[202A] [Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793). His play, _Belisarius_, was first performed November 24, 1734; _Le Bourru Bienfaisant_, November 4, 1771. _La Bottega del Caffé_, _La Locandiera, etc_., still hold the stage. His _Mémoires_ were published in 1787.] [202B] ["Look to't: * * * * * In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown." _Othello_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 206-208.] [203] {165}[Compare-- "An English lady asked of an Italian, What were the actual and official duties Of the strange thing, some women set a value on, Which hovers oft about some married beauties, Called 'Cavalier Servente,' a Pygmalion Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true 't is) Beneath his art. The dame, pressed to disclose them, Said--'Lady, I beseech you to _suppose them_.'" _Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza li. A critic, in the _Monthly Review_ (March, 1818, vol. lxxxv. p. 286), took Byron to task for omitting the _e_ in _Cavaliere_. In a letter to Murray, April 17, 1818, he shows that he is right, and takes his revenge on the editor (George Edward) Griffiths, and his "scribbler Mr. Hodgson."--_Letters_, 1900, iv. 226.] [204] ["An English abbreviation. Rialto is the name, not of the bridge, but of the island from which it is called; and the Venetians say, _Il ponti di Rialto_, as we say Westminster Bridge. In that island is the Exchange; and I have often walked there as on classic ground.... 'I Sopportichi,' says Sansovino, writing in 1580 [_Venetia_, 1581, p. 134], 'sono ogni giorno frequentati da i mercatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi, Milanesi, Spagnuoli, Turchi, e d'altre nationi diverse del mondo, i quali vi concorrono in tanta copia, che questa piazza è annoverata fra le prime dell' universo.' It was there that the Christian held discourse with the Jew; and Shylock refers to it when he says-- "'Signer Antonio, many a time and oft, In the Rialto you have rated me.' 'Andiamo a Rialto,'--' L'ora di Rialto,' were on every tongue; and continue so to the present day, as we learn from the Comedies of Goldoni, and particularly from his _Mercanti_."--Note to the _Brides of Venice_, Poems, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, ii. 88, 89. See, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iv. line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 331.] [205] {166}[Compare "At the epoch called a certain age she found herself an old maid."--Jane Porter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ (1803), cap. xxxviii. (See _N. Eng. Dict_., art. "Certain.") Ugo Foscolo, in his article in the _Quarterly Review_, April, 1819, vol. xxi. pp. 486-556, quotes these lines in illustration of a stanza from Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, iv. 2-- Quando si giugne ad una certa età, Ch'io non voglio descrivervi qual è," etc.]