"To write tragedies on the subject of liberty, in the language of a country which does not possess liberty, will perhaps, with justice, appear mere folly to those who look no further than the present. But he who draws conclusions for the future from the constant vicissitudes of the past, cannot pronounce such a rash judgment. I therefore dedicate this my tragedy to you, as one of the enlightened few--one who, because he can form the most correct idea of other times, other nations, and high principles--is also worthy to have been born and to have been active in a less effeminate century than ours. Although it has not been permitted you to give your country its freedom, I do not, as the mob is wont to do, judge of men according to their success, but according to their actions, and hold you entirely worthy to listen to the sentiments of _Timoleon_, as sentiments which you are thoroughly able to understand, and with which you can sympathize. VITTORIA ALFIERI." Alfieri inscribed on the copy of his tragedy which he sent to Pasquale, the following verses:-- "To Paoli, the noble Corsican Who made himself the teacher and the friend Of the young France. Thou with the sword hast tried, I with the pen, In vain to rouse our Italy from slumber. Now read; perchance my hand interprets rightly The meaning of thy heart." Alfieri exhibited much delicacy of perception in dedicating the _Timoleon_ to Paoli--the tragedy of a republican, who had once, in the neighbouring Sicily, given wise democratic laws to a liberated people, and then died as a private citizen. Plutarch was a favourite author with Paoli, as with most of the great men of the eighteenth century, and Epaminondas was his favourite hero; the two were kindred natures--both despised pomp and expensive living, and did not imagine that their patriotic services and endeavours were incompatible with the outward style of citizens and commoners. Pasquale was fond of reading: he had a choice library, and his memory was retentive. An old man told me that once, when as a boy he was walking along the road with a school-fellow, and reciting a passage from Virgil, Paoli accidentally came up behind him, slapped him on the shoulder, and proceeded himself with the passage.