It remains to ask ourselves, What opinion can be justly formed of
Lorenzino's character and motives? When he murdered his cousin, was
he really actuated by the patriotic desire to rid his country of a
monster? Did he imitate the Roman Brutus in the noble spirit of
his predecessors, Olgiati and Boscoli, martyrs to the creed of
tyrannicide? Or must this crowning action of a fretful life be
explained, like his previous mutilation of the statues on the Arch
of Constantine, by a wild thirst for notoriety? Did he hope that the
exiles would return to Florence, and that he would enjoy an honourable
life, an immortality of glorious renown? Did envy for his cousin's
greatness and resentment of his undisguised contempt--the passions of
one who had been used for vile ends--conscious of self-degradation and
the loss of honour, yet mindful of his intellectual superiority--did
these emotions take fire in him and mingle with a scholar's
reminiscences of antique heroism, prompting him to plan a deed
which should at least assume the show of patriotic zeal, and prove
indubitable courage in its perpetrator? Did he, again, perhaps
imagine, being next in blood to Alessandro and direct heir to the
ducal crown by the Imperial Settlement of 1530, that the city would
elect her liberator for her ruler? Alfieri and Niccolini, having
taken, as it were, a brief in favour of tyrannicide, praised Lorenzino
as a hero. De Musset, who wrote a considerable drama on his story,
painted him as a _roué_ corrupted by society, enfeebled by
circumstance, soured by commerce with an uncongenial world, who hides
at the bottom of his mixed nature enough of real nobility to make him
the leader of a forlorn hope for the liberties of Florence. This is
the most favourable construction we can put upon Lorenzo's conduct.
Yet some facts of the case warn us to suspend our judgment. He seems
to have formed no plan for the liberation of his fellow-citizens. He
gave no pledge of self-devotion by avowing his deed and abiding by its
issues. He showed none of the qualities of a leader, whether in the
cause of freedom or of his own dynastic interests, after the murder.
He escaped as soon as he was able, as secretly as he could manage,
leaving the city in confusion, and exposing himself to the obvious
charge of abominable treason. So far as the Florentines knew, his
assassination of their Duke was but a piece of private spite, executed
with infernal craft. It is true that when he seized the pen in exile,
he did his best to claim the guerdon of a patriot, and to throw the
blame of failure on the Florentines. In his Apology, and in a letter
written to Francesco de' Medici, he taunts them with lacking the
spirit to extinguish tyranny when he had slain the tyrant. He summons
plausible excuses to his aid--the impossibility of taking persons of
importance into his confidence, the loss of blood he suffered from
his wound, the uselessness of rousing citizens whom events proved
over-indolent for action. He declares that he has nothing to regret.
Having proved by deeds his will to serve his country, he has saved
his life in order to spend it for her when occasion offered. But these
arguments, invented after the catastrophe, these words, so bravely
penned when action ought to have confirmed his resolution, do not
meet the case. It was no deed of a true hero to assassinate a despot,
knowing or half knowing that the despot's subjects would immediately
elect another. Their languor could not, except rhetorically, be
advanced in defence of his own flight.
The historian is driven to seek both the explanation and palliation of
Lorenzo's failure in the temper of his times. There was enough
daring left in Florence to carry through a plan of brilliant treason,
modelled on an antique Roman tragedy. But there was not moral force
in the protagonist to render that act salutary, not public energy
sufficient in his fellow-citizens to accomplish his drama of
deliverance. Lorenzo was corrupt. Florence was flaccid. Evil manners
had emasculated the hero. In the state the last spark of independence
had expired with Ferrucci.
Still I have not without forethought dubbed this man a Cinque Cento
Brutus. Like much of the art and literature of his century, his action
may be regarded as a _bizarre_ imitation of the antique manner.
