This happy peace of mind enabled him to reproduce very clearly what he observed and imagined. It is, therefore, no cause for wonder that when he devoted the powers of his mind to the production of an historical novel, he should have given a masterpiece to the world. The story is interesting. We follow the vicissitudes of the lovers with breathless attention. The subject is well fitted to the author's powers. He writes of localities among which he lived, and of times, the history of which he had profoundly studied. The descriptions never fail to be vivid and accurate, and the skill with which he masses together great events cannot be too highly extolled. Nothing could be finer than the description of the plague of Milan, and of the popular disturbances. Nor is he less admirable in the delineation of character. The portrait of the Friar would be alone sufficient to show his mastery in that line. The style has its beauties, but even in this most successful work of the Nineteenth Century we notice the same peculiarities as in his dramas; the characters say what they ought to say, but they do not always say it in a striking manner. Little as he resembled Leopardi, he was like him in a certain indifference to ornament which sometimes degenerates into poverty.
In reading Manzoni's works we become aware how much the romantic movement benefited literature. A new life is infused into prose and poetry; fresh thoughts arise in the writer's mind, and the wretched conventionalities of phraseology are done away with for ever.
Above praise though the Promessi Sposi may be, it is not possible to extol Manzoni very highly as a poet. With the exception of the magnificent Cinque Maggio, his lyrics do not glow with vivid fire, nor do they haunt the reader with their melody. The extremely comfortable circumstances of the poet's life prevented him from being torn with passion and harrowed by despair. His genius had nothing wild or impetuous about it to spur him on to a passionate outpour of song. Nor had he the gaiety of convivial, or the acrimony of satirical, verse. Therefore, it is not strange that he has left us nothing quite worthy of his renown in the lyric line, always excepting the poem on the death of Napoleon.
His powers of versification are not very remarkable. He is deficient in the delicate cadences of a truly great poet. His blank verse has a tendency to become flat. His rhymes are stronger, but the metre, though effective, is not modulated and varied with the consummate skill that can alone satisfy a cultivated ear. But all his poems are the emanation of a truly noble mind, and if we search the pages of Manzoni, whether in his prose or in his verse, for lofty thoughts and elevating influence, we can truly say that we never search in vain.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
SILVIO PELLICO.
A work hardly inferior in popularity to the Promessi Sposi was Le Mie Prigioni, an account of all that he suffered in Austrian prisons, by Silvio Pellico.