Not enough of a reformer to evolve remedies, Casti was, nevertheless, alert in detecting faults in the inert institutions of his time and daring in his methods of assailing them. His poem, thus, is a hostile picture of politics and society in the Europe of the latter half of the eighteenth century, painted by a man who had studied his subject from a cosmopolitan standpoint. _Gli Animali Parlanti_ is a radical document, designed to expose the flaws in existing systems. Even fads and foibles are not beneath its notice. It jeers at the academies so popular in Italy in Casti’s youth, especially the notorious Accademia dell’ Arcadia[204]; it makes sport of pedants and antiquaries[205]; it scorns literary and political sycophants[206]; it is bitter against theological quibbles, against monks,[207] and against superstitious practices.[208] Throughout it all runs Casti’s hatred of despotism, and his dislike of hypocrisy and cant. It is not, indeed, unfair to Byron to declare that the scope of _Gli Animali Parlanti_ is, in some respects, as broad and comprehensive as that of _Don Juan_. It is interesting, as far as the material of Casti’s poem is concerned, to notice that Casti is an advocate of what were to be some of Byron’s pet theories. For both men liberty is a favorite watchword. The horse, who seems to be spokesman for Casti himself, cries out, “Noi d’ogni giogo pria liberi, e sciolti,”[209] an assertion exactly in the spirit of Byron’s words, “I wish men to be free As much from mobs as kings--from you as me.”[210] A similar mood led them both to lay an emphasis on the seamy and gruesome side of war, and to condemn it as unnecessary and degrading. Casti, after picturing all the horrors of a battle-field, exclaims, “Crudelissime bestie! O bestie nate Per lo sterminio della vostra spezie.”[211] This is in the same tone as Byron’s remark about the futility of war: “Oh, glorious laurel! since for one sole leaf Of thine imaginary deathless tree, Of blood and tears must flow the unending sea.”[212] Again and again in the two poems we meet with marked coincidences in the manifestations of the revolt of the two poets against the laws and customs of their respective periods. _Don Juan_, moreover, has many of the peculiar methods which, partly the product of tradition in Italian burlesque poetry, and occasionally the idiosyncrasies of Casti himself, are used regularly in _Gli Animali Parlanti_. Casti, for instance, protests continually in humorous fashion that he is dealing only with facts: “Poeta son io, non son causidico, E mio difetto è sol d’esser veridico.”[213] His unfailing insistence on this point gives his repeated professions an air of stock conventionality. Byron also employs this mocking manner of calling attention to the verisimilitude of his own work: “My muse by no means deals in fiction; She gathers a repertory of facts.”[214]