VITTORIO ALFIERI was born of noble and wealthy parents. His father died soon after his birth, and his mother married again and survived until 1792. He has left us in his Autobiography a complete picture of his life and times. His relatives looked down upon learning and science, and he was taught to feel thankful that he had no need to study. He learnt a little Latin and a good deal of French, and that was practically all that he took away with him from college. He entered the Piedmontese Army, but he found the routine of military duties so irksome that he asked and obtained leave from the King to travel in foreign countries. He was presented to Louis XV at Versailles and to Frederick the Great at Potsdam. He visited Sweden and Russia, Holland and England, Spain and Portugal. He liked the Dutch and the English best, and found in their countries the beneficial effects of that liberty which he loved and to which he consecrated the fruits of his genius. The development of his intellectual powers was, however, phenomenally slow. He had practically forgotten his own language and had to acquire it all over again. He was gifted with a fiery and impetuous nature and intense vigour of thought, but the fertility of his imagination was not commensurate with his other powers, Thus he had to wait until study and observation had furnished him with sufficient materials to enable him to write. This is the true explanation of the torpid condition of his intellect for so many years. A lady of Turin to whom he was much attached, fell dangerously ill, and whilst he was sitting with her during the tedious hours of convalescence, his eye fell upon some tapestries in her room, representing the history of Anthony and Cleopatra. It occurred to him that a fine tragedy could be written on the subject of their loves, and he endeavoured to make the attempt. He liked the occupation, and his ambitious spirit was fired by the hope that he might at last prove to the world that Italy could produce a great tragic poet as well as Greece, France, and England. He persevered, and by dint of labour and study he overcame the difficulties of his task, not the least of which was his inability to express himself in his native language, so that he was at first obliged to write down his ideas in French, then to translate them into Italian prose, and finally to alter the prose until it became verse. His heroic industry was crowned with a measure of success, and if he did not become an Italian Shakespeare or Sophocles, he enjoys, at least, the distinction of being the first Italian writer of tragedies who deserves serious consideration from the literary historian.