Bonaparte must have exulted in the bitter and venomous abuse that Monti never fails to heap upon England. He tells us, in the preface to this poem, that its scope is to bring into favour the neglected literature of Greece and Rome, and to merit well from a free country by speaking in the accents of freedom. There is something in the applause heaped on the conqueror that jars with our notions of real independence and patriotism. Monti, at this time, entertained the idea of returning to republicanised Rome. But his friends dissuaded him; and his reputation, and probably his adulation of the victor, caused him soon after to be named commissary of the province of the Rubicon. But a poet makes a bad politician; and Monti's integrity stood in the way of his success, and he was obliged to give up his office. He made many enemies, and, naturally timid and fearful for the welfare of his family, he was terrified into making a complete _amende_ to the democrats of his country by writing odes, whose violent sentiments went beyond those of the most furious demagogues: and it is to these poems that he alludes when he speaks of the worship he was forced to pay to the mockery of liberty; and ever after he regretted his pusillanimity, and despised himself for his concessions. At the time they gained this point, his enemies were pacified; and the survivorship of the professor's chair of belles lettres in Brera, then occupied by Parini, was bestowed on him. But scarcely had he overcome the enmity of the friends of liberty and equality, than their star was eclipsed, and their reign came to an end. [Sidenote: 1799. Ætat. 45.] During the absence of Bonaparte in Egypt, Suvaroff and the Austrians crossed the Alps, and the French were driven from Italy. Her republics vanished like a forgotten dream; and their partisans, Monti among them, were forced to follow the retreating army of France, and to take refuge beyond the Alps.