ence and corruption of the
language. Padre Calogera, too, who was then editing the _Giornale de'
Letterati d'Italia_, composed and published praises on it, which were
certainly above its merits. I flatter myself that my readers will not
think I record these facts out of vanity. I was not personally
acquainted with either Lami or Calogera. It is not my habit to
correspond with celebrated men of letters in order to manufacture
testimonials out of their civil and flattering replies. I do not
condescend to wheedle journalists and reviewers into imposing on the
credulity of the public by calling bad things good and good things bad
in my behoof. I have always been so far sensible as to check
self-esteem, and to appreciate my literary toys at their due
worthlessness. Writers who by tricks of this kind, extortions,
canvassings, and subterfuges, seek to gratify their thirst for fame, and
to found a reputation upon bought or begged for attestations, are the
objects of my scorn and loathing. For Lami and Calogera I cherished
sentiments of gratitude. I seemed to find in them a spirit kindred to my
own, and a conviction that I had uttered what was useful in the cause of
culture.

As a matter of fact, although the _Tartana_ was written in strict
literary Tuscan, although its style was modelled upon that of antiquated
Tuscan authors, especially of Luigi Pulci, and was therefore "caviare to
the general," the book obtained a rapid and wide success. The partisans
of Goldoni and Chiari took it for a gross malignant satire.

Possibly the rarity of copies, and the fact that it came from Paris,
helped to float the little poem. Anyhow, it created such a sensation,
raised so much controversy, and brought so many young students into
relations with myself and membership among the Granelleschi, that I
almost dared to hope for a new turn of the tide in literature.

It was this hope which made me follow up the missile I had cast into the
wasp's nest of bad authorship by a pleasant retort against Goldoni's
strictures on my _Tartana_. Goldoni was a good fellow at bottom, but
splenetic, and a miserable writer. Having begun life as a pleader at the
bar of Venice, he never succeeded in throwing off a certain air of
professional coarseness and a tincture of forensic rhetoric. I seized
upon this point of weakness, and indited an epistle, which he was
supposed to have written me, larded with all the jargon of the
law-courts. The object of the letter was