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AUTHOR: ROWAN, ARTHUR BLENNERHASSETT TITLE: GLEANINGS AFTER "GRAND TOUR"-ISTS PLACE: LONDON DA TE : 1856 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGF.T Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record Restrictions on Use: K782 ••iP'lF^^MP^ [Rowan, Arthur Blennerhassettj Gleanings after "Grand tour "-ists. -London [etc.] Bos- worth & Harrison [etc.] 1856. viii. 415 pp. 19J«"'. Describing a trip through Italv. 2-^2-M 2 9'?)-/(> y Library ofToiigress, no FILM SIZE:_3.5_n3. JUL TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: \_l C^ IB IIB DATE FILMED:_jS'jl/iL-_5A INITIALS__l^^j(J_.___ HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT c Association for information and Image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue. Suite 1100 Silver Spring. Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 IMIUliMUUililU^ 5 6 7 8 9 iliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliii 10 11 12 13 iiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliinliiiilii mmmMmM^^ T^ 14 mill 15 mm LUi +1 Inches 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^ III 2.8 2.5 ■^ m 2.2 g63 lUUu 2.0 1.8 1.4 1.6 MfiNUFRCTURED TO flllM STPNDfiRDS BY fiPPLIED IMfiGE. INC. Columbia (Hnitjer^ftp tntlifCitpofltrttigorb LIBRARY GIVEN BY Univjn Taeological Seminary " ■"■" . ■ !f 1 i ■ .1 1 1' ■ 1 j t r. t ■> i:. '^ 1 1 n. - ^' * * • ' -, ;i '' • f *5 ' ^ ! ,; •■ 1 ■ 1 1 ■^n.ri -• ' GLEANINGS APTER "GRAND TOUR"-ISTS. /^n " Qui tecum cupis esse meos ubicunque libellos, Et comites longae quaeris habere viae, Hos eme, quos arctat brevibus membrana libellis Scrinia da magnis, me manus ima capit." Martial, lib. i. ep. iv. You who for Italy " en route'' Would have a guide the road to suit, Take us your " handbooks" as you roam— Leave " quartos" on the shelf at home. '^■. LONDON,,,* ' '\ BOSWORTH & HARKISON, 215,. REGENT STREET. HODGES, SMITH, AND-COVAl^rn iJEOilGE HERBERT, DUBLIN •HIXXICL'^4 » 1 /'^i'4 r Union ^hediogioal ,9/^^^/2-7^ "^,4- lb 4- -•fMkMMMMarfriHiMi LiB ! i K E V .. CITY narjf j;/ ■/ : « : • « • • • « « tit •.'•,• ' • • • I , • • « I , V i » « , , •• • • • • • « • • • • 11 t ■ l» i > CO < I DEDICATION. TO A. M. T. My d£ab Sister, But for you, the memories which have furnished the materials for this little volume would never have had existence ; to whom, then, can I so fitly dedicate it as to one who, having first suggested the excursion of which it is a result, afterwards contributed so largely to the pleasant and successful accomplishment of that ex- cursion ? Our own Island Bard, among other "flies in amber" preserved in his poetry, has somewhere favoured a friend with this not too rational wish — " As half in shade, and half in sun, ■ This world along its path advances, Oh may that side the sun's upon Be all that ever shall meet thy glances." The sentiment of this stanza has in it more of poetic than of real good-nature, affection, or good- will ; the succes- sions of " shade and sun" are part of an economy adapted •f ! If DEDICATION. to US bj Him who " knoweth whereof we are made ;" and, being as we are, if in our course through this world our " glances" never fell on aught but the " side the sun's upon," the result would very shortly be a tired and worn- out optic nerve, not to mention other and more fearful physical evils. What is true of " the earthy tabernacle" is also true of the undying tenant within. Morally as well as physically, the alternations of " shade" and " sun" — sweet and bitter, rough and smooth— are in all respects best for us, most suitable and wholesome ; in fact, essen- tial to our well-being. It was a wise and Divine philo- sophy which, long ago, taught a "living man" to walk uncomplaining in a dark and thorny road, and to say, " What ! shall we receive good, and shall we not receive evil at the hand of the Lord ?" To carry out Moore's idea : You will remember how curiously agreeable we found it to advance up the length of Italy, chasing, as it were, the summer with its succes- sion of fruits and flowers, before us, from the strawberries of a sunny March at Naples, until we found them at the edge of the yet unthawed snows of June in the Upper Grisons. It was, in truth, a progress in the sun in all its stages, the more agreeable, doubtless, that it stood then in its reality, as it stands now in its reminiscences, in marked contrast to rough and darkly- shadowed paths, in which He who knows what is best for us had ordered our goings for years before, as well as for years which have DEDICATION. y come since. I feel quite sure, that even though the sense of contrast might not have been always present to us, yet it insensibly contributed to heighten the enjoyment ; and inasmuch as perpetual " touring" would be as insupport- able as living in sun-glare for ever, it is best and pleasantest that it should stand out as an oasis of indulgence, not to be met at every stage of the pilgrimage of life. To avail myself once more of our poet's language, without adopting his sentiment, when he sings, " As onward we journey, how pleasant To pause and inhabit awhile The few sunny spots Uke the present, Through life's dreary journey that smile," I now invite you to look over and accept the dedication of these " sunny memories," into most of which you will enter largely, and, I hope, enjoy them, as I do, in recol- lection. One more remark before I have done. Having due regard to our responsibilities, I should feel that we had, both and each, paid dearly for our " sunny spots" of sojourn and progress in Italy, if there were any fear that our children had taken hurt or taint from their exposure to the influences of that land of gross yet seductive reH- gious delusion. It may seem like an inconsistency to caU the same influences at once '* gross" and « seductive," but the one epithet applies to the case of the unfurnished, the other to that of the mind exercised to " distinguish between good and evil." For neither young nor old do I VI DEDICATION. fear much danger of infection from the " leprosy which cleaveth to the walls and door-posts'* of Rome, except where the stranger goes thither either with " Romanising tendencies" the result of unwholesome and corrupted religious teaching at home, or where that inner faculty, which should be preoccupied with the tenets of "the true religion established amongst us," has been left a " swept and garnished" vacuum ! In such sad cases, inasmuch as some religion is a human " necessary of life" — inasmuch as even a daring infidel was obliged to confess that, "if there was no God, one should be invented*^ ! — let the «7/-provided or wwprovided soul beware of the in- fluences of Rome ! I have a good hope — and when I say hope, I mean assurance — that, while neither of us will probably ever visit that "sad, sunken," seductive land again, yet that we need not, either of us, regret having seen with our eyes, and shown to our children, the beauties and de- formities, the glories and the shames, the ruins of the past, or the moral and social ruin of the present, in that " sunny Italy." Yours aifectionately, R. Januart/j 1856. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER . I. " THE RUN TO NAPLES " IV. (( CAMPO SANTO DI POVERI >j V. " LAST IMPRESSIONS OP NAPLES — " FIRST AND LAST OF STATES OF THE CHURCH VI. " SYMBOLISM" — THE LAVANDA „i» » VII. "THE STUARTS" — AND SOME OTHER " NOTABILIA" OF ST. Peter's .... VIII. " AD statu as" — THE VATICAN BY TORCHLIGHT . IX. A NIGHT WITH ANTHONY PASQUIN, IN 1851 . X. " ROMA SUBTERRANEA" — AD CATACUMBAS — XI. ROMAN CHARITIES : SAN MICHELE— TRINITA DEI PEL- LEGRINI ..... xii. a passage in the life of the late czar xm. " the inn of the apennines" — " the gate of bo logna" — "the tudesche" PAGE 1 17 26 50 71 85 110 129 145 159 175 201 224 231 Vlll CONTENTS. XIV. VENICE . • • • • XV. " VOTIVE TABELLiE" .... XVI. THE " OPENING OP THE PASS"— TO CHIAVENNA XVII. THE "OPENING OP THE PASS"— TO SPLUGHEN XVIII. THE RIGHI — " THE EVENING" XIX. THE RIGHI — " THE MORNING" XX. " TAKE ME HOME AGAIN" * • • l'envoi ... APPENDIX PAGE . 245 . 268 . 286 . 313 . 335 . 355 . 374 . 384 . 399 GLEANINGS AFTER "GRAND TOUR"-ISTS. INTEODUCTOET CHAPTEE. I WAS lounging away the "sultry noon" of a summer's day with an Italian acquaintance in the arcaded courts of The Qu,rinal," once the busiest, now the coolest and most secluded spot in Eome for a " saincteterre," * when my companion, turning to me, abruptly asked— " Do you keep a journal ?" on the 25th of Nov mb^ 1848 di^^ ^ '' """ ^'° ^°™ ^^* others more co^^tlv affirm -I T""''.^"' «ay as a domestic, but direct to the V»t,v.„ V ■ ^. **'"' ""^ "P"" '>>« "-etum, drove that pala fto SdelTit''r""r'f k'"'" '"' "^"^"^ -^ f™» has never siMe a, ! h!, ! ,^^!'° '° ^^ '^P»'«'' i «■"! ^s Holiness ba^one™ ' ' ^'"^"^ "'"' '""" """^ «« P^t'^'ion of French GLEANINGS AFTEB " GBAND T0TJR"-ISTS. The question was " a propos de rien.'^'* It had, so to speak, no concatenation, except, perliaps, with an inner train of thought suggested to the mind of the querist by some observation of mine, which led him to imagine that I was looking more closely and deeply into the moral and social state of Rome than he had supposed. Before I proceed to give the answer returned at the time, or to expand it into an explanation of the origin of these " Gleanings," I must, in few words, present the querist to my readers, as the type of a section of that large dominant class — the Eoman clergy. If a shade or two of mystery shall appear to rest upon this personage, such as I have been able to catch and preserve his linea- ments, it is not my fault, and they will give, perhaps, not the least characteristic finish to a picture in which I do not wish to distort or exaggerate a single feature. An acute friend, long domiciled at Rome, had told me that the Eoman clergy were generally very marked in their attentions to the English stranger on first arrival, especially in any case considered "hopeful" — in other words, where the visitor was believed to be disposed to "go to Rome" in soul as well as in " bodily presence." In such case attentions were varied and unceasing, and most ingeniously adapted to the bias or temperament of the " hopeful subject." If, however, after a certain time, and beyond a certain point, no " report of progress," or of " developing Romanism," could be made, these atten- tions were liable to slacken, and finally to subside into neglect. "These gentlemen," he said, "seldom bestow a civility without a meaning and object." On my arrival in Rome, in the spring of 1851, I had i. INTEODUCTOET CHAPTEE. • « found prepared for me an advantage reiy valuable to a person whose proposed stay was limited to a month or two : I became domicUed with a relative who had spent the previous winter there, and found in her circle a number of ready-made acquaintance quite as large as I desired Among others who had the entree of her house was my sauntermg friend of the Quirinal, Monsignor Z . This had been accorded to him at his own request, and through the intervention of an English lady, who repre- sented him as a « most social .olUairer fond of conversa- tion, and specially attracted by that "home" unreserve of English domestic life for which Boman habits have no counterpart. He asked an introduction and permission to visit, which being accorded, he became most inde- fatigable in obtaining " Chamberlain tickets," informa- tion as to where and when "funzioni" were to « come off," and m procuring those other facilities to the sights and shows of Eome which are very useful and agreeable to the stranger. Thus I found him quite familiar in the household, paying his uninvited visits (more Romano) generally in the evening, about tea-time, when he would glide m m the gloaming; and, though we could never in- duce him to partake of that national cup which " cheers but not inebriates," the tU Anglak, he usually con- trived to sit, m such broken conversation as his bad French and our worse Italian enabled us to carry on until bed-time. ' mat is a Monsignor? Can any one define a "Pre- latif It is not a bishop, though it sounds so like it; and, m fact, I never could obtain any exact explanation as to the status or privileges of this peculiar appendage to b2 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. the Court of Eome. Sometimes the title appeared to belong to persons in high and influential position, some- times to men of no mark or importance whatever. " Gli MonsignorV^ were occasionally spoken of as the mere fribbles and butterflies who lounged (like artists* models) on the Scala Eegia, or flitted through the labyrinthine passages of the Vatican; then, again, it would be an- nounced that " Monsignor X. T. Z. (as the case might be) had been entrusted with a mission of the utmost moment to the interests of the Holy See." After the best consi- deration I can give the subject, it occurs to me that the title of Monsignor may be taken to correspond to the " Right Honourable" of our Privy Councillor — a distinc- tion which the merest red-tapist of routine may wriggle himself into sharing, with " the Atlas of the Senate and the State." It was borne by Pitt and Fox, as by the " Tapers and Tadpoles'* of their day. It puts a man upon a certain elevation, where personal ability and influence must deter- mine his real importance or — nothingness ! afterwards. Our friend was a — Monsignor ! and a " Segretario,** and nothing could be more apparently frank, unaffected, and natural than his account of how he became so ; he gave it, in fact, as the history of a large class of the fast-de- caying nobility of Eome : " I am,'* he said, " a Noble, but a poor one {Nohile, ma senza dotte). I hear that you * Inglese' have pursuits which you call * liberal and learned;' here we have no such thing. — To be an ^ avocato,' a * medico,' is to leave your grade to become a dependant {seguace\ to reckon for no more than a domestic (aervo di casd). — There is no road for the poor noble in life but the army for the few, the INTEODUCTOEY CHAPTEE. 5 church for the many; ^o I am a cleric, with no taste for It {clerico senza vocatione) ,^l have never demanded fa- culties.* I have my calHng, because I must; I hope I do not disgrace it, but that is all." This was an early and volunteered communication, and It was in the same spirit of seeming candour that upon my subsequently mentioning to him how I had noted, among the long train of candidates admitted to the priest-' hood in St. John Lateran on Easter Saturday, more than one distinguished by armorial bearings worked into his costly vestments — " Yes," he said, "these were 'nobHi poveri,* most of them probably * ecclesiastici di necessita; as myself.'* And then he added, " Who can teU how many a sore heart beats under such a robe to-day ?"— a remark which, " by the way," was echoed soon after by a lady who knew Eome long and thoroughly, so that it would seem as if the ''dwra pauperies'' which thus sentenced the scions of Eoman nobHity, as a class, to the priesthood, was an understood and recognised necessity of Eoman Kfe. With such antecedents, one would have been prepared * The attributes of the priesthood are made inherent at ordination, but their exercise depends on the granting of "faculties," these beings Bomething tantamount to the " Bishop's license" to officiate in his diocese A tale of cruelty of the Revolution of 1848 reminds me that it might be more correct to say that the sacerdotal attributes are held to be adherent rather than mherent. Ugo Bassi, a Barnabite priest of Bologna, having jomed the MUanese revolt, fell into the hands of the Austrians. Roman canon law holds the priesthood inviolate from the hands of the laity, and yet Ugo Bassi must die! But how? The Inquisition solved the diffi- culty-" they skinned the palms, forefingers, and thumbs of both hands:^ and pretending thus to have divested him of his sacred character, delivered hun to the Austrians. He walked to the side of a prepared hole, and liftmg his eyes to heaven, said, " Viva Gesuf—Viva LVta " ix balls silenced him, and he fell into his open grave ! 6 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. to find in our ^^ ecclesiastico di necessitd'* more of the agreeable gossip of an every-day acquaintance, than of the erudition of a deep-read theologian ; but I was not prepared for the blank ignorance (real or assumed) with which our acquaintance met some advances towards dis- cussion of subjects, which might form a topic between a Eoman ecclesiastic and an inquiring stranger. I re- member upon one occasion I was led to produce a Greek Testament, in order to settle some question which arose in course of conversation. " Our Monsignor " took the volume, examined it, turned over its leaves, and seemed to try to make out a few words, much as one might attempt the hieroglyphics of an Egyptian papyrus ! Upon another occasion, something drew on a reference to the " Creed of Pius IV.," and by no periphrasis I could use in our triglot medium of intercourse, neither in French, Italian, nor Latin, neither by reference to the Pontiif after whom it is named, nor to the council hi/ which it was framed, could I bring Monsignor Z to acknowledge any ac- quaintance with this symbol, or that he had ever before heard of such a formula of his church. At length a lady who sat listening to our attempts to elucidate the matter, passed to me over the table a pencilled slip of paper with these words : — " It is very clear that he must know all about it perfectly well ; but equally clear that he does not intend to go further into the discussion" — It may be asked why I should speak of this frankness of our Italian friend as but "seeming," and of his igno- rance as " assumed," and of all as possibly covering close observation and deep purpose towards those around him ? There are a few incidents which, on retrospect, throw a introductoey chaptee. 7 shade of suspicion upon this gentleman's movements in our regard, in noticing which, if I do him any wrong, I am heartily sorry, but I must speak of things as I seem to have found them. I had not been many days in Eome when, without any previous discussion between us, Monsignor Z was so kind as to send me, by the lady to whom we owed his ac- quaintance, a book which he commended, with his respects, to my attention. Upon opening, I found it a work of un- mistakable controversy, purporting to be a reply to some publication of the late Bishop Luscombe, of Paris, of which I had never previously heard. Now, as I really had not come to Rome to engage in controversy, nor on running through the book did I see anything out of that ordinary line of argument on points at issue between the churches with which I had long been familiar, I therefore (placing between the leaves a few notes in Latin on some conclu- sions which I thought obviously erroneous or self-contra- dictory) returned the volume with thanks, and a remark, that while it did not appear to me to contain anything new or convincing, my stay at Eome would be too short to allow of my studying it more closely. Monsignor Z , though he would sometimes treat me to long and not very pertinent explanations or excuses for some '' grossierete'' in the usages of his church, never after ap- proached me with any direct provocation to discussion ; and this little episode would scarce be worth notice if it did not become significant when connected with the intel- ligence which reached us soon after our departure from Eome, that the lady through whom he had sent the volume, and whom we had left in that city a professing 8 GLEANINGS AFTER " GKAND T0UE"-ISTS. member of the English Church, had soon after rewarded the labours of Monsignor Z by giving in her adhe- sion to the Church of Eome, under the auspices of that " Eeceiver-General of straying English," Monsignor Tal- bot— one of the chamberlains of his Holiness. Another slight fact, which has somewhat impaired my exercise of the grace which "thinketh no evil" in our friend's regard, is this. On leaving home I had desired that the Spectator newspaper (as giving an admirable weekly resume of things in general) should be duly for- warded to me. One evening it lay on the table, and Monsignor Z , taking it up, made some playful at- tempts to pronounce the English words, and then, turning to the final page of advertisements, asked " what that meant ?" I endeavoured to explain our system of adver- tising, and, as an illustration, pointed out, as subjects which might interest him, the announcements of " Ni- cholini's Pontificate of Leo X.," and " Gladstone's Trans- lation of Earini," just then published. He seemed to take but slight notice at the time, but among the Eoman news which reached us in our further progress through Italy was a rumour that the ''Spectator newspaper had been pro- hibited at Eome." Now, I may wrong our friend, but it seems to me not impossible that this absurd restriction may have originated in some report made by Monsignor Z to the " Congregation of the Index" of the "gun- powder-looking advertisements" to which I had called his attention. Our Monsignor having refused my lead into Greek- seemed to me to fall back on his reserves, in the shape of a Professor of the " Collegio Eomano," who was also one of the most celebrated and enthusiastic antiquarians in INTRODUCTOEY CHAPTER. 9 Eome. In a few days after the Greek Testament incident I found upon my table a note, of which the foUowing is a copy: rh. if 77 ""^^«^^'« "^^^"-6 I'ottimo Signor R e gli fa sapere Che 11 Padre — -, Gesuita, I'aspetta dimani, alle 10, nel Collegio Romano per mostrargh alcune beUe iscrizioni lapidarie ed altri interresfanti ogget? ^1 7i/'*'''' "^" ^^' ^"* rappuntamento per andare aUa Catacombe pnraa della sua partenza. " Lo scrivente forse si fara trovare Ik per avere U bene di vederlo." In this good-natured invitation, which sounds wonder- fully like the device by which children are coaxed to school with a promise of "showing them pretty things," most of my female friends seemed to see danger. They pointed to the word " Oesuita'' as the barb of the hook under that bait of ^'lapidarian inscriptions" for which my appetite, not to say weakness, was notorious ; they shook their heads at the idea of my descending into the Catacombs, with a Jesuit for my guide ! and I was solemnly warned that « I had better keep away." However, I went— I felt as if I could not, with any propriety, owe my safety from being over-argued, to an inglorious caution, and there- fore, entering the lion's den of the Collegio Eomano, I found «I1 Padre Gesuita," what I believe the Jesuits are universally found to be, a most courteous, obliging, and inteUigent cicerone through their recherche museum, where he often left me for hours to "feed me full" with ''oggetti inter essanti;' while his avocations called him elsewhere. Our talk was mostly of stones and inscriptions ; but when once or twice (Monsignor Z being present) it verged towards points at issue between the churches, there was no mistaking the interest and anxiety with which the listener watched the eff'ect of the professor's arguments I 10 <( >» GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND TOUR -ISTS. upon me. He seemed, however, soon to tire of standing bj, and to leave me altogether in the Jesuit's hands. How I fared in argument is not for me to say. I do not feel as if I had taken any hurt in faith or convictions from the intercourse. "Whether it was that the " little liking" vdth which I began my acquaintance with Romanism at head- quarters " decreased on further acquaintance," or that " II Padre" did not think it worth while to put forth his power of argument against an impassible and " invincibly- ignorant" subject, or whether (as I believe) the power of argument to put forth was lacking, I certainly came away unimpressed by anything in the Jesuit College, except by a sense of that marvellous completeness of organisation, based upon the uninquiring obedience of the members, with which the Jesuit order is regulated, and through which it seeks to rule the world. I gained, moreover, free and frequent admission to objects of interest, which would have been otherwise inaccessible. One conversation with my Jesuit friend, too long to insert here, I place in the Appendix,* as a specimen of many. But to return to our Monsignor, and to finish his por- trait with a feature of character not the least curious. He was by birth a noble — by calling a priest — by occupation an attache of the Papal court — and, in virtue of all combined, an ultramontane absolutist in sentiment; but — beyond and above all — he was Eoman in heart and feeling, and something of the high spirit of the old "popultis Bomanus " would occasionally show through every hinderance. There were circumstances and connexions in Monsignor Z 's case which I need not particularise, but which must have cut him off from any sympathy with the late popular move- * See Appendix, No. I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 11 ment of his countrymen : he could not with safety have remained in the city from the moment that Pio Nono passed to Gaeta; he could only have returned thither under the protection of the Prench bayonets, and neither the court atmosphere he breathed nor "the craft whereby he got his living" could have survived their withdrawal many hours ; and yet, in despite of all this, the Eoman soul within him was obviously chafed and galled by the presence of— the stranger ! And it was most curious to observe the manifestations of this feeling pervading all his sentiments and ways : he would turn aside from his direct course if he heard the measured tramp of the French regiments, as they defiled to their daily parade through the "Piazza di Spagna;" his descriptions and illustrations of the evils which the Eepublican inter- regnum had inflicted on Eome would mingle strangely with his proud assertions of the heroic enthusiasm with which the Trastavere had withstood the assault of the French ; it was amusing to hear the Pope's Segretario enlarging on the certainty that Garibaldi and his Eomans would have annihilated the Neapolitans, if, in their cru- sading zeal in favour of his master, these last had bided the encounter beyond Albano. It was only the evening before we left Eome that, inquiring from him the parti- culars of a late conflict between the French garrison and some of the Papal troops, he made light of it; "a mere tavern brawl "— " politically nothing," he said ; but that it arose out of personal affronts which the Eoman soldiery could not endure. " Ces messieurs had called his Holi- ness' forces « Eaiights of the Smock !' * Ceremony-Soldiers,' * Champions of the Virgm,' and this was an i^i^^fr^I ' our braves' would not endure, for there ar» OLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. It will easily be seen, by reference to the titles of my desultory chapters, that I make no pretension to putting forth a " Book on Italy ;" indeed, in the present relative state of supply and demand in this article, it would evince a superabundance of material, a great deficiency of discern- ment or modesty, or a great combination of both, to offer any such production to the public. May I also be per- mitted to say, that though I cannot pretend to avoid going over "beaten ground" in my remarks (for, in fact, there is little choice of route in Italy), yet I have endeavoured to avoid topics upon which " better things than I could say, have been said by better men before me," and to eschew that catalogue style of description which is an intrusion upon the topics of the Guide Book, and which the professed " Hand-book compiler" generally executes with much more accuracy and intelligence than the ama- teur poacher on his preserves. Therefore, for the contents of the " galleria," the " gold and marble of the churches," &c., &c., I beg to say — vide " Murray" passim. It may further be fit to state, that having thought it pru- dent to try my " 'prentice hand" at description in some of the periodicals, most of the chapters which compose this volume have, through the kindness of the Editors, already appeared at intervals in some of the London Magazines. They are now offered in an arranged, collected, and noted shape to the reader, as some results of actual observation, in which, without pretending that I either went to or came from Italy with any violent admiration for its people or customs, if I have "extenuated nothing," neither have I consciously " set down aught in malice." " THE EUN TO NAPLES." 17 CHAPTEE I. " THE EFN TO NAPLES." It is so hard to get well in with one's subject, either at the commencement of a Tour, or of the Story of it— there is so much time usually spent taking in, or giving out "first impressions " of foreign places and people, that the reader, to whom all this may be old "news," is often fretted and tired before the matter he is to deal with has been well opened to him. This was all very well in the days of " sentimental " Sterne, when " my travelled gentle- man " could bully and silence an honest frog-fearing, stay- at-home neighbour, with his insolent "you've been in Prance then ?" But now-a-days, when Calais and Bou- logne are but the " Surrey side of the water" to Dover or Folkestone, for a writer to stand dallying and describing the continental outskirts, is quite intolerable. So that to dash at once "m medias res,'' I beg the reader to under- stand that we ran over as fast as steam could whirl us, to Paris ; thence by an half-opened rail, to Chalons, thence down the Saone to Lyons, and again down the " arrowy Eh6ne" to Avignon and MarseHles— a line of route which I am heretical enough to pronounce superior to the 18 0LEAT«1NGS AFTEE " GRAND T0UR"-ISTS. vaunted " Up the Rhine!" and this not only in the scale of the scenery, in the liveliness of its current, when there ::s water enough (which by the way is not always), but even in those "castled crags," on which '' moyen-dge'' ruins seem to have been placed for no conceivable use except to serve as " lay figures" for the coming sketcher. As for those figments of mediseval romance which prate of " knights and squires on their barbed steeds, issuing in mailed array from the frowning portals," they are pure, unadulterated nonsense. I don't think it likely that the "middle-age" cavaliers ever brought their steeds to that perfection of the manege attained by those Astley-an heroes of our own day, who train their horses to walk up-stairs, stand up to a maypole, kneel to a peerless damsel, and to perform other wonderful feats ; and yet, as we shot down the Ehone, I saw some fortalices perched on some peaks, into which not the most trained of Astley's troop could climb, or otherwise find entrance, except, perhaps, by aid of the parachute of a balloon. Arrived in headlong haste at Marseilles, we were obliged to wait several days for the departure of the Naples steamer, during which we had time to make some me- teorological observations of the varieties and vicissitudes of that boasted climate, which not unfrequently proves to the too trusting and unwary traveller a "delusion, a mockery, and a snare." " Dear me ! why do you take those things ? are not you gomgto'tlie South of France?!''' was a query directed to one warm great coat, and two cloaks ditto, which formed part of the equipment of my daughters and myself for our journey. " The south of France" stands, to the ima- gination of some people, as an alias for the torrid zone ! " THE BUN TO NAPLES." 19 and yet I do affirm that in no season or climate did I ever experience more intense and piercing cold than in our transit to and through this southern region, and this in the season which poets call "spring." In our day, the Lyons Eailway (now of course complete) ceased at Tonnerre, and as we crossed the high grounds to Dijon, at night, and through deep-lying snow, we felt all the rigour of an Alpine winter transit, in proof of which I may mention a slight, but significant incident. At about midnight, while the horses were changing at a solitary post-house, I had let down the window of the coupe to gaze for a moment on the white world around. The deep silence was only broken by the jingling of the horses' bells, and the indescribable noises with which the French alternately coax and curse their cattle, in the midst of which I heard the ostler say in a quiet "aside" to the postilion, "don't let that horse stray down the lane ; one did so last night, and the wolves had him in an instant .'" This was getting well into Alpine alarms, without expecting it. However, we were soon over this range of high land, and when we got to Chalons next morning, we found sunshine again, with little more than a hoar-frost on the ground. This was once more varied, as we approached Marseilles, by the Use wind which blew steadily ofi" the Pyrenees, and sent us to our wrappings with renewed congratulations on our foresight in having brought them ; and when we arrived in that extremity of the vaunted "south of France," we found the inhabitants felicitating themselves upon a piercing wind, which was cutting US Northerns to the bone ! because — " it would avert the mosquito plague for a month or six weeks longer." This variableness and quick change of temperature seems c2 20 GLEANINGS AFTEB " GRAND T0UR"-ISTS. to belong to every region of " the sunny south :*' its sunniest day will close with a sharpness of cold most trying to a delicate constitution. AVoe betide the invalid who, tempted by a " burning noon," exposes himself with- out winter appliances to the sudden chill which comes, not with twilight, for there is none, but with the instan- taneous darkness which follows sunset ; with his pores open, and his poncho lying in the depths of his portman- teau ! the chances are much in favour of his pulmonary de- licacy becoming a pleuritic " sickness unto death." And then, as to hint aught against the salubrious South, would be flat heresy, his case is pronounced one which " must have been hopeless from the first, since the de- licious climate of Italy ^proved of no avail: ' Even at Nice, so freely prescribed in England as a great pulmonary hospital, a denizen assured me that I might look for a variation of as much as ticenty degrees of the thermo- meter between the back and front rooms of the same house ! At Naples, they told us of the deadly danger of remaining at a certain season in the vicinity of the Tufia Eock behind our lodgings on the " Chiatamone." At Eome they rate lodgings higher or lower as the sun does, or does not, shine on the side of the street at which you live, and everything everywhere bespeaks an inequality in the climate, of which invalids are as seldom aware, as they ought to be specially forew^amed. The passage from Marseilles to Naples is arranged as much as possible on the plan of a pleasure excursion. The steamer going generally coastwise, " makes play" at night, and "lies-to" for the livelong day at "Genoa," "Leg- horn," " Civita Vecchia," respectively, giving the passengers a full twelve hours on shore at each of these places. Thus u THE RUN TO NAPLES. tt 21 we were enabled to run over Grenoa*s street of palaces, and through some of them ; to run up by rail to Pisa, and survey its grouped wonders of Duomo, Baptistery, Campa- nile, and Campo Santo (the "real old original one" of Italy), all of which stand — the Tower may be said to "Zowwye" — as it were in "a ring fence," for the conveni- ence of such visitors as ourselves. We spent half an hour on the Leaning Tower, realising that strange sensation of being tempted to " grasp the wall to prevent its fall- ing," which we believe all persons experience on mounting this singular caprice of architecture. As every one must give a vote on the question of design (?) or accident (?) in the building of the tower, I tender mine on Sir Eoger de Coverley's principle of "much to be said on both sides." I believe the direction of the tower began in an accidental giving way of the foundation, and was then designedly continued, the courses of the upper masonry being all laid with a due conformity to the great principle upon which it stands — namely, that the line of the centre of gravity sliould fall within the base. An inscription, as below,* connects this tower with the repute of one of those " men before his age," whom the In- fallibility of his day had hounded into retractation and cap- tivity, for the very discoveries which now make his world- wide glory. The Pisa Tower is not the only one which exults in the remembrance of having had Gallileo's * GaUOaeo, Gallilsi Experimentis, hoc Turri Supra gravium corponim lapsu Institutis — legibus motus detectia — Mechanica condidit — Cura Vincenti Carignani. Eq : .Aurat. 22 GLEANINGS AFa'EE " GRAND TOUE -ISTS. plummet-line let down from its top. St. Mark's Campa- nile, at Venice, records a similar boast on its walls. Wondrous power of truth, strong only in its own sim- plicity, to live down all " shams,'' and to rise in spite of the proscription of opposing dogmatism and ignorance ! Every honour now heaped on Gallileo*s memory throughout Italy is a virtual revolt against that monstrous assump- tion which attempted to establish its " absolute shall," by trampling alike upon the eternal laws of nature and on liberty of human thought, and every tablet inscribed with the name of him whom " Italy delights to honour," is a standing gibe on that standing motto of the Papal decrees, " Ad perpetuam rei memoriam^' which may be freely ren- dered, " Dogmatism damned to everlasting fame." Galli- leo, as he came forth from the Judgment Hall, where his lips had been compelled to abjure as " impious and here- tical" that which his heart and intellect knew to be true, is said to have stamped on the earth and muttered, " H pur si muove'' (but it does move). Whether this be true or not, even as the oak is in the acorn, so in the import of these few simple words lay the seeds of that great protest in which the world has since risen against a system which, in its own overweening assumptions, destroyed its own au- thority over mind and conscience. Having thus " blown off" some of the indignation which a recollection of this case of G-allileo's always generates, and to which the paltry excuses and subterfuges of Eome's modern " Wisemen" always act as fuel to fire, let us leave Pisa,* which may not inaptly be called " Florence asleep," * I found among my notes of Pisa an observation which seems worth presenting to the consideration of the curious. The ancient Pisans obvi- ously determined to make their group of wonders each and all remark- "TKE llUN TO NAPLES." 23 and get on board our steamer, and to Naples as fast as possible. But before we "clear out" from the port of Leg- horn, there is a delicious little bit of nationality which one would not " willingly let die unrecorded." Our "steamer," owner, captain, and crew, were all Neapolitans, engine- men and stokers only excepted ; these were English, and these, as is their wont all the world over, insisted on carrying their technical terms and words of command along with them, so that the effect of hearing, "Ease her," " Stop her," " Half a turn a head," and so on, attempted (not pronounced) with foreign emphasis and accentation, was not a little ludicrous. As our vessel headed out of Leghorn harbour, a merchantman was entering, and a slight collision took place, ending in the crash of a bul- wark or so. The damage was slight, and the fault certainly lay with our captain, who had too much " way" on his vessel; and I then saw for the first time the extreme vivacity of the Italian temperament under excitement : he stamped, he gesticulated, he cursed, he called on " St Genaro," — he could scarcely have done more had he started a plank, and let in " five feet water to the hold of either vessel," — and he ended all by summoning the engine-man able. " Holy Land earth" was brought to form the last resting-place in the Campo Santo, the " Leaning Tower/* so built as to be a wonder of *' architectural cunning," and the Duomo, independent of its general effect, seems intended to symbolise the triumph of Christianity over Pa- ganism. Everywhere in its outside wall are inserted polished marbles, containing fragments of inscriptions and dedications to heathen gods and goddesses, all carefully turned upside down, and sawn across, so that you can distinguish what they were, and can also see that they are de- signedly destroyed. This seems to have been done in order to let them stand as memorials of the overturned system they once commemorated : it is scarcely probable that for the mere labour of erajiing these inscrip- tions they would have been allowed to stand. M ' I H GLEA.NINQS AFTER " GRAND TOUR -ISTS. of which (not having the fear of Mr. Addison* or other traditors before my eyes), I scratched a version v^^hile Bitting among the cinders and ashes of Vesuvius as it now lies changed and ruined : " Hie est Pampineis viridis modo Vesuvius umbris, Presserat hie, madidos nobiles uva laeus Haec Juga, quam Nysae coUes plus Baechus amavit Hoc nuper Satyri monte, dedere chores, Haec Veneris sedes, Lacedaemone gratior illae, Hie locus Herculeo nomine clarus erat Cuncta jacent flammis, et tristi mersa favilla, Nee Superi vellent hoc licuisse sibi." Mart. lib. i 124. Here ! where Vesuvius, crowned with leafy vine, From the pressed grape o'erflowed its vats with wine — Where Satyrs frolick'd through these mountain groves — Which more than Nysa's hill the Wine-God loves — Which sweeter seat than Paphos Venus found — And great Alcides' fame made classic ground — All wrapped in flame, and dark sad ashen shroud, The gods bewail the ills themselves allowed. It is impossible, in my judgment, to look at Monte Somna, with its trap-dykes standing out from the surface of its scarped and wall-like sides, without at once adopting the conviction that it is but the remains of the funnel of that older volcano, which carried away the remainder of its furnace-shaft when it burst forth on the level country below, while the "Atria di Cavallo" may be likened to a flooring over a vault of fire and combustibles beneath, similar to that which actually reverberates to a heavy stamp in the Solfa-terra, at the opposite side of the bay. This idea, when once received, gives an astounding im- pression of the magnitude of the scale on which volcanic action may have formerly prevailed, and may yet again be u " DOING OUR VESUYIU8.'