MARINO, CHIABRERA, FILICAIA AND OTHER POETS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
The Annals of Italy during the Seventeenth Century were not signalised
by disasters as terrible as those of the Sixteenth Century. The country
was not desolated by the invasion of foreign conquerors. Rome was
not sacked for a second time. Florence was not convulsed with civil
dissensions. But the nation was sick at heart, and the tyranny of her
rulers gave only the choice of submission or death. Lombardy, Naples
and Sicily were groaning under the iron yoke of Spain. The petty
sovereigns ruled with irresponsible despotism over their dominions.
Venice and Genoa boasted that they were free; but the freedom of Venice
consisted in the rule of a suspicious oligarchy, guiltless, indeed,
of wanton oppression, but upholding its rule by merciless punishment
of the slightest disaffection. The Papal States were exhausted in
their endeavour to minister to the splendour of the families of a
rapid succession of Popes, for never was nepotism more rampant than
in the Seventeenth Century, and the illustrious houses of Rome, the
Aldobrandini, the Borghese, the Pamphili, the Barberini, the Chigi, the
Altieri, the Odescalchi, the Albani, date their greatness from that
epoch. The Catholic reaction subsequent to the Reformation established
a rigid code of theology, from which it was fatal to dissent. Leo X had
underrated the importance of the Reformation, but his successors made
up for the error by exercising unceasing vigilance over their spiritual
subjects. The only rising in favour of freedom was that of Masaniello
in Naples, which was rather a riot than a rebellion. Still, some great
minds pined for happier things, and the finest flashes of poetry in the
Century were kindled by the fire of patriotism.
It has always been the policy of despots to supply their subjects with
plenty of amusements. Accordingly we find in the Seventeenth Century
records of gorgeous pageants and brilliant theatrical entertainments,
and the already waning wealth of the nation was further exhausted by
reckless prodigality of governments and individuals. Italian Opera
took its origin early in the Century, and RINUCCINI was the first
Librettist. The theatre more and more engaged the attention of
writers, but nothing remarkable was produced, with the exception,
perhaps, of the tragedies of CARDINAL DELFINO, Patriarch of Aquilea,
which present here and there touches worthy of a fine poet. The
death-scene of his _Cleopatra_ bears a striking resemblance to the
corresponding scene in _Anthony and Cleopatra,_ although he doubtless
never so much as heard of Shakespeare's name.
BATTISTA GUARINI, who died in 1612, was pre-eminent, by reason of his
_Pastor Fido,_ among writers of Pastoral Plays; but these insipid and
unreal creations have no attraction for modern readers. The _Pastor
Fido_ is a work of much skill and ingenuity; but it is tainted with
that fondness for quibbles and conceits which disfigures so much of the
literature of the Seventeenth Century, not only in Italy, but also in
other countries. If Italy had her Marino, Spain had her Gongora, France
her Benserade, and England her Lyly, Donne, and Cowley. It is curious
to remark how a literary fashion spreads from one country to another,
and in that age of scanty travel and difficult communication, it is
doubly curious. Thus, in the early part of the Nineteenth Century,
Byronism became a universal epidemic.
The love of far-fetched conceits originated in the latter half of the
Sixteenth Century. We see much of it in Shakespeare's early comedies,
and the traces of it in Tasso gave ground to Boileau one hundred years
later to sneer at those who preferred "the tinsel of Tasso to the gold
of Virgil."
"A Racan, à Malherbe, préférer Théophile,
Et le clinquant du Tasse à tout l'or de Virgile."
It is, however, unjust to blame Tasso for an inordinate profusion of
conceits. He presents some, it is true, but they are almost always
ingenious and imaginative, and not so far-fetched as to be unnatural.
