1Q £6 | CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cy LIBRARY ornell University Libra nN DATE DUE ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. Lonpon: Printed by SporriswoonE & Co., New-street-Square. ALFIERI ann GOLDONI THEIR LIVES AND ADVENTURES. BY EDWARD COPPING. LONDON: ADDEY AND CO., HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. — MDCCCLVII. ahh UNIVERS, er The President White } DEDICATION. TO MRS. YAPP. My prar Mapam, THERE are certain debts of friendship which we are never rich enough to pay, but which in our heart-poverty we can, at least, acknowledge with grateful and willing spirit, When I recal the many delightful hours passed in your society, with those who are so dear to you, and to whom you are so dear, I feel that I have incurred such debts, and that it is to you they are owing. Can I do less, then, than avail myself of the opportunity afforded me of admitting my obligation, in dedicating this work to you? In acting thus I am but fulfilling a duty; but how agreeable that duty is! If all similar acts brought with them similar pleasure, by what flowery paths should we journey through life ! Believe me, My dear Madam, With much respect, Yours very sincerely, EDWARD COPPING. BS PREFACE. In writing the lives of men who have themselves supplied the materials with which their picture is to be painted, the labours of the biographer may be said to increase in one direction, in the same proportion as they are diminished in another. If a writer, thus situated, is spared many wearying and irksome duties, others in return are demanded of him, which claim his care and attention almost to the same extent. He has not, it is true, to pursue minute investigations through the wandering paths of obscure history ; he has not to search the records of genealogy; to explore the dark ways of legal documents; to gather from the lips of old age the trembling reminiscences of distant years ; or to harmonise the varying traditions he may have collected, of friends, family, and kindred. All or nearly all these labours are spared him. His difficul- ties come from other sources. The story has been told the pallet is prepared for his hand ; brushes and colours are by his side; the canvas is ready ;— but he has yet BA viii PREFACE. to paint his picture. According to the use of the - materials found him, he may make it a daub, or a work of Art. Perhaps the chief difficulty in employing such mate- rials is to decide what to use, and what to reject ; more especially when, as in the present work, the object of the author is to give a miniature photograph. rather than a full-length painting. Many circumstances which, although trivial in themselves, enter appropri- — ately into detailed memoirs, would be out of place in more confined space. Selection must be made; the spirit rather than the substance of numberless facts must be given; attention must be drawn only . to those which bear with the greatest significance upon ; the whole. It is the history of a year that is to be written, not the history of three hundred and sixty-five separate days. We want the portrait of a man, not a distinct study of his every feature. I have not described difficulties for the purpose of conveying the impression that I have overcome them. It is a means of securing praise and confidence before- hand, which, in the end, are sometimes found to be undeserved. There is a great difference between merely _ seeing the chasm, and bounding with dexterity across it. We may have sufficient sharpness of vision to detect danger, but not enough strength of limb to escape it. I approached my labours in a spirit full of energy, and with a love for the subject that may have misled me as to the extent of my own powers. If it PREFACE. ix has deceived me, however, others will, I know, be less easy of faith. The names of Alfieri and Goldoni may well be associated in the history of the Italian Stage, although no two minds could be more dissimilar ; no two authors less susceptible of comparison. The one in Tragedy, the other in Comedy, introduced new life into the dramatic art at a time when to the fever of disease had succeeded the torpor of inanition. Goldoni, by his marvellous fertility of invention, his readiness of composi- tion, and his undoubted comic ability, raised the Italian stage from the pitiful state of degradation in which it had fallen to a condition of comparative importance. Alfieri, by the invincible power of his resolution, by his indomitable genius, triumphing over every obstacle of position and character, founded a school of elevated tragedy, which has not yet, perhaps, yielded all the fruits it is capable of bearing. _ T have endeavoured to bring before the reader the two Italian dramatists—for they fairly deserve that special title—surrounded by the essential circumstances of their lives, displayed in the most faithful light. The memoirs they themselves have written have not alone been con- sulted for this purpose. Few men can write their lives so completely as to leave nothing but the date of their death and burial to be filled in by a strange hand. While there was but'little, however, to add to the copious and gossiping volumes of Goldoni, the case was different with Alfieri. The former led a life full of adventure and x PREFACE. variety it is true, but without incident that ever detached itself from the ordinary domestic interest of personal narrative. Alfieri’s life, on the contrary, is associated to some extent with the history of his country. He laboured with a great and noble motive. His name is inscribed ‘ on those banners of Freedom that, assuredly, will some day again flutter in the southern breeze. He was a man, therefore, to excite attention during life, and to grow in interest after. More has been written - about him than about Goldoni; for he is a far larger theme. Although the memoirs he has left us deal at length with all the important events of his career, and are carried up to within a few months before his death, many points in connection with that career required additional development and illustration. The Countess of Albany, for instance, who exercised such a powerful influence over his life, is not presented to us so completely as could be wished. It is impossible to close Alfieri’s pages without feeling a desire to know more of that beautiful and accomplished woman ;—more than Alfieri chose to give ;—more than it was in his power to give. Facts bearing upon these and other circumstances are introduced into the present volume, and are not, the author believes, to be found in any other English version of Alfieri’s life. Indeed, a really correct copy of his “Memoirs” cannot be said to have been published, even in Italian, until 1853,when the Florence edition of that year appeared. Carefully collated with the original MS., it was the first to restore many passages which had been omitted PREFACE. xi from the earliest and all succeeding editions. It con- tained also a number of letters of Alfieri and his friends, many of which were published for the first time. Al these have been attentively examined for this work, and wherever the information they contained was deemed of service, it has been made use of. Thus, if no great and striking facts of Alfieri’s life are added to this narrative, many new and interesting details are brought forward, which give it completeness. In conclusion, I have to express my thanks to Mr. Bayle St. John for the valuable suggestions he has afforded me in the course of this work. Recently returned from a residence in the country where Alfieri was born, he had regarded that author from a nearer point of view than I had attained ; and, in many leisure hours we agreeably passed together, gave me much information that deserves this open acknowledgment. Paris: November, 1856. CONTENTS, VITTORIO ALFIERI. CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD oF ALFIERI . CHAP. II. ANECDOTES OF Harty Lire CHAP. III. Corea: Lire my TURIN . CHAP. IV. More or Cottece Lire . CHAP. V. Yoururun Tastes . ‘ . 2 CHAP. VI. WANDERINGS . CHAP. VII. FresH WANDEBINGS, AND THEIR RESULTS PAGE 17 22 29 34 47 55 xiv CONTENTS. CHAP, VITI. Tur Frest Step in LITERATURE . CHAP. IX. StupiIEs . ‘ 3 . te CHAP. X. Tur Countess or ALBANY CHAP. XI. Sacrifices To LovE CHAP. XII. FLIGHT oF THE CoUNTESS OF ALBANY CHAP. XIII. DEPARTURE FRoM Rome . CHAP. XIV. More WANDERINGS CHAP. XV. Litezary LaBovurs CHAP. XVI. PARIS DURING THE REVOLUTION CHAP. XVII. Lire AT FLORENCE . CHAP. XVIII. Inuness AND DzatH . CHAP. XIX. ComMENT anp Concrusion PAGE 68 76 83 91 95 102 109 115 122 129 138 146 CONTENTS. xv CARLO GOLDONI. PAGE INTRODUCTORY z i : ‘ a - . ‘ . 157 CHAPTER I. BoyHoop . * ‘ 3 2 ‘ 3 2 "i . 159 CHAP. IT. Harty Lire . ‘ . a : : j , 3 . 166 CHAP. III. LaUNCHED INTO LIFE. 7 . : ; ‘ F » 195 CHAP. IY. A First TRAGEDY . F ‘ ‘ si : : ‘ - 184 CHAP. V. War Times. ‘ - ‘ : i : : . 189 CHAP. VI. Tratran CoMEDY . é 3 2 é $ 5 : . 197 CHAP. VII. New PURSUITS . < ‘ A $ % - 5 3 . 208 CHAP. VIII. REtTvunN TO THE STaGE 5 x ‘ : . . 217 CHAP. IX. Dramatic LABOURS Z 5 . ‘ i 5 F - 224 Xvl CONTENTS. CHAP. X. AFTER THE BATTLE CHAP. XI. DEPARTURE FROM VENICE CHAP. XII. ARRIVAL IN FRANCE CHAP. XIII. Last Lasours . CHAP. XIV. Tue Iratian Stace. ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. ConctupIneg REMARKS . : : é An he ha VITTORIO ALFIERI. New vh- CO” i. CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD OF ALFIERI. Ir was in the Piedmontese city of Asti, and on the 17th of January, 1749, that Count Vittorio Alfieri first saw the light. The chamber in which he was born still remains, and, together with his portrait and an auto- graph letter to his sister, is one of the sights shown to visitors. Both his parents were noble: his mother, Monica-Maillard de Tournon, widow of the Marquis of Cacherano ; his father, Antonio Alfieri, a gentleman of independent means, who had never soiled his mind with ambition or his hands with labour. They had married when Antonio Alfieri was at the ripe age of fifty-five. Two years after a daughter had resulted from this union Vittorio Alfieri was born. The pride and delight of his father, then in his sixtieth year, were unbounded. He saw in the new-born child a promise that his name and rank would be perpetuated, and nothing could equal the fondness he displayed towards his little son. When the infant was sent away to nurse at a village about two miles distant from Asti, c g? 18 i VITTORIO ALFIERI. he could not rest without going to see it every day. | was strong and robust, although so far advanced years, and performed his journey on foot. No mati how unfavourable might be the weather, he never fail in his visit. Ere long, however, this practice cost him ] life. One day, having overheated himself upon the rox he was seized with an inflammation of the lungs. In few days more it led him to the tomb. Vittorio Alfic was then barely a year old. His mother quickly re-married. She had had by h first union two daughters and a son; and by her secon ason and a daughter. This was a family which, und less favourable circumstances, might have served as barrier against further suitors. But she was youn wealthy, and noble. She soon gained a third husban the Chevalier Giacinto Alfieri di Magliano, a relative | the house into which she had last married. This unic was, perhaps, her happiest. The Chevalier was about hi own age, was of good appearance, and of pleasing mai ners. They loved each other fondly : he became a kin father to her children, and all lived in perfect harmon and happiness. At the age of five years Alfieri’s sorrows commence and with them the development of a disposition in man respects remarkable. He was attacked with a dyser tery, and so violently that recovery seemed hopeles: In the bitter suffering the poor little fellow experiencec he prayed for death as a relief from his misery. H knew nothing of the dread remedy he asked for; but young brother had died some time before, and had be come, he was told, an angel! He wished to follow i the footsteps of that good and happy brother ! Sickness yielded at length, however, to youth an medical skill. Alfieri was restored to health. Tw CHILDHOOD OF ALFIERI. 19 years afterwards he had to undergo another trial. His sister, to whom he was much attached, was to be taken from him in order that she might go to a-‘convent and complete her education. His elder brother and his other sisters had already been sent away in succession to Turin. He was now to lose his last remaining play- mate. The pain of separation affected the child acutely : he shed bitter tears at parting with his much-loved sister, and for some time could only be pacified by being allowed to visit the convent every day, to see her and talk with her. Fortunately, occupations were provided for him about this time which soon softened his grief. He was placed under the guidance of a teacher, a priest named Ivaldi, in order to enter upon the studies which were to fit him for the social position he had to occupy. The good priest was not remarkable for learning, as even his young pupil soon discovered; but he had enough to satisfy the parents of the lad he was engaged to teach. Although of high family, they were without much education, and did not wish, in this respect, their son to be very dissimilar. A noble ought not to bea doctor, was the aristocratic maxim they clung to; and Alfieri stood in little danger of detaching them from it, while he remained in the hands of the worthy Ivaldi. Even at this early period the feelings of the lad began to develop themselves in a morbid manner. Left much alone, after the departure of his sister, his mind became _ filled with melancholy, which his studies, although pur- sued with willingness and aptitude, could not lighten. When under the influence of this fecling he was fond of visiting a neighbouring church, that of the Carmelites,— it is pulled down now, and on a portion of its site arises an hospital for invalid soldiers,— of listening to the music he heard there, and of gazing upon the religious ceremo- c 2 20 VITTORIO ALFIERI. nies that took place. For the young boys who assisted in these ceremonies he conceived an affection almost similar to that he had borne his sister, and which con- soled him for her loss. He looked upon these lads as beings of angelic purity — beings belonging to a higher sphere than that in which he lived. He carried his affection so far that it absorbed after a time every other thought. He neglected his studies; he fled the society of his parents and teacher; he was never happy except when at church with the young priests before his eyes. He could not endure to listen to a syllable against them, or the profession they were following. Having heard the word “monk” sometimes used as a term of disdain, he erased it from his Italian and Latin dictionaries, and substituted in its place “father,” which he found was regarded as a synonym of respect and affection. He thought that in acting thus he indemnified his young friends, in as far as he could, for the insults to which they were subjected ! His melancholy, despite this strange affection,—which was, indeed, perhaps but a result of it, would fre- quently manifest itself, and subjugate for a time every other feeling. One day, when he was still only seven or eight years old, he felt himself more than usually op- pressed by it. He had heard that a plant existed, called hemlock, which if eaten would cause death. Beneath his window was a little garden in which a number of flowers were growing. He thought that one of these might per- haps be the deadly plant; and in the hope that it would prove so, although he had no real wish to die, he gathered . a number of the flowers, and ate of them with avidity. Fortunately there was no hemlock amongst them ; but, nevertheless, those he had eaten were sufficiently bitter and nasty to render him really ill. He returned into CHILDHOOD OF ALFIERI. 21 the house, his lips discoloured, his face pale. He could not partake of his dinner. His mother was alarmed. She saw that he was suffering, and pressed him to tell her the cause. For a long time he refused; but as his face grew more and more pallid, she increased her en- treaties, and at last he burst into tears and confessed the truth, A few light remedies were applied, and he soon recovered. But the punishment he received only tended to augment the mental malady which had led him to commit so wild an act. He was confined in his room for several days ; and there amid solitude by day, dark- ness by night, and strange moody thoughts at all times, his melancholy threw out fresh branches and took deeper root in his disposition. c3 22 VITTORIO ALFIERI. ‘CHAP. II. ANECDOTES OF EARLY LIFE. Tuere were other little incidents that occurred about the same time which serve to illustrate the peculiar formation of Alfieri’s disposition. They are trivial perhaps; but, in the beginning, are not all things so? The bud has a very insignificant appearance, but out of it comes the full-grown flower. Alfieri was accustomed at night to wear a little net cap. For some fault he had committed, his mother compelled him to go to church with this covering upon his head. There was nothing grotesque or ridiculous in its aspect, as in the ordinary nightcaps of a more northern clime. It was of a green colour, very well made, and resembled those worn as ornaments by the dandies of Andalusia. But he looked upon his punishment as the most humiliating and pain- ful that could be inflicted. He was dragged rather than led through the streets, sobbing and screaming while he passed through the unfrequented places, and holding his head down in bitter shame and silence when he reached the less deserted thoroughfares. Arrived at the church, he shut his eyes, and was conducted thus to his seat. He thought that all looks, but especially those of the young priests, were directed towards him, and he never once dared to raise his own. When the service was over he was taken home in the same manner as he had ya aaa Mea al a a Se Se a a ANECDOTES OF EARLY LIFE. 23 been brought, his agony increasing at every step. He believed himself dishonoured for ever! He could not eat, or speak, or study; even the relief of tears was denied ; and the effect upon him was such that for seve- ral days he remained seriously ill. He had been punished once before in this way, and with such good effect, that for three months afterwards he had not given a single cause of complaint. But this second trial was found to be too great for his endurance. The punishment was never again repeated. Another incident which occurred at about this time serves as an additional illustration of his disposition. When between seven and eight years of age he was in- structed how to make confession of his sins. The little fellow was so ignorant of sin, that it was found neces- sary to suggest to him such as he might have committed, the very names of which he knew not. When in the presence of the priest, his repugnance to disclose his inmost secrets was so great that he could scarcely utter a word. Nevertheless, what he said, and what was said for him, were thought satisfactory, and he was granted absolution. As an additional penance, however, he was told publicly to ask pardon for his transgressions, of his mother, when he arrived at home. He had no objection to humble himself before his mother, but to do so in presence of the whole household was a punishment he could not submit to. When she indicated by signs that she wished him to act as he had been directed (she had concocted this plan with the priest), he remained silent and motionless. To have stated explicitly that she required the penance, would have been to admit that she was acquainted with what had taken place at the confessional; she said nothing therefore. Alfieri lost that day’s dinner; but he gained something he valued c 4 24 VITTORIO ALFIERI. even more highly: no further penances were required of him. It was not an easy task to keep Alfieri under control, especially for those who could not read his disposition sufficiently clearly to see, and then to profit by, the good qualities it contained. He had feelings not very diffe- rent perhaps from those of other children, but they were stronger than is customary at his age. He was always in extremes: now taciturn and tranquil, now talkative and boisterous; very submissive under kindness, but a — hardened rebel against every attempt to rule him by force ; fearing censure above all things; generally of an excessive timidity, but rendered inflexible the moment he believed himself aggrieved, or when roused by constraint. He gave an example of determination upon the occa- sion of a visit paid to his mother by one of her relatives, a rich and distinguished widow of Turin. Just before ner departure, wishing to make him a present, she asked him to name that with which he would be most pleased. Shame, timidity, and irresolution held him silent in the first place ; obstinacy and annoyance kept him so after- wards. ‘To the inquiry the lady addressed to him again and again, he would give but one unvarying answer,— “Nothing.” It was in vain that the question was repeated to him by others ; no word more gracious would pass his lips. He sobbed, he cried, his voice was broken ; but he would not yield. Finally, he was driven away to his chamber, to repent at leisure of the bad behaviour he had displayed. There was, however, a stronger motive for this refusal — than Alfieri gives himself credit for. A few days before, he had taken from one of the boxes of the lady who offered him the present, a fan, which, hidden in his bed, he intended to give his sister. After he had been guilty ANECDOTES OF EARLY LIFE. 25 of this theft, could he have accepted a gift from the person he had robbed? Gratitude must have compelled him, had he done so, to confess his fault; and he preferred to commit a second, rather than incur the shame with which he must have been covered by a dis- closure of the first. As might be expected, such conduct brought a double retribution: he was punished for re- fusing the present; and when his petty theft was disco- vered, he received another punishment for that offence. The second correction was not without good fruits: he never afterwards broke the Eighth Commandment. When he was about eight years of age, his elder brother came home for a holiday from the college at Turin to which he had been sent. He was six years older than Alfieri; more advanced in study, generally more important than his younger brother, and became at once an object of envy and of pleasure in that brother’s eyes. Alfieri’s envy was not, however, of a mean description : it did not lead him to hate the person . against whom it was directed; it made him ardently desire to possess the same advantages as his brother, but not to deprive him of them. His mind was too generous to be swayed by any but generous feelings; and envy of this kind was assuredly born of none other. Despite the difference in age between the two brothers, they passed the time very happily