1805.
On his return to Italy, he became intimate with general Caffarelli, minister of war of the kingdom of Italy. Warmed by the recent sight of the encampment of Boulogne, he proposed to the general to make a new edition of the military works of Montecucoli, with notes. The text was furnished him by the marchese Trivulzio, and the edition was brought out with great splendour; but Foscolo is accused of having used his imagination, rather than critical acumen, in the emendation of his author.
The north of Italy was enjoying a great degree of prosperity at this time. Melzi gave encouragement to all undertakings that tended to elevate the Italian character; and literary men were held in that esteem which ensures their exerting themselves to bestow on their country the richest harvest of their talents. Foscolo, though he still held his captain's commission, was, in honour of his literary character, exempted from the toils of service; and, taking advantage of the liberty allowed him, he left Milan for a time, and took up his residence at Brescia. He resided in a small house, situated on an open hill, not far from the city. Here he was accustomed to study till sunset; and, whether alone or in company, he would recite the poetry of the ancients, or his own, which he was then occupied in composing. The Brescians are a happy, gay people; they live less in the town than the inhabitants of the rest of Italy, and take peculiar pleasure in rural amusements; they are hospitable and fond of festivity; not very refined, they are yet open-hearted and cordial, and noted for bravery when in the field. Foscolo's neighbours admired and visited him; persons of every sect and opinion, even the priests, flocked to his house; and often seated under a wide-spreading fig tree which was in his garden, he held forth to a numerous audience. The Brescians are naturally enthusiastic: he had the art of inflaming the souls of the young, and they crowded round him as, with stentorian voice, he uttered his moral apophthegms. When night closed in, he left his rustic drawing room, and visited the theatres; and was often seen paying homage to the dark eyes of some Brescian beauty.[58]
It was here that he wrote the most perfect of his poems—his "Ode on Sepulchres." The elegance and pure taste of this composition have caused it to be compared to Gray's well-known "Elegy;" but it is more classical in its ideas and construction, and would rather remind the reader of Milton's "Lycidas." Every verse is harmonious music; and the melancholy that is cast over it is graceful and touching, not harrowing and sombre. A law had been passed at Milan instituting a public cemetery without the walls of the city, in which all the dead were to be promiscuously buried, without marks of distinction. The poet, addressing Pindemonte, begins by commenting upon the notion that funeral pomp and an honourable tomb are of no avail to the dead; and then he speaks of the sacred sentiment that leads us to live still with our lost friends, and makes the spot of their interment precious in our eyes. Alluding to the new law, he apostrophises the muse, asking her if she does not love to linger near the desecrated tomb of her Parini, whose venerated remains, cast among the bodies of criminals, are scarcely protected from the assaults of the houseless dog, while night birds hover, screaming, over it. He speaks of the pious sentiments with which the sad relics of mortality have ever been regarded since religion first instituted sacred and social laws; and describes, in heartfelt but poetic language, the various ways in which survivors love to pay homage to the beloved dead. From tender and pathetic pictures of domestic bereavement, he then rises to describe the ennobling sentiment inspired by a sight of the tombs of the great and good. He apostrophises Florence, and gracefully brings in the well-known predilection of Alfieri for the aisles of Santa Croce; and then, taking a still higher flight, he describes Providence and destiny as presiding over the graves of the worthy, and vindicating their unforgotten names, even from the silent turf that covers them; and, carried away by his love for classic lore, with no forced digression, he concludes by speaking of the mounds that still mark the spot where the warriors of Greece died on the Trojan shore, and describes Homer, the poet blind and old, wandering around, and bestowing on them the immortal fame of which they would otherwise have been deprived.
This anatomy of a poem can convey but a slight and incomplete idea of its merits. The harmony of the versification—the tender and soft melancholy diffused throughout—the grace of the transitions—and the continual rising in his subject to the end, are all lost. Nor could a translation do justice to these, since, as evanescent as they are delicate, they would be lost in another language. The whole poem is Foscolo's masterpiece.
He also published at this time his translation of the first book of the Iliad. Monti was bringing out his version, and there was much hardihood in Foscolo's rivalship. His knowledge of Greek, contrasted with the other's ignorance, no doubt instigated him. To remove any unpleasant feeling, he dedicated it to Monti; in which he speaks at once with modesty of his own attempt, and in high praise of Monti's genius. It is difficult for a stranger to judge between the merits of the translators; but even if Foscolo's is the best, it is a mere fragment. He never published more than the first and third books; while Monti went through the labour of the entire translation, and bestowed a complete work on his country.
