It is well known that Manzoni attempted to carve out a new path for the drama in Italy. Avowedly renouncing the system of Alfieri and his followers—a system which had been prevalent since the birth of dramatic literature in his country—he aimed at becoming the founder of a new school, that should be more akin to the English and German. From his boldness in violating the unities of time and place, and numbering himself among the romantic writers, we are induced to believe that the reformation he advocates is to be total, and that his new principles are to be recommended by advantages peculiar to themselves. But this is not the case in the tragedies of Manzoni. His rich fancy, and command of poetic language, have indeed embellished them as poems; but as dramas, they have gained absolutely nothing. His heroes wear the same stiff and formal aspect with all the rest; we know them, if not by the “Athenian garment they have on,” by their cold, stately, and monotonous deportment. The interest is almost wholly political; the plots are unskilfully conducted, and the dialogue occasionally wearisome. The death-scene of Ermengarda in _Adelchi_, and the interview between the count and his wife and daughter, in _Carmagnuola_, are indeed touching and tragic; but they are merely episodes in the pieces, and the merit of a single scene is insufficient to redeem a whole play. The same faults, growing out of the selection of a political subject, are to be found with Pindemonte; while Monti and Niccolini are to be regarded as followers of Alfieri, since their compositions are upon the same plan. Pellico, without ostentation, has aimed at penetrating to the true source of tragic emotion. He has excluded all local coloring from his productions, neglecting also those striking embellishments of description and imagery, of which all the above-mentioned writers have availed themselves; yet his dramas are universal favorites in Italy. The cause of this popularity, the secret of his influence, lies in the exhibition of the passions. To accomplish this point, and succeed by the representation of feeling alone, he has sacrificed {774} what he considered the minor advantages of poetical ornament; but while he has thereby proved his power to unlock the sympathies, he has compelled himself to forego the complete success he might have commanded by a more impartial attention to the devices of his art. He has avoided, in most of his plays, the turgid declamation too common among the poets of his country; we say in most of them, for we think his _Euphemio of Messina_, in sound and fury, will challenge a comparison with any of the productions of his predecessors, without displaying the pathos of which the subject was capable. It is ever difficult to sympathize with distresses growing out of artificial opinions dependant upon a state of society entirely different from our own; we cannot, therefore, enter into the embarrassment of Ludovica, when she fancies herself