In Naples and its vicinity the remainder of his life was to be passed. The natural beauties of the surrounding country were delightful to one so appreciative of their charm. His health improved after a time, and he was able to display the riches of his intellect by writing the "Paralipomeni," many detached thoughts in prose like the "Pensées" of Pascal and the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld; and, above all, his philosophic and immortal poem, the "Ginestra," of which it may be said that, had he written nothing else, his fame would be perpetuated by this production alone.

In March, 1836, he who had formerly sighed so deeply for death, and who had invoked it in such exquisite verse, felt so greatly improved in health that he imagined he had many years before him. But this was only the last flickering of the flame before it went out for ever. The cholera was raging in 1837, and the prospect of falling a victim to a mysterious and terrible disease filled him with horror. His strange aversion to the places where he lived revived with unreasonable violence. He wrote of Naples as a den of barbarous African savagery. He yearned for home, and pined for his family, and the last letter he wrote to his father—three weeks before his decease—was full of plans for returning to Recanati, as soon as his infirmities and the Quarantine would allow. But his earthly sorrows were drawing to a close, and he died suddenly at Capo di Monte, when preparing to go out for a drive, at five o'clock in the afternoon, on the fourteenth of June, 1837, aged thirty-eight years, eleven months and sixteen days.[1] "His body," says Ranieri, "saved as by a miracle from the common and confused burial-place, enforced by the Cholera Regulations, was interred in the suburban Church of San Vitale, on the road of Pozzuoli, where a plain slab indicates his memory to the visitor." He was slight and short of stature, somewhat bent, and very pale, with a large forehead and blue eyes, an aquiline nose and refined features, a soft voice, and a most attractive smile.

[1] His father survived him ten years; his sister, Paolina, thirty-two years; and his brother Carlo nearly forty-one years.

From the annals of his life we proceed to the chronicle of his glory. But to understand the poet we must have a knowledge of the man. Homer, Shakespeare, and Ariosto can be appreciated without any acquaintance with their lives and characters. It is not so with poets whose works give utterance to their subjective feelings. Even Dante requires some biographical elucidation. How much more is this the case with a writer whose originality is so pronounced, and whose views are so coloured by his own nature as to appear surprising, and at first alarming, to the reader!

If Aristotle be right in his opinion that all great geniuses are inclined to melancholy, Leopardi ought surely to be considered the greatest genius that ever lived. His gloomy view of life is expressed in every line he wrote. It draws a dark veil across the gorgeous verses to Angelo Mai; it fills the cadences of the "Ricordanze" with mysterious melody; and it appears in august repose in the meditations of the "Ginestra." Not content with giving it utterance in verse, he is sedulous to support it by reason and disquisition in prose. That there was something morbid and diseased in it can hardly be denied, even after we have made full allowances for the fact that his gloom is metaphysical and transcendental, and not strictly applied, or meant to apply to the every-day occurrences of life. But we must go further and enquire how it came that a man of such powers of intellect yielded to this tendency.

I think several explanations offer themselves, without recurring to his physical infirmities, a solution of the problem which always gave him the deepest offence. In the first place, we must bear in mind the singular training, or, rather, absence of training, he experienced. From the age of ten he had no instructors except himself. His father's vast library quenched his thirst for knowledge; but knowledge so acquired must necessarily be, in important respects, uncertain and fragmentary. His ideas, never being contradicted, never influenced, and never softened, must gradually have obtained such a hold on his mind as to establish an eternal tyranny. An imagination of marvellous vividness and richness was fostered by the exquisite scenery of his birthplace, and allowed to prey upon itself in the undisturbed retirement of the parental abode. He informs us that in his childhood he enjoyed the most delicious visions of coming happiness. But in time the dreams were dispelled, and truth alone remained. We all have our illusions, from which we must sooner or later awake, but few of us take their loss so deeply to heart as Leopardi. And this consideration makes us aware of the fact that all his thoughts and feelings were of preternatural depth. Others might allow themselves to be diverted from the stern reality of things by trifles; but he stood face to face with Nature, and saw the revelation of all her Gorgon terrors:

"Natura, illaüdabil maraviglia,
Che per uccider partorisci e nutrì!"
"Nature, thou marvel that I cannot praise,
Who givest life in order to destroy!"

Others might allow themselves to be consoled for the loss of love by frivolous considerations; but he never overcame the longing for affection that was denied him, and his misery was unvisited by comfort:

"Giacqui: insensato, attonito,
Non dimandai conforto;
Quasi perduto e morto
Il cor s' abbandonò."

And when the bitterness of spiritual desolation rose to such a height that further endurance was impossible, his only prayer was for death: