Volume 3

Curiosities of literature / edited with memoirs and notes by his son, B. Disraeli.

  • Disraeli, Isaac, 1766-1848.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Curiosities of literature / edited with memoirs and notes by his son, B. Disraeli. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/554 (page 3)
    Local descriptions, after a few striking circumstances have been selected, admit of no further detail. It is not their length, but their happiness, which enters into our comprehen- sion ; the imagination can only take in and keep together a very few parts of a picture. The pen must not intrude on the province of the pencil, any more than the pencil must attempt to perform what cannot in any shape be submitted to the eye, though fully to the mind. The great art, perhaps, of local description, is rather a general than a particular view ; the details must be left to the imagination; it is suggestion rather than description. There is an old Italian sonnet of this kind which I have often read with delight; and though I may not communicate the same pleasure to the reader, yet the story of the writer is most interesting, and the lady (for such she was) has the highest claim to be ranked, like the lady of Evelyn, among literary wives. Francesca Turina JBufalhii di Citta di Gastello, of noble extraction, and devoted to literature, had a collection of her poems published in 1628. She frequently interspersed little domestic incidents of her female friend, her husband, her son, her grandchildren; and in one of these sonnets she has deli- neated her palace of San Giustino, whose localities she appears to have enjoyed with intense delight in the company of “ her lord,” whom she tenderly associates with the scene. There is a freshness and simplicity in the description,which will perhaps convey a clearer notion of the spot than even Pliny could do in the voluminous description of his villa. She tells us what she found when brought to the house of her husband:— Ampie salle, ampie loggie, ampio cortile E stanze ornate con geutil pitture, Trovai giungendo, e nobili sculture Di marmo fatte, da scalpel non vile. Nobil giardin con un pei-petuo Aprile Di varij fior, di frutti, e di verdure, Ombre soavi, acque a temprar l’arsure E strade di belta non dissimile; E non men forte ostel, cbe per fortezza Ha il ponte, e i fianchi, e lo circonda intorno Fosso profundo e di real larghezza. Qui fei col mio Signore dolce soggiomo Con santo amor, con somma contentezza Onde ne benedico il mese e il giorno ! Wide halls, wide galleries, and an ample court, Chambers adorn’d by pictures’ soothing charm, B 2