Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1911 — A MAN OF MYSTERY. [ARTICLE]

A MAN OF MYSTERY.

Peculiar Life of Motastasio, the Cete* brated Italian Poet. ” Metastasio (1698-1752), the celebrated dramatic and Operatic poet, spept Qftyflveyears in Vienna with the Marlines family without ever learning Geirmab or wishing to learn It. Besides his utter tadigßereifce to all speech but Italian, Motastasio possessed many peculiarities of character. None might mentiqp death in his presence. Those who aptStded to smallpox before him he made It a point not to see again. In all his fifty-five years in Vienna he never gave away more than the equivalent of $25 to the ppor. He always occupied the same seat at church, but never, paid for it He took all his" meals in the most mysterious privacy 1 . His greatest friends had never seen him eat anything but a biscuit with some lemonade. 'Nothing would induce him to,dine away from, home. He never changed his wig or the cut or color of his coat. Metastasio was to ha ye -been presented tp the pope the day he died and raved about the intended interview in the delirium of his last mbments. Mrs. Piozai (familiar to readers of Boswell’s “Life of Dr. Johnson” a$ Mrs. Thrale) collected these particulars from the ladies of the Martlnes family, with whom Metastasio was so long domesticated without speaking or understanding a word of their language from first to last,