His mode of writing his tragedies shows, indeed, how spontaneous was his conception of the action of a piece, how mechanical the effort by which he clothed it in verse. He was accustomed to throw off the design of the intended action in a sketch of a few pages, and then to lay it by: after an interval, he read this sketch, and, if it pleased him, he arranged the plot into acts, and scenes, and speeches, putting down every idea that presented itself, and the whole in prose; and again he put aside his labour for future consideration. If, on reading it over, he felt his imagination warmed and excited, and the ideas renew themselves in his mind vividly and forcibly, then he completed his work by versifying it. This is not the routine which a genuine poet follows: something of the improvisatore's art is inherent in him, and he writes "in numbers, for the numbers come."
"Philip" was the first of Alfieri's tragedies: it was originally written in French prose; and he was so well pleased with its conduct, that he was never weary of composing and recomposing it in Italian verse, till he was satisfied that the language was equal in vigour to the ideas it expressed. The subject of "Philip" is the death of don Carlos, prince of Spain; and the contrast of character in the three principal persons is finely conceived and well executed. There is the obdurate, deceitful, cruel tyrant. His son, educated near him, in perpetual fear and suspicion, is never his dupe: he sees through all his subterfuges, and perceives the snares laid for him in his pretended mercies; and love, while it causes him to expose himself to his father's vengeance, only renders him doubly watchful and cautious. Isabella, on the contrary, a daughter of France, at the same time that, from feminine delicacy, she is more restrained in her feelings, yet is unsuspicious, unguarded, and ready to give credit to the professions of those around. Her heart opens itself readily to hope; while that of her lover is impassive to every delusion, and he regards with terror and grief the peril to which, in her generous trustingness of nature, she heedlessly exposes herself.
As the genius of Alfieri led him to depict the passions in their simplest though most energetic form, unaccompanied by the influence of manners, the metaphysical subtleties of Shakspeare, or the wild, but deeply interesting intricacy of plot of Calderon and our old dramatists, so classical subjects were treated by him with peculiar felicity. "Agamemnon" and "Orestes" are among his best dramas: the dignity and tenderness of Electra, the remorse and struggles of Clytemnestra, and the haughty, rash disposition of Orestes, have more of truth, of nature, and grace than is to be found among any modern tragedies on similar subjects: but this very simplicity becomes, to a certain degree, baldness in modern subjects; and though the conspiracy of the "Pazzi" was written, he says, with a delirious enthusiasm for liberty, there is a want of developement and relief that renders it more like the sketch of a tragedy, than one filled out in all its parts. "Virginia," equally pregnant with the spirit of liberty, has more grace and more pathos.
While the mind of Alfieri was thus fully occupied by the composition of his dramas, he was happy in the enjoyment of the friendship and love of the persons dearest to him in the world. He was the amico di casa of the countess of Albany; that is, he spent his evenings in her society, and attended her in mornings during her visits and excursions: he kept up a constant correspondence with Gori, at Siena; and the abbate Caluso, the friend who had first awakened his desire for literary composition, many years before, at Lisbon, and to whom he was warmly attached, came from Turin, and spent a whole year at Florence, that he might enjoy his society. But the tranquil course of happiness is seldom allowed to human beings, especially when they feel and acknowledge their perfect well-being, and repose content on the accomplishment of their desires. The conduct of the unfortunate prince, who was the countess of Albany's husband, poisoned every enjoyment, and, at last, forced his wife to separate herself from him. Given up to the most degrading vice,—in his drunken fits his ferocity and madness endangered her life, and she lived night and day, haunted by the terror inspired by his outrages. Alfieri exerted himself to obtain permission from the government for their separation; and, that being obtained, she retired to a convent in Florence, and afterwards, under the sanction of the pope, she removed to another convent at Rome.
