THE APPRENTICESHIP TO THE LAUREL.

In the Via della Forca, at Florence, the eye of an observant traveller may remark a marble slab let into the front of an otherwise undistinguished house, and bearing the inscription "Here lived La Corilla in the eighteenth century." The laconic stone vouchsafes no further word of enlightenment; those who placed it where it stands, for the information of future generations, having evidently imagined that nothing more would be necessary, and that posterity, on seeing the brief announcement, would gaze on the dirty plaster–coloured tenement with enthusiasm, while it exclaimed, "Ha! 'twas within these walls, then, that the bright poet–spirit, the marvel of her age, the divine Corilla, lived while she was in the flesh!" &c., &c. But posterity unfortunately has already in the century next after the one so illustrated begun to exclaim instead, "Corilla lived here! And who the deuce was Corilla?" And then posterity, it is to be feared, would think nothing more about the matter.

And yet the question is worth answering. For "La Corilla," forgotten as she is, and in nowise worthy of being remembered on any other ground, was the quintessential product and expression of the literary life of her time and country. And, what is more important, that literature, and those literary tastes and habits, which may be said to have culminated in La Corilla, were the normal product, evolved according to certain unchanging and ascertainable laws, of the general social system then prevailing in Italy. And this again was with perfect regularity of cause and effect brought about in due course of historical development; so that from Dante, who was exiled, to La Corilla, who was crowned at the Capitol, the march of Italy across the centuries may be traced almost as surely in the history of its literature, as in that of its material life and political changes.

Yes. The lady who lived in the Via della Forca in the eighteenth century was crowned at the Capitol in Rome in the year 1776. This is the principal fact of her story, tellable in very few words. But for the reasons stated above, it is worth while to spend a few minutes in examining what that crowning at the Capitol was and meant, and how La Corilla came to deserve that remarkable distinction.

We find that she had three predecessors on that throne in the Roman Campidoglio: Petrarch, Tasso, and "Perfetti." Petrarch and Tasso the world knows, though it knows little of their Roman crowning. And diligent Dryasdust researches will discover "Perfetti" to be the name of a man—and a cavalier—who in that same eighteenth century was similarly operated on, and whom not even Dryasdust could have dug out from the underlying strata, had he not been so treated.

And here we are struck by the remarkable fact of the long abeyance of the laurel crown. From Tasso in the sixteenth, to Perfetti and Corilla in the eighteenth century, it should seem, none were found crownable in Italy. Are we to consider that these recent crowned heads take rank in their country's Pantheon next after the author of the "Gerusalemme"? Or must it be supposed that the significance of Campidoglio crowning became changed yet more rapidly than the national literature, fast as it moved in the same direction, could follow it; so that the knight Perfetti and the lady Corilla were the first who overtook the standard of the crown conferrers, and came up to the modern mark?

Let us see whether any explanation of these puzzling circumstances can be obtained from an examination of La Corilla's titles to her high honour.

In the vulgar unpoetical world of baptismal registers, milliners' bills, and such matter–of–fact trivialities, "La Corilla" was known as Maria Maddalena Morelli. It was only "in Arcadia" that she was "La Corilla Olympica;" for such was her full Arcadian style and title.

Maria Maddalena Morelli, then, in plain prose, was born of humble parents at Pistoja, a Tuscan city some twenty miles from Florence, in the year 1740, and was educated in a better manner than the means of her parents could have commanded, by the kindness of a noble lady of that city. When she was only ten years old, her lively gracious manners and pleasing appearance obtained for her another and more important patroness. This was the Princess Pallavicini, who took the engaging child with her to Rome, and there completed her education according to the best and most perfect literary methods known to an age and people, who deemed Metastasio "the Prince of Poets."

While still at Rome she began to be favourably known to "the shepherds and shepherdesses, who owned the gentle sway of the blond–haired god of the silver bow," in that city for the quickness of her parts, and inclination towards poetry. And there a third patroness took her by the hand—the Princess Columbrano—who carried the blossoming muse with her to Naples, there to rhyme "amore," "a tutte le ore," for the amusement and admiration of the polite drawing–rooms, whose serene and illustrious inmates were unable to perform such feats of intellect for themselves.

