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[Albaro-March 7-9, 1823]
My dear N. [Novello]
I write you, as you request, "a very long letter, on the largest sized paper, & in the smallest hand writing." You call the request a modest one, & I cannot but allow it has some pretention to bashfulness, not only inasmuch as it comes in the corner of another, but because it is-let me see-just twenty lines long. However, you see what I think your twenty lines worth: & you are so accustomed, in /matter/ natters of intercourse, to have the part of obliger to yourself, that it would be indecent to haggle with you about the tare & tret of an epistle. If you send me forty lines, I suppose I must write you a quarto.
You ask me to tell you a world of things about Italian
/music/ composers, singers, &c. / / Alas! my
dear N., I may truly say to you, that for music you must "look at home"; at least as far as my own experience goes /at presenty/. Even the biographies which you speak of, are, I fear, not to be foun
Object Description
| Rating | |
| Title | Leigh Hunt letter to Vincent Novello, March 1823 |
| Creator |
Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859 |
| Date Original | 1823-03 |
| Description | Concerning a request from Novello that Hunt write him "a very long letter, on the largest sized paper, & the smallest hand writing." |
| Note |
1. Though written on 20 different "pages" this letter is contained on a single sheet 52.1 x 43.2 cm. (written on both sides). Following the individual page images, two images are included in this digital object that show the front and the back of this sheet in their entirety . 2. Although classified as "Bound" this is the sole letter in the portfolio. |
| Personal Name Subject |
Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859 Novello, Vincent, 1781-1861 |
| Geographic Subject |
England -- London -- City of Westminster -- Saint Marylebone |
| Chronological Subject |
1820-1830 |
| Type (DCMIType) |
Text |
| Type (AAT) |
Correspondence |
| Type (IMT) |
jpeg |
| Digital Collection |
Leigh Hunt Letters |
| Contributing Institution | University of Iowa. Libraries. Special Collections Dept. |
| Archival Collection |
Brewer-Leigh Hunt Collection |
| Collection Guide | http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/resources/Brewer-LeighHunt.html |
| Location | Bound MsL H94no |
| Rights Management | Educational use only, no other permissions given. This letter is owned by The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department, and is provided here for educational purposes. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without written permission of the Special Collections Department. |
| Contact Information | Contact The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department: lib-spec@uiowa.edu |
| Height (cm) | varies |
| Width (cm) | varies |
| Number of Pages | 20 |
| Number of Sheets of Paper | 1 |
| Digitization Specifications | Scanned with Zeutschel OS 12000 scanner at 300 ppi, 24-bit color. Archival tiff image available. |
| Date Digital | 2009-06-05 |
| Transcript |
[Albaro-March 7-9, 1823] My dear N. [Novello] I write you, as you request, "a very long letter, on the largest sized paper, & in the smallest hand writing." You call the request a modest one, & I cannot but allow it has some pretention to bashfulness, not only inasmuch as it comes in the corner of another, but because it is-let me see-just twenty lines long. However, you see what I think your twenty lines worth: & you are so accustomed, in /matter/ natters of intercourse, to have the part of obliger to yourself, that it would be indecent to haggle with you about the tare & tret of an epistle. If you send me forty lines, I suppose I must write you a quarto. You ask me to tell you a world of things about Italian /music/ composers, singers, &c. / / Alas! my dear N., I may truly say to you, that for music you must "look at home"; at least as far as my own experience goes /at presenty/. Even the biographies which you speak of, are, I fear, not to be found in any great quantity; but I will do my best to get them together. Both Pisa and Genoa have little pretensions either to music or books. /One/ We ought to be at Rome for one, & Milan for the other. Florence perhaps has a reasonable quantity of both, /tis/ besides being rich in it's Gallery: but I will tell you one thing,which albeit you are of Italian origin /yourself,/ will mortify you to hear; viz., that Mozart is nothing in Italy, & Rossini every thing. Nobody even says any thing of Mozart,/ / since Figaro (tell it not in Gothland.) was hissed at Florence. His name appears to be suppressed by agreement, while Rossini is talked of, / / written of, copied, sung, hummed, whistled, & demi-semi-quavered, from morning to night. If there is a portrait in a shop-window, it is Rossini's. If you hear a song in the street, it is Rossini's. If you go to a music-shop to have some thing copied.