The poet who really set the fashion of fantastic ingenuity, was
GIAMBATTISTA MARINO (or MARINI, for both forms of the name seem to
have been used by his contemporaries), a Neapolitan, born in 1569,
died in 1625. His chief work is the _Adone_ an epic poem in twenty
enormous cantos on the loves of Venus and Adonis. If it were not for
its appalling length, the poem would have much to recommend it. He also
wrote other epics, not quite so voluminous: _La Gerusalemme Distrutta,
La Strage degl' Innocenti,_ on the Massacre of the Innocents, and
numerous lyric effusions. When he was at Turin, he had a vulgar dispute
with a rival poet of the name of Murtola, and numerous satires and
pasquinades were the result. Murtola was so incensed at the biting
sarcasms of Marino, that he waylaid him one evening and fired a
pistol. The shot killed, not Marino, but a favourite courtier of the
Duke of Savoy, who was walking with the poet. Murtola was thrown into
a dungeon, but Marino interceded for his fallen rival, and it is a
curious illustration of the absolute power of the Princes of those
days, that all proceedings against Murtola were stopped, and he was
granted a free pardon. Marino had reason to regret his intercession for
so unworthy an object. Murtola accidentally discovered a copy of verses
written by Marino many years previously, reflecting on the Duke. He
lost no time in forwarding them to the Duke, who was so incensed that
he would doubtless have inflicted upon Marino the punishment from which
he had saved the treacherous Murtola, had not Marino prudently taken
refuge in flight.
He repaired to Paris, where he was enthusiastically received, and
Marie de Medici, the second wife of Henry IV, and Regent during the
minority of Louis XIII, gave him a large pension and many other tokens
of Royal favour. He enjoyed full leisure to complete his _Adone,_ and
when it was published in 1623, it fully satisfied the expectations
of his admirers. He returned to his native city of Naples, where a
magnificent ovation awaited him. He did not, however, live long to
enjoy his triumph, and Italy had to mourn his loss in 1625.
Marino exactly hit the taste of his contemporaries, and the praises
lavished upon him are almost incredible in their exaggeration. The poet
Claudio Achillini wrote to him from Bologna: "There is not a doubt
in my mind that you are the greatest poet the world has ever seen."
Cardinal Bentivoglio, one of the most brilliant intellects of the age,
addressed him in terms hardly less rapturous.
There must assuredly have been something remarkable in Marino's works
to produce such a dazzling effect on his contemporaries.
In early youth Marino formed a theory that a poet in order to succeed
ought to astonish his readers. In every line he wrote, it was his
object to excite astonishment. He fully succeeded. The most ingenious
thoughts, the most dazzling metaphors, the most vivid descriptions, are
crowded together in his pages to such an extent that it is impossible
to deny that he was prodigally gifted by Nature with some of the rarest
attributes of thought and imagination. But his works present no human
interest, no patriotic fire, and no religious inspiration. They are
fantastic and unreal, but then they do not pretend to be anything else.
His imagination presented him with an inexhaustible succession of
brilliant and striking images, and provided they glittered and sparkled
in his verse, he was careless whether they were true to nature or
consistent with each other. He is a delightful poet to read in detached
passages when the mind wants to indulge in the refreshing vagaries of
fancy. He is very even in his style; possessing consummate mastery
over his language, the most elaborate difficulties of rhyme and metre
present no obstacles to him. I do not think that he is in any respect
inferior to Spenser in strength of poetical inspiration, and he is
certainly less heavy and slow. But the subject of his principal work
is frivolous, and it is, in truth, a mere bubble of the imagination,
made to expand, glitter, and burst. But for that purpose it is much
too long. Heroic thoughts alone should assume heroic proportions. Even
in Ariosto, we have the same effect too often. Much more so in the
_Adone._ Marino had nothing of the classical simplicity of Ariosto.
He probably disdained it as insipid. But high seasoning involves
rapid satiety, and the mind derives no nourishment from condiments so
artificial. This circumstance alone solves the problem why Marino has
fallen into such neglect. Take each stanza of his poems and consider it
separately, and it appears a marvel of fancy, ingenuity, and musical
diction. But take his productions as a whole, and it cannot be denied
that they are wanting in sustained interest, in human pathos, and in
philosophic intention. Indeed, he had nothing of a philosopher. No
great problems occupy his mind; no sublime aspirations raise him above
sublunary things. He spends the wealth of his intellect, not on noble
monuments, but on filigree trinkets. Hence, probably, his popularity.
His contemporaries did not want to be shaken with tempestuous
sublimity, or led to an abyss of profound meditation. They wanted to
be lulled into voluptuous repose by a singer skilful enough to delight
their fancy with strains sufficiently beautiful to compensate the
absence of higher qualities, and yet not too elevated to soar beyond
the range of the limited horizon to which they confined themselves.
Hence Marino's brilliant success. But he sacrificed to immediate
popularity the admiration and gratitude of future ages, which with his
prodigal gifts of song and imagination he might possibly have acquired.
