was long, and every part of it bore appropriate fruits.  Urbina his birth-place might be proud of him, and the passenger who was entreated to pray for his soul has a wish breathed for his welfare.  This composition is a perfect whole, there is nothing arbitrary or mechanical, but it is an organized body, of which the members are bound together by a common life and are all justly proportioned.  If I had not gone so much into detail I should have given further instances of Chiabrera’s Epitaphs, but I must content myself with saying that if he had abstained from the introduction of heathen mythology, of which he is lavish—­an inexcusable fault for an inhabitant of a Christian country, yet admitting of some palliation in an Italian who treads classic soil and has before his eyes the ruins of the temples which were dedicated to those fictitious beings of objects of worship by the majestic people his ancestors—­had omitted also some uncharacteristic particulars, and had not on some occasions forgotten that truth is the soul of passion, he would have left his Readers little to regret.  I do not mean to say that higher and nobler thoughts may not be found in sepulchral inscriptions than his contain; but he understood his work, the principles upon which he composed are just.  The Reader of the Friend has had proofs of this:  one shall be given of his mixed manner, exemplifying some of the points in which he has erred.

    O Lelius beauteous flower of gentleness,
    The fair Anglaia’s friend above all friends: 
    O darling of the fascinating Loves
    By what dire envy moved did Death uproot
    Thy days e’er yet full blown, and what ill chance
    Hath robbed Savona of her noblest grace? 
    She weeps for thee and shall for ever weep,
    And if the fountain of her tears should fail
    She would implore Sabete to supply
    Her need:  Sabete, sympathizing stream,
    Who on his margin saw thee close thine eyes
    On the chaste bosom of thy Lady dear,
    Ah, what do riches, what does youth avail? 
    Dust are our hopes, I weeping did inscribe
    In bitterness thy monument, and pray
    Of every gentle spirit bitterly
    To read the record with as copious tears.

This epitaph is not without some tender thoughts, but a comparison of it with the one upon the youthful Pozzobonelli (see Friend, No....) will more clearly shew that Chiabrera has here neglected to ascertain whether the passions expressed were in kind and degree a dispensation of reason, or at least commodities issued under her licence and authority.

The epitaphs of Chiabrera are twenty-nine in number, all of them save two probably little known at this day in their own country and scarcely at all beyond the limits of it; and the Reader is generally made acquainted with the moral and intellectual excellence which distinguished them by a brief history of the course of their lives or a selection of events and circumstances, and thus they are individualized; but in the two other instances, namely those of Tasso and Raphael, he enters into no particulars, but contents himself with four lines expressing one sentiment upon the principle laid down in the former part of this discourse, where the subject of an epitaph is a man of prime note.