* 39 exhibited, in this region ; nay, when on ascending the cone, the eye can take in the level country to the eastward as far as Capua and Caserta, the conception of volcanic agency expands itself still further, and suggests that the distant ranges of hills which bound the " Campagna felice" are but the old walls of extinct volcanoes, and that the " happy land" itself may be but the flooring, over gulfs of billowing molten fire, or combustibles waiting the explosive agency at unknown depths beneath ; — ^the conception is a tremen- dous one to grasp, but the analogies of volcanic action bring it within the scope of proha — no, of jpombility. Another fact portentous to consider, is the sympathy said to exist between Vesuvius and the volcanic region twenty miles off*, at the other side of the bay. Solfa-terra, already alluded to, a perfect unbroken crater, never known to have exploded* within the historic era, has yet a con- stant, subdued volcanic action going on, in jets and puffs of sulphuric and aluminous gases from the chinks and * If the Solfa-terra roared as loud as Bully Bottom boasted he could, and as other volcanic lions do, so as to put the auditors in " pity of their life," it would enforce more attention to its real wonders. I am wrong in saying there is no eruption on record, for a (not very clear) tradition affirms one to have taken place in the end of the twelfth century (1198) ; and I think it impossible any one can ever cross its area without feeling that an explosion may any day happen. You cannot stamp on the ground without being sensible that you are on the roof of an abyss, and when you arrive at the centre of the amphitheatre, and the guide taking a mass of rock, flings it forcibly on the floor, the perceptible shaking of the ground, and the deep hollow sound with which the echoes roll away through the "vast profound" beneath, produce a curious sensation of in- security. Proceeding a little further, you find jets of sulphuric and aluminous gases puffing from the ground with great activity ; so that on the whole I think the visitor must depart with an impression of vast volcanic stores lying beneath him, only waiting the necessary chemical combinations to make a sensation '^ with a witness." ■ . 40 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. crevices of its floor and sides ; but it has been observed, that the moment an eruption of Vesuvius commences, the Solfa-terra becomes quiet until it is ended, when it recom- mences its own volcanic manifestations again. These tokens of subterranean correspondence suggest the idea that a day may come when Naples will find itself in the situation of exposure to two fires, and may wish that its tutelar saint, Januarius, were a " Janus bifrons," that he might extin- guish a fire before and behind by " the mere view of his sacred Head /" for so runs the legend commemorating his former interposition betw^een the city and the flaming mountain.* But en route! — our " porteurs" are ready, our centaurs pawing the ashes impatiently. We fastened the ladies by shawls and cloaks into sligjit rush-bottomed arm-chairs, * Neapolitan Latin is not of the clearest construction ; but Neapolitan devotion to "San Genaro" is very clear in expression, as the following inscription, which they are not ashamed to place on the principal bridge of Naples, will testify : Divo Januario, Principi Neapolitanorum Patrono, Ex civium religione Signum, Cum omamentis. Quod Montem Vesuvium Ignem Longe lateque se EfPondentem. Hie ! e sacrati capitis Visione. X. Kal. Novembris, MDCCLXVII. Statim extinxerit Atque universo Exhilaverit. (( DOING QUE VESUTIUS. i> 41 constructed, I believe intentionally, with loose joints, on the principle of a ship-lantern, so that the occupant may preserve a perpendicular at whatever angle of elevation the bearers may carry the bearing-poles to which they are attached by strong grass ropes ; the whole equipage is very primitive, but, as we found it, sufficiently serviceable. For us gentlemen the preparations were different, but equally simple. We each selected at will what we called centaurs, or man-horses, from a crowd of stout contadini. These went before, with a strong cotton band hung bridle- wise from the shoulder. You have nothing to do but to hold on by the band, pick your steps among the cinders, and aUow your leader to do the uphill work of hauling you after him. My friend. Captain M , accustomed to the luxuries of Oriental travel, took two of these men to his share, passed the cotton coil round the small of his back, and allowed them to drag him up, with no exer- tion on his part but that of picking his steps. With an unwise idea of my own powers, I contented myself with one, and had reason to regret it — for once or twice, in the worst bits of the ascent, it seemed for a second or two a very doubtful point whether my centaur should pull me up, or I him hack upon myself; for though I selected him as a powerful athletic man, his weight was nothing to mine ; and, moreover, as I laboured up I had the mortification to see my friend pass me "in a canter,'* at about three-parts of the ascent, with the cool and cutting taunt, " If gentlemen with a choice of cavalry will underhorse themselves, they must take the consequences. Good-by ! I'll tell them you are coming !" TJnderhorsed, and hindmost as I was, we were all landed : 1! " ' ; ill 42 QLEAIflKGS AFT£E " QEAND T0XJE"-I3T3. at the foot of the immediate cone in about forty minutes. An hour is often allotted for this work, so that after all, we did very well. We found the girls arrived a few minutes before us. Here the chairs and centaurs are usually dismissed, and we prepared for the further scramble. I insisted, however, that my youngest daugh- ter, being in rather delicate health, should allow herself to be carried as far as the way was practicable. So she was — and somewhat beyond it. I must observe, that the views from Yesmdus do not improve as you ascend ; you have better and clearer pro- spects from the Hermitage and points below it than from any station higher up, and when you are at the crater it- self all interest centres in the mountain, and the phe- nomena of the eruptions immediately close to you. After a short rest, we now advanced over comparatively smooth and easy ground to the crater's edge, from which the smoke — I should rather say the sulphur-steam — was rising in great volumes. Vesuvius never smokes ex- cept in eruption ; a light white vapour, like that from the escape-valve of a steamer on arriving in harbour, is its ordinary discharge. The wind usually blows from the sea, and our guide, leading us by an easy path to leeward, we soon found ourselves in wreaths of vapour, provocative of incessant and inevitable coughing. I was at first alarmed, but seeing the guides quite unconcerned, and being as- sured by them that it was " very wholesome," we stood still, and soon discovered that a pocket-handkerchief held to the mouth prevented all annoyance from the sulphur vapour. As soon as we had time to look about us, we found our- " DOING QUE VESUVIUS." 43 I selves on a sulphur-bank just at the edge of the crater; and here the first object that caught my attention was a lady taking a bird's-eye view of the interior, from an eleva- tion at which I am bold to say no lady ever inspected its phenomena before. The bearers, taking my directions " to bring my daughter as far as they could" quite au pied de lettre, had stumbled and slipped on with her to the very- edge of the crumbling slippery bank, and there she sate, in more peril than ever M.P. encountered while chairing through a hostile mob, for a slip or stumble would have sent her either sheer down into the Vesuvius crater, or on the other side to roll down to the level of the Atria di Cavallo ; nor was a slip an impossibility, for the soil was so hot that we were obliged to shift our ground every minute, and the men were performing the usual experi- ment of roasting eggs in little holes scooped at our very feet! "We soon released the girl from her "bad eminence," and when fairly on terra ififirma, we congratu- lated her, as a young lady addicted to the romantic, on having taken an observation from an altitude probably never reached by lady tourist but herself We now advanced somewhat further, so as to obtain a view of disentombed Pompeii, easily distinguished by its amphitheatre,* and of the vast plain, studded with villages * It is so easy to be wise after an event, as Columbus showed when he broke the eggy to the discomfiture of carping impugners of his great discoveries. As one now looks down on Pompeii from Vesuvius, it seems wonderful how it could have lain undiscovered so long. Its amphitheatre must always have stood up as a nondescript bulk from the plain ; the layer of ashes which covered it was very thin, so that it seems unaccount- able that for 1700 years no herdsman's foot should have stumbled on the discovery, and that deeply buried Herculaneum should have been disen- tombed before its neighbour. 4A GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND T0UR"-ISTS. and vineyards, which extend into the interior of the coun- try to the south and east. The lava has occasionally broken out in this direction, yet the vast majority of erup- tions have been towards Naples and the sea. It was not lava which overwhelmed Pompeii, but vast layers of tuffa ; and of that light ashen substance already described, — hence, the " ruinous perfection" in which it has been dis- entombed. Nay, for that matter, it was not lava either which hermetically sealed up Herculaneum. Charles Dickens, in his powerful way, takes us into the Hercu- laneum theatre ; as it now stands a dreary pit, hemmed in by walls of monstrous thickness, which he supposes to have been once boiling lava ; and then calls on us to con- ceive that " this once came rolling in and drowned the city in a red sea of molten marble.'* But this was not so ; boil- ing lava did roll over the city in many a stream afterwards — Sir William Hamilton counts six different eruptions, with formed soil between each, besides that which buried the city; but that^ as he convincingly argues, must have been effected by, not lava, but a liquid mud, formed by the water sometimes thrown out in eruptions in large quantities, and which, cementing ashes, pumice, and other heterogeneous matters, flowed round and into the dwellings of the city, as into a matrix or mould, and ultimately indurated into a sub- stance, which they now hew with axes like any other rock. Had lava been the agent of destruction, we should not have those well-preserved statues and delicate frescoes in the Museo Borbonico, which have come to us as well pre- served as if they had lain enclosed in a plaster masque. It appears to me as if the matter which filled up Hercula- neum must have been not unlike the composition with " DOING OUR VESUVIUS." 45 which they form the terrace roofs of the neighbouring towns to this day. I believe a clear, leisurely view of the crater can never be had. Our guides assured us that it never steamed less than at the time of our visit ; the vapour, though light, was incessant. By watching opportunities, a flaw of wind would sometimes give us a view across the gulf to the opposite wall of rock, beautifully flowered with sulphur crystals of astonishing variety and richness ; then would rise a fresh volume of vapour, forcing us to turn our heads, and submit to a sulphur-steaming all over, which we could only hope was wholesome, for it was specially disagreeable. All this while we never got a glimpse of the bottom, said to be about 1200 feet in sheer depth. "We could only peer into a dark void, forming an excellent illustration of the principle that " obscurity is a source of the sublime." Before we left this part of the mountain, the guide pointed out to us the results of a small eruption of last year, the lava of which had spread itself but a short way into the level of the Atria di Cavallo, never reaching the lower region of the mountain at all. I noticed on this sheet of lava two objects which I would gladly have examined more closely — namely, two little miniature craters, which rose in different places out of the mass to a height of from ten to fifteen feet. They were in all respects models of the cone on which we stood, with orifices in the top ; and I cannot help thinking, that if examined with a geological eye, they might afford some insight into the secrets of vol- canic agency. I account for their origin in this wise : that when the lava flowed forth, it either brought with it (if that were possible), or covered over in its flowing, some unfused \ M. 46 cc t? GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND TOUR -ISTS. combustible material, and that these lay under the mass until a fall of rain or snow supplied water to perform whatever part it has in volcanic action, and that then a kind of miniature eruption took place, and the burning matter below threw up these little funnels by a degree of the same force which formed their gigantic neighbour, from whose summit we overlooked them. Haviug gazed our fill, picked sulpliur specimens, and rolled cinder masses back into the crater until tired, we followed our guide to the other side of the cone to inspect a second crater or funnel, into which, he assured us, it was divided at bottom. Hitherto the vapour hid tlie boundary between the two orifices, which rose only half-way out of the depth, but when we came to the windward side, we were able to see distinctly that the mountain was divided at bottom into two funnel-shaped hollows. The volcanic action on the west or seaward side appeared much more powerful and nearer to us than on the other ; the smoke or steam rose in many pla<;es from vents or fissures under our feet. And here, for the first and only time, I obtained a momentary glimpse of the actual bottom. For a few seconds there was a complete cessation of vapour, and I could discern a dark, profound deepening at the bottom to a dull, red heat, over which a lighter flame seemed to flicker. I called all to look, but as I spoke it was gone ! The vapour again rose in volumes, and never gave us another chance; and presently the guide, looking west- ward, gave the word to descend. This descent of Vesuvius is a very pretty summer-day pastime ; they sell you cheap prints at Naples which give an excellent idea of the " fun" — you need but to keep " DOING OUR VESUVIUS." 47 your head well back ; let your heel sink into the ashes as deep as it will go, take as long a step as you can manage without disturbing the centre of gravity, and then "yo it .'" and you will find the ascent of an hour become a descent of ten minutes ; people speak of doing it in three, but these, I opine, must be of that "go-ahead" American school, who can arrive at the end of their journey the evening before they set out ! Again to recur to Dickens' description — his adventure of a night descent down this bed of ashes at an angle of 60 degrees, coated vnth ice ! must have been anything but "fun," — no marvel that one broken log was the result— the real wonder is how any of the party came to the bottom without a broken neck. " Ecco, Mons. G-uiseppe," said I, as we toppled down upon him where he waited with the ponies ; " e fatto — the deed is done." " Si signor,^^ returned Guiseppe, rather gravely, as if he thought though done, it had been in a rebellious and dis- orderly way of which I had reason to be — anything but proud ! We were now quickly back at the Hermitage. Our dinner, brought from Naples, was laid out by Guiseppe. The Lachryma was supplied by the quasi Hermit ; and the girls announced that they had " tolerable appetites," which, but that the stock of provisions was abundant, I should have pronounced quite "intolerable." ^' "We have dined ; and now my girls, yet unaware of the rapidity with which night falls in these regions, are in- dulging expectations of catching an evening sketch or so in a glowing twilight, when in a moment the sun sinks and darkness visible comes on. "Ah," observes one, "I J '.i 48 »» GLEANINGS AFTER " GBAND TOUE -ISTS. wish we could keep that beautiful deep blue sky a little longer." "A little longer," rejoins another; "I wish we could Tceep it always, and carry it to England with us.** This little dialogue reminded me of a similar one which I had been just taking from that painfully interesting book, " The Diary of an Ennuyee," as the subject of a verse-thought on the fair, but fallen land in which we were sojourning. *^ How I wish I could transplant those skies to England T " Crttelle" — said an Italian behind me—" otez-nous notre beau del, tout est perdu pour nous." — Diary of an Ennutee. What ! stranger, wouldst thou take away The Arch which spans our sun-lit flood? Stranger ! you know not what you say — Leave us our poor amount of good. Tho' skies of cloud and climate cold Hang o'er your wondrous Island-home, Beneath them spring the free — the bold — Lords of the world where'er they roam. Purpose and nerve are yours — thence power — And these your bracing clime can give. We but bask out life's listless hour, We ! oh, the shame ! — we doze, you live. Leave Ver our Bay our sun to gleam — Ah, what were left the aimless slave, If reft of all that gilds his dream Between the cradle and the grave ? The question is now of our return to Eesina. There stood the ponies— the indefatigable, the unequalled — ready to take us down stairs to Eesina as they had brought us up in the morning, if we so determined. Having no wish, however, to test their sagacity in going down stairs in the dark, and acting on the proverb, " the longest way ct DOING QUE VESUVIUS. II 49 round is the shortest way home," we choose the carriage road — and these wonderful creatures walk away with us as safely as ever ; they guide themselves down to Eesina through such a network of lanes, windings, and not-to-be- forgotten smells / as no description could convey. When within the precincts of the town, groups of dark-cloaked men occasionally pass us, but not a word of incivility or gesture of interruption from any — the ponies turn of their own accord into the very court-yard whence they had started in the morning ; the carriage waits ; we had settled all expenses with Signor Pasquale at the Hermitage, and in five minutes we were whirling away to Naples, where we arrive after twelve hours' hard exercise, sufficiently tired, but still more satisfied and thankful that we had " done our Vesuvitts** so successfully. \ 50 GLEANINGS AFTER " GBAND TOUR^'-ISTS. CHAPTEE III. * "PCESTUM OF E0SE3.'* What a magic there is in the very touch of genius ! how the outlines of Retch z, mere scratches as they are, embody and give life to the conceptions of Ms Goethe, or our own Shakspeare — how the few finishing scrapings of the sculptor's chisel convert the rough-chipped block of his workman into the all but breathing statue of the gallery ; to take a modern instance, how the graphic burine of Richard Doyle, as it eats into the copper, contrives to tell the character, before Thackeray can tell the story ; or, to go back to the days of old and our subject together (for genius is of all time), how Virgil in one short sentence has contrived to leave a word-picture of hoary Poestum familiar to us all, while more laboured encomiums are forgotten ; to this hour his " biferi rosaria Pcesti" puts before us, at a glance, a sunny, ever-blooming land- scape, fresh in its illusion, after two thousand years ; while the more elaborate notices of Propertiua or Claudian are unthought of or known but to the prying scholar, whose (( \ P(ESTUM OF BOSES. It 51 pride it is to recal what no one thinks worth remembering. The hemistich of Virgil has passed into a proverb for luxu- riant loveliness, though the original has become a "myth," if indeed it ever had any other existence than in that power of the poet's brain which can " Give to airy nothings A local habitation and a name." The flowers of Poestum are now " nowhere," and notwith- standing the enthusiasm of Eustace, I doubt if the whole circuit of its walls can at this day produce anything richer or sweeter than a dog-rose ! It was budding spring time when we paid our visit, but, like Porsyth, " we found no de- scendants of the celebrated roses extant," though in the Virgilian " hortus-siccus" they flourish still in all the freshness of an enduring spring. The excursion to Poestum is, in all senses, the most serious adventure to which the environs of Naples invite the tourist, and this, whether we consider the time, the distance, the dangers of the road thither, or of the plague- den itself when you are arrived there. Three days are re- quired for the adventure : one to be passed in a journey of fifty or sixty miles (as you may have rested at La Cava or Salerno the night before), through a country infamous alike for bad air and evil-doers, and, when come to the pestilential swamp itself, you are warned against passing more than a few hours there, — nor is this a warning merely ''in terrorem^' for while at Naples we shared, in our measure, in the public S3rmpathy which was largely engaged in the case of a fair young English girl of high birth, struck down in the pride of life, and wasting to E 2 52 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-1STS. death in a low fever, traced to a six hours' exposure in the hot sun and malaria of Poestum — " Where, whom the robber spares, a deadlier foe Strikes at unseen — and at a time when joy Opens the heart, when summer skies are blue, And the clear air is soft and delicate ; 'Tis then the demon works — then with that air, The thoughtless wretch drinks in a subtle poison. Lulling to sleep — and, when he sleeps, he dies." Rogers (at Pcestum). Nor had that horror vet subsided which was felt at the savage murder of a young Englishman and his beau- tiful wife, butchered at noonday, while crossing the Cala- brian w^astes through which the road between Salerno and Poestum lies. In all these circ^imstances, and consider- ing that these wonderful ruins were rather for antiquaries than young ladies, I left mine to keep garrison, and recover the fatigue of our " done Vesuvius," while my friend Captain M and myself took train to Nocera, and thence proceeded to sleep at Salerno, in order to leave for Pcestum early next morning. How absurdly unlike will our anticipations of people and places we have never seen sometimes prove on the view. I had somehow imagined to myself that we were to come upon the Pcestum temples, in the heart of " spelunk woods," hiding and enshrining the ruins in a dense, rank vegetable enclosure. There is some "tale of w^onder" about Pcestum having been lost and forgotten for centu- ries, untn a painter seeking, in the daring of art, subjects for his pencil in the wilderness, stumbled on them in the forest, and brought them to light again. No such thing ; this is all nonsense. You scarcely clear the precincts " PdSTUM OF EOSES." 53 of Salerno when these monuments of an extinct people are seen " looming vast in the distance," on the horizon line towards the sea; there are some undulations of ground, and some copse woods do grow thickly in the immediate neighbourhood of Poestum ; but to any and all, save those slow and stupid ones who, having eyes, have no corre- sponding observation, the majestic ruins rise with a dignity which will not be hid, and stand out telling of a duration for w^hich history has no measure, and concerning which it can offer but vague conjectures. When the first imperial Caesar visited these monuments, standing then, as they stand now, in their " ruinous perfection," he was doubt- less told by his "Cicerone" of "Dorians" — " Sybarites" — " Luceni" — people and languages w^hich had rolled suc- cessively away, and left these monuments unaffected by their decadence ; then followed the Saracen and the Norman marauders, whose rapine spared nothing it could reach, but these also left the wonderful erections in- tact ; and now come we, " Britanni toto divisi orhe^^ to wonder, in our turn, over the relics of bygone races, and to offer our hint, as probable as the guess of any else, that they may belong to an era when " there were giants upon the earth" — " men of renown." With a carriage, to leave Salerno at early dawn, we engaged a small basket from which to refresh the outward man with " creature-comforts," after taste and wonder should have fed to the full on " The Stones of Poestum." (Why has not Ruskin been there ?) Of this last precau- tion we should never have thought, if, in reply to a care- less suggestive question as to the "kind of 'pranzo we might expect at Poestum?" our host had not muttered 54 GLEANINGS APTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. something, with a shrug, which called forth an uproarious laugh from the militia of the inn, and a " Che dice .?** from us, which resulted in an explanation that " we might kill a buffalo, and eat him!'' but that this was the only chance for dinner or supper which Poestum afforded. "Where- upon we forthwith armed ourselves with a supply of cold fowls and " Capri wine," and so escaped being reduced to a buffalo hunt as the alternative for starvation. But, that deceitful Eustace !— what could he mean by talking of "the Bishop's villa" — its "plentiful repast," "excellent wines," "beds and rooms all good?" his whole report giving that impression of an hospitable, companionable, wholesome ! neighbourhood, which we in fact found " a delusion, a mockery, and a snare," escaped by us thus accidentally. Could it be that Eustace meant to seduce his heretic readers and admirers (of whom I avow myself one) into a situation where their alternative from dying of hunger was to engage in " buffalo hunting," sure to end in malaria illness, which is the Italian rendering of the "jungle fever" of India? could this be the object of " JSustace" the tolerant,* truli/ Catholic Eustace, in his deceptions description at what might be expected at Pcestum ? No ! Let us do justice to one who would not, I believe, intentionally deceive. My conjecture is, that the "Bishop of Poestum," who, "with his Chapter," had, long ago, emigrated to " Novo," £ftc? then keep up a show of residence in his pestilential See, from which he has long since prudently desisted; and, upon * See Appendix, No. II. " PCESTUM OF EOSES." 55 looking closer to Eustace's narrative, we find that, though with his company, he drove over the "smooth turf" to " the Bishop's palace," and though the obliging Bishop sent an "obliging chaplain to do the honours and make them comfortable !" yet that his Lordship took very good care never to sleep there himself!* and that, in fact, in mere Christian charity and benevolent discourtesy, he " turned them out the very next day !" The " villa," or " palace" (as you will) is now dismantled — abandoned to those " evil spirits of the air" who generate and disport themselves in "malaria;" none noio sleep or stay in Poestum, save officials at the post-houses, and one or two herdsmen, who lodge in the towers which dot the yet standing walls at intervals, and whose wretched families serve as " morbid anatomy specimens" to warn against the rashness of abiding irnder malaria influence. Poestum is now as truly a diocese — " in pariihus infidelium" — as if it were yet occupied by the heathen and unconverted Dorians. It may seem, as doubtless it is, presumptuous for one who is neither scientific nor professional, to offer a conjec- ture respecting that deadly and subtle agent, which seems * The Poestum bishop's hospitality in lodging and entertaining Eus- tace and his company in a locality Tvhich he had abandoned himself, re- minds me to insert an epigram, inspired by the spirit of Pasquin, as I stood looking at the range of " The Lateran Palace," deserted by the Popes because of malaria, to be devoted as an hospital to the use of — the poor ! What curious presents some folks give — Malaria won't let Pontiffs lie here ; Though healthy Popes can't safely live. Sick beggars are '' quite safe'' to — die here. \ 56 GLEANINGS AFTER "GRAND T0UR"-ISTS. to baffle tbe keenest examination as to its origin, its quali- ties, its mode of acting, of travelling, and, what is of more importance, whether anything, and what, can be done for its arrest or prevention ? On but one of these points, and that the last, will I pretend or presume to offer my crude opinion ; but one at least of its generating causes seems to me to lie so patent to current observation, that I must think its effect unsuspected, or else, that even in nerveless and purposeless Italy, some combined exertion must have been made towards its removal. Casting an eye on the map of Italy, from the "Ma- remma" of Tuscany — by "Ostia"— along the extent of the " Pontine Marshes," then (leaving the volcanic region of Naples, as it were, a parenthesis) down the shore of Ca- labria, the sea seems to be constantly raising upon the land a fringe of debris, which forms a breakwater, strength- ening every year, and keeping in the outfall drainage waters of the interior ; within this long line of coast flow at intervals, through long diluvial plains, sluggish rivers, which would give at best, and with all the aids and appliances of science and labour to help them, but tole- rable outfall for the waters of the regions through which they flow. But now, as they loiter on their way — " me" lancholy" — " slow" — " cribbed, cabined," impeded by an antagonist and unchecked natural action, with no industrial spur to their own activity, their drainage is immeasurably insufficient ; hence a vast body of stagnating w^ater is re- tained and diff'used through the interior of the country, forming extensive swamps, where, under the powerful influ- ence of a southern sun, rank, noxious vegetation springs up, in process of time its fibres decompose, its gases exhale ! here "PCESTUM OF ROSES." 57 we stop,* — and leave it to the chemist to examine how these act in, with, or upon the atmosphere ; how the mias- mata, which render vital air lethal, combine, or are carried by the common air, whether chemically or mechanically, we know not — we pretend not to decide — but here is, we presume to suggest, a natural cause for a curse, said to be annually extending its invasions over the fair land of Italy — mastering as we are told, " Rione"^ after " Bione'^ of Imperial Eome itself. Some Popes, with vigorous will, and better intention than knowledge, have attempted, within their own estates of the Church, to grapple with the withering evil, but it still eludes and advances upon them, ejects them from their palaces, and renders a " bold peasantry, a country's pride," an impossibility. K this destroyer can be grappled or dealt with, it must, I believe, be under the conditions and penalties of the primeval curse, and in the "sweat of the brows" of better nerved and more energetic men than the popedom, or any other power in " sad and sunken Italy," is likely to command for sanitary purposes. I deliberately affirm that a few regi- ments of ^'' navvies'^ (wdth something of the spirit and steadi- ness of those "Saxons" who lately left the English shores * One of the most mysterious characters of the malaria is, that it is said to give no warning of its presence by its smell. I remember passing over several tracts of country where I should prima Jhcie have affirmed that I was drinking in malaria, from the close offensive vegetable smell of which I was sensible — and yet was afterwards informed that these were by no means unhealthy localities — while many parts of the Cam- pagna, hard, fertile, needing no drainage, and perfumed with countless flowers, was declared to be " as the valley of death" for any one lin- gering in it ; it seems to be a generally received opinion that the noxious gas is borne on the atmbsphere mechanically, and not in chemical combi- nation with it ; but all speculation seems but a " grand guess." 58 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEA.ND T0UB'*-ISTS. to carry a railway up the heights of Sebastopol !), devoted under scientific direction to open up the outfall drainage on the west coast of Italy ^ would do more to remedy the malaria curse, whatever its nature may be, than all that has hitherto been wasted in desultory and iU-directed attempts to effect this object. Leaving Salerno at early dawn, we drove through a suburb which skirts its bay ; and here I saw at every side of me one of the things which we must come to Italy to see — I mean the solution, or, at least, the explanation, of those fables of ancient mythology which have engaged our schoolboy wonder. Who has not read of " The Gardens of the Hesperides ?" — we were driving through them ! Of their golden fruit ? — it was hanging aU round us ! Of their guardian dragon ? — he was roaring and hissing as we passed. Yes! here were the very gardens blooming as they bloomed thousands of years since, and within hung the very golden fruit, glittering in the morning sun, from trees bowed beneath the weight of deep yeUow oranges, rich and tempting to look at, but better I fear to view than to taste, for the Calabrian orange does not rate highly in the estimate of commerce. And there was the very dragon roaring and keeping watch as of old — for nothing is more easy to conceive, than that in the twilight of enterprise and knowledge, the mariner, coasting along the Syren-haunted, rock-girdled coast, and as yet un- learned in the art of landing through the surf, as in the axiom that "all is not gold that glitters!" should have carried home marvellous tales of the riches to be had for gathering, if the dragons of the deep, »which reared their crests, and yawned and foamed and hissed along the " P(ESTUM OF EOSES." 59 \ sounding shore, could be charmed to sleep. As little doubt is there that the Hercules of this Pable must have been some venturous feUow, who, donning a shooting- jacket of many pockets (history calls it Zio^tskin, but this must have been a mistake for "bearskin'* cloth), and taking advantage of a calm day — ^wind off shore, or a lull in the swell — dashed through the surf, made a foray on the golden fruit, and was off again with his pockets well filled with oranges, wherewith to astonish his companions on board, and "the natives at home." Such are the shrunken dimensions and prosaic reality to which the glowing pictures of fabulous history reduce themselves, when viewed in the noon-day light of modem observation and knowledge. Thus seen, Avernus is a mere volcanic hole — the monster Scylla with its raging jaws, but the bugbear of some " fresh-water sailor," fooHshly caught in the Strait of Messina at "half-tide of ebb;" and Cha- rybdis, on the other side, " no better or no worse ;" while the golden gardens of the ancients dissolve into groves of " chany oranges," even as the gold and silver chariot of Prince Charming in the paatomime turns into tinsel and foil when we get a peep thereat in the disenchanting light of a morning rehearsal. Two roads lead from Salerno to Poestum : one for the very cautious, who dread either bad air and banditti, skirts the mountains, and passes through the villages and towns built above the level at which the malaria is said to become innoxious ; another leads more directly over the plains ; and hearing that it was in good travelling order, and being quite equal, both for self and companion, to sing the " can- tdbit vacuus^ ^ of Juvenal, we determined to adventure it, 60 K 1» GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND TOUR -ISTS. and made our journey in perfect safety, without an in- cident save that of passing the " Salaris" by a ferry-boat as primitive as that which conveyed Charon's shadi/ freights over the Styx. As we crossed the river we saw everywhere traces of that natural process still going on, which thou- sands of years since had been the subject of Pliny's obser- vation, and thousands of years before had furnished from "wood, hay, stubble," the material for the giant edifices of Pcestam ; " virgulta et folia in Silaro immersa lapi- descunt'^ is the statement of the naturalist ; and the twigs and grass which once fringod the banks of the Salaris are now traceable in the monster columns of the adjacent temples, as distinct and preserved as if petrified but yes- terday. Eustace, who had lived and observed before the era of the ^^ ologies,'' was evidently no geologist! His remark upon the material of these surprising structures is merely that " they are all built of a porous stone, of a light, or rather yellow-grey, in many places perforated and worn away^i?) And he elsewhere repeats the strange sugges- tion of Wilkins, who, " in conjunction with other travel- lers, supposes the pillars of Poestum to have been covered with a sort of plaster or stucco, which, by its long dura- tion, seems to have acquired the hardness, consistency, and certainly has the appearance, of the stone mentioned.'* This is all pure absurdity. Wilkins may have been an exact measurer of dimensions and ground plans, but he could not have been an acute observer of geological phe- nomena if he made such a supposition as to the pillars of Poestum. Forsyth, with closer observation, " distinguished the petrified tubes of roots and plants in every column." The truth is that the travertine stands this day as it was "P(ESTTTM OF ROSES." 61 erected, porous and cork-like to look at, and yet in reality imperishable ; and what Eustace mistook for weather-wear is but the original composition of this stone, the quality of which very probably determined the order of architecture used in the construction of these edifices. Whether the builders were sufficiently advanced in architectural know- ledge to be able to select the severe simplicity of the Doric in preference to other more ornamental orders, is matter of doubt ; yet their choice must at all events have been limited, inasmuch as it would have been difficult to have executed any of the niceties of more elaborate orders in the coarse material they had to work with. Eorsyth's remark is obviously just, that Phidias, having the Pentelic quarries at his command, could select and execute his plan for a temple from the more refined and elegant orders of architecture, when remote colonists, with coarser materials, were of necessity confined to more simple structures and a ruder plan. But more of this hereafter. Crossing the undulating plains which separate Salerno from the ruins, I became sensible of a singular impression, which I shall endeavour to explain in order to enable my readers to consider whether they may not sometimes have experienced the like. The feeling I allude to is that which, in passing through a perfectly new scene, afiects us with remembrances as of some former state of existence, and renders objects which we know we have never before looked on with our bodily organs, as little strange to us as the environs, or familiar faces, of our own home. Lying back in a half dreamy state in the carriage, as we traversed a plain dotted with herds of buffaloes and goats, and occa- sionally sinking into deep dells fringed with broom and \ 62 >» GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUR -ISTS. gorse in young flower, it suddenly occurred to me that I had seen all this hefore ! And when a train of mules, whose tinkling bells I heard before they appeared, slowly emerged from one of these dells, and a brown-coated, bare-headed friar riding towards his convent, perched on a neighbouring eminence, slowly disappeared into another, though the whole was new to my visual organs, as it was picture-like and foreign, yet I felt as familiar with the scene and landscape as if it was one I had been accustomed to look upon every day of my life. The first time I expe- rienced this sense of familiarity with strange things and places was on my first visit from the Emerald Isle to England. In the good old coaching days — now gone for ever — a traveller had time to look about him, and I well remember that every old tumble-down bam — every farm- yard, with its horse-pool and trough — the carter's boys, " driving their team afield" — all, all seemed like old friends to me a total stranger. This was very perplexing for awhile, and induced a half-asleep, half-awake kind of con- sciousness which I could not analyse, until at last it oc- curred to me that it was caused by the homely magic of Gainsborough's pencil, which has transferred the farm-yard life of England, first to his pictures, thence to prints, and thence to the minds of all who have once looked on his truthful representations. It was in a similar feeling of familiarity that I now looked on this Calabrian landscape, though from what original it had painted itself upon my mind's eye I could not for a long time recollect, but at last I found it in the following word-picture from the "Painter's Adventure," in the "Traveller's Tales" of Washington Irving ; " PffiSTUM OP ROSES." 