'"My Sister would be very glad of your assistance in her Italian studies," W[ordsworth] wrote to [William] Mathews on 21 March 1796, " ... yesterday we began Ariosto."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William and Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 3 June 1819, from Ferrara: 'In looking over the M.S. of Ariosto today -- I found at the bottom of the page after the last stanza of Canto 44, Orlando Furioso ending with the line
"Mi serbo a farsi udie ne l'altro Canto"
the follow[ing] autograph in pencil of Alfieri's
"Vittorio Alfieri vide e venero" / 8 Giugno 1783. --'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Manuscript: Unknown
Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 3 June 1819, from Ferrara: "In looking over the M.S. of Ariosto today -- I found at the bottom of the page after the last stanza of Canto 44, Orlando Furioso ending with the line
"'Mi serbo a farsi udie ne l'altro Canto'
"the follow[ing] autograph in pencil of Alfieri's
'Vittorio Alfieri vide e venero' / 8 Giugno 1783. --'
'The Librarian told me that Alfieri wrote this marginal note by permission of the Superiors -- and that he himself had seen Alfieri crying for hours over the M.S.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Count Vittorio Alfieri Manuscript: Unknown
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, 8 November 1802: 'I have read one canto of Ariosto today.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth
'Did you never, madam, wish for Angelica's Invisible Ring, in Ariosto's "Orlando"? - I remember when I first read of it, I laboured under a real uneasiness for a whole week, from the strong desire I had to be master of such a one. I was a very sheepish boy, and thought I should make very happy use of it on a multitude of occasions.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Richardson Print: Book
'I think of putting this letter in the post-office to night. My hour's since morning have been spent in reading Ariosto and "Six weeks at Longs." The latter end of this day will thus be better than the beginning.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle
'[italics to denote Shelley's hand] S. reads Ovid - Medea and the description of the Plague - After tea M. reads Ovid 90 lines - S & C. read Ariosto - 7th Canto. M. reads Voltaire p. 126.'[end italics]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Jefferson reads Don Quixote - C. reads Gibbon - S. finishes the 17th canto of Orlando Furioso - Read Voltaire's Essay on Nations'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read 1st Canto of Ariosto & 1st act of Phormio'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 2nd Canto of Oriosto [sic] & Mille et une nuits in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Electra and Ajax. Read the 8th Canto of Ariosto and the 4th Act of Phormio - Finish the Mille et une nuits. Read the Zaire and the Alzire of Voltaire'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 25 Canto of Ariosto - Gibbon & 6 & 7 odes of Horace - S. reads the Lysistratae of Aristophanes - finishes Gibbon - and reads Hume's England in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 32 Canto of Ariosto - Livy - Horace - & Volpone - S reads Arist[o]phanes & Anarcharsis'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Orlando Furioso - read Anacharsis - S. corrects the Symposium and reads Herodotus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'You ask me (pertly enough - pardon the expression) Whether I have read The Lay of the Last Minstrel - alas, only twice - And have, in addition, only the following Catalogue to subjoin of pleasing works which have come under my examination -
English - Thalaba.
Cowper Walker on The Revival of Italian Tragedy
Southey's Tour in Spain
Tommy Jones
Italian - Metastasio's Olympiade
Demofoonte, Giusepe riconosciuto,
Gioas, La Clemenza di
Tito, Catone, Regolo,
Ciro, Zenobia -
Tassos's Aminta -
Seven Canto's of Ariosto,
Il Vero Amore, an Italian novel -
La bella pelegrina, La Zingana
Merope, del Maffei, &c, &c, &c, &c
French - None
If you wish to know how I came to poke my green eyes into so many Italian books, I have this reply at your service. there has been an Italian Master here for above a month - and he brushed up for me the rusty odds an [sic] ends of his dulcet language which I had formerly picked up, & whilst he was here, & since his departure, I have done nothing but peep & pry into the works of his countrymen'
[The format of SHB's list was in two columns, English and french to the left and Italian to the right]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'I return your Italian volumes, my dear friend, with many thanks, owning honestly, that I have never looked into them; for the thread of my interest in Botta's History having been interrupted by my leaving Florence, I could not for the life of me connect it again; and I got hold of other books - read no Italian for ages - and, at last, pounced one fine day upon a good, clear edition of Ariosto, and have been and am reading him with even more delight than when he first fell into my hands. Here and there, he is a bad boy, and as the book is my own, & I do not like indecency, I cut out whole pages that annoy me, & burn them before the Author's face, which stands at the beginning of the first volume, and I hope feels properly ashamed. Next to Ariosto, by way of something new, I treat myself now and then with a play of one Wm Shakespear, and I am reading Robertson's Charles Vth which comes in well after that part of Botta's History at which I left off - viz: just about the time of the council of Trent. And, as I love modern reading, I was glad to find myself possessed of a very tidy edition of a Biographical work you may perhaps have heard tell of - Plutarch's Lives. If you should ever meet with it, I think I might venture to say you would not dislike it'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
