The Edinburgh Magazine, June 1821, pages 515-519
ITALIAN LITERATURE.
No. IV.
Caius Gracchus, a Tragedy, by Monti.
This tragedy, though inferior in power and interest to the Aristodemo of the same author, is, nevertheless, distinguished by beauties of a high order, and such as, in our opinion, fully establish its claims to more general attention than it has hitherto received. Although the loftiness and severity of Roman manners in the days of the Republic, have been sufficiently preserved to give an impressive character to the piece, yet those workings of passion and tenderness, without which dignity soon becomes monotonous, and heroism unnatural, have not been (as in the tragedies of Alfieri upon similar subjects) too rigidly suppressed. The powerful character of the high-hearted Cornelia, with all the calm, collected majesty which our ideas are wont to associate with the name of a Roman matron; and the depth and sublimity of maternal affection more particularly belonging to the mother of the Gracchi, are beautifully contrasted with the softer and more womanish feelings, the intense anxieties, the sensitive and passionate attachment, embodied in the person of Licinia, the wife of Gracchus. The appeals made by Gracchus to the people are full of majestic eloquence, and the whole piece seems to be animated by that restless and untameable spirit of freedom, whose immortalized struggles for ascendancy give so vivid a colouring, so
