The famous epitaph, composed by Alfieri for himself, had been mangled by Mme. d'Albany and those who helped her and Canova in devising his tomb; the companion epitaph, the one in which Alfieri described the Countess as buried next to him, was also mangled in its adaptation to a tomb erected in Santa Croce, entirely separate from Alfieri's. On that monument of Mme. d'Albany, in the chapel where moulder the frescoes of Masolino, there is not a word of that sentence of Alfieri's about the dead woman having been to him dearer and more respected than any other human thing. Mme. d'Albany had changed into quite another being between 1803 and 1824; the friend of Sismondi, of Foscolo, of Mme. de Stael, the worldly friend of many friends, seemed to have no connection with the lady who had wept for Alfieri in the convent at Rome, who had borne with all Alfieri's misanthropic furies after the Revolution, any more than with the delicate intellectual girl whom Charles Edward had nearly done to death in his drunken jealousy. So, on the whole, Fabre, and whosoever assisted Fabre, was right in concocting a new epitaph. But to us, who have followed the career--whose lesson is that of the meanness which lurks in noble things, the nobility which lurks in mean ones--of this woman from her inauspicious wedding-day to the placid day of her death, to us Louise of Stolberg, Countess of Albany, Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, will remain, for all blame we may give her and her times, a figure to remember and reflect upon, principally because of those suppressed words of her epitaph: "_A Victorio Alferio ultra res omnes dilecta, et quasi mortale numen ab ipso constanter habita et observata._" FOOTNOTES 1: I have purposely quoted, almost textually, the account given by Ewald, lest I should be accused of following Alfieri's vague version. 2: The chief sources for this account are Mann's despatches and the _Memoires_ of Louis Dutens. Alfieri gives no details. _UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_ THE ENCHANTED WOODS and other Essays on the Genius of Place HORTUS VITAE, or the Hanging Gardens. Moralising Essays THE SPIRIT OF ROME. Leaves from a Diary HAUNTINGS: Fantastic Tales Second Edition THE SENTIMENTAL TRAVELLER. Notes on Places GENIUS LOCI. Second Edition POPE JACYNTH. Second Edition LIMBO; and Other Essays; to which is now added ARIADNE IN MANTUA. Second Edition RENAISSANCE FANCIES AND STUDIES. Second Edition ALTHEA. Second Edition VANITAS: Polite stories. Second Edition LAURUS NOBILIS: Chapters on Art and Life TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Contemporary spellings have generally been retained even where inconsistent. Missing Punctuation has been silently added, and a few obvious spelling errors have been corrected. The information about further volumes by the author has been moved to the end. The following additional changes have been made to the text: Tales of a Century (1 instance) Tales of the Century