When boyhood was passed, Foscolo was sent to the university of Padua, and studied under Cesarotti. There was great dissimilarity in the tastes and literary opinions of the master and pupil; and thus Foscolo soon displayed his original and independent turn of mind. Cesarotti explained and commented upon Homer, and undertook at the same time to emend and improve the verses of the father of poetry. He preferred Voltaire to Euripides, and Ossian to Homer. While a great portion of ridicule attaches itself to such paradoxes, the real learning and extensive reading of the professor benefited his scholars; and by liberating them from the narrow system of instruction which had subsisted for many years, he introduced them, as it were, from the paled and guarded park of classical literature, to the wilds, the moors, the incult mountains, in short, to all the vast variety of unfettered nature.
Foscolo, though taught by the advocate of Ossian, was all his life a worshipper of Homer. Studious, as well as ardent in his literary pursuits, he became a critical scholar; and, admiring not only Greek poetry, but the fabric and machinery which constitute its structure, he modelled his own poetic productions on them, and made ancient mythology, and allusions to classical history, the props as well as the ornaments of his verses. At the same time he admitted Cesarotti's rules with regard to the Italian language, and abandoned the dialect of the Trecentisti,—so long held up as a model, and yet which had become a dead tongue,—to form an animated, simple, living language, introducing into it phrases and words of modern use; expressions for ever on the lips of the Italians, though heretofore banished from their pens.
We are told that, on leaving college, Foscolo hesitated whether to enter the clerical profession, which held out the prospect of competency to its followers; but he was fortunately turned aside from a profession whose narrow rules and arbitrary laws were in direct opposition to his impetuous and independent disposition. Instead of assuming the tonsure, Foscolo resolved to follow in the steps of Alfieri, and to acquire fame as a tragedian. 1797.
Ætat.
19. He produced his drama of "Thyestes" at the early age of nineteen; and it may be said to be a creditable production for a youth. It is from his after works that we judge that it was not inexperience, but an absolute defect of a certain species of talent, that made this boy's tragedy a mere bald imitation of those of his illustrious predecessor. Alfieri was not a fanciful poet; his talent lay in developing plot, animating dialogue, and interesting the reader by the clash of passion, or the concentrated feelings of a single person. Foscolo possessed far more of the peculiar spirit of poetry; but it was of didactic poetry. He could not invent incident, nor describe any feelings but such as originated in his own heart. "Thyestes," founded on one of the domestic crimes of the unfortunate house of Pelops, possesses all the faults of Alfieri's tragedies. He imitated him in producing only a few personages on the scene; so that, as a critic observes, it seems as if it were written just after the deluge, when the human race congregated by threes and fours: obscurity of plot is added to this simplicity of action, and the purpose and aim of the poet is never clearly discerned. One scene follows another, not because produced by the antecedent one, but because it is necessary that something should be said and done, or all would be at a full stop. The language is clear and energetic; but, as we are uninterested by the ideas which it conveys, this must appear a very secondary merit.
"Thyestes," however, succeeded in the theatre; and, as success in representation is certainly the test of dramatic merit, we might suppose some latent energy in its concoction, unapparent to the reader, but that its success appears to have arisen from political feeling. It was acted for the first time on January 4. 1797, in the theatre of St. Angelo at Venice, to a vast concourse of spectators, and was repeated with applause for nine consecutive nights. The extreme youth of the author filled the audience with admiration, and he was called for after the representation. We cannot well discern the political allusions that gave it its chief interest, except that the name of king and tyrant are made synonymous; a style, it might be imagined, neither distasteful nor injurious to a republican government, however aristocratic. It would appear, however, that this avidity for liberal sentiments was the cause of its temporary success; for it was never again acted on any stage in Italy.
Adversity meanwhile was hanging over the head of the poet. The fall of Venice, which occurred in the autumn of the same year, deprived him of the very name of country. Hatred of the Austrian is a sentiment profoundly engraved in every Italian heart; and when Venice was made over by treaty to the German despot, Foscolo became a voluntary exile. Whether he was in danger of being marked out in any of the lists of proscription does not appear; but as it is evident that he is the hero of his "Letters of Jacopo Ortis," we gather from that book, that his friends feared for his personal liberty if he remained, and besought him to shelter himself, while there was yet time, from the enmity of the new government. "I have left Venice," Ortis writes, "to avoid the first and most violent persecutions. How many victims remain! We Italians ourselves bathe our hands in Italian blood. Let what will happen to me! Since I despair of good, either for myself or my country, I can await in tranquillity a prison or death."
All these letters are full of the indignant struggles, and the sorrow, as well as of the opinions which ruled the heart of Foscolo, as he found himself driven a wanderer from his home, sometimes lamenting his own misfortunes, sometimes those of his country.
