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Says Dr. Winslow, "Some of the ablest articles in Aiken's Biography' were written by a patient in a lunatic asylum."

Instances are recorded where attacks of insanity have been accompanied by extraordinary and marvellous manifestations of intellectual power. I quote a few typical cases from the valuable work of Dr. Winslow on the "Mind and Brain."

"A young gentleman had an attack of insanity caused by rough usage whilst at school. This youth had never exhibited any particular talent for arithmetic or mathematical science; in fact, it was alleged that he was incapable of doing a simple sum in addition or multiplication. After recovering from his maniacal attack, and when able to occupy his mind in reading and conversation, it was discovered that an extraordinary arithmetical power had been evolved. He was able, with wonderful facility, to solve rather complex problems. This talent continued for several months, but after his complete restoration to health, he relapsed into his former natural state of arithmetical dulness, ignorance, and general mental incapacity."

Dr. Rush, quoted by this same authority, declares that "talents for eloquence, poetry, music, painting, and uncommon ingenuity in several of the mechanic arts, are often evolved in this state of madress. ** A female patient who became insane sang hymns and songs of her own composition during the latter stage of her illness, with a tone and voice so pleasant that I hung upon it with delight every time I visited her. She had never discovered a talent for poetry or music in any previous part of her life. Two instances of a talent for drawing evolved by madness have occurred within my knowledge."

Similar though perhaps less striking instances have been observed by all who are conversant with insanity. In view of all these facts it seems to be clear that the familiar verse, "great wit to madness is allied," is the literal ex

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pression of a scientific truth, and that certain types and conditions of cerebral disease give rise to unnatural activity and brilliancy of the intellect. Recurring to our original illustration, we know that some morbid conditions of the digestive apparatus and of the general system-such, for instance, as appear in epilepsy-are attended by a most unnatural appetite and power of digestion. This theory-which is amply sustained by analogy—also accounts for the extraordinary mental phenomena that are experienced by those who are nearly drowned, and for the supernatural visions and ecstacies of those who are on the point of death. This same theory also helps to explain many of the wonderful manifestations exhibited by patients in a magnetic sleep, or in the so-called clairvoyant state.

Admitting all that has been claimed in this essay, it is evident that our asylums contain but a very small minority of those who are affected with disease of the brain. The insane are all about us, on every hand, and fulfil with success the various relations of life. We find them at the bar, in the pulpit, in legislative halls, and on the throne; among our laborers, our artisans, our husbandmen, our merchants, and especially among our poets, scholars, and men of letters. To isolate these unfortunates from society, in the confinement of an asylum, would, in the great majority of cases, be unjustifiable, and especially so since recent experiments have clearly shown that lunatics of all kinds may be successfully treated in the quiet of country hornes. But if it were thoroughly understood and appreciated by the profession and the laity, that the milder and subtle phases of insanity are thus frequent among us, there would be far greater charity for the meannesses and crimes to which they give origin, and much might be done to modify or prevent their evil consequences to individuals and to society.

LORENZO DAPONTE. DAP

INQUIRIES were recently made in New York, at the instance of the municipality of Ceneda, "a small but not obscure city of Venetia," to ascertain the date of the demise of a native of that place, long a resident among us, to whose memory the authorities intended to erect a monument. This reminiscent honor to their eminent citizens, so characteristic of Italians, has been revived under the impulse of recovered nationality while the Austrians trod their soil and the hated emblem of their supremacy insulted their vision, the honored dead were suffered to repose without any fresh memorial; but when Italy became united and free, the sentiment of patriotism kindled in the hearts of the people new love and pride for those who, having deserved well of their country, had died before the consummation of her nationality. Florence had her grand Dante festival, which was but the expression of a feeling that ran through the peninsula and manifested itself in various tributes to departed patriots, poets, scholars, and statesmen, all over the land; and thus it happened that Ceneda began to inquire about the exile and decease of Lorenzo Daponte, of whom perhaps many of our readers never heard; yet not a few elder Knickerbockers associate his name and image with their first acquaintance with and love for Italian literature and music, and will not be displeased to recall the incidents of his life. He was the first Italian of culture who brought these claims and triumphs of his country into genial relation with our people. Of handsome presence and attractive manners, he made warm friends among our leading men and women. His portrait may be seen in the library of Columbia College, where he was, for several years, professor of Italian literature. His life was one of remarkable vicissitude and no

