Volume II Part 28 (1/2)

The court at Dresden was at that time the most brilliant in Europe; the fine arts flourished, but there was no gallantry, for King Augustus had no inclination for the fair sex, and the Saxons were not of a nature to be thus inclined unless the exaue, where I did not intend to stop, I delivered a letter I had for Locatelli, er of the opera, and went to pay a visit to Madareat affection, and for two or three days she supplied all the wants of ue, I met in the street my friend Fabris, who had beco with hi him, I represented to hio away i,” he said, ”with a friend of ive way, and I was delighted to have done so, for the rereeable ratified two years afterwards; he covered hilory

I inal character orthy to be known He took his meals every day at a table laid out for thirty persons, and the guests were his actors, actresses, dancers of both sexes, and a few friends He did the honours of his well-supplied board nobly, and his real passion was good living I shall have occasion to , where I e of ninety

EPISODE 7 -- VENICE

CHAPTER X

My Stay in Vienna--Joseph II--My Departure for Venice

Arrived, for the first tiht-and-twenty, well provided with clothes, but rather short of money--a circumstance which made it necessary for me to curtail my expenses until the arrival of the proceeds of a letter of exchange which I had drawn upon M de Bragadin The only letter of recoliavacca, of Dresden, addressed to the illustrious Abbe Metastasio, whom I wished ardently to know I delivered the letter the day after my arrival, and in one hour of conversation I found him more learned than I should have supposed from his works Besides, Metastasio was so modest that at first I did not think thatbefore I discovered that it was genuine, for when he recited so of his own composition, he was the first to call the attention of his hearers to the ies with as much simplicity as he would remark the weak ones

I spoke to him of his tutor Gravina, and as ere on that subject he recited to me five or six stanzas which he had written on his death, and which had not been printed Moved by the remembrance of his friend, and by the sad beauty of his own poetry, his eyes were filled with tears, and when he had done reciting the stanzas he said, in a tone of touching silio'?

I answered that he alone had the right to believe it ireat deal to coes which he had covered with erasures and words crossed and scratched out only because he had wished to bring fourteen lines to perfection, and he assured me that he had never been able to compose e of a truth which I had found out before, namely, that the very lines which most readers believe to have flowed easily froreatest difficulty in co

”Which of your operas,” I enquired, ”do you like best?”

”'Attilio Regolo; liore'”

”All your works have been translated in Paris into French prose, but the publisher was ruined, for it is not possible to read them, and it proves the elevation and the power of your poetry”

”Several years ago, another foolish publisher ruined himself by a translation into French prose of the splendid poetry of Ariosto I laugh at those who maintain that poetry can be translated into prose”

”I aht”

He toldthe eneral rule he never shewed his music to anyone

”The French,” he added, ”entertain the very strange belief that it is possible to adapt poetry to music already composed”

And he made on that subject this very philosophical reht just as well say to a sculptor, 'Here is a piece of marble, make a Venus, and let her expression be shewn before the features are chiselled'”

I went to the Imperial Library, and was much surprised toVenetian whom his father had entrusted to him to complete his education I believed hi recollections I was pleased to see him I embraced him repeatedly with real pleasure

He told o to Venice during the su that I was rather short of money he lent me fifty ducats, which I returned a short time after He told me that Bavois was already lieutenant-colonel in the Venetian arreat pleasure He had been fortunate enough to be appointed adjutant-general by M Morosini, who, after his return from his embassy in France, had hted to hear of the happiness and success of two inal cause of their good fortune In Vienna I acquired the certainty of De la Haye being a Jesuit, but he would not let anyone allude to the subject

Not knohere to go, and longing for some recreation, I went to the rehearsal of the opera which was to be performed after Easter, and met Bodin, the first dancer, who had married the handsome Jeoffroi, whom I had seen in Turin I likewise met in the same place Campioni, the husband of the beautiful Ancilla He told me that he had been compelled to apply for a divorce because she dishonoured hireat dancer and a great gas with hi is beautiful; reat; but the severity of the empress made the worshi+p of Venus difficult, particularly for strangers A legion of vile spies, ere decorated with the fine title of Commissaries of Chastity, were the irls The empress did not practise the subliitiht that her persecutions of the reeable to God

Holding in her iister of cardinal sins, she fancied that she could be indulgent for six of them, and keep all her severity for the seventh, lewdness, which in her estinore pride,” she would say, ”for dignity wears the saht be mistaken about it, because it is often very like econoer, it is a murderous disease in its excess, butbut epicurisood company it is held a valuable quality; besides, it blends itself with appetite, and so estion Envy is a low passion which no one ever avows; to punish it in any other way than by its own corroding venom, I would have to torture everybody at Court; and weariness is the punishether; ive such a sin, and I declare open war against it My subjects are at liberty to think women handsome as much as they please; women may do all in their power to appear beautiful; people may entertain each other as they like, because I cannot forbid conversation; but they shall not gratify desires on which the preservation of the hual e Therefore, all the miserable creatures who live by the barter of their caresses and of the chariven to them by nature shall be sent to Teent on that point, and that, in order to prevent another greater crime (which is not prevented), every cardinal has one or more mistresses, but in Rome the climate requires certain concessions which are not necessary here, where the bottle and the pipe replace all pleasures (She ht have added, and the table, for the Austrians are known to be terrible eaters)