'& *%>. Her dark "but prettily- routed arm was decked -with a let of silver pieces; and. just "between two of the fine:: I ever saw, was suspended, "by a Arellow thread, one of the small poid cains of Ccnstar.! C softly moulded Trust was entirely "bare, and might hare seF f X"VOUll:' IL IL .H S , •JOfTE.' -~ZZ "SZWG&BY B&EX -- - PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. \ ~ > — BY N. P. WILLIS, ESQ., AUTHOR OF * PEOPLE I HAVE MET,' ' HURRY-GRAPHS,' ' LIFE HERE AND THERE,' &C. SEVENTH EDITION. LONDON : tIENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1864. • Wrse Exchange Western Ont. Univ. ll- rary Feb- 25- 1938 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In putting forth a Second Edition of Pencillings by (fit Way, I cannot but express a surprise (which I doubt not, will be shared by the critics) that a work so hastily written, and published with such doubt and unwillingness, should have met, I will not say with such decided success, but with so extensive a sale. Having staked no feeling upon it, its failure in this respect would have given me no more pain than the trenchant criticism with which it has been distinguished; while the rapid disposal of a very large edition, and what little kindness it has met from reviewers, have given me, I may say, almost a gratuitous pleasure. Having thus, however, like the traveller in the fable, abandoned my cloak to the lion, I have stood aloof with some interest to see how it would be torn in pieces. The errors of my book (numerous from its very nature) have been skilfully detected, and I sincerely thank those critics to whose judicious comments this new edition will appear indebted. To those who have thought it necessary in re- viewing the book of a stranger, to attack his parents, his a 2 PREFACE TO country, and his private character, no reply is necessary here — none anywhere, indeed, except when the writer is responsible for his words in some other character than that of a critic. Public opinion in England, while it tolerates the offence, punishes with sufficient severity the offender. It is only those who are removed from the fountains of literature who imagine that the inventive hirelings of such reviews are either seen or named among the honest men with whom they claim fellowship. Among the more respectable reviewers, I notice a dispo- sition which I comment upon, because I think it the main fault even of the higher school of criticism in this country. It is that of finding fault with a book on points to which it never pretended excellence. In a notice of these volumes in the Edinburgh Review, for instance, (a notice written unquestionably in a kind and just spirit, and which I quote as a strong example for that very reason) there is the fol- lowing passage : (The reader will remember that the title of the book is Pencillings by the Way.} ee In those more important matters which unfold to us the condition of a people, and which are learnt by inquiry, study, and reflection, let not the reader hope to be enlight- ened. The work is eminently superficial. Its author is observant, but the character of his mind is not reflective. He is not prone to speculate and philosophise ; and an abstract sentiment rarely escapes him ! " I ask, would any reader buying a book called Pencillings by the Way, require to be put on his guard lest he should expect to find in it " study," " reflection," and " abstract sentiments ? " The object of my letters was simply and unambitiously to amuse. For instruction the reader does not go to a book of Pencillings. With this object in mind, I recorded nakedly and faithfully my First Impressions, THE SECOND EDITION. V they were as correct and as deep and " abstract " as first impressions usually are. They were written, as I have else- where mentioned, with every species of interruption, and dispatched, " unshrived," by the first post, and to re- write them by my subsequent observation would be to write a new book. It will be seen by the dates added to this edition, thai there were considerable intervals of time between some of my letters from the Continent, and, (a circumstance which I wish particularly to be understood) that, though I have been in England nearly two years, these letters end with the first four months after my arrival. My impressions of England then ceased to be first impressions, and therefore were unfitted to the previous design of my letters ; and I found occasion so often to correct my Pencillings by the Way, that I ceased to write altogether. Why it is more difficult to write hastily of England than of other countries will be apparent to those who have travelled. In other countries the objects of interest are classic or physical, and reducible to known standards ; in England they are social or moral, and require diligent observation and study. I commit my letters once more to the public with a strong impression of the truth of Southey's remark— that the best book (and, a fortiori, the worst) does bvt little good to the world, and much harm to the author. N. P. Wiixid. London, March i\ 1836. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. [t is common for authors in their Prefaces to give their reasons for publishing, Mine is a novel one — I cannot help it. On the eve of a late departure for the Continent, I was informed, for the first time, that two editions of the following work were in the press. Having no control over the imperfect copy which the publishers had obtained from periodicals, my only choice was between these crude editions and a corrected and enlarged one superintended by myself. I have chosen the least of two evils. The extracts from these letters which have appeared in the public prints have drawn upon me much severe censure. Admitting its justice in part, perhaps I may be allowed to shield myself from its remaining excess by a slight explana- tion. During several years' residence in Continental and Eastern countries, I have had opportunities (as attache to a foreign legation) of seeing phases of society and manners not usually described in books of travel. Having been the editor, before leaving the United States, of a Monthly Review, I found it both profitable and agreeable to continue my interest in the periodical in which that Review was merged at my departure, by a miscellaneous correspondence. Foreign courts, distinguished men, royal entertainments, &c. &c, — matters which were likely to interest American readers more particularly, — have been in turn my themes. The distance of America from these countries, and the ephemeral nature and usual obscurity of periodical corre- spondence, were a sufficient warrant to my mind that my PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Vll descriptions would die where they first saw the light, and fulfil only the trifling destiny for which they were in- tended. I indulged myself, therefore, in a freedom of detail and topic which is usual only in posthumous memoirs — expecting as soon that they would be read in the coun- tries and by the persons described, as the biographer of Byron and Sheridan that these fruitful and unconscious themes would rise from the dead to read their own interest- ing memoirs. And such a resurrection would hardly be a more disagreeable surprise to that eminent biographer, than was the sudden appearance to me of my own unambitious letters in the Quarterly Review. The reader will see (for every letter containing the least personal detail has been most industriously re-published in the English papers) that 1 have in some slight measure corrected these Pencillings by the Way. They were lite- rally what they were styled — notes written on the road, and dispatched without a second perusal ; and it would be extraordinary, if, between the liberty I felt with my ma- terial, and the haste in which I scribbled, some egregious errors in judgment and taste had not crept in unawares. The Quarterly has made a long arm over the water to re- fresh my memory on this point. There are passages (I only wonder they are so few) which I would not re-write, and some remarks on individuals which I would recall at some cost, and would not willingly see repeated in these volumes. Having conceded thus much, however, I may express my surprise that this particular sin should have been visited upon me at a distance of three thousand miles, when the reviewer's own literary fame rests on the more aggra- vated instance of a book of personalities* published under the very noses of the persons described. • Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk*' Vlll PREFACE TO THE FIRsT EDITION. Those of my letters which date from England were written within three or four months of my first arrival in this country. Fortunate in my introductions, almost em- barrassed with kindness, and, from advantages of compari- son gained by long travel, qualified to appreciate keenly the peculiar delights of English society, I was little disposed to find fault. Every thing pleased me. Yet in one instance r— one single instance — I indulged myself in stricture upon individual character, and I repeat it in this work, sure that there will be but one person in the world of letters who will not read it with approbation — the editor of the Quar- terly himself. It was expressed at the time with no per- sonal feeling, for I had never seen the individual concerned, and my name had probably never reached his ears. I but repeated what I had said a thousand times, and never with- out an indignant echo to its truth — an opinion formed from the most dispassionate perusal of his writings — that the editor of that Review was the most unprincipled critic of the age. Aside from its flagrant literary injustice, we owe to the Quarterly, it is well known, every spark of ill feel- ing that has been kept alive between England and Ame- rica for the last twenty years. The sneers, the opprobrious epithets of this bravo in literature have been received in a country where the machinery of reviewing was not under- stood, as the voice of the English people, and an animosity for which there was no other reason has been thus periodi- cally fed and exasperated. I conceive it to be my duty as a literary man — I know it is my duty as an American — to lose no opportunity of setting my heel on the head of this rep- tile of criticism. He has turned and stung me. Thank God, I have escaped the slime of his approbation. CONTENTS. VOL. I. LETTER 1. PART*. Clwtera— Rioting— H6tel Dieu • . . Page t— 7 LETTER II. VILLA FRANCA. * * LETTER III. 7-11 NICE. Italian summer-morning— New arrivals — Companions — Departure from the laza- retto, &c • . . . « 11—16 LETTER IV. FLORENCE. Florentine peculiarities — Society — Balls — Ducal entertainments — Privilege of strangers — Families of high rank — The exclusives — Soirees — Parties of a rich banker — Peasant beauty — A contented married lady — Husbands, cavaliers, and wives — Personal manners — Habits of society, &c. . . . 17 — 20 LETTER V. Sienna — Poggiobonsi — Bonconvento — Encouragement of French artists by their government — Acquapendente — Poor beggar, the original of a sketch by Cole — Bolsena — Volscinium — Scenery — Curious state of the chesnut woods • 20 — 22 LETTER VI. Montefiascone — Anecdote of the wine — Viterbo — Mount Cimino— Tradition — View of St. Peter's — Entrance into Rome— A stranger's impressions of the city 22—25 CONTENTS. LETTER VIE Appian way — Tomb of Cecilia Metella — Albano — Tomb of the Curiatii — Aricia— Temple of Diana — Fountain of Egeria — Lake of Nemi — Velletri — Pontine Marshes — Convent — Canal — Terracini — San Felice — Fondi — Story of Julia Gonzaga — Cicero's Garden and' Tomb — Mola — Minturna — Ruins of an amphi- theatre and temple— Falernian Mount and wine — The Doctor of St. Agatha — Capua— Entrance into Naples — The Queen . . Page 26 — 31 LETTER VIII. NAPLES. Visit to Herculaneum and Pompeii ..... 31 — 39 LETTER IX. Account of Vesuvius — The hermitage — The famous Lagrima Christi — Difficulties of the path — Curious appearance of the old crater — Odd assemblage of travellers — The new crater — Splendid prospect — Mr. M. , author of the ' Pursuits of Literature '—The Archbishop of Tarento .... 40 — 46 LETTER X. Neapolitan races — Brilliant show of equipages — The king and his orother — Rank and character of the jockies — Description of the races — The public burial- ground of Naples — The lazzaroni — Frequency of robberies and assassinations — The museum of Naples — Ancient relics from Pompeii — The antique chair of Sallust— The villa of Cicero — The Balbi family — Gallery of Dians, Cupids, Joves, Mercuries, and Apollos, statue of Aristides, &c . 46 — 55 LETTER XI. Baiae — Grotto of Pausilippo — Tomb of Virgil — Pozzuoli — Ruins of the temple of Jupiter Serapis — The Lucrine lake — Lake Avernus, the Tartarus of Virgil — Temple of Proserpine — Grotto of the Cumaean sibyl — Nero's villa — Cape of Misenum — Roman villas — Ruins of the temple of Venus — Cento Camerelle — The Stygian lake— The Elysian fields— Grotto del Cani— Villa of Lucullus 56—62 LETTER XII. ROME. front of St. Peter's — Equipages of the Cardinals — Beggars — Body of the church- Tomb of St. Peter — The Tiber — Fortress-tomb of Adrian — Jews' quarter — Forum — Barberini palace — Portrait of Beatrice Cenci — Her melancholy history — Picture of the Fornarini — Likeness of Giorgione's Mistress — Joseph and Poti- phar s wife — The palaces Doria and Sciarra — Portrait of Olivia Waldachini — Of '-' a celebrated widow " — Of Semiramis — Claude's landscapes — Brill's — Breughels — Notti's '* woman catching fleas " — Da Vinci's Queen Giovanna — Portrait of a female Doria — Prince Doria — Palace Sciarra— Brill and Both's landscapes — Claude's — Picture of Noah intoxicated — Romana's Fornarini — Da Vinci's two Pictures ....... 62— 70 LETTER XIII. Annual dowries to twelve girls — Vespers in the Convent of Santa Trinita — Ruins of Roman baths — A magnificent modern church within two ancient halls — Gardens of Mecaenas — Tower whence Nero saw Rome on fire — Houses of Horace and Virgil — Baths of Titus and Caracalla «... 70 — 74 CONTENTS. LETTER XIV. Summer weather in March- Baths of Caracalla — Beginning of the Appian Way- Tomb of the Seipios — Catacombs — Church of San Sebastiano — Young Capuchin friar — Tombs of the early Christian martyrs — Chamber where the apostles wor- shipped- Tomb of Cecilia Metella — The Campagna — Circus of Caracalla or Romulus — Temple dedicated to Ridicule — Keat's grave — Fountain of Egeria — Holy week ...... Page 75 — 79 LETTER XV. Palm Sunday — Sistine chapel — Entrance of the pope — The choir — The pope on his throne — Presenting the palms — Procession — Holy Tuesday-- The Miserere* — Accidents in the crov/d — Tenebrae — The emblematic candles — A soiree— Holy Thursday — Frescos of Michael Angelo — " Creation of Eve " — " Lot intoxicated" — Delphic Sibyl — Pope washing pilgrims' feet — Pope and cardinals waiting upon pilgrims at dinner .... . 79 — 8< LETTER XVI. Sepulchre of Caius Cestius — Protestant burying-ground — Graves of Keats and Shelley — Shelley s lament over Keats — Graves of two Americans — Beauty of the burial-place — Monuments over two young females — Inscription on Keats s monu- ment — The style of Keats's Poems — Grave of Dr. Bell — Residence and literary undertakings of his widow ..... 84 — 88 LETTER XVII. Presentation a t the papal court — Pilgrims going to vespers— Performance of the Miserere — Tarpeian Rock — The Forum — Palace of the Caesars — Coliseum 88—93 LETTER XVIII. Vigils over the host— Ceremonies of Easter Sunday— The procession— High mass — The pope blessing the people — Curious illumination — Return to Florence — Rural festa— Hospitality of the Florentines — Expected marriage of the Grand Duke ..... . 93—97 LETTER XIX. PISA. Dulness of the town — Leaning tower — Cruise in the frigate €t United States" — Elba — Piombino — Porto Ferrajo — Appearance of the bay — Naval discipline— Visit to the town-residence of Napoleon — His employment during his confinement on the island— His sisters Eliza and Pauline— His country-house — Simplicity of the inhabitants of Elba ...... 97—104 LETTER XX. Departure from Elba — Ischia — Bay of Naples — Naples — San Carlo — Repeated con- spiracies — Scene on shipooard — Castellamare • • . 105 — 109 LETTER XXI. Island of Sicily — Palermo— Saracenic appearance of the town — Cathedral— The Marina— Viceroy Leopold — Monastery of the Capuchins— Celebrated catacombs —Fanciful garden ...... 109—115 .ONTENTS .LETTER XXII. The Lunatic Asylum at Palermo — Marina— Distress of the Sicilians — Conspiracies Page 116—122 LETTER XXIIL Fete given by Mr. Gardiner, the American consul — Messina — Lipari islands— Scylla and Charybdis ....... 122—138 LETTER XXIV. The Adriatic — Albania — Gay costumes and beauty of the Albanese— Capo d'Istria— Visit to the Austrian authorities of the province — Curiosity of the inhabitants- Gentlemanly reception by the military commandant— Visit to Vienna — Singular notions of the Austrians respecting the Americans — Similarity of the scenery to that of New England — Meeting with German students — Frequent sights of soldiers and military preparations — Picturesque scenery of Styria . . 128 — 134 LETTER XXV Gratz— Vienna— St. Etienne— The tomb of the son of Napoleon . 135—141 LETTER XXVI. VIENNA. Magnificence of the emperor's stables — The young queen of Hungary — The palace —Hall of curiosities, j ewellery, &c. — The polytechnic school — Geometrical figures described by the vibrations of musical notes — Liberal provision for the public institutions — Popularity of the emperor . . . 141 — 146 VOLUME II. LETTER I. Vienna, palaces and gardens— Mosaic copy of Da Vinci's " Last Supper** — Col- lection of warlike antiquities ; Scanderburg*s sword, Montezuma's tomahawk, relics of the Crusaders, warriors in armour, the farmer of Augsburgh — Room of portraits of celebrated individuals — Gold busts of Jupiter and Juno— The Glacis, full of gardens, the general resort of people — Universal spirit of enjoyment — Simplicity and confidence in the manners of the Viennese — Baden ....... page 147—152 LETTER II. Vienna — The palace of Liechstenstein— Galleries . . . 152- *157 LETTER III. The palace of Schoenbrunn— Heitzing, the summer retreat of the wealthy Vien- nese—Country-house of the American consul — Specimen of pure domestic hap- piness in a German family — Splendid village ball — Substantial fare for the ladies — Curious fashion of cushioning the windows — German grief — The upper Belvedere palace — Endless quantity of pictures . . . 157 — 163 INTENTS. LETTER IV. Departure from Vienna— The Eil-wagon— Motley quality of the passengers- Thunderstorm in the mountains of Styria— Trieste— Short beds of the Ger- mans— Grotto of Adelsburg ; curious ball-room in the cavern— Nautical prepar- ations for a dance on board the " United States" swept away by the bora— Its successful termination . Pa £ e 164—171 LETTER V. Trieste, its extensive commerce— Ruins of Pola— Immense amphitheatre —Village of Pola— Coast of Dalmatia, of Apulia, and Calabria— Otranto— The isles of Greece . . . • • • • ' 172—175 LETTER VI. GREECE. The Ionian isles— Lord N Corfu— Greek and English soldiers— Cockneyism The gardens of Alcinous— English officers— Albanians— Dionisio Salomos, the Greek poet— Greek ladies— Dinner with the artillery-mess . 176—180 LETTER VII. Corfu— Superstition of the Greeks— Advantage of the Greek costume— The Paxian isles— Cape Leucas, or Sappho's leap— Bay of Navarino, ancient Pylos— Modon — Coran's bay— Cape St. Angelo— Isle of Cythera . . . 181—187 LETTER VIII. The harbour of Napoli— Tricoupi and Mavrocordato, Otho's cabinet councillors- King Otho— Prince of S axe— Miaulis, the Greek admiral— Excursion to Argos, the ancient Tirynthus . . . • • I 8 ? — I 95 LETTER IX. ttsit from King Otho and Miaulis— Visits an English and Russian frigate— Beauty of the Grecian men— Lake Lerna— The Hermionicus Sinus— Hydra— Egina. 193—198 LETTER X. The maid of Athens— Romance and Reality— American benefactions to Greece- School of Capo D'Istrias— Grecian disinterestedness— Ruins of the most ancient temple— Beauty of the Grecian landscape — Hope for the land of Epaminondas and Aristides , 198-203 LETTER XI. Athens— Ruins of the Parthenon— The Acropolis— Temple of Theseus— Burial- place of the son of Miaulis— Bavarian sentinel— Turkish mosque, erected within the sanctuary of the Parthenon — Wretched habitations of the modern Athenians 203—208 LETTER XII. The "Lantern of Demosthenes"— Byron's residence in Athens— Temple of Jupi- ter Olympus— Superstitious fancy of the Athenians respecting its ruins— Her- mitage of a Greek monk— Petarches, the antiquary and poet, and his wife, sister CO* TENTS. to the "maid of Athens" — Mutilation of a basso-relievo by an English officer— The Elgin marbles — The Caryatides — Lord Byron's autograph — The sliding stone — A scene in the rostrum of Demosthenes . . Page 209 — 213 LETTER XIII. The prison of Socrates — Turkish stirrups and saddles — Plato's academy — The American missionary school at Athens — The son of Petarches, and nephew of " Mrs. Black of Egina." , .213—218 LETTER XIV. The Piraeus — The Sacra Via — Ruins of Eleusis — Gigantic medallion — Costume of the Athenian women — The tomb of Themistocles — The temple of Minerva 218—223 LETTER XV. Mitylene — The tomb of Achilles — Turkish burying-ground — Lost reputation of the Scamander — Asiatic sunsets — Visit to a Turkish bey — The castles of the Dardanelles — Turkish bath, and its consequences . . . 223 — 228 LETTER XVI. A Turkish pic-nic on the plain of Troy — Fingers versus Forks 229—231 LETTER XVII. The Dardanelles — Visit from the Pasha — His delight at hearing the piano- Turkish fountains — Caravan of mules laden with grapes — Turkish mode of living ; Houses ; Cafes ; and women — The mosque and the muezzin 25 1 — 259 LETTER XVIII. Turkish military life — A visit to the camp — Turkish music — Sunsets — The sea of Marmora ........ 259—244 LETTER XIX.. Constantinople — An adventure with the dogs of Stamboul — The Sultan's Kiosk— The bazaars — Georgians — Sweetmeats — Hindoostanee Fakeers — Turkish women and their eyes — The Jews — A token of home — The drug bazaar — Opium- eaters ........ 241—250 LETTER XX. The Bosphorus — Turkish palaces — The Black Sea — Buyukdere . . 251 — 256 LETTER XXI. The sultan's perftimer — Etiquette of smoking — Temptations for purchasers — Exquisite flavour of the Turkish perfumes — The slave-market of Constantinople — Slaves from various countries, Greek, Circassian, Egyptian, Persian, — — African female slaves — An improvisatrice — Exposure for sale, &c. &C.256 — 261 LETTER XXII. Punishment of conjugal infidelity — Drowning in the Bosphorus — Frequency of its occurrence accounted for — A band of wild Roumeliotes — Their picturesque ap- pearance — Ali Pasha, of Yanina — A Turkish funeral — Fat widow of sultan Selim — A visit to the sultan's summer palace — A travelling Moslem — Unexpected token of home . \ • • 261—207 CO* t £NTS. LETTER XXIII. The Golden Horn and its scenery — The sultan's wives and Arabians — The Valley of Sweet Waters — Beauty of the Turkish minarets — The mosque of Sulymanye Mussulmans at their devotions — The muezzin — The bazaar of the opium-eaters — The mad-house of Constantinople, and description of its inmates — Their wretched treatment — The hippodrome and the mosque of Sultan Achmet— The Janizaries ...... Page 267 — 275 LETTER XXIV. Sultan Mahmoud at his devotions — Comparative splendour of Papal, Austrian, and Turkish equipages — The sultan's barge or caique — Description of the sultan — Visit to a Turkish Lancasterian school — The dancing dervishes — Visit from the sultan's cabinet — The seraskier and the capitan pasha — Humble origin of Turkish dignitaries ...... 275—282 LETTER XXV. The grand bazaar of Constantinople, and its infinite variety of wonders — Silent shopkeepers — Female curiosity — Adventure with a black-eyed stranger — The bezestein — The stronghold of Orientalism — Picture of a Dragoman — The ki- baub-shop ; a dinner without knives, forks, or chairs — Cistern of the thousand- and-one columns ....... 283—288 LETTER XXVI. The perfection of bathing — Pipes — Downy cushions — Coffee — Rubbing down— " Circular Justice," as displayed in the retribution of boiled lobsters — A deluge of suds — The shampoo — Luxurious helps to imagination — A pedestrian excur- sion — Story of an American tar burdened with small change — Beauty of the Turkish children — A civilised monster — Glimpse at Sultan Mahmoud in an ill-humour. . . .... 289—294 VOLUME III. LETTER I. Beauties of the Bosphorus — Summer-palace of the Sultan — Adventure with an old Turkish woman — The feast of Bairam — The Sultan his own butcher — His evil propensities — Visit to the mosques — A formidable dervish — Santa Sophia — Mosque of Sultan Achmet — Traces of Christianity . Page 295 — 300 LETTER II. Farewell to Constantinople — Europe and the East compared — The departure, Smyrna, the great mart for figs — An excursion into Asia Minor — Travelling equipments — Character of the hajjis — Encampment of gipsies — A youthful Hebe — Note, Horror of the Turks for the unclean animal" — An anecdote . 301—306 CONTEXTS. LETTER III. Natural statue of Niobe— The thorn of Syria and its tradition— Approach to Magnesia — Hereditary residence of the family of Bey-Oglou — Character of its present occupant — The truth about Oriental Caravanserais — Comforts and ap- pliances they yield to travellers— Figaro of the Turks — The pi Haw— Morning scene at the departure — Playful familiarity of a solemn old Turk— Magnificent Prospect from Mount Sipylus. ... Page 306 — 312 LETTER IV. Thje eye of the camel — Rocky sepulchres — Virtue of an old passport backed by impudence — Temple of Cybele — Palace of Croesus—Ancient church of Sardis — Return to Smyrna. . • 312—316 LETTER V. Smyrna — Charms of its society — Hospitality of foreign residents — The Marina — — The Casino — A narrow escape from the plague — Departure of the frigate — American navy — A tribute of respect and gratitude — The Farewell 317 — 321 LETTER VL MILAN. Journey through Italy — Bologna — Malibran — Parma — Nightingales of Lombardy — Piacenza — Austrian soldiers — The Simplon — Milan — Resemblance to Paris— The cathedral — Guercino's Hagar — Milanese exclusiveness • 321—326 LETTER VII. LOMBARDY — AUSTRIA — THE ALPS. A melancholy procession — Lago Maggiore — Isola Bella — the Simplon — Meeting a fellow-countryman — The valley of Rhone. . . 326—331 LETTER VIII. SWITZERLAND. La Valais — The cretins and the goitres — A Frenchman's opinion of Niagara — Lake Leman — Castle of Chillon — Rocks of Meillerie — Republican air — Mont Blanc — Geneva . . . • 331—356 LETTER IX. Lake Leman— American appearance of the Genevese — Steamboat on the Rhone — Gibbon and Rousseau — Adventure of the lilies — Genevese jewellers — Residence of Voltaire — Byron's nightcap — Voltaire's walking-stick and stockings 356 — 340 LETTER X. FRANCE. practical bathos of celebrated places — Travelling companions at the Simplon— Custom-house comforts — Trials of temper — Different aspects of France, Italy, and Switzerland — Force of politeness 341 — 345 CONTENTS. LETTER XI. PARIS AND LONDON. Paris and the Parisians — Lafayette's funeral — Royal respect and gratitude — England Dover — English neatness and comfort— Specimen of English reserve — The gentleman driver fashion— A case for Mrs. Trollope. . . 345 — 550 LETTER XII. First view of London — The king's birth-day — Procession of mail-coaches — Regent Street — Lady B , &c. . . 550 — 357 LETTER XIII. THE LITERATI OP LONDON. Lady B The author of " Rejected Addresses" — Henry B Count D'O The Author of " Pelham" . . „ 358—361 LETTER XIV. LONDON. M A dinner at Lady B 's . 361 — 368 LETTER XV. Visit to a race-course — Gipsies — The Princess Victoria — Splendid appearance of the English nobility — A breakfast with Elia and Bridget Elia — Mystification — Charles Lamb's opinion of American authors . . . 369 — 374 LETTER XVI. JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND. Immensity of London — Voyage to Leith — Society of the steam-packet— Analogy between Scotch and American manners — Strict observance of the Sabbath on board— Edinburgh . . . 374 — 57$ LETTER XVII. EDINBURGH. A Scotch breakfast— The Castle — Palace of Holyrood— Queen Mary — Rizzio — Charles the Tenth .... 378-382 LETTER XVIII. A VISIT TO D CASTLE. Romance and Reality — Dalkeith Railway — Reception at D Castle — Com- parisons— D— " Policies"— Family Legends— The Warlock Pear 582—385 LETTER XIX. D CASTLE. Sporting and its equipments— Roslin Castle, and Chapel— A cicerone 385—389 b CONTEXTS. LETTER XX. EDINBURGH. "Christopher North" — Mr. Blackwood — The Ettrick Shepherd — Lockhart— •Noctes Ambrosianae' — Wordsworth —Southey — Captain Hamilton and his book on America ..... . 590 — 397 LETTER XXI. SCOTLAND. Lord J Lord B Politics— The "Grey* Ball— Aberdeen— G Castle . • .... S98— 401 LETTER XXII. Q CASTLE. Company there — The park — Duke of G— Personal beauty of the English aristocracy .... 401 — 405 LETTER XXIII. -CASTLE. English breakfast — Salmon-fishery — Lord A— —Mr. M'Lane — Sporting establishment of G Castle . . . 405—409 LETTER XXIV. O CASTLE. Scotch hospitality— Duchess* infant school — Manners of high life — The tone of conversation in England and America contrasted . . 410 — 414 LETTER XXV. THE HIGHLANDS. Departure from G Castle — The Pretender — Scotch character misappre- hended — Observance of Sunday — Highland chieftains . 414 — 418 LETTER XXVI. THE HIGHLANDS. Caledonian canal — Dogs — English exclusiveness — English insensibility of fine scenery— Flora Macdonald and the Pretender — Highland tiavelling 418 — 422 LETTER XXVII. THE HIGHLANDS. Invaredeen — Tarbet — Cockney Tourist — Loch Lomond — Inversnaid — Rob Roy's Cave — Discomfiture— The birth-place of Helen Mac Gregor . 423 — 427 LETTER XXVIII. Highland hut, its furniture and inmates — Highland amusement and dinner — • Rob Roy,' and scenery of the ' Lady of the Lake* „ 427—452 CONTENTS. LETTER XXIX. STIRLING. Scottish stages — Thorough-bred setter — Scenery — Female peasantry— Mary Queen q£ Scots— Stirling Castle .... . 432—436 LETTER XXX. Scotch scenery — A. race — Cheapness of lodgings in Edinburgh — Abbotsford — Scott Lord Dalhousie — Thomas Moore — Jane Porter — The grave of Scott 436—443 LETTER XXXI. Hawick— Road to Carlisle — Carlisle— Lancaster— Hall . . 443 — 447 LETTER XXXII. Liverpool — American Importations — The Railway Hall — Conclusion 448—452 LETTER XXXIIL Oovent-G&rden Theatre— Brighton— Wallack. LETTER XXXIV. Ttoe Elephant and Castle— Itinerant Vendors of Cheap Wares— News- Boys— Cads. LETTER XXXV. Kenilworth— Pierce GaTeston— His Execution and Character— Associations connected with Kenilworth— Italian Boy— Contrast between Domestic and Wandering Maoits— Roifu of the Castle— Feelings excited by a Visit here— Antique Fireplace— Miss Jane Porter— The Historical Romance— Common Herd of Tourirts. PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. LETTER I. PARIS. CHOLERA RIOTING HOTEL DIEU. March, 1832. You will see by the papers, I presume, the official accounts of the cholera in Paris. It seems very terrible to you, no doubt, at your distance from the scene, and truly it is terrible enough, if one could realise it any where — but no one here thinks of troubling himself about it ; and you might be here a month, and if you observed the people only, and fre- quented only the places of amusement and the public pro- menades, you might never suspect its existence. The month is June-like — deliciously warm and bright, and the trees are just in the tender green of the new buds; and the ex- quisite gardens of the Tuileries are thronged all day with thousands of the gay and idle, sitting under the trees in groups, and laughing and amusing themselves as if there was no plague in the air, though hundreds die every day ; ; and the churches are all hung in black, with the constant succession of funerals, and you cross the biers and hand- barrows of the sick hurrying to the hospitals at every turn, in every quarter of the city. It is very hard to realise such j things, and, it would seem, very hard even to treat it 1 seriously. I was at a masque ball at the " Theatre des , Varietes" a night or two since, at the celebration of the Mi-careme. There were some two thousand people, I should think, in fancy dresses ; most of them grotesque and satirical ; and the ball was kept up till seven m the B 2 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY, morning, with all the extravagant gaiety and noise and fun with which the French people manage such matters. There was a cholera- waltz and a ckolera-galopade ; and one man, immensely tall, dressed as a personification of the tijv^ra, with skeleton armour and blood-shot eyes, and other horrible appurtenances of a walking pestilerfce. It was the burden of all the jokes, and all the cries of the hawkers, and all the conversation. And yet, probably, nineteen out of twenty of those present lived in the quar- ters most ravaged by the disease, and most of them had seen it face to face, and knew perfectly its deadly cha- racter. As yet, the higher classes of society have escaped. It seems to depend very much on the manner in which people live ; and the poor have been struck in every quarter, often at the very next door to luxury. A friend told me this morning, that the porter of a large and fashionable hotel in which he lives had been taken to the hospital ; and there have been one or two cases in the airy quarter of St. Germain. Several medical students have died, too, but the majority of these live with the narrowest economy, and in the parts of the city the most liable to impure effluvia. The balls go on still in the gay world, and I presume they would go on if there were only musicians enough left to make an orchestra, or fashionists to compose a quadrille. As if one plague was not enough, the city is all alive in the distant faubourgs with revolts. Last night the rappel was beat all over the city, and the National Guard called to arms, and marched to the Porte St. Denis and the dif- ferent quarters where the mobs were collected. The occa- sion of the disturbance is singular enough. It has been discovered, as you will see by the papers, that a great num- ber of people have been poisoned at the wine-shops. Men have been detected, with what object Heaven only knows, in putting arsenic and other poisons into the cups and even into the buckets of the water-carriers at the fountains. Several of these empoisonneurs have been taken from the officers of justice, and literally torn limb from limb, in the streets. Two were drowned yesterday by the mob in the Seine, at the Pont-Neuf. It is believed bv manv of the 3?zs-yC ^A^s^cy. J%z& C/L^z^y oya> za& PARIS. 3 common people that this is done by the government, and the opinion prevails sufficiently to produce very serious disturbances. They suppose there is no cholera except such as is produced by poison ; and the Hotel Dieu and the other hospitals are besieged daily by the infuriated mob, who swear vengeance against the government for all the mortality they witness. I have just returned from a visit to the Hotel Dieu — the hospital for the cholera. I had previously made several tempts to gain admission, in vain, but yesterday I fell in. ortunately, with an English physician, who told me I could pass with a doctor's diploma, which he offered to borrow for me of some medical friend. He called by ap- pointment at seven this morning, to fulfil his promise. It was like one of our loveliest mornings in June — an inspiriting, sunny, balmy day, all softness and beauty, and we crossed the Tuileries by one of its superb avenues, and kept down the bank of the river to the island. With the errand on which we were bound in our minds, it was impossible not to be struck very forcibly with our own exquisite enjoyment of life. I am sure I never felt my veins fuller of the pleasure of health and motion, and I never saw a day when every thing about me seemed better worth living for. The superb palace of the Louvre, with its long facade of nearly half a mile, lay in the mellowest sunshine on our left, — the lively river, covered with boats, and spanned with its magnificent and crowded bridges on our right, — the view of the island with its massive old structures below, — and the fine old gray towers of the church of Notre Dame, rising dark and gloomy in the distance — it was difficult to realise any thing but life and pleasure. That under those very towers which added so much to the beauty of the scene, there lay a thousand and more of poor wretches dying of a plague, was a thought my mind would not retain a moment. A half hours walk brought us to the Place Notre Dame, on one side of which, next this celebrated church, stands the Hospital. My friend entered, leaving me to wait till he had found an acquaintance, of whom he could borrow a diploma. A hearse was standing at the door of the church, and I went in for a moment. A few mourners, B 2 4 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. ^with the appearance of extreme poverty, were kneeling round a coffin at one of the side-altars, and a solitary priest, with an attendant boy, was mumbling the prayers for the dead As I came out, another hearse drove up, with a rough coffin scantily covered with a pall, and followed by one poor old man. They hurried in ; and, as my friend had not yet appeared, I strolled round the square. Fifteen or twenty water-carriers were filling their buckets a\ ,ne fountain opposite, singing and laughing, and at tne .same moment four different litters crossed towards the Hospnal, each with its two or three followers, women and cYAaren or relatives of the sick, accompanying them to the door, where they parted from them, most probably, for ever. The litters were set down a moment before ascending the staps, the crowd pressed around and lifted the coarse curtains, farewells were exchanged, and the sick alone passed in. I did not see any great demonstration of feeling in the particular cases that were before me, but I can conceive, in the almost deadly certainty of this disease, that these hasty partings at the door of the Hospital might often be scenes of unsurpassed suffering and distress. I waited, perhaps, ten minutes more for my friend. In the whole time that I had been there, ten litters, bearing the sick, had entered the Hotel Dieu. As I exhibited the borrowed diploma, the eleventh arrived, and with it a young man, whose violent and uncontrolled grief worked so far on the soldier at the door, that he allowed him to pass. I followed the bearers up to the ward, interested exceedingly to see the patient, and desirous to observe the first treatment and manner of reception. They wound slowly up the staircase to the upper story, and entered the female department — a long, low room, containing nearly a hundred beds, placed in alleys scarce two feet from each other : nearly all were occupied ; and those which were empty, my friend told me, were vacated by deaths yester* day. They set down the litter by the side of a narrow cot with coarse but clean sheets, and a Sceur dc Ckaritc, with a white cap and a cross at her girdle, came and took ofF the canopy. A young woman of apparently twenty- five was beneath, absolutely convulsed with agony. Her eyes were started from the sockets, her mouth foamed, and her face PARIS. 5 was of a frightful, livid purple. I never saw so horrible a sight. She had been taken in perfect health only three hours before, but her features looked to me marked with a year of pain. The first attempt to lift her produced violent vomiting, and I thought she must die instantly. They covered her up in bed, and, leaving the man who came with her hanging over her with the moan of one deprived of his senses, they went to receive others who were entering- in the same manner. I inquired of my friend, how soon she would be attended to. He said, " Possibly in an hour, as the physician was just commencing his rounds/* An hour after, I passed the bed of this poor woman, and she had not yet been visited. Her husband answered my question with a choking voice and a flood of tears. I passed down the ward, and found nineteen or twenty* in the last agonies of death. They lay quite still, and seemed benumbed. I felt the limbs of several, and found them quite cold. The stomach only had a little warmth* Now and then a half groan escaped those who seemed the strongest, but with the exception of the universally open mouth and upturned ghastly eye, there were no signs of much suffering. I found two, who must have been dead half an hour, undiscovered by the attendants. One of them was an old woman, quite grey, with a very bad expression of face, who was perfectly cold — lips, limbs, body and all. The other was younger, and seemed to have died in pain. Her eyes looked as if they had been forced half out of the sockets, and her skin was of the most livid and deathly purple. The woman in the next bed told me she had died since the Sceur de Charite had been there. It is horrible to think how these poor creatures may suffer in the very midst of the provisions that are made professedly for their relief. I asked why a simple prescription of treatment might not be drawn up by the physician, and administered hy the numerous medical students who were in Paris, that as few as possible might suffer from delay. " Because," said my companion, " the chief physicians must do every thing personally to study the complaint/' And so, I verily believe, more human lives are sacrificed in waiting for experiments than ever will be saved by the results. My f) PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. Hood boiled from the beginning to the end of this melan- choly visit. I wandered about alone among the beds till my heart was sick, and I could bear it no longer, and then rejoined my friend, who was in the train of one of the physicians making the rounds. One would think a dying person should be treated with kindness. I never saw a rougher or more heartless manner than that of the celebrated Dr. — - — at the bed-sides of these poor creatures. A harsh question, a rude pulling open of the mouth to ]ook at the tongue, a sentence or two of unsuppressed comment to the students on the progress of the disease, and the train passed on. If discouragement and despair are not medicines, I should think the visits of such physicians were of little avail. The wretched sufferers turned away their heads after he had gone, in every instance that I saw, with an expression of visibly increased distress. Several of them refused to answer his questions altogether. On reaching the bottom of the Salle St. Monique, one of the male wards, I heard loud voices and laughter. I had heard much more groaning and complaining in passing among the men, and the horrible discordance struck me as something infernal. I* proceeded from one of the sides ta which the patients had been removed who were recovering. The most successful treatment had been found to be punch — very strong, with but little acid ; and, being permitted to drink as much as they would, they had become par- tially intoxicated. It was a fiendish sight, positively. They were sitting up, and reaching from one bed to the other r and with their still pallid faces and blue lips, and the hospital dress of white, they looked like so many carousing corpses. I turned away from them in horror. I was stopped in the door-way by a litter entering with a sick woman. They set her down in the main passage between the beds, and left her a moment to find a place for her. She seemed to have an interval of pain, and rose up one hand and looked about her very earnestly. I fol- lowed the direction of her eyes, and could easily imagine her sensations. Twenty or thirty death-like faces were turned towards her from the different beds, and the groans of the dying and the distressed came from every side, and VILLA FRANCA. 7 die was without a friend whom she knew : sick of a mortal disease, and abandoned to the mercy of those whose kind- ness is mercenary and habitual, and, of course, without sym- pathy or feeling. Was it not enough alone, if she had been far less ill, to embitter the very fountains of life, and make her almost wish to die ? She sank down upon the litter again, and drew her shawl over her head. I had seen enough of suffering; and I left the place. On reaching the lower staircase, my friend proposed to me to look into the dead-room. We descended to a large dark apartment below the street level, lighted by a lamp fixed to the wall. Sixty or seventy bodies lay on the floor, some of them quite uncovered, and some wrapped in mats. I could not see distinctly enough by the dim light to judge of their discolouration. They appeared mostly old and emaciated. I cannot describe the sensation of relief with which I breathed the free air once more. I had no fear of the cholera, but the suffering and misery I had seen oppressed and half smothered me. Every one who has walked through a hospital will remember how natural it is to subdue the breath, and close the nostrils to the smells of medicine and the close air. The fact too, that the question of contagion is still disputed, though I fully believe the cholera not to be contagious, might have had some effect. My breast heaved, however, as if a weight had risen from my lungs, and I walked home to my breakfast, blessing God for health with undissembled gratitude. LETTER II. VILLA FRANCA. May, 1832. We returned in time to receive a letter from the American Consul, confirming the orders of the commissary, but ad- vising us to return to Antibes, and sail thence from Villa Franca, a lazaretto in the neighbourhood of Nice, whence 8 PEXCILLINGS BY THE WAY, ?v r e could enter Italy, after seven days quarantine! By this time several travelling carriages bad collected, and all, profiting by our experience, turned back together. We are now at the " Golden Eagle M deliberating. Some have determined to give up their object altogether, but the rest of us sail to-morrow morning in a fishing-boat for the lazaretto. There were but eight of the twenty or thirty travellers stopped at the bridge of St. Laurent, who thought it worth while to persevere. We are all here in this pest-house at present^ and a motley mixture of nations it is. There are two young Sicilians returning from college to Messina ; a Belgian lad of seventeen, just started on his travels j two aristocratic young Frenchmen, very elegant and very ignorant of the world, running down to Italy, to avoid the cholera ; a middle-aged surgeon in the British navy, very cool, and very gentlemanly ; a vulgar Marseilles shopkeeper ; and myself. I thought we should never get away from Antibes. After spending several hours in dis- puting with the boatmen, who took advantage of our situation to demand more money for the voyage than they could make by their trade in a year, we embarked. We hoisted the fisherman's lattine sail, and put out of the little harbour in very bad temper. The wind was fair, and we ran along the shore for a couple of hours, till we came to Nice, where we were to stop for permission to go to the lazaretto. We were hailed off the mole with a trumpet, and suffered to pass. Doubling a little point, half a mile farther on, we ran into the bay of Villa Franca, a handful of houses, at the base of an amphitheatre of mountains. A little round tower stood in the centre of the harbour, built upon a rock, and connected with the town by a draw-bridge, and we were landed at a staircase outside, by which we mounted to show our papers U> the health- officer. The interior was a little circular yard separated from an office on the town side by an iron grating, and looking out on the sea bv two embrasures for cannon. Two strips of water and the sky above were our whole prospect for the hour that we waited here. The cause of his delay was presently explained by clouds of smoke issuing from the interior. The tower filled, and a more nauseating VILLA FRANCA. 