LEOPARDI, GIACOMO, Count, a modern poet and classical scholar of Italy, was b. at Recanati, a town in the march of Ancona, on June 29, 1798. Without the aid of instrucairs, Leopardi, at the age of 17, had attained to a degree of classical scholarship almost marvelous. Latin and Greekbe mastered as his own mother-tongue, and com posed some of his philological criticisms at the age of 19, when he was elected member of the academy of science at Viterbo. Shortly after, he departed from his secluded home for Rome, he won the friendship of several celebrated men, amongst others, of Niebuhr, who was deputed to offer hint the chair of Greek philosophy,-in the •uni versity of Berlin, which lie declined. Ill health acting on the temperament character i:tic of genius, seems to have cast a gloom over his spirit, which deeply tinged his general impressions of men and things. On his return front Rome to his native place, his health grew seriously impaired, from the ardor with which lie pursued his varied studies. Ile finally took tip his abode in Florence, where be published his admired Can rani and other works, amidst a conflict with failing health, straitenad finances, and deep despondency. In this bitter crisis of his life, he formed a warm friendship with the his
torian, Antonio Ranieri; and by the delicate and incessant cares of Ranieri and his sis ter, the shattered, suffering poet was shielded to the hour Of his death. From this period, a sensible softening of spirit became manifest in his writings; it seemed as if the poet had learned to value and cling to life and friends only when summoned to relin quish both. He died in his friend's arms at Naples, June 14, 1837, at the age of 39. His lie in a small church at Posilippo. The works of Leopardi are all more or less the reflex of his morbid, desponding mind. They are remarkable for originality, vigor, and elegance of style. His collected works were published in 1849, by Le Mou lder, at Florence, under the title of Versi e Prose di Giacomo Leopardi, His Italian love sonnets are full of fire and grace; and his ingenious imitations of the antique form of composition, written in Greek and Latin, were so perfect, as to be mistaken by ninny for genuine long-lost gems of classical literature.