This is a style chiselled and finished to the last degree of perfection; but it is somewhat wanting in ease, and its stiffness is perceptible even in this quotation, much more in the extent of the whole poem. Parini was somewhat deficient in tenderness, and that want casts a dryness over portions of his work. In this lack of tenderness he was very unlike Pope, with whom he had otherwise many points of resemblance. Both were poets of the highly elaborate civilization of their century. Both were intensely satirical by nature. Both lived in cities, Pope seldom deserting London and its neighbourhood, Parini seldom being seen beyond the precincts of Milan. Both suffered from delicate health and deformity. Both were intensely admired by their contemporaries, and regarded as masters of the Art of Poetry. Pope, however, was singularly prosperous in the course of his life, and Parini singularly unfortunate. The Italian poet had a mind far less fiery and impetuous. He was also far less prolific and versatile. Pope produced eight or ten masterpieces, each of which alone would perpetuate his fame; Parini only one. Pope's mind often seems as it were on fire, so ardent and brilliant are the emanations of his genius. The light of Parini's verse is softer and mellower, and if he does not dazzle us with the blinding splendour of Pope at his best, he fills the ear with musical lines, and gratifies the imagination by conjuring up pictures, finished like the finest miniatures, infinitely pleasing and precious to a cultivated taste. CHAPTER XV. ALFIERI. Italy had produced splendid epics, noble lyrics and spirited satires, but up to the middle of the Eighteenth Century she had not produced a single tragedy which could be placed beside the tragic masterpieces of other nations. At last, in 1749, at Asti in Piedmont, the poet was born who was destined in a certain measure to supply the want.