which they spent in each other’s society. Alfieri’s melancholy disappeared when it was brought face to face with the joyous emotion of a boy fresh from the restraints of school. Instead of sitting silent and alone, enslaved by gloomy thoughts, he jomed in the amusements suited to his age, and grew for the time full of life and vivacity. It seemed, how- ever, as though Fate were jealous of the happy change that had come over his spirit, and that it was determined 26 VITTORIO ALFIERI. to drive him back again into the solitude of his chamber. One day when, with boyish eagerness, he was simulating the soldier, and going through a military exercise under the superintendence of his brother, he lost his balance by turning too quickly, and fell upon the iron bar or “dog” of the fireplace. Unfortunately, the brass knob with which such bars are usually surmounted was broken off: the end was jagged and sharp. It entered his fore- head just above the left eye. For some time he experi- enced no pain, except a feeling of shame at his want of skill; and he begged his brother not to say a word of the circumstance. But his brother, in alarm, ran hastily for assistance. Alfieri had uttered no sound, and did not know he was injured. Feeling somethmg warm upon his cheek, he put his hand there; when he with- drew it, it was covered with blood. It was his turn now to be terrified, and his cries soon lent speed to those who were coming to aid him. A surgeon was called, who dressed the wound. For days, however, the dis- comfited little soldier was kept in a dark chamber. His eye had become inflamed and swollen; it was feared he might lose the sight of it. It was not until several ‘weeks had passed that the wound was completely healed. A scar was then left by it, which he bore ever afterwards. While recovering from this accident, another point of his character—his love of admiration—was amusingly shown. He had almost died of grief, as we have seen, in being compelled to wear a pretty little cap, which was too unpretending to attract the slightest attention, but which, in his fear and shame, he thought a con- spicuous object that everybody would observe. Now that his head was covered with bandages, which at once provoked inquiry and remark, besides disfiguring his appearance, he felt not the slightest annoyance. He ANECDOTES OF EARLY LIFE. 27 was even pleased with the effect he created, and was proud of his wound. He thought that to have suffered so much, was in some sort meritorious; that his bruise, which he at first regarded as a disgrace, was a distinc- tion. Whenever his teacher, in reply to the questions of friends, stated that a “fall” had caused the wound, Alfieri was sure to add that it was a fall which happened while exercising. About a year after this accident, his brother fell ill at college, and was brought home. Before his arrival, Alfieri was sent away into the country. While there, his uncle, Pelligrino Alfieri, who was also his guardian, came to see him, found that he had made but little progress in education, and proposed that he should go to college at Turin. The proposal was assented to by the parents of Alfieri, and he prepared to set out. Just before departing, his brother died. It was a painful separation between mother and son after such an event. The mother had just lost one child ; who could tell if she might not now be parting for ever from the other? It was a moment to give encourage- ment to such a sorrowful thought. The boy was much moved; and when to the pain of this adieu there was added that of leaving his old teacher, whom he much loved, his spirit fairly gave way, and he was removed almost by force into the caléche. But if childish grief were of long duration, who amongst us would have arrived at man’s estate? Ifthe sorrow that smote us so violently in childhood had outlived the hour which gave it birth, who amongst us could have survived its bitter, bitter pang ? Alfieri had never before been more than fifteen miles from home ; he had never travelled in vehicle more com- modious than a country chaise, never at swifter pace 28 VITTORIO ALFIERI. than that of the two sedate and leisurely bullocks who drew it; now he was in a post-chaise, hurried along by dashing and spirited horses, and going upon an unfami- liar journey. What new scenes flew past him while, with boyish enthusiasm, he urged the postilions forward, feel- ing every vein throbbing with excitement as the swift air dashed against his cheek, and his eyes glistened with delight! What strange sights he was to look upon in the city to which he was flying! What a happy life he would lead in his new home! What studies he would engage in! What learning he would acquire! What honours he would gain! What friends he would make! Of a truth he was too much occupied to think of sorrow, or of the dear mother and kind friends he had left behind him, 29 CHAP. ITI. COLLEGE LIFE IN TURIN. Ir was in the month of June, 1758, that Alfieri arrived in Turin. He had then passed his ninth year by about six months. October was the time at which he was to enter college; but his uncle, tired of him before that date, sent him on the Ist of August. It was undoubtedly the wisest course he could adopt. The young lad, melancholy at first upon finding himself among strange faces in a strange city, had soon recovered his spirits. Indeed, pleased with the novelty of everything he saw around him, he became more vivacious than he had ever been. He had no teacher, and felt no desire to have one. He passed his days in the active enjoyments of boyhood, and introduced such disorder into the house- ' hold of his uncle, that the worthy man was not sorry to be rid of him before the proper time. ‘ The Academy of Turin, to which Alfieri was sent, was not an establishment in which glorious dreams of honour or happiness were likely to find realisation. It was a large building, running round the four sides of an exten- sive square court. Two sides of the edifice were occu- pied by students, the third contained the archives of the king, and the fourth was the Theatre Royal. The latter edifice was from the design of a cousin of Alfieri, Bene- detto Alfieri, architect to the king. The students were 30 VITTORIO ALFIERI. ¢ divided into three classes. The first were adult young men, many of whom studied also at the neighbouring university. They were nearly all foreigners, and pos- ' sessed several privileges denied to the other pupils. They were under easy rule; they went to the theatre or the court as often as they pleased ; they frequented the society most to their tastes: the Academy was, in fact, more like an inn to them than a place of education. The students of the second and third classes were very differently placed. They were compelled to rise early and to go to bed early; to follow a regular course of study : they were not allowed to go into the town; they were not allowed to visit the theatre, except two or three times during the Carnival. These restraints, proper doubtless for young students, were rendered pe- culiarly disagreeable by bad arrangements. Two or three times a day the pupils of the second and third classes were obliged to pass through the gallery of the first class, and could not avoid seeing the liberty enjoyed there. Their own restraint appeared slavery by comparison. Indeed, they called themselves “ galley-slaves,” and looked almost with the stubborn discontentment of felons upon their more fortunate companions. To add to their annoyance the young pages of the king were lodged in the college, and led a life that poor cooped-up schoolboys might well have envied. Every day in the grand chambers of the palace, assisting at courtly ceremonials, attending hunting excursions, form- ing part of glittering cavalcades, their existence was a constant movement among ever-changing scenes of plea- sure and display. Unfortunately the system of education pursued at the Academy was not, if we may credit Alfieri’s account,—and it has somewhat an exaggerated air,—of a kind likely to COLLEGE LIFE IN TURIN. 31 make the young pupils rise superior to these annoyances. Soon after his admission, Alfieri was placed in the third class, which he declares would in any college under better direction have made a very bad fourth. “We trans- lated the Lives of Cornelius Nepos,” he says, “ but none of us—perhaps not even the master himself— knew who were the men whose lives we translated, in what countries they were born; at what period and under what governments they had lived; nor, indeed, what the word government meant. All our ideas were limited, false, or obscure. There was no aim for those who taught ; no attraction for those who learnt.” A year elapsed in this profitless manner, and then Alfieri passed under the hands of another master in order to commence his classical studies. He had a better in- structor than before, and made more progress, becoming in ashort time tolerably familiar with the Latin language. He was incited to study, too, by one of his fellow pupils, who became in some sort his rival in the school. This lad had a good memory: he could recite six hundred. verses of Virgil without a single pause or error. Alfieri never could get beyond four hundred. His incapacity in this respect filled him at times with rage that was almost ungovernable; but on the whole the effect upon him of the competition with his companion was useful. The sense of inferiority did not, as in so many cases, take away energy, but gave fresh power. How many delicate minds the rivalry of a public school has crushed rather than expanded! For the one which rises there are ten probably which fall. But while Alfieri made an advance in one direction, he may be said to have receded in another. The little knowledge he possessed of Italian, which had the best claim perhaps to be regarded as his native tongue, dimin- 32 VITTORIO ALFIERI. ished every day. When a volume of Ariosto fell into his hands, half of it he found unintelligible. He could trans- late Virgil into Italian prose, but the easiest of Italian poetry was almost a dead letter to him. The manner in which he became possessed of Ariosto was amusing. It was in the hands of one of his school- fellows. Alfieri wished to obtain it; but he had no money with which to make the purchase. Trading, however, was invented before cash. If he could not buy, he could barter. His Sunday’s dinner was property easily transferable, and admirably adapted as a medium of exchange. Consisting of half a fowl, a tempting luxury not supplied on other days, it was a meal looked forward to every week with much interest by the pupils who partook of it. It had a high value in their eyes. Ariosto, when .placed by its side, showed to very little advantage. He was willingly sacrificed for four dinners! Alfieri did not long enjoy the property he had thus acquired. His mind was not compensated for the loss his stomach had sustained. The book was seen to be circulating cautiously from hand to hand, and was seized by the master. He confiscated it at once as contraband reading. Alfieri regained it shortly afterwards, but without being able to extract even amusement from its pages. The Academy of Turin was even more unfavourable to Alfieri’s bodily powers than to his mind. Under the eyes of his mother, he had been accustomed to the most tender cares, and had been of course well nourished. Now that he was away from home he was left almost to himself, and but poorly fed. His health gave way. An unpleasant eruption broke out upon him, covering his head with the most offensive sores. He was continually subject to violent headaches; he slept COLLEGE LIFE IN TURIN. 33 but little at night; his skin, diseased and discoloured, several times peeled off from his forehead ; his growth was stopped, and he became miserably pale and thin. It was fortunate for him that he had relations in the city whom he could visit from time to time, and from whom he could obtain some sympathy. Among his fel- low pupils he found none. Instead of pitying the afflic- tion of the poor lad, they made it an object of merriment. He became sport and amusement to them. He was a sort of human humming top, to be lashed by the cord of everybody’s wit. The least offensive called him “ the Carrion ;” others, not quite so refined or so humane, gave him the more disagreeable title of “the Rotten.” He was not of a nature to be so treated without feeling very deeply. To add to his unhappiness, the servant who had been sent with him from home ill-used him, and robbed him of the money intended for his use. He was a petty tyrant to the poor boy, that servant! “He had the mind of a prince,” says Alfieri, in a passage omitted from all the early editions of his ‘Memoirs ;” and he adds sar- castically, “of a prince such as we see in these days.” Unfortunately Alfieri’s illness so weakened him that he had not strength enough to resent this bad treatment. Neither had he spirit to reply to the coarse words of his companions. He was forced to endure every unfeeling gibe and jest in silence, or withdraw into the solitude of his chamber. There, with no companion but his sorrow- ful thoughts, his old childish melancholy seized upon him again, and grew stronger as his health grew feebler and his state more lonely. 34 VITTORIO ALFIERI. CHAP. IV. MORE OF COLLEGE LIFE. Norwrtustanvine his illness and the enervation of mind his melancholy produced, Alfieri entered upon a course of rhetoric, and successfully passed his examination in that art after a year of study. This over, he was deemed sufficiently far advanced for promotion to the second class. -It was a flattering elevation for a pupil who was only then in his thirteenth year, and it brought with it many agreeable changes. Twice a day he attended lessons at the university. The walk to and fro was a pleasant diversion; and it very often afforded opportuni- ties for others, stealthily taken, that were more so. His education did not, however, advance much more in this class than in the one he had just left. In the morning he studied geometry; after dinner, philosophy. By dint of mere memory, he succeeded in maintaining a fair position in these classes, but the real knowledge he acquired there seems to have been very trifling. He confesses that his head was anti-geometric, and that in Euclid he never understood even the fourth proposition. As for his philosophical studies, the manner in which they were conducted was such that little hope of pro- gress was afforded to the pupils. The lessons commenced directly after dinner. During the first half hour an exercise was dictated by the professor. An explanation MORE OF COLLEGE LIFE. 35 in Latin, lasting three-quarters of an hour, succeeded. The students kept awake while writing the exercise; but when the explanations commenced, the effect was too soporific to be struggled against. One by one, they fell into a sound and refreshing sleep,—their varied snorings affording an agreeable relief to the monotony of the professor’s tones. Want of sleep was one of the causes of Alfieri’s illness. This had become so evident to the college authorities, that they allowed him to remain in bed until seven o’clock in the morning, instead of rising at a quarter to six, as was the custom. The change was of great benefit to him. The regular after-dinner nap did him equal service. During the year he attended the lessons of the professor of philosophy he grew better in health day by day; and an improvement in his food, obtained by the efforts of his uncle, continued to reestablish him. His cousin, the architect, whom he also called his uncle, assisted in this object. He saw that a little more free- dom and relaxation would benefit Alfieri quite as much as an improved diet or medical skill. From time to time he invited the young academician to his house, made him stay to dinner, and sometimes took him to the the- atre. This last favour could only be obtained by an evasion of the college rules. According to those rules, Alfieri was bound to return to the Academy half an hour after sunset. But his uncle urged ill-health as a reason why the lad should occasionally sleep in the country, and taking advantage of the permission thus obtained, carried. him away to the theatre. Alfieri’s delight at witnessing a dramatic representation for the first time, was, like that of most lads, extravagant in its intensity. The piece was an opera. It was by a celebrated composer, and was well sung. The effect upon him was most D2 36 VITTORIO ALFIERI. moving. His whole frame was stirred. For days afterwards the music seemed to be whispering in his ears, and at last so agitated him, that a feeling of gentle melancholy stole into his mind, in the midst of which a thousand fancies arose, and seemed sighing to express themselves in words. Nor was he thus moved only after his first visit. He could never listen to an opera in after years without feeling powerfully excited. The plans of all his tragedies, he tells us, were made either while listening to music, or a few hours afterwards. The time had not yet come when the power of ex- pressing his thoughts was at his command. About. a year after his first visit to the theatre, he wrote a sonnet; but his uncle, to whom he showed it, giving him no en- couragement to proceed, his poetic inclinations instantly disappeared. It was many years before they again dis- played themselves. His studies, meanwhile, continued. The course of philosophy at an end, he entered upon one of physics, under Beccaria, and upon one of ethics. He shone, he tells us, at the examinations by mere memory, but knew nothing of what he had learnt. Towards the end of his fourth year at the Academy he commenced the study of civil and canonical law, but was soon stopped by an illness similar to that he had previously had, but more violent. This time he was obliged to part with all his hair. That, however, was not his only annoyance. He was compelled to wear a wig. Such an ornament was, of course, a source of infinite amusement to a troop of grinning schoolboys. It became the favourite toy of the play- ground, and threatened for a time to supersede all others, But Alfieri had grown stronger in mind and body since his previous attack. Instead of allowing the boisterous merriment of his playmates to subdue him into melan- MORE OF COLLEGE. LIFE. 37 choly, he joined heartily in their sport. He gave up at once all attempt to defend his head-dress, was the first to take it off and throw it into the air, or to pitch it at his companions, and had the satisfaction of finding that in a few days it ceased to attract attention or ridicule. The unhappy wig, thus roughly treated by its owner, became in time as much respected and as little molested as his own natural hair would have been. He learnt a lesson from the circumstance, which he felt was applic- able in a more extensive school. Throughout his life he never forgot the teaching of that wig. In the midst of his legal studies, he received instruc- tion in music, dancing, fencing, and geography. With the latter he succeeded tolerably well; but neither fencing nor dancing were to his taste, and music wearied him when he ceased to be other than a listener. He found more amusement in Gil Blas, which fell into his hands at this time, and in various Italian romances, which he read with avidity. He had attained his fourteenth year, when his uncle, who had become Viceroy of Sardinia, died at Cagliari. This event made a great change in the position of Alfieri, He had now arrived at an age when, according to the Piedmontese law, he was master of his own revenues. The power of disposing of his property was withheld from him, and the administration of his affairs was placed in the hands of a trustee; but he had plenty of money at his disposal, much more than was good for one so young. The first desire which his altered circum- stances gave rise to, was that of learning to ride. He was promised that this wish should be gratified if he passed his examination for a doctorship. He put him- self immediately under the guidance of a private tutor; went hastily over the subjects upon which he was D3 38 VITTORIO ALFIERI. to be questioned.; stored himself with the necessary Latin for the occasion; and in less than a month became, almost without knowing how, matriculated Master of Aris. The horse exercise then commenced. His progress at the riding school was as rapid as at the college. Ina very short time he was able to handle a bridle with the skill of a groom, and to sit his beast with the firmness of ajockey. He was still small, thin, and feeble; but as day by day he followed his new amusement, his strength increased and his appearance improved. With greater bodily force, he grew bolder. He did not scruple to tell the college authorities that the study of law wearied him, and that he would not continue it any longer. They debated some little time, and at length agreed to release him from that study and to promote him to the first class. He entered into that famous part of the Academy on the 8th of May, 1763, while he was still only at the com- mencement of his fourteenth year. He was now quite free in his movements, unrestrained by studies of any kind. He commenced leading a life of display and indolence. He spent large sums in showy clothes; he rode out each day; he made a number of new acquaint- ances; he fared sumptuously: his life was one round of enjoyment and dissipation. From time to time remorse visited him as he thought of the studies he was neglect- ing; and a feeling of shame would now and then flush his cheek, as his ignorance came like a mocking spirit to taunt him in the midst of his gaiety. He had too, at intervals, a strong desire to increase his knowledge, to elarify the pool of information that was lying stagnant and thickening in his brain. So completely did this desire prevail, upon one occasion, over every other, that, for. want of more congenial occupation, he devoted himself for MORE OF COLLEGE LIFE. 39 two months to the study of thirty-six large volumes upon ecclesiastical history! Study, undertaken without object, was, of course, productive of no good result. By the time the last volume was finished, he knew scarcely more of the work than before he commenced reading it, and returned to his pleasures with increased zest. Youth and wealth seemed determined for a time to lead Alfieri into excesses. He became intimate with ‘a number of young madcaps as fond of horsemanship as himself. Every day they risked their necks in the wildest and most absurd feats. Sometimes they would gallop at full speed down the road which leads from the Hermitage of the Camaldolesi to Turin. It was. then, as now, very steep and paved with rough flint stones; a single false step would have been instant death! At other times, Alfieri’s servant would be sent on in advance, and the whole party would follow with loud cries and shouts, chasing him like a fox or stag. Ditches were leaped over in these hunting excursions, and rivers were crossed, with a recklessness that threat- ened as much danger to steed as to rider. In a short time, indeed, not a person in Turin could be found to lend horses to the young men at any price whatever, so great was the reputation they had acquired by their wild acts. D4 40 VITTORIO ALFIERI. CHAP. V. YOUTHFUL TASTES. AuriEri had been elevated to the first class a little ear- lier than customary, and in consequence had not been allowed the perfect liberty enjoyed by the other students. A valet was found for him, his previous servant having been dismissed, and he was not permitted to go out except in that valet’s company. This restraint, which a few months before would have been gladly borne, and which was rendered justifiable by his extreme youth, became in a short time so unendurable that he deter- mined to set himself free from it. He went ont alone. He was reprimanded in the first place, but as he per- sisted he was placed under arrest, kept close prisoner in his bedroom. Liberty being restored to him, he again infringed, and was again punished. This time his confinement was particularly irksome. It was Car- nival. All Turin was a scene of gaiety ; all his friends were plunged deep in amusement. But he would not make any concession or promise to alter his conduct, in order to be released. On the contrary, he persisted in asserting his right to the privilege he claimed. He declared that if he were too young for the first class, he ought to be sent back into the second; but that so long as he was kept in the first, he would put himself on the foot- ing of the other students. These argumeuts, however, had YOUTHFUL TASTES. 