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_.
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