is ended the noise of the plaudits is so great that they cannot be
counted. His new production has cost Frugoni half an hour's work; it
is possibly the answer to some Mecaenas who has invited him to his
country-seat, or the funeral eulogy of some well-known cat. Is fame
bought at so cheap a rate? He is a fool who would buy it dearer;
and with this reasoning, which certainly is not without foundation,
Frugoni remained Frugoni when he might have been something very much
better.... If a bird sang, or a cat sneezed, or a dinner was given, or
the talk turned upon anything no matter how remote from poetry, it
was still for Frugoni an invitation to some impromptu effusion. If he
pricked his finger in mending a pen, he called from on high the god of
Lemnos and all the ironworkers of Olympus, not excepting Mars, whom it
was not reasonable to disturb for so little, and launched innumerable
reproaches at them, since without their invention of arms a penknife
would never have been made. If the heavens cleared up after a long
rain, all the signs of the zodiac were laid under contribution and
charged to give an account of their performance. If somebody died, he
instantly poured forth rivers of tears in company with the nymphs of
Eridanus and the Heliades; he upraided Phaethon, Themis, the Shades of
Erebus, and the Parcae.... The Amaryllises, the Dryads, the Fauns, the
woolly lambs, the shepherds, the groves, the demigods, the Castalian
Virgins, the loose-haired nymphs, the leafy boughs, the goat-footed
gods, the Graces, the pastoral pipes, and all the other sylvan rubbish
were the prime materials of every poetic composition."


III

Signor Torelli is less severe than Emiliani-Giudici upon the founders
of the Arcadia, and thinks they may have had intentions quite