"I'll smile," I agreed. "But you shall carry my beetles; it looks more
natural, somehow. Go ahead, and find them."
He moved forwards with the beasts and, after destroying a considerable
tract of stone wall, procured a few specimens of native coleoptera,
which he carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper. I followed slowly.
Unfortunately for him, that particular doctor happened to be
an americana a snappy little fellow, lately returned from the States.
"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir," he began, as I came up to where
the two were arguing together. "I've heard of your passing through the
other day. So you don't talk Italian? Well, then, see here: this man of
yours, this God-dam son of Satan, has been showing me a couple of bugs
and telling me a couple of hundred lies about them. Better move on right
away; lucky you struck me! As for this son of a - - , you bet I'll
sulphur him, bugs and all, to hell!"
I paid the crestfallen muleteer then and there; took down my bags,
greatly lightened, and departed with them. Glancing round near the
little bridge, I saw that the pair were still engaged in heated
discussion, my man clinging despairingly, as it seemed, to the
beetle-hypothesis; he looked at me with reproachful eyes, as though I
had deserted him in his hour of need.
But what could I do, not knowing Italian?
Moreover, I remembered the "lady-mule."
Fifteen minutes later a light carriage took me to Castrovillari, whence,
after a bath and dinner that compensated for past hardships, I sped down
to the station and managed, by a miracle, to catch the night-train to
Cosenza.
XXI
MILTON IN CALABRIA
You may spend pleasant days in this city of Cosenza, doing nothing
whatever. But I go there a for set purpose, and bristling with energy. I
go there to hunt for a book by a certain Salandra, which was printed on
the spot, and which I have not yet been able to find, although I once
discovered it in an old catalogue, priced at 80 grani. Gladly would I
give 8000 for it!
The author was a contemporary of that Flying Monk of whom I spoke in
Chapter X, and he belonged to the same religious order. If, in what I
then said about the flying monk, there appears to be some trace of light
fooling in regard to this order and its methods, let amends be made by
what I have to tell about old Salandra, the discovery of whose book is
one of primary importance for the history of English letters. Thus I
thought at the time; and thus I still think, with all due deference to
certain grave and discerning gentlemen, the editors of various English
monthlies to whom I submitted a paper on this subject - a paper which
they promptly returned with thanks. No; that is not quite correct. One
of them has kept it; and as six years have passed over our heads, I
presume he has now acquired a title by "adverse possession." Much good
may it do him!
Had the discovery been mine, I should have endeavoured to hide my light
under the proverbial bushel. But it is not mine, and therefore I make
bold to say that Mr. Bliss Perry, of the "Atlantic Monthly," knew better
than his English colleagues when he published the article from which I
take what follows.
"Charles Dunster ('Considerations on Milton's Early Reading,' etc.,
1810) traces the prima stamina of 'Paradise Lost' to Sylvester's 'Du
Bartas.' Masenius, Cedmon, Vendei, and other older writers have also
been named in this connection, while the majority of Milton's English
commentators - and among foreigners Voltaire and Tiraboschi - are inclined
to regard the 'Adamus Exul' of Grotius or Andreini's sacred drama of
'Adamo' as the prototype."
This latter can be consulted in the third volume of Cowper's 'Milton'
(1810).
The matter is still unsettled, and in view of the number of recent
scholars who have interested themselves in it, one is really surprised
that no notice has yet been taken of an Italian article which goes far
towards deciding this question and proving that the chief source of
'Paradise Lost' is the 'Adamo Caduto,' a sacred tragedy by Serafino
della Salandra. The merit of this discovery belongs to Francesco Zicari,
whose paper, 'Sulla scoverta dell' originale italiano da cui Milton
trasse il suo poema del paradiso perduto,' is printed on pages 245
to 276 in the 1845 volume of the Naples 'Album scientifico-
artistico-letterario' now lying before me. It is in the form of
a letter addressed to his friend Francesco Ruffa, a native of
Tropea in Calabria. [Footnote: Zicari contemplated another paper on
this subject, but I am unaware whether this was ever published. The
Neapolitan Minieri-Riccio, who wrote his 'Memorie Storiche' in 1844,
speaks of this article as having been already printed in 1832, but does
not say where. This is corroborated by N. Falcone ('Biblioteca
storica-topo-grafica della Calabria,' 2nd ed., Naples, 1846, pp.
151-154), who gives the same date, and adds that Zicari was the author
of a work on the district of Fuscaldo. He was born at Paola in Calabria,
of which he wrote a (manuscript) history, and died in 1846. In this
Milton article, he speaks of his name being 'unknown in the republic of
letters.'. He it mentioned by Nicola Leoni (' Della Magna Grecia,' vol.
ii, p. 153),]
Salandra, it is true, is named among the writers of sacred tragedies in
Todd's 'Milton' (1809, vol. ii, p. 244), and also by Hayley, but neither
of them had the curiosity, or the opportunity, to examine his 'Adamo
Caduto'; Hayley expressly says that he has not seen it.