Without the force and purpose of a Roman, Lorenzo set himself to copy
Plutarch's men--just as sculptors carved Neptunes and Apollos without
the dignity and serenity of the classic style. The antique faith
was wanting to both murderer and craftsman in those days. Even as
Renaissance work in art is too often aimless, decorative, vacant of
intention, so Lorenzino's Brutus tragedy seems but the snapping of
a pistol in void air. He had the audacity but not the ethical
consistency of his crime. He played the part of Brutus like a Roscius,
perfect in its histrionic details. And it doubtless gave to this
skilful actor a supreme satisfaction--salving over many wounds of
vanity, quenching the poignant thirst for things impossible and
draughts of fame--that he could play it on no mimic stage, but on
the theatre of Europe. The weakness of his conduct was the central
weakness of his age and country. Italy herself lacked moral purpose,
sense of righteous necessity, that consecration of self to a noble
cause, which could alone have justified Lorenzo's perfidy. Confused
memories of Judith, Jael, Brutus, and other classical tyrannicides,
exalted his imagination. Longing for violent emotions, jaded with
pleasure which had palled, discontented with his wasted life, jealous
of his brutal cousin, appetitive to the last of glory, he conceived
his scheme. Having conceived, he executed it with that which never
failed in Cinque Cento Italy--the artistic spirit of perfection. When
it was over, he shrugged his shoulders, wrote his magnificent Apology
with a style of adamant upon a plate of steel, and left it for the
outlaws of Filippo Strozzi's faction to deal with the crisis he
had brought about. For some years he dragged out an ignoble life
in obscurity, and died at last, as Varchi puts it, more by his own
carelessness than by the watchful animosity of others. Over the wild,
turbid, clever, incomprehensible, inconstant hero-artist's grave we
write our _Requiescat_. Clio, as she takes the pen in hand to
record this prayer, smiles disdainfully and turns to graver business.
* * * * *
_TWO DRAMATISTS OF THE LAST CENTURY_
There are few contrasts more striking than that which is presented
by the memoirs of Goldoni and Alfieri. Both of these men bore names
highly distinguished in the history of Italian literature. Both of
them were framed by nature with strongly marked characters, and fitted
to perform a special work in the world. Both have left behind them
records of their lives and literary labours, singularly illustrative
of their peculiar differences. There is no instance in which we see
more clearly the philosophical value of autobiographies, than in these
vivid pictures which the great Italian tragedian and comic author have
delineated. Some of the most interesting works of Lionardo da Vinci,
Giorgione, Albert Dürer, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Andrea del Sarto, are
their portraits painted by themselves. These pictures exhibit not only
the lineaments of the masters, but also their art. The hand which drew
them was the hand which drew the 'Last Supper,' or the 'Madonna of
the Tribune:' colour, method, chiaroscuro, all that makes up manner in
painting, may be studied on the same canvas as that which faithfully
represents the features of the man whose genius gave his style its
special character. We seem to understand the clear calm majesty of
Lionardo's manner, the silver-grey harmonies and smooth facility of
Andrea's Madonnas, the better for looking at their faces drawn by
their own hands at Florence. And if this be the case with a dumb
picture, how far higher must be the interest and importance of the
written life of a known author! Not only do we recognise in its
composition the style and temper and habits of thought which are
familiar to us in his other writings; but we also hear from his
own lips how these were formed, how his tastes took their peculiar
direction, what circumstances acted on his character, what hopes he
had, and where he failed. Even should his autobiography not bear
the marks of uniform candour, it probably reveals more of the actual
truth, more of the man's real nature in its height and depth, than
any memoir written by friend or foe. Its unconscious admissions, its
general spirit, and the inferences which we draw from its perusal,
are far more valuable than any mere statement of facts or external
analysis, however scientific. When we become acquainted with
the series of events which led to the conception or attended the
production of some masterpiece of literature, a new light is thrown
upon its beauties, fresh life bursts forth from every chapter, and we
seem to have a nearer and more personal interest in its success. What
a powerful sensation, for instance, is that which we experience when,
after studying the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' Gibbon
tells us how the thought of writing it came to him upon the Capitol,
among the ruins of dead Rome, and within hearing of the mutter of the
monks of Ara Coeli, and how he finished it one night by Lake Geneva,
and laid his pen down and walked forth and saw the stars above his
terrace at Lausanne!
The memoirs of Alfieri and Goldoni are not deficient in any of the
characteristics of good autobiography. They seem to bear upon their
face the stamp of truthfulness, they illustrate their authors' lives
with marvellous lucidity, and they are full of interest as stories.
