Every fresh victory, every new conquest, was a theme for the venal muse of Monti; venal we have a right to call it, since he acknowledges the bond of a salary and the necessity of obedience. Thus, on occasion of the battle of Jena, he brought out the "Spada di Federico;" or, the Sword of Frederic,--the most popular of his odes of triumph. In this poem he images the spectral hand of the warrior king of Prussia disputing with Napoleon the possession of his sword, and yielding to the proud assumptions and tenacious grasp of the Gallic victor. Ten editions of this work were sold in the space of five months, and it was translated into the French and Latin languages.
The attempted usurpation of the Spanish throne did not go uncelebrated. The "Palingenesi" has for its subject the regeneration of mind and of political institutions wrought in Spain, under the auspices of the French emperor and his brother Joseph. If we could dismiss from our minds the truth, and fancy, as Monti assumes, that a great and generous nation had sunk into the depths of slavery and degradation through the evil influence of a corrupt government, and that Napoleon was bent on loosening its fetters and raising it to freedom and knowledge, it would be impossible not to be filled with enthusiasm by the noble ideas and grand imagery of this poem. But the taint of falsehood prevents any sympathy, and our admiration of the imagination displayed is checked by our contempt of the flatterer; while we smile at the bitter and violent curses poured upon the English, whose motives for assisting the Spaniards in resisting the French are painted in the most odious colours.
We wonder as we read. There is fire, sublimity, and power in every line. Can these be inspired, as we are assured by Monti's friends, by the mere desire of acquiring the loaves and fishes, if not for himself individually, for his wife and daughter? Are the shadowy forms which he invests with so much beauty--the conceptions into which he infuses so much energy and seeming sincerity--the mere playthings of his thought, and not the genuine offspring of a mind teeming and overflowing with a sense of usefulness and truth? We cannot believe it; we are so apt to forget what our feelings were when the occasion that called them forth has vanished like morning mist. When Napoleon fell, men forgot the wonder and admiration with which they had regarded him during his prosperity. He had come on the time-worn world like an incarnation of the memories of antiquity. The greatest sovereigns, who traced their descent from the middle ages--the thrones of the world, so long the objects of worship and fear--the crowns and sceptres which had been looked upon as the sacred and inviolable symbols of divine right--were all at his feet, dispossest, transferred, and broken. It could be no wonder that men looked upon the cause of these things as something prodigious and superhuman. Monti may be excused that he joined in the common feeling of awe and admiration; while, afterwards, seeing how little good arose from the breaking up of the ancient tyrannies, and how the indomitable will of one man was enforced by means of treachery and slaughter, he might forget that he could ever have been so blinded, and fancy that acknowledged fear was the cause of an inspiration which really sprung from the slavish worship of success, which is too naturally inherent in human beings.