4] very little weight with the authorities. They allowed him to play the martyr for three months. During this time the opposition in which he was engaged took such . a hold upon his feelings, that his manners under- went a complete change. He neglected his dress, he would scarcely eat anything, he would not talk to the friends who came to see him. He remained all day upon his mattress like a form without life, his eyes fixed upon the ceiling and filled with tears, but no drop ever falling from beneath their lashes. Fortunately, the marriage of his sister put an end to this confinement. She used the influence of her husband in order to obtaim the liberation of the hot-headed young student, and to gain the privilege claimed. Both the one and the other were granted. Released from the prison in which he had been so long kept, and without any check now upon his liberty, he entered again upon a life of indolence and display. His fondness for horses having grown rather than diminished, nothing would satisfy him but keeping a stud of his own. He bought, therefore, a very beautiful horse, and for some time it was the constant object of his thoughts. His passion for it was so great that it even troubled his sleep, and took away his appetite. His mind was always tortured at the slightest evidence of discomfort the animal displayed, yet he did not spare the whip when caprice suggested that it should be used. One horse did not long satisfy him. That which he had bought was for the saddle, but was so delicate that another became ne- cessary. Two for carriage work were of course indispen- sable. Others were added afterwards, so that in about a year he had eight horses in his possession. It was in vain that the trustee of his property cried out against these expenses ; Alfieri was his own master, and meant to 42 VITTORIO ALFIERI. show it. He had plenty of money ; he was determined to spend it as he liked. The life which he now led was one which might have thoroughly corrupted the spirit of most young men in a similar position. It was so idle and unproductive that we may well believe him, when he says in a letter to his sister, written years after, that very little recollection of the period remained in his memory. In the midst of all his follies, however, he maintained a certain loftiness of mind, which preserved him from that inflated arrogance, that impious pride of blood, which so frequently accom- panies wealth and aristocracy, and which would render them hateful, if it did not render them absurd. Know- ing no limits to his rivalry of such of his companions as were in as good or better circumstances than himself, he was careful at all times to show no ostentation of this kind towards those who were less fortunately situated. He treated them with a delicacy that evinced something akin to true nobility of nature. After wearing a glitter- ing and expensive coat in the morning at the Court, or among his wealthy friends, he would change it when he went among those of different fortune. It seemed a crime to him to display finery before his associates and equals which they could not possess. His horses he did not keep exclusively to himself. They were always at the service of his friends. His coach too, a very elegant one, he gave up entirely, when he found that none of his companions could afford such a luxury. A life such as his would have been faithless to its or- dinary character, however, had it not led his mind to some extent astray. Just before paying a visit to Genoa he accompanied two friends into the country, and fell in love with their sister, who was introduced to him there. She was a young brunette, full of vivacity and fascination. YOUTHFUL TASTES. 43 But there were two great obstacles to the success of his passion. The lady was just married, and she was most faithfully guarded not only by her brothers, but by her husband. Alfieri was obliged, therefore, to conceal his affection, or allow it to escape from him in sighs and tears that solitude alone was witness to. Yet the memory of his first love sank deep into his mind; and, years after, he says, would arise to feed that flame which smoulders, but is never thoroughly extinguished. Returned from Genoa, full of the sights he had wit- nessed there, regarding his journey as a great achieve- ment, he thought? himself entitled to talk as a traveller who has seen a distant country. But among his fellow- students at the Academy were a number of young men from England, from Germany, from Poland, even from Russia. These wanderers naturally looked upon a journey to Genoa as a very insignificant affair, and Alfieri at once felt himself shorn of all his plumes. A desire to extend the range of his travelling experience from that time seized upon him. Nothing would satisfy him but a visit to the countries from which his companions had come. He determined on the first opportunity to set out. Soon after entering the first class of the college, he shad asked for employment in the army. He had been named ensign in a regiment of militia, and had entered upon his duties. They were very insignificant, necessi- tating only two short absences from the Academy in the year. But he could not endure the restraint which mili- tary discipline imposed upon him, slight though it might be. The dislike for a soldier’s life grew stronger within him as his desire to travel increased. He was only seventeen years of age, however, and it was not probable that at such years he would be per- 44° VITTORIO ALFIERI. mitted to travel alone. He looked about to see beneath whose guidance he could place himself. An English. teacher had under his charge two pupils who had been. studying at the Academy. All three were about to set out on a journey through Italy. Alfieri introduced himself to this teacher, and, by dint of flattering him and his pupils, obtained permission to join the party. A higher permis- sion was still required,—that of the king. It was not easy to obtain, for the monarch objected very much to the migrations of his nobles. Alfieri’s brother-in-law, who held a place at the Court, was fortunate enough, however, to gain over the royal favour; and the boy- traveller set out for Milan with his three companions. The journey, commenced with delight, and after a night of restless anxiety, offered Alfieri very little grati- fication when completed. Milan seemed dull to him, as indeed to most people, after having seen Genoa. He took no interest in the literary treasures displayed there ; and when an autograph manuscript of Petrarch was shown him, returned it after a momentary glance of supreme indifference. He had taken a hatred against everything Italian. He would not speak the language, he would not read the literature. All his correspondence, all his conversation, was in French. He wished to be thought a native of France. . After a stay of a fortnight in Milan, the travellers continued their journey, passed by Parma, Modena, and Bologna to Florence. There they stopped a month. Alfieri was not in a mood to stop long anywhere. His sole pleasure was to be in motion, to post rapidly from town to town, to glance hurriedly around him, and then advance to some other point. Pictures, sculpture, build- ings, people, were all alike indifferent to him. He had a feverish desire to go forward, which increased the more YOUTHFUL TASTES. 45 it was indulged. The only object which attracted him at Florence, was the tomb of Michael Angelo in the church of Santa Croce. Before that he stopped, stimulated for a moment by a feeling of reverence for genius, and by a conviction that only the truly great, leave imperishable monuments behind them. Rome was reached in due time, but its beauties did not afford much interest to Alfieri. St. Peter’s he was struck with, and rarely passed a day without visiting it once or twice. But it was the only object which had this influence. All the other famous features of the Papal city he scanned almost at a glance. In little more than a week he had seen enough of everything, and hurried his companions away to Naples. Arrived there in the midst of the Carnival, he was pleased for a time with the place and with the amusements in which it abounded. He went to the opera, to the balls; he was presented to the king, he was introduced to the best society; but he was soon wearied and disgusted with everything around him. In the midst of all the excitement and brilliancy in which he moved, a thousand melancholy ideas seized upon him, and drove him into solitude. He had not been many days at Naples before he was anxious to start in another direction. He began to be tired, too, of the restraint his companions imposed upon him. He wished to be entirely master of his movements, and to travel alone. Some little diplomacy was needed in order to obtain the necessary permission. He introduced himself, therefore, to the Piedmontese Minister at the Court of Naples. He begged the official to write in his favour to Turin. His request was complied with. The consent of the king soon followed. Free now to travel where he pleased, without consult- ing or conforming to the wishes of others, he made use 46 VITTORIO ALFIERI. of his newly gained liberty at once. So that he was in movement, he cared little where he went. His steps di- rected themselves towards Rome again. Rome, however, satisfied him no more this time than on the previous oc- casion. He was no sooner within its walls, than he felt anxious to hurry elsewhere. His desires took now a wider range. Nothing less than a journey to France, England, and Holland, would content him. Fresh per- mission was necessary before he could undertake this. He used means to obtain it, similar to those he had be- fore exerted, and with the same success. He was free to travel at his will during the whole of the following year, 1768. Colonia Alfea, from the name of a river celebrated Greece which watered the ancient Pisa in Aulis. ° eece in imagination belonged to the society. The :mbers took each a name from its history. They di- led the country amongst them, gathering from it a epetual harvest of laurel. The Turks might gather the corn, the grapes, and other unpoetic products, d laugh at the other reapers if they felt so disposed. At’ Goldoni’s approach all eyes were turned towards n, as if in inquiry of his name and purpose. Pleased ubtless by this attention, he felt a strong desire to atify the general curiosity and distinguish himself at 3 same time. He asked if a stranger might be per- tted to express in verse the pleasure he felt at finding mself in such agreeable company. There was not the ghtest objection to such a proceeding, was the assu- ace given him. Of assurance of another kind he seems have been in no want. Introducing a few allusions adapt it more completely to the occasion, he recited poem he had written, when a boy, for a somewhat nilar circumstance. The poem had all the appearance an impromptu, and was much applauded. At its close arybody crowded round the author to praise him for s performance. He made at once a hundred friends this lucky hit. The “ Shepherds of Arcadia,” for so they called them- ves, were under the guidance of a pastor, or head epherd. All united in showing friendship to Goldoni. \ey invited him to their houses; he dined with one, RETURN TO THE STAGE. 219 supped with another, was received like a brother shep- herd everywhere. Nay more, his new acquaintances begged him to live amongst their flock. They had grown aware that he had formerly followed the profes- sion of advocate; they pressed him to follow it again. Every support was promised him. The peaceful shep- herds would have quarrelled amongst themselves, appa- rently, in order to bring him briefs. What could Goldoni reply to all this kind feeling ? He had been destined for medicine ; he had abandoned medicine for law ; he had left law for diplomacy; he had gone from diplomacy to the stage; from the stage he was now beckoned back to law. Of what consequence to him the profession he followed? His was the happy disposition that readily accommodates itself to every change of circumstance. Had he been appointed am- bassador to a country where clothes were considered a useless incumbrance, he would have appeared in the costume of Adam the very first evening of his arrival. Goldoni yielded to pastoral persuasion. He resumed the legal robe and wig. The bar of Pisa was free to him, as indeed to every other foreign licentiate. He es- tablished himself as civil and criminal advocate. His new friends had not promised better than they could perform. They brought more business than he could conduct. His affairs prospered so much that less suc- cessful rivals looked upon him with an envious eye. Everything seemed, for a time, to estrange him from the stage. A company of comedians came to the town, and for a moment his old love for the drama revived. It was only for a moment. The unhappy actors played one of his pieces; played it so badly that it failed. The author was deeply mortified; but he increased in assiduity towards his legal business, and with such good 220 CARLO GOLDONI. effect, that in the same month he gained three different causes. Goldoni had become more wedded to his new calling, and was growing every day more indifferent to that he had last quitted, when he received a letter from the celebrated performer Sacchi, asking him to write a piece for Venice. He had written before for Sacchi, and with great success. He was fired by the proposal. Flying with ardour to comply with it, he worked at night, so that he should not neglect his legal labours. But those labours lost charm in his eyes from that day. He still continued to reside in Pisa. He still attended its Arcadian Academy, reciting odes and stanzas, a species of barley-corn rent for the ideal territory that had been allotted to him. But the dramatic desires had begun to smoulder. It wanted but a breath to fan them into a blaze. The winds of chance did not long withhold that breath. An appointment became vacant at Pisa. It was that of advocate to several religious establishments, with good fixed salary and emoluments attached. Goldoni strove to obtain it, regarding his position as precarious and un- satisfactory. He was not successful, and felt annoyed. He thought his friends should better have supported him, and he looked forward to a speedy separation from them. About the same time another circumstance occurred, of a far more agreeable nature, but tending not less strongly to direct: his thoughts back again towards the stage. He was surprised one day by a visit from a tall, stout stranger of very eccentric manner. The stranger addressed Goldoni in terms of the most extravagant cour- tesy, and embellished his discourse with gestures as extravagantly grotesque. He was a comedian, he said, a Pantalone; his name was Darbes; he wanted Goldoni RETURN TO THE STAGE. 221 to write a piece for him. Goldoni tried to excuse him- self on account of professional duties. The other would, not hear a word of such objections. Goldoni took time to decide, and at last resolved to comply with the Pan- talone’s request. He announced this by writing, and at once received a reply full of the most ludicrous expres- sions of gratitude and pleasure. “JT shall have then,” wrote this oddity, “a comedy by Goldoni. That will be the lance and buckler with which I shall go and face all the theatres of the world. How happy Iam! I betted a hundred ducats with my manager that I should have a piece by Goldoni. If I gain the wager, he pays and the piece is mine. I am young ; I am not yet sufficiently known, it is true; but I will go to Venice, and defy all the Pantalones there to match me. Rubini at St. Luke, Corrini at St. Samuel. I will go and attack Ferramonti at Bologna, Pasini at Milan, Bellotti, called Tiziani, in Tuscany. I will go even to Golinetti in his retirement, and Garelli in his tomb.” : ; It was pleasant work to write for such an enthusiast as this, and Goldoni’soon completed what had been asked of him. He carried-the piece to Leghorn, where the actor was playing, and was received by him with much outrageous ceremony, delight, and reverence. The manager of the theatre, Signor Medebac, was equally flattering in behaviour. He sought out Gol- doni, who was at dinner, begged him to leave the humble inn fare, and dine at the managerial residence. Darbes entered at the same moment, and tried to en- tice Goldoni towards another direction and another dinner. The dramatist was excited to laughter by such eager attention and civility. Signor Medebac extended his courtesies beyond the 222 CARLO GOLDONI. range of the dinner table. He made a formal propo- sition to engage Goldoni as play writer. There were two comedy theatres, he said, at Venice. He would take a third for five years if Goldoni would agree to» write for him. The terms were named, and proved satisfactory to the author. Like a good husband, how- ever, he consulted his wife upon the subject before deciding. She offered no objection, and the contract was signed in the month of September, 1746. Before starting to enter upon the different life which this engagement was to open out to him, Goldoni settled all his affairs at Pisa, and then went to take a last look at Florence. While there he was witness, at one of the academies, of a species of literary amusement which deserves a brief description. It was called the Sibillone. A young child, of ten to twelve years of age, was seated upon a chair in the midst of a large assembly. She was the Sibillone, or grand Sibyl. A person chosen at hazard from the company asked her a question. She replied to it by a single word, uttered in sport, and having no connection perhaps with the subject upon which she was interrogated. The amusement consisted in the skill by which the academicians proved, or endeavoured to prove, the appropriateness of the Sibyl’s response, ' however unfit and ridiculous it might appear. Upon this occasion the child was asked “why women weep more frequently and more readily than men?” Her reply was light enough. It was simply “ straw.” An academician on the instant rose, and, with great appearance of conviction, declared that no answer could be more decisive or more satisfactory! He spoke for about three quarters of an hour. He commenced by analysing the structure of various plants. He stated that straw was more fragile than any other. He passed RETURN TO THE STAGE. 223 from straw to woman. He gave, in a manner as clear as it was rapid, a species of anatomical essay upon the human body. He described the source of tears in both sexes. He showed the delicacy of the fibres in the one, the resistance in the other. He finished by flattering the ladies present, by giving to weakness the superiority in point of sensibility, and took care to say no syllable about tears that are produced at will. The speaker was an abbot and a scholar, about forty years of age. He argued with as much eloquence and power as though the weightiest question had been before him. Goldoni was delighted and surprised; he seems to have enjoyed the exhibition as an intellectual treat. Had he reflected, he might, perhaps, have felt that there was more to humiliate than to gratify in such a dis- play. It tells very little for the mentai freedom of a country, when men of advanced years can -be found to waste their powers in such elaborate triflmg. We may applaud young men who, fresh from school, and burn- ing to rival the eloquence of a Cicero or the stirring declamation of a Burke, thunder forth in a mimic parliament fierce philippics directed towards two dozen adversaries and a green baize table. Such recreation tends to keep minds steady which otherwise might be sadly rocked and tossed about upon the charmed sea of pleasure. But a man of forty has, or should have, too many duties weighing upon him to need any other moral ballast. We might introduce such a game as the Sibidlone amongst us; but it would be at Christmas time, and the Little Ones would be the chief performers. 224 CARLO GOLDONI. CHAP. IX. DRAMATIC LABOURS. From Florence, Goldoni passed to Padua, where he was expected by Medebac. The air of the place not suit- ing him, he set out after a month’s stay for Modena, satisfactorily arranged his affairs there with the Ducal Bank, and betook himself once more to his native city. He commenced his labours for the theatre of Signor Medebac with ardour. The piece he had written for the eccentric comedian Darbes was a failure. He strove to counterbalance this defeat by at once writing another piece. He did so, and it was successful. He followed up that success by anew piece, which obtained equal favour. The first season ended. The manager was delighted. He saw the stability of his enterprise assured. He felt that his company had already established itself in the good graces of the Venetian public. Goldoni was not less pleased ; but he knew that there were powerful rivals to compete with, and that great exertion would be necessary in order to maintain a place by the side of them. Envious critics of the new theatre had contempt- uously called its performers a company of “strollers.” Great and decided successes were necessary in order to disarm the influence of such criticism. During the next season Goldoni laboured hard to give the theatre an increased reputation. He commenced with a piece, the “ Vedova Scaltra,” which ably led the way in this direc- DRAMATIC LABOURS. 