- "an air of Rossini's?" Mayer, I believe, is the only German who takes the turn with him at the opera here; but Mozart, be assured, never. I believe they would shut their ears at a burst of his harmony; as your friends the Chinese did at Lord Macartney's /musicians/ band. I suspect however that there are more reasons than one for this /autocratic prejudice/ extraordinary piece of intolerance,not altogether so unhandsome as they /look/ appear at first sight. As to theatres, I need not tell you the dislike which singers have to compositions that afford them no excuse for running riot in their own quavers & cadences. They hate to be "Married to immortal verse." They prefer a good, flimsy, dying sort of a "do-me-no-harm, good-man" whom they can twist about & desert as they please. / / This is common to theatres every where. But in Italy, /there has always been a prejudice/ besides a natural prejudice in favour of their own composers, there has always been another, you know, against that richness of accompaniment, with which the Germans /invest/ follow up their vocal music, turning every air, as it were, into a triumphal procession. They think that if /an air/ a melody is full of nature & passion, it should be oftener suffered to make out it's own merits, & triumph by it's own sufficing beauty: like Adam in the poem, when he walked forth to meet the angel, Without more train Accompanied, than with his own complete Perfections; /in himself was all his state, More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits On princes, when their rich retinue long Of horses led, & grooms besmear'd with gold/[1] or Eve afterwards, when she received him, Undeck'd save with herself; more lovely fair Than wood-nymph, or the fairest goddess feign'd Of three that in mount Ida naked strove. ----------------No veil She needed, virtue-proof: no thought infirm Alter'd her cheek.[2] (What poetry is there! What sentiment! What delicasy! What words full of meaning!) You know what I think on this subject, when the composer is a truly great one,-like Paesiello: and I know what you think too, when the air is one of his divinest, like I1 Mio Ben in the opera of Nina. But Rossini is not Paesiello? True. He gives us a delightful air now & then; but in the hurry of his industry & his animal spirits, pours forth a torrent of common-places. His is not a flow of music, "Whose stream is amber, & whose gravel gold." It is, for the most part, /very/ common wat[er brisk] [page break] in it's course, & bringing down only grains of gold, however worth sifting. Nevertheless, he has animal spirits,-he runs merrily; his stream is for the most part native; and the Italians are as willing to be made merry with "thin potations" as with old hock. I meant to shew you how it was that they /Italians/ were prepared to under value Mozart; & I think I can now explain to you, in one word, how it is that they contrive to /blind them/ render themselves deaf to the rest of his merits, & to the inspiration which he himself drank at an Italian source. Mozart was a German. I do not mean simply, that he was a German in music; but he was a German by birth. The German in Italy, /trumpet his/ the lorders over Italian freedom & the Italian soil, trumpet his / / superiority over Italian composers; & however right they may be, at all events with regard to modern ones, this is enough to make the Italians hate him. It mistifies them the more, because they know that he is an exception to the general dullness of their conquerors; & not even / / the non-chalance of his own conduct towards kings & emperors (which was truly edifying)[3] could reconcile them to the misery of preferring any thing German to the least thing Italian. [page break - continued on page 5] The Genoese are not a musical specimen of the Italians; but the /natural/ national talent seems lurking wherever you go. The most beggarly minstrel gets another, /if possible/to make out a harmony / / with him, on some sort of an instrument, if only a gourd with a string or two. Such at least appeared to me a strange-looking "wild-fowl" of a fiddle, which a man was strumming the other day,-or rather a gourd stuck upon a long fiddle of deal. Perhaps you know of such an instrument. I think I have seen something like it in pictures. They all sing out their words distinctly, some accompanying themselves all the while in the guitar