But it is to the contrast which they present that our attention should
be chiefly drawn. Other biographies may be as interesting and amusing.
None show in a more marked manner two distinct natures endowed with
genius for one art, and yet designed in every possible particular for
different branches of that art. Alfieri embodies Tragedy; Goldoni
is the spirit of Comedy. They are both Italians: their tragedies and
comedies are by no means cosmopolitan; but this national identity of
character only renders more remarkable the individual divergences by
which they were impelled into their different paths. Thalia seems to
have made the one, body, soul, and spirit; and Melpomene the other;
each goddess launched her favourite into circumstances suited to the
evolution of his genius, and presided over his development, so that at
his death she might exclaim,--Behold the living model of my Art!
Goldoni was born at Venice in the year 1707; he had already reached
celebrity when Alfieri saw the light for the first time, in 1749, at
Asti. Goldoni's grandfather was a native of Modena, who had settled
in Venice, and there lived with the prodigality of a rich and
ostentatious 'bourgeois.' 'Amid riot and luxury did I enter the
world,' says the poet, after enumerating the banquets and theatrical
displays with which the old Goldoni entertained his guests in his
Venetian palace and country-house. Venice at that date was certainly
the proper birthplace for a comic poet. The splendour of the
Renaissance had thoroughly habituated her nobles to pleasures of the
sense, and had enervated their proud, maritime character, while the
great name of the republic robbed them of the caution for which they
used to be conspicuous. Yet the real strength of Venice was almost
spent, and nothing remained but outward insolence and prestige.
Everything was gay about Goldoni in his earliest childhood.
Puppet-shows were built to amuse him by his grandfather. 'My
mother,' he says, 'took charge of my education, and my father of my
amusements.' Let us turn to the opening scene in Alfieri's life,
and mark the difference. A father above sixty, 'noble, wealthy, and
respectable,' who died before his son had reached the age of one year
old. A mother devoted to religion, the widow of one marquis, and after
the death of a second husband, Alfieri's father, married for the third
time to a nobleman of ancient birth. These were Alfieri's parents. He
was born in a solemn palazzo in the country town of Asti, and at the
age of five already longed for death as an escape from disease and
other earthly troubles. So noble and so wealthy was the youthful poet
that an abbé was engaged to carry out his education, but not to teach
him more than a count should know. Except this worthy man he had no
companions whatever. Strange ideas possessed the boy. He ruminated on
his melancholy, and when eight years old attempted suicide. At this
age he was sent to the academy at Turin, attended, as befitted a lad
of his rank, by a man-servant, who was to remain and wait on him at
school. Alfieri stayed here several years without revisiting his home,
tyrannised over by the valet who added to his grandeur, constantly
subject to sickness, and kept in almost total ignorance by his
incompetent preceptors. The gloom and pride and stoicism of his
temperament were augmented by this unnatural discipline. His spirit
did not break, but took a haughtier and more disdainful tone. He
became familiar with misfortunes. He learned to brood over and
intensify his passions. Every circumstance of his life seemed strung
up to a tragic pitch. This at least is the impression which remains
upon our mind after reading in his memoirs the narrative of what must
in many of its details have been a common schoolboy's life at that
time.
Meanwhile, what had become of young Goldoni? His boyhood was as
thoroughly plebeian, various, and comic as Alfieri's had been
patrician, monotonous, and tragical. Instead of one place of
residence, we read of twenty. Scrape succeeds to scrape, adventure to
adventure. Knowledge of the world, and some book learning also, flow
in upon the boy, and are eagerly caught up by him and heterogeneously
amalgamated in his mind. Alfieri learned nothing, wrote nothing, in
his youth, and heard his parents say--'A nobleman need never strive to
be a doctor of the faculties.' Goldoni had a little medicine and much
law thrust upon him. At eight he wrote a comedy, and ere long began
to read the plays of Plautus, Terence, Aristophanes, and Machiavelli.
