90
90
91
91
91
92
92
92
92
92
92
92
92
92
92
95, 96
96
96
nrs.
PAGT
„
81
84
89
82
Pons
90
. 91
red
14
ch and
Adver¬
Supple¬
0.4.
ncele¬
Pery by
Coun¬
oration
which
peared
udos);
Fluding
immer.
Sto da
have
coni-
tIg ex¬
S and
indus¬
distin-
refer-
Recent
of the
ere, in
ie part
past the siummer-palaces of the Venetian
nöbilitg that lined the reed-fringed banks
of the Brenta. To have put out to sea to
scek a city, to be passing as in dream throngh
streets of water that wasled against marble,
to know that this was by common consent
the new Sybaris of Europe“ where night
was as day and thie domino ruled for Six
months out of the twelve, was to feel alreadj¬
that revolution of values, that thrill of dis¬
guise which makes the quintessence of
Carnival.
The whole antique facade of the Venctian
State as it had stood in the days of the
Republic’s vigour and glory was still dis¬
played to the eyes of the curions visitor.
Even the quizzical glance of Goethe, as late
as 1786, lost a listle of its sharpness when he
saw the Doge and his train disembark from
their barges of State for the High Mass at
St. Justina.
First the full violet dresses of the Savii sthe
Sages entrusted with the ministerial port¬
folios], next the ample red robes ofthe Senator¬
are unfolded upon the pavement, and lastly
when the old Doge, adorned with his golden
Phrygian cap. in his long golden fular and bis
ermine cloak, steps out of the vessel—when all
this, I say, takes place in a little square before
the portal of a church, one feels as if one were
looking at an old worked tapesiry, cxccedingly
well designed and coloured.
In these shoes and robes had stepped the
men under whose rule the Republic had
planted the Lion on the cities of Dalmatia,
dug its claws into the terra Mrma of the Piave
and Adige provinces, filled the Adriatie and
the Mediterranean with its comnnerce, sent
the long lines of its caravans far into Asin,
sacked Constantinople to wrest from its own
suzerain, the Roman Emperor, a quarter of
his domain, and stood growling at bay in the
end before infuriated Europe leagued against
it at Cambray. The Lion’s wings were
clipped now, and other policies prevailed.
* To encourage idleness and luxury in the
nobility, says Addlison agrecably,
cherish ignorance and licentiousness in the
clergy, to keep alive a continual faction in
the common people to breed dissen¬
sions among the nobles of the Terra Firma,?'
such are become#the refined parts of
Venetian wisdom. The Doge might still
be clothed in the mystie dignitg that made
him, as it were, both Prince and Pontiff—.
in both völes the audacious double of the
Emperor at Byzantium. He might still, go
forth on Ascension Day in the gilt and
carpeted Bucentaur (if the weather forecast
made it safe) to wed his Adriatie bride:
Desponsamus te, mare, in siqnum veri per¬
petuique dominit. He might still be attended
with canopy and lights, let loose the flight of
dloves on Palm Sunday from his balcony, and,
like the Pope, wash the feet of twelve poor
fishermen. What lag beneath the sumptuons
pageantry? Himself the mere instrument of
the Ducal Councillors set to guard him, he
*MEMOIRES DE JACoUES CASANoVA. (Tome
Premier. Paris; Editions de la Sirene.)
Tnx MzmolRs or JacoUEs CASANovA. (Two
volumes. Navarre Society. 63 38. net)
CASANovA, ADvENTURER ANn Loven. By
JosEPH LE GRAs. Translated bg FRAxeis SrEUakr.
(John Lane. 128. 6d. net.)
CASANovA’s Honzcostisd. By Anrntn Schyirz¬
Gen. Translated by Enzs and CEnan Paen.
TBrentano. 78. 6d. net.)
FovR ComEplEs. By CakLo GoLpost. Edited by
Ciarrokn Bax. (Cecil Pahner 258. uct.)
Tne Lian. Bv Canno Gorpost. Translated by
Gkack Lovar FHAsER.
(Selwen and Blonnt.
78. 6d. net.)
Tax Goop-Hrnorken Labiks.
By CARLo
GoLboNf. Translated by Rienanb AubISGToN.
(Beaumont Press. 25s. uct.)
