But how
far a man can be credited to his own disgrace is one of the unsettled
questions: the repentant and the unrepentant are so apt to over-accuse
themselves. It is very wisely conjectured by some of Giusti's
biographers that he did not waste himself so much as he says in the
dissipations of student life at Pisa. At any rate, it is certain that
he began there to make those sarcastic poems upon political events
which are so much less agreeable to a paternal despotism than almost
any sort of love-songs. He is said to have begun by writing in the
manner of Beranger, and several critics have labored to prove the
similarity of their genius, with scarcely more effect, it seems to us,
than those who would make him out the Heinrich Heine of Italy, as they
call him. He was a political satirist, whose success was due to his
genius, but who can never be thoroughly appreciated by a foreigner,
or even an Italian not intimately acquainted with the affairs of his
times; and his reputation must inevitably diminish with the waning
interest of men in the obsolete politics of those vanished kingdoms
and duchies. How mean and little were all their concerns is scarcely
credible; but Giusti tells an adventure of his, at the period, which
throws light upon some of the springs of action in Tuscany.
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