A Poet Without his Halo
Ugo Foscolo : An Italian in Regency England. By E. R. Vincent. (Cambridge University Press. 25s.) IN 1910 a young Italian scholar, Francesco Viglione, gained access to the unpublished Foscolo papers kept in the Biblioteca Labronica, and edited most of them. This certainly was a substantial contri- bution to researches on Foscolo's English period, but, unfortunately, Viglione being unfamiliar with the English background and untrained to such work, his Saggi were full of mistakes. Having made a deep study of Foscolo's character and having a thorough knowledge of the Regency society in which Foscolo lived from 1816 to 1827, Professor Vincent has been able to submit Viglione's discoveries, and indeed his sources, to a careful scrutiny. Having examined, moreover, a very large number of other sources, both in England and in Italy (notably the Archivio Mayer near Lucca), he has success-
fully fulfilled his task of piecing together and accurately relating Foscolo's life in England. Not only does he correct Viglione's mistakes, but he amends some statements made by more reliable scholars, such as C. Antona Traversi and even Benedetto Croce. His diligent quest for new documents enables him to add a number of interesting details hitherto unknown.
Thus, for example, Professor Vincent is able to establish beyond doubt that Digamma Cottage never belonged to Foscolo, who merely held it on a twenty-one-year lease, and that the cottage itself was by no means a sort of Castle of Armida, as Viglione fondly believed. Professor Vincent deals, one by one, with all Foscolo's Italian and English friends, illustrating their different relations with the poet. The book begins with a delightful account of that meeting between Foscolo and Wordsworth which, if it were not vouched for by William Bewick, might seem to be an extract from Landor 's Imaginary Conversations. All of Foscolo's servants, secretaries, purveyors, patrons and patronesses are listed and discussed; all the recollections of him left by men of letters, journalists and diarists who knew him, from Walter Scott to Cyrus Redding, from Lord Holland to Samuel Carter Hall, are quoted in Professor Vincent's book.
Unfortunately no new document has been found to shed light on the most intriguing and obscure points of Foscolo's biography. Thus, when dealing with the problem of the jdentity of Floriana and of her mother, Professor Vincent can but fall back on the hypothesis suggested by Miss Wicks in her book on The Italian Exiles in London, adding regretfully that "nevertheless doubt remains," and dismissing on the other hand Professor Carli's doubts as to the relationship between Floriana and Foscolo with no other proof than the note written by the poet on his deathbed and signed "your father." Concerning Foscolo's imprisonment, again Professor Vincent's research has been fruitless, and the only evidence still rests on the poet's Epistolario. But all this does not detract from the credit due to Professor Vincent, for in some cases even ascertaining that no proofs are extant constitutes an important discovery; and the crop of new documents is sufficiently vast to secure for him the undying gratitude of all Foscolo scholars.
Foscolo wrote some interesting pages on the problem of authors torn between the apparently conflicting requirements of being both reliable and readable. Professor Vincent has, certainly treasured the poet's opinions, because he has written a book which is at the same time thoroughly reliable and agreeably readable from the first page to the last. His portraits of the women whom Foscolo loved (or pretended to) are particularly successful and charming. They are doubtless inspired by a living sympathy, greater than that which the author feels for the poet. Not every Foscolo scholar will agree with him in clearing those lovely English girls, collectively, from the charge of having flirted with the fiery Ugo. Professor Vincent is perhaps too sure that not even Caroline Russell was (in Foscolo's own words) "one of the thousand cold coquettes who, relying upon the modesty of their actions, believe themselves conscientiously virtuous," and thus trifle with the feelings of a noble heart. After all, Foscolo's bitter sentence, " In this country it is impossible to distinguish between those who love one and those who merely like one," might be used successfully by a counsel who wished to take up Foscolo's defence.
Professor Vincent is definitely not a counsel for the defence; his aim is to show us "the man without the halo," and he minimises none of Foscolo's defects, none of his faults. I wonder how Italian critics will react to this attitude. I should not be surprised if some- one were to say that, in drawing up a list of wrongs suffered by many Englishmen (and many Englishwomen) at Foscolo's hands, Professor Vincent has ruthlessly pointed to the poet's bad character, without stressing the fact that he wrote a poem glorifying Lord. Nelson and England itself: a monument far greater than Nelson's column in
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