Se a ciascun l'interno affanno
Si vedesse in fronte scritto,
Quanti mai ch' invidia fanno,
Ci farebbero pietà!
Si vedria che i lor nemici
Hanno in seno; e si riduce
Nel parere a noi felici
Ogni lor felicità.
The age of gold still lives in the hearts of the innocent:
Ah! ritorna, età dell'oro,
Alla terra abbandonata,
Se non fosti immaginata
Nel sognar felicità.
Non è ver; quel dolce stato
Non fuggì, non fu sognato;
Ben lo sente ogn' innocente
Nella sua tranquillità.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
PARINI.
If the Eighteenth Century was frivolous and luxurious, it was also picturesque and elegant. The age of Dresden china, the age of Watteau and Liotard in painting, must also have left its impress of refined gaiety on poetry. We find that impress in the satires of Pope, in the lighter poems of Voltaire, and in the musical verse of Parini.
Giuseppe Parini was born of humble parents at Bosisio, a hamlet in the district of Milan, near the lake of Pusiano, on the twenty-second of May, 1729. He was educated in Milan at the Arcimboldi Gymnasium, under the direction of the Barnabite Fathers. He showed marked ability and strong inclination for literature. But he had his parents to support, and necessity forced him to become a law-writer. This occupation furnished him with the means of studying Theology, and he entered the priesthood. In 1752 he published his first volume of poems, which, immature as it was, contained sufficient elements of promise to gain for him many friends and admirers, and he was elected a member of the Academy of the Trasformati of Milan and of the Arcadia of Rome.