sempre al fianco la morte, servirebbero così vilmente?" I Parini non apria bocca, ma stringendomi il braccio mi guardava ogni ora più fisso, Poi mi trasse, come accennandomi perchè io tornassi a sedermi, “E pensi tu," proruppe, "che se io discernessi un barlume di libertà, mi perderei ad onta della mia inferma vecchiaja in questi vani lamenti ? .. forse questo tuo furore di gloria potrebbe trarti a difficili imprese; ma-credimi-la fama degli eroi spetta un quarto alla loro audacia, due quarti alla sorte, e l'altro quarto ai loro delitti; ma se ti reputi bastevolmente fortunato e crudele per aspirare a questa gloria, pensi tu che i tempi te ne porgano i mezzi? I gemiti di tutte le età e questo giogo della nostra patria non ti hanno per anco insegnato che non si dee aspettare libertà dallo straniero? Chiunque s'intrica nelle faccende di un paese conquistato, non ritrae che il pubblico danno e la propria infamia. Quando e doveri e diritti stanno sulla punta della spada, il forte scrive le leggi col sangue, epretende il sacrificio della virtù. E allora-avrai tu la fama e il valore di Annibale, che profugo cercava nell' universo un nemico al popolo Romano?-Nè ti sarà dato di essere giusto impunemente. Un giovine, dritto e bollente di cuore, ma povero di richezze ed incauto d'ingegno come sei tu, sarà sempre l' ordigno del fazioso o la vittima del potente; e dove tu nelle pubbliche cose possa preservarti incontaminato dalla comune bruttura? oh! tu sarai altamente laudato; ma spento poi dal pugnale notturno della calunnia, la tua prigione sarà abbandonata da' tuoi amici e il tuo sepolcro degnato appena di un secreto sospiro. Ma poniamo che tu superando e la prepotenza degli stranieri e la malignità de' tuoi concittadini e la corruzione de' tempi, potessi aspirare al tuo intento-di-spargerai tutto il sangue col quale conviene nutrire. una nascente repubblica? arderai le tue case con le faci della guerra civile ? unirai col terrore i partiti? spegnerai con la morte le opinioni? adeguerai con le stragi le fortune?-Ma se tu cadi per via, crediti esecrato dagli uni come demagogo, dagli altri come tiranno. Gli amori della moltitudine sono brevi ed infausti; giudica più che dall' intento dalla fortuna, chiama virtù il delitto utile, e scelleraggine l'onestà che le pare dannosa, e per avere i suoi plausi, conviene o atterrirla o ingrassarla, e ingannarla sempre. E ciò sia. Potrai tu allora inorgoglito dalla sterminata fortuna reprimere in te la passione del supremo potere, che ti sarà fomentata e dal sentimento della tua superiorità e dalla conoscenza del comune avvilimento? I mortali sono naturalmente schiavi, naturalmente tiranni, naturalmente ciechi. Intento tu allora a puntellare il tuo trono, di filosofo saresti fatto tiranno, e per pochi anni di possanza e di tremore avresti perduto la tua pace e confuso il tuo nome fra la immensa turba de' despoti. Ti avanza ancora un seggio fra i capitani, il quale si afferra per mezzo di un ardire feroce, di un' avidità che rapisce per profondere, e spesso di una viltà per cui si lambe la mano che t'aita a salire. Ma, o figliuolo, l'umanità geme al nascere di un conquistatore e non ha per conforto se non la speranza di sorridere su la sua bara.” Tacque; ed io, dopo un lunghissimo silenzio, esclamai; "OCocceo Nerva! tu almeno sapevi morire incontaminato!"*-Il vecchio mi guardò *Ferebant gnari cogitationum ejus, quantò propiùs mala reipublicæ viseret, irâ et metu, duru integer dum intentatus honestum finem voluisse. Tacitus Ann. lib. vi. se 66 “se tu nè speri nè temi fuori di questo mondo”-e mi stringeva la mano-" ma io”—alzò gli occhj al cielo e quella severa sua fisonomia si raddolciva di un soave conforto come s'ei lassú contemplasse tutte le sue speranze. Intesi un calpestio che s'avanzava verso di noi, e poi travidi gente fra i tigli; ci rizzammo, ed io l'accompagnai sino alle sue stanze. Strong and pointed as are many of the allusions in the passage we have cited, some of the earlier letters of Ortis speak a language yet more bold and unequivocal. Though the author treats with great contempt that affectation of general literature, which, as it should seem, is a folly not confined to ourselves, many passages prove the extent of his reading, and he appears to have no common acquaintance with the English writers. A mind like his was calculated to receive the impressions of our sovereign poet. 