style, others putting in a symphony now & then, even if it be nothing better than two notes always /repeated/ the same. There is one blind beggar who seems an enthusiast for Rossini. Imagine a /---/ sturdy looking fellow in [Page break - continued on page 6] rags, laying his / / hot face against his fiddle, rolling his blind eyeballs /up/ against the sunshine, and vociferating with all the true /open open/ open mouth and syllabical particularity of the Italians, / of the / a part of one of the duetts of that lively master. His companion, having his eyesight & being therefore not so vivacious, sings his part with / / sedater vigour; though even when the / / former is singing a solo, I have heard him throw in some unisons at intervals, as if his help were equally wanting to /him/ the blind man, vocal /& bodily/ as well as corporal. Among the novelties that impress a stranger in Italy, I have not before noticed the vivacity prevalent among all classes of people. The gesticulation is not French. It is /much more natural & sincere, &---looks/ has an air of greater simplicity & sincerity, & has more to do with the eyes, & expressions of /face/ countenance. But /compared with/ after being used to it, the English /would/ must look like a nation of scorners and prudes. When serious, the women walk with a certain piquant stateliness evidently the same which impressed the ancient as well as modern poets of Italy, Virgil in particular; but it has no haughtiness. You might imagine them walking up to a dance, or /carrying something to a temple/ priestesses of Venus approaching /her/ a temple. When lively, their manner out of doors is that of our liveliest women within. If they make a quicker movement than usual, if they recognize a friend for instance, or call out to somebody, or dispatch somebody with a message, they have all the life, simplicity, & unconsciousness of the happiest of our young women, who are at ease in their / /gardens or parks. I must add, that since I have known more of Genoa, I have found out that it possesses multitudes of hand- [page break] some women; & what surprised me, many of them with beautiful northern complexions. But an English lady tells me, that for this latter discovery I am indebted to my short-sight. This is probable. You know that I have often been in raptures at faces that have passed me in London, whose only faults were being /very/ very coarse & considerably bilious. But never mind. It is not desirable to have a Brobdingnagian sight; & where the mouth is sweet & the eyes intelligent, there is always the look of beauty with me. Now I have seen heaps of such faces in Genoa. The superiority of the women over the men is indeed remarkable, & /may/ is to be accounted for perhaps by the latter being wrapt & /screwed/ screwed up in money-getting. Yet it is just the reverse, I understand, at Naples; & the Neapolitans are accused of being as sharp at a bargain as any body. What is certain however, from the testimonies of all I have met with, is, that /gentility/ in almost all parts of Italy, gentility of appearance is on the side of the females. The rarity of a gentlemanly look in the men is remarkable. The commonness of it among women of all classes, is equally so. Now /that/ the former was certainly not the case in /former/ old times, if we are to trust the portraits /of Titian & Raphael the/ handed down to us; /what is the caused nor indeed could it easily have been believed, if left upon record. What is the cause then of this extraordinary degeneracy? Is it, after all, an honourable one to the Italians? Is it, that the men, thinking /aware/ of the moral & political situation of their country, & /feeling themselves/ so long habituated to feel themselves degraded, acquire a certain instinctive carelessness & contempt of appearance; while the women, on the other hand, more taken up with their own affairs, with /the love of conquest/ the consciousness of beauty, & the flattery which is more or less always paid them, have retained /---/ a greater portion of their self-possession & /esteem/ self-esteem? The alteration, whatever it / be/ is owing to, is of the worst kind. The want of gentility is not supplied, as it so often is with as, by a certain homely simplicity & manliness, quite as good in it's way, & better, where the former does not include /a portion of/ the better part of it. The appearance, to use a modern cant phrase, /is, generally speaking/ has a certain raffishness in it, like that of a suspicious-looking fellow in England, who lounges about with his hat on one side & a flower in his mouth. Nor is it at all confined to men in trade, whether high or low; though at the