sive of the endurance and
piety of great souls, but such men as Casanova the gambler, Goldoni the
play-writer, Longhi and Canaletto the painters; and then, as the best
among them all, the honest Venetian whom we now meet, sometimes called
the Shakespeare of Venice, but in fact only a play-writer, a Venetian
nobleman, who depicted in a dispassionate temper the trivialities of his
age, and lacked both the _milieu_ and the material to produce a great
work.

Venice had long reached and passed the culmination of her brilliant
power, and had become the very palpitating centre of unchecked
dissipation and of an extravagant luxury of living. All Europe came to
it to be amused. It is impossible to frame with sober English words the
bas-reliefs of those licentious times as they are found to-day in the
popular songs of the Lagoons. At this epoch there was a young Venetian,
Count Carlo Gozzi, who wrote for the Venetian theatre, and may be
considered as having first invested with the dignity of literary
expression the typical figures of Italian comedy--Pantaleone, Harlequin,
Tartaglia, etc. He came from a literary family, and his brother, Count
Gaspard Gozzi, was an honored man of letters who gave several volumes to
Venetian literature, and whose vivacious face in marble may be seen in
the gallery of the ducal palace with the busts of doges, prelates and
painters of the great state of Venice. But he whom we think the more
interesting man, as well as the most representative, has not been
honored with bust or portrait, and we must look to his memoirs to find
out what manner of man he was.

Carlo Gozzi was the seventh son of one of those opulent noble Venetian
families which a century of indolent leisure and mad enjoyment of gayety
had reduced to a state bordering upon beggary. The family was
disorganized, and for the completion of its bad fortune the eldest son
fell in love with and married a foolish literary young woman, who to an
unchecked ambition of distinguishing herself either as a poetess, a
writer of plays, or as the fashionable directress of some _accademia_,
added an uncontrollable spirit of domination. She mismanaged the
household, rendering it intolerable to every one but herself. Gozzi's
good sense very soon convinced him that there was nothing to hope from
such a condition of affairs, and he sought guidance and protection from
his uncle, Almore Cesare Tiepolo, the venerated senator, who recommended
him to Girolamo Quir