As a sample of Marino's style, I subjoin the beautiful opening stanza
of the seventh canto of the _Adone._
"Musica e Poesia son due sorelle,
Ristoratrici delle afflitte genti,
De' rei pensier le torbide procelle
Con liete rime a serenar possenti.
Non ha di queste il mondo arti più belle,
O più salubri all' affannate menti,
Nè cor la Scizia ha barbaro cotanto,
Se non è tigre, a cui non piaccia il canto."
As Marino aspired to be the first epic poet of his age, GABRIELLO
CHIABRERA, of Savona, aspired to be its first lyric poet, and he
took Pindar for his model. He obtained much applause, but it may be
doubted whether he was quite so successful as his contemporary. He
has nothing like Marino's teeming wealth of imagination, and his more
ambitious Odes are often turgid and heavy. On the other hand, it must
be allowed that his most successful passages are splendid and sonorous.
The _Adone_ is the best of the long-winded Italian epics with the
exception of the two unapproachable masterpieces, the _Orlando Furioso_
and the _Gerusalemme Liberata._ But it cannot be said that Chiabrera
comes as near to Petrarch as Marino does to his two illustrious
predecessors. He is full of those hackneyed mythological allusions
which encumbered poetry up to the end of the Eighteenth Century, nor
has he the excuse of indulging in them for the purpose of conjuring
up gorgeous and romantic visions. His powers of description are but
slight, a remarkable circumstance, as his powers of versification were
beyond doubt very extensive. Some of his lighter poems are gay and
vivacious, and he wrote a series of epitaphs known to English readers
by Wordsworth's noble translation. Not often did Chiabrera indulge in a
strain so natural and impassioned as the following:
"Not without heavy grief of heart did he
On whom the duty fell (for at that time
The father sojourned in a distant land)
Deposit in the hollow of this tomb
A brother's child most tenderly beloved!
Francesco was the name the youth had borne,
Pozzobonelli his illustrious house;
And when beneath this stone the corse was laid,
The eyes of all Savona streamed with tears.
Alas! the twentieth April of his life
Had scarcely flowered; and at this early time
By genuine virtue he inspired a hope
That greatly cheered his country; to his kin
He promised comfort; and the flattering thoughts
His friends had in their fondness entertained,
He suffered not to languish or decay.
Now is there not great reason to break forth
Into a passionate lament? O Soul!
Short while a Pilgrim in our nether world,
Do thou enjoy the calm empyreal air;
And round this earthly tomb let roses rise,
An everlasting spring! in memory
Of that delightful fragrance which was once
From thy mild manners quietly exhaled."
The following epitaph on an Admiral is also fine:
"There never breathed a man who, when his life
Was closing, might not of that life relate
Toils long and hard. The warrior will report
Of wounds, and bright swords flashing in the field,
And blast of trumpets. He who hath been doomed
To bow his forehead in the Courts of Kings
Will tell of fraud and never-ceasing hate,
Envy and heart-inquietude, derived
From intricate cabals of treacherous friends.
I, who on shipboard lived from earliest youth,
Could represent the countenance horrible
Of the vexed waters, and the indignant rage
Of Auster and Bootes. Fifty years
Over the well-steered galleys did I rule.
From huge Pelorus to the Atlantic pillars,
Rises no mountain to mine eyes unknown;
And the broad gulfs I traversed oft and oft.
Of every cloud which in the heavens might stir
I knew the force; and hence the rough sea's pride
Availed not to my Vessel's overthrow.
What noble pomp and frequent have not I
On regal decks beheld! yet in the end
I learned that one poor moment can suffice
To equalise the lofty and the low.
We sail the sea of life--a Calm one finds,
And one a Tempest--and, the voyage o'er,
Death is the quiet haven of us all.
If more of my condition ye would know,
Savona was my birthplace, and I sprang
Of noble parents; seventy years and three
Lived I--then yielded to a slow desease."
