ttle reckoned on the people I had to deal with. You cannot
disengage yourself so easily from actors.

LIII.

_Candid details regarding the composition and production of my notorious
comedy entitled "Le Droghe d'Amore."--More too about the Ricci, and her
relations to Signor P. A. Gratarol._

Just about this time I had planned and partly executed a new comedy,
which afterwards obtained a _succes de scandale_ under the title of _Le
Droghe d'Amore_.[52] The dust stirred up by this innocent piece in three
acts obliges me to enter at some length into the circumstances which
attended its composition and production.

Everybody is aware that, after the long series of my allegorical fables
had run their course upon the stage, I thought fit to change my manner,
and adapted several Spanish dramas for our theatre. Sacchi used to bring
me bundles of Spanish plays. I turned them over, and selected those
which seemed to me best fitted for my purpose. Taking the bare skeleton
and ground-plot of these pieces, I worked them up with new characters,
fresh dialogue, and an improved conduct of the action, to suit the
requirements of the Italian theatre. A whole array of dramas--the
_Donna Innamorata_, the _Donna Vendicativa_, the _Donna Elvira_, the
_Notti Affannose_, the _Fratelli Nimici_, the _Principessa Filosofa_,
the _Pubblico Segreto_, the _Moro di Corpo Bianco_, the _Metafisico_,
and the _Bianca di Melfi_, all of which issued from my pen, attest the
truth of these remarks.[53] I need say no more about them, because the
prefaces with which I sent them to the press have sufficiently informed
the public.

In pursuance of this plan, then, I had been working up Tirso da Molina's
piece, entitled _Zelos cum Zelos se Curat_, into my own _Droghe
d'Amore_. I was but little satisfied, made tardy progress, and had even
laid aside the manuscript as worthless--condemning it, like scores of
other abortive pieces, to the waste-paper basket. It so happened that
after Christmas in this year, 1775, I was laid up with a tedious attack
of rheumatism, which threatened to pass over into putrid fever, and
which confined me to the house for more than thirty days. Signora Ricci
kept up amicable relations with me during this illness; and even after
Carnival began, she and her husband used to spend their spare evenings
at my house. The society which cheered me through my lingering
convalescence included the patrician Paolo Balbi, Doctor Andrea
Compa