9 odour I never inhaled. We were near suffocating with the intolerable smell and the quantity of smoke deemed neces- sary to secure his Majesty's officer against contagion. A cautious-looking old gentleman with gray hair emerged at last from the smoke with a long cane-pole in his hand, and, coughing at every syllable, requested us to insert our passports in the split at the extremity which he thrust through the grate. This being done, we asked him for bread. We had breakfasted at seven, and it was now sun- down — near twelve hours' fast. Several of my companions had been sea-sick with the swell of the Mediterranean in coming from Antibes, and all were faint with hunger and exhaustion. For myself, the villanous smell of our purifi- cation had made me sick, and I had no appetite ; but the rest ate very voraciously of a loaf of coarse bread, which was extended to us with a pair of tongs and two pieces of paper. After reading our passports, the magistrate informed us that he had no orders to admit us to the lazaretto, and we must lie in our boat till he could send a messenger to Nice with our passports, and obtain permission. We opened upon him, however, with such a flood of remonstrance, and with such an emphasis from hunger and fatigue, that he consented to admit us temporarily on his own responsibility, and gave the boatmen orders to row back to a long low stone building we had observed at one of the corners of the entrance to the harbour. He was there before us ; and as we mounted the stone ladder he pointed through the bars of a large inner gate to a single chamber separated from the rest of the building, and promising to send us something to eat in the course ot the evening, left us to take possession. Our position was desolate enough. The building was new, and the plaster still soft and wet. There was not an article of furniture in the chamber, and but a single window : the floor was of brick, and the air as damp within as a cellar. The al- ternative was to remain out of doors, in the small yard walled up thirty feet on three sides, and washed by the sea on the other; and here, on a long block of granite, the softest thing I could find, I determined to make an alfresco night of it. 10 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. Bread, cheese, wine, and cold meat, seethed, Italian fashion, in nauseous oil, arrived about nine o'clock; and by the light of a candle standing in a boot we sat around on the brick floor, and supped very merrily. Hunger had brought even our two French exquisites to their fare, and they ate heartily. The navy surgeon had seen service, and had no qualms -, the Sicilians were from a German uni- versity, and were not delicate; the Marseilles tape-seller knew apparently no better, and we should have been less •contented with a better meal. It was superfluous to abuse it. A steep precipice hangs right over the lazaretto, and the horn of the half-moon was just dipping below it as I stretched myself to sleep. With a folded ccat under my hip, and a carpet-bag for a pillow, I soon fell asleep, and slept soundly till sun-rise. My companions had chosen shelter, but all were happy to be early risers. We mounted our high wall upon the sea, and promenaded till the sun was broadly up ; and the breeze from the Mediterranean sharpened our appetites; and then, finishing the relics of our supper, we waited with what patience we might the arrival of our breakfast. The magistrate arrived at twelve, yesterday, with a commissary from Villa Franca, who is to be our victualler during the quarantine. He has enlarged our limits by a stone staircase and an immense chamber, on condition that we pay for an extra guard, in the shape of a Sardinian soldier, who is to sleep in our room and eat at our table. By the way, we have a table, and four rough benches, and these with three single mattresses are all the furniture we can procure. We are compelled to sleep across the latter, of course, to give every one his share. We have come down very contentedly to our situation, and I have been exceedingly amused at the facility with which eight such different tempers can amalgamate upon compulsion. Our small quarters bring us in contact con- tinually, and we harmonise like schoolboys. At this moment the Marseilles trader and the two Frenchmen are throwing stones at something that is floating out with the tide ; the surgeon has dropped his Italian grammar to decide upon the best shot ; the Belgian is fishing off the NICE. II wall with a pin hook and a hit of cheese; and the two Sicilians are talking lingua Franca at the top of their voices to Carolina, the guardian's daughter, who stands j coqueting on the pier just outside the limits. I have got out my books and portfolio, and taken possession of the broad stair ; and, depending on the courtesy of my com- panions to jump over me and my papers when they go up and down, I sit here most of the day laughing at the fun below, and writing or reading alternately. The climate is too delicious for discontent. Every breath is a pleasure. The hills of the amphitheatre opposite us are covered with olive, lemon, and orange trees ; and in the evening, from the time the land-breeze commences to blow offshore, until ten or eleven, the air is impregnated with the delicate perfume of the orange-blossom, than which nothing could be more grateful. Nice is called the hospital of Europe ; and truly, under this divine sky, and with the inspiring vitality and softness of the air, and all that nature can lavish of luxuriance and variety upon the hills, it is the place, if there is one in the world, where the drooping spirit of the invalid must revive and renew. At this moment the sun has crept from the peak of the highest mountain across the bay, and we shall scent presently the spicy wind from the shore. I close my book to go out upon the wall, which I see the surgeon has mounted already with the same object,, to catch the first breath that blows sea- ward. LETTER III. NICE. ITALIAN SUMMER-MORNING NEW ARRIVALS — COMPANIONS DEPARTURE FROM THE LAZARETTO, &C. It is Sunday, and an Italian summer morning. I do not think my eyes ever woke upon so lovely a day. The long. lazy swell comes in from the Mediterranean as smooth as glass ; the sails of a beautiful yacht belonging to an English nobleman at Nice, and lying becalmed just now in the bay, are hanging motionless about the masts ; the sky is without 12 PENCILLING^ BY THE WAY. a speck ; and the air just seems to me to steep every nerve and fibre of the frame with repose and pleasure. Now and then, in America, I have felt a June morning that approached it, but never the degree, the fulness, the sunny softness of this exquisite clime. It tranquillises the mind as well as the body. You cannot resist feeling content and genial. We are all out of doors, and my companions have brought down their mattresses, and are lying along in the shade of the east wall, talking quietly and pleasantly ; the usual sounds of the workmen on the quays of the town are still ; our harbour-guard lies asleep in his boat, and the yellow flag of the lazaretto clings to the staff; every thing about us breathes tranquillity. Prisoner as I am, I would not stir willingly to-day. * # * # * * We have had two new arrivals this morning — a boat from Antibes with a company of players bound for the theatre at Milan, and two French deserters from the regi- ment at Toulon, who escaped in a leaky boat, and have made this long voyage along the coast, to get into Italy. They knew nothing of the quarantine, and were very much surprised at their arrest. They will probably be delivered up to the French consul. The new comers are all put together in the large chamber next us, and we have been talking with them through the grate. His majesty of Sardinia is not spared in their voluble denunciations. Our imprisonment is getting to be a little tedious. We lengthen our breakfasts and dinners, go to sleep early and get up late ; but a lazaretto is a dull place after all. We have no books, except dictionaries and grammars, and I am on my last sheet of paper. What I shall do the two re- maining days, I cannot divine. Our meals were amusing for a while. We have but three knives and four glasses ; and the Belgian having cut his plate in two on the first day, has eaten since from the wash-bowl. The salt is in a brown paper, the vinegar in a shell, and the meats, to be kept warm during their passage by water, are brought in the black utensils in which they are cooked. Our table- cloth appeared to day of all the colours of the rainbow. We sat down to breakfast with a general cry of horror. Still, •with youth and good spirits, we manage to be more con- THE LAZARETTO. IS tented than one would expect, and our lively discussions of the spot on the quay where the table shall be laid, and the noise of our dinners en plein aw, would convince a spectator that we were a very merry and sufficiently happy company* I like my companions, on the whole, very much. The surgeon has been in Canada and the west of New York, and we have travelled the same routes, and made in several instances the same acquaintances. He has been in almost every part of the world also, and his descriptions are very graphic and sensible. The Belgian talks of his new king Leopold, — the Sicilians, of the German universities ; and when I have exhausted all they can tell me, I turn to our Parisians, whom I find I have met all winter, without noticing them, at the parties, and we discuss the belles and the different members of the beau monde with the touching- air and tone of exiles from Paradise. In a case of desperate ennui, wearied with studying and talking, the sea-wall is a delightful lounge, and the blue Mediterranean plays the witch to the indolent fancy, and beguiles it well. I have never seen such a beautiful sheet of water. The colour is peculiarly rich and clear, like an intensely blue sky heaving into waves. I do not find the often-repeated description of its loveliness at all exaggerated. # # * * # * Our seven days expire to-morrow, and we are preparing to eat our last dinner in the lazaretto with great glee. A temporary table is already laid upon the quay — two strips of board raised upon some ingenious contrivance, 1 cannot well say what, and covered with all the private and public napkins that retained any portion of their maiden whiteness. Our knives are reduced to two, one having disappeared unaccountably; but the deficiency is partially remedied — the surgeon has whittled a pine-knot which floated in upon the tide into a distant imitation, and one of the company has produced a delicate dagger that looks very like a keepsake from a lady, and by the reluctant manner in which it was produced, the profanation cost his sentiment an effort. Its white handle and silver sheath lie across a plate abridged of its proportions by a very formidable segment. There was no disguising the poverty of the brown paper that contains the salt. It was too necessary to be made an c< aside," and 14 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. was placed upon the centre of the table. I fear there has been more fuss in the preparation than we shall feel in eat- ing the dinner when it arrives. The Belgian stands on the mole watching all the boats from town ; but they pass oft down the harbour one after another, and we are destined to keep our appetites to a late hour. Their detestable .cooking needs the " sauce of hunger." The Belgian's hat waves in the air, and the commissary's boat must be in sight As we get off* at six o'clock to- morrow morning, my portfolio shuts till I find another rest- ing-place — probably Genoa. ****** The health-magistrate arrived at an early hour on the morning of our departure from the lazaretto of Villa Franca. He was accompanied by a physician, who was to direct the fumigation. The iron pot was placed in the centre of the chamber; our clothes were spread out upon the beds, and the windows shut. The chlorine soon filled the room, and its detestable odour became so intolerable that we forced the door and rushed past the sentinel into the open air, nearly suffocated. This farce over, we were suffered to embark, and, rounding the point, put into Nice. The Mediterranean curves gracefully into the crescented shore of this lovely bay, and the high hills loom away from the skirts of the town in one unbroken slope of cultivation to the top. Large handsome buildings face you on the long quay as you approach, and white chimneys and half -con cealed fronts of country-houses and suburban villas appear through the olives and orange-trees with which the whole amphitheatre is covered. A painter would not mingle a landscape more picturesquely. We landed amid a crowd of half-naked idlers, and were soon at an hotel, where we ordered the best breakfast the town would afford, and sat down once more to clean cloths and un repulsive food. As we rose from breakfast, a note edged with black, and sealed and enveloped with considerable circumstance, was put into my hand by the master of the hotel It was an invitation from the Governor to attend a funeral-service to be performed in the cathedral that day at ten o'clock, for the defunct queen-mother, Maria-Theresa, Archduchess of •Austria. Wondering not a little how I came by the honour, XICE. IS I dressed and joined the crowd flocking from all parts of the town to see the ceremony. The central door was guarded by a file of Sardinian soldiers, and, presenting my invitation to the officer on duty,, I was handed over to the master of ceremonies, and shown to an excellent seat in the centre of the church. The windows were darkened, and the candles of the altar not yet lit ; and by the indis- tinct light that came in through the door I could distinguish nothing clearly. A little silver bell tinkled presently from one of the side chapels, and boys dressed in white appeared with long tapers, and the edifice was soon splendidly illu- minated. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of four or five hundred ladies, all in deep mourning. The church was hung from the floor to the roof in black cloth, orna- mented gorgeously with silver ; and under the large dome which occupied half the ceiling was raised a pyramidal altar, with tripods supporting chalices for incense at the four corners ; a walk round the lower base for the priests, and something in the centre, surrounded with a blaze of light representing figures weeping over a tomb. The organ commenced pealing ; there was a single beat on the drum, and a procession entered. It was composed of the nobility of Nice, and the military and civil officers, all in uniform and court dresses. The gold and silver flashing in the light ; the tall plumes of the Sardinian soldiery below ; the solemn music, and the moving of the censers from the four corners of the altar produced a very impressive effect. As soon as the procession had quite entered, the fire was kind- led in the four chalices ; and as the white smoke rolled up to the roof, an anthem commenced with the full power of the organ. The singing was admirable, and there was one female voice in the choir of singular power and sweetness. The remainder of the service was the usual mummery of the Catholic Church, and I amused myself with observing the people about me. It was little like a scene of mourning. The officers gradually edged in between the seats, and every woman of the Isast pretensions to prettiness was engaged in any thing but her prayers for the soul of the defunct Arch- duchess. Some of the very young girls were pretty, and the women of thirty-five or forty apparently were fine-look- 16 PENCJLLINGS BY THE WAY. ing ; but except a decided air of style and rank, the fairly grown-up belles seemed to me very unattractive. I saw little else in Nice to interest me. I wandered about with my friend the surgeon, laughing at the ridi- culous figures and villanous uniforms of the Sardinian in- fantry, and repelling the beggars who radiated to us from every corner ; and having traversed the terrace of a mile on the tops of the houses next the sea, unravelled all the lanes of the old town, and admired all the splendour of the new, we dined and got early to bed, anxious to sleep once more between sheets, and prepare for the early start of the fol- lowing morning. ***** * We were on the road to Genoa with the first grey of the dawn — the surgeon, a French officer, and myself, the three passengers of a courier barouche. We were climbing up mountains, and sliding down with locked wheels for several hours by a road edging on precipices and overhung by tremendous rocks ; and descending at last to the sea level, we entered Mentone, a town of the little Principality of Monaco. Having paid our twenty sous tribute to this prince of a territory not larger than a Kentucky farm, we were suffered to cross his borders once more into Sardinia, having run through a whole state in less than half an hour. It is impossible to conceive a route of more grandeur than this famous road along the Mediterranean from Nice to Genoa. It is near a hundred and fifty miles, over the edges of mountains bordering the sea for the whole distance. The road is cut into the sides of the precipice often hundreds of feet perpendicular above the surf, descending sometimes into the ravines formed by the numerous rivers that cut iheir way to the sea, and mounting immediately again to ihe loftiest summits. It is a dizzy business from beginning to end. There is no parapet usually, and there are thousands of places where half a shy by a timid horse would drop you at once some hundred fathoms upon rocks met by the spray of every sea that breaks upon the shore. ****** FLORENCE. 17 LETTER IV. FLORENCE. flORENTINE PECULIARITIES — SOCIETY BALLS — DUCAL ENTER- TAINMENTS PRIVILEGE OF STRANGERS FAMILIES OF HIGH RANK THE EXCLUSIVES SOIREES PARTIES OF A RICH BANKER — PEASANT BEAUTY A CONTENTED MARRIED LADY — HUSBANDS, CAVALIERS AND WIVES PERSONAL MANNERS HABITS OF SOCIETY, &C. JANUARY, 1833. I am about starting on my second visit to Rome, after having passed nearly three months in Florence. As I have seen most of the society of this gayest and fairest of the Italian cities, it may not be uninteresting to depart a little from the traveller's routine, by sketching a feature or two. Florence is a resort for strangers from every part of the world. The gay society is a mixture of all nations, of whom one-third may be Florentine, one-third English, and the remaining part equally divided between Russians,, Germans, French, Poles, and Americans. The English entertain a great deal, and give most of the balls and dinner-parties. The Florentines seldom trouble themselves to give parties, but are always at home for visits in the prima sera, (from seven till nine,) and in their box at the opera. They go, without scruple, to all the strangers' balls, considering courtesy repaid, perhaps, by the weekly recep- tion of the Grand Duke and a weekly ball at the club- house of young Italian nobles. The ducal entertainments occur every Tuesday, and are the most splendid, of course. The foreign ministers present all of their countrymsin who have been presented at their own courts, and the company is necessarily more select than elsewhere. The Florentines who go to court are about seven hundred, of whom half are invited on each week — strangers, when once presented, having the double privilege of coming uninvited to all. There are several Italian fami- lies, of the highest rank, who are seen only here ; but, with the single exception of one unmarried girl of un- common beauty, who bears a name celebrated in Italian c 18 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. history, they are no loss to general society. Among tie foreigners of rank, are three or four German princes, who play high and waltz well, and are remarkable for nothing else ; half a dozen star-wearing dukes, counts, and mar- quises, of all nations and in any quantity ; and a few English noblemen and noble ladies — only the latter rration showing their blood at all in their features and bearing. The most exclusive society is that of the Prince M > whose splendid palace is shut entirely against the English, and difficult of access to all. He makes a single exception in favour of a descendant of the Talbots, a lady whose beauty might be an apology for a much graver departure from rule. He has given two grand entertainments since the carnival commenced, to which nothing was wanting but people to enjoy them. The immense rooms were flooded with light, the music was the best that Florence could give, the supper might have supped an army — stars and red ribbons entered with every fresh comer, but it looked like a tc banquet-hall deserted." Some thirty ladies, and as many men, were all that Florence contained worthy of the society of the ex-king. A kinder man in his manner, how- ever, or apparently a more affectionate husband and father, I never saw. He opened the dance by waltzing with the young princess, his daughter, a lovely girl of fourteen, of whom he seems fond to excess, and he was quite the gayest person in the company till the ball was over. The ex- queen sat on a divan, with her ladies of honour about her, following her husband with her eyes, and enjoying his gaiety with the most childish good-humour. The Saturday evening soirees at Prince P 's (a bro- ther of the hero) are perhaps as agreeable as any in Flo- rence. He has several grown-up sons and daughters mar- ried, and, with a very sumptuous palace and great liberality of style, he has made his parties more than usually valued. His eldest daughter is the leader of the fashion, and his second is the " cynosure of all eyes." The old prince is a tall, bent, venerable man, with snow-white hair, and very peculiarly marked features. He is fond of speaking English, c'.nd professess a great affection for America. Then there are the soirees of the rich banker, F , ^vhich, as they are subservient to business, assemble all CAVALIERE SERVENTE. 19 ranks on the common pretensions of interest. At the last, I saw, among other curiosities, a young girl of eighteen from one of the more common families of Florence — a fine specimen of the peasant beauty of Italy. Her heavily moulded figure, hands, and feet, were quite forgiven when you looked at her dark, deep, indolent eye, and glow- ing skin, and strongly-lined mouth and forehead. The society was evidently new to her, but she had a manner quite beyond being astonished. It was the kind of animal dignity so universal in the lower dasses of this country. One gains little by his opportunities of meeting Italian ladies in society. The cavaliere servente flourishes still, as in the days of Beppo, and it is to him only that the lady condescends to talk.- There is a delicate, refined-looking little marchioness here, who is remarkable as being the only known Italian lady without a cavalier. They tell you, with an amused smile, that " she is content with her husband." It really seems to be a business of real love between the lady of Italy and her cavalier; naturally enough too — for her parents marry her without consulting her at all, and she selects a friend afterwards, as ladies in other countries select a lover, who is to end in a husband f The married couple are never seen together by any accident and the lady and her cavalier never apart. The latter i always invited with her, as a matter of course, and the hus- band, if there is room, or if he is not forgotten. She is insulted if asked without her cavalier, but is quite indifferent whether her husband goes with her or not. These are points really settled in the policy of society, and the rights of the cavalier are specified in the marriage-contracts. I had thought, until I came to Italy, that such things were either a romance, or customs of an age gone by. I like very much the personal manners of the Italians. They are mild and courteous to the farthest extent of looks and words. They do not entertain, it is true, but their great dim rooms are free to you whenever you can find them at home, and you are at liberty to join the gossiping circle around the lady of the house, or sit at the table and read, or be silent unquestioned. You are let alone, if you seem to choose it, and it is neither commented on nor c 2 20 PENCILL1NGS BY THE WAY. thought uncivil, — and this I take to be a grand excellence in manners. The society is dissolute, I think, almost without an exception. The English fall into its habits, with the dif- ference that they do not conceal it so well, and have the appearance of knowing it is wrong — which the Italians have not. The latter are very much shocked at the want of pro- priety in the management of the English. To suffer the particulars of an intrigue to get about is a worse sin, in their eyes, than any violation of the commandments. It is scarce possible for an American to conceive the universal corruption of a society like this of Florence, though, if he were not told of it, he would think it all that was delicate arid attractive. There are external features in which the society of our own country is far less scrupulous and proper. LETTER V. SIENNA P0GGI0B0NSI B0NC0NVENT0 -— ENCOURAGEMENT OF FRENCH ARTISTS BY THEIR GOVERNMENT ACQUAPEN DENTE POOR BEGGAR, THE ORIGINAL OF A SKETCH BY COLE BOLSENA VOLSCINIUM SCENERY CURIOUS STATE OF THE CHESTNUT WOODS, Sienna. — A day and a half on my journey to Rome. With a party of four nations inside, and two strangers, probably Frenchmen, in the cabriolet, we have jogged on at some three miles in the hour, enjoying the lovely scenery of these lower Apennines at our leisure. We slept last night at Poggiobonsi, a little village on a hill-side, and arrived at Sienna for our mid-day rest. I pencil this note after an hour's ramble over the city, visiting once more the cathe- dral, with its encrusted marbles and naked graces, and the three shell-shaped square in the centre of the city, at the rim of which the eight principal streets terminate. There is a fountain in the midst, surrounded with bassi relievi much disfigured. It was mentioned by Dante. The streets were deserted, it being Sunday, and all the people at the Corso, to see the racing of horses without riders. Bonconvento. — We sit, with the remains of a traveller's- BONCONVENTO ACQUAPENDENTE. 2 1 supper on the table — six very social companions, your cabriolet friends are two French artists on their way to study at Rome. They are both pensioners of the govern- ment, each having gained the annual prize at the Academy in his separate branch of art, which entitles him to five years' support in Italy. They are full of enthusiasm, and converse with all the amusing vivacity of their nation. The Academy of France send out in this manner five young men annually, who have gained the prizes for painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and engraving. This is the place where Henry the Seventh was poisoned by a monk, on his way to Rome. The drug was given to him in the communion-cup. The " Ave-Marie " was ringing when we drove into town, and I left the carriage and followed the crowd, in the hope of finding an old church, where the crime might have been committed. But the priest was mumbling the service in a new chapel, which no romance that I could summon would picture as the scene of a tragedy. ****** Acquapendente. — While the dirty custom-house officer is deciphering our passports, in a hole a dog would live in unwillingly, I take out my pencil to mark once more the pleasure I have received from the exquisite scenery of this place. The wild rocks enclosing the little narrow valley below, the waterfalls, the town on its airy perch above, the just starting vegetation of spring, the roads lined with snow-drops, crocuses, and violets, have renewed, in a ten- fold degree, the delight with which I saw this romantic spot on my former journey to Rome. We crossed the mountain of Radicofani yesterday, in so thick a mist that I could not even distinguish the ruin of the old castle towering into the clouds above. The wild,, half-naked people thronged about us as before, and I gave another paul to the old beggar with whom I became ac- quainted by Mr. Cole's graphic sketch. The winter had, apparently, gone hard with him. He was scarce able to come to the carriage- window, and coughed so hollowly that I thought he had nearly begged his last pittance. * * * # *■ * Bolsena.— We have walked in advance of the vetturino 22 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. along the borders of this lovely and beautiful lake till we are tired. Our artists have taken off their coats with the heat, and sit, a quarter of a mile further on, pointing in every direction at these unparalleled views. The water is as still as a mirror, with a soft mist on its face, and the water-fowl in thousands are diving and floating wifhin gun-shot of us. An afternoon in June could not be more summer-like, and this, to a lover of soft climate, is no trifling pleasure. A mile behind us lies the town, the seat of ancient Vol- scinium, the capital of the Volscians. The country about is one quarry of ruins, mouldering away in the moss. Nobody can live in health in the neighbourhood, and the poor pale wretches who call it a home are in melancholy contrast to the smiling paradise about them. Before us, in the bosom of the lake, lie two green islands — those which Pliny records to have floated in his time 5 and one of which, Martana, a small conical isle, was the scene of the murder of the queen of the Goths by her cousin Theodotus. She was taken there and strangled. It is difficult to imagine, with such a sea of sunshine around and over it, that it was ever any thing but a spot of delight. The whole neighbourhood is covered with rotten trunks of trees — a thing which at first surprised me in a country where wood is so economised. It is accounted for in the Prench guide-book of one of our party by the fact, that the chestnut woods of Bolsena are considered sacred by the people from their antiquity, and are never cut. The trees have ripened, and fallen, and rotted thus for centuries — one cause, perhaps, of the deadly change in the air. The vetturino comes lumbering up, and I must pocket my pencil and remount. LETTER VI. MONTEFIASCONE ANECDOTE OF THE WINE VITERBO MOUNT CIMINO TRADITION — VIEW OF ST. PETER'S — ENTRANCE INTO KOME — A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY. Montefiascone. — We have stopped for the night at the hotel of this place, so renowned for its wine — the remnant A VIHTUOSO. 23 of a bottle of which stands, at this moment, twinkling between me and my French companions. The ladies of our party have gone to bed, and left us in the room where sat Jean Defoucris, the merry German monk, who died of excess in drinking the same liquor that flashes through this straw-covered flask. The story is told more fully in the French guide-books. A prelate of Augsbourg, on a pilgrimage to Rome, sent forward his servant with orders to mark every tavern where the wine was good with the word est, in large letters of chalk. On arriving at this hotel, the monk saw the signal thrice written over the door — Est! Est! Est! He put up his mule, and drank of Montefiascone till he died. His servant wrote this epitaph, which is still seen in the church of St. Florian :— " Propter nknium est, est, Dominus meus mortuus est /" Est, Est, Est ! is the motto upon the sign of the hotel to this day. ***** In wandering about Viterbo in search of amusement, while the horses were baiting, I stumbled upon the shop of an antiquary. After looking over his medals, Etruscan vases, cameos, &c, a very interesting collection, I inquired into the state of trade for such things in Viterbo. He was a cadaverous, melancholy-looking old man, with his pockets worn quite out with the habit of thrusting his hands into them, and about his mouth and eye there was the proper virtuoso expression of inquisitiveness and discrimination. He kept also a small cafe adjoining his shop, into which we passed as he shrugged his shoulders at my question. I had wondered to find a vender of costly curiosities in a town of such poverty, and I was not surprised at the sad fortunes which had followed upon his enterprise. They were a base herd, he said of the people, utterly ignorant of the value of the precious objects he had for sale, and he had been compelled to open a cafe and degrade himself by waiting on them for a contemptible craize worth of coffee, while his lovely antiquities lay unappreciated within. The old gentleman was eloquent upon his misfortunes. He had not been long in trade, and had collected his museum 24 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. originally for his own amusement. He was an odd specimen, in a small way, of a man who was quite above his sphere, and suffered for his superiority. I bought a pretty intaglio, and bade him farewell, after an hour's acquaintance, with quite the feeling of a friend. * * & * # * Mount Cimino rose before us soon after leaving Viterbo, and we walked up most of the long and gentle ascent, inhaling the odour of the spicy plants for which it is famous, and looking out sharply for the brigands with which it is always infested. English carriages are constantly robbed* on this part of the route, of late. The robbers are met usually in parties of ten and twelve, and a week before we passed, Lady B — (the widow of an English nobleman,) was stopped and plundered in broad mid-day. The ex- cessive distress among the peasantry of these misgoverned states accounts for these things, and one only wonders why there is not even more robbing among such a starving population. This mountain, by the way, and the pretty lake below it, are spoken of in the iEneid : — " Cimini cum monte locum," &c. There is an ancient tradition, that in the crescent-shaped valley which the lake fills, there was formerly a city which was overwhelmed by the rise of the water; and certain authors state that, when the lake is clear, the ruins are still to be seen at the bottom. # # * # * The sun rose upon us as we reached the mountain above Baccano, on the sixth day of our journey ; and, by its clear golden flood, we saw the dome of St. Peter's, at the dis» tance of sixteen miles, towering amidst the Campagna in all its majestic beauty. We descended into the vast plain, and traversed its gentle undulations for two or three hours. With the forenoon well advanced, we turned into the valley of the Tiber, and saw the home of Raphael — a noble chateau on the side of a hill near the river ; and, in the little plain between, the first peach-trees we had seen, in full blossom. The tomb of Nero is on one side of the road, before crossing the Tiber, and on the other a newly-painted and staring restaurant, where the modern Roman cockneys drive for punch and ices. The bridge of Pontemolle, by which we passed into the immediate suburb of Rome, was ROME. 25 the ancient Pons iEmilius, and here Cicero arrested the conspirators on their way to join Catiline in his camp. It was on the same bridge, too, that Constantine saw his famous vision, and gained his victory over the tyrant Maxentius. Two miles over the Via Flaminia, between garden-walls that were ornamented with sculpture and inscription in the time of Augustus, brought us to the Porta del Popolo. The square within this noble gate is modern, but very imposing. Two streets diverge before you, as far away as you can see into the heart of the city ; a magnificent fountain sends up its waters in the centre ; the facades of two handsome churches face you as you enter ; and on the right and left are gardens and palaces of princely splendour. Gay and sumptuous equipages cross it in every direction, driving out to the Villa Borghese, and up to the Pincian mount 5 the splendid troops of the Pope are on guard ; and the busy and stirring population of modern Rome swell out to its limit like the ebb and flow of the sea. All this dis- appoints while it impresses the stranger. He has come to Rome — but it was old Rome that he had pictured to his fancy. The Forum; the ruins of her temples; the palaces of her emperors ; the homes of her orators, poets, and patriots ; the majestic relics of the once mistress of the world, are the features in his anticipation. But he enters by a modern gate to a modern square, and pays his modem coin to a whiskered officer of customs; and in the place of a venerable Belisarius begging an obolus in classic Latin, he is beset by a troop of lusty and filthy lazzaroni intreating for a baioch in the name of the Madonna, and in effeminate Italian. He drives down the Corso, and reads nothing but French signs, and sees all the familiar wares of his own country exposed for sale ; and every other person on the pave is an Englishman with a narrow- rimmed hat and whalebone stick ; and within an hour, at the Dogana, where his baggage is turned inside out by a snuffy old man who speaks French, and a reception at an hotel where the porter addresses him in his own language, whatever it may be, he goes to bed under Parisian curtains, and tries to dream of the Rome he could not realise while awake. 26 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. LETTER VII. APPIAN WAY — TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA ALBANO — TOMB OF THE CURIATII ARICIA TEMPLE OF DIANA — FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA — LAKE OF NEMI VELLETRI PONTINE MARSHES CONVENT — CANAL — TERRACINA — SAN FELICE — FONDI — STORY OF JULIA GONZAGA CICERO'S GARDEN AND TOMB — MOLA MINTURNA RUINS OF AN AMPHITHEATRE AND TEMPLE « FALERNIAN MOUNT AND WINE THE DOCTOR OF ST. AGATHA- CAPUA ENTRANCE INTO NAPLES — THE QUEEN. Feb. 1823. With the intention of returning to Rome for the cere- monies of the holy week, I have merely passed through on my way to Naples. We left it the morning after our arrival, going by the Appian Way, to Mount Albano, which borders the Campagna on the south, at a distance of fifteen miles. This celebrated road is lined with the ruined tombs of the Romans. OfF at the right, some four or five miles from the city, rises the fortress-like tomb of Cecilia Metella, so exquisitely mused upon by Childe Harold. This, says Sismondi, with the tombs of Adrian and Augustus, became fortresses of banditti in the thirteenth century, and were taken by Brancaleone, the Bolognese governor of Rome, who hanged the marauders from the walls. It looks little like (C a woman's grave." We changed horses at the pretty village of Albano, and, on leaving it, passed an ancient mausoleum, believed to be the tomb of the Curiatii who fought the Horatii on the spot. It is a large structure, and had originally four pyramids on the corners, two of which only remain. A mile from Albano lies Aricia, in a country of the loveliest rural beauty. Here was the famous temple of Diana, and here were the lake and grove sacred to the ** virgin huntress, and consecrated as her home by peculiar worship. The fountain of Egeria is here, where Numa communed with the nymph ; and the lake of Nemi, on the borders of which the temple stood, and which was called Dian s Mirror, {Speculum Dia?ice,) is at this day, perhaps, one of the sweetest gems of natural scenery in the world. We slept at Velletri, a pretty town of some twelve JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 27 thousand inhabitants, which stands on a hill-side, leading down to the Pontine marshes. It was one of the grand days of the carnival, and the streets were full of masks, walking up and down in their ridiculous dresses, and com- mitting every sort of foolery. The next morning, by day- light, we were upon the Pontine marshes, the long thirty miles level of which we passed in an unbroken trot, one part of a day's journey of seventy-five miles, done by the same horses, at the rate of six miles in the hour ! They are small, compact animals, and look in good condition;, though they do as much habitually. At a distance of fifteen miles from Velletri, we passed a convent, which is built opposite the spot where St. Paul was met by his friends, on his journey from the sea-side to Rome. The canal upon which Horace embarked on his celebrated journey to Brundusium, runs parallel with the road for its whole distance. This marshy desert is inhabited by a race of as wretched beings, perhaps, as are to be found upon the face Qf the earth. The pestiferous miasma of the pools is certain destruction to health ; and the few who sre needed at the distant post-houses, craw] out to the road- side like so many victims from a pest-house, stooping with weakness, hollow-eyed, and apparently insensible to every thing. The feathered race seems exempt from its influence, and the quantities of game of every known description are incredible. The ground was alive with wild-geese turkeys, pigeons, plover, ducks, and numerous birds we did not know, as far as the eye could distinguish. The travelling-books caution against sleeping in the carriage while passing these marshes, but we found it next to im- possible to resist the heavy drowsiness of the air. At Terracina the marshes end, and the long avenue of elms terminates at the foot of a romantic precipice, which is washed by the Mediterranean. The town is most picturesquely built between the rocky wall and the sea. We dined with the hollow murmur of the surf in our ears r and then, presenting our passports, entered the kingdom of Naples. This Terracina, by the way, was the ancient Anxur, which Horace describes in his line — ' Impositum late saxis eandeiitibus Anxur." S8 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. For twenty or thirty miles before arriving at Terracina, We had seen before us the headland of Circaeum, lying like a mountain-island off the shore. It is usually called San Felice, from the small town seated upon it. This was the ancient abode of the " daughter of the sun/' and here were imprisoned, according to Homer, the companions of Ulysses, after their metamorphoses. From Terracina to Fondi we followed the old Appian Way, a road hedged with flowering myrtles and orange- ■ trees laden with fruit. Fondi itself is dirtier than imagi- nation could picture it, and the scowling men in the streets look like myrmidons of Fra Diavolo, their celebrated countryman. This town, however, was the scene of the romantic story of the beautiful Julia Gonzaga, and was destroyed by the corsair Barbarossa, who had intended to present the greatest beauty of Italy to the sultan. It was to the rocky mountains above the town that she escaped in her night-dress, and lay concealed till the pirate's departure. In leaving Fondi. we passed the ruined walls of a garden said to have belonged to Cicero, whose tomb is only three leagues distant. Night came on before we reached the tomb, and we were compelled to promise ourselves a pil- grimage to it on our return. We slept at Mola, and here Cicero was assassinated. The ruins of his country-house are still here. The town lies in the lap of a graceful bay, and in all Italy, it is said, there is no spot more favoured by nature. The mountains shelter it from the winds of the north; the soil produces spontane- ously the orange, the myrtle, the olive, delicious grapes, jasmine, and many odoriferous herbs. This, with its neigh- bourhood, was called by the great orator and statesman who selected it for his retreat, " the most beautiful patrimony of the Romans." The Mediterranean spreads out from its bosom; the lovely islands near Naples bound its view ; Vesuvius sends up its smoke and fire in the south ; and back from its hills stretches a country fertile and beautiful as a paradise. It is a place of great resort for the English and other travel- lers in the summer. The old palaces are turned into hotels, and we entered our inn through an avenue of shrubs that must have been planted and trimmed for a century. * * * # * * * MOLA. 29 We left Mola before dawn, and crossed the small river Garigliano as the sun rose. A short distance from the southern bank, we found ourselves in the midst of ruins ; the golden beams of the sun pouring upon us through the arches of some once magnificent structure, whose area is now crossed by the road. This was the ancient Minturna, and the ruins are those of an amphitheatre, and a temple of Venus. Some say that it was in the marshes about this now waste city that the soldier, sent by Sylla to kill Marius, found the old hero, and, struck with his noble mien, fell with respect at his feet. The road soon enters a chain of hills, and the scenery becomes enchanting. At the left of the first ascent lies the Falernian Mount, whose wines are immortalised by Horace. It is a beautiful hill, which throws round its shoulder to the south, and is covered with vineyards. I dismounted and walked on while the horses breathed at the post-house of St. Agatha, and was overtaken by a good-natured look- ing man, mounted on a mule, of whom I made some inquiry respecting the modern Falernian. He said it was still the best wine of the neighbourhood, but was far below its ancient reputation, because never kept long enough to ripen. It is at its prime from the fifteenth to the twentieth year, and is usually drank the first or second. My new acquaint- ance, I soon found, was the physician of the two or three small villages nested about among the hills, and a man of some pretensions to learning. I was delighted with his frank good-humour, and a certain spice of drollery in his description of his patients. The peasants at work in the fields saluted him from any distance as he passed ; and the pretty contadini going to St. Agatha with their baskets on their heads, smiled as he nodded, calling them all by name, and I was rather amused than offended with the inquisitive- ness he manifested about my age, family, pursuits, and even morals. His mule stopped of its own will at the door of the apothecary of the small village on the summit of the hill ; and as the carriage came in sight the doctor invited me, seizing my hand with a look of friendly sincerity, to stop at St. Agatha on my return, to shoot, and drink Falernian with him for a month. The apothecary stopped the vet* 30 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. turino at the door ; and, to the astonishment of my com- panions within, the doctor seized me in his arms and kissed me on both sides of my face with a volume of blessings and compliments which I had no breath, in ray surprise, to re- turn. I have made many friends on the road in this country of quick feelings, but the doctor of St. Agatha had a readiness of sympathy which threw all my former experience into th< shade. We dined at Capua, the city whose luxuries enervated .Hannibal and his soldiers — the a dives, amorosa, felix Capua. It is in melancholy contrast with the descriptioi now — its streets filthy, and its people looking the antipodes of luxury. The climate should be the same, as we dinec with open doors, and with the branch of an orange-tree heavy with fruit hanging in at the window, in a montl that with us is one of the wintriest. From Capua to Naples, the distance is but fifteen miles, over a flat uninteresting country. We entered " this thin city in the world" in the middle of the afternoon, and wen immediately surrounded with beggars of every conceivable degree of misery. We sat an hour at the gate while oui passports were recorded, and the vetturino examined, an< then, passing up a noble street, entered a dense crowd, through which was creeping slowly a double line of car. riages. The mounted dragoons compelled our postillion t( fall into the line, and we were two hours following in fashionable corso with our mud-spattered vehicle and tired Tiorses, surrounded by all that was brilliant and gay ii Naples. It was the last day of carnival. Every body was abroad, and we were forced, however unwillingly, to see all the rank and beaut}'- of the city. The carriages in this fin< climate are all open, and the ladies were in full dress. As we entered the Toledo, the cavalcade came to a halt, ane with hats off and handkerchiefs flying in every directioi about them, the young new-married queen of Naples rode up the middle of the street, preceded and followed by out- riders in the gayest livery. She has been married about a month ; is but seventeen, and is acknowledged to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. The description I had heard of her, though very extravagant, had hardly THE BAY OF NAPLES, 31 done her justice. She is a little above the middle height, with a fine lift to her head and neck, and a countenance only less modest and maidenly than noble. LETTER VIIL NAPLES. VISIT TO HERCULANEUM A^ D POMPEII. February, 1835. I have passed my first day in Naples in wandering about, without any definite object. I have walked around its famous bay ; looked at the lazzaroni ; watched the smoke of Vesuvius ; traversed the square where the young Con- radinewas beheaded, and Masaniello commenced his revolt; mounted to the castle of St. Elmo, and dined on macaroni in a trattoria, where the Italian I had learned in Tuscany was of little more use to me than Greek. The bay surprised me most. It is a collection of beauties, which seems more a miracle than an accident of nature. It is a deep crescent of sixteen miles across, and a little more in length, between the points of which lies a chain of low mountains, called the island of Capri, looking from the shore like a vast heap of clouds brooding at sea. In the bosom of the crescent lies Naples. Its palaces and principal buildings cluster around the base of an abrupt hill crowned by the castle of St. Elmo, and its half million of inhabitants have stretched their dwellings over the plain towards Vesu- vius, and back upon Posilippo, bordering the curve of the shore on the right and left with a broad white band of city and village for twelve or fourteen miles. Back from this, on the southern side, a very gradual ascent brings your eye to the base of Vesuvius, which rises from the plain in a sharp cone, broken in at the top; its black and lava-streaked sides descending with the evenness of a sand-hill, on one side to the disinterred city of Pompeii, and on the other to the royal palace of Portici, built over the yet unexplored Herculaneum. In the centre of the crescent of the shore, 32 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. projecting into the sea by a bridge of two or three hundred feet in length, stands a small castle, built upon a rock, on one side of which lies the mole with its shipping. The other, side is bordered, close to the beach, with the gardens of the royal villa, a magnificent promenade of a mile, ornamented with fancy temples and statuary, on the smooth alleys of which may be met, at certain hours, all that is brilliant and gay in Naples. Farther on, toward the northern horn of the bay, lies the Mount of Posilippo, the ancient coast of Baise, Cape Misenum, and the mountain isles of Procida and Ischia ; the last of which still preserves the costumes of Greece, from which it was colonized, centuries ago. The bay itself is as blue as the sky, scarcely ruffled all day with the wind, and covered by countless boats fishing or creeping on with their picturesque lattine sails just filled ; while the atmosphere over sea, city, and mountain, is of a clearness and brilliancy which is inconceivable in other countries. The superiority of the sky and climate of Italy is no fable in any part of this delicious land ; but in Naples, if the day I have spent here is a fair specimen, it is matchless even for Italy, There is something like a fine blue veil of a most dazzling transparency over the mountains around, but above and between there seems nothing but viewless space — nothing like air that a bird could rise upon. The eye gets intoxicated almost with gazing on it. ****** We have just returned from our first excursion to Pompeii. It lies on the southern side of the bay, just below the vol- cano which overwhelmed it, about twelve miles from Naples. The road lay along the shore, and is lined with villages which are only separated by name. The first is Portici, where the king has a summer palace, through the court of which the road passes. It is built over Herculaneum ; and the danger of undermining it has stopped the excavations of probably the richest city buried by Vesuvius. We stopped at a little gate in the midst of the village, and taking a guide and two torches, descended to the only part of it now visible, by near a hundred steps. We found ourselves at the back of an amphitheatre. W T e entered the narrow passage, and the guide pointed to several of the upper seats for the spectators which had been partially dug out. They were POMPEII. 