Monti had begun his literary and poetic life by servitude, when he became secretary of the duke of Braschi. In his present desperate circumstances he saw no hope, except in conciliating the ruling power of the continent, and entering on the service of the man who looked on all men as merely engines to fulfil his vast and illimitable projects. [Sidenote: 1802. Ætat. 48.] Napoleon had by fresh victories driven the Austrians from Italy; and a congress, called the Cisalpine, was held at Lyons, to fix on a form of government for the north of the peninsula. This was a kind of mockery that Bonaparte was fond of encouraging in the early days of his elevation, since, under some of the forms of popular election, new powers were, with a show of legality, bestowed on him. The Italians of the congress fixed on a plan of government, at the head of which was to be a president: they entreated Napoleon to accept this office, as the disunited state of the country rendered ii unadvisable to elect an Italian to it. Napoleon consented. This was a happy moment to bring himself before the supreme power, and Monti seized on it. He wrote an ode to Bonaparte, in the name of the Cisalpine congress; he chose the motto from Virgil, and it was a happy one,-- "Victorque volentes Per populos dat jura." The verses are very beautiful, and worthy of a better cause than laying the liberties of his country prostrate at the first consul's feet. Still Monti was aware that, degraded by long servitude and disunited by petty passions, the Italians were ignorant of the nature of true liberty. He saw party spirit, oppression, and rapine as the result of any attempt on the part of his countrymen to govern themselves; he knew also how vain it was to contend with the conqueror, and he was very probably sincere in his belief that the welfare of his country was safest in his hands. Still, while we admire the harmony of the verses and the beauty of the imagery, we repine at the slavish spirit that lurks within them. Bonaparte, who loved to be borne up by the wings of men's imaginations into a superior sphere of glory and success, must have been pleased by the halo of poetry with which Monti stooped to adorn his name.