The plan here adopted by Stalino for securing possession of Casina, is nearly the same with that pursued by the Count Almaviva, in Beaumarchais’ prose comedy, _Le Marriage de Figaro_; where the Count, with similar intentions, plans a marriage between Suzanne and his valet-de-chambre, Figaro, but has his best-laid schemes invariably frustrated. The concluding part of the _Casina_ has probably, also, suggested the whole of the _Marescalco_, a comedy of the celebrated Aretine, which turns on the projected nuptials of the character who gives name to the piece, and whose supposed bride is discovered, during the performance of the marriage ceremony, to be a page of the Duke of Mantua, dressed up in wedding garments, in a frolic of the Duke’s courtiers, in order to impose on the Marescalco. Those scenes in the _Ragazzo_ of Lodovico Dolce, where a similar deception is practised and where Giacchetto, the disguised youth, minutely details the event of the trick of which he was made the chief instrument, have also been evidently drawn from the same productive origin.(247) The closest imitation, however, of the _Casina_, is Machiavel’s comedy _Clitia_. Many of its scenes, indeed, have been literally translated from the Latin, and the incidents are altered in very few particulars. The Stalino of Plautus is called Nicomaco, and his wife Sofronia: their son is named Cleandro, and the dependents employed to court Clitia for behoof of their masters, Eustachio and Pirro. The chief difference is, that the young lover, who is supposed to be absent in the _Casina_, is introduced on the stage by the Italian author, and the object of his affections is a young lady, brought up and educated by his parents, and originally intrusted to their care by one of their friends, which makes the proposal of her marrying either of the servants offered to her choice more absurd than in the Latin original. The bridal garments, too, are not assumed by one of the rival servants, but by a third character, introduced and employed for the purpose. This comedy of Machiavel, his _Mandragola_, and the renowned tale of Belfegor, were the productions with which that profound politician and historian, who established a school of political philosophy in the Italian seat of the Muses—who applied a fine analysis to the Roman history, and a subtler than Aristotle to the theory of government—attempted, as he himself has so beautifully expressed it, “Fare il suo tristo tempo piu soave; Perche altrove non have, Dove voltare il viso, Che gli è stato interciso Mostrar con altre imprese altra virtute.”