225. tion. It was received with unanimous satisfaction, and enjoyed the honour of thirty consecutive representations. Success did not make Goldoni relax his exertions. A piece, containing all the worst faults of the style he wished to see abolished, was produced at one of the other theatres. It was poor in every way ; but it was a national or, as we should say, a “legitimate” piece, and the public was pleased with it. Goldoni, anxious to show the merits of his own manner, wrote a piece upon the same subject ; taking care, of course, to treat it in a very different style. He: had the satisfaction of finding that his piece was welcomed favourably. But success could not fail to give him enemies. He was aiming at a higher position than the writers whose productions then filled the stage. Every hand was outstretched, of course, to pull him down. The names of Aristotle, of Horace, and of Castelvetro were dinned in his ears. He was seriously lectured upon the unity of action and the unity of time, and gravely taken to task upon the unity of place. Goldoni had very simple ideas upon all these nightmares, and he expressed them as simply. He did not find, he said, in Horace or in Ari- stotle rules to fetter his invention. He made such use of them as he thought necessary, conforming or deviating as circumstances seemed to require. His motto was, never to sacrifice a comedy that might be good to a precedent that might render it bad. There must indeed be some- thing of the slave in any man who blindly follows the rules of writers who have preceded him, however com- manding the talent of those writers may be. But there must be something of the tyrant in him who would compel observance of those rules. Imagination is not to be drilled and bullied into obedience like an awkward squad. It may be gently led. It will never be harshly driven. Goldoni’s critics were not long before they stooped to Q 226 CARLO GOLDONI. attack him in a less pleasant manner than before. His “ Vedova Scaltra” in the third season of Medebac was revived with much success. A rival theatre produced another version of it in which the best things of the original were stolen without acknowledgment, Goldoni tells us, while the author was abused as a blockhead. A crowded. audience applauded heartily the piece. Goldoni was present masked. He was stung by the abuse he received, and by what he considered the ingratitude of the public in favouring it. He went home, gave orders that he was not to be disturbed, and sat down to write a reply to the attack made on him. He did not rise from his chair until he had finished it. In this compo- sition he recommended, as a means of preventing the stage from becoming a mere instrument of personality and low abuse, that a dramatic censorship should be established to sit in judgment upon all new pieces before they were represented. A dramatic author proposing a dramatic censorship! Was ever such an anomaly heard of before ? ‘We might have thought that Goldoni would have seen, better than most men, that the public is the only real censor. But passion and pique generally produce mental blindness. A censor was appointed. This discussion, and the feelings it naturally excited, interfered to some extent with Goldoni’s powers of pro- duction. Scarcely any novelty had been played during the season. The only new piece produced after the pamphlet proved a failure. The public showed some signs of dissatisfaction at this neglect. Goldoni was piqued. He determined to astonish all Venice by an extraordinary achievement. On the last night of the season he announced in very doubtful verse, but in very positive terms, that during the next season he would write and produce sixteen new pieces ! DRAMATIC LABOURS. 227 He was known to keep rigidly to his word, and his promise was at once accepted. In eight days all the boxes were let for the following year. Nevertheless, the amount of labour he had allotted to himself startled even his most sanguine friends; made his enemies smile derisively. Each piece was to be in three acts, and was to occupy about two hours and a half in represent- ation. It was in truth no light task. Had Goldoni been an English dramatist of the present day, writing for the English stage, it would have been facile and agreeable enough. He would have col- lected a number of new French plays, latest productions of the Paris theatres, from the stately “ Francais” to the gamesome “ Bouffes Parisiens”’ or “ Folies Nou- velles.” He would have carefully examined these charmingly fresh and pure constructions. He would have altered a few incidents, changed French names into English, substituted St. James’s Park for the Allée des Veuves, and refrigerated ideas too glowing for icy English ears. These transformations finished, he would have set himself to the work of translation. Working blithesomely as a government official, and the same number of hours per day, he might with gentlemanly — ease have finished a three-act play each week. He would have put his name to it, as the author, with a modesty worthy of all praise, and have enjoyed the golden fruits of his labours with a tranquil and contented heart. Instead of sixteen, he might, with a little extra exertion, have produced sixty such new pieces in the course of the year. Poor Goldoni was, however, in a very different position. He could use French plays but sparingly. There was a wide gulf between Paris and the Bride of the Sea; between those who filled the pit of the Théatre Francais and the frequenters of St. Angelo. Incidents which a2 228 CARLO GOLDONI. might have suited very well in the Café de Foi or the Tuileries Gardens would have been quite out of place in the Square of St. Mark or on the Grand Canal. An Italian public would not have accepted pictures of foreign manners as representations of their own. They were too much attached to their long-established national pieces to receive altogether without a murmur a change which was of home invention, and which did not attempt to lead the drama away from homeideas. Foreign pieces thrown hastily into an Italian mould, but with the marks of their original impression still strongly exhibited, would not have been tolerated fora moment. What a pity London of to-day is not like, in this respect, Venice of the last century! Goldoni had, then, little except his own inventive faculty to rely upon; and when he undertook the ex- traordinary labour he had imposed upon himself, he was so unprepared for it that he had not a single idea in his mind. He had in the first place to accom- pany his manager into Lombardy to search for a new performer in place of Darbes, who had left them. There was then to instruct him in the new style of acting which Goldoni’s pieces required. When not thus engaged, _ the hopeful dramatist worked night and day at new pieces. Five months passed thus, and manager and author returned to Venice. The season commenced. The first new piece was produced. It was a kind of prologue to the rest ; introduced the actors and actresses in their own persons to talk about the affairs of the theatre and the promise of the previous season, and to give an assurance that that promise should be faithfully per- formed. The opening piece was applauded; and in a few days was followed by another, which met with the same reception. The third piece, “La Bottega di Café,” soon DRAMATIC LABOURS. 229 succeeded, and was more favourably received than the two preceding. Its success was indeed brilliant; but some allusions in it were interpreted unfavourably by various people, and Goldoni was threatened with punishment, even with assassination. Curiosity, however, to see if he would be able to keep his promise seems to have prevailed over annoyance, and he met with no interruption. Goldoni’s fourth piece, based upon “ Le Menteur” of Corneille, but deviating considerably from that work, was next produced. It had all the success he could desire ; and he followed in the same path, by choosing a “flatterer” for the subject of his fifth piece. Fifth and sixth followed in the steps of their predecessors, and the seventh next engaged his attention. ‘ Pamela” had just made its way into Italy, had been translated, and was the talk of every circle. Goldoni fixed upon it as a good subject for the stage, and at once dramatised it. He was forced to take some liberties with the author, but the interest of the story remained the same. The piece, resembling the modern dvame of the French stage, was a novelty in Venice. It obtained the most gratifying success. Indeed, the audience were so carried away by it, that they would scarcely listen to anything else, and Goldoni’s eighth and ninth pieces obtained scarcely a hearing. His enemies were not slow to take advantage of this circumstance. They published some fresh attacks against him; they talked everywhere in his dispraise; “he had lost his power ;” “he was beginning to decline;” “he would finish badly ;” “his pride would be humiliated”” He took little heed, but kept steadily to his work. The tenth piece silenced his detractors, and astonished himself ; he could scarcely believe that, with so little time, he could have written such a successful production. But Q 3 230 CARLO GOLDONI. the next was equally happy, and its successor, “ La Donna Prudenta, ” took a place by its side. Goldoni had finished twelve pieces; he was not yet wearied, but his friends began to tremble for him. As “Pamela” had been so successful, they advised him to dramatise another romance, in order to spare himself the trouble of invention. He was too much flushed by the triumph he had already obtained to heed such advice, and replied, that he preferred to write a piece which might serve as the subject of a romance, instead of reading a romance which might serve as the subject of a piece. His friends smiled, but the undaunted dramatist sat himself down to write. He had not, he > assures us, a single idea. A crowd, however, soon came to him. He selected the first arrivals, and, without stopping to arrange them in order, commenced, as he says, to build a vast edifice, scarcely knowing whether he was erecting a temple or a market. One event, however, led to another; the first act took shape; the second act followed; it then became necessary to think of the catastrophe. In a short time the entire work was finished. The public was satisfied with it, and people declared that four large volumes in octavo might be filled with the development of its incidents. The fourteenth and fifteenth pieces soon issued from Goldoni’s hands, and did not do discredit +6 his reputa- tion. There only remained the sixteenth and con- cluding piece. It was not ready for representation until the last night of the season. That was a night of triumph to Goldoni. An enormous crowd flocked to the house; the prices of the boxes were tripled and quadrupled. When the curtain fell, the applause was so tumultuous, that people in the street imagined a real DRAMATIC LABOURS. 231 disturbance to be taking place in the theatre. The audience did not stop at mere applause. They rushed to the box where Goldoni sat, surrounded by sympa- thising friends; they took him upon their shoulders ; they carried him away in triumph, overwhelming him with a torrent of compliments he tried in vain to check. Poor Goldoni! he laboured for a crown of straw, and won it. Q4 232 CARLO GOLDONI. CHAP. X. AFTER THE BATTLE. Goxpont had won his battle, but he had suffered not a little in the fight. His nerves were shaken, his health was generally impaired; he never fully recovered from the effects of such extraordinary labour to his latest day. He had only gained, too, a barren victory of praise. Having made no arrangement for extra remuneration, Medebac refused to allow him any! Not a sequin would he give him beyond his appointed stipend. Nay more, he showed so little gratitude for the services rendered him, that when Goldoni wished to print his plays, as a means of recompensing himself for his arduous labour, the ungenerous manager refused to permit him. The right of printing those productions belonged to him, he said, for he had bought them. As a great favour, he at last allowed Goldoni to print one volume a year. The ill-treated author said little in the way of complaint, but felt the more. He resolved to part from Medebac as soon as his engagement was at an end. - Goldoni had need of recreation and change of scene after his year of hard work. He went, accordingly, to Turin, where the company of the manager had gone. But he did not long remain idle. His pieces were played there, and were much admired. But the Turinese, wishing to be more critical than their neighbours, AFTER THE BATTLE. 233 qualified their praise in a way Goldoni did not like. “He is very good,” said these judges; “but he is not Moliére.” He had never aspired to rank with the great French dramatist, and felt piqued by a compa- rison he thought uncalled for. He determined to show, however, that he was acquainted with Moliére, and admired his genius; and for this purpose he composed a comedy, introducing some of the most interesting incidents of the poet’s life. In common with all the writers of the time, he adopted the mis- taken idea that Moliére loved the daughter of Ma- deline Béjart. So, up to that time, biography had written it; so was it received by France. Not until some twenty years of the present century had rolled away, did the researches of M. Beffara place this matter in a true light. Now, it is well known that Armande Béjart, whom Moliére married, was the sister, not the daughter, of Madeline Béjart, with whom he is said at one time to have been on terms of tender intimacy. “Moliére ” was well received by the Turinese ; whether it gave them a much higher opinion of Goldoni, or linked him closer in their minds with the author upon whom he had written, may be doubted. Before their judgment was pronounced,—before, indeed, the piece was produced,—the writer of it had left the city, and was at Genoa. He remained there all the summer, and then returned again to his post in Venice, preparing novelties for the autumn season of 1751. Pieces flowed from his pen with accustomed rapidity, and were in general well received. His critics con- tinued to attack him occasionally, but their sallies caused him less annoyance than formerly. With the termination of this season, his engagement with 234 CARLO GOLDONI. Medebac came to anend. The manager tried in vain to retain him. Goldoni had fully resolved to part company with his ungenerous patron, and would listen to none of the arguments brought forward in order to turn him from his purpose. He made an engagement with Signor Vendramini, proprietor of another Vene- tian theatre, that of St. Luke. His position was much improved by this change; his income was nearly doubled, he had full liberty to print his works, and was perfectly unconstrained in his movements. The first spare time which his new engagement allowed him, he employed in preparing for the press another volume of his plays. Two had already appeared. The third was soon ready. He carried it to his book- seller, but, to his surprise, the man would not accept the manuscript. Medebac had bought him over, and he declared that it was with Medebac alone he could negotiate for the sale of Goldoni’s plays. Goldoni first thought of applying to the law for redress under these circumstances; but he would have had to plead against two opponents, who, he feared, would not scruple to employ any chicanery to defeat him. He took, therefore, a far more simple and certain course. Instead of the law cheating him, he cheated the law. He went to Florence, gave his plays into the hands of a bookseller there, and made arrangements for the publi- cation of a new edition with him. This edition, smuggled into Venice in defiance of the authorities, was eagerly purchased. We find that Goldoni had five hundred subscribers in that city alone. Seventeen hundred copies of the ten volumes, which formed the edition, were ultimately sold. Upon his entry into the theatre of St. Luke, Goldoni experienced a slight check. The company was new to AFTER THE BATTLE. 285 him, and was unaccustomed to his style. The house was larger than that he had been used to, and did not permit of precisely the same effects. He saw that his pieces must afford more opportunity for scenic display than formerly, and he looked about for a subject that would serve this purpose. An English history of Persia had recently been translated into Italian. He found in its pages materials just adapted to his wishes. “La Sposa Persiana,”’ a romantic comedy, was the result of his reading. It contained in itself attractions of so many different kinds, and was altogether so new to the Italian stage, that its success was unbounded. So often was it represented, that some of the audience were able at last to transcribe it from memory. Several copies made in this manner were printed. When the piece at length began to lose its attraction, the public clamoured for a sequel to it. They had been much interested in one of the heroines. They wanted to see a further develop- ment of her career. Goldoni, pleased with the demand, hastened to comply with it. In another piece, the scene of which was laid in Persia, he led the popular heroine through a series of fresh incidents that caused as much gratification as the first. But the public were not yet satisfied. Their, favourite was well and comfortably married. But would she be happy? It was a question Goldoni alone could settle. He settled it to the great satisfaction of all Venice. Like Falstaff, the Persian lady was carried into a third piece. This last was even more successful than its two predecessors, and brought the adventures of the popular Persian to a close. Goldoni spared no exertion in order to deserve the support of the new audience he was writing for. He worked so hard indeed, that, being then only imperfectly recovered from the effects of his previous labour, he fell 236 CARLO GOLDONI. ill, and was obliged to recreate himself by a trip to Modena. He was subject to nervous feelings—only too common, alas! to those who work much with the brain—which oftentimes filled his mind with the most acute and morbid melancholy. Unfortunately for his complaint, which grows never so rapidly as when fed by sympathy, he became acquainted, on his return to Venice, with a new actor of the company, in the same state as himself. They spent much of their time together com- paring and analysing their symptoms; dangerous occu- pation, as both soon discovered. The new actor’s nervous- ness sprang from a different source from that of Goldoni. He wished to undertake important characters, but was withheld by fear of failure. He yielded at length to his ambition, and appeared before the audience. His re- ception was most favourable. He obtained the applause of the house. But the excitement, acting upon nerves already unstrung, proved too much for him. Imme- diately he had withdrawn from the stage, on the termi- nation of the piece, he fell down dead ! The event produced a deep impression throughout the theatre. News of it spread rapidly from box to box. People were filled with horror at a catastrophe so un- expected and so sudden. But Goldoni was the most affected. It acted like madness upon his mind. The worst symptoms of his complaint immediately manifested themselves. He seemed at once to lose all control over himself. A thousand gloomy thoughts took possession of his brain. A thousand ghostly phantoms troubled his repose. Misery, despair, powerless wretchedness, seemed his portion for the rest of life’s journey. He grew seriously ill in body as well as mind; and no remedies seemed capable of restoring him. Fortunately, his medical attendant understood the real nature of the AFTER THE BATTLE. 237 case. He waited until the first shock had passed away, until his patient was a little calmed in spirit; and then used the only medicine which could be efficacious in such circumstances—medicine applied to the reason of the sufferer. “Regard your malady,” said he, “as a child who comes to attack you, a naked sword in hand. Be on your guard, and he will inflict no wound; but if you present your breast to him, he will kill you.” That doctor was a clever man. His words deserve en+ during record. Let all who labour with the brain take them well to heart! That one sentence is worth pages of the Pharmacopeia. It made a lasting impression upon Goldoni. He acted upon the advice it expressed, and ere long was relieved of his oppressive melancholy. Whenever afterwards attacked, he followed the same course, and always with the happiest results. Had he once surrendered himself to the fretting demon who lurks more less in every nature, by what imperceptible but certain steps he would have been led away until he arrived at that sad mental state which is not perfect madness, but which, in its incompleteness, is even a deeper mockery of human reason! Once arrived at that fatal point, there would have been no receding. The child would have killed the man. Deeper and deeper the dull darkness would have grown day by day, until death came at length, for very pity’s sake, to shut out the last glimmerings of light. How many spirits have not passed thus gloomily from Life ! 238 CARLO GOLDONI. CHAP. XI. DEPARTURE FROM VENICE. Eiruer as a consequence of this illness or of the exhaustion of ideas following upon too rapid invention, one of the pieces which Goldoni shortly afterwards produced was a failure of the most humiliating kind. .The piece was scarcely heard to the end; and when the curtain fell, loud hisses arose on every side. The comments made upon this circumstance by the enemies of Goldoni were amusing. “ He is used up,” said one. “He has emptied his sack,” said another. While a third, adopting a mysterious tone, declared that “his portfolio was exhausted,””—the portfolio of manuscripts which had furnished him with the subjects of his plays, as the speaker afterwards explained. But Goldoni resolved to show these hasty sextons of genius, that their solemn statements were not entitled to much credit. He went home, passed the night inventing a story, and at the dawn announced a new five-act comedy, entitled «“T) Festino.” He sent it to the theatre act by act as completed; on the fifth day the piece was played. Its success was sufficient to prove that Goldoni’s sack had still a few things left in it, and that the portfolio was not yet exhausted. But critics still continued to attack him for the system he was steadily introducing. At Bologna, the favourite home of the old masks, he was much assailed. He became wearied and disgusted with the DEPARTURE FROM VENICE. 