To what motive can the savage tone and evident personal rancour of this article be imputed? The office of the critic has for a long time past been discharged fairly enough; if not with an undue excess of leniency and generosity, at least (from the critic’s own point of view) with justice and honour. Politics, and such other matters as may be taken to be the common property of the public, have, it is true, been known to infuse something of what might at first sight be called acerbity into his style; but as he who in fair and open fight, complaining of blows, would meet with scant pity, so the “benighted Tory” or the “reckless and destructive Radical,” or possibly the propounder of some latest theory in literature, science, or art, must put up smilingly with the rubs which it may please his adverse judge to give him, remembering always that the office of that judge is to suppress the ignorant, to repress the arrogant, and occasionally, though of course but very rarely, to oppress those who are neither the one nor the other. Still, that the gall of personal animosity should mix itself with the ink and infect the pen of the reviewer is plainly a thing so utterly monstrous as to astonish us on hearing of its occurrence more than once in an ordinary lifetime. There is, unfortunately, too clear evidence that, not uninfluenced by some such dark motive, the critic now under notice perpetrated the article in question.
It seems that about two years before the review appeared either Panizzi made Mr. Keightley’s acquaintance or Mr. Keightley Panizzi’s.
The relations between the two—so long as they lasted—seem to have been of an amicable kind. Panizzi assisted his new acquaintance in the Italian works on which he was engaged, and, although he never appears to have been inclined to admit him to any very intimate friendship, yet a good deal of intercourse seems to have taken place between them, especially in matters relating to the peculiar study with which each was occupied. Panizzi, indeed, acknowledges that the last time he met Mr. Keightley the latter insisted upon his accepting a copy of his works, and that he (Panizzi) “peremptorily objected” to doing so. It maybe admitted that this was somewhat discourteous, and perhaps hinc illæ lachrymæ. Be that as it may, what must have been his astonishment to receive, three months afterwards, the following letter from his quondam friend, of whom during that period he had quite lost sight:—
“Sir,
When next you stab a friend in the dark, if you wish to be unknown, hide your hand a little better than you have done in my case. But I have reason to suppose that you did not desire concealment, as I find it was commonly known that you were the author of the article in question. Indeed no one who knew your style, &c., could doubt for a moment. I never saw that article till last Saturday, and before I had read the first column I named the writer of it. It is not safe to attack one with whom you have been in the habit of conversing. He has too many keys.
When I recollect that it was written at the very time I was endeavouring to serve you, I must regard the action as a piece of the basest treachery and darkest malignity that can be conceived. I should not condescend to notice it, but that I required to inform you that I know you, and that our acquaintance is at an end. ‘I bide my time,’ and may yet repay you, but not by a stab in the dark.
I am, yours, &c., &c.,
Thomas Keightley.”
Following closely upon this letter came Mr. Keightley’s article in the Foreign Quarterly. It may be safe to conclude here—hoc ergo post propter hoc.
Panizzi, his temper already not unreasonably ruffled by the letter, appears to have been terribly put out by the Review. He winds up his own appeal to the proprietors of the “Foreign Quarterly” with a burst of indignation and menace, which, had it been carried into execution might have brought him into collision with the laws of his “adoptive country.”
Dreading and deprecating any such forcible expression of his ire by the outraged author, Mr. W. S. Rose sent him the poetical epistle which we subjoin.
“Brighton, April 15, 1835.
“My Wife and I are certain you are better
Than you’re reported, reasoning from your letter;
In which you’ve blown your enemy to bits (I
Think) and deservedly, my dear Panizzi:
But do not in your honest rage outrun
The rule the ghostly king enjoined his son;
Tho’ you “speak daggers—use none”—this I know
You’d scarcely do—I mean don’t use your toe,
Or break his head, or pull him by the nose.
Always yours truly,
W. S. Rose.”
Panizzi himself seems to have possessed somewhat of a poetic faculty, if we may judge by the sole specimen extant of his skill in the art—a translation of one of Moore’s songs, “Her last words at parting.” In confirmation of this, it may be observed that the canon before assumed in speaking of Lady Dacre on Cary, namely, that the translator should conform to the style of the verse in the original, has here been overlooked. For this neglect there may be cogent reasons. It would be difficult to adapt Moore’s anapæstic lines to Italian verse in the same measure, and, when adapted they would in all probability, prove inelegant, and perhaps unnatural; even were this not the case, liberties which would not be admissible with an important poem, might very pardonably be taken with the trifling composition of Moore.
The stanzas set out below are neatly turned, andand convey the idea of the original in elegant and musical versification:—
L’ultime sue parole
Quando mi disse addio
Scordar giammai poss ’io?
Meco saranno ognor;
Qual melodioso accento
Che l’ alma ne consola
Benchè quel suon s’invola
Nè piu risuoni allor.
Venga l’avversa sorte,
M’ oltraggierà, ma invano;
Sempre il mio talismano
Sarà quel suon d’amor.
“Rammenta nell’ assenza,
Fra le ritorte e pene,
Un cor che ti vuol bene
Sol per te batte ancor.”
Da dolce fonte in oltra
Il pellegrino errante,
Per un sol breve istante
Gusta del suo sapor.
Ma si provede intanto
Dell’ acque ricche e care
Di quelle goccie rare
Che danno a lui valor.
Così al rigor del fato
Nell’ eremo della vita,
La fonte mia gradita
Sarà quel suon d’ amor.
“Rammenta nell’ assenza,
Fra le ritorte e pene,
Un cor che ti vuol bene
Per te sol batte ancor.”
This, however, is merely given as an instance of versatility in a genius that was more fully developed and more usefully employed, in illustrating and setting forth, so far as such work is concerned, to the world the poetry of others. The “Orlando Innamorato,” &c., &c., was soon followed by the “Sonetti e Canzone del Poeta Clarissimo, Matteo Maria Bojardo, Conte di Scandiano. 4o, Milano, 1835.” This remarkably handsome volume, in beautiful type, and extremely scarce, only 50 copies of it having been printed, is inscribed “All onorevolissimo Signor Tommaso Grenville, &c., &c.”