Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/37

 Lorenzo Da Ponte 449 thereupon became the first incumbent. Pickering's Greek and English Lexicon (1826) — a translation of SchreveUus pro- jected and partly executed in 181 4 — just misses being the earliest of all the Greek-English lexicons. Acquainted with Oriental languages, including Chinese and a number of African and Pacific dialects, Pickering was one of the founders and was the first president of the American Orien- tal Society. He was deeply versed as well in the American Indian languages, and his treatise On the Adoption oj a Uniform Orthography Jor the Indian Languages of North America {Memoirs of the American Academy) excited much interest abroad. He lectured to popular audiences upon ChampoUion's discoveries concerning the hieroglyphic lan- guage of Egypt. Today he is best remembered by his work on Americanisms, as presented to the American Academy in 1815 and published the next year in enlarged form — an invalu- able record of American speech in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Another of the notable transmitters of Latin culture was Lorenzo Da Ponte (i 749-1838), a genuine celebrity, and, as the librettist of Mozart's Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi Fan Tutte, one of the lesser immortals. A converted Jew, he was educated and he taught in a church seminary, and actually became an Abate. He mingled freely in the gay and the learned society of Venice, carrying on numerous love intrigues and supporting himself by private teaching. One of his sonnets having given offence, in 1777 he left Italy to wander over Europe. At Dresden he made translations and redactions of plays for the Electoral Theatre ; thence he removed to Vienna, where he became acquainted with Mozart, and wrote the li- bretti for Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787), produced with brilliant success. Driven away by court intrigues Da Ponte in 1793 went with his young English wife to London, and there made his headquarters for some twelve years, writing for the ItaUan theatre, touring the Continent to engage singers, opening an Italian book shop, and always more or less retreating from his creditors, from whom, indeed, he retreated to Phila- delphia in 1805. Again he moved about erratically, but he settled finally in New York in 1819, gave ItaHan lessons (Fitz-GreeneHalleck was one of his pupils), again opened a book