A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen: and on the characteristics of Shakspere's style and the secret of his supremacySpalding, William
General
A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen: and on the characteristics of Shakspere's style and the secret of his supremacy
He gave to the world a slight morsel descriptive of his experiences and
enjoyments, in the Blackwood's Magazine of November, 1835. They were
told in so fine a spirit, so free both from ungraceful levity and solemn
pedantry, that the reader only regretted that they were too sparingly
imparted. He thus announced his own enjoyment in his pilgrimage: "Among
the ruined palaces and temples of Rome, and in the vineyards and
orange-groves beside the blue sea of Naples, I had warmed my imagination
with that inspiration which, once breathed upon the heart, never again
grows cold. It did not desert me now as I entered this upper valley of
the Apennines to seek a new colour and form of Italian landscape. Happy
and elevating recollections thronged in upon me, and blended with the
clear sunshine which slept on the green undulating hills." This fragment
is the only morsel of autobiographic information left by its author, and
therefore perhaps the following, taken from among many expressions of a
genial spirit enjoying itself in freedom, may not be unacceptable. He
has crossed the high-lying, bare plain of Rosetto, and reaches the
village of Val san Giovanni, where "shelter was heartily welcome, the
sun was set, snow-flakes were beginning to whirl in the air, and before
we reached the village, a sharp snow-storm had set in." Here he is
taking comfort to himself before a huge wood fire, when "a man entered
of superior dress and appearance to the rest, and behind him bustled up
a little wretch in the government indirect-tax livery, who, never saying
by your leave, pushed a chair to the fire for his master. The gentleman
popped down, and turning to me, 'I am the Podestà,' said he. I made my
bow to the chief magistrate of the place. 'I am the Potestà,' said he
again, and our little squinting spy repeated reproachfully, 'His
excellency is the Podestà.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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