33 xied with marble, as the whole amphitheatre appears to have been. To realize the effect of these ruins, it is to be remembered that they are imbedded in solid lava, like rock, near a hundred feet deep, and that a city, which is itself ancient, is built above them. The carriage in which we came stood high over our heads, in a time-worn street, and ages had passed, and many generations of men had lived and died over a splendid city, whose very name had been for- gotten ! It was discovered in sinking a well, which struck the door of the amphitheatre. The guide took us through several other long passages dug across and around it, show- ing us the orchestra, the stage, the numerous entrances, and the bases of several statues which are taken to the museum at Naples. This is the only part of the excavation that remains open, the others having again been filled with rubbish. The noise of the carriages overhead in the street of Portici was like' deafening thunder. In a hurry to get to Pompeii, which is much more inter- esting, we ascended to daylight, and drove on. Coasting along the curve of the bay, with only a succession of villas and gardens between us and the beach, we soon came to Torre del Greco, a small town which was overwhelmed by an eruption thirty-nine years ago. Vesuvius here rises gradually on the left, the crater being at a distance of five miles. The road crossed the bed of dry lava, which extends to the sea in a broad black mass of cinders, giving the coun- try the most desolate aspect. The town is rebuilt just beyond the ashes, and the streets are crowded with the thoughtless inhabitants, who buy and sell, and lounge in the sun, with no more remembrance or fear of the volcano than the people of a city in America. Another half hour brought us to a long, high bank of earth and ashes, thrown out from the excavations ; and passing on, we stopped at the gate of Pompeii. A guide met us, and we entered. We found ourselves in the ruins of a public square, surrounded with small low columns of red marble. On the right were several small prisons, in one of which was found the skeleton of a man with its feet in iron stocks. The cell was very small, and the poor fellow must have been suffocated without even a hope of escape. The columns just in front were scratched with 34 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. ancient names, possibly those of the guard stationed at the door of the prison. This square is surrounded with shops, in which were found the relics and riches of tradesmen, consisting of an immense variety. In one of the buildings was found the skeleton of a new-born child, and in one part of the square the skeletons of sixty men, supposed 'to be soldiers, who, in the severity of Roman discipline, dared not fly, and perished at their post. There were several advertisements of gladiators on the pillars ; and it appears that at the time of the eruption the inhabitants of Pompeii were principally assembled in the great amphitheatre at a show. We left the square, and, visiting several small private houses near it, passed into a street with a slight ascent, the pavement of which was worn deep with carriage-wheels. It appeared to have led from the upper part of the city di- rectly to the sea, and in rainy weather must have been quite a channel for water, as hi^h stones at small distances were placed across the street, leaving open places between for the carriage- wheels. I think there is a contrivance of the same kind in one of the streets of Baltimore. We mounted thence to higher ground, the part of the city not excavated. A peasant's hut and a large vineyard stand high above the ruins, and from the door the whole city and neighbourhood are seen to advantage. The effect of the scene is strange beyond description. Columns, painted walls, wheel-worn streets, amphitheatres, palaces, all as lonely and deserted as the grave, stand around you, and behind is a poor cottage and a vineyard of fresh earth just putting forth its buds — and beyond, the broad blue, familiar bay, covered with steam-boats and sails, and populous modern Naples in the distance — a scene as strangely mingled, perhaps, as any to be found in the world. We looked around for a while, and then walked on through the vineyard to the amphitheatre which lies beyond, near the other gate of the city. It is a gigantic ruin, completely excavated, and capable of containing twenty thousand spec- tators. The form is oval and the architecture particularly fine. Besides the many vomitories or passages for ingress and egress, there are three smaller allies, one used as the entrance for wild beasts, one for the gladiators, and the TEMPLE OF ISIS. 35 third as that by which the dead were taken away. The skeletons of eight lions and a man, supposed to be their keeper, were found in one of the dens beneath, and those of five other persons near the different doors. It is pre- sumed that the greater proportion of the inhabitants of Pompeii must have escaped by sea, as the eruption occurred while they were nearly all assembled on this spot, and tkese few skeletons only have been found.* We returned through the vineyard, and, stopping at the cottage, called for some of the wine of the last vintage, (delicious, like all those in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius,) and, producing our basket of provisions, made a most agree- able dinner. Two parties of English passed while we were sitting at our out-of-doors table. Our attendant was an uncommonly pretty girl of sixteen, born on the spot and famous just now as the object of a young English noble- man's particular admiration. She is a fine, dark-eyed creature, but certainly no prettier than every fifth peasant girl in Italy. Having finished our picturesque meal, we went down into the ancient streets once more, and arrived at the small temple of Isis, a building in excellent preservation. On the altar stood, when it was excavated, a small statue of Isis, of exquisite workmanship, (now in the museum, to which all the curiosities of the place are carried,) and behind this we were show r n the secret penetralia, where the priests were concealed who uttered the oracles supposed to be pro- nounced by the goddess. The access was by a small secret flight of stairs, communicating with the apartments of the priests in the rear. The largest of these apartments was probably the refectory, and here was found a human ske- leton near a table, upon which lay dinner utensils, chicken bones, bones of fishes, bread and wine, and a faded garland of flowers. In the kitchen, which we next visited, were found cooking utensils, remains of food, and the skeleton of a man leaning against the wall with an axe in his hana, and near him a considerable hole, which he had evidently cut to make his escape when the door was stopped by cin- ders. The skeleton of one of the priests was found pros- * The number of skeletons hitherto disinterred in Pompeii and its suburbs is •three hundred — Stark. D 2 86 PENCILLING^ BY THE WAY trate near the temple, and in his hand three hundred and sixty coins of silver, forty-two of bronze, and eight of gold* wrapped strongly in a cloth. He had probably stopped before his flight to load himself with the treasures of the temple, and was overtaken by the shower of cinders, and suffocated. The skeletons of one or two were found upon beds, supposed to have been smothered while asleep or ill. The temple is beautifully paved with mosaic, (as indeed are all the better private houses and public buildings of Pompeii,) and the open inner court is bordered with a quadrilateral portico. The building is of the Roman Doric order. We passed next across a small street to the tragic theatre, a large handsome building, where the seats for the vestals, consuls, and other places of honour, are well preserved, and thence up the hill to the temple of Hercules, which must have been a noble edifice, commanding a superb view of the sea. The next object was the triangular forum, an open space surrounded with three porticos, supported by a hundred Doric columns. Here were found several skeletons, one of which was that of a man who had loaded himself with plunder. Gold and silver coins, cups, rings, spoons, buckles, and other things, were found under him. Near here, under the ruins of a wall, were discovered skeletons of a man and a woman, and on the arms of the latter two beautiful bracelets of gold. We entered from this a broad street, lined with shops, against the walls of which were paintings in fresco and inscriptions in deep-red paint, representing the occupations and recording the names of the occupants. In one of them was found a piece of salt-fish, smelling strongly after seven- teen centuries ! In a small lane leading from this street, the guide led us to a shop decorated with pictures of fish of various kinds and furnished with a stove, marble dressers, and earthen jars, supposed to have belonged to a vender of fish and olives. A little further on was a baker's shop, with a well- used oven, in which was found a batch of bread burnt to a cinder. Near this was the house of a midwife. In it were found several instruments of a simple and excel- lent construction, unknown to the moderns, — a forceps r SUBURBS. 37 remains of medicines in a wooden box, and various pestles and mortars. The walls were ornamented with frescos of the Graces, Venus and Adonis, and similar subjects. The Temple of the Pantheon is a magnificent ruin, and must have been one of the choicest in Pompeii. Its walls are decorated with exquisite paintings in fresco, arabesques, mosaics, &c, and its court is one hundred and eighty feet long, and two hundred and thirty broad, and contains an altar, around which are twelve pedestals for statues of the twelve principal deities of the ancients. Gutters of marble are placed at the base of the triclinium, to carry away the blood of the victims. A thousand coins of bronze, and forty or fifty of silver, were found near the sanctuary. We passed on to the Curia, a semicircular building, for the discussion of matters of religion by the magistrates ; a temple of Romulus; the remains of a temple of Janus; a splendid building called the ckalcidicum, constructed by the priestess Eumachea and her son, and dedicated as a temple of Concord, and came at last, by a regular ascent, into a large and spacious square, called the forum civile. This part of the city of Pompeii must have been extremely im- posing. Porticos, supported by noble columns, encompassed its vast area ; the pedestals of colossal statues, erected to distinguished citizens, are placed at the corners ; ,at the northern extremity rose a stately temple of Jupiter ; on the right was another temple to Venus ; beyond, a large public edifice, the use of which is not known ; across the narrow street which bounds it, stood the Basilica, an im- mense building, which served as a court of justice and an exchange. We passed out at the gate of the city and stopped at a sentry-box, in which was found a skeleton in full armour — a soldier who had died at his post ! From hence formerly the road descended directly to the sea, and for some distance was lined on either side with the magnificent tombs of the Pompeians. Among them was that of the vestal virgins, left unfinished when the city was destroyed ; a very nandsome tomb, in which was found the skeleton of a woman, (who had probably attempted to rob before her flight,) with a lamp in one hand and jewels in the other, and a very handsome square monument, with a beautiful 38 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. relievo on one of the slabs, representing (as emblematic of death) a ship furling her sails on coming into port. Near on 8 of the large family sepulchres stands a small semicir- cular room, intended for the funeral feast after a burial ; and here were found the remains of three men around 'a table, scattered with relics of a meal. They were over- whelmed ere their feast was concluded over the dead ! The principal inn of Pompeii was just inside the gate, We went over the ruins of it. The skeleton of an ass was found chained to a ring in the stable, and the tire of a wheel lay in the court-yard. Chequers are painted on the side of the door, as a sign. Below the tombs stands the suburban villa of Diomed, one of the most sumptuous edifices of Pompeii. Here was found every thing that the age could furnish for the dwell- ing of a man of wealth. Statues, frescos, jewels, wine, household utensils of every description, skeletons of servants and dogs, and every kind of elegant furniture. The family was large, and in the first moment of terror they all re- treated to a wine vault under the villa, where their skele- tons (eighteen grown persons and two children) were found seventeen centuries after ! There was really something startling in walking through the deserted rooms of this beautiful villa — more than one feels elsewhere in Pompeii, for it is more like the elegance and taste of our own day ; and with the brightness of the preserved walls, and the certainty with which the use of each room is ascertained, it seems as if the living inhabitant would step from some corner and welcome you. The figures on the walls are as fresh as if done yesterday. The baths look as if they might scarce be dry from use. It seems incredible that the whole Christian age has elapsed since this was a human dwelling — occupied by its last family 'while our Saviour was walking the earth ! It would be tedious to enumerate all the curious places to which the guide led us in this extraordinary city. On our return through the streets, among the objects of interest was the house of Sallust the historian. I did not think, when reading his beautiful Latin at school, that I should ever sit down in his parlour. Sallust was rich, and his house is uncommonly handsome. Here is his chamber, WINE-VAULTS OF DIOMED. 39 his inner court, his kitchen, his garden, his dining-room, his guest-chamber, all perfectly distinguishable by the sym- bolical frescos on the walls. In the court was a fountain, of pretty construction, and opposite, in the rear, was a? flower-garden, containing arrangements for dining in open air in summer. The skeleton of a female, (supposed to be the wife of the historian,) and three servants, known by their different ornaments, were found near the door of the street. We passed a druggist's shop and a cook-shop, and entered, treading on a beautiful mosaic floor, the " house of the dra- matic poet," so named from the character of the paintings with which it is ornamented throughout. The frescos found here are the finest ancient paintings in the world ; and from some peculiarity in the rings upon the fingers of the female figures, they are supposed to be family portraits. With assistance like this, how easily the imagination re- peoples these deserted dwellings ! A heavy shower drove us to the shelter of the wine- vaults of Diomed, as we were about stepping into our carriage to return to Naples. We spent the time in explor- ing, and found some thirty or forty earthen jars still half- buried in the ashes which drifted through the loop-holes of the cellar. In another half hour the black cloud had passed away over Vesuvius, and the sun set behind Posilippo in a flood of splendour. We were at home soon after dark, having had our fill of astonishment for once. I have seen nothing in my life so remarkable as this disentombed city. I have passed over, in the description, many things which were well worth noting, but it would have grown into a mere catalogue else. It is a privilege to realise these things, which could not be bought too dearly, and they cannot be realised but by the eye. Description conveys but a poor shadow of them to the fancy. 40 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. LETTER IX. /.CCOUNT OF VESUVIUS THE HERMITAGE — THE FAMOUS LA- GRIMA CHItlSTI DIFFICULTIES OF THE PATH — CURIOUS AP- PEARANCE OF THE OLD CRATER — ODD ASSEMBLAGE OF TRAVEL- LERS THE NEW CRATER SPLENDID PROSPECT MR. M , AUTHOR OF THE * PURSUITS OF LITERATURE * THF ARCH- , BISHOP OF TARENTO. Mounted upon asses much smaller than their riders, and with each a bare-legged driver behind, we commenced the ascent of Vesuvius. It was a troublesome path, worn through the rough scoria of old eruptions, and after two hours' toiling, we were glad to dismount at " the hermit- age/' Here lives a capuchin friar on a prominent rib in the side of the volcano, the red-hot lava dividing above his dwelling every year or two, and coursing away to the val- ley in two rivers of fire on either side of him. He has been there twelve years, and supports himself and probably half his brotherhood at the monastery by selling lagrima Christ i to strangers. It is a small white building with a little grass and a few trees about it, and looks like an island in the black waste of cinders and lava. A shout from the guide was answered by the opening of a small window above, and the shaven crown of the old friar was thrust forth with a welcome and a request, that we would mount the stairs to the parlour. He received us at the top, and gave us chairs aiound a plain board table, upon which he set several bottles of the far-famed wine of Vesuvius. One drinks it, and blesses the volcano that warmed the roots of the grape. It is a ripe, rich, full-bodied liquor, which i€ ascends me into the brain" sooner than any Continental wine I have tasted. I never drank any thing more delicious. We re-mounted our asses ana rode on. much more in- different than before to the roughness of the path. It strikes one like the road to the infernal regions ; — no grass, not a shrub, nothing but a wide mountain of cinders, black and rugged, diversified only by the deeper die of the newer streaks of lava. The eye wearied of gazing on it. We VESUVIUS. 41 mounted thus for an hour or more, arriving at last at the base of a lofty cone whose sides were but slopes of deep ashes. We left our donkeys here in company with those of a large party that had preceded us, and made preparations to ascend on foot. The drivers unlaced their sashes, and, passing them round the waists of the ladies, took the ends over their shoulders, and proceeded. Harder work could scarce be conceived. The feet had no hold, sinking knee deep at every step, and we slipped back so much, that our progress was almost imperceptible. The ladies were soon tired out, although more than half dragged up by the guides. At every few steps there was a general cry for a halt, and we lay down in the warm ashes, quite breathless and discouraged. In something more than an hour from the hermitage we reached the edge .of the old crater. The scene here was very curious. A hollow, perhaps a mile round, composed entirely of scoria (like the cinders under a blacksmith's window), contained in its centre the sharp new cone of the last eruption. Around, in various directions, sat some thirty groups of travellers, with each their six or seven Italian guides, refreshing themselves with a lunch after the fatigues of the ascent. They were English, Germans, French, Russians, and Italians, each speaking their own language; and the largest party, oddly enough, was from the United States. As 1 was myself travelling with foreigners, and found my countrymen on Vesuvius unexpectedly, the mix- ture of nations appeared still more extraordinary. The combined heat of the sun and the volcano beneath us had compelled the Italians to throw off half their dress, and they sat, or stood leaning on their long pikes, with their brown faces and dark eyes glowing with heat, as fine models of ruffians as ever startled a traveller in this country of bandits. Eight or ten of them were grouped around a crack in the crater, roasting apples and toasting bread. There were several of these cracks winding about in dif- ferent directions, of which 1 could barely endure the heat, holding my hand at the top. A stick thrust in a foot or more, was burnt black in a moment. With another bottle or two of " lagrima Christi " and a roasted apple, our courage was renewed, and we picked our 4Ct PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. way across the old crater, sometimes lost in the smoke which steamed up through the cracks, and here and there treading on beautiful beds of crystals of sulphur. The ascent of the new cone was shorter but very difficult. The ashes were so new and light, that it was like a steep sand- bank, giving discouragingly at the least pressure, and 1 sink- ing till the next step was taken. The steams of sulphur, as w r e approached the summit, were all but intolerable. The ladies coughed, the guides sneezed and called on the Madonna, and I never was more relieved than in catching the first clear draught of wind on the top of the mountain. Here we all stood at last crowded together on the nar- row edge of a crater formed within the year, and liable every moment to be overwhelmed with burning lava. There was scarce room to stand, and the hot ashes burnt our feet as they sunk into it. The females of each party sunk to the ground, and the common danger and toil breaking down the usual stiff barrier of silence between strangers, the conversation became general, and the hour on the crater's edge passed very agreeably. A strong lad could barely throw a stone from one side to the other of the new crater. It was about forty feet deep, perhaps more, and one crust of sulphur lined the whole. It was half the time obscured in smoke, which poured in volumes from the broad cracks with which it was divided in every direction ; and occasionally an eddy of wind was caught in the vast bowl, and for a minute its bright yellow surface was perfectly clear. There had not been an eruption for four or five months, and the abyss which is for years together a pit of fire and boiling lava, has had time to harden over ; and were it not for the smoking seams, one would scarce suspect the existence of the tremendous vol- cano slumbering beneath. After we had been on the summit a few minutes, an English clergyman of my acquaintance, to our surprise, emerged from the smoke. He had been to the bottom for specimens of sulphur for his cabinet. Contrary to the advice of the guide, I profitted by his experience, and dis- appearing in the flying clouds, reached the lowest depth of the crater with some difficulties of foot-hold and breath. The cracks w T hich I crossed twice, were so brittle as to VESUVIUS. 43 break like the upper ice of a twice frozen pond beneath my feet, and the stench of the exhaling gases was nauseating beyond all the sulphuretted hydrogen I have ever known- The sensation was painfully suffocating from the moment I entered the crater. I broke as many bits of the bright golden crystals from the crust as my confusion and failing strength would allow, and then remounted, feeling my way up through the smoke to the summit. I can compare standing on the top of Vesuvius and look- ing down upon the bay and city of Naples, to nothing but mounting a peak in the infernal regions overlooking para- dise. The larger crater encircles you entirely for a mile, cutting off the view of the sides of the mountain; and from the elevation of the new cone, you look over the rising edge of this black field of smoke and cinders, and drop the eye at once upon Naples, lying asleep in the sun, with its lazy sails upon the water, and the green hills enclosing it clad in the indescribable beauty of an Italian atmosphere. Be- yond all comparison, by the testimony of every writer and traveller, the most beautiful scene in the world : — the love- liest water and the brightest land lay spread out before us. With the stench of hot sulphur in our nostrils, ankle deep in black ashes, and a waste of smouldering cinders in every direction around us, the enjoyment of the view certainly did not want for the heightening of contrast. We made our descent by jumps through the sliding ashes, frequently tumbling over each other, and retracing in five minutes the toil of an hour. Our donkeys stood tethered together on the herbless field of cinders, and we were soon in the clumsy saddles ; and with a call at the hermitage, and a parting draught of wine with the friar, we reached our carriages at the little village of Resina in safety. The feet of the whole troop were in a wretched condition. The ladies had worn shoes, or slight boots, which were cut to* pieces of course; and one very fine-looking girl, the daughter of an elderly French gentleman, had with the usual impro- vidence of her nation, started in satin slippers. She was probably lamed for a month, as she insisted on persevering, and wrapped her feet in handkerchiefs to return. We rode along the curve of the bay, by one of these matchless sunsets of Italy, and arrived at Naples at dark. 44 PENCILLING^! BY THE WAY. I have had the pleasure lately of making the acquaintance of Mr. M , the distinguished author of the ' Pursuits of Literature/ and the translator of Spenser and other English poets into Italian. About twenty years ago, this well, known scholar came to Italy, on a desperate experiment of health. Finding himself better, almost against hope, he has remained from year to year in Naples, in love with the climate and the language, until, at this day, he belongs less to the English than the Italian literature, having written various original poems in Italian, and translated into Italian verse to the wonder and admiration of the scholars of the country. I found him this morning at his lodgings, in an old palace on the Pizzofalcone, buried in books as usual, ^tnd good-humoured enough to give an hour to a young man, who had no claim on him beyond the ordinary interest in a distinguished scholar. He talked a great deal of America naturally, and expressed a very strong friendship for Mr. Everett, whom he had met on his travels, request- ing me at the same time to take him a set of his works as a remembrance. Mr. M — — . is a small man, of perhaps sixty years, perfectly bald, and a little inclined to corpu- lency. His head is ample, and would make a fine picture of a scholar. His voice is hurried and modest, and from long residence in Italy his English is full of Italian idioms. He spoke with rapture of Da Ponte, calling me back as I shut the door to ask for him. It seemed to give him un- common pleasure that we appreciated and valued him in America. I have looked over, this evening, a small volume, which he was kind enough to give me. It is entitled c Lyric Poetry, by T. I. M : a new edition, printed privately/ It is dated 1832, and the poems were probably all written within the last two years. The shortest extract I can make is a ic Sonnet to the Memory of Gray," which strikes me as ery beautiful. ** Lord of the various lyre ' devout we turn Our pilgrim steps to thy supreme abode, And tread with awe the solitary road To grace with votive wreaths thy hallow'd urn. Yet as we wander through this dark sojourn, No more the strains we hear, that all abroad Thy fancy wafted, as the inspiring God Prompted • the thoughts that breathe, the words that bum/ AKCHU13UOP OF TARENTO 45» " But hark ! a voice, in solemn accents clear, Bursts from heaven's vault that glows with temperate fire : Cease, mortal, cease to drop the fruitless tear, Mute though the raptures of his full-strung lyre, "Sen his own warblings, lessened on his ear, Lost in seraphic harmony expire* 1 A friend, whom I met at the same house, took me to see * the Aixhfeisl^p^ojlTarejito yesterday. This venerable man, „it is well known, lost his gown for his participation in the 'cause of the Carbonari (the revolutionary conspirators of Italy). He has always played a conspicuous part in the ^ politics of his time, and now, at the age of ninety, unlike -the usual fate of meddlers in troubled waters, he is a healthy, happy, venerated old man, surrounded in his palace with all that luxury can give him. The lady who presented me- 'took the privilege of intimate friendship to call at an un- usual hour, and we found the old churchman in his slippers,, over his breakfast, with two immense tortoise-shell cats,, upon stools, watching his hand for bits of bread, and pur- ring most affectionately. He looks like one of Titian's- pictures. His face is a wreck of commanding features, and his eye seems less to have lost its fire, than to slumber in its deep socket. His hair is snowy white — his forehead of prodigious breadth and height — and his skin has that calm, settled, and yet healthy paleness, which carries with it the history of a whole life of temperance and thought. The old man rose from his chair with a smile, and came- forward with a stoop and a feeble step, and took my two hands, as my friend mentioned my name, and looked me in :he face very earnestly. " Your country," said he, in Italian, "has sprung into existence like Minerva, full-grown ind armed. We look for the result." He went on with some comments upon the dangers of republics, and then sent me to look at a portrait of Queen Giovanna, of Naples, oy Leonardo da Vinci, while he sat down to talk with the- ady who brought me. His secretary accompanied me as a ucerone. Five or six rooms, communicating with each )ther, were filled with choice pictures, every one a gift from jome distinguished individual. The present King of France- lad sent him his portrait; Queen Adelaide had sent a plendid set of Sevres china, with the portraits of her 40* PENCILLING^ BY TKE WAY. miniature and that of Leopold ; the King and Queen of Naples had half furnished his house ; and so the catalogue went on. It seemed as if the whole Continent had united to honour the old man. While I was looking at a curious mosaic portrait of a cat, presented to him on the'death of the original, by some prince whose name I have forgotten, lie came to us, and said he had just learned that my pur- suits were literary, and would present me with his own last work. He opened the drawer of a small bureau and produced a manuscript of some ten pages, written in a feeble hand. " This," said he, "is an enumeration from memory of what I have not seen for many years — the classic spots about our beautiful city of Naples, and their associa- tions. I have written it in the last month to while away the time, and call up again the pleasure I have received many times in my life in visiting them." I put the curious document in my bosom with many thanks, and we kissed the hand of the good old priest and left him. We found liis carriage, with three or four servants in handsome livery, ^raiting for him in the court below. We had intruded a little on the hour for his morning ride. I found his account of the environs merely a simple cata- logue, with here and there a classic quotation from a Greek or Latin author, referring to them. I keep the MS. as a curious memento of one of the noblest relics I have seen of an age gone by. LETTER X. NEAPOLITAN RACES BRILLIANT SHOW OF EQUIPAGES THE KING AND HIS BROTHER RANK AND CHARACTER OF THE JOCKIES DESCRIPTION OF THE RACES THE PUBLIC BURIAL- CJROUND OF NAPLES — THE LAZZARONI FREQUENCY OF ROB- BERIES AND ASSASSINATIONS THE MUSEUM OF NAPLES ANCIENT RELICS FROM POMPEII THE ANTIQUE CHAIR OF SALLUST THE VILLA OF CICERO THE BALBI FAMILY — GAL- LERY OF DIANS, CUPIDS, JOVES, MERCURIES, AND APOLLOS, STATUE OF ARIST1DES, &C. March, 1835. I have been all day at " the races." The King of Naples, who has a great admiration for every thing English, has NEAPOLITAN RACES. 47 abandoned the Italian custom of running horses without riders through the crowded street, and has laid out a mag- nificent course on the summit of a broad hill overlooking the city on the east. Here he astonishes his subjects with ridden races ; and it was to see one of the best of the season that the whole fashionable world of Naples poured out to the campo this morning. The show of equipages was very brilliant : the liveries of the various ambassadors, and the court and nobles of the kingdom, showing on the bright green sward to great effect. I never saw a more even piece of turf, and it was fresh in the just-born vege- tation of spring. The carriages were drawn up in two lines nearly half round the course, and for an hour or two before the races the King and his brother, Prince Carlo, rode up and down between with the royal suite, splendidly mounted, the monarch himself upon a fiery grey blood horse, of uncommon power and beauty* The director was an Arragonese nobleman, cousin to the King, and as perfect a specimen of the Spanish cavalier as ever figured in the pages of romance. He was mounted on a Turkish horse, snow-white, and the finest animal I ever saw ; and he car- ried all eyes with him. as he dashed up and down, like a meteor. I like to see a fine specimen of a man, as I do a fine picture or an excellent horse, and I think I never saw a prettier spectacle of its kind, than this wild steed from the Balkan and his handsome rider. The King is tall, very r fat, but very erect ; of a light complexion,, and a good horseman, riding always in the English style, trotting and rising in the stirrup. Prince Charles is smaller and less kingly in his appearance, dresses carelessly and ill, and is surrounded always in public with half a dozen young Englishmen. The horses were led up and down — a delicate, fine-limbed sorrel mare, and a dark chestnut horse, compact and wiry — both English. The bets were arranged, the riders weighed, and, at the beat of a bell, off they went like arrows. It was a stirrring sight ! The course was about a mile round, and marked with red flags at short distances; and as the two flying creatures described the bright green circle, spread out like greyhounds, and running with an ease and grace that seemed entirely without effort, the King 48 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY, flashed across the field followed by the whole court ; the Turkish steed of Don Giovanni restrained with difficulty in the rear, and leaping high in the air at every bound—. his nostrils expanded, and his head thrown up with the peculiar action of his race, while his snow-white mane and tail flew with every hair free to the wind. I had, myself, a small bet upon the sorrel. It was nothing — a pair of gloves, with a lady — but as the horses came round, the sorrel a whip's length a-head, and both shot by like the wind, scarce touching the earth apparently, and so even in their speed that the rider in blue might have kept his hand on the other's back, the excitement became breathless. Away they went again, past the starting-post, pattering, pattering with their slender hoofs, the sorrel still keeping her ground, and a thousand bright lips wishing the grace- ful creature success. Half way round the blue jacket began to whip. The sorrel still held her way, and I felt my gloves to be beyond peril. The royal cortege within the ring spurred across at the top of their speed to the starting- post. The horses came on — their nostrils open and panting, bounding upon the way with the same measured leaps a little longer and more eager than before; the rider of the sorrel leaning over the neck of his horse with a loose rein, and his whip hanging untouched from his wrist. Twenty leaps more ! With every one the rider of the chestnut gave the fine animal a blow\- The sorrel sprang desperately on, every nerve strained to the jump ; but at the instant that they passed the carriage in which I stood, the chestnut was developing his wiry frame in tremendous leaps, and had already gained on his opponent the length of his head. They were lost in the crowd that broke instantly into the course behind them, and in a moment after, a small red flag was waved from the stand. My favourite had lost ! The next race was ridden by a young Scottish nobleman, and the son of the former French ambassador, upon the horses with which they came to the ground. It was a match made upon the spot. The Frenchman was so pal- pably better mounted, that there was a general laugh when the ground was cleared and the two gentlemen spurred up and down to show themselves as antagonists. The Parisian Limself stuffed his white handkerchief in his bosom, and THE RACE. 49 jammed down his hat upon his head with a confident laugh ; and among the ladies there was scarce a bet upon the grave Scotchman, who borrowed a stout whip, and rode his bony animal between the lines with a hard rein and his feet set firmly in the stirrups. The Frenchman gene- rously gave him every advantage, beginning with the inside of the ring. The bell struck, and the Scotchman drove his spurs into his horse's flanks and started away, laying on with his whip most industriously. His opponent followed, riding very gracefully, but apparently quite sure that he could overtake him at any moment, and content for the first round with merely showing himself off to the best advantage. Bound came the Scot, twenty leaps a-head, whipping unmercifully still ; the blood of his hired hack completely up, and himself as red in the face as an alder- man, and with his eye fixed only on the road. The long- tailed bay of the Frenchman came after, in handsome style, his rider sitting complacently upright, and gathering up his reins for the first time to put his horse to his speed. The Scotchman flogged on. The Frenchman had disdained to take a whip, but he drove his heels hard into his horse's sides soon after leaving the post, and leaned forward quite in earnest. The horses did remarkably well, both showing much more bottom than was expected. On they came, the latter gaining a little and working very hard. The other had lost his hat, and his red hair streamed back from his redder face; but flogging and spurring, with his teeth shut and his eyes steadily fixed on the road, he kept the most of his ground and rode away. They passed me a horse's length apart, and the Scotchman's whip, flying to the last, disappeared beyond me. He won the race by a couple of good leaps at least. The King was very much amused, and rode off laughing heartily, and the discomfited Frenchman came back to his party with a very ill-concealed dissatisfaction. A very amusing race followed between two midshipmen from an English corvette lying in the bay, and then the long lines of splendid equipages wheeled into train and dashed off the ground. The road, after leaving the campo, runs along the edge of the range of hills enclosing the city; and just below, within a high white wall, lies the public E 50 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. burial-place of Naples. I had read so many harrowing de- scriptions of this spot, that my curiosity rose as we drove along in sight of it, and, requesting my friends to set me down, I joined an American of my acquaintance, and we started to visit it together. An old man opened the iron door, and we entered a clean, spacious, and well-paved area, with long rows of iron rings in the heavy slabs of the pavement. Without asking a« question, the old man walked across to the further corner, where stood a moveable lever, and, fastening the chain into the fixture, raised the massive stone cover of a pit. He requested us to stand back for a few minutes to give the effluvia time to escape, and then, sheltering our eyes with our hats, we looked in. You have read, of course, that there are three hundred and sixty-five pits in this place, one of which is opened every day for the dead of the city. They are thrown in without shroud or coffin, and the pit is sealed up at night for a year. They are thirty or forty feet deep, and each would contain perhaps two hundred bodies. It was some time before we could distinguish any thing in the darkness of the abyss. Fixing my eyes on one spot, however, the outlines of a body became defined gradually, and in a few minutes, sheltering my eyes completely from the sun above, I could see all the horrors of the scene but too distinctly. Eight corpses, all of grown persons, lay in a confused heap together, as they had been thrown in one after another in the course of the day. The last was a powerfully made, grey old man, who had fallen flat on his back, with his right hand lying across and half covering the face of a woman. By his full limbs and chest, and the darker colour of his legs below the knee, he was probably one of the lazzaroni, and had met with a sudden death. His right heel lay on the forehead of a young man, ema- ciated to the last degree, his chest thrown up as he lay, and his ribs showing like a skeleton covered with a skin. The close black curls of the latter, as his head rested on another body, were in such strong relief that I could have counted them. Off to the right, quite distinct from the heap, lay, in a beautiful attitude, a girl, as well as I could judge, of not more than nineteen or twenty. She had fallen on the CAMPO SANTO. 