NICCOLÒ FORTIGUERRA occupied many high posts in the Roman Curia. He rose to great dignities, but it is said that he wished to rise higher, and that his death in 1736 was caused by grief at not being made a Cardinal. He amused his leisure hours with the composition of poetry, and he gained the distinction of being the last poet to produce a long epic in the style of Ariosto. This poem, called the _Ricciardetto,_ although the last in point of time, is by no means the last in point of merit. He had a truly poetical mind and a genial disposition, and there is a pleasing gaiety about his work that only wants to be expressed in a style more rich and vigorous to achieve absolute greatness. It is said that he made a wager that he would write his epic in as many days as it contained cantos, and that he won his bet. The cantos are so long that it is scarcely credible that he could have written each in a day. Pope Clement XII took great interest in the work, and probably that interest inspired the poet with the ambition of being raised to the Roman purple. He published the _Ricciardetto_ under the pseudonym of "Carteromaco." CARLO INNOCENZO FRUGONI was born in Genoa in 1692, and died at Parma as Court Poet in 1768. _Frugonian_ poetry has become a bye-word to indicate abundance of so-called eloquence, poverty of thought, and cheap and hackneyed imagery. But Frugoni himself was by no means a man devoid of talent. He had wit, he had imagination, he had fertility. But he was without austerity of judgment. Whatever he wrote delighted him, and he thought it would delight his readers. He did .not stop to correct or to condense. He gave everything with perfect self-satisfaction to the world. His verse is often most flowing and musical, such as Metastasio might have written in his boyhood. He is successful in his sonnets, chiefly because the strict symmetry of that kind of composition prevents him from indulging in his favourite foible of prolixity. Some of his lyric poems have fancy and elegance to recommend them, but these good qualities are drowned in an ocean of verbiage. He delighted in blank verse, and one of his funniest compositions in that metre is entitled _L'Ombra di Pope,_ written on the birth of a son of Lord Holderness, British Ambassador to the Venetian Republic. The Ghost of Pope, in answer to Frugoni's prayers, arises and prophecies the future of the noble infant and sings the praises of its lovely mother. After paying many compliments to Frugoni's poetical talents the ghost finally vanishes at break of day.