its which our English taste of this time demands,--quickness of
feeling and brilliancy of expression. He lacks simplicity of idea, and
his style is an opal which takes all lights and hues, rather than the
crystal which lets the daylight colorlessly through. He is distinguished
no less by the themes he selects than by the expression he gives them.
In his poetry there is passion, but his subjects are usually those to
which love is accessory rather than essential; and he cares better to
sing of universal and national destinies as they concern individuals,
than the raptures and anguishes of youthful individuals as they concern
mankind." He was original in his way; his attitude toward both the
classic and the romantic schools is shown in the following passage from
his autobiography, which at the same time brings out his patriotism.
He says:--

"It seemed to me strange, on the one hand, that people who,
in their serious moments and in the recesses of their hearts,
invoked Christ, should in the recesses of their minds, in the
deep excitement of poetry, persist in invoking Apollo and
Pallas Minerva. It seemed to me strange, on the other hand,
that people born in Italy, with this sun, with these nights,
with so many glories, so many griefs, so many hopes at home,
should have the mania of singing the mists of Scandinavia,
and the Sabbaths of witches, and should go mad for a gloomy
and dead feudalism, which had come from the North, the
highway of our misfortunes. It seemed to me, moreover, that
every Art of Poetry was marvelously useless, and that certain
rules were mummies embalmed by the hand of pedants. In fine,
it seemed to me that there were two kinds of Art: the one,
serene with an Olympic serenity, the Art of all ages that
belongs to no country; the other, more impassioned, that has
its roots in one's native soil.... The first that of Homer,
of Phidias, of Virgil, of Tasso; the other that of the
Prophets, of Dante, of Shakespeare, of Byron. And I have
tried to cling to this last, because I was pleased to see how
these great men take the clay of their own land and their own
time, and model from it a living statue, which resembles
their contemporaries."

In another interesting passage he explains that his old drawing-master
had in vain pleaded with the father to make his son a painter, and he
continues:--