AFTER the appearance of my work on Benvenuto Cellini, Mr. J. C. Nimmo proposed that I should undertake a translation of Count Carlo Gozzi's Memorie Inutili.

The suggestion that such a book might be of interest to the English public emanated originally, I believe, from Mr. E. Hutchings of Manchester, in a letter addressed to the Academy.[1]

To this gentleman my warmest thanks are due, not only for starting the idea, which I have carried out, but also for the interest he has shown in my work during its progress, and for the assistance he has liberally rendered by the loan of rare books.

I entertained the proposal with some doubt. What I already knew about Carlo Gozzi amounted to little; and it seemed to me improbable that the world would willingly have left his Memoirs in oblivion if they possessed solid qualities.

At the same time, the little that I did know of Gozzi roused my curiosity. The picturesque aspects of Venetian decadence allured my fancy. I foresaw that I should have to handle the attractive subject of Italian impromptu comedy. Finally, it so happens that autobiographies have always exerted a peculiar fascination for my mind. I rate them highly as historical and psychological documents. The smallest fragment of a genuine autobiography seems to me valuable for the student of past epochs.

I had strong inducements, therefore, to undertake the proposed task.

The first thing to do was to procure a copy of the Memoirs, which exist only in one edition of three volumes. Mr. Hutchings placed the first two volumes of the book at my disposal; but the third was missing. It had been purloined while its owner was stationed in one of the South American cities. Mr. Nimmo and I waited through four months, making continued applications to the best European dealers in old books, before a complete copy was at last disinterred from a Venetian library.

The extraordinary rarity of the Memorie stimulated my growing interest. After making a preliminary study of the text, I perceived that this was no common specimen of self-portraiture. In some respects it seemed to me to be a masterpiece. I felt no doubt that it possessed both psychological and historical value. A man of a very marked type stood forth from those pages. He was, moreover, the Venetian representative of a well-defined social and literary period. This period corresponded pretty closely with that of our own Samuel Johnson, Fielding, Goldsmith, Reynolds, David Hume. It was the period which ended with the earthquake of the French Revolution, the signs of which catastrophe were felt more ominously in Italy than in our own land. At the same time I recognised salient qualities of healthy moral sense, of analytical acumen, of vigorous intelligence, and of caustic humour in the author, mingled with literary merit of no ordinary kind, vivid transcripts from contemporary life, dramatic narration, incisive sketches of character, original reflections on society.

According to my own standard in such matters, Gozzi's Memoirs ranked as an important document for the study of Italy in the last century.

But was the book worth translating? Would it not suffice to leave the few existing copies in their obscurity, and to indicate their value for historians by composing a critical treatise on the author and his times?

My own predilection for autobiographies, and my sense of their utility, caused me to reject this alternative. I decided to translate, and to illustrate my translation by tolerably copious original essays.

While engaged upon the work, I have not, however, felt always quite at ease. It has recurred to my mind that many readers of these volumes will exclaim: "An English version of Gozzi's self-styled 'useless memoirs' cannot fail to be twice as useless as the original!" Not all people share that partiality for autobiographies which in me amounts almost to a passion.

Besides, I had to face other difficulties. The three chapters which contain the narratives of Gozzi's love-adventures could not be omitted. They are too valuable for the light they throw upon his age, and too important in the man's estimate of his own character. Their suppression would have been unfair to Gozzi, and would have shorn his Memoirs of some brilliant bits of local colour. Nevertheless, I knew that the frankness and the cynical humour of these episodes are out of tune with modern taste. Much is pardoned by the virtue of our age to classics—to Plato or Cellini—which would not be excused in a writer of inferior eminence. But Gozzi is no classic. The fact of his neglect by his own nation proves that overwhelmingly. Why drag him from deserved oblivion if these love-stories are indispensable to the rehabilitating process?

My answer to this perplexing query was that the debated passages are good in literature, true to nature, sound in moral feeling. Their candour is the candour of a cleanly heart, resolved to bare its secret by an effort of self-portraiture. Gozzi describes passions common to that age, and ours, and every age; but he also shows how a determined character, upright and honourable, can free itself from the entanglements of natural frailty. The lesson may be somewhat harsh, but it is salutary. Gozzi has written no single word unworthy of a man of principle—nothing which is calculated to make vice alluring. Only one—

only such an one can take exception to the narratives of Gozzi's love-adventures.

Reasoning thus, I determined to include the love-tales in my translation, having already decided that no translation could be given to the world without them, and that the book was worthy of resuscitation. But I felt myself justified in removing those passages and phrases which might have caused offence to some of my readers.

To translate Gozzi with the minute attention to his style which I bestowed upon Cellini would have been unpractical. I should even have inflicted an injury upon my author. It is in many respects an annoying style; redundant, unequal, diffuse; bearing the stamp of garrulous senility and imperfect (though copious) command of language.