S Pehe e 80
n e ee en e e
lose a prized position. In the Collegio the
Splendlonr of wag e#lles, beflore tie gorgeols
Sages debate administration. The Arng.
booth of the celebrated Dr. Vitall, healer
with an Austrian martinet in command,
of all ills, Brighella and Pautaloon perform
mnakes a better show of uniforins thian of
their lusst. Women, closked and veiled in
weapons. Suits of armour, old swordis,
black lace, flit be with mannish three¬
obsolete firelocks, eneumber the arsenals;
cornered hats cockedl higir on their powdered
but at least the Republic has the secret of
curls; an Abste of suspiciouslg' trim and
an imperishable biscuit, a specimen of
girlish figure steals throughi the shades
which, dating from 1669, was dug up intact
of the ercadleit is all a bewilderment !
Stuprises and deceptions.
in 1821. Nothing could be more resplendent
than the Admirals, in their full-bottomed
Is it possible, moreover, to say wiiere tlie
wigs, long trains, laced coats and velvet
farces of Carnivel begin or end? In the
breeches; but at the great arsenal, a French
penurions magnificence of great patrician
traveller notes, the shipwrights amuse thein¬
houses a slice of water-melon is offered on
selves nearly all day without working.
silver in a salon of stucco Cupiels, and tho
Butmen, whetherthey work or play, mnust be
guests go home, as de Brosses ungracionslg
grumbles, la kéte lihre et lerentre creue. While
governed; and, as in past centuries, the real
power over Venice was wielded still by those
the courtesen (as the seme experimenter
formidable appendlices to the Constitution,
unplessently discovered) freezes presump¬
the Ten and the Three. he Conneil of Ten,
tion with the digeitg of a princess, thie
petricien lady may be only too complaisant.
originallg appointed after the great Tiepoline
For an elegant recention or an intimate
conspiracy of the fourteenth century to
little ball one seeks e convent-parlour,
watch over the safety of the State, now
wrestled in secret with an infinitg of affairs;
where the nuns with their petite coiffure
with the problem of preserving a perfect
charante prove the wittiest of hostesses.
Since the churches sciorn their façades with
neutrality, with the riddle of reviving by
baroque ballets of cherubs and martyrs
alternate doses of protection and freedom
and embellish their Vespers with operstie
a moribund trade that nothing coulel save
after thie fatal discovery of the Cape route;
melodies, it is but fair that the theatres
should take tlie names of Saints—and a
and then (by way of relief), with the pro¬
compliment also to the elergy who write
priety of allowing only black gondolas as a
the cornedics. Even here, thougli prepared
check on extravagance; with the diameter
for fentesy, the newcomer was apt to be a
of skirts; or with the drafting of a decrce
trifle disconcerted. Goethie records that
of expulsion against a certain actress who
he“came homne leughing from # tregedy,?
was responsible for the foreign ambassadors
and it must have been mildly surprising to
wasting too much of their time. Even
sce Cortolanus as e ballet. Tiie classical
more industrious, emblazoned with an even
tregie theines hadl sprouted the lignt wings
mere Hlambovant secrecy, were the labours
of opera, with curious results. Addlison
of the Three Inquisitors of State. In the
took deep umbrage whien esked to“ hear
Palace, beneath the leads where their prisoners
one of the rough old Romens squeaking
were lodged, they sat, the Red Councillor
through the mouth“ of a castrato. But in
between the two Blacks, and considered in an
fact the audience were inclined to intervene
atmosphere of close mystery how to stop the
if anything too gloom“, such as a parricidle,
abominable language of the boatnien; what
were put before them; nor could one feel
action to take on the report of“ our familiar,
sure that at the most desperate junctures
the Abate A. P., that a philosophie dictionary
the sooty vizards of the four secrosanet
in French was on sale in a bookshop near
buffoons of Venice, Brighella, Herlequin,
San Samele; whiether or not Signor Piero
Pantaloon and the Doctor, would not
Antonio Gratarol, Secretary to the Senate,
protrude upon the scene.