51 pile and rolled or slid away. Her hair was very long and covered her left shoulder and bosom ; her arm was across her body ; and if her mother had laid her down to sleep^ she could not have disposed her limbs more decently. Th& head had fallen a little way to the right, and the feet, which were small, even for a lady, were pressed one against the other, as if she were about turning on her side. The sexton said that a young man had come with the body, and was very ill for some time after it was thrown in. We asked him if respectable people were brought here. " Yes," he said, " many. None but the rich would go to the expense of a separate grave for their relations. People were often brought in handsome grave-clothes, but they were always stripped before they were left. The shroud, whenever there was one, was the perquisite of the undertakers/' And thus are flung into this noisome pit, like beasts, the greater part of the inhabitants- of this vast city — the young and the old, the vicious and the virtuous together, without the decency even of a rag to keep up the distinctions of life ! Can human beings thus be thrown away ! — men like ourselves — women, children, like our sisters and brothers ! I never was so humiliated in my life as by this horrid spectacle. I did not think a man — a felon even, or a leper — what you will, that is guilty or debased — I did not think any- thing that had been human could be so recklessly aban- doned. Pah ! it makes one sick at heart ! God grant I may never die at Naples ! While we were recovering from our disgust, the old man lifted the stone from the pit destined to receive the dead of the following day. We looked in. The bottom was strewn with bones, already fleshless and dry. He wished us to see the dead of several previous days, but my stomach was already tried to its utmost. We paid our gratuity, and hurried away. A few steps from the gate, we met a man bearing a coffin on his head. Seeing that we came from the cemetery, he asked us if we wished to look into it. He set it down, and the lid opening with a hinge, we were horror-struck with the sight of seven dead infants ! The youngest was at least three months old ; the eldest perhaps a year ; and they lay heaped together like so many puppies, one or two of them spotted with disease, and all wasted to £ 2 452 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. T)aby- skeletons. While we were looking at them, six or seven noisy children ran out from a small house at the road-side and surrounded the coffin. One was a fine girl of twelve years of age, and, instead of being at all shocked at the sight, she lifted the whitest of the dead things,, and looked at its face very earnestly, loading it with all the tenderest diminutives of the language. The others were busy in pointing to those they thought had been prettiest, and none of them betrayed fear or disgust. In answer to a question of my friend about the marks of disease, the man rudely pulled out one by the foot that lay below the rest, and, holding it up to show the marks upon it, tossed it again carelessly into the coffin. He had brought them from the hospital for infants, and they had died that morn- ing. The coffin was worn with use. He shut down the lid, and, lifting it again upon his head, went on to the cemetery, to empty it like so much offal upon the heap we had seen. I have been struck repeatedly with the little value at- tached to human life in Italy. I have seen sometimes these houseless lazzaroni literally dying in the streets, and no one curious enough to look at them. The most dreadful suf- ferings, the most despairing cries, in the open squares, are passed as unnoticed as the howling of a dog. The day before yesterday, a woman fell in the Toledo, in a fit — frothing at the mouth, and livid with pain ; and though the street was so crowded that one could make his way with difficulty, three or four ragged children were the only per- sons even looking at her. ****** I have devoted a week to the Museum at Naples. It is a world ! Any thing like a full description of it would tire even an antiquary. It is one of those things (and there are many in Europe) that fortunately compel travel. You must come abroad to get an idea of it. The first day I buried myself among the curiosities found at Pompeii. After walking through the chambers and streets where they were found, I came to them naturally with an intense interest. I had visited a disentombed city, buried for seventeen centuries — had trodden in their wheel-tracks — had wanderal through their dining-rooms,. RELICS OF POMP.EII. 5St their chambers, their baths, their theatres, their market- places. And here were gathered in one place, their pictures, their statues, their cooking utensils, their orna- ments, the very food as it was found on their tables ! I am puzzled, in looking over my note-book, to know what to mention. The catalogue fills a printed volume. A curious corner in one of the cases was that containing the articles found on the toilet of the wealthiest Pompeian's wife. Here were pots of rouge, ivory pins, necklaces, ear- rings, bracelets, small silver mirrors, combs, ear-pickers, &c. &c. In the next case were two loaves of bread, found in a baker's oven, and stamped with his name. Two large cases of precious gems, cameos, and intaglios of all de- scriptions, stand in the centre of this room, (among which, by the way, the most exquisitely done, are two which one cannot look at without a blush.) Another case is filled with eatables, found upon the tables — eggs, fish-bones, honey-comb, grain, fruits, &c. In the repository for ancient glass are several cinerary urns, in which the ashes of the dead are perfectly preserved ; and numerous small glass lachrymatories, in which the tears of the survivors were deposited in the tombs. The brazen furniture of Pompeii, the lamps particularly, are of the most curious and beautiful models. Trees to which the lamps were suspended like fruit ; vines ; statues holding them in their hands, and numerous other con- trivances, were among them, exceeding far in beauty any similar furniture of our time. It appears that the ancients did not know the use of the fork, as every other article of table-service except this has been found here. To conceive the interest attached to the thousand things in this Museum, one must imagine a modern city — Boston, for example, completely buried by an unexpected and terrific convulsion of nature. Its inhabitants mostly escape, but from various causes leave their city entombed, and in a hundred years the grass grows over it, and its very locality is forgotten. Near two thousand years elapse, and then a peasant, digging in the field, strikes upon some of its ruins, and it is unearthed just as it stands at this moment, with all its utensils, books, pictures, houses, and streets, in untouched preservation. What a subject for speculation ! What food M PENCILLINGS BY THE WAT. for curiosity ! What a living and breathing chapter of history were this ! Far more interesting is Pompeii ; for the age in which it flourished and the characters who trod its streets are among the most remarkable in history. This- brazen lamp, shown to me to-day as a curiosity, was, lit every evening in the time of Christ. The handsome chambers through which I wandered a day or two ago, and from which were brought this antique chair, were the home of 'Sallust, and doubtless had been honoured by the visits of Cicero, (whose villa, half-excavated, is near by) and by all the poets, and scholars, and statesmen of his time. One might speculate endlessly thus ! And it is that which makes these lands of forgotten empires so delightful to the traveller. His mind is fed by the very air. He needs no amusements, no company, no books except the history of the place. The spot is peopled wherever he may stray, and the common necessities of life seem to pluck him from a far-reaching dream, in which he had summoned back receding ages, and was communing, face to face, with philosophers, and poets, and emperors, like a magician before his mirror. Pompeii and Herculaneum seem to me visions. I cannot shake myself and wake to their reality. My mind refuses to go back so far. Seventeen hundred years ! I followed the cicerone on, listening to his astonishing enumeration, and looking at everything as he pointed to it in a kind of stupor. One has but a certain capacity. We may be over-astonished. Still he went on in the same every- day tone, talking as indifferently of this and that surprising antiquity as a pedlar of his two-penny wares. We went from the bronzes to the hall of the papyri — thence to the hall of the frescos, and beautiful they were. Their very number makes them indescribable. The next morning we devoted to the statuary — and of this if I knew where to begin, I should like to say a word or two. First of all comes the Balbi family — father, mother, sons and daughters. He was proconsul of Herculaneum,. and by the excellence of the statues, which are life itself for nature, he and his family were worth the artist's best effort. He is a fine old Roman himself, and his wife is a tall, handsome woman, much better-looking than her HALL OP STATUARY. daughters. The two Misses Balbi are modest-looking girls, and that is all. They were the high-born damsels of Herculaneum, however; and, if human nature has not changed in seventeen centuries, they did not want admirers who compared them to the Venuses who have descended with them to the " Museo Borbonico." The eldest son is on horseback in armour. It is one of the finest equestrian statues in the world. He is a noble youth, of grave and handsome features, and sits the superb animal with the freedom of an Arab and the dignity of a Roman. It is a beautiful thing. If one had visited these Balbis, warm and living, in the time of Augustus, he could scarcely feel more acquainted with them than after having seen their statues as they stand before him here. Come a little farther on ! Bacchus on the shoulders of a faun — a child delighted with a grown up playfellow. I have given the same pleasure to just such another bright "picture in little" of human beauty. It moves one's heart to see it. Pass now a whole gallery of Dians, Cupids, Joves, Mercuries, and Apollos, and come to the presence of Aristides — him whom the Athenians exiled because they were tired of hearing him called ci The Just/' Canova has marked three spots upon the floor where the spectator should place himself to see to the best advantage this re- nowned statue. He stands, wrapped in his toga, with his head a little inclined, as if in reflection, and in his face there is a mixture of firmness and goodness, from which you read his character as clearly as if it were written across his forehead. It was found at Herculaneum, and is, perhaps, the simplest and most expressive statue in the world. 56 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. LETTER XI. BAIJE GROTTO OF PAUSILIPPO — TOMB OF VIRGIL POZZUOLI— RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER SERAPIS — THE LUCRINE LAKE — LAKE AVERNUS, THE TARTARUS OF VIRGIL TEMPE OF PROSERPINE GROTTO OF THE CUMiEAN SIBYL NERO'S . VILLA — CAPE OF MISENUM ROMAN VILLAS RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF VENUS — CENTO CAMERELLE — THE STYGIAN LAKE THE ELSYIAN FIELDS GROTTO DEL CANI VILLA OF LUCULLUS. We made the excursion to Baiae on one of those prema- ture days of March common to Italy. A south wind and a warm sun gave it the feeling of June. The heat was even oppressive as we drove through the city, and the long echoing grotto of Pausilippo, always dim and cool, was peculiarly refreshing. Near the entrance to this curious passage under the mountain we stopped to visit the tomb of Virgil. A ragged boy took us up a steep path to the gate of a vineyard, and winding in among the just budding vines, we came to a small ravine, in the mouth of which, right over the deep cut of the grotto, stands the half-ruined mausoleum which held the bones of the poet. An Eng- lishman stood leaning against the entrance, reading from a pocket copy of the iEneid. He seemed ashamed to be caught with his classic, and put the book in his pocket as I came suddenly upon him, and walked off to the other side whistling an air from the Firata, which is playing just now at San Carlo. We went in, counted the niches for the urns, stood a few minutes to indulge in what recol- lections we could summon, and then mounted to the top to hunt for the "myrtle." Even its root was cut an inch or two below the ground. We found violets, however, and they answered as well. The pleasure of visiting such places, I think, is not found on the spot. The fatigue of the walk, the noise of a party, the difference between reality and imagination, and, worse than all, the caprice of mood- one or the other of these things disturbs and defeats for me the dearest promises of anticipation. It is the recollection that repays us. The picture recurs to the fancy till it GROTTO OF PADSILIPPO. 57 becomes familiar ; and as the disagreeable circumstances of the visit fade from the memory, the imagination warms it into a poetic feeling, and we dwell upon it with the delight we looked for in vain when present. A few steps up the ravine, almost buried in luxuriant grass, stands a small marble tomb, covering the remains of an English girl. She died at Naples. It is as lovely a place to lie in as the world could show. Forward a little towards the edge of the hill some person of taste has constructed a little arbour, laced over with vines, from whence the city and suburbs of Naples are seen to the finest advantage— Paradise that it is ! It is odd to leave a city by a road piercing the base of a broad mountain, in at one side and out at the other, after a subterranean drive of near a mile ! The grotto of Pausilippo has been one of the wonders of the world these two thousand years, and it exceeds all expectation as a curiosity. Its length is stated at two thousand three hundred and sixteen feet, its breadth twenty-two, and its height eighty- nine. It is thronged with carts and beasts of burden of all descriptions ; and the echoing cries of these noisy Italian drivers are almost deafening. Lamps, struggling with the distant daylight as you near the end, just make darkness visible and standing in the centre and looking either way, the far distant arch of daylight glows like a fire through the cloud of dust. What with the impressiveness of the place, and the danger of driving in the dark amid so many obstructions, it is rather a stirring half-hour that is spent in its gloom. One emerges into the fresh open air and the bright light of day with a feeling of relief. The drive hence to Pozzuoli, four or five miles, was ex- tremely beautiful. The fields were covered with the new tender grain, and by the short passage through the grotto we had changed a busy and crowded city for scenes of as quiet rural lovelines as ever charmed the eye. We soon reached the lip of the bay, and then the road turned away to the right, along the beach, passing the small island of Nisida, (where Brutus had a villa, and which is now a prison for the carbonari.) Pozzuoli soon appeared, and, mounting a hill, we de- scended into its busy square, and were instantly beset by 58 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. near a hundred guides, boatmen, and beggars, all preferring their claims and services at the tops of their voices. I fixed my eye on the most intelligent face among them, a curly- headed fellow in a red lazzaroni cap, and succeeded, with some loss of temper, in getting him aside from the 'crowd and bargaining for our boats. While the boatmen were forming themselves into a circle to cast lots for the bargain, we walked up to the famous ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis. This was one of the largest and richest of the temples of antiquity. It was a quadrangular building, near the edge of the sea, lined with marble, and sustained by columns of solid cipollino, three of which are still standing. It was buried by an earthquake and forgotten for a century or two, till in 1750 it was discovered by a peasant, who struck the top of one of the columns in digging. We stepped around over the prostrate fragments, building it up once more in fancy, and peopling the aisles with priests and worshippers. In the centre of the temple was the place of sacrifice, raised by flights of steps, and at the foot still remain two rings of Corinthian brass, to which the victims were fastened, and near them the receptacles for their blood and ashes. The whole scene has a stamp of grandeur. We obeyed the call of our red -bonnet guide, whose boat waited for us, at the temple stairs, very unwillingly. As we pushed off from the shore, we deviated a moment from our course to look at the ruins of the ancient mole. Here probably St. Paul set his foot, landing to pursue his way to Rome. The great apostle spent seven days at this place, which was then called Puteoli — a fact that attaches to it a deeper interest than it draws from all the antiquities of which it is the centre. We kept on our way along the beautiful bend of the shore of Baise, and passing on the right a small mountain formed in thirty-six hours by a volcanic explosion, some three hundred years ago, we came to the Lucrine Lake, so famous in the classics for its oysters. The same explosion that made the Monte Nuovo, and sunk the little village of Tripergole, destroyed the oyster-beds of the poets. A ten minutes' walk brought us to the shores of Lake Avernus — the "Tartarus" of Virgil. This was classic LAKE AVERNUS. 59 ground indeed, and we hoped to have found a thumbed copy of the iEneid in the pocket of the cicerone. He had not even heard of the poet ! A ruin on the opposite shore,, reflected in the still, dark water, is supposed to have been a temple dedicated to Proserpine. If she was allowed to be present at her own worship, she might have been consoled for her abduction. A spot of more secluded loveliness could scarce be found. The lake lay like a sheet of silver at the foot of the ruined temple, the water looking unfathomably deep through the clear reflection ; and the fringes of low shrubbery leaning down on every side, were doubled in the bright mirror, the likeness even fairer than the reality. Our unsentimental guide hurried us away as we were seating ourselves upon the banks, and we struck into a narrow foot-path of wild shrubbery which circled the lake, and in a few minutes stood before the door of a grotto sunk in the side of the hill. Here dwelt the Cumsean sibyl, and by this dark passage the souls of the ancients passed from Tartarus to Elysium. The guide struck a light and kindled two large torches, and we followed him into the narrow cavern, walking downwards at a rapid pace for ten or fifteen minutes. With a turn to the right, we stood before a low- archway, which the guide entered, up to his knees in water at the first step. It looked like the mouth of an abyss, and the ladies refused to go on. Six or seven stout fellows had followed us in, and the guide assured us we should be safe on their backs. I mounted first myself to carry the torch, and holding my head very low, we went plunging on, turn- ing to the right and left through a crooked passage, dark as Erebus, till I was set down on a raised ledge called the sibyl's bed. The lady behind me, I soon discovered by her screams, had not made so prosperous a voyage. She had insisted on being taken up something in the side-saddle fashion ; and the man, not accustomed to hold so heavy a burden on his hip with one arm, had stumbled and let her slip up to her knees in water. He took her up immediately,, in his own homely but safer fashion, and she was soon set. beside me on the sibyl's stony couch, drenched with water, and quite out of temper with antiquities. The rest of the party followed, and the guide lifted the torches to the dripping roof of the cavern, and showed us €0 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. the remains of beautiful mosaic with which the place was once evidently encrusted. Whatever truth there may be in the existence of the sibyl, these had been, doubtlessly, luxurious baths, and probably devoted by the Roman em- perors to secret licentiousness. The guide pointed out to us a small perforation in the rear of the sibyl's bed, whence, he said, (by what authority I know not,) Caligula used to watch the lavations of the nymph. It communicates with ,an outer chamber. We re-appeared, our nostrils edged with black from the smoke of the torches, and the ladies' dresses in a melancholy plight between smoke and water. It would be a witch of a sibyl that would tempt us to repeat our visit. We retraced our steps and embarked for Nero's villa. It was perhaps a half-mile farther down the bay. The only remains of it were some vapour-baths, built over a boiling spring which extended under the sea. One of our boatmen waded first a few feet into the surf, and, plunging under the cold sea water, brought up a handful of warm gravel— the evidence of a submarine outlet from the springs beyond. We then mounted a high and ruined flight of steps, and entered a series of chambers dug out of the rock, where an old man was stripping off his shirt, to go through the usual process of taking eggs down to boil in the fountain. He took his bucket, drew a long breath of fresh air, and rushed away by a dark passage, from whence he re-appeared in three or four minutes, the eggs boiled, and the perspiration streaming from his body like rain. He set the bucket down, and rushed to the door, gasping as if from suffoca- tion. The eggs were boiled hard, but the distress of the old man, and the danger of such sudden changes of atmos- phere to his health, quite destroyed our pleasure at the phenomenon. Hence to the cape of Misenum, the curve of the bay presents one continuation of Roman villas. And certainly there was not probably in the world a place more adapted to the luxury of which it was the scene. These natural baths, the many mineral waters, the balmy climate, the fertile soil, the lovely scenery, the matchless curve of the shore from Pozzuoli to the cape, and the vicinity, by that wonderful subterranean passage, to a populous capital on ROMAN VILLAS. 6l the other side of a range of mountains, rendered Baiae a natural paradise to the emperors. It was improved as we see. Temples to Venus, Diana, and Mercury ; the villas of Marius, of Hortensius, of Caesar, of Lucullus, and others whose masters are disputed, follow each other in rival beauty of situation. The ruins are not much now, except the temple of Venus, which is one of the most picturesque fragments of antiquity I have ever seen. The long vines hang through the rent in its circular roof, and the bright flowers cling to the crevices in its still half-splendid walls with the very poetry of decay. Our guide here proposed a lunch. We sat down on the immense stone which has- fallen from the ceiling, and in a few minutes the rough table was spread with a hundred open oysters from Fusaro, (near Lake Avernus,) bottles at will of lagrima Christi from Vesuvius; boiled crabs from the shore beneath the temple of Mercury ; fish from the Lucrine Lake, and bread from Pozzuoli. The meal was not less classic than refresh- ing. We drank to the goddess, (the only one in mythology by the way, whose worship has not fallen into contempt,) and leaving twenty ragged descendants of ancient Baiae to feast on the remains, mounted our donkeys and started over- land for Elysium. We passed the villa of Hortensius, to which Nero invited his mother, with the design of murdering her ; visited the immense subterranean chambers in which water was kept for the Roman fleet ; the horrid prisons called the Cento Camerelle of the emperors, and then mounting the hill at the extremity of the cape, the Stygian lake lay off on the right, a broad and gloomy pool, and around its banks spread the Elysian fields, the very home and centre of classic fable. An overflowed marsh and an adjacent corn-field will give you a perfect idea of it. The sun was setting while we swallowed our disappointment, and we turned our donkeys' heads towards Naples. We left the city again this morning by the grotto of Pausilippo, to visit the celebrated Grotto del Cani. It is about three miles off, on the borders of a pretty lake, once the crater of a volcano. On the way there arose a violent debate in the party on the propriety of subjecting the poor dogs to the distress of the common experiment. We had 62 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. not yet decided the point when we stopped before the door of the keeper's house. Two miserable-looking terriers had set up a howl, accompanied with a ferocious and half- complaining bark from our first appearance around the turn of the road, and the appeal was effectual. We dismounted and walked towards the grotto, determined to refuse to see the phenomenon. Our scruples were unnecessary. The door was surrounded with another party less merciful ; and as we approached, two dogs were dragged out by the heels, and thrown lifeless on the grass. We gathered round them, and while the old woman coolly locked the door of the grotto, the poor animals began to kick, and, after a few convulsions, struggled to their feet and crept feebly away. Fresh dogs were offered to our party, but we contented ourselves with the more innocent experiments. The mephitie air of this cave rises to a foot above the surface of the ground, and a torch put into it was immediately extinguished. It has been described too often, however, to need a repetition. We took a long stroll around the lake, which was covered with wild-fowl, visited the remains of a villa of Lucullus on the opposite shore, and returned to Naples to dinner. LETTER XII. ROME. FRONT OF ST. PETER'S EQUIPAGES OF THE CARDINALS — -BEGGARS — BODY OF THE CHURCH TOMB OF ST. PETER THE TIBER FORTRESS-TOMB OF ADRIAN JEWS* QUARTER — FORUM — BAR- BEUINI PALACE — PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI — HER MELAN- CHOLY HISTORY PICTURE OF THE FORNARINA LIKENESS OF GIORGIONE'S MISTRESS JOSEPH AND POTIPHAR'S WIFE THE PALACES DORIAANDSCIARRA PORTRAIT OF OLIVIA WALDACHINI OF U A CELEBRATED WIDOW '* OF SEMIRAMIS CLAUDe's LANDSCAPES BRILL ; S — BREUGHEL'S — NOTTl's " WOMAN CATCH- ING FLEAS " DA VINCI'S QUEEN GIOVANNA PORTRAIT OF A FEMALE DORIA — PRINCE DORIA PALACE SCIARRA — BRILL ANE BOTH'S LANDSCAPES CLAUDE'S PICTURE OF NOAH INTOXI- CATED ROMANA'S FORNARINA— DA VINCl'S TWO PICTURES. March, 1835. Drawn in twenty different directions on starting from my -lodgings this morning, I found myself undecided where t( st. peter's. 5S pass my day, in front of St. Peter's. Some gorgeous cere- mony was just over, and the sumptuous equipages of the cardinals, blazing in the sun with their mountings of gold and silver, were driving up and dashing away from the end of the long colonnades, producing any effect upon the mind rather than a devout one. I stood admiring their fiery horses and gay liveries, till the last rattled from the square, and then mounted to the deserted church. Its vast vestibule was filled with beggars, diseased in every conceivable man- ner, halting, groping, and crawling about in search of strangers of whom to implore charity — a contrast to the splendid pavement beneath, and the gold and marble above and around, which would reconcile one to see the " mighty dome" melted into alms, and his Holiness reduced to a plain chapel and a rusty cassock. Lifting the curtain, I stood in the body of the church. There were perhaps twenty persons, at different distances, on its immense floor, the farthest off (six hundred and four- teen feet from me !) looking like a pigmy in the far per- spective. St. Peter's is less like a church than a collection of large churches inclosed under a gigantic roof. The chapels at the sides are larger than most houses of public worship in our country, and of these there may be eight or ten, not included in the effect of the vast interior. One is lost in it. It is a city of columns and sculpture and mosaic. Its walls are encrusted with precious stones and masterly work- manship to the very top, and its wealth may be conceived, when you remember that, standing in the centre and raising your eyes aloft, there are four hundred and forty feet be- tween you and the roo! of the dome — the height, almost, of a mountain. I walked up towards the tomb of St. Peter, passing in my way a solitary worshipper here and there, upon his knees, and arrested constantly by the exquisite beauty of the statuary with which the columns are carved. Accus- tomed, as we are in America, to churches rilled with pews, it is hardly possible to imagine the noble effect of a vast mosaic floor, unincumbered even with a chair, and only broken by a few prostrate figures, just specking its wide area. All catholic churches are without fixed seats, and St. Peter's seems scarce measurable to the eye, it is so far and clear, from one extremity to the other. 1)4 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. I passed the hundred lamps burning over the tomb of St. Peter ; the lovely female statue, (covered with a bronze drapery, because its exquisite beauty was thought dangerous to the morality of the young priests) reclining upon the tomb of Paul III.; the ethereal figures of Canova's geniuses weeping at the door of the tomb of the Stuarts ; (where sleeps the unfortunate Charles Edward) the thousand, thousand rich and beautiful monuments of art and taste • crowding every corner of this wondrous church — I passed them, I say, with the same lost and unexamining, unpar- ticularizing feeling which I cannot overcome in this place— a mind quite borne off its feet, and confused and overwhelmed with the tide of astonishment — the one grand impression of the whole. I dare say, a little more familiarity with St. Peter's will do away the feeling, but I left the church, after two hours' loitering in its aisles, despairing, and scarce wishing to examine or make a note. Those beautiful fountains, moistening the air over the whole area of the column-encircled front ! — and that tall Egyptian pyramid, sending up its slender and perfect spire between ! One lingers about, and turns again and again to gaze around him, as he leaves St. Peter's in wonder and admiration. I crossed the Tiber at the fortress-tomb of Adrian, and, threading the long street at the western side of Rome, passed through the Jews' quarter, and entered the Forum. The sun lay warm among the ruins of the great temples and columns of ancient Rome, and, seating myself on a fragment of an antique frieze, near the noble arch of Septimius Severus, I gazed on the scene, for the first time, by daylight. 1 had been in Rome, on my first visit, during the full moon, and my impressions of the Forum with this romantic enhancement were vivid in my memory. One would think it enough to be upon the spot at any time, with light to see it ; but what with modern excavations, fresh banks of earth, carts, boys playing at marbles, and wooden sentry-boxes; and what with the Parisian pro- menade, made by the French through the centre, the ima- gination is too disturbed and hindered in daylight. The moon gives it all one covering of gray and silver. The old columns stand up in all their solitary majesty, wrecks of beauty and taste ; silence leaves the fancy to find a voice *qr BEATRICE CENCI. 65 itself; and from the palaces of the Caesars to the prisons of the Capitol, the old train of emperors, senators, conspirators, and citizens, are summoned with but half a thought, and the magic glass is filled with moving and re-animated Rome. There, beneath those walls, on the right, in the Mamertine prisons, perished Jugurtha, (and there, too, were imprisoned St. Paul and St. Peter, and opposite, upon the Palatine-hill, lived the mighty masters of Rome, in the Palaces of the Caesars " and beneath the majestic arch beyond, were led, as a seal of their slavery, the captives from Jerusalem ; and in these temples, whose ruins cast their shadows at my feet, walked and discoursed Cicero and the philosophers, Brutus and the patriots, Catiline and the conspirators, Augustus and the scholars and poets, and the great stranger in Rome, St. Paul, gazing at the false altars, and burning in his heart to reveal to them the " unknown God/' What men have crossed the shadows of these very columns ! and what thoughts, that have moved the world, have been born beneath them ! ****** The Barberini palace contains three or four masterpieces of painting. The most celebrated is the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, by Guido. The melancholy and strange history of this beautiful girl has been told in a variety of ways, and is probably familiar to every reader. Guido saw her on her way to execution, and has painted her as she was dressed, in the gray habit and head-dress made by her own hands, and finished but an hour before she put it on. There are engravings and copies of the picture all over the world, but none that I have seen give any idea of the excessive gentleness and serenity of the countenance. The eyes re- tain traces of weeping : but the child-like mouth, the soft girlish lines of features that look as if they never had worn more than the one expression of ycuthfulness and affection, are all in repose ; and the head is turned over the shoulder with as simple a sweetness as if she had but looked back to say a good-night before going to her chamber to sleep. She little looks like what she was — one of the firmest and boldest spirits whose history is recorded. After murdering her father for his fiendish attempts upon her virtue, she endured every torture rather than disgrace her family by F 66 PENCILLING^ BY THE WAY. confession, and was only moved from her constancy, at last; by the agonies of her younger brother on the rack. Who would read capabilities like these, in these heaveniy and child-like features ? I have tried to purchase the life of the Cenci, ^n vain A bookseller told me to-day that it was a forbidden book, on account of its reflections upon the Pope. Immense in- terest was made for the poor girl ; but, it is said, the papal treasury ran low ; and if she was pardoned, the large pos- sessions of the Cenci family could not have been confiscated. The gallery contains also a delicious picture of the For- narina, by Raphael himself, and a portrait of Giorgione's mistress, as a Carthaginian slave — the same head multi- plied so often in his and Titian's pictures. The original of the admirable picture of Joseph and the wife of Poti- phar, is also here. A copy of it is in the gallery of Florence. I have passed a day between the two palaces Doria and Sciarra, nearly opposite each other in the Corso at Rome. The first is an immense gallery of perhaps a thousand pictures, distributed through seven large halls, and four galleries encircling the court. In the first four rooms I found nothing that struck me particularly. In the fifth was a portrait, by an unknown artist, of Olivia Waldachini, the favourite and sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X. — a handsome woman, with that round fulness in the throat and neck, which (whether it existed in the originals, or is a part of a painter's ideal of a woman of pleasure,) is uni- versal in portraits of that character. In the same room was a portrait of a f celebrated widow," by Vandyck,* a had-been beautiful woman, in a staid cap, (the hands won- derfully painted,) and a large and rich picture of Semi- ramis, by one of the Caracci. In the galleries hung the landscapes by Claude, famous through the world. It is like roving through a paradise, to sit and look at them. His broad green lawns, his half- * So called in the catalogue. The custode, however, told us it was a portrait of the wife of Vandyck, painted as an old woman to mortify her excessive vanity, when she was but twenty-three. He kept the picture until she was older, and, at the time of his death, it had become a flattering likeness, and was carefullv treasured bv the widow. PICTURES. 6T hidden temples, his life-like, luxuriant trees, his fountains,, his sunny streams — all flush into the eye like the bright opening of a Utopia, or some dream over a description from Boccaccio. It is what Italy might be in a golden age— her ruins rebuilt into the transparent air, her woods unprofaned, her people pastoral and refined, and every valley a land- scape of Arcadia. I can conceive no higher pleasure for the imagination than to see a Claude in travelling through Italy. It is finding a home for one's more visionary fan- cies — those children of moonshine that one begets in a colder clime, but scarce dares acknowledge till he has seen them under a more congenial sky. More plainly, one does not know whether his abstract imaginations of pastoral life and scenery are not ridiculous and unreal, till he has seen one of these landscapes, and felt steeped, if I may use such a word, in the very loveliness which inspired the pencil of the painter. There he finds the pastures, the groves, the fairy structures, the clear waters, the straying groupes, the whole delicious scenery, as bright as in his dreams, and he feels as if he should bless the artist for the liberty to ac- knowledge freely to himself the possibility of so beautiful a world. We went on through the long galleries, going back again and again to see the Claudes. In the third division of the gallery were one or two small and bright landscapes, by Brill, that would have enchanted us if seen elsewhere ; and four strange pictures, by Breughel, representing the four elements, by a kind of half-poetical, half-supernatural land- scapes, one of which had a very lovely view of a distant village. Then there was the famous picture of the (e woman catching fleas," by Gherardo della Notti, a perfect piece of life. She stands close to a lamp, with a vessel of hot water before her, and is just closing her thumb and finger over a flea, which she has detected on the bosom of her dress* Some eight or ten are boiling already in the water, and the expression upon the girl's face is that of the most grave and unconscious interest in her employment. Next to this amusing picture hangs a portrait of Queen Giovanna, of Naples, by Leonardo da Vinci ; a copy of which I had seen, much priced, in the possession of the Archbishop of Tarento. It scarce looks like the talented and ambitious queen she f 2 68 PE.NCILLINGS BY THE WAY. was, but it does full justice to her passion for amorous intrigue — a face full of the woman. The last picture we came to, was one not even men- tioned in the catalogue — an old portrait of one of the females of the Doria family. It was a girl of eighteen, with a kind of face that in life must have been extremely fascinating. While we were looking at it, we heard a kind ,of gibbering laugh from the outer apartment, and an old man, in a cardinal's dress, dwarfish in size, and with de- formed and almost useless legs, came shuffling into the gal- lery,, supported by two priests. His features were imbe- cility itself, rendered almost horrible by the contrast of the cardinal's red cap. The custode took off his hat and bowed low, and the old man gave us a half bow and a long laugh in passing, and disappeared at the end of the gallery. This was the Prince Doria, the owner of the palace, and a car- dinal of Rome ! the sole remaining representative of one of the most powerful and ambitious families of Italy ! There could not be a more affecting type of the great u mistress of the world" herself. We crossed the Corso to the Palace Sciarra. The collec- tion here is small, but choice. Half a dozen exquisite landscapes, by Brill and Both, grace the second room. Here are also three small Claudes, very, very beautiful. In the next room is a finely-coloured but most indecent picture of Noah intoxicated, by Andrea Sacchi, and a portrait by Giulio Romano, of Raphael's celebrated Fornarina, to whose lovely face one becomes so accustomed in Italy that it seems like that of an acquaintance. In the last room are two of the most celebrated pictures in Rome. The first is by Leonardo da Vinci, arid repre- sents Vanity and Modesty, by two females standing toge- ther in conversation — one a handsome, gay, volatile-looking creature, covered with ornament, and listening unwillingly to what seems a lecture from the* other, upon her foibles. The face of the other is a heavenly conception of woman — earnest, delicate, and lovely — the ideal one forms to him- self, before intercourse with the w r orld gives him a distaste for its purity. The moral lesson of the picture is more forcible than language. The painter deserved to have died, as he did, in the arms of an emperor. ANCIENT ROME. 69 The other picture represents two gamblers cheating a youth — a very striking piece of nature. It is common, from the engravings. On the opposite side of the room is a very expressive picture, by Schidone. On the ruins of an old tomb stands a skull, beneath which is written — i( I y too, was of Arcadia :" and, at a little distance, gazing at it in attitudes of earnest reflection, stand two shepherds, struck simultaneously with the moral. It is a poetical thought, and wrought out with great truth and skill. Our eyes aching and our attention exhausted with pic- tures, we drove from the Sciarra to the ruined palaces of the Csssars. Here, on an eminence above the Tiber, with the Forum beneath us on one side, the Coliseum on the other, and all the towers and spires of modern and Catholic Rome arising on her many hills beyond, we seated our- selves on fragments of marble half buried in the grass, and mused away the hours till sunset. On this spot Romulus founded Rome. The princely Augustus, in the last days of her glory, laid here the foundations of his imperial palace • — which, continued by Caligula and Tiberius, and com- pleted by Domitian, covered the hill, like a small city. It was a labyrinth of temples, baths, pavilions, fountains, and gardens, with a large theatre at the western extremity ; and adjoining the temple of Apollo, was a library filled with the best authors, and ornamented with a colossal bronze statue of Apollo, "of excellent Etruscan workman- ship." " Statues of the fifty daughters of Danaus sur- rounded the portico," (of this same temple,) " and opposite them were equestrian statues of their husbands." About a hundred years ago, accident discovered, in the gardens buried in rubbish, a magnificent hall, two hundred feet in length and one hundred and thirty- two in breadth, sup- posed to have been built by Domitian. It was richly orna- mented with statues and columns of precious marble, and near it were baths in excellent preservation. " But," says Stark, " immense and superb as was this first-built palace of the Caesars Nero, whose extravagance and passion for architecture knew no limits, thought it much too small for him, and extended its edifices and gardens from the Pala- tine to the Esquiline. After the destruction of the whole, by fire, sixty-five years after Christ, he added to it his 70 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. celebrated 4 Golden House/ which extended from one extre* mity to the other of the Ccelian Hill." The ancient walls, which made the whole of the Mount Palatine a fortress, still hold together its earth and its ruins It is a broad tabular eminence, worn into footpaths, which wind at every moment around broken shafts of marble, fragments of statuary, or broken and ivy- covered fountains. Part of it is cultivated as a vineyard, by the degenerate modern Romans, and the baths, into which the water still pours from aqueducts encrusted with aged stalactites, are public washing-places for the contadini, eight or ten of whom were splashing away in their red jackets, with gold bodkins in their hair, while we were moralizing on their worthier progenitors of eighteen centuries ago. It is a beautiful spot of itself, and, with the delicious, soft sun- shine of an Italian spring, the tall green grass beneath our feet, and an air as soft as June just stirring the myrtles and* jasmines growing wild wherever the ruins gave them place, our enjoyment of the overpowering associations of the spot was ample and untroubled. I could wish every refined spirit in the world had shared our pleasant hour upon the Palatine. LETTEB XIII. ANNUAL DOWRIES TO TWELVE GIRLS — VESPERS IN THE CONVENT OE SANTA TRINITA RUINS OF ROMAN BATHS A MAGNIFICENT MODERN CHURCH WITHIN TWO ANCIENT HALLS — GARDENS OF MECiENAS TOWER WHENCE NERO SAW ROME ON FIRE HOUSES OF HORACE AND VIRGIL — BATHS OF TITUS AND CARACALLA. March 1853. The yearly ceremony of giving dowries to twelve girls was performed by the Pope, this morning, in the church built over the ancient temple of Minerva. His Holiness arrived, in state, from the Vatican, at ten ; followed by his red troop of cardinals, and preceded by a clerical courier, on a palfrey, and the body-guard of nobles. He blessed the crowd, right and left with his three fingers, (precisely as a Parisian •dandy salutes his friend across the street,) and, descending CEREMONY OF THE DOWRIES. 71 from his carriage, (which is like a good-sized glass boudoir upon wheels, ) he was received in the papal sedan, and carried into the church by his Swiss bearers. My legation button carried me through the guard, and I found an ex- cellent place under a cardinal's wing, in the penetralia^ within the railing of the altar. Mass commenced presently, with a chaunt from the celebrated choir of St. Peter's. Room was then made through the crowd : the cardinals put on their red caps, and the small procession of twelve young girls entered from a side chapel, bearing each a taper in her hand, and robed to the eyes in white, with a chaplet of flowers round the forehead. I could form no judgment of any thing but their eyes and feet. A Roman eye could not be otherwise than fine, and a Roman woman's foot could scarce be other than ugly, and, consequently, there was but one satin slipper in the group that a man might not have worn, and every eye I could see, from my position, might have graced an improvisatrice. They stopped in front of the throne, and giving their long tapers to the servitors, mounted in couples, hand in hand, and kissed the foot of his Holiness, w 7 ho, at the same time, leaned over and blessed them, and then turning about, walked off again behind the altar in the same order in which they had entered. The choir now struck up their half-unearthly chaunt, (a music so strangely shrill and clear, that I scarce know whether the exquisite sensation is pleasure or pain,) the Pope was led from his throne to his sedan, and his mitre changed for a richly jewelled crown ; the bearers lifted their burden ; the guard presented arms ; the cardinals summoned their officious servants to unrobe, and the crowd poured out as it came. This ceremony, I found upon inquiry, is performed every year, on the day of the Annunciation — just nine months before Christmas, and is intended to commemorate the in- carnation of our Saviour. & * # •* * * As I was returning from a twilight stroll upon the Pincian hill, this evening, the bells of the convent of Santa lrmita rung to vespers. I had heard of the singing of the nuns in the service at the convent chapel, but the misbe- 72 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. haviour of a party of English had excluded foreigners of late, and it was thought impossible to get admittance. I mounted the steps, however, and rung at the door. It was opened by a pale nun, of about thirty, who hesitated a moment, and let me pass. In a small plain chapel within, the service of the altar was just commencing, and, before I reached a seat, a low plaintive chaunt commenced, in female voices, from the choir. It went on, with occasional inter- ruptions from the prayers, for perhaps an hour. I cannot describe the excessive mournfulness of the music. One or two familiar hymns occurred in the course of it, like airs in a recitative, the same sung in our churches, but the effect was totally different. The neat white caps of the nuns were just visible over the railing before the organ, and, as I looked up at them and listened to their melancholy notes, they seemed, to me, mourning over their exclusion from the world. The small white cloud from the censer mounted to the ceiling, and, creeping away through the arches, hung over the organ till it was lost to the eye in the dimness of the twilight. It was easy, under the influence of their delightful music, to imagine within it the wings of that tranquilizing resignation one would think so necessary to keep down the heart in these lonely cloisters. ****** The most considerable ruins of ancient Rome are those of the Baths. The Emperors Titus, Caracalla, Nero, and Agrippa, constructed these immense places of luxury, and the remains of them are among the most interesting and beautiful relics to be found in the world. It is possible that my readers have as imperfect an idea of the extent of a Roman bath as I have had, and I may as well quote from the information given by writers upon antiquities. " They were open every day to both sexes. In each of the great baths there were sixteen hundred seats of marble, for the convenience of tr^e bathers, and three thousand two hundred persons could bathe at the same time. There were splendid porticos in front, for promenade, arcades with shops, in which was found every kind of luxury for the bath, and halls for corporeal exercises, and for the discus- sion of philosophy; and here the poets read their pro- ductions, and rhetoricians harangued, and sculptors and ROMAN BATHS. 73 painters exhibited their works to the public. The baths were distributed into grand halls, with ceilings enormously high, and painted with admirable frescos, supported on columns of the rarest marble, and the basins were of Oriental alabaster, porphyry, and jasper. There were in the centre vast reservoirs for the swimmers, and crowds of slaves to attend gratuitously upon all who should come/' The baths of Diocletian (which I visited to day) covered an enormous space. They occupied seven years in building, and were the work of forty thousand Christian slaves, two- thirds of whom died of fatigue and misery ! Mounting one of the seven hills of Rome, we came to some half- ruined arches, of enormous size, extending a long distance, in the sides of which were built two modern churches. One was the work of Michael Angelo, and one of his hap- piest efforts. He has turned two of the ancient halls into a magnificent church, in the shape of a Greek cross, leaving in their places eight gigantic columns of granite. After St. Peter's it is the most imposing church in Rome, We drove thence to the baths of Titus, passing the site of the ancient gardens of Mecaenas, in which still stands the tower from which Nero beheld the conflagration of Rome. The houses of Horace and Virgil communicated with this garden, but they are now undistinguishable. We turned up from the Coliseum to the left, and entered a gate leading to the baths of Titus. Five or six immense arches presented their front to us, in a state of picturesque ruin. We took a guide, and a long pole, with a lamp at the extremity, and descended to the subterranean halls, to see the still inimitable frescos upon the ceilings. Passing through vast apartments, to the ruined walls of which still clung, here and there, pieces of the finely-coloured stucco of the ancients, we entered a suite of long galleries, some forty feet high, the arched roofs of which were painted with the most exquisite art, in a kind of fanciful border- work, enclosing figures and landscapes, in as bright colours as if done yesterday. Farther on was the niche in which was found the famous group of Laocoon, in a room belong- ing to a subterranean palace of the emperor, communicating with the baths. The Belvidere Meleager was also found here. The imagination loses itself in attempting to con- 74 PENCILLUSGS BY THE WAY. ceive the splendour of these under-ground palaces, blazing with artificial light ; ornamented with works of art, never equalled, and furnished with all the luxury which an em- peror of Rome, in the days when the wealth of the world flowed into her treasury, could command for his pleasure. How short life must have seemed to them, and what a ten- fold curse became death and the common ills of existence, interrupting or taking away pleasures so varied and in- exhaustible ! These baths were built in the last great days of Rome, and one reads the last stages of national corruption and, perhaps, the secret of her fall, in the character of these ornamented walls. They breathe the very spirit of volup- tuousness. Naked female figures fill every plafond ; and fauns and satyrs, with the most licentious passions in their faces, support the festoons and hold together the intricate ornament of the frescos. The statues, the pictures, the object of the place itself, inspired the wish for indulgence ; and the history of the private lives of the emperors and wealthier Romans shows the effect in its deepest colours. We went on to the baths of Caracalla, the largest ruins- of Rome. They are just below the palaces of the Caesars, and ten minutes' walk from the Coliseum. It is one laby- rinth of gigantic arches and ruined halls, the ivy growing and clinging wherever it can fasten its root, and the whole as fine a picture of decay as imagination could create. This was the favourite haunt of Shelley, and here he wrote his fine tragedy of Prometheus. He could not have selected a more fitting spot for solitary thought. A herd of goats- were climbing over one of the walls, and the idle boy who tended them lay asleep in the sun , and every footstep echoed loud through the place. We passed two or three hour* rambling about, and regained the populous streets of Rome in the last light of the sunset. fOMB OP THE SCIPIOS. 