_Silver and diamond and gem and gold-- Wealth from wrecks anciently by tempests rent-- And coral of its own with pearl besprent, The sea in homage at thy feet uprolled;-- For whom might Jupiter again be bold In shape of bull to plough the element-- And, foaming at thy feet in billows spent, With liquid tongue its murmuring story told: O Nymph, O Goddess, not from caverned bower Of ocean sprung, but heaven, who canst enchain My seething turbulence, not now the power Of gentle moon conducts the obedient main, But thine; fear nothing; I but swell to shower My gifts, and turn me to my deeps again._ FOOTNOTES: [18] “_Ogni animal di amar si riconsiglia._” A line taken bodily out of Petrarch. [19] A series of twelve sonnets on the same subject, interlinked by each successive piece beginning with the last line of the preceding. CHAPTER XIX THE PROSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY The seventeenth century is for Italy a period of stagnation, relieved only by the endeavour to conceal decay by fantastic extravagance, by a fortunate reaction near its termination, and by some genuine progress in isolated directions, which would have been fruitful of important results in a better age. The false taste which disfigured the epoch was not peculiar to Italy; but while in other countries it appears a symptom of exuberant life, a disorder incident to infancy, in Italy it dominates literature, some departments of practical knowledge and study excepted. What elsewhere was boisterous youth, was in Italy premature old age. No other cause for this decadence can be assigned than the withering of national life under the blight of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. The reform of the Church, the purification of morals, excellent things in themselves, had been bought from the counter-Reformation at far too high a price.