The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-11-17
Recent Publications.

Never was more natural, characteristic or
delightful autobiography than this Of Carlo
Goldoni, as edited by Mr.. w. D. Howells (Bos-
ton: j. r. Osgood & Co.; Portland: Loring,
Short & Harmony. The ma ture of an italian
is peculiarly adapted to this kind of literary
work-his memoirs will not be overcharged
with subtle and dreary poLderings upon the
Me and the Not-Me, the spectral analysis, so to
say, of ones own ghost; bis personality is apt
to embarrass him but little, it is suitable
mantle which he disposes for dignity or CON-
fort as the case may be. Moreover the Italian
is a coneedien de race-unlike the f renchmap,
who lives to act, he acts to live. He does not
calculate upon his dramatic effects, but the
comedy or tragedy of the moment marks him
for its own, appropriates and pervades him.
He is the stuff that drama is made from-un-
conscious of audience ne suits the action to the
word with the utmost speed and sutableness.
Take the typical Italian-not the conventional
ideal, beetlebrowed and sombre-but the sweet
natured, irresponsible genius of comedy, with
an eye lazly noting the flight of folly, tolerant
and genial, ready to amuse and to be amused,
and you have Goldon. The charming naiUete,
lcious exhibitions of Mr.. Pepys' journal, while
it seems less remote from our day by the mod
ern English of the translation, in general
very good one, of Mr.. John Black An mex
cusably careless error is that on page 410:
The music of the good daughter of M. Piccini Of
the colony of NJ. Sacchihi and the progress which
the taste for Italian singing made every day at
Paris, determined the directors of the opera to in
troduce this foreign entertainment, which was rep
resented the great theatre OF this citV.
The "good daughter of M. Piccini was the
child of his brain, his opera Cecchina, ossia La
Buona Figliuola (Cecchiua or the Good Daugh-
teri which was performed at Paris at the time
(1777) in which Goldoni wrote this portion of
his memoirs The fame of Piccin and his
Importance, temporary though it was, as the
powerful rival of Gluck would not have rem
dered it necessary that he should attach him
self to any "colony" or clique that might have
been he AIDED by Sacchini. The latter moreover
was tragic composer, whose style, opposite to
that of Piccini, could have influenced very
little the writer Of comic operas. The nearest
and only probable inter probation is that the
writer refers to Sacchni's fine opera iEdipe q
Coonne, his principal work, which-though
authorities differ as to the precise date of its
AASt p0LlOIlnduCO-Edo Slfcu DIT aIlS dUUub tuc
time of the ri valry of Gluck and Piccini. The
transformation of Colonne to colonie is at least
possible, and the sentence "The music of La
Batona FigliuoZa of M. Pceini, of the Colonne
of NJ. Saechini, and the progress &c., is at all
events intel ligible and according to the facts of
the musical history of the period. The preface
by Mr.. Howells is a most brilliant, apprsciatve
and elegant sketch of the life and character of
Goldoni. 1t would bs impossible to find
among writer's Of our language one who could
have undertaken this task in more sympathetic
spirit, more full aud adequate preparation or
have acquitted himself more perfectly of its re-
qurements than has Mr.. Howells.
Substance and Show, and other Lectures
By Thomas Starr King. Edited by Edwin p
Whipple Boston: ]. R. Osgood & Co; Port
land: Loring. Short aud Harmony The influ-
ence of Mr.. King, not only upon those directly
under his pastoral care, but as guide and
stimulus to intellectual progress and as fer
vid and consistent patriot-was during his life
time and is to-day, very great. 1t was he who
kept California true to the pledges that had
extenled to the Pacific shores the protection
that America accords TO her several states; it
was his voice that directed the political action
of population made of the most diverse and
lawless elements one that would instantly
have detected the false ring of fear, of hypoc-
risy or Of conventional goodyism. His mind
was at once practical and poetical, and his
speech elevated, full of impulse and adorned
with luminous and rich rhetoric, carried with
it conviction. He had moreover the choice
| gtit of sense of kumor and-more intimately
connected with that sense than it is always
recognized to be--cear ideas of the fitness of
things, and of the importunate, thorny crackls
of words spoken out of season. He had little
| liking for controversy, and had sound views as
| to attention to ones own business. His pic
ture of the possibilities of Socrates for unpleas.
| antness, even in place SO apparently congo
| nial as Boston, is masterpiece OF legitimate
literary burlesque. On the street, at Parker's
at the Museum, judging from stoic's point of
view the genial old-time favorite, Warren; in
| the psllors of the brahmins of Beacon street
| how richly is the situation set forth! The in-
| cJnVeniences resulting from the civil reply
| courteously given to an apparently idle ques-
| ton, and the consequent threads of admission,
! argument, triumphant rebuke 10 which the