Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/493

 X2s.ix.xov.io.i92!.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 403 desire to gain favourable mention instead of confuting them, are at pains to avoid such matters and the risk of offending them ? And when, either through faulty information or incomplete knowledge of our tongue, many mistakes are made concerning our affairs, shall the world not know of those things and witness be given to historical truth ? " The inspiration lies very evi- j dently in the exasperation felt by the Italians at the strictures passed on their literature by French writers, either speaking for themselves directly or through the ! Memoires de Trevoux. The scope of the j review for review we may term it is i not confined wholly to Italian publications, but to foreign as well, and in an early number of the Giornale, there is, to mention one instance, a short essay on the Tories and Whigs in England, and a review of Salvini's translation of Addison's ' Cato.' In actual reviewing the idea remains " not to offend, but to take care not to advance opinions adverse to the perfection of belles-lettres and the sciences." Zeno, however, was more inclined towards censure when necessary.* It will be seen that the programme out- lined by Maffei might well have been written by a modern journalist launching a new literary paper, but nowhere in the actual review does this " account of intrinsic value " appear, and criticism remains on a dead level of academic mediocrity ; only in the series of articles devoted to the Bou- hours-Orsi controversy does anything like internal unity bind up isolated details, and this unity lies in convinced hostility to the Memoires de Trevoux and the French criti- cism. Among the papers of Maffei, published and unpublished, f there is a short, frag- mentary essay entitled ' Del pensare italiano o sia della qualita del sentimenti usati dagli' Italiani nel comporre,' which was evidently destined for publication in the Giornale de' Letterati but remained in MS. in Verona. J This essay, with the remark that " the condi- tion of human nature, which is the same in every age, brings it to pass that to-day, and especially in different nations, the same thing often occurs. Fantastic ideas reign 1 Lettere ' (Venezia, 1785). t Cf. Bibliography in ' Studi Maffeiani,' and the list on p. 544. I Published for the first time in ' |Studi Maf- feiani,' pp. 578-582. in Italy concerning some habits and ways of France which are absolutely false ; and fantastic ideas reign in France regarding those of Italy even as far distant from the truth," develops the ideas advanced by Orsi towards a more scientific ideal. " The only point at issue lies in the depth of thought, the gravity of feelings, and the natural characters of expression which form the genuine character of our writers and are almost inseparable from our language." * Then Maffei traces the historical rela- tionship of France and Italy, and in this philosophic, or rather scientific, identifica- tion of their culture in one original source suggests a more profound study of literary history than was otherwise current in the Settecento. In Paris he met no one among cultured Frenchman who noticed those de- fects in Italian writers instanced by the Memoires de Trevoux and the Journal des m Sqavans. The attitude of the Settecento towards literature is expressed by Maffei in a letter to Bernardi f literary work must yield always to social exigencies, and the real abilities of letterati were devoted more to the latter than to the former : And what things would not be seen in Italy, if its letterati had leisure to consecrate tran- quilly their whole life to study ? But in any case, there was no other way (i.e., than by the Giornale de' Letterati) of attempting to inculcate even in the mass of Italians the love of know- ledge and impart some inkling of that erudition which is the art of arts and comprises all things ; and apart from making known at least the names- and books of our letterati, never discussed by the instructors of youth, Italians are able when travelling to gain knowledge of distant parts of those things which keep up the honour of Letters in Italy. If journalists merit such praise through intellect, they certainly deserve a statue for their intention, since what other aim than the glory of the nation, the love of letters, the public weal could have impelled them to an enterprise so boring, so fatiguing, so embarrassing ? Perhaps the desire for praise ? A notable passage further on in the same letter affirms with passion the liberty and purity of the Press even against the Jesuits, and this protest itself must be eternally applicable and not least in modern times : You should not consider as approved by all of us what you hear of one of us. Do you believe that more than a few of us do not suffer at hearing t ' Risposta del Cavaliere Erudito alia lettera prima scrittagli dal M. R. e dott. P. G. A. Bernard! della Compagnia di Gesu sopra i due primi tornetti del nuovo Giornale de' Letterati d'ltalia ' (pub- lished anonymously in 1712).
 * Cf. Letter to Vallisnieri, Nov. 24, 1710, in
 * Ibid., p. 579.