The three great authors of modern Italy form a singular contrast to each other, as to their apparent motives for authorship. Alfieri, proud, independent, and gloomy, sought at once to honour his own name, to exalt and refine his countrymen, and to produce such works as would benefit his species; while the vehement passions of his own soul were their primal source and inspiration. Monti was a poet of the imagination. He wrote because the imagery, the melody, the aerial fabric of poesy were a part of his essence. The subjects of his poems were of less consequence, in his eyes, than the well treating them, or the variety, grandeur, and fantastic ideality displayed in his verses. Thus, at the word of command, he could celebrate the usurper, taint the struggles of a noble and free nation, and adorn the naked form of despotism with garments of beauty. Foscolo, on the contrary, was impelled to produce and reproduce himself: and yet to this assertion we must put some limit, for Foscolo was a man of learning and taste, and he was capable of giving light to compositions formed by the rules of art, and adorned by the graces culled from an intimate knowledge of the finest of human works. But vanity was still the mainspring,--a vanity accompanied by honesty of principle and independence of soul, and yet which was vanity--the worship of self--the making his own individuality the mirror in which the world was reflected. Ugo Foscolo was born in the island of Zante, about the year 1778. The Ionian isles had long been under the dominion of Venice. The family of Foscolo was of Venetian origin; and his father was a surgeon in the navy of the republic. Little is known of his early years. He seldom mentioned them in conversation, though his imagination sometimes delighted to recur to the sunny land of his birth, and to regret it. In one of his sonnets he exclaims,-- Ne più mai toccherò le sacre sponde Ove il mio corpo fanciulletto giacque Zacinto mia, che te specchi nell' onde Del Greco mar. Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio, O materna mia terra; a noi prescrisse Il fato illacrimata sepoltura. O! never more shall I thy sacred shores Approach, where my young limbs first sprung to life, Beloved Zante! who look'st upon the waves Of the Greek sea; and thou the song alone May'st claim of thy lost son, maternal land! For fate to him decrees an unwept tomb.