63 " It was now about noon, and everything had sunk into repose, like the bandit that lay sleeping before me. The noontide stillness that reigned over these mountains, the vast landscape below, gleaming with distant towns, and dotted with various habitations and signs of life, yet all so silent, had a powerful effect upon my mind. The inter- mediate valleys, too, which lie among the mountains, have a peculiar air of solitude. Few soimds a/re heard at mid- day to break the quiet of the scene. Sometimes the whistle of a solitary muleteer, lagging with his lazy animal along the road which winds through the centre of the valley — sometimes the faint piping of a shepherd's reed from the side of the mountain — or sometimes the hell of an a^s pacing slowly along, followed hy a monk with hare feet and hare shining head, and carrying provisions towards his convent. ^^ The whole picture of " still life" drawn in the foregoing passage might probably be stereotyped for many an Italian landscape, but it could not have been more exact or recog- nisable (especially that portion in italics) if it had been written expressly for the mid- way and mid-day scene of our journey from Salerno to Poestum. But pass we now into Poestum. The high road through Calabria southwards enters by one gate of the deserted city and passes out by another. "We call it city by courtesy, for no trace of man or man's habitation remains save the three great temples (and these seem rather made for and by an extinct giant race than the men of our degenerate days). The circuit of the walls is still complete, studded at regular intervals with watch-towers, in which the herds- ^ men, who now guard the place, nestle and pine with their Jivid plague-stricken families ; but the whole looks more \ 64 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUE -ISTS. like those ancient " deer-parks" on which one sometimes stumbles in travel, where the enclosure remains, though the " disparked" land has been consigned to the grazier, and the family to whose estate it was a feudal appendage is blotted out for ever. Leaving our carriage at the " Osteria" bv the gateway, we walked slowly towards the huge monuments which rose grim and lone in the midst of the desolation. Unless you have the misfortune to time your visit so as to be " pestered by some of the popinjays" of travel, there is nothing to disturb the *^ severi religio loci,'' and my friend and I agreed to take our separate routes of observation, and to meet and " report progress" in the portico of what (es- chewing the historic doubts of cavillers) we shall call the " Temple of Neptune," or centre building of the three. I shall omit (I hope to the satisfaction of my readers) all attempt to expatiate upon the architectural beauties or defects of these great structures ; those learned or curious in the matter may have recourse to the condensed learning of Forsyth, although to read him intelligently requires some previous search into Vitruvius, as to the distinction between the "P^r^p^^mr* and the '' BypteraV order of temples — the proportions between the ^^ pycnostyW and the other species of ^^ inter columniat mis'' — the differences between Grecian and Latin Doric. I trust the generality of my readers will be satisfied by my disposing of this branch of the subject in the brief petition of Mr. Shandy, " Of all the cants in this canting world, defend me from the cant of criticism;" and I proceed to offer a few re- marks upon the general effect of these buildings on an admiring but unscientific spectator. "PCESTUM OF EOSES." 65 Whether through ignorance or intention, each and all of those buildings seem to have attained effect and duration, by a disregard of the exactness of Yitruvius' rules; neither in number, position, nor proportion, do their pillars conform to his standards of perfect art. These departures from rigid rule, though slight, are pro- bably not the result of ignorance, or accident, for it is confessedly this very violation of rule which confers upon these remarkable temples the characters of grandeur, extent, and durability, which impress the beholder with awe, and invest them with an air of antiquity, reaching into the ages of fable. Disregarding all rule, the columns are so arranged relatively to each other that, from what- ever point of view we approach them (excej^t the front), they present the appearance of a serried grove of pillars, which deceive and defy calculation as to their number; and when we do approach in front, the beholder is, as it were, compelled to moderate his pace to that of a solemn procession as he advances towards those massive CQlumns, which, if thicker than they should be according to line, plummet, and established proportions, seem only adequate to bear up that ponderous entablature and those enormous architraves which we feel would have crushed substruc- tures of finer proportions long ages since. I ranged the three buildings with my eye as accurately as I could, and with a slight divergence in that nearest the gate, their fronts lie so completely in tJie same plane that we may conclude they all formed part of one uni- form architectural design; and between the first and second temples as you approach from the north, are some bramble-covered ruins, remains of a destroyed struc- I'* y-i\ 66 GLEA.NINGS AFTER " GRAND T0UR'*-IST8. ture, forming probably part of the same plan, to which fancy or conjecture has given names ; but without exca- vation neither shape nor design can be determined with any accuracy. Mr. Eustace has noticed the " substruc- tures" upon which these temples stand, as well intro- duced to give due elevation and relief to the masses above them ; but he does not notice how much of the effect must be lost by the accumulation of soil, which through ages has been bringing down the temples to a level of the turf, or rather raising the turf upon them. I never saw in that land of excavations, Italy, a place where a little outlay in removing the debris of ages would be likely to be more richly rewarded than at Poestum. I once stood by in the Eoman Forum when some labourers, set to work by Prince Torlonia, came to the area of an old Eoman court-house, and there, graved upon the flagging, they disclosed to us the traces of the children's games of eighteen hundred years since, scraped upon the stone, and not dissimilar to our own school- game of "Fox and Geese!" This was an interesting discovery to be eye-witness to, made, as it was, at the expense of excavating tons and yards deep of overlying rubbish ; but what is it in comparison to the possibility that, after working down a few feet in the area before the Poestum temples, we might come on traces of how the Dorian children played marbles ! or in what games little Sybarite scamps had idled away their time while loitering from school in the market-place, at a period beyond the historic era ! Since the days of Eustace and Forsyth, a very little trouble has uncovered vestiges, proving demonstratively u POESTUM OF ROSES. j» 67 the truth of the assertion that, when Home and her colo- nies were young, these giant structures were hoar and obsolete. Somewhat to the south-east of the temples, little more labour than sufficed to remove the turf has given to light the line of an ancient Eoman street and its house-floors, executed in rude mosaic, after the fashion of the villas of Pompeii ; the workmanship and designs are alike rude, and, however they might interest one elsewhere, methought, under the shadows of the sublime edifices near, they seemed poor and mean ; but the clearest proof that these remains were the work of some insensate and dege- nerate moderns is, that^the line of street is laid down with- out any regard, or, one might say, deference, to the noble models before them ; prolonged in the direction of the ancient edifices, the line of street would cut the Temple of Neptune at an acute angle ! And the Eoman colo- nists of Poestum would seem to have had no more sense of the grandeur of the monuments under which they ''squatted'' than the nomadic Arab feels for the ruins of " Tadmor in the wilderness." To any one possessed of an " eye that could heed," the laying down of the Eoman street athwart the front of the adjacent temples must have the same disagreeable effect as a picture hanging awry upon a wall ! As to any speculations on the uses of the Poestum tem- ples, they seem all vague conjecture. The first and nearest the gate is called the Temple of Ceres ; the next, the grandest and best preserved, that of Neptune, as the pre- siding deity of ancient Possidonia; while the last and largest, perplexing as it is from a construction different from any known remains of antiquity, namely, a central f2 68 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUfi"-ISTS. row of pillars, dividing it down its length, has been va- riously called a " Hall of Justice," an " Exchange !" and a " Temple,'' dedicated to two divinities, " names unknown !'* No one speculation has more basis in recorded history than the other, while the building itself stands as a huge puzzle for posterity, possibly to be understood or explained hereafter, if ever an energy, not native, shall come to be infused into the operations of the Neapolitan government and the men of " sad and sunken Italy," over whom it rules. ' One present puzzle, sufficient for the day and for me, lies within the area of the Basilica (so to caU it). The interior row of pillars is imperfect*; two giants have fallen out of line ; their capitals lie, of monster bigness, on the ground ; and as it is said « ea^ pede Hercules^ so we may exclaim, ''ex capitulo columen T If such be the heads, vfhat must the carcases have been ? But where are the carcases ? Were they carried away ? whither— for what purpose— or by whom ? " Athenian Aberdeen," that " tra- veUed thane," who despoHed the Acropolis, never pene- trated to Pcestum, that I am aware of: we have heard of Goths, who have broken up ancient sarcophagi for the lime-kiln ! but the travertine of Pcestum could scarce have been put to this " vile use." The piUars are gone-what can have been made of them ? There were not even Bar- herini here to do harharian work in degrading the mate- rials of a noble ruin into the erection of a " famHy man- sion :"* there could not have been a " hue and cry," much • " Quod nonfecerunt Barbari, fecere BarherinV' has passed into a pro- verb of reproach for a noble famUy at Rome; and none can look at the clumsy mass of the Barberini Palace, without thinking it a sorry ex- (i PCESTUM OF EOSES. t» 09 less one efficient " detective" in Calabria, when the Pces- tum pillars were abstracted, stolen, " lost, or mislaid." The walls and gates of Pcestum rather disappointed me. They have been called " Cyclopean :" they have nothing of that character • they are well and solidly built ; but they seem to have been laid rather in the " courses " of modern masonry than in the " polyhedral" fashion of the Cyclopean structures. The only remaining arched gate- way is of very plain construction and modest proportions ; and when Eustace speaks (though not very distinctly) of this " rampart" as of "an elevation of more than forty feet !" he seems to exaggerate his description beyond all intelligible grounds of explanation : I don't think any of the towers, which rise at intervals above the level of the walls, could ever have exceeded thirty feet at the utmost, and the wall itself must have ranged at a much lower level. While we loitered under the arch of the Pcestum wall, the livid urchins from the adjacent watch-tower came crowd- ing around us, holding out their long thin fingers for that dole, which I believe every Italian child asks instinctively. change for the " ruinous perfection" of the " missing parts" of the Coli- seum, popularly supposed to be built into the pile. This is, however, a mistake: the origin of the Barberini reproach had reference to the spoliation, not of the Coliseum but of the Pantheon cupola, from which the " Barberini Pope," Urban VIII. (a.d. 1623-44) plundered the bronze panelling to the weight of 450,000 lbs., in order to convert it into the grotesque Baldachino of St. Peter's. This outrage, which must have endangered the stability of the noble dome of the Pantheon, was effected at a cost of 20,000Z. It is not in the Barberini Palace, but in the Palazzo di Venezia, built by Paul II. (Barbo, a Venetian), and the huge and now dismantled Pa- lazzo Farnese, descended to the Neapolitan Bourbons through Elizabeth of Farnese (built by the Farnese Pope, Paul III.), that we are to look for the abstracted blocks of the great work of Trajan. 70 GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND T0UR"-ISTS. As we looked on their sea-green faces, swollen bellies, and spindled limbs, we received so forcible a proof of the poisonous nature of the air they lived in, and we were in- haling, that we determined to loiter no longer in this pes- tilential region ; therefore, foregoing our first intention to pick our chicken bones under the shadow of the peristyle of the Temple of Neptune, we decided to make our start at once, and to enjoy owe pranzo in the carriage : so, making our way to the post-house, we took once more to the road, and evening saw us most comfortably housed in the " Al- bergo di Londra," beyond " La Cava," a position which, for external scenery and internal comfort, I venture to commend to future vayageurs to Poestum as a halting-place indisputably preferable to any which Salerno has to ofier. " CAMPO SANTO DI POVERI," NAPLES. 71 CHAPTER IV. it 5) CAMPO SANTO DI POVERI, NAPLES. " To the Campo Santo," said I, seating myself in one of the nondescript street vehicles, drawn by impossible horses — brutes of which you would " a priori pronounce that none of them could survive one mile of the many through which they gallop daily. The driver nodded intelligence, and we entered the " Strada di Toledo," that characteristic thoroughfare of Naples, which is, from dawn to dark, what Fleet-street is from four to six o'clock in the afternoon, with the slight difference that one is all business, the other all idleness ; but its roar and tumult are intensified by Italian vivacity, the embroilments and blocking up of the way are aggravated by the absence of all semblance of foot- path—for the Neapolitan enjoys in perfection what the Frenchman calls " la totalite de la rwe"— and I defy the most absent man on earth to abstract himself from all interest in the sights and sounds of the full tide of life which whirls and eddies round him. Such contrasts, too ! Now a mountebank — now a monk— now a flaunting equi- page—now a flambeau' d funeral, goes past ; roaring laugh- ter at " PulcinelW (greatly droll on his parent earth) in 72 GLEANINGS AFTEB " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. mingles with a roaring "Z)e Frofundis'^ from the confra- ternity of brown, frousy, sandalled officials, who jostle and stumble their way through the throng, heralding some corpse to its last home, their great tapers flaring in the sun-light, and dropping — not grace, but melted wax— on the passers-by ; while attendant urchins — incipient lazza- roni — creep in the wake of each burly brother, and try to catch and treasure up the droppings of their ill-held funeral lights. High above all lies the dead man .' borne aloft in full holiday attire, bouquet in bosom ! his prim, pinched features painted into a horrid mimicry of life, his attire ball-room like, his face heavenwards ! and his way through the buzzing, swarming life about him, towards — dust and worms in " the house appointed for all men living !" Well ! I have, many a time and oft, pitied the miseries of a poor " walking funeral !" winding and elbowing its way through the full tide of London life to some city churchyard ! It was sad enough to see the hackneyed undertaker's man carelessly headiug the procession, as if ashamed of the shabby set out, while behind, two or three bowed-down mourners — a widow and her little ones, or it might be, two orphans hand-in-hand with handkerchief to eye, made their way through the reckless jostle of the unsympa- thising crowd. I have seen this — and always thought it a touching sight — and have, moreover, occasionally stood at the door of one of the " silk palaces" of St. Paul's-church- yard, while the omnibus monsters roared and tore by round the carriage-way, to look at a further scene scarcely less aifectiug. It was very striking to contemplate a little group — the curate in his surplice, with half a dozen figures in black round him — all absorbed from the bustle >» " CAMPO SANTO DI POVEEI, NAPLES. 73 without, in their sad work of consigning " earth to earth" in the area within. These were contrasts, but still there was no indecency in them, they showed the incongruous realities of life and death, which were, and should not be, brought into such hard proximity, still, in that proximity lay the only incongruity; but the Neapolitian funeral seemed to me something more utterly, intolerably inde- cent ! It was not merely a funeral, making way in its misery through a very unsympathetic stream of human existence, but the whole " set out" seemed in itself so ^^veri/ a sham,** The corpse was a "sham** of life — the full dress, instead of the decent grave-clothes in which we do homage to death, a " sham** of gaiety and worldliness ; and the howling fraternity who filled the street, as they performed their ''funzione** of devotion and mourning, the greatest ''sham** of all! If there was a really sor- rowful heart in that funeral train, it must have felt the whole "getting up" of the thing, under guidance, and for gain, of the Church, to be a complete "mockery of woe." "I suppose I shall see that procession again at the Campo Santo," thought I, as we struggled side by side at a foot's pace through the thronged Toledo. Presently we emerged on the broad level suburb leading towards Capua, whereupon my charioteer began to " go it," and I to medi- tate on the scene I had just passed through, and that to which I was hastening. My visit was a pilgrimage in discharge of a kind of vow, in which I had bound myself after reading "Willis' 'pen- cilling* ** of the " Campo Santo at Naples," that if ever I had opportunity I would compare his terrible picture with the reality. After a mile or two, my driver halted before 74. GLEANINGS AFTER " GUAND T0UB"-ISTS. a large, handsome, arched gateway by the road-side, above which the ground rose precipitately into a hill, on which pyramids, obelisks, urns, and glittering spires bristled up everywhere from among cypress and other trees; the enclosure was obviously a cemetery — but as obviously not that I wanted to see. " Campo Santo di PoverV — "This is not the place," said I. "Ah, signer, pardon,'* said the driver, "how could I know ? All the Forestieri come to this hellissimo luogo I As for the poor, they are up there'^ — pointing to a by- road which ascended the hill to the right hand, nearer the city. Now I did not want to see " the rich in his death" — the pomps and vanities of great men's graves are pretty much the same everywhere — however, as I was at the place, I took a walk through it; it seemed extensive and well kept. Some of the Columbaria* belonging to the Eeligious * Strictly speaking, " Columbaria'''' is not a name applicable to the joint-stock burial enclosures of Christian communities, it property belongs to those doi>€co<-like buildings occasionally discovered in the neighbourhood of Rome and elsewhere, in which the Pagans placed in cinerary urns, or cists, the ashes of their burnt dead. The Neapolitan burial-places seemed to me to be more on the plan of " burial society" associations got up by each religious order ; these " getting business" according to the repute for sanctity they might enjoy, or the propriety with which, to use under- takers' phrase, they " perform funerals." I think it probable, though I do not know the fact, that the Church has a monopoly of the " under- taking business" in those countries ; that the moment death takes place, the relatives surrender all to the Church, which does the dressing, the howling, the lighting, and the last lodging, at a ^'prix Jixe." As to the after charges — for mortuary masses, relief from purgatory, &c. — I believe there are no fixed rates for such services, depending as they do on the variable quantities of grief, guilt, superstition, and imposition. The ii »i CAMPO SANTO Dl POVEEI, NAPLES 75 Brotherhoods were set out to make a man in love with death by the " snug lying" they promised. Many of the inscriptions were exaggerated and florid — a few simple and touching. One was : " Via Universae camis" Angelo Verticar Nata li 26 Aprile 1844, e Passata a miglior vita U 24 Februario 1847. One more simple still : J. S. Naia ! Morte ! The following polyglot declarationof a "yoi^A^7o50p^^2wc" smacks of " French principles" more strongly than one would expect in the region of " Catholic Naples :" " Pour le sage, la Mort est le soir d'un beau jour." " Somni setemali sacrum" a Maria Marcelli, Duchessa di Vostigerardi The following summary of a young wife and mother is affecting, reminding us of the noble anecdote of Kachel Lady Russell, who, having one daughter (the Duchess of Devonshire) lying in childbirth, and the other (her of Eutland) dead and about to be buried, in the same cir- cumstances, answered the inquiry of the living sister after the health of the dead one, by the merciful equivoque : " I Italian road-book is no protection to the traveller except on the beaten track, and there is no more a settled price for services in the terra incogs nita of purgatory, than there is a posting tariff in Calabria ! 76 >» GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. have just seen her out of bed" — (she did not add, in her coffin!). Teresa Chammanaro (nat^ Fiono) Consorti ineprensibile, Matre affettuosissima, Cessa a le otto Aprile 1843, Neir anno ventesimo ottavo di sue vita. Ignari che di due giorni L'avea preceduta nel " gran' viaggio" Sua figlia Emilia, di anni due, Tal-che senza piangeria in terra La ritrovo in Cielo. Qui fosse d'etrambi reliquii mortali II marito, padre infelicissimo. I was soon tired of these artificial draperies with which sentiment tries to disguise and hide the stern realities of the King of Terrors. " Pere La Chaise"* is so far beyond all imitations, in its melange of the sublime, the pathetic, and the ridiculous, that these cannot elsewhere detain one long, and I soon found myself in my rickety conveyance again, climbing the steep by-road which led to the "Campo Santo di Poveri." Our route brought us behind and above the hill on which the great, the gay, the rich, and the re- nowned of Naples paid the tribute of "dust to dust." Above me, yet on the brow of a higher eminence, the driver pointed to a long, sombre facade, as the front of that Last Home of the Poor, for which I was bound ; and as I looked below and above, and saw beneath me the funeral cortege with which I had made my way through the Toledo, now composed into stately, decorous order, and winding "its long array" into the "grave-grounds of the rich," — while above, a poor man, with a little white * See Appendix. >» " CAMPO SANTO DI POTEEI, NAPLES. 77 bundle under his arm, accompanied by a sobbing female or two, was wending his way to the " burial portal of the unpaying multitude," the contrast pressed itself strongly on the thoughts, and brought to miad these exquisite lines of Felicia Hemans' : " Some talk of Death, as something which 'twere sweet In glory's arras exultingly to meet — A closing triumph— a majestic scene, Where gazing nations watch the Hero's mien, As undismay'd, amidst the tears of all, He folds his mantle— regally to fall ! — Hush ! fond enthusiast — still obscure and lone, Yet not less terrible, because unknown, Is the last hour of thousands : they retire From life's throng'd path unnoticed to expire. As the light haf^ whose fall to ruin hears Some trembling insect's little world of cares, Descends in silence, while around waves on The mighty forest, reckless what is gone — Such is man's doom ; and ere an hour be flown — Ay! start, thou trifler,— such may be thine own." By the time I had wound my way up to the front of the Campo Santo di Poveri, the poor funeral train had disap- peared, the long, grey vestibule was deserted, and on a bench beside the portal lay the little white bundle. It was the cofi&n of a poor man's infant, left there for the species of interment I am about to describe, decorated with the poor man's "bit of sentiment, in the shape of a small nose- gay, withering upon the coffin in the hot sun. " Sweets to the sweet" sounds delicately, and yet to think of both these frail sw^eets to be presently flung into the charnel- house within I J I had left my carriage at the bottom of the lane, and now found myself in absolute solitude in front of the great building (originally an hospital), the curtain wall of which 78 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND T0UB"-ISTS. rose before me ; not a soul near that I could perceive, I tried two doors at each end of the long arcaded vestibule : both were locked, as was also a centre door leading to the area within ; the rich dead below had their porters* lodges and rangers — the poor dead it seemed could take care of themselves. I walked out into the lane, and at the fur- thest end of it I perceived a small wicket leading to the smallest of huts, and here I found was the residence of the Custode of the great building adjacent. He was ready at call to show me its wonders. As he unlocked the great door, he cast a careless glance at the tiny coffin which lay near. " There will be more and larger presently," he said. "We entered the great flagged area, honeycombed be- neath our feet into three hundred and sixty-five capacious cells, or cellars, with a small square aperture in the centre of each overhead, closed by a flag-door with a ring. One of these flags was forced open daily, to receive the dead poor of Naples for that day, and closely cemented at night, not to be opened until the returning day of next year. As we walked across the great court, everything was per- fectly clean and silent, not a blade of grass grew in the in- terstices of the flags, not even a bird lighted to look for a worm ; the only sign of life within the enclosure was a slight, but terribly significant indication of its uses, namely, a large and peculiar species of scarabaeus, or beetle, running about in all directions, its living and birthplace being obviously the chambers of the dead beneath our feet. The only other thing to attract notice was a machine, not un- like the large clumsy carriage-setter, sometimes seen in old-fashioned primitive inn-yards; this was, in fact, my " CAMPO SATiTTO DI POVERI," NAPLES. 79 friend the Custode's sole implement of trade, being a powerful lever to lift the trap-door of the cell as required : it was his substitute for the "sexton's delving-tool!" The Custode was all civility — as accommodating in his way as the Keepers of the Museo-Borbonico below, and like them for a " consideration." " Did I wish to see a Camera? — some did and some did not." — "Yes." " Which should it be : that of yesterday, or of last week ? Few went beyond a week ! it was, perhaps, neither plea- sant nor wholesome" {ni ameno, ni salubre). Now, I was curious, perhaps morbidly curious, to look into the awful mysteries of the grave, but I did not feel equal to go even so far back as a week ; the weather was close and sultry, and I begged to rest satisfied with the " camera'' of the day. " Had it been yet opened ? Any burials yet ?" — " Yes, yes; two deliveries (due consegnari) already!" The man spoke like a penny-post letter-carrier. " "Was there ever a day without a consegnare ?'' — " Never — never !" He then proceeded to the corner of the court-yard, and with some labour moved the clumsy machine I have spoken of to the middle of the area, and attaching a hook in the end of the short arm of the lever to a ring in the eye of one of the trap-doors, with a single twist the sofo cement gave way, the stone was lifted and wheeled aside, and after desiring me to wait a few seconds to allow any effluvia to escape, the man then desired me to look down ! My nerves are moderately strong, and on principle I am rather indifferent as to how or where " dust returns to dust." I am also too great an advocate for extra-mural burial everywhere not to feel the mercy of such a provision as this Campo Santo to the steaming, sweltering Naples 80 n GLEANINGS AFTER *' GRAND TOUR -I8T8. which lay before us. Still, with all these considerations, I found something intolerably trying in the spectacle upon which a mid-day sun now sent its hot revealing light. I saw below me a large square pit, about eighteen or twenty feet deep ; the " deliveries" of former years formed a kind of flattened cone in the centre, fully decomposed into a brown, unoffensive mass, studded all over, in a striking manner, with skeletons and fragments of skeletons ; while, in the foreground, in terrible prominence and damp white- ness, lay the day's consignments, in the postures in which they chanced to light when flung down sheer from such a height. My first impression was a remarkable one : it was one of feeling in favour of an illusion, overcoming the conclusion of reason, and quite in unison with the exquisite sentiment which " nature's sternest painter and its best," Crabbe, puts into the mouth of a dying girl, deprecating the rudenesses and coarsenesses of even decent English burial : " Say not it is beneath my care, I cannot those cold truths allow ; These thoughts may not afflict me there, But oh ! they tease and vex me now." Now though I knew at the moment that each and all in the heap before me had been long past sufiering before consigned to it, still it was impossible to throw ofi" the delusion that ea (C GLEA3rmGS AFTEE " GEAND TOITE -ISTS. LAST IMPEESSIONS OF NAPLES. j> n greener," was come almost in his non-age to speak of him- self as one who " had nor hope ! nor health ! Nor peace within — nor calm around — Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in contemplation found — Nor fame — nor power — nor love — nor leisure." A sad roll of negatives ; and when it has come to this! with a poor blase soul-sick creature, bankrupt alike in the motives and materiel of existence, then possibly the musky sick-room atmosphere of Naples may have been the most suitable in which to lie down and dream away life, within the lull of its tideless "sea's monotony;" but to any one of hardier temperament, habituated to breast the bracing western breeze, while watching that long green roll with which our island seas come broken, and yet mighty, to dash in thunder on cliff or beach— to such, the enervating effect of an ever simpering landscape, " Shining on — shining on — bv no shadow made tender, 'Till love falls asleep in its sameness of splendour," ere long becomes scarcely endurable, and every feature of it soon turns into a separate irritant. There was a long flat shelving rock directly under our windows, upon which the sea broke about half way with a weak dalhly plash, of which I became at last quite impatient. The waters never receded so as wholly to uncover, nor did they ever rise so as to break over the ledge in foam, — the sea kept its dimpled level with a most equable insipidity, and everything was much the same. A fishing skiff used to lie day after day in one spot, not a quarter of a mile from us, — there it was at rosy mom, and there it floated at " dewy eve," until I savagely wished a gale of wind would drive and dash it to pieces on Nisida or Procida. The solitary fisher- man must, I presume, have occasionally caught something, for I now and then saw a head lifted for a moment over the gunwale ; but at all other times it lay every day and all day long drifting, with sail flapping or oar languidly dipping, like a deserted or enchanted barque, the very embodiment of idleness. Even the fish of Naples were no better than '' pesciollinif' weaklings, of grotesque scaramouch shapes, wholly unlike the lusty sea products which pay the fisher's toil in other climes. At last I began to tliiuk that the very waters must be of weaker volume and less specific gravity than those of our northern seas ! This of course was a mere illusion ; yet, as I never happened to see the Mediterranean lashed by a ^' white squaU '* or rising as a " sea in its strength," nor experienced aught but very endurable tossings in my four- day voyage on its waters, the Virgilian tempest, in the Pirst Book of the ^neid, which had furnished to me, as doubtless to my- riads of schoolboys besides, th6 first heau ideal of a storm, still remains an unfulfilled myth ; and as I am not likely ever again to see those blue waters of the South, I fear the poet's ^''jUictum ad sidera tollit,^'' his " vastos vohtmt ad littoraJluctvSy' his '^furit wstus arenis,^^ and other terrors of the poetic tempest, must for ever stand to me when I read them but as so many " rhetorical artifices." The Bay of Naples will rise on memory in its miU-pond placidity, and dilute the fine imagery of the poet into tameness, nor will anything short of a fleet foundering ever persuade me that the most angry gale could dignify these weakling waters into aught beyond " a puddle in a storm !" iij m 88 ct ♦ > GLEiJaNGS AFTER " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. " LAST IMPEESSIONS OF ITAPLES. )) 89 That same delicious climate whicli soothes the sickly stranger's dejection, into euthanasia, emasculates the na- tional mind, and leaves in the native-grown Neapolitans a race of men who, with " persons forming models for the sculptor," possess souls so shameless* as to be above, or below, " that homage vice pays to virtue'* — namely, the hypocrisy of pretending to virtue of any kind, — and who, having consciences so trained as to give no pain to their possessors, live rich in all the enjoyments they know or value, and die trusting members of a ; -ch, which, as Forsyth nervously puts it, " ensures heav o every ruffian who has faith in its absolving powers. ' Thus it is that Naples has reared the most extraordinary population in Europe, a populace "steadfast to mischief and — the church" — " conservative" of the system which, by cheap royal dole, ensures them their ^^ panem et cir censes y^ their handfuls of maccaroni, and their listless bask in the sunny filth of the mole ; and hence it is that his Majesty of the Two Sicilies can boast of what the world besides cannot show — a Eoyalist mob ! This were all sound, nay deep, policy, and the Neapolitan Solomon might boast of having solved the problem which perplexes the wisdom of Europe, namely, " how to manage and keep quiet its many -headed monster ;" all would be right, both as to means and end, " if to live well meant nothing but to eat ;" But when we know, as (thanks to Mr. Gladstone's revela- * See Appendix. tions) we do know, that while feeding this hydra of lazzaronism, his Majesty of Naples starves and disgraces, proscribes and tramples on the intellect and free aspira- tions of all that is good, generous, free, and noble in his country, we must feel that in so far as climate may affect character, the sun which shines down upon and ripens a laziness, rising at bidding into ferocity, and sends energy and manliness to pine in fetters and herd with outcasts, can scarce be called a blessing to a com- munity.* This reference to the " energies of a nation in fetters" leads me to remark, that, until I saw Naples, I had been much perplexed by a fact which I knew to have happened, namely, that a sovereign with his capital in revolt, and that revolt so far successful as to be able to wring a recognition of a " constitution" from a despot ! could regain his abso- lute ascendancy, and that too by dint of blows ! in down- * Burnet has handed down to us a pleasant Neapolitan ^ww^winode of the days of the Molinos and Quietist persecution at Naples : " Si parliamo, in galere ; Si scrivemmo, impicciati ; Si siamo in quiete, all' ' Sant' Officio." I never can copy an epigram without attempting a version ; so I render this as applicable to the present day, when a word will proscribe a man— a letter cost him his life— and absolute silence subject him to inquisitorial surveillance : Praters to the galley-deck, Gallows for the scribbler's neck, Quietists to Inquisition, Ours is sure a blest condition. " There is no new thing under a Neapolitan sun." For further considera- tions, see Appendix. Id 90 »» GLEABINaS AFTEE " GEAKD TOXJE -ISTS. right street fighting, a species of warfare in whieli insur- gents are generally supposed to be all-powerful against organised forces. As soon, however, as I was able, from the Citadel of St. Elmo, to take a dioramic view of the city below, and by means of certain short cuts to find my way from the overhanging heights of Montefiascone to the shore, the problem of the internal resources of the King of Naples for acting against a popular emeute became quite intelligible, and I should now pronounce Naples one of the best-circumstanced cities I ever saw for such a mode of action. •The town Ol Naples stretches like a half-moon upon a narrow beach round the sho7^e of the Bay from Pausil- lippo towards Portici, the cliff rises steep and precipitous to a table-land above, and while the shore level leaves room for a few streets running parallel along the length of the city, as the " Strada Marina," " Santa Chiara," and " Toledo," the by-streets striking off from the latter, climb the cliff, as it were, up the most extraordinary acclivities, and furnish myriads of rivulets of life and activity, trickling down continually to swell the Toledo torrent, and contributing to the full tide of animal existence which everywhere swells over through the city. Now there is not one of these streets which a marksman with a Minie rifle could not command from the St. Elmo heights. He might lounge against the parapet, and practise at his will upon an old woman basking in her doorway, or a young one ogling from her casement, or a child playing in the gutters. A corps of St. Elmo Eiflemen could sweep every gorge by which any of the suburban population might attempt to debouch upon the main street with a " LAST IMPEESSIOKS 01" NAPLES." 91 shower of rifle-balls. Who can measure the effect of such a power as this upon a suburban population thus assailable, not merelv in the man who fought at a barricade, but also in the weak woman or child that cowered at home ? I speak nothing of the wholesale battering power of the St. Elmo cannon, if sufficiently depressed to play upon the whole *' fabrico" of the city beneath, because, for humanity's sake, one would not even contemplate the internecine warfare between king and subjects, which recourse to such an arm would indicate. The monarch who would employ such a resource in thorough earnest against his capital could scarce sleep sound and easy therein afterwards : if he could — he ought not ! But besides this overcrowing force of St. Elmo, the Euler of Naples has an internal line of fortress, rising transversely, and, intersecting his peculiarly placed city at right angles from top to bottom, somewhat (to spealc geologically) as a trap-dyke ! stands out from and sepa- rates the stratum through which it protrudes itself. I became aware of the fact thus accidentally : I had worked my way, it might be two or three miles down the Toledo, and hacJcwards up the heights in the direction of Capo del Monte and St. Elmo, to a point of view, which, I was told, was *^ superW and ^^uniquey My way to it brought me to the traverses of a fortress, or fortified bar- rack, and my unchallenged passage through them bespoke the " piping times of peace.' ' The view was all it had been described, wide and matchless, taking in everything that lay between BaisD at one side, and Sorrento melting into mist at the other ; but one thing in the view troubled me, and that was— my own domicile at my feet— and yet a great 92 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAXD T0UB'*-ISTS. way off — near, but with a " weary way between." I could have flung a pebble from the top of the scarped Piazza Falcone Kock into my own room window on the " Chiata* mone," and yet I groaned to think of the hot, dusty, jolting drive which lay between me and " mine inn.'* As I hesitated to commence this return journey, I became aware of a head now and again emerging from the inequa- lities of the wall-like rock beneath me. I looked closer, and by degrees perceived that some one was ascending by easy traverses in the very face of the cliff ; and presently there appeared on the platform where I stood, a woman with a bundle of clothes in her hand, who had obviously made a leisurely and easy ascent from the lower level. Methought where one came up, another might go down — it is but a trial ! and I was presently in rapid descent by a well-guarded pass, sentinel' d at every traverse, through which a complete communication and united support could be maintained between the King's Palace, the " Castello del Ovo," and other forts below, and the fortified barrack above ; as for the Koyal Palace itself and its con- nected strongholds, they were always severally bristling with cannon, pointed and primed, with the cannoniers standing in grim proximity, and ready to emit from their sulphurous throats carnage and death among the motley crowd of the Toledo and other diverging streets. I saw all this, looked at it often, and never looked at it without reverting in thankful recollection to what I may call the homestead aspect of our own " Eoyal Windsor," where not even the stately Keep, or unrivalled landscape, is so sym- bolic of " Merrie England," as the trusting, fearless, un- guarded confidence in which our Sovereign " dwells among tc LAST IMPEESSIONS OF NAPLES. »» 93 her own people." There is a grim, moated, murky Eound Tower hard by the IS^eapolitan Eoyal residence, which in size and shape used to recal the great Keep of Windsor; but in all other circumstances, the contrast was striking and characteristic. The English tower rises clear, airy, unguarded, and patent to every foot which may wish from its battlements to survey the matchless land- scape it commands. The Windsor children play about its passages, and their fearless laugh echoes cheerily from its walls. Tlie Naples fortress stands girdled by its sullen moat, sentinel' d at every avenue, and from every barred and narrow window suggesting tales of captivity and cruelty, which we now know to belong, not to the romance of the past, but to the miserable realities of the present time. It is many, many years since my impres- sions of the fearless confidence of Eoyal life at Windsor took shape in the following lines : Where Royal Windsor holds its wide domain, In richest sylvan beauty spreading far, A mighty donjon-keep commands the plain, Meet to enforce a Monarch's sway in war. But now its fenceless portals stand ajar, From base to turret-top no bolts restrain, Nor telleth pass- word challenge dread of foe, Seemeth each mailed warder set for show. 