No such comparison is meant even to be hinted. But the contemporaneousness of the English and Italian dramatic artist suggests an inquiry into the materials with which the latter had to work. We know what quality of dramatic literature was provided for the actors who plied their calling at the Globe and the Bankside. And it is certain that no one of them has left that histrionic reputation among us which Isabella Andreini has left in Italy. With this in one's mind, then, one is surprised to find at the first glance that Italian literature in its Augustan age was especially weak in the department of the drama. Quite the reverse might have been anticipated from the national characteristics. No people are at the present day more passionately fond of theatrical representation. The theatre is with them almost a necessary of life to all classes of citizens, and takes rank among the articles of an Italian's budget, if not absolutely side by side with sufficient food, yet in very many cases, immediately after it, and always has precedence of very many matters that with us would be considered necessaries. And the impressionable nature of the people makes this very intelligible. Every Italian is an actor more or less,—has a natural talent for "externating" the feelings that are in him, to use a very expressive Italian phrase,—a talent that Englishmen are perhaps more deficient in than any other people under the sun. To us how often is it distasteful, how often impossible to "externare,"—to make outwardly manifest—that which is inside us. How frequently is the act of another doing so revolting to us; especially in matters which touch the deeper and more powerful sentiments of the heart! To an Italian it is never either difficult or distasteful in real life; and he is ever ready to sympathise with and be pleased by a very moderate amount of histrionic skill on the stage. [Sidenote: ITALIAN DRAMATIC LITERATURE.] It might naturally be expected that the dramatic literature of a people so constituted would be a prominent feature in the intellectual produce of the national mind at its period of greatest vigour; and would have exercised a notable influence in the moulding and fashioning its habits of thought and turns of expression. Such is, however, far from being the case. The poets, the novelists, the historians, the moralists of Italy in the sixteenth century time of its high tide, have all left their marks deeply and visibly enough stamped on the national character, while that of the dramatists of the same period is barely, if at all, perceptible.