Chapter 120

"Ravenna, 8bre 8°, 1820.

"Foscolo's letter is exactly the thing wanted; firstly, because he is a man of genius; and, next, because he is an Italian, and therefore the best judge of Italics. Besides,

"He's more an antique Roman than a Dane;

that is, he is more of the ancient Greek than of the modern Italian. Though 'somewhat,' as Dugald Dalgetty says, 'too wild and sa_l_vage' (like 'Ronald of the Mist'), 'tis a wonderful man, and my friends Hobhouse and Rose both swear by him; and they are good judges of men and of Italian humanity.

"Here are in all _two_ worthy voices gain'd:

Gifford says it is good 'sterling genuine English,' and Foscolo says that the characters are right Venetian. Shakspeare and Otway had a million of advantages over me, besides the incalculable one of being _dead_ from one to two centuries, and having been both born blackguards (which ARE such attractions to the gentle living reader); let me then preserve the only one which I could possibly have--that of having been at Venice, and entered more into the local spirit of it. I claim no more.

"I know what Foscolo means about Calendaro's _spitting_ at Bertram; _that's_ national--the objection, I mean. The Italians and French, with those 'flags of abomination,' their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else--in your face almost, and therefore _object_ to it on the stage as _too familiar_. But we who _spit_ nowhere--but in a man's face when we grow savage--are not likely to feel this. Remember _Massinger_, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach--

"Lord! _thus_ I _spit_ at thee and at thy counsel!

Besides, Calendaro does _not_ spit in Bertram's face; he spits _at_ him, as I have seen the Mussulmans do upon the ground when they are in a rage. Again, he _does not in fact despise_ Bertram, though he affects it--as we all do, when angry with one we think our inferior. He is angry at not being allowed to die in his own way (although not afraid of death); and recollect that he suspected and hated Bertram from the first. Israel Bertuccio, on the other hand, is a cooler and more concentrated fellow: he acts upon _principle and impulse_; Calendaro upon _impulse_ and _example_.

"So there's argument for you.

"The Doge _repeats_;--_true_, but it is from engrossing passion, and because he sees _different_ persons, and is always obliged to recur to the _cause_ uppermost in his mind. His speeches are long:--true, but I wrote for the _closet_, and on the French and Italian model rather than yours, which I think not very highly of, for all your _old_ dramatists, who are long enough too, God knows:--_look_ into any of them.

"I return you Foscolo's letter, because it alludes also to his private affairs. I am sorry to see such a man in straits, because I know what they are, or what they were. I never met but three men who would have held out a finger to me: one was yourself, the other William Bankes, and the other a nobleman long ago dead: but of these the first was the only one who offered it while I _really_ wanted it; the second from good will--but I was not in need of Bankes's aid, and would not have accepted it if I had (though I love and esteem him); and the _third_ --------.[82]

"So you see that I have seen some strange things in my time. As for your own offer, it was in 1815, when I was in actual uncertainty of five pounds. I rejected it; but I have not forgotten it, although you probably have.

"P.S. Foscolo's Ricciardo was lent, with the _leaves uncut_, to some Italians, now in villeggiatura, so that I have had no opportunity of hearing their decision, or of reading it. They seized on it as Foscolo's, and on account of the beauty of the paper and printing, directly. If I find it takes, I will reprint it _here_. The Italians think as highly of Foscolo as they can of any man, divided and miserable as they are, and with neither leisure at present to read, nor head nor heart to judge of any thing but extracts from French newspapers and the Lugano Gazette.

"We are all looking at one another, like wolves on their prey in pursuit, only waiting for the first falling on to do unutterable things. They are a great world in chaos, or angels in hell, which you please; but out of chaos came Paradise, and out of hell--I don't know what; but the devil went _in_ there, and he was a fine fellow once, you know.

"You need never favour me with any periodical publication, except the Edinburgh Quarterly, and an occasional Blackwood; or now and then a Monthly Review; for the rest I do not feel curiosity enough to look beyond their covers.

"To be sure I took in the British finely. He fell precisely into the glaring trap laid for him. It was inconceivable how he could be so absurd as to imagine us serious with him.

"Recollect, that if you put my name to 'Don Juan' in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in Chancery, on the plea of its containing the _parody_;--such are the perils of a foolish jest. I was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, I believe; and you may be sure that the Noels would not let it slip. Now I prefer my child to a poem at any time, and so should you, as having half a dozen.

"Let me know your notions.

"If you turn over the earlier pages of the Huntingdon peerage story, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early Plantagenet days. I found it in my own pedigree in the reign of John and Henry, and gave it to my daughter. It was also the name of Charlemagne's sister. It is in an early chapter of Genesis, as the name of the wife of Lamech; and I suppose Ada is the feminine of _Adam_. It is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family; for which reason I gave it to my daughter."

[Footnote 82: The paragraph is left thus imperfect in the original.]

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