



Produced by Michael Wooff




Franciscus Columna


Charles Nodier (1780-1844)


Perhaps you remember our friend Abbot Lowrich whom we met
in Ragusa, in Spalato, in Vienna, in Munich, in Pisa, in
Bologna, and in Lausanne.  He is an excellent fellow, who is
most knowledgeable, but who knows a multitude of things that
we would be happy to forget if we knew them like he does:
the name of the printer of a bad book, the year of birth
of a fool and a thousand other details of trivial importance.
Abbot Lowrich has the glory of having discovered the real
name of Kuicknackius, who was called Starkius, and not,
please note, Polycarpus Starkius, who wrote eight fine
hendecasyllables on the thesis of Kornmannus de ritibus
(on rites) and on the thesis of Kornmannus de ritibus et
doctrina scarabeorum (on rites and the doctrine of scarab
beetles), but Martinus Starkius, the man who wrote thirty-two
hendecasyllables on fleas.  Apart from that, Abbot Lowrich
deserves to be well known and liked; he is witty, has his
heart in the right place, is actively and sincerely obliging,
and he adds to these precious qualities a lively and singular
imagination, which greatly embellishes his conversation, as
long as it does not fall into enumerating minor biographical
and bibliographical details.  I am reconciled to this slight
peccadillo of his, and whenever I meet Abbot Lowrich in my
constant comings and goings across Europe, I run to him from
afar.  And I last met him no more than three months ago.

I had arrived at night at the Two Towers Hotel in Treviso, but
I had only settled in