had been lampooned in Connt Carlo Gozzi's
There is no clue to the spirit of this civiliza¬
comedy 1I Droghe d’Amore; and, if so,
tion like that supplied by these venerable
whether, in view of the affection felt for the
types of mirth. The Venetian clowns with
playwright by Signora Catarina Dolfin¬
their fellow-gossips from the South pierce
Tron, the wife of the Procuratore di San
again and again through that vision of
Marco, it mighit not be wisest to let that
eighteenth-century Venice for the enjoyment
hothead Gratarol do something foolish that
of which Italy owes so much to Molmente,
would allow the Tribunal to proceed against
France to Philippe Monnier, and England to
him rather than the other. Laws became a
Vernon Lee. We meet them in ever fresh
mockery if they could be broken without
disguises among the characters of history,
somebody being punnished. In the good old
and notably in the three salient figures of tho
days there had been less roundabout methods
epoch, Casanova, Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi.
for the disposal of nuisances; indeed one
If we unmask Casanova it is surelz' Puleinella
understood that still in that cupboard up¬
who stands betrayed." Le nez d’aigle
but no one knew the righit
accentué, un vrai nez de rapace indiquant
there should be
dose any longer
des instinets de chasse, de rapt, et de pour¬
a minute, though, somewhere in the files.
suite de la proie''’the description of which
One had last made an attempt of the kind
this phrase is a part is, perhaps, the best thing
in 1767 when that man was giving so much
in M. Octave Uzanne’s rather turgid introdue¬
trouble in the Balkans. From the doors
tion to the first volume in the splendid Sirène
that closed in these dread deliberations
edition of the" Mémoires.* Although the
there flapped forth to execute the decrees
publishers have been precluded from issuing
the funereal silhouette of the Captain of the
an integral text?' from the original manu¬
Archers, Cristofolo Cristofoli—that terrible
script in the keeping of the Brockhaus family'
Messer Grande, the shadow of whose hooked
of Leipzig (a deprivation to which we easile
nose and sable cloak was enough to quell a
reconcile ourselves), they have carefully
riot on the Piazza, and to set the whole
collated the standard French version of
brotherhood of rogues, quacks and masons
shivering.
Laforgue (1826-1838) and the German edition
of von Schutz (1822 1428), with any later
The hundred eyes of Messer Grande,
the gliding police-gondola of his allies, the] versions of importance. Admirable orint and
90
91
91
91
92
92
92
92
92
92
92
92
92
92
95, 96
96
96
nrs.
PAGT
„
81
84
89
82
Pons
90
. 91
red
14
ch and
Adver¬
Supple¬
0.4.
ncele¬
Pery by
Coun¬
oration
which
peared
udos);
Fluding
immer.
Sto da
have
coni-
tIg ex¬
S and
indus¬
distin-
refer-
Recent
of the
ere, in
ie part
past the siummer-palaces of the Venetian
nöbilitg that lined the reed-fringed banks
of the Brenta. To have put out to sea to
scek a city, to be passing as in dream throngh
streets of water that wasled against marble,
to know that this was by common consent
the new Sybaris of Europe“ where night
was as day and thie domino ruled for Six
months out of the twelve, was to feel alreadj¬
that revolution of values, that thrill of dis¬
guise which makes the quintessence of
Carnival.
The whole antique facade of the Venctian
State as it had stood in the days of the
Republic’s vigour and glory was still dis¬
played to the eyes of the curions visitor.
Even the quizzical glance of Goethe, as late
as 1786, lost a listle of its sharpness when he
saw the Doge and his train disembark from
their barges of State for the High Mass at
St. Justina.
First the full violet dresses of the Savii sthe
Sages entrusted with the ministerial port¬
folios], next the ample red robes ofthe Senator¬
are unfolded upon the pavement, and lastly
when the old Doge, adorned with his golden
Phrygian cap. in his long golden fular and bis
ermine cloak, steps out of the vessel—when all
this, I say, takes place in a little square before
the portal of a church, one feels as if one were
looking at an old worked tapesiry, cxccedingly
well designed and coloured.
In these shoes and robes had stepped the
men under whose rule the Republic had
planted the Lion on the cities of Dalmatia,
dug its claws into the terra Mrma of the Piave
and Adige provinces, filled the Adriatie and
the Mediterranean with its comnnerce, sent
the long lines of its caravans far into Asin,
sacked Constantinople to wrest from its own
suzerain, the Roman Emperor, a quarter of
his domain, and stood growling at bay in the
end before infuriated Europe leagued against
it at Cambray. The Lion’s wings were
clipped now, and other policies prevailed.
