greatly accelerated the progress of the
disease, which was still further promoted by his insisting on proceeding
with the correction of his works almost to the very last. He was so
little aware of his impending dissolution, that he took a drive in a
carriage on the 3d October, and tried to the last moment to starve his
gout into submission. He refused to allow leeches to be applied to his
legs, as the physicians recommended, because they would have prevented
him from walking. At this period, all his studies and labors of the last
thirty years rushed through his mind; and he told the Countess, who was
attending him, that a considerable number of Greek verses from the
beginning of Hesiod, which he had only read once in his life, recurred
most distinctly to his memory. His mortal agony came on so suddenly,
that there was not time to administer to him the last consolations of
religion. He was buried in the church of Santa Croce at Florence, where
already reposed the remains of Machiavelli, of Michael Angelo, and of
Galileo. A monument to his memory, the work of the great Canova, was
raised over his ashes by direction of the Countess of Albany.

Such then was Alfieri! And may we not draw a moral from the story of his
life as faintly and imperfectly shadowed forth in the preceding sketch?
Does it not show us how we may overcome obstacles deemed by us
insuperable, and how we may seek to become something better than what we
are? The poet's name will go down to future ages as the idol of his
countrymen; may the beneficial effect produced by a mind like his upon
the character and aspirations of the world be enduring!

From the Dublin University Magazine

ANECDOTES OF PAGANINI.

Paganini was in all respects a very singular being, and an interesting
subject to study. His talents were by no means confined to his wonderful
powers as a musician. On other subjects he was well informed, acute, and
conversible, of bland and gentle manners, and in society, perfectly well
bred. All this contrasted strangely with the dark, mysterious stories
which were bruited abroad, touching some passages in his early life. But
outward semblance and external deportment are treacherous as quicksands,
when taken as guides by which to sound the real depths of human
character. Lord Byron remarks, that his pocket was once picked by the
civilest gentleman he ever conversed with, and that by far the mildest
individual of his acquaintance was the remor