[1] Giovanni Pindemonte has published a series of dramas founded on Italian history; a most praiseworthy enterprise. The name of Pindemonte is also ennobled by Hippolito, one of Italy's sweetest modern poets.
[2] Alfieri's posthumous works have been printed. It will be seen, by the eccentric experiment which he tried on his tragedy of Abel, that he himself thought his style too austere, and that the stage required entertainments of greater fancy and variety.
All was arranged in a few days; parts distributed, the night fixed on, and the palace of a relative of Prince Castel Forte devoted to the representation. Oswald felt at once disquiet and delight; he enjoyed Corinne's success, by anticipation; but even thus grew jealous, beforehand, of no one man in particular, but of the public, who would witness an excellence of which he felt as if he alone had a right to be aware. He would have had Corinne reserve her charms for him, and appear to others as timid as an Englishwoman. However distinguished a man may be, he rarely feels unqualified pleasure in the superiority of a woman. If he does not love her, his self-esteem takes offence; if he does, his heart is oppressed by it. Beside Corinne, Oswald was rather intoxicated than happy: the admiration she excited increased his passion, without giving stability to his intents. She was a phenomenon every day new; but the very wonder she inspired seemed to lessen his hopes of domestic tranquillity. She was, notwithstanding, so gentle, so easy to live with, that she might have been beloved for her lowliest attributes, independent of all others; yet it was by these others that she had become remarkable. Lord Nevil, with all his advantages, thought himself beneath her, and doubted the duration of their attachment. In vain did she make herself his slave: the conqueror was too much in awe of his captive queen to enjoy his realm in peace. Some hours before the performance, Nevil led her to the house of the Princess, where the theatre had been fitted up. The sun shone beautifully; and at one of the staircase windows, which commanded a view of Rome and the Campagna, he paused a moment, saying: "Behold, how heaven itself lights you to victory!"--"It is to you, who point out its favor, that I owe such protection, then," she replied. "Tell me," he added, "do the pure emotions kindled by the sweetness of nature suffice to please you? Remember, this is a very different air from that you will respire in the tumultuous hall which soon will re-echo your name?"--"Oswald," she said, "if I obtain applause, will it not be because _you_ hear it that it may touch my heart? If I display any talent, is it not my love for you that inspires me? Poetry, religion, all enthusiastic feelings, are in harmony with nature; and while gazing on the azure sky, while yielding to the reverie it creates, I understand better than ever the sentiments of Juliet, I become more worthy of Romeo."--"Yes, thou art worthy of him, celestial creature!" cried Nevil: "this jealous wish to be alone with thee in the universe, is, I own, a weakness. Go! receive the homage of the world! but be thy love, which is more divine even than thy genius, directed to none but me!" They parted, and Oswald took his place, awaiting her appearance on the stage. In Verona, the tomb of Romeo and Juliet is still shown. Shakspeare has written this play with truly southern fancy; at once impassioned and vivacious; triumphant in delight; and rushing from voluptuous felicity to despair and death. Its sudden love, we feel, from the first, will never be effaced; for the force of nature, beneath a burning clime, and not habitual fickleness, gives it birth. The sun is not capricious, though the vegetation be rapid; and Shakspeare, better than any other foreign poet, knew how to seize the national character of Italy--that fertility of mind which invents a thousand varied expressions for the same emotion; that Oriental eloquence which borrows images from all nature, to clothe the sensations of young hearts. In Ossian, one chord constantly replies to the thrill of sensibility; but in Shakspeare nothing is cold nor same. A sunbeam divided and reflected in a thousand varied ways, produces endlessly multiplied tints, all telling of the light and heat from whence they are derived. Thus "Romeo and Juliet," translated into Italian, seems but resuming its own mother-tongue.