fever attained in the Cinque Cento. Vincenzo Filicaja (1642–1707) is one of the highest examples the world has seen of the academical poet, the man who is rarely hurried away by the god, but who seriously and perseveringly follows poetry as an art, in whose breast the sacred fire is always burning, but always needing to be stirred up. A grave, just magistrate, and a deeply religious man, he was well constituted to sing events of such importance to the Christian commonwealth as the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski, and, from his point of view, the conversion of Queen Christina. Tender, affectionate, and carrying with him the life-long wound of an unfortunate passion, he was no less qualified to be the laureate of domestic sorrow, while his elevation of mind lent uncommon dignity to many of his occasional pieces, especially his sonnets. If only his scrolls smelt less of the lamp he might deserve Macaulay's exaggerated praise as the greatest lyrist of modern times, supposing this expression to denote the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The great qualities of Filicaja are majesty and tenderness. The non bene conveniunt nec in una sede morantur majestas et amor only applies to him in so far as these gifts, though dwelling in the same breast, are not often found united in the same poem. His canzoni possess amplitude of form and pomp of diction, seldom or never bombastic, or transgressing the limits of good taste. From this the poet was preserved by his deep seriousness, to which anything like tinsel was utterly abhorrent. He strongly felt the obligation to exert his utmost strength when writing on an important theme, as he usually did when he wrote at all. It is his manner to approach his subject from a variety of sides, and
