Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/59

Rh whilst Mazzini, on the contrary, is designated il conspiratore della liberta, the conspirator of liberty. Guerazzi lives in Turin, and still writes. His last political satire, L'Asino, The Ass, has attracted considerable attention.

Guisti is a lyrical poet. He also is bitter, but only as it proceeds from the most ardent love for eternal justice and truth. Nothing can be more caustic than his satire, as for example, in “The Old Youth,” and “The Political Weathercock!” Nothing more profound, or more delicious than his love, as in the epistle to Un Amica Contana, to Una Madre; nothing nobler than self-criticism, as for instance in the poem to his Gino Capone. One sees in all his writings, that the main thought of his soul was the struggle for freedom, and the future of Italy. This gifted poet, who enriched the literary Italian language with a great number of words which he had adopted from the various dialects of the provinces, died whilst still young, as I have heard, heart-broken, by the unsuccessful revolution. This profoundly sensitive poetic nature could not survive the ruin of its noblest anticipations.

Leopardi is the name of another Tuscan poet and distinguished learned man, who was early garnered by death, after a brief life of great suffering. The erudition of this young noble is said to have been remarkable, and his facility in imitating the old classical poets marvelous. His view of life I can only deplore; it is a night without the crimson flush of morning. Suffering and pain are to him ever enduring, the only reality! The unfortunate young man reflected the world in his own condition; of life he experienced little,