penser ce que lui était echappé, était le voler, ou que la penseé fût un domaine appartenant à lui seul." With such feelings, Madame de Staël was obnoxious to him, from personal as well as political jealousy; and his unaccountable severity towards her bespeaks the soreness of a rival, rather than the caution of a statesman. The Abbe de Pradt, from whom is the above extract, and who was secretary to Napoleon, has given us in his last work, a full account of the state of the case between the Emperor and the Lady: "Napoleon and Madame de Staël could never agree, they were two rival powers. Napoleon was no Roman Emperor, to allow of an associate in the empire; and Madame de Staël, prohibited by her sex from acting the part of Augustus, wished to be and made herself in every thing somewhat of the Cæsar. Modern thrones do not admit this partition. And Napoleon defended the Salick law against an usurpation, which menaced to bow the French sceptre under the distaff. Napoleon did not personally hate Madame de Staël-a man of genius cannot hate genius in any one; he dreaded it, when he could not subdue it-independence was the only thing he feared. He perceived that Madame de Staël had too much talent to make use of it solely in support of another's power, and that power he wished to keep for himself. His persecution was but homage to superiority recognized by him :-what a pity that the means employed were equally beneath the persecutor and his victim! He avenged himself, as a jealous and rejected lover, on a powerful and undisciplined genius. Napoleon was well acquainted with nature, and the vulnerable parts of his empire over France and Europe. He had torn a people from long Saturnalia-he had founded an empire at the price of much sweat and much blood-he had bowed the people once more to that reverence towards authority, which they had forgotten-he had to do with men accustomed to take every thing in jest, and to make them then take every thing in earnest he had to act upon the opinion of L'Europe et L'Amerique, en 1821. the world, which was the seat of his power -and he had to keep the regards of men turned from the laboratory where he was forging the thunders of his power. He knew that it was but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and that if the one was his throne, the other was his tomb. Thus compelled to defence, Napoleon could not for ever remain exposed to those deep and cutting sarcasms, which, as they fly from mouth to mouth, influence, nay form, the sentiments of a people. He could not remain exposed to the too certain action of these subtle dissolvents. It had not escaped Napoleon, that with the French the wit of a bon mot was more to be dreaded than the fire of a battalion: Et il avoit vu dans le carquois de Mad. de Staël ces fleches qui atteindraient un homme assis sur l'arc en ciel." The first of these bon mots that an noyed him, was her saying, "Il n'est qu'un Robespiere à cheval. She tells somewhere or another rather an amusing story of her going to sup where she expected to meet with the First Consul, and of her arming herself with all the sharp and pointed sentences she could devise, for the puraddressed her. Napoleon, however, pose of answering him—He never once learned one thing from her,—the use of epigram, and sententiousness as an instrument of power. Nevertheless, he did not turn this against the Ideologists with any degree of success, beyond what would necessarily attend an emperor's good sayings. He wanted wit-he knew this, and made up for it in impudence at times, at others in paradox. When set at his ease by the servility of those around him, he was very fond of indulging in that hap-hazard sort of argument, which Madame de Staël describes as excellent reasoning, when backed by an hundred thousand bayonets. He would not deign, however, to discuss his favourite principles directly; it was always par parenthese that he introduced + The worthy Archbishop of Malines would be puzzled to prove this. The note quoted previously is quite sufficient to contradict these assertions and colourings. What a ridiculous blunder was that in the Edinburgh Review, where the adventure of Madame de Staël with the coachman is related. "What had I to conjure with but my poor genius ?" she is made to say. This converts a humorous and characteristic trait into mere nonsense. The blundering reviewer translates esprit into the word genius; if he had read the Allemagne, he might have learned the difference of these words, which he makes synonymous. "Il y a quelquefois de la mechanceté dans le gens d'esprit ; mais le genic est presque toujours plein de bonte." them, most generally under the covert of criticism, a theme he was fond of, and upon which he uttered strange opinions. "Reasons of state, do you see me now," said Buonaparte to a wellknown artist," have among the moderns succeeded to the fatalism of the ancients. Corneille is the only one of the French dramatic writers who has comprehended this truth. And if he had lived in my time, I should have made him my prime minister." When the "Agamemnon" of Lemercier was represented before him for the first time, Buonaparte said to the author, "Your piece is worth nothing. What right hath this Strophus to make remonstrances to Clytemnestra he is but a valet."