GOLDONI

GOLDONI, CARLO, a celebrated comic poet of Italy, whom his countrymen delight to call the Italian Molière, was born at Venice in 1707. His life falls naturally into three distinct parts: the strange career of his youth, the more sober era of his toils and struggles in middle age, and his old age of moderate independence and well-earned fame. Goldoni was brought up in the midst of fêtes and theatrical performances by his grandfather, a man of pleasure, whose chief amusement was in the society of players and musicians. In this company his mind received a bent which afterwards decided his course. He went through the usual studies of the young Italians of those days; but he gained little at the various schools and colleges to which he was sent, except a knowledge of life in all its varieties. This knowledge he enlarged by often exchanging the dull routine of work for the rambling life and reckless gaiety of a strolling player. His friends, little dreaming that he was in this way educating himself for his future calling, besought him to reform, to study law or medicine, and to bring no discredit on the family name. He chose the profession of medicine, and had no sooner made his choice than he abandoned it. He next tried the law, graduated after various mishaps at Padua, and began to practise at Pisa as an advocate with every prospect of success. In an evil hour he wrote a comedy, which was played by a strolling company at Venice amidst overwhelming applause. From that time he became a stage-poet; and though the companies for which he wrote were all itinerant and held in no high respect, yet Goldoni was too much of a Gil Blas to exchange a life so congenial to his temper for the tame monotony of

burgher respectability. Being now in a sphere in all respects suited to him, he resolved to turn its capabilities to account. He found the stage occupied either by the opera, or by that species of comedy called the "commedia dell'arte," or "à soggetto,"—a kind of comic acting peculiar to Italy, and long the only pretender to the title of national. These plays were not written out in full. The plot was sketched, and the actors filled in the dialogue as they went along. The chief characters in these plays wore masks, thence called maschere, and caricatured the local humours and salient weaknesses of the various states of Italy. The success of such plays depended of course on the cleverness of the individual actors; and in the hands of good performers they became amusing enough. The majority of strolling players, however, had to conceal their lack of genuine wit and humour under personal scurrility or obscene innuendoes. Goldoni determined to reform the stage, and as there was no drama at that time in Italy suited to the modern manners of the people, he wrote a vast number of plays descriptive of the life and habits of his countrymen. His reform he was obliged to effect by degrees. He began by writing only the more serious parts of his plays; then he wrote parts for the masks, which he strove to raise out of the region of the mere burlesque; then he discarded the masks almost entirely, aimed at a higher style, and besides criticising the manners, lashed the follies and vices of his countrymen. He was a keen observer of men, and wrote with much ease and variety. The best of his works are those written in the Venetian dialect, which are therefore not very readily appreciable by foreigners. To most Englishmen, indeed, the fine aroma of Goldoni's diction is as much lost as the peculiar zest of broad Scotch or the local dialects of Yorkshire are thrown away upon an Italian. But all native critics agree in pronouncing them remarkable for raciness of humour and felicity of diction. He revels especially in descriptions of low life in Venice, where the national manners have longest preserved their most striking peculiarities; and these descriptions are sometimes so broad as to be quite inadmissible even on a French stage. As he wrote for bread, he often wrote in great haste, a fact which accounts for the inequality of his works and the mistakes into which he often falls, especially when he trenches upon foreign manners and customs. Despite these faults, however, it is hardly too much to call Goldoni the father, or at least the restorer, of the Italian comedy. His works are still highly popular among his countrymen; and though a reaction in favour of the "commedia dell'arte" was effected by his rival Gozzi, it ended with the life of that powerful but ill-regulated genius; and such comic writers as have since attained distinction in Italy profess themselves followers of Goldoni. The rivalry between Gozzi and Goldoni made a great noise in its day, and as a fact of considerable importance in the literary history of Italy is still interesting to us. It is pretty fully discussed by Ugoni in his Letteratura Italiana, and by Baretti in his Manners and Customs of Italy. The third and happiest portion of Goldoni's life was that spent in Paris. In 1761 he was invited to that city by the Italian company playing there, and wrote a number of plays, some of which were eminently successful. Among these may be numbered Le Bourru Bienfaisant, in French, which still maintains its ground as a standard play on the French stage. This play made him known at court (1771), where he was appointed teacher of Italian to the three daughters of Louis XV., and finally rewarded with a pension of 4000 francs. When the revolution broke out he was deprived of it. On the motion of Chénier, however, a decree was passed restoring it and paying up the arrears. But Goldoni died the very day after this decree was passed, January 8, 1793. The arrears and a small additional pension were paid to his widow. There have been countless editions of Goldoni's works, among which may be

Goldsmith, specified that of Venice in 44 vols. 8vo, 1794-5; and that of Lucca in 26 vols. 1809. Selections from his best plays still appear from time to time in Italy. He wrote in French, besides his play of Le Bourru Bienfaisant, a number of minor pieces, and a very interesting biography of himself under the title of Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de sa vie, et à celle de son Théâtre, which appeared in 1787, when the author was in his 81st year.

GOLDSMITH or SILVERSMITH, one who makes vessels and ornaments of gold or silver. The goldsmith's work is either performed in the mould, or beat out with the hammer or other instrument. Works which have raised figures are cast in a mould, and afterwards polished and finished; plates or dishes of silver or gold are beaten out from flat plates; and tankards and other vessels of the kind are formed of plates soldered together, their mouldings being beaten out, not cast. The business of the goldsmith formerly involved the hammering of the metal from the ingot to the degree of thinness required; but the necessity for this laborious process is now entirely obviated by the flattening mill.