Always
sensitive
to the charge of plagiarism, Alfieri declared that
whether his tragedies were good or bad, they were at least his own.
whether his tragedies were good or bad, they were at least his own.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v01 - A to Apu
At London he formed intimate friendships with the
great thinkers.
With them he studied the nature of the govern-
ment, attaining profound knowledge of it.
As he had set out neither as an enthusiast nor a cynic, he
brought back neither a disdain for foreigners nor a contempt for
his own country. It was the result of his observations that Ger-
many was made to travel in, Italy to sojourn in, England to think
in, and France to live in.
After returning to his own country, M. de Montesquieu retired
for two years to his estate of La Brède, enjoying that solitude
which a life in the tumult and hurry of the world but makes the
more agreeable. He lived with himself, after having so long
lived with others; and finished his work 'On the Cause of the
Grandeur and Decline of the Romans,' which appeared in 1734.
Empires, like men, must increase, decay, and be extinguished.
But this necessary revolution may have hidden causes which the
veil of time conceals from us.
Nothing in this respect more resembles modern history than
ancient history. That of the Romans must, however, be excepted.
It presents us with a rational policy, a connected system of ag-
grandizement, which will not permit us to attribute the great for-
tune of this people to. obscure and inferior sources. The causes of
the Roman grandeur may then be found in history, and it is the
business of the philosopher to discover them. Besides, there are
no systems in this study, as in that of physics, which are easily
overthrown, because one new and unforeseen experiment can
upset them in an instant. On the contrary, when we carefully
collect the facts, if we do not always gather together all the
desired materials, we may at least hope one day to obtain more.
A great historian combines in the most perfect manner these
defective materials. His merit is like that of an architect, who,
## p. 363 (#393) ############################################
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
363
from a few remains, traces the plan of an ancient edifice; supply-
ing, by genius and happy conjectures, what was wanting in fact.
It is from this point of view that we ought to consider the
work of M. de Montesquieu. He finds the causes of the grandeur
of the Romans in that love of liberty, of labor, and of country,
which was instilled into them during their infancy; in those
intestine divisions which gave an activity to their genius, and
which ceased immediately upon the appearance of an enemy; in
that constancy after misfortunes, which never despaired of the
republic; in that principle they adhered to of never making peace
but after victories; in the honor of a triumph, which was a sub-
ject of emulation among the generals; in that protection which
they granted to those peoples who rebelled against their kings;
in the excellent policy of permitting the conquered to preserve
their religion and customs; and the equally excellent determina-
tion never to have two enemies upon their hands at once, but to
bear everything from the one till they had destroyed the other.
He finds the causes of their declension in the aggrandizement of
the State itself: in those distant wars, which, obliging the citizens
to be too long absent, made them insensibly lose their republican
spirit; in the too easily granted privilege of being citizens of
Rome, which made the Roman people at last become a sort of
many-headed monster; in the corruption introduced by the luxury
of Asia; in the proscriptions of Sylla, which debased the genius
of the nation, and prepared it for slavery; in the necessity of
having a master while their liberty was become burdensome to
them; in the necessity of changing their maxims when they
changed their government; in that series of monsters who
reigned, almost without interruption, from Tiberius to Nerva,
and from Commodus to Constantine; lastly, in the translation
and division of the empire, which perished first in the West
by the power of barbarians, and after having languished in the
East, under weak or cruel emperors, insensibly died away, like
those rivers which disappear in the sands.
In a very small volume M. de Montesquieu explained and
unfolded his picture. Avoiding detail, and seizing only essentials,
he has included in a very small space a vast number of objects
distinctly perceived, and rapidly presented, without fatiguing the
reader. While he points out much, he leaves us still more to
reflect upon; and he might have entitled his book, A Roman
History for the Use of Statesmen and Philosophers. '
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JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
Whatever reputation M. de Montesquieu had thus far acquired,
he had but cleared the way for a far grander undertaking - for
that which ought to immortalize his name, and commend it to
the admiration of future ages.
He had meditated for twenty
years upon its execution; or, to speak more exactly, his whole
life had been a perpetual meditation upon it. He had made
himself in some sort a stranger in his own country, the better to
understand it. He had studied profoundly the different peoples
of Europe. The famous island, which so glories in her laws, and
which makes so bad a use of them, proved to him what Crete
had been to Lycurgus - a school where he learned much without
approving everything. Thus he attained by degrees to the noblest
title a wise man can deserve, that of legislator of nations.
If he was animated by the importance of his subject, he was
at the same time terrified by its extent. He abandoned it, and
returned to it again and again. More than once, as he himself
owns, he felt his paternal hands fail him. At last, encouraged
by his friends, he resolved to publish the Spirit of Laws. '
In this important work M. de Montesquieu, without insisting,
like his predecessors, upon metaphysical discussions, without con-
fining himself, like them, to consider certain people in certain
particular relations or circumstances, takes a view of the actual
inhabitants of the world in all their conceivable relations to each
other. Most other writers in this way are either simple moral-
ists, or simple lawyers, or even sometimes simple theologists. As
for him, a citizen of all nations, he cares less what duty requires
of us than what means may constrain us to do it; about the
metaphysical perfection of laws, than about what man is capable
of; about laws which have been made, than about those which
ought to have been made; about the laws of a particular people,
than about those of all peoples. Thus, when comparing himself
to those who have run before him in this noble and grand
career, he might say, with Correggio, when he had seen the
works of his rivals, “And I, too, am a Painter. ”
Filled with his subject, the author of the Spirit of Laws'
comprehends so many materials, and treats them with such brev-
ity and depth, that assiduous reading alone discloses its merit.
This study will make that pretended want of method, of which
some readers have accused M. de Montesquieu, disappear. Real
want of order should be distinguished from what is apparent
only. Real disorder confuses the analogy and connection of ideas;
## p. 365 (#395) ############################################
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
365
or sets up conclusions as principles, so that the reader, after
innumerable windings, finds himself at the point whence he set
out. Apparent disorder is when the author, putting his ideas
in their true place, leaves it to the readers to supply intermedi-
ate ones. M. de - Montesquieu's book is designed for men who
think, for men capable of supplying voluntary and reasonable
omissions.
The order perceivable in the grand divisions of the Spirit
of Laws' pervades the smaller details also. By his method of
arrangement we easily perceive the influence of the different parts
upon each other; as, in a system of human knowledge well under-
stood, we may perceive the mutual relation of sciences and arts.
There must always remain something arbitrary in every compre-
hensive scheme, and all that can be required of an author is, that
he follow strictly his own system.
For an allowable obscurity the same defense exists. What
may be obscure to the ignorant is not so for those whom the
author had in mind. Besides, voluntary obscurity is not properly
obscurity. Obliged to present truths of great importance, the
direct avowal of which might have shocked without doing good,
M. de Montesquieu has had the prudence to conceal them from
those whom they might have hurt without hiding them from the
wise.
He has especially profited from the two most thoughtful his-
torians, Tacitus and Plutarch; but, though a philosopher familiar
with these authors might have dispensed with many others, he
neglected nothing that could be of use. The reading necessary
for the Spirit of Laws' is immense; and the author's ingenuity
is the more wonderful because he was almost blind, and obliged
to depend on other men's eyes. This prodigious reading contrib-
utes not only to the utility, but to the agreeableness of the work.
Without sacrificing dignity, M. de Montesquieu entertains the
reader by unfamiliar facts, or by delicate allusions, or by those
strong and brilliant touches which paint, by one stroke, nations
and men.
