have hoped these thousand years. The very revolvement of the chances may bring it — it is upon the dice. « If the Neapolitans have but a single Massaniello amongst them, they will beat the bloody butchers of the crown and sabre. Holland, in worse circumstances, beat the Spains and Philips; America beat the English; Greece beat Xerxes; and France beat Europe, till she took a tyrant; South America beats her old vultures out of their nest; and, if these men are but firm in themselves, there is nothing to shake them from without. January 28th, 1821. « Lugano Gazette did not come. It appears that the Austrian brutes have seized my three or four pounds of English powder. The scoundrels!I hope to pay them in ball for that powder. Rode out till twilight. << Pondered the subjects of four tragedies to be written (life and circumstances permitting), to wit, Sardanapalus, already begun; Cain, a metaphysical subject, something in the style of Manfred, but in five acts, perhaps, with the chorus; Francesca of Rimini, in five acts; and I am not sure that I would not try Tiberius. I think that I could extract a something, of my tragic, at least, out of the gloomy sequestration and old age of the tyrant, and even out of his sojourn at Caprea, by softening the details, and exhibiting the despair which must have led to those very vicious pleasures. For none but a powerful and gloomy mind overthrown would have had recourse to such solitary horrors,—being also, at the same time, old, and the master of the world. « Memoranda. « What is poetry?—The feeling of a former world and Future. แ « Why, at the very height of desire and human pleasure,-worldly, social, amorous, ambitious, or even avaricious,—does there mingle a certain sense of doubt and sorrow-a fear of what is to come-a doubt of what is a retrospect to the past, leading to a prognostication of the future. (The best of Prophets of the future is the Past.) Why is this? or these?—I know not, except that on a pinnacle we are most susceptible of giddiness, and that we never fear falling except from a precipice-the higher, the more awful, and the more sublime; and, therefore, I am not sure that Fear is not a pleasurable sensation; at least, Hope is; and what Hope is there without a deep leaven of Fear? and what sensation is so delightful as Hope? and, if it were not for Hope, where would the Future be?-in hell. It is useless to say where the Present is, for most of us know; and as for the Past, what predominates in memory?-Hope baffled. Ergo, in all human affairs, it is Hope-Hope-Hope. I allow sixteen minutes, though I never counted them, to any given or supposed possession. From whatever place we commence, we know where it all must end. And yet, what good is there in knowing it? It does not make men better or wiser. During the greatest horrors of the greatest plagues (Athens and Florence, for example—see Thucydides and Machiavelli), men were more cruel and profligate than ever. It is all a mystery. I feel most things, but I know nothing, except Thus marked, with impatient strokes of the pen, by himself in the original. " « Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the tragedy of Cain: Were Death an evil, would I let thee live? << Past midnight. One o' the clock. << I have been reading W. F. S * * (brother to the other of the name) till now, and I can make out nothing. He evidently shows a great power of words, but there is nothing to be taken hold of. He is like Hazlitt, in English, who talks pimples—a red and white corruption rising up (in little imitation of mountains upon maps), but containing nothing, and discharging nothing, except their own humours. << I dislike him the worse (that is, S * *), because he always seems upon the verge of meaning; and, lo, he goes down like sunset, or melts like a rainbow, leaving a rather rich confusion,-to which, however, the above comparisons do too much honour. « Continuing to read Mr F. S * *. He is not such a fool as I took him for, that is to say, when he speaks of the North. But still he speaks of things all over the world with a kind of authority that a philosopher would disdain, and a man of common sense, feeling, and knowledge of his own ignorance, would be ashamed of. The man is evidently wanting to make an impression, like his brother, or like George in the Vicar of Wakefield, who found out that all the good things had been said already on the right side, and therefore dressed up some paradoxes' upon the wrong side-ingenious, but false, as he himself says-to which 'the learned world said nothing, nothing at all, sir.' The 'learned world,' however, has said something to the brothers S * *. « It is high time to think of something else. What they say of the antiquities of the North is best. January 29th, 1821. « Yesterday the woman of ninety-five years of age was with me. She said her eldest son (if now alive) would have been seventy. She is thin—short, but active— hears, and sees, and talks incessantly. Several teeth left—all in the lower jaw, and single front teeth. She is very deeply wrinkled, and has a sort of scattered gray beard over her chin, at least as long as my mustachios. Her head, in fact, resembles the drawing in crayons of Pope the poet's mother, which is in some editions of his works. "I forgot to ask her if she remembered Alberoni (legate here), but will ask her next time. Gave her a louis -ordered her a new suit of clothes, and put her upon a weekly pension. Till now, she had worked at gathering wood and pine-nuts in the forest,-pretty work at ninety-five years old! She had a dozen children, of whom some are alive. nari. Her name is Maria Monta « Met a company of the sect (a kind of Liberal Club) called the Americani' in the forest, all armed, and singing, with all their might, in Romagnuole—‘Sem tutti soldať per la liberta' (' we are all soldiers for liberty'). They cheered me as I passed-I returned their salute, and rode on. This may show the spirit of Italy at pre sent. « My to-day's journal consists of what I omitted yesterday. To-day was much as usual. Have rather a better opinion of the writings of the Schlegels than I had four-and-twenty hours ago; and will amend it still farther, if possible. " They say -ça ira! that the Piedmontese have at length risen « Read S**. Of Dante he says that at no time has the greatest and most national of all Italian poets ever been much the favourite of his countrymen.' 'Tis false! There have been more editors and commentators (and imitators, ultimately) of Dante, than of all their poets put together. Not a favourite! Why, they talk Dante -write Dante-and think and dream Dante at this moment (1821) to an excess, which would be ridiculous, but that he deserves it. says « In the same style this German talks of gondolas on the Arno-a precious fellow to dare to speak of Italy! He also that Dante's chief defect is a want, in a word, of gentle feelings. Of gentle feelings!-and Francesca of Rimini-and the father's feelings in Ugolino-and Beatrice-and La Pia!' Why there is a gentleness in Dante beyond all gentleness, when he is tender. It is true that, treating of the Christian Hades, or Hell, there is not much scope or site for gentlenessbut who but Dante could have introduced any gentleness' at all into Hell? Is there any in Milton's? Noand Dante's Heaven is all love, and glory and majesty. « I o'clock. << I have found out, however, where the German is right—it is about the Vicar of Wakefield. Of all romances in miniature (and, perhaps, this is the best shape in which romance can appear), the Vicar of Wakefield is, I think, the most exquisite.' He thinks!—he might But it is very well for a S* *. I feel sleepy, be sure. |