It created a language hitherto unknown to his countrymen, uniting the familiar and colloquial with the tasteful and the expressive. It is too rhetorical, even thus, for our ears; but the Italians easily pardon inflation. The success of "Ortis" was immediate and striking. The Italians usually love to be amused and made laugh; but they were caught by the charm, and content to weep over the misfortunes of the victim of love. The author had artfully contrived to mingle himself inextricably with the image of his hero; and the ladies of Italy were interested by his appearance, uncouth as it was, and his manners, dissimilar to the inanity of their usual companions. He became what we call "a lion," and he himself fell in love with one of his fair admirers; but, as is too often the case where the author is more thought of than the man, this lady's love was more of the head than the heart, and Foscolo, after a short period, was dismissed. We are told that this lady was the daughter of the courteous Marchesa F., mentioned by Sterne in his "Sentimental Journey." True passion often enforces sympathy; otherwise, we cannot wonder that Foscolo did not create a sentiment in another as strong as that which he himself felt. In personal appearance he was not formed to excite tender admiration. Pecchio, who knew him at this time, describes him in vivid but no attractive colours. According to him, Foscolo was of middle stature, rather strong and muscular of frame; he had thick, reddish, rough hair, which added to his expression of wild vehemence, and rendered his fits of gloomy silence, or transports of rage, more horrible. His eyes were of a blueish grey, small, deep set, and intensely sparkling. His complexion was ruddy; his features well formed, except that his lips, though thin, protruded, having that animal-look about the jaw which is the opposite of the _beau idéal_ of the human countenance: he wore his chin thickly covered with hair, which gave him a sort of resemblance to an oran-outang. There is a story told of him that a Frenchman said to him one day, "Vous êtes bien laid, monsieur;" to which Foscolo wittily replied, "Oui, monsieur, à faire peur." On another occasion he was engaged in a duel with a friend, who impertinently compared him to the animal above mentioned. To add to the wildness and singularity of his appearance, he was fond, in an awkward sort of imitation of Alfieri, of appearing immersed in thought, maintaining a gloomy silence, interrupted only as he muttered, or rather growled forth, various quotations or verses, in a voice which made an Italian young lady once name him "a sentimental clap of thunder." Such was the outward appearance and manners of the Italian Werter; and if he met with success among the fair sex, it must be attributed to the ready sympathy they are apt to afford to sincere feeling, and to a generous, independent spirit. [Sidenote 1802. Ætat. 24.]