135 



GOGOL, NIKOLAY. 



GOLDONI, CARLO. 



r j of Gogol u profeasor of hUtory t the Uniorsity of 



St. Petersburg, where it wma his intention to devote himself to more 

 serious studies. Hi next work however was another novel, the 

 'Adventure* of Chichagov, or Dead Souls' (' Pokhohdeniya Chicha- 

 gova ili Mertvuiya Diuhi'), published at MOMOW in 1842. The English 

 public hu an opportunity of forming an estimate of this, the principal 

 work of Gogol, u an English translation of it appeared in 1854, 

 under the title of ' Home Life in Russia, by a Russian Noble,' falsely 

 declared in the preface to be an unpublished novel, originally written 

 by a Russian in the English language. The style of the English 

 version is indeed remarkably bad, while that of the Russian original 

 is remarkably good ; but the main strength of a novel lies in the plot 

 and characters. The hero of the Dead Souls,' like the hero of the 

 ' Reviser,' is a daring impostor, who goes about to a number of country 

 gentlemen to persuade them to sell to him the nominal property in 

 their dead serfs, or, as they are technically called in Russia, their 

 'dad souls,' for the purpose of obtaining an advance from government 

 as the proprietor of a certain number of serfs the names of the dead 

 not being for a certain period struck off the records. Some of the 

 characters introduced in the tale are certainly sketched with vigour, 

 but in no other production of Russian literature is the foreign reader 

 BO much at a loss to detect the charm which has excited the enthu- 

 siasm of the native critics. The praises which were lavished on the 

 original may be suspected of having their origin partly in political 

 feelings. 



Soon after the appearance of the book which raised hia fame to 

 its highest point, the author, whose health was bad, obtained 



Petersburg, 1847, 8vo. From the height of popularity this publication 

 suuk him at once to the lowest depths of contempt His liberal friends 

 found with surprise that the satirist of Russia, when at home, had 

 become the panegyrist of Russia, autocracy and all, when beyond the 

 frontier. Beilinskr, who was one of the principal, attacked him fiercely 

 in the ' Sovremennik,' one of the leading reviews in St. Petersburg, in 

 an article which could hardly have been expected to pass the censor- 

 ship. Gogol addressed to him a letter of remonstrance, protesting 

 that the change which had taken place in his opinions was the result 

 of conviction produced by reflection and experience. Bieliusky, who, 

 dying of consumption, had himself obtained permission to leave 

 Russia, addressed to him from his sick bed at Salzbrunn one of the 

 most terribly crushing letters to be found iu the whole annals of 

 literature, and which was first printed, with the rest of the corre- 

 spondence, in the 'Polyarnaja Zviezda,' or ' Polar Star,' a Russian 

 periodical issued in London in 1855. " Yes," exclaims Bielinsky, " I 

 loved you with all the passion with which a man warmly attached to 

 his country, can love its hope, its honour, its glory, one of its great 

 leaders in the path of self-consciousness, developement, and progress. 

 You had good cause indeed to be shaken out of your repose of soul, 

 for a minute at least, when you lost the right to such love as this. I 

 do not speak thus because I consider any feelings of mine an adequate 

 recompense for such genius as yours, but because in this respect I 

 do not stand alone, but represent a multitude of whom neither you 

 nor I have ever seen the majority, and who have never seen you." 

 " You," he afterwards bursts out, " you, the author of the Reviser 

 and the Dead Souls, can you, sincerely and from your soul, raise a 

 hymn of praise to the disgusting Russian clergy, placing it immeasurably 

 above the clergy of the Roman Catholics. Let us suppose you do not 

 know that the latter was sometimes something, while the former was 

 never nothing but the lackey and slave of the secular power; but is 

 it possible you do not know that our clergy stands in the lowest degree 

 of contempt with Russian society and the Russian people. Is not a 

 'pope' throughout Russia for every Russian the representative ol 

 gluttony, meanness, servility, impudence?" ..." I will not dilate on your 

 dithyrambic about the bond of affection between the Russian nation 

 and its rulers. I will only say that this dithyrambic has met with no 

 sympathy, and has lowered you even iu the eyes of persons who in 

 other respects are very close to you in the direction you are taking. 

 I leave it to your conscience to intoxicate itself with the divine 

 beauty of Autocracy ; only continue to have the good sense to con- 

 template it from a reasonable distance, when near, it is not so 

 beautiful, and is apt to be dangerous." ..." You placed yourself too 

 high in the opinion of the Russian public for it to be able to believe 

 in the sincerity of such convictions as this. What may seem natura 

 enough in fools cannot seem natural in a man of genius." Bielinsky 

 goes on to accuse him of views of personal emolument, and touches 

 with bitterness on a passage in the ' Perepiski,' in which Gogol ha< 

 appeared to speak with humility of his own works, and to intimatt 

 that he did not share the opinion of their admirers. " These persons,' 

 says Bielinsky, " may in their admiration of you have made more noise 

 with their applause than the case required ; but after all, their enthu 

 siasin sprung from so pure and noble a source that it was altogether 

 unbecoming in you to surrender them up in the face of their enemies 

 and yours, and to accuse them into the bargain of attributing a wrong 

 meaning to your productions." The reply of Gogol to this bitte 

 diatribe is singular. " God knows," he' writes, " there may be some 

 truth in what you say. One thing appears to me an established truth 



that I do not know Russia that much has been changed in it since 



left, and that I must almost begin to study it anew to know it now. 



