Volume II Part 4 (1/2)

In the third place, I resented the extinction of all sense for proportion and propriety in style, that sense which prompts us to treat matters sublime, familiar, and facetious upon various planes and in different keys of feeling, whether the vehicle employed be verse or prose Instead of this, one id, now stupidly co which is written or sent to press, frouments down to the daily letter which a fellow scribbles to his mistress

Let it not be supposed, however, that ainst these literary curses of our century--for such I thought the humour All the co purity of diction, ancient authors, and the corrupters of young minds in Italy, witness to my joviality and coolness in the zeal and ardour of the conflict

Finally, I ood cause, joined to those of others, have been iance, the exaltation of heated brains, the absurdities of so-called philosophical reforards the purity of Italian diction, all that we have said and written has been throay The charlatans have had the upper hand of us, by persuading the vast e is a waste of tiaining it is a mark of free and liberal talent The remedy must be left to time and to the inscrutable ebb and flow of fashi+on, which er for the true, at another no less eager for the false, in spite of any human efforts to control it

It was about the year 1740, when an Acadeay humour, versed in literary studies, and amateurs of polish and siether But we followed in the wake of Chiabrera, Redi, Zeno, Manfredi, Lazarini, valiant predecessors in the warfare against those false, eured fashi+ons, which had been introduced like plague-germs by the Seicentisti[16] This Acadeher ideas, and fostered the seeds it planted by a generous emulation

The lively and learned little band happened to alight upon a simpleton called Giuseppe Secchellari, who had been baog for fun into thinking hily blackened reams of paper with ineptitudes and blunders so ridiculous that nobody could listen to thehter It was decided to elect this queer fish Prince of the Academy The election took place unaniranellone, and received the title of Prince of the Accademia Granellesca, by which names he and the club were henceforth to be known[17]

A solemn coronation of this precious simpleton with a wreath of plurouped around hi could be more burlesque than his proud satisfaction at the honours he received, the air and grace hich he thanked us for soibes upon our princely butt, and which he took for panegyrics

A large arh that the dwarfish Prince had to take two or three jumps before he leaped into it, was the throne fro been gulled into thinking it the chair of Cardinal Pietro Bembo, that renowned and illustrious author An oith two balls in its right claw stood over him, and was the object of his veneration as the crest of the Academy Perched there aloft, he used to draw fro falsetto soibberish or other which he styled a dissertation After a few lines had been declai plaudits of his audience brought him to a pause Fully persuaded that he had entranced his hearers, he then handed his manuscripts with majestic condescension to the secretary, and bade him enroll theether in the heat of summer, iced drinks were handed round to the members; but the prince, totea upon a silver salver In the depth of winter, on the other hand, hot coffee was served out to us and iced water to the Prince The venerable Arcigranellone, puffed up with this distinction, sed the tea in su into sweat or shi+vering with cold according to the season

I could not reckon all the pleasantries, for ever new and alitty, which we played off upon our Prince, and which his stupid vanity made him accept as honours Each time the Academy met, these diversions acted like an antidote to norant of anything a member asked, at one ti, and sometimes even to descend and strip to the shi+rt and fence with a master in the noble art, who rained dohacks with the foil upon his hide and sent hiranellone as he truly was, the , and never failed to triu derisive plaudits which he raised

This novel kind of Calandrino,[18] of who amen who care more for mirth than serious scholarshi+p, and drew them to enroll themselves with zeal beneath the banner of the owl

When we had ah, at the commencement of our sessions, with the marvellous diatribes, wholly unexpected answers, and harlequinesque contortions of our Arcigranellone, we left him up there alone upon the chair of Bembo, and drew from our portfolios compositions in prose and verse, serious or facetious as the theant in phrase, varied in style, and correct in diction An agreeable reading follohich entertained the audience for at least two hours Each reader, when he had finished his recitation, turned to the Arcigranellone, whose whis renewed the clatter of tongues and laughter

This serio-comic Academy had for its object to promote the study of our best old authors, the simplicity and harmony of chastened style, and above all the purity of the Italian tongue It drew together a very large nuners of culture ca to be adue the names of its innuht be found upon our books whose owners had no inkling of the fact; for the following reason Sos used to aranellone's vanity with burlesque epistles addressed to hireat people wrote to say that, induced by the renown of his learning, wise rule, and sublied to be inscribed by him upon the list of his fortunate subjects, the Academicians In this way it came about that Frederick II of Prussia, the Sultan, the Sophy of Persia, Prester John, and other notables of like eht to ned to thenificence the Prince I was dubbed the Solitary