In a word, M. de Montesquieu stands for the study of laws, as
Descartes stood for that of philosophy. He often instructs us, and
is sometimes mistaken; and even when he mistakes, he instructs
those who know how to read him. The last edition of his works
demonstrates, by its many corrections and additions, that when he
has made a slip, he has been able to rise again.
## p. 366 (#396) ############################################
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JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
But what is within the reach of all the world is the spirit of
the Spirit of Laws,' which ought to endear the author to all
nations, to cover far greater faults than are his. The love of the
public good, a desire to see men happy, reveals itself everywhere;
and had it no other merit, it would be worthy, on this account
alone, to be read by nations and kings. Already we may perceive
that the fruits of this work are ripe. Though M. de Montesquieu
scarcely survived the publication of the Spirit of Laws,' he had
the satisfaction to foresee its effects among us; the natural love of
Frenchmen for their country turned toward its true object; that
taste for commerce, for agriculture, and for useful arts, which
insensibly spreads itself in our nation; that general knowledge of
the principles of government, which renders people more attached
to that which they ought to love. Even the men who have
indecently attacked this work perhaps owe more to it than they
imagine. Ingratitude, besides, is their least fault. It is not with-
out regret and mortification that we expose them; but this history
is of too much consequence to M. de Montesquieu and to philoso-
phy to be passed over in silence. May that reproach, which at
last covers his enemies, profit them!
The Spirit of Laws' was at once eagerly sought after on
account of the reputation of its author; but though M. de Montes-
. quieu had written for thinkers, he had the vulgar for his judge.
The brilliant passages scattered up and down the work, admit-
ted only because they illustrated the subject, made the ignorant
believe that it was written for them. Looking for an entertaining
book, they found a useful one, whose scheme and details they
could not comprehend without attention. The Spirit of Laws
was treated with a deal of cheap wit; even the title of it was
made a subject of pleasantry. In a word, one of the finest literary
monuments which our nation ever produced was received almost
with scurrility. It was requisite that competent judges should
have time to read it, that they might correct the errors of the
fickle multitude. That small public which teaches, dictated to
that large public which listens to hear, how it ought to think and
speak; and the suffrages of men of abilities formed only one
voice over all Europe.
The open and secret enemies of letters and philosophy now
united their darts against this work. Hence that multitude of
pamphlets discharged against the author, weapons which we shall
not draw from oblivion. If those authors were not forgotten, it
## p. 367 (#397) ############################################
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
367
might be believed that the Spirit of Laws' was written amid a
nation of barbarians.
M. de Montesquieu despised the obscure criticisms of the
curious. He ranked them with those weekly newspapers whose
encomiums have no authority, and their darts no effect; which
indolent readers run over without believing, and in which sov-
ereigns are insulted without knowing it. But he was not equally
indifferent about those principles of irreligion which they accused
him of having propagated. By ignoring such reproaches he
would have seemed to deserve them, and the importance of the
object made him shut his eyes to the meanness of his adversaries.
The ultra-zealous, afraid of that light which letters diffuse, not to
the prejudice of religion, but to their own disadvantage, took
different ways of attacking him; some, by a trick as puerile as
cowardly, wrote fictitious letters to themselves; others, attacking
him anonymously, had afterwards fallen by the ears among them-
selves. M. de Montesquieu contented himself with making an
example of the most extravagant. This was the author of an
anonymous periodical paper, who accused M. de Montesquieu of
Spinozism and deism (two imputations which are incompatible);
of having followed the system of Pope (of which there is not a
word in his works); of having quoted Plutarch, who is not a
Christian author; of not having spoken of original sin and of
grace. In a word, he pretended that the Spirit of Laws' was a
production of the constitution Unigenitus, a preposterous idea.
Those who understand M. de Montesquieu and Clement XI. may
judge, by this accusation, of the rest.
This enemy procured the philosopher an addition of glory as
a man of letters: the ‘Defense of the Spirit of Laws appeared.
This work, for its moderation, truth, delicacy of ridicule, is a
model. M. de Montesquieu might easily have made his adversary
odious; he did better – he made him ridiculous. We owe the
aggressor eternal thanks for having procured us this masterpiece.
For here, without intending it, the author has drawn a picture of
himself; those who knew him think they hear him; and posterity,
when reading his Defense,' will decide that his conversation
equaled his writings- an encomium which few great men have
deserved.
Another circumstance gave him the advantage. The critic
loudly accused the clergy of France, and especially the faculty of
theology, of indifference to the cause of God, because they did
## p. 368 (#398) ############################################
368
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
not proscribe the Spirit of Laws. The faculty resolved to
examine the Spirit of Laws. ' Though several years have passed,
it has not yet pronounced a decision. It knows the grounds of
reason and of faith; it knows that the work of a man of letters
ought not to be examined like that of a theologian; that a bad
interpretation does not condemn a proposition, and that it may
injure the weak to see an ill-timed suspicion of heresy thrown
upon geniuses of the first rank. In spite of this unjust accusa-
tion, M. de Montesquieu was always esteemed, visited, and well
received by the greatest and most respectable dignitaries of the
Church. Would he have preserved this esteem among men of
worth, if they had regarded him as a dangerous writer ?
M. de Montesquieu's death was not unworthy of his life.
Suffering greatly, far from a family that was dear to him, sur-
rounded by a few friends and a great crowd of spectators, he
preserved to the last his calmness and serenity of soul. After
performing with decency every duty, full of confidence in the
Eternal Being, he died with the tranquillity of a man of worth,
who had ever consecrated his talents to virtue and humanity.
France and Europe lost him February 10th, 1755, aged sixty-six.
All the newspapers published this event as a misfortune. We
may apply to M. de Montesquieu what was formerly said of an
illustrious Roman: that nobody, when told of his death, showed
any joy or forgot him when he was no more. Foreigners were
eager to demonstrate their regrets: my Lord Chesterfield, whom
it is enough to name, wrote an article to his honor- an article
worthy of both. It is the portrait of Anaxagoras drawn by
Pericles. The Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres of
Prussia, though it is not its custom to pronounce a eulogy on
foreign members, paid him an honor which only the illustrious
John Bernoulli had hitherto received. M. de Maupertuis, though
ill, performed himself this last duty to his friend, and would not
permit so sacred an office to fall to the share of any other. Το
these honorable suffrages were added those praises given him,
in presence of one of us, by that very monarch to whom this
celebrated Academy owes its lustre; a prince who feels the losses
which Philosophy sustains, and at the same time comforts her.
The 17th of February the French Academy, according to
custom, performed a solemn service for him, at which all the
learned men of this body assisted. They ought to have placed
the Spirit of Laws' upon his coffin, as heretofore they exposed,
## p. 369 (#399) ############################################
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
369
opposite to that of Raphael, his Transfiguration. This simple and
affecting decoration would have been a fit funeral oration.
M. de Montesquieu had, in company, an unvarying sweetness
and gayety of temper. His conversation was spirited, agreeable,
and instructive, because he had known so many great men.
It
was, like his style, concise, full of wit and sallies, without gall,
and without satire. Nobody told a story more brilliantly, more
readily, more gracefully, or with less affectation.
His frequent absence of mind only made him the more amus-
ing. He always roused himself to reanimate the conversation.
The fire of his genius, his prodigality of ideas, gave rise to
flashes of speech; but he never interrupted an interesting conver-
sation; and he was attentive without affectation and without con-
straint. His conversation not only resembled his character and
his genius, but had the method which he observed in his study.