"How many of our fellow-citizens repent their flight from home," he writes, "and mourn! for what can we expect except indigence and indignity—or, at the best, that brief and sterile compassion which uncivilised nations offer to the stranger exile? And where shall I seek an asylum—in Italy? Unhappy land! and can I behold those who have robbed, scorned, and sold us, and not weep with rage? Oh! if the tyrants were one only, and if the slaves were less abject, my hand would suffice. But those who now blame me for cowardice would then accuse me of crime; and the prudent would lament over, not the heroism of one resolved, but the frenzy of a desperate man. What can be done between two powerful nations, who, from being sworn, ferocious, and eternal enemies, colleague to enslave us? and where force alone does not avail, the one cajoles us with the name of liberty, the other with that of religion; and we, debased by ancient servitude and new-born licence, groan, betrayed, enslaved, famished, and yet not roused, either by treason or famine. Ah! if I could, I would destroy my house and all dear to me, and myself with them; I would leave nothing for the tyrants to triumph over. Were there not people who, to escape the Romans, robbers of the world, gave to the flames their dwellings, their wives, their children, and themselves, burying their sacred independence among the glorious ashes of their country?"
Thus passionately attached to liberty, Foscolo was not to be deluded by the false halo that then surrounded the name of Bonaparte, or by the fallacious promises of the French republican crusaders. "Another set of lovers of their country," he writes, "lament loudly. They exclaim that they are betrayed and sold; but, if they had armed themselves, they might have been conquered, but never had been betrayed; and if they had defended themselves to the last drop of blood, the conquerors could not have sold, nor would the conquered have sought to buy, them. Many of our countrymen imagine that freedom can be bought with money. They fancy that foreign nations come from a disinterested love of justice to slaughter each other mutually on our fields, for the sake of liberating Italy. But will the French, who have rendered the divine theory of public liberty execrable, become Timoleons for our sakes? Many, meanwhile, confide in the young hero, sprung from Italian blood, born where our language is spoken. But I expect nothing useful or noble from a cruel and base mind. What is it to me that he has the strength and roar of the lion, if he have the soul of a fox—and glories in it? Yes! base and cruel; nor are these epithets exaggerated. Has he not sold Venice, with open and boasted barbarity? Selim I., who caused 30,000 Circassian warriors, who had surrendered, confiding in his faith, to be massacred on the shores of the Nile; and Nadir Shah, who, in our time, massacred 300,000 Indians, are more atrocious, but less contemptible. With these eyes I saw a democratic constitution signed by the young hero; yes, it was subscribed by his own hand, and sent by Passeriano to Venice for acceptance; and at that very time the treaty of Campo Formio was already confirmed and ratified: Venice was sold; and the confidence which the hero fostered in us all, has filled Italy with proscriptions and exiles. I do not blame the reasons of state, through which nations are sold like flocks of sheep; it was ever so, and so will it ever be: but I grieve for my country, which I have lost. 'He was born Italian, and will one day regenerate his country:' others may believe this,—I never can. I replied, and shall always reply, 'Nature made him a tyrant, and a tyrant cares not for his country, nor does he possess one.'"
Ruminating on all these violent and bitter feelings, the offspring of patriotism and adversity, Foscolo took the road to Tuscany. "In this blessed land," he writes, "poetry and letters first awoke from barbarism. Wherever I turn, I behold the houses where were born, and the turf that covers, those renowned Tuscans; and I fear at every step to tread on their remains. Tuscany is a garden, its inhabitants are naturally courteous, the sky serene, and the air full of life and health; but I am not happy here. I hope always for better things on the morrow, when I shall reach another town: but to-morrow arrives, and I pass from city to city; and this state of exile and solitude grows each day more unendurable. We Italians are foreigners and exiles even in Italy; and scarcely do we leave our little native territory, than neither understanding, nor fame, nor blameless habits can shelter us; and we are lost if we endeavour to distinguish ourselves. Our very fellow-citizens look upon all Italians who are not natives of their own town, and on whose limbs the same chains do not hang, as strangers." Thus Tuscany afforded no asylum to the fugitive. He desired to see no one in Florence except Alfieri; and the retired and reserved habits of the count prevented his seeking his acquaintance. He saw him, as he describes in one of his poems, wandering silently along the most solitary bank of the Arno, gazing anxiously on earth and heaven; but, finding nothing living that could warm his heart, he took refuge in the aisles of Santa Croce, while wished-for death overspread his countenance with pallid hues."[54] The silence and the concentrated melancholy of Alfieri made a deep impression on the mind of his admirer; and Foscolo sought afterwards to imitate it in his own person, forgetful that his natural impetuosity and vehemence were very dissimilar to the gloom and pride of his model.
From Florence, Foscolo pursued his way to Milan, which was then the capital of the Cisalpine republic, and imparted its rights of citizenship to all the wandering patriots of Italy. The new republic afforded a strange spectacle: formed upon notions of Greek and Roman liberty, picked up from learned priests, mingled with modern notions of freedom, it displayed the most ridiculous anachronisms; and its members, all Italians, yet strangers to each other, and regarding with oblique looks all those born in a different city, met without amalgamating. The young found hope and life in the new stage on which they were permitted to act a part; and though ridicule and blame might be attached to many of their public actions, still the more sanguine lovers of their country hoped that, when the first springtide of enthusiasm should ebb, prudence, unanimity, and strength would be the first born of national independence. Foscolo, however, was not among those. Irascible and misanthropic, and sensitively alive to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, he saw the evils around him, and desponded.