75 LETTER XIV. SUMMER WEATHER IN MARCH BATHS OF CARACALLA — BEGINNING OF THE APPIAN WAY TOMB OF THE SCIPIOS CATACOMBS CHURCH OF SAN SEBASTIANO YOUNG CAPUCHIN FRIAR TOMBS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN MARTYRS CHAMBER WHERE THE APOSTLES WORSHIPPED — TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA — THE CAM- PA GN A CIRCUS OF CARACALLA OR ROMULUS TEMPLE DEDI- CATED TO RIDICULE — KEATS'S GRAVE— FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA HOLY WEEK. March, 1855. The last days of March have come, clothed in sunshine and summer. The grass is tall in the Campagna ; the fruit- trees are in blossom ; the roses and myrtles are in full flower; the shrubs -are in full leaf; the whole country about breathes of June. We left Rome this morning, on an excursion to the Fountain of Egeria. A more heavenly- day never broke. The gigantic baths of Caracalla turned us aside once more, and we stopped for an hour in the shade of their romantic arches, admiring the works, while we execrated the character of their ferocious builder. This is the beginning of the ancient Appian Way, and, a little farther on, sunk in the side of a hill, near the road, is the beautiful Doric tomb of the Scipios. We alighted at the antique gate, a kind of portico with seats of stone beneath, and, reading the inscription, " Sepulchro degli Scipioni," mounted, by ruined steps, to the tomb. A boy came out from the house in the vineyard above, with candles to show us the interior ; but, having no curiosity to see the damp cave from which the sarcophagi have been removed, (to the Museum) we sat down upon a bank of grass opposite the chaste facade, and recalled to memory the early-learnt history of the family once entombed within. The edifice (for it is more like a temple to a river- nymph or a dryad than a tomb) was built by an ancestor of the great Scipio Africanus, and here was deposited the noble dust of his children. One feels, in these places, as if the improvisatore's inspiration was about him — the fancy draws, in such vivid colours, the scenes that have passed where ne is standing. The bringing of the dead body of the conqueror 76 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. of Africa from. Rome; the passing of the funeral train beneath the portico ; the noble mourners ; the crowd of people ; the eulogy of, perhaps, some poet or orator, whose name has descended to us — the air seems to speak, and the gray stones of the monument against which the mourners of Scipio have leaned, seemed to have had life and thought, like the ashes they have sheltered. We drove to the Catacombs. Here, the legend says, St. Sebastian was martyred ; and the modern church of San Sebastiano stands over the spot. We entered the church, where we found a very handsome young Capuchin friar, with his brown cowl and the white cord about his waist, who offered to conduct us to the catacombs. He took three wax-lights from the sacristy, and we entered a side-door, behind the tomb of the saint, and commenced a descent of a long flight of stone steps. We reached the bottom, and found ourselves upon damp ground, following a narrow passage, so low, that I was constantly compelled to stoop, in the sides of which were numerous small niches of the size of a human body. These were the tombs of the early Christian martyrs. We saw near a hundred of them. They were brought from Rome, the scene of their sufferings, and buried in these secret catacombs by the small church of, perhaps, the immediate converts of St. Paul and the apostles. What food for thought is here, for one who finds more interest in the humble traces of the personal followers of Christ, who knew his face and had heard his voice, than in all the splendid ruins of the works of the persecuting emperors of his time ! Most of the bones have been taken from their places, and are preserved at the Museum, or enclosed in the rich sarcophagi raised to the memory of the martyrs in the Catholic churches. Of those that are left we saw one. The niche was closed by a thin slab of marble, through a crack of which the monk put his slender candle. We saw the skeleton as it had fallen from the flesh in decay, untouched, perhaps, since the time of our Saviour. We passed through several cross-passages, and came to a small chamber, excavated simply in the earth, with an earthern altar, and antique marble cross above. This was the scene of the forbidden worship of the earlv Christians ; and before this very cross, which was, perhaps, then newly TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 77 selected as the emblem of their faith, met the few dismayed followers of the Nazarene, hidden from their persecutors, while they breathed their forbidden prayers to their lately crucified Master. We re-ascended to the light of day by the rough stone steps, worn deep by the feet of those who, for ages, for so many different reasons, have passed up and down : and, taking leave of our capuchin conductor, drove on to the next object upon the road — the tomb of Cecilia Metella. It stands upon a slight elevation, in the Appian Way, a " stern round tower/' with the ivy dropping over its tur- rets, and waving from the embrasures, looking more like a castle than a tomb. Here was buried " the wealthiest Roman's wife," or, according to Corinne, his unmarried daughter. It was turned into a fortress by the marauding nobles of the thirteenth century, who sallied from this and the tomb of Adrian, plundering the ill-defended subjects of Pope Innocent IV. till they were taken and hanged from the walls by Brancaleone, the Roman senator. It is built with prodigious strength. We stooped in passing under the low archway, and emerged into the round chamber within — a lofty room, open to the sky, in the circular wall of which there is a niche for a single body. Nothing could exceed the delicacy and fancy with which Childe Harold, muses on this spot ; and, feeling that his speculations must quite supersede our own, we seated ourselves upon " the ivied stone," and perused with increased feelings of delight his glorious stanzas. ****** The lofty turrets command a wide view of the Campagna, the long aqueducts stretching past at a short distance, and forming a chain of noble arches from Rome to the moun- tains of Albano. Cole's picture of the Roman Campagna, as seen from one of these elevations, is, I think, one of the finest landscapes ever painted. Just below the tomb of Metella, in a flat valley, lie the extensive ruins of what is called the (i Circus of Caracalla" by some, and the {C Circus of Romulus " by others — a scarcely distinguishable heap of walls and marble, half- buried in the earth and moss; and not far off stands a beautiful ruin of a small temple dedicated (as some say) to> 78 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. Ridicule. One smiles to look at it. If the embodying of that which is powerful, however, should make a deity, the dedication of a temple to Ridicule is far from amiss. In our age, particularly, one would think, the lamp should be re-lit, and the reviews should repair the temple.^ Poor Keats sleeps in his grave scarce a mile from the spot— a human victim, sacrificed, not long ago, upon its most ruthless altar. In the same valley, almost hidden with the luxuriant ivy waving before the entrance, flows the lovely fountain of Egeria, trickling as clear and musical into its pebbly bed as when visited by the enamoured successor of Romulus twenty- five centuries ago ! The hill above leans upon the single arch of the small temple which embosoms it, and the green soft meadow spreads away from the floor, with the brightest verdure conceivable. We wound around by a half-worn path in descending the hill, and, putting aside the long branches of ivy, entered an antique chamber sprinkled with quivering spots of sunshine, at the extremity of which, upon a kind of altar, lay the broken and defaced statue of the nymph. The fountain poured from beneath in two streams, as clear as crystal. In the sides of the temple were six empty niches, through one of which stole, from a cleft in the wall, a little \ stream which had wandered from its way. Flowers, pale with growing in the shade, sprang from the edges of the rivulet as it wound about ; the small creepers, dripping with moisture, hung from between the diamond-shaped stones of the roof; the air was refreshingly cool ; and the leafy door at the entrance, seen against the sky, looked of a transparent green, as vivid as emerald. No fancy could create a sweeter spot. The fountain, and the inspiration it breathed into Childe Harold, are worthy of each other. Just above the fountain, on the crest of a hill, stands a thick grove, supposed to occupy the place of the consecrated wood in which Nuraa met the nymph. It is dark with shadow, and full of birds, and might afford a fitting retreat for meditation to another king and law-giver. The fields about it are so thickly studded with flowers, that you cannot step without crushing them, and the whole neighbourhood seems a favourite of nature. The rich banker, Torlonia, PALM SUNDAY. 7J> has bought this and several other classic spots about Rome ~— possessions for which he is more to be envied than for his purchased dukedom. All the travelling world assembles at Rome for the cere- monies of the holy week. Naples, Florence, and Pisa, send their hundreds of annual visitors, and the hotels and palaces are crowded with strangers of every nation and rank. It would be difficult to imagine a gayer or busier place than this usually sombre city has become within a few days. LETTER XV. PALM SUNDAY SISTINE CHAPEL ENTRANCE OF THE POPE THE CHOIR — THE POPE ON HIS THRONE PRESENTING THE PALMS PROCESSION — HOLY TUESDAY THE MISERERE ACCIDENTS IN THE CROWD — TENEBRJS — THE EMBLEMATIC CANDLES A SOIREE HOLY THURSDAY — FRESCOS OF MICHAEL ANGELO — "CREATION OF EVE" " LOT INTOXICATED'' DELPHIC SIBYL POPE WASH- ING PILGRIMS' FEET POPE AND CARDINALS WAITING UPON PILGRIMS AT DINNER. March, 1835. Palm Sunday opens the ceremonies. We drove to the Vatican this morning at nine, and, after waiting a half- hour in tbe crush, kept back, at the point of the spear, by the pope's Swiss guard, I succeeded in getting an entrance into the Sistine chapel. Leaving the ladies of the party behind the grate, I passed two more guards, and obtained a seat among the cowled and bearded dignitaries of the Church and State within, where I could observe the cere- mony with ease. The pope entered, borne in his gilded chair by twelve men, and, at the same moment, the chaunting from the Sistine choir commenced with one long, piercing note, by a single voice, producing the most impressive effect. He mounted his throne as high as the altar opposite him, and the cardinals went through their obeisances, one by one, their trains supported by their servants, who knelt on the lower steps behind theml The palms stood in a tall heap beside the altar. They were beautifully woven in wand* BO PENCILLIXGS BY THE WAY. = of perhaps six feet in length, with a cross at the top, Th cardinal nearest the papal chair mounted first, and a pal was handed him. He laid it across the knees of the pope, and, as his Holiness signed the cross upon it, he stooped, and kissed the embroidered cross upon his foot, then kissed the palm, and, taking it in his two hands, descended with it to his seat. The other forty or fifty cardinals did the same, until each was provided with a palm. Some twenty other persons, monks of apparent clerical rank of every order, military men, and members of the Catholic embassies, followed and took palms. A procession was then formed, the cardinals going first with their palms held before them, and the pope following, in his chair, with a small frame of palm-work in his hands, in which was woven the initial of the Virgin. They passed out of the Sistine chapel, the choir chaunting most delightfully, and, having made a tour around the vestibule, returned in the same order. With all the vast crowd of strangers in Rome, I went to the Sistine chapel on Holy Tuesday, to hear the far- famed Miserere. It is sung several times during the holy week, by the pope's choir, and has been described by travel- lers, of all nations, in the most rapturous terms. The vesti- bule was the scene of shocking confusion for an hour ; a constant struggle going on between the crowd and the Swiss guard, amounting occasionally to a fight, in which ladies fainted, children screamed, men swore, and, unless by force of contrast, the minds of the audience seemed likely to be little in tune for the music. The chamberlains at last arrived, and two thousand people attempted to get into a small chapel which scarce holds four hundred. Coat-skirts, torn cassocks, hats, gloves, and fragments of ladies' dresses were thrown up by the suffocating throng, and, in the midst of a confusion beyond description, the mournful notes of the tenebrce (or lamentations of Jeremiah) poured in full volume from the choir. Thirteen candles burned in a small pyramid within the paling of the altar ; and twelve of these, representing the apostles, were extinguished, one by one, (to signify their desertion at the cross,) during the singing of the tenebrce. The last, which was left burning, repre- sented the mother of Christ. As the last before this was extinguished, the music ceased. The crowd had, by this a soir&e. 81 time, become quiet. The twilight had deepened through the dimly-lit chapel, and the only solitary lamp looked lost at the distance of the altar. Suddenly the miserere com- menced with one high prolonged note, that sounded like a wail ; another joined it, and another and another ; and all the different parts came in, with a gradual swell of plaintive and most thrilling harmony, to the full power of the choir. It continued for perhaps half an hour. The music was simple, running jpon a few r notes, like a dirge ; hut there were voices in the choir that seemed of a really supernatural sweetness. No instrument could he so clear. The crowd, even in their uncomfortable positions, were breathless with attention, and the effect was universal. The candles were lit, and the motley troop of cardinals and red-legged servitors passed out. The harlequin-look- ing Swiss guard stood to their tall halberds ; the chamber- lains and mace-bearers, in their cassocks and frills, took care that the males and females should not mix until they reached the door ; the pope disappeared in the sacristy ; and the gay world, kept an hour beyond their time, went home to cold dinners. Two or three hours after, I was at a crowded soiree, at one of the noble houses of Rome. A prima donna, from the Opera, was singing in one room, and card-tables, covered with gold and silver, filled three others ; and every second player was a dignitary of the church, in dainty pumps, and with gold snuff-box and jewelled fingers, com- plimenting and flirting with all the bright eyes and merry faces around him. The penitential miserere passed through my mind and the thick iron grates, through which alone ladies are allowed to witness the ceremonies of the chapel. I passed on to a pretty silken boudoir, at the end of the long suite of apartments, and was welcomed by the hand- somest man in Rome — a priest, and the son of a wealthy and noble family, who was half-reclining upon the cushions of a divan, and playing with the scarf of one of the loveliest women of the society here, while two others endeavoured to draw him into conversation. I could not help continuing my reflection, and contrasting this clerical dandy, with his handsome black curls redolent of perfumed oils ; his buckles of chased silver; his Parisian gloves ; with a large emerald 82 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. worn outside, and his attitude and employment of mere Measure, with the ministers of a religion professing the same Master, in our own country. There are, of course, priests in Rome who are sufficiently humble in dress and manner, but nothing can exceed the sumptuousnes*s and style in which the cardinals live, as well as all who, from birth or fortune, have a certain personal consequence. Their carriages and horses are the most splendid in the world, their large palaces swarm with servants, and their dress has all the richness of that of princes when they are abroad. ****** The ceremonies of Holy Thursday commenced with the mass in the Sistine chapel. Tired of seeing genuflexions and listening to a mumbling of which I could not catch a syllable, I took advantage of my privileged seat in the ambassador's box, to lean back and study the celebrated frescos of Michael Angelo upon the ceiling. A little dra- pery would do no harm to any of them. They illustrate, mainly, passages of Scripture history, but the " creation of Eve," in the centre, is an astonishingly fine representation of a naked man and woman, as large as life ; and " Lot intoxicated and exposed before his two daughters" is about as immodest a picture, from its admirable expression as well as its nudity, as could easily be drawn. In one corner there is a most beautiful draped figure of the Delphic Sibyl —•and I think this bit of heathenism is almost the only very decent part of the pope's most consecrated chapel. After the mass, the host was carried, with a showy pro- cession, to be deposited among the thousand lamps in the Capella Paolina ; and, as soon as it had passed, there was a general rush for the room in which the pope was to wash the feet of the pilgrims. Thirteen men, dressed in white, with sandals open at the top, and caps of paper covered with white linen, sat on a high bench, just under a beautiful copy of the " Last Supper" of Da Vinci, in gobelin tapestry. It was a small chapel, communicating with the pope's private apartments. Eleven of the pilgrims were as vulgar and brutal-looking men as could have been found in the world ; but of the two in the centre, one was the personification of wild fanaticism. He was pale, emaciated, and abstracted. His CAPELLA PAOLINA. 83 hair and beard was neglected, and of a singular blackness. His lips were firmly set in an expression of severity. His brows were gathered gloomily over his eyes, and his glances occasionally sent among the crowd, were as glaring and flashing as a tiger's. With all this, his countenance was lofty, and if I had seen the face on canvass, as a portrait of a martyr, I should have thought it finely ex- pressive of courage and devotion. The man on his left wept, or pretended to weep, continually ; but every person in the room was struck with his extraordinary resemblance to Judas, as he is drawn in the famous picture of the Last Supper. It was the same marked face, the same treacherous, ruffian look, the same style of hair and beard, to a wonder. It is possible that lie might have been chosen on purpose, the twelve pilgrims being intended to represent the twelve apostles, of whom Judas was one — but if accidental, it was the most remarkable coincidence that ever came under my notice. He looked the hypocrite and traitor complete, and his resemblance to the Judas in the picture directly over his head would have struck a child. The pope soon entered from his apartments, in a purple stole, with a cape of dark crimson satin, and the mitre of silver cloth ; and, casting the incense into the golden censer, the white smoke was flung from side to side before him, till the delightful odour filled the room. A short service was then chaunted, and the choir sang a hymn. His Holiness was then unrobed, and a fine napkin, trimmed with lace* was tied about him by the servitors ; and, with a deacon before him, bearing a splendid pitcher and basin, and a procession behind him, with large bunches of flowers, he crossed to the pilgrim's bench. A priest, in a snow-white tunic, raised and bared the foot of the first. The pope knelt, took water in his hand, and slightly rubbed the instep, and then, drying it well with a napkin, he kissed it. The assistant-deacon gave a large bunch of flowers and a napkin to the pilgrim, as the pope left him ; and another person, in rich garments, followed with pieces of money presented in a wrapper of white paper. The same ceremony- took place with each — one foot only being honoured with a lavation. When his Holiness arrived at the u Judas/ there was a general stir, and every one was on tip-toe to ¥A PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. watch his countenance. He took his handkerchief from his eyes, and looked at the pope very earnestly ; and, when the ceremony was finished, he seized the sacred hand, and imprinting a kiss upon it, flung himself hack, and buried his face again in his handkerchief, quite overwhelmed with his feelings. The other pilgrims took it very coolly, com- paratively, and one of them seemed rather amused than edified. The pope returned to his throne, and water was poured over his hands. A cardinal gave him a napkin, his splendid cape was put again over his shoulders, and with a pater-noster, the ceremony was over. Half an hour after, with much crowding and several losses of foot-hold and temper, I had secured a place in the hall, where the apostles, as the pilgrims are called, after the washing, were to dine, waited on by the pope and cardinals. With their gloomy faces and ghastly white caps and white dresses, they looked more like criminals waiting for exe- cution, than guests at a feast. They stood while the pope went round with a gold pitcher and basin, to wash their hands ; and then seating themselves, his Holiness, with a good-natured smile, gave each a dish of soup, and said something in his ear, which had the effect of putting him at his ease. The table was magnificently set out with the plate and provisions of a prince's table, and, spite of the thousands of eyes gazing on them, the pilgrims were soon deep in the delicacies cf every dish, even the lachrymose Judas himself eating most voraciously. We left them at their dessert. LETTER XVI. Sepulchre of caius cestius — protestant burying ground — graves of keats and shelley shelley's lament over keats graves of two americans beauty of the burial place monuments over two young females — inscription on keats* monument the style of keats* poems — grave of dr. bell residence and literary under- takings of his widow. April, 1S35. A beautiful pyramid, a hundred and thirteen feet high, built into the ancient wall of Rome, is the proud Sepulchre PROIESTANT BURIAL-GROUND. 5*5 of Caius Cestius. It is the most imperishable of the anti- quities, standing as perfect after eighteen hundred years as if it were built but yesterday Just beyond it, on the de- clivity of a hill, over the ridge of which the wall passes, crowning it with two mouldering towers, lies the Protestant burying-ground. It looks towards Rome, which appears in the distance, between Mount Aventine and a small hill called Monte Testaccio ; and leaning to the south-east, the sun lies warm and soft upon its banks, and the grass and wild-flowers are there the earliest and tallest of the Cam- pagna. I have been here to-day, to see the graves of Keats and Shelley. With a cloudless sky and the most delicious air ever breathed, we sat down upon the marble slab laid over the ashes of poor Shelley, and read his own lament over Keats, who sleeps just below, at the foot of the hilL The cemetery is rudely formed into three terraces, with walks between ; and Shelley's grave occupies a small nook above, made by the projections of a mouldering wall-tower, and crowded with ivy and shrubs, and a peculiarly fragrant yellow flower, which perfumes the air around for several feet. The avenue by which you ascend from the gate is lined with high bushes of the marsh-rose in the most luxuriant bloom, and all over the cemetery the grass is thickly mingled with flowers of every die. In his Preface to his lament over Keats, Shelley says, " he was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. It is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." If Shelley had chosen his own grave at the time, he would have selected the very spot where he has since been laid — the most sequestered and flowery nook of the place he describes so feelingly. In the last verses of the elegy, he speaks of it again with the same feeling of its beauty : " The spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. •' And gray walls moulder round, on which dull tiixx* Feeds like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; And one keen pyramid, with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who plann'd This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transform'd to marble ; and beneath A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitch' d, in heaven's smile, their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose, with scarce extinguish'd breath. " Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet, To have outgrown the sorrow which consign' d * Its charge to each," Shelley has left no poet behind, who could write so touchingly of his burial place in turn. He was, indeed, as they have graven on his tombstone, " cor cordium * — the lieart of hearts. On the second terrace of the declivity are ten or twelve graves, two of which bear the names of Americans, who have died in Rome. A portrait carved in bas-relief, upon one of the slabs, told me, without the inscription, that one whom I had known was buried beneath. The slightly rising mound was covered with small violets, half hidden hy the grass. It takes away from the pain with which one stands over the grave of an acquaintance or a friend, to see the sun lying so warm upon it, and the flowers springing so profusely and cheerfully. Nature seems to have cared for those who have died so far from home, binding the earth gently over them with grass, and decking it with the most delicate flowers. A little to the left, on the same bank, is the new-made grave of a very young man, Mr. Elliot. He came abroad for health, and died at Rome, scarce two months since. Without being disgusted with life, one feels, in a place like this, a certain reconciliation, if I may so express it, with a thought of burial — an almost willingness, if his bed could be laid amid such loveliness, to be brought and left here to his repose. Purely imaginary as any difference in this circumstance is, it must at least, always affect the sick powerfully ; and with the common practice of sending the dying to Italy, as a last hope, I consider the exquisite "beauty of this place of burial as more than a common accident of happiness. Farther on, upon the same terrace, are two monuments GRAVES OF ENGLISH. 87 that interested me. One marks the grave of a young Eng- lish girl, the pride of a noble family, and, as a sculptor told me, who had often seen and admired her, a model of high- born beauty. She was riding with a party on the banks of the Tiber, when her horse became unmanageable, and backed into the river. She sank instantly, and was swept so rapidly away by the current, that her body was not found for many months. Her tomb-stone is adorned with a bas- relief, representing an angel receiving her from the waves. The other is the grave of a young lady of twenty, who was at the baths of Lucca, last summer, in pursuit of health. She died at the first approach of winter. I had the melan- choly pleasure of knowing her slightly, and we used to meet her in the winding path upon the bank of the romantic river Lima, at evening, borne in a sedan, with her mother and sister walking at her side, — the fairest victim con- sumption ever seized. She had all the peculiar beauty of the disease, the transparent complexion and the unnaturally bright eye, added to features cast in the clearest and softest mould of female loveliness. She excited general interest even among the gay and dissipated crowd of a watering- place ; and if her sedan was missed in the evening pro* menade, the inquiry for her was anxious and universal. She is buried in a place that seems made for such as herself. We descended to the lower enclosure at the foot of the slight declivity. The first grave here is that of Keats. // The inscription on his monument runs thus: " This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet, who on his death bed, in the bitterness of his heart at the ma- licious power of his enemies, desired these words to be en- graved on his tomb: here lies one whose name was written in water." He died at Rome i n 18 21. Every reader knows his history and the cause of his death. Shelley says, in the preface to his elegy, (i The savage criticism on his poems, which appeared in the Quarterly Review, pro- duced, the most violent effect on his susceptible mind : the agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood- vessel m the lungs ; a rapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgements, from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to heal 68 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. the wound thus wantonly inflicted." Keats was, no doubt> a poet of very uncommon promise. He had all the wealth of genius within him, but he had not learned, before he was killed by criticism, the received, and, therefore, the best manner of producing it for the eye of the world, Had he lived longer, the strength and richness which break continually through the affected style of ' Endymion ' and * Lamia ' and his other poems, must have formed themselves into some noble monuments of his powers. As it is, there is not a poet living who could surpass the material of his ' Endymion ' — a poem, with all its faults, far more full of beauties. But this is not the place for criticism. He is buried fitly for a poet and sleeps beyond criticism now. Peace to his ashes ! Close to the grave of Keats is that of Dr. Bell, the author of ' Observations on Italy/ This estimable man, whose comments on the Fine Arts are, perhaps, as judicious and high-toned a3 any ever written, has left behind him, in Naples, (where he practised his profession for some years) a host of friends, who remember and speak of him as few are remembered and spoken of in this changing and crowded portion of the world. His widow, who edited his works so ably and judiciously, lives still at Naples, and is preparing just now a new edition of his book on Italy. Having known her, and having heard from her own lips many par- ticulars of his life, I felt an additional interest in visiting his grave. Both his monument and Keats' s are almost buried in the tall flowering clover of this beautiful place. LETTER XVII. PRESENTATION AT THE PAPAL COURT PILGRIMS GOING TO VESPERS — PERFORMANCE OF THE MISERERE TARPEIAN ROCK THE FORUM — PALACE OF THE CAESARS — COLISEUM. April, 1833. I have been presented to the pope this morning, with Mr Mayer, of Baltimore. With the latter gentleman, I ar- rived rather late, and found that the rest of the party had been already received, and that his Holiness was giving KEATS's POEMS, 89 audience, at the moment, to some Russian ladies of rank Bishop England, of Charleston, however, was good enough to ssnd in once more, and in the course of a few minutes the chamberlain-in-waiting announced to us that // Vadre Santo would receive us. The ante-room was a picturesque and rather peculiar scene. Clusters of priests of different rank were scattered about in the corners, dressed in a variety of splendid costumes, white, crimson, and ermine ; one or two monks, with their picturesque beards and flowing dresses of grey or brown, were standing near one of the doors, in their habitually humble attitudes ; two gen- tlemen mace-bearers guarded the door of the entrance to the pope's presence, their silver batons under their arms, and their open-breasted cassocks covered with fine lace : the deep bend of the window was occupied by an American party of ladies, in the required black veils ; and around the outer door stood the helmeted guard, a dozen stout men at- arms, forming a forcible contrast to the mild faces and priestly company within. The mace- bearers lifted the curtain, and the pope stood before us, in a small plain room. The Irish priest who accompanied us prostrated himself on the floor, and kissed the embroidered slipper ; and Bishop England hastily knelt and kissed his hand, turning to present us as he rose. His Holiness smiled, and stepped forward, with a gesture of his hand, as if to prevent our kneeling, and, as the bishop mentioned our names, he looked at us and nodded smilingly, but without speaking to us. Whether he presumed we did not speak the language, or whether he thought us too young to answer for ourselves, he confined his inquiries about us entirely to the good bishop, leaving me, as 1 had wished, at leisure to study his features and manner. It was easy to conceive that the father of the Catholic Church stood before me, but I could scarcely realise that it was a sovereign of Europe, and the temporal monarch of millions. He was dressed in a long vesture of snow-white flannel, buttoned together in front, with a large crimson velvet cape over his shoulders, and band and tassels of silver cloth hanging from beneath. A small white skull-cap covered the crown of his head, and his hair, slightly grizzled, fell straight towards a low forehead, ex« 90 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. pressive of good-nature merely. A large emerald on his finger, and slippers wrought in gold, with a cross on the instep, completed his dress. His face is heavily moulded, but unmarked, and expressive mainly of sloth and kindness ; his nose is uncommonly large, rather pendant than'promi- nent ; and an incipient double chin, slightly hanging cheeks, and eyes, over which the lids drop, as if in sleep, at the end of every sentence, confirm the general impression of his presence — that of an indolent and good old man. His inquiries were principally of the Catholic Church in Baltimore, (mentioned by the bishop as the city of Mr. Mayer's residence,) of its processions, its degree of state, and whether it was recognised by the government. At the first pause in the conversation, his Holiness smiled and bowed ; the Irish priest prostrated himself again and kissed his foot, and with a blessing from the father of the Church, we retired. Of the three reigning monarchs of Europe to whom I bave now been presented, there is not one whose natural dignity and personal fitness for his station have impressed me, in any degree, like that of our own venerable President. I have approached the former through guards and masters of ceremony, with all the splendid paraphernalia of regal palaces around, themselves in the imposing dress of monarchs, standing in the sanctuaries of history and association. I called upon the latter without even sending up my name, introduced by the son of one of his friends, in the scarce finished government-house of a new republic, and found him in the midst of his family, hardly recovered from a severe illness. The circumstances were all in favour of the former, but I think the most bigoted follower of kings would find something in the simple manners and stern dignity of the grey old " chieftain " that would impress him far more than the state of all the monarchs of Christendom. On the evening of Holy Thursday, as I was on my way to St. Peter's to hear the Miserere once more, I overtook the procession of the pilgrims going up to vespers. The men went first in couples, following a cross, and escorted by gentlemen penitents covered conveniently with sackcloth, their eyes peeping through two holes, and their well- PROCESSION 91 polished boots beneath, being the only indications by which their penance could be betrayed to the world. The pil- grims themselves, perhaps a hundred in all, were the dirtiest collection of beggars imaginable, distinguished from the lazars in the street only by a long staff with a faded bunch of flowers attached to it, and an oil-cloth cape stitched over with scallop-shells. Behind came the female pilgrims, and these were led by the first ladies of rank in Rome. It was really curious to see the mixture of humility and pride. There were, perhaps, fifty ladies of all ages, from sixteen to fifty, walking each between two filthy old women, who supported themselves by their arms, while near them, on either side of the procession, followed their splendid equi- pages, with numerous servants, in livery, on foot, as if to contradict to the world their temporary degradation. The lady penitents, unlike the gentlemen, walked in their ordi- nary dress. The chief penitent, who carried a large, heavy crucifix at the head of the procession, was the Princess , at whose weekly soirees and balls assemble all that is gay and pleasure-loving in Rome. Her two nieces, elegant girls of eighteen or twenty, walked at her side, carrying lighted candles, of four or five feet in length, in broad day- light through the streets ! The procession crept slowly up to the church, and I left them kneeling at the tomb of St. Peter, and went to the side chapel, to listen to the Miserere. The choir here is said to be inferior to that in the Sistine chapel, but the cir- cumstances more than make up for the difference, which, after all, it takes a nice ear to detect. I could not but congratulate myself, as I sat down upon the base of a pillar, in the vast aisle, without the chapel where the choir were chaunting, with the twilight gathering in the lofty arches, and the candles of the various processions creeping to the consecrated sepulchre from the distant parts of the church. It was so different in that crowded and suffocating chapel of the Vatican, where, fine as was the music, I vowed posi- tively never to subject myself to such annoyance again. It had become almost dark, when the last candle but one was extinguished in the symbolical pyramid, and the first almost painful note of the Miserere wailed out into the vast church of St. Peter. For the next half-hour the kneeling '92 PENCILLINGS BY THEWAY. listeners, around the door of the chapel, seemed spell-bound in their motionless attitudes. The darkness thickened ; the hundred lamps at the far-off sepulchre of the saint looked like a galaxy of twinkling points of fire, almost lost in the distance ; and from the now perfectly obscured choir, poured, in ever-varying volume, the dirge-like music, in notes inconceivably plaintive and affecting. The power ; the mingled mournfulness and sweetness ; the impassioned fulness, at one moment, and the lost, shrieking wildness of one solitary voice, at another, carried away the soul like a whirlwind. I never have been so moved by any thing. It is not in the scope of language to convey an idea to another of the effect of the Miserere. It was not till several minutes after the music had ceased, that the dark figures rose up from the floor about me. As we approached the door of the church, the full moon, about three hours risen, poured broadly under the arches of the portico, inundating the whole front of the lofty dome with a flood of light such as falls only on Italy. There seemed to be no atmosphere between. Daylight is scarce more intense. The immense square, with its slender obelisk and embracing crescents of colonnade, lay spread out as definitely to the eye as at noon ; and the two famous foun- tains shot up their clear waters to the sky, the moonlight streaming through the spray, and every drop as visible and bright as a diamond. I got out of the press of carriages, and took a by -"street ^ilong the Tiber, to the Coliseum. Passing the Jews' quar- ter, which shuts at dark by heavy gates, I found myself near the Tarpeian Rock, and entered the Forum, behind the ruins of the Temple of Fortune. I walked toward the palace of the Csesars, stopping to gaze on the columns, whose shadows had fallen on the same spot, where I now saw them, for sixteen or seventeen centuries. It checks the blood at one's heart, to stand on the spot and remember it. There was not the sound of a footstep through the whole wilder- ness of the Forum. I traversed it to the arch of Titus in a silence, which, with the majestic ruins around, seemed almost supernatural— the mind was left so absolutely to the powerful associations of the place. Ten minutes more brought me to the Coliseum. Its COLISEUM. flS"* gigantic walls, arches on arches, almost to the very clouds, lay half in shadow, half in light ; the ivy hung trembling in the night air, from between the cracks of the ruin, and it looked like some mighty wreck in a desert. I entered, and a hundred voices announced to me the presence of half the fashion of Rome. I had forgotten that it was the mode spectacle, I have seen nothing more imposing than the entrance of these two beautiful frigates into the little port of Elba, and their magical management. The anchors were dropped, the yards came down by the run, the sails disap- peared, the living swarm upon the rigging slid below, all in a moment, and then struck up the delightful band on our quarter-deck, and the sailors leaned on the guns, the officers on the quarter railing, and boats from the shore filled with ladies lay off at different distances, — the whole scene as full of repose and enjoyment, as if we had lain idle for a month, in these glassy waters. How beautiful are the results of order ! # * * * * We had made every preparation for a pic-nic party to the TOWN-HOUSE OF NAPOLEON. 101 country-house of Napoleon yesterday — but it rained. At sunset, however, the clouds crowded into vast masses, and the evening gave a glorious promise, which was fulfilled this morning in freshness and sunshine. The commodore's barge took off the ladies for an excursion on horseback to the iron-mines, on the other side of the island — the midshipmen were set ashore in various directions for a ramble; and I, tempted with the beauty of the ravine which encloses the villa of Napoleon, declined all invitations, with an eye to a stroll thither. We were first set ashore at the mole to see the town. A medley crowd of soldiers, citizens, boy*, girls, and galley- slaves, received us at the landing, and followed us up to the town-square, gazing at the officers with undisguised curiosity. We met several gentlemen from the other ship at the cafe, and, -taking a cicerone together started for the town residence of the Emperor. It is now occupied by the governor, and stands on the summit of the little fortified city. We mounted by clean excellent pavements, getting a good-natured " buon giorno" from every female head thrust from beneath the blinds of the houses. The governor's Aid received us at the door, with his cap in his hand, and we commenced the tour of the rooms, with all the house- hold, male and female, following to gaze at us. Napoleon lived on the first floor. The rooms were as small as those of a private house, and painted in the pretty fresco common in Italy. The furniture was all changed, and the fire-places and two busts of the Emperor's sisters (Eliza and Pauline) were all that remained as it was. The library is a pretty room, though very small, and opens on a terrace level with his favourite garden. The plants and lemon-trees were planted by himself, we were told, and the officers plucked souvenirs on all sides. The officer who accompanied us was an old soldier of Napoleon's and a native of Elba, and after a little of the reluctance common to the teller of an oft- told tale, he gave us some interesting particulars of the Emperor's residence at the island. It appears that he employed him- self, from the first day of his arrival, in the improvement of his little territory, making roads, &c, and behaved quite like a man who had made up his mind to relinquish am. bition, and content himself with w r hat was about hinu 102 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. Three assassins were discovered and captured in the course of the eleven months, the two first of whom he pardoned. The third made an attempt upon his life, in the disguise of a beggar, at a bridge leading to his country-house, and was condemned and executed. He was a native of the Em- peror's own birth-place in Corsica. The second-floor was occupied by his mother and Pauline. The furniture of the chamber of the renowned beauty is very much as she left it. The bed is small, and the mirror opposite its foot very large and in a mahogany frame. Small mirrors were set also into the bureau, and in the back of a pretty cabinet of dark wood standing at the head of the bed. It is delightful to breathe the atmosphere of a room that has been the liome of the lovely creature whose marble image by Canova thrills every beholder with love. Her sitting-room, though less interesting, made us linger and muse again. It looks out over the sea to the west, and the prospect is beautiful. One forgets that her history could not be written without many a blot. How much we forgive to beauty ! Of all the female branches of the Bonaparte family, Pauline bore the greatest resemblance to her brother Napoleon. But the grand and regular profile which was in him marked with, the stern air of sovereignty and despotic rule, was in her tempered with an enchanting softness and fascinating smile. Her statue is the chefd' ceuvre of modern sculpture. We went from the Governors house to the walls of the town loitering along and gazing at the sea, and then rambled through the narrow streets of the town, attracting, by the gay uniforms of the officers, the attention and courtesies of every smooched petticoat far and near. What the faces of the damsels of Elba might be, if washed, we could hardly form a conjecture. The country-house of Napoleon is three miles from the town, a little distance from the shore, farther round into the bay. Captain Nicholson proposed to walk to it, and send his boat across — a warmer task for the mid-day of an Italian June than a man of less enterprise would choose for pleasure. We reached the stone steps of the imperial casino, after a melting and toilsome walk, hungry and thirsty, and were happy to fling ourselves upon broken chairs in the denuded drawing-room, and wait for an extempore dinner napoleon's country-house. 