1831.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



331 



and noxious liquor he is absorbing. The proper- 

 ties of knives, and forks, and spoons, tureens, &c. 

 &c., in conferring fashion, have not been ascer- 

 tained. Nor has any one deeply meditated and 

 discovered the loathsome vulgarity of porter and 

 cheese ; nay, the ignorance of the Spaniard goes 

 so far in these matters, that we have seen a 

 young fashionable nobleman take soup twice, be- 

 cause he liked it, without incurring thereby any 

 sort of disgrace. 



They have also a deplorable want of a proper 

 jargon to designate things peculiar to the caste, 

 nor have they ever reflected that bad French is 

 preferable to good Spanish. They accordingly 

 express their thoughts in the Castilian tongue, 

 as any other low vulgar son of the little people 

 might be expected to do. Their transgressions 

 against dress are intolerable, nor can we suffi- 

 ciently reprobate the custom of buying their ar- 

 ticles indiscriminately, without any reference to 

 the street or to the house that sold them, but 

 merely to the quality and price. Even the most 

 desperately fashionable at Madrid could never 

 imagine that the more he looked like a ruffian, 

 the more fashionable he would be. Thus, fero- 

 cious whiskers and mustachios, those desirable 

 appendages to a gentleman of ton, are tamely 

 left to be monopolized by the manolos. In the 

 accomplishments of a beau they are extremely 

 deficient ; they can neither speak slang, box a 

 watchman, nor reel home drunk, and they know 

 not a single iota concerning racing, prize-tight- 

 ing, cock-fighting, hunting, &c. Some of the 

 great people you may meet at times talking in 

 the streets to individuals of a different caste, 

 without shocking and scandalizing his set. 



Lives of the Italian Poets^ by the Rev. 

 II. Stebbing, with Medallion Portraits, 3 

 vols. 12mo. Mr. Stebbing has accom- 

 plished a very agreeable task in a very 

 agreeable style of execution ; but we 

 could have wished to hear more of the 

 works, and less of the men. The works 

 are indisputably good ; but of the 

 writers, especially of the elder ones, we 

 have little unquestionable evidence ; 

 and to gather the character from the 

 works, which is what Mr. Stebbing 

 seems inclined to do, is to trust to a very 

 uncertain guide for it is not always 

 easy to determine when a writer, though 

 he may talk very earnestly, is talking the 

 truth communicating his actual con- 

 victions, or indulging his imagination, 

 and yielding to fancy. We are quite 

 sure Mr. Stebbing has suffered his ad- 

 miration to blind his judgment. He 

 takes all, if not for gospel, certainly for 

 inspiration. He would consider it a 

 kind of profanation to scan the personal 

 demerits of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso 

 too closely, or bring their conduct to the 

 test of common sense and common esti- 

 mates. Considering Dante, for instance, 

 as we must, as a man of genius and dis- 

 tinguished talent, we cannot at the same 

 time regard him as an object of particu- 

 lar admiration in his private character, 

 or very much in his public one nor 

 think him entitled to a monotonous and 



eternal apology. He was a man of highly 

 susceptible temperament, and slid na- 

 turally enough into amatory poetry ; he 

 was also a disappointed patriot, and as 

 naturally rushed into philippic and sa- 

 tire. His poetry is full of personality, 

 of coarse and intolerant violence; nor 

 will his motives his sense of justice, 

 poetical or political -bear examination 

 for an instant. He obviously indulged 

 his party-feelings to rancour and venom. 

 As little are we inclined to sympathixe 

 with his lack-a-daisical love. Beatrice 

 was a girl of his own age and rank a 

 family acquaintance one whom, for any- 

 thing that appears, he might have mar- 

 ried if he had chosen to do so ; but, in 

 truth, she seems to him merely a poet- 

 ical vision, or rather a name for his own 

 beautiful imaginings. There is no sa- 

 tisfactory evidence that he really wished 

 the Beatrice of his verses to be the Bea- 

 trice of his acquaintance. She married 

 early, and died early at twenty-five. 

 He himself, within a year or two of the 

 same age, married a lady of family and 

 property, with whose temper his own 

 does not seem to have harmonized. 

 Which was to blame who is to tell ? 

 They lived the life of cat and dog. She 

 was jealous, it is said, but not surely, as 

 Mr. S. would have us believe, of a dead 

 mistress ; and it is unquestionable she 

 had reason to be so of a living one, for 

 whose sake, probably, it was, he finally 

 separated himself wholly from his family 

 for years. 



Nor is there, in the same way, any 

 tolerating the sighing and sorrowing 

 with Petrarch about Laura, and his so- 

 litudes at Vaucluse. In the deepest of 

 his poetical distresses for we imagine 

 they were no more he comforted him- 

 self with a complying mistress he had 

 children by more than one and, when 

 disengaged' from these particular cares, 

 steadily prosecuted his readings and 

 writings at the rate of eighteen hours a 

 day. lleally we cannot imagine any- 

 thing more laughable than the nonsense 

 that, first and last, has been babbled 

 about Petrarch, and the Laura upon 

 whom he wrote sonnets for twenty 

 years. 



Mr. Stebbing has given far too much 

 into this kind of folly ; but, apart from 

 this too decided tendency to suppose 

 love, and unrequited love especially, was 

 the grand source of Italian inspiration, 

 his production is indicative of an elegant 

 and amiable spirit, and is executed with 

 as much taste as feeling. Tasso's life, 

 though mixed up a little too much with 

 Leonora and her influence, has much 

 less of this puerility. His insanity, and 

 Alfonso's brutal and vulgar treatment, 

 and the fatal effects of it, are dwelt upon 

 with energy and discrimination : the 

 tale is full of interest. 



o TT <* 