To condense and manipulate the Memoirs at my own free will, following the plan of Paul de Musset's abridgement, seemed to me unscrupulous, even if I abstained from that amusing writer's deliberate mystifications.

I resolved to convert the larger portion of the book into equivalent English, allowing myself the license of curtailing certain passages, and rearranging the order of some chapters. All cases of important condensation or omission have been indicated in my notes. My account of the Memoirs and the causes which led to their publication (Introduction, Part i.) sufficiently explains my right to transpose material from one place to another. Readers of the Introduction will perceive how carelessly and accidentally, to serve occasion, the original and unique edition was put together. It is due in part, I think, to Gozzi's indifference and haste of compilation that so curious a specimen of autobiography fell into almost absolute oblivion.

We have only one edition of the Memorie, that of Palese, under the date Venezia, 1797. Therefore nothing need be said upon the topic of bibliography. I may, however, mention that the few copies of this rare book which have fallen under my inspection present some features of difference, indicating the random way in which the sheets were made up for publication.

Among English critics of distinction, one only, so far as I am aware, has mentioned Gozzi's Memoirs. That is Vernon Lee, in her Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy. But Vernon Lee knew the book only through Paul de Musset's "perversion." Accordingly, what she has to say about the man is less valuable than the vivid, if not always accurate, account she gives of his Fiabe.

The volumes I am now presenting to the public claim at least one merit—that of dealing with a hitherto almost untouched document of historical and literary importance.

I flatter myself that readers will be found to appreciate the brilliant, though prolix and desultory, portraiture of life in Venice during the last century which these "useless memoirs" offer to their imagination.

Finally, I wish here to record my mature opinion about Carlo Gozzi's character for veracity and general uprightness. I think that I have been hardly just, and certainly not generous, to Gozzi in the Introduction and the notes appended to my version. Wishing to avoid the lues biographica, I assumed a somewhat too purely critical attitude while writing. Careful perusal of the proofs makes me feel that the truth would not have suffered had I entirely suppressed some suspicions and concealed some personal want of sympathy with the man. Allowing for his peculiar and occasionally repellent character—the character of an "original" and a confirmed old bachelor—Gozzi seems to me now to have been as honest and open-hearted as a gentleman should be.

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

Am Hof, Davos Platz,
March 25, 1889.

BOOKS USED AND REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK.

1. Carlo Gozzi. "Memorie Inutili." 3 vols. Venice. 1797.

2. Carlo Gozzi. "Opere." 10 vols. Venice. Colombani and other publishers. 1772-1791.

3. Ernesto Masi. "Le Fiabe di Carlo Gozzi." 2 vols. Bologna. Zanichelli. 1885.

4. Pier Antonio Gratarol. "Narrazione Apologetica." 2 vols. Venezia. Gatti. 1797.

5. Paul de Musset. "MÉmoires de Charles Gozzi." Paris. Charpentier. 1848.

6. Giov. Batt. Magrini. "Carlo Gozzi e le Fiabe." Cremona. Feraboli. 1876. The same work, second edition: "I Tempi la Vita e gli Scritti di Carlo Gozzi." Benevento. De Gennaro. 1883.

7. Michele Scherillo. "La Commedia dell' Arte in Italia." Torino. Loescher. 1884.

8. Adolfo Bartoli. "Scenari Inediti della Commedia dell' Arte." Firenze. Sansone. 1880.

9. Alfonse Royer. "Carlo Gozzi, ThÉÂtre Fiabesque." Paris. Michel LÉvy. 1865.

10. Carlo Goldoni. "MÉmoires." 3 vols. Paris. Veuve Duchesne. 1787.

11. Ferdinando Galanti. "Carlo Goldoni e Venezia nel Secolo xviii." Padova. Samin. 1882.

12. P. G. Molmenti. "Carlo Goldoni." Venezia. Ongania. 1880.

13. Vernon Lee. "Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy." London. Satchell. 1880.

14. Maurice Sand. "Masques et Bouffons." 2 vols. Paris. A. LÉvy 1862.

15. S. Romanin. "Storia Documentata di Venezia." Vols. vii.-ix. Venezia. Naratovitch. 1860.

16. Giuseppe Boerio. "Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano." Venezia. Cocchini. 1856.

17. PhilarÈte Chasles. "Études sur l'Espagne, etc." ("D'un ThÉÂtre Espagnol-VÉnitien au xviii^me. SiÈcle et de Charles Gozzi"). Paris. Amyot. 1847.

18. N. TommasÈo. "Storia Civile nella Letteraria." Roma, Torino, Firenze. E Loescher. 1872.

19. Eugenio Camerini. "I Precursori del Goldoni." Milano. Sonzogno. 1872.

20. "MÉmoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, Écrites par lui-mÊme. Bruxelles. Rozet. 1876.

THE MEMOIRS
OF
COUNT CARLO GOZZI