Though capable of long-continued meditation, he never exhausted
his strength; he always left off application before he felt the
least symptom of fatigue.
He was sensible to glory, but wished only to deserve it, and
never tried to augment his own fame by underhand practices.
Worthy of all distinctions, he asked none, and he was not
surprised that he was forgot; but he has protected at court men
of letters who were persecuted, celebrated, and unfortunate, and
has obtained favors for them.
Though he lived with the great, their company was not
necessary to his happiness. He retired whenever he could to the
country; there again with joy to welcome his philosophy, his
books, and his repose. After having studied man in the com-
merce of the world, and in the history of nations, he studied him
also among those simple people whom nature alone has in-
structed. From them he could learn something; he endeavored,
like Socrates, to find out their genius; he appeared as happy
thus as in the most brilliant assemblies, especially when he made
up their differences, and comforted them by his beneficence.
Nothing does greater honor to his memory than the economy
with which he lived, and which has been blamed as excessive in
a proud and avaricious age. He would not encroach on the pro-
vision for his family, even by his generosity to the unfortunate,
or by those expenses which his travels, the weakness of his sight,
and the printing of his works made necessary. He transmitted
to his children, without diminution or augmentation, the estate
1-24
## p. 370 (#400) ############################################
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JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
which he received from his ancestors, adding nothing to it but
the glory of his name and the example of his life. He had
married, in 1715, dame Jane de Lartigue, daughter of Peter de
Lartigue, lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of Molevrier, and
had by her two daughters and one son.
Those who love truth and their country will not be displeased
to find some of his maxims here. He thought: That every part
of the State ought to be equally subject to the laws, but that the
privileges of every part of the State ought to be respected when
they do not oppose the natural right which obliges every citizen
equally to contribute to the public good; that ancient possession
was in this kind the first of titles, and the most inviolable of
rights, which it was always unjust and sometimes dangerous to
shake; that magistrates, in all circumstances, and notwithstand-
ing their own advantage, ought to be magistrates without par-
tiality and without passion, like the laws which absolve and
punish without love or hatred. He said upon occasion of those
ecclesiastical disputes which so much employed the Greek empe-
rors and Christians, that theological disputes, when they are not
confined to the schools, infallibly dishonor a nation in the eyes
of its neighbors: in fact, the contempt in which wise men hold
those quarrels does not vindicate the character of their country;
because, sages making everywhere the least noise, and being the
smallest number, it is never from them that the nation is judged.
We look upon that special interest which M. de Montesquieu
took in the Encyclopédie' as one of the most honorable rewards
of our labor. Perhaps the opposition which the work has met
with, reminding him of his own experience, interested him the
more in our favor. Perhaps he was sensible, without perceiving
it, of that justice which we dared to do him in the first volume
of the Encyclopédie,' when nobody as yet had ventured to say a
word in his defense. He prepared for us an article upon ‘Taste,'
which has been found unfinished among his papers. We shall
give it to the public in that condition, and treat it with the same
respect that antiquity formerly showed to the last words of
Seneca. Death prevented his giving us any further marks of his
approval; and joining our own griefs with those of all Europe,
we might write on his tomb:-
« Finis vite ejus nobis luctuosus, patriæ tristis, extraneis etiam ig notisque
non sine cura fuit. ”
.
## p. 370 (#401) ############################################
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371
VITTORIO ALFIERI
(1749–1803)
BY L. OSCAR KUHNS
TALIAN literature during the eighteenth century, although it
could boast of no names in any way comparable with those
of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, showed still a vast
improvement on the degradation of the preceding century. Among
the most famous writers of the times. Goldoni, Parini, Metastasio -
none is so great or so famous as Vittorio Alfieri, the founder of Ital-
ian tragedy. The story of his life and of his literary activity, as
told by himself in his memoirs, is one of extreme interest. Born at
Asti, on January 17th, 1749, of a wealthy and noble family, he grew
up to manhood singularly deficient in knowledge and culture, and
without the slightest interest in literature. He was « uneducated,
to use his own phrase, in the Academy of Turin. It was only after a
long tour in Italy, France, Holland, and England, that, recognizing
his own ignorance, he went to Florence to begin serious work.
At the age of twenty-seven a sudden revelation of his dramatic
power came to him, and with passionate energy he spent the rest of
his life in laborious study and in efforts to make himself worthy of
a place among the poets of his native land. Practically he had to
learn everything; for he himself tells us that he had « an almost
total ignorance of the rules of dramatic composition, and an unskill-
fulness almost total in the divine and most necessary art of writing
well and handling his own language. ”
His private life was eventful, chiefly through his many senti-
mental attachments, its deepest experience being his profound love
and friendship for the Countess of Albany, - Louise Stolberg, mistress
and afterward wife of the “Young Pretender," who passed under the
title of Count of Albany, and from whom she was finally divorced.
The production of Alfieri's tragedies began with the sketch called
Cleopatra,' in 1775, and lasted till 1789, when a complete edition, by
Didot, appeared in Paris. His only important prose work is his Auto-
biography,' begun in 1790 and ended in the year of his death, 1803.
Although he wrote several comedies and a number of sonnets and
satires, — which do not often rise above mediocrity, —it is as a tragic
poet that he is known to fame. Before him — though Goldoni had
successfully imitated Molière in comedy, and Metastasio had become
enormously popular as the poet of love and the opera - no tragedies
had been written in Italy which deserved to be compared with the
great dramas of France, Spain, and England. Indeed, it had been
(
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VITTORIO ALFIERI
said that tragedy was not adapted to the Italian tongue or character.
It remained for Alfieri to prove the falsity of this theory.
Always sensitive to the charge of plagiarism, Alfieri declared that
whether his tragedies were good or bad, they were at least his own.
This is true to a certain extent. And yet he was influenced more
than he was willing to acknowledge by the French dramatists of the
seventeenth century. In common with Corneille and Racine, he ob-
served strictly the three unities of time, place, and action. But the
courtliness of language, the grace and poetry of the French dramas,
and especially the tender love of Racine, are altogether lacking with
him.
Alfieri had a certain definite theory of tragedy which he followed
with unswerving fidelity. He aimed at the simplicity and directness
of the Greek drama. He sought to give one clear, definite action,
which should advance in a straight line from beginning to end, with-
out deviation, and carry along the characters — who are, for the most
part, helplessly entangled in the toils of a relentless fate — to an
inevitable destruction. For this reason the well-known confidantes of
the French stage were discarded, no secondary action or episodes
were admitted, and the whole play was shortened to a little more
than two-thirds of the average French classic drama. Whatever
originality Alfieri possessed did not show itself in the choice of sub-
jects, which are nearly all well known and had often been used
before. From Racine he took Polynice,' (Merope) had been treated
by Maffei and Voltaire, and Shakespeare had immortalized the story
of Brutus. The situations and events are often conventional; the
passions are those familiar to the stage, — jealousy, revenge, hatred,
and unhappy love. And yet Alfieri has treated these subjects in a
way which differs from all others, and which stamps them, in a cer-
tain sense, as his own. With him all is sombre and melancholy; the
scene is utterly unrelieved by humor, by the flowers of poetry, or by
that deep-hearted sympathy - the pity of it all — which softens the
tragic effect of Shakespeare's plays.
Alfieri seemed to be attracted toward the most horrible phases of
human life, and the most terrible events of history and tradition.
The passions he describes are those of unnatural love, of jealousy
between father and son, of fratricidal hatred, or those in which a
sense of duty and love for liberty triumphs over the ties of filial
and parental love. In treating the story of the second Brutus, it
was not enough for his purpose to have Cæsar murdered by his
friend; but, availing himself of an unproven tradition, he makes Bru-
tus the son of Cæsar, and thus a parricide.
