griefs, and assert the majesty of the crown. His character is conceived in the truth and sublimity of tragic nature; and the interest that hovers over him, the dim but harrowing horrors of his spectral visions, the mingled remorse, terror, and love that tear his heart, and the poetry in which these overpowering passions are expressed, take absolutely from the languor which the want of action might otherwise impart. The success of "Aristodemo" induced Monti to write another drama. "Galeotto Manfredi" is, however, a failure. It is founded on the passion of jealousy. In his preface the poet mentions that it is wanting in tragic dignity: such is not of necessity the fault of his subject, but it decidedly is of his method of treating it, and there is no poetry to redeem it from the charge of mediocrity. He married, about this period, the daughter of the celebrated cavaliere Giovanni Pickler, who had died a short time before. It is a singular fact, that he made choice of his wife without having seen her, and not on account of her extraordinary beauty, of which he was ignorant, but from respect for the reputation of her father, and a wish to console his afflicted family; while she accepted him on account of her admiration for the author of "Aristodemo." And now we enter on a new epoch of Monti's life, when he composed his most celebrated poem, and at the same time gave to his productions that political groundwork which, from his vacillation of principle, has not redounded to his honour.