same time I must observe, that all men, high or low, (with the exceptions, of course, that take place in /all/ every case) are notoriously given to pinching & saving, keeping their servants upon the lowest possible allowance, & eating as little as may be themselves, with the exception of their favourite minestra, of which I will speak presently, & which being a cheap as well as /favourable/ favourite dish, they gobble in /just/ a sufficient quantity to hinder their abstinence in other things from being regarded as the effect of temperance. In Pisa, the great good of life is a hot supper; but at Pisa & Genoa both, as in "the city" with us, if you overhear any thing said in the streets, it is /almost always/ generally about money. Quattrini, soldi, and lire, are discussing at every step. I do not know how the case may have been in Spain of late years. It is certainly better now. But a stranger, full of the Italian poets & romancers, is surprised to find the southern sunshine overgrown with this vile scurf. One thinks sometimes that men would not know what to do with their time, if it were not for that succession of /little/ petty hopes & excitements, which constitutes the essence of trade. It looks like a good-humoured invention of nature to save /all/ the foolish part of mankind from getting tired to death with themselves. But we know, from a comparison of different times & nations, that this is not the case. The dancing African & the dozing Asiatic are equally sufficed with a hundredth part of it; & /if/ the greater activity of the European has, in times quite as active & a great deal more healthy & pleasurable, dispensed with at least half of it, devoting the rest of his /time/ hours to sports & society. Mammon /however/ has undoubtedly been the god of these later times; & Philosophy will have a harder task in displacing him, than it has had in shaking the strong holds of his /reigning/ colleague, Superstition: for though men cannot serve "God & Mammon" together, (a truth, which the Mammonites are always practically disputing, in the very teeth of their own alleged doctrines) they can serve Superstition fast enough. Selfishness is the soul of both, as money formed the inside of Dagon, I believe, for my part, that both the causes above-mentioned have had great effect in forming the /modern/ character of modern Italians; but I believe also that the greatest of all (& I need not hesitate to mention it to a man of Catholic stock, out of the pale of the Pope's dominion) is the extraordinary blight that has been thrown in the course of time over all the manlier part of the Italian character by the notorious ill-example, chicanery, worldliness, & petty feeling of all sorts, exhibited by the Court of Rome. I do not /mean to/ allude to the present Pope;[4] /I believe he is or to/ and /-----/ a Pope here & there / / is of course to be excepted. I believe the reigning Pontiff is /to be/ a well-meaning, obstinate old gentleman enough, whom events have rendered a little romantic; a character, which is nobleness itself /to the/ compared with that of the majority of his brethren, or indeed with most characters. But the Italians for centuries, have been accustomed to see the most respected persons among them, & /the most/ a sacred court, full of /all/ the pettiest & most selfish vices; and if they have instinctively lost their respect for the persons, they have still seen these persons the most flourishing among them; & have been taught by their example to make a distinction between belief & practice, that would startle the saving grace of the most impudent of /Calvin/ Calvinists. From what I have seen myself, (& I would not /menton/ mention it if it had not been corroborated by /the other/ others who have resided in Italy several years,) there is a prevailing contempt of truth in /Italy/ this country, that would astonish /an Irish pauper/ even an oppressed Irishman. / of the of that/ It forms an aweful comment /on the/ upon those dangers of /teaching peo/ catechising people into insincerity, /of/ which Mr. Bentham has pointed out in his Church-of-Englandism. We are far enough, God knows, from this universality of evil yet. May such writers always be found to preserve us from it! See Mr. Shelley's admirable preface to the /Tra/ tragedy of the Cenci, where the religious /cause/ nature of this profanation of truth is pointed out with equal acuteness & elequence. I have heard/ / instances of /a want of truth/ falsehood, /among ladies/ not only among /shopkeepers / money-getters, but among /the most/ "ladies & gentleman" in ordinary, so extreme, so childish, & apparently so unconscious of wrong, that the very excess