'Omero, Dante e Shakespeare,' he exclaims, 'itre maestri di tutti gl’ingegni sovrumani hanno investito la mia immaginazione ed infiammato il mio cuore: ho bagnato di caldissime lagrime i loro versi, ed ho adorato le loro ombre divine come se le vedessi assise su le volte eccelse che sovrastano l'universo, a dominare l'eternità.' The reader will trace the hand of Gray in several scattered passages, and more particularly in one, which begins-' E chi mai cede a una eterna obblivione questa cara e travagliata esistenza?" Had not Pignotti retaliated the plagiarisms of the English poet, we might say, Xanthe, retro propera, &c. There is also a great deal of Ossianic colouring spread through the whole, and an address to the sun, in page 42, appears to be a translation. In an episodical fragment, entitled Lauretta, may be discerned the peculiar manner of Sterne, and much of the circumstance of the story is either copied or closely parodied from that of his Maria. The extracts we have given will afford the reader a sufficient idea of the merits of these letters as a literary composition. It only remains for us, since we have pronounced rather a sweeping sentence on the morality of the author, (a sentence we are by no means disposed to retract,) to explain the nature and extent of his offending. It is but justice to state, that there is no baseness, and, if we except the hero's too long indulgence in the society of Teresa, no selfishness in the worst points of character justified in this romance. The faults are those of an ardent and undisciplined mind, acting upon the impulse of feeling, undirected by any fixed and general principles of justice or propriety, and uncontrolled by the precepts of religion. Thus he sees no crime in suicide, resort ed ed to as a refuge from the pangs of disappointed love, while he regards seduction with horror; and though, in the indulgence of an impassioned temper, he seems to feel little compunction at offering insults, which he may be obliged to justify with the sword, an Englishman could not contemplate assassination with more deepfelt indignation and disgust. Considering Ugo Foscolo as the author of these letters, as we have judged his literary, so ought we also to weigh his moral character, with some reference to the country which gave him birth, and where he must have received his earliest impressions. Those who are acquainted with the vices of the Venetian administration in the Ionian islands, where not only could the cry of blood be silenced by the corruption of justice, but impunity be purchased even previous to the commission of crime; those who know these facts, and can judge what must have been the wide wasting effects of so execrable a government upon the feelings and morals of a people, will, in giving the author more than ordinary merit for every thing that deserves praise, shew some indulgence to him, while they try his opinions by a standard to which he was not by early discipline instructed to conform them. ART. XI. The French Bulletins, &c. detailing the Campaigns of the French in Russia, from June to December, 1812. 8vo.. Sherwood and Co. 1813. The Resources of Russia in the Event of a War with France; and an Examination of the prevailing Opinion relative to the political and military Conduct of the Court of St. Petersburg; with a short Description of the Cossacks. By M. Eustaphieve, Russian Consul at Boston. America printed. London reprinted by John Stockdale. 1812. pp. 52. GREAT REAT occurrences succeed each other so rapidly in these eventful times, that we have hardly leisure to contemplate what is passing in one quarter of the globe, before our attention is called off to another. The affairs, however, of the North, for these last six or eight months, have been of such vital importance to the cause of Europe, and the contest which has been carried on has been conducted on so gigantic a scale, that it has been impossible not to allow them to occupy a more than common share of our thoughts. They have placed the Russian character in a light in which it was never seen before :—while the conduct of the nation, under one of the most trying situations, (that of invasion by a power a powerful and bloodthirsty enemy,) has been so superior to that of the more civilized states of Europe, under similar circumstances, that we could not but feel more than common indignation against those, who had so wantonly endeavoured to depreciate it in the eyes of this country. It was with much pleasure, therefore, that we entered on the perusal of the work before us, the production of a native Russian, who, though ill schooled in bolted language,' with an excusable degree of warmth, in vindication of the character of his sovereign, and of his countrymen at large, frankly states his idea of the resources of Russia, and of the conduct which she would pursue should she be again exposed to the aggressions of France. 