young and sanguine, divided the poet's hours. His patience, industry and cheerful temper rendered him no unworthy aspirant for the world's favour; and when fortune smiled upon him in the form of his gifted benefactor, the same regulated habits and bland philosophy that had sustained his baffled youth, led him calmly to enjoy domestic peace and poetical success. His career in the church was marked by active benevolence and a happy influence. It was his singular lot, after the lapse of twenty years passed in retirement, to re-appear both as an author and in the social circles of London. At home his books and