* To encourage idleness and luxury in the
nobility, says Addlison agrecably,
cherish ignorance and licentiousness in the
clergy, to keep alive a continual faction in
the common people to breed dissen¬
sions among the nobles of the Terra Firma,?'
such are become#the refined parts of
Venetian wisdom. The Doge might still
be clothed in the mystie dignitg that made
him, as it were, both Prince and Pontiff—.
in both völes the audacious double of the
Emperor at Byzantium. He might still, go
forth on Ascension Day in the gilt and
carpeted Bucentaur (if the weather forecast
made it safe) to wed his Adriatie bride:
Desponsamus te, mare, in siqnum veri per¬
petuique dominit. He might still be attended
with canopy and lights, let loose the flight of
dloves on Palm Sunday from his balcony, and,
like the Pope, wash the feet of twelve poor
fishermen. What lag beneath the sumptuons
pageantry? Himself the mere instrument of
the Ducal Councillors set to guard him, he
*MEMOIRES DE JACoUES CASANoVA. (Tome
Premier. Paris; Editions de la Sirene.)
Tnx MzmolRs or JacoUEs CASANovA. (Two
volumes. Navarre Society. 63 38. net)
CASANovA, ADvENTURER ANn Loven. By
JosEPH LE GRAs. Translated bg FRAxeis SrEUakr.
(John Lane. 128. 6d. net.)
CASANovA’s Honzcostisd. By Anrntn Schyirz¬
Gen. Translated by Enzs and CEnan Paen.
TBrentano. 78. 6d. net.)
FovR ComEplEs. By CakLo GoLpost. Edited by
Ciarrokn Bax. (Cecil Pahner 258. uct.)
Tne Lian. Bv Canno Gorpost. Translated by
Gkack Lovar FHAsER.
(Selwen and Blonnt.
78. 6d. net.)
Tax Goop-Hrnorken Labiks.
By CARLo
GoLboNf. Translated by Rienanb AubISGToN.
(Beaumont Press. 25s. uct.)
S Pehe e 80
n e ee en e e
lose a prized position. In the Collegio the
Splendlonr of wag e#lles, beflore tie gorgeols
Sages debate administration. The Arng.
booth of the celebrated Dr. Vitall, healer
with an Austrian martinet in command,
of all ills, Brighella and Pautaloon perform
mnakes a better show of uniforins thian of
their lusst. Women, closked and veiled in
weapons. Suits of armour, old swordis,
black lace, flit be with mannish three¬
obsolete firelocks, eneumber the arsenals;
cornered hats cockedl higir on their powdered
but at least the Republic has the secret of
curls; an Abste of suspiciouslg' trim and
an imperishable biscuit, a specimen of
girlish figure steals throughi the shades
which, dating from 1669, was dug up intact
of the ercadleit is all a bewilderment !
Stuprises and deceptions.
in 1821. Nothing could be more resplendent
than the Admirals, in their full-bottomed
Is it possible, moreover, to say wiiere tlie
wigs, long trains, laced coats and velvet
farces of Carnivel begin or end? In the
breeches; but at the great arsenal, a French
penurions magnificence of great patrician
traveller notes, the shipwrights amuse thein¬
houses a slice of water-melon is offered on
selves nearly all day without working.
silver in a salon of stucco Cupiels, and tho
Butmen, whetherthey work or play, mnust be
guests go home, as de Brosses ungracionslg
grumbles, la kéte lihre et lerentre creue. While
governed; and, as in past centuries, the real
power over Venice was wielded still by those
the courtesen (as the seme experimenter
formidable appendlices to the Constitution,
unplessently discovered) freezes presump¬
the Ten and the Three. he Conneil of Ten,
tion with the digeitg of a princess, thie
petricien lady may be only too complaisant.
originallg appointed after the great Tiepoline
For an elegant recention or an intimate
conspiracy of the fourteenth century to
little ball one seeks e convent-parlour,
watch over the safety of the State, now
wrestled in secret with an infinitg of affairs;
where the nuns with their petite coiffure
with the problem of preserving a perfect
charante prove the wittiest of hostesses.