Between the nature of the two poets there was a marked and
characteristic difference as to their mode of labour and of acquiring
knowledge. Both of them loved fame, and wrought for it; but Alfieri
did so from a sense of pride and a determination to excel;
while Goldoni loved the approbation of his fellows, sought their
compliments, and basked in the sunshine of smiles. Alfieri wrote with
labour. Each tragedy he composed went through a triple process of
composition, and received frequent polishing when finished. Goldoni
dashed off his pieces with the greatest ease on every possible
subject. He once produced sixteen comedies in one theatrical season.
Alfieri's were like lion's whelps--brought forth with difficulty,
and at long intervals; Goldoni's, like the brood of a hare--many,
frequent, and as agile as their parent. Alfieri amassed knowledge
scrupulously, but with infinite toil. He mastered Greek and Hebrew
when he was past forty. Goldoni never gave himself the least trouble
to learn anything, but trusted to the ready wit, good memory, and
natural powers, which helped him in a hundred strange emergencies.
Power of will and pride sustained the one; facility and a
good-humoured vanity the other. This contrast was apparent at a very
early age. We have seen how Alfieri passed his time at Turin, in
a kind of aristocratic prison of educational ignorance. Goldoni's
grandfather died when he was five years old, and left his family in
great embarrassment. The poet's father went off to practise medicine
at Perugia. His son followed him, acquired the rudiments of knowledge
in that town, and then proceeded to study philosophy alone at Rimini.
There was no man-servant or academy in his case. He was far too
plebeian and too free. The boy lodged with a merchant, and got some
smattering of Thomas Aquinas and the Peripatetics into his small
brain, while he contrived to form a friendship with an acting company.
They were on the wing for Venice in a coasting boat, which would touch
at Chiozza, where Goldoni's mother then resided. The boy pleased them.
Would he like the voyage? This offer seemed too tempting, and away
he rushed, concealed himself on board, and made one of a merry motley
shipload. 'Twelve persons, actors as well as actresses, a prompter,
a machinist, a storekeeper, eight domestics, four chambermaids, two
nurses, children of every age, cats, dogs, monkeys, parrots, birds,
pigeons, and a lamb; it was another Noah's ark.' The young poet felt
at home; how could a comic poet feel otherwise? They laughed, they
sang, they danced; they ate and drank, and played at cards. 'Macaroni!
Every one fell on it, and three dishes were devoured. We had also
alamode beef, cold fowl, a loin of veal, a dessert, and excellent
wine. What a charming dinner! No cheer like a good appetite.' Their
harmony, however, was disturbed. The 'première amoureuse,' who, in
spite of her rank and title, was ugly and cross, and required to be
coaxed with cups of chocolate, lost her cat. She tried to kill the
whole boat-load of beasts--cats, dogs, monkeys, parrots, pigeons, even
the lamb stood in danger of her wrath. A regular quarrel ensued, was
somehow set at peace, and all began to laugh again. This is a sample
of Goldoni's youth. Comic pleasures, comic dangers; nothing deep or
lasting, but light and shadow cheerfully distributed, clouds lowering
with storm, a distant growl of thunder, then a gleam of light and
sunshine breaking overhead. He gets articled to an attorney at Venice,
then goes to study law at Pavia; studies society instead, and flirts,
and finally is expelled for writing satires. Then he takes a turn at
medicine with his father in Friuli, and acts as clerk to the criminal
chancellor at Chiozza.
