to Marini's; but he is entitled to the great honour of having barred out by a strong dike the flood of false taste, and having conferred dignity upon a most unpropitious age of Italian literature.
(i Chiabrera's mantle fell upon Count Fulvio Testi (1593–1646), in some respects a more genuine poet, though his inferior in splendour of language and harmony of versification, and like him infertile in ideas and contracted in his outlook upon the world. Testi was nevertheless an interesting personage, picturesque in the style of Rembrandt or Caravaggio, an unquiet spirit, haughty, moody, vindictive. Under a free government he might have been a great citizen, but the circumstances of his age left him no other sphere than court or diplomatic employment. He was not the man to run easily in harness, and spent his life in losing and regaining the favour of the Este princes, now come down to be Dukes of Modena, but still with places and pensions in their gift, and died in prison, just as, if the Duke may be believed, he was on the point of being released. If so, the cause of his disgrace was probably nothing graver than his wish to quit the Duke's service. In any case, the tale of his having been secretly decapitated to appease the resentment of Cardinal Antonio Barberini, satirised in his famous canzone, Ruscelletto orgoglioso, seems to be a mere legend.
This canzone is undoubtedly one of the finest lyrics in the Italian language, magnificent alike in its description of the swollen rivulet and in its application to the inflated upstart. The rest of Testi's better compositions resemble it; they are odes stately in diction and sonorous in versification, fine examples of the grand style in poetry, and proving what dignity of style can
