Finally, I must confess that all my endeavours in the good cause, joined to those of others, have been impotent to stem the tide of extravagance, the exaltation of heated brains, the absurdities of so-called philosophical reforms; also, as regards the purity of Italian diction, all that we have said and written has been thrown away. The charlatans have had the upper hand of us, by persuading the vast multitude of working brains that to seek purity in language is a waste of time and hide-bound imbecility, and that to spare the pains of gaining it is a mark of free and liberal talent. The remedy must be left to time and to the inscrutable ebb and flow of fashion, which makes the world at one time eager for the true, at another no less eager for the false, in spite of any human efforts to control it.
It was about the year 1740, when an Academy was founded in Venice by some people of gay humour, versed in literary studies, and amateurs of polish and simplicity and nature. Caprice and chance brought us together. But we followed in the wake of Chiabrera, Redi, Zeno, Manfredi, Lazarini, valiant predecessors in the warfare against those false, emphatic, metaphorical, and figured fashions, which had been introduced like plague-germs by the Seicentisti.[16] This Academy imbued the minds of young men with higher ideas, and fostered the seeds it planted by a generous emulation.
The lively and learned little band happened to alight upon a simpleton called Giuseppe Secchellari, who had been bamboozled by his own vanity and the cozenage of merry knaves agog for fun into thinking himself a man of profound erudition, and who accordingly blackened reams of paper with ineptitudes and blunders so ridiculous that nobody could listen to them without fits of laughter. It was decided to elect this queer fish Prince of the Academy. The election took place unanimously amid shouts of merriment. He was dubbed Arcigranellone, and received the title of Prince of the Accademia Granellesca, by which names he and the club were henceforth to be known.[17]
A solemn coronation of this precious simpleton with a wreath of plums followed in due course. All the Academicians were grouped around him, and nothing could be more burlesque than his proud satisfaction at the honours he received, the air and grace with which he thanked us for some thirty odes and rigmaroles, which were really witty squibs and gibes upon our princely butt, and which he took for panegyrics.