Every employment seems easy to him, but he really cares for none but
literature. He spends all his spare time in reading and in amusements,
and begins to write a tragic opera. This proves, however, eminently
unsuccessful, and he burns it in a comic fit of anger. One laughable
love-affair in which he engaged at Udine exhibits his adventures
in their truly comic aspect. It reminds us of the scene in 'Don
Giovanni,' where Leporello personates the Don and deceives Donna
Elvira. Goldoni had often noticed a beautiful young lady at church
and on the public drives: she was attended by a waiting-maid, who soon
perceived that her mistress had excited the young man's admiration,
and who promised to befriend him in his suit. Goldoni was told to
repair at night to the palace of his mistress, and to pour his passion
forth beneath her window. Impatiently he waited for the trysting
hour, conned his love-sentences, and gloried in the romance of the
adventure. When night came, he found the window, and a veiled figure
of a lady in the moonlight, whom he supposed at once to be his
mistress. Her he eloquently addressed in the true style of Romeo's
rapture, and she answered him. Night after night this happened,
but sometimes he was a little troubled by a sound of ill-suppressed
laughter interrupting the _tête-à-tête_. Meanwhile Teresa,
the waiting-maid, received from his hands costly presents for her
mistress, and made him promises on her part in exchange. As she proved
unable to fulfil them, Goldoni grew suspicious, and at last discovered
that the veiled figure to whom he had poured out his tale of love was
none other than Teresa, and that the laughter had proceeded from
her mistress, whom the faithless waiting-maid regaled at her lover's
expense. Thus ended this ridiculous matter. Goldoni was not, however,
cured by his experience. One other love-affair rendered Udine too hot
to hold him, and in consequence of a third he had to fly from Venice
just when he was beginning to flourish there. At length he married
comfortably and suitably, settling down into a quiet life with a woman
whom, if he did not love her with passion, he at least respected and
admired. Goldoni, in fact, had no real passion in his nature.
Alfieri, on the other hand, was given over to volcanic ebullitions of
the most ungovernable hate and affection, joy and sorrow. The chains
of love which Goldoni courted so willingly, Alfieri regarded with
the greatest shyness. But while Goldoni healed his heart of all its
bruises in a week or so, the tragic poet bore about him wounds that
would not close. He enumerates three serious passions which possessed
his whole nature, and at times deprived him almost of his reason. A
Dutch lady first won his heart, and when he had to leave her, Alfieri
suffered so intensely that he never opened his lips during the course
of a long journey through Germany, Switzerland, and Piedmont. Fevers,
and suicides attempted but interrupted, marked the termination of this
tragic amour. His second passion had for its object an English lady,
with whose injured husband he fought a duel, although his collarbone
was broken at the time. The lady proved unworthy of Alfieri as well
as of her husband, and the poet left her in a most deplorable state
of hopelessness and intellectual prostration. At last he formed
a permanent affection for the wife of Prince Charles Edward, the
Countess of Albany, in close friendship with whom he lived after her
husband's death. The society of this lady gave him perfect happiness;
but it was founded on her lofty beauty, the pathos of her situation,
and her intellectual qualities. Melpomene presided at this union,
while Thalia blessed the nuptials of Goldoni. How characteristic
also were the adventures which these two pairs of lovers encountered!
Goldoni once carried his wife upon his back across two rivers in their
flight from the Spanish to the Austrian camp at Rimini, laughing and
groaning, and perceiving the humour of his situation all the time.
Alfieri, on an occasion of even greater difficulty, was stopped with
his illustrious friend at the gates of Paris in 1792. They were flying
in post-chaises, with their servants and their baggage, from the
devoted city, when a troop of _sansculottes_ rushed on them,
surged around the carriage, called them aristocrats, and tried to drag
them off to prison. Alfieri, with his tall gaunt figure, pallid face,
and red voluminous hair, stormed, raged, and raised his deep bass
voice above the tumult. For half an hour he fought with them, then
made his coachmen gallop through the gates, and scarcely halted till
they got to Gravelines. By this prompt movement they escaped arrest
and death at Paris. These two scenes would make agreeable companion
pictures: Goldoni staggering beneath his wife across the muddy bed
of an Italian stream--the smiling writer of agreeable plays, with his
half-tearful helpmate ludicrous in her disasters; Alfieri mad with
rage among Parisian Mænads, his princess quaking in her carriage, the
air hoarse with cries, and death and safety trembling in the balance.
It is no wonder that the one man wrote 'La Donna di Garbo' and the
'Cortese Veneziano,' while the other was inditing essays on Tyranny
and dramas of 'Antigone,' 'Timoleon,' and 'Brutus.'