It is interesting to notice his vocabulary: to see how constantly
he uses such words as “atrocious,” «horror,” “terrible, «incest,"
>
## p. 373 (#407) ############################################
VITTORIO ALFIERI
373
" rivers," streams, » lakes,” and “seas” of blood. The exclama-
tion, «Oh, rage! ” occurs on almost every page. Death, murder,
suicide, is the outcome of every tragedy.
The actors are few,- in many plays only four,- and each repre-
sents a certain passion. They never change, but remain true to
their characters from beginning to end. The villains are monsters
of cruelty and vice, and the innocent and virtuous are invariably
their victims, and succumb at last.
Alfieri's purpose in producing these plays was not to amuse an
idle public, but to promulgate throughout his native land - then
under Spanish domination — the great and lofty principle of liberty
which inspired his whole life. A deep, uncompromising hatred of
kings is seen in every drama, where invariably a tyrant figures as
the villain. There is a constant declamation against tyranny and
slavery. Liberty is portrayed as something dearer than life itself.
The struggle for freedom forms the subjects of five of his plays, -
(Virginia,' The Conspiracy of the Pazzi, Timoleon, the First
Brutus,' and the Second Brutus. ' One of these is dedicated to
George Washington - Liberator dell' America. ' The warmth of
feeling with which, in the Conspiracy of the Pazzi, the degrada-
tion and slavery of Florence under the Medici is depicted, betrays
clearly Alfieri's sense of the political state of Italy in his own day.
And the poet undoubtedly has gained the gratitude of his country-
men for his voicing of that love for liberty which has always existed
in their hearts.
Just as Alfieri sought to condense the action of his plays, so he
strove for brevity and condensation in language. His method of
composing was peculiar. He first sketched his play in prose, then
worked it over in poetry, often spending years in the process of
rewriting and polishing. In his indomitable energy, his persistence
in labor, and his determination to acquire a fitting style, he reminds
us of Balzac. His brevity of language — which shows itself most
strikingly in the omission of articles, and in the number of broken
exclamations - gives his pages a certain sententiousness, almost like
proverbs. He purposely renounced all attempts at the graces and
flowers of poetry.
It is hard for the lover of Shakespearean tragedy to be just to
the merits of Alfieri. There is a uniformity, or even a monotony,
in these nineteen plays, whose characters are more or less alike,
whose method of procedure is the same, whose sentiments are
analogous, and in which an activity devoid of incident hurries the
reader to an inevitable conclusion, foreseen from the first act.
And yet he student cannot fail to detect great tragic power,
sombre and often unnatural, but never producing that sense of the
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VITTORIO ALFIERI
ridiculous which sometimes mars the effect of Victor Hugo's dramas.
The plots are never obscure, the language is never trivial, and the
play ends with a climax which leaves a profound impression.
The very nature of Alfieri's tragedies makes it difficult to repre-
sent him without giving a complete play. The following extracts,
however, illustrate admirably the horror and power of his climaxes.
Oscarkahne.
AGAMEMNON
[During the absence of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy, Ægisthus, son
of Thyestes and the relentless enemy of the House of Atreus, wins the love
of Clytemnestra, and with devilish ingenuity persuades her that the only way
to save her life and his is to slay her husband. ]
ACT IV - SCENE I
ÆGISTHUS
CLYTEMNESTRA
Æ
GISTHUS -- To be a banished man, . . . to fly, . . . to die;
These are the only means that I have left.
Thou, far from me, deprived of every hope
Of seeing me again, wilt from thy heart
Have quickly chased my image: great Atrides
Will wake a far superior passion there:
Thou, in his presence, many happy days
Wilt thou enjoy — These auspices may Heaven
Confirm - I cannot now evince to thee
A surer proof of love than by my flight; . .
A dreadful, hard, irrevocable proof.
Clytemnestra— If there be need of death, we both will die!
But is there nothing left to try ere this?
Ægis. - Another plan, perchance, e'en now remains;
But little worthy . . .
Cly. — And it is-
Ægis. - Too cruel.
Cly:— But certain ?
Ægis. — Certain, ah, too much so!
Cly. — How
Canst thou hide it from me ?
Ægis. —How canst thou
Of me demand it ?
-
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VITTORIO ALFIERI
375
Cly. - What then may it be? . . .
I know not . . . Speak: I am too far advanced;
I cannot now retract: perchance already
I am suspected by Atrides; maybe
He has the right already to despise me:
Hence do I feel constrained, e'en now, to hate him;
I cannot longer in his presence live;
I neither will, nor dare. — Do thou, Ægisthus,
Teach me a means, whatever it may be,
A means by which I may withdraw myself
From him forever.
Ægis. - Thou withdraw thyself
From him ? I have already said to thee
That now 'tis utterly impossible.
Cly. — What other step remains for me to take? . . .
Ægis. - None.
Cly. — Now I understand thee. - What a flash
Oh, what a deadly, instantaneous flash
Of criminal conviction rushes through
My obtuse mind! What throbbing turbulence
In ev'ry vein I feel! - I understand thee:
The cruel remedy . . . the only one . .
Is Agamemnon's life-blood.
Ægis. -I am silent . . .
Cly. — Yet, by thy silence, thou dost ask that blood.
Ægis. - Nay, rather I forbid it. — To our love
And to thy life (of mine I do not speak )
His living is the only obstacle;
But yet, thou knowest that his life is sacred:
To love, respect, defend it, thou art bound;
And I to tremble at it. — Let us cease:
The hour advances now; my long discourse
Might give occasion to suspicious thoughts.
At length receive . . . Ægisthus's last farewell.
Cly. — Ah! hear me . . . Agamemnon to our love . . .
And to thy life? . . . Ah, yes; there are, besides him,
No other obstacles: too certainly
His life is death to us!
Egis. - Ah! do not heed
My words: they spring from too much love.
Cly. — And love
Revealed to me their meaning.
Agis. - Hast thou not
Thy mind o'erwhelmed with horror ?
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VITTORIO ALFIERI
.
Cly. — Horror ?
yes;
But then to part from thee!
Ægis. - Wouldst have the courage ? .
Cly. — So vast my love, it puts an end to fear.
Ægis. — But the king lives surrounded by his friends:
What sword would find a passage to his heart?
Cly. – What sword ?
Ægis. — Here open violence were vain.
Cly. — Yet, . . treachery! . . .
Ægis. —'Tis true, he merits not
To be betrayed, Atrides: he who loves
His wife so well; he who, enchained from Troy,
In semblance of a slave in fetters, brought
Cassandra, whom he loves, to whom he is
Himself a slave .
Cly. — What do I hear!
Ægis. - Meanwhile
Expect that when of thee his love is wearied,
He will divide with her his throne and bed;
Expect that, to thy many other wrongs,
Shame will be added: and do thou alone
Not be exasperated at a deed
That rouses every Argive.
Cly. – What said'st thou ? . . .
Cassandra chosen as my rival ? .
Ægis. — So
Atrides wills.
Cly. — Then let Atrides perish.
Ægis. — How ? By what hand ?
Cly. — By mine, this very night,
Within that bed which he expects to share
With this abhorred slave.
Ægis. - O Heavens! but think . . .
Cly. — I am resolved . .
Ægis. - Shouldst thou repent ?
Cly. I do
That I so long delayed.
Ægis. — And yet .