'Tis as it should be — ^jealous care apart — The Ruler's safeguard in the Subject's love, Likest His rule whose emblem is the Dove, And His choice resting-place a thankful heart ! May prince and people long preserve the art In willing love to serve — in guardless peace to reign ! I hope it will not be unacceptable to a loyal English reader to receive it, as it has come freshened to remem- 94 GLEANn^GS AFTER " GEAND TOTJE -ISTS. brance upon seeing tlie contrasted " Donjon-keep'* of the Eojalty of Naples. The Strada di Toledo is always held up as the most characteristic and extraordinary street in Europe ; and yet I would be more inclined to turn to the long street bordering upon the sleepy waters of the Bay, and opening upon that mole which would be a q^uay if there were any business to transact* ; but there being none, the Neapoli- tans turn it to account as a great al fresco residence, where, at all hours, the observer, who cares to see life in undraped indecency, and who is gifted with a reckless or case-hardened nose ! may look on every function of domestic life (cooking, dressing, sleeping, and nameless et ceteras inclusive) carried on with an abandon most sur- prising to the eye, but even more shocking to another sense, the impression on which my reader will allow me to tell in rhyme, and in telling, to take my leave of Naples. The magic of a Naples view, Its blue sky arching seas of blue No pen of mine can tell ; As much must all description fail To give what floats on every gale, The — compound Naples smell! It must be mere poetic trope To talk 80 much of — " Naples soap !" Where'er a stranger goes He's doomed to find it had been wise To bring a second pair of eyes, And leave at home — his nose ! And yet even eyes themselves will tire Where every third man's Priest or Friar, Pre-eminent in dirt; Seems it a part of Roman vow Alike all change to disallow Of principle or — shirt. " FIEST IMPEESSIOKS OP THE SOMAN STATES." 95 A shirt ! nay, fhat^s a " trope" indeed ! For theirs is an ascetic creed, Dogmatic against — linen ; Dogmas hold fast the monkish mind, Hence holy Brotherhoods all find The coarsest shirt some sin in. Though sometimes lurks beneath monk's hood The frailties of mere flesh and blood, " Lust, gluttony, or meanness" — I doubt if scrutiny most strict Could ever hooded monk convict Of having laps'd to cleanness ! Fair to the sight — though foul to smell — Fair, filthy Naples, fare thee well ! I'm very glad I've seen thee ; And wish (your King must own there's room) Some revolutionary broom Would come and — fairly clean thee ! ***** I was glad, for the sake of classic associations, to enter the Papal States by Terracina, and though my route took Horace's '■^ Iter ad Brundusium,^^ as indeed aU other guide-books, in reverse, and thus obliged us to read them hacJcwa/rds ! yet the enthusiasm with which I recognised the great Horatian landmark ^^ scopulis late candentihus Anxur,^^ vdth Terracina nestling at its foot, was not extin- guished by driving under the arched portico of the inn, among a horde of drenched and steaming fellow-travellers, and in a down-pour of such rain as I had not supposed an Italian skv could have sent us. A friend at Eome told me he had made an excursion to Terracina, with no other view but to spend an evening in walking up and down that common room, running through the centre of the building, which "Washington Irving makes the scene of some of his best " Tales of a Traveller." This was a compliment as high as well deserved to the power 96 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. with which Irving has made a "bad inn's worst room'* classic ground ; but my friend ingenuously owned that he wished he had rested satisfied with the description, and left it to imagination to realise the locale, for that the disenchanting efiect of his visit was complete ; and in this I fully coincide, though possibly in my own case the dis- illusion was promoted by the very disagreeable accompani- ments I am about tiO mention. The English in Italy migrate in flocks. After the Carnival, they run from the sackcloth stupidity of the Eoman Quaresima down to the sunshine of Naples ; a little before Easter, they hurry back again to the "funzionV' of " Holy Week." Thus it was that I, travelling in the Lenten time of 1851, courier-less, and " vetturino"-2^w, found myself enveloped by the equipages of a noble fellow-countryman. Lord F , before me ; and another wealthy but untitled countryman, travelling " en grande tenue^^ with his nursery on wheels, ybz^ryows, and all other appurtenances of a " Milord," behind me. Each of these equipages had a ^^hrave courier," of course, and these gentlemen had established a code of telegraphs among themselves, by which the first comer, on his arrival in any town, placing himself in the best quarters as a matter of course, secured the next best quarters, not for the next arrival, but for the second next; so that during all the days we travelled in company, I had not the slightest chance of a separate salle for myself and my daughters, and at Terra- cina in particular, I had but to choose between congregating in Irvine's " common room" with some scores of unshaved, unkempt, smoking, and not over-refined Hanoverians, Prussians, Bavarians, and others of the Germanic Con- " riEST IMPEESSIONS OF THE EOMAN STATES. j> 97 federation, who were travelling in a regular " 5ww^," or else to take refuge in a bed-chamber, which I did. The Ger- mans were by no means uncivil, and had I been journey- ing " en gargon,^^ I should have been very glad to see life and its roughnesses by joining their mess, but for young girls who were as yet unbroken to even the foreign usages of the table d'hote, the companionship was intolerable. So we retreated to a bedroom, and in doing so had a passing glimpse of a most desirable salon and shoals of servants crowding officiously round " milord," while we could not find one to give us either present attention, or even the remote hope of a " jpranzo,^ much needed after a start from Gaeta in the early morning. Going about the house in the unfed, and therefore ferocious, spirit engendered by these mishaps, I dare say I was morbidly sensitive to the squalor and filth of everything around me. Our hotel at Naples (kept, as he carefully announced, by a ci-devant courier of his Grace of Devonshire, Signor Hungaro) had been scru- pulously clean ; I was therefore rather unprepared, for the great stairs by which we ascended — never swept, I dare swear, since the visit of Irving himself, or of that humbug- hating Englishman he so well describes — the unwashed brick floor of the grand salon, or hall, the tawdry frescoes on the walls, all presented themselves in hateful prominence to attention. The feature about the place which most tlioroughly realised Irving's description was the loiterers about the inn door: these looked the thorough bandit Scout as he describes him, "wrapped up in great dirt- coloured cloaks, with only an hawk's eye uncovered," peering from under the steeple hat in which the people dress the " Brigand" to the life all through the Papal H 98 »» ct GLEANINGS AFTEE *' GEAND TOITE -ISTS. riEST IMPJOESSIONS OF EOME. »» M dominions. I saw all tbis ; and it was in the spirit of "Cffisar without his dinner" that I sat down to while away the time, until some Cameriere thought us worth attending to, by recording my first impressions of " the States of his Holiness" in the following lines : " THE INN AT TERRACINA." In inns of all kinds — and all round The world — I've very often been a Sojourner, and yet seldom found Less comfort than at Terracina. You enter where — cold, cheerless, tall, By fifty steps not over-clean — a Staircase conducts to brick-paved hall, The " cafFfe grande" of Terracina. A lord takes up the best saloon, And you, amidst a perfect scena Of beards unshaved, and dirty shoon, Are doom'd to stay at Terracina. It would be better if the Pope, Who now* makes England his arena, Had kept his Bull ! and sent some soap To cleanse the dirt of Terracina, But Pontiflfs are, like many men, Sublime in plans, who never deign a Thought to the useful : hence the den Of dirt and drones at Terracina ! As the " Eternal City" will have, if not its due, at least a fair proportion of the chapters of these " gleanings," I shall at present run over it with some current remarks upon the abundance of water, and the stinted and clumsy application of it, which must strike the eye of even the passing traveller. That the old Eomans knew and recog- nised the use of water as a " great fact" and great need • Daring the " aggressive turmoil of 1851.** of their Queen City and its adjacents, is amply evident — those lines of fractured aqueducts,* those monstrous " thermae," magnificent even in their ruins and fragments, which now furnish " oggetti interessanti " to the tourist,, were, in their original design, great " sanitary provisions,'* provided to purify the "5orJ 105 liar psychological illusion to which I became subject while in that city, of which I have spoken elsewhere in connexion with another subject, but which I think so remarkable as to be worth repeating here ; and, perhaps, some reader . may recognise a similar experience to his own in the same circumstances. I entered Eome possessed with the idea that I should be able to discriminate the unquestioned historic monu- ments and associations it possesses from those ifictions and lying wonders which, added from age to age to original truths, have grown on to a monstrous excrescence of delusion and imposture ; and I hoped to be able to sur- render myself to so much of that " religio loci" as was by universal consent placed beyond all controversy. In a very short time, however, I began to feel as it were a haze growing over the mind, and producing a kind of inability to distinguish between truth and falsehood; not that I be- came more inclined to adopt fable, but less competent to discern fable from fact, when both were offered in the same dogmatic authoritative form. The examples of this meet one everywhere. Eome has certainly unquestionable monuments, places, events, attesting the certainty and reality of some great Christian facts, but with a wretched pertinacious dishonesty insists on tacking to each certainty some self-evident fable, and requires you to believe all as of equal authority, until the result is that, if your very faculty of faith is not impaired, you at least begin to understand the process by which ''superstition begets infidelity." Examples of this meet you at every step : you are called on continually to consider some stupid contradiction, bungling legend, or marvel, invented to put undue honour upon some well-known Christian name, or to magnify some historic event beyond all limits of truth or credi- bility, until at last the effect becomes exceedingly painful. When certainties and inventions are continually pressed on the mind as of equal authority, the value of evidence becomes altogether impaired, and those who do not make shipwreck of faith in their own persons, as least come to understand how it is that many come out of the same ordeal with their trust in history and testimony refined into a polite incredulity, and, in consequence of the over- strain which Romanism puts on the powers of belief, are found ever ready with a question like that of "jesting Pilate," " What is truth ?" Away, — away, — across the " Campagna " in its smiling desolation. We took our mid-day rest at Baccano, infamous for malaria ; and as I walked about in the glowiug sun, peering everywhere for some ostensible cause for this pes- tilential character, and could see but a dry and variegated carpet of flowers all round, such as would seduce any un- wary or unwarned traveller to lie down and abandon himself to repose, I could not but recal the many tales on record of murderous women who could smile and allure, and beckon in the cut-throat at the same time. We passed over this enchanted ground as quickly as possible. We skirted Soracte,''^ we mused beneath the splendid ruins of Augustus' bridge at Nami, upon the poet's fruitless wish for its perpetuity : " Namia, siilphureo, quam gurigite, candidus, omnis Circuit Perpetuo liceat sic tibi ponte frui." — Martial. * See Appendix. 106 GLEAKINGS AFTER " GEATTD T0UE"-ISTS. We proceed, rather more rapidly thanveturino pace actually carried us, to Temi, and there, true to my purpose, " not to say what has been better said by others," I refer those who desire to look on a living picture of Velino's " roar of waters," to the musings of that gifted wanderer — " Childe Harold was he hight " — ^who pronounces all the other falls he ever looked on "rills" as compared to this "match- less cataract !" — ^yot shunning the attempt to give any idea of what he has so described, as to give all that language can pretend to convey of such a scene, I must find utter- ance for my sense of a minor misery I which formed the only drawback on one ftdl enjoyment of the wonders of the " Caduta di Marmore." And though I call it a " minor " misery, the word is not to be understood in its musical sense, as referring to the key in which the as- sailants toned their assaults upon our tortured ears, nor to the amount of discomfort which it was able to inflict, but merely to the paltriness of the cause of so much an- noyance : THE PLAINT OF THE PERSECUTED AT "IL CADUTA DI MARMORE." (Left in the Strangers' Book at Temi, May 8, 1851.) Scribblers avaunt ! The Lord of Song Drank deep of inspiration here. His stanzas sonorous and strong Flow like his theme, in full career. Admire in silence — else rehearse Velino's praise in Byron's verse. But is there nought for minor pen Which shuns the fall's majestic hearings ? Yes, truly— ofttimes better men Have made a name on Byron's leavings. And so I'll write— (the theme's not pleasing) — A word upon Italian teasing ! "last IMPEESSIONS of the ttOMAN STATES." 107 A good kind soul, some pages back,* Calls these attentions " quite romantic ;" I know — as they beset my track — The ceaseless begging set me frantic ! Distinct above the torrent's roar, 'Twas ever — " Date mi, Signor'* All down the glen— still, still the same. Begging made ten times worse by bribing ! You gave to one! — ten fresh hands came— Beg ! beg ! — it beggars all describing. Patience exhausted — " ditto purse !" And still the clamour growing worse ! The majesty of sight and sound Holds your soul spell-bound, hush'd, and still ; Your elbow's touched ! — and turning round, The charm is broke — for fierce and shrill JJatocc^i-begging hordes beset, And you, who would admire, mu£^ fret ! r wonder much if Byron stood Impassive while the beggars teased him; He was a man whose ireful mood Grew "silent rage"f when aught displeased him. Perhaps alternately he wrote, And shook a beggar by the throat.- He has recorded his desire To know how one who " did a murder!" " Felt afterwards" — he could desire No better case — ^nor need go further, To have his wish — there rush'd the torrent, And round him caitiffs most abhorrent. * This refers to a previous entry in the Strangers* Book at Temi, in which some " gushing young lady" described the attentions of the natives in the terms of the text. Either the writer was under the same hallu- cination which caused Don Quixote to see a lady in a country wench ! or the beggars were, during her visit, either taking their ^^ siesta!" or possibly dividing the spoils of some former predatory excursion ! Leeches never take freely after they have been " fed to the full !" t "He got into one of ' his silent rages' . . . And stood in sullen silence." Moobb's J?^ron. 108 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUE^'-ISTS. " Done justifiably in fury," Provoked beyond all " compos'' mind, Mere " 6e<7^ar-8laughter" any jury Must in the case their verdict find. Should tourists on such inquest sit, They would unanunous " Acquit!" I know— /or owe, / don't disparage — The law* which regulates " the Bill" Fixed by the Pope for every carriage ; I wish the law went further still — " For beggars so much !" Let him say it, Tourists, I'm sure, would gladly pay it. " Sign'd on behalf of one and all, With whom I saw the Temi Fall." We shall pass Perugia (Perugino, Eaphael, and all) with but one remark. " Murray " prepared us to see a strong fortress, holding the town in complete check, and in- scribed with the haughty motto of " a Servant of Ser- vants," who, feeling his Papal foot firm on the Perugian neck, out of the meekness of his faculties spoke thus — AD COERCENDAM PERUSINORUM AUDACIAM PAULUS III. -fiDIFICAVrr. "We came, I say, expecting to see a stately keep tower- ing into air, repressive of the underlying audacity of the Perugians, and we found in its stead an open esplanade covered with crumbling ruins, where I spent half an hour in meditation on the gyrations of "whirligig time." The Perugians had bided their hour — it came in 1848. * By a Papal rescript you can have carriages to the Temi Falls but from one privileged inn at Temi. The charges are not extravagant. And by the same mle which adds "waiters, chambermaids, boots" in England, and ''pour le service'' in France, beggars, as the most attentive attendants, might be thrown into the Pope's bill in Italy. "last impeessions of the eoman states." 109 And if the Papal taunt was frank, They paid it with as bitter prank. There is not of that castle gate, Its drawbridge or portcullis weight. Stone, bar, moat-bridge, or barrier left. Nor of its glacis one blade of grass, Save what is grown on a ridge of wall, Where stood the hearthstone of the Hall ! And many a time you there might pass The cracklmg battlements all cleft. Nor dream that e'er that fortress was. For time at last sets all things even, And if we do but watch the hour. There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, • The patient watch and vigil long Of Him who treasures up a wrong. The Perugians wreaked their retribution on the proud Papacy as thoroughly as Mazeppa upon his " proud Count Palatine." At the " Gulandro," by " Thrasymene's fatal lake," we exchanged the steeple hat of the gloomy scowling subjects of his Holiness for the Tuscan bonnet and open physiognomy of another state — and we were at once im- pressed by the different face which aU things, animate and inanimate, wore. The Tuscan Government is not a model one ; but as compared in its effects on energy, expression, and physiognomy, its superiority to that of its neighbour state has ever been a subject of remark evident and striking the moment you cross the border-line. Surely an observation invariably made must be more than a pre- judice. i 110 GLEAKIIfGS AFTEE " GEAND TOirE"-ISTS. ci SXMBOLISM." — " THE LATANDA." Ill CHAPTEE YI. C( SYMBOLISM." — " THE LAVAITDA." " High Symbolism " and high Infallibility are alike subject to this common danger — that if not well sustained and consistently carried out, they inevitably topple over into — the ridiculous ! " La Sua Santita " will never get over the blunder of having condemned, as theological errors, the philosophic truths of Gallileo ; and the subter- iiige by which ultramontane professors teach the " New- tonian Philosophy," with a salvo to the "never wrong" and "not-to-be-questioned" decisions of the "Chair of Peter," is as miserable a rat-hole as ever obstinacy crept into, to escape conviction or avoid confession of a mistake.* So, likewise, with high transcendental Symbolism. " The Pope and Sacred College " combine theoretically into the Symbolic Exponent of perfect Ecclesiastical Government, in which " God's Yicar on Earth " is supposed to sit in an interior calm of guidance and direction, the Princes of the Church being, symbolically, the hinges (Cardinales, quasi Cardines) on which the outer, or manifested Church is to turn and move in harmonious action. The Papacy, of * See Appendix. I course, endeavours to make this theory ohjective, in all pos- sible modes of its external action, and to exhibit it as the leading idea (understood where not expressed) in all those '''' fwnzionV^ which constitute its dazzling and captivating ceremonial. Yet it is in the progress of these very func- tions that incongruities and absurdities do so frequently creep in, that while they are intended to express very high and transcendental spiritualities, they in truth do but impress upon the beholders the axiom that "from the sublime to the ridiculous," is — ^not even a step, but — a slide — an insensible transition. Before I proceed to " high places " for my exemplars, I must explain my meaning by an illustration which pre- sented itself "long, long ago," years before I dreamed that I should ever have an opportunity of studying " Symbol- ism" "«^ limina apostolorumP I went one day into a fine old church in Brittany, in order to examine some of the details of its architecture. My visit was in the early morning ; yet, early as it was, I found the church occu- pied. A funeral service was going on; the coffin lay within the choir and before the high altar, which was hung with black drapery, " seme de gouttes de larmes^"* symho- lical of the Church's weeping for the departed ; the priests, "in long array," moved processionally round the bier, giving with their united voices efiect to the solemn " office for the dead ;" a few friends, in mourning habits, drooped and wept in the stalls of the choir — otherwise, the great church was empty — and I, considering that in such a scene, to walk about tablet and pencil in hand, copying in- scriptions and sketching mouldings, would be symholical of a disrespect I did not feel, quietly slid into a seat, and 112 GLEAIONGS ATTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. cc SYMBOLISM." — " THE LAVAKDA.'* 113 waited the termination of the service. It ended; the priests filed off in solemn train into the vestry to disrobe themselves ; the mourners departed, leaving the coffin on its trestles before the altar until evening, when the true "enterremenf' was to take place, and I remained alone with the dead, not a living soul, to my apprehension, within the vast temple but myself. I felt all the " reli^io loci et rei "—the Majesty of Death doing homage to Him who " must reign until he hath put all things under his feet." It is not all at once that one can turn from such thoughts and associations, to trivial occupatio nor a mere tourist's objects of interest, and I was in profound thought, when I heard the door of the sacristy open, and after an " a Bieu'' to his brother priests departing by an outer door at the opposite side, " Monsieur le Cure " came into the church. He had been pointed out to me some days before, and with "Sentimental Journey "-zm in my head, I had entered his in my tablets of memory as " one of those countenances Guido loved to paint— mild, pale, penetrating." He had just retired from a solemnising service ; he was quite unaware of my presence— of the presence of any one— and on leaving the sacristy he took I the passage between the high altar and the " Ladye i Chapel" (that chapel which, in the language of Symbol- ( ism, is understood to symlolise a "power behind the throne," ^mc^zcflZfy greater than the throne itself in the estimation of many). In the "Ladye Chapel" stood a " faire statue " of the "Virgin and Child "—that incite- ment to devotion which acts so powerfully on the sym- pathies of mothers and the young instincts of childhood- there it stood, soliciting that devotion which the Church of Kome so sedulously inculcates, and Monsieur le Cure, who at first appeared disposed to pass without offering his homage, as if on sudden recollection, stopped, returned, and knelt down to pay it. As he knelt there, in the still, solitary church, in his black, close-fitting, graceful dress, his hands clasped, his head gently inclined to one side, as in rapt contemplation of the object before if not to which, he was praying, to me, sitting in shade in the distance, the whole was an im- posing picture, most artistically grouped, and in every feature, attitude, accompaniment, symbolising profound con- templative devotion ! " Well, certainly," I was saying to myself, " this Church of Eome does know how to express, however it may feel, abstracted seraphic piety; surely yonder kneeling man is at least absorbed in his devotional contemplations." As I spoke, or rather thought this, the clasped hands unclosed — one of them stole down to a side- pocket (the head remaining still in its position of intense adoration) — I saw the loosened hand uplifted, and pre- sently! — death to symbolism, seraphic abstraction, and seriousness all at one blow! — I saw the head incline a little more from the devotional angle, and the hand admi- nister a — pinch of snuff! — ^yes! a pinch of snuff, given and received with as much seeming gusto as ever confirmed snuff- taker afforded to "Scotch high dried" or "Irish blackguard." The dream was at an end— and I fear, when soon after Monsieur le Cure passed me by, with composed countenance and "stepping mincingly," he saw a most heretical smile on my face. Such was my first esoteric lesson into the illusions of Symbolism! I had subse- quently, and elsewhere, many others ; for instance, when 114 GLEAinDTGS AFTEE " GEA53> TOTTE -ISTS. I have seen the confessor, sitting in open court in the "chair of penance," interrupt the outponrings of some bnrthened spirit, kneeling, grovelling at his side, to have a " chat, and shake hands" with a passing acquaintance! or a preacher in the pulpit break off in an impassioned apostrophe to " Notre Dame de Pitie et de Secours," to— spit ! These were rather rough and coarse exemplifications of how Home woi^s out its Symbolism. " But," with the prophet of old, I said, " surely these are poor--these are foolish." .... '^I will get me to the great men." I did so at last, and it remained for St. Peter's and its " High Ceremonies," in long years after, to complete the disen- chantment. St. Peter's is so specially the theatre of the " High Ceremonies" of the Eoman Church, that, except for them, it is, as a place of worship, comparatively useless. Eor personal devotions, the Pope has his Sistine Chapel. The Chapter of St. Peter* s " fulfil the order of their course" in the " Capella del Coro" (the " Choir Chapel," spacious enough for a large parish church), in a side-aisle of the great temple below. Individual worshippers are at all times " dropping in ;" and files of young " Seminarists" are con- tinually faUing down in long array, to pay their private homage at the iUuminated shrine of the Apostles in the centre ; while there is ever a stream of votaries, who with forehead and lip rub away some infinitesimal portion of the disappearing toe of the "Pietro Sedente"— «Z^W the " Ju- piter Capitolinus" *—at the right hand of the nave. These « It is sometimes mockingly asserted that the St. Peter of the Vatican is the rery Jupiter of the Capitol, converted from a Pagan deity mto a Christian saint by merely new naming him ; much as an English sign- post, which figured as the " Prince Eugene" or the " Markis o Gra^y of one generation becomes " the Duke of York" or " Duke of Wei- u SYMBOLISM." — " THE LAVAlCDiu" 115 are all but driblets of devotioa trickling into the " mare magnum** of that vast nave, and for all practical uses the high altar of St. Peter's, except on " high days," is as though it were not. It stands, ^^ simplex mwiditiis,'" without a gaud to attract the gazing multitude — the plainest piece of furniture of " altar pattern" in all Borne. Indeed, it may be well questioned whether it were not better that, like other movables of the "fittings up" of that great temple, it could be put aside when the exhi- bition for which it is used is over. They take down and fold up the silk hangings, remove the galleries, roll the organ (itself as large as a chapel of ease) out of sight, and leave the magnificent nave "alone in its glory." They would improve it amazingly by making the central bulk a "movable fixture" also, for it is voted, without a dis- sentient voice, that the high altar, and Bemini's fantastic Baldachino over it, greatly impair (they cannot destroy) the efiect of the noble edifice in which they stand. Into St. Peter's, on "high days," Symbolism forbids his Holiness to enter except in such a fashion as shall ex- hibit him to the admiring worshippers as raised above aU possibility of being compromised in the discharge of any of the ordinary functions or agencies of humanity. Should the Pope, on a " high day," walk into St. Peter's like an lington" of a succeeding one, merely by changing the name underneath. Others, however, maintain that the identity consists in haying the same metal recast and ccmsecrated. I incline to this last opinion ; the peculiar position of the right hand, with the thumb and two fore-fingers held up, symboUsing *' the Trinity" as invoked in the act of blessing, seems to in- dicate that the statue must have been originally designed for a Christian use, unless, indeed, the right arm be a " restoration !" for it is well known that an old mutilated statue may be, and has been, so ' restored," as to be utterly unlike in attitude and expression what it was originally. T *> 116 GLEANINGS ATTEE " GEAND TOTTR -ISTS ordinary mortal, and happen to knock bis toe /—that toe to be presently saluted as the symlol of his Infallibility— against any of the fractured* flags of the tesselated pave- ment, this would be a solecism against his sublimity " most tolerable and not to be endured ;" and so the Pope, in his " unapproachable supremacy," can never " carry himself" with pro"priety, but must ever be " carried" — ^he can never conform to the " royal rule" of ordinary men — he must never " do unto others"— he must ever be " done unto." Thus it comes to pass, that when, from the side- passages of the Vatican, he bursts upon the gaze of wait- ing and admiring Christendom, borne aloft in stumbling and unstable state, he usually spoils the symbol by sitting, with shut eyes, in a deplorable state of 7fl^w GLEANTNGS ATTEE " GRAND TOUE -ISTS. on nor put off any of those various mitres (half a dozen at least) which are repeatedly changed in the course of each high ceremony. Whoever played " Cardinal Hatter" in 1851 was far from being a " deacon of the craft," for be fixed his mitres so awkwardly, that ever and again the poor Pope was obliged to steal his hand up " unbe- knownst," as it were, to give his head-gear a hitch! so as to make it ait easy and comfortable ; and I noticed the peevish, pitiable look with which the Jujt w^as done. Poor man ! once more, as the symhol of an absolutism helpless and hand-bound, as one might say " ex officw^' it was im- possible not to pity him extremely ; and if of a nervous temperament, it was only natural to sympathise with the horrid discomfort he must ever endure under those bodily handlings, haulings, and transmutations to which he is periodically subject. Some similar tendency to the ridiculous seemed inci- dental to every high ceremony I looked on. I remember m the Wednesday " Miserere" in St. Peter's (not inferior, I think, and I heard both, to the so-much-sought-4jfter Sistine performance above), a little, pert, wily Italian dog! — a creature that could neither be coaxed nor hunted out-*- made its way into the area of the ''' Capella del Coro," where the "Miserere" was performing, and there ite pranks, attitudes, mock attention, and chorus of an oc- casional whine to the most thrilling parts of the music, sadly disturbed the solemnity of the service. All the while the functionary— whether priest or sagristano I forget — whose office it was to quench at intervals tie m/mholic tapers, tried to move about as if abstractedly UB- conscious of the currish interruption. At length somehow " SYMBOLISM." — " THE LAVANDA." 119 he contrived to lure the animal through a side-door ; and if ever venom could be concentrated into a poisoned kick, it was in that with which the holy man dismissed the poor brute in the passage, and having fulfilled this passing act of mercy, stalked solemnly back to finish his part in the *' fun- zione" — as if we had not heard Mm I But we had though ! We are long in arriving at " The Lavanda," a " func- tion" performed, as Murray says, in the " Salle del Lavanda," behind the " Galleria del Benedizione," but, as J say, in the south transept of St. Peter's. It is quite teue that the subsequent supper ("grace said by the Pope" — " Peter in the Chair" — Bichens, hem I) does take place in the salle over the vestibule of St. Peter's, but the washing is unquestionably in the church below. Tbis, as all the world knows, is a ceremony in which the Pope, iridescent in gold and gems, heralded and waited on by his gorgeous cortege of cardinals and mon- signori, gazed at by a glittering gallery, or galaxy (take which word you will) of ambassadors, representatives of Catholic Europe, and watched by a mixed multitude of admiring disciples and irreverent heretics, proceeds towards a high seat, where thirteen men, "all in a row," clad grotesquely, with head-gear symbolising nothing so nearly as " an English porter- pot without a handle" {Dickens again), and holding nosegays of cauliflower cir- cumference on their knees, sit in awkward state, censes for Apostles, aad waiting, until the Pope, ''en passant^' does his function of sorting a few drops of water from a gold ewer on the foot of each, and gives a benedictory touch to the several bunches of flowers (which the Apos- tles afterwards sell at a "good retail profit" to the devout 120 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND T0IJE"-ISTS. Eomans -without). Now, when we consider that all this is intended to symbolise the solemn and expressive act of that "meek and lowly One," who, being their "Master and Lord," did " wash his disciples' feet, and wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded," — even though all things in St. Peter's were done " decently and in order," in the most entire keeping and decorum, still, to any one conversant with the narrative and spirit of the great antitype, there would always be enough to give a stronger impression of contrast than of congruity ; but when, in addition to this, every variety of untoward un- seemliness is superadded, the effect becomes indescribably absurd. The same " eye to character" which that sly rogue Dickens noted in 1844, regulated the ceremonial of 1851 — there sat the " good-looking young man" to p*ersonify " the loved Apostle John." I must own I did not see the " two pair of spectacles" which Dickens very naturally thought " a droll appendage to the dressing of the Apos- tolic character," as Tie witnessed the performance, — but Peter was tTiere! looking in perfection the sound, hale, hearty old man, who at supper could "go in and win" against all competitors. And when Judas came on the stage — no, I mean the steps — of the platform, enacting the "enormous hypocrite to the life," there could be "no mistake in himP^ — the Symlolism was so complete, that he was greeted with an audible murmur of applauding laughter from the vast multitude whose upturned faces paved the nave and transept, and who might all have raised the chorus of one of Beranger's celebrated songs, " J^ai vu Judas r^ " SYMBOLISM." — " THE LAVANDA." 121 Here, as I have said, for a moment the symbol was in its way perfect ; but in another moment the performer con- trived to destroy the whole effect of the part he was playing, for he had no sooner made his way to his ap- pointed place, than by more than one token he gave the spectators to know that he " was no lord, but Christopher Sly the tinker I" He had scarce seated him- self, when he looked round on the admiring throng, and indulged in an unrestrained and portentous yawn ! This was sufficiently un- Apostolic ; but worse remains behind, for, removing his "porter-pot head-dress," he sent his fingers on a leisurely and searching voyage of discovery through his tangled and red grizzled locks — ^the filthy old rogue ! — what illusion — what Symbolism — could stand imder such an outrageous incongruity as this ? But no Eoman ceremonial could ever be performed to an end if it was to be broken up by such a trifle ; let what will happen, the performers act on Ealstaff*s direc- tion — " Out, ye villains— play out the play" — and so go through with their parts. Presently his Holiness and attendant cardinals appeared in long procession from the " Capello del S. Sacramento," which must have some private* communication with the interior of the Vatican, * The varieties of communication within and from the vast pile of the Vatican are endless. With its gardens the palace is said to cover as much ground as the city of Turin— and I thmk it may be so ; and this great bulk is all honeycombed with an intricacy of internal communication beyond conception. Of this I had one day a proof. There is a great hall leading to the Museum, and Raphael Stanze, called, I think, the " Sala, Dwale,'" or " Del Ambasciadori," through which all the world passes continually, without, I dare say, being aware of any entrance except those at either end by which they enter and leave it. I had done so scores of times, when one day I was amazed by one of 122 GLEAKIKGS AFIEE " GEAJO) T0UE"-ISTS. ti and "The Lavanda" proceeded. I was in the midst of the curious crowd, making the best use I couhl of my six-foot stature, and with all my faculties on the stretch to take in the details, when, under my elbow, in gruff deter- mined English tones, and by no means *^ en sotto t?oce," the silence was broken by the following rather queer accom- paniment to the Pontifical act then in progress : ** If any Italian gentleman will answer for you, I'll let you go, but not otherwise." It was not easy to turn either head or body in the throng, and thinking it was merely a detected pickpocket, I did not at first look round or downwards ; but presently the same gruff voice exclaimed : " Well ! what do you say, 1/ou rascal fV* At this I did turn my head, and under my arm I became aware of an Englishman, a " stout gentleman" in body and spirit alike, who had attired his bnrly person in one of the yeomanry corps uniforms of " merrie England" as his court suit ! and who held by the collar a small, sallow- faced Italian caitiff, who crouched in his grasp, but in whose snake-like eye a deep, concentrated sparkle told plainly that if he had room and a stiletto, he would not the seemingly solid pilasters which line its length opening, and a young girl appeared, evidently in home dress, dismissing an acquai nt a n ce in visiting attire. While gazing at this apparition I had a momeBtary glimpse of a long hall or passage beyond, with doors opening from it at one side : the whole had a dom^tic inhabited look, and the young girl was evidently at home. In a minute or so the pillar closed, and seemed as impervious as before ; but from that time I always felt as if the Va- tican was a vast ant-hill, populated in all directions. I was ever looking for mysterions doors and Antranc^ ajid saw numbers oi thwi j — but* how many more did! not aa&7 SYMBOLISM." — " THE LAVAia)A." 123 hesitate to release himself, by making his detainer '^ brook the stab." It was no affair of mine, so I turned my head again to the ceremony, and again I heard the gruff English voice ask a question more redolent of " Hounslow-heath of the olden time" than of the presence in which we stood. "Well, what money have you got ?" I did not hear any reply, but presently there came a jingling sound, and for the last time the gruff voice asked: "Is that all?" Then, after a pause, "Now then get along, and let me never see your face more, you infernal rascal" (rascal again). By this time the Pope had "done an Apostle," sprinkled his instep, touched it daintily with a towel, blessed his nosegay and returned it to him ; and as he proceeded to another, I could not refrain from turning to my neighbour (the Italian had by this time dived through the crowd), and saying : " "Will you allow me to ask what was all I3iat — what had your sallow-faced Mend done to yon?" " Sir," said he, " that's a fellow who hangs abont our hotel, and on the strength of jabbering infamous English, has, ever since we came to Eome, been dogging and teasing us to take him for a Cicerone, Last evening he made up to me and my friend in the Sala Eegia, and for three seoxii engaged to procure us seats in the Sistroe Chapel "for the ' Miserere.' I was fool enough to give him the money. ^e bustled off under pretence of finding a sagristano of his acquaintance, and we never saw him after, until I cauglri; him by the nape of the neck just now. I made him dis- 124 ii »» GLEANINGS AFTEE " GKAND TOITE -ISTS. gorge two of our scudi; the other lie had, I suppose, speut; hut if I had had room, I would have taken out the amount in kicks T^ Such was the curious running accompaniment of dia- logue with which I witnessed the performance of " The Lavanda" in St. Peter's. When the foot- washing is ended, or nearly so, there is ever a mad rush made to attain the impossibility of seeing the " serving at supper" also. This is not to be done, and is therefore o/* cowrie attempted by adventurous thousands, who stream off after each other, with the insane hope of getting into an already filled and comparatively small salonj where not one in a hundred can ever hope for entrance. One wholesome effect of this diversion is, that those wise enough to remain behind obtain breathing and elbow room ; and in my own case I got thereby a nearer and more leisurely view of Pio Nono than I could have hoped for, seeing that I had declined the proffered honour of a presentation. Though numbers had left it, St. Peter's was still, to all appearance, as full as ever, when the Pope, in full proces- sion, returned by the railed-off" passage reserved for him to the Capello del S. Sacramento. I had edged gradually near to this railing, when I was made aware of his approach by perceiving the whole throng surging and sinking on the knee as he moved along, occasionally and gracefully waving his hand towards them, having the two first fingers and thumb erected and the others closed, after the model of St. Peter's statue, and the established formula of pontifical benediction. He approached rather quickly, and my position became an awkward one. My " SYMBOLISM." — " THE LAVANDA." 