down into the calm of an accepted theory of art. We cannot speak in Italy more than elsewhere of any great writer as ruling his age and prescribing laws to his contemporaries. Individual genius, however, is no less effective than of old upon those constitutionally in sympathy with it, and no gifted writer can introduce a new style without enlisting disciples and provoking antagonists. Such a genius and such a style appertain to GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI (born 1836), the one contemporary poet of Italy who, if we except Gabriele d’Annunzio, “in shape and gesture proudly eminent,” stands forth like a tower from the rest, and who has made an abiding reputation as the introducer of the new elements needed to replace the expiring impulse of the romantic school. Like many of his compeers, Carducci partakes of both classic and romantic elements; romantic in his revolt against convention, classic in his worship of antique form; and it is in great measure this duality which renders him so important and interesting. Carducci, far from being the literary dictator of his age, is perhaps not less distasteful to the ultra-realists for whom he paved the way, than to the romanticists whom he overthrew, yet is in a very special sense the representative of his age and nation. The commencement of poetical activity synchronised with a new dispensation in the world of politics. The reviving nation must have a new poet or none. Egypt was plainly unfit to sing the songs of Sion. The submission of Manzoni, the despair of Leopardi, had in their respective ways well suited an age of slavery; but the age of liberty had now arrived, and craved strains combative, resonant, and joyous. The Pope’s obstinate clinging to the temporal power also compelled the national poet to be anti-clerical. Neither Carducci’s political nor his religious views wanted anything essential to the effectual fulfilment of his mission: that their vehemence sometimes transgressed the limits of good sense and good taste would probably now be acknowledged by himself. It was equally important that the form should correspond to the feeling. The new spirit sought a new body. Carducci solved the problem in the same manner as Chiabrera would have solved it two centuries and a half before, had Chiabrera’s genius equalled his discernment. He perceived that in the circumstances of his day a return to classic models would be no retrogression, but renovation for Italian poetry: unfortunately he had no true insight into the classical spirit. This Carducci possessed, and there are few happier examples of the alliance of one literature with another than the poems, the most important part of his work, in which he has kept classical examples steadily before him. The imitation, it must be understood, is one of form and not of essence; the themes are but occasionally classical, and even when this is the case express the feelings of a modern Italian spirit. Imitate classical