Cly. -- I'll do it;
I, e'en if thou wilt not. Shall I let thee,
Who only dost deserve my love, be dragged
To cruel death ?
great thinkers.
With them he studied the nature of the govern-
ment, attaining profound knowledge of it.
As he had set out neither as an enthusiast nor a cynic, he
brought back neither a disdain for foreigners nor a contempt for
his own country. It was the result of his observations that Ger-
many was made to travel in, Italy to sojourn in, England to think
in, and France to live in.
After returning to his own country, M. de Montesquieu retired
for two years to his estate of La Brède, enjoying that solitude
which a life in the tumult and hurry of the world but makes the
more agreeable. He lived with himself, after having so long
lived with others; and finished his work 'On the Cause of the
Grandeur and Decline of the Romans,' which appeared in 1734.
Empires, like men, must increase, decay, and be extinguished.
But this necessary revolution may have hidden causes which the
veil of time conceals from us.
Nothing in this respect more resembles modern history than
ancient history. That of the Romans must, however, be excepted.
It presents us with a rational policy, a connected system of ag-
grandizement, which will not permit us to attribute the great for-
tune of this people to. obscure and inferior sources. The causes of
the Roman grandeur may then be found in history, and it is the
business of the philosopher to discover them. Besides, there are
no systems in this study, as in that of physics, which are easily
overthrown, because one new and unforeseen experiment can
upset them in an instant. On the contrary, when we carefully
collect the facts, if we do not always gather together all the
desired materials, we may at least hope one day to obtain more.
A great historian combines in the most perfect manner these
defective materials. His merit is like that of an architect, who,
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JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
363
from a few remains, traces the plan of an ancient edifice; supply-
ing, by genius and happy conjectures, what was wanting in fact.
It is from this point of view that we ought to consider the
work of M. de Montesquieu. He finds the causes of the grandeur
of the Romans in that love of liberty, of labor, and of country,
which was instilled into them during their infancy; in those
intestine divisions which gave an activity to their genius, and
which ceased immediately upon the appearance of an enemy; in
that constancy after misfortunes, which never despaired of the
republic; in that principle they adhered to of never making peace
but after victories; in the honor of a triumph, which was a sub-
ject of emulation among the generals; in that protection which
they granted to those peoples who rebelled against their kings;
in the excellent policy of permitting the conquered to preserve
their religion and customs; and the equally excellent determina-
tion never to have two enemies upon their hands at once, but to
bear everything from the one till they had destroyed the other.
He finds the causes of their declension in the aggrandizement of
the State itself: in those distant wars, which, obliging the citizens
to be too long absent, made them insensibly lose their republican
spirit; in the too easily granted privilege of being citizens of
Rome, which made the Roman people at last become a sort of
many-headed monster; in the corruption introduced by the luxury
of Asia; in the proscriptions of Sylla, which debased the genius
of the nation, and prepared it for slavery; in the necessity of
having a master while their liberty was become burdensome to
them; in the necessity of changing their maxims when they
changed their government; in that series of monsters who
reigned, almost without interruption, from Tiberius to Nerva,
and from Commodus to Constantine; lastly, in the translation
and division of the empire, which perished first in the West
by the power of barbarians, and after having languished in the
East, under weak or cruel emperors, insensibly died away, like
those rivers which disappear in the sands.
In a very small volume M. de Montesquieu explained and
unfolded his picture. Avoiding detail, and seizing only essentials,
he has included in a very small space a vast number of objects
distinctly perceived, and rapidly presented, without fatiguing the
reader. While he points out much, he leaves us still more to
reflect upon; and he might have entitled his book, A Roman
History for the Use of Statesmen and Philosophers. '
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JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
Whatever reputation M. de Montesquieu had thus far acquired,
he had but cleared the way for a far grander undertaking - for
that which ought to immortalize his name, and commend it to
the admiration of future ages.
He had meditated for twenty
years upon its execution; or, to speak more exactly, his whole
life had been a perpetual meditation upon it. He had made
himself in some sort a stranger in his own country, the better to
understand it. He had studied profoundly the different peoples
of Europe. The famous island, which so glories in her laws, and
which makes so bad a use of them, proved to him what Crete
had been to Lycurgus - a school where he learned much without
approving everything. Thus he attained by degrees to the noblest
title a wise man can deserve, that of legislator of nations.
If he was animated by the importance of his subject, he was
at the same time terrified by its extent. He abandoned it, and
returned to it again and again. More than once, as he himself
owns, he felt his paternal hands fail him. At last, encouraged
by his friends, he resolved to publish the Spirit of Laws. '
In this important work M. de Montesquieu, without insisting,
like his predecessors, upon metaphysical discussions, without con-
fining himself, like them, to consider certain people in certain
particular relations or circumstances, takes a view of the actual
inhabitants of the world in all their conceivable relations to each
other. Most other writers in this way are either simple moral-
ists, or simple lawyers, or even sometimes simple theologists. As
for him, a citizen of all nations, he cares less what duty requires
of us than what means may constrain us to do it; about the
metaphysical perfection of laws, than about what man is capable
of; about laws which have been made, than about those which
ought to have been made; about the laws of a particular people,
than about those of all peoples. Thus, when comparing himself
to those who have run before him in this noble and grand
career, he might say, with Correggio, when he had seen the
works of his rivals, “And I, too, am a Painter. ”
Filled with his subject, the author of the Spirit of Laws'
comprehends so many materials, and treats them with such brev-
ity and depth, that assiduous reading alone discloses its merit.
This study will make that pretended want of method, of which
some readers have accused M. de Montesquieu, disappear. Real
want of order should be distinguished from what is apparent
only. Real disorder confuses the analogy and connection of ideas;
## p. 365 (#395) ############################################
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
365
or sets up conclusions as principles, so that the reader, after
innumerable windings, finds himself at the point whence he set
out. Apparent disorder is when the author, putting his ideas
in their true place, leaves it to the readers to supply intermedi-
ate ones. M. de - Montesquieu's book is designed for men who
think, for men capable of supplying voluntary and reasonable
omissions.
The order perceivable in the grand divisions of the Spirit
of Laws' pervades the smaller details also. By his method of
arrangement we easily perceive the influence of the different parts
upon each other; as, in a system of human knowledge well under-
stood, we may perceive the mutual relation of sciences and arts.
There must always remain something arbitrary in every compre-
hensive scheme, and all that can be required of an author is, that
he follow strictly his own system.
For an allowable obscurity the same defense exists. What
may be obscure to the ignorant is not so for those whom the
author had in mind. Besides, voluntary obscurity is not properly
obscurity. Obliged to present truths of great importance, the
direct avowal of which might have shocked without doing good,
M. de Montesquieu has had the prudence to conceal them from
those whom they might have hurt without hiding them from the
wise.
He has especially profited from the two most thoughtful his-
torians, Tacitus and Plutarch; but, though a philosopher familiar
with these authors might have dispensed with many others, he
neglected nothing that could be of use. The reading necessary
for the Spirit of Laws' is immense; and the author's ingenuity
is the more wonderful because he was almost blind, and obliged
to depend on other men's eyes. This prodigious reading contrib-
utes not only to the utility, but to the agreeableness of the work.
Without sacrificing dignity, M. de Montesquieu entertains the
reader by unfamiliar facts, or by delicate allusions, or by those
strong and brilliant touches which paint, by one stroke, nations
and men.
