The Countess had obtained permission at the end of 1780 to leave her husband, in consequence of the brutal treatment she experienced at his hands, and to retire to Rome. It was not long before Alfieri followed her, and took up his habitation there also. At the end of 1782, his Antigone was performed by a company of amateurs—he himself being one—before an audience consisting of all the rank and fashion of Rome. Its success was unequivocal, and he felt so proud of his triumph, that he determined to send four of his tragedies to press, getting his friend Gori, at Siena, to superintend the printing; and they were accordingly published.
The intimacy between Alfieri and the Countess now inflamed the anger of Charles Edward and his brother, Cardinal York, to such a pitch, that Alfieri found it prudent to leave Rome, which he did in May, 1783, in a state of bitter anguish. He first made pilgrimages to the tombs of Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto, at Ravenna, Arquà, and Ferrara; at each of which he spent some time in dreaming, praying, and weeping, at the same time pouring forth a perfect stream of impassioned poetry. On getting to Siena, he superintended personally the printing of six more of his tragedies, and for the first time felt all the cares of authorship, being driven nearly distracted by the sad realities of censors, both spiritual and temporal, correctors of the press, compositors, pressmen, &c., and the worry he experienced brought on a sharp attack of gout. On recovering, he determined to start off once more on his travels, making as a plea his desire to purchase a stud of horses in England, his equestrian propensities having returned with violence. He accordingly left his tragedies, both published and unpublished, to shift for themselves, and proceeded to England, where, in a few weeks, he bought no less than fourteen horses. That being the exact number of the tragedies he had written, he used to amuse himself by saying, "For each tragedy you have got a horse," in reference to the punishment inflicted on naughty schoolboys in Italy, where the culprit is mounted on the shoulders of another boy, while the master lays on the cane.
He experienced almost endless trouble and difficulty in conveying his acquisitions safely back to Italy. The account he gives of the passage of the Alps by Mount Cenis, from Lanslebourg to the Novalese, is really quite romantic; and he compares himself to Hannibal on the occasion, but says that if the passage of the latter cost him a great deal of vinegar, it cost him (Alfieri) no small quantity of wine, as the whole party concerned in conveying the horses over the mountain, guides, farriers, grooms, and adjutants, drank like fishes.
On reaching Turin, he was present at a performance of his Virginia at the same theatre where, nine years before, his early play of Cleopatra had been acted. He shortly received intelligence that the Countess had been permitted to leave Rome and to go to Switzerland. He could not refrain from following her, and accordingly rejoined her at Colmar, a city of Alsace, after a separation of sixteen months. The sight of her whom he loved so dearly again awakened his poetic genius, and gave birth, at almost one and the same moment, to his three tragedies of Agide, Sofonisba, and Mirra, despite his previous resolve to write no more. When obliged to leave the Countess, he returned to Italy, but the following year again visited her, remaining in Alsace when she proceeded to Paris. She happened to mention in a letter that she had been much pleased with seeing Voltaire's Brutus performed on the stage. This excited his emulation. "What!" he exclaimed, "Brutuses written by a Voltaire? I'll write Brutuses, and two at once, moreover, time will show whether such subjects for tragedy are better adapted for me or for a plebeian-born Frenchman, who for more than sixty years subscribed himself Voltaire, Gentleman in Ordinary to the King." Accordingly he set to work, and planned on the spot his Bruto Primo and Bruto Secondo; after which he once more renewed his vow to Apollo to write no more tragedies. About this period he also sketched his Abel, which he called by the whimsical title of a Tramelogedy. He next went to Paris, and made arrangements with the celebrated Didot for printing the whole of his tragedies in six volumes. On returning to Alsace, in company with the Countess, he was joined by his old friend the Abate di Caluso, who brought with him a letter from his mother, containing proposals for his marriage with a rich young lady of Asti, whose name was not mentioned. Alfieri told the Abate, smilingly, that he must decline the proffered match, and had not even the curiosity to inquire who the lady was. Shortly afterwards he was attacked by a dangerous illness, which reduced him to the point of death. On recovering, he went with his friends to Kehl, and was so much pleased with the printing establishment of the well-known Beaumarchais, that he resolved to have the whole of his works, with the exception of his tragedies, which were in Didot's hands, printed there; and accordingly, by August, 1789, all his writings, both in prose and poetry, were printed.
