On the death of Charles VI., several of the European sovereigns invited Metastasio to their courts, and made him advantageous and honourable offers; but, as Maria Teresa still continued him in the place he held under her father, the poet felt that fidelity and gratitude alike forbade him to change masters during her adversity. His naturally sensitive mind was strongly agitated by the various success of the empress queen's arms. His susceptibility of disposition did not allow him to regard the course of events with a stoical eye; and to the disquietude he suffered is attributed the bad state of health into which he fell after the year 1745, when he was forty-seven years of age. His malady was chiefly nervous; hysterical affections, and a rush of blood to the head, were brought on by the slightest mental exertion, followed by a total temporary inability to write, or even to think: he was thus obliged entirely to suspend his poetic labours; and when he forced himself to them, they bear the mark of a falling off in his powers. It cannot be doubted that this unfortunate state was brought on in a great degree by climate. He was a native of Rome, and, till the age of thirty-two, had resided constantly in the south of Italy. What a dreary contrast did Vienna present to the enchanting land in which he passed his youth! The clear skies, the perpetual summer, the cheerful feelings produced by the habits of a southern life, were injuriously changed for the gloom of the freezing north. The very precautions which the natives take to protect themselves from cold during the interminable winters, the stoves, closed windows, and consequent want of fresh air and healthy exercise, being in diametrical opposition to the more hardy habits of southern nations, are injurious to the health and spirits of those who are accustomed to regard the "skiey influences" as friendly instead of inimical to their comfort and well-being. Metastasio never left Germany after he first entered it. A part of his occupation, in the sequel, became the teaching the archduchesses, daughters of Maria Teresa, Italian: this was an office he felt that he could not desert, with any grace, even for a limited number of months. The kindness of the empress in yielding to the total suspension of all theatrical composition on his part, forced on him by ill health, bound him yet more devotedly to her. As he grew older, he became a man of habit, and consequently averse to travelling. It is impossible, however, not to believe, that if he had varied his residence in Germany by occasional visits to his native country, the disease under which he laboured, which embittered though it did not shorten existence, would have been dissipated and cured.