125 sturdy Protestantism would no more allow me to kneel for his blessing than to kiss the cross on the toe of his ^^ pantufola'' To turn tail, and try to push my way back through the crowd, would have created a confusion, and possibly have procured me ill-treatment, or a hustling, and in the exigency of the moment I did what I thought least awkward, — while all around me prostrated themselves to the JPontiff, I made the most respectful obeisance I could to the Prince. As I raised my head again, I saw Pio Nono's eye fixed on me with an expression of anger as un- mistakable as my own act of protest against the undue reverence given him by the prostration of his subjects. Nor can I wonder that he should have felt annoyed at the apparition of one tall individual breaking the uniformity of that prostration, and standing up from the pavement of human beings who knelt before him. I have heard that in private he is indiff'erent to these acts of homage, but to be thus bearded by recusancy in his solemn assembly, and so near, was, no doubt, affronting. Yet it was not done intentionally. I had no business to be there ; but leing there, I did the best thing that occurred to me. There is a deficiency of angular firmness, a roundness of outline in Pio Nono's face, well expressed in most pictures of him I have seen, and bespeaking that want of decision and energy which his career exhibited when ven- turing to depart from that routine course in which alone as Pope, as an " old recognised respectability," he could have hoped to go on safely. He first announced what his subjects received as a golden age of reform, then hesitated, halted, retreated, fled ! to come back in a spirit of retrogradation, sevenfold worse than the first ! If, as is generally 126 OLEAJtflNQS XETJSIR " GEAJSP TOUJa'*-ISTS. believed, Pio Nono began bis reign witb a fantasy that by throwing himself into the ^^ mouvemenf^ of the age he could " ride the whirlwind" without an upset, and " direct the storm'* to the tcses oftTie Papacy, he soon found himself deplorably mistaken. He intended to be so conceding as to persuade the world that the spirit of his Church was liberalised, in order that he might assert on behalf of that Church claims and pretensions belonging to the ages of its yery highest assiunption and most absolute domination. His people did not so understand him. When his Holiness wished to set them "playing at freedom," they wanted " free institutions" in good earnest ; when his object was to enable his ten thousand trumpeters through the world to proclaim "a liberal, almost a reforming , Pope'^ come to reclaim a world's submission, his own immediate subjects, in the abyss of misgovemment in which they were sunk, thought that liberality and reform should, in and like charity, " begin at home !" They put him to the test, and in the test he failed, vacillated, retrograded. The flight to Q-aeta, and the return to Eome at the point of French bayonets, dispelled a delusion of Pontifi and people alike. The former, finding that the Popedom and freedom, so far from being compatible, are antagonistic terms, resigned himself to the old Conclave regime, — made over his admi- nistrative power to the master-mind of Antonelli, — and retired into his devotions ; the latter, roughly awakened from a dream of self-government and an expected infusion of lag control in public afiairs, lie down cowering, brooding, and heart-galled in their hopeless degradation. " Sempre nel alysso, Signor,*^ was the expression used by a Koman bourgeois to me, to describe their political and social state ; u SrMBOUSM." — " THE LAVANDA." 127 and I feel sure that the man uttered the sentiments of the great mass of the once proud and fierce " Populus Eo- manus," depressed and dissatisfied, and feeling that, like many other professed philanthropists, the Holy Father, who breathes forth seraphic strains of peace and blessing to all Christendom, is within his own domestic circle, dynastically if not personally, little better than a bully and a tyrant. The obesity, whieh has since become troublesome, was in 1851 very visible in the person of the Pope, and his eye, in its general expression light, mild, and uncertain, in the momentary gleam of anger which lighted on me, told that on occasion Pio None could be " every inch a priest," and so iQustrated the sarcasm attributed to his own brother, Count Feretti, who, to some one lauding the openness, moderation, and liberality of his relative's eariy reign, said, " Wait a little ! You may cut Feretti into small pieces, ^ and you will find every other piece will be Tnmh and Jesuit \ alternately." And I do believe these two epithets cor- rectly symbolise the two leading characters of Feretti's mind — ^namely, first, the deep personal devotion, in which he gives you the idea that of all his court or cortege he himself is the man most in earnest in the functions in which he takes part; and next, the intense unity of pur- pose with which he announces his supremacy, and acts with a view to its full restoration over the world. No man who had not at least convinced himself oi his own power would have ventured to inaugurate the dogma of the " Immaculate Conception" as did Pio Nono on the 8th of December, 1854. Such an experiment on the convictions of the world argues at least the " good faith of fanaticism." .... 128 GLEAKIKGS AFTEE " GEAND T0TTE"-ISTS. " The Lavanda" is over — the Pope is retired-to " serve tables," hot, hustled, excited, exhausted, Ireahfastless ! (though the Apostles up-stairs were "at supper") — a friend and I dropped into one of the wretched caffes beyond the colonnade of St. Peter's, to drink a cup or two of that detestable " caffe nero^'' in which the creamless Italians, in cold blood, soak long pieces of bread, and eat " the sop'? with a seeming relish. "We sat surveying the groups as they returned from the ceremony ; and while we did so, for the consistent conclusion of the whole, who should pass by in propria persona but — Judas ! There was no mistaking the old rogue — once seen, known for ever. He was now in his every-day attire, in the rusty habiliments of an old-old-" rear-rank" priest — a class from whom the play " Apostles" are said to be selected. Judas, as I have said before, passed us by, going towards the Ponte di S. Angelo, and, though off the stage of his late performance, he might be said still to retain somewhat of the character, for " Jie Tiad the lag .'" In his hand he carried a huge black wallet, but what it contained I will not take upon me to decide ; it might be his apostolic dress, or more probably his share of the remains of the apostolic supper of which he had just been partaking. I incline to think the latter, for assuredly the character which he looked and si/mbolised best, as he passed us by, was that of an old hired waiter, wbo, having doffed the livery in which he had figured at an entertainment, was going home in his ordinary attire, taking with him his share of the broken victuals I- Such were the associations in which I witnessed " The Lavanda" at Eome. " NOTABILIA. OP ST. PETEE's." 129 CHAPTER YII. "the STUAETS!" and some OTHEE "NOTABILIA" of ST. petee's. When you enter St. Peter's on the left hand, after the first rapid glance at the vastness of that " little thing made big," which some one has disparagingly called it, your next will probably be at the "six-foot baby" which sup- ports a " Benatura" at the column of the side-aisle next the door, a comparison of whose proportions with your own stature gives you the first relative idea of the scale of all around you. Turning from this you encounter, at the first nave pillar, the graceful monument on which the delicate generosity of their disinheriting kinsman engaged the genius of Canova to do honour to the extinct and extinguished dynasty of Stuart ! As this monument came from the hand of the sculptor the design and execution were alike suitable and beautiful, and so it stood througli more than one Popedom, until, in one of the fits of prudery* to which the Papacy seems periodically liable, * See Appendix. K 130 GLEA^fH^GS AFTER " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. and during the paroxysms of which many absurdities are committed upon the statuary and works of art in Eome, Pio NoNO ordered the delicate marble to be invested with stiff, uncouth bronze draperies, painted icTiite, as if to delude into an idea that they formed part of the sculptor's original design. A single glance, however, shows you that there is now something out of keeping in the sculpture, and by degrees you discover that Canova's original work has been added to, but not improved : much as the free and graceful action of the American Ked-man would be cramped by forcing him into the duresse and decency of a fashionable frock-coat ! The Pope has done his utmost to destroy the effect of an original conception as chaste as it was expressive and suitable. It is in no wish to disparage the grace and generosity with which George the Fourth of England has done honour to buried antagonists that I notice a certain " canny'' saga- city in the inscription on the Stuart monument. JACOBO ni. JACOBl n. MAGN^ BRIT. REGIS FILIO, KAROLO EDWARDO ET HENRICO DECANO PATRUM CARDIXALIUM JACOBl III. FLLIIS REGLE 8TIRPIS STUARDLE,* POSTREJIIS, AKXO MDCCCXIX. * The varieties in the spelling of the names of the extinct dynasty- are curious. Stewart! Steward! Stuart! each has had its day. Looking at the latest edition of the Waverley Novels, I see ihQ first everj-- where adopted ; the Latinising of the name in the inscription is derived from the second, as the second would agree best with the tradition of the origin of the House, whereas the third is undoubtedly historical, and of old date, in proof of which I recollect an anagram on the name of " Mary Stuart^ Queen of Scots," which would admit no other spelling. " ITOTABILIA OF ST. PETEE's. jj 131 Whether designed or not, undoubtedly, so long as this record stands^ it testifies to the extinction of claims which had more than once caused the House of Hanover anxiety and trouble, and cost the English people many a bloody sacrifice, offered up by misplaced loyalty and desperate fidelity in the cause of a Family which, beginning by being untrue to the nation, had long been found suicidally un- true to itself. Although the Stuart cause had long become the " sha- dow of a shade" — although the last of the race had drawn a cowl over his " likeness of a kingly crown," and, in ac- cepting the generous aid of his cousin of Hanover, had virtually abdicated his claim to royalty — still there were those who carefully applied the principle of ^^ nullum tem^us occurrit regV^ to the case of the exiled dynasty. An inscription in the crypt of St. Peter's tells us that three unrecognised kings of England sleep below; and while this subterranean record implies claims to the throne of Britain never abandoned, it seems very probable that the ruling monarch and his advisers thought a monument above ground well bestowed which would delicately, but distinctly, establish the fact, that the last of these " phan- tom kings" had left "no child of his succeeding." When "Michael Angelo," planning the dome of his mighty work, answered the challenge to produce anything equal to the Pantheon cupola by the proud hravade that he " tvould Jiang the Fantheon in mid-air" he obliged 1 himself to raise the body of the building on a vast sub- structure, so as to give it a dignity corresponding to the magnificent conception overhead. The result of this has been the leaving of a cryptic vault under the level of the e:2 132 GLEiLNINGS AFTEB " GEAIH) T0UE'*-ISTS. present Basilica of St. Peter's, and on the level of the ancient one, of which last some of the rude mosaic pave- ment still remains in situ. In this crjpt lie buried popes in long series, and among them, in conspicuous places, re- pose the bones of those unchronicled sovereigns, James III., Charles III., and Henry IX. of England. By an absurd distinction, though men may descend into this crypt whenever they see a party about to enter it, females can only be admitted under a special per- mission. I had more than once gone down under the conduct of one of the army o^ sagristani who garrison tlie magnificent vestry of the church, named Pietro PetrucMo, and with whom, in my frequent visits to St. Peter's, I had established a kind of familiar acquaintance. It is true that every time he saw me he asked regularly " if I was not a Spaniard?" and I as regularly informed him that " I was an Irlandese,'' at which intelligence he always expressed himself highly gratified, and next day asked the question over again as pertinaciously as ever. Our friend- ship, subject to this mistake, continued uninterrupted, until in an evil hour, within his own proper " manour and hunting-ground" — the Crypt — I was so unwise and uncivil as to impugn the authenticity of one of his stock stories, and thenceforward Pietro Petruchio " knew my face no more ;" he " cut me" with as cool and deadly nonchalance as ever man of fashion brought to bear on a poor relation or vulgar friend. A batch of ladies of my acquaintance had obtained the necessary permission to visit the crypt, and abounding as it did with recollections, remnants of ancient bas-re- liefs, and other ^'oggetti inter essanti,''^ I was only too glad " NOTABILIA OF ST. PETER's." 133 again to descend as their escort, and refresh my impres- sions of a place which, seen by the dim light of the sa- cristan's taper, was too likely to be obscured and jostled from its place on the tablet of memory by the quick suc- cession of things and places crowding on one in the " upper air," and in the " glarish light of day." Of this party with whom I thus explored the very inner shrine of the Apostles, one was a Scottish lady of high birth and historic name, identified with the two desperate attempts made in the early part of the last century to replace the Stuarts on the throne of Britain. It so hap- pens, that I descend from a family which, though sufficiently humble and obscure, had been thought worthy of being included nominatim in the wholesale proscribing act of James II.'s Irish Parliament, in 1689-90, and thus, by one of those singular casualties which sometimes occur, the descendants of the Scottish Jacobite and the Irish Wil- liamite stood musing side by side at the tomb of the last of the Stuarts, in the subterranean church of St. Peter. As I looked at my companion in the light of Pietro Petruchio's torch, I thought I saw her eye glisten and dilate while I interpreted to her the simple inscription on the tomb, and I ventured the suggestive question, " I suppose you find all your Jacobite enthusiasm kindle and glow fiercely here ?" Whether the ladv felt " displeased that stranger view'd And tampered with her soften'd mood," or that my inquiry had turned the current of thought into a reactionary direction, she answered me, coldly and calmly enough : 13^ > 143 under a single bishop, and was erected by funds derived from a scarce-felt tax on a single article of import to the one chief city— of one national and unaided Church. The plan and execution of St. Paul's, complete and harmo- nising in themselves, bespeak in the unity of concep- tion that they are the work of one man, who lived to see his work perfected, and whose greatness is recorded in the simply expressive inscription, " Si monvipnentum queris ciretmspice:' The great architect of St. Peter's left his plan unexecuted, to be altered, disfigured, returned to, then altered again by a succession of inferior minds, from Bramante to Bernini ; and finally, those who examine this great work with a critical eye can easily see the several expedients successively resorted to with a view to remedy defects, and provide for overlooked necessities, such as supplemental cupolas, the incongruous attics, and such are even the grand colonnades of the Piazza without. Un- questionably the grandeur of the whole effect of St. Peter's, as you look at or go through it, silences criticism as to its detail ; yet, when regarded dispassionately, and comparatively to its English counterpart, and taking the one as the work of a single nation and Church, the other as the result of the combined exertion of the Popedom throughout all its territories, agencies, and resources for raising funds, I would again affirm that the London ca- thedral need not be ashamed of the comparison. And here, to dispose in one word of the relative merits of English and Italian church architecture, whether it be looked for in the modest and simple parish church, or in the magnificent "Minster," let no one leave England to look for finer models than he will find at home In the 144 GLEANINGS ArTEE " GEAIO) TOUR -ISTS. « Chiese," " Duomi," or " BasiHcas" of the South, all that marble and gold, and "three-piled ornament" can do, is done for Italian chuiches— within at least; but to a chastened taste, formed from the finished models of our own Korman or Gothic, or their intermediate styles of architecture, the comparison of the best Italian church with the solemn majesty of " Winchester," the complete- ness of " Salisbury," the aerial grace of " Wells," or the finished magnificence of York Minster, will at once appear " odious." As for their St. Peter's and our St. Paul's, ecclesiologists rather unceremoniously dismiss both to- gether from the category of " church architecture" to that of the " Pagan temple," as being both alike deficient in that which should be the leading idea in the construc- tion of a Christian church, namely, the ascending line which symbolises that "blessed hope" held forth in the " Doctrine of Kesurrection." "ad STATUAS" — THE VATICAN BY TOECHLIGHT. 145 CHAPTEE YIII. "ad STATUAS — THE VATICAN BY TOECHLIGHT. The book-shop of Signer Piale, in the " Piazza di Spagna," is the Eoman substitute for the Englishman's "Subscription Library," "Club," and "Agency Office" at home. It is flanked on the one hand by the old " CaSe Greco" in the " Condotti," where, if you wish to study at leisure the ruffian costume and farouche airs which the would-be Raphaels of the artist- world afi"ect, you can do so under shelter of a cup of ffood cofiee, provided you do not insult the attendant by calling him '' camerierey* On the other side, in the Piazza, Piale's is bounded by a more modern caffe, where, if you can make your way * The Caflf e Greco at Rome is said to maintain the same absolutism as that old-established London City Tavern, where, if you do not call for your dinner according to the formula of the habitues of the house, thus, ^^ A pint of port and beefsteak!" you will be indifferently served ; should you invert the precise order of the words and call for " ^ beef- steak and pint of port!'* you will fare no better for this bungled counter- sign. In like manner the Caffe Greco, though it might long since have taken rank as a foremost Roman coffee-house, will only answer to the word " botega" (shop), and serves its customers over the counter ; you would insult the attendant by the term " cameriere" (waiter), just as the " freebom" American " Ae/p" is outraged by being called " servant." 146 eLEAHINOS AETEB " GBASD TOTIk"-ISTS. ttrougli the "/«»• «'^«'''" g'^^^P^ ''^° ^°™^^ *^'"'! "morning." "noon," and "night," you may be served with a tolerable ice ! Between these proveditori for bodily wants, Signer Piale offers food for your mind in things new and old ; « real English and Irish newspapers," as well as " Galignaui.gleanings,"/o»-«i7» editions of English authors, "standard" and "modern," and this m an un- restricted freedom and profusion, which you might not anticipate in the native ^^ habitat^' of the "Index prohf hitormn Ulrorum." I keep among the "rare and curious" books of my library a volume, of which the following is a description : Written in England, in an anti-papal strain, marvellous in a degenerate follower of the Whigs of 1688 ; printed by some pirate publisher in republican New York ; sold and dressed (in the delicate calf costume of Soman binding) under the nose of ultra-montane censorship, and brought home again by a smusglinff purchaser, through a thousand "Dogana" dangers by "flood and field,"-I look upon my copy of "Macaulay's History of England" as quite a literary curiosity in its way, the wonder of which reaches its climax when I mention, that of this work (the " trade price" of which is one guinea and a half! at home) I be- came the possessor for about five or six shillings. Thmk of this, brother book-purchasers, and sigh. But all evils work their own cure at the last, and sooner or later the " besom of reformation " will reach the craft of the bibliopole, as well as other " departmental abuses !" Besides furnishing his news and his literature, Piale serves, to the Englishman at Eome, as his " general adver- " AD STATUAS*' — THE TATICAIT BY TOECHLIGHT. 147 tiser ;" to his shelves are affixed " notices of all kinds," " of every want and every want's supply." Here catch the eye, " Lodgings to Let ;" " A Piano Primo "Wanted ;" " Articles of Vertn for Sale ;" travellers or excursionists desirous to find or to make up a party — all proclaim their wants and wishes at Piale's. One man bound for the " far Orient," and unwilling to give his Long- Acre britschka "for a song," announces that "any English gentleman may have the use of it to Plorence, Geneva, or other given point on the road homewards, for paying the post- in f'." Does a party travelling " vetturino" wish for two or more to complete cargo? or does a solitary tourist desire to visit Tivoli or Prescati in company ? the wish in these, or similar cases, is proclaimed in a short notice, inviting further conference, affiche to Signer Piale's book- shelves, as the only advertising medium in Eome. " Vacant! four places in a torchliglit party to the Vati- can,'' was an announcement which caught my eye one morning, and led to further inquiries, which resulted in engaging for " self and fellows" the vacancies, and thereby bringing away some recollections of those wondrous halls of statuary, more indelible than a series of visits made in the glJire of sunshine, and the stream of visitors on open days, could have impressed on the mind. A night visit to the Vatican is a matter involving some expense, and requiring, it is said, some diplomatic nego- tiation, through artistic dragomanship, with the chamber- lain, or master of the Vatican Palace ; of this, however, I can speak nothing positive, for my party had been framed and arranged before I was an admitted participator. I l2 148 GLEANIKGS APTEB " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. beHeve the affair must be committed to some sculptor of recognised position in Eome, who must himself make one of the party, as lecturer on the beauties, arranger of the lights, and, moreover, as held answerable for the decorum and good conduct of his convoy. The party must not exceed t^'elve persons, exclusive of the keepers and Swiss Guards, and but one party is admissible each night. The expense is considerable ; hence the anxiety to have the full complement, that the proportional charge may be lighter to each. The items of this charge are, for the keepers detained on their posts after public hours, for Smss Guards on extra duty, obliged to go round with the visitors, and themselves, in their picturesque " Mi- chaelAngelo-e^gwe" costumes, constituting not the least striking part of the exhibition. In fact, a night-party to the Vatican may be considered tantamount to running a " special train" on a railway ! which, inasmuch as it puts the whole establishment on the alert for that single business, must be paid for accordingly ; and adding to this the price of lights necessary, which alone may be set down at four or five pounds! the whole charge is not very unreasonable at about fifteen pounds ! The charge for "lights" may seem excessive, but re- member that it is, as it should be, for « wax-lights I-iUu- mination fit for men and gods alike." Some years ago, when the conflict raged as to the mode of lighting the Houses of Parliament, though reason might demand a vote for the " philosopher's light," I must own my feel- ings all ranged themselves on the side of stout old Sir Frederick Trench, when he hoisted the flag of the " wax " AD STATTJAS"— THE VATICAN BY TOECHLIGHT. 149 candle" as the "light for gentlemen"— if for gentlemen, a fortiori, much more for GentHe gods and emperors, who had reigned and flourished before "Bude light," "gas," or other " new light" was invented. I found this feeling come strongly over me as I saw whole hecatombs of wax candles binding in bundles to fasten into the huge re- flecting lanterns, so contrived as to throw the light full on the statues, and from the spectators ; I then felt to the full that any other kind of illumination would have been an unsuited intrusive accompaniment in our visit to the white purity of ancient sculpture ; the reek of oil-smoke, or the droppings of an ill-held oil-lamp, would have been an abomination in these classic halls. The glare of gas (could we have commanded it) would have flared flaunt- ingly and impertinently on the grave majesty of the andents ranged before us, whereas our shaded wax-lights gave exactly the kind and degree of illumination which became the scene— clear, cleanly, fragrant, and not over- powering ; even though a wax-dropping should profane the Parian smoothness of " the Apollo," it would yield as easily " ad un^uem'' now, as when of old the sculptor's nail proved the perfection of his work, and now, as then, leave no unworthy stain ; so that, in every point of view, with "the stout old Tory" I cry, "the wax-light for gentlemen for ever!" Our "rendezvous" was fixed for half-past nine o'clock, and the Piazza of St. Peter's, silvered in one corner by the pale moonlight, whHe the rest of the vast area lay in deep shadow, was in itself a "thing of beauty" worth a visit at such an hour. We had arrived some time before the 150 GLEAJSrrCfGS attee " geaj^d totje"-ists. others, and as eacli successive carriage drove up to tHe Vatican porch, the roll of the wheels and horses' hoofs, startling the echoes of the deserted passages, was striking in the extreme, while the Pope's Swiss Guard, standing to their arms to receive the visitors and inspect the voucher of admission, was an exhibition in itself. When the party had all assembled, a slight delay occurred, as the officer in command told off a certain number of his men to attend us ; and while this was being done I sauntered forward to a point of view which, often as I had stood, and " turned and turned again" to admire, never palled upon my sense of the beautiful— I mean the long perspective from the first landing of the "Scala Eegia" towards the Vatican entrance. I can recal nothing so entirely satisfying my idea of the stately in architecture, and the proportionate in perspective, as this unrivalled staircase. The Scala di Giganti at Venice is, in its measure, fine, and in historic associations interesting, but it wants the elegance and vista-like lengthening which constitute the secret of the effect of the " Scak Eegia" of the Vatican; and when I reached the first landing, the downward perspective to the entrance seemed "immeasurably spread" into a gloom, terminated by the pale gleamy light of the moon as in a background, across which the guards and others in the porch flitted with twinkling lanterns in their hands like shadows ; while the position in which I stood was still and sombre as the entrance of a marble tomb. It was just one of those situations and moments to make an uneffaceable impression. I find, daily, scenes and incidents of travel gradually rubbing out of the tablet of memory ; but this, I "ad STATUAa"— the VATICAN BY TOBCHLlGnT. ISL think, is one which will hold its ground until the tablet wears out beneath it. All was in order at last, and I rather felt, than saw, that the main body of the party was moving up towards me —I heard a hum of subdued voices, and saw mere sparks of light gleaming phosphorescently in the distance— but all approached with a processional gravity becoming the place. I do not know if " silence" be one of the regu- lated conditions of a night-visit to the Vatican ; but it seems as if such order would have beeij superfluous ; for I doubt much if the noisiest chatterer, or most giggHng miss in Eome would have been disposed to insult the majesty of the reigning silence by a smartness or a laugh. We moved on through " Loggia" and " Galleria," famiHar enough by day, but now showing strange and ghostly in the dubious and shifting glimmer of our lanterns. At the entrance of the Lapidarian Gallery we found the cmtodi of the Museum reaxiy to attend us ; we traversed this fitting avenue to the halls beyond, having its extent of wall covered, on the one hand,, with the clear cut, classical, and cheerless epitaphs of the heathen dead, weU con- fronted on the other by the primitive Christian's Ian- guage of faith and hope in hk death, carved in the rude gravings of men too earnest to be finical. At the further end of this street of tombs, the portals of the halls of statuary unclose, and here the preparations for our illumi- nation were completed by binding whole sheaves of long wax candles in bundles of about a dozen each. These bundles were placed in open kntems, on long poles, having a dark side to interpose between the light and us. 152 GLEANITTGS AFTEB " GEAND TOirB"-ISTS. These the attendants bore in front, as the lictors may have been supposed to have heralded the Eoman magistrates of old, and we moved on, marshalled by Mr. M ,* the sculptor, who directed the whole. This gentleman, at inter\^als, called a halt, directed the light-bearers how to place themselves near particular statues and at different points of view, so as to give us, arranged at a distance, the best effects of light, shade, and drapery. During these pauses we were favoured with certain passages of profound sculptHa lore, which would probably have edified us more if they had not been delivered with rather too much of the mannerism of a pedant and the monotony of a showman. But no amount of pedantry or formality could destroy the wondrous effect of the Vatican statues, contemplated at leisure without the interruption of crowds, and with light and shade so arranged as to impart to solid stone drapery an almost ethereal transparency, and giving to the noble Grecian or Eoman profiles around the ex- pression of all but breathing Hfe ! Few Vatican visitors will have forgotten a bust of the "young Augustus," a wonderful conception of refined beauty in that transient stage between the boy and the man — " Ere sorrow yet has dimm'd the eye, Or time has taught to sow in tears." This beautiful bust seldom lacked a gazer or group of ♦ There are two gentlemen of this name in Rome. I had made the acquaintance of one of them in his studio ; and a chief inducement to join the party had been the hope of being gratified by his clear and m- telligent expositions of the rules of his art, and the beauties of the Va- tican statuary ; but— it was the other Mr. M we had ! " AD BTATUAS"— THE TATICAIT BY TOECHLIGHT. 153 gazers, endeavouring to read in the youthful expression of the lord of the "Augustan Age" those elements of cha- racter traceable in the more developed features of his statue at Tlorence, and which marked and stained the after-career of him who, as the price of empire, delivered up Cicero to the slaughter, and, both by his patronage and example, gave to his times that tinge of refined sensuality which marks, as with a date, the incipient decline of the sterner virtues of old Eome. Looked at in the daylight, one might imagine that something false and dissolute could be traced in the lineaments of the impas- sive marble ; but, with the warm glow of torchlight on the features, giving a blush of life and youthful modesty to the rounded cheeks and exquisitely-chiselled profile, it seemed almost impossible to connect deceit or vice with a countenance which might well have been the original for the line " Ingenui puer vultus— ingenmque pudoris." We looked for a fine effect from the lighting-up of the colossal and allegoric statue of the NHe, but were disap- pointed. The massive body and recumbent attitude of the principal figure, and the confused shadows thrown by the smaller, made the whole, as it were, a great blotch in the midst of a galaxy of light ; and with one consent we turned from this monster allegory to feast our eyes upon three figures in the same haU, which may probably be called the masterpieces of draped statuary, and which stood near and perfect in their several types of execution. These were a "Juno" (a true " Eegina Divum ") ; the "Minerva,'^ called the "Minerva Medica"-a model of draped ma- 154i i> GLEASHJTGS APTER " GEAJ^D TOTIE -ISTS jesty ; while not far off stood tlie " Mother of Germa- nicus," graceful in the robes of a Eoman matron, and con- testing with the Divinities the palm of excellence. The lights were so disposed as to give the draperies of these magnificent statues the effect of transparencies, and almost to delude the beholder into a belief that the robes, which fell in graceful folds about their persons, might have been held up, examined as to their texture, or rearranged by the hand of a tirewoman ! With a remark, en passant ^ that the effect of basso- relievo sculpture is wonderfully Irouglt out by the judi- cious placing of torchlight, let us hasten our party to the Belvedere Cabinets, in the common anxiety to examine how, in the Laocoon group, " A father's love, and mortal's agony, With an immortal patience blending," would show by torchlight ; and also to prove whether the day-god's power to "enchant the world" would survive the set of his own luminary, and prevail into " the witch- ing hours of night." When first I paid my " devoirs " to these chefs-d'oeuvre of sculpture in their retired and peculiar closets, I was disposed to murmur at the judgment which withdrew them from the general exhibition, and from asserting their su- periority in immediate comparison with and against all competitors. Eeflection and experience, however, have corrected this first opinion, aad I now fully subscribe to the fitness of the arrangement, which affords what may be called the " private entree " to each admirer, and allows him to give his individual attention to the models of ex- " AD STATTJAS"— THE TATICAS BY TQECHLIGHT. 155 cellence before him. I can now, too, better appreciate that genuine modesty in which the great modern sculptor complained of having his " Boxers " retained in too close proximity to the shrine, where, during the enforced ab- sence of the presiding divinity, they had not unbecommgly stood as " loca tenentesr As specimens of modem sculp- ture, and of their own type of art, the " Creugas and Da- moxenes" of Canova are far above standard exceUence, and may, without question, take a first rank. But when "The Apollo" resumed his pedestal, it was but scant iustice and an ambiguous compliment to hold his substi- tutes to the test of a constant comparison between then: plebeian attitudes and the "beautiful disdain" of his commanding aspect-between their coarse, muscular de- velopment of thews and sinews, and that magnificent M of strength and beauty so weU described by one of his laureates as " Too fair to worship, too divine to love." The ApoUo SUM stand alone, aHke witt reference to allowing the beholder to enjoy with undivided attention, and to the unfeirnesB to any known statue, ancient or modem, of being placed in invidious comparison, unless, indeed, we are to except his female counterpart, the pre- Biding goddess of the Florentine tribime-" the Venus ! The torch-bearers were so placed behind the Apollo and Laocoon as to be quite hid from the spectators; we saw but the rich glow from their lights thrown upwards and through the marble. I bave occasionaEy read, but cannot profess to have understood, dissertations upon the dot- ferent quaHties of the ancient marbles of statuary, the 156 >> GLEAlflNGS AFTEK " GBAND TOUR -ISTS. « Pentelic" and "Parian," the " Greek and Italian." I am unable to enter into their qualities, but it is certain that there are differences observable even by an unin- structed eye ; for while one kind of marble presents, on its surface, a gritty and crystalline structure, another offers to sight, as well as touch, a compact flesh-like density, giving the appearance, as well as reality, of the highest finish ; and yet it was this most seemingly dense marble which proved the most permeable by ^the strong torchlight held behind it, and allowed the imagination to realise most the idea of an etherealised body, luminous and glowing, in a light never vouchsafed to the eye of common visitors, and which better enables the beholder to take in the conception said to be embodied in the statue of Apollo as the " Python Slayer," when " Burns his indignant cheek with vengeful fire, And his lip quivers with insulting (?) ire. Firm fixed his tread, yet light, as when on high He walks th' impalpable and pathless sky." I have borrowed these lines from Milman's prize poem on the Apollo, and doing so, venture to question the fitness of one, and hut one, of the epithets in these polished couplets ; " insulting" is scarce the term for the expression of the " heav'nly archer's" face; the con- sciousness of achieved conquest, and the ease of nerved and resistless power, are the prevailing characters of the countenance, while the term insulting seems low, and of the earth earthy— scarce worthy of the subject, or suited to the otherwise well-selected epithets of this short first- fruits of Mr. Milman's poetic taste and feeling. To dwell upon the other busts and statues to which our " AD BTATUAS"— THE VATICAK BT TOECHLIGHT. 157 attention was in turn directed, would be tedious. We grew somewhat weary at last of studying the minutiae of light and shade, and there was relief and great enjoyment in Imgering behind the torch-bearers and viewing the grander effects of Hght thrown into the obscurity of these vast halls, and catching transient gleams reflected back from the endless and solemn array of dignity, beauty, inteUect, and majesty through which we passed along. The wonder of these larger scenes of illumination is not least impressive in pas^g through the Hall of Animals, where, in every variety of posture and expression, " ram- pant," salient, "passant," "couchant," the monsters of the forests rage, roar, crouch, or couch around you ; but the crowning effect of the exhibition is when the lights are so disposed as to enable us to take our stand on the stair- case leading to what is called the " Hall of the Car," and look into the downward perspective of the halls below, until the illumination shaded off into most profound gloom. Here was, indeed, a wondrous effect, presenting an unmatched combination of statuary and architecture, while in the foreground, in strong relief, stood out one of the huge porphyry " sarcophagi," supposed once to have held the ashes of an empress, and now furnishing a " stage property" for an exhibition to a motley group of stranger tourists ; the contrasts and sense of contrast forced upon one at every step we tread in Old Eome are endless and overwhelming.* Night wanes, and our wax-lights wax low, and it is time to retrace our steps through the long avenues of these stem, stony ancients : there is a relief in the feeHng that * See Appendix. "J / 158 0=LEANIKGS AFTEE " GEAIfD TOTO -18TS. we have accompUshed tlie expedition, and yet a desire occasionally to linger a while by some statue not enough studied in our onward route ; but no ! the rule is " ab- solute''— no pause on the return journey through the Vatican. We pass the halls on our return regularly and rapidly, but once more I contrive to have a look at the party descending the beautiful length of the palace-stair- case and hall beyond, and to descend it alone with nothing to disturb the effect but the echo of my own footsteps ; and to make the most of my enjoyment, I paced the haU so slowly, that on emerging into the moonlight of the piazza I was greeted with a scolding suggestion " that I had better keep watch on the * Scala Eegia' all night/' I received the correction as meekly as Dickens's " Mr. Davis," who was for ever losing himself in the tombs and deserted passages of " Old Eome." i 9 A NIGHT WITH ANTHONY PASQTJIN, IN 1851. 