-"No, Sire," replied the author, "Strophus is a dethroned King, the friend of Agamemnon."-"You know nothing of Courts," said the Emperor, "there the monarch alone is anything, the rest are but valets." This is the morale d'egoïsme, against which, Madame de Staël pointed all the artillery of her eloquence and wit. She delights to contrast it with the noble, but certainly puerile principle of the party, which Napoleon had overcome. rieures du dix-huitième siecle en France, un superbe enthousiasme pour les principes qui fondent le bonheur et la dignité de l'espece humaine; mais à l'abri de ce grand chêne croissoient des plantes vénéneuses, l'egoïsme et l'ironie; et Buonaparte sut habilement se servir de ces dispositions funestes." Nothing can be more ridiculous and pernicious than this superbe enthousiasme, when it is left to occupy the brains of women and boys, unaccustomed to the ways or the necessities of state policy. What was heroism with our Chatham, was but blueism and cant in De Staël. It was not worth persecution, and the only part of Bonaparte's conduct, with respect to these praters, deserving censure, is his not having confined his hostility to legoisme et l'ironie. The poetical theory of politics inculcated by De Staël, is tolerable, nay pretty, in the pointed and apophthegmatic passages of the "Considerations;" but her followers are the most prosing, dull set of canters, that ever assassinated the time of the student,-whether it be the Irish oratory of De Pradt-the pleadings of that little man of wire and quicksilver, Benjamin Constant-or the metaphorical lectures of Guizot, on which we have attended, yawning at his inevitable tendance of this, that, and the "Il y avoit eu, parmi les hommes supe- other.* Strange coincidence! that Buonaparte and Dr Barret should have always used the same colloquial phrase-Vide mes, me, mine! SPECIMENS OF THE ITALIAN ART OF HOAXING. From the Novels of Lasca. No I. [LICENTIOUS as were the Italian novelists of the school of Bocaccio, it is, at the same time, not to be denied, that they had attained the highest perfection in the agreeable art of story-telling, which they professed. Nor is it to be rashly concluded, because a large proportion of their writings is justly exceptionable, that they do not afford abundant matter suited to the entertainment of a much more refined class of readers than that to which they were in general addressed, or that a judicious selection might not be formed from the compositions even of the least scrupulous among them, which would not only exhibit their talent to great advantage, but afford a very familiar and entertaining insight into the domestic character and habits of a nation, which so many circumstances combine to render the most interesting under the sun. Of these narratives, so indiscriminately censured, many are of a serious, and many also of a tragical stainp; nor ought it to be forgotten, that they furnished most of our own early dramatists, and (among them) Shakespeare himself, with the subjects of their most popular and most affecting performances. This is alone a sufficient reason for always preserving to them a high penser ce que lui était echappé, était le voler, ou que la penseé fût un domaine appartenant à lui seul." With such feelings, Madame de Staël was obnoxious to him, from personal as well as political jealousy; and his unaccountable severity towards her bespeaks the soreness of a rival, rather than the caution of a statesman. The Abbe de Pradt, from whom is the above extract, and who was secretary to Napoleon, has given us in his last work, a full account of the state of the case between the Emperor and the Lady: "Napoleon and Madame de Staël could never agree, they were two rival powers. Napoleon was no Roman Emperor, to allow of an associate in the empire; and Madame de Staël, prohibited by her sex from acting the part of Augustus, wished to be and made herself in every thing somewhat of the Casar. Modern thrones do not admit this partition. And Napoleon defended the Salick law against an usurpation, which menaced to bow the French sceptre under the distaff. Napoleon did not personally hate Madame de Staël-a man of genius cannot hate genius in any one; he dreaded it, when he could not subdue it-independence was the only thing he feared. He perceived that Madame de Staël had too much talent to make use of it solely in support of another's power, and that power he wished to keep for himself. His persecution was but homage to superiority recognized by him :-what a pity that the means employed were equally beneath the persecutor and his victim! He avenged himself, as a jealous and rejected lover, on a powerful and undisciplined genius. Napoleon was well acquainted with nature, and the vulnerable parts of his empire over France and Europe. He had torn a people from long Saturnalia he had founded an empire at the price of much sweat and much blood-he had bowed the people once more to that reverence towards authority, which they had forgotten-he had to do with men accustomed to take every thing in jest, and to make them then take every thing in earnest he had to act upon the opinion of L'Europe et L'Amerique, en 1821. the world, which was the seat of his power and he had to keep the regards of men