The reputation of the good priest and good patriot, GIACOMO ZANELLA (1820-89), has, on the contrary, gone on increasing, and with justice, for his verse is usually at the level of his thought, and his thought, if more frequently graceful than striking, sometimes attains a commanding elevation, as in his odes to Dante and on the opening of the Suez Canal. His _Psyche_ and _Egoism and Charity_ are clearly and exquisitely cut as Greek gems. Zanella’s speciality, however, is his effort to ally science with poetry, and though he cannot always prevail upon them to shake hands, one of his lyrics of this character, _The Vigil_, a meditation upon Evolution from a theologian’s point of view, is perhaps his masterpiece. Another very striking poem is the colloquy between Milton and Galileo, in which Galileo’s dread of the sceptical tendency of the science to which he has imparted such an impulse is represented as determining Milton “to justify the ways of God to man.” Zanella, a native of the Vicenzan district, was a gentle, tender, melancholy man, not unlike Cowper, and his reason, under the stress of domestic affliction, at one time seemed in danger of suffering the same eclipse. Recovering, he forsook the career of college professor for a cottage near Vicenza, where: _Dopo sparsi al vento Tanti sogni superbi e tanto foco Di poesia dagl’ anni inerti spento, Voluntario romito in questo loco, Tra pochi arbori e fior vivo contento._ This retirement, nevertheless, produced some of Zanella’s most delicate poetry, comprised in his dainty little volume _Astichello ed altre Poesie_, not yet included in his works. One of the most beautiful of his poems, _The Redbreast_ (_Il Pettirostro_), marvellously resembles the idylls of Coleridge, with whose works Zanella betrays his acquaintance. Charming, also, are the sonnets celebrating the various aspects of the local river, the little Astichello, such as this upon the sympathy between man and Nature in time of drought, a “pathetic fallacy,” perhaps, but none the worse for that:-- _Shrunk to a thread, the dwindling waters stray Where Astichello 'neath the poplar flows With languid tide that scarce avails to sway The moss that nigh the midmost channel grows._ _Sirius the while, ablaze with fiery ray, Above the unsheltered meadow throbs and glows; And all the blithe fecundity of May One withering waste of dismal yellow shows._ _The peasant groans despair, and shakes his head; The friendly stream, munificent no more, Barred from the brink it lately overran, Like rustic met with rustic to deplore The common ill, wails feebly from its bed, Mingling its music with the plaint of man._