C. A. P. ("SARCELLE"), _in London Society_, MOGADOR. THE HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE ITALIAN POETS. GUARINI. Pastoral poetry had in Italy a tendency to a rapid degeneration from the first. "Decipit exemplum vitiis imitabile." The earliest "pastorals" were far from being without merit, and merit of a high order. But they were eminently "vitiis imitabiles." Two specimens of Italian Arcadian poetry stand out, from the incredibly huge mass of such productions still extant, superior to all the innumerable imitations to which they gave rise in a more marked degree even than "originals" usually surpass imitations in value. These are the "Aminta" of Tasso, and the "Pastor Fido" of the poet with whom it is the object of these pages to make the English nineteenth century reader, who never will find the time to read him, in some degree acquainted--Batista Guarini. It would be difficult to say which of these two celebrated pastoral dramas was received with the greater amount of delight and enthusiasm by the world of their contemporaries, or even which of them is the better performance. The almost simultaneous production of these two masterpieces in their kind is a striking instance of the, one may almost say, epidemic nature of the influences which rule the production of the human intellect; influences which certainly did not cease to operate for many generations after that of the authors of the "Aminta" and the "Pastor Fido," although the servile imitation of those greatly admired works unquestionably went for much in causing the overwhelming flood of pastorals which deluged Italy immediately subsequent to their enormous success. I have said that it would be difficult to assign a preeminence to either of these poems. But it must not be supposed that it is intended thence to insinuate an equality between the authors of them. Tasso would occupy no lower place on the Italian Parnassus if he had never written the "Aminta." His fame rests upon a very much larger and firmer basis. But Guarini would be nowhere--would not be heard of at all--had he not written the "Pastor Fido." Having, however, produced that work--a work of which forty editions are said to have been printed in his lifetime, and which has been translated into almost every civilised language, including Latin, Greek, and Hebrew--he has always filled a space in the eyes of his countrymen, and occupied a position in the roll of fame, which render his admission as one of our select band here imperative. He is, besides, a representative poet; the head and captain of the pastoral school, which attained everywhere so considerable a vogue, and in Italy such colossal proportions.