I never abandoned the scheme I had formed of moving at law against the Marchese Terzi of Bergamo in a suit for the recovery of lands and rights belonging to us.[148] But while I was engaged on the preliminary business, a fresh attack of pulmonary hemorrhage cooled my ardour. Many learned physicians whom I consulted, looked upon me as a victim of consumption, at the point of death. Beggars in the street, when they saw me pass, promised to pray for my life if I would fling them a copper. The cleverest professors of medicine at Padua prescribed ass's milk, which was tantamount to saying: "Phthisical creature, go and make your peace with Heaven!" My own doctor in ordinary, Arcadio Cappello by name, now dead—an old man, experienced, well acquainted with my constitution, and a philosopher to boot—forbade me milk as though it had been poison. "You," he said, "are suffering from a nasty malady. Yet it has not the origin, nor has it made the progress, which these eminent physicians fancy. If you let your illness prey upon your mind, you will die. If you have the strength and heart to throw aside all thoughts about it, you will recover. It has in you no other basis than a hypochondriacal habit, which you have contracted by a sedentary life of worry, business, and excessive study. Raw milk of any kind is a pure poison in your case. Live regularly, cast aside reflections on your symptoms, take horse-exercise two or three hours a day. These are your best medicines."

Marchese Terzi owes no thanks to my malady. Bloodless as I was, through what I lost by hemorrhage and venesection, my intellect enjoyed the highest qualities of penetration and acumen. Stretched out upon my bed, I had the necessary papers for my lawsuit brought to me—abstracts and wills recovered from the pork-butcher—a whole paraphernalia of documents forbidden by my doctors—and set up a scheme of proofs and arguments, so clear and so convincing that they subsequently drove my enemy to desperate measures.

These annoying relapses of my malady continued for two years and a half to fall upon me when I least expected them. They were enough to dishearten any man less stupid than myself, and make him despair of living. Contrary to the advice of several physicians, who protested with wide-open horror-stricken eyes that riding would inflame my blood and burst the arteries of my lungs, I followed the prescription of Doctor Arcadio Cappello, half-suffocated as I was with hemorrhage. He proved to be right. Regular diet, contempt for my symptoms, and horse-exercise completed my cure. It is now twenty years and more since I have been reminded that I was ever subject to this indisposition.

As I have often had occasion to remark, no business, no quarrels, no lawsuits, and no illnesses prevented me from devoting some hours every day to poetry. This being the case, when controversies arose in Venice on philology and the higher Italian literature—controversies of which I mean to render some account in the following chapters—I went on vomiting blood from my veins, and scribbling sonnets, satires, essays in defence of our great writers, treatises on style, polemics against Chiari and Goldoni and their followers. All these trifles, when I read them aloud, made my friends laugh, as well as my doctor and the surgeon who attended on me.

Before engaging in the circumstances which led to my becoming a writer for the theatre, I will wind up the history of our private affairs. First of all, I let the lawsuit with Marchese Terzi drop. My reasons were as follows:—With the best intentions in the world, and the strongest desire to reunite the scattered members of our family under one roof, I found this task impossible. My sisters married. My brothers Francesco and Almorò in course of time took wives and begat children. My mother's inheritance of the Tiepolo property (though strictly speaking it ought to have been treated as entailed upon her sons) ran to waste in the hands of Gasparo and his wife. I had the old debts of our estate still weighing on my shoulders. It seemed to me, in this condition of affairs, best to remain a bachelor, and to devote myself to the duties I had undertaken, without ambitious projects and without assuming heavier obligations. Freed from further responsibilities to my family, whom I had loyally served in their material interests, and against none of whom I harboured any rancour, I was master of my time and could devote myself to the literary exercises which were so congenial to my temper.

END OF VOL. I.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

The following typographical errors have been corrected by the etext transcriber:
Many years have elasped since Tartaglia married=>Many years have elapsed
since Tartaglia married
twirls his moustachioes=>twirls his moustachios
Philarete Chasles=>Philarète Chasles
whence we were to sally forth to the assault of Buda.=>whence we were to
sally forth to the assault of Budua.

INDEX.

This index appears at the end of Volume 2, but is shown here for the convenience of the reader.
{note of etext transcriber}