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and ridicule even in Germany . Nicolini wrote a continuation of it , introducing the police as additional characters , and it being one of the earliest plays translated into English at the period of thfe Kotzebue influenza , it became the prey of the Anti ~ jacobin . Our readers may recollect the Rovers ( ascribed to Mr . Canning ) :
certainly a piece of successful satire . It was a lucky hit , the making Ferdinand , who , in Stella , is only a very weak and susceptible man , —not a hypocrite , but one who yields to every impression , — at the same time the sentimental and pseudo-misanthropical hero of Kotzebue ' s Misanthropy and Repentance , the Stranger of our English stage , so finely represented by Kemble . The absurdity is very amusing , and the satire very efficient * .
Claudine von Villa Bella—Em Singspiel . The predilection which Goethe has avowed for the opera , would be unintelligible , were it not recollected that , being a great tragic poet , he is at the same time among the greatest of lyric poets , and in the lyrical drama the poetical element predominates over the dramatic . Of the great operas which fill the theatres in every capital in Europe , how many are there of which any one knows one word of the
text ? We recollect but one combination of two great names in the opera , those of Mozart and Metastasio , as in the Clemenza di Tito , &c . And of these , while Mozart is , by his own countrymen , entitled the Shakspeare of music , and is held by them to be at the head of his art , Metastasio is only the author of the most famous operas . As a poet he fills but a very subordinate station on the Parnassus of modern Italy . His verses are given
to learners for their facility , and therefore have become more known than any other modern Italian poetry out of his own country . It is he who has in a great measure brought the Italian language into the unmerited disrepute of being fit only for the lips of a soprano singer ; and , until Alfieri proved the contrary , ( as Dante ' s admirable power was nearly forgotten till Monti revived his memory , ) the Italian was thought fit for nothing but
songs and the opera . The very opposite prejudice prevailed respecting the German . The saying imputed to Charles the Fifth , that he spoke Italian to his mistress , and German to his horse , was in every one ' s memory . And the popular anecdote of the happy retort of the German upon the Italian served only to spread the calumny . Horrid jargon 1 Sure it was in German that the angel drove our parents out of Paradise . ' * Etroppo vero ! But
* We add an illustration of the artifice of the parodist and satirical translator . In the Rovers , Stella , after a minute ' s conversation with Csecilia , exclaims , * A sudden thought strikes me . I ^ et us swear eternal friendship . Let us embrace . — They embrace * A good ; text this for the arraigners of German sentimentality . But the original is nevertheless true to nature . The two deserted wives having exchanged their confidence , Stella , deeply sympathising with the more grievous long-suffering of Csecilia , says , ' We may be to each other what they ( the treacherous husbands ) ought to have been to us . You shall stay with me . Our friendship shall t >* eternal . ' A natural eentimept in a mind filled by one painful recollwtioa .
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Goethe * a Work * . 683
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 683, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/33/
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