103 of twelve eggs and a bottle of wine as bitter as criticism. A farmer and his family live in the house, and a couple of bad busts and the fire-places are all that remain of its old appearance. The situation and the view, however, are superb. A little lap of a valley opens right away from the door to the bosom of the bay, and in the midst of the glassy basin lies the bold peninsular promontory and fortification of Porto Ferrajo, like a castle in a loch, connected w th the body of the island by a mere rib of sand. Off beyond sleeps the mainland of Italy, mountain and vale, like a smoothly- shaped bed of clouds ; and for the foreground of the land- scape, the valleys of Elba are just now green with fig-trees and vines, speckled here and there with fields of golden grain, and farm-houses shaded with all the trees of this genial climate. We examined the place after our frugal dinner, and found a natural path under the edge of the hill behind, stretching away back into the valley, and leading, after a short walk, to a small stream and a waterfall. Across it, just above the fall, lay the trunk of an old and vigorous fig- tree, full of green limbs, and laden with fruit half-ripe. It made a natural bridge over the stream, and as its branches shaded the rocks below, we could easily imagine Napoleon walking to and fro in the smooth path, and seating himself on the broadest stone in the heat of the summer evenings he passed on the spot. It was the only walk about the place, and a secluded and pleasant one. The groves of firs and brush above, and the locust and cherry-trees on the edges of the walk, are old enough to have shaded him. We sat and talked under the influence of the " genius of the spot" till near sunset, and then, cutting each a walking- stick from the shoots of the old fig-tree, returned to the boats and reached the ship as the band struck up their ex- hilarating music for the evening on the quarter-deck. ****** W T e passed two or three days at Elba most agreeably. The weather has been fine, and the ships have been thronged with company. The common-people of the town came on board in boat-loads — men, women, and children— and are never satisfied with gazing and wondering. The inhabitants speak very pure Tuscan, and are mild and 104* PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. simple in their manners. They all take the ships to be bound upon a mere voyage of pleasure ; and with the officers in their gay dresses, and the sailors in their clean white and blue, the music, morning and evening, and the general gaiety on board, the impression is not much' to be wondered at. Yesterday, after dinner, Captain Nicholson took us ashore in his gig to pass an hour or two in the shade. His steward followed, with a bottle or two of old wine; and landing near the fountain to which the boats are sent for water, we soon found a spreading fig-tree, and, with a family of the country people from a neighbouring cottage around us, we idled away the hours till the cool of the evening. The simplicity of the old man and his wife, and the wonder of himself and several labourers in his vineyard, to whom the captain gave a glass or two of his excellent wines, would have made a study for Wilkie. Sailors are merry com- panions for a party like this. We returned over the un- ruffled expanse of the bay, charmed with the beauty of the scene by sunset, and as happy as a life, literally sans souci> could make us. What is it, in this rambling absence from all to which we look forward in love and hope, that so fascinates the imagination ? ****** I went, in the commodore s suite, to call upon the governor this morning. He is a military, commanding- looking man, and received us in Napoleon's saloon, sur- rounded by his officers. He regretted that his commission did not permit him to leave the shore, even to visit the ship, but offered a visit on the part of his sister and a company of the first ladies of the town. They came off this evening. She was a lady-like woman, not very pretty, of thirty years perhaps. As she spoke only Italian, she was handed over to me, and I waited on her through the ship, explaining a great many things, of which I knew as much as herself. This visit over, we get under weigh to-morrow morning for Naples. 1SCHIA. 105 LETTER XX. DEPARTURE FROM ELBA ISCHIA— BAY OF NAPLES — NAPLES SAN CARLO — REPEATED CONSPIRACIES SCENE ON SHIPBOARD CASTE LLAMA RE. June 3, 1833. We set sail from Elba on the morning of the third of June. The inhabitants, all of whom I presume had been on board of the ships, were standing along the walls and looking from the embrasures of the fortress to see us off. It was a clear summer's morning, without much wind, and we crept slowly off from the point, gazing up at the windows of Napoleon's house as we passed under, and laying on our course for the shore of Italy. We soon got into the freshe* breeze of the open sea ; and the low white line of villages on the Tuscan coast appeared more distant, till, with a glass* we could see the people at the windows watching our pro- gress. Fishing-boats were drawn up on shore, and the idle sailors were leaning in the half shadow which they afforded ; but with the almost total absence of trees, and the glaring white of the walls, we were content to be out upon the cool sea, passing town after town unvisited. Island after island was approached and left during the day ; barren rocks, with only a lighthouse to redeem their nakedness ; and in the evening at sunset we were in sight of Ischia, the towering isle in the bosom of the bay of Naples. The band had been called as usual at seven, and were playing a delightful waltz upon the quarter-deck; the sea was even, and just crisped by the breeze from the Italian shore ; the sailors were leaning on the guns, listening ; the officers clustered in their various places; and the murmur of the foam before the prow was just audible in the lighter passages of the music. Above and in the west glowed the eternal but untiring tints of the summer sky of the Mediterranean — a gradually fading gold from the edge of the sea to the zenith, and the early star soon twinkled through it, and the air dampened to a reviving freshness. I do not know that a mere scene like this, without incident, will interest a reader, but it was so delightful to myself, that I have described it for the mere pleasure of dwells on it. The desert still* 106 . PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. ness and loneliness of the sea, the silent motion of the ship, and the delightful music swelling beyond the bulwarks and dying upon the wind, were such singularly combined cir- cumstances ! It was a moving paradise in the waste of the ocean. •* # * * * Sail was shortned last night, and we lay to under tlie shore of Ischia, to enter the bay of Naples by daylight. As the morning mist lifted a little, the peculiar shape of Vesuvius, the boldness of the island of Capri, the sweeping curves of Baiae and Portici, and the small promontory which lifts Naples toward the sea, rose like the features of a familiar friend to my eye. It would be difficult to have seen Naples without having a memory steeped in its beauty. A fair wind set us straight into the bay ; and, one by one, the towns on its shore, the streaks of lava on the sides of its volcano, and soon after, the houses of friends on the street of the Chiaga, became distinguishable to the eye. There had been a slight eruption since I was here ; but now, as before, there was scarce a puff of smoke to be seen rising from Vesuvius. My little specimen of sulphur, which I took from the just-hardened bosom of the crater now de- stroyed, lies before me on the table as I write, more valued than ever, since its bed has been melted and blown into the air. The new and lighter-coloured streak on the right of the mountain would have informed me of itself that the lava had issued since I was here. The sound of bells and the bum of the city reached our ears, and, running in between the mole and the castle, the anchor was dropped, and the ship surrounded with boats from the shore. ***** The heat kept us on board till the evening, and with several of the officers I landed and walked up the Toledo as the lazzaroni were stirring from their sleep under the walls of the houses. With the exception of the absence of the English, who have mostly flitted to the baths, Naples was the same place as ever — crowded, busy, dirty, and gay. Her thousand beggars were still " dying of hunger," and telling it to the passenger in the same exhausted tone ; her gay carriages and skeleton hacks were still flying up and down, and dashing at and over you for your custom ; the NAPLES. 107 •ows and goats were driven about to be milked in the street ; the lemonade-sellers stood in their stalls, the money- changers at their tables in the open squares ; puncinello squeaked and beat his mistress at every corner ; the awnings of the cafes covered hundreds of smokers and loungers 5 and this gay, miserable, homeless, out-of-doors people, seemed as degraded and thoughtless, and, it must be owned, as insensibly bappy, as before. You would think, to walk through the Toledo of Naples, that two-thirds of its crowd of wretches, and all its horses and dogs, were at their last extremity ; and yet they go on, and, I was told by an Englishman resident here, who has become accustomed to meet always the same faces, seem never to change or disappear, suffering and groaning and dragging up and down, shocking the eye and sickening the heart of the in- experienced stranger for years and years. We passed the prima sera, the first pait of the evening, as most men in Italy pass it, eating ices at the thronged cafe, and at nine we went to the splendid theatre of San Carlo to see La Sornnambula. The king and queen were present, with the queen-mother. I was instantly struck with the alteration in the appearance of the young queen. When I was here three months ago, she was just married, and appeared frequently in the public walks, — and a fresher or brighter face I never had seen. She was acknowledged the most beautiful woman in Naples, and had, what is very much valued in this land of pale brunettes, a clear rosy cheek, and lips as bright as a child's. She is now thin and white, and looks to me like a person fading with a rapid consumption. I found some Italian acquaintances in look- ing round the house, and soon learned in whispers the news of the day, most of which depended on this circum- stance. ****** Several conspiracies have been detected within a month or two, the last of which was very nearly successful. The day before we arrived, two officers in the royal army, men of high rank, had shot themselves, each putting a pistol to the other's breast, believing discovery inevitable. One died instantly, and the other lingers to-day, without any hope of recovery. The king was fired at on parade the day pre- 108 PEXCILLINGS 3Y THE WAY. vious, which was supposed to have been the first step, but the plot had been checked by partial disclosure, and hence the tragedy I have just related. The ships have been thronged with visitors during the two or three days we have lain at Naples, amorfg whom have been the prime minister and his family. Orders are given to admit every one on board that wishes to come ; and the decks, morning and evening, present the most motley scene imaginable. Cameo and lava sellers expose their wares on the gun-carriages, surrounded by midship- men — Jews and fruit-sellers hail the sailors through the ports — boats full of chickens and pigs, all in loud outcry, are held up to view with a recommendation in broken English — contadini in their best dresses walk up and down, smiling on the officers and wondering at the cleanliness of the decks, and the elegance of the captain's cabin — Punch plays his tricks under the gun-deck ports — bands of wan- dering musicians sing and hold out their hats, as they row around, and all is harmony and amusement. In the even- ing it is pleasanter still, for the band is playing, and the better classes of people come off from the shore, and boats filled with these pretty dark-eyed Neapolitans row round and round the ship, eyeing the officers as they lean over the bulwarks, and ready with but half a nod to make acquaint- ance and come up the gangway. I have had a private pride of my own in showing the frigate as American to many of my foreign friends. One's nationality becomes nervously sensitive abroad ; and in the beauty and order of the ships, the manly elegance of the officers, and the general air of superiority and decision throughout, I have found food for some of the highest feelings of gratification of which I am capable. ***** * We w T eighed anchor yesterday morning (the twentieth of June,) and stood across the bay for Castellamare. Run- ning close un er Vesuvius, we passed Portici, Torre del *Greco, and Pompeii, and rounded-to in the little harbour of this fashionable watering-place soon after noon. Castel- lamare is about fifteen miles from Naples, and in the sum- mer months it is crowded with those of the fashionables who do not make a northern tour. The shore rises directly CASTELLAMARE. 100 from the sea into a high mountain, on the side of which the king has a country-seat, and around it hang, on terraces, the houses of the English. Strong mineral springs abound on the slope. We landed directly, and, mounting the donkeys waiting on the pier, started to make the round of the village-walks. English maids with their prettily-dressed and rosy children, and English ladies and gentlemen, mounted like ourselves on donkeys, met us at every turn as we wound up the shady and zig-zag roads to the palace. The views became finer as we ascended, till we could ]ook down into Pompeii, which was but four miles off, and away towards Naples, following the white road with the eye along the shore of the sea. The paths were in fine order, and as beautiful as green trees and shade and living fountains, crossing the road continually, could make them. In the neighbourhood of the royal casino the ground was planted more like a park, and the walks were terminated with artificial fountains, throwing up their bright waters amid statuary and over grottos; and here we met the idlers of the place of all nations, enjoying the sunset. I met an acquaintance or two, and felt the yearning unwillingness to go away which I have felt on every spot almost of this delicious land. We set sail again with the night-breeze, and at this moment are passing between Ischia and Capri, running nearly on our course for Sicily. We shall probably be at Palermo to-morrow. The snip's bell beats ten, and the lights are ordered out, and, under this imperative govern- ment, I must say, " Good night V LETTER XXT. ISLAND OF SICILY PALERMO SARACENIC APPEARANCE OF THE TOWN CATHEDRAL THE MARINA VICEROY LEOPOLD MONASTERY OF THE CAPUCHINS — CELEBRATED CATACOMBS FANCIFUL GARDEN. June 24, 1833. The mountain-coast of Sicily lay piled up before us at the distance of ten or twelve miles, when I came on deck this 110 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. ^morning. The quarter-master handed me the glass, and. running my eye along the shore, I observed three or four low plains, extending between projecting spurs of the hills, studded thickly with country-houses, and bright with groves which I knew, by the deep glancing green, to be the orange. In a corner of the longest of these intervals, a sprinkling of white, looking in the distance like a bed of pearly shells on the edge of the sea, was pointed out as •Palermo. With a steady glass its turrets and gardens be- came apparent, and its mole, bristling above the wall with masts ; and running in with a free wind, the character of our ship was soon recognised from the shore, and the flags of every vessel in the harbour ran up to the mast, the cus- tomary courtesy to a man-of-war entering port. As the ship came to her anchorage, the view of the city was very captivating. The bend of the shore embraced our position, and the eastern half of the curve was a succession of gardens and palaces. A broad street extended along in front, crowded with people gazing at the frigates ; and up one of the long avenues of the public garden we could dis- tinguish the veiled women walking in groups, children playing, priests, soldiers, and all the motley frequenters of such places in this idle clime, enjoying the refreshing sea- breeze upon whose wings we had come. I was impatient to get ashore, but, between the health-officer and some other hindrances, it was evening before we set foot , upon the pier. With Captain Nicholson and the purser I walked up the Toledo, as the still half- asleep tradesmen were opening their shops after the siesta. The oddity of the Palermitan style of building struck me forcibly. Of the two long streets, crossing each other at right angles and extending to the four gates of the city, the lower story of every house is a shop, of course. The second and third stories are orna- mented with tricksy-looking iron balconies, in which the women sit at work universally ; while from above projects, far over the street, a grated enclosure, like a long bird- cage, from which look down girls and children, (or, if it is a convent, the nuns) as if it were an airy prison to keep the household from the contact of the world. The whole air of Palermo is different from that of the towns upon the PALERMO THE CORSO. Ill Continent. The peculiarities are said to be Saracenic, and inscriptions in Arabic are still found upon the ancient buildings. The town is poetically called the concha oVoro y or the (i golden shell." We walked on to the cathedral, followed by a troop of literally naked beggars, baked black in the sun, and more emaciated and diseased than any I have yet seen abroad. Their cries and gestures were painfully energetic. In the course of five minutes we had seen two or three hundred. They lay along the sidewalks, and upon the steps of the houses and churches, — men, women, and children, nearly or quite naked, and as unnoticed by the inhabitants as the stones of the street. Ten or twenty indolent-looking priests sat in the shade t the porch of the cathedral. The columns of the vesti- bule were curiously wrought, the capitals exceedingly rich with fretted leaf- work, and the ornaments of the front of the same wild-looking character as the buildings of the town. A hunchback, scarce three feet high, came up and offered his services as a cicerone, and we entered the church. The antiquity of the interior was injured by the new white paint, covering every part except the more valuable decora- tions ; but with its four splendid sarcophagi standing like separate buildings, in the aisles, and covering the ashes of Ruggiero and his kinsmen ; the eighty columns of Egyp- tian granite in the nave ; the ciborio of entire lapis-lazuli with its lovely blue ; and the mosaics, frescos, and relievos, about the altar, it could scarce fail of producing an effect of great richness. The floor was occupied by here and there a kneeling beggar, praying in his rags, and undisturbed even by the tempting neighbourhood of strangers. I stood long by an old man, who seemed hardly to have the strength to hold himself upon his knees. His eyes were fixed upon a lovely picture of the Virgin, and his trembling hands loosed bead after bead as his prayer proceeded. I slipped a small piece of silver between his palm and the cross of his rosary, and, without removing his eyes from the face of the Holy Mother, he implored an audible blessing upon me in a tone of the most earnest feeling. I have scarce been so moved within my recollection. The equipages were beginning to roll towards the €c Ma- 112 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. rina/' and the sea-breeze was felt even through the streets; We took a carriage and followed to the Corso, where we counted near two hundred gay, well-appointed equipages, in the course of an hour. What a contrast to the wretched- ness we had left behind ! Driving up and down this 'half- mile in front of the palaces on the sea, seemed quite a suf- ficient 'amusement for the indolent nobility of Palermo. TJiey were named to us by their imposing titles as they passed, and we looked in vain into their dull unanimated faces for the chivalrous character of the once-renowned knights of Sicily. Ladies and gentlemen sat alike silent, leaning back in their carriages in the elegant attitudes studied to such effect on this side the water, and gazing 7. r acquaintances among those passing on the opposite line. Towards the dusk of the evening, an avant-courier on Horseback announced the approach of the viceroy Leopold, the brother of the king of Naples. He drove himself in an English hunting- waggon with two seats, and looked like a dandy whip of the first water from Regent Street. He is about twenty, and very handsome. His horses, fine English bays, flew up and down the short corso, passing and repassing every other minute, till we were weary of touching our hats and stopping till he had gone by. He noticed the uniform of our officers, and raised his hat with particular politeness to them. As it grew dark, the carriages came to a stand around a small open gallery raised in the broadest part of the Marina. Rows of lamps, suspended from the roof, were lit, and a band of forty or fifty musicians appeared in the area, and played parts of the popular operas. We were told they performed every night from nine till twelve. Chairs were set around for the people on foot, ices circulated, and some ten or twelve thousand people enjoyed the music in the delicious moonlight, keeping perfect silence from the first note till the last. These heavenly nights of Italy are thus begun, and at twelve the people separate and go to visit, or lounge at home till morning, when the windows are closed, the cool night-air shut in, and they sleep till evening comes on again, literally " keeping the hours the stars do." It is very certain that it is the only way to enjoy life in this enervating climate. The sun is the worst CAVUCHIK CATACOMBS. 113 enemy to health, and life and spirits sink under its inten- sity. The English, who are the only people abroad in an Italian noon, are constant victims to it. ****** We drove this morning to the monastery of the Capu- chins. Three or four of the brothers, in long grey beards, and the heavy brown sackcloth cowls of the order tied around the waist with ropes, received us cordially and took us through the cells and chapels. We had come to see the famous catacombs of the convent. A door was opened in the side of the main cloister, and we descended a long flight of stairs into the centre of three lofty vaults, lighted each by a window at the extremity of the ceiling. A more frightful scene never appalled the eye. The walls were lined with shal- low niches, from which hung, leaning forward, as if to fall upon the gazer, the dried bodies of monks in the full dress of their order. Their hands were crossed upon their breasts or hung at their sides, their faces were blackened and withered, and every one seemed to have preserved, in diabolical caricature, the very expression of life. The hair lay reddened and dry on the dusty skull; the teeth, per- fect or imperfect, had grown brown in their open mouths ; the nose had shrunk ; the cheeks fallen in and cracked ; and they loooked more like living men cursed with some horrid plague than the inanimate corpses they were. The name of each was pinned upon his cowl, with his age and the time of his death. Below, in three or four tiers, lay long boxes painted fantastically, and containing, the monk told us, the remains of Sicilian nobles. Upon a long shelf above sat, perhaps, a hundred children of from one year to five, in little chairs worn with their use w T hile in life, dressed in the gayest manner, with fanciful caps upon their little blackened heads, dolls in their hands, and, in one or two instances, a stuffed dog or parrot lying in their laps. A more horribly ludicrous collection of little withered faces, shrunk into expression so entirely inconsistent with the gaiety of their dresses, could scarce be conceived. One of them had his arm tied up, holding a child's whip in the act of striking, while the poor thing's head had rotted and dropped upon his breast ; and a leather cap fallen on one side showed his bare skull, with the most comical expression i 114 PENCILLINGS BY fHE WAY. of carelessness. We quite shocked the old monk with our laughter, but the scene was irresistible. We went through several long galleries rilled in the same manner with the dead monks standing over the coffins of nobles, and children on the shelf above. There were three thousand bodies and upwards in the place, monks and all. Some of them were very ancient. There was one, dated a century and a half back, whose tongue still hangs from his mouth. The friar took hold of it, and moved it up and down, rattling it against his teeth. It was like a piece of dried fish- skin, and as sharp and thin as a nail. At the extremity of the last passage was a new vault appropriated to women. There were nine already lying on white pillows in the different recesses, who had died within the year, and among them a young girl, the daughter of a noble family of Palermo, stated in the inscription to have been a virgin of seventeen years. The monk said her twin- sister was one of the most beautiful women of the city at this moment. She was laid upon her back, on a small shelf, faced with a wire grating, dressed in white, with a large bouquet of artificial flowers on the centre of the body Her hands and face were exposed, and the skin, which seemed to me scarcely dry, was covered with small black ants. I struck with my stick against the shelf, and, startled by the concussion, the disgusting vermin poured from the mouth and nostrils in hundreds. How difficult it is to believe that the beauty we worship must come to this ! As we went towards the staircase, the friar showed us the deeper niches, in which the bodies were placed for the first six months. There were fortunately no fresh bodies in them at the time of our visit. The stench, for a week or two, he told us, was intolerable. They are suffered to get quite dry here, and then are disposed of according to their sex or profession. A rope passed round the middle fastens the dead monk to his shallow niche, and there he stands till his bones rot from each other, sometimes for a century or more. We hurried up the gloomy stairs, and, giving the monk our gratuity, were passing out of the cloister to our car- riage, when two of the brothers entered, bearing a sedan- cnair with the blinds closed. Our friend called us back SICILIAN GARDEN. US and opened the door. An old grey-headed woman sat bolt up- right within, with a rope around her body and another round her neck, supporting her by two rings in the back of the se- dan. She had died that morning, and was brought to be dried in the capuchin catacombs. The effect of the newly-deceased body in a handsome silk dress and plaited cap was horrible. We drove from the monastery to the gardens of a Sicilian prince, near by. I was agreeably disappointed to find the grounds laid out in the English taste, winding into se- cluded walks shaded with undipped trees, and opening into glades of greensward cooled by fountains. We strolled on from one sweet spot to another, coming constantly upon little Grecian temples, ruins, broken aqueducts, aviaries, bowers furnished with curious seats and tables, bridges over streams, and labyrinths of shrubbery ending in hermit- ages built curiously of cane. So far, the garden, though lovely, was like many others. On our return, the person who accompanied us began to surprise us with singular contrivances — fortunately for us, selecting the coachman who had driven us as the subject of his experiments. In the middle of a long green alley he requested him to step forward a few paces, and, in an instant, streams of water poured upon him from the bushes around in every direc- tion. There were seats in the arbours, the least pressure of which sent up a stream beneath the unwary visitor ; steps to an ascent, which 3 r ou no sooner touched than you were showered from an invisible source ; and one small hermitage, which sent a jet-d'eau into the face of a person lifting the latch. Nearly in the centre of the garden stood a pretty building, with an ascending staircase. At the first step, a friar in white, represented to the life in wax, opened the door, and fixed his eyes on the comer. At the next step, the door was violently shut. At the third, it was half-opened again, and as the foot pressed the platform above, both doors flew wide open, and the old friar made room for the visitor to enter. Life itself could not have been more natural. The garden was full of similar tricks. We were hurried away by an engagement before we had seen them all ; and stopping for a moment to look at a magnificent Egyptian Ibis, walking around in an aviary like a temple, we drove into town to dinner i 2 11 3 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. LETTER XXII. tTHE LUNATIC ASYLUM AT PALERMO — MARINA DISTRESS OF TH£ SICILIANS — CONSPIRACIES. June 27, 1823. Two of the best-conducted lunatic asylums in the world are in the kingdom of Naples — one at A versa, near Capua, and the other at Palermo. The latter is managed by a whim- sical Sicilian baron, who has devoted his time and fortune to it, and, with the assistance of the government, has carried it to great extent and perfection. The poor are received gratuitously ; and those who can afford it, enter as boarders, and are furnished with luxuries according to their means. The hospital stands in an airy situation in the lovely neighbourhood of Palermo. We were received by a porter in a respectable livery, who introduced us immediately to the old baron — a kind-looking man, rather advanced beyond middle life, of manners singularly well-bred and preposses- sing. t€ Je suis le premier fou," said he, throwing his arms out as he bowed on our entrance. We stood in an open court, surrounded with porticos lined with stone seats. On one of them lay a fat, indolent-looking man, in clean gray clothes, talking to himself with great apparent satisfaction. He smiled at the baron as he passed, without checking the motion of his lips ; and three others standing in the door- way of a room marked as the kitchen, smiled also as he came up, and fell into his train, apparently as much inter- ested as ourselves in the old man's explanation. The kitchen was occupied by eight or ten people all at work, and all, the baron assured us, mad. One man, of about forty, was broiling a steak with the gravest atten- tion. Another who had been furious till employment was given him, was chopping meat with violent industry in a large wooden bowl. Two or three girls were about, obey- ing the little orders of a middle-aged man, occupied with several messes cooking on a patent stove. I was rather incredulous about his insanity, till he took a small bucket and went to the jet of a fountain, and, getting impatient from some cause or other, dashed the water upon the floor, LUNATIC ASYLUM. 117 The baron mildly called him by name, and mentioned to him as a piece of information that he had wet the floor. He nodded his head, and, filling his bucket quietly, poured a little into one of the pans, and resumed his occupation. We passed from the kitchen into an open court, curiously paved and ornamented with Chinese grottos, artificial rocks, trees, cottages, and fountains. Within the grottos reclined figures of wax. Before the altar of one. fitted up as a Chinese chapel, a mandarin was prostrated in prayer. The walls on every side were painted in perspective scenery, and the whole had as little the air of a prison as the open val- ley itself. In one of the corners was an unfinished grotto, and a handsome young man was entirely absorbed in thatch- ing the ceiling with strips of cane. The baron pointed to him, and said he had been incurable till he found this em- ployment for him. Every thing about us, too, he assured us, was the work of his patients. They had paved the court, built the grottos and cottages, and painted the walls under his direction. The secret of his whole system, he said, was employment and constant kindness. He had usually about one hundred and fifty patients, and he dis- missed upon an average two- thirds of them quite recovered. We went into the apartment of the women. These, he said, were his worst subjects. In the first room sat eight or ten employed in spinning, while one infuriated creature, not more than thirty, but quite gray, was walking up and down the floor, talking and gesticulating with the greatest violence. A young girl of sixteen, an attendant, had entered into her humour, and, with her arm put affection- ately round her waist, assented to every thing she said, and called her by every name of endearment while endeavour- ing to silence her. When the baron entered, the poor creature addressed herself to him, and seemed delighted that he had come. He made several mild attempts to check her, but she seized his hands, and with the veins of her throat swelling with passion, her eyes glaring terribly, and her tongue white and trembling, she continued to declaim more and more violently. The baron gave an order to a male attendant at the door, and, beckoning us to follow, led her gently through a small court planted with trees, to a room containing a hammock. She checked her torrent of 118 PENCILLIXGS BY THE WAY. language as she observed the preparations going on, and seemed amused with the idea of swinging. The man took her up in his arms without resistance, and laced the ham- mock oyer her, confining every thing but her head; and the female attendant, one of the most playful and prepos- sessing little creatures I ever saw, stood on a chair, and at every swing threw a little water on her face as if in sport. Once or twice the maniac attempted to resume the subject of her ravings, but the girl laughed in her face and diverted her from it, till at last she smiled, and. dropping her head into the hammock, seemed disposed to sink into an easy sleep. We left her swinging, ana went out into the court, where eight or ten women in the gray gowns of the estab- lishment were walking up and down, or sitting under the trees, lost in thought. One, with a fine intelligent face, came up to me and curtsied gracefully without speaking. The physician of the establishment joined me at the moment, and asked her what she wished. " To kiss his hand," said she, " but his looks forbade me." She coloured deeply, and folded her arms across her breast, and walked away. The baron called us, and in going out I passed her again, and, taking her hand, kissed it, and bade her good- bye. " You had better kiss my lips," said she; "you'll never see me again." She laid her forehead against the iron bars of the gate, and with a face working with emo- tion, watched us till we turned out of sight. I asked the physician for her history. " It was a common case/' he said. " She was the daughter of a Sicilian noble, who,, too poor to marry her to one of her own rank, had sent her to a convent, where confinement had driven her mad. She is now a charity patient in the asylum." The courts in which these poor creatures are confined open upon a large and lovely garden. We walked through it with the baron, and then returned to the apartments of the females. In passing a cell, a large majestic woman strided out with a theatrical air, and commenced an address to the Deity, in a language strangely mingled of Italian and Greek. Her eyes were naturally large and soft, but excitement had given them additional dilation and fire, and she looked a prophetess. Her action, with all its energy, GREEK PATIENT. 119 was lady-like. Her feet, half- covered with slippers, were well-formed and slight, and she had every mark of supe- riority both of birth and endowment. The baron took her by the hand with the deferential courtesy of the old school, and led her to one of the stone seats. She yielded to him politely, but resumed her harangue, upbraiding the Deity, as well as I could understand her, for her misfortunes. They succeeded in soothing her by the assistance of the same playful attendant who had accompanied the other to the hammock, and she sat still, with her lips white and her tongue trembling like an aspen. While the good old baron was endeavouring to draw her into a quiet conversation, the physician told me some curious circumstances respecting her. She was a Greek, and had been brought to Palermo when a girl. Her mind had been destroyed by an illness, and after seven years' madness, during which she had re- fused to rise from her bed, and had quite lost the use of her limbs, she was brought to this establishment bv her friends. Experiments were tried in vain to induce her to move from her painful position. At last the baron determined upon addressing what he considered the master-passion in all female bosoms. He dressed himself in the gayest manner, and, in one of her gentle moments, entered her room with respectful ceremony and offered himself to her in marriage ! She refused him with scorn, and with seeming emotion he begged forgiveness and left her. The next morning, on his entrance, she smiled — the first time for years. He conti- nued his attentions for a day or two, and after a little coquetry she one morning announced to him that she had re- considered his proposal, and would be his bride. They raised her from her bed to prepare her for the ceremony, and she was carried in a chair to the garden, where the bridal feast was spread, nearly all the other patients of the hospital being present. The gaiety of the scene absorbed the attention of all ; the utmost decorum prevailed ; and when the ceremony was performed, the bride was crowned, and carried back in state to her apartment. She re- covered gradually the use of her limbs ; her health is im- proved, and excepting an occasional paroxysm, such as we happened to witness, she is quiet and contented. The other inmates of the asylum still call her the bride ; and 120 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. the baron, as her husband, has the greatest influence over her. While the physician was telling me these circumstances, the baron had succeeded in calming her, and she sat with her arms folded, dignified and silent. He was still holding her hand, when the woman whom we had left swinging in the hammock, came stealing up behind the trees on tiptoe, and, putting her hand suddenly over the baron's eyes, kissed him on both sides of his face, laughing heartily, and calling him by every name of affection. The contrast between this mood and the infuriated one in which we had found her, was the best comment on the good man's system. He gently disengaged himself, and apologised to his lady for allowing the liberty, and we followed him to another apartment. It opened upon a pretty court, in which a fountain was playing, and against the different columns of the portico sat some half-dozen patients. A young man of eighteen, with a very pale, scholar-like face, was reading Ariosto. Near him, under the direction of an attendant, a fair, delicate girl, with a sadness in her soft blue eyes that might have been a study for a mater dolorosa, was cutting paste upon a board laid across her lap. She seemed scarcely conscious of what she was about ; and when I approached and spoke to her, she laid down the knife and rested her head upon her hand, and looked at me steadily, as if she was trying to recollect where she had known me. " I cannot remember/' she said to herself, and went on with her occupation. I bowed to her as we took our leave, and she returned it gracefully, but coldly. The young man looked up from his book and smiled ; the old man lying on the stone seat in the outer court rose up and followed us to the door, and we were bowed out by the baron and his gentle madmen as politely and kindly as if we were concluding a visit to a company of friends. ***** An evening out of doors, in summer, is pleasant enough anywhere in Italy : but I have found no place where the people and their amusements were so concentrated at that hour, as upon the €t Marina " of Palermo. A ramble with the officers up and down ; renewing the acquaintances made THE MARINA. 121 with risitors to the ships ; listening to the music and ob- serving the various characters of the crowd, conclude every- day agreeably. A terraced promenade, twenty feet above the street, extends nearly the whole length of the Marina, and here under the balconies of the viceroy's palace, with the crescent harbour spread out before the eye, trees above, and marble seats tempting the weary at every step, may be met pedestrians of every class, from the first cool hour when the sea-breeze sets in till midnight or morning. The in- tervals between the pieces performed by the royal band in £x* the centre of the drive is seized by the wandering im- provisatrice or the ludicrous puncinello, and even the beggars cease to importune in the general abandonment to pleasure. Every other moment the air is filled with a delightful perfume, and you are addressed by the bearer of a tall pole tied thickly with the odorous flowers of this voluptuous climate — a mode of selling these cheap luxuries which I believe is peculiar to Palermo. The gaiety they give a crowd, by the way, is singular. They move about among the gaudily-dressed contadini like a troop of banners — tulips, narcissus, moss-roses, branches of jasmine, geraniums, every flower that is rare and beautiful scenting the air from a hundred overladed poles, and the merest pittance will pur- chase the rarest and loveliest. It seems a clime of fruits and flowers; and if one could but shut his eyes to the dreadful contrasts of nakedness and starvation, he might believe himself in a Utopia. We were standing on the balcony of the consul's residence, (a charming situation overlooking the Marina,) and re- marking the gaiety of the scene on the first evening of our arrival. The conversation turned upon the condition of the people. The consul remarked that it was an every-day circumstance to find beggars starved to death in the streets, and that, in the small villages near Palermo, eight or ten were often taken up dead from the road-side in the morning. The difficulty of getting a subsistence is every day in- creasing, and in the midst of one of the most fertile spots of the earth, one half the population are driven to the last extremity for bread. The results appear in constant con- spiracies against the government, detected and put down with more or less difficulty. The island is garrisoned with 122 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. troops from Italy, and the viceroy has lately sent to his brother for a re-inforcement, and is said to feel very insecure. LETTER XXIII. PETE GIVEN BY MR. GARDINER, THE AMERICAN CONSUL- MESSINA LIPARI ISLANDS — SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. June, 1835. The curve of " The Golden Shell/' which bends to the east of Palermo, is a luxuriant plain of ten miles in length, terminated by a bluff which forms a headland corner of the bay. A broad neck of land between this bay and another indenting the coast less deeply on the other side, is occupied by a cluster of summer palaces belonging to several of the richer princes of Sicily. The breeze, whenever there is one on land or sea, sweeps freshly across this ridge ; and a more desirable residence for combined coolness and beauty could scarce be imagined. The Palermitan princes, however, find every country more attractive than their own ; and while you may find a dozen of them in any city of Europe, their once magnificent residences are deserted and falling to decay, almost without an exception. The old walls of one of these palaces were enlivened yesterday by &fete given to the officers of the squadron by the American consul, Mr. Gardiner. We left Palermo in a long cavalcade, followed by a large omnibus containing the ship's band, early in the forenoon. The road was lined with prickly pear and oleander in the most luxuriant blossom. Exotics in our country, these plants are indige- nous to Sicily, and form the only hedges to the large plantations of cane and the spreading vineyards and fields. A more brilliant show than these long lines of trees, laden with bright pink flowers, and varied by the gigantic and massive leaf of the pear, cannot easily be imagined. We were to visit one or two palaces on our way. The carriage drew up about eight miles from town, at the gate of a ruinous building, and, passing through a deserted FETE AT PALERMO. 125 court, we entered an old-fashioned garden, presenting one succession of trimmed walks, urns, statues, and fountains* The green mould of age and exposure upon the marbles, the broken seats, the once costly but now ruined and silent fountains, the tall weeds in the seldom- trodden walks, and the wild vegetation of fragrant jasmine and briar, burying; everything with its luxuriance, all told the story of decay* I remembered the scenes of the Decameron — the " hundred tales of love," — laid in these very gardens ; the gay romances* of which Palermo was the favourite home, and the dames and knights of Sicily, the fairest and bravest themes ; and I longed to let my merry companions pass on, and remain to realise more deeply the spells of poetry and story. The pleasure of travel is in the fancy. Men and manners are so nearly alike over the world, and the same annoyances disturb so certainly,' wherever we are, the gratification of seeing and conversing with our living fellow -beings, that it is only by the mingled illusion of fancy and memory, by getting apart, and peopling the deserted palace or the sombre ruin from the pages of a book, that we ever realise the anticipated pleasure of standing on celebrated ground. The eye, the curiosity, are both disappointed, and the voice of a common companion reduces the most romantic ruin to? a heap of stone. In some of the footsteps of Childe Harold himself, with his glorious thoughts upon my lips and all that moved his imagination addressing my eye with the ad- ditional grace which his poetry has left around them, I have found myself unably to overstep the vulgar circumstances of the hour. The " Temple of the Clitumnus " was a ruined shed glaring in the sunshine, and the " Cottage of Petrarch** an apology for extortion and annoyance. I heard a shout from the party, and followed them to a building at the foot of the garden. I passed the threshold and started back. A ghastly monk, with a broom in his hand, stood gazing at me, and at a door just beyond, a decrepid nun was see-sawing backwards and forwards, ringing a bell with the most impatient violence. I ventured to pass in ; and a door opened at the right, disclosing the self- denying cell of a hermit with his narrow bed and single chair, and at the table sat the rosy-gilled friar, filling his glass from an antiquated bottle, and nodding his head to his ( 124 PEXCILLING3 23 Y THE WAY. visitor in grinning welcome. A long cloister with six or -eight cells extended beyond, and in each was a monk in some startling attitude, or a pale and saintly nun employed in work or prayer. The whole was as like a living mo- nastery as wax could make it. The mingling of monks and nuns seemed an anachronism, but we were told that it represented a tale, the title of which I have forgotten. It w#s certainly an odd as well as an expensive fancy for a garden ornament, and shows by its uselessness the once princely condition of the possessors of the palace. An Englishman married not many years since an old princess, to whom the estates had descended; and with much un- available property and the title of prince, he has entered the service of the king of the Sicilies for a support. We drove on to another palace, still more curious in its ornaments. The extensive walls which enclosed it ; the gates, the fountains in the courts and gardens, were studded with marble monsters of every conceivable deformity. The head of a man crowned the body of an eagle, standing on the legs of a horse ; the lovely face and bosom of a female crouched upon the body of a dog ; alligators, serpents, lions, monkeys, birds, and reptiles were mixed up with parts of the human body in the most revolting variety. So ad- mirable was the work, too, and so beautiful the material, that even outraged taste would hesitate to destroy them. The wonder is, that artists of so much merit could have been hired to commit such sins against decency, or that a man in his senses would waste upon them the fortune they must have cost. We mounted a massive flight of steps, with a balustrade of gorgeously carved marble, and entered a hall hung round with the family portraits, the eccentric founder at their head. He was a thin, quizzical-looking gentleman, in a laced coat and sword, and had precisely the face I imagined for him — that of a whimsied madman. You would select it from a thousand as the subject for a lunatic asylum. We were led next to a long narrow hall, famous for having dined the king and his courtiers an age or two ago. The ceiling was of plate mirror, reflecting us all, upside ••down, as we strolled through, and the walls were studded from the floor to the roof with the quartz diamond, FETE AT PALERMO. 