Italian Poets 2 - Italy - He ate fast, and...
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Italian Poetry: Stories From the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writer By Leigh Hunt. In Two Volumes. Vol. II.

Index | pg. 61 |Previous Page - Next Page

He ate fast, and ...

He ate fast, and of whatever was next him, often beginning with the bread on the table before the dishes came; and he would finish his dinner with another bit of bread. "Appetiva le rape," says his good son; videlicet, he was fond of turnips. In his fourth Satire, he mentions as a favourite dish, turnips seasoned with vinegar and boiled _must_ (sapa), which seems, not unjustifiably, to startle Mr. Panizzi.[39] He cared so little for good eating, that he said of himself, he should have done very well in the days when people lived on acorns.

A stranger coming in one day at the dinner-hour, he ate up what was provided for both; saying afterwards, when told of it, that the gentleman should have taken care of himself. This does not look very polite; but of course it was said in jest. His son attributed this carelessness at table to absorption in his studies.

He carried this absence of mind so far, and was at the same time so good a pedestrian, that Virginio tells us he once walked all the way from Carpi to Ferrara in his slippers, owing to his having strolled out of doors in that direction.

The same biographers who describe him as a brave soldier, add, that he was a timid horseman and seaman; and indeed he appears to have eschewed every kind of unnecessary danger. It was a maxim of his, to be the last in going out of a boat. I know not what Orlando would have said to this; but there is no doubt that the good son and brother avoided no pain in pursuit of his duty. He more than once risked his life in the service of government from the perils of travelling among war-makers and banditti. Imagination finds something worthy of itself on great occasions, but is apt to discover the absurdity of staking existence on small ones. Ariosto did not care to travel out of Italy. He preferred, he says, going round the earth in a map; visiting countries without having to pay innkeepers, and ploughing harmless seas without thunder and lightning[40].

His outward religion, like the one he ascribed to his friend Cardinal Bembo, was "that of other people." He did not think it of use to disturb their belief; yet excused rather than blamed Luther, attributing his heresy to the necessary consequences of mooting points too subtle for human apprehension[41]. He found it impossible, however, to restrain his contempt of bigotry; and, like most great writers in Catholic countries, was a derider of the pretensions of devotees, and the discords and hypocrisies of the convent. He evidently laughed at Dante's figments about the other world; not at the poetry of them, for that he admired, and sometimes imitated, but at the superstition and presumption. He turned the Florentine's moon into a depository of non-sense; and found no hell so bad as the hearts of tyrants. The only other people he put into the infernal regions are ladies who were cruel to their lovers! He had a noble confidence in the intentions of his Creator; and died ill the expectation of meeting his friends again in a higher state of existence.



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