Accordingly, we find that in this work, Casti has pointrayed and, satirized the hy so often mixed in political pretensions--.the secret ambi tion of who alternately supplant and suc ceed each other—the intolerance of cabals and parties, who proscribe all who have not ranged. themselves under their banners, and who regard the maxims which happen to be then in vogue as fixed and immutable principles. He has repre sented, with 'peculiar felicity, the democratic de. elsmations of the dog4 once so- loyal, the aristo cratic surliness of the bear, the simple good-nature of Lion I. and the caprices of his cub Lion II. who is obviously intended for the late Czar of Muscovy. It must, however, be confessed, that the pleasantry of an apologue of twenty-six cantos, each of about 600 lines, is too much prolonged, and the too fre quent negligence of the style, with the repetition of trivial and obvious morals, like those at the bottom of the page in the English £sop's Fables, do not aid in sustaining the curiosity or interest.
This work of Casti, which raised him to a very high rank among the modern poets of his country, was begun at Vienna in 1794. His situation, how ever, as poet laureate, was unfavourable to the free dom of political and this obstacle to his fa vourite pursuit nay have been inducement to his resignation of they Ace. Idler his retirement, the-poem wasiewseinneti at Homo, without haterrop• Lion, and completed St Perim, where it wee published ut NOS, in 8 wok. 8vo, an impression which has been followed term:dons editions in Italy. It was translated into French, Spanish, and German, and we have also seen a free and abridged English version, executed with considerable vivacity and spirit. To most of the Italian editions, four apologues ,have been add:, ed, but which have no relation to the subject of the Animali Parketti. One of them, entitled Della Gatta e del Topo, written, we believe, before the author was poet-laureate, and published certainly after he bad resigned thatsituation•is supposedle pourtray those sinister events which the prospects of ag, grandizement anticipated by Joseph from his formi dable league with Russia against the Turks.
Casti having completed his great work of thg Aniesali Parlauti, anew directed his attention to the composition and publication of poetical novels. As far back 4111 the year 1778, he had Written eighteen of these Novelle Guiana, but his •oetical avocations at the Imperial Court had iaterrupted his progress ; and meanwhile those he had composed were tiously printed, both is Italy and France, in a nor se anancucate, and so much altered from the way in which they had been originally that they could scarcely be recognised by the thor, as we leara.firom the Pratesta dell .Atitore. , Some too, as La _Bella Ctreassa, and La Pied die non ha Giudizio, which were not written by Casti, were added to these surreptitious publica tions : In these circumstances, the injured poet assidu: ously prepared himself to enlarge the number of his novels, and to collect the whole in an edition which might be printed under his own immediate superin tendence. He was prevented, however, by his sudden
death ; but his novels, which, at the period of his decease, amounted to forty-eight, were published by one of his Parisian friends, in 8 vols. 8vo, 1804, ac companied by a prefatory memoir of the author. The practice of tale-writing, which commenced with the author of the Cents Novelle Antiche, and was brought. to such perfection by Boccaccio, bad pre vailed in Italy for nearly 500 years before the age of Casti. The Italian novelists invariably copied from each other, and from those inexhaustible stores of fiction, the Fabliaux of the Trouveurs. But the merit of Casa does not consist in the invention of his stories, all of which are borrowed, but in being the first among his countrymen who has clothed these tales in a poetical garb. His Novels are founded either on mythological stories, or on preceding Ita-, lien tales. To the first class belong Aurora, L'Ori gine di Roma, Diaaa ed Eadinsioae, Precuts° e Pandora. Almost all the rest are poetical •vemiens.
from Boicaocio, Massuccio di Salerno, and other Italian novelists. The longest, La Papers, which is divided into three parts, is founded on the old story of Pope Joan. These tales are much admired by the Italians for puiity of language, and harmony of versification, and they contain many ingenious and sarcastic reflections on the hypocrisy, errors, and vices of men in every age and condition of life. They are disfigured, however, by an unpardonable licentiousness, which • is carried much farther than that of almost any of the prior novelists of Italy Some of them also terminate rather flatly, and the octave stanza, in which they are all written, and which has a certain degree of heaviness, even in the hands of Ariosto and Berni, is ill adapted to the geiety and levity of the lightest of all species of Composition. One cannot mention the tales of Cacti without being naturally led to compare them with those of Fontaine, which are founded on similar ori ginals, and written in something of the same spirit. But, if there be more asperity and caustic raillery in Casti, he is infinitely inferior to the French poet in ease, naiveti, and grace. The language in which he was obliged to write, whatever may be its other excellencies, is less' expressive of playfWness than the French, and the octave stanza, which he unfor tunately chose, is not susceptible of the buoyancy and lightness of Fontaine's versification.