08-03-2011, 01:27 PM
I'm currently trying to determine to whom an editor of the Spirit of the Public Journals is referring to in a footnote of Probatum Est's "Terrorist Novel Writing" (1798). If anyone can clue me in as to who is being referenced, I'd be most appreciative! The footnote is as follows:
It is easy to see that the satire of this letter is particularly levelled at a literary lady of considerable talents, who has presented the world with three novels, in which she hat found out the secret of making us ‘fall in love with what we fear to look on.’ — The system of terror which she is adopted is not the only reproach to what she is liable. Besides, the tedious monotony of her descriptions, she affects in the most disgusting manner a knowledge of languages, countries, customs, and objects of art of which she is lamentably ignorant. She suspends tripods from the cieling by chains, not knowing that a tripod is a utensil standing upon three feet. — She covers the kingdom of Naples with India figs because St Pierre has introduced these tropical plants in his tales, of which the scene is laid in Italy — and she makes a convent of monks a necessary appendage to a monastery of nuns. This shews how well a lady understands the wants of her sex. Whenever she introduces an Italian word it is sure to be a gross violation of language. Instead of making a nobleman’s servant call him Padrone, or Illustrissimo, she makes him address him by the title of Maestro, which is Italian for a teacher. She converts the singular of Lazzaroni into Lazzaro, &c. &c. &c.
This lady’s husband told a friend that he was going to Germany with his wife, the object of whose journey was to pick up materials for a novel. I think in that case, answered his friend, that you had better let her go alone!
It is easy to see that the satire of this letter is particularly levelled at a literary lady of considerable talents, who has presented the world with three novels, in which she hat found out the secret of making us ‘fall in love with what we fear to look on.’ — The system of terror which she is adopted is not the only reproach to what she is liable. Besides, the tedious monotony of her descriptions, she affects in the most disgusting manner a knowledge of languages, countries, customs, and objects of art of which she is lamentably ignorant. She suspends tripods from the cieling by chains, not knowing that a tripod is a utensil standing upon three feet. — She covers the kingdom of Naples with India figs because St Pierre has introduced these tropical plants in his tales, of which the scene is laid in Italy — and she makes a convent of monks a necessary appendage to a monastery of nuns. This shews how well a lady understands the wants of her sex. Whenever she introduces an Italian word it is sure to be a gross violation of language. Instead of making a nobleman’s servant call him Padrone, or Illustrissimo, she makes him address him by the title of Maestro, which is Italian for a teacher. She converts the singular of Lazzaroni into Lazzaro, &c. &c. &c.
This lady’s husband told a friend that he was going to Germany with his wife, the object of whose journey was to pick up materials for a novel. I think in that case, answered his friend, that you had better let her go alone!