little distinction; he was the author of the libretto to Mozart's Don Giovanni, an improvisatore in Venice, an operatic poet in Vienna, a bookseller in London, a country-trader in New Jersey, and a professor in New York-in each epoch and career, fertile in resources, urbane, combative, less practical than poetical, eminently social, ardent, fighting fortune and winning friends, intrepid for his country's claims, full of anecdote, brio, and magnetism,--of large experience, strong prejudices, vital enthusiasm. In his old age he wrote his memoirs in his native language-now a very scarce book-with the extreme frankness and animated complacency which distinguished that kind of literature at the beginning of the century. Of Hebrew origin, and the native of a small and stagnant ecclesiastical town in Northern Italy, with a father of humble occupation, there must have been some fine hereditary instincts, and some rare aspirations in Lorenzo, or he would not so readily have grown out of and beyond the inauspicious circumstances of his lot as a young convert to Christianity, and with a freshly - adopted name-that of his childhood's benefactor, Monseigneur Lorenzo Daponte, the good Bishop of Ceneda--he succeeded in obtaining educational and social advantages; and, but for his poetical aspirations and adventurous disposition, might have finished, as he is believed to have begun his career, in the church.

One of the most amusing and characteristic episodes of his youth is the story of his mother-in-law's attempt to force him into a repulsive marriage: she was a virago, and it was only by the clandestine manœuvres of his subjugated father and faithful old nurse, that he was released from confinement and taken mysteriously, at night, beyond the reach of farther matrimonial persecution. These and similar adven

tures remind the reader of those memorable Italian autobiographies written by Cellini, Alfieri, and Goldoni-vivid and curious pictures of domestic and social life in Southern Europe before the days of steam, cheap journals, and policemen.

He

Lorenzo Daponte was born at Ceneda, on the 10th of March, 1749. His father was a leather-dealer, and the boy once attempted to purloin some of that commodity in order to buy books; his mother was devoted in her care of him; his first literary impressions were derived from Bible stories and Metastasio -a singular combination, but one not unaccordant with his subsequent development; for from the one he drew precedents as a raconteur, and from the other hints for the facile and melodious versification of the improvisatore. was placed in the same seminary with his brother, and the Bishop undertook their education. Latin was the principal study, and while, on the one hand, it disciplined the mental habits of the youth, its acquisition enriched his vocabulary, and gave emphasis to the metrical use of his vernacular, which Byron aptly called the "soft bastard" of the classic tongue. Daponte seems to have been instinctively a rhymer, if not a poet; for, at a very early age, he wrote smooth and sentimental verses, celebrated every salient event and unwonted emotion in a sonnet; and cherished through life a passionate admiration for, and intimate acquaintance with, the bards of his country.

The instruction in the seminary of Ponta Guadio was very limited in scope. Indeed, the educational privileges of Daponte's early home were not fitted to expand the mind or breed earnest convictions; as his taste for poetry increased, he found it difficult to obtain books; a pedantic devotion to the dead languages then prevailed, and Italian literature was not widely appreciated as a means of culture. Upon the death of the Bishop, Lorenzo went to Venice; and from this moment his life-record becomes adventurous and dramatic, reminding us of Gil Blas and Goldoni's