turned from the laboratory where he was forging the thunders of his power. He knew that it was but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and that if the one was his throne, the other was his tomb. Thus compelled to defence, Napoleon could not for ever remain exposed to those deep and cutting sarcasms, which, as they fly from mouth to mouth, influence, nay form, the sentiments of a people. He could not remain exposed to the too certain action of these subtle dissolvents. It had not escaped Napoleon, that with the French the wit of a bon mot was more to be dreaded than the fire of a battalion: Et il avoit vu dans le carquois de Mad. de Staël ces fleches qui atteindraient un homme assis sar l'arc en cicl." The first of these bon mots that an She tells noyed him, was her saying, "Il n'est qu'un Robespiere à cheval." somewhere or another rather an amusing story of her going to sup where she expected to meet with the First Consul, and of her arming herself with all the sharp and pointed sentences she could devise, for the purpose of answering him-He never once addressed her. Napoleon, however, learned one thing from her, the use of epigram, and sententiousness as an instrument of power. Nevertheless, he did not turn this against the Ideologists with any degree of success, beyond what would necessarily attend an emperor's good sayings. He wanted wit-he knew this, and made up for it in impudence at times, at others in paradox. When set at his ease by the servility of those around him, he was very fond of indulging in that hap-hazard sort of argument, which Madame de Staël describes as excellent reasoning, when backed by an hundred thousand bayonets. He would not deign, however, to discuss his favourite principles directly; it was always par parenthese that he introduced The worthy Archbishop of Malines would be puzzled to prove this. The note quoted previously is quite sufficient to contradict these assertions and colourings. What a ridiculous blunder was that in the Edinburgh Review, where the adventure of Madame de Staël with the coachman is related. "What had I to conjure with but my poor genius ?" she is made to say. This converts a humorous and characteristic trait into mere nonsense. The blundering reviewer translates esprit into the word genius; if he had read the Allemagne, he might have learned the difference of these words, which he makes synonymous. "Il y a quelquefois de la mechanceté dans le gens d'esprit ; mais le genic est presque toujours plein de bonte." them, most generally under the covert of criticism, a theme he was fond of, and upon which he uttered strange opinions. "Reasons of state, do you see me now," said Buonaparte to a wellknown artist, "have among the moderns succeeded to the fatalism of the ancients. Corneille is the only one of the French dramatic writers who has comprehended this truth. And if he had lived in my time, I should have made him my prime minister." When the "Agamemnon" of Lemercier was represented before him for the first time, Buonaparte said to the author, "Your piece is worth nothing. What right hath this Strophus to make remonstrances to Clytemnestra he is but a valet."-" No, Sire," replied the author, "Strophus is a dethroned King, the friend of Agamemnon."-"You know nothing of Courts," said the Emperor," there the monarch alone is anything, the rest are but valets." This is the morale d'egoïsme, against which, Madame de Staël pointed all the artillery of her eloquence and wit. She delights to contrast it with the noble, but certainly puerile principle of the party, which Napoleon had overcome. "Il y avoit eu, parmi les hommes supe rieures du dix-huitième siecle en France, un superbe enthousiasme pour les principes qui fondent le bonheur et la dignité de l'espece humaine; mais à l'abri de ce grand chêne croissoient des plantes vénéneuses, l'egoïsme et l'ironie; et Buonaparte sut habilement se servir de ces dispositions funestes." Nothing can be more ridiculous and pernicious than this superbe enthousiasme, when it is left to occupy the brains of women and boys, unaccustomed to the ways or the necessities of state policy. What was heroism with our Chatliam, was but blueism and cant in De Staël. It was not worth persecution, and the only part of Bonaparte's conduct, with respect to these praters, deserving censure, is his not having confined his hostility to legoisme et l'ironie. The poetical theory of politics inculcated by De Staël, is tolerable, nay pretty, in the pointed and apophthegmatic passages of the "Considerations;" but her followers are the most prosing, dull set of canters, that ever assassinated the time of the student,-whether it be the Irish oratory of De Pradt-the pleadings of that little man of wire and quicksilver, Benjamin Constant-or the metaphorical lectures of Guizot, on which we have attended, yawning at his inevitable tendance of this, that, and the other.