the populace of Rome, whose humours, joys, and tragedies he has made his own. He has indeed competitors, but, as his editor Morandi observes, these are but as rivers to the sea in comparison with the fabulous opulence of Belli, who has depicted the life around him in more than two thousand sonnets, each in its way a little masterpiece. Almost all represent some scene in the life of the people, observed in his daily ramble, and versified upon his return home. For spirit and truth to nature most of them are almost comparable to Theocritus's portrait of Praxinoe, and there is probably not another instance in the world of the life of a great city so perfectly delineated in verse, or of such an enormous collection of sonnets of so high an average of merit. The drawback to their general enjoyment is their inevitable composition in the Roman dialect, lively, coloured, and full of comic phrases, but uncouth and corrupt. Another important division of Belli's work is the political sonnet, full of mordant satire on the abuses of the Papal government under Gregory XVI., not the less veracious because the author wished to recall it when the Catholic in him ultimately overcame the Liberal.
The patriotic work of Giusti and of Belli was thus in a measure local; one took charge of Tuscany, and the other of Rome. Another distinguished man took all Italy (the impossible kingdom of the Two Sicilies excepted) for his province, and deserves to be enumerated among the more eminent Italian writers of the nineteenth century who have powerfully contributed to the regeneration of their country. Pietro Giordani (1774–1848) is nevertheless not a great author, and perhaps his highly interesting correspondence is the only portion of his writings which will retain a permanent value. But
