The poet who really set the fashion of fantastic ingenuity, was GIAMBATTISTA MARINO (or MARINI, for both forms of the name seem to have been used by his contemporaries), a Neapolitan, born in 1569, died in 1625. His chief work is the _Adone_ an epic poem in twenty enormous cantos on the loves of Venus and Adonis. If it were not for its appalling length, the poem would have much to recommend it. He also wrote other epics, not quite so voluminous: _La Gerusalemme Distrutta, La Strage degl' Innocenti,_ on the Massacre of the Innocents, and numerous lyric effusions. When he was at Turin, he had a vulgar dispute with a rival poet of the name of Murtola, and numerous satires and pasquinades were the result. Murtola was so incensed at the biting sarcasms of Marino, that he waylaid him one evening and fired a pistol. The shot killed, not Marino, but a favourite courtier of the Duke of Savoy, who was walking with the poet. Murtola was thrown into a dungeon, but Marino interceded for his fallen rival, and it is a curious illustration of the absolute power of the Princes of those days, that all proceedings against Murtola were stopped, and he was granted a free pardon. Marino had reason to regret his intercession for so unworthy an object. Murtola accidentally discovered a copy of verses written by Marino many years previously, reflecting on the Duke. He lost no time in forwarding them to the Duke, who was so incensed that he would doubtless have inflicted upon Marino the punishment from which he had saved the treacherous Murtola, had not Marino prudently taken refuge in flight. He repaired to Paris, where he was enthusiastically received, and Marie de Medici, the second wife of Henry IV, and Regent during the minority of Louis XIII, gave him a large pension and many other tokens of Royal favour. He enjoyed full leisure to complete his _Adone,_ and when it was published in 1623, it fully satisfied the expectations of his admirers. He returned to his native city of Naples, where a magnificent ovation awaited him. He did not, however, live long to enjoy his triumph, and Italy had to mourn his loss in 1625. Marino exactly hit the taste of his contemporaries, and the praises lavished upon him are almost incredible in their exaggeration. The poet Claudio Achillini wrote to him from Bologna: "There is not a doubt in my mind that you are the greatest poet the world has ever seen." Cardinal Bentivoglio, one of the most brilliant intellects of the age, addressed him in terms hardly less rapturous. There must assuredly have been something remarkable in Marino's works to produce such a dazzling effect on his contemporaries.