comedies. beauty and agreeable manners, his gift of poetic composition, his susceptibility to the beautiful, and eagerness of purpose, and especially his quick and absorbing sympathy with whatever immediately attracted or inspired him, led to numerous love-affairs, escapades, social triumphs, intrigues and vicissitudes, the story of which reads now like a romance, now like a comedy, and, at last, enmeshes the gallant and reckless, but gifted and fascinating, youth in what appears like hopeless misfortune and dissipation. The scene of these exciting episodes adds to their piquancy; the mystery and the mirth of Venice-her gay carnival and masked amours-the jealousies, passions, pride, and pity of an Italian life-drama-all gleam before the imagination as we read. The curious Venetian gossip, the local fame of an improvisatore, the literary success, sentimental perplexities, adulation and persecution; friends, enemies, and loves, rivals, satires, tributes, tenderness and penitence-are elements such as we associate with a medieval tale or a dramatic adventurer, and nowhere to be recognized in actual life so pervasive and picturesque as in the career of an amorous Italian poet a century ago in Venice. Lorenzo gambled, loved, quarrelled, wrote and recited verses, communed with men of letters and ladies of pleasure, with the utmost abandon, in his feverish youth at Venice: the caffé, the piazza, the church, the gondola, the professor's study, and the gaming-table alternate in his naïve but not unremorseful retrospect; obliged to leave the City of the Sea, because of an imprudent satire and more than imprudent intrigue, he passed the Fruili frontier, and finds that romantic adventures are his destiny; for, without money, he meets with the most generous and delicate hospitality at a wayside inn; is in love with three women at the same time, and wins the affections of a fair locandiera in a manner and under circumstances" as good as a play." He arrives at Dresden, gains reputation by his versification of the Psalms, is cm

His remarkable personal

ployed by the composer Saliari, who presents him to the Emperor Joseph at Vienna, where he is installed as the opera-poet, and becomes an Imperial minstrel.

The unpublished history of the Italian opera is full of controversies, scandal, and imbroglios. The sensitive nature of gifted vocalists, the exactions of composers, the tyranny of impresarios, and the legal power of royal patrons, to say nothing of fashionable caprice and musical rivals, necessitate more or less of misunderstanding and dissension. Accordingly the period which Daponte passed at the Austrian court was one of alternate vexation and triumph. Befriended by the Imperial family, he was often at issue with the opera-managers; he wrote librettos for Saliari, Martini, and Mozart, whose musical experiments were variously successful, and not always remunerative; intrigues and persecution, the right and wrong of which it is difficult for the reader to determine, are recorded by Daponte at this time, and give one a vivid idea of the troubles and turmoil incident to operatic enterprises; a fierce controversy with Casti, and numerous difficulties, finally drove the poet into exile, although he had been Latin Secretary to Joseph, and written the lyrical drama made immortal by Mozart's genius. To those who appreciate this wonderful composition, and have often enjoyed its adequate representation on the stage, and who cherish a peculiar interest in the genius and career of Mozart, it is singularly provoking and unsatisfactory to find so few details and so little personal charm in the reference of Daponte to the first production of this memorable opera. We infer from the lukewarm account thereof and the moderate success attending what to many lovers of music is a great epoch in its history --that the refined, aspiring, and gifted composer was scarcely appreciated even at the height of his achievements-an impression his recently published "Life and Letters" fully confirm. Daponte is quite graphic in his story of the finale of his Vienna sojourn; interviews with VOL. II.-34

royalty give it dramatic emphasis, and the desperate result is summed up with a genuine Italian medley of privation and love: "my purse being exhausted," he writes, "I began to sacrifice my wardrobe-five piastres only remaining; yet, let it not irk thee, courteous reader, to read even yet this story of my loves."

Few, even among those who most intelligently enjoy Italian music, give much thought to the words of the lyric drama. They are usually so subordinate to the melody, and so frequently destitute of high finish and originality, that it is not surprising the libretto is so little regarded in comparison to the score. In the days of Zeno and Metastasio this was not the case. The career of the latter is, indeed, as significant as that of many a famous composer. The attaché of a court, and long the recipient of a pension, his mellifluous verses were a serious occupation and a vital renown. As far as regards exquisitely adapting a soft and musical language to vocal triumphs, Metastasio deserved his celebrity and success; and however his dulcet rhymes may pall upon our taste, now and then is encountered so perfect a verbal gem as to elicit admiration even from the sternest ally of Dante and Alfieri. Of late years Felici Romani has won laurels in this comparatively humble sphere of the muses; his libretto of Norma has poetical as well as dramatic merit, which associates itself worthily with Bellini's beautiful composition. Daponte was at first regarded as the rival and then as the legitimate successor of Metastasio; and perhaps we are so accustomed to identify the language and music of Don Gio vanni, that we seldom realize the tact, spirit, and harmony of the former, wherein the bard so effectively seconded