* Strange coincidence! that Buonaparte and Dr Barret should have always used the same colloquial phrase-Vide mes, me, mine! SPECIMENS OF THE ITALIAN ART OF HOAXING. From the Novels of Lasca. No I. [LICENTIOUS as were the Italian novelists of the school of Bocaccio, it is, at the same time, not to be denied, that they had attained the highest perfection in the agreeable art of story-telling, which they professed. Nor is it to be rashly concluded, because a large proportion of their writings is justly exceptionable, that they do not afford abundant matter suited to the entertainment of a much more refined class of readers than that to which they were in general addressed, or that a judicious selection might not be formed from the compositions even of the least scrupulous among them, which would not only exhibit their talent to great advantage, but afford a very familiar and entertaining insight into the domestic character and habits of a nation, which so many circumstances combine to render the most interesting under the sun. Of these narratives, so indiscriminately censured, many are of a serious, and many also of a tragical stainp; nor ought it to be forgotten, that they furnished most of our own early dramatists, and (among them) Shakespeare himself, with the subjects of their most popular and most affecting performances. This is alone a sufficient reason for always preserving to them a high rank in the favour of the English nation; but it is not to this class of subjects that I am now disposed to call your attention. There are many which, belonging neither to the tragical nor romantic character, nor being liable to just reprehension on the ground of indecency or profaneness, possess the merit of exhibiting in perfection the peculiar characteristics of Italian humour, and, above all, of that species of practical wit, which, transfused into other countries under the names of Hoax and Mystification, has, nevertheless, no where flourished in such full luxuriance as in this, which I believe may safely be denominated its native soil; and, to the credit of the Italian hoax, (in this re spect eminently distinguishable from that which is fashionable in the " Land of Cockaigne," whether London or Paris,) is, that it very rarely, if ever, appears to be practised to the prejudice of modest worth, or female delicacy, but to be reserved as the merited reward of impudence or knavery. I shall endeavour to divert your readers with a few specimens of this description; and it will be obvious, that, although bearing the general title of "Novel," now confined to fabulous narrative, the incidents recorded are told as of persons actually existing, and bear the stamp of real occurrences. The first I send you shall be from the novels of Anton Francesco Grazzini, commonly called "Il Lasca," a Florentine writer, who flourished during the greater part of the sixteenth century; and who, besides his novels, was the author of several burlesque poems, and other works of acknowledged celebrity. You have already had his tale of the good Lombard Abbot, and Master Tasso; but, before I present to your notice any more of his Tales, I will beg you to receive the "Introduction," which, after the example of Bocaccio, and in common with all the novelists of the age, he thought proper to prefix to his collection. The admirable narrative which ushers in the Decameron, excited, by its excellence, the spirit of imitation; and that of "Il Lasca," though of a much lighter cast, will be found not altogether valueless, as illustrating the habits and character of Florentine society in the sixteenth century.] INTRODUCTION. The years of the fructiferous incarnation of the most high Son of the Virgin Mary, had exceeded the term of 1540, and did not yet reach the middle of the century. As Vicar of Christ, and successor of Peter, Pope Paul the Third governed the church; Charles the Fifth, as Cæsar, (to his everlasting glory,) alternately pulled in and loosened the reins with which he curbed the ancient empire of the unconquered children of Mars; and the Gauls had for their guardian and ruler, Francis the First, the most serene monarch of France; when, in the generous and transcendent city of Florence, on a day of festival, (the last of the month of January,) after dinner, were assembled together at the house of a widow lady, (not less worthy and noble than rich and beautiful,) four young cavaliers, of the first and best in the city, who came to pass the afternoon and amuse themselves with her brother, a gentleman who, for learning and courtesy, had few equals, not only in Florence, but in all Tuscany; inasmuchas, over and above his other good qualities, he was a perfect musician, and had a chamber filled with the choicest compositions, and all sorts of the best musical instruments. His companions likewise were, all of them, more or less accomplished, either as social or instrumental performers. It happened that whilst they were 66 Among the novels of Lasca, we find two, the subjects of which are rendered sufficiently familiar to the ears of our modern English poetry, by Lord Byron's “ Parisina," and Millman's "Fazio." + See No. LXIV. for May, 1822. I have since discovered that the" Master Tasso," of whom honourable mention is there made, was probably neither the poet nor the poet's father, but Giovan Battista Tasso, an artist of celebrity, and a favourite at the court of Cosmo the Great, where he did some injury to his first-acquired reputation, by pretending to skill in architecture, of which he knew nothing. He was the friend and companion of Benevento Cellini, who mentions him frequently in the Memoirs of his Life. |