239 controversy he excited, and from that time resolved to compromise matters by writing now in the new style and now in the old, convinced that in the end his own system would prevail. His fame, in spite of the attacks to which he was subjected, increased from day to day, and was carried far beyond the scenes of his triumphs. In 1756 he went to Parma at the instance of the prince of that place, who wished him to write three pieces for a theatre he had established there. Goldoni gave such satisfaction that the prince granted him a pension for life, and a decoration. At Parma, he saw for the first time the performances of French comedians. Their finished style of acting caused him great pleasure. Indeed he was so carried away on the occasion of his first visit, that in the midst of breath- less stillness he expressed his gratification by crying “Bravo!” in a loud voice. The house was shocked at such an interruption. The prince, who was present, ordered search to be made for the offender. When he was discovered, the disturbance took quite a new shape, and Goldoni became the object of general admiration. Upon his return to Venice, highly gratified by the result of his journey, he found a report of his death generally circulating. Nay, a monk, with very strong imagination or very weak morality, declared he had been present at the unfortunate author’s funeral! The appear- ance of Goldoni, however, alive, well, and bearing fresh marks of favour upon him, put an end to these state- ments. But his enemies, annoyed probably that their troublesome rival had not met with the fate reported, began to worry him anew. As their old complaints were becoming rather tattered, they put out new banners of criticism. They reproached him for not writing in the pure Tuscan prescribed by the Academy della 240 CARLO GOLDONI. Crusca. Goldoni could not attempt to deny the charge, He had studied for four years at Pisa in order to perfect himself in that language. But the agreeable and seducing patois of Venice—which, as Count Orloff in his work on Music says, is the sweetest of all local languages heard in Italy; that is to say, the sweetest in Europe—would cling to him. He remembered, however, that Tasso had been tormented all his life for the same fault, and that his “ Jerusalem Delivered,” full of devi- ations from Della Cruscan rule, was read everywhere, and his “ Jerusalem Conquered,” which conformed to it, was almost utterly neglected. It was by no means a convincing proof either in favour or against the Della Cruscans, but it seems to have been sufficient to console Goldoni. He came at once to the conclusion that it was better to write so that he might be understood by all Italy, than to write in a manner that would be appreciated only by the critical few. Had he said he was more inclined to use his own shoes for walking than to put on the “learned sock,” with the use of which he was only partially acquainted, he would have perhaps indicated the case more clearly. If the researches he made upon this subject answered no other end, they at least suggested to him a new subject for a comedy. The Life of Tasso presented itself to him, and he dramatised it with great success. Parma was not the only city in which his reputation had made him admirers. His fame had travelled to Rome; and in the spring of 1758, accepting an engage- ment there, he travelled after it. Permission once gained from his manager at Venice, Goldoni started off on his journey. Rome pleased him highly. He carried with him letters of introduction to many distinguished people, who received him in the most gracious manner. DEPARTURE FROM VENICE. 241 He had even the honour of an introduction to the pope himself,—an introduction followed by a private interview of three quarters of an hour’s duration. But he almost spoiled the good impression he produced upon the mind of Clement XIIT. by an unlucky piece of forgetfulness. His Holiness gave the signal that the conversation was to come to an end. Goldoni rose, made his reverences, and prepared to depart. The pope looked annoyed, he changed his position, he moved his arms, he coughed, he looked hard at his guest. The unhappy dramatist was at aloss to conceive the meaning of these signs. A light suddenly burst in upon his brain. He had omitted to kiss the pope’s Toe! He rushed back, repaired his negligence, and was rewarded by the blessings of the Holy Pontiff. His visit to Rome was not in other respects successful. The company for which he had been engaged to write, was unused to his style. They played no pieces, except of the old fashion. They were willing however, they said, to learn anything he chose to give them. He wrote a piece; they studied it, and presented it upon» their stage. But they had undertaken a task for which they were utterly incapable. Their acting, constrained as it was by bonds to which they were unaccustomed, was overcharged and awkward to-the last degree. The audience, composed principally of boatmen and coal- heavers, could not understand it, and hissed with great force. The piece utterly fell; and Goldoni saw that any fresh production of the same class must meet with the same result. The director who had engaged him was compelled to adopt a similar opinion; and nothing more was written. Goldoni had the satisfaction of seeing one of his old plays produced at another theatre with great acclamations. It was “ Pamela,” which had so R 242 CARLO GOLDONI. much pleased the Venetians a few years before. The Roman audience was even more pleased ; and the actors of the theatre begged Goldoni to introduce “ Pamela” in another piece. He complied with their request, but “Pamela married” lost nearly all the attractions she had enjoyed when single. The air of Rome beginning to disagree with him, Goldoni, after several months’ stay, turned his steps once more towards his native city, and renewed his usual occupations there.. He was not however fated to remain very long in Venice. Soon quitting it again, he quitted it for good and all this time. His works had reached Paris, and were in favour there. One of them had been played at the Italian theatre with great success. The company were desirous of securing the services of Goldoni. They offered him an engagement of two years with very satisfactory remu- neration, if he would go to Paris. He paused before he accepted this offer. He was fond of his own country ; he was esteemed, applauded, and admired there; his critics had almost ceased to trouble him; he was happy and comfortable. But the future was unprovided for; he thought a few years’ exertion in Paris would assure it in a more complete manner than he could hope for in Venice. Before determining what course to adopt, he spoke to his friends and patrons.’ He explained to them the precarious position he held, and pointed out the necessity he was under of guaranteeing himself against poverty in his old age. He showed that there were many places of importance and trust which his knowledge of the law would enable him satisfactorily to fill. If they would appoint him to one of these, he need not leave Venice. His friends felt the justness of these views, and strove to obtain him some engagement; DEPARTURE FROM VENICE. 243 but they did not succeed in their exertions. Goldoni made up his mind therefore to accept the offer sent to him from Paris. His friends testified in an unmistakable manner the regard in which they held him. On the night previous to his departure, a farewell piece he had written was produced. At its conclusion they so applauded that Goldoni was moved to tears. Expressions of kind feelmg and good wishes for his prosperity were heard on every side. But there were other circumstances in operation at this time which he does not allude to in his “ Memoirs,” but which evidently in part, if not entirely, influenced his determination to quit Venice. Among the most determined opponents of his literary system were the members of an academy at Venice, established in 1740 under the ridiculous name of the Silly Fellows. These academicians seem to have been quite as frivolous as those who figured in the ceremony of the Sibillone; and there was a dash of humour in their proceedings which gave the institution more the air of a social club than of a learned assembly. For * president they selected a silly old writer, remarkable for the ridiculous verses he had composed. He became the butt of all the rest. The most absurd and exag- gerated compliments were paid to his genius. When he read any rhapsody he had written, the satirical ap- plause that greeted his production was deafening. He sat upon an elevated chair which he was made to believe Cardinal Bembo had formerly used, but which in fact had been bought second-hand. At the summer sittings of the academy he was supplied with a cup of boiling tea; the other members had ices. In the winter, while all the rest were drinking coffee, he was treated to a cup of cold water. Occasionally some of .the most waggish B2 244: CARLO GOLDONI. ‘of the comedians wrote him complimentary letters in verse, purporting to come from the great Frederick the King of Prussia, the Sultan, the Sophi, and other poten- tates. The academicians did, however, something else than play at such jesting as this. When their mock cere- monies were over, they discussed literary questions, they criticised new works, they wrote and read verses, discourses, biographies. There was really some purpose at the bottom of all their fooling. One of the most active of these academicians was Count Carlo Gozzi. Fond of literature, and himself something of a poet, he had conceived. a strong aversion to the school of dramatic writing Goldoni was intro- ducing. This aversion soon broke out into open hos- tility. He wrote an allegorical poem attacking Goldoni. A friend obtained possession of it, sent it for publication to Paris; and one morning the work arrived in Venice. In two hours it was circulating over all the city, and became the one topic of conversation. Goldoni of course replied to it; and a regular literary war com- menced between the two. The hot blood with which such disputes are always conducted in Italy, is a feature in the literary history of that country. We may be quite sure that if Gozzi called Goldoni’s theatre a nursery of immorality, of pernicious principles, of bad sentiments, and the author, a pillager of every foreign stage, who had destroyed the Commedie dell’ Arte which did honour to ltaly, and substituted in its place a bastard drama, con- trary to the genius of the country, we may be quite sure, if such was Gozzi’s language, Goldoni retorted by calling his adversary’s arguments “froth,” “serpent’s slime,” “howling,” and that adversary himself an “insupportable fellow, a poor devil who had sought fortune in vain.” The battle did not stop here. Goldoni had a means of DEPARTURE FROM VENICE. 245 annoying the enemy which the enemy did not possess. He was the playwright of a company. He could direct his attacks from the stage itself. He did so, ridiculed Gozzi in prologues delivered with much effect at the theatre. Gozzi feeling himself at a disadvantage, sought to fight his enemy upon the same ground. Fortunately for him an opportunity soon offered. The celebrated comedian Sacchi, with a good company of actors accus- tomed to play in the old style, had been driven out of Italy by the introduction of Goldoni’s system. Seeking refuge in Portugal, they had left that country precipi- tately on account of the Lisbon earthquake. They were now in Venice without employ. Gozzi deter- mined to make a bold attempt to revive the Com- medie dell’ Arte, and try to beat Goldoni out of the field. He made arrangements with the company of Sacchi. He wrote them anew piece of a kind that had never before been attempted, and yet introducing the four standard characters and their improvisations —a piece founded upon a popular nursery story. The suc- cess of it was prodigious. Goldoni’s theatre was almost deserted. Everybody flocked to see the “Love of the Three Oranges,” as the play was called. Another and another piece followed in the same style and with the same success. All Goldoni’s labours seemed destroyed at a single blow. The improvised pieces, set in a more and more attractive frame, had gone back at a stride into public favour. We can believe, then, that something more than the inability or unwillingness of his friends to obtain him a post at Venice determined Goldoni to set out for Paris. His reputation seemed at an end. His works were no longer in favour. A more fortunate rival had obtained possession of the public ear. What else could he do but leave the city ? B38 246 CARLO GOLDONI. CHAP. XII. ARRIVAL IN FRANCE. Ir was in the month of April, 1761, that Goldoni set out from Venice, with his wife and his nephew, for the capital city of France. When within a few miles of that city, he was met by a party of Italian comedians, who gave him a warm welcome after his long and fatiguing journey. Everything at first seemed smiling in the new land in which he had arrived. When he reached Paris he felt as though he were in a city of enchantment. He was fifty-three years of age, but was strong, healthy, and vigorous, and had all the fresh feeling of a school-boy. The weather was unusually hot, quite as much so as in Italy ; but he heeded it not. He roamed on from street to street, from promenade to promenade, from building to building, amazed, delighted, confused with all he saw. The Paris of a hundred years ago was far from being the splendid city of to-day. But Goldoni for a time was never tired of its beauties. For four months he lived in a constant whirl of excitement, without the power of arranging his thoughts or applying himself to intellec- tual labour. He has left us many little details of Paris as it was at that time, which are exceedingly interesting. He tells us of the celebrated chestnut tree in the Palais Royal, called the tree of Cracow. Underneath its shade a crowd of quid-nuncs collected every day, reading the journals, discussing the political news of the hour, draw- ARRIVAL IN FRANCE. 247 ing with their canes upon the sand, trenches, camps, military positions, and re-arranging the map of Europe with wonderful precision. When, owing to improve- ments which took place at a later day, the tree was doomed to fall beneath the axe, a strong excitement was created among those frequenters of the Palais Royal. It seemed little short of sacrilege to rob them of their favourite shelter. The affairs of Europe were obliged to stand still, while the discomfited gossipers recovered from their shock. We have many glimpses of the theatre of those days which are not without interest. At the Opera and at the Théitre Frangais the pit audience stood during the whole of the performance. When the latter theatre quitted the Tuileries and took up its abode in the Faubourg St. Germain, the frequenters thought it quite an innovation that the pit should be seated! Double price too, was charged for this accommodation; and for some time it seemed doubtful whether the new arrange- ments would answer. We learn too that the favourite complaint of grumbling old playgoers—dearth of good actors—was just as rife then as at any time either before or since. At the Francais, which Goldoni constantly attended, people were always mingling their groans upon this subject. “There were no longer any great per- formers,” they lachrymoniously complained —“the mould. in which they had been cast was broken.” This was said too at a time when we find that the French stage boasted such names as Préville (the Roscius of France), Molé, Lekain, Mademoiselle Clairon, and Mademoiselle Dumesnil! But then, people said the same thing in England when Kemble and Mrs. Siddons were treading the stage. It was during Goldoni’s residence in Paris that the B4 248 CARLO GOLDONI. Ambigu-Comique first opened its doors, commencing modestly as a theatre of marionnettes, and that the Porte St. Martin, that celebrated temple of drame started nto existence. It then bore the name of Variétés Amusantes. Another theatre, the Salle Nicolet stood near it, but has long since disappeared. A strange place that Salle Nicolet must have been! What would be thought in the present day, if even at the Funambules, one of the lowest of the Paris theatres, an actor should step forward before the commencement of the piece, and ask one of the audience for the loan of his hat or paletot. Yet something similar to this happened at the Salle Nicolet when Goldoni visited it. While patiently waiting for the curtain to rise, a stranger came to him, and politely asked permission to borrow the rather handsome sword he wore. The stranger was an actor of the company. He had to play Coriolanus that night. He was unprovided with a suitable sword. He had taken the liberty of asking Goldoni for his. The request, after some little hesitation, was complied with ; and the gratified actor had the pleasure of appearing in his borrowed plumage. But I must leave, until a more fitting opportunity, these gossiping details, which belong more to the history of the French stage than to the his- tory of Goldoni, and return to my narrative. Calmed at length, by a visit to Fontainebleau, of the fever the sight of Paris caused him, he commenced the labours he had been engaged to execute. The Italian theatre at Paris was unfortunately not then in very high public favour. It had united itself to the French Opéra Comique. They used the same house, but played on alternate nights. While the Opéra Comique worked hard to deserve popular favour, and gained it, the Italians provided no novelties, gave nothing but worn-out pieces ARRIVAL IN FRANCE. 249 which had long before lost their attraction ; aud they still kept to the old improvised comedies which Goldoni had endeavoured to banish from Italy. As might be expected, on the nights when the Italians played the theatre was deserted ; on the nights of the opera it was full. Goldoni saw that no success could be hoped for unless a total change in the style of performance took place. He explained his ideas to the comedians. Some were in his favour, others opposed him. His views ultimately pre- vailed; but they were not well carried out. The actors were unused to the newstyle of performance, and could not readily adapt their talent to it. Goldoni’s first comedy, played under such circumstances, obtained so little favour, that he felt inclined to quit Paris on the instant. But he had engaged himself for two years, and felt bound to hold to his contract. He continued, therefore, to write for the theatre until the term of his engagement had arrived, contributing twenty-four pieces to it during that time ; and then author and actors parted company without much regret on either side. Goldoni was now without occupation, and began to look about for some engagement to increase the rather small income on which he was compelled to live. He might have found one, doubtless, in Italy; but he seems to have become attached to Paris, and to have had no desire to quit it. Fortunately, one of his friends possessed influence at court, and obtained for him the post of Italian teacher to the ladies of the Royal family, with an apart- ment in the palace of Versailles. “he post was honourable and distinguished ; Goldoni coy gratulated himself upon the good fortune which had led im to it. But an acci- dent he met with shortly afterwards seemed at first likely to deprive him of the power to continue his instruction. He had a habit, more less dangerous everywhere, and 250 CARLO GOLDONI. objectionable in all places, that of reading while walking. He was engaged in this manner with Rousseau’s “ Lettres de la Montagne,” when he suddenly became almost blind. Just sufficient sight remained to enable him to grope his way home; and hoping that in a short time he should entirely recover, he prepared to give a lesson to one of his pupils as if nothing had happened. His agitation could not however escape notice; and he was asked the cause. Afraid to tell, he gave no distinct reply, but took up a book and glanced at its pages. To his horror, they presented to his eyes nothing but an unintelligible blank. He was forced then to own the calamity which had befallen him. Kind attention and care soon alleviated his misfortune. Little by little the use of one of his eyes returned to him. The other remained for ever afterwards sightless. His duties at Versailles were not heavy. During the first three years of his appomtment lessons were con- tinually interrupted by the domestic calamities which occurred in the family of his royal pupils. The death of the Dauphin in December, 1765, was followed by that of the Dauphine, and of the King of Poland, father of the French Queen. There was little need of Goldoni’s services in the midst of all the mourning which arose out of these events. A fixed pension of four thousand francs a year was however granted to him, and a present of a hundred louis, after he had served three years. For some time his instruction ceased almost entirely, and he was at liberty to employ his time as he chose. He was not sorry to fill up some of it by writing pieces for the Italian Opera in London. Many of the jibretti of the operas of Bertoni, then admired in England, were by Goldoni. He was asked to visit London, by the managers of the theatre; but this he declined. Yet he ARRIVAL IN FRANCE. 251 was, we learn, well satisfied with the manner in which he was treated by his English connections. An opera he wrote was paid for although not produced. Goldoni was charmed by what he considered a generous act, and attributed it to a gentler influence than usually presides over operatic councils. ‘The direction,” he says, “ was in the hands of women; and women,” adds the gallant Goldoni, “are amiable everywhere.” That must have been a happy time for Italian Opera in London, when a committee of women ruled its destinies. If the world itself could be placed under similar direction, how soon every country would flow with milk and honey! Better that, however, says Thought, reproving Jest, than to flow, as they so fre- quently do now, with blood. 252 CARLO GOLDONT. CHAP. XIII. LAST LABOURS. As Goldoni was in the pay of the Court, and, like many in a similar position, did exceedingly little work for the salary he received, he was anxious to show his gratitude for Royal favours by acting the part of Poet Laureate. Upon the marriage of Marie Antoinette in 1770, he wrote some Italian verses in her honour, and had the gratification of seeing them received with pleasure by the lady to whom they were addressed. She gave him to understand, im very good Italian, that he was not un- known to her. He had long had the ambition to com- pose some verses in French, but after several trials, which disheartened him, gave up the attempt for ever. He was determined, however, to compose some work in that language; naturally enough, his thoughts turned towards the stage. He resolved to write a comedy for the Théatre Francais! It was a bold idea, which many a younger man might well have recoiled from. Goldoni was sixty-two years of age. He had arrived in France at the age of fifty-three, an age when the energy, if not the intellect, of many men is on the decline. But during those nine years he had well studied the language of his adopted country, and felt no lack of ideas or industry to carry out his design. He applied himself, accordingly, to the work, determined to succeed. LAST LABOURS. 