The Aniniali Parlanti, and the Novelle are the best known and most popular works of Casti ; but he is also author of the Poem Tartaro, a satiric poem, in twelve cantos, on the Court of Catherine II. The scene of action, however, is laid in Asia, and all the names are fictitious. Russia is called Mogollia—St Petersburgh, Caracora—The Em press, Cattuna—the Grand Duke Paul, afterwards Czar, Cajucco--Orloff, Cuslucco—and Potemkin, T.oto Toctabei. The first sketch of this mock-heroic poem was made by the author during his visit to St Petersburgh, in the train of Count Kaunitz, the Ambassador. On his return to Vienna, the Emperor Joseph having manifested a desire to hear it read, Casti new-modelled the composition, struck out whatever might be likely to prove offen sive to crowned heads in general, and inserted a complimentary episode on the celebrated journey of his imperial patron into the Crimea. Notwithstand ing the approbation which his poem met with from the Austrian court, Casti would not probably have published it (hiring the life of the heroine ; but nu-, merous manuscripts of it having been circulated, some of them found their way to Italy, where it was repeatedly but very incorrectly printed, none of the impressions having been ever subjected to the sal of the author.
In his capacity of poet-laureate, it was the duty of Casti to provide new dramatic entertainments at stated occasions and periods. The court and public of Vienna bad probably growe weary, in the course of half a century, of the elegant moral monotony of Metastasio ; and Casti, whose genius was diametrically opposite to that of his predecessor, could not have vied with him in the grand or serious opera. He
therefore resolied to excite the mirth of the specta Vero by the revival of the Opera Buie, in which he obtained great success. One of his productions in this lipe, entitled La Grote di Trofonio, is intend ed to ridicule the pretensions of faW philbsophem The subject of another, Il Re Teodoro in Venezia, suggested by an episode in Voltaire's Candide, was assigned to him by the Emperor himself, who is said to have been much entertained with the lines A third burlesque opera, of which Cicero is the principal character, is founded on the plot of C,ati. line. Here the characters of the Roman senators and conspirators, with the orations against Catiline, are so parodied as to produce something of the same effect as our mock tragedies,. or the ancient satiric drama of the Greeks.
On the whole, although neither the Novel nor the Apologue was by any means a new species of com position among the Italians, yet Coati may be re garded an original author, iu so far as he has be stowed a new form on the first, and has given to the second an extent which it had not yet received, as well as directed it to an object to which it had not been previously applied.