,
and consequently enemy, was Carlo Gozzi, the writer of fantastic dramas,
and stilted, hyperbolical dramatic fables, entirely forgotten now, which
found a certain favour among the public of that day, one having indeed
survived in European literature in the shape of Schiller's "Turandot." A
fierce skirmish of libellous fly-sheets and derisive comedies was carried
on by the respective combatants and partisans, filling now one theatre,
now another, according as the taste of the public was swayed or tickled.

Annoyances with the actors, graspingness on the part of Medebac,
made Goldoni abandon his company and pass over to that conducted by
Vendramin, an old Venetian noble,--for in those days men of birth
thought it no dishonour to conduct a theatre. He was then forty-six
years of age, and had written more than ninety theatrical works. For his
new patron and theatre he laboured with various interruptions, caused by
political events and by his own restless temperament, until 1761, in
which space of time he produced some sixty more comedies, besides three
comic operas and plays written for a private theatre. And all this
labour in less than ten years, and among them some of his best works,
such as the trilogy of the Villeggiatura, _Il Curioso Accidente_, _I
Rusteghi_, _Le Barufe Chiozote_, and many others, removed from changes
of fashion, schools, methods, to which no public has ever been or can
be indifferent, eternally fresh and sunny, filled with the spirit of
perpetual youth. Notwithstanding, however, the excellence of Goldoni's
dramas, the current literary rivalries made themselves felt, and there
was a moment when Gozzi's Fables left Goldoni's theatre empty.

It then happened that at this juncture there came to him an offer
from Paris to go thither as playwright to the Italian Comedy Company,
established there under royal patronage. Was it fatigue, a desire for
new laurels, a love of change, the hope of larger gains, that induced
him to accept the offer? Perhaps a little of all these. In any case, he
assented, binding himself for two years. He was never again to leave
France. Paris fascinated him, though he regretted his lovely Venice, and
a certain nostalgia peeps forth from his letters now and again. Still
his social and pecuniary position was good in the French capital, he was
honoured and esteemed, his nephew and adopted son had found lucrative
employment there, and, added to all this, even Goldoni was growing old.