125 (valueless, but brilliant,) bits of coloured glass, spangles, and everything that could reflect light. The effect, when the quaint old chandeliers were lit, and the table spread. with silver and surrounded by a king and his nobles* in the costume of a court in the olden time, must have exceeded %ery. Beyond, we were ushered into the state drawing-room; d saloon of grand proportions, roofed like the other with mirrors, but paved and lined throughout with the costliest, marbles ; Sicilian agates ; paintings set in the wall and covered w 7 ith glass, w r hile on pedestals around stood statues of the finest workmanship, representing the males of the family in the costume or armour of the times,. A table of inlaid precious stones stood in the centre ; cabinets of lapis- lazuli and side-tables occupied the spaces between the fur- niture, and the chairs and sofas were covered with the rich velvet stuffs now out of use, embroidered and fringed magnificently. I sat down upon a tripod stool, and with my eyes half closed looked up at the mirrored reflections of the officers in the ceiling, and tried to imagine back the gay throngs that had moved across the floor they were treading so unceremoniously ; the knightly and royal feet that had probably danced the stars down with the best beauty of Sicily beneath those silent mirrors; the joy, the jealousy, the love and hate that had lived their hour and been repeated, as were our lighter feelings and faces now, outlived by the perishing mirrors that might still outlive ours as long. How much there is an atmosphere ! How full the air of these old palaces is of thought ! How one might enjoy them, could he ramble here alone, or with one congenial and amusing companion, to answer to hit i ualizmg. We drove on to our appointment. At the end of a hand« «ome avenue stood a large palace, in rather more modern. taste than those we had left. The crowd of carriages in the court, the gold-laced midshipmen scattered about the massive stairs and in the formal walks of the gardens, the gay dresses of the ship's band playing on the terrace, and the troops of ladies and gentlemen in every direction, gave an air of bustle to the stately structure that might have reminded the marble nymphs of the days when they were 126 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY first lifted to their pedestals. The old hall was thrown open at two, and a table stretching from one end to the other, loaded with every luxury of the season, and capable of accommodating sixty or seventy persons, usurped the place of unsubstantial romance, and brought in the wildest straggler willingly f / om his ramble. No cost had been spared ^and the hospitable consul (a Bostonian) did the honours of tiis table in a manner that stirred powerfully my pride of country and birthplace. All the English resident in Palermo were present ; and it was the more agreeable to me that their countrymen are usually the only givers of generous entertainment in Europe. One feels ever so •distant a reflection on his country abroad. The liberal and elegant hospitality of one of our countrymen at Florence* lias served me as a better argument against the charge of iiardness and selfishness urged upon our nation, than all which could be drawn from the acknowledgements of travellers. When dinner was over, an hour was passed at coffee in a small saloon stained after the fashion of Pompeii, and we then assembled on a broad terrace facing the sea, and, with the band in the gallery above, commenced dances which lasted till an hour or two into the moonlight. The sunset had the eternal but untiring glory of the Italian summer, £tnd it never sat on a gayer party. There were among the English one or two lovely girls ; and with the four ladies belonging to the squadron, (the Commodore's family and Captain Reed's) the dancers were sufficient to include all the officers, and the scene in the soft light of the moon was like a description in an old tale. The broad sea on either side, broke by the headland in front ; the distant crescent of lights glancing along the sea-side at Palermo ; the solemn old palaces seen from the eminence around us, and the noble pile through whose low windows we strolled out upon the terrace ; the music and the excitement ; all blended a scene that is drawn with bright and living lines in my memory. We parted unwillingly, and, reaching Palermo about mid- night, pulled off to the frigates, and were under weigh at ^daylight for Messina. ****** * Colonel Thorn. SUMMER SAILING. 127 This is the poetry of sailing. The long, low frigate glides on through the water with no more motion than is felt in a dining-room on shore. The sea changes only from a glossy calm to a feathery ripple; the sky is always serene; the merchant sail appears and disappears on the horizon edge ; the island rises on the bow, creeps along the quarter, is examined by the glasses of the idlers on deck, and sinks* gradually astern ; the sun-fish whirls in the eddy of the wake ; the tortoise plunges and breathes about us ; and the delightful temperature of the sea, even and invigorating, keeps both mind and body in an undisturbed equilibrium of •enjoyment. For me it is a paradise. I am glad to escape from the contact, the dust, the trials of temper, the noon- day sultriness and the midnight chill ; the fatigue, and privation, and vexation, which beset the traveller on shore. I shall return to it no doubt willingly after a while, but, for the present, it is rest, it is relief, refreshment, to be at sea. There is no swell in the Mediterranean during the summer months, and this gliding about, sleeping or reading as if at home, from one port to another, seems to me just now the Utopia of enjoyment. We have been all day among the Lipari Islands. It is pleasant to look up at the shaded and peaceful huts on their mountain sides, as we creep along under them, or to watch the fisherman's children with a glass, as they run out from their huts on the sea-shore to gaze at the uncommon appa- rition of a ship-of-war. They seem seats of solitude and retirement. I have just dropped the glass, which I had raised to look at what I took to be a large ship in full sail rounding the point of Felicudi. It is a tall, pyramidal rock, rising right from the sea, and resembling exactly a ship with studding-sails set, coming down before the wind. The band is playing on the deck, and a fisherman's boat with twenty of the islanders resting on their oars, and listening in wondering admiration, lies just under our quarter. It will form a tale for the evening meal, to which they were hastening home. ***** * We ran between Scylla and Charybdis, with a fresh wind and a strong current. The " dogs" were silent, and the " whirlpool" is a bubble to Hurl-gate. Scylla is quite ^28 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. a town, and the tall rock at the entrance of the strait is crowned with a large building, which seems part of a fortifi- cation. The passage through the Faro is lovely — quite like a river. Messina lies in a curve of the western shore, at the base of a hill ; and, opposite, a graceful slope covered 'with vineyards swells up to a broad table plain on the mountain, which looked like the home of peace and fertility. .We rounded- to off the town, to send in for letters, and I went ashore in the boat. Two American friends, whora I had as little expectation of meeting as if I had dropped upon Jerusalem, hailed me from the grating of the health-office, before we reached the land, and, having exhibited our bill of health, I had half an hour for a call upon an old friend resident at Messina, and we were off again to the ship. The sails filled, and we shot away on a strong breeze down the Straits. Rhegium lay on our left — a large cluster of old-looking houses on the edge of the sea. It was at this town of Calabria that St. Paul landed on his journey to Rome. We sped on without much time to look at it, even with a glass, and were soon rounding the toe of "the boot" — the southern point of Italy. We are heading at this moment for the Gulf of Tarento, and hope to be in Venice by the fourth of July. LETTER XXIV. THE ADRIATIC ALBANIA GAY COSTUMES AND BEAUTY OF THE ALBANESE — CAPO d'iSTRIA VISIT TO THE AUSTRIAN AUTHORITIES OF THE PROVINCE — CURIOSITY OF THE INHABITANTS — GENTLE- MANLY RECEPTION BY THE MILITARY COMMANDANT — VISIT TO VIENNA SINGULAR NOTIONS OF THE AUSTRIANS RESPECTING THE AMERICANS — SIMILARITY OF THE SCENERY TO THAT OF NEW-ENGLAND MEETING WITH GERMAN STUDENTS FRE- QUENT SIGHTS OF SOLDIERS AND MILITARY PREPARATIONS PICTURESQUE SCENERY OF STYRIA. July 4, 1835. The doge of Venice had a fair bride in the Adriatic. It is the fourth of July, and with the Italian Cape Colonna on ©ur left, and the long low coast of Albania shading the TRIESTE. 129 horizon on the east, we are gazing upon her from the deck of the first American frigate that has floated upon her bosom. We head for Venice, and there is a stir of antici- pation on board, felt even through the hilarity of our cherished anniversary. I am the only one in the ward- room to whom that wonderful city is familiar, and I feel as if I had forestalled my own happiness — the first impression of it is so enviable. * * * * * * It is difficult to conceive the gay costumes and handsome features of the Albanese, existing in these barren mountains that bind the Adriatic. It has been but a continued undu- lation of rock and sand for three days past ; and the closer we hug to the shore, the more we look at the broad canvass above us, and pray for wind. We make Capo d'Istria now ; a small town nestled in a curve of the sea, and an hour or two more will bring us to Trieste, where we drop anchor, we hope, for many an hour of novelty and pleasure. Trieste lies sixty or eighty miles from Venice, across the head of the gulf. The shore between is piled up to the sky with the "blue Friuli mountains; and from the town of Trieste, the low coast of Istria breaks away at a right angle to the south, forming the eastern bound of the Adriatic. As we ran into the harbour on our last tack, we passed close under the garden-walls of the villa of the ex-queen of Naples, a lovely spot just in the suburbs. The palace of Jerome Bonaparte was also pointed out to us by the pilot, on the hill just above. They have both removed since to Florence and their palaces are occupied by English. We dropped anchor within a half mile of the pier, and the flags of a dozen American vessels were soon distinguishable among the various colours of the shipping in the port. ****** July 9, 1835. I accompanied Commodore Patterson to-day on a visit of ceremony to the Austrian authorities of the province. We made our way with difficulty through the people, crowding in hundreds to the water-side, and following us with the rude freedom of a showman's audience. The vice-governor a polite but Frenchified German Count, received us with every profession of kindness. His Parisian gestures sat ill 130 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. enough upon his national high cheek-bones, lank hair, and heavy shoulders. We left him to call upon the military commandant — an Irishman, who occupies part of the palace of the ex-king of Westphalia. Our reception by him was gentlemanly, cordial, and dignified. I think the Irish are, after all, the best-mannered people in the world. They are found in every country as adventurers for honour, and they change neither in character nor manner. They follow foreign fashions, and acquire a foreign language ; but in the first they retain their heart, and in the latter their brogue. They are Irishmen always. Count N is high in the favour of the Emperor, has the commission of a field- marshal, and is married to a Neapolitan princess, who is a most accomplished and lovely woman, and related to most of the royal houses of Europe. The Count's reputation as a soldier is well known, and he seems to me to have no drawback to the enviableness of his life, except his expa- triation. Trieste is a busy, populous place, resembling extremely our new towns in America. We took a stroll through the principal streets after our visits were over, and I was sur- prised at the splendour of the shops, and the elegance of the costumes and equipages. It is said to contain thirty thou- sand inhabitants. The frigates were to lie three or four weeks at Trieste. One half of the officers had taken the steamboat for Venice on the second evening of our arrival, and the other half waited impatiently their turn of absence. Vienna was but some four hundred miles distant, and I might never be so near it again. On a rainy evening, at nine o'clock, I left Trieste in the " eil-wagon" with a German courier, and commenced the ascent of the spur of the Friuli mountains that overhangs the bay. My companions inside were a merchant from Gratz ; a fantastical and poor Hungarian Count; a Corfu shop-keeper, and an Italian ex-militaire and present apothecary, going to Vienna to marry a lady whom he had never seen. After a little bandying of compliments in German, of which I understood nothing except that they were apologies for the icessant smoking of three disgusting pipes, the conversation. A GERMAN INBT. ISt fortunately for me, settled into Italian. The mountain was steep and very high, and my friends soon grew conversible. The novelty of two American frigates in the harbour natu- rally decided the first topic. Our Gratz merchant was surprised at the light colour of the officers he had seen, and doubted if they were not Englishmen in the American service. He had always heard Americans were black. 4i They are so/' said the soldier apothecary ; " I saw the real Americans yesterday in a boat, quite black." (One of the cutters of the " Constellation" had a negro crew, which he had probably seen at the pier.) The assertion seemed to satisfy the doubts of all parties. They had wondered how such beautiful ships could come from a savage country. It was now explained — "They were bought from the English, and officered by Englishmen." I was too much amused with their speculations to undeceive them ; and with my head thrust half out of the window to avoid choking with the smoke of their pipes, I gazed back at the glittering lights of the town below, and indulged the never palling sensation of a first entrance into a new country. The lantern at the peak of the st United States" was the last thing I saw as we rose the brow of the mountain, and started off on a rapid trot towards Vienna. I awoke at daylight with the sudden stop of the carriage. We were at the low door of a German tavern, and a clear, rosy, good-humoured looking girl bade us good morning, as we alighted one by one. The phrase was so like English, that I asked for a basin of water in my mother tongue. The similarity served me again. She brought it without hesita- tion ; but the question she asked me as she set it down was like nothing that had ever before entered my ears. The Count smiled at my embarrassment, and explained that she wished to know if I wanted soap. I was struck with the cleanliness of every thing. The tables, chairs, and floors looked worn away with scrubbing. Breakfast was brought in immediately — eggs, rolls, and coffee ; the latter in a glass bottle like a chemist's retort, corked up tightly, and wrapped in a snowy napkin. It was an excellent breakfast, served with cleanliness and good- humour, and cost about fourteen cents each. Even from this single meal, it seemed to me that I had entered a country K 2 1 32 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. of simple manners and kind feelings. The conductor gravely iissed the cheek of the girl who had waited on us ; my companions lit their pipes afresh ; and the postilion, in cocked-hat and feather, blew a stave of a waltz on his horn, and fell into a steady trot, which he kept up with phlegmatic- perseverance to the end of his post. * * •£ * •* * As we get away from the sea, the land grows richer, and the farm-houses more frequent. We are in the Duchy of Carniola, forty or fifty miles from Trieste. How very unlike Italy and France, and how very like New-England it is ! There are no ruined castles nor old cathedrals. Every "village has its small white church with a tapering spire , large manufactories cluster on the water-courses ; the small rivers are rapid and deep ; the horses large and strong ; the barns immense; the crops heavy; the people grave and hard at work, and not a pauper by the post together. We are very far north, too, and the climate is like New- En gland* The wind, though it is midsummer, is bracing, and there is no travelling, as in Italy, with one's hat off and breast open, dissolving at midnight in the luxury of the soft air. The houses, too, are ugly and comfortable ; staring with paint, and pierced in all directions with windows. The children are white-headed and serious. The hills are half-covered with woods, and clusters of elms are left here and there through the meadows, as if their owners could afford to let them grow for a shade to the mowers. I was perpetually exclaiming, " How like America ! " We dined at Laybaeh, My companions had found out by my passport that I was an American, and their curiosity was most amusing. The report of the arrival of the two frigates had reached the capital of Illyria ; and with the assistance of the information of my friends, I found myself an object of universal attention. The crowd around the door of the hotel looked into the windows while we were eating, and followed me round the house as if I had been a savage. One of the passengers told me they connected the arrival of the ships with some political object, and thought I might be the envoy. The landlord asked me if we had potatoes in our country. I took a walk through the city after dinner with my. GERMAN STUDENTS. I3S mincing friend, the Count. The low, two-story wooden houses, the sidewalks enclosed with trees, the matter-of- fact looking people, the shut windows, and neat white churches, remind me again strongly of America. It was like the more retired streets of Portland or Portsmouth. The Illyrian language spoken here seemed to me the most inarticulate succession of sounds I had ever heard. In crossing the bridge in the centre of the town, we met a party of German students travelling on foot with their knapsacks. My friend spoke to them to gratify my curi- osity. I wished to know where they were going. They all spoke French and Italian, and seemed in high heart — bold, cheerful, and intelligent. They were bound for Egypt, determined to seek their fortunes in the service of the present reforming and liberal Pasha. Their enthusiasm, when they were tokl I was an American, quite thrilled me. They closed about me and looked into my eyes, as if they expected to read the spirit of freedom in them. I was taken by the arms at last, and almost forced into a beer- shop. The large tankards were filled, each touched mine and the others, and " America " was drank with a grave earnestness of manner that moved my heart within me. They shook me by the hand on parting, and gave me a blessing in German, which, as the old Count translated it, was the first word I have learnt of their language. We had met constantly parties of them on the road. They all ! dress alike, in long travelling frocks of brown stuff, and small green caps with straight vizors ; but, coarsely as they are clothed, and humbly as they seem to be faring, their faces bear always a mark that can never be mistaken. They look like scholars. The roads, by the way, are crowded with pedestrians. It seems to be the favourite mode of travelling in this country* We have scarce met a carriage, and I have seen, I am sure, n one day, two hundred passengers on foot. Among them s a class of people peculiar to Germany. I was astonished occasionally at being asked for charity by stout well-dressed r oung men, to all appearance as respectable as any travel- ers on the road. Expressing my surprise, my companions nformed me that they were apprentices, and that the cus~ om or law of the country compelled them, after completing 134 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. their indentures, to travel into some distant province, and depend upon charity and their own exertions for two or three years before becoming masters at their trade. It is a singular custom, and, I should think, a useful lesson in hardship and self-reliance. They held out their hats with a confident independence of look that quite satisfied me they felt no degradation in it. We soon entered the province of Styria ; and brighter rivers, greener woods, richer and more graceful uplands and meadows, do not exist in the world. I had thought the scenery of Stockbridge, in my own state, unequalled till now. I could believe myself there, were not the women alone working in the fields, and the roads lined for miles together with military waggons and cavalry upon march. The conscript law of Austria compels every peasant to serve fourteen years ! and the labours of agriculture fall, of course, almost exclusively upon females. Soldiers swarm like locusts through the country, but they seem as inoffen- sive and as much at home as the cattle in the farm-yards. It is a curious contrast, to my eye, to see parks of artillery glistening in the midst of a wheat-field, and soldiers sitting about under the low thatches of these peaceful -looking cot- tages. I do not think, among the thousands that I have passed in three days' travel, I have seen a gesture or heard a syllable. If sitting, they smoke and sit still, and, if tra- velling, they economise motion to a degree that is weari- some to the eye. Words are limited, and the description of scenery becomes tiresome. It is a fault that the sense of beauty, freshening- constantly on the traveller, compels him who makes a note of impressions to mark every other line with the same ever- recurring exclamations of pleasure. I saw a hundred miles of unrivalled scenery in Styria, and how can I describe it? It were keeping silence on a world of enjoyment to pass it over. We come to a charming descent into a valley. The town beneath, the river, the embracing mountains, the swell to the ear of its bells ringing some holiday, affect my imagination powerfully. I take out my tablets. What \ shall I say ? How convey to your minds, who have not seen it, the charm of a scene I can only describe as I have described a thousand others? GIIATZ. 135 LETTER XXV. GRAlZ VIENNA ST. ETIEXXE THE TOMB OF THE SON OF NAPOLEON. Jul* ir>, 1853. We had followed stream after stream through a succession of delicious valleys for a hundred miles. Descending from a slight eminence, we came upon the broad and rapid Muhr, and soon after caught sight of a distant citadel upon a rock. As we approached, it struck me as one of the most singular freaks of nature I had ever seen. A pyramid, perhaps three hundred feet in height, and precipitous on every side, rose abruptly in the midst of a broad and level plain, and around it, in a girdle of architecture, lay the capital of Styria. The fortress on the summit hung like an eagle's nest over the town, and from its towers a pistol-shot would reach the outermost point of the wall. Wearied with travelling near three hundred miles with- out sleep, I dropped upon a bed at the hotel, with an order to be called in two hours. It was noon, and we were to remain at Gratz till the next morning. My friend, the Hungarian, had promised, as he threw himself on the op- posite bed, to wake and accompany me in a walk through the town ; but the shake of a stout German chambermaid at the appointed time had no effect upon him, and I de- scended to my dinner alone. I had lost my interpreter. The carte was in German, of which I did not know even the letters. After appealing in vain in French and Italian to the persons eating near me, I fixed my finger at hazard upon a word, and the waiter disappeared. The result was a huge dish of cabbage cooked in some filthy oil and graced with a piece of beef. I was hesitating whether to dine on bread or make another attempt, when a gentlemanlike man of some fifty years came in and took the vacant seat at my table. He addressed me immediately in French, and, smiling at my difficulties, undertook to order a dinner for me something less national. We improved our acquaint- ance with a bottle of Johannesberg, and after dinner he 136 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. kindly offered to accompany me in my walk through the city. Gratz is about the size of Boston ; a plain German city, with little or no pretensions to style. The military, band was playing a difficult waltz very beautifully in the public square, but no one was listening except a group of young men dressed in the worst taste of dandyism. We mounted by a zig-zag path to the fortress. On a shelf of the preci- pice halfway up, hangs a small casino used as a beer-shop. The view from the summit was a feast to the eye. The wide and lengthening valley of the Muhr lay asleep be- neath its loads of grain, its villas and farm-houses the pic- ture of " waste and mellow fruitfulness ;" the rise to the mountains around the head of the valley was clustered with princely dwellings ; thick forests with glades between them, and churches with white slender spires shooting from the bosom of elms ; and right at our feet, circling around the precipitous rock for protection, lay the city enfolded in its rampart, and sending up to our ears the sound of every wheel that rolled through her streets. Among the striking buildings below, my friend pointed out to me a palace which he said had been lately purchased by Joseph Bona- parte, who was coming here to reside. The people were beginning to turn out for their evening walk upon the ram- parts, which are planted with trees and laid out for a pro- menade, and we descended to mingle in the crowd. My old friend had a great many acquaintances. He presented me to several of the best-dressed people we met, all of whom invited me to supper. I had been in Italy almost a year and a half, and such a thing had never hap- pened to me. We walked about until six, and as I pre- ferred going to the play, which opened at that early hour, we took tickets for JDer Schlimme Leisel, and were seated presently in one of the simplest and prettiest theatres I have ever seen. JDer Schlimme Leisel was an old maid who kept house for an old batchelor brother, proposing, at the time the play opens, to marry. Her dislike to the match, from the dread of losing her authority over his household, formed the humour of the piece, and was admirably represented. After various unsuccessful attempts to prevent the nuptials, GRATZ. 137 the lady is brought to the house, and the old maid enters in a towering passion, throws down her keys, and flirts out of the room with a threat that she (i will go to America ! '* Fortunately she is not driven to that extremity. The lady has been already married secretly to a poorer lover ; and the old bachelor, after the first shock of the discovery, settles a fortune on them, and returns to his celibacy and his old maid sister, to the satisfaction of all parties. Cer- tainly the German is the most unmusical language of Babel. If my good old friend had not translated it for me word for word, I should scarce have believed the play to be more than a gibbering pantomime. I shall think differ- ently when I have learned it, no doubt, but a strange lan- guage strikes upon one's ear so oddly ! I was too tired when the play was over, (which, by the way, was at the sober hour of nine,) to accept any of the kind invitations of which my companion reminded me. We supped tete-d- iete, instead, at the hotel. I was delighted with my new acquaintance. He was an old citizen of the world. He had left Gratz at twenty, and, after thirty years wander- ing from one part of the globe to the other, had returned to end his days in his birthplace. His relations were all dead ; and, speaking all the languages of Europe, he pre- ferred living at an hotel for the society of strangers. With a great deal of wisdom, he had preserved his good-humour towards the world; and I think I have rarely seen a kinder and never a happier man. I parted from him with regret, and the next morning at daylight had resumed my seat in the Eil-waggon. Imagine the Hudson, at the highlands, reduced to a sparkling little river a bowshot across, and a rich valley threaded by a road occupying the remaining space between the mountains, — and you have the scenery for the first thirty miles beyond Gratz. There is one more difference. On the edge of one of the most towering precipices, clear up against the clouds, hang the ruins of a noble castle. The rents in the wall, and the embrasures in the projecting tur~ rets, seem set into the sky. Trees and vines grow within and about it, and the lacings of the twisted roots seem all that keep it together. It is a perfect " castle in the air." A long day's journey and another long night (during 138 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. which we passed Neustadt, on the confines of Hungary,), brought us within sight of Baden, but an hour or two from Vienna. It was just sun-rise, and market-carts, and pedes- trians, and suburban vehicles of all descriptions notified us of our approach to a great capital. A few miles farther we were stopped in the midst of an extensive plain by a, crowd of carriages. A criminal was about being guillo- tined. What was that to one who saw Vienna for the first time? A few steps farther the postilion was suddenly stopped. A gentleman alighted from a carriage in which were two ladies, and opened the door of the diligence. It was the bride of the soldier- apothecary come to meet him with her mother and brother. He was buried in dust, just waked out of sleep, a three days' beard upon his foee, and, at the best, not a very lover- like person. He ran to the carriage-door, jumped in, and there was an immediate cry for water. The bride had fainted ! We left her in his arms and drove on. The courier had no bowels for love. There is a small Gothic pillar before us, on the rise of a slight elevation. Thence we shall see Vienna. Stop, thou tasteless postilion ! Was ever such a scene revealed to mortal sight ? It is like Paris from the Barriere de VEtoile — it seems to cover the world. What is that broad water on which the rising sun glances so brightly ? The Danube ! What is that unparalleled Gothic structure piercing the sky ? What columns are these ? What spires ? Beautiful ! beautiful city ! i)5 ^? * %r ^ 3«? It must be a fine city that impresses one with its splendour before breakfast, after driving all night in a mail-coach. It was six o'clock in the morning when I left the post-office in Vienna, to walk to an hotel. The shops were still shut, the milk- women were beating at the gates, and the short, quick ring upon the church-bells summoned all early risers to mass. A sudden turn brought me upon a square. In its centre stood one of the most imposing fabrics that has ever yet filled my eye. It looked like the structure of a giant, encrusted by fairies — a majestically proportioned mass, and a spire tapering to the clouds, but a surface so curiously beautiful, so traced and fretted, so full of exqui- site ornament, that it seemed rather some curious cabinet VIENNA. 139 gem seen through a magnifier, than a building in the open air. In these foreign countries, the labourer goes in with his load to pray, and I did not hesitate to enter the splendid church of St. Etienne, though a man followed me with a portmanteau on his back. What a wilderness of arches ! Pulpits, chapels, altars, ciboriums, confessionals, choirs, all in the exquisite slenderness of Gothic tracery, and all o one venerable and time-worn die, as if the incense of a myriad censers had steeped them in their spicy odours* The mass was chaunting, and hundreds were on their knees- about me, and not one without some trace that he had come in on his way to his daily toil. It was the hour of the poor man's prayer. The rich were asleep in their beds. The glorious roof over their heads, the costly and elaborated pillars against which they pressed their foreheads, the music and the priestly service, were, for that hour, theirs alone. I seldom have felt the spirit of a place of worship so strong upon me. The foundations of St. Etienne were laid seven hundred years ago. It has twice been partly burnt, and has been embellished in succession by nearly all the emperors of Ger- many. Among its many costly tombs, the most interesting. is that of the hero Eugene of Savoy, erected by his niece, the Princess Therese, of Lichtenstein. There is also a vault in which it is said, in compliance with an old custom, the entrails of all the emperors are deposited. Having marked thus much upon my tablets, I remem- bered the patient porter of my baggage, who had taken the opportunity to drop on his knees while I was gazing about,, and, having achieved his matins, was now waiting submis- sively till I was ready to proceed. A turn or two brought us to the hotel, where a bath and a breakfast soon restored me, and in an hour I was again on the way, with a valet de place, to visit the tomb of the son of Napoleon. He lies in the deep vaults of the Capuchin convent, with eighty-four of the imperial family of Austria beside him. A monk answered our pull at the cloister-bell, and the valet translated my request into German. He opened the gate with a guttural " Yaw ! " and lighting a wax candle at a iamp burning before the image of the Virgin, unlocked a massive brazen door at the end of the corridor, and led the 140 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. way into the vault. The Capuchin was as pale as marble, -quite bald, though young, and with features which ex- pressed, I thought, the subdued fierceness of a devil. He impatiently waved away the officious interpreter after a moment or two, and asked me if I understood Latin. Nothing could have been more striking than the whole scene. The immense bronze sarcophagi lay in long aisles behind railings and gates of iron ; and as the long-robed monk strode on with his lamp through the darkness, pro- nouncing the name and title of each as he unlocked the door and struck it with his heavy key, he seemed to me, with his solemn pronunciation, like some mysterious being calling forth the imperial tenants to judgment. He ap- peared to have a something of scorn in his manner as he looked on the splendid workmanship of the vast coffin, and pronounced the sounding titles of the ashes within. At that of the celebrated Empress Maria Theresa alone, he stopped to make a comment. It was a simple tribute to lier virtues, and he uttered it slowly, as if he were merely musing to himself. He passed on to her husband, Francis the First, and then proceeded uninterruptedly till he came to a new copper coffin. It lay in a niche beneath a tall, dim window ; and the monk, merely pointing to the in- scription, set down his lamp, and began to pace up and down the damp floor, with his head on his breast, as if it was a matter of course that here I was to be left awhile to my thoughts, It was certainly the spot, if there is one in the world, to feel emotion. In the narrow enclosure on which my finger rested lay the last hopes of Napoleon. The heart of the master-spirit of the world was bound up in these ashes. He was beautiful, accomplished, generous, brave. He was loved with a sort of idolatry by the nation with which he had passed his childhood. He had won all hearts. His death seemed impossible. There was a universal prayer that he might live ; his inheritance of glory was so incal- culable. I read his epitaph. It was that of a private individual. It gave his name, and his father's and mother's and then enume- rated his virtues, with a common-place regret for his early death. The monk took up his lamp and re-ascended to the THE EMPEROR'S STABLES. 141 doister in silence. He shut the convent-door behind me, and the busy street seemed to me profane. How short a time does the most moving event interrupt the common current of life ! LETTER XXVI. VIENNA. -THE YOUNG QUEEN OP HUNGARY THE PALACE HALL OF CURIOSITIES, JEWELLERY, &C— THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL GEOMETRICAL FIGURES DE- SCRIBED BY THE VIBRATIONS OF MUSICAL NOTES— LIBERAL PROVISION FOR ' THE PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS — POPULARITY OF THE EMPEROR. July 24, 1833. I had quite forgotten, in packing up my little portmanteau to leave the ship, that I was coming so far north. Scarce a week ago, in the south of Italy, we were panting in linen jackets. I find myself shivering here, in a latitude five hundred miles north of Boston, with no remedy but exer- cise and an extra shirt, for a cold that would grace De- cember. It is amusing, sometimes, to abandon one's self to a valet de place. Compelled to resort to one from my ignorance of the German, I have fallen upon a dropsical fellow, with a Bardolph nose, whose French is execrable, arid whose selection of objects of curiosity is worthy of his appearance. His first point was the emperor's stables. We had walked a mile and a half to see them. Here were two or three hundred horses of all breeds, in a building that the emperor himself might live in, with a magnificent inner court for a circus, and a wilderness of grooms, dogs and other appurte- nances. I am as fond of a horse as most people, but with all Vienna before me, and little time to lose, I broke into the midst of the head groom's pedigrees, and requested to be shown the way out. Monsieur Karl did not take the hint. We walked on half a mile, and stopped before another large building. " What is this ? " — " The imperial carriage- house, Monseigneur." I was about turning on my heel and 142 PEXCILLINGS BY THE WAY. taking my liberty into my own hands, when the large door flew open, and the blaze of gilding from within turned me from my purpose. I thought I had seen the ne plus ultra of equipages at Rome. The imperial family of Austria ride m more style than his Holiness. The models are lighter and handsomer, while the gold and crimson is put on quite as resplendently. The most curious part of the show were ten or twelve state traineaux, or sleighs. I can conceive nothing more brilliant than a turn out of these magnificent structures upon the snow. They are built with aerial lightness, of gold and sable, with the seat fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, and are driven, with two or four horses, by the royal personage himself. The grace of their shape and the splendour of the-ir gilded trappings are incon- ceivable to one who has never seen them. Our way lay through the court of the imperial palace. A large crowd was collected round a carriage with four horses standing at the side-door. As we approached it, all hats flew off, and a beautiful woman, of perhaps twenty- eight, came down the steps, leading a handsome boy of two -or three years. It was the young queen of Hungary and her son. If I had seen such a face in a cottage ornee on the borders of an American lake, I should have thought it made for the spot. We entered a door of the palace at which stood a ferocious- looking Croat sentinel, near seven feet high Three Ger- man travelling students had just been refused admittance. A little man appeared at the ring of the bell within, and after a preliminary explanation by my valet, probably a lie, he made a low bow and invited me to enter. I waited a moment, and a permission was brought me to see the im- perial treasury. Handing it to Karl, I requested him to get permission inserted for my three friends at the door. He accomplished it in the same incomprehensible manner in which he had obtained my own, and introducing them with the ill-disguised contempt of a valet for all men with dusty coats, we commenced the rounds of the curiosities together. A large clock lacing us, as we entered, was just striking. From either side of its base, like companies of gentlemen and ladies advancing to greet each other, appeared figures in the dress and semblance of the royal family of Austria, IMPERIAL TREASURY. 1£& who remained a moment, and then retired, bowing them- selves courteously out backwards. It is a costly affair, pre- sented by the landgrave of Hesse to Maria Theresa, in 1750. After a succession of watches, snuff-boxes, necklaces, and jewels of every description, we came to the famous Floren- tine diamond, said to be the largest in the world. It was lost by a duke of Burgundy upon the battle-field of Granson, found by a soldier, who parted with it for five florins, sold again, and found its way at last to the royal treasury of Florence, whence it was brought to Vienna. Its weight is one hundred and thirty nine and a-half carats, and it i$ estimated at one million forty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-four florins. It looks like a lump of light. Enormous diamonds surround it, but it hangs among them like Hesperus among the stars. The next side of the gallery is occupied by specimens of carved ivory. Many of them are antique, and half of them are more beautiful than decent. There were two bas- reliefs among them by Raphael Donner, which were worth, to my eye, all the gems in the gallery. They were taken from Scripture, and represented the Woman of Samaria at the well, and Hagar waiting for the death of her son. No powers of elocution, no enhancement of poetry, could bring those touching passages of the Bible so movingly to the heart. The latter particularly arrested me. The melancholy beauty of Hagar, sitting with her head bowed upon her knees, while her boy is lying a little way off, beneath a shrub of the desert, is a piece of unparalleled workmanship. It may well hang in the treasury of an emperor. Miniatures of the royal family in their childhood, set in costly gems ; massive plate curiously chased ; services of gold, robes of diamonds, gem -hiked swords, dishes wrought of solid integral agates, and finally the crown and sceptre of Austria upon red velvet cushions, looking very much like their imitations on the stage, were among the world of splendour unfolded to our eyes. The Florentine diamond and the bas-reliefs by Raphael Donner were all I coveted. The beauty of the diamond was royal. It needed no imagination to feel its value. A savage would pick it up in a desert for a star dropped out of the sky. For the rest. 144 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. the demand on my admiration fatigued me, and I was glad to escape with my dusty friends from the university, and exchange courtesies in the free air. One of them spoke English a little, and called me ' '■ Meester Englishman " on bidding me adieu. I was afraid of a beer-shop scene in Vienna, and did not correct the mistake. As we were going out of the court, four covered waggons, drawn each by four superb horses, dashed through the gate. I waited a moment to see what they contained. Thirty or forty servants in livery came out from the palace, and took from the waggons quantities of empty baskets carefully labelled with directions. They were from Schoenbrunn, where the emperor is at present residing with his court, and had come to market for the imperial kitchen. It should be a good dinner that requires sixteen such horses to carry to the cook. It was the hungry hour of two, and I was still musing on the emperor s dinner, and admiring the anxious interest his servitors took in their disposition of the baskets, when a blast of military music came to my ear. It was from the barracks of the Imperial Guard, and I stepped under the arch, and listened to them an hour. How gloriously they played ! It was probably the finest band in Austria. I have heard much good music, but of its kind this was like a new sensation to me. They stand, in playing, just under the window at which the emperor appears dai]y when in the city. I have been indebted to Mr. Schwartz, the American consul at Vienna, for a very unusual degree of kindness. Among other polite attentions, he procured for me to-day an admission to the Polytechnic school — a favour granted with difficulty, except at the appointed days for pubh> visits. The Polytechnic School was established in 181 6 by the present emperor. The building stands outside the rampart of the city, of elegant proportions, and about as large as all the buildings of Yale or Harvard College thrown into one. its object is to promote instruction in the practical sciences, or, in other words, to give a practical education for the trades, commerce, or manufactures. It is divided into three departments. The first is preparatory, and the course go POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL. 145 cupies two years. The studies are religion and morals, elementary mathematics, natural history, geography, uni- versal history, grammar, and " the German style," declama- tion, drawing, writing, and the French, Italian, and Bohe- mian languages. To enter this class, the boy must be thirteen years of age, and pays fifty cents per month. The second course is commercial, and occupies one year. The studies are mercantile correspondence, commercial law, mercantile arithmetic, the keeping of books, geography and history, as they relate to commerce, acquaintance with mer- chandise, &c. &c. The third course lasts one year. The studies are chemistry as applicable to arts and trades, the fermentation of woods, tannery, soap-making, dyeing, blanching, &c. &c. ; also mechanism, practical' geometry, civil architecture, hydraulics, and technology. The two last courses are given gratis. The whole is under the direction of a principal, who has under him thirty professors and two or three guardians of apparatus. We were taken first into a noble hall, lined with glass cases containing specimens of every article manufactured in the German dominions. From the finest silks down to sh)es, wigs, nails, and mechanics* tools, here were all the products of human labour. The variety was astonishing. Within the limits of a single room, the pupil is here made acquainted with every mechanic art known in his country. The next hall was devoted to models, Here was every kind of bridge, fortification, lighthouse, dry-dock, break- water, canal-lock, &c. &c. ; models of steamboats, of ships, and of churches, in every style of architecture. It was a little world. We went thence to the chemical apartment. The servitor here — a man without education — has constructed all the apparatus. He is an old gray-headed man, of a keen Ger- man countenance, and great simplicity of manners. He takes great pride in having constructed the largest and most complete chemical apparatus now in London. The one which he exhibited to us occupies the whole of an im- mense hall, and produces an electric discharge like the report of a pistol. The ordinary batteries in our universities are scarce a twentieth part as powerful. L 146 PENCILLING3 BY THE WAY. After showing us a variety of experiments, the old man turned suddenly and asked us if we knew the geometrical figures described by the vibrations of musical notes. We confessed our ignorance, and he produced a pane qf glass covered with black sand. He then took a fiddle-bow, and, holding the glass horizontally, drew it downwards against the edge at a peculiar angle. The sand flew as if it had been bewitched, and took the shape of a perfect square. He asked us to name a figure. We named a circle. Another careful draw of the bow, and the sand flew into a circle, with scarce a particle out of its perfect curve. Twenty times he repeated the experiment, and with the most com- plicated figures drawn on paper. He had reduced it to an art. It would have burnt him for a magician a century However one condemns the policy of Austria with respect to her subject provinces and the rest of Europe, it is impos- sible not to be struck with her liberal provision for her own immediate people. The public institutions of all kinds in Vienna are allowed to be the finest and most liberally endowed on the Continent. Her hospitals, prisons, houses of industry, and schools, are on an imperial scale of munifi- cence. The emperor himself is a father to his subjects, and every tongue blesses him. Napoleon envied him their affection, it is said, and certainly no monarch could be more universally beloved. END OV THE FIIIST V01 t V&lY« VOLUME THE SECOND. LETTER I, vienna, palaces and gardens mosaic copy of da vinci s " last supper" collection of warlike antiquities; scanderburg's sword, montezuma's tomahawk, relics of the crusaders, warriors in armour, the farmer of augsburgii room of portraits of celebrated individuals gold busts of jupiter and juno the glacts, full of gardens, the general resort of people — universal spirit of enjoyment — simplicity and confidence in the manners of the viennese baden. July 25, 1855. At the foot of a hill in one of the beautiful suburbs of Vienna, stands a noble palace called the Lower Belvedere. On the summit of the hill stands another, equally magni- ficent, called the Upper Belvedere, and between the two extend broad and princely gardens, open to the public. On the lower floor of the entrance-hall in the former palace lies the copy, in mosaic, of Leonardo da Vinci's iC Last Supper," done at Napoleon's order. Though sup- posed to be the finest piece of mosaic in the world, it is so large that they have never found a place for it. A temporary balcony has been erected on one side of the room, and the spectator mounts nearly to the ceiling to get a fair position for looking down upon it. That unrivalled picture, now going to decay in the convent at Milan, will probably depend upon this copy for its name with posterity. The expression in the faces of the apostles is as accurately pre- served as in the admirable engraving of Morghen. The remaining halls in the palace are occupied by & 148 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. grand collection of antiquities, principally of a warlike character. When I read in my old worm-eaten Burton, of w< Scanderburg's strength/' I never thought to see his sword. It stands here against the wall, a long straight weapon with a cross hilt, which few men could heave to their shoulders. The tomahawk of poor Montezuma hangs near it. It was presented to the emperor by the king of Spain- It is of a dark granite, and polished very beautifully. What a singular curiositv to find in Austria ! .The windows are draped with flags dropping in pieces with age. This, so in tatters, was renowned in the crusades. It was carried to the Holy Land and brought back by the Archduke Ferdinand. A hundred warriors in bright armour stand round the hall. Their vizors are down, their swords in their hands, their feet planted for a spring. One can scarce believe there are no men in them. The name of some renowned soldier is attached to each. This was the armour of the cruel Visconti of Milan — that of Duke Alba of Florence — both costly suits, beautifully inlaid with gold. In the centre of the room stands a gigantic fellow in full armoui, with a sword on his thigh and a beam in his right hand. It is the shell of the famous farmer of Augsburg, who was in the service of one of the emperors. He was over eight feet in height, and limbed in proportion. How near such relics bring history ! With what increased facility one pictures the warrior to his fancy, seeing his sword, ana hearing the very rattle of his armour. Yet it puts one into Hamlet's vein to see a contemptible valet lay his hand with impunity on the armed shoulder, shaking the joints that once belted the soul of a Visconti ! I turned, in leaving the room, to take a second look at the flag of the Crusade. It had floated, perhaps, over the helmet of Cceur de Lion.. Saladin may have had it in his eye, assaulting the Christian camp with his pagans. In the next room hung fifty or sixty portraits of cele- brated individuals, presented in their time to the emperors of Austria. There was one of Mary of Scotland. It is a face of superlative loveliness, taken with a careless and most bewitching half smile, and yet not without the look of royalty, which one traces in all the pictures of the unfortu- BELVEDERE GALLERY, 1 4J) nate queen. One of the emperors of Germany married Phillippina, a farmer's daughter, and here is her portrait. It is done in the prim old style of the middle ages, but the face is full of character. Her husband's portrait hangs beside it, and she looks more born for an emperor than he. Hall after hall followed, of costly curiosities. A volume would not describe them. Two gold busts of Jupiter and Juno, by Benvenuto Cellini, attracted my attention par- ticularly. They were very beautiful, but I would copy them in bronze, and coin the thunderer and his queen, were they mine. Admiration is the most exhausting thing in the world. The servitor opened a gate leading into the gardens of the palace that we might mount to the Upper Belvedere, which contains the imperial gallery of paintings. But I had no more strength. I could have dug in the field till dinner-time — but to be astonished more than three hours without respite is beyond me. I took a stroll in the garden* How delightfully the unmeaning beauty of a fountain refreshes one after this inward fatigue! I walked on, up one alley and down another, happy in finding nothing that surprised me. or worked upon my imagination, or bothered my historical recollection, or called upon my worn-out su- perlatives for expression. I fervently hoped not to have another new sensation till after dinner. ****** Vienna is an immense city, (two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants,) but its heart only is walled in. You may walk from gate to gate in twenty minutes. In leaving the walls you come upon a feature of the city which dis- tinguishes it from every other in Europe. Its rampart is encircled by an open park, (called the Glacis), a quarter of a mile in width and perhaps three miles in circuit, which is in fact in the centre of Vienna. The streets commence again on the other side of it, and on going from one part of the city to the other, you constantly cross this lovely belt of verdure, which girds her heart like a cestus of health. The top of the rampart itself is planted with trees, and, com- manding beautiful views in every direction, it is generally thronged with people. (It was a favourite walk of the duke of Reichstadt.) Between this and the Glacis lies a !