The inference I draw from this for myself is that it behoves me not 



>nly not to print new sketches of life, but not even two lines on the 



nbject till I have returned to Russia, have seen it with my own eyes, 



md touched it with my own bands." Neither Bielinsky nor Gogol 



ever returned. Bielinsky died in France soon after the Paris revolution 



of February 1848, which he hailed as the dawn of an era of liberty; 



and Gogol, whose last letter is dated from Ostend, in August 1847, 



soon followed him. His death is repeatedly alluded to in recent 



lussian publications, but we have not seen its real date stated. 



GOGUE'T, ANTOINE-YVES, born at Paris in 1716, followed the 

 >rofession of the law, and became counsellor to the parliament of 

 i'aris. He applied himself closely to literature, and especially to 

 listorioal studies. The result of his researches appeared iu his work, 

 Origine dcs Lots, des Arts, et des Sciences, ohez les Anciens Peuples,' 

 I vols. 4to, Paris, 1758. The first volume treats of the period from 

 the Flood to the death of Jacob, and the author follows the progress 

 of civilisation among the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Phoeni- 

 cians, and the early Greeks. He investigates 1 , their laws and forms 

 of government ; 2, the state of their arts and industry ; 3, that of 

 ;heir sciences ; 4, their commerce and navigation ; 5, their military 

 discipline and tactics ; 6, their habits and manners. The author has 

 done the most he could with the scanty materials within his reach. 

 The second volume comprises the period from the death of Jacob to 

 :he establishment of monarchy among the Hebrews. In this part, 

 jesides the above-mentioned nations, the author introduces to view 

 several people of Asia Minor, such as the Lydions and Phrygians, with 

 the states of Greece and the people of Crete ; and he follows through- 

 out the same distribution of his subject-matter as in the first volume, 

 into government, arts, sciences, &c. The third volume treata of the 

 period from the establishment of the Jewish monarchy to the time 

 of Cyrus, and upon the same plan as the other two. The work ends 

 with several dissertations on ancient measures and coins, on the 

 astronomical periods of the Chaldsoans, and on the antiquities of the 

 Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese. Goguet died oon after the 

 publication of his work, leaving part of the materials of another, ou 

 the origin and progress of the laws, arts, and sciences in France, from 

 the establishment of the monarchy. 



GOLDING, ARTHUR, was born in London, of a good family, at 

 sometime iu the early part of the 16th century. In 1564 he was 

 living in the house of secretary Cecil, in the Strand ; and his dedica- 

 tions show him to have been patronised also by the earls of Leicester 

 and Essex, Lord Cobham, Sir Christopher Hatton, and other men of 

 station in his time. His earliest known work was printed iu 1562. 

 After the death of Sir Philip Sidney, in 1584, he completed Sir 

 Philip's translation of Philippe de Mornay's French treatise on the 

 'Truth of Christianity;' and he must have been alive till 1587, when 

 that translation was published, or perhaps for two or three years 

 longer. The dates of his published writings extend over the whole 

 of the period thus marked out. They amount to about thirty ; of 

 which however, besides some copies of verses, one only is original, a 

 religious 'Discourse upon the Earthquake' of 1580. The rest of 

 them are translations, chiefly from the Latin, but some from the 

 French. Several are theological or ecclesiastical works of Calvin, 

 Chytrsous, Bishop Grosteste, and others : two or three are historical. 

 But those which were most useful to his contemporaries were his 

 translations from the Latin classics. These embraced, in succession, 

 prose versions of Justin, Cccsar, Seneca, Pompouius Mela, and Solinus, 

 and a spirited and not very unfaithful translation of ' Ovid's Meta- 

 morphoses ' into fourteen-syllable verse. Four books of the Ovid 

 were published in 1565, and the complete work in 1575. Golding 

 deserves to be commemorated, on account of the great influence which 

 he and other translators of the classics exercised upon the dawning 

 poetry of England. 



GOLDO'NI, CARLO, was born at Venice in 1707, of a family 

 originally from Modeno. His grandfather, in whose house he was 

 born, was a man of pleasure, fond of the company of musicians and 

 comedians, and young Goldoni early showed a predilection for thea- 

 trical performances. He was sent by his father to different colleges, 

 but he repeatedly interrupted his studies by running away with some 

 company of strolling players. Having at last taken his degree of 

 Doctor of Law iu the University of Padua, he began practising at 

 Venice as an advocate, but soon left it to resume his rambling life, 

 and engaged himself to a company of actors as stage-poet. After some 

 years he left his companions in 1742, and began practicing at Pisa as 

 a lawyer with great success ; but the appearance of another dramatic 

 company made him give up his practice, and he engaged himself again 

 as a stage-poet, in which situation he continued for the greater part 

 of his life. From that time he aspired to the honour of being the 

 reformer of the Italian stage. The Italian comedy hod from its birth 

 been deficient in originality ; it was an imitation, first of the old classic 

 drama, and afterwards of the romantic Spanish plays ; and although 

 a few clever writers, such as Machiavelli, Aretino, Bibbiena, Delia 

 Porta, and the younger Buonarroti, produced some good specimens 

 both of the classic and the romantic styles, yet, generally speaking, 

 the want of a national drama suited to modern Italian manners was 

 felt, and the stage was given up either to duluess or licentiousness 



