reproached with the
original sin of Venetianism.

Amidst all this tedious trifling, I recollected one day that Tasso had
been worried his whole lifetime by the Academicians della Crusca, who
maintained that his 'Jerusalem Delivered' had not passed through the
sieve which is the emblem of their society. I was then in my closet, and
I turned my eyes towards the twelve quarto volumes of the works of that
author, and exclaimed, "Oh heavens! must no one write in the Italian
language who has not been born in Tuscany?" I turned up mechanically the
five volumes of the Dictionary della Crusca, where I found more than six
hundred words, and a number of expressions, approved of by the academy
and rejected by the world; I ran over several ancient authors considered
as classical, whom it would be impossible to imitate in the present day
without censure; and I came to this conclusion--that we must write in
good Italian, but write at the same time so as to be understood in every
corner of Italy. Tasso was therefore wrong in reforming his poem to
please the Academicians della Crusca: his 'Jerusalem Delivered' is read
by everybody, while nobody thinks of reading his 'Jerusalem Conquered.'

A POET'S OLD AGE

From the 'Memoirs of Carlo Goldoni'

I return to my regimen,--you will say here also, perhaps, that I ought
to omit it: you are in the right; but all this is in my head, and I must
be delivered of it by degrees; I cannot spare you a single comma. After
dinner I am not fond of either working or walking. Sometimes I go to the
theatre, but I am most generally in parties till nine o'clock in the
evening. I always return before ten o'clock. I take two or three small
cakes with a glass of wine and water, and this is the whole of my
supper. I converse with my wife till midnight; I very soon fall asleep,
and pass the night tranquilly.

It sometimes happens to me, as well as every other person, to have my
head occupied with something capable of retarding my sleep. In this
case I have a certain remedy to lull myself asleep, and it is this: I
had long projected a vocabulary of the Venetian dialect, and I had even
communicated my intention to the public, who are still in expectation of
it. While laboring at this tedious and disgusting work, I soon
discovered that it threw me asleep. I laid it therefore aside, and I
profited by its narcotic faculty. Whenever I feel my mind agitated by
any moral cause, I take at random some word of my n