s friends that he was
born to no purpose. He was early destined to the bar, and began his law
studies in Pistoja and Lucca, completing them a number of years later at
Pisa, where he obtained his degree of doctor.

In 1834 he went to Florence, under pretence of practicing with the
advocate Capoquadri; but here as elsewhere he spent his time in the
world of gayety, whose fascination and whose absurdity he seems to have
felt with equal keenness. His dislike of study found its exception in
his love of Dante, of whom he was a reverent student. He was himself
continually versifying, and his early romantic lyrics are inspired by
lofty thought. His penetrating humor, however, and his instinctive
sarcasm, whose expression was never unkind, led him soon to abandon
idealism and to distinguish himself in the field of satire, which has no
purer representative than he. His compositions are short and terse, and
are seldom blemished by personalities. He was wont to say that absurd
persons did not merit even the fame of infamy. He leveled his wit
against the lethargy and immoralities of the times, and revealed them
clear-cut in the light of his own stern principles and patriotism.

The admiration and confidence which he now began to receive from the
public was to him a matter almost of consternation, wont as he was to
consider himself a good-for-nothing. He confesses somewhat bashfully
however that there was always within him, half afraid of itself, an
instinct of power which led him to say in his heart, Who knows what I
may be with time? His frail constitution and almost incessant physical
suffering account for a natural indolence against which he constantly
inveighs, but above which he was powerless to rise except at vehement
intervals. No carelessness, however, marks his work. He was a tireless
reviser, and possessed the rare power of cutting, polishing, and
finishing his work with exquisite nicety, without robbing it of vigor.
His writings exerted a distinct political and moral influence. His is
not alone the voice of pitiless and mocking irony, but it is that of the
humanitarian, who in overthrow and destruction sees only the first step
toward the creation of something better. When war broke out he laid
aside his pen, saying that this was no time for a poet to pull down, and
that his was not the power to build up. His health forbade his entering
the army, which was a cause of poignant sorrow to him. His faith in
Italy and her peop