Her success in this occupation was great, and was attended by a rapidly increasing and extending reputation. Amid these early triumphs the youthful poetess was wooed and won by Fernando Fernandez, a Spanish gentleman, whose entire biography, so far as recoverable from the greedy maw of dull oblivion, is narrated in the above words. Having given the "Zitella" Maddalena Morelli the social status of "La Signora Fernandez," he retires behind the side–scene, and is no more heard of.

It may be as well to state at once, however, to prevent misconception, that, notwithstanding the social circumstances which called Don Fernando to live in the shade, while his wife pursued her calling in the sunshine, there is no reason to doubt that La Signora Fernandez was a very good wife to her husband, and devoted herself to her domestic duties whenever she could get out of "Arcadia" for a season.

As for Don Fernando, the one sole fact of his biography will probably authorise us to conclude that he was a shrewd gentleman, with a good eye for the main chance; for in truth the marriage with "La Corilla" was a very good speculation. And the great Mr. Barnum, had he lived in those days, would assuredly have put himself into communication with her, and made arrangements for working the Arcadian farm to their mutual profit. However inferior to so great a master, Don Fernando was no doubt awake to the Arcadian yield. And we may picture him to ourselves as occupied in haunting the antechambers of princes and cardinals with "programmes" in his pocket, signing and issuing tickets, bargaining with fiddlers for their accompaniment to the Muse's improvisation, and doing any other such Arcadian bottle–holding as might assist in keeping his own and the Muse's pot boiling for the comfort of their ex–Arcadian existence.

It is evident that Corilla's business was a very profitable one. The highnesses, serenities, eminences, and other minor grandees were condemned to dreadfully dull lives in those days, and were delighted with any stimulant of a sufficiently mild nature and thoroughly safe quality. The world's rulers had long since learned that it was good to "patronise literature." It was in those days more than ever the fashion to do so. But literature had of late been exhibiting symptoms very disquieting to its courtly friends, who found it more than ever necessary to take precautions for having their literature of the right sort.

The "difficulty" between literature and princes is one of old date; and, truth to tell, the connection between them has rarely been creditable to either party. If Francis I. showed his paternal regard for learning by limiting the printing–presses in all France to twelve licensed machines, literature, even as represented by such men as the historian Robertson, has been flunky enough to extol him as "the father of letters!" How often has the clause—"but he protected literature and loved learned men"—been accepted in a historian's summing–up of the character of some royal scourge of humanity, as a set–off against a host of abominations wholly incompatible with any real appreciation of the value of human intellect! It is quite time that the historic claims of many princely "fathers of literature" to the lenient consideration of the world on this ground, should be more rightly appreciated. And the dealings of several of the Italian princes during the last three hundred years with those "dangerous classes" of their subjects, the men of the pen, form a very instructive manual of the royal art of patronising literature.

Cosmo I., Duke of Florence, by the grace of Charles V., was a most able practitioner in this line. He founded the Florentine Academy, and regulated its studies and duties in accordance with the great discovery, that the exercise of men's minds on words might be quite safe and harmless, if carefully disjoined from any application of their thoughts to things; nay, might even not only be harmless, but positively useful in promoting all those qualities which make men good subjects. And it is quite curious to observe with what unity of aim, means, and success, the policy so inaugurated by him has been carried out by those who came after him. Hence the innumerable "academies" which swarmed in every city of Italy, vieing with each other in the absurdity of their appellations and the frivolity of their pursuits. Hence the production of a literature which from generation to generation grew ever safer and safer, till it culminated in Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses, and gave birth to a Corilla, who could be warranted to produce, in whatever heat of poetical estro and fervid flow of extempore song, only such strains as were fitted for noble ears to hear, and were calculated to "encourage the best sentiments in the masses."