of it, however shocking in one respect, relieved one's feelings in another, and shewed how much might be done by proper institutions to /restore/ exalt the / / character / forever/ of a people naturally so ingenuous & so /malleable to impressions/ ductile. The great Italian virtues, under their present / /governments are [page break] [be]ing catholic, not being "taken in" by others, and [ta]king in every body else. /If you pay/Persons employ[ed] to do the least or the greatest jobs, will [a]like endeavour to cheat you through thick & thin, [It] is a perpetual warfare, in which you are at last [ob]liged to fight in self-defence. If you pay any body [wh]at he asks you, it never enters into his /---/ [im]agination that you do it from any thing but folly. You [are] pronounced a minchione, (a /simpleton/ ninny) one of [th]eir greatest terms of reproach. On the other [h]and, if you battle well through your bargain, /or come / a perversion of the natural principle of [se]lf-defence leads /them/ to a feeling of real respect [fo]r you. /The man/ A dispute may arise; the man [m]ay grin, stare, threaten, & pour out torrents /[o]f injured innocence as they always/ [o]f reasons & injured innocence, as they always do; [b]ut be firm, & he goes away /admiring/ equally angry [&] admiring. If you /could / take them in, doubtless [th]e admiration as well as the anger is still in pro[p]ortion, like that of / / the gallant knights of old when [th]ey were beaten in single combat. An English lady [to]ld me an amusing story the other day, which [wi]ll shew you the spirit of this matter at once. A / / friend of hers at Pisa, was in the habit of [d]ealing with a man, whose knaveries, as usual, [c]ompelled her to keep a /sharp/ reasonable eye /upon him/ to her [si]de of the bargain. She said to this man one day, ["A]h So-&-so,-no doubt you think me a great [m]inchione." The man, at this speech, put on /an [a]ir/ a look of the /graves/ sincerest deference & respect; [a]nd in a tone of deprecation, not at all intended, [a]s you might suppose, for a grave joke, but for the /[se]rious/ most serious thing in the world, replied- ["M]inchione! No! E gran furba lei."- ("You a [n]inny! Oh no, Ma'am: you are a great thief.") [T]his man was a Jew; but then what dealer in [page break] Italy is not? /They/ They say, that Jews almost find a living in Genoa. I know of one however, who both lives & gets fat. I asked him one day to direct me to some one who dealt in a particular article. He did so; /but added with/ adding in an under tone, and clapping his finger at the same time against his / / nose, / You don't pay-/ "He'll ask you such & such a sum for it; but take care you don't pay it though." The love of getting & saving pervades all classes of the community, the female part however, I have no doubt, much less than the male. The love of ornament, as well as a more generous passion, interferes. The men seem to believe in nothing but the existence of power, and /if/ as they cannot attain to it in it's grander shapes, /will/ do all they can to accumulate a bit of it in it's meanest. The women /have/ retain a better & more /saving/ redeeming faith. And yet every thing is done to spoil them. Cicisbeism (of which I will tell you more at /a future/ another opportunity) is the consequence of a /still more unnatural, though less startling condition of / state of society, / / more /almost as ridiculous/ nonsensical in fact / / than itself, though less startling to the present habits of the world; but it is managed in the worst possible manner; and, singularly enough, is almost as /grave &/ gross, /&/ more formal, & quite as hypocritical as what it displaces. It is a stupid system. / / The poorer the people, the less of course it / / takes place among them; but /a ver/ as the husband, in all cases, has the most /do/ to do for his family /after marriage/, & is the person least cared for, he is resolved to get what he can before /hand/ marriage; & a vile custom prevails among the poorest, by which no girl can get married, unless she brings a certain dowry. Unmarried females are also /kept looked after/ watched with exceeding [page break] respectable sort, & looks as ladylike as you please when /well/ dressed, received the flowers with gratitude, though without surprise; but both of them were struck speechless, when in addition to the crown, my wife gave her a / / pair of her own shoes & stockings. / / They were doubtless the triumph of the evening. Next day we heard accounts of the beautiful dancing,-of /the English footman valet/ Signor F. the English /valet/ valet, opening the ball with the handsome chandler's-shop woman, &c. and our poor