253 His comedy finished, he showed it to various friends, took advice from their counsels, and availed himself of such suggestions as he thought of use. The piece was then sent to the Comédie Frangaise, and was accepted unanimously. He was anxious, however, to show his piece to another critic, a foreigner, like himself, famous throughout all Europe for the works he had published. That critic was Rousseau. It was just at a period when Rousseau’s singular mode of existence made him specially the object of public attention and curiosity. Goldoni knew that an unautho- rised visit would be productive of no result. He wrote beforehand therefore, begging to be allowed an interview. A very polite reply was sent to him. If he would give himself the trouble to mount four storeys high, Hotel Platriére, Rue Platriére, J. J. Rousseau would be much pleased to see him. Goldoni went to the house indicated, and knocked at the door. It was opened by a woman neither young, pretty, nor engaging, he tells us. He asked if M. Rousseau was at home. “ He is and he is not,” said the woman, whom Goldoni took for a housekeeper at the best; “what is your name ?” Goldoni told her. “Oh!” said she—‘“‘you are expected. I will go and announce you to my husband.” The supposed housekeeper was no other than our old acquaintance of the “Confessions” —Thérése Le Vasseur, the companion of Rousseau. Goldoni entered the room. Rousseau, who was copying music, rose and welcomed him freely, a copy- book in his hand. “See!” said he, “can anybody copy music like this? _ I defy a sheet to issue from the press as nice and as 254 CARLO GOLDONI. exact as it goes from my hands. But come,” he con- tinued, “let us warm ourselves.” There was no fire. Rousseau asked for a log of wood. Thérése brought it to him. Goldoni, naturally enough, felt his heart touched to see the man of genius copying music, and Thérése acting as servant. He could not hide his surprise and pain. Rousseau, who seems to have divined what was passing in his mind, asked him the cause of his emotion. Goldoni was forced to explain. “What!” said the philosopher gaily, “you pity me because I am occupied in copying? you believe that I should do better to compose books for people who do not know how to read, or articles for miserable journalists? You are in error. I am passionately fond of music. I copy excellent originals; it supplies me with the means of living, it amuses me, and I am satisfied. But you — with what are you occupied? You came to Paris to work for the Italian comedians. They are lazy. They do not want your pieces. Go away! Return to your native land; you are expected there—you are desired.” “ Sir,” said Goldoni, not a little startled, doubtless, by such a speech as this, “ you are right. I ought to have quitted Paris after the neglect of the Italian comedians ; but other views have kept me here. I have just com- posed a piece in French.” “You have composed a piece in French! ” exclaimed Rousseau, with astonishment. “ What are you going to do with it?” “Tam going to give it to the Comédie Francaise,” replied Goldoni. “You reproached me just now for losing my time,” said Rousseau ; “ it is you who are losing it now.” ‘*But my piece is received,” put in Goldoni. “Ts it possible? Well! I am not astonished. LAST LABOURS. 255 The comedians have no common sense. They receive, and they reject, at random. It is received, perhaps ; but it will not be played. And if it be, so much the worse for you,” was Rousseau’s discouraging reply. Goldoni, without doubt, was not much pleased. “ How can you judge a piece you have never seen ?” he modestly asked. “T know the taste of the Italians, and that of the French,” replied Rousseau ; “there is a wide difference between the two; and permit me to say, at your age, it is not the time to commence composition in a foreign language.” “Your remark is just,” said Goldoni; “but these difficulties may be overcome. I have confided my work to intelligent people—to people well-informed; and they appear pleased with it.” “They flatter you, they deceive you, you are their dupe,” exclaimed Rousseau, as if wishing to close the conversation. “Let me see your piece; I am frank, I am straightforward, I will tell you the truth.” And so the interview ended. But Goldoni did hot submit his piece to this ordeal. A few days after this interview, he met a literary friend who had just had relations with Rousseau which had not terminated pleasantly. This friend, according to his own account, pitying the distress of the man of genius, and wishing to give him a more comfortable home, had proposed to let him a very pretty suite of rooms, near the Tuileries gardens, at the same price as he paid in the Rue Platriére. Rousseau, perceiving his intentions, had refused, sharply declaring that he would not be deceived. Goldoni’s friend then proposed to spend an evening with Rousseau, to hear the “ Confessions,” and to read in turn some of his own works. Rousseau 256 CARLO GOLDONI. agreed, but only on condition that the evening should be passed at his own house, and that he should supply a frugal supper. He gave permission, however, to the other to furnish the single bottle of wine they would require, the wine of the Rue Platriére not being good. The benevolent gentleman, delighted with the chance of adding even in a small degree to Rousseau’s comfort, sent at once half a dozen bottles of excellent wine. Rousseau was indignant at this breach of the contract. He would not rest until five of the bottles were sent away. He then read a portion of his “ Confessions.” His companion read in re- turn, but was suddenly interrupted. Rousseau looked annoyed, and declared himself insulted. The other was laughing at him. He was caricaturing him. In vain Goldoni’s friend declared himself innocent of any such intention. Rousseau would not listen to him; and the two parted in bitter anger, to renew their quarrel by a bitter correspondence. Allowing for some little exaggeration in this story, it has an air of verity; and we cannot wonder that Goldoni deemed it prudent to go no more to the Hotel Platriére. Perhaps he wasright. The very title of the piece, “ Bourru Bienfaisant,” might, as he thought, offend Rousseau (we know, from the “ Confessions,” that Madame Le Vasseur called him a Jourru,) while Géronte, the principal character, had many points of resemblance to Rousseau, which would doubtless have readily impressed themselves upon a mind as delicately sensitive as his appears to have been at that time. Goldoni’s first interview with Rousseau was his last. ° Goldoni once, and once alone, appears to have met Alfieri. It was in Paris, after an illness the former had had. The tragic writer seems to have held his LAST LABOURS. 257 brother dramatist in good estimation. He tells us he was infinitely diverted with his writings when he read them at college. Years afterwards, as he was about to leave Sienna for London, he asked a friend for an introduction to the celebrated Goldoni, as he calls him ; and when they met, it was evidently with pleasure on both sides. Goldoni, at least, speaks highly of the other, and leads us to infer that the interview was a very agreeable one. Goldoni appears to have cultivated the literary society of Paris, and to have been on good terms with many of the writers of the day. With Diderot he did not become intimate. Diderot had produced a play called “Le Fils Naturel,” borrowed in great part from a piece by Goldoni. The resemblance was of course eagerly pointed out by. Diderot’s critics. Rousseau alludes to this, and to the effect it produced upon the author. “Tn addition to the storm excited against him by the Encyclopedia,” says he, “Diderot experienced then a very violent one against his piece, which, in spite of the little history he has prefaced it with, he was accused of having taken entirely from Goldoni.” When Diderot’s next piece, “Le Pére de Famille,” was produced, strangely enough, it bore the same name as another by the Italian author. There, however, all re- semblance ceased. At least Goldoni himself thought so. But plagiarism once proved, or supposed to be proved, is sure to entail accusations of the same offence, even although undeservedly. Diderot was charged with again filching from Goldoni. In his letters describing the first: performance of “Le Pére de Famille,” he says nothing of this. He describes the success of the piece as very great—more so than hadever beforebeen known on a first night. He says that, as he came out of the theatre, 8 258 CARLO GOLDONI. Duclos prophesied that three such pieces as that a year would kill tragedy, and that Marmontel wept with pleasure in embracing him. But nevertheless he was so piqued against Goldoni that he could not speak of him with ordinary respect; and it was not until a friend brought them together that he at all relaxed in his dislike to the Italian author. The “Bourru Bienfaisant” in the mean time had passed through the various stages of preparation and re- hearsal, and was represented for the first time at the Co- médie Frangaise on the 4th of November, 1771. On the morrow it was produced at Fontainebleau, on both occasions with considerable success. We find a notice of the first performance in a contemporary journal, “Le Mercure de France,” a monthly magazine in the style of the “Spectator,” containing essays, stories, poetry, music, short paragraphs of news, riddles, reviews, &c. «The comedy succeeded,” says the “ Mercure,” after a tangled account of the plot, very different to those in the brilliant feuilletons of Théophile Gautier, or Paul de St. Victor, published now a-days. “It is well dialogued ; the character of the ‘ Bourru Bienfaisant’ develops itself in good comic situations; the parts were very well rendered, above all that of the Bourru by M. Préville, who perfectly seized the traits of character that he had to represent.” On the first night of performance, Goldoni was called before the curtain at the end of the piece. It was an honour he had never before received, the custom being unknown in Italy. Indeed we find that it had not been introduced many years into France. Its com- mencement only dates back to 1748. Voltaire’s . “ Merope,” produced in that year, was so successful LAST LABOURS. 259 that the writer was demanded at the conclusion of the piece. The custom was from that time established. Either to receive the congratulations or the disapproba- tion of the audience, the author of every new piece was called for at its termination. Goldoni’s embarrass- ment at the honour was equal to his delight. At Fontainebleau the king was so gratified that he gave the author one hundred and fifty louis. Goldoni’s triumph was complete. The piece, thus fortunate, enjoyed something more than a mere transitory pros- perity. We find, from the “ Memoirs of Préville,” that the “ Bourru”’ was reckoned one of his celebrated parts. It held possession of the stage many years. Encouraged by this success, and stimulated by the solicitations of his friends, Goldoni made a second attempt of the same kind about two years afterwards. “L’Avare Fastueux” was the title of his second piece in French. It was produced for the first time at Fontaine- bleau; but the reception it met with was so unfavour- able that Goldoni would not sanction its appearance on the stage of the Comédie Francaise. It was never played again, Changes in the Royal Family, which took place shortly afterwards, led Goldoni back again to Versailles in his capacity of Italian teacher. He gave lessons to Clotilde, sister of Louis XVI., previous to her marriage with the Prince of Piedmont, and afterwards to Madame Elisabeth, another sister of the same monarch. But he was growing old, and the air of Versailles did not suit him. He asked permission, therefore, to resign his post, and proposed as his successor the nephew he had brought from Venice. ue Lhe proposal was accepted. Goldoni was specially recompensed with six thousand francs for the services 82 260 CARLO GOLDONI. he had rendered, and an annual pension was still paid to him. He had need of some such support to rest upon in his old days ; for his powers were beginning to fail him. He continued to write for the Venice stage, and during one season wrote again for the Italian theatre in Paris. But his pieces had not the life and vivacity of old, and failed to sustain his reputation. He had written more than a hundred and fifty dramatic productions ; was it not natural that age should at last hush his invention to sleep? The final literary effort of his life was the writing of his “Memoirs.” It occupied him three years ; and he did not complete it until he had attained his eightieth year! The work, written in French, was published in 1787,in two volumes. As he wrote the concluding lines of that book the pen may be said to have dropped from his hand. The closing days of his life were passed amid the ex- citing scenes of the French Revolution. That storm, which in its wild impetuosity swept so fiercely over the sea of corruption and abuse, did not, unfortunately, spare Goldoni’s little bark. His pension was suppressed. It was but for a short time, however, and in the moment when men’s eyes were too dazzled by the dawning light of liberty to see distinctly all around them. The young Republic could not grudge its aid to a poor old man, whose life had been one of steady labour and _perse- verance. His pension was quickly restored to him. But he had reached the period when it was no longer neces- sary. On the 7th of January, 1798, the very day on which his income was renewed, he breathed his last. He was eighty-six years of age. His widow received the arrears which had been destined for him, and was kept LAST LABOURS. 261 secure from future want by a pension of twelve hundred francs a year, granted to her at the instance of Chenier, immediately after the death of Goldoni, by the National Convention. Fortune had treated Goldoni not unkindly during life; she did not utterly desert him at his last hour. 262 CARLO GOLDONI. CHAP. XIV. THE ITALIAN STAGE. We have borne Goldoni company in a foreign land so long that we have almost lost sight of the country in which he took his birth, and of the stage which he re- vivified. It is time now for us to return to these sub- jects. When Goldoni left Venice, the fall of his system seemed complete. Gozzi’s pieces, increasing in success, gave birth to a crowd of imitations; and soon the Venice theatre was filled with nothing but fairy tales, enchantments, magicians, and the four masks in the midst of all with their improvised dialogue. Those who had praised Goldoni before scrupled not now to defame him. Even Gozzi admits that the criticisms passed upon him were most unjust. People went, as is usual when a favourite is deserted, from the extreme of praise to the extreme of condemnation. A hundred faults never seen in him before were now miraculously discovered. ‘‘ Venice, the most inconstant city of the most inconstant country” (it is an Italian who speaks), turned her back completely upon the once popular playwright. It was not all inconstancy, however, that produced this change. Writing in such abundance as did Gol- doni, it was scarcely possible but that his works should begin at last to weary for a time the public ear. While his style had all its freshness, people admired; when it began to grow a little worn, they grew weary. Any THE ITALIAN STAGE. 263 new comer at such a moment would have been re- ceived, perhaps, with considerable favour. But in the works of Gozzi there was an originality and inventive power that could scarcely fail. to please.. He took up subjects new to the Italian stage. Nursery stories, tales. of enchantment, fairy legends, magician marvels.. Im-. mense scope was offered for scenic and mechanical display by such themes. The decorations and machinery intro-. duced into these pieces would alone have attracted an audience to the theatre. There was, too, in the written parts of Gozzi’s pieces a certain amount of poetic merit and earnestness. Gozzi completely entered into the spirit of the subject upon which he wrote. His magicians, enchanters, and fairies were thoroughly real persons. There was nothing of the burlesque about them, as in our extravaganzas. Indeed, so completely did poor Gozzi give himself up to the study of these subjects, that after a time his imagination was sensibly affected by them. He began to believe in an invisible world of spirits, and fancied himself under their dominion. _ His idea was that he had offended them by his plays, and that they were angry at having been placed upon the stage. He says that a mysterious voice whispered in his ear it was not right to put the king of the Genii upon the scene. A certain amount of politeness was due to every spirit. Form and density were necessary in order that this politeness should be rendered ; for how could we kiss the hands or embrace the knees of a Genius who had neither hands nor knees! The spirits were so sensible of this difficulty, that, when they wished to obtain such marks of respect, they always took a human form. But in general they were satisfied with being properly venerated inthe mind. How could Gozzi be said to have kept them in veneration, when he had placed them before s 4 264 CARLO GOLDONI. the eyes of the vulgar upon a publicstage ? This thought powerfully disturbed the wretched author. He relates with gravity, which may be ironical but which looks terribly like reality, the many annoyances to which he was subjected by the offended spirits. He was continually mistaken for people utterly dissimilar to him in size, name, and appearance. He never could go out without getting drenched to the skin, although five minutes after he returned home the sun was sure to burst out with malicious splendour. ‘He was beaten by mistake for other people. Hight times out of ten while shaving he was interrupted by the arrival of visitors, and was com- pelled to meet them razor in hand—one cheek smooth, the other rough. Rascally lodgers hired his houses and paid no rent. Letters he had never seen were written in his name. The smallest and most necessary acts of his daily existence could not be performed without interrup- tion and impediment ! Whether the spirits carried their revenge so far as to prejudice the mind of the Venetian public against Gozzi’s pieces, we do not know; but it is certain that in a few years those pieces lost all their attraction. Critics attacked them as unmercifully as they had attacked Goldoni’s. When Gozzi essayed to write fully developed plays, it was too late. He had lost his influence and power. A misunderstanding, that arose out of one of his pieces, ultimately led to the breaking up of Sacchi’s com- pany. The masks lingered on even until 1801; but Gozzi’s pieces, many years before that date, had disappeared from the Venetian stage. So completely was he lost sight of, that the date and place of his death are unknown. His works seem to have sunk into equal oblivion. When a French tourist visited Venice in 1843, he inquired for them at several libraries. The booksellers THE ITALIAN STAGE. 265 scarcely knew what he meant. At last, in a little shop, an old copy was drawn from the dust of forty years’ accumulation, and the ten volumes were sold to him for the price of the paper! Gozzi was completely lost to view. Goldoni’s plays in the meantime had been completely reinstated upon the stage. Hach year they increased in popularity. The new authors who arose adopted them for model. Albergati, Capacelli, Rossi, Giraud, Nota, and in the present day, Biletti-Bon Giacometti, and others, have all followed in the footsteps of Goldoni, and laboured, with varying talent and success, to sus- tain the character of the comic stage in Italy. The last writer seems determined to equalin quantity as well as quality the labours of his predecessor. He has already written seventy pieces, and will not rest content, it is said, until eighty more are added to their number. We must seek the cause of Goldoni’s sustained popu- larity more in the gaiety and liveliness of his works, per- haps, than in merit of ahigher kind. The circumstances under which he wrote were not favourable to the de- velopment of thought or the creation of character. Throughout his life he was the salaried playwright of a company, paid to provide as much novelty as possible every season. Ido not cast any slight upon Goldoni by these words. An author must be paid, like any other worker. He cannot feed upon air, although many authors are compelled to make the experiment; and very sorry fare they find it. But to be so closely under managerial rule as was Goldoni, was to be shut out from all opportunity of real creation. His contemporary has given us a vivid picture of the condition of the author thus situated. In Italy, he tells us, the worst of all trades is that of poet kept in pay by the comedians. 266 CARLO GOLDONI. His works are pulled to pieces; he is cheated; if his powers begin to fail him, he is reproached with the sum he costs. If successful, he is forced on at a gallop, like a post-horse, until exhausted. There is no galley slave in chains, no porter groaning under his load, no ill- treated beast of burden, whose condition is not better than that of a salaried poet. The unhappy man becomes a machine, worn out in a few years, and then—useless ; a stone to be cast out into the fields; a beggar to whom alms are given with more reluctance than to the souls of the dead, which nevertheless are not in want of clothes to screen them from the cold, or of food to preserve them from hunger. True, in spite of his dependent state, and in the face of opposition, Goldoni carried out his dramatic system; but it was to the advantage, not the detriment, of the manager. If it had been otherwise, where would have been Goldoni’s engagements? Who would have been willing to pay him for his pieces, if the public had not been willing to pay for them also? Not Signor Imer, depend upon it; and certainly not the ungenerous Medebac. But perhaps we must seek in Goldoni himself, rather than in external causes, the. reason of his want of elevation. That remarkable fertility of his was scarcely compatible with high creative power. What could be expected from a man who would write a five-act comedy in five days in time for it to be played on the sixth ? Great works are not thus hurriedly born. An author who could dash off an act at a sitting, was not likely to labour for months, like Alfieri, polishing his diction; strengthening his conceptions, giving proportion, solidity, and harmony to the whole. One play a month appears to have been Goldoni’s average rate THE ITALIAN STAGE. 