The conquests of Napoleon completed what the Reign of Terror had begun. Old abuses were swept away, but only to make way for tyranny more hopeless and relentless. The loss of life and treasure was enormous, and the decline in the wealth of Italy became more conspicuous than ever. Authors fared somewhat badly during this century. Princes, probably following the example of the frivolous Court of Louis XV, no longer even pretended to encourage science and literature. We hear of no poet receiving even the precarious and capricious patronage bestowed upon Tasso and Ariosto. Metastasio was the only poet who basked in the sunshine of Royal favour, and he owed his prosperity to the Court of Vienna, and not to the Court of Sardinia, or of Naples. The patronage of the great was withdrawn, and that of the public had hardly begun. Thus writers, unless possessed of ample means, had bitter struggles with poverty and obscurity. Some, like Muratori and Parini, entered the Church and became monks or abbés. Others, like Baretti and Algarotti, sought their fortune in foreign lands. The impudent piracy of books, and the unauthorised performance of plays deprived even popular authors of the reward of their labours. Goldoni, after spending many years in producing comedies that deserved and obtained applause, was glad to find an asylum in France as reader of Italian to the three daughters of Louis XV. The great merit of the Eighteenth Century, in Italy as elsewhere, was its light-heartedness and humanity; the great defect, its materialism and frivolity. Indeed, it would be hard to conceive a more enervating atmosphere than surrounded many Italian poets, especially in the earlier part of the Century; and unhappily, the numerous literary Academies, instituted all over the Peninsula, instead of arresting the evil, positively aggravated it, as they devoted their attention, with few exceptions, to subjects and thoughts of the most trifling description. This frivolity is not wholly absent even from the works of Metastasio, one of the most delightful poets that Italy ever produced. CHAPTER XIII. METASTASIO.