Ugo, a distinguished Italian poet and miscellaneous writer, was born about 1777 on board a Venetian frigate, near Zante, in the Ionian Sea. While a mere boy he had the misfortune to lose his father, who was a physician and government-inspector of hospitals at Spalatro, in Dalmatia. He studied at the university of Padua, and after completing his studies there he removed to Venice without having adopted a profession. A good deal of mystery hangs over this period of his life, but he seems to have been preparing for a literary career, and produced in 1797, as the first fruits of his labours, his tragedy of *Thyestes* and *Ajax*. This play had very equivocal success on the stage, and so strongly was its author convinced of its worthlessness that he himself penned the severest criticism of it that appeared anywhere.

In that same year the French, who with Bonaparte at their head had taken Venice with the professed object of republicanizing it, made it over once more to the Austrians. Foscolo, with some of the leading members of the patriotic party, retired to Milan, where he gave vent to his excited feelings in his *Lettere di Due Amanti* (afterwards republished under the title of *Le Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis*), a sort of political romance which had an immediate and prodigious success. The work possesses little interest as a novel, but is valuable for its pictures of Italian society in those troubled times, its beautiful style, its pathetic tone, and its occasional bursts of impassioned eloquence. In 1799 Foscolo volunteered into the Lombard legion, served in the disastrous campaign of that year, took part in the defence of Genoa under Masséna, and, after the battle of Marengo once more threw Lombardy into the hands of the French, retired into private life at Milan, and resumed his literary pursuits. In 1802 Bonaparte called together at Lyons a meeting of Italian deputies to sketch the plan of a constitution for the Cisalpine Republic, and Foscolo was invited to lay before the First Consul the real state of the country and the wishes of the people. He executed this commission with a boldness so startling that it was judged unsafe to submit the document to the First Consul; but it was afterwards printed at Milan, and serves to set in a very clear light the high and uncompromising spirit of its author. Italy had not heard her political condition and wants so boldly described since the days of Rienzi, perhaps of Tacitus. In 1807 Foscolo served, with the grade of captain of the staff, in an Italian regiment that belonged to the army destined for the invasion of England. In his leisure moments at St Omer he studied alternately military tactics and English literature, and executed part of a highly successful Italian version of Sterne's *Sentimental Journey*. After the breaking up of the camp at Boulogne, Foscolo abandoned the career of arms and retired to Brescia, where he composed his little poem *Dei Sepolcri*. This work, elicited by an order which forbade the erection of any memorial to departed worth or genius, was dedicated to Pindemonte, a kindred spirit, and immediately took rank as one of the highest flights of lyric power in the literature of modern Italy. In 1808 Foscolo was appointed professor of belles-lettres in the university of Pavia, and was privately warned by certain official friends to inaugurate his lectures with a tribute of praise to the Emperor Napoleon. Instead of doing this, though tempted with the promise of the cordon of the legion of honour, Foscolo delivered an opening address on the Origin and Duty of Literature, glowing with such a fiery eloquence, and informed by so daring a spirit of independence, that the orator incurred the suspicions of the government, and his chair was shortly afterwards suppressed. His tragedy of *Ajax*, though it had no great success when produced on the stage at Milan, did not tend much to conciliate for him the favour of the authorities, as it was believed that under the names of Agamemnon, Ajax, and Calchas, he had intended to paint Napoleon, Moreau, and Pius VII. A satire on the pedantry and sycophancy of certain influential academicians raised against him such a host of enemies that he was obliged to retire for a short time from Milan. At Florence, to which he now removed, he completed his translation of the *Sentimental Journey*, and produced his tragedy of *Ricciarda*, besides a variety of minor poetical pieces. In the political history of Northern Italy, after the abdication of Napoleon, Foscolo played a prominent part; but finding it useless to contend against the overwhelming numbers of the Austrians, he being moreover accused of tergiversation by his own party, he suddenly quitted Italy and fixed his residence at Hottingen near Zurich in Switzerland, where he earned a scanty livelihood for two years by his pen. In 1816, with a view to bettering his fortune, he came to England, where he formed literary connexions, and wrote many articles for the *Edinburgh* and *Quarterly Reviews*. In London he republished his *Ricciarda*, and wrote historical disquisitions on Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, all displaying great knowledge and much critical sagacity. At the time of his death, which happened in 1827, he was engaged in superintending a valuable edition of Dante. His death, which was caused immediately by an attack of dropsy, was accelerated by pecuniary embarrassments which fretted his naturally irritable temper, and impelled him to literary exertion quite beyond his physical strength. Though the character of Foscolo was dashed by some strange eccentricities, he yet possessed qualities, both of head and heart, which gained firm friends for him in every country where he happened to fix his residence. The most striking of these peculiarities was his vanity, which prompted him in society to talk far more about his own exploits and sufferings than was consistent either with modesty or self-respect. This same weakness showed itself in his dramatic works, in which the hero is generally the alter ego of himself, and probably prevented him from realizing the prophecy which Alfieri made about him on witnessing his first play, and hearing that the author was only nineteen years of age—"If that be true," said Alfieri, "then he will excel me." But this infirmity was far more than atoned for by the lofty independence of his character, which in the general prostration of Italy before Napoleon, enabled him to stand aloof, and offer the only opposition which that conqueror experienced from any native-born Italian. In the words of Peccio, the biographer of Foscolo, "If, amidst the Asiatic idolatry towards Napoleon, any kind of opposition can be said to have existed in Italy, Foscolo must be considered the leader of it. Among a crowd of literati, who prostituted their character, he alone succeeded Alfieri in gathering around him those youths who felt the love of study and independence, and without uselessly challenging an irresistible power, he tempered with his principles and example their souls for present dignity and future resistance." Foscolo was no partizan, and refused to associate with such of his own countrymen as would have been content with anything less than the absolute and unconditional independence of Italy. His aspirations in literature and politics were high and noble, and his talents were never employed except in the cause of virtue. His dramatic productions are not very valuable; but his prose works are in point of style and matter among the most vigorous and original in the literature of modern Italy.