Alfieri found that thus he had succeeded in saving the life of his friend; but the separation necessary to prevent any injurious opinions being formed as to the motives of his interference, was a cruel reward for his exertions. Florence grew hateful to him in her absence; he became incapable of every occupation, and his whole thoughts were bent on contriving their re-union: it was matter of difficulty, but not insuperable to his earnest endeavours. After some months, the pope allowed her to quit her convent, and to take up her abode in the palace of cardinal York; and Alfieri, having already quitted Florence and spent some time at Naples, ventured at last to fix himself at Rome also, having, as he tells us, paid court, made visits, and employed a thousand servile and humiliating arts, from which his nature revolted, to obtain the sufferance of the pope for his residence in the same city as the countess. No honours, no glory, no worldly advantage, could have induced him to submit to what he considered the excess of meanness and degradation; love alone exalted the debasement in his eyes.
Now again he was happy: he lived at the villa Strozzi, near the baths of Dioclesian. He spent the long mornings in study, never leaving his house except to ride over the solitary and uncultivated country around Rome, whose immense and lonely expanse invited him to reverie and poetic composition. He spent the evenings with the countess, retiring at eleven to his tranquil home, which, divided from all others, rural though in the city, and surrounded by objects of antique grandeur and natural beauty, was an abode such as Rome only in the world can afford, and peculiarly adapted to the noble poet's temper, character, and occupations.
His imagination received its happiest inspirations during this period. Besides continual labour on his former compositions, he wrote the tragedies of "Merope" and "Saul," both conceived and executed with a fervour of inspiration that allowed him no pause between the various operations into which he divided the composition of a tragedy. The "Merope" was written in a sort of indignant burst, to prove that the tragedy of Maffei on the subject, could be easily surpassed. The "Saul" emanated from reading the Bible, in the study of which he at that time occupied himself, and which awoke in him a desire to write several dramas on scriptural subjects; had it not been that, fond of forming resolutions and of adopting voluntary chains, since he cast away and abhorred all others, he had determined to limit his tragedies to twelve. The "Saul" and "Merope" caused him to exceed this number by two; but he would not be allured to go beyond.
The "Saul" is, there can be little question, the chef-d'oeuvre of Alfieri: character forms the basis of the interest, and the situations are deeply pathetic. Saul, in some degree, reminds the reader of king Lear. The Hebrew king is not, like Shakspeare's dethroned monarch, thrust from his state, and turned out by his children, a victim to the pitiless elements, and, more bitter still, the sense of undeserved injury from those whose duty it was to foster and shelter him. The children of Saul, and his son-in-law David, surround him with protestations of duty and a heartfelt wish to soothe him by their affection and care; but he is struck by God; prosperity has departed from his house, victory from his banner; and his vacillating reason discerns rebellion and dethronement in the very submissions of those around him. He struggles with the sense of ill fortune, and the sad consciousness of the occasional aberrations of his intellect; now lamenting the days of his prosperous youth, now melted to tenderness by the caresses of his children; and again, seized upon by suspicion, envy, and pride, he wildly and madly casts from him every support and hope, to find himself, in the end, alone, defeated, lost; till in a transport of shame and despair, he ends a life so tarnished and abhorrent. "Saul" is the best of Alfieri's tragedies; and, if we were called upon to point out his best scene, we should select the second act of that play.
1782.
Ætat.
33.
Alfieri felt proud and happy when he had completed his fourteen tragedies. "That month of October," he writes, "was memorable to me, since I enjoyed a repose no less delicious than necessary, after so much labour: full to the brim of vainglory, I breathed no word of my achievements to any but myself, and, with a sort of veiled moderation, to her I loved; who, through her affection for me, probably, seemed well inclined to believe that I was capable of being a great man, and always encouraged me to do all I could to become one." His works, also, were becoming known. A few of the nobility of Rome formed themselves into a company, and acted his "Antigone," in which he took the part of Creon: the representation was crowned with success. He was, besides, in the habit of reading his tragedies in society, partly for the sake of the mute criticism displayed by the attention and interest they excited in his audience; and, under the superintendence of his friend Gori, four among his dramas were printed at Siena.