After some months had been occupied by these representations, Alfieri gave them up, and devoted himself exclusively to study. He had many plans for composition: the chief of these were what he called tramelogedie, or tragic melodramas, only one of which, "Abel," he found energy to write, and this is an entire failure. He entered on a new field, to which his genius was not adapted--the mingling of human beings and spirits, of the passions of the heart and the airy creations of our fancy; a species of composition which is to be found in perfection in Calderon, and which Goëthe, Byron, and Shelley have made familiar to us in modern times, and, according to their various capacities, adorned with the mystery, fire, and glowing imagery peculiar to each.--But of this creative power, that peoples our world with beings not of it, though in it,--Alfieri was wholly destitute. We have already remarked how entirely his writings are wanting in the more ideal attributes of imaginative poetry.
At the age of forty-six he applied himself with desperate ardour to the study of the Greek language. Forty-six is no advanced age: how many men are in their prime at that epoch! but it was not so with Alfieri; his very memory failed him, but he persevered with his accustomed energy, battling with difficulties as if they had been opponents, inspired with a sense of opposition. Thus he read the most difficult authors, with the notes of the scholiasts, learning an infinite multitude of verses by heart, and acquiring, in the end, by dint of unwearied industry, a considerable knowledge of the language.
His health was infirm and his quiet disturbed by the progress of the French armies. They came, they said, to liberate Italy, and, under this pretence, destroyed its native governments, introduced their own crude institutions, and then, on pretence of the opposition their tyranny met, despoiling the Italians of their works of art, endeavouring even to supplant their divine language, and treating with contempt and insolence their peculiar manners and customs; so that any welcome given by the Italians to these pretended friends only showed more plainly their insulting pretensions and rapacity. When the French first appeared in Florence, Alfieri and the countess hurried away as if it had been visited by the plague. They established themselves at a villa in the environs, having removed all their property from their house in the city; and here they remained till the French were temporarily driven from Tuscany. On their second invasion, Alfieri had no time to retreat, and he satisfied his feelings of scorn and hatred by never speaking to a Frenchman, or admitting the visits of the leaders of its armies.