Parini's poem is written in the form of instructions to the hero for the politest disposal of his time; and in a strain of polished irony allots the follies of his day to their proper hours. The poet's apparent seriousness never fails him, but he does not suffer his irony to become a burden to the reader, relieving it constantly with pictures, episodes, and excursions, and now and then breaking into a strain of solemn poetry which is fine enough. The work will suggest to the English reader the light mockery of “The Rape of the Lock”, and in less degree some qualities of Gray's “Trivia”; but in form and manner it is more like Phillips's “Splendid Shilling” than either of these; and yet it is not at all like the last in being a mere burlesque of the epic style. These resemblances have been noted by Italian critics, who find them as unsatisfactory as myself; but they will serve to make the extracts I am to give a little more intelligible to the reader who does not recur to the whole poem. Parini was not one to break a butterfly upon a wheel; he felt the fatuity of heavily moralizing upon his material; the only way was to treat it with affected gravity, and to use his hero with the respect which best mocks absurdity. One of his arts is to contrast the deeds of his hero with those of his forefathers, of which he is so proud,--of course the contrast is to the disadvantage of the forefathers,--and in these allusions to the past glories of Italy it seems to me that the modern patriotic poetry which has done so much to make Italy begins for the first time to feel its wings. Parini was in all things a very stanch, brave, and original spirit, and if he was of any school, it was that of the Venetian, Gasparo Gozzi, who wrote pungent and amusing social satires in blank verse, and published at Venice an essay-paper, like the “Spectator”, the name of which he turned into _l'Osservatore_. It dealt, like the “Spectator” and all that race of journals, with questions of letters and manners, and was long honored, like the “Spectator”, as a model of prose. With an apparent prevalence of French taste, there was in fact much study by Italian authors of English literature at this time, which was encouraged by Dr. Johnson's friend, Baretti, the author of the famous _Frusta Letteraria_ (Literary Scourge), which drew blood from so many authorlings, now bloodless; it was wielded with more severity than wisdom, and fell pretty indiscriminately upon the bad and the good. It scourged among others Goldoni, the greatest master of the comic art then living, but it spared our Parini, the first part of whose poem Baretti salutes with many kindly phrases, though he cannot help advising him to turn the poem into rhyme. But when did a critic ever know less than a poet about a poet's business? III