The difference between the men is seen no less remarkably in regard
to courage. Alfieri was a reckless rider, and astonished even English
huntsmen by his desperate leaps. In one of them he fell and broke
his collar-bone, but not the less he held his tryst with a fair lady,
climbed her park gates, and fought a duel with her husband. Goldoni
was a pantaloon for cowardice. In the room of an inn at Desenzano
which he occupied together with a female fellow-traveller, an attempt
was made to rob them by a thief at night. All Goldoni was able to do
consisted in crying out for help, and the lady called him 'M. l'Abbé'
ever after for his want of pluck. Goldoni must have been by far the
more agreeable of the two. In all his changes from town to town of
Italy he found amusement and brought gaiety. The sights, the theatres,
the society aroused his curiosity. He trembled with excitement at the
performance of his pieces, made friends with the actors, taught them,
and wrote parts to suit their qualities. At Pisa he attended as
a stranger the meeting of the Arcadian Academy, and at its close
attracted all attention to himself by his clever improvisation. He was
in truth a ready-witted man, pliable, full of resource, bred half a
valet, half a Roman _græculus_. Alfieri saw more of Europe than
Goldoni. France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, England, Spain, all
parts of Italy he visited with restless haste. From land to land he
flew, seeking no society, enjoying nothing, dashing from one inn door
to another with his servants and his carriages, and thinking chiefly
of the splendid stud of horses which he took about with him upon his
travels. He was a lonely, stiff, self-engrossed, indomitable man. He
could not rest at home: he could not bear to be the vassal of a king
and breathe the air of courts. So he lived always on the wing, and
ended by exiling himself from Sardinia in order to escape the trammels
of paternal government. As for his tragedies, he wrote them to win
laurels from posterity. He never cared to see them acted; he bullied
even his printers and correctors; he cast a glove down in defiance
of his critics. Goldoni sought the smallest meed of approbation. It
pleased him hugely in his old age to be Italian master to a French
princess. Alfieri openly despised the public. Goldoni wrote because he
liked to write; Alfieri, for the sake of proving his superior powers.
Against Alfieri's hatred of Turin and its trivial solemnities, we
have to set Goldoni's love of Venice and its petty pleasures. He would
willingly have drunk chocolate and played at dominoes or picquet all
his life on the Piazza di San Marco, when Alfieri was crossing the
sierras on his Andalusian horse, and devouring a frugal meal of rice
in solitude. Goldoni glided through life an easy man, with genial,
venial thoughts; with a clear, gay, gentle temper; a true sense of
what is good and just; and a heart that loved diffusively, if not too
warmly. Many were the checks and obstacles thrown on his path; but
round them or above them he passed nimbly, without scar or scathe.
Poverty went close behind him, but he kept her off, and never felt
the pinch of need. Alfieri strained and strove against the barriers
of fate; a sombre, rugged man, proud, candid, and self-confident, who
broke or bent all opposition; now moving solemnly with tragic pomp,
now dashing passionately forward by the might of will. Goldoni drew
his inspirations from the moment and surrounding circumstances.
Alfieri pursued an ideal, slowly formed, but strongly fashioned and
resolutely followed. Of wealth he had plenty and to spare, but
he disregarded it, and was a Stoic in his mode of life. He was an
unworldly man, and hated worldliness. Goldoni, but for his authorship,
would certainly have grown a prosperous advocate, and died of gout
in Venice. Goldoni liked smart clothes; Alfieri went always in
black. Goldoni's fits of spleen--for he _was_ melancholy now and
then--lasted a day or two, and disappeared before a change of place.
Alfieri dragged his discontent about with him all over Europe, and let
it interrupt his work and mar his intellect for many months together.
Alfieri was a patriot, and hated France. Goldoni never speaks
of politics, and praises Paris as a heaven on earth. The genial
moralising of the latter appears childish by the side of Alfieri's
terse philosophy and pregnant remarks on the development of character.
What suits the page of Plautus would look poor in 'Oedipus' or
'Agamemnon.' Goldoni's memoirs are diffuse and flippant in their light
French dress. They seem written to please. Alfieri's Italian style
marches with dignity and Latin terseness. He rarely condescends to
smile. He writes to instruct the world and to satisfy himself. Grim
humour sometimes flashes out, as when he tells the story of the Order
of Homer, which he founded. How different from Goldoni's naïve account
of his little ovation in the theatre at Paris!
But it would be idle to carry on this comparison, already tedious. The
life of Goldoni was one long scene of shifts and jests, of frequent
triumphs and some failures, of lessons hard at times, but kindly.