159 CHAPTEE IX. A NIGHT WITH ANTHONY PASQUIN, IN 1851. " A BLOT, no blot untn hit," is a truism which extends beyond the backgammon table ; many a man undergoes and escapes dangers, upon which, when he looks back, it must be with wonder at the temerity and childish daring which led him into them. Had I read that chapter of " Whiteside's Italy," entitled " A Night Walk in Eome," hefore instead of after my visit to the "Eternal City," I more than doubt that I would ever have paid my respects to Anthony Pasquin, except in broad daylight. Another Httle incident gives a startling interest to the escapade of a man who, having seen fifty winters, cannot plead youthful blood in excuse for an act of rashness. Our lodgings were in the Via di' Condotti, at the corner of the street" Mario di' Piori"— a house cheerful enough in the daytime, but with one of those awful outer haUs from a nook of which an assassin might any evening start forth upon his victim in the twilight with a desperate advantage. The ^ian-ierreno, or ground-floor, of the opposite house was occupied by a baker, " Boulanger Ancien," as his door-sign styled him ; and how weU I remember his clean if 1- I 160 »» GLEANINGS APTEE " GEAKD TOUE -ISTS white apron and " mealy face," as he used to lounge in the sun at his door with that '' far niente'' air which is cha- racteristic of the Roman shopkeeper ; bj association of ideas, he always recalled to me the stanza of Tennyson's "Miller's Daughter:'* »' I see the wealthy miller yet, His double chin, his portly size ; And who that knew him could forget The busy wrinkles round his eyes ? The slow wise smile that round about His dusty forehead drily curled, Seemed half within, and half without. And full of dealings with the world." Who would think that this picture of " one so jolly and so good" would, now and evermore, stand connected in my memory with violence and blood ? Yet so it is. Wo left Eome early in May, just as theEomans were beginning to liint their impatience of "foreign occupation" and T'rencli fraternite by using their daggers against obnoxious indi- viduals, and by night-encounters with patrols ; some liveB had already been lost before our departure, and it was, I think, at Milan that I first read a newspaper giving, among the " Eoman news," the following startling incident as de- tailed in the journals of the day : " A few evenings since, just as twilight was falling, an individual, with a loud cry, staggered wildly from the Via Mario di' Fiori, across the Condotti, into the ' Boulanger Ancien,' and calling in frantic tones for a priest, sank on the floor of the botega, weltering in his blood; it chanced that a Franciscan was passing at the moment, who made his way through the crowd which immediately collected, and was soon at the side of the dying man, busied in offering him the last offices of religion, for which there was but scant time, for the suflFerer breathed his last while attemptmg to pour his confession into the venerable man's ear. Rumours of all kinds as to the cause of his death were quickly spread, but the A NIGHT WITH ANTHONY PASQUIN, IN 1851. 161 crowd was dispersed, without obtainmg any certainty on the subject, by the approach of a French patrol from the Piazza di Spagna. Some whispered that the dead man had fallen a victim to political enmity ; others, that he had been a citizen passing accidentally, and assassinated in mistake for some obnoxious individual ; but a third and more probable rumour hinted that he was a young noble famous for his gallantries, and that he had met his fate in prosecuting or attempting some mtrigue. The French patrol took possession of the shop, which they closed, and a secret investigation was carried on within, the result of which had not transpired ; so that all is at present wrapped in mystery, and adds to the general alarm and disquiet pervading the city." The poor baker! when I think of his clean, well-ap- pointed shop, usually " made misty with the floating meal," now dabbled with blood, and disturbed by a murderer's victim gasping out life on the floor,— then the crowd,— and the passing monk bending over the dying man,— and the crucifix,— all these form a vision mingling strangely with my reminiscdiices of Eome ; and it becomes doubly in- teresting in the thought, that had I lingered there a few days longer, I should probably have been looking down from my window on the scene as it actually occurred. But what has this to do with Anthony Pasquin ? Much, gentle reader ; because it enhances, on recollection, the sense of unsuspected dangers through which I achieved my nocturnal prank. Eoman streets cannot be said to be ladly lighted, simply because they are not lighted at all ; pass from the " Corso" or the " Via Babuino,'* or one or two other streets, " where the Inglese most do congregate," and you are at once and completely in cimmerian dark- ness. A Monsignore gravely assured me that they had made an experiment in gas, but that the Eoman ladies complained of it as prejudicial to health ! and the ruling powers were only too ready to return to that " grateful 162 OLEASINGS APIEE " GEAND T0TO"-ISTS. Shade," so esBential to the double pursuitB of love and l^ier; and although Mr. Whiteside does speak of the respectful terror with which the Eomans '^^S^-^,,";^" gUsLan "keepiug the crown of the causeway amed ^th his national weapou-a stout oak-stick stUl, had I bethought myself how easily an assassin n>ight have sprun upon me from any of the many dark comers_oh S«^ i /-which I passed to achieve my pasquinade, as- * edly I sho^ild never have ventured forth upon the Chan J of parrying a stiletto with a shillelagh ; hence should never have had a nocturnal -^^ -^t;;^^ tirical tailor of the Piazza Navona, nor would this true tale" ever have been written. So that you perceive gentle reader, that the episode of the baker has somewhat to do with Anthony Pasquin. , . ,,„ Mo.t^ We were driving slowly up the ascent of the Monte Mario to one of the finest points of view in or about Eome,whonA said to me, « Ton are not admiring-you are not looking « Tes " I replied, " I am looking-for a rhyme, and can- not flnd'it. I want to finish an Italian couplet "! At this bravade, from a man who could scarcely ask his way m Italian, and could as soon read an Ogham inscnp^on as a stanza of Axiosto, my lady friends all burst into loud and Tost disrespectful laughter. I looked half affronted and half entreating, as I said, " You should help me, and no^ lau.h at me. I must have this couplet completed m order to an adventure I mean to achieve this very night. In whatever other qualities the ladies, bless then: httle hearts! may be deficient, they are seldom found wanting in curiosity At the word " adventure," they -re -stant^ all attention, interest, and willingness to assist; so that A NIGHT WITn AKTHONT PASQUIN, IN 1851. 163 with tlieir contributions of appropriate words, my epigram was speedily fashioned into the doggerel I desired. But what was the composition ? Simply a fcAV lines I wanted to affix to Pasquin's statue. I had already the sense, or non- sense, I wanted, in good Latin and tolerable English verse ; but as I wished to give the Italians the benefit of John Bull's opinion of some late doings of their "liege lord, the Pope," in their vernacular tongue, I determined, however rudely, to hammer out a version in Italian, in order to complete a tri(jiIot on the following subject. It need scarce be told, that when we left England in the early spring of 1851, to seek health and warm weather in the sunny South, the whole country was in its fiercest paroxysm of anger and alarm at the Papal de- monstration ^f an intention to take England once again under the formal rule and government of " his Holiness," or, in Cardinal Wiseman's inflated language, to restore a " Straying Planet to its place in the Papal firmament." " The Papal aggression fever " was at its height, and among the symptoms not least remarkable was this, that publications whose aim and object lay far apart from poli- tical or theological discussion were seen occupied with the engrossing topic of the day. Among others, that most amusing miscellany, "Notes and Queries," gave, in its number for December, 1850, among its various odds and ends of philology, chronology, folk-lore, and etymology, the following epigram : " Cum Sapiente, Pius nostras juravit in aras ; Impius heu Sapiens, desipiensque Pius." The following rather heavi/ rendering of the above was added : m2 164 GLEANINGS AFTER " GBAND T0TIB"-ISTS. " The -Wiseman and the Pious have laid us underban ; Oh, Pious man, unwise— oh, impious Wiseman. The original couplet took my fancy amazingly, and as I had then my journey to Kome in contemplation, I made a kind of TOW or engagement with myself, that if I ever saw the " seven hill'd city," I would affix it to the great afficU Of stray wit-Pasqnin's statue. I thought the English ver- sion might be better; and, finaUy, that an Itahan one it it could be accomplished, would bring the pomt of the epigram more home to the natives ; hence the bram-cud- eelling process on Monte Mario, which resulted m my producing the following in the form in which it finally saw the light in Eome : " Cum Sapiente, Pius nostras juravit in aras, Impius heu Sapiens, desipiensque Pius." " When a league 'gainst our faith Pope with Cardinal tries, Neither WisQimn is pious, nor Tins i3 wise. «^Quando Papa o cardinale, Chies' Inglese trata male, Qual che chiamo quella gente ? Pio ? no, no— ni Sapiente.'* The point of the Italian is derived from a half-defaced in- scription, which, in spite of police erasure, can even yet he deciphered at Eovigo, in the Lomhardo-Venetian States where the Pope's title and famHy name are, by means of punctuation, turned into a sly satire upon his unchanged and not admired character : " Pio? no, no — ma stai Feretti." Picrn*?— not at all, but still FerettL Great was the laughter of my female critics at the violation of concords and disregard of idiom in my Italian. A NIGHT WITH ANTHONY PASQUIN, IN 1851. 165 They told me, over and over, that the keen-witted natives would make sport of my grammatical blunders ; but I was bent on playing out my play, and as I could do no better, I insisted that " it would do very weU." And when one young lady, who had given me considerable help in putting it together, was, or pretended to be, alarmed, on being told that I meant to afEx it to Pasquin's statue that night, I assured her, that if the Pope's police should catch me in the fact, I would assuredly name her as my accompHce in murdering " la lingua Toscana.'' I could make my way through Eome tolerably weU in broad daylight; we had akeady driven several times to the Piazza Navona, a favourite resort of ladies curious in those showy silk scarfs-the solitary manufacture of Eome in the way of textile fabrics ; but I knew it was quite a different affair to make my way thither in the dark. No fear of the stiletto ever crossed my thoughts, but I did dread somewhat the losing my way, as soon as I had left the beaten track for the defiles of the by-streets of Eome ; however, I took my bearings and observations as well as I could, while we drove about in the daylight. My last landi^ark was the great Palazzo Borghese, and turning down to the left hand from that, I was to go forth with " Providence my guide ;" but whether in the whole affair I was tempting or trusting Providence?! truly this is a question which, on reflection, I do not much care to look in the face. . There were sundry jokes among the young people when I made known my intention at the dinner-table ; they one and aU declared that they expected to hear of me from the Castle of St. Angelo next morning, and amused themselves 166 n GLEANINGS iiPTEE " GRAND TOUB -ISTS. by speculating which of our Koman friends should be ap- pHed to to " bail me out." One young lady, more " learned in the law " than the rest, gravely asked me, " What kind of Habeas Corpus Act they had at Eome ?" to whom I as gravely replied, that " The Roman Habeas Corpus had no force save in the Eoman province of Limbo ; at least, that I never heard that they pretended to liberate the oppressed from any other part of the Papal territories." The evening wore on, the short twilight of the South deepened into darkness, and by nine o'clock all was quiet as the grave. I sallied forth for my expedition, armed with my epigram in legible print-hand in one pocket, a gum-bottle (!) in the other, and a stout stick in my hand. Pasquin's statue is generally said to stand on the Piazza Navona, but this is not quite correct : it stands at the corner of the Palazzo Braschi, in a street leading into the Piazza, and at a point where several streets converge. It is now— whatever it may have been— a mere clumsy torso —a block of stone, " sam head, sans arms, sans feet." Re- port says that more than one Pope had attempted to re- move this foundling hospital for stray and often stinging satires, but that the o^^-ne^ of the adjacent palace has always claimed property in the fragment, and refused to allow it to be taken away. It is said that the Pontiffs ac- knowledged the rights of property, but that, acting on the celebrated maxim of- "property has its duties as well as rights," the princely owner was informed that he should stand responsible for every waggery or witticism fathered upon his statue. Prom the date of this " respon- sibility," the wit of Pasquin is said to have waned and faded considerably. I was ignorant of all these particulars A NIGHT WITH ANTHONY PASQUIN, IN 1851. 167 When I determined to make the Italian tailor speak my triglot epigram to the public* . . ^ LaJg^heBorghesePalace on the right, I d-d do^ a long street running parallel to the Corso, at the bottom waswo^t to give hJ3 ^■^^2:l^:C,^^l^:^^^.J^ suppressed and expensive wk, P«M'^l'f'>^«"* ,7 entMed " PASQckLOBtm Libei wherever Papal authority could reach ''-;°*f ^^^ ^^^ ,,^„e th«. D„o," -^^rT^^Z^^sl^^ Pap^ t:Hty, profligacy, are now -^-^^S;* Xf^oTrbeL placarded with a ft^^^^^^ impiety, seem in those ^''y^^VTl^^iJ.^^M tarried so long iu break- (( ON ALEXANDER VI. Vendidit Alexander claves, altarla, Christum— Emerat ille prius, venderejure potest" Our Pope keys, masses, Christ himself as well, Has bartered-surely he who buys may seU I ON LUCRECE BORGIA. « Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re Thais—Alexandri Jilia, sponsa, mirus. \ Here Ues one chaste in name, impure in life, In Uw Pope's daughter, but, in/oc^ his-wife . ON LEO X. u Sacra sub extremd, si forte requiritis hord ^ Cur Leo nonpotuit sumere ?-vendiderat. Leo died hostless. Do you ask me why ? Who sold the Host may well unhousell d die . ON THE PHTSICXAN WHO WAS SAID TO HAVE KILLED POPE CLEMENT. » Curtius occidit Clementem f^Curtiusauro I)omndus,per quern pvhlica parta salus. Did Curtius doctor Clement ?-so, 'tis told, His country saved, he's worth his weight m gold. 168 »» GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND TOIJR -ISTS. of which I had previously marked a church by which I was to turn, and a few paces down a dark lane brought me to the near comer of the Piazza Navona. Pasquin stood at the opposite end of the same side of the square, and I had nothing to do but to follow the line of houses to arrive at the scene of action ; this was quickly done. I retired under a dark archway nearly opposite the statue, and prepared my placard as well as I could; I am sure I wasted my gum " pretty considerably," and what between haste, darkness, and trepidation, I made but a clumsy bill- sticker after all. At length all was ready ; but though there was scarce a soul passing, I could not get the streets perfectly free of passengers. There I stood, like a spider in his web- hole, ready to dart across the way the moment I could get a clear stage ; but whenever I prepared to rush forth, I was sure to hear the echo of approaching footsteps, and was obliged to wait again until they died away in the distance ; all this while I had ample leisure to consider the following pleasant questions: Suppose a Trench patrol, or some of the Koman police, should come by and perceive me in my lurking-place, should require me to give an account of myself, or to explain my business there, what could I say in such a case ? What probable or satisfactory account could I offer for my silly under- taking which would be intelligible to them, or, if intelli- gible, would not compromise me the more ? In short, I was becoming nervous; I began to think my pretended apprehensions might turn out sad realities, and that it was quite within possibilities that morning might dawn upon me in the Castle of St. Angelo. A NIGHT WITH ANTHONY PASQUIN, IK 1851. 169 At length the coast seemed really clear, not a sound broke the silence of the street ; I darted across, hastHy stuck my gummed paper on the side of the statue, and then took to my heels as fast as I could run. " Conscience makes co^vards of us all" — yes and fools as weU as cowards. Had I reflected for a moment, I should have seen that I was doing the very thing to make myself an object of suspicion a^d remark. As it happened, I met no patrol ; but had I done so, any soldier or sbirro of the commonest intelligence must have suspected something wrong, in meeting an elderly gentle- man " fat, and scant of breath," posting along at my rate of going. As itVas, I met no one ; but after a minute or two of hard running, my breath failed, and I was obliged to pull up, and look about me. Conceive my dismay. I found that I had not the remotest idea where I was; in my headlong haste I had run away at the wrong dde of the statue, and instead of being in the open piazza, I found myself in some street, where the taU houses nodded overhead in a homble proximity, threatening me with many of Juvenal's » mMe perioula s<^p), common upon Catacomb tombs for the name of Cheist). He remarks that along the whole length of the lapidarian gallery not one invocation or mention of the Virgin Mary is to be found ; and thus, for what it is worth, offers from these records of the first five centuries a line oi negative evidence against the idea of the early Christians having known or believed those 178 GLEAITINGS AFTEE " GEA1?D T0TJE".ISTS. things whicli were rejected at the great Protestant return to primitive doctrine three centuries since. In respect to -invoking the suffrages of the faithful departed " Mr. Maitland acknowledges that one record wHch he examined does contain such an invocation, but had he been looking for them he might have seen more, and admitted their existence without materiaUy impairmg his argument, for certainly three or four more do exist, and his opponents have been very careful to collect and produce them, as if designedly passed over by him. Yet it does aeem to me, that so far from impairmg Mr. Maitland s argument, these few records strengthen it, upon the prm- ciple of " exceptio prolat regulamr If, from the Catacomb gaUeries, stretching, as is asserted, under and round Eome, « hundreds of miles," and from their lapidary inscriptions, amounting to hundreds of thousands ! but three or four (let us assume that they might amount to a dozen) could be found, asking the prayers of the departed-and these, not (as has been observed) on the tomb of saint or martyr, but on that of some little child, or proceeding from some ignorantly affectionate person-then, assuredly, the mfer- ence is, that it was not the Catholic usage nor faith of the Church of the first ages to ask such intercession. It is a remarkable fact in reference to these questions, that the old Eomish writers upon the Catacombs would appear to have been quite unsuspicious that any missile could be discharged from that quarter agamst the al- leged novelties of the Eoman creed. ArringMs "Eoma Subterranea" is an elaborate work, giving sheet after sheet of Catacomb inscriptions, to the number of thousands, and like Mr. Maitland, I have been unable to find therem a single inscription affirming any of the disputed tenets ; " EOMA SUBTEEEANEA" — " AD CATACUMBAS.'* 179 yet, strange to say, no sooner had Mr. Maitland taken the line of argument indicated above, than several inscriptions have been produced with a suspicious readiness which almost leads to a doubt whether the manufacture of ancient epitaphs, as of verdigrised coins and other modern antiquities, may not be among the resources of Eoman industry. It would be, at least, as easy to invent and cir- culate an "inscription" as a '^ decretal T Those lapidary inscriptions had a strange fascination for me ; I spent hours in copying them in fac-simile, until ab last I could transfer the Graeco-Latine characters to my note-book with ease, and as rudely as any primitive " Fossor" They presented a strange medley of cha- racters and languages, sentiments and spelling. The blun- ders and ludicrous ideas of our English country church- yard epitaphs are often noticed, but, without doubt, they might be matched in these records of that Augustan and post- Augustan age, when some people suppose that even the very fish- wives of Eome scolded in Ciceronian Latin! One great interest of these Catacomb records lies in the contrast they present to the contemporary sentiments of heathen graves. It has been well said, that our world, long " christened J has never yet been cJiristianised^ This is too sadly true ; yet, such is the power of Christianity, even though indirect and imperfect, over mind and senti- ment, that it prevents us from knowing the deep darkness and gross sensualism in which the world lay when " life and immortality were brought to light in the Grospel." But let us go to the " Catacomb Church," and to the adjacent " Columbaria" of heathenism, where the Believer and the Pagan " being dead, yet speak" the language and n2 180 GLEANINGS AFTEE « GRAND T0UE"-ISI3. sentiments of the times in which they lived, and of the spirit that was in them, and there we shall know how to appreciate better our Church's words of challenge and confidence, when, in the beautiful lesson of the " Bur.al Service," she asks, "where is death's sting?" and the grave's victory?" and "thanks God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord." I copy one or two selected contrasts from my note-book, and leave the Heathen and the Christian to speak for themselves : THE CHRISTIAN. CECILIVS MARITVS CECILIAE PLACIDIANAE COIVGI OPTIMAE MEMORIAE CVM QVA VIXI ANNIS X BENE SE NE VLLA QVERELLA ixerc Cecilius, the husband of Cecilia Placidiana. To my wife, of exceUent memory, with whom I lived ten years without any quarrel. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. THE HEATHEN. V: AN. LVII. D: M. TI . CLAVDI . SECVNDI HIC SECVM : HABET OMNIA : BALNEA . VINVM . VENVS CORRVMPVNT . CORPORA . NOSTRA: SED VITAM . FACIVNT B . V . V KARO CONTVBERNALI FEC: MEROPE CAES: ET SIBI ET SVIS . P . E. « EOMA SUBTEEEANEA" — " AD CATACUMBAS." 181 He lived fifty-seven years. To the divine manes of Titus Claudius Secundus. Here he enjoyed all things. Baths, Wine, Women, Destroy our constitutions ; Still they are life ! Baths, Wine, Women. To her dear chamber-fellow Merope Caesarea made this, And for herself and theirs After death. Now when we " look on this picture and on that," it seems impossible not to feel, as it were, the spirit of the two systems emanating from the manes of the respective disciples of each. Trom the tomb of Claudius Secundus, aw^e-Christian Eome speaks its condition, social, moral, and domestic. The sensual worn-out Heathen, dead just at the time of life when " love, respect, and honour, troops of friends" should- have begun to crown and wait on a « green old age lusty and kindly," is here chronicled by his degraded wife as a self-indulging debauchee— a *' genuine hog from the Epicurean sty ;" whUe the moral spoken from his monument to survivors is that Sad- ducean sentiment which the Apostle quotes as its own condemnation—" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." When we turn to the Christian epitaph, there is not, it is true, much in it, so to speak. I, who have seen the original, am bound to acknowledge it is a shabby affair altogether: neither style, spelling, nor grammar, are at all creditable to the designer, or engraver of the memorial. I dare to say 182 G1EANIKG8 AFTEE " OEAND T0UB"-ISTS. Cecilius and Cecilia were considered humdrum, common- place kind of people by those « fast" livers " Claudius and Merope •" but there is a hearty, homely, manly strain of propriety and domestic affection in it, which bespeaks them of the number of those who "Uyed soberly, righteously godly in this present world," and were able to look beyond Ft to a better, for the « appearing of their Lord and Sayiour Je«us Christ ;" they were just the sort of people to verify the assertion of the early Christian apologist, '^ Non magna loQuimur sed vivimvs." If the foregoing presents a forcible contrast in moral and domestic life, the following offers a no less striking picture of the difference between the chastened sorrow of the Christian and the wild, impotent rebeUion of the Heathen under those providential inflic- tions common to all men, to which humanity is born " as the sparks to fly upwards." There is a well-known story of the poor Indian savage who, when he had for some time prayed in vain to his unsightly idol for success in hunting at length in rage took his god, made of a tree-stock, and dashed him against the ground: his savage fit was soon over, and probably changed into shame and fear; but what shall we say to the cultivated, gentile mother who, in her hour of sorrow, thus engraves in classic correct- ness her desperate defiance of heaven above and heU be- neath? Hers is the desolation of a Niobc, but it is ot a Niobe "fur ens" not " lachrymosa." " EOMA SITBTEEBANEa"— " AD CATACUMBAS }> 183 CLAVDIA HEDONE ]VIATER INFELICISSIM : QVAE . ANN CONTINVIS IIII . CLAVDIVM HEDONVM - FIL - PIISSM . ANN XXVII . ET FILIAES - FIL - TITIA PEREGRINA . AN . VII. ET TITIA FELICVLA FIL CARISSI AN . XXIX . EGO SEMPITERN TEMPORE ETIAM APVT SVPER: ET INFEROS . MALEDICT. HABEO . QVISQ LEGER SI TAMEN PIVS EST NECESSE EST VT DOLEATVR. D- M- TITIAE FELICIAE VIX . AN XXIV CLAVDIA. HEDONE MATER INFELICISS. Claudia Hedone, a most unhappy mother, who, in four suc- cessive years, Cost) her most pious son Claudius Hedone, aged 27 years, and her granddaughter Titia Peregrina, 7 years, and Titia Felicula, her most beloved daughter, 29 years. For ever will I hold gods, celestial and infernal, accursed. All who read this, however pious, must needs gneve. To the divme manes of Titia Felicia, who lived 29 years. Claudia Hedone, a mother most wretched.* Now, when we place in comparison with this the disci- plined spirit in which Christianity teaches its professors to speak, when enduring the chastisement of the Lord, as of a father, who "doth not willingly afflict," and all whose dealings " work for good to them that love Him," the con- trast may be left to justify itself, between the mind of the mother who would " curse God and die," and of those • This inscription was not copied at Rome; though doubtless ongi- naUy^ ugM f^om thence. It caught my eye while resting x^seK after afoL of the Halls of Sculpture, in the ^^Z\J:2oT'gZ^ scribed it as speaking the very spirit of an affliction without God, " hope," or knowledge of " another and a better world. 184 GLEANINGS AFTEH " GEAND TOUIl"-ISTS wlio "taugbt to let patience have its perfect work," cau *' glorify God in tlie day of visitation." MACVS . PVER INNOCENS ESSE lAM INTER INNOCENTIS COEPISTI. QVAM STAVILES TIVI HAEC VITA EST QVAM TE LETVM EXCIPIET MATER ECLESIAE DEO E MVNDO REVERTENTEM. CONPREMATVR PECTORVM GEMITVS. STRVATVR FLETVS OCVLORVM. Macus, an innocent boy. Ton have now begun to be among the innocent. How enduring is this life to you. How gladly will your mother receive you Returning to the Church of God from this world. Be the groans of our bosoms repressed, The tears of our eyes dispersed.* All the humanised and simplified affections of domestic life speak to us from these Catacomb monuments. Whether it be the love of husband to wife, of parent to child, or conversely,! it is recorded in a tone of feeling * I have selected this contrasted epitaph rather than others breathing the same spirit, because I must respectfully think that Mr. Maitland, who gives a version of it, seems to have misconceived its meaning to an extent requiring correction. He renders it thus : " Macus, an innocent boy. You have already begun to be among the innocent. How enduring is such a life to you. How gladly will your mother, the Church of God, Receive you returning to this world. Let us restrain our sighs and cease from weeping." As I read the text, it will not admit of the latter part of this transla- tion by any rule of construction. f In an age when "the slave was a chattel," and "the master too often a tyrant," it would not be right to omit an evidence that the Christian Church recognised and acted on those precepts (Eph. vi. and Colos. iii., iv.) which regulated the reciprocal duties of masters and ser- Tants by reference to their common " Master in heaven, with whom h no respect of persons." In the lithograph fac-simile, at the end of this " EOMA SUBTEEEANEA" — " AD CATACUMBA3." 185 which expresses the sanctifying influence of Christian marriage ; and if we could,— if we dared to place in contrast some of the glimpses given in heathen popular writers of the foul thing heathen marriage was !— we should compel even the vilest to own, from what a " given over" state of iniquity God sent His Son to redeem the world. But, as has been said, we dare not show the lane; we must, there- fore, be content to exhibit the results of the antidote : DGNAE bene// MERENTI CON PARI . MERCVRIAE QVAE VIXIT AN NIS. P.M:XL SINE ALIQVA QVERELA A : DEP. D. XVII KAL NOB. HEROS. FECIT SIBI: ET CONPARI SVAE To his worthy and weU-deserving spouse Mercuria, who lived forty years, more or less ! without any quarrel, and was buried the 17th of the Kalends of November. Heros made this for himself and his spouse. The Alpha and Omega Christ This is a common form of conjugal afi-ection. The parental feeling also speaks in many cases with an affectmg sim- chapter, will be found the poor servant-maid's memorial to ^^r mart^^ master, and below we copy some master's record of his servant s fidelity. HIC siTVS NOTA TVS 5ERVVS FIDE LiSSiMVS T.mr'?-^"'^*''*'- 186 GIEAHINOS ATTEE " OBAHD TOTTb' '-ISTS. plicity most interesting to contemplate. Who wiU not sympathise in the poor father's prolixity as he records the good quaUties of that precocious and promising chUd, Palmatius ? COPIED IN THE « COLLEGIO ROMANO.' ' DALMATIO DVLCISSIMO TOTI VS INGENIOSITATIS AC SAPIENTI AE PVERO QVEM PLENIS SEPTEM AN vjq PERFRVI PATRI INFELICI NON LICV n S^SSTY^^^S LITTERAS GRAECAS NON MONSTRATAS SIBI LATINAS ADRIPYIT ET IN TRIDVO EREPTVS EST REBVS HVMANIS HI ID FER NATVS VIII KAL APR DALMATIVS PATER FEC. I To Dalmatius, a most sweet boy, of the greatest intellect and wisdom, whom his unhappy father conld not enjoy seven years complete; who, untaught, made himself — of ^be Greek and Latin alphabets, and was torn from this hfe by a three-day iUness, the 3rd of the Ides of February. Bom 8th of the Kalends of April. Dalmatius, his father, made this. Poor Dalmatius need hardly liave told us that tlie epitaph was of his composition. Who but a fond father would have thought of recording the alphabet feats of his poor little seven years old prodigy ? To return to the conjugal style of epitaph, and yet one which partakes so much of the childish, that one knows not how to class it, here we have a boy-husband expressmg bis sorrow for his " child-wife," in a style which " David Copperfield" might have copied for the tomb of his poor «'Dora:" " BOMA STJBTEEEAKBA'* — " AD CATACUMBAS." 187 DOMINAE INNOCENTISSIMAE ET DVLCISSIMAE COIVGI QVAE VIXIT ANN XVI. ]MVII. ET FVIT IMARITATA ANN DVOBVS MIIII DVIIII CVM QVA NON LIC.VIT FVISSE PROPTER CAVSAS PERIGRINATIONIS NISIMENSIBVS: VI QVO TEMPORE VT EGO SENSI ET EXHIBVI AMOREM MEVM. NVLLIS V ALII SIC DILEXERVNT DEPOSIT XV KAL JVN. To Dominae, my most innocent and sweetest wife, who lived sixteen years and seven months, and had been married two years, four months, and nine days, with whom, on account of travelling, I could not be more than six months. During which period, . as I felt, so I showed my love. None else ever so loved each other ! Buried 15th of the Kalends of June. The boy-widower (for a boy he must have been), does not teU his own name, but the whole story of the inscription is strange and affecting : a girl married at fourteen, dead at sixteen, and separated ''propter causas peregrinationis'' from her husband for a specified number of months and days, making more than two-thirds of their wedded life. Could it have been that the husband was "traveller" or « bagman" to some large wholesale Eoman warehouse ? Or possibly, as Lord Herbert of Cherbury, married at fifteen, was sent back to college to finish his exercises there, so our young Eoman husband was sent in the honeymoon to complete his " grand tour." The case is 188 GLEANINGS AFTEIi " GEAND TOTJE^-ISTS. mysterious ; the only thing evident is, the « boy and girl" affection pervading the epitaph. Who was "Leporus the fisherman?" Little, we dare to say, did the honest fellow think of living in history oh his daughter's tombstone ; and yet the affection of some sorrowing sweetheart has ferried him across the gulf of twelve or fourteen centuries of time, and made him known to us as the parent of his lost love : DVI: DVL: KAR HONEBATIE SANCTIPE AMAVI : II. QVI DECS ^g ANNORVM XVI FILIA LEPORI PISCATORIS SCRP X KAL OCT. SATVR NINVS AMATOR. FF. />/5. I To the divine, sweet, and dearest Honoria Santipe. I loved her. . . . who died in Christ, Aged sixteen years. The daughter of Leporus the fisherman. Written 10th of the Kalends of October. Saturninus, her lover, caused this to he made. Whether Honoria Santipe {ciu. Zantippe?) might not, like her namesake of scolding memory, have turned "love into patience,- "an she had lived to be married," is now but mat- ter of conjecture ; but there is an incoherent, affecting sim- plicity in her lover's record, rounded off as it is with the L hearts at the end, which is interesting. We dare to affirm that Saturninus was a manly, true-hearted young fellow. « KOMA SUBTEERANEA"— " AD CATACUMBAS." 189 We must limit our selections, or in the myriads of Cata- comb slabs, which, besides tliose in the "Vatican Gallery," " Library," and the " CoUegio Eomano," are to be found in every villa about Eome and every provincial town which pretends to a collection of antiquities, we should never come to an end. I shall, therefore, restrict myself to one inscription more, on which I stumbled, when not expecting it, among the curiosities of the Yilla Albani. It illustrates the period when there was " daily ministration to the widows of the faithful," and when a daughter, proud of beiug able to record that her mother never burdened the charities of the Church for even a cloak, engraved the following : RIGIN^ VENEMERENTI . FILIA SVA FECIT VENERIGINE MATRI VIDVAE QVE SE DIT.VIDVA ANNOS LX. ET ECCLESA NVMQVAM GRAVAVIT VNA BIRA. QVE VIXIT ANNOS LXXX MESSIS V. DIES XXVIII. To Regina, the well-deserving. Her daughter erected thb to her respect-inspiring mother, who remained a widow sixty years, and never burdened the Church to the amount of a cloak ! She lived 80 years, 5 months, 28 days. But it is time for us to prepare to descend into the Catacombs themselves, and speak a little of what is seen there. " H Padre Gesuita" kindly appointed a day to be our leader and lecturer through a section of these labyrinthine defiles. He placed no limit to the number or Bex of our party, but only that he should not be expected 190 GLEANINGS AFTER " GBAND T0UE"-I8TS. to traverse tlie streets of Eome in a carriage with a lady, the Jesuit Eule strictly forbidding this. Accordingly we left Eome in a cavalcade of three carriages, the Jesuit, another clerical friend, and myself occupying one. Had any of my " Ultra-Protestant" friends seen us in such danger- ous company, they would have stared and pronounced me " gone to Eome" in all senses. It was not by the " Sebastiano," or any other known en- trance, that we descended to those " caves and lower depths of the earth," it seemed to be a passage accident- aUy discovered, or else formed for the convenience of explorers and workmen, for it was through a small tempo- rary door, opening into the side of a mound in the middle of a field, that our guide led the way. Here we were each provided with a roll of wax-taper, such as are commonly sold in shops, and fastened to the end of a small stick, bo that as we advanced into the windings our array bore something of a processional character. As we passed various little chapel-like openings on each side of the passage, our cicerone stopped occasionally to give a de- scription, to open up a symbol, or to illustrate some point of early Christian worship ; he must have held us as " utter barbarians of the very outer court of the Gentiles, !' ' for his expositions were very elementary indeed, as intended for persons ignorant of the first principles of Christianity, to whom it was necessary to explain the import of everytJiing in the early Christian ritual and usages, and it would not have been poHte, even if it had been possible, for us to have interrupted his routine of explanation. " It was here," said our guide (pausing in a certain crypt), "that Monsignor Talbot celebrated mass for/owr- " EOMA SUBTEEBANEA"— " AD CATACUMBAS." 191 and4wenty Pusegisfs on Sunday " (naming a " high day " some years previous). « II Padre Gesuita," had a rich black twinkling eye ! and it rolled good humouredly upon my companion and myself, as he said this— there was no incivility, but a little civil triumph of manner— in making the announce- ment, and I (for my companion I cannot answer) had no- thing to say to him in reply, though to myself I solilo- quised, "The more fools they!" The service was very symbolical, and suitable for men "loving darkness rather than light." Eeflecting on this incident, I am not sure that I should not have added to my soliloquy, "knaves," as well as " fools." These four-and'twentg Puseyists (so " II Gesuita^ named them), some or more of them, went back to their country, wore the garb, spoke the language, received the pay of the " Church established" in these realms for a longer or shorter period, during which they continued to sow their opinions as broadcast as they could : and then, when convic- tion overmastered them, went out openly, and with bra- vado, to a hostile church to which they had long before gone over in heart and spirit, and with which they had, on the occasion referred to, entered into stealthy and cryptiG communion ! Pie on such principles and practice as this ! there is in them neither morality nor manliness. The man who invented and insinuated such fashion of action among our countrymen has much to answer for, and the practical eff'ect cannot be other than pernicious to the truth and integrity of character in these kingdoms, of which the leading characteristic has long been fair dealing and openness ! 192 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND T0XJE"-ISTS. As Tre proceeded onwards in long array, and wound here and there through avenues and cross avenues, passing by BisoMTJM and Tbisomum, ranged over each other in rows like the compartments of a great monster shop, some of them open, some yet undisturbed-as being either inscrip- tionless, or not offering any matter of interest-we came at length to the part where the workmen were employed in prosecuting excavations, under the control and direction of our guide, to whom, as to a custode, the superintendence of these works had been formally committed by the Pope. They had just opened a tomb as we came up, and having answered the Padre's inquiry, " whether they had found anything ?" in the negative, he desired us to approach. We crowded round, and holding our little tapers close to the edge of the shelf of tuffa, we saw laid in its grim re- pose a skeleton, on which for at least thirteen hundred years neither light had gleamed nor air passed before. ^' Cosi e la vita .'" said the Jesuit, gravely. But while we looked on in silence, a further and touching proof of hu- man nothingness came into action before our eyes. Al- though the skeleton form remained complete when we looked at it first, the admission of air soon began to act upon it perceptibly; we saw it disappearing under our gaze. Even as we looked, it was resolving into atomic dust, and presently nothing remained but an outline traced upon the dry floor of the grave in a substance resembling cheese- mould! and which was visible only when we held the taper so as to throw the light closely along the level on which it lay and crumbled. " Lord ! what is man ?" asks the Psalmist ; and here was the grave answering silently, yet expressively, " Fulvis et nihil /'* " EOMA SUBTEEHANEA" — " AD CATACUMBAS." 