irst revealed to
him his own dramatic genius. His protector there was a man of letters,
who lent him books and encouraged him to exercise his literary taste and
talent in scribbling sketches of character, poetical essays and such
things as usually serve as the magnetic conductor between a youth and
the people around him, whom he hardly knows. The dramatic troupe in Zara
was composed of young Venetian officers only. To amuse the governor and
his suite they distributed among themselves the different roles of men
and women, and upon some given theme they improvised those comedies
which are so much to the taste of Italians. What a chance there was for
individual talent to reveal itself! Gozzi created spontaneously his own
role--it was that of an Illyrian chambermaid--and in it he used the
Dalmatian _patois_ with such dexterity, he railed at feminine foibles
with so much _finesse_, and, using recent social scandals, he touched
the whole with such apt satire, that he had an immense success. The role
of the fictitious chambermaid won universal admiration. Ladies of rank
inquired who was that inimitable young man, and expressed the wish to
have presented to them the amateur actor. Their disappointment was
unconcealed upon finding him reserved in manner, simple, and almost
timid and taciturn. We appreciate his surprise when he tells us, "I
wondered that my love of study, my chaste tastes, some literary
aptitude, and some serious views of life above those of my age did not
produce as favorable an impression upon the sex as did my fancy dress of
a Dalmatian chambermaid and my skill in gymnastic performances. But,
then, had I yet gone down into the inextricable depths of the feminine
mind? and was I already acquainted with the laws that rule the magnetic
attractions of the most bizarre of brains?"

The stories Gozzi tells us of life in Dalmatia have a fresh, primitive
flavor. No one ever told them before him. Their bloom is untouched, and
much of the pleasure one has in reading them comes from that. Some of
his pictures of manners are as crisp and as vivid as a fine etching.

At the time of his residence there that little, out-of-the-way corner of
Europe had not yet been awakened from the stupor of its feudal sleep,
nor had the faintest breath of modern ideas so much as rippled over the
sullen surface of hereditary slavery to traditional customs. From time
immemorial the habits of the people were the same, and singularly
uninfluen