Passions and _ennui_, flashes of heroic patriotism, constant
suffering and stoical endurance, art and love idealised, fill up the
life of Alfieri. Goldoni clung much to his fellow-men, and shared
their pains and pleasures. Alfieri spent many of his years in almost
absolute solitude. On the whole character and deeds of the one man was
stamped Comedy: the other was own son of Tragedy.
If, after reading the autobiographies of Alfieri and Goldoni, we turn
to the perusal of their plays, we shall perceive that there is no
better commentary on the works of an artist than his life, and no
better life than one written by himself. The old style of criticism,
which strove to separate an author's productions from his life, and
even from the age in which he lived, to set up an arbitrary canon
of taste, and to select one or two great painters or poets as ideals
because they seemed to illustrate that canon, has passed away. We are
beginning to feel that art is a part of history and of physiology.
That is to say, the artist's work can only be rightly understood by
studying his age and temperament. Goldoni's versatility and want of
depth induced him to write sparkling comedies. The merry life men
passed at Venice in its years of decadence proved favourable to his
genius. Alfieri's melancholy and passionate qualities, fostered in
solitude, and aggravated by a tyranny he could not bear, led him
irresistibly to tragic composition. Though a noble, his nobility only
added to his pride, and insensibly his intellect had been imbued with
the democratic sentiments which were destined to shake Europe in his
lifetime. This, in itself, was a tragic circumstance, bringing him
into close sympathy with the Brutus, the Prometheus, the Timoleon of
ancient history. Goldoni's _bourgeoisie_, in the atmosphere of
which he was born and bred, was essentially comic. The true comedy
of manners, which is quite distinct from Shakspere's fancy or from
Aristophanic satire, is always laid in middle life. Though Goldoni
tried to write tragedies, they were unimpassioned, dull, and tame. He
lacked altogether the fire, high-wrought nobility of sentiment, and
sense of form essential for tragic art. On the other hand, Alfieri
composed some comedies before his death which were devoid of humour,
grace, and lightness. A strange elephantine eccentricity is their
utmost claim to comic character. Indeed, the temper of Alfieri, ever
in extremes, led him even to exaggerate the qualities of tragedy.
He carried its severity to a pitch of dulness and monotony. His
chiaroscuro was too strong; virtue and villany appearing in pure
black and white upon his pages. His hatred of tyrants induced him to
transgress the rules of probability, so that it has been well said
that if his wicked kings had really had such words of scorn and hatred
thrown at them by their victims, they were greatly to be pitied. On
the other hand, his pithy laconisms have often a splendidly tragical
effect. There is nothing in the modern drama more rhetorically
impressive, though spasmodic, than the well-known dialogue between
Antigone and Creon:--
'_Cr_. Scegliesti?
'_Ant_. Ho scelto.
'_Cr_. Emon?
'_Ant_. Morte.
'_Cr_. L'avrai!'
Goldoni's comedies, again, have not enough of serious thought or of
true creative imagination to be works of high art. They lean too much
to the side of farce; they have none of the tragic salt which gives
a dignity to Tartuffe. They are, in a word, almost too enethistically
comic.
The contrast between these authors might lead us to raise the question
long ago discussed by Socrates at Agathon's banquet--Can the same man
write both comedies and tragedies? We in England are accustomed to
read the serious and comic plays of Shakspere, Fletcher, Jonson, and
to think that one poet could excel in either branch. The custom of
the Elizabethan theatre obliged this double authorship; yet it must be
confessed that Shakspere's comedies are not such comedies as Greek
or Romnan or French critics would admit. They are works of the purest
imagination, wholly free from the laws of this world; while the
tragedies of Fletcher have a melodramatic air equally at variance with
the classical Melpomene. It may very seriously be doubted whether the
same mind could produce, with equal power, a comedy like the 'Cortese
Veneziano' and a tragedy like Alfieri's 'Brutus.' At any rate,
returning to our old position, we find in these two men the very
opposite conditions of dramatic genius. They are, as it were,
specimens prepared by Nature for the instruction of those who analyse
genius in its relations to temperament, to life, and to external
circumstances.
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