A poet who may not have equalled Chiabrera in the general excellence of
his work, but who far surpassed him in sudden and brilliant flashes of
inspiration, was VINCENZIO DA FILICAIA, a Florentine, born in 1642,
died in 1707.[1] A few of his very finest verses are so renowned, that
when we turn to an edition of his complete works, we are disagreeably
surprised to find that the bulk of his poetry is far from coming up
to his most striking passages. He is often conventional and turgid,
sometimes heavy and awkward. He has not Chiabrera's technical skill,
nor has he the vivacity of lighter poets. Hallam complained of a want
of sunshine in his verse, and in truth his elegies are occasionally
doleful where they ought to be tragic. The man seems to have been
greater than his works; but when a chord of his lyre touches his heart,
he breaks forth into song so noble and impassioned that he fully
deserves to be acclaimed the greatest Italian poet in the Seventeenth
Century. First and foremost stands his celebrated Sonnet on Italy,
especially the four opening lines:
"Italia! Italia! O tu cui feo la sorte
Dono infelice di bellezza, ond'hai
Funesta dote d'infiniti guai
Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte."
But there is something heavy and slow in the continuation and
conclusion.
Superior in general excellence, though not possessing the inimitable
pathos of the passage just quoted, is the sonnet beginning:
"Dov'è, Italia, il tuo braccio? e a che ti servi
Tu dell' altrui? non è, s'io scorgo il vero,
Da chi t'offende, il difensor men fero,
Ambo nemici son, ambo fur servi."
Another sonnet on the same subject opens very impressively:
"Vanno a un termine sol, con passi eguali,
Del verno, Italia, e di tua vita l'ore;
Nè ancor sai quante di sua man lavore
A tuo danno il Destin saette e strali."
So does a fourth:
"Sono, Italia, per te discordia e morte
In due nomi una cosa; e a si gran male
Un mal s'aggiunge non minor, che frale
Non se' abbastanza, nè abbastanza forte."
Christina, Queen of Sweden, took up her residence in Rome after her
abdication, and delighted in attracting a brilliant circle to her
Court. Filicaia does not seem to have left his native city, but she
extended her patronage to his sons, and he celebrated her munificence
in many odes, and wrote a noble Sonnet on her death. In one of his
poems he exhorts Rome to rejoice in Christina's presence:
"Non lungi là dal gelido Boöte
Sorse indi a poco imperiosa Stella,
Ma fausta si, che se mentir non vuoi,
Dire a ragion tu puoi:
Antica Roma, a par di te son bella."
Filicaia received immense praise and universal renown for a series
of Odes on the Liberation of Vienna from the Turks by John Sobiesky,
King of Poland, in 1683. No lyric poems in the Italian language are
more universally known. They are undoubtedly splendid and effective
compositions. They inspired Wordsworth with the following Sonnet:
'Oh, for a kindling touch from that pure flame
Which ministered, erewhile, to a sacrifice
Of gratitude, beneath Italian skies,
In words like these: 'Up, Voice of Song! proclaim
'Thy saintly rapture with celestial aim;
'For lo! the Imperial City stands released
'From bondage threatened by the embattled East,
'And Christendom respires, from guilt and shame
'Redeemed, from miserable fear set free
'By one day's feat, one mighty victory.
'Chant the deliverer's praise in every tongue;
'The Cross shall spread, the Crescent hath waxed dim,
'He conquering, as in joyful Heaven is sung;
'He conquering through God, and God through Him.'"
The poems rise to the occasion, but at times they are more rhetorical
than poetical, and the constant apostrophes to God to wake up from His
sleep are not in the best taste. Filicaia unfortunately devotes almost
as much eulogy to the ungrateful Leopold as to the heroic Sobiesky, and
the grovelling adulation with which he addresses Royal and Imperial
personages, detracts from the loftiness of the whole.
Filicaia was remarkable for tenderness. One of the finest of his
sonnets is on Divine Providence:
"Qual madre i figli con pietoso affetto,"
in which thought and pathos are blended with admirable art. Some of
his sonnets are strikingly ingenious. Very beautiful is that on the
earth-quake of Sicily, in 1683:
"Quì pur foste, o Città; nè in voi quì resta
Testimon di voi stesse un sasso solo,
In cui si scriva: Quì s'aperse il suolo,
Qui fu Catania, e Siracusa è questa!"
Very beautiful are some of his religious verses:
"Avess' io scritto meno, e assai più pianto;
E stil men terso avessi, alma più bella,
Men chiaro ingegno, e cor più puro e santo!"
The final impression left by Filicaia's poems is that he was a great
nature rather than a perfect poet, and that it is owing to the
loftiness of his spirit rather than to the mastery of his art, that his
pages, too often cumbrous and conventional, are irradiated with flashes
so brilliant and striking that they leave an indelible impression on
the reader and place the poet on a pedestal more lofty and honourable
than many writers, gifted with keener wit and more vivid imagination,
can ever hope to ascend.
