- Performer Name:
- Pistrucci; Rossetti; Pepoli
- Performance Venue:
- London
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- Carlyle, Jane
- Date Written:
- 1837; 1842
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- The Carlyle Letters Online
- Article Title:
- Page Numbers:
- 9:246-52; 15:186-93
- Additional Info:
- Ed. Brent E. Kinser. Precise pagination unavailable in online edition, found at www.carlyleletters.org
- Publisher:
- Duke University Press
- Place of Publication:
- Date Published:
- 2007-2016
Text:
[Letter to Thomas Carlyle, dated 17 July 1837:] The professors Rossetti* and Pepoli came on the Stage together and delivered something meant to pass on us, I suppose, for improvisation but it was very well got up poetry.— Pepoli was more put about than you were—no wonder—for besides the horror of the exhibition he had a fear all the while that he was compromising his famiglia[;] he was more pale than this paper, put his hand repeatedly to his head and remained some moments speechless. When he spoke it was a low melodious wail (as of a fallen peri) gradually swelling into a strain of sublimest sadness. My Mother and Elizabeth wept—I tore my program into a hundred pieces, Mr Hopner cleared his throat and Mr Darwin said with provoking quietness “poor dear Pepoli”! Cavaignac said yesterday that it gave him mal du coeur, and he had a cruel feeling that the republican qualité was getting itself a little offensé [injured] in Monsieur Pepoli[.] Rossetti is a charming old man — and the words came from him “like the notes of a nightingale touching and strong.”** You must try to know him when you return. The old fool Pestrucci*** nobody I suppose staid to listen to— What doses of Italianism you do get from me—
* Gabriele Rossetti (1783–1854), Italian poet and political refugee; professor of Italian, King’s College, London, since 1831, and eccentric commentator on Dante; father of the Pre-Raphaelite Rossettis.
** Unidentified.
*** See TC to JAC, 25 June 1836.[…]
[From a note to a Letter to Jeannie Welsh, dated 9 September 1842:] Filippo Pistrucci (ca. 1777–1857), Italian artist and actor improvisor, living in London; see TC to JAC, 25 June 1836; nicknamed Heraclitus, because of his gloom, after the Greek philosopher (fl. ca. 500 ).
[…]
[Letter to Jeannie Welsh, dated 16 November 1842:] You may be sure that old Pestrucci* would not let slip so fine an occasion of gratifying his melodramatic propensities and accordingly a series of scenario were most unexpectedly introduced which the audience must have been charmed to find themselves “assisting at” — for nothing — I mean gratis — Of the first, poor unsuspecting, horror-struck Mazzini was made at once the hero and the victim! — When all had spoken who were to speak, he came forward — very shame-faced as you may fancy — and “unveiling himself as the original founder” (in defiance to Baldacconi** who had said he dared not) he made a most moving address to the school as learners and as patriots — When he had finished, amidst shouting like to bring down the ceiling there stepped forth from the pupils benches the least boy — some twelve years old — who advanced blushing, and laid a bouquet at his feet! then putting his little hand in his breast, he pulled out a little paper, and proceeded to read a little sonnet to his (Mazzinis) honour and glory! — just fancy this! — and consider the sort of Man! and admire him that he did not turn round and brain old Pestrucci on the spot — from whose goosehead of course this coup de theatre must have emanated! Nor was this all the trials his modesty had to undergo — an Italian girl next advanced from the pupils benches (there are nine female pupils — some english, the wives of Italian operatives — and some Italian) a very beautiful girl too, — came forward in an accès [fit] of enthusiasm genuine — for this part of the exhibition was spontaneous — and humbly besought him to give her one flower of his bouquet!! and an Englishwoman, who would not be behind the foreigner, called god to witness that he was the Prophet of her time!! “The moral satisfaction” might well be “complete” — more than complete one would say! — Nor had Pistucci*** forgotten himself — when the company were about to disperse one of the pupils again stepped forth, and declared that it would make their enjoyment perfect if Mr Pistrucci would favour them with an improvisation — “Oh Impossibile, impossibile!” with all sorts of coyish grimacing — at length he allowed himself to be so far prevailed upon that “he would read them a composed poem of his own” — which he thereupon drew all ready from his pocket — and calling to him “the Dr Rossetti”**** the two old fools proceeded to deliver in horrible recitative a dramatized poem written for the occasion! What the “wellwishing English” thought of all this, I cannot pretend to say — a good deal of inward laughter must I should think have transacted itself — fortunately there were few english present — of women only Elizabeth and Mrs Jameson, the one, half Italian by marriage, and the other, two-thirds so by nature —
* Filippo Pistrucci, director of the school.
** The Rev. Dr. Baldacconi, of the Sardinian Chapel, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, probably a political conservative, an opponent of the Free School, had attacked it from his pulpit in April and had been supported by Lucas’s True Tablet, which accused one of the directors of heresy. The Morning Chronicle, 18 May, defended the school, which, according to Mazzini, had attracted pupils away from Baldacconi.
*** Letter omitted.
**** Gabriele Rossetti (1783–1854), father of the Pre-Raphaelite Rossettis; see JWC to TC, 17 July 1837.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- EW