On his arrival at Milan, Monti employed himself in correcting his poem, entitled the "Mascheroniana," which he had begun amidst the Alps, when overwhelmed by misery, an exile, weeping over the disasters of his country and his own wrongs. Lorenzo Mascheroni, a celebrated mathematician as well as an elegant poet, was forced to quit Italy at the same time as Monti, and died in France shortly after. In this poem the poet vents all his spleen against his democratic enemies. In his preface he exclaims, "Reader, if you really love your country, and are a true Italian, read! but throw aside the book if, for your and our misfortune, you are an insane demagogue, or a cunning trafficker in the cause of liberty." The poem opens with the death of Mascheroni, and the ascent of his soul to heaven. He here meets Parini, who laments the unhappy condition of Italy. "When I saw her misery," he cries, "I desired to die, and my wish was fulfilled. I first beheld her woe when dressed in her new freedom, which was called liberty, but which, in truth, was rapine. I then beheld her a slave, alas! a despised slave, covered with wounds and blood, complaining to heaven that she was betrayed by her own children--by the many foolish, base, and perverse tyrants, not citizens; while the few remained mute or were destroyed. Iniquitous law's were given her; discord waited on her, and pride, and hate, and madness, ignorance and error; while the tears and sighs of the people remained unheard. O, wretches! who spoke of virtue in high-sounding words, and called themselves Brutus and Gracchus, while they proved themselves traitors and monsters. But short-lived was their joy. I saw the Russian and the Austrian swords destroy the hopes of the fields of Italy, and the armed people commit crimes exceeding the supper of Atreus and the vengeance of Theseus!" While Parini is thus pouring out his angry and bitter denunciations, Mascheroni interrupts him. "Peace, austere spirit!" he exclaims, "your country is again saved. A deity has caught her by the hair, and drawn her from the abyss: Bonaparte!" At this name, the frowning Parini raises his head, and a smile illuminates his countenance. The victories of Egypt, of Marengo, and Hohenlinden, are commemorated; and the "British felon" assailed with the usual violence of hate. In the midst of the conversation of the friends, God appears with his cherubim,--one the herald of peace and pardon, the other of war and vengeance: they are sent out on the earth to assist and wait on the Gallic hero. This poem, like so many others of Monti, which celebrated what was then the present, and is therefore truncated of its catastrophe, is a fragment. Such praise, dressed in all the magnificence of poetry, must have sounded sweetly in Napoleon's ear. The "Mascheroniana," whose chief object is to bestow on him new wreaths of victory, is one of Monti's finest compositions. It is full of strength, vehemence, and beauty. His imitation of Dante is even more apparent than in the "Basvilliana." The machinery of the poem, and the peculiar versification, are borrowed from the "Divina Commedia." But, as we have before observed, Monti's was too original a mind to be a plagiarist. What he took from another, he remoulded and brought forth in a new form, in fresh and brilliant hues, all his own. He has not the sublimity, the sweetness and pathos, nor the distinct yet delicate painting, of his prototype; but no one can read his verses without feeling that the true spirit of poetry breathes in every line, and that the author pours out the overflowings of a genuine and rapt inspiration.