As Chiabrera took Pindar for his model, so did FULVIO TESTI endeavour
to appear in the character of an Italian Horace. And, in truth, he
had many qualities to justify his undertaking the task. He has wit,
ingenuity, clear and pointed expression, and a mind genuinely poetical.
He seems to have developed early, and some of his best pieces were
written before he was twenty-five. He dedicated an edition of his poems
to Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, and thereby incurred the wrath of
the Spanish Governor of Lombardy, and had to take refuge in flight.
The Duke of Modena became his patron and gave him a pension, and his
successor, Francis I, was even more favourable to the poet, and took
him in his suite to Madrid in 1638, when Philip IV of Spain conferred
upon him a lucrative office. Testi resembled Ariosto in being made
Governor of the Province of Garfagnana, and Tasso in exciting the most
intense hatred and jealousy. For some unexplained reason, he was
arrested early in 1646 and thrown into prison, where he met his death
on the twenty-eighth of August. It is suspected that he was executed
within the precincts of the prison, but nothing certain is known; all
is suspicion and mystery. If he has not left anything very memorable,
his poems are at least spirited and elegant, and, unlike many of his
contemporaries, he is never dull and ponderous. Some of his letters are
witty and vivacious.
The great painter, SALVATOR ROSA, often amused his leisure with writing
verses, and if his attention had not been so strongly directed to
the sister art of painting, he might have achieved notable success
in poetry. Some of his ballads are spontaneous and natural, and his
satires show genuine powers of observation and ridicule. That on the
painters of his day is, perhaps, the best, and is well worth reading.
Another satirist of merit was BENEDETTO MENZINI. Like Filicaia, he
enjoyed the patronage of Christina of Sweden. Never, since the terrible
catastrophe of the sack of Rome under Clement VII, did the Eternal
City present such a magnificent aspect as in the latter part of the
Seventeenth Century. The stately days of Leo X seemed to be revived.
Alexander VII signalised his Pontificate by extraordinary splendour.
The colonnade enclosing the square before St. Peter's was erected by
Bernini in his reign. Christina vied with the Pope in the magnificence
of her Court. The Ambassadors to the Vatican endeavoured to out-shine
each other in pomp and luxury. If Menzini who lived in the heart of
this splendid society, did not transfer more than a dim reflection of
its brilliancy to his pages, he writes at least as a man who has seen
and observed much, and he is neither a pedant nor an empty declaimer.
He wrote an Art of Poetry--in verse, almost as good as that written in
France at the same period by Boileau. His sonnets and serious poems are
much more conventional. He was a good Latinist, but the great series of
Italian writers of Latin poems closed with the sparkling epigrams of
the brothers Amaltei.
Another lyric poet attracted to Rome by the liberality of the Queen
of Sweden was ALESSANDRO GUIDI. He found a patron not only in that
Princess, but also, early in the Eighteenth Century, in Pope Clement
XI, whose Latin homilies he turned into Italian verse. Previous writers
had, in the composition of their Odes, observed the most rigid rules
of metre and rhyme. The same stanza, the same order of rhymes, was
maintained throughout each poem. Guidi, whether from want of skill, or
from indolence, or from love of originality, was thé first to discard
this iron regularity, and to write Odes in irregular stanzas, even
occasionally leaving verses without giving them a succeeding rhyme.
This was followed at intervals by other writers, until it culminated
in the boundless freedom of Leopardi, who, in his last productions,
introduces rhymes so sparingly as to make his metre little more than
a modification of blank verse. After Leopardi's imitators had tired
the public ear with their slipshod effusions, a reaction set in,
and regular stanzas are now more than ever in favour, the long and
elaborate stanzas of Filicaia being, however, neglected for the lighter
and more pointed quatrains.
By this license, strongly censured at the time, Guidi undoubtedly
gained greater freedom of movement, and he is never obliged to force
his thoughts and twist his phrases. But it cannot be said that his
conceptions are more natural and unconventional than those of his
predecessors. He has no great glow of imagination, no rainbow hues
of fancy, no depth of thought, nor has he any powers of pathos or
tenderness. But he is always tasteful and scholarly, and his works are
perfectly free from any taint of coarseness or vulgarity.