The compositions produced in our Acade polish at the hands of accomplished scholars in the club, many works of style and value, in all kinds of verse and prose, went forth to the world Serious poems, humorous poems, satires in the manner of Berni, Horatian satires with the masculine and trenchant phrase of ancient Rome, orations on occasions of ireat masters of Italian literature, coraceful diction, familiar letters, volumes of occasional and moral essays, Latin verses and prose exercises, translations froes; all these, after passing the review of the Academicians, were sent to press I need not speak further about what has becoh publication

Perhaps I shall be accused byto attach importance to frivolities That will not hurt me Those are far more hurt and wounded who allow the that the works of these sas better worth their notice than frivolities--uncouth frivolities, ill-thought, unnatural, and written in a le word, wrested from its proper sense, made common in the mouths of boys and women to denote what does not suit their inclinations, should have the power to turn established rules--based on the experience of sages, and confir more nor less, in naked truth, than--_prejudice_[19]

I have just said that the word in question has been wrested fro; and I a to matised as _prejudices_ by the innovators, it is is which are not only harmless, but beneficial, nay, necessary to the totality of ion and its accessories are beneficial to society and nations But our new-fangled philosophers have dubbed all these things the prejudices of intellects enfeebled and intiion, that salutary curb on hu-stock

I aallows is beneficial to society, being an instru would-be criallows as a tyrannical prejudice, and by so doing have hway, robberies and acts of sacrilege, a hundred-fold

I aood faith and equity are beneficial to society But our unprejudiced philosophers, who identify felicity with enjoy hold by any means of what you can, call these virtues ly, justice has been sold with brazen impudence, knaveries and tricks and treachery have triumphed, and a multitude of simple, innocent, down-trodden creatures, poor in spirit and impoverished in substance, have wept tears of blood

It was pronounced a musty and barbarous prejudice to keep wohters, their hirelings, their domestic service and economy I like Bacchantes, screa out ”Liberty! liberty!”

The streets swarmed with thelected They meanwhile abandoned their vapoury brains to fashi+ons, frivolous inventions, rivalries in games, amusements, loves, coquetries, and all sorts of nonsense which their own caprices and their counsellors, the upstart sages, could suggest The husbands had not courage to oppose this ruin of their honour, of their substance, of their fa pilloried with that dreadful word, prejudice

The lahich punishes infanticide with death was styled a prejudice

Good morals, modesty, and chastity received the nabears of the Levites and the foolish training of poor superstitious females What the result was, I blush to record The infinite advantages conferred upon society and families by these fine philosophical discoveries, and by their triumph over prejudices of the sort I have described, had better remain unwritten

The feho stood aloof and mocked at fashi+ons--fashi+ons which fade and fall each year like autunoramuses, blockheads, zanies tainted with the leprosy of prejudice[20] They passed for stolid, coarse-grained creatures, void of thrill, of sentiment, of taste, of culture, delicacy, and refined perception Women and men, in one vast herd, became illuminated visionaries They piqued theinality They discovered endless harinary; endless coinary savours, insipidities, depravities in things about them, in furniture, in dress, in colours, in decorations, in the kitchen, in food, in wine, in dressing of the table, all iance in every dumb and senseless object: down to the basest of utensils there was nothing which escaped the epithet of elegant Let thus much be said for truth's sake, with the patience which is needful nowadays in speaking truth to folk infected by the real and not the spurious leprosy of prejudice

Well, when all the so-called prejudices which I have just described had been put to flight and dissipated by the piercing sunbeas appeared in their rooion, of respect and reverence annulled, of justice overturned, of law-courts itious vices, of criinations, sharpened senses, anience in all lusts and passions, of imperious luxury, with her brood of violent insatiable desires, deceits, intrigues, oppressions, losses of faith and honesty and honour, swindlings, pilferings, bankruptcies, pecuniary straits, base traffickings in sexual bargains, adulteries, the e-tie made unendurable and snapped by force or cold collusion

After such wise, by turning the innocent word 'prejudice' into a weapon of attack against everything which restrained vice, criainst whatever, in short, rationally deserves to be called prejudice--the huly and universally into a pitiable and apparently immedicable state of pure unvarnished prejudice And this has been effected by the flattering enthusias us of prejudices! Indeed it is fine to notice how that poor word 'prejudice' is bandied about The folk who suffer from the real disease, and who complain most loudly of its miserable consequences, declare theainst what they call prejudice in their sophisticated jargon, while they bless the legitimate, veracious prejudice, which is the fount and source of all the evils over which they weep, lahty topics, what follows may appear a trifle hardly worthy of consideration I allude to the revolution in literary taste attempted by the Jesuit Father, now the Abbe Xavier Bettinelli, together with so that unfortunate word 'prejudice' to suit their purpose, they scouted sound studies, established ed s were reckoned prejudices by these iconoclasts, ould fain have burned down the temple of Diana in their insolent ainal thinkers, independent writers