Some few pleasures diversified his life. His uncle found that the education of his sister Julia was entirely neglected at Asti, and she was removed to a convent at Turin. She was fifteen--in love--and divided from the object of her affections. Her brother became her confidant: he visited her twice a week, and tried to inspire her with constancy and resolution; but youthful spirits were of more avail than the lessons of romance, and, in short time, she was consoled. Another pleasure he enjoyed was, when a relation took him, on one occasion, to the opera buffa, sung by the best comic singers of Italy. The opera was the "Mercante di Malmantile." The spirit and vivacity of the music made a profound impression on him, leaving, as it were, a trail of harmony in his ears and heart, so that for many weeks after he remained immersed in an excessive, but not painful, melancholy. During this time he abhorred and nauseated his usual studies, while a world of fantastic images crowded his mind; and had he known how, he would have composed verses, and have expressed the most lively emotions, had not all language in which to express them been denied to him, through the ignorance of his teachers. This was the first time that music exercised so great an influence over him, and it remained long impressed upon his memory. At all times he was excessively susceptible to the impressions made by harmony, and he found that vocal music, especially female voices, possessed a peculiar power to disturb and agitate his mind. Nothing, he tells us, awakened in him more violent or various emotions; and almost all his tragedies were conceived while in the act of listening to music, or a few hours after. One other pleasure that he enjoyed during this period, was spending a fortnight with his uncle at Cuneo. This little journey did his health good, and occasioned him infinite delight. It was here that he wrote his first sonnet, addressed to a lady admired by his uncle, and who pleased him. As he knew nothing of Italian, or, as it is called, Tuscan, this sonnet must have been very bad. It pleased the lady; but his uncle, who was a soldier, and of an austere disposition, and who, though imbued with sufficient knowledge of history and government, despised poetry, ridiculed the boyish effusion, and put all thought of writing another out of his head.