267 of production. One good play in the year would be as much as need be expected from any pen. Goldoni, we ‘know, wrote sixteen pieces in one year. Did Shakspeare or Corneille write more than double that in their whole lives ? Goldoni has been called the Moliére of Italy; but French critics are not generally disposed to allow him that title. ‘He is the Moliére of Italy,” indignantly said a journalist lately ; “yes! in the same-manner that M. Pradeau is the Lablache of the Bouffes Parisiens.” The comparison is not obvious, perhaps, to every English reader. No matter. Any comparison between great merit and clever mediocrity will give the idea. This, perhaps, is a little harsh, but in intention rather than in truth. We must not lose sight of the state of the Italian stage when Goldoni came to it. Goldoni, in this respect, was even more unfavourably situated than Moliére. The former came to a theatre almost utterly without life; the latter, to one just bursting into vigour. The theatre of the Hétel de Bourgogne had been esta- blished more than a hundred years when Moliére made his first essay in Paris. It had brought forward pro- ductions of home growth, imitations and translations of the best ancient authors; and Corneille had recently appeared to give its performances a still higher character. It was a school in which Moliére could learn many lessons, and in which we have good authority for believ- ing he did learn them. We ought not, then, to treat Goldoni too cavalierly. Whatever may be his power, he certainly may claim the merit of having founded modern Italy comedy, and of still being the head master in his school. Voltaire, we know, spoke of him with much respect. He calls him the celebrated Goldoni, and places his “ Menteur ” in by no means unfavourable com- 268 CARLO GOLDONI. parison with that of Corneille! But it may be doubted whether confusion rather than clearness is not introduced into the subject by placing in any way the names of Moligre and Goldoni together. If comparisons must be made, would it not be better to go altogether in another direction, and to say that M. Scribe is the Goldoni of France? The literary merit of the Italian dramatist will be made more apparent, perhaps, by this arrangement of simile. There is very little of the philosophical or the thoughtful in the pieces of Goldoni. They are principally remark- able for their ease and sprightliness, and for the fidelity with which surface traits of society are sketched. He drew from all classes, from all ranks, with equal ability. Many of his pictures would be thought, perhaps, strangely fanciful and untrue upon the English stage. They could ‘scarcely be faithful portrayals of Italian manners were it not so. The atmosphere of the South is in no way our atmosphere. Human nature, we know, is the same every- where. Manners and the domestic relations of life change in every country. England and Italy present many points of contrast. One illustration is enough. We try to get all our love-making over before marriage. In Italy it takes place after. But then, unfortunately, it is not husband and wife who bill and coo, which the most virtuous of us would not condemn, but which on the contrary we should hail as a great improvement upon the present system; it is wife and lover who give themselves up to those sweet delights. This is a fashion we do not want in England. We are moderately happy in our own way; and depend upon it that is better than being immoderately happy in any other. Goldoni’s pieces sometimes show the influence of this system, although they do not directly deal with it. Some of THE ITALIAN STAGE. 269 his young ladies would be thought even more seraphic than the most meek of English heroines. They gladly marry any old and disagreeable suitor that Pantalone may be pleased to give them. But the reason is obvious. Marriage, instead of depriving them of any liberty, throws down all the barriers of restraint. Once surely united to a husband, they begin to think of love and pleasure. Oh, the charms of such a wedded state ! Despite of the comic writers who have since arisen, some with higher talents than Goldoni, the Italians still cling with fondness to the old master. His works are in- cessantly played in all the theatres. They are the stock pieces of the stage, never failing to amuse even when more modern productions will not. Everywhere he is in high favour. If we do not share to the fullest extent this admiration, we can at least sympathise with it, and with the exaggeration of enthusiasm which still causes the Italians to speak of him, as the Great Goldoni. ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. CONCLUDING REMARKS. AtrierI and Goldoni, like most authors who attain celebrity, have been accused of imitating or borrowing from other writers. In the case of Alfieri the charge has been already met. His imitations are the mere resemblances which link genius to genius without inter- fering with the independent manifestations of either. Unless an author should discover for himself a new lan- guage, a new literature, and a new material world, from which to draw his illustrations and incidents, it is scarcely possible that he will avoid being, more or less, like some predecessor or contemporary. But if the impress of an individual mind be left upon all he does ; if the ideas that pass through his brain—no matter how those ideas are suggested—take new form in the transition ; if they enter, bare and rough as the stone that issues from the quarry, and come forth hewn into harmony, the labour by which this change is brought about may well give him who labours the claim to be regarded as an original and creative worker. If the charge against Alfieri can be thus easily dis- missed, it is not so perhaps with that against Goldoni. 272 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. His pen was more prolific than that of his brother dra- matist. Writing as he did, he could scarcely have avoided contracting literary debts, of larger or smaller amount, with other writers. In the hurried chase after ideas in which he was constantly engaged, it was not likely that he could at all times be very particular as to what ground he traversed. Doubtless he oftentimes laid his hand on the first ideas he could meet, and they suffered more or less of change according to their adapt- ability to the purpose for which he required them. It says something for Goldoni, however, that the French, who complain the most of his borrowings, do not fail to admit that they themselves are under many obligations to him. Perhaps, therefore, if all accounts were made up, the balance might be found to lean more towards originality than otherwise. This question of borrowing or adapting from the works of others, has an importance in the present day, affecting as it does interests that touch us more nearly than do those of Italian comedy. I may perhaps be allowed, therefore, to extend the range of my observa- tions to our own time and our own stage, and to offer a few remarks upon the present state of the dramatic art amongst us. : If a French gentleman with a good knowledge of English were to visit London just now, he would no doubt be astonished to find, that in the city of fog and humidity in which he had arrived, full of so many odd and unfamiliar objects, so many sullen and dismal streets, so many gaunt and grimy houses, so much indecent bustle and unfeeling haste,—he would be astonished, I say, to find that in the midst of all this strangeness there would yet be something to recal his own dear Paris to his mind, and to transport him back again, in CONCLUDING REMARKS. 273 imagination, to the banks of the Seine. If he visited almost any one of our theatres, it would be there that these fond memories would be awakened. He would see at one house some elegant comedietta he had admired half a score of times, perhaps, at the Gymnase ; he would see at another, some touching little piece that more than once had brought tears into his eyes:as he sat in the stalls of the Francais; at 4 third he would see, through recollections that even now seem shaken by strong laughter, some whimsical farce in which Hyacinthe or Ravel had delighted the not overfastidious frequenters of the Palais Royal. We may judge with what surprise and gratification he would look upon these old friends in a new dress; and with what interest he would listen to every word that fell from the actor’s lips. His opinion of England would rise immediately. He would think us the most judicious nation in the world to come to Paris for our dramatic ideas, and to adopt them so thoroughly. He would see in such conduct, nothing but a delicate homage to the Wit and Inventive faculty of France, and from that moment would become prouder than ever of the land which had given him birth. But the first sensations of delight wearing away, he _would begin, perhaps, to have other feelings. He would look at the subject from a new point of view. He would say, perchance, “I have been witnessing the representa- tion of works by my fellow-countrymen translated into English ; but where are the names of my fellow-country- men? Why are they not printed in bold and legible letters upon the playbill?” Looking closer, he would find a good sturdy unpronounceable English name placed where those he sought should have been. We T 274 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. may imagine the change which would then come over his mind. “ Mon Dicu!” he would doubtless exclaim, “ what is this? Do my eyes deceive me? Where then is your English honesty and high principle which you parade in the eyes of all the world? What! you come to our stage ; you carry off all its best pieces; you translate them into your own barbarous tongue, and you give no credit, no honour, to the authors who have written these pieces! You do not recognise them in any way, but put your own literary men forward as authors, when they are merely skilful translators! It is frightful, it is shameful, it is perfidious!” And our imaginary French acquaintance would cease, doubtless, from that evening, to visit the London theatres; and if of a literary turn, would write home to some French journal a long exciting account of onr dishonesty, and call upon the dramatic authors of France to cry aloud for justice against all and everyone concerned in the theatrical matters of the English capital. I hope I shall not be thought an enemy to my country or its stage, if I say that I should feel inclined to join most heartily in the cries of this French gentleman, were he to utter them ; nay, more, that I should not be unwilling to assist him in his search after the means of reforming this abuse. It appears to me that the ques- tion of translation from the French, or “ adaptation,” as it is daintily called, is of an importance not usually accorded to it, and that it should be regarded from a point of view from which I do not remember to have ever seen it looked upon. Hitherto, it has almost inva- riably been the custom, when this question has been discussed, to associate it with others that tend to obscure the main point to be considered. It has been usual to CONCLUDING REMARKS. 275 talk of this subject in connexion with the decline of the poetic drama, and to attribute that decline to the practice which has so long prevailed of borrowing plays from our neighbours. This undoubtedly is a part of the subject, and a very important part; but there is another even more important still—I mean the question of lite- rary dishonesty involved in these borrowings. In a previous page I have described the process by which a French piece becomes English; but the satirical colouring given, or intended to be given, to that descrip- tion, may appear to surround the whole with an exag- gerated atmosphere. Let us now, therefore, look at the process with clear and impartial vision, and endeavour to ascertain, by a comparison of the original works with their English representatives, exactly the amount of re- semblance between the one and the other. The process which is called “ adaptation,” but which in truth is often only free translation, consists, as I have said, in changing French names and scenes into English ; altering local allusions, and in re-casting jokes or witticisms, that from the difference in the genius of the two languages are untranslatable. Let us take a few examples of the amount of Adaptation displayed in effecting the second of these changes; for of the first, by which Chamouillet becomes Mr. Sowerby, or Antonio Malaquez, Mr. Stanley Jones, and so on, it is not, I sup- pose, necessary to speak. In alittle Palais Royal piecé I have before me (“ Mon- sieur Va au Cercle ’’), one of the characters, exclaims : “Des gants jaunes..... des gants ‘ Jouvin’ a trois francs cinquante .... Mot qui me prive et wachéte que des gants ‘Tour de Nesle’ & vingt-neuf sous.” This in the English version is thus changed : — “Gloves! yellow gloves, too! Houbigant’s. The very T2 276 ALFIER1 AND GOLDONI. best quality ; positively four and sixpence a pair. at the very least, while I am obliged to content myself with shilling ones from Shoolbred’s ! ” Now what is this but an exact representation in English of the idea expressed in French? The Tour de Nesle is a cheap Paris glove shop. Shoolbred’s a similar London establishment. What is there here but the free translation of detail necessitated by a change of scene? Take another example from the same piece. “ Tiens !”? exclaims the person who has just com- mented upon the yellow gloves —“ je m’étais endormie en lisant le Mousquetatre.” It is not every London play-goer, perhaps, who knows that le Mousguetaire is the Paris daily journal of M. Alexandre Dumas, and if they knew it they would not think it a publication that an English lady living in London would be likely to read. Accordingly, the trans- lator says, perhaps in order to inflict some frightful vengeance upon Mr. Thackeray, perhaps to compliment him,— for the remark is open to two directly opposite interpretations,—“ Bless me, I’ve fallen asleep with ‘Pendennis’ in my hand! ” What Adaptation there is in this! Why is not our breath taken away by its cleverness ? Another example. Inacelebrated piece, “ Mercadet,” produced at the Gymnase about five years since, one of the characters says —“ Allez aux Champs Elysées, achetez une chaise de poste bien crottée,’ &c. Unfor- tunately we have no Champs Elysées, so it would be useless to refer anybody in London, who wanted a car- riage in all haste, to that delightful thoroughfare. What does the English “adaptor” do in this difficult emer- gency? Why, like a man thoroughly learned in London localities, he directs his friend to “Long Acre” for the CONCLUDING REMARKS. 277 travelling carriage required. These are samples of the amount of Change brought about in adapting French pieces to the English stage. With one more I finish these illustrations. “Ce monaco,” says one of the dramatis persone in the “ Histoire d’un Sou,” a comedy in one act, by Messrs. Clairville and Lambert-Thiboust, “et gue m’importe ce monaco? Ce monaco, je le bénis ; si 7’étais contréleur de la Monnaie, Madame, je supprimerais a Vinstant méme tous les sous et tous les centimes. Je voudrais que vous fussiez insolvable. Je serais la toujours a& vous erier, comme les petits ramoneurs, un petit sou, ma bonne dame.” ; Every frequenter of the Haymarket theatre cannot be supposed to remember what Saint Simon, with more force than delicacy, says of Monaco, namely, that it is “a rock from the middle of which we might, so to speak, spit beyond its narrow limits.” But a French audience remember this, or at least they know that a Monaco copper coin may be regarded as the representa- tive of littleness itself in connexion with money. Let us see now what changes this speech undergoes in order to assume an English form. “Do you imagine, Madam, that I am really anxious about a halfpenny? No, Madam, no. If I were the master of the Mint I would call in all the old halfpennies; and then every day I would call upon you, and looking up to that angelic countenance with my solitary sou in my hand, I would say, like the lowliest Lascar, ‘ Please, Madam, give me a halfpenny.’”’ Now, allowing all credit to the English “ adaptor ” for the clever and really witty manner in which his version is written, what is that version after all but a free-spirited T3 278 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. rendering of the original, for which, as an adaptation, all praise is due. But then the adaptor, on the strength of these and other alterations, calls himself “ author” of the piece. His name at least is on the title page, and there is not the most distant allusion to Messieurs Clair- ville and Lambert-Thiboust, or the slightest intimation that the English writer is in any way indebted to them for his work. Is this fair? Is it honest? Would such “adaptation” be permitted in any other department of literature ? It is not as though the English pieces differed in any striking and important points from the French. It is not as though new incidents were introduced, a new rendering given to the whole, or as though the idea rather than the details of the piece were used. Putting aside a few unimportant alterations besides those already named, scene mostly succeeds scene, incident follows inci- dent, effect follows effect, precisely as in the original work. ‘What the leading character says and does in one piece he says and does in the other ; he is surrounded by the same people; they all move onwards towards the same point ; they reach it in the same manner, and the curtain falls at the end on the same tableau. I will not deny that there is more alteration in some pieces than in others, as there are some pieces which are much more freely rendered into English than others. But what is at best the sum total of this alteration? Let us see and judge for ourselves. To commence then : the dialogue is generally curtailed; French conversation on the stage often showing an utter disbelief in the exhaustibility of human patience. Se- condly, little details, such as I have already alluded to, are added to furnish the London version with a London CONCLUDING REMARKS. 279 aspect ; and thirdly, the comic characters are altered in order to fit them more completely to the English come- dians who are to play them; or it may be that in some instances comic characters are altogether interpolated. When alteration takes place, it is'frequently of a kind accommodated to the physical or other peculiarities of the actor. For instance, M. Piston of the Paris stage is inclined to be short and thin; whereas Mr. Keeley of the London stage is, it is well known, inclined to be short and thick. Therefore when an opportunity occurs for im- pressing this latter fact upon the minds of the English audience we may be sure it is not lost sight of. If the French comedian, in reply to a sneer at his personal appearance, replies, in the bad French suited to the character he is assuming : Je suis peut-étre pas beau 2 homme, that remark comes from the English comedian thus expanded: “ Well, what I want in height I have in breadth. Lord! fif I was pulled out I should be six feet high.” Had not the physical conformation of the English actor justified this change, of course it would never have been made. Its value, and the value of some dozen similar changes scattered through a three act piece are not, I think it will be admitted, sufficiently important to justify an English writer in calling the work his own, the main idea of that work, its incidents, its arrangement, and the bulk of its dialogue being taken from a French author. As an instance of the closeness with which the French piece is often followed, let me give a scene as it appears in the two languages. Here is an extract from a Comedie-Vaudeville in three acts, by Messrs. Bayard and Biéville, called “Un Fils de Famille.” TA 280 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. SCENE VII. ARMAND, EMMELINE. (Armand & part, entrant et s'asseyant sur une table a drotte). Armand,.— Je v’ai jamais vu de physionomie plus en- gageante ! Emmeline (de méme.) —Si j osais le faire causer! .. . je saurais peut-étre. (Lille fait mine de rentrer & Pau- berge). Arm. (toussant.)—Hum ! Eim.— Ah, j’ai eu peur ! Arm.— Excusez, c’est que les camarades qui vous pressaient vivement tout & Vheure, ma belle enfant, ont di yous donner une si mauvaise opinion de la galanterie militaire. E'm.— Que vous voudriez m’en donner une meilleure. Arm.—Dame! par esprit de corps. . . . Aprés cela vous me direz peut-étre que ce ne sont pas ces lanciers-la que vous espériez voir ici. Em.—Ni ceux-la, ni d’autres. Arm.—Bah! et ce beau cavalier qui a traversé votre commune? (Elle se détourne en souriant.) Ce west pas lui qui vous a donné rendezvous ? im.—Ah seigneur Dieu! Non! Jene pourrais tant seulement pas le reconnaitre ; je n’ai vu que son uniforme. Ar.—Vrai! Ce n’est pas pour lui que vous étes venue & la ville? Em.—(s'asseyant sur le banc & gauche.) Mais non! Par exemple! en voila une idée! Ar.—Pourquoi donc? (li se léve et s’upproche du banc.) Em.—Eh bien! c’était pour la revue ; ca doit étre si CONCLUDING REMARKS. 281 joli! tout le régiment a cheval. Et puis le colonel — car je suis stire qu’il est bien, votre colonel? Hein! Comme vous me regardez ! Ar.—(s’approchant.) Tiens! ily ade quoi! Mais comment se fait-il que moi, qui parcours tous les bals champétres a trois lieues A la ronde je ne vous aie jamais rencontrée ? : Em.—Bah! C’est que vous n’avez pas fait attention. ... ily ena tant d’autres . . . et puis il est jeune? Ar. — Jeune—qui cela ? Em.—Ehb bien! lui, votre colonel. Ar.— (s’asseyant pres d’elle.) Ah mon colonel! oui, oui... et peut on savoir le nom de V’heureuse com- mune qui vous posséde ? Em.— Que vous importe. Ar.—C’est que j’imagine que cette commune-lA va devenir ma promenade favorite. Em.—C’est dréle! vous n’avez pas Vair de laimer. 4Ar.— Votre commune ? Em.—Non! votre colonel. Ar.—Ah ci mais que diable! qu’avez-vous done a me parler toujours de mon colonel ? Lim.—Moi? c’est que ca doit étre beau, un colonel avec des épaulettes sur un cheval qui caracole ! [And so on.] Now let me give an extract, from a piece in English, which I think will bear a strong resemblance to the above. Armand is changed into Albert, and Emmeline into Adeline. Albert.— (entering through the gate and seating him - self on a table ; aside.) I never beheld a more engaging physiognomy. [She pretends to enter the inn.] Alb.— (coughing loudly.) Hem! 282 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. Ade.—Oh how you frightened me ! Alb.—I beg ten thousand pardons. The fact is, that the rough conduct of my comrades to you just now, my charming fair one, has impressed you with a very sorry opinion of military gallantry. Ade.— Which you would reverse ? Aib.—For the honour of the regiment. Now you will tell me, perhaps, that these are not the Lancers you hoped to see. Ade.—Neither these, nor any others particular. Alb,—And this model centaur. (She turns away smiling.) It is not he who has appointed to meet you here ? Ade.— Goodness gracious! no. I should not know him from Adam if I met him. I only saw his uniform. Here follows a joke for which the English trans- lator evidently is not indebted to the French author. I print it in capitals to distinguish it from the rest. Alb.—(aside.) Anp Apam’s was THE Burrs. Nor it was not for him (sic.) that you visited this city ? Ade.— (seating herself on the form.) No, certainly not. Dear me, what a strange idea. Alb.—Why strange? (rising and going towards her.) Ade.