Since the churches sciorn their façades with
neutrality, with the riddle of reviving by
baroque ballets of cherubs and martyrs
alternate doses of protection and freedom
and embellish their Vespers with operstie
a moribund trade that nothing coulel save
after thie fatal discovery of the Cape route;
melodies, it is but fair that the theatres
should take tlie names of Saints—and a
and then (by way of relief), with the pro¬
compliment also to the elergy who write
priety of allowing only black gondolas as a
the cornedics. Even here, thougli prepared
check on extravagance; with the diameter
for fentesy, the newcomer was apt to be a
of skirts; or with the drafting of a decrce
trifle disconcerted. Goethie records that
of expulsion against a certain actress who
he“came homne leughing from # tregedy,?
was responsible for the foreign ambassadors
and it must have been mildly surprising to
wasting too much of their time. Even
sce Cortolanus as e ballet. Tiie classical
more industrious, emblazoned with an even
tregie theines hadl sprouted the lignt wings
mere Hlambovant secrecy, were the labours
of opera, with curious results. Addlison
of the Three Inquisitors of State. In the
took deep umbrage whien esked to“ hear
Palace, beneath the leads where their prisoners
one of the rough old Romens squeaking
were lodged, they sat, the Red Councillor
through the mouth“ of a castrato. But in
between the two Blacks, and considered in an
fact the audience were inclined to intervene
atmosphere of close mystery how to stop the
if anything too gloom“, such as a parricidle,
abominable language of the boatnien; what
were put before them; nor could one feel
action to take on the report of“ our familiar,
sure that at the most desperate junctures
the Abate A. P., that a philosophie dictionary
the sooty vizards of the four secrosanet
in French was on sale in a bookshop near
buffoons of Venice, Brighella, Herlequin,
San Samele; whiether or not Signor Piero
Pantaloon and the Doctor, would not
Antonio Gratarol, Secretary to the Senate,
protrude upon the scene.
had been lampooned in Connt Carlo Gozzi's
There is no clue to the spirit of this civiliza¬
comedy 1I Droghe d’Amore; and, if so,
tion like that supplied by these venerable
whether, in view of the affection felt for the
types of mirth. The Venetian clowns with
playwright by Signora Catarina Dolfin¬
their fellow-gossips from the South pierce
Tron, the wife of the Procuratore di San
again and again through that vision of
Marco, it mighit not be wisest to let that
eighteenth-century Venice for the enjoyment
hothead Gratarol do something foolish that
of which Italy owes so much to Molmente,
would allow the Tribunal to proceed against
France to Philippe Monnier, and England to
him rather than the other. Laws became a
Vernon Lee. We meet them in ever fresh
mockery if they could be broken without
disguises among the characters of history,
somebody being punnished. In the good old
and notably in the three salient figures of tho
days there had been less roundabout methods
epoch, Casanova, Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi.
for the disposal of nuisances; indeed one
If we unmask Casanova it is surelz' Puleinella
understood that still in that cupboard up¬
who stands betrayed." Le nez d’aigle
but no one knew the righit
accentué, un vrai nez de rapace indiquant
there should be
dose any longer
des instinets de chasse, de rapt, et de pour¬
a minute, though, somewhere in the files.
suite de la proie''’the description of which
One had last made an attempt of the kind
this phrase is a part is, perhaps, the best thing
in 1767 when that man was giving so much
in M. Octave Uzanne’s rather turgid introdue¬
trouble in the Balkans. From the doors
tion to the first volume in the splendid Sirène
that closed in these dread deliberations
edition of the" Mémoires.* Although the
there flapped forth to execute the decrees
publishers have been precluded from issuing
the funereal silhouette of the Captain of the
an integral text?' from the original manu¬
Archers, Cristofolo Cristofoli—that terrible
script in the keeping of the Brockhaus family'
Messer Grande, the shadow of whose hooked
of Leipzig (a deprivation to which we easile
nose and sable cloak was enough to quell a
reconcile ourselves), they have carefully
riot on the Piazza, and to set the whole
collated the standard French version of
brotherhood of rogues, quacks and masons
shivering.
Laforgue (1826-1838) and the German edition
of von Schutz (1822 1428), with any later
The hundred eyes of Messer Grande,
the gliding police-gondola of his allies, the] versions of importance. Admirable orint and