On the other hand, after the poem was completed (March 25, 1818), he was under the impression that "Berni was the original of _all_ ... the father of that kind [i.e. the mock-heroic] of writing;" but there is nothing to show whether he had or had not read the _rifacimento_ of Orlando's _Innamorato_, or the more distinctively Bernesque _Capitoli_. Two years later (see Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 407; and "Advertisement" to _Morgante Maggiore_) he had discovered that "Pulci was the parent of _Whistlecraft_, and the precursor and model of Berni," but, in 1817, he was only at the commencement of his studies. A time came long before the "year or two" of his promise (March 25, 1818) when he had learned to simulate the _vera imago_ of the Italian Muse, and was able not only to surpass his "immediate model," but to rival his model's forerunners and inspirers. In the meanwhile a tale based on a "Venetian anecdote" (perhaps an "episode" in the history of Colonel Fitzgerald and the Marchesa Castiglione,--see Letter to Moore, December 26, 1816, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 26) lent itself to "the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft," and would show "the knowing ones," that is, Murray's advisers, Gifford, Croker, Frere, etc., that "he could write cheerfully," and "would repel the charge of monotony and mannerism." Eckermann, mindful of Goethe's hint that Byron had too much _empeiria_ (an excess of _mondanité_--a _this_-worldliness), found it hard to read _Beppo_ after _Macbeth_. "I felt," he says, "the predominance of a nefarious, empirical world, with which the mind which introduced it to us has in a certain measure associated itself" (_Conversations of Goethe, etc._, 1874, p. 175). But _Beppo_ must be taken at its own valuation. It is _A Venetian Story_, and the action takes place behind the scenes of "a comedy of Goldoni." A less subtle but a more apposite criticism may be borrowed from "Lord Byron's Combolio" (_sic_), _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, 1822, xi. 162-165. "The story that's in it May be told in a minute; But _par parenthèse_ chatting, On this thing and that thing, Keeps the shuttlecock flying, And attention from dying." _Beppo, a Venetian Story_ (xcv. stanzas) was published February 28, 1818; and a fifth edition, consisting of xcix. stanzas, was issued May 4, 1818. Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_ (February, 1818, vol. xxix. pp. 302-310), is unconcerned with regard to _Whistlecraft_, or any earlier model, but observes "that the nearest approach to it [_Beppo_] is to be found in some of the tales and lighter pieces of Prior--a few stanzas here and there among the trash and burlesque of Peter Pindar, and in several passages of Mr. Moore, and the author of the facetious miscellany entitled the _Twopenny Post Bag_."