Not merely their political judgment, but their sense of right and wrong had been unsettled by such changes. When men of high genius, like the poet Vincenzo Monti, could begin his literary career by a fierce poem against France, continue it by songs in praise of the French conquerors as promoters of liberty, then write eulogies on Napoleon's empire, and finally join in the inauguration of a library, which was to be the means of reconciling the Italians to their Austrian conquerors, it can scarcely be wondered at if men of lower intellect found themselves equally ready to worship each new ruler as he rose into power, and to trample on the memory of fallen heroes. A man of nobler type than Monti expressed, perhaps still more clearly, the sense of despair which seemed likely to become the keynote of Italian feeling. Ugo Foscolo was, from his very birth, an embodiment of the confused state of Italy at that period. He was born in 1778, in the Isle of Zante, then a colony of the Venetian Republic, and in a condition of the utmost lawlessness. He was sent from thence to study at Padua, and thus grew up to manhood during the period of those continual changes in Lombardy which marked the period of the struggle against France. At one time he thought of becoming a priest, but soon devoted himself to literature. The sole models for the Italian dramatists, at that period, were the writings of Vittorio Alfieri, whose feelings and literary taste had led him to adhere, as closely as he could, to the old classical traditions. At the age of nineteen Foscolo chose, as his first subject for a drama, the horrible story of Thyestes; but though this work was received with great applause, his literary career was, for a time, cut short by the Treaty of Campo Formio. His political convictions seem already to have been strongly developed, for he was forced to leave Venice to escape the persecution of the new Government. Yet the creation of the Cis-Alpine Republic revived his hopes, and he hastened to Milan to take a share in the new life. There he became acquainted with the two leading poets of the day, Vincenzo Monti and Giuseppe Parini. From the former he gained several hints in style; from the latter he learnt the nobler lesson of hatred of corruption and servility. But the growing tyranny of Napoleon, the sense of the fickleness of his own countrymen, and the loathing of the rule of the Austrians, produced in Foscolo a bitter tone of cynicism and despair.