the Albigenses. Happily, the fire of Arcadian verse did not really
burn! The institution was at first derided, then it triumphed and
prevailed in such fame and greatness that, shining forth like a
new sun, it consumed the splendor of the lesser lights of heaven,
eclipsing the glitter of all those academies--the Thunderstruck, the
Extravagant, the Humid, the Tipsy, the Imbeciles, and the like--which
had hitherto formed the glory of the Peninsula."


I

Giuseppe Torelli, a charming modern Italian writer, in a volume called
_Paessaggi e Profili_ (Landscapes and Profiles), makes a study of
Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni, one of the most famous of the famous Arcadian
shepherds; and from this we may learn something of the age and society
in which such a folly could not only be possible but illustrious. The
patriotic Italian critics and historians are apt to give at least a
full share of blame to foreign rulers for the corruption of their
nation, and Signor Torelli finds the Spanish domination over a vast
part of Italy responsible for the degradation of Italian mind and
manners in the seventeenth century. He declares that, because of the
Spaniards, the Italian theater was then silent, "or filled with the
noise of insipid allegories"; there was little or no education among
the common people; the slender literature that survived existed solely
for the amusement and distinction of the great; the army and the
Church were the only avenues of escape from obscurity and poverty; all
classes were sunk in indolence.

The social customs were mostly copied from France, except that purely
Italian invention, the _cavaliere servente_, who was in great vogue.