never opened his lips during the course
of a long journey through Germany, Switzerland, and Piedmont. Fevers,
and suicides attempted but interrupted, marked the termination of this
tragic amour. His second passion had for its object an English lady,
with whose injured husband he fought a duel, although his collarbone
was broken at the time. The lady proved unworthy of Alfieri as well
as of her husband, and the poet left her in a most deplorable state
of hopelessness and intellectual prostration. At last he formed
a permanent affection for the wife of Prince Charles Edward, the
Countess of Albany, in close friendship with whom he lived after her
husband's death. The society of this lady gave him perfect happiness;
but it was founded on her lofty beauty, the pathos of her situation,
and her intellectual qualities. Melpomene presided at this union,
while Thalia blessed the nuptials of Goldoni. How characteristic
also were the adventures which these two pairs of lovers encountered!
Goldoni once carried his wife upon his back across two rivers in their
flight from the Spanish to the Austrian camp at Rimini, laughing and
groaning, and perceiving the humour of his situation all the time.
Alfieri, on an occasion of even greater difficulty, was stopped with
his illustrious friend at the gates of Paris in 1792. They were flying
in post-chaises, with their servants and their baggage, from the
devoted city, when a troop of _sansculottes_ rushed on them,
surged around the carriage, called them aristocrats, and tried to drag
them off to prison. Alfieri, with his tall gaunt figure, pallid face,
and red voluminous hair, stormed, raged, and raised his deep bass
voice above the tumult. For half an hour he fought with them, then
made his coachmen gallop through the gates, and scarcely halted till
they got to Gravelines. By this prompt movement they escaped arrest
and death at Paris. These two scenes would make agreeable companion
pictures: Goldoni staggering beneath his wife across the muddy bed
of an Italian stream--the smiling writer of agreeable plays, with his
half-tearful helpmate ludicrous in her disasters; Alfieri mad with
rage among Parisian Maenads, his princess quaking in her carriage, the
air hoarse with cries, and death and safety trembling in the balance.
It is no wonder that the one man wrote 'La Donna di Garbo' and the
'Cortese Veneziano,' while the other was inditing essays on Tyranny
and dramas of 'Antigone,' 'Timoleon,' a