countrywoman was ready to /die / expire. As the miscellaneous poetry of Alfieri is little known in England, I will take this occasion of sending you the commencement of a satire of his on / / money-getting. I was going to translate the whole of it, but it turned off into allusions of too legal a nature. He does not spare the English; /I assure you in the course of his satire/ though he would have found some distinction, I trust, between us & the Dutch, in this matter, could he have heard the shouts sent up the other day upon change in /favour/ honour of the Spanish patriots, & seen the willingness which nine tenths of us evince to open our purses in behalf of that /glori/ glorious cause. May God speed it, & contrive to make all our rich men as much poorer, & our poor as much richer, as they ought to be.- But I am forgetting my satire. The close of the extract, I think, presents a very ludicrous image. E[5] in te pur, d'ogni lucro Idolo ingordo, Nume dì questo secolo borsale, Un pocolin la penna mia quì lordo: Ch'ove oggi tanto, oltre il dover, prevale Quest' acciecato culto, onde ti bei, Dritt' è, che ti saetti alcun mio strale. Figlio di mezza libertade, il sei; Ne il niego io gia; ma in un mostrarti padre Vo' di servaggio doppio e d'usi rei. Ecco, ingombri ha di prepotenti squadre La magra Europa i mari tutti, e mille Terre farà di pianto e di sangue adre. Sian belligere genti, o sian tranquille, Abbiano o no metalli, indaco, o pepe, Di selve sieno o abitator di ville, Stuzzicar tutti densi, ovunque repe Quest' insetto tirannico Européo, Per impinguar le sua famelich' epe. Stupidi e inguisti, noi sprezziam l'Ebreo, Che compra e vende, e vende e compra, e vende; Ma siam ben noi popol piu vile e reo. Che, non contenti a guante il suol ci rende, Dell' altrui ladri, ove il furar sia lieve, Facciam pel globo tutto a chi piu prende. Taccio del sangue American, cui beve L'atroce Ispano; e il vitto agl' Indi tolto Dall' Anglo, che il suo vitto agl' Indi deve. Se in fasce orrende al nascer suo ravvolto Mostrar volessi il rio commercio, or fora I1 mio sermone (e invan) prolisso molto Basta ben sol, che la sua infamia d'ora Per me si illustri, appalesando il come L'iniqua Europa sue laidezze indora. Annichilate, impoverite, o dome Per lei le genti di remote spiagge, Di alloro no, di Baccalà le chiome, Orniamle, &c. &c.[6] [page break] Yes,[7] glutton of the land & sea, This pursy age's deity, I'll dirt my pen awhile with thee. For since this gloating in a purse Which blinds mankind, grows worse & worse, 'Tis fit I smite thee with a verse, Half-freedom's child, I know thou art: I'll prove thee father, ere we part, Of two-fold slavery & no heart. Lo, dry-drawn Europe sends her brood Of traders out, like a new flood, To sow the earth with tears & blood. Whether a land's at war or peace, Produces metals, tops, or teas, Or lives in towns, or villages. This vermin, mightiest thing alive, Makes them all herd, & crowd, & drive, To fatten up it's hungry hive. Unjust & stupid, we despise The Jew that buys, & sells, & buys As if we acted otherwise! Nay, we are worse; for not content, Like other thieves, with a home rent, We rob on every continent. I pass the Americans that bled For Spain's fierce thirst, and /Indian/ English bread Torn from the Indians it should feed. Were I to track through all his woes The monster to his swaddling-clothes, Where I should end, God only knows: Enough for me, if I can tear The mask off now, & shew the care Hag Europe takes to be thought fair. How should we crown her, having trod Whole nations down for this her god? With laurel? No,-with salted cod. This species of dried fish being greatly in request in Catholic countries, the image becomes very ludicrous to an Italian. There is a propriety, & yet a beautiful want of propriety in it. / / Were satirists to strike coins as well as verses, a head of Italy some centuries hence, /would puzzle the antiquariane/ with a crown of dried fish on it, would puzzle the antiquarians. If Italy is famous at present for any two things, it is for cicisbeism & minestra. / / Wherever you find /any/ shops, / / you see baskets full of a yellow stuff, made up in long strips like tape, and tied up in bundles. This is / / the main compound of minestra, or to use the Neapolitan term, your old acquaintance macaroni. / / I need not explain the nature of it to you; but some of your fellow-readers may chuse to /know/ be informed, that it is / / nothing but common paste, made up into /large pipes/ interminable pipes. / / Much of it is naturally of a yellowish colour, /in Tuscany/ but the Genoese die it deeper with saffron. When made into a soup, it is called / / minestra, and