ALESSANDRO MARCHETTI was remarkable rather for his magnificent
translation of Lucretius than for any of his original productions. The
book was considered in Italy of a tendency too dangerous to be allowed
to pass the censorship, and it had to be printed in London and smuggled
surreptitiously into the country of its origin.
FRANCESCO REDI wrote one very celebrated work, _Bacco in Toscana,_ a
dithyramb, full of fire and enthusiasm, a species of poem of which
there are few examples in the Italian language. He was a physician by
profession, and greatly advanced the science of his time. He died in
1698.
CARLO MARIA MAGGI wrote some pleasing poems in the Milanese dialect,
and some of his Sonnets addressed to Italy have the patriotic fire so
much extolled in Filicaia.
FELICE ZAPPI and FAUSTINA MARATTI, his wife, wrote some noble and
spirited Sonnets. One by Zappi on the Moses of Michael Angelo, has most
striking beauty and originality.
The Seventeenth Century was not rich in comic poets. The versifiers of
the age are mostly distinguished by a rather monotonous seriousness.
Two poets, however, are remarkable for their comic inventions, LORENZO
LIPPI and ALESSANDRO TASSONI.
The former, a Florentine, was painter as well as poet. He wrote a
burlesque poem in Ottava Rima called the _Malmantile._ It is valued
as a storehouse of Tuscan phrase, and is, indeed, so full of the slang
of the Mercato Vecchio as to be almost unintelligible to Italians
themselves, much more to foreigners, without the copious annotations of
the commentators.
ALESSANDRO TASSONI was a native of Modena, born in 1565, died in
1635. He distinguished himself as a Commentator on Petrarch, but more
especially by his mock-heroic poem, _La Secchia Rapita,_ which may be
translated _The Rape of the Bucket._ Like so many other writers of
the day, he passed his life in the service of Cardinals md Princes,
and he suffered much from the caprice of his masters and the envy
of his rivals. But he ended his days peacefully as a pensioner of
Francis I, Duke of Modena. His principal work, _La Secchia Rapita,_ has
much ingenuity of thought to recommend it, but his style is somewhat
deficient in colour, and his subject is not very interesting in itself,
nor is it made so by its author. Misled by the similarity of the names,
Dickens, in his _Pictures from Italy,_ attributes the _Secchia Rapita_
to Tasso. Among mock-heroic poems of modern times, Boileau's _Lutrin_
may be said to be slightly inferior to the _Secchia Rapita,_ but Pope's
_Rape of the Lock_ and Leopardi's _Paralipomeni_ vastly superior, both
in brilliancy of thought and perfection of style.
In comparing the poetry of the Seventeenth Century with that of the
Sixteenth, we are struck by the curious fact that its authors have
a more old-fashioned air than their predecessors. This is partly to
be-accounted for by their search for ingenious conceits, which prevents
them from being as flowing and natural as the contemporaries of Ariosto
and Tasso. Their style, too, is more cumbrous. They are fonder of
long and complicated periods than the poets of the Sixteenth Century.
But they have many compensating qualities. Their very fault of being
too artificial in thought and imagery argues the possession of no
little imagination and fertility. A man cannot pervert into strange
and fantastic forms his thoughts and conceptions without being at
considerable pains to do so. None of these writers spare themselves
any trouble, and they often choose the most difficult metres which
the language can present. Their great defect is conventionality of
phraseology, which began with Tasso and only ended in the Nineteenth
Century with Monti. They bedeck themselves with the rags of Ancient
Mythology, and do not seem for a moment to suspect that they would
look much better in unborrowed garments. Instead of talking of the
wind, they talk of Boreas. Instead of mentioning the sea, they mention
Neptune and Thetis. All this makes even the best of them unnatural and
pedantic to a degree, and it is only in their very finest passages that
they are enjoyable to the modern reader. The intense love for Classical
Antiquity had died out with the Renaissance, and the allusions to the
Gods of Greece and Rome were but the outcome of habit and convention.
Instead of adorning their works, these allusions positively make them
dry, for it is only Marino who uses them as they should be used: for
the display of brilliant pageants of description and imagery. He
conjures up a fairyland of his own as Keats did two hundred years later.
[Footnote 1: Lord Somers was a great admirer of Filicaia. See Lord
Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors,_ and Macaulay's _History._]