Project Gutenberg's The Comedies of Carlo Goldoni, by Carlo Goldoni

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Title: The Comedies of Carlo Goldoni
edited with an introduction by Helen Zimmern

Author: Carlo Goldoni

Editor: Helen Zimmern

Release Date: August 29, 2010 [EBook #33575]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMEDIES OF CARLO GOLDONI ***

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Masterpieces of Foreign Authors

GOLDONI'S COMEDIES

MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

THE COMEDIES OF
CARLO GOLDONI

_EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION BY_

HELEN ZIMMERN

LONDON
DAVID STOTT, 370 OXFORD STREET, W.
1892

GOLDONI,--good, gay, sunniest of souls,--
Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine,--
What though it just reflect the shade and shine
Of common life, nor render, as it rolls,
Grandeur and gloom? Sufficient for thy shoals
Was Carnival: Parini's depths enshrine
Secrets unsuited to that opaline
Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls.
There throng the People: how they come and go,
Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb,--see,--
On piazza, calle, under portico,
And over bridge! Dear King of Comedy,
Be honoured! Thou that didst love Venice so,
Venice, and we who love her, all love thee!
ROBERT BROWNING.

CONTENTS.
PAGE

INTRODUCTION, 7
A CURIOUS MISHAP, 33
THE BENEFICENT BEAR, 95
THE FAN, 147
THE SPENDTHRIFT MISER, 229

INTRODUCTION.

"Painter and son of nature," wrote Voltaire, at that time the arbitrator
and the dispenser of fame in cultured Europe, to Carlo Goldoni, then a
rising dramatist, "I would entitle your comedies, 'Italy liberated from
the Goths.'" The sage of Ferney's quick critical faculty had once again
hit its sure mark, for it is Goldoni's supreme merit, and one of his
chief titles to fame and glory, that he released the Italian theatre
from