novels seem, indeed, to unite the peculiar merit of the novel of passion and religious enthusiasm, (we use the word in its best sense), with that of the novel of romance and chivalry, and thus to be a happy compound of the deep impressiveness of the one and the gorgeous magnificence of the other.

But it is not merely as novels of character, passion, or chivalry, that the Italian works of fiction have reached the eminence on which they stand. They are all this, but they are more. They have, as we have said, an intense specific purpose. Before we can fully appreciate the works in question, we must, therefore, inquire what that purpose is. This has been stated by Alfieri, who, in spite of the grievous delinquencies of his moral conduct, springing from the absence of religious belief, embodied in his own person the character which he had conceived. In fact the religion of Alfieri was the love of his country, a burning desire to prove, and stir up his compatriots to prove, that a nation, endowed with high capabilities and rich in the recollections of the past, but enslaved, divided, superstitious, and ignorant, might yet be freed from its oppressors, united and ennobled, by men of learning and intelligence, and above all of a true Italian heart. And he felt the influence which the literature of such men might exercise over the public mind. While he visited, with the bitterness of his scorn-and few men could scorn like Alfieri-the hireling poetasters, who, in the pay of some petty court, followed, though with unequal footsteps, the Marini and Guarini of a servile and effeminate school, he felt the sacred vocation of the true poet, the resurrection of Italian literature and Italian patriotism. This was his own aim, and he sought to instil it into others. In all his writings, and particularly in his translation of Sallust and his letters to the literati of his time, he never ceased to magnify their lofty mission,-the union of Italy and its independence. And the seed sown by him, brought forth an abundant harvest. Such of his contemporaries, or of his successors, as admired his talents and reverenced his patriotism, were proud of treading in the footsteps of so great a man, especially as the human mind became more and more developed, and the bonds of prescription and authority were loosened.

Alfieri, therefore, though not a writer of romance himself, may be considered the germ of those stirring compositions, which, in the present day, we class under the title of the Italian. novels. Of these, many are known to the English reader only by their names in the catalogue. Even with the most celebrated, Manzoni, D'Azeglio, Grossi, Cantu, and Guerazzi, we are but slightly acquainted. I Promessi Sposi, it is true, has been among us for a considerable time, in an English dress, but its in

fluence has been slight, perhaps from the imperfect and tasteless manner in which the translation has been executed. And yet it merits all attention. Manzoni led the way to a higher development of the Italian mind. After the example of his master and predecessor Beccaria, whose sterling treatise on Crimes and Punishments' is well known and highly valued both at home and abroad, endowed with the finest genius and the deepest feeling, he devoted all the powers of his mind and heart to the great work of the Revival. In his romance, distinguished alike by language of rare felicity, brilliancy of imagination, nature, and elegance, he proposed to himself a nobler object than Alfieri had conceived. He has the same hatred of oppression, the same love of truth and freedom, but he has purer yearnings. The element of his mind, as pourtrayed in his writings, is essentially religious and devout. He venerates the unseen and the spiritual. In an age of egotism, self-seeking, and infidelity, he kneels before the cross. This required no small moral courage. The Italians had drunk deeply of the doctrines of Voltaire, and had graduated in the mocking school of which he was the founder. They had themselves become 'mockers,' despising all internal belief and all external worship, caring only for material enjoyment, and as bad citizens in their social, as they were bad Catholics in their religious, capacity. In the face of this wide-spreading contempt for holy things, or at least this disbelief of their truth and reality, Manzoni dared to conceive and embody the noble and touching character of Fra Cristoforo, and bring into prominent light the evangelical virtues of the saint-like archbishop. And the execution is as judicious as the conception is true. Without giving the least umbrage to the more questionable usages of the Romish system, he looks above them, substitutes charity for bigotry, and the piety of the heart for the merely formal observances of the ritual. In the historical portions of his work, he has thrown so much light upon the gloomy epocha of the 16th century, during which, by their ignorance and barbarism, the Spaniards lost the richest of their conquests, that Rossini, in his Monaca di Monza, and Grossi, in his Marco Visconti, had little more to do than work with his materials.

The Monaca di Monza, it is well known, is professedly a supplement to I Promessi Sposi; but, upon the whole, the work seems to us a failure. Rossini is not without merit; his style is pure, but he is deficient in imagination. He who opens the Monaca di Monza in the hope of finding a finished portrait from the terrible sketch of Manzoni, will be grievously disappointed. He will find instead, a catalogue raisonné of the curiosities of Italy (and very wonderful, almost incredible, some of them at that time must have been), in which the awful Geltrude is as

much out of place as a skeleton in an ornamental flower-garden. All that really belongs to her history, does not take up fifty pages. Ugolino, a more recent publication by the same author, pleases, however, universally. Independent of the interest attached to the subject, which is full of historical associations, it has some descriptions of surpassing merit. There is a falcon chase in particular, of rare beauty; and it would be difficult to find a sweeter character than that of Bianca, rich as it is in purity and goodness. We have spoken elsewhere of Marco Visconti; and have said of these compositions generally, that they breathe throughout a high and healthful tone of Christian principle. But we should have excepted the novels of Guerazzi. He wars, not against the abuses of religion, but against religion itself. We know but imperfectly how the Romish system works in countries most avowedly under its control; but we can conceive abuses, of the confessional in particular, which may rouse the indignation of those who do not look beneath the surface. Of such abuses, real or pretended, in his Siege of Florence, and his Isabella Orsini, Guerazzi has been the pitiless unmasker. The Duke of Bresciano, husband of Isabella Medici, confesses his own wife, in the disguise of a friar, and having learnt her terrible secret, strangles her the next day. But the abuse of a system proves nothing against the system itself. The fact is, that, as far as religion is concerned, Guerazzi has drawn his sword and thrown away the scabbard. One laments this sadly. No Italian has ever written more finely than he has done. His style is full of energy, breathing the nerve of Dante himself, free alike from weakness and constraint, and proving to foreigners, if proof were necessary, that the beautiful language of Italy is somewhat more than the language of music and love.

