Note 776 — Chapter VIII

The ingenuity, says Mr. Panizzi, with which Berni finds a resemblance between distant objects, and the rapidity with which he suddenly connects the most remote ideas; the solemn manner in which he either alludes to ludicrous events or utters an absurdity; the air of innocence and naïveté with which he presents remarks full of shrewdness and knowledge of the world; that peculiar bonhommie with which he seems to look kindly and at the same time unwillingly on human errors or wickedness; the keen irony which he uses with so much appearance of simplicity and aversion to bitterness; the seeming singleness of heart with which he appears anxious to excuse men and actions, at the very moment that he is most inveterate in exposing them; these are the chief elements of Berni’s poetry. Add to this the style, the loftiness of the verse contrasting with the frivolity of the argument, the gravest conception expressed in the most homely manner; the seasonable use of strange metaphors and of similes sometimes sublime, and for this very reason the more laughable, when considered with relation to the subject which they are intended to illustrate, form the most remarkable features of his style. P. 120.