The literature thus produced to meet the special requirements of enlightened princely protectors, and perfectionated by the dwindling intellect of successive generations to a pitch of imbecility scarcely credible, instructively illustrates its own birth, descent, antecedents, and functions, by the consistent and intense falsity which saturates and gives its character to the entire mass of it. The exterior and avowed fictions, which turned companies of sober middle–aged gentlemen, nobles, magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and divines, into Arcadian shepherds, calling each other by such absurd aliases as "Parmenio Dirceo," "Prasilio Dedaleo," "Dorillo Dafneio," and a thousand such, were but the fitting corporeal manifestation of a spirit as fictitious. The essence of "Arcadian" citizenship was to think false thoughts, to speak no word which should be a representation of any real thing, to cut off with jealous care all possible communication between the world of "Arcady" and the world of reality, and to take good heed that no stray tone of the voice of literature should by chance address itself to any one genuine feeling of the heart of man, evoke a sincere thought, or appeal to a real interest. It is easy to see how admirably such a literature was adapted to fulfil the objects of the princely founders and patrons of "Academies."

Our Olympic Corilla's business therefore throve, as every business does that produces wares in demand. Shortly after her marriage, the now celebrated Improvisatrice made a professional tour through Italy, and was listened to with delight in the patrician saloons of Bologna, Modena, Parma, Venice, &c. Fresh triumphs, we are told, everywhere awaited her; and her readiness, nimbleness of wit and tongue, and facility, became the admiration of all Italy.

The land of the "dolce favella" still brings forth "improvisatori" and "improvisatrice;" and those who have had an opportunity of hearing performances of the sort will readily appreciate the quality and amount of talent needed for the production of them. A dull, unimpressionable or unimaginative mind would of course entirely fail at any such exercise. But it is extremely probable, that a profound and suggestive intellect richly laden with stores of thought, and habitually critical in the marshalling and effective presentment of those stores, would be found equally unsuccessful. A light nimble wit of exclusively objective tendency, unburdened by deep views of things, and unimpeded by habits of examination and reflection; a ready and copious memory, well furnished with common–places, a good command of the language and its inexhaustible rhyming capabilities—that mellifluous language, of which it may be said, that every child born to the use of it, "lisps in numbers, for the numbers come" naturally to its attempts to talk;—and finally, perhaps the most essential qualification of all for the exercise of the art, a practised dexterity in avoiding any such treatment of a given subject as might lead to difficulty, a competent degree of skill in keeping to generals, and in finding some thread of connection, by virtue of which matter that can be easily said and sung from the cut and dried assortment of common places in store, is forced by a gentle compulsion to serve the purpose of more or less pertinently illustrating the topic in hand;—these are the qualifications which form the equipment of the "improvisatore." Practice will of course infinitely increase the performer's capabilities. Of course, too, a clever and bright professor of the art will string his rhymes with more play of fancy, and a greater approach to some novelty of poetical thought, than a stupid one. But it is difficult to believe that anything worth even the value of the hour spent in hearing him was ever produced by a practitioner of improvisation. And the habit of encouraging and admiring such performances is doubtless, to a certain degree, pernicious to a people who need every possible incitement to lower their estimate of the value of words as opposed to that of things, instead of additional temptations to accept mere verbiage in the place of thought.

But among the "distinguished circles" which patronised our Corilla, this was exactly the article wanted. Accordingly, when Pietro Leopoldo was to be married to Maria Luisa of Bourbon in 1765, Corilla was invited by the great Maria Theresa to go to Innspruck "to celebrate the nuptials." And we can well understand that she did so, eminently to the satisfaction of her imperial patrons. On returning well remunerated to Florence, she was appointed court poetess, and received a pension. And now her reputation had become clearly European in its extent, as far at least as that could be conferred by the courts of Europe. For Catherine the Second, thinking that she too would do the royal thing in civilised style, and patronise literature, sent an invitation to the poetess to come from Arcady to Russia, and be court poetess there,—not, it is to be hoped, to sing the "res gestÆ" of the sovereign! But Corilla preferred to be a ducal poetess in "la bella Firenze," rather than an imperial one in Russia. And Catherine, though refused, nevertheless marked her appreciation of the claims of literature by conferring a pension on its court representative. Another invitation came to the happy shepherdess from Joseph the Second, who, radical reformer as he was, yet was quite monarchical enough to admire and approve Arcadian literature. Joseph was also refused; and he too sent magnificent presents to the recalcitrant Muse.