193 • We now commenced our return journey through these avenues of the dead. Some venturous young people be- ginning to lose their first awe of this subterranean world, and not at all realising the possible consequences of losing their way, were continually getting into side-passages, and required a watchful eye to keep them in line of march. The Jesuit, who walked the windings with all the confidence of habit and perfect knowledge, was earnest in his warnings of the ease with which the clue might be lost, and the difficulty of finding it again, and we steady ones of the party were very glad when we found ourselves once more in " upper air" without any of our young and giddy con- voy being reported " missing." A modern writer on the Catacombs,* has given a very interesting episode of a young French officer, an " esprit fort^^ who, during the revolutionary occupation of Eome in 1798, having descended with some mad comrades into the Catacombs, had, after a licentious carouse, dashed off alone in drunken daring into the depths and darkness! His friends neither pursued nor waited for him, and, left to pass a night of horror in the city of the dead, his infidel principles failed him, as they do ever in the hour of need, and he was found next morning a subject for an hospital, whence, after the crisis of a brain fever, he emerged a "' sadder and a wiser," a " serious, reverential" man, having buried his scoffing and impiety in the Catacombs ; and the story, as told to the author by an old priest, concludes by saying, that when he fell some years afterwards in a skirmish in Calabria, he was found with " a copy of * Macfarlane. O 194 OMANINOS ArTEE " OEAND I0XTB"-1SIS. the Evangelists in lis poclcet. — be 7i(m e v , trovato." J 4. +„ t»,;, storv in tlie case of a Arringhi has a pendant to this stoiy in certain Abbot " Crescentius," -ho lost h.s way m the clco„,b of St. Priscilla in the year 1596 ; but, m h,s case as „,i.^ht be expected, the honour of the rescue .s claimed for™: samt ! Crescentius, descending under the conduct of so r..shly confident guide, found himself and com pinions in " Lndering mazes lost ;" hope seemed tak n Tay and things come to that pass to which the prophet s ToS would be applicable, " What meanest thou, O smner? Iri and call upon thy God!" The Abbot does rouse tCelf but it is io invoke St. Philip Neri- who answers 'rolnentlie" by showing him "The way out" close .hand. If any one doubt the truth of «-;-;" ^^^J written- in that solid, solemn, elaborate foho, ' Arrmghx s Koma Subterranea," torn. ii. cap. «vm sect. 22 The facsimile inscriptions annexed to th.s chapter are selected from a large collection, as showing --^J^^f; pec^anties ;^^--t:art'; lel^r of" t^ Some of the slabs are scrawled with hierogljTl^-s, derived from the W., or furnishing .pla, onjhe «««.. of the deceased. "Po.xi.s L.o" indicates his b.sonium F- toriallv by a rudely-designed "lion passant. lOR CEiiA" adds to her name a little pig. Place of rest. The emblems of the wool-comber s craft tlli frequent. O.esxm.s, a shoemaker, under.-ntes » Sec Appendix for the original version of this piece of monstrous sancto-latry. " EOMA SUBTEKBANEA."— " AD CATACrMBAS." 195 his name with a" shoemaker's last^ and one very curious slab, engraved with a rude diagram of a table, having several polyhedral figures thereon, and a man standing by, shears in hand, was interpreted to me as the burial slab of a deceased " TaHor," name unkno^vTi. I shall not dwell on these inscriptions further, but subjoining a "fair copy" of the contracted and rudely-written memorials here engraved, leave the reader to amuse himself in spelling the transcripts out of the originals. No. 1. Lannus, Chbisti Martir, hic requiescit sub dioclesiano passus (et posteris suis). This is that Lannus referred to as a witness that, in the days of Dioclesian, the Christians thought it no robbery of a martj^'s honour to lay his posterity in the same tomb, nor did they ^'ask the sufi-rages of the faithful in bliss." No. 2. Orja- Tcopbrjiwa-. Gai.li^ jruircius jugulatus PRO FEDE, CUM FAMILlA TOTA, QUIESCUNT IN PACE. Theophij-a(?) Ancilla fecit. The confusion of tongues and JcaJcograi^hj in tHs epitaph is remarkable ; it bespeaks great love, abounding out of small learning, and, probably, " deep poverty" (2 Cor. viii. 2), towards a whole famHy of "martyrs for the faith ;" and yet, as is asked, not unfairly, " does Theo- phila, moved by the double respect for her master and for a martyr, write ' Holy Gordianus, pray for us ?' Ko— no- o2 196 GLEANIKGS AFTER " GEA.ND T0TJB"-ISTS. thing of the kind;' (Vide Eev. William ArtWs Lecture on " The Church in the Catacombs.") No. 3. Gentianus fidelis, in pace, qui vixit ^ annis xxi. menses viii. dies xvi., et in orationis tuis, roges pro nobis, quia scimus te in Christo. This inscription is given in fairness, to show that there is some counter-evidence {quantum valeat) to prove that the prayers of the dead were sometimes invoked, but, as far as Catacomb inscriptions have hitherto been exammed, so seldom as to give room for the assertion that » excepUo prohat regulam." In this inscription is perceived also that peculiarity of these memorials which gives the duration of life in years, months, and days .'-in another the very hours / are recorded. No. 4. 6apoia(T, Kai /lit; ovSeicr aOavarocT* Be of good cheer, for no one can escape death. This would seem to be an application of the scriptural assertions that " it is appointed for all once to die," and that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." That the cheering first word of the inscription involves, or rather assumes, the doctrine of resurrection ! is evident, for had it been the belief or tenet of the framer of tHs brief epitaph that the dead lay in " cold obstruc- tion," the cheering exhortation would have been but an absurd and bitter mockery. *' EOMA STJBTEEEANEA"-" AD CATACUMBAS." 197 No. 6. Sabini Bisomum, se vivnm fecit, sibi in cymeterium beats (?) Ibinae (?) in crypta novS. The reading of this inscription is not very distinct, and the grammatical construction barbarous; but it is given as a specimen of the indifferent use of the letters B and V for each other. The " Bisomum" was a name for a double grave, being a compound of Latin and Greek, such as " Veronica'^ is said to be. No. 6. Fortunatus se vivo ; sibi fecit ut cum quieverit in pacem, in Christo locum paratum ha(beat). There is nothing remarkable in this epitaph, except the proof of the rude execution of these confessions of faith. In the original slab the last word is incomplete evidentiy not because the marble was broken off, T-^J^--- ^ original engraver, or rather scratcher o the epitaph, knew that his meaning would be understood though unex- pressed. Ko. 7. This is an epitaph to the same purpose as No. 4, re- n^arkable as being engraved on a broken fragment of a moulded marble. It is variously interpreted as miplying " a prayer that the dead might live in Chnst or an assSance that the dead should Uvein Christ The gr^- mar would favour the former interpretation, but the latter 198 GLEAITIIJGS AFTER " GEA^D T0UE"-16T3. would accord better ^.dtli the context, which seems to be correspondent to the encouraging word of our Sa.Yiour to Mary--" Be of good cheer, thy brother shall rise again. No. 8. €V KoKivb : 'Sovev^.y €K0iixr]6r] Vopyopiar Traai (pikoa- kqi ovdevi rx^pocT. On the Kalends of November, Gorgonis fell asleep, The friend of all men, The enemy of no one. This is one of many Catacoml) inscriptions, proving bow soon and thoroughly the Christians, through the days of persecution and danger, could still realise the spn-it of that gift which their divine Master bronght to the world, in "peace on earth, goodtvill fotcards men." The Vulgate renders this chorus of the heavenly host in a narrowing and seetarian sense, equally inconsistent with the " te:ctus receptus" of Scripture and the "mind of Chnst." It is very clear that the Catacomb Christians, though driven by their persecutors to " caves and dens of the earth," biew no limit to that Catholic spirit of " goodwill" which was m them when they inscribed their last memorials thus—" the friend of all, the enemy of none." What, not even of the persecutor? No-for they knew the voice of Him who from His cross spoke thus-" Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." I have already noticed the controversial arguments derived from Catacomb records, and I cannot conclude " nOMA SUBIEEEAHEA"-" AD CATACTIMBA8." 199 without caUing attention to one deduction drawn in an lurd little work, lately published, written in the very .vorst fairy-tale style of " did^tic fiction^' and purporung to be a description of "The Church of the Coombs. The author of "Fabioia," whoever he may 6^ust have pre- sumed largely on the ignorance of his readers, and he. small acquaintance with the subject, when he put forth confidently such a statement as the following: . WhUe few ancient ChrUtian '"f Pf "-"^^^ ^L^die^ ^S^. deaths, thousands sir. us the -'^ ^"1°^ ''Z7^,/ZTtyTS This is m the hoperulness of ^^^^^:::^ ZZVllZ ha'd to he .ade rKXUlhefd:Xe, ana — e — dge of this was necessary, therefore it alone was recorded. This is a clear case of the application to a serious subject of that shifty rule of sophistry which bids a man affirm boldly," " assume confidently," and " take chance that throih ignorance or oversight of an opponent the o^Lm may pass current." It is quite true that he Catacomb inscriptions are distinguished for pecu larities of date, but they are the very reverse of those which are here so confidently asserted. Thousands of them do give, with minute exactness, the length of life, in years, months, days, nay, in one case that we remember, even in hours, that the departed had sojourned on earth ; but the year or day of month of the decease is rarely noticed. The consu- late in which saint died, or martyr suffered, is occasionaUy recorded, but the date by ides, nones, or kalends very sel- dom indeed. This is matter of fact easily P-^^-^d by refer- ence to the pages of " Arringhi," " Bosio," or " Boldetti. O /, I V lVi4.o>*^ ^-t- 200 »> GLEANINGS AFTEB " GRAND TOUR -ISTS. But I much fear the author of " Fabiola" reckoned that reference to these works, much more personal inspection of the originals, would be impossible to his readers in ge- neral, and therefore ventured to deduce from o, false fact a slyly insinuated argument in favour of the endless " saints' days" and other " commemorations of Eoman hagiology'* a melancholy proof of the lengths to which controversial zeal maybe carried when the object sought is not so much truth as victory ! and when the axiom that " the end jus- tifies the means" is adopted into controversial morals. oi- Tl. - - • o ^ v^ e»p'5 n HI 4 7\ ^A 4^f cir rf Nr,A-tV3 f'^^L'J *^''^\^ 9^^""' W TLciT 5i^i IN CY^ ^ IN cKY? TA r^o5 ^ y \l Yll nA^Ax^e) J/vc^icen ec^ \1II EOMAIS^ CHARITIES. 201 CHAPTEE XI. EOMAN CHAEITIES : " SACT MICHELE"—" TEINITA DEI PELLEGEINI. There remained but two days of our allotted time in Rome, when A said to me, « Now here we are, about to leave this great city, having enjoyed to the full^ its shows and its sights, its amusements and antiquities ; it is a shame never to have seen any of its great charities. They tell me there are many, and that San Mchele, m particular, is a noble institution ; let us pay it a visit before we go." To this I agreed at once, although I could not quite plead guilty to not having seen any of their charitable institutions. Had we not been once and again at that great charity the " Trinita dei Pellegrini ?"— that world-wide Jiospitium for the wayfarer of every name and nation whom piety might draw to the Eternal City, and modest poverty render unable to find a lodging or a supper in the concourse who " go up to the Eeasts of the Holy Seasons;" we had both seen and smelled! the much- needed foot-bath relief, there rendered to the travel-tired 202 GLEANIJfGS AFTEE " GBAND XOTJe"-ISTS. and leg-weary wanderer, followed up by a wholesome sup- per, at wWch the beggar sat, while the noble served-a re- markable exhibition of which more hereafter. But A-— miAt not unfairly have forgotten to number this institu- tion as a charity, and have reckoned it among our amuse- ments, for, during Holy Week, a visit to the Tnmta del Pellegrini" is the fashionable evening lounge and its halls, on the evenings they are open, furnish the most thronged promenade in Kome. Curious things are those same Eoman charities-curious sometimes in their origin, not less so in their objects and application; abundant are they too in wealth and re- sources, as might be expected in a community where mortmc^in restrictions are unknown-where the principle is boldly enunciated, and sedulously taught, that posthumous liberality can atone for a life of vice-and where the mere nod of assent! of a dying sinner to the proposition of his ghostly father, that he should leave "house," "land, or "monies" to this charity or that convent-is construed by those " Daniels come to judgment"-the Soman canonists of the Liguori school-into a valid bequest .• ^ o wonder that under such stimulating circumstances Eoman cha- rities should be wealthy-no wonder they can be lavish. I remember a dignified Eonian ecclesiastic givmg me the . Shodd a.y one doubt that such could be the S^^'i^^^^'^, recognised interpretatiou of that^'—UwJwb.cho^ man's sorrow, does not prevail m England^ ne wm " remarkable and fearless testimony of the Rev. ^-^-^^^^^'^l^^f'^ H'T^I Prout of Uterature), given before tb^" ^«™^~^^%td '^^^^^ The evidence taken is well worthy of a perusal as a whole, a^^/>emS J^blilhfd in an octavo "blue book," is in a readable form, which blue books 80 often are kot ! EOMAN CnAEITIES. 203 following instance of their profuse liberality. It had been represented to the directors of a certain charity that a poor noble {^'povero, mod nobile'') was in delicate health, and that a Bojoum at mples would be of service to him. Several hundred scudi were immediately allotted to convey him and his family to Bai®, and to maintain him there for some months. May the charities of our country multiply and abound in manifold measure, but may it be long before heretic England has charities applicable to the^cases of broken-down or bankrupt gentlemen who may wish to recruit by a trip to a watering-place, or a sojourn at a fashionable Spa I Almost the first animated object I had looked on in the Eternal City was a— charity! Driving in from Albano, whither A (who had been domiciled in Eome from the previous winter) had gone to meet and welcome us, we encountered, not far from the " Eontana di Trevi," a procession; and when A asked me, "Do you know what that is ?" I was unable even to ffuess. It might have been a Eoman edition of a Highgate boarding- school, such as one sometimes encounters in the vicinity of London, when " twelve double files of Straitlaced humanity" are paraded for an airing ; but the Koman files were all in conventual uniform, while a free air, a bold stare, and wild roving glances cast freely aU round, told me that conventual discipline had not here wrought that mincing demureness in which the cloistered elh^e^ usually walks, with " leaden eye that loves the ground." I could make nothing of them— dressed like nuns, they appeared, as the phrase is, to have "very little of nun's flesh about them"— they seemed, evidently, rather to 204 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND TOtrE"-ISTS court attention than to shun it. " These," said A , <' are the Sieves of a charity which supplies wives to many of the Eoman shopkeepers and mechanics. They are foundlings, maintained and portioned by the institution which brings them up, and they are walked out thus that the men of the city may see them, and, on sight, select wives as they go along. Application is then made at the institution ; negotiations, carried on through the medium of the parish clergy, and police, foUow in course, and on due certificate of various matters (among the rest, that the proposing husband is a good subject, and has been—* duly vaccinated !') numbers are married in Eome who have never had other opportunities of judging the temper or the thrift, the principles or the dispositions of each other, except such casual glances and glimpses as you have just seen in the case of the procession which has passed us by.'* Further and after inquiries informed me that this was but one of a number of " Societe di dotazione'' which so abound in Eome, that, according to statistical calculations, more than three-fifths of the annual marriages in the city take place under the stimulus of the charity-dower which the bride brings to her husband. It may seem strange that so large an amount of charitable endowment should take this direction, but, when traced to its origin, the " marriage-portion charity" will appear more remarkable still, and gives a horrid glimpse of Eoman morals and the social condition of the community. I can state, upon ecclesiastical testimony, that these charities derive their funds very largely from the death-bed terrors of dying profligates and sensualists, goaded by conscience and EOMAN CHAEITIES. 205 urged by a confessor " to atone for the seductions of their long and evil lives by providing a portion-fund for young women to enable them to get married." To the same source are traced two other charities of so extraordinary a nature, and so liable to perversion and abuse, that their very names are a standing jest for the profane— these are the charities of the " Vedovi Fericli-^ tantV and the '' Mai MaritatV (" endangered widows I" and " ill-mated wives !") . There exists a Board in Eome, before whom any " smart disconsolate" may present her- self, and declare that her poverty places her chastity in jeopardy, that " she must have money, or else—" quocumque modo renC'^ and the Board is bound to supply her with means to live respectably. Again : A lady living uneasily with her spouse, may come and, by a statement of her grievances, obtain a separate maintenance from these sympathising guardians of ''les moeurs ^ but!— "^i^^> custodiet ipsos custodesr^ii would be neither fair nor fitting to put on record the sneers or the sarcasms which are freely circulated in Eome respecting the administration of these very peculiar institutions : enough to say, that a universal impression prevails that they often aggravate the very evils against which they were intended to be safe- guards. Nor do the "portioning" charities work out their uses any better. It might be supposed, at first sight, that societies expending many thousand pounds per annum in dowering young maidens, would give a most anti-Malthu- Bian stimulus to " entering into the holy and honourable estate of matrimony"-no such thing !-for though " mar- riage is honourable," monachism is more honourable still, 206 GLEANINGS ATTEE " GBASD T0UR"-ISIS. and a girl wko puts iu a claim to an -dowment -d dfidarea that ahe intends to devote xt and herself to a convent, is sure to obtain a portion m Fef--- *;^- other who intends to bestow it on a husband • ^o pro- vision, either by will or endo^-ment, against allowing these tods to go to convent uses, can hinder it: such clauses Wd be set aside as m,naral ! Hence, by a strange per- version, the very funds allocated to encourage matrimony, are turned to the use of promoting perpetual celibacy; hence one in twenty of aU the adult female popukt.on of Rome is a nun. And once again, to speak on ecdeuasUcal te^tmonr,, there are dark and revolting ideas abroad that the dispensers of these funds make a most nefanous use of the influence they give them over the candidates for matrimony ; so that on the whole the result -> *<> -f^' words of a Koman Catholic witness on the subject, any- thing but satisfactory to the lovers of decency, or of a good and wholesome social system among the lower orders of the community." roremost among Eoman charities stands the Santo Lates thirty scudi if she purposes gettrng mamed, m,dffty . ekaum .e.M,.e.iilaiwaysh a.^-e-^^^^^^^^^ :;t:h\ri7e.J,'th^^^^^^^^ Gunneries do receive their recruits through them^mm "/'^"jj^ intended for matrin^y-'-Hortmoin Report, I80I. Emdence of JUV F. S. ilahony, 2983. EOMAN CHABITIES. 207 Spinto," the estate of which reaches from Civita Vecchia to Eom'e, a range of nearly seventy miles ! The soil of this estate is WTetchedly farmed, the revenues worse appUed, nearly half its funds being expended on what are called "charges of management" {alias, "jobbing" in all its branches) ; and of the t^vo thousand wards ! in which the vast institution could relieve misery, under the divisions of an " Infirmary," a " Foundling Hospital," and a " Lunatic Asylum," not more than A«//are ever in useful operation! The San Spirito, from the extent of its possessions, is called " II Gran Signore di Roma," and, like other great leviathans of wealth, is proportlonably a subject for plun- der and abuse of its resources. " Pio NONO," following in the steps of his predecessor Dema Genga (Leo XU.), attempted, among his other " new broom" reforms, to sweep away the incapable pre- lates and peculating managers who preside over the Eoman charities in detail. The reforming Popes tried successively to eentralke the management of these msti- tutious, and to establish one general system of application of funds, in which all the vast and various provisions for the relief of poverty and sickness being made to bear a proporotinate relation to each other, would become more effective as a whole ; but they failed in their efforts ; and while the failure is said to have contributed to break the heart and hasten the death of the mild and amiable Delia Genga-" Pius the Reformer," sick and tured of the results of his meddling in more ways than one, seems, since his restoration, to have adopted for his motto « c^e mra-sarar and aUows things to " take their old course Jobbery and mismanagement are now in unchecked 208 GLEiUINOS AFTER " GBAND T0UE"-1STS. ascendancy, and the abortive revolution has, among its Xrtsl. given to abuses t^^ -Xfnwth t they can now meet all attempts at improvement with the whisper of the evils of rebellion! and the danger, not of rSg well alone," but of "making bad worse;" so that in its clrities, as in other matters,* the unsustamed out- bretk of 1848 has left the " last state of Eome worse than '"Vtdrove to San Michele, in "Eipa Grande," beyond ; the Tiber, and on seeking admission, found that we had unwittingly and unluckily timed our visit for a Festa, rihat aU the ordinary exhibitions of the great building were closed, and the schools idle. This was a disappoin - „,ent : we could not spare another day for the visit, but a 1 object was rather to see the working details of h charity than the show-rooms of sculpture or design, which a,e the general attractions to visitors, with the usual in- trepidity of the " Inglese," who seem to clann access to all things sacred and profane at Eome as matter of course, as a b-ieged people. ouldn.^^^^^^^^ the grove, and coverts "^ *;;^^:;,f;';,„i,, „or has any step been gorgeous gates in aU their unsignuy • ^ mistaken, yet taken towards their laying out or «~°- J ^^y^ ^^^^^^^^.^ U it always struck me, as I-^^y^^fl^^rLlin Eome, that result of civil war from the Pinmn the most pub ^,. it was left waste and ""'"""f "^ f^^'^Sfpoint to the Borgheee wavs have an apt argument when tney comu y ^^i and say, " Tou «e M tooJutto and I^er Another industrial department, suited to the gemus of the pupas, if not introduced, at least made effective by the good Cardinal, is a series of schools for music, archi- tectL, statuary, drawing-in wUch we could perceive . AM».aoh de Gotha.-" Antonio Tost^n. 4 Oct 1776, h Borne ; nomm^, iop^tto, 12 Fev., 1828; pubU^ 13 F^v., 1839. EOMAN CHAEITIES. 211 he took particular pride and satisfaction. To persons " fed to the full" for months past on the treasures of ancient art in the galleries of the Vatican, the Capitol, and the Roman palaces, the productions which hung on the walls, or stood in the studios of San Michele, could have no other attractions than those of other schoolboy- productions, usually praised as "wonderful, considering ^ But, to carry on the idea, I question if the most blindly- doting mamma in the world could feel more pride in the performances of her infant prodigy than did the good old Cardinal in the works of his eleves, as he directed our atten- tion to them in walking up and down his saloon ; and, in- deed, our first view of him in the midst of his little " sub- jects," when he looked not very unlike a good, kind, mo- therly old nurse in the midst of a nursery uproar, has left us a more natural and pleasing recollection than if he had received us with the state of a Prince of the Church, seated in all the canopied pride of "the purple." We were ushered through a door at the upper end of the hall into a noble saloon, richly fitted up for the Car- dinal's use as a reception-room for guests, beneath the windows of which the yellow Tiber rolled on its way from "the marble wilderness" towards the sea, and Mount Aventine rose beyond in its desolation, of all the " Seven Hills" perhaps the fittest* emblem of " the Niobe of ISTa- * Some may think the " Palatine crowned with the Palace of the Caesars" more emblematic of the desolation of the Imperial City; but, among these " chief relics of Imperial Rome" is nestled, smig and pert, a " villa," belonging to an Englishman, yclept "Mills!" "The Villa Mills!" What romance or recollection of antiquity could stand such an association? With Byron we could say, " Arise, ye Goths, again, and glut your iVe"— in other words, level the Villa Mills to the ground ! ^^ rC^ JQ ^2 (:^^ THfiCLC:: V A' .V w Yot^i; y 212 GLEANINGS AETEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. tlons" "childless," « crownless," " voiceless." In a few ,i,inutes the Cardiual entered by a door from the room m which we had gotten a glimpse of him, and received our respects, accompanied by our stammered apologies for the intrusion, to the effect that we were leaving Eome, and did not wish to do so without being able to take some report of a charity become famous under the direction of his Eminence." Having delivered our blundered explaiiation in French, an unexpected difficulty arose : the cardinal, a "bomEoman," was all that and nothing more. It the proverb be true which says, " so many languages, so many times a man," his Eminence was perfectly individualised, for he knew nothing but Italian ; and after some deUbera- tion, requested us to wait until he sent for one of the officers of the institution who could speak French, to whose guidance he ultimately consigned us. As we waited, his Eminence was so kind as to wa k with us up and do^vn the saloon, pointing out occasionally some drawmg or engraving done by the Sieves of the schools, and bearing mildly and patiently with our at- tempts to reply to the observations in the best Itahan we could muster. Here a ludicrous mistake occurred ; among other information given to us, the Cardinal said that one of the pupils was then engaged on a fine piece, " un lavoro d. lellezza" (a « thing of beauty"), the subject of which was " La Siqnora Grey, una Inglese" Here A touched my arm. « Tes, yes, teU him you understand-Mrs. Hamilton Gray, you know, who wrote the work on Etruria '." ^^ So I boldly dashed out with " lo comprendo, Eminenza — and then I added something about Mrs. Gray's book and eo:m:ak cuaeities. 213 Etruria ; but his Eminence did not " compreliend" at all !— we were evidently at cross-purposes— and at last lie told me, in the way of elucidation, that " Ms ' Siqnora Grey' wanted to he queen of JEngland! " Worse andAvorse ! This sent me to sea without rudder or compass to find out who or what the good Cardinal could mean. I thought over all the Mrs. Greys or Grays I had ever heard of. Could it be an Italian travestie of the clamour about the ambition and grasping of the " Grey family,'* which used to be a popular theme in the old days of the " Eeform Bill ?" No, it could be nothing of tJiat; but having once gotten on the political scent, I ran rapidly back to the days of "Lady Jane Grey" and "bloody Mary!" (but I did not call her "bloody Mary, tJiere and then''). Tes, I was right now ; the picture in progress was " la decapitazione di quella Signora GreyP Presently arrived the young man qualified to communi- cate with us in French ; to his charge the Cardinal civilly consigned us, and we left his presence with a pleasing im- pression of one of those benevolent natures whose mission it seemed to be to devote itself with enthusiasm to one object— a low one, perhaps, in the eyes of more " mount- ing" spirits, yet not without its value and importance in the scale of Him to whom " nothing is little, nothing great." No doubt " Antonelli," with his master-mind, or *' Mezzofanti," or "Mai," with their polyglot learning, might look pityingly on the bounded ambition with which their brother Cardinal ruled his Httle child-world of San Michele, and never looked beyond. Tet it remains to be decided, in the day of " righteous judgment," whether the Bimple-mindedTostimay not, " in Us generation;' have dif- 214 GLEANINGS AFTEB " GKAHD TOUE -ISIS. fused more happiness, and done more good, "than more lofty and mounting spirits who," from the toil-won heights of amhition or learning, "smHed superior" at his humble and unpretending pursuits* We had some difficulty in making our Franco-Italian cicerone understand that what we wanted to see were the worUng detaUs of the institution. It would seem that visitors seldom did more than saunter through the halls of sculpture and painting ; and there was none of that proud alacrity with which the officers of English charities parade visitors through vast edifices, as clean and orderly from garret to laundry as system and scrubbing-brush can make them. Our guide seemed quite perplexed as to what our object could be in mounting to the dormitories of the young, or diving into the lower regions to inspect the dinner preparing for the older inmates of the hospital. However, there was no objection made ; there was some surprise, but evidently no shame or other sense, of the 'nakedness of the land" to be submitted to our inspec- tion ; so accordingly we were ushered through passages and up stairs, which seemed " immeasurably spread," but at last led us into long ranges of dormitories, decidedly dirty • WWle writing this passage, I lighted accidentally on the not inap- plicable stanza in which Dr. Johnson eulogises the unpretendmg virtues of his strange i)ro%e, Dr. Levett : " His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause— nor left a void ; And sure the Eternal Master found The ' single talent' well employed." This is pr^use which may equaUy apply to the unostentatious benevo- lence with which o»e Roman Cardinal regulated his U"'*/"'^!'! ." *^« midst of that meshwork of political intrigue, jealousy, and-as scandal adds— profligacy, which pervades the Court of Rome. bo:m:an chaeities. 215 and dreadfully close, with no attention to that ventilation which in our cUmate we consider essential to health,— how much more so in the exhausting atmosphere of Italy. The floors were of a dingy colour, showing a decided tendency to hydroploUa, and aU the fittings-up were of the coarsest and commonest character ; it was quite clear that the cares and attention of the managers were mainly bestowed on the show, specimen, and class-rooms, below. We could get no statistics whatever as to the effect on health and life of thus placing young children to sleep close under tie roof in the burning atmosphere of Italy ; nor could we see any of the little things themselves, so as to form a judg- ment on their appearance. Wliether they were engaged in the devotions of the " Festa," or dispersed to see friends, or enjoy the free air of the country, certam it is that we saw scarce an individual of a vast institution con- sisting, we were told, of several thousand inmates. TtoL the dormitories we made our way to the kitchens, and eugh !-long before we reached them, the garlico- fennel atmosphere prepared us for the frousy filth of the culinary preparations, in which we found half a dozen old men engaged. As they handled the strong-smeUing escu- lents I could not but think of that " counter-blast against garlic " in which the refined Horace, espressmg his de- testation to the elegant M^cenas, affirms that a garlic supper would be a meet preparation for cutting a father s throat!* If there be any truth in the suggestion, every . We went to Italy with minds braced up to wage a defensive war we went lo '^^' „jier for a meal with a prohibi- against garlic, and to a«o°'P»^^™Y„l to sav we found aU this pre- tion against ito ^^^'^^^'^^^^^^^Z^^T^Z'^''^ »— ^^^ ^ *"' caution needless. The ^^^J^J „^^„ .^^n proffered to you :r';rjfr;;:irw!bS:^;:::ehorridde.nationaiisedKngiish- EOMAK ClIAEITIES. 217 216 GLEANINGS AETEE " GBAND TOTJE -ISTS. one of the wretches before me must have been capable of sacrilege, parricide, or any other nameless atrocity— for they reeked of garlic from head to foot. We felt none of that appetising desire to taste the poor men's food which is so often excited by the savoury smell of a charity-kitchen in England. Upon the whole, we ended our visit with a conviction that though we had not seen this the boasted charity of man sometimes does. When Horace wrote his ^^detestatur allium^ he almost deserved to be an Englishman ; in hearty English approval I render it thus : AD BLECEKATEM. »' Detestatur allium, quod apud Msecenatem ederat." — Hob. Epode^ iii. If ever son with impious hand To cut his father's throat inclined, The parricidal deed was plann'd Some day the wretch on garlic dined. For ploughman's stomach one could wish : Sure viper's blood, or poison'd trash. Was mixed unnoticed in the dish, Or else some witch prepared the hash ! With some such stuff, Medaea, full Of love, her Argonaut besmearing, Gave him to tame each raging bull— This too she used when disappearing. From Jason's rage on dragon's wing She sent his harlot fatal gift : Vengeance could find no deadlier sting Than in a ^rarZic-poisoned shift. McU-aria on Apulian plains, Or torture shirt Alcides wore, Ne'er burned more hotly than the pams I feel, from garlic supper sore. Should you again on mess like this Venture, Maecenas, then I pray Your girl may shun your proffered kiss, And lie the whole couch-breadth away. Eome in working order, BtiU we had seen enough to war- rant us in adopting the conclusion of Albert Smith s m- comparable friend, the stoker on Lago Maggiore, when after smoking in silence for half an hour, he bursts forth ^ith "No sir! Austriar ainH England!" and ' whatts more, we'll live to see the day when it worCt never he Eng- land " So I affirm that " Boman charities ainH English ones;" and it will take a long period of time before they TviU bear anything like a reasonable comparison to « that quiet, undemonstrative effect with which England makes her charities tell upon her social state and interests." The " Symlolic Layanda" of the Head of the Boman Church has already been treated in these chapters ; we are now to consider the less showy, but more actualised, foot- washing which is carried on during Holy Week, and, a^ we believe, at other high festivals in Eome. The charity of the pilgrims at the great hospital of the " Trinita dei Pelle- grini" affords the Boman noble and the foreign pilgrim of rank an occasion for emulating the humiliation of hia Holiness by acts of real service to the poor and the needy. •We believe the Fraternities of St. Philip Neri comprehend associates of all grades and classes ; but one most remarks the polished boot, or the silk dress, peeping through the dingy red cloak which the members assume when they enter the hospital and prepare for the labours of the evening. " The Trinita" is, I imagine, in its ordinary use a great convalescent receiving-house to the other hospitals of the city, but at the Holy Season it is appro- priated and thrown open to the houseless pilgrim, who, coming up tired and travel-worn to the great city, finds here « water for his feet, and a plain but plenti&l supper for his hunger," and, I believe, for a certain period, a 218 GLEANINGS AMEE " GEAND TOtru"-ISTS. bed for his weariness ; after .vhich he is dismissed to make room for others, should the concourse require it, otherwise he remains until the Holy Season is ended. This use of the institution traces its origin to the zeal of St. Philip Neri, who, in those palmy days of Eoman piety, when pilgrims used to stream up from all parts of the earth to the Seven Hills, saw and pitied the condition of the houseless wanderer, and in his zeal and energy the relief of the "Trinita" was commenced; by degrees it became a fashion to enrol oneself in the society ; and now, to kneel before a foot-bath and unrol the mummy- like swathes which are the Italian substitute for hosiery, has been long one of the established modes in which the Eoman nobles evince their humility, and, in scrubbing others, wash out, as they suppose, their own offences also. The sexes are lodged separately. Tou can only know of the female department by description, for the clamura is very strict on each side of the hospital. On the Wed- nesday night of the Holy Week I followed the stream of visitors into the male side of the Trinita, and presently found myself traversing several large haUs or chambers, lined with high seats all round, before which stood a number of vessels opposite to as many cocks for laying on the hot water. A hand-rail kept off the crowd m the centre of the room from the associates while doing their office. The whole fitting up had a homely practical ap- pearance, reminding one somewhat of the laundry-rooms of some great pubUc institution in England. Before the business of the evening commenced, the brotherhood of St. Philip were mingUng freely in the crowd, only distinguished by a linen robe of a dull red colour, worn loosely over their ordinary attire ; whether EOMAN CHAKITIES. 219 they wished to show that they merely assumed these dresses for the occasion I know not, but there seemed little attempt to conceal the fact that many of them were seculars and gentlemen masquerading in the dress of a religious order. The pilgrims had not yet made their appearance, or taken their seats; and as I walked about, my attention was caught by an oval picture, the only thing approaching to ornament which the bare and cheerless rooms showed: it was a painting dark from age, and contained merely an ordinary-visaged portrait. Perceiving a legend under- neath I stopped to take a lesson in Italian, by attempting to read it. It proved to be a portrait of the founder of the institute, St. Philip himself; and the legend informed us that this saint, while living, would never, m his pro- found humility, allow his likeness to be taken. It hap- pened, however, that one of the miserables reUeved m hia hospital was a profligate painter, who, reduced to the lowest beggary and misery, ultimately became his pern- tent and as the good saint often repaired to his chamber to counsel and instruct him, in this chamber was a small deal table, of which the painter, having no other board of canvas, made use to take a Hkeness of his benefactor, drawn "eon amore." This, however, was done at inter- vals and by stealth, and the picture was nearly completed, when Saint Philip, having discovered it, merely gave the artist the mild rebuke, « Tou should not have stohnme un- awares.'" , As I read this anecdote, feeling perplexed as to the meaning of one word, I turned to a brother of the order who leaned against the rail at my side, and, as well as I could, asked him to explain it to me. To my surprise. 220 GLEANINGS AriEB " OBiND T0IIb"-IST3. and I will add dismay, after stuttering out my inquiry in the best Italian I could command, I received the reply in plain I would almost say smart. Cockney English ! The assistant of St. Philip Neri was an Englishman-one of those poor creatures who have deliberately walked out of Ught and Hberty into twilight bondage. I thanked him for the explanation which he gave me, but I would have been much better pleased if it had not been quite so intel- ligible I had seen some English in positions of strange abasement at Eome, but I was not prepared to find one masquerading it in the shampooing establishment of the " Trinita del Pellegrini." By this time the pilgrims began to stream in, and take their places on the high seats behind the rails. After some confusion they were all arranged. On the floor below stood all the brotherhood present, in the proportion of about one to every four ; their foot-baths were ready, and after a few words of benediction, at a signal the hot water was laid on, and presently a steam-cloud rose, and treated the spectators with a vapour-bath gratis. I kept close to my English friend, who set about his business most artistically, and showed himself in conclusion as perfect an adept as if he had been apprenticed to a washer- woman ; in fact, in the fervour of his neophyte zeal, he outdid the Eomans themselves, and washed three sets of dirty feet for any two of his brethren that I saw. The process began by something which proved the severity of the penance in a much stronger Ught— I mean wenf-thon I was prepared for or had previously con- ceived. The first duty of the brother of St. Philip, after takin.' from the wayfarer some paper, which is, I imagine, a certificate that he is a "pilgrim indeed," is something EOMAN CHAEITIES. 221 analogous to unrolling a mummy. It must not be sup- posed that tlie Eoman pilgrim wears a stocking, either cotton or woollen ; no such thing, the defence of his nether parts is much more curious and complicated than a textne fabric which can he drawn off over heel ; it con- sists, in fact, of a contmuous bandage of linen of great length, wound fold after fold diagonally up the leg, and fastened by sandals reaching to the knee, and tied to the points of the dress there. This covering is, I am told, worn night and day until worn out!