warmed the hearts of all the nobler Italians to attempt the destruction of their tyrants. He was acquainted with many of the Austrian victims; and when we find in his letters complaints of sorrows and misfortunes, we must attribute these to the real sympathy he felt for these unhappy martyrs: but, though he sympathised with the men, it is probable that he disapproved of their attempts. He was hopeless, and a hopeless struggle presented to him only the too real picture of aggravated oppression in general, and frightful individual suffering; he did not feel that boiling of the heart, that fire of the spirit, which makes the great and good risk all, rather than live subject to a power which exerted all its leaden strength to press down genius, crush every exertion of mind, and to reduce men as nearly as possible to the condition of the herds who graze in the fields, without a thought beyond the food and rest which the fertility of the soil and the beauty of the climate afford. Monti was not one of these: his mind was active, and, in his way, he wished to benefit his country. So when a thousand hearts were convulsed by the throes arising from all the hopes and fears of a just rebellion, he turned his attention to the study of the Italian language, to the task of freeing it from the shackles which critics had thrown over it, and of gifting it with the new spirit and animation which must arise from the introduction of living forms of speech, instead of the classic and restricted limitations imposed by the Della Crusca society. He composed few poems after the fall of Napoleon. When the emperor of Austria sent the archduke John to receive the oath of fealty from the provinces of Lombardy, he wrote, by command, a cantata, entitled "Mistico Omaggio," or the Mystic Homage, which was brought out at the principal theatre at Milan. When the emperor himself visited Italy he celebrated the event by a poem, called "The Return of Astrea," and another, named "The Invitation to Pallas." His style in these later compositions joins harmony to dignity, and forms that mixture of strength and sweetness which is so delightful in Metastasio. His last poetic compositions were written at Pesaro, where he was debarred from his usual occupations, and dispirited by a disease that attacked one of his eyes; and he solaced himself by dictating various poems full of grace and beauty, which he afterwards published under the title of "Sollievo nella Malinconia," or "Relief of Melancholy." [Sidenote: 1812.]