the composer. The Nozze di Figaro created a strong friendship between the authors. Had Daponte cultivated this vein he might have achieved a lasting reputation; but after his curious and characteristic interview with Leopold at Trieste, failing to retrieve his position as operatic bard at Vienna, his connection with the London opera was

brief and disastrous; and although he twice established the expensive pastime in New York, its success was casual and temporary.

With true adventurous hardihood, this climax of pecuniary disaster, in Daponte's youth, is coincident with his marriage; but, in view of his temperament, tendencies, and subsequent career, we cannot but deem it a fortunate circumstance that his wife was an English woman with a good native stock of common sense and affection; especially as at this period (1772) he turns his face towards London, where the Italian opera again claimed his muse. Before reaching there, however, there occurred another exciting episode of travel; he was cheated, robbed, assisted by extraordinary friends, and annoyed by pertinacious enemies. As an operatic writer in London he enjoyed a brief interval of successful industry, soon followed by the apparently inevitable troubles associated with the production of the lyrical drama-that costly exotic which flourishes on a foreign soil only through bold enterprise and incessant obstacles. Daponte imprudently became security, was unable to meet his obligations, and baffled, as he narrates, by the intrigues of the theatrical employers, went to prison for debt, and emerged resolute to change his vocation, and turn from music to literature--not as a profession, but as a commodity. He opened an Italian bookstore in London, and his intelligent enthusiasm for the gifted writers of his country soon brought him into genial contact with the few cultivators of his native literature; among them Matthias, then prominent as the author of a metrical plea for the study of belles-lettres-which had a transient popularity, and is still quoted as a significant memorial of the taste of his day. This prosperous author paid Daponte's most pressing endorsement; and, once at liberty, he went to Italy as the operatic agent to engage a new company. This visit was a charming experience, and is depicted in roseate colors; for, although the French armies occupied his native soil, he found no

impediment to a reunion with his family, and the occasion was made a long festa, which he describes in detail and with great zest. He is jubilant over the misfortunes which had overtaken his old enemies, who have been either struck with lightning, languish in prison, or suffer some other chastisement of Providence. He again finds cause to realize the truth of the maxim-non si vince amor se non fuggendo; has a long conversation with Ugo Foscolo at Bologna and with Metastasio at Vienna, and is delighted with his sojourn at Florence, whose people he eulogizes as ospitali senza ostentazione, instruiti senza pedanteria, affabili senza bassezza, "hos pitable without ostentation, learned without pedantry, affable without baseness." He is half frozen going across the Apennines, thence to Bologna, has a desperate quarrel with Williams, his English partner, in engaging and transporting the singers, and returns to London to find new suits instituted against him, and once more to enter a debtor's prison. His bookstore and influence revive the scanty interest in Italian literature, and he is patronized by some of the nobility, and befriended by men of letters; but discouraged, at last, by the succession of writs growing out of his unfortunate security for the operalessee, he accepts bankruptcy as the only issue, sends his family to a kinsman in America, and prepares to follow and test his blighted fortunes in the New World.

Daponte's voyage to the United States was long and comfortless, and he was reduced to a pork-diet before it was over; he arrived at Philadelphia on the 4th of June, and immediately joined his family in New York. With fifteen thousand dollars capital saved from the wreck by his prudent wife, he established himself at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in what promised to be a successful trade; but a dishonest partner caused its speedy failure. Reverting to his educational resource, he took pupils in New York, and was befriended there by Prof. Clement Moore and several leading families, so that he enjoyed a brief period of professional success and

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