But our business is with D'Azeglio, a man of far different character; and it may not be out of place to take a rapid survey of his political and literary career, before we proceed to comment on the work, which is the immediate subject of this article. D'Azeglio then, like most of the Italians who had placed the hopes of Italy on the exaltation of Pius IX. to the Pontificate, as a man of lofty genius and commensurate courage, proceeded, when that event took place, to Rome. Here he laboured assiduously in the cause which he had so much at heart, propagating his own opinions among the laity, and those of Gioberto among the clergy. The work of Pius IX, the general amnesty granted to every individual, who, on account of his political opinions or any similar misdemeanour, had incurred the displeasure of Gregory XVI, released from prison or from exile thousands of men, who had for many years been languishing in confinement at Rome, or eating

the bitter bread of dependence abroad. That the minds of these persons should, in the meantime, have been actively employed on the stirring questions which were convulsing the world, cannot be matter of surprise. Those in particular, who were scattered abroad among the other nations of Europe, would naturally form their private opinions of the different governments with which they had been brought into contact, and apply them to the existing state of their own. Unhappily for Italy, the greater number of these exiles had taken up their abode in France, and brought with them, on their return, all the frivolity, all the instability, all the impatience, and in short all the Utopian fancies, which prevailed there, and produced at a subsequent period in both countries such an abundant harvest of evil. To all this D'Azeglio was decidedly opposed. He thirsted for Italian independence, but he deprecated factions and parties; and, far from wishing to establish a Republican government in Italy, he called upon his fellow-countrymen to rally round their native princes, and make common cause against the Austrian stranger. Matters were brought to a crisis by the attack on Ferrara in 1847, when D'Azeglio left no means untried to raise the spirit of the Italians, exhorting them with all that eloquence, of which he is a consummate master, to show themselves the true and worthy descendants of the heroes of Barletta. Skilled himself in the art of war, he offered his services to the Pope, and by his own generous example rallied around the patriotic standard a phalanx of enthusiastic men whose watchword was the glory of Italy. The Austrian army was intimidated, and retired with disgrace and ridicule. The object of D'Azeglio then was to form and consolidate the alliance between the three States of Romagna, Tuscany, and Piedmont, of which, if he was not the inventor, he saw the indisputable utility. But the French Revolution now burst forth. Mazzini was despatched into Lombardy, with a recommendation to form a Republic at whatever cost, and a specific announcement that the French Republic would not approve of the aggrandizement of Charles Albert, persuaded that it had no friend in the Prince, nor in fact in any government unlike its own. Under these circumstances, D'Azeglio, who knew too well the mischief which the French had ever done to his native country, gave himself up body and soul to Charles Albert, making the memorable declaration, Italy will manage for itself;' and it would have done so, if there had not been discord among the Italians themselves. D'Azeglio was adjutant to General Durando in the Roman body which he commanded, and which twice covered itself with glory by the repulse of the German troops, yielding in the third encounter only to the overwhelming numbers of

the enemy. In this last battle D'Azeglio was wounded. A cry was raised in the meantime at Milan for a revolution, and plots were laid, and almost carried into execution, to dismiss from the government all those who were favourable to the union of Lombardy with Piedmont. It was then that D'Azeglio, seeing that these civil discords must in the end prove fatal to the common cause, took up his pen, and composed the three treatises which are so well known in Italy and elsewhere, The Struggles of Lombardy,' 'The Proposal of a Programme for the National Opinion of Italy,' and 'The Last Events of Romagna.' Their tendency seems to be to divert the Italians from a Republic, at least till a constitutional government should have been fully tried. D'Azeglio is now Minister of Foreign Affairs, and President of the Council, in Piedmont; and his object, as far as we can judge of his political career, is to plant there the roots of a truly constitutional government, which may serve as a model for other Italian States, and prepare them by the force of public opinion to attack the common enemy under better circumstances and with better success. Of the character of D'Azeglio's family we have spoken elsewhere. It is in high esteem at Turin. Though Patrician, it is by no means exclusive, but has at all times given testimony of liberal and generous sentiments. Massimo D'Azeglio himself possesses all the qualities of an excellent speaker as well as writer, and such is the affability of his manners, and the charm of his conversation, that no one can leave his company without the most pleasing impression both of his mind and heart.

În the work before us, D'Azeglio had the same object in view as his father-in-law Manzoni, the glory of Italy, and we cannot help thinking that his success has been greater. The challenge of Barletta' reaches the very core of the Italian heart, kindles all the martial feeling of his compatriots, and shows how great and magnanimous their warlike forefathers were, when either their own honour, or that of their country, was at stake. Of the manner in which he has executed his design we shall leave our readers to judge, as far as they can judge by a slight and imperfect summary of the story, and the mere translation of extracts which charm all hearts in the Italian by their matchless beauty. Perhaps no writer suffers more from translation than D'Azeglio. The rare felicity of his style, the rich colouring of his descriptions, and the point and naïveté of his conversations, to say nothing of his thrilling pathos, are enough to drive a translator to despair; and we can only hope to give a faint idea of the work to such as cannot read it in the original. The scene opens with a graphic picture of the little town of Barletta at the time of the evening Ave Maria. Knots of sol