Giambattista, an Italian poet, born of humble parents in 1721, at Montefiascone, in the States of the Church. There, too, he commenced his studies, in which he made such progress that he was appointed in early youth professor of Greek and Latin in an academy of that town. He soon, however, quitted this obscure situation, and repaired to Rome, where his learning, acuteness, and agreeable disposition, recommended him to the notice and friendship of many eminent individuals. He was admitted a member of the academy Degli Arcadi; and might easily have risen from a canonship in the cathedral of Montefiascone, which he had already obtained, to much higher pre- ferment in the church, had such been his ambition. But his love of freedom and restless disposition interfered with his ecclesiastical advancement. He gladly accepted the invitation of Prince Rosenberg (tutor to the Grand Duke Leopold) to accompany him to Vienna, where he was presented to the Emperor Joseph. He then visited most of the capitals of Europe, from Petersburg to Lisbon, and from Constantinople to Stockholm. On his return to Vienna he was appointed Poeta Cesariorum poet-laureate, in the room of Metastasio; a situation which he held till some time after the death of the Emperor Leopold, when he resigned it, and retired to Florence in 1796. After two years' residence in that city, during which period he composed a great number of his works, he took up his residence at Paris; and though now far advanced in life, neither his habitual gaiety nor his ardour of literary composition were in any degree abated. Scarcely a day passed that he did not add something to his principal poem Gli Animali Parlanti, or write one of his poetical novels. At the same time he was the delight of society from the liveliness of his conversation, which was rendered yet more entertaining by his knowledge of the world. Though in 1803 he had passed the age of eighty-two, his strength both of mind and body afforded the promise of a yet longer life; but he died during that year, from a severe cold caught in returning home at a late hour. His funeral was attended by a great concourse of persons distinguished by literary eminence; and an eloquent funeral oration was pronounced on the occasion by Coronati, an Italian physician.

The chief work of Casti is Gli Animali Parlanti, Poema Epico, Diviso in XXVI. Canti. In 1792 and 1793 the French revolution had attracted the attention and speculations of all Europe; and in this work Casti resolved to exhibit, under an allegorical veil, what he conceived to be the predominant feelings of the multitude, their avowed hopes, and secret designs. With this view, as he himself has expressed it, "he contrived a grand apologue, in which, through the medium of animals as speakers and actors, a complete political story might be exhibited, exposing the defects and absurdities of various political systems."

This work, which raised Casti to a very high rank among the modern poets of his country, was begun at Vienna in 1794. His situation, however, as poet-laureate, was unfavourable to the freedom of political satire, and this obstacle may have been one inducement to his resignation of that office. The poem was continued at Florence without interruption, and completed at Paris, where it was published in 1802, in 3 vols. 8vo; an impression which has been followed by various editions in Italy. It was translated into French, Spanish, and German, and there is also a free and abridged English version, executed with considerable spirit. To most of the Italian editions four apologies have been added; but these have no relation to the subject of the Animali Parlanti.

Casti now directed his attention to the composition and publication of poetical novels. As far back as 1778 he had written eighteen of these Novelle Galanti; but his poetical avocations at the imperial court had interrupted his progress; and meanwhile those which he had composed were surreptitiously printed, both in Italy and France, in a manner so inaccurate and disfigured, that they could scarcely be recognised by the author. Some, too, as La Bella Circassa, and La Figlia che non ha giudizio, which were not his, were added to the collection.

Under these circumstances, the injured poet resolved to collect his whole works in an edition to be printed under his own superintendence. 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 3 vols. 8vo, 1804, accompanied by a prefatory memoir of the author. The practice of tale-

writing, which commenced with the author of the Cento Novelle Antiche, and was brought to such perfection by Boccaccio, had prevailed in Italy for nearly five hundred years before the age of Casti. The Italian novelists invariably copied from each other, as well as from those inexhaustible stores of fiction, the Fabliaux of the Trouveurs. The merit of Casti does not consist in the invention of his stories; his novels are founded either on mythological stories, or on preceding Italian tales. To the first class belong Aurora, L'Origine di Roma, Diana ed Endimione, Prometeo e Pandora. Almost all the rest are poetical versions from Boccaccio, Massuccio di Salerno, and other Italian novelists. The longest, La Papessa, is founded on the old story of Pope Joan. These tales are much admired by the Italians for purity 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. Some of them also terminate rather flatly; and the ottava rima 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 gaiety and levity of the lightest of all species of composition. One cannot mention the tales of Casti without being naturally led to compare them with those of Fontaine, which are founded on similar originals, 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, naïveté, and grace.

Casti is also author of the Poema 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. The first sketch of this mock heroic poem was made by the author during his visit to St Petersburg, in the train of Count Kaunitz, the Austrian ambassador. On his return to Vienna, Casti new-modelled the composition, struck out whatever might be likely to prove offensive to crowned heads in general, and inserted a complimentary episode on the celebrated journey of his imperial patron into the Crimea.

In the capacity of poet-laureate, it was his duty to provide new dramatic entertainments at stated periods; and Casti, whose genius was diametrically opposite to that of his celebrated predecessor Metastasio, conscious that he could not vie with him in the serious opera, applied himself to the Opera Buffa, in which he obtained great success. His La Grota di Trofonio is intended to ridicule the pretensions of false philosophers. The 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

Senza soldi e senza regno Brutta cosa è l'esser Re.

A third burlesque opera, of which Cicero is the principal character, is founded on the plot of Catiline. Although neither the novel nor the apologue was by any means a new species of composition among the Italians, yet Casti may be regarded as an original author, in so far as he has bestowed 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 previously been applied.