affei, then
considered the best Italian tragedy, he felt so indignant, that he set
to work, and very shortly produced his tragedy of that name, which was
soon followed by the _Saul_, which is incomparably the finest of his
works.

The Countess had obtained permission at the end of 1780 to leave her
husband, in consequence of the brutal treatment she experienced at his
hands, and to retire to Rome. It was not long before Alfieri followed
her, and took up his habitation there also. At the end of 1782, his
_Antigone_ was performed by a company of amateurs--he himself being
one--before an audience consisting of all the rank and fashion of Rome.
Its success was unequivocal, and he felt so proud of his triumph, that
he determined to send four of his tragedies to press, getting his friend
Gori, at Siena, to superintend the printing; and they were accordingly
published.

The intimacy between Alfieri and the Countess now inflamed the anger of
Charles Edward and his brother, Cardinal York, to such a pitch, that
Alfieri found it prudent to leave Rome, which he did in May, 1783, in a
state of bitter anguish. He first made pilgrimages to the tombs of
Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto, at Ravenna, Arqua, and Ferrara; at each of
which he spent some time in dreaming, praying, and weeping, at the same
time pouring forth a perfect stream of impassioned poetry. On getting to
Siena, he superintended personally the printing of six more of his
tragedies, and for the first time felt all the cares of authorship,
being driven nearly distracted by the sad realities of censors, both
spiritual and temporal, correctors of the press, compositors, pressmen,
&c., and the worry he experienced brought on a sharp attack of gout. On
recovering, he determined to start off once more on his travels, making
as a plea his desire to purchase a stud of horses in England, his
equestrian propensities having returned with violence. He accordingly
left his tragedies, both published and unpublished, to shift for
themselves, and proceeded to England, where, in a few weeks, he bought
no less than fourteen horses. That being the exact number of the
tragedies he had written, he used to amuse himself by saying, "For each
tragedy you have got a horse," in reference to the punishment inflicted
on naughty schoolboys in Italy, where the culprit is mounted on the
shoulders of another boy, while the master lays on the cane.

He experienced almost endless trouble and difficulty in