Instead of this, he found many sceptical and indifferent, and several inclined to laugh. His _Diritto universale_ had been as Metastasio informs us[36] generally "blamed for obscurity" on its publication; it was not widely read and was hastily criticised for the extravagances which an inattentive and superficial reading revealed at every point.[37] Father Paoli, to whom the author had given a copy, wrote in it a couplet making a joke of its unintelligibility.[38] The _Scienza Nuova_ was in an even worse case. We know that Nicola Capasso, a scholar and well disposed towards Vico, on trying to read it fancied he had lost his wits, and by way of a joke hurried off to his doctor Cirillo, to have his pulse felt.[39] A Neapolitan nobleman when asked by Finetti at Venice what opinion was held of Vico at Naples, said that for a time he had passed for a really learned man, but that later his strange opinions had won him the reputation of an eccentric. "And when he published the _Scienza Nuova_?" insisted Finetti. "Oh, by then," replied the other, "he was quite mad!"[40] His detractors even attacked him in the modest profession by which he earned his living; they said he was "good at teaching youths who had completed their course, that is to say when they already knew all they needed," or again, more insidiously, that he was fitted less for teaching than for "giving good advice to the teachers themselves;"[41] so that they recognised his superiority only to use it in damaging his private interests.
[Footnote 34: _Autob._ in _Opp._ iv. p. 385.]
[Footnote 35: Letter to Giacchi, November 25, 1725, in _Opp._ vi. p. 28.]
[Footnote 40: _Bibl. vich._ p. 86: cf. _Autob._ in _Opp._ iv. p. 416.]
[Footnote 41: _Autob._ in _Opp._ iv. p. 416.]