In 1808, Foscolo was installed professor of eloquence in the university of Pavia—a chair formerly filled by Monti and Cesarotti. The choice was universally popular; and his introductory oration, "On the Origin and Use of Letters," was listened to with enthusiasm. He had refused to introduce any praise of Napoleon into it, and the whole was conceived in the spirit of personal and political independence. This fault was visited with singular severity; since, after a short time, the professorship of eloquence at Pavia was entirely suppressed, under the pretence of a reform in the plan of studies, but in reality as a mark of disapprobation. Petty jealousy and the vain desire of ruling even the thoughts of the subject world, induced Napoleon on all occasions to punish severely any demonstration of independence. Nor was the vengeance confined to Foscolo and Pavia alone. The literary professorships at Bologna and Padua were also abolished, as well as those for the Greek and oriental languages; for history, and, in short, all except those instituted to teach law, medicine, and the sciences. Several learned and excellent men were thus deprived of an honourable living. The nation was at once robbed of all easy access to a liberal education, and to the inappreciable knowledge of those languages which contain the most glorious monuments of man's genius: and thus Napoleon gave testimony to the Italians of the truth of Alfieri's axiom, that absolute monarchs hate the historian, the poet, and the orator, and give the preference to the sciences.[59]
Foscolo retreated from the university to the seclusion of the Lake of Como; giving proof of his pure and ardent love of nature, so rare among Italians, by his retirement from cities to the sublime and luxuriant scenery of this lake. He took up his residence at a villa named the Pliniana, built on the site of the fountains whose periodical ebb and flow the younger Pliny records in his letters. The lake, paled in by mountains, bathes the walls of the villa; and the neighbouring banks, clothed with myrtle and arbutus, overhang the waters, and cast their deep shade on the clear depths: the precipitous mountain rises behind, diversified by chestnut woods; and here and there are seen huge cypresses, whose spires seem to pierce the skies, when regarded from the terraced garden of the villa. The flowing fountains keep up a perpetual murmur; and, perhaps, in all the varied earth there is no spot which affords such a combination of the picturesque, the beautiful, the rich, the balmy, and the sublime. The house itself, without being ruinous, is huge and desolate; but its vast cool halls are a pleasant refuge against the heats of mid-day. Here Foscolo studied through the morning, varying his life by spending his evenings with the family of count Giovio, a man of education and learning, whose young and gay family served to dissipate the fumes of melancholy in which the poet was rather fond of indulging.[60]
He here commenced his "Ode to the Graces:" this was a favourite composition, yet left unfinished. He was never weary of altering or improving—of softening its language, or adding new melody to the versification. It is purely classical in its idea, yet varied by the most beautiful touches of natural beauty. He occupied himself also by finishing his tragedy of "Ajax." The same faults are discoverable in this drama as in his juvenile production of "Thyestes." It is founded on the dispute between Ulysses and Ajax for the arms of Achilles, and the self-destruction of the latter. The action ends almost before it begins; the scenes are frigid, the interest null; still it excited a good deal of expectation; and reading, as he did, speeches and scenes to various friends, its representation on the stage was looked forward to with eagerness at Milan. The theatre was crowded on the first night, and the audience sat patiently and listened for a long time to scene following scene, of sonorous words, high-sounding declamations, and vehement apostrophes, all leading to nothing, ending in nothing—exciting no sympathy, but wearying the ear. At length they grew tired; and though they listened to the conclusion, it was evident that they were delighted to be dismissed.
It was a strange accident, that a drama which thus failed of eliciting any interest in the audience, and the great fault of which was dulness, should have excited a persecution against its author. His enemies spread the report that the tragedy had a political aim; that Napoleon was symbolised in Agamemnon, the king of kings; and that general Moreau was pictured in Ajax, who deserved, but did not obtain, the arms of Achilles. There seems to have been no real foundation for this supposition, but Foscolo did not deny it: he preserved a mysterious silence; whether from disdain, or from a covert pleasure in the annoyance of government, is uncertain. The ministers of Napoleon were inquisitorial and revengeful; not to praise their emperor was sin sufficient to render any author obnoxious, and any expressions that could be distorted into blame were criminal. The cities of Italy, whose inhabitants are forbidden all political discussions, and who are shut out from the pursuits that naturally excite ambition, are singularly apt to diversify the monotony of their lives by gossiping. Such a supposition as the one above mentioned spread rapidly through Milan: men met together to wonder and dispute; they worked themselves up into an idea that something had been done, and that something would ensue; while the spies of the police excited and reported each unguarded expression. The city became disturbed by the notion of Foscolo's attempt to bring Napoleon on the stage as an object of censure, and in expectation of the punishment with which his boldness would be visited; while he, silent and mysterious, refused to offer any explanation. It was intimated accordingly to him, that he would do well to change the air; and, submitting to an exile from Milan, he again visited Tuscany.