In a word, M. de Montesquieu stands for the study of laws, as
Descartes stood for that of philosophy. He often instructs us, and
is sometimes mistaken; and even when he mistakes, he instructs
those who know how to read him. The last edition of his works
demonstrates, by its many corrections and additions, that when he
has made a slip, he has been able to rise again.
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JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
But what is within the reach of all the world is the spirit of
the Spirit of Laws,' which ought to endear the author to all
nations, to cover far greater faults than are his. The love of the
public good, a desire to see men happy, reveals itself everywhere;
and had it no other merit, it would be worthy, on this account
alone, to be read by nations and kings. Already we may perceive
that the fruits of this work are ripe. Though M. de Montesquieu
scarcely survived the publication of the Spirit of Laws,' he had
the satisfaction to foresee its effects among us; the natural love of
Frenchmen for their country turned toward its true object; that
taste for commerce, for agriculture, and for useful arts, which
insensibly spreads itself in our nation; that general knowledge of
the principles of government, which renders people more attached
to that which they ought to love. Even the men who have
indecently attacked this work perhaps owe more to it than they
imagine. Ingratitude, besides, is their least fault. It is not with-
out regret and mortification that we expose them; but this history
is of too much consequence to M. de Montesquieu and to philoso-
phy to be passed over in silence. May that reproach, which at
last covers his enemies, profit them!
The Spirit of Laws' was at once eagerly sought after on
account of the reputation of its author; but though M. de Montes-
. quieu had written for thinkers, he had the vulgar for his judge.
The brilliant passages scattered up and down the work, admit-
ted only because they illustrated the subject, made the ignorant
believe that it was written for them. Looking for an entertaining
book, they found a useful one, whose scheme and details they
could not comprehend without attention. The Spirit of Laws
was treated with a deal of cheap wit; even the title of it was
made a subject of pleasantry. In a word, one of the finest literary
monuments which our nation ever produced was received almost
with scurrility. It was requisite that competent judges should
have time to read it, that they might correct the errors of the
fickle multitude. That small public which teaches, dictated to
that large public which listens to hear, how it ought to think and
speak; and the suffrages of men of abilities formed only one
voice over all Europe.
The open and secret enemies of letters and philosophy now
united their darts against this work. Hence that multitude of
pamphlets discharged against the author, weapons which we shall
not draw from oblivion. If those authors were not forgotten, it
## p. 367 (#397) ############################################
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
367
might be believed that the Spirit of Laws' was written amid a
nation of barbarians.
M. de Montesquieu despised the obscure criticisms of the
curious. He ranked them with those weekly newspapers whose
encomiums have no authority, and their darts no effect; which
indolent readers run over without believing, and in which sov-
ereigns are insulted without knowing it. But he was not equally
indifferent about those principles of irreligion which they accused
him of having propagated. By ignoring such reproaches he
would have seemed to deserve them, and the importance of the
object made him shut his eyes to the meanness of his adversaries.
The ultra-zealous, afraid of that light which letters diffuse, not to
the prejudice of religion, but to their own disadvantage, took
different ways of attacking him; some, by a trick as puerile as
cowardly, wrote fictitious letters to themselves; others, attacking
him anonymously, had afterwards fallen by the ears among them-
selves. M. de Montesquieu contented himself with making an
example of the most extravagant. This was the author of an
anonymous periodical paper, who accused M. de Montesquieu of
Spinozism and deism (two imputations which are incompatible);
of having followed the system of Pope (of which there is not a
word in his works); of having quoted Plutarch, who is not a
Christian author; of not having spoken of original sin and of
grace. In a word, he pretended that the Spirit of Laws' was a
production of the constitution Unigenitus, a preposterous idea.
Those who understand M. de Montesquieu and Clement XI. may
judge, by this accusation, of the rest.
This enemy procured the philosopher an addition of glory as
a man of letters: the ‘Defense of the Spirit of Laws appeared.
This work, for its moderation, truth, delicacy of ridicule, is a
model. M. de Montesquieu might easily have made his adversary
odious; he did better – he made him ridiculous. We owe the
aggressor eternal thanks for having procured us this masterpiece.
For here, without intending it, the author has drawn a picture of
himself; those who knew him think they hear him; and posterity,
when reading his Defense,' will decide that his conversation
equaled his writings- an encomium which few great men have
deserved.
Another circumstance gave him the advantage. The critic
loudly accused the clergy of France, and especially the faculty of
theology, of indifference to the cause of God, because they did
## p. 368 (#398) ############################################
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JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
not proscribe the Spirit of Laws. The faculty resolved to
examine the Spirit of Laws. ' Though several years have passed,
it has not yet pronounced a decision. It knows the grounds of
reason and of faith; it knows that the work of a man of letters
ought not to be examined like that of a theologian; that a bad
interpretation does not condemn a proposition, and that it may
injure the weak to see an ill-timed suspicion of heresy thrown
upon geniuses of the first rank. In spite of this unjust accusa-
tion, M. de Montesquieu was always esteemed, visited, and well
received by the greatest and most respectable dignitaries of the
Church. Would he have preserved this esteem among men of
worth, if they had regarded him as a dangerous writer ?
M. de Montesquieu's death was not unworthy of his life.
Suffering greatly, far from a family that was dear to him, sur-
rounded by a few friends and a great crowd of spectators, he
preserved to the last his calmness and serenity of soul. After
performing with decency every duty, full of confidence in the
Eternal Being, he died with the tranquillity of a man of worth,
who had ever consecrated his talents to virtue and humanity.
France and Europe lost him February 10th, 1755, aged sixty-six.
All the newspapers published this event as a misfortune. We
may apply to M. de Montesquieu what was formerly said of an
illustrious Roman: that nobody, when told of his death, showed
any joy or forgot him when he was no more. Foreigners were
eager to demonstrate their regrets: my Lord Chesterfield, whom
it is enough to name, wrote an article to his honor- an article
worthy of both. It is the portrait of Anaxagoras drawn by
Pericles. The Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres of
Prussia, though it is not its custom to pronounce a eulogy on
foreign members, paid him an honor which only the illustrious
John Bernoulli had hitherto received. M. de Maupertuis, though
ill, performed himself this last duty to his friend, and would not
permit so sacred an office to fall to the share of any other. Το
these honorable suffrages were added those praises given him,
in presence of one of us, by that very monarch to whom this
celebrated Academy owes its lustre; a prince who feels the losses
which Philosophy sustains, and at the same time comforts her.
The 17th of February the French Academy, according to
custom, performed a solemn service for him, at which all the
learned men of this body assisted. They ought to have placed
the Spirit of Laws' upon his coffin, as heretofore they exposed,
## p. 369 (#399) ############################################
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
369
opposite to that of Raphael, his Transfiguration. This simple and
affecting decoration would have been a fit funeral oration.
M. de Montesquieu had, in company, an unvarying sweetness
and gayety of temper. His conversation was spirited, agreeable,
and instructive, because he had known so many great men.
It
was, like his style, concise, full of wit and sallies, without gall,
and without satire. Nobody told a story more brilliantly, more
readily, more gracefully, or with less affectation.
His frequent absence of mind only made him the more amus-
ing. He always roused himself to reanimate the conversation.
The fire of his genius, his prodigality of ideas, gave rise to
flashes of speech; but he never interrupted an interesting conver-
sation; and he was attentive without affectation and without con-
straint. His conversation not only resembled his character and
his genius, but had the method which he observed in his study.
Though capable of long-continued meditation, he never exhausted
his strength; he always left off application before he felt the
least symptom of fatigue.
He was sensible to glory, but wished only to deserve it, and
never tried to augment his own fame by underhand practices.
