d diploma conferred on me,
excited the envy and rage of my adversaries. They had reported at Venice
during my absence that I was dead; and there was a monk who had even the
temerity to say he had been at my funeral. On arriving home safe and
sound, the evil-disposed began to display their irritation at my good
fortune. It was not the authors, my antagonists, who tormented me, but
the partisans of the different theatres of Venice.

I was defended by literary men, who entertained a favorable opinion of
me; and this gave rise to a warfare in which I was very innocently the
victim of the irritation which had been excited. My system has always
been never to mention the names of my adversaries: but I cannot avoid
expressing the honor which I feel in proclaiming those of my advocates.
Father Roberti, a Jesuit, at present the Abbe Roberti, one of the most
illustrious poets of the suppressed society, published a poem in blank
verse, entitled 'Comedy'; and by dwelling on the reformation effected by
me, and analyzing several scenes in my pieces, he encouraged his
countrymen and mine to follow the example and the system of the Venetian
author. Count Verri, a Milanese, followed the Abbe Roberti.... Other
patricians of Venice wrote in my favor, on account of the disputes which
were every day growing warmer and warmer.... Every day witnessed some
new composition for or against me; but I had this advantage,--that those
who interested themselves for me, from their manners, their talents, and
their reputation, were among the most prudent and distinguished men in
Italy.

One of the articles for which I was most keenly attacked was a violation
of the purity of the language. I was a Venetian, and I had had the
disadvantage of sucking in with my mother's milk the use of a very
agreeable and seductive patois, which however was not Tuscan. I learned
by principle, and cultivated by reading, the language of the good
Italian authors; but first impressions will return at times,
notwithstanding every attention used in avoiding them. I had undertaken
a journey into Tuscany, where I remained for four years, with the view
of becoming familiar with the language; and I printed the first edition
of my works at Florence, under the eyes and the criticism of the
learned of that place, that I might purify them from errors of language.
All my precautions were insufficient to satisfy the rigorists: I always
failed in one thing or other; and I was perpetually