6 Mr. Eustaphieve is the Russian Consul at Boston in America; the work was published in May last, before the breaking out of the war; and the author, of course, had no means of reference to many sources of information which he might otherwise have consulted. But he has confined himself,' as he states, to Russian authorities,' and has very properly left foreign writers to reconcile their own contradictions as well as they can.' He has divided his work into four general heads, under which he has replied to four distinct causes of complaint alleged against Russia. The insufficiency of her resources;-the vacillation of her policy;foreign influence and corruption;-and the defects of her military system. Without confining ourselves to the arrangement of the subject, we shall proceed, in the first instance, to the consideration of his statement of the causes which led to the peace of Tilsit, and his defence of the conduct of the Emperor Alexander on that oc casion. Mr. Eustaphieve is at no pains to conceal his aversion from that administration of ours which succeeded to the management of public affairs on the death of Mr. Pitt; and be reproaches it, in somewhat coarse language, for the abandonment of the deceased minister's schemes of foreign policy, and for the adoption of others selfish in themselves, and ruinous to the cause of Europe. It has been asserted by those who are the professed admirers of Mr. Fox's political tenets, (and the fact, therefore, cannot be doubted,) that he placed too much confidence in the cabinets of Muscovites,' and that he was inclined to consider Russia, rather than Austria, as the rallying point of the English interest against France. Now we should have been at a loss to discover how this assertion agreed with the foreign policy of England under that administration of which he for some time was the head, and which, of course, only followed up his schemes when he was no more, were we not informed, in the same page, that this leaning was rather in his speeches when he was in opposition;" can therefore only add this instance, to many others, of the inconsistency of this great statesman's conduct whilst in office, with the opinions which he professed when out. We do not doubt that Mr. Fox was eminently distinguished for that goodness of heart and warmth of feeling which his friends have so much extolled; but we must be allowed to consider them most inconvenient virtues for a public man, when they lead, as was notorious in his case, to the selection of persons for the most important and responsible situations, whose merit was made to consist rather in the firmness of their political and personal attachment than in any particular aptitude for the functions entrusted to their management. England has always been the theme of ridicule among the French wits, for sending out legions of ambassadors to foreign powers, instead of more effective co-operators; but it was reserved for the friends of Mr. Fox to outdo all our outdoings' in this respect. When,' as the author states, the sudden dispersion of the Prussian armies, and the apathy of Austria, drove the whole storm of war upon Russia, and its sovereign became, against his inclination, a principal in the contest for which he had not been prepared,' what were the steps taken by our ministers to assist or to encourage her exertions? Lord Hutchinson, who had been originally sent out to the relief of Prussia, was instructed to repair to the Russian head-quarters, to sound the emperor's intentions, and to report on the state of his armies. The keenness of a Polish winter does not appear to have agreed altogether with his lordship's constitution: we are told that he became 'morose and sullen, and that the personal attentions of the emperor, though extremely flattering to his vanity, and of which he was by no means insensible, failed in winning him over to do even simple justice to the Russian armies, in the accounts which he transmitted home.' We lament, in common with our author, that a different selection was not made for this important mission; especially when it is added that Lord Hutchinson was deficient in those qualities which are inestimable in all men, but absolutely essential to a diplomatic character,-command of temper in conduct and discourse,that he is said to have astonished every foreigner who heard him, by openly reprobating, in all companies, the conduct of England in the affair of Copenhagen; and so indiscreet was his conversation, that, on his way home, he subjected himself to the sharpest of all rebukes from the King of Sweden, who, with all his eccentricities, had sense enough to perceive how ill it became a lately accredited agent from one court, publicly to expose, in every other, what * Edinburgh Review, No. 32, p. 361. VOL. VIII. NO. XVI. FF he |