Zappi was a great and celebrated lawyer, and his legal skill raised him to an office of trust, under the Pontificate of Clement XI. In one of his Sonnets, which has great sweetness and picturesque effect, he compares himself to the Venetian Gondolier, who in the calm or the storm pours forth his songs on the Lagune, careless of blame or praise, asking no auditors but the silent seas and the quiet moon, and seeking only to "unburthen his full soul" in lays of love and joy-- Il Gondolier, sebben la notte imbruna, Remo non posa, e fende il mar spumante; Lieto cantando a un bel raggio di Luna-- "Intanto Erminia infra l'ombrose piante." That Zappi could be sublime, is proved by his well-known Sonnet on the Moses of Michel Angelo; but his forte is the graceful and the gay. His Anacreontics, and particularly his little drinking song, Come faro? Faro cosi! are very elegant, and almost equal to Chiabrera. It is difficult to sympathize with English drinking songs, and all the vulgar associations of flowing bowls, taverns, three times three, and the table in a roar. An Italian _Brindisi_ transports us at once among flasks and vineyards, guitars and dances, a dinner _al fresco_, a group _a la Stothard_. It is all the difference between the ivy-crowned Bacchus, and the bloated Silenus. "Bumper, Squire Jones," or, "Waiter, bring clean glasses," do not _sound_ so well as Damigella Tutta bella Versa, versa, il bel vino! &c. FOOTNOTES: [59] Born at Imola, 1668; died at Rome, 1719. [60] See the Epithalamium on her marriage with Zappi, prefixed to their works. [61] Probably the same he had celebrated under the name of Filli, and who married another. Zappi's Sonnet to this lady, "Ardo per Filli," is elaborately elegant; sparkling and pointed as a pyramid of gems. [62] "Il mio bel sol" is a poetical term of endearment, which it is not easy to reduce gracefully into English. [63] Translated by a friend. CHAPTER IX. CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED. LORD LYTTELTON. Lord Lyttelton has told us in a very sweet line, How much the _wife_ is dearer than the _bride_. But his Lucy Fortescue deserves more than a mere allusion, _en passant_. That Lord Lyttelton is still remembered and read as a poet, is solely for her sake: it is she who has made the shades of Hagley classic ground, and hallowed its precincts by the remembrance of the fair and gentle being, the tender woman, wife, and mother, who in the prime of youth and loveliness, melted like a creature of air and light from her husband's arms, "And left him on this earth disconsolate!"