—Why because it is. There’s a woman’s reason for you. I only came to see the review; it must be such a pretty sight all the regiment on horseback! And then the colonel. I’m sure your colonel must be a fine fellow — is he not? Law! how you stare at me! Alb.—(approaching her.) Hem! There’s a certain something! How is it that I, who frequent all the dads champétres for three leagues round, have never encoun- tered you? CONCLUDING REMARKS. 283 Ade.— Bah! because you had no eyes forme. There are so many others. Is he young? . Alb. — Young, who? . Ade.— Your colonel. Alb.— (seating himself beside her—she makes room Jor him.) Ah, my colonel. Yes, yes. And may I know the happy commune which possesses you? Ade,— What matters it to you? Al}.— Because I begin to suspect that this commune will become my favourite promenade. Ade.—How droll! I don’t think there’s much love between you. Alb. —Between me and your commune? Ade.—No, between you and your colonel. Alb'—Oh! what the devil Ade.—Oh, don’t talk of him, or he may appear. Alb.—Ha! ha! the devil? Ade.—No, your colonel. Alb.— What the Ade.— Hush ! Alb.—Oh! (rising partly — the form tips a little.) Ade.—Oh! Alb.—A thousand pardons. Ade.—There, sit still. And now tell me about your colonel. Alb.— Always that infernal colonel! Why can you talk of nothing else but my colonel ? Ade.—I — because he must be something out of the common— a colonel—with his epaulettes, on a charger that gracefully caracoles ! Such is the English version, and yet in despite of Messrs. Bayard and Biéville, who surely can lay almost as much claim to the English dialogue cited above as to 284 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. the French, their names are never once mentioned in connexion with the piece. An English writer, a member of the Dramatic Authors’ Society, unhesitatingly puts his name on the title-page, and no doubt would visit with the Law’s pains and penalties any miserable manager who played the piece without handing over the regular author’s dues. I think there is something more than a question of “legitimacy ” or “nationality ” involved here. Literary morality itself is concerned. If we thus readily seize upon the works of foreign writers and translate them into our own language, only introducing a new line or a new idea here and there, surely those foreign authors should at least have some share in the fame and the profit of their productions. Even if we deem that our alterations are sufficient to render the English work so dissimilar to the French that the law does not consider the one a translation of the other; even if we think thus (and I am by no means sure that the law would entertain a similar opinion) surely we ought at least to acknowledge that we are the “ adaptors,” not the authors, of the work. On the title-page of a piece in English that I have before me, I see in clear and conspicuous type, “ Adapted from the French Vaudeville ‘ Un Service a Blanchard’ ” This is straightforward ; this is honest ; but why is not the same system followed in every case. ‘Why do we not see upon the title-page of “Tit for Tat ” that it is adapted from the Comedie-Vaudeville, “Les Maris me font toujours rire; ” and upon that of “How stout you ’re getting,” that it is from the French piece entitled “Un Mari qui prend du ventre.” And yet, perhaps, the omission is but of little moment, for the title of “adaptor” would very often be as difficult to sustain as that of “author.” In numberless cases CONCLUDING REMARKS. 285 “translator” is the proper word, and translator should be used. What would be said if the same system prevailed in any other department of literature? Suppose I were to take Georges Sand’s charming and touching story “Fran- gois le Champi” (which Mr. Thackeray would seem to have been so inspired by when he conceived the plot of his “Esmond”), suppose I were to call Madeliene the miller’s wife, Martha ; /rangois, Frank, and so on; that I were to shift the scene from a province of France, to Devon- shire or Cornwall ; that I were to expunge such allusions and details as would not harmonise with English man- ners and English scenery, supplying their place by others more appropriate, or omitting them altogether; suppose I were to call the work “Frank the Cast-away,” or by some such title, and publish it as my own. Would not every English critic denounce me? Would they not all cry shame upon me for defrauding Madame Sand of her literary property ? Would not every journal expose my delinquency ; warn their readers against my book, and stop its sale? Assuredly! And yet if I committed exactly the same offence upon the stage, if I cobbled and patched up a French play instead of a French novel, my misdemeanour would pass unnoticed. Plenty of critics would be found to say where I had purloined my ideas, but not one to denounce me to justice. What a deplorable intellectual position we should soon be in, if all our literature was obtained in the same way as is that of the stage! If our books of travel, our memoirs, our scientific essays, our novels, were French works in an English dress, what a literary masquerade our ideas would move in! What a poor decrepid thing the English Imagination would become, self-deprived of every opportunity of exercising its powers! With all our 286 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. thinking done for us, we should be as incapable of in- tellectual exertion, as a nation which puts out its fighting is of repelling a foreign foe. England, mentally, would become as dead as Nineveh. Managers I know have said, and doubtless continue to say, that they are forced to fly to French sources for their dramatic productions, there being no longer any English authors capable of writing for the stage. It seems a strange charge this against the intellect of the nation. We must have sadly fallen off to deserve so unfavourable an accusation. The country which has given birth to the greatest dramatist the world ever saw, and which numbers on its dramatic muster-roll such names as Ben Jonson, Marston, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Congreve, Goldsmith, Sheridan, not to mention many others associated with the history of the stage in more recent years—that country must have lost much of its ancient talent. Instead of being one of the rich merchant princes af mind, it must have become a poor, broken-down, needy bankrupt, living upon the reminiscences of former affluence. I cannot quite make up my mind that it has suffered this degra- dation. But admitting for the sake of argument that the charge is correct, may we not inquire whether managers do as much as they have the power to do, in order to bring about a happier state of things? How is a young author treated, who a sends a piece to a London theatre ? His production is placed among a heap of other manu- scripts; dust steadily accumulates upon it, or mould grows upon its pages. If, after waiting many months, and out of patience and exasperated, he asks for his work, a search is made for it. Should an easy search be successful, the manuscript in due time reaches its CONCLUDING REMARKS. 287 writer’s hands, without apology, without remark. If unsuccessful, those hands may stretch themselves out in vain; they will never receive sheet or page of the missing work. Lest it should be thought that I am speaking without bounds, let me relate an instance (one of many which. have come under my own observation) of the treatment received by a young author, in this case a friend of mine, who some time since forwarded a piece to one of the London theatres. My friend had been, during the war, to the Crimea, had passed over the battle-field, and visited all the places which had become famous. While in the midst of these stirring scenes, he conceived the notion of embodying some of the ideas suggested by what he saw, in a dra- matic form. That my friend was not a very ambitious man, may be judged of by the fact that he wrote his piece in only one act. Upon returning to London he sent this modest production to one of the theatres ; pointed out that it dealt with a subject of popular in- terest, and begged that it might be examined with all convenient rapidity, as that interest would probably diminish with the first indications of Peace. This was in the month of September, 1855. Weeks rolled on. People began to think less and less of the war every day. They were growing weary of battle, suffering, and blood- shed. My friend wrote for the return of his piece. No answer was given him. He wrote again. Still no answer. Peace came, and the war was a thing of the past; the Crimea a page in history. My friend’s piece had no longer a claim upon the popular ear. He thought, however, that it might be remodelled, and again made available for the purposes of the scene. _ Having left London and become a neighbour of mine in Paris, he 288 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. could not himself call at the theatre, and, to write, he had found was useless. He deputed a friend, therefore, to inquire for the piece. His deputy undertook the mis- sion. Not one call, but some half dozen calls, did he make, but all were of no effect. The manager was very sorry, but he had mislaid the little drama; he would look for it, it should be left out by the following Tuesday. The Tuesday came, as all Tuesdays will come, but not the piece with it. It had not been discovered, but it should be sent to any address named; and so on. To conclude, my friend has not yet received his piece, has long ceased all inquiry for it, and consoles himself for his loss as he best may. Now, let me ask whether a young writer in any other department of literature is thus scurvily treated. I do not believe there is a publisher in London, who, upon re- ceiving a manuscript, even from a totally unknown author, would not direct some amount of attention to it, and in. the course of from one to three months, decide whether to accept or reject the work. I do not mean to say that even publishers have not a few oddities in their treat- ment of young authors, but at least they take care of the manuscripts submitted to them, and surrenderthem when asked for. But a play once within the walls of a theatre, it would seem as though all trace of it were for ever afterwards lost. It has been sucked down into a mael- strom of Neglect, and the eddies of after diligence cannot bring it up again to the surface. I believe it has become the general custom among managers, never to read a piece submitted to them by an unknown writer. I was in conversation once with the daughter of one of our London managers, and she assured me that every season her father received a pile of manuscript pieces as high as herself. I asked her if , CONCLUDING REMARKS. 289 the pieces were ever looked at. ‘Oh, yes,” was the reply. “We glance at the first few pages of the most legible, but they are always the same, all rubbish alike ; and so we send them away, or write to the authors to fetch them.” Of course a hurried glance at the first few pages of a work, perhaps in five acts, is a very satisfactory and con- clusive manner of ascertaining the merit of the whole ; but it is something to receive even this amount of attention. It seems to me that, regarded from almost any point of view, the subject upon which I am treating is of the utmost importance. How, for instance, can we hope to have a high-class drama when we lack the stepping- stones by which it is to be reached? For few will deny that in the drama, as in every other art, we must com- mence by modest efforts if we would rise to greatness. What writer, unless more than usually gifted or more than usually vain, begins with three volumes? Does he not rather begin on a much more humble scale, — a short tale, an essay, a stanza, — and by means of these efforts guide his steps to higher and more laborious works? And this gradual process is essentially necessary in the drama. There is so much of what may be called me- chanism, in the construction of a good acting piece, that, unless a man be born with a natural capacity for writing plays in five acts, he must study the workings of the stage itself, and make himself intimate with even its most insignificant details, before he can hope to succeed. Do we not see illustrations of the want of this necessary knowledge every day? Are not five-act plays continually written utterly without that well-ordered arrangement of scene and act, without which no piece can be suc- cessful in representation? Critics often say of such U 290 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. productions that they are very good, but fit only for the closet. This, to my mind, is the most perfect con- demnation. It is like saying a novel is excellent, but unreadable. A play is, or should be, something to be represented. If it will not admit of representation, it fails in its most essential quality, and falls as far short of its intention as does a story, meant to be interesting, but which is only provocative of slumber. Is it not necessary, then, that the young dramatist should have, what the young novelist has, — opportunity for entering upon the lowest step of his art, and of pro- gressively working his way to the highest? The be- ginner in fiction can send his first short sketch to a magazine. Whereis the first short sketch of a young dramatist to find admission ? A result of the present system of “ adaptation,’’ which tends to keep all new talent from the stage, is the facility with which pieces are produced by the established dra- matist. When Shadwell seized upon “L’ Avare” and adapted it to the stage of his day, long before Fielding’s “ Miser” had sprung from the same source, he said: “T believe I may advance without vanity” (I am quot- ing Shadwell through M. Taschereau), “that Moliére has lost nothing in my hands. No French piece has ever been handled by one of our poets, however poor he may have been, without being improved. It is not from want of invention or want of wit that we borrow from the French ; but it is from idleness: it is also from idleness that I have made use of Moliére.” I suppose some of our rapid adapters would feel very much inclined to echo these words. No doubt it is from idleness that they make use of French pieces. It is so easy to sit down, and, with ideas as ready to the mind as pen, ink, and paper are to the hand, to dash off an act, CONCLUDING REMARKS. 291 while the poor simpleton who wishes to be original would not perhaps have found a single thought capable of be- ing worked into form! Such light labour can well afford to claim but a light recompense. But would the same recompense requite the man who, perhaps, had la- boured for days, where the other had laboured for hours ? J have a three-act drama in English before me. The “author” is candid enough to admit, in a little note on - the back of the title-page, that the piece is an “ adapta- tion” from the French. But he adds: “This version was written in thirteen hours!”? Three acts in thirteen hours! A rapid copyist could barely do more than tran- scribe the piece in that time. We may judge then to what extent the piece is “adapted.” The usual changes are made in unimportant details, and some twenty or thirty lines are added at the end. With these exceptions, the piece is nothing more or less than a direct translation —a translation of ability I admit, whether the almost incredibly short space of time in which it was performed be regarded or not. What writer, depending simply upon his own inventive powers, could compete with such rapid work as this? It would be impossible. He must go to the wall ; become mental bankrupt ; while his more successful rival, trading on a capital of borrowed ideas, would continue to wear the purple and fine linen of reputation, and to enjoy the more solid and substantial realities of success. I hope it will be seen that, in offering the dbove remarks, I direct my observations against a system rather than against individuals. The writers of the present day did not introduce that system (we must go back to the infancy of the stage to find its commence- ment), and they are not therefore wholly responsible for its faults. J am sufficiently national to believe that we v2 292 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. possess authors who have dramatic ability that would do honour to any stage. The wit and spirit with which many a French piece is rendered into English are alone proofs of this. I only deplore that that wit and spirit are not more worthily employed. Ifwe have authors, then, what is wanting in order that we should have a stage? Are there not abundance of subjects which invite the dramatist to make use of them? Are not the events which take place in our own day and in our own country as highly dramatic, as full of interest, as the events which have taken place in any age and in any country? Ido not believe in specially golden ages or poetic ages. There is just as much poetry, romance, and human emotion in the events of our daily life, even of our daily commercial life, as in the events which illustrate the lives of wandering knights- errant, Crusaders, Bards, ancient warriors, and world- renowned heroes. As Emmerson says: “I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.” Wherever human life is, with all its wondrous and complicated incidents of passion and feeling, there is poetry ; there, the real and great drama of human existence is being played. Almost from the first moment we begin to read, we imbibe the idea that there is no poetry out of ancient castles, glittering palaces, halls of state, and grand assemblies — that there is no elevated or delicate senti- ment except among tearful maidens in silk and satin; sighing knights in armour, dreamy pages, courtly che- valiers, and magnificent monarchs! Our eyes are blinded by the dust of time. When we re-open them we see everything through acloud! Poets of all degree CONCLUDING REMARKS. 293 have perhaps much to answer for, for thus leading the | mind astray. Let us look around us, and among ourselves. Our own day has its incidents of tragedy, comedy, and farce, and in a hundred forms, that in other and earlier days were unknown, — incidents that have grown with our growth, and sprung out of the changes brought about by time. Look at the daily newspaper! What his- tories are written there! What sad stories of guilt and shame! What touching narratives of want and misery! What stirring records of adventure, of bravery, of devo- tion, of heroism! Every page seems to throb with life. In a single copy of the “Times” there are themes for the poet, the playwright, and the novelist ; themes that renew themselves each day, and that are inexhaustible. We need not fear, then, any want of subjects for our stage. Our difficulty will be in the affluence, rather than in the poverty of the materials at our command. Can it be said that there is any lack of able inter- preters for the creations of the dramatist ? People will tell us that we have no actors now, as our fathers, our grandfathers, and our great grandfathers were told before us. Well! perhaps we have no actors who resemble the celebrities of a past age. For originality’s sake it is better, I think, that they do not. At any rate, we have actors whom we admire and appreciate; whom we feel to be possessed of that wondrous power which embodies the inmost thoughts and fancies of the author. If they are not so good as the performers of another genera- tion, we of the present generation are at least spared the contrast, for we know only those who are our contempo- raries. It would be useless to complain of a loss it is impossible for us to feel. If, too, we have not so many great actors as formerly adorned the stage, at least we 294 ALFIERI AND GOLDONI. have enough for our purposes. When did a London theatre ever close its doors because actors could not be found? Doors have been closed because an audience was vainly sought for, but never, that am I aware of, in the other case. Have we not, in tragedy, an actor whose masterly deli- neations and whose courageous enterprise have secured a home to our poetic drama, when every other dramatic home has been pitilessly forbidden it ? Do we not see in the performances of Phelps nearly all the qualities that it is possible to unite in a tragic actor ?— great feeling, passion, high poetic appreciation, and good physical ca- pacity? There may have been “properer men” in stature, colour of hair, and such like recommendations ; there can have been few with a wider grasp of high im- personating power. If we have no Mrs. Siddons to bear him company, we have at least many actresses whose talents are not insignificant, —Miss Cushman, who is of the same stock as ourselves, and who has almost become naturalised amongst us; Miss Helen Faucit ; Miss Van- denhoff ; Miss Glyn, and others. Then, in comedy, have we not Keeley with his rich and stolid humour; Buckstone with his sunny and warm- hearted drollery ; Wright with his strong whimsicality ; Compton with his dry, hard manner ; Charles Matthews with his wonderful versatility, sprightliness, and un- flagging animation ; Leigh Murray with his gentlemanly ease and coolness ; Webster so finished and so elaborate ; Mrs. Keeley overflowing with buoyant animal spirits, and full of daring energy and power ; Mrs. Stirling with her charming natural manner, and her true comedy appre- ciation. Then in that delicate sister art, which is neither comedy nor tragedy, but a link connecting the two, are there not Robson and Wigan, melting us to tears one CONCLUDING REMARKS. 295 moment, rousing us to laughter the next. And even as I write these lines other actors, such as Mr. Dillon and Mr. Toole, are dawning upon the horizon of popular favour, and will doubtless in due time reach its meri- dian. There seems no reason, then, why we should not have a stage — why we should not eat at our own feast, instead of feeding upon the broken victuals of the French drama. Much as the spread of popular literature may have in- fluenced public taste, diverting it from theatrical scenes to the almost equally dramatic scenes of the newspaper and the novel, there are still many lovers of the stage who continue to visit our theatres. The cheap book and the cheap journal have done much, doubtless, in the present. day, to draw off attention from the stage. They have to some extent supplied its place, but they never will utterly supersede it. The love for dramatic representa- tion cannot wholly die while men have the feelings and passions of humanity. May I not ask here whether people have not turned away from the stage because little by little it has ceased to be English; because it has ceased to deal with our own manners and our own circumstances, and has drawn all its inspirations from foreign sources? If such be the case, would it not be possible to entice the truants back ? Speak them fairly and agree to.treat them well, and they will perhaps return, At any rate we might try. THE END. Lonpon: Printed by Spottiswoopr & Co., New-street-Square.