Worthy of all distinctions, he asked none, and he was not
surprised that he was forgot; but he has protected at court men
of letters who were persecuted, celebrated, and unfortunate, and
has obtained favors for them.
Though he lived with the great, their company was not
necessary to his happiness. He retired whenever he could to the
country; there again with joy to welcome his philosophy, his
books, and his repose. After having studied man in the com-
merce of the world, and in the history of nations, he studied him
also among those simple people whom nature alone has in-
structed. From them he could learn something; he endeavored,
like Socrates, to find out their genius; he appeared as happy
thus as in the most brilliant assemblies, especially when he made
up their differences, and comforted them by his beneficence.
Nothing does greater honor to his memory than the economy
with which he lived, and which has been blamed as excessive in
a proud and avaricious age. He would not encroach on the pro-
vision for his family, even by his generosity to the unfortunate,
or by those expenses which his travels, the weakness of his sight,
and the printing of his works made necessary. He transmitted
to his children, without diminution or augmentation, the estate
1-24
## p. 370 (#400) ############################################
370
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
which he received from his ancestors, adding nothing to it but
the glory of his name and the example of his life. He had
married, in 1715, dame Jane de Lartigue, daughter of Peter de
Lartigue, lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of Molevrier, and
had by her two daughters and one son.
Those who love truth and their country will not be displeased
to find some of his maxims here. He thought: That every part
of the State ought to be equally subject to the laws, but that the
privileges of every part of the State ought to be respected when
they do not oppose the natural right which obliges every citizen
equally to contribute to the public good; that ancient possession
was in this kind the first of titles, and the most inviolable of
rights, which it was always unjust and sometimes dangerous to
shake; that magistrates, in all circumstances, and notwithstand-
ing their own advantage, ought to be magistrates without par-
tiality and without passion, like the laws which absolve and
punish without love or hatred. He said upon occasion of those
ecclesiastical disputes which so much employed the Greek empe-
rors and Christians, that theological disputes, when they are not
confined to the schools, infallibly dishonor a nation in the eyes
of its neighbors: in fact, the contempt in which wise men hold
those quarrels does not vindicate the character of their country;
because, sages making everywhere the least noise, and being the
smallest number, it is never from them that the nation is judged.
We look upon that special interest which M. de Montesquieu
took in the Encyclopédie' as one of the most honorable rewards
of our labor. Perhaps the opposition which the work has met
with, reminding him of his own experience, interested him the
more in our favor. Perhaps he was sensible, without perceiving
it, of that justice which we dared to do him in the first volume
of the Encyclopédie,' when nobody as yet had ventured to say a
word in his defense. He prepared for us an article upon ‘Taste,'
which has been found unfinished among his papers. We shall
give it to the public in that condition, and treat it with the same
respect that antiquity formerly showed to the last words of
Seneca. Death prevented his giving us any further marks of his
approval; and joining our own griefs with those of all Europe,
we might write on his tomb:-
« Finis vite ejus nobis luctuosus, patriæ tristis, extraneis etiam ig notisque
non sine cura fuit. ”
.
## p. 370 (#401) ############################################
## p. 370 (#402) ############################################
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VITTORIO ALFIERI.
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## p. 371 (#405) ############################################
371
VITTORIO ALFIERI
(1749–1803)
BY L. OSCAR KUHNS
TALIAN literature during the eighteenth century, although it
could boast of no names in any way comparable with those
of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, showed still a vast
improvement on the degradation of the preceding century. Among
the most famous writers of the times. Goldoni, Parini, Metastasio -
none is so great or so famous as Vittorio Alfieri, the founder of Ital-
ian tragedy. The story of his life and of his literary activity, as
told by himself in his memoirs, is one of extreme interest. Born at
Asti, on January 17th, 1749, of a wealthy and noble family, he grew
up to manhood singularly deficient in knowledge and culture, and
without the slightest interest in literature. He was « uneducated,
to use his own phrase, in the Academy of Turin. It was only after a
long tour in Italy, France, Holland, and England, that, recognizing
his own ignorance, he went to Florence to begin serious work.
At the age of twenty-seven a sudden revelation of his dramatic
power came to him, and with passionate energy he spent the rest of
his life in laborious study and in efforts to make himself worthy of
a place among the poets of his native land. Practically he had to
learn everything; for he himself tells us that he had « an almost
total ignorance of the rules of dramatic composition, and an unskill-
fulness almost total in the divine and most necessary art of writing
well and handling his own language. ”
His private life was eventful, chiefly through his many senti-
mental attachments, its deepest experience being his profound love
and friendship for the Countess of Albany, - Louise Stolberg, mistress
and afterward wife of the “Young Pretender," who passed under the
title of Count of Albany, and from whom she was finally divorced.
The production of Alfieri's tragedies began with the sketch called
Cleopatra,' in 1775, and lasted till 1789, when a complete edition, by
Didot, appeared in Paris. His only important prose work is his Auto-
biography,' begun in 1790 and ended in the year of his death, 1803.
Although he wrote several comedies and a number of sonnets and
satires, — which do not often rise above mediocrity, —it is as a tragic
poet that he is known to fame. Before him — though Goldoni had
successfully imitated Molière in comedy, and Metastasio had become
enormously popular as the poet of love and the opera - no tragedies
had been written in Italy which deserved to be compared with the
great dramas of France, Spain, and England. Indeed, it had been
(
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said that tragedy was not adapted to the Italian tongue or character.
It remained for Alfieri to prove the falsity of this theory.
Always sensitive to the charge of plagiarism, Alfieri declared that
whether his tragedies were good or bad, they were at least his own.
This is true to a certain extent. And yet he was influenced more
than he was willing to acknowledge by the French dramatists of the
seventeenth century. In common with Corneille and Racine, he ob-
served strictly the three unities of time, place, and action. But the
courtliness of language, the grace and poetry of the French dramas,
and especially the tender love of Racine, are altogether lacking with
him.
Alfieri had a certain definite theory of tragedy which he followed
with unswerving fidelity. He aimed at the simplicity and directness
of the Greek drama. He sought to give one clear, definite action,
which should advance in a straight line from beginning to end, with-
out deviation, and carry along the characters — who are, for the most
part, helplessly entangled in the toils of a relentless fate — to an
inevitable destruction. For this reason the well-known confidantes of
the French stage were discarded, no secondary action or episodes
were admitted, and the whole play was shortened to a little more
than two-thirds of the average French classic drama. Whatever
originality Alfieri possessed did not show itself in the choice of sub-
jects, which are nearly all well known and had often been used
before. From Racine he took Polynice,' (Merope) had been treated
by Maffei and Voltaire, and Shakespeare had immortalized the story
of Brutus. The situations and events are often conventional; the
passions are those familiar to the stage, — jealousy, revenge, hatred,
and unhappy love. And yet Alfieri has treated these subjects in a
way which differs from all others, and which stamps them, in a cer-
tain sense, as his own. With him all is sombre and melancholy; the
scene is utterly unrelieved by humor, by the flowers of poetry, or by
that deep-hearted sympathy - the pity of it all — which softens the
tragic effect of Shakespeare's plays.
Alfieri seemed to be attracted toward the most horrible phases of
human life, and the most terrible events of history and tradition.
The passions he describes are those of unnatural love, of jealousy
between father and son, of fratricidal hatred, or those in which a
sense of duty and love for liberty triumphs over the ties of filial
and parental love. In treating the story of the second Brutus, it
was not enough for his purpose to have Cæsar murdered by his
friend; but, availing himself of an unproven tradition, he makes Bru-
tus the son of Cæsar, and thus a parricide.
