It has been said in speaking of the sad story of his daughter Anna, that she was accused of having given her husband cause for jealousy. It would seem very clear that there was no ground for any such accusation. But it was said that the misconduct on her part had been due to the corruption of her mind by the reading of her father's verses. The utter groundlessness of such an assertion might be shown in many ways. But the savage and malignant cruelty of it points with considerable evidence to the sources of the current talk about the courtier poet's licentiousness.
It is impossible to find room here for a detailed comparison between these two celebrated pastorals; and it is the less needed inasmuch as Ginguené has done it very completely and at great length in the twenty-fifth chapter of the second part of his work.
Guarini also produced a comedy, the "Idropica," which was acted with much success at the court of Mantua, and is printed among his works, as well as some prose pieces of small importance, the principal of which is "Il Secretario," a treatise on the duties of a secretary, not printed among his works, but of which an edition exists in pot quarto (186 pages) printed at Venice in 1594. Neither have his letters been printed among his works. They exist, printed without index or order of any kind, in a volume of the same size as the "Secretario," printed at Venice also in 1595, but by a different printer.
The name, however, of Batista Guarini would have long since been forgotten, had he not written the "Pastor Fido."
T. Adolphus Trollope, in Belgravia.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] The now celebrated pass of the Ampezzo between Venice and Innspruck.
[49] This must probably be Hall on the Inn, a little below Innspruck. Certainly any boat which he got there for the descent of the river must have been a sufficiently miserable mode of travelling.
[50] Far, that is, from the bank of the river, where he left his boat at night.
[51] Lettere del Signor Cavaliere Battista Guarini, Nobile Ferrarese, di nuovo in questa seconda impressione di alcune altre accrescinte, e dall' Autore stesso corrette, di Agostino Michele raccolte, et al Sereniss. Signore il Duca d'Urbino dedicate. Con Privilegio. In Venetia, mdxcv. Appresso Gio. Battista Ciotti Senese al segno della Minerva.