Foscolo was in person about the middle height, and somewhat thin,
remarkably clean and neat in his dress,--although on ordinary occasions,
he wore a short jacket, trousers of coarse cloth, a straw hat, and thick
heavy shoes; the least speck of dirt on his own person, or on that of
any of his attendants, seemed to give him real agony. His countenance
was of a very expressive character, his eyes very penetrating, although
they occasionally betrayed a restlessness and suspicion, which his words
denied; his mouth was large and ugly, his nose drooping, in the way that
physiognomists dislike, but his forehead was splendid in the extreme;
large, smooth, and exemplifying all the power of thought and reasoning,
for which his mind was so remarkable. It was, indeed, precisely the same
as that we see given in the prints of Michael Angelo; he has often heard
the comparison made, and by a nod assented to it. In his living, Foscolo
was remarkably abstemious. He seldom drank more than two glasses of
wine, but he was fond of having all he eat and drank of the very best
kind, and laid out with great attention to order. He always took coffee
immediately after dinner. His house,--I speak of the one he built for
himself, near the Regent's Park,--was adorned with furniture of the most
costly description; at one time he had five magnificent carpets, one
under another, on his drawing-room, and no two chairs in his house
were alike. His tables were all of rare and curious woods. Some of
the best busts and statues (in plaster) were scattered through every
apartment,--and on those he doated with a fervour scarcely short of
adoration. I remember his once sending for me in great haste, and when
I entered his library, I found him kneeling, and exclaiming, "beautiful,
beautiful." He was gazing on the Venus de Medici, which he had
discovered looked most enchanting, when the light of his lamp was made
to shine upon it from a particular direction. On this occasion, he had
summoned his whole household into his library, to witness the discovery
which gave him so much rapture. In this state, continually exclaiming,
"beautiful, beautiful," and gazing on the figure, he remained for nearly
two hours.
He had the greatest dislike to be asked a question, which he did not
consider important, and used to say, "I have three miseries--smoke,
flies, and to be asked a foolish question."
His memory was one of the most remarkable. He has often requested me to
copy for him (from some library) a passage, which I should find in such
a page of such a book; and appeared as if he never forgot any thing with
which he was once acquainted.
His conversation was peculiarly eloquent and impressive, such as to
render it evident that he had not been over-rated as an orator, when in
the days of his glory, he was the admiration of his country. I remember
his once discoursing to me of language, and saying, "in every language,
there are three things to be noticed,--verbs, substantives, and the
particles; the verbs," holding out his hand, "are as the bones of these
fingers; the substantives, the flesh and blood; but the particles are
the sinews, without which the fingers could not move."
"There are," said he to me, once, "three kinds of writing--_diplomatic_,
in which you do not come to a point, but write artfully, and not to show
what you mean; _attorney_, in which you are brief; and _enlarged_,
in which you spread and stretch your thoughts."
I have said that his cottage, (built by himself,) near the Regent's
Park, was very beautiful. I remember his showing me a letter to a
friend, in which were the following passages:--After alluding to some
pecuniary difficulties, he says, "I can easily undergo all privations,
but my dwelling is always my workshop, and often my prison, and ought
not to distress me with the appearance of misery, and I confess, in this
respect, I cannot be acquitted of extravagance."
Speaking afterwards of the costliness of his furniture, he observes,
"they encompass me with an air of respectability, and they give me the
illusion of not having fallen into the lowest circumstances. I must also
declare that I will die like a gentleman, on a clean bed, surrounded by
the Venus's, Apollo's, and the Graces, and the busts of great men; nay,
even among flowers, and, if possible, while music is breathing around
me. Far from courting the sympathy of posterity, I will never give
mankind the gratification of ejaculating preposterous sighs, because I
died in a hospital, like Camoens, or Tasso; and since I must be buried
in your country, I am happy in having got, for the remainder of my life,
a cottage, independent of neighbours, surrounded by flowery shrubs, and
open to the free air:--and when I can freely dispose of a hundred
pounds, I will build a small dwelling for my corpse also, under a
beautiful oriental plane tree, which I mean to plant next November, and
cultivate _con amore_, to the last year of my existence. So far, I
am, indeed an epicure, but in all other things, I am the most moderate
of men. I might vie with Pythagoras for sobriety, and even with the
great Scipio for continence."--Poor Foscolo! these dreams were far, very
far from being realized. Within a short time after, his cottage, and all
its beautiful contents, came to the hammer, and were distributed. A
wealthy gold-smith now inhabits the dwelling of the poet of Italy. It is
but justice to his friends to add, that there were circumstances which
justified them in falling away from him.
During a great portion of the time I was acquainted with Ugo Foscolo, he
was under severe pecuniary distress, chiefly indeed brought on by his
own thoughtless extravagance, in building and decorating his house. I
have frequently in those moments seen him beat his forehead, tear his
hair, and gnash his teeth in a manner horrifying; and often left him at
night without the least hope of seeing him alive in the morning. He had
a little Italian dagger which he always kept in his bed-room, and this
he frequently told me would "drink his heart's blood in the night." "I
will die," said he, one day, "I am a stranger, and have no friends."
"Surely, sir," I replied, "a stranger may have friends." "Friends," he
answered; "I have learnt that there is nothing in the word; I assure
you, I called on W----e, to know if there was anything bad about me in
the newspapers; everybody seems to be leagued against me--friends and
enemies. I assure you, I do not think I will live after next Saturday,
unless there is some change." At another time he said, "I am surrounded
with difficulties, and must yield either life or honour; and can you ask
me which I will give up?" I have now before me a letter of Foscolo's,
which, after enumerating a long series of evils, concludes thus:--"Thus,
if I have not underwent the doom of Tasso, I owe it only to the strength
of my nerves that have preserved me."
The following sonnet was written by Ugo Foscolo, in English, and
accompanied the Essays on Petrarch, in the edition of that work which
was printed for private circulation. It was omitted when the volume was
subsequently published, and is consequently known to very few: