mnities, 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 naive account
of his little ovat