mixed /wit/ sometimes with meat, sometimes with oil or butter, but always, if it is to be had, with grated cheese, & that cheese Parmesan. An Italian has no notion of eating any thing plain. / / If he canno[t] have his minestra & his oil, he is thrown out o[f] all his calculations, /moral as wel/ physica[l] & moral. He has a great abstract respect for fasting / / but fights hard for an indulgence. The Genoe[se] in particular, being but Canaanites or borde[rers] in Italy, & accustomed to profane intercour[se] by their maritime situation, as well as to an /profane/ heterodox appetite by their industry and sea-air, appear to be extremely restive at the subject of fasting. They make / / pathetic representations to the /Pope/ Archbishop respec[ting] beef & pudding, & allege their health or their household economies. Fish is luckily dear. I have no[w] before me a Genoese Gazette of the 8th February last, in which there is an extract from the circular of the Archbisho[p] respecting the /above/ late Lent indulgences. It says, that "the Holiness of Our Lord" (for so the Pope is styled!) "has seen with the greatest displeasure that the ardent desire which he has always nourished" (an awkward word!) "of restoring the ancient rigour of Lent, is again rendered of no effect, by representations which he finds it impossible to resist." He therefore permits the inhabitants of the Archbishop's diocese to make "one meal a day of eggs & white meats (latticini) /a day/ during Lent, & such of them as have really need of it, the use of flesh": but he says, that this latter / / permission "leaves a heavy load on his conscience" & that he positively forbids the promiscuous use of flesh & fish.- I must add, for my part, that I think the Pope has reason in this roasting of eggs. In all countries, the devil (to speak after the received theory of good & ill) seems to provide for a due diminution of health & happiness by something in the shape of meat & drink. The northern nations exasperate their bile with beer, the southern with oil, & all with butter & meat. I would swear, that Dante was a great eater of minestra. Poor Lord Castlereagh (for you will readily believe, that in the abstract, & setting aside his / / Six Acts & other tyrannous doings, the liberal can pity even him) had had his buttered toast, / / I see, served up for breakfast the day he killed himself; a very mock-heroic help, I allow, towards a political catastrophe; but not the less likely for that. If wars have been made, & balances of power over-turned, by a quarrel about a pair of gloves, or a tap of the fan from a king's mistress, it is little to expedite the death of a minister by teazing his hypochondres with fried butter. God bless you & all friends. If I write another word, my illegitimate signature will stare the postman in the face. /Leigh Hunt/ (My dear Novello, how do you do? especially after this long, poking letter?- When you have read it, be good enough to dispatch it off to my brother for the Liberal. The signature, of course, is not[8] to appear, any more than this private, pleasantest bit of ail. A kiss to Mary for her long letter, & a thump to you for not writing as long a one. Both to Mrs. G.- God bless you. We are going on well. [page break Mr. Novello No. 8 Percy Street, Rathbone Place, Marylebone, London England Angleterre Inghelterra. Postmark: FPO MR-22 1823; GENOVA.[9] |
| Transcript Notes |
1. John Milton, Paradise Lost, 5 351-56 . 2. John Milton, Paradise Lost. 5.380-85 . 3. [LH note from the bottom half of page 4 and page 5] Even when this great musician was a child, [he] felt the superiority of genius over rank. If his flatterers, however high their station, exhibited no real feeling for the art, he played nothing but trifling pieces for their amusement, & was insensible even to their flattery. When called upon to display the astonishing prematurity of his powers before the Emperor Francis the First, he /asked/ said to his Majesty, with a simplicity that must have been somewhat frightful at a court, "Is [no]t Mr. Wagenseil here? We must send for him: he understands the thing." The Emperor sent for Wagenseil, who took his Majesty's place by the side of the performer. "Sir" said Mozart, "I am going to play one of your concertos; you must turn over the leaves for me."-- The Emperor Joseph the Second said to him once, speaking of his opera the Enleveme |
| Transcript By |
Cheney, David R. (David Raymond), 1922-2006 |
| Transcript Location |
Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections: http://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/index.html |
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