It is interesting to notice his vocabulary: to see how constantly
he uses such words as “atrocious,” «horror,” “terrible, «incest,"
>
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VITTORIO ALFIERI
373
" rivers," streams, » lakes,” and “seas” of blood. The exclama-
tion, «Oh, rage! ” occurs on almost every page. Death, murder,
suicide, is the outcome of every tragedy.
The actors are few,- in many plays only four,- and each repre-
sents a certain passion. They never change, but remain true to
their characters from beginning to end. The villains are monsters
of cruelty and vice, and the innocent and virtuous are invariably
their victims, and succumb at last.
Alfieri's purpose in producing these plays was not to amuse an
idle public, but to promulgate throughout his native land - then
under Spanish domination — the great and lofty principle of liberty
which inspired his whole life. A deep, uncompromising hatred of
kings is seen in every drama, where invariably a tyrant figures as
the villain. There is a constant declamation against tyranny and
slavery. Liberty is portrayed as something dearer than life itself.
The struggle for freedom forms the subjects of five of his plays, -
(Virginia,' The Conspiracy of the Pazzi, Timoleon, the First
Brutus,' and the Second Brutus. ' One of these is dedicated to
George Washington - Liberator dell' America. ' The warmth of
feeling with which, in the Conspiracy of the Pazzi, the degrada-
tion and slavery of Florence under the Medici is depicted, betrays
clearly Alfieri's sense of the political state of Italy in his own day.
And the poet undoubtedly has gained the gratitude of his country-
men for his voicing of that love for liberty which has always existed
in their hearts.
Just as Alfieri sought to condense the action of his plays, so he
strove for brevity and condensation in language. His method of
composing was peculiar. He first sketched his play in prose, then
worked it over in poetry, often spending years in the process of
rewriting and polishing. In his indomitable energy, his persistence
in labor, and his determination to acquire a fitting style, he reminds
us of Balzac. His brevity of language — which shows itself most
strikingly in the omission of articles, and in the number of broken
exclamations - gives his pages a certain sententiousness, almost like
proverbs. He purposely renounced all attempts at the graces and
flowers of poetry.
It is hard for the lover of Shakespearean tragedy to be just to
the merits of Alfieri. There is a uniformity, or even a monotony,
in these nineteen plays, whose characters are more or less alike,
whose method of procedure is the same, whose sentiments are
analogous, and in which an activity devoid of incident hurries the
reader to an inevitable conclusion, foreseen from the first act.
And yet he student cannot fail to detect great tragic power,
sombre and often unnatural, but never producing that sense of the
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374
VITTORIO ALFIERI
ridiculous which sometimes mars the effect of Victor Hugo's dramas.
The plots are never obscure, the language is never trivial, and the
play ends with a climax which leaves a profound impression.
The very nature of Alfieri's tragedies makes it difficult to repre-
sent him without giving a complete play. The following extracts,
however, illustrate admirably the horror and power of his climaxes.
Oscarkahne.
AGAMEMNON
[During the absence of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy, Ægisthus, son
of Thyestes and the relentless enemy of the House of Atreus, wins the love
of Clytemnestra, and with devilish ingenuity persuades her that the only way
to save her life and his is to slay her husband. ]
ACT IV - SCENE I
ÆGISTHUS
CLYTEMNESTRA
Æ
GISTHUS -- To be a banished man, . . . to fly, . . . to die;
These are the only means that I have left.
Thou, far from me, deprived of every hope
Of seeing me again, wilt from thy heart
Have quickly chased my image: great Atrides
Will wake a far superior passion there:
Thou, in his presence, many happy days
Wilt thou enjoy — These auspices may Heaven
Confirm - I cannot now evince to thee
A surer proof of love than by my flight; . .
A dreadful, hard, irrevocable proof.
Clytemnestra— If there be need of death, we both will die!
But is there nothing left to try ere this?
Ægis. - Another plan, perchance, e'en now remains;
But little worthy . . .
Cly. — And it is-
Ægis. - Too cruel.
Cly:— But certain ?
Ægis. — Certain, ah, too much so!
Cly. — How
Canst thou hide it from me ?
Ægis. —How canst thou
Of me demand it ?
-
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VITTORIO ALFIERI
375
Cly. - What then may it be? . . .
I know not . . . Speak: I am too far advanced;
I cannot now retract: perchance already
I am suspected by Atrides; maybe
He has the right already to despise me:
Hence do I feel constrained, e'en now, to hate him;
I cannot longer in his presence live;
I neither will, nor dare. — Do thou, Ægisthus,
Teach me a means, whatever it may be,
A means by which I may withdraw myself
From him forever.
Ægis. - Thou withdraw thyself
From him ? I have already said to thee
That now 'tis utterly impossible.
Cly. — What other step remains for me to take? . . .
Ægis. - None.
Cly. — Now I understand thee. - What a flash
Oh, what a deadly, instantaneous flash
Of criminal conviction rushes through
My obtuse mind! What throbbing turbulence
In ev'ry vein I feel! - I understand thee:
The cruel remedy . . . the only one . .
Is Agamemnon's life-blood.
Ægis. -I am silent . . .
Cly. — Yet, by thy silence, thou dost ask that blood.
Ægis. - Nay, rather I forbid it. — To our love
And to thy life (of mine I do not speak )
His living is the only obstacle;
But yet, thou knowest that his life is sacred:
To love, respect, defend it, thou art bound;
And I to tremble at it. — Let us cease:
The hour advances now; my long discourse
Might give occasion to suspicious thoughts.
At length receive . . . Ægisthus's last farewell.
Cly. — Ah! hear me . . . Agamemnon to our love . . .
And to thy life? . . . Ah, yes; there are, besides him,
No other obstacles: too certainly
His life is death to us!
Egis. - Ah! do not heed
My words: they spring from too much love.
Cly. — And love
Revealed to me their meaning.
Agis. - Hast thou not
Thy mind o'erwhelmed with horror ?
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.
Cly. — Horror ?
yes;
But then to part from thee!
Ægis. - Wouldst have the courage ? .
Cly. — So vast my love, it puts an end to fear.
Ægis. — But the king lives surrounded by his friends:
What sword would find a passage to his heart?
Cly. – What sword ?
Ægis. — Here open violence were vain.
Cly. — Yet, . . treachery! . . .
Ægis. —'Tis true, he merits not
To be betrayed, Atrides: he who loves
His wife so well; he who, enchained from Troy,
In semblance of a slave in fetters, brought
Cassandra, whom he loves, to whom he is
Himself a slave .
Cly. — What do I hear!
Ægis. - Meanwhile
Expect that when of thee his love is wearied,
He will divide with her his throne and bed;
Expect that, to thy many other wrongs,
Shame will be added: and do thou alone
Not be exasperated at a deed
That rouses every Argive.
Cly. – What said'st thou ? . . .
Cassandra chosen as my rival ? .
Ægis. — So
Atrides wills.
Cly. — Then let Atrides perish.
Ægis. — How ? By what hand ?
Cly. — By mine, this very night,
Within that bed which he expects to share
With this abhorred slave.
Ægis. - O Heavens! but think . . .
Cly. — I am resolved . .
Ægis. - Shouldst thou repent ?
Cly. I do
That I so long delayed.
Ægis. — And yet .
Cly. -- I'll do it;
I, e'en if thou wilt not. Shall I let thee,
Who only dost deserve my love, be dragged
To cruel death ?