- 150 PENCILLING S BY THE WAY. deep trench, crossed by draw-bridges at every gate, the bottom of which is cultivated prettily as a flower-garden. Altogether Vienna is a beautiful city. Paris may have single views about the Tuilleries that are finer than any* thing of the same kind here, but this capital of western Europe, as a whole, is quite the most imposing city 1 have seen. The Glacis is full of gardens. I requested my disagree- able necessity of a valet, this afternoon, to take me to two or three of the most general resorts of the people. We passed out by one of the city gates, five minutes' walk from the hotel, and entered immediately into a crowd of people, sauntering up and down under the alleys of the Glacis. A little farther on we found a fanciful building, buried in trees, and occupied as a summer cafe. In a little circular temple in front was stationed a band of music, and around it for a considerable distance were placed small tables, filled just now with elegantly dressed people, eating ices or drinking coffee. It was in every respect like a private fete champetre. I wandered about for an hour, expecting involuntarily to meet some acquaintance — there was such a look of kindness and unreserve throughout. It is a desolate feeling to be alone in such a crowd. We jumped into a carriage and drove round the Glacis for a mile, passing everywhere crowds of people idling leisurely along, and evidently out for pleasure. We stopped before a superb facade, near one of the gates of the city. It was the entrance to the Volksgarten. We entered in front of a fountain, and, turning up a path to the left, found our way almost impeded by another crowd. A semicircular building, with a range of columns in front encircling a stand for a band of music, was surrounded by perhaps two or three thousand people. Small tables and seats under trees were spread in every direction within reach of the music. The band played charmingly. Waiters in white jackets and aprons were running to and fro, receiving and obeying orders for refreshments, and here again all seemed abandoned to one spirit of enjoyment. I had thought we must have left all Vienna at the other garden. I wondered how so many people could be spared from their Q4H0b»s» 151 occupations and families. It was no holiday. " It is always as gay in fair weather/' said Karl. A little back into the garden stands a beautiful little structure, on the model of the temple of Theseus, in Greece, It was built for Canova's group of w Theseus and the Centaur/' bought by the Emperor. I had seen copies of it in Rome, but was of course much more struck with the original. It is a noble piece of sculpture. Still farther back, on the rise of a mount, stood another fanciful cafe, with another band of music — and another crowd ! After we had walked around it, my man w T as hurrying me away. " You have not seen the Augarten," said he. It stands upon a little green island in the Danube, and is more extensive than either of the others. But I was content where I was; and, dismissing, my Asmodeus, I determined to spend the evening wandering about in the crowds alone. The sun went down, the lamps were lit, the alleys were illuminated, the crowd increased, and the emperor himself could not have given a gayer evening's entertainment. Vienna has the reputation of being the most profligate capital in Europe. Perhaps it is so. There is certainly, even to a stranger, no lack of temptation to every species of pleasure. But there is, besides, a degree of simplicity and confidence in the manners of the Viennese which I had believed peculiar to America, and inconsistent with the state of society in Europe. In the most public resorts, and at all hours of the day and evening, modest and respectable young women of the middle classes walk alone perfectly secure from molestation. They sit under the trees in these public gardens, eat ices at the cafes, walk home unattended, and no one seems to dream of impropriety. Whole families, too, spend the afternoon upon a seat in a thronged place of resort, their children playing about them, the father reading, and the mother sewing or knitting, quite unconscious of observation. The lower and middle classes live all summer, I am told, out of doors. It is never oppressively warm in this latitude, and their houses are deserted after three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and the whole population pours out to the different gardens on the Glacis, where, till mid- nighty they seem perfectly happy in the enjoyment of the 152 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. innocent and unexpensive pleasures which a wise govern- ment has provided for them. The nobles and richer class pass their summer in the circle of rural villages near the city. They are nested about on the hills, and crowded with small and lovely rural villas, more like the neighbourhood of Boston than anything I have seen in Europe. Baden, where the emperor passes much of his time, is called " the miniature Switzerland/' Its baths are excel- lent, its hills are cut into retired and charming walks, and from June till September it is one of the gayest of watering- places. It is about a two hours' drive from the city, and omnibuses, at a very low rate, run between at all times of the day. The Austrians seldom travel, and the reason is evident — they have every thing for which others travel, at home. LETTER II. VIENNA -THE PALACE OF LIECHTENSTEIN GALLERIES. July, 1833. The red-nosed German led on through the crowded Graben, jostling aside the Parisian-looking lady and her handsome Hungarian cavalier, the phlegmatic smoker and the bearded turk alike. We passed the Imperial Guard, the city gate, the lofty bridge over the trench, (casting a look below at the flower-garden laid out in " the ditch M which encircles the wall,) and entered upon the lovely Glacis — one step from the crowded street to the fresh greenness of a park. Would you believe, as you walk up this shaded alley, that vou are in the heart of the citv still ? The Glacis is crossed, with its groups of fair children and shy maids, its creeping invalids, its solitude-seeking lovers, and its idling soldiers, and we again enter the crowded street. A half-hour more, and the throng thins again, the country opens, and here you are, in front of the palace of Liechstenstein, the first ncVU* of Au?ria. A modern build THE LIECHTENSTEIN. 153 ing, of beautiful and light architecture, rises from its clustering trees ; servants in handsome livery hang about the gates and lean against the pillars of the portico, and with an explanation from my lying valet, who evidently makes me out an ambassador at least by the ceremony with which I am received, a gray servitor makes his appearance and opens the immense glass door leading from the side of the court. One should step gingerly on the polished marble of this superb staircase ! It opens at once into a lofty hall, the ceiling of which is painted in fresco by ,an Italian master. It is a room of noble proportions. Few churcbes in America are larger, and yet it seems in keeping with the style of the palace, the staircase — every thing but the creature meant to inhabit it. How different are the moods in which one sees pictures ! To-day I am in the humour to give in to the painter's delusion. The scene is real. Asmodeus is at my elbow, snd I am witched from spot to spot, invisible myself, gazing on the varied scenes revealed only to the inspired vision of genius. A landscape opens.* It is one of the woody recesses of Lake Nemi, at the very edge of " Dian's Mirror." The huntress queen is bathing with her nymphs ; the sandal is half-laced over an ancle that seems fit for nothing less than to sustain a goddess, — when, casting her eye on the lovely troop emerging from the water, she sees the unfortunate Calista surrounded by her astonished sisters, and fainting with shame. Poor Calista ! one's heart pleads for her. But how expressive is the cold condemning look in the beautiful face of her mistress queen! Even the dogs have started from their reclining position on the grass, and stand gazing at the unfortunate, wondering at the silent astonishment of the virgin troop. Pardon her, imperial Dian ! Come to the baptism of a child ! It is a vision of Guido Reni's.-f A young mother, apparently scarce sixteen, has brought her first child to the altar. She kneels with it in * By Frauceschini. He passed his life with the Prince Liechstentein, and hi» pictures are found only in this collection. He is a delicious painter, full of poetry, with the one fault of too voluptuous a style. * One of the very loveliest pictures that divine painter ever drew. 154 PENC1LLINGS BY THE WAY. her arms, looking earnestly into the face of the priest while he sprinkles the water on its pure forehead, and pronounces the words of consecration. It is a most lovely countenance, made lovelier by the holy feeling in her heart. Her eyes are moist, her throat swells with emotion — my own sight dims while I gaze upon her. We have intruded on one of the most holy moments of nature. A band of girls, sisters by the resemblance, have accompanied the young mother, and stand, with love and wonder in their eyes, gazing on the face of the child. How strangely the mingled thoughts crowding through their minds, are expressed in their excited features. It is a scene worthy of an audience of angels. We have surprised Giorgione's wife (the " Flora " of Titian, the iS love in life" of Byron) looking at a sketch by her husband. It stands on his easel, outlined in crayons, and represents Lucretia the moment before she plunges the dagger into her bosom. She was passing through his studio, and you see by the half-suspended foot, that she stopped but for a momentary glance, and has forgotten her- self in thoughts that have risen unaware. The head of .Lucretia resembles her own, and she is wondering what Giorgione thought while he drew it. Did he resemble her to the Roman's wife in virtue as well as in feature ? There is an embarrassment in the expression of her face, as if she doubted he had drawn it half in mischief. We will leave the lovely Venetian to her thoughts. When she sits again to Titian, it will be with a colder modesty. Hoogstraeten, a Dutch painter, conjures up a scene for you. It is an old man, who has thrust his head through a prison-gate, and is looking into the street with the listless patience and curiosity of one whom habit has reconciled to his situation. His beard is neglected, his hair is slightly grizzled, and on his head sits a shabby fur cap, that has evidently shared all his imprisonment, and is quite past any pride of appearance. What a vacant face ! How perfectly he seems to look upon the street below, as upon something with which he has nothing more to do. There is no anxiety to get out, in its expression. He is past that. He looks at the playing children, and watches the zig-zag trot of an idle dog with the quiet apathy of one who can find PICTURES. 15& nothing better to help off the hour. It is a picture of solid r contented, unthinking misery. Look at this boy, standing impatiently on one foot at his mother's knee, while she pares an apple for him ! With what an amused and playful love she listens to his hurrying- entreaties, stealing a glance at him as he pleads, with a deeper feeling than he will be able to comprehend for years I It is one of the commonest scenes in life, yet how pregnant with speculation ! On — on — what an endless gallery ! I have seen twelve rooms with forty or fifty pictures in each, and there are thirteen halls more ! The delusion begins to fade. These are pictures merely. Beautiful ones, however ! If lan j guage could convey to your eye the impressions that this waste and wealth of beauty have conveyed to mine, I would write of every picture. There is not an indifferent one here. All Italy together has not so many works by the Flemish masters as are contained in this single gallery — certainly none so fine. A most princely fortune for many generations must have been devoted to its purchase. I have seen seven or eight things in all Italy by Cor- reggio. They were the gems of the galleries in which they exist, but always small, and seemed to me to want a certain finish. Here is a Correggio, a large picture, and no minia- ture ever had so elaborate a beauty. It melts into the eye. It is a conception of female beauty so very extraordinary, that it seems to me it must become, in the mind of every one who sees it, the model and the standard of all loveli- ness. It is a nude Venus, sitting lost in thought, with Cupid asleep in her lap. She is in the sacred retirement of solitude, and the painter has thrown into her attitude and expression so speaking an unconsciousness of all pre- sence, that you feel like a daring intruder while you gaze upon the picture, Surely such softness of colouring, such faultless proportions, such subdued and yet eloquent rich- ness of tint in the skin, was never before attained by mortal pencil. I am here, some five thousand miles from America,* yet would 1 have made the voyage but to raise my standard of beauty by this ravishing image of woman. In the circle of Italian galleries, one finds less of female beauty, both in degree and in variety, than his anticipation J5() PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. had promised. Three or four heads at the most, of the many hundreds that he sees, are imprinted in his memory, and serve as standards in his future observations. Even when standing before the most celebrated pictures, one often returns to recollections of living beauty in his own country, by which the most glowing head of Titian or the Veronese suffer in comparison. In my own experience this has been often true, and it is perhaps the only thing in which my imagination of foreign wonders was too fervent. To this Venus of Correggio's, however, I unhesitatingly submit all knowledge, all conception even, of female loveliness. I have seen nothing in life, imagined nothing from the description of poets, that is in any way comparable to it. It is matchless. In one of the last rooms the servitor unlocked two hand- some cases, and showed me, with a great deal of circum- stance, two heads by Denner. They were an old man and his wife — two hale, temperate, good old country gossips — "but so curiously finished ! Every pore was painted. You counted the stiff stumps of the good man s beard, as you might those of a living person, till you were tired. Every wrinkle looked as if a month had been spent in elaborating it. The man said they were extremely valuable, and I certainly never saw any thing more curiously and perhaps uselessly wrought. Near them was a capital picture of a drunken fellow, sitting by himself and laughing heartily at his own perform- ance on the pipe. It was irresistible, and I joined in the laugh till the long suite of halls rung again. Landscapes by Van Delen — such as I have seen engrav- ings of in America and sighed over as unreal — the skies, the temples, the water, the soft mountains, the distant ruins, seemed so like the beauty of a dream. Here they recall to me even lovelier scenes in Italy — atmospheres richer than the painter's pallet can imitate, and ruins and temples whose ivy-grown and melancholy grandeur are but feebly copied at the best. Come, Karl ! I am bewildered with these pictures. You have twenty such galleries in Vienna, you say ! I have seen enough for to-day, however, and we will save the Belvedere till to-morrow. Here ! pay the servitor and the THE PALACE OF SCHOENBRUNN. 157 footman and the porter, and let us get into the open air. How common look your Viennese after the celestial images we have left behind ! And, truly, this is the curse of refinement. The faces we should have loved else, look dul] ! The forms that were graceful before, move somehow heavily. I have entered a gallery ere now, thinking well of a face that accompanied me, and I have learned indiffer- ence to it, by sheer comparison, before coming away. We return through the Kohlmarket, one of the most fashionable streets of Vienna. It is like a fancy-ball. Hun- garians, Poles, Croats, Wallachians, Jews, Moldavians, Greeks, Turks, all dressed in their national and striking costumes, promenade up and down, smoking all, and none exciting the slightest observation. Everv third window is a pipe-shop, and they show, by their splendour and variety, the expensiveness of the passion. Some of them are marked " two hundred dollars." The streets reek with tobacco- smoke. You never catch a breath of untainted air within the Glacis. Your hotel, your cafe, your coach, your friend, are all redolent of the same disgusting odour. LETTER III. THE PALACE OF SCHOENBRUNN HIETZING, THE SUMMER RETREAT OF THE WEALTHY VIENNESE COUNTRY-HOUSE OF THE AME- RICAN CONSUL— SPECIMEN OF PURE DOMESTIC HAPPINESS IN A CERMAN FAMILY SPLENDID VILLAGE BALL SUBSTANTIAL FARE FOR THE LADIES — CURIOUS FASHION OF CUSHIONING THE WINDOWS — GERMAN GRIEF THE UPPER BELVEDERE PALACE ENDLESS QUANTITY OF PICTURES. July, 1833. Drove to Schoenbrunn. It is a princely palace, some three miles from the city, occupied at present by the emperor and his court. Napoleon resided here during his visit to Vienna, and here his son died — the two circumstances which alone make it worth much trouble to see. The afternoon was too cold to hope to meet the emperor in the grounds, and, being quite satisfied with drapery and modern paintings, I . 58 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. contented myself with having driven through the court, and kept on to Hietzing. This is a small village of country-seats within an hour's drive of the city — another Jamaica-Plains, or Dorchester in the neighbourhood of Boston. It is the summer retreat of most of the rank and fashion of Vienna. The American consul has here a charming country-house, buried in trees, where the few of our countrymen who travel to Austria find the most hospitable of welcomes. A bachelor friend of mine from New York is domesticated in the village with a Oerman family. I was struck with the Americanism of their manners. The husband and wife, a female relative and an intimate friend of the family, were sitting in the garden engaged in grave, quiet, sensible conversation. They had passed the afternoon together. Their manners were affectionate to each other, but serious and respectful. When I entered, they received me with kindness, and the conver- sation was politely changed to French, which they all spoke 'fluently. Topics were started, in which it was supposed I -would be interested, and altogether the scene was one of the simplest and purest domestic happiness. This seems to you, I dare say, like the description of a very common thing, but I have not seen such a one before since I left my countrv. It is the first familv I have found in two vears ■j ^ * travel who lived in, and seemed sufficient for, themselves. It came over me with a kind of feeling of refreshment. In the evening there was a ball at a public room in the "village. It was built in the rear of a cafe, to which we paid about thirty cents for entrance. I was not prepared for the splendour with which it was got up. The hall was very large and of beautiful proportions, built like the inte- rior of a temple, with columns on the four sides. A par- tition of glass divided it from a supper-room equally large, in which were set out perhaps fifty tables, furnished with a carte, from which each person ordered his supper when he wished it, after the fashion of a restaurant. The best band In Vienna filled the orchestra, led by the celebrated Strauss, who has been honoured for his skill with presents from half the monarchs of Europe. The ladies entered, dressed in perfect taste, d, la Pari- sienne, but the gentlemen (hear it, Basil Hall and Mrs. BALL AT HIETZING. T5f> Trollope !) came in frock-coats and boots, and danced with their hats on ! It was a public ball, and there was, of course, a great mixture of society ; but I was assured that it was attended constantly by the most respectable people of the village, and was as respectable as any thing of the kind in the middle classes. There were, certainly, many ladies in the company of elegant manners and appearance, and among the gentlemen I recognised two attaches to the French embassy, whom I had known in Paris, and several Austrian gentlemen of rank were pointed out to me among the dancers. The galopade and the waltz were the only dances, and dirty boots and hats to the contrary notwith- standing, it was the best waltzing I ever saw. They danced with a soul. The best part of it was the supper. They danced and eat — danced and eat, the evening through. It was quite the more important entertainment of the two. The most delicate ladies present returned three and four times to the supper, ordering fried chicken, salads, cold meats and beer, again and again, as if every waltz created a fresh appetite. The bill was called for ; the ladies assisted in making the change ; the tankard was drained, and off they strolled to the ball-room to engage with renewed spirit in the dance. And these, positively, were ladies who in dress, manners, and modest demeanour, might pass uncriticised in any society in the world ! Their husbands and brothers at- tended them, and no freedom was attempted, and I am sure it would not have been permitted even to speak to a lady without a formal introduction. We left most of the company supping at a late hour, and I drove into the city, amused with the ball, and recon- ciled to any or all of the manners which travellers in Ame- rica find so peculiarly entertaining. * * ■* # * * These cold winds from the Danube have given me a rheumatism. I was almost reconciled to it this morning, however, by a curtain-scene which I should have missed but for its annoyance. I had been driven out of my bed at daylight, and was walking my room between the door and the window, when a violent knocking in the street below arrested my attention. A respectable family occupies the t(}0 PENC1LLINGS BY THE WAY. house opposite, consisting of a father and mother and three daughters, the least attractive of whom has a lover. I cannot well avoid observing them whenever I am in my room, for every house in Vienna has a leaning cushion on the window for the elbows, and the ladies of all classes are upon them the greater part of the day. A handsome car- riage, servants in livery, and other circumstances, leave no doubt in my mind that my neighbours are rather of the better class. The lover stood at the street-door with a cloak on his arm, and a man at his side with his portmanteau. He was going on a journey and had come to take leave of his. mistress. He was let in by a gaping servant, who looked rather astonished at the hour he had chosen for his visit, hut the drawing-room windows were soon thrown open, and the lady made her appearance with her hair in papers- and other marks of a hasty toilet. My room is upon the same floor, and as I paced to and fro, the narrowness of the street in a manner forced them upon my observation. The scene was a very violent one, and the lady's tears flowed without restraint. After twenty partings at least, the lover scarce getting to the door before he returned to take another embrace, he finally made his exit, and the lady threw herself on a sofa and hid her face — for five minutes f I had begun to feel for her, although her swollen eyes added very unnecessarily to her usual plainness, when she rose and rang the bell. The servant appeared and disap- peared, and in a few minutes returned with a ham, a loaf of bread, and a mug of beer ! and down sits my senti- mental miss and consoles the agony of parting, with a meal that I would venture to substitute in quantity for any working man's lunch. I went to bed and rose at nine, and she was sitting at breakfast with the rest of the family, playing as good a knife and fork as her sisters, though, I must admit, with an expression of sincere melancholy in her countenance. The scene, I am told by my friend the consul, was per- fectly German. They eat a great deal, he says, in afflic- tion. The poet writes: " They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-striogs." £g t&Z^7?^2>7Z/ c^e^^97l p. 160. PICTURES. l6l For silent read hungry. ****** The Upper Belvedere, a palace containing eighteen large rooms, filled with pictures. This is the imperial gallery, and the first in Austria. How can I give you an idea ot perhaps five hundred masterpieces ? You see here how, and by whom, Italy has been stripped. They have bought up all Flanders one would think, too. In one room here are twenty-eight superb Vandykes. Austria, in fact, has been growing rich while every other nation on the Conti- nent has been growing poor, and she has purchased the treasures of half the world at a discount.* It is wearisome writing of pictures, one's language is so limited. I must mention one or two in this collection, however, and I will let you off entirely on the Esterhazy, which is nearly as fine. Cleopatra dying. She is represented younger than usual, and with a more fragile and less queenly style of beauty than is common. It is a fair slight creature of seventeen, who looks made to depend for her very breath upon affec- tion, and is dying of a broken heart. It is painted with great feeling, and with a soft and delightful tone of colour which is peculiar to the artist. It is the third of Guido Cagnacci's pictures that I have seen. One was the gem of a gallery at Bologna, and was bought last summer by Mr. Cabot of Boston. The wife of Potiphar is usually represented as a woman of middle age, with a full voluptuous person. She is so Jrawn, I remember, in the famous picture in the Barberini palace at Rome, said to be the most expressive thing of its kind in the world. Here is a painting less dangerously- expressive of passion, but full of beauty. She is eighteen at the most, fair, delicate, and struggles with the slender boy, who seems scarce older than herself, — more like a sister from whom a mischievous brother has stolen something in * Besides the three galleries of the Belvedere, Leichstenstein, and Esterhazy, which contain as many choice masters as Rome and Florence together, the guide- book refers the traveller to sixty-four private galleries of oil-paintings, well worfck his attention, and to twenty-five private collections of engravings and antiquities. We shall soon be obliged to go to Vienna to study the arts, at this rate. They have only no sculpture. X 162 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. sport. Her partly disclosed figure has all the incomplete slightness of a girl. The handsome features of Joseph express more embarrassment than anger. The habitual courtesy to his lovely mistress is still there ; his glance is just averted from the snowy bosom toward which he is drawn ; but in the firmly curved lip the sense of duty sits clearly defined, and evidently will triumph. I have for- gotten the painter's name. His model must have been some innocent girl whose modest beauty led him away from his subject. Called by another name, the picture were perfect. A portrait of Count Wallenstein, by Vandyke. It looks a man, in the fullest sense of the word. The pendant to it is the Countess Tourentaxis, and she is a woman he might well have loved — calm, lofty, and pure. They are pic- tures I should think would have an influence on the charac- ter of those who saw them habitually. Here is a curious picture by Schnoer — Mephistopheles tempting Faust. The scholar sits at his table, with a black-letter volume open before him, and apparatus of all descriptions around. The devil has entered in the midst of his speculations, dressed in black, like a professor, and stands waiting the decision of Faust, who gazes intently on the manuscript held in his hand. His fingers are clenched, his eyes start from his head, his feet are braced, and the devil eyes him with a side-glance, in which malig- nity and satisfaction are admirably mingled. The features of Faust are emaciated, and show the agitation of his soul very powerfully. The points of his compasses, globes, and instruments, emit electric sparks towards the infernal visitor ; his lamp burns blue, and the picture altogether has the most diabolical effect. It is a large painting ; and just below, by the same artist, hangs a small, simple, sweet Madonna. It is a singular contrast in subjects by the same hand. A portrait of the Princess Esterhazy, by Angelica Kauff- man — a beautiful woman, painted in the pure, touching style of that interesting artist. Then comes a " Cleopatra, dropping the pearl into the cup/' How often and how variously, and how admirably always, the Egyptian queen is painted : I never have seen LAMPl's VENUS. l6S an indifferent one. In this picture the painter seems to have lavished all he could conceive of female beauty upon his subject. She is a glorious creature. It reminds me of her own proud description of herself, when she is reproach- ing Antony to one of her maids, in " The False One " of Beaumont and Fletcher : " to prefer The lustre of a little trash, Arsinoe, Before the life of love and soul of beauty ! " 1 have marked a great many pictures in this collection I cannot describe without wearying you, yet I feel unwilling to let them go by. A female, representing Religion feed- ing a dove from a cup, a most lovely thing by Guido ; por- traits of Gerard Douw and Rembrandt, by themselves 5 Rubens' children, a boy and girl ten or twelve years of age, one of the most finished paintings I ever saw, and entirely free from the common dropsical stj;e of colouring of this artist ; another portrait of Giorgione's wife, the fiftieth that I have seen, at least, yet a face of which one would never become weary ; a glowing landscape by Fischer, the first by this celebrated artist 1 have met ; and last, (for this is mere catalogue-making,) a large picture representing the sitting of the English Parliament in the time of Pitt. It contains about a hundred portraits, among which those of Pitt and Fox are admirable. The great prime-minister stands speaking in the foreground, and Fox sits on the op- posite side of the House, listening attentively with half a smile on his features. It is a curious picture to find in Vienna. One thing more, however — a Venus, by Lampi. It kept me a great while before it. She lies asleep on a rich couch, and, apparently, in her dream, is pressing a rose to her bosom, while one delicate foot, carelessly thrown back, is half imbedded in a superb cushion supporting a crown and sceptre. It is a lie, by all experience. The moral is false, but the picture is delicious. M 2 164 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. LETTER IV. DEPARTURE FROM VIENNA THE EIL-WAGON— MOTLEY QUALITY OF THE PASSENGERS — THUNDERSTORM IN THE MOUNTAINS OF STYRIA TRIESTE SHORT BEDS OF THE GERMANS — GROTTO OP ADELSBURG ; CURIOUS BALL-ROOM IN THE CAVERN — NAUTICAL PREPARATIONS FOR A DANCE ON BOARD THE ie UNITED STATES '* SWEPT AWAY BY THE BORA — ITS SUCCESSFUL TERMINATION. July, 1833. I left Vienna at daylight in a Diligence nearly as capacious as a steam-boat — inaptly called the Eil-?vagon, A Friuli count with a pair of cavalry mustachios ; his wife, a pretty Viennese of eighteen, scarce married a year ; two fashion- able-looking young Russians ; an Austrian midshipman ; a fat Gratz lawyer ; a trader from the Danube ; and a young Bavarian student, going to seek his fortune in Egypt, were my companions. The social habits of Continental travellers had given me thus much information by the end of the first post. We drove on with German regularity, three days and three nights, eating four meals a-day, (and very good ones) and improving hourly in our acquaintance. The Russians spoke all our languages. The Friulese and the Bavarian spoke every thing but English ; and the lady, the trader, and the Gratz avocat, were confined to their vernacular. It was a pretty idea of Babel when the conversation became general. We were coursing the bank of a river, in one of the ro- mantic passes of the mountains of Styria, with a dark thunderstorm gathering on the summit of a crag overhang- ing us. I was pointing out to one of my companions a noble ruin of a castle seated very loftily on the edge of one of the precipices, when a streak of the most vivid lightning shot straight upon the northernmost turret, and the moment after several large masses rolled slowly down the mountain- side. It was so like the scenery in a play, that I looked at my companion with half a doubt that it was some optical delusion. It reminded me of some of Martin's engravings. The sublime is so well imitated in our day, that one is less THE GROTTO OF ABELSBURG. l65 surprised than lie would suppose when nature produces the reality. The night was very beautiful when we reached the sum- mit of the mountain above Trieste. The new moon silvered the little curved bay below like a polished shield, and right in the path of its beams lay the two frigates like a painting. I must confess that the comfortable cot swinging in the ward-room of the " United States" was the prominent thought in my mind as I gazed upon the scene. The fatigue of three days' and nights' hard driving had dimmed my eye for the picturesque. Leaving my companions to the short beds* and narrow coverlets of a German hotel, I jumped into the first boat at the pier, and in a few minutes was alongside the ship. How musical is the hail of a sentry in one's native tongue, after a short habituation to the jargon of foreign languages ! " Boat ahoy !" It made my heart leap. The officers had just returned from Venice, some over land from the Friuli, and some by the steamer through the gulf, and were sitting round the table, laugh- ing with professional merriment over their various adven- tures. It was getting back to country, and friends, and liome. ****** I accompanied the commodore's family yesterday in a visit to the Grotto of Adelsburg. It is about thirty miles back into the Friuli mountains, near the province of Ca- riola. We arrived at the nearest tavern at three in the afternoon, and, subscribing our names upon the magistrate's books, took four guides and the requisite number of torches, and started on foot. A half hour's walk brought us to a large, rushing stream, which, after turning a mill, disap- peared with violence into the mouth of a broad cavern, sunk in the base of a mountain. An iron gate opened on *he nearest side, and, lighting our torches, we received an addition of half a dozen men to our party of guides, and entered. We descended for ten or fifteen minutes, through a capacious gallery of rock, up to the ankles in mud, and * A German bed is never over five feet in length, and proportionately narrow. The sheets, blankets, and coverlets are cut exactly to the size of the bed's surface* so that there is no tucking up. The bed-clothes seem made for cradles. It is •easy to imagine how a tall person sleeps in them. 166 PENCILLIIS'GS BY THE WAY. feeling continually the drippings exuding from the roof till, by the echoing murmurs of dashing water, we found ourselves approaching the bed of a subterraneous river. We soon emerged in a vast cavern, whose height, though we had twenty torches, was lost in the darkness. The river rushed dimly below us, at the depth of perhaps fifty feet, partially illuminated by a row of lamps hung on a slight wooden bridge, by which we were to cross to the opposite side. •We descended by a long flight of artificial stairs, and stood upon the bridge. The wildness of the scene is inde- scribable. A lamp or two glimmered faintly from the lofty parapet from which we had descended ; the depth and breadth of the surrounding cave could only be measured by the distance of the echoes of the waters ; and beneath us leaped and foamed a dark river, which sprang from its in- visible channel, danced a moment in the faint light of our lamps, and was lost again instantly in darkness. It brought with it from the green fields through which it had come, a current of soft warm air, peculiarly delightful after the chilliness of the other parts of the cavern ; there was a smell of new-mown hay in it which seemed lost upon the Tar- tarean blackness around. Our guides led on, and we mounted a long staircase on the opposite side of the bridge. At the head of it stood a kind of monument, engraved with the name of the emperor of Austria, by whose munificence the staircases had been cut and the conveniences for strangers provided. We turned hence to the right, and entered a long succession of natural corridors, roofed with stalactites, with a floor of rock and mud, and so even and wide that the lady under my protec- tion had seldom occasion to leave my arm. In the narrowest part of it, the stalactites formed a sort of reversed grove, with the roots in the roof. They were of a snowy white, and sparkled brilliantly in the light of the torches. One or two had reached the floor, and formed slender and beautiful sparry columns, upon which the names of hundreds of visitors were written in pencil. The spars grew white as we proceeded, and we were constantly emerging into large halls of the size of handsome drawing-rooms, whose glittering rocfs, and sides lined with ADtLSBURGH. l67 fantastic columns, seemed like the brilliant frost-wort of a crystallised cavern of ice. Some of the accidental formations of the stalagmites were very curious. One large area was filled with them, of the height of small plants. It was called by the guides the " English Garden/' At the head of another saloon stood a throne, with a stalactite canopy above it, so like the work of art that it seemed as if the sculptor had but left the finishing undone. We returned part of the way we had come, and took another branch of the grotto, a little more on the descent. A sign above informed us that it was the " road to the in- fernal regions." We walked on an hour at a quick pace, stopping here and there to observe the oddity of the form- ations. In one place, the stalactites had enclosed a room, leaving only small openings between the columns, precisely like the grating of a prison. In another, the ceiling lifted out of the reach of torch light, and far above us we heard the deep-toned beat as upon a muffled bell. It was a thin circular sheet of spar, called ie the bell," to which one of the guides had mounted, striking upon it with a billet of wood. We came after a while to a deeper descent, which opened into a magnificent and spacious hall. It is called the "ball- room," and used as such once a year, on the occasion of a certain Illyrian festa. The floor has been cleared of stalag- mites: the roof and sides are ornamented bevond all art with glittering spars ; a natural gallery with a balustrade of stalactites contains the orchestra ; and side-rooms are all around where supper might be laid, and dressing-rooms offered in the style of a palace. I can imagine nothing more magnificent than such a scene. A literal description j f it even would read like a fairy tale. A little farther on, we came to a perfect representation of a waterfall. The impregnated water had fallen on a de- clivity, and, with a slightly ferruginous tinge of yellow, poured over in the most natural resemblance to a cascade after a rain. We proceeded for ten or fifteen minutes, and found a small room like a chapel, with a pulpit, in which stood one of the guides, who gave us, as we stood beneath, an Illyrian exhortation. There was a sounding-board above, and I have seen pulpits in old Gothic churches that 16S PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. seemed at a first glance to have less method in their archi- tecture. The last tiling we reached was the most beautiful. From the cornice of a long gallery hung a thin, translucent sheet of spar, in the graceful and waving folds of a curtain ; with a lamp behind, the hand could be seen through any part of it. It was perhaps twenty feet in length, and hung five or six feet down from the roof of the cavern. ' The most singular part of it was the fringe. A ferruginous stain ran through it from one end to the other, with the exactness of a drawn line, and thence to the curving edge a most delicate rose-tint faded gradually down like the last flush of a sunset through a silken curtain. Had it been a work of art, done in alabaster, and stained with the pencil, it would have been thought admirable. The guide wished us to proceed, but our feet were wet, and the air of the cavern was too chill. We were at least four miles, they told us, from the entrance, having walked briskly for upwards of two hours. The grotto is said to extend ten miles under the mountains, and has never been thoroughly explored. Parties have started with provisions, and passed forty- eight hours in it, without finding the ex- tremity. It seems to me that any city I ever saw might be concealed in its caverns. I have often tried to conceive of the grottos of Anti-Paros, and the celebrated caverns of our own country, but I received here an entirely new idea of the possibility of space under ground. There is no con- ceiving it unseen. The river emerges on the other side of the mountain, seven or eight miles from its first entrance. We supped and slept at the little albergo of the village, and returned the next day to an early dinner. ***** * A ball on board the