ers of the
Renaissance; with all verbal artists in any age, who have sought unduly
to refine upon their material of language. In a word, Marino is not
condemned by his so-called Marinism. His true stigma is the inadequacy
to conceive of human nature except under a twofold mask of sensuous
voluptuousness and sensuous ferocity. It is this narrow and ignoble
range of imagination which constitutes his real inferiority, far more
than any poetical extravagance in diction. The same mean conception of
humanity brands with ignominy the four generations over which he
dominated--that brood of eunuchs and courtiers, churchmen and _Cavalieri
serventi_, barocco architects and brigands, casuists and bravi,
grimacers, hypocrites, confessors, impostors, bastards of the spirit,
who controlled Italian culture for a hundred years.

At a first glance we shall be astonished to find that this poet, who may
justly be regarded as the corypheus of Circean orgies in the seventeenth
century, left in MS. a grave lament upon the woes of Italy. Marino's
_Pianto d'Italia_ has no trace of Marinism. It is composed with sobriety
in a pedestrian style of plainness, and it tells the truth without
reserve. Italy traces her wretchedness to one sole cause, subjection
under Spanish rule.

Lascio ch'un re che di real non tiene
Altro che il nome effemminato e vile
A sua voglia mi reggi, e di catene
Barbare mi circondi il pie servile.

This tyrant foments jealousy and sows seeds of discord between the
Italian states. His viceroys are elected from the cruelest, the most
unjust, the most rapacious, and the most luxurious of the courtiers
crawling round his throne. The College of Cardinals is bought and sold.
No prince dares move a finger in his family or state without consulting
the Iberian senate; still less can he levy troops for self-defense. Yet
throughout Europe Spanish victories have been obtained by Italian
generals; the bravest soldiers in foreign armies are Italian exiles.
Perhaps it may be argued that the empty titles which abound in every
petty city, the fulsome promises on which those miserable vassals found
their hopes, are makeweights for such miseries. Call them rather chains
to bind the nation, lures and birdlime such as snarers use. There is but
one quarter to which the widowed and discrowned Queen of Nations can
appeal for succor. She turns to Carlo Emmanuele, Duke of Savoy, to the
hills whence cometh help. It was not, however,