In the mean time, the Countess of Albany had heard of the death of her husband, which took place at Rome, on the 31st January, 1788. This event set her entirely free, and it is generally believed that she was shortly afterwards united in marriage to Alfieri; but the fact was never known, and to the last the poet preserved the greatest mystery on the subject.
Paris now became their regular residence, and it was not long before the revolutionary troubles commenced. In April, 1791, they determined to pay a visit to England, where the Countess had never been. They remained here some months, and on their embarking at Dover on their return, Alfieri chanced to notice among the people collected on the beach to see the vessel off, the very lady, his intrigue with whom twenty years before had excited so great a sensation. He did not speak to her, but saw that she recognized him. Accordingly, on reaching Calais, he wrote to her to inquire into her present situation. He gives her reply at full length in his Memoirs. It is in French; and we regret that its length precludes us from giving it here, as it is a very remarkable production. It indicates a decisive and inflexible firmness of character, very unlike what is usually met with in her sex.
After visiting Holland and Belgium, Alfieri and the Countess returned to Paris. In March, 1792, he received intelligence of his mother's death. In the mean time the war with the emperor commenced, and matters gradually got worse and worse. Alfieri witnessed the events of the terrible 10th of August, when the Tuileries was taken by the mob after a bloody conflict, and Louis XVI. virtually ceased to reign. Seeing the great danger to which they would be exposed if they remained longer in Paris, they determined on a hasty flight; and after procuring the necessary passports, started on the 18th of the same month. They had a narrow escape on passing the barriers. A mob of the lowest order insisted on their carriage being stopped, and on their being conducted back to Paris, exclaiming that all the rich were flying away, taking their treasures with them, and leaving the poor behind in want and misery. The few soldiers on the spot would have been soon overpowered; and nothing saved the travellers except Alfieri's courage. He at length succeeded in forcing a passage; but there is little doubt that if they had been obliged to return, they would have been thrown into prison, in which case they would have been among the unhappy victims who were so barbarously murdered by the populace on the 2d September.
They reached Calais in two days and a half, having had to show their passports more than forty times. They afterwards learned that they were the first foreigners who had escaped from Paris and from France after the catastrophe of the 10th August. After stopping some time at Brussels, they proceeded to Italy, and reached Florence in November. That city remained Alfieri's dwelling-place, nearly uninterruptedly, from this moment to the period of his death.
In 1795, when he was forty-six years old, a feeling of shame came over him at his ignorance of Greek, and he determined to master that language. He applied himself with such industry to the task, that before very long he could read almost any Greek author. There are few instances on record of such an effort being made at so advanced a period of life. Yet, perhaps, a still more remarkable case than that of our poet is that of Mehemet Ali, who did not learn to read or write till more than forty years of age. His son, Ibrahim, never did even that. At the same time that he was learning Greek, Alfieri amused himself by writing satires, of which he had completed seventeen by the end of 1797. The fruit of his Greek studies appeared in his tragedies of Alceste Prima and Alceste Seconda, which he composed after reading Euripides' fine play of that name. He calls these essays his final perjuries to Apollo. We have certainly seen him break his vow sufficiently often. The twelve tragedies he pledged himself not to exceed had now grown to their present number of twenty-one, besides the tramelogedy of Abel.
He remained quietly and happily at Florence till the French invasion in March, 1799, when he and the Countess retired to a villa in the country. He marked his hatred of the French nation by writing his Misogallo, a miscellaneous collection in prose and verse of the most violent and indiscriminate abuse of France, and every thing connected with it, as its name imports. On the evacuation of Florence by the French in July, they returned to the city, but again left it on the second invasion in October, 1800. The French commander-in-chief wrote to Alfieri, requesting the honor of the acquaintance of a man who had rendered such distinguished services to literature: but he told him in reply, that if he wrote in his quality as Commandant of Florence, he would yield to his superior authority; but that if it was merely as an individual curious to see him, he must beg to be excused.