ition has lately been surpassed by a new Italian poet.
The latter, Signer Giovanni Rizzi, has just published at Milan a small
volume of sonnets, chiefly ironical in character, in which he gives
vent to his disgust at the positive and materialistic tendencies of
the present day. The theme of the three most remarkable among these
productions is that useful but not very aesthetic animal, the hog.

Signer Rizzi is the professor of literature at the military school and
the high school for girls in Milan. Not long ago his three sonnets
to the hog--or, more literally, the boar (_maiale_)--appeared in an
Italian journal called _Illustrazione Italiana_, prefaced by a letter
to the editor, in which the author stated that as apes, toads and
caterpillars have now been triumphantly introduced into literature, he
no longer felt any hesitation about bringing forward in the same way
his esteemed friend the boar. These three pieces, together with others
of the same form and character, have now been published as a book
under the title of _Un Grido_. This work begins with an address to the
reader, in which the poet laments the prevailing tendency of public
opinion, and protests against what he considers a determined war on
all old and honored beliefs and feelings, and a substitution therefor
of a vague and revolting materialism. Then come five sonnets to Pietro
Aretino, the witty poet and scoffer of the Renaissance era. Aretino is
invited to reappear among men, for the world, says Rizzi, has again
become worthy of such a man's presence. Leaving Dante to Jesuits, and
Beatrice to priests, it has made Aretino its favorite model, and has,
consequently, said farewell to everything resembling shame. In the
last of these five sonnets the poet addresses his beloved thus: "And
we too, O Love! do we still keep holy honor, home, faith, prayer,
truth and noble sorrow?"

After the five sonnets to Aretino come the three to the boar (_Al
Maiale_) which have already been mentioned. Here the author enters
into a mock glorification of that animal, and declares himself ready
to give up all pretensions to any superiority over it. He proceeds
to "swear eternal friendship" with it, and offers it his hand
to solemnize the compact; but, suddenly remembering that such
old-fashioned practices must be very distasteful to his new friend, he
immediately apologizes for having conformed to such a ridiculous old
prejudice. He does not expect his "long-lost brother" to