Tragedies are very
seldom played; the language of Alfieri could never, I will not say be given
with effect, but even conceived by the modern actors. It would be like a
tragedy of Sophocles performed by boys at school. There is another reason
too why these tragedies are not given; they abound too much in republican
and patriotic sentiments to be grateful to the ears of the Princes who
reign in Italy, all of whom being of foreign extraction and unshackled by
constitutions, come under the denomination of those beings called by Greeks
[Greek: Turannoi], I use this word in its Greek sense. Of the Tuscan
Government it is but justice to say that from the days of Leopold to the
present day it was and is a mild, just and paternal government, more so
perhaps than any in Europe; and the only one that can any way reconcile one
altogether to those lines of Pope:
For forms of Government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administer'd is best.[83]
In the time of Leopold the factious nobility were kept in check, and the
industrious classes, mercantile and agricultural, encouraged. The peasantry
were, and are, the most affluent in Europe; and this is no small incitement
to the industry that prevails.
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