-and what between travel-stains, the natural heat of the body and of the climate, and all the other accessories of nastiness, the mere preliminary removal of these wrappings was, to my feelings, the most trying part of the whole process. As I waited the conclusion of the feet-washing, I could not help contrasting that principle of Methodism expounded by John Wesley, when he affirmed " cleanliness to be a virtue next to godliness," with a monastic axiom I had some- where met, declaring that " dirt at Kome is a symptom unerring of grace ;" and as I leaned over my compatriot, earnestly engaged in unswathing his first suhject, I arrived at the conclusion that his occupation ought to be very meritorious, for it was awfully nasty ! There was certainly something repaying to the operator in the sigh of delight with which the old pilgrims received the first refreshing sensation of the warm water on their swollen and fevered limbs ; but then the sense of show and scenic exhibition presently came in. Of all things m pro- fusion at Eome, water seems to run most to waste. Why need these wretched pilgrims have waited to refresh their ravel-worn feet until the reHef could be so ministered as to 222 »j BOMAN CHAEITIE3. 223 GLEANINGS ATTEE " GBAKD TOUR -ISTS. be " seen of men ?" I wonder, if a pilgrim ventured to pre- sent himself for admission to the charity with his feet in a state of irreligious cleanliness, whether he would be turned away as an " impostor" and a " sham ?" I had half a mind to ask my English friend to explain to me the exact ratio be- tween dirt and deserving ; but he seemed so busy in strip- ping and scrubbing the subjects before him, that I feared my question might be Hl-timed, and that he would^set me down as an " inveterate heathen man and pubHcan." The washing ended, there was an adjournment up-stairs to supper, which was laid and laying out in a long hall, with a row of tables at each side, while the spectators streamed along through the middle space. Here we found others of the brotherhood, on "hospitable cares intent,'' carefully and exactly apportioning the supper for each of those washed below. The supper consisted of a smaU fish, an aUowance of bread and butter, and some vegetable— either lettuce or fennel-root, or both— with a vessel of the thin sub-acid wine of the country beside each plate. Great care appeared to be used to make each man's portion equal —doubtless to obviate the " murmuring," as old as the days of the Apostles, about "neglect in the daily minis- tration." I saw men with fine linen and other marks of distinction peeping from under their red dresses, looking sharply after a plate which appeared to have a fragment too much of the viands, and thriftily removing the excess to another plate which seemed to have too little. On the whole, there appeared great impartiality in the distribution of this homely supper ; and when the poor old feUows thronged up, sat down, and "fell-to," it appeared to me that those who served the tables seemed to enjoy the feast "s much as " those who sat at meat." Whether from want of appetite, bashfulness, or dislike to eat under the gaze of assembled crowds, some of the old men desisted soon, and there was something hearty and host-like in the way in which the brotherhood pressed their guests to fall-to again, and when they could not prevail, in a coarse but kindly way cut open the wedge of bread, and wrapping fish, fennel, and butter all togetlier in the middle ! desired the old man who could not consume his aUowance upon the spot, to take it away for a more hungry hour. It was the converse of the old precept—" eat enough, pocket none." Whether that the concourse of pilgrims was below the usual average, or that the hospital is constructed so as to provide for any possible amount of demand, not one-half of the supper-tables were occupied. That the resources of the charity are abundant seems probable, from the long ranges of boards with wHch the supper-haU was hung all rou^d, recording the munificence of a long list of donors, some of money, some of houses or farms, to maintain the hospitality of the Pellegrini. Of the female side of the house I can tell nothing save by report. Whether the pHgrim old women be as much in need of the lavanda as the male pHgrims, I cannot affirm ; but, judging of what I saw of ItaHan habits when the females arrive at that stage of existence in which they as matter of course wither into living mummies, I think it probable that, as between them and their male neighbours of the hospital, we might apply the retort, more lively than delicate, with which Lady Mary Wortley Montague met the reproach of having dirty hands-" ^/ mort^ienr si vous voyiez mes pieds r I saw the purification of the men— I did not see that of the old women. 224 GLEANINGS AEIEB " GBAND X0na"-ISI3. CHAPTER XII. A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OE THE LATE CZAK. The Czar Nicholas is with the past !-He died in his harness fuU Kingly-He ^v^ought to the end m his mission as the Antocrat of that vast empire which he sought to aggrandise in defiance of the "woe' denounced agafnst those (whether " Kaisers" or misers) who jom field to field"-" till there he no place left" (for others), «and they be placed alone in the midst of the earth (Isaiah V.) men History comes to pass the race o Eomanoff in review, then will Nicholas stand out m bold relief as the developed embodiment of the plans of Peter -of the cupidity of Catherine-some would say ot the madness of Paul. Future generations will see m lum the personification of Eussian craft, diplomacy, and ambi- tion, all ripened to the point of-aggression and, let us hope, corresponding repression. Conjecture has been busy as to the real canse of the Emperor's death : it has been blundering about secondary and forgetting the primary cause. Influenza has been talked of-a Dr. GranviUe, with the felicity of a « Murphy s A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF THE LATE CZAR. 225 Almanack," had fixed both a disease and a date which must be fatal to Nicholas : he made a lucky hit as to one he was wide of the mark as to the other. We have little doubt that on full view of the whole case, and when we stand far enough off to examine all its bearings, it will be admitted as an established fact that the Czar died of— overstretching himself! Nicholas's length of limb was well known, and sym- holised well that towering ambition which " bestrid this narrow world like a colossus." The great feat for which this royal giant had laid his plans, piled his fortifications, and girded all his energies, was to stretch " from sea to sea," to plant one foot at Bomarsund, another at the Bos- phorus, and to rule all between, either by himself or his royal proconsuls in Middle Europe. He held this coup as an " arriere pensce;' a secret well kept, during the long period while he played the " Conservator of the peace of Europe." At length he deemed that " the hour was come and the man :" he made his stride, overreached himself, and fell to rise no more. His enterprise was just one of those of which the difficulty and danger could be fully known only in the attempt. Nicholas discovered them when too late to draw back from the sole blunder of a lifelong policy. His imperial and imperious spirit could not brook to own its error, and he paid his life as the penalty of miscalcula- tion. Let the doctors say what they will, this is the true diagnosis of the death-disorder of the " Autocrat of all the K-ussias." I believe the Czar never saw the " dark blue waters" of the coveted Mediterranean but once, and that was in 1845, when a most convenient illness of his imperial consort 226 GLEAHINGS A5TEE " GBAND IOUB'MsTS. gave hl:n the pretext for visiting ^-^^ ^^^/'^^'/^t^^ a longing eye upon that sea where he hoped at no M p XTto see his navies ride, and to -- there ham^e^ L his own private entrance from the Euxme. Then it wasLt,probablyfor the /r.**»«..o«r.cori, the "Papa of Ihe ^i" -d the " Pope of the Latin Commumons ' held oIv!"e and council together, each doubtless " w.se m h>s own conceits," intent upon his own objects, and planmng This^o t soul how he might turn to ac«.unt this ^k^l e^onnter of wit and policy," " veiled under a show of s^dted courtesy and respect." It was durmg th.8 littf t Czar t Jthe Pontiff that an incident occ^ed Inwhich all that is involved in the present eventf^ Ixt e and its issue seemed to hang upon a ha. which n ree and unruly wiU of an individual nnght have ™ d in an instant-and that it did not do so will. n£, be thought a dark mystery when the story . *' When at Bome, I had an acquaintance to whose civ^ties I was indebted for much information, to which sequent events have given a curious interest and sign^- c^ e He was of the Pope's household-an ecclesi^tic Xotrse-but, by his connexion with some of the military i^L, CO Jrsant beyond others wi«i tho gener^ news of B.me. Whether from choice, as he said or from Tzeal for conversion, as some suspected, he much affected Csh society, and always affirmed that he foimd a great Tarm in the unreserve and frankness of his English ac '"^^rMonsignor — I had occasional "i—^ anicales" on religious subjects. If with me his object was A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF THE LATE CZAB. 227 " conversion," he certainly " took nothing by his motion,*' while I gained a good deal from his civilities and commu- nications : his arguments served rather to strengthen than weaken my own convictions, and from his politico-religious chit-chat I obtained much knowledge not otherwise acces- sible to me. I well remember the simple exultation with which he communicated to me the "great point" his Church had just attained, in getting possession of " the church key of Bethlehem: ' Monsignor calculated as little as myself at the time to what a mine of combustibles this " great point" was to prove a kindling spark ; he was viewing but as a diplomatic triumph over the " schismatic Greeks" a circumstance which has now brought a world in arms into deadly conflict on the shores of the Euxine. Speaking one day of the Papal army, in which a relative held a high command, Monsignor told me that it was a force composed of all nations — " as became a Catholic force"— he said, smiling; that Switzerland contributed largely from its Catholic cantons, but that they had also many Poles. And then he told me the following story, but with an Italian vivacity and force of diction which, while it impressed the narrative upon my memory, I cannot pretend to impart to my repetition of it. " Two years since," he said, "the Euasian Emperor was here. Although a ' Scismatico; he is a great man— - {'veramente urC TJomo di grmdezza') — and was received accordingly by ' la ma Sanctita' in all courtesy ; and when he departed it was with a guard of honour to Civita Vecchia " " What ?" said I, " the Guardi Nobile ?" The Eoman drew himself up. q2 228 GLEANINOS ArlEK « GEAND T0TJE"-ISTS. „ Oh no-the lomaji nobles ru>ver put themselves on duty but for the Sovereign Pontiff in person; but the- Eussian had a picked guard of o- best cavalry -da bad ride they had of it. A curious thing happened, wbch I will relate, if you will permit me." 1 bowed my head in attention, and he proceeded "Tou know that I live in the palazzo of my uncle, the General It happened that I was at home, and my uncle fbsenVwhen the commandant of the escort came to make hXort to the Military Governor of Borne, booted splashed, and weary ; be was impatient to de^^ver m h.s etums Lnd be gone. But whUe he wa.ted, I conversed with him as an old acquaintance, a brave man a refug o Pole, a good soldier, and a devout son of the Church, who had fled before the persecution of our fa.th m . White Eussia.' of which you have doubtless heard-who has not ? After a little conversation, in wh.ch he seemed disturbed and absent, he said tome, abruptly, Father, I wish to tell you something, but it is not a " -^^on - no-for it was no sin, but a great victory which I gained ; steX- So. tut CaUuclc tra.eU f-^ He ^avds like th I vil^' Half my troop are in hospital, and their horse ame for a month to come !'-' Well, it is strange how the IX saints and the .o^d «od :n^_:;;;;r;\ r. e?;u"X--C:ina:i:-erecometo W e naa gu h xridiolas went ever at the same E in a wild! gloomy spot, I found n>yself ^P^ singly by the side of the open carriage, in which the Emperor travelled alone. I turned my head, and before. A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF THE LATE CZAB. 229 I behind, there was no one— no one ; and there he lay alone and asleep in the hot sun, with his great breast invitmg the stab I had often wished an opportunity to give him— for am I not a Pole, Father ?-an outcast from the hearth of my fathers ?-and there lay the oppressor of my race and of my religion under my hand ! Yes, Father, it was a wUd place, and my heart was fuU of dark thoughts, and my brain grew on fire, and I know not what I might not have done, if it had lasted longer ; but the carriage gave a great jolt and the giant started up from his sleep, and the impulse passed away. But'-and his breast heaved like the sea as he 'repeated— ' i< was a great temptation, and praise be to God and all saints that I did not dishonour his Holiness's safeguard !' " — « It was indeed a strange chance and strange tempta- tion." I said. " Had the Pole yielded to it, what conse- quences might have followed !" « Northern blood runs cool," rejoined my companion, with a strange smile. " I fear an Italian in the Pole's place would have buried his stUetto in his enemy's heart first, and have speculated on consequences afterwards."— Probably no dav passes in which men are not caUed on in multiplied cases to decide the question-" Shall we do evil that good may come i" and as often as it presents itself, the word, the rule, the providence of God rise up in the awfuUv simple interdict of-" God forbid." And yet, interpreting the^o** of the Czar's escape by its/«tore and OUT present, the temptation is now strong to wish that the Pole's blow had descended on the sleeping victim, and thus saved Europe the after-crop of anxiety, hostility, blood, and tears, which it is now reaping from the ruthless 230 GLBASINGS A»TEB " GEAND X0TIB"-I8XS. smHtion of the Autocrat who escaped that danger. But 8tm the rule is unalterable, that " wrong never comes right," and let the event be what it may, the issue between Bussian ambition and the repressive powers of the West must have leen tried at last. The plans of that Czar were too deeply laid, and reached too far back into Eussian policy, to be broken up by any single event of whatever magnitude. He seemed to foresee and calculate anythmg that might happen. « Vous MOerez ma fiotte-et apres ? _(Tou may bum my fleet-but what of that?") was one of the remarkable exposes of his full calculation of aU contingencies, made to Sir HamUton Seymour, in his memorable proposal to England to strip and plunder the " sick man" ere he was cold. Perhaps the one thmg which his far-seeing calculations did not take into account was his own death in the very crisis of the conflict ; and yet this event, which has happened, and which would have been ruin to a miscalculated enterprise of an Autocrat, does not seem to have disorganised his arrangements very sensibly. A less energetic hand may have caught up the reins, but his successor does not as yet show the slightest sign of swerving from the desperate enterprise of " carry- ing out the policy of Catherine and Paul !" "Le Czar est mort—rien n'ett change"— is the brief dictum of the calm-judging French Emperor, and the battle of aggression and repulsion yet remains to be fought out on the heights of Sebastopol or elsewhere. Let us be thankful that an "United France and England" -the powers of progress and civUisation in the West,-can, in the conflict, raise as their battle cry, « God defend the right !" " THE nm or the i.rENNINES." 231 CHAPTEB XIII. « THE nnf OP THE APENHINES" « THE GATE OE BOLOGNA"-" THE TTJDBSCHE." We have left Eome ; shall I say anything of Elorence? or rather, can I say anything of Florence wMch wiU not violate my own rule, not wittingly to speak of things better said by others, and before me. The Florence mosaic of pietro dura, as a curious and ingenious manu- facture, might give a subject ; but it seems scarce worth dwelling on ; so, on the whole, I think I shall pass from Florence, with one little bit of scandal about the Venu. di Medicis," which will, I am quite sure.be new a^d ^ginal. A friend of mine, going one morning early to the GaUery in the hope of an uninterrupted half hour's tete-a-tete with the presiding divinity of the Tribune-found him- self "prevented" by two sprightly young ladies of his acquaintance, whom he surprised in the act of makmg xuost scientific use of a tape in carefully measuring the notoriously thick ankle of the Venus, with a view, doubt- less, te a private comparison with their own pret y ankles at home. If my informant is to be behoved, the celestial 232 GLEANIl^GS AFTEE " GEAND T0IJE"-ISTS. rosy red" with which they acknowledged detection in this anatomico-^^^c^tV occupation, was so warm, that it actually communicated a reflected hlush to the insensate statue itself; but this I myself think somewhat doubtful, and incline to the opinion, that young ladies who had brought themselves to engage in such scientific examinations, must not only have outlived the age, but very probably lost the grace of blushing altogether. On the whole, I think I shall pass on. The Arno sun- sets are things to be remembered, but not described ; so let us from Tlorence and address ourselves to the passage of the Apennines, " sans phrased Eorsyth has a horrible episode of two friends of his, who escaped with their lives from the murder-hole of an inn among the Apennines, where the jackal landlady used to " set" victims for the monster cure of the parish, who with a chosen gang, used to surprise and murder them in their beds. Of course the landlady and assassins of Forsyth's day are long " gone to their own place," but the locality remains unaltered, the road runs in the same direction, and I have no doubt that we slept in the very same inn! It was all but twilight when, having toiled up to the summit-level of the road and range, we drove to the door of a solitary auberge, on the very highest point at which the Apennines are passed. When I say solitary, I do not mean that a hamlet did not lie round, but the house had an air of strange loneliness, discomfort, and want of use ; the ascent to the guest-chambers was by a long, steep, dark stone stair ; and when the landlady showed us our sleeping-rooms, which opened in suites off a large central " THE INN OF THE APENNINES." 233 salle, she gave mysterious warnings to be particidar in fastening our rooms at night, which naturally provoked inquiry as to whom they were to be locked against ? and what she meant ? To which she responded by looking cautiously round, and then uttering in a low, emphatic voice, the single word—" Tudesche !" It would not be easy to convey the all of hate and dread which an Italian puts into his pronunciation of this dreaded name-embodying as it does the over-mastering power which holds down the writhing energies of Italy with a giant grasp. The Teutonic name has become on the Italian side of the Alps a "word to conjure with ;" it calls up in the Italian breast feelings of deep and mortal enmity, and no Italian ever utters it except in the " bated breath" of concentrated and intensified dislike. It appeared upon inquiry, that a smaU Austrian force had been lately sent up from Bologna to the hamlet, be- cause of some " extravaganzas of the young men," the hostess said, carelessly. The troopers were below, their horses in the stables, and the ofdcers had apartments opening off the same salle as ours. " If they were officers, then, we had nothing to fear," I remarked. " Oh, no," she rejoined, " officers and men, they were ' tutte Tudesche; all rogues alike." Justice to aU parties obliges me here to state, that as we experienced neither disturbance nor incivility from the « Tudesche," but, on the contrary, a sense of security from the consciousness of their presence, and as the esca- pades of the young men of the hamlet, of which the hostess spoke so slightly as " extravaganzas," proved afterwards to be the mere peccadillos of " murder, violation, and / 234 GLEi^lTlNGS AFTER " QBAND T0UE"-ISTS. plunder," it appears to me that the good lady's estimate of the comparative morals of her guests and neighbours ought to be received with some caution. Some of our party had retired to rest, a few of us con- tinned reading and writing in the long gloomy salle, when, about ten o'clock, the heavy tread and jingle of sabre and spur upon the stone stairs announced the return of our German neighbours. Two taU young officers strode into the room, and from their look of surprise at seeing it occu- pied, I suspect that traveUers in general rather eschewed these suspicious quarters ; the Germans evidently came prepared to solace themselves with their nightly meer- schaum in the salle, but seeing ladies of our party, were so polite as to retire at once to their own apartment, where, if they smoked, it must have been out of window or up chimney, for we saw no more of them, nor did we experi- ence any annoyance either olfactory or otherwise for the rest of the night. With the early dawn I was astir, and as a large party takes some time to get in motion, I walked out to recon- noitre this very highest region of the Apennine range. Getting clear of the hamlet, I looked out upon a very peculiar scene ; I stood upon one of a number of peaks or spurs of the range, all of nearly the same eminence, and aU flattening into a smaU table-land at the top, aff'ording room for hamlets similar to that which formed our resting-place last night; between these spots the ground deepened abruptly into wooded valleys or ravines, forming a network over the country in all directions, and presenting what amateurs in such localities would call a " sweet regM' for guerilla warfare,or bandit-ambuscade, as the case might be. " THE TSrS OF THE APEKIflKES." 235 It would be as difficult for a large force to act in com- bination in such a region as it would be dangerous to foUow the natives into the densely wooded defiles branch- ing off in all directions ; and as the long, level country towards Bologna brightened in the new risen sun, I began to think with some anxiety as to what adventures might lie before us in the interval to his setting again. This anxiety was rather increased than lessened, when, returning through the little village, I took notice of a wretched hovel of scarce larger dimensions than a cobbler's staU, which, nevertheless, had something of an official and public air about it, the door and walls being garnished with two or three small printed bills, shabby proclamations in sooth they were, yet I was so curious as to stop and read, and they proved instructive enough as to the kind of locality in which we were. I was right, the little edifice was the " Town-hall," " Police-office," and " Palazzo di Justizia" of Lojano, aU combined in one ; and the tenor of the notices which adorned its waUs was not calculated to reassure a timorous traveUer. Two or three ofi-ered rewards for notorious characters lurking in the district, and charged mth the trifling crimes of homicide, abduction, and robbery. A longer paper was of the nature of an address from the authorities of the place to the inhabitants generaUy, which set out vdth the following preamble : i. Whereas this district has long been noted and infamous for the various crimes of murder, plunder, and violences of dl ^-^s jallmg lown the anger of God and of his HoUness upon the offenders, the mha- Mtl^ts terUed, as they value the ^onoy of their county, t^^^^^^^^ of the Cardinal Legate, and the blessing of the common Father ot aU Ch»rto be'aidiig and assisting the lawful authonties m disco- vering and repressing," &c. 236 GLEANINGS AJTEE « GEAND T0UB"-ISTS. The Whole being precisely the sort of ^ocume^ *" pos-- the reader with a conviction that crime was nfe and law powerL, - that I returned to our hotel very whole- CSL^pressedwith the desirableness of exped^ng as LTct as possible our departure from a locahty where, :;:' the evidence of no unfriendly witness, tbe Iwely *-- perament of the youths of the village was -P* * J'-k out in.o the « horse play" of throat-cuttu^g, robbery, and "tw^Jdtrserved no good end to have alarmed the females of our convoy, and as we worked our way dowu the eastern face of the Apennines, tbey were as hght hearted and gay as on other occasions xn observu^g bow well a bandit with long gun and steeple-hat ^0"^ Jook on particular points commanding the road ; happily for them their fancy sketch did not become reahty. and we d passed unscathed from this " infamous" region ; the un conscious ones" of us in that " blissful ignorance, which it would have been folly to change for b.tter wisdom and Tseniors of the party observed with ™-b ^hanl^u^^^ss :ningled with apprehension, that as we descended the mountain, a party of the Austrian cavalry followed us at a certain distance, and truly glad were we to perceive at intervals their helmets glittering in the rising sun above us until we had cleared that region of defiles which sur. rounded their quarters. At length we were in a compara- tively open district, but, though « quittes pour la peur, never breathing freely until we found ourselves and our charge altogether clear of the mountain range, and rolhng along the valley of the Kheno, towards Bologna. As I have no bandit adventure to record, I may as weU " THE GATE OF BOLOGNA. 237 here note how thankful I felt to our veturino, Oeorgio, who had conveyed us all the way from Eome to Padua, for having reserved, until we were just parting, the con- fession of his own special ill-luck in regard to banditti. At Ferrara we found the whole town "astir" and excited, by the esecution of a celebrated brigand, which had taken place a few days before. Portraits of the " handsome cut- throat" were in every window, and anecdotes of his ferocity in every mouth. It was then that Georgio, out of the ful- ness of his heart, informed me that he had been three times placed "faccm a terra" by brigands, that being the established posture for the "veturino" while the free- hooter plunders his freight. Let us hope, for the sake of his future employers, that honest Georgio has exhausted his ill-luck in this respect ; bat I much fear had I been aware of this sort of affinity for being plundered before our "contratto"was signed, I should have hesitated to engage with a conductor so unlucky. But we found 'AU s well that ends well" a proverb as true as most eld pro- verbs are generally. . ,, , . t,„™ We arrived in Bologna early enough m the day to have rested, and after an early dinner to have arranged a visit to the beautiful " Certosa Burial-Grounds," at a short distance beyond the walls. I cannot explain, I can but affirm the fact, that the Certosa convents throughout Italy seem to have been « suppressed" in more than their fair proportion to other monastic establishments, whenever you find in the vicinity of an Italian town any modem public iBBtitution of which the locality or ^uUd^gs are peculiarly imposing, you are sure on inquiry to find that ft has risen on the fall of a « Carthusiar," convent. Even 238 GLEANINGS ATTEE " GBAND TOTJIl"-ISTS. " THE GATE OF BOIiOGNA." 239 / where not suppressed, but aUowed to exist, they are gene- raUy shorn of their fair proportions, and curtailed of their rich revenues. The " Certosa" of Naples, in situa- tion, architecture, and landscape the most favoured in Italy, probably in the world, is tenanted but by the skeleton remnant of its former brotherhood, and I have seen at Vesper time the white-robed inmates flit about among the snowy piUars of their marbled cloisters rather like isolated ghosts, than in the long array in which they used formerly to pass processionally to this service. Thus we found it everywhere ; and as I know of nothing in the Carthusian records either of wealth or wickedness to have thus marked them out for special suppression or plunder, I can only mention the fact as I observed it, as remarkable, leaving the solution to others. Our party would have required two carriages for our excursion, but as the evening was fair and the distance not far, we ordered but one, intending to exchange places with any of the four walkers who might feel fatigued. We paid our visit, loitered out the lovely summer's evening in the Certosa grounds, and in the singular arcaded passage of three miles long, by which the Madonna of S. Luke (how many Madonnas did S. Luke really paint ?) pays her annual visit to her good city of Bologna. Our evening had been a perfect one hitherto, when lo ! as we neared the gate by which we had come out from the city a few hours before, I saw the face of the coachman by whom I sat grow suddenly blank, and looking forwards I saw the reason— our entrance was barred: the city gate, both carriage-way and wicket, was shut in our faces. A knock at the latter brought a grim German visage to the grille, from whom no explanation could be extracted but that « there was no admission ;" and so there we stood, a party of strangers, cut off from our hospitivmM the purHeus of a strange city, in the fast-falling darkness of a summer evening. The explanation of this mischance is highly illustrative of the unsettled, seething state of the Italian mind under the political rule to which for its sins it seems to be hope- lessly given over. « The Legation of Bologna' ' is one of the most important of the States of the Church. The Bolognese have ever affected, however ill they may have maintained, a distinct, independent, quasi-national character of their own, and m the general mouvem^nt of 1848 they raised the standard of " United Italy," constructed their paper constitution, like their neighbours, and made a wild, desperate defence against the Austrian forces when sent to reduce them. It was, however, unavailing, they were obliged to capitulate ; the Austrians entered into militaiy occupation of Bologna, and compelling the Bolognese to a constrained and ill- endured submission to the restored Papal authorities, they had continued at the tune of our visit to garrison the city, and to hold the command of some of the gates. Although we had passed free through the Pope's brigand subjects of the Apennines, we were doomed to undergo some inconveniences and no small alarm m his city of Bologna, in consequence of our arriving in the midst of one of those popular movements known in these countries under the name of "passive resistance," which 240 GLEABIKGS AFTEE " GBAND T0UE"-ISTS. generally, however, takes in the end a more demonstrative shape, unless it be either subdued or successful at once. Pressed down by the iron hand of Austria, the " Young Italy" of Bologna had resorted to a device for damaging and distressing their liege lord the Pope, which had in it something of that " ridiculous" which is often near akin to the " sublime." An impost on tobacco forms a large portion of the Papal revenue; it was at this time farmed out to "Prince Torlonia," who was supposed to be about to make his HoUness a large advance on the prospective proceeds of the tax, and it occurred to some of the youths of Bologna, that if they could only estabUsh a " Total- Abstinenee-From- Smoking-Tobacco Institute" in Bologna, the example of this patriotic city might spread the movement, might damage the security of the intended loan, and that sooner or later " la sua Sanctita" might thus be starved out of absolutism and into liberality. Accordingly, the young liberals of Bologna issued then- manifesto, declaring " any man who smoked tobacco to be an enemy to liberalism and progress ;" and not only did they make this proclamation, but, suiting the action to the word, they paraded the city in bands to see it earned into practical effect ; while the constituted authorities, horrified at the idea of their being not " smoked," but starved! out of office, "lay hushed in grim repose," with the Austrians at their back, and only waiting for some overt act which would deliver the anti-smokers into their hands. , It came at last, and, as ill-luck would have it, on the very day of our sojourn at Bologna. A knot of young « THE TUDESCHE. It 241 men of the first consideration in Bologna, parading the city, Hghted on some caitiff transgressing their ukase, by Bteding into a tobacconist's shop to purchase a portion of the forbidden nicotian luxury ; they seized him by the coat-tail, and gently drew him back. But if they were at his coat-tail, the " sUrrir with a vision of the " Tudesche" in the background, were as close at their own. They were at once seized and thrown into prison ; and, as the arrest of so many young men of leading famHies was not unlikely to lead to an imeute, or some other popular de- monstration, the authorities stood prepared for the worst, and the Austrians in particular took that precaution which was proving so inconvenient to us, of closing tie gates, of which thev had the custody, an hour earHer than usual. « Surely," said I to the coachman, after my ineffectual attempt at'parley with the grim guard, « surely you might expkin to him that we are 'forestien; no way implicated in Bologna quarrels, and he might let us pass." The coachman turned to me, and with that stereotyped emphasis in which aU his countrymen pronounce the word, he merely uttered "Tudesche!" thereby implying that he had as much hope of moving the impassive inmates of the Certosa we had left as " la hrutta genter the stoUd Germans who held the gate against us. A thought, however, seemed to strike him. " There is an Italian gate," he said; "by a brisk gallop we may gain that before closing"-and at once turning the car- riage, he certainly did gallop with a briskness which just " saved our distance," but very narrowly— " The drawbridge trembled on the rise, Just as across its arch he flies" — B 242 i» GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND rOTJR -ISTS " THE TUDESCHE." 243 the guard was turned out for closing tHe gate just as his smoking horses galloped through. Now that we in the carriage had escaped so narrowly the risk of a "bivouac" in the cemetery, or arcades, we had time to think of something else, and to our horror we recoUected that the walking party-a young gentleman (scantily furnished with Italian) and three young ladies- had been left behind, and were probably sauntering to- wards the gate from which we had been so ruthlessly re- jected. Here was a dilemma indeed, from which we could see no escape. We could not go back— we were now a mile or two from the " German gate." We could only hope that they, too, would have turned from the inhospitable portal in time to gain entrance elsewhere : and yet, in their utter ignorance of the locality, how was this to be expected ? In the midst of these painful anxieties we ar- rived at our inn. Anybody wiU, I am sure, at once realise the terrible anxieties of such a position as this— it is one which de- stroys all perceptions of time, probabilities, possibilities —minutes reckon as hours— contingent dangers magnify into actual horrors. In our terror at some one calamity we forget the various chances against its happening. As the night darkened, and no walking party arrived, a busy fancy began to summon round me every danger and every mischance which could befal them. A town in revolt— a brutal soldiery— ignorance of the way or language— sup- posing them admitted anywhere, or supposing them abso- lutely shut out, three girls and a boy, to pass a night on the outskirts of a great city, was in itself an " image of fear." A quarter, a half-hour, lengthened by nervousness into half a night, went by, and in desperation I was setting out to invoke at all cost and trouble the aid of the police, when I met the party within a few steps of the inn-door, walking leisurely towards me. " Where had they been such an age ?" — " They had halted nowhere ;— we in the carriage did not feel the length of the way, but they had walked as fast as they could." " How had they gotten in ?" " Miss P had spoken a few words in German to the guard, and the gates opened like magic." Here, indeed, was an unthought-of resource, which had rescued them from their difficulty ; and, on further expla- nation, it appeared, that on their first application the refusal had been as stem as to ourselves, but when Migg p (a German lady of our party) asked in her native tongue whether they would shut out a ''frdulei7C\ from their own " Ehine-land ?" the bar fell at once, and discipline and " phlegm" yielded to a claim made in the holy name of ^^ faderland.^^ ! — As far as a stranger, taking a passing view of the rich plains and fine cities of Lombardy, is qualified to speak, I should say that the Austrian rule of its Italian provinces was, on the whole, and in many essentials, paternal and beneficent. Pine roads branching from the Stelvio and the Spliighen Passes over the whole level land beneath ; a magnificent and national system of irrigation covering the plains of Lombardy like a network, and enabling every farmer thereon to draw from the great water-range overhead, a supply to any individual field on his land as e2 244 GLEANINGS AFTEB " GBAND TOUE -ISTS. he pleases ; tlie great cities Milan, Verona, and others (aU but Venice, seemingly doomed by Austrian policy to neglect and rottenness), in progress of continued adorn- ment and improvement ; all these things denote a govern- ment anxious to develop the energies and promote the substantial welfare of the subject people. There is but one growth of the country interdicted and discouraged, and that is the growth of— mind! Austria seems deter- mined to hold the Italian still as the " Helot" of the « Tudesche !'' and the final issue of such a policy remains to be seen. Mind is a produce which, if du-ectly de- pressed, will grow, and spread, and sprout out wildly, irregularly, mischievously ; and it seems an inevitable law of nature that if those to whom its culture is entrusted neglect or violate their duty, they must look to have, if not their own, their children's teeth " set on edge" by the " wild-grape fruit" of their negligence. TEinCB. 245 CHAPTEE XIV. VENICE. EvEET city which deems itself a " beauty," invents its own proverb of self-praise. " Seviglia'' rhymes to " rmra^ vigliar and so Seville takes rank as a " world's wonder;" the languishing Neapolitan condenses his appreciation of his lovely city into the euthanasian aphorism, " Vede Napoli e poi morir while " beautiful Venice, the pride of the sea," has coined for its motto of self-laudation the distich — '''■ In-vedtOa Venezza Perduta bellezza.^* He that passeth Venice by Hath for beauty heedless eye. Unquestionably, any Italian tour " passing by" that sin- gular city which " rose like an exhalation" from a swamp, to sit fourteen centuries as a regent queen over what for a long time was ''the sea'' of the known world, must be deemed incomplete. Too true it is that Venice is not what it was; that pride, profligacy, and poHcy-the old vices of her own oligarchy— the ruthless statecraft of her 246 GLEANINGS AFTEB " GEAND TOirB."-ISTS. new foreign masters, have combined to deliver over tlie ocean queen into decay and degradation. Venice is now but the wreck of tbe great power for wHcb she shows in history. Her arsenal holds neither gun nor galley '.-not a piece of effective ordnance, not even a cockboat, sea- worthy, within its five-mile area. Her great Bucentaur is laid up like the remains of a worn-out puppet-show ! Her gonfalon staffs rise standardless in bitter mockery of the triple sovereignty they once typified. Tour step now rings hoUow and echoing from the " Scala det Giganti, and along the once thronged terrace, where erewhile gaped the " Bocca di LeonV' for the dropped hint, wHch could carry terror and confiscation, imprisonment and death, to any hearth in Yemce. Never again wiH the haughty Ye- netian nobles, among whom kings were proud to be enrolled, walk dominoed and apart in their privileged area of the Piazza di San Marco,* or look proudly on while the tokens of marital supremacy, fetters and a ring, are dropped into the subject waters, to commemorate " The Adriatic wedded to our Duke." These are days gone— and gone beyond recal-for to a * Nothing can prove the haughty assumption of the VeneUan noMe more truly than the disregard to popular feeling with which he shifted JS priXd walk on the Piazza of St Mark, as he found the sun shme ^trwi^dblow, to suit his sensibiUties. Before a Venetian plebeian Led to tread " the Piazza," he was obliged to consult merxdi^ and t^lr vane, lest he should intrude his common clay body " betwe^ ^Twind and the nobility" of a " Comaro," or a Moecenigo. My, if deLLacy, in its licence, has played wild or cruel Pranks ^^^^^.^^ com^ feuioism to cast a stone at it, as though it were itself sinles^ There I no better omen for the future of our country than the jealousy iith which a pubUc sense always rises so shout down any msult to the feeling, or invasion of the rights, of-the populace. VENICE. 247 fallen republic there cometh no resurrection ; and to make assurance doubly sure, to seal the tomb of the defunct state, Austrian policy now directs the " argosies" of fallen Venice to privileged and thriving Trieste, and while the " Sea Cybele" is of set purpose left to rot and drop piecemeal into her own lagunes, her pert modern rival rises and spreads her sails, and grows rich upon her ruin. Still, despite of aU this, a visit to Yenice has, and will always have, a sad and peculiar interest of its own— an interest which the picturesque past must ever maintain over the coarse materialities of our practical present world. The tourist who would turn from the desolate idleness of Yenice to inspect the vulgar activities of her thriving neighbour, would deserve Now to what shall we sentence him ? I know no more suitable punishment than that he should wear out his next vacation-tour in half-hour trips on " re- •turn tickets'' between the warehouses of Manchester and the wharfs of Liverpool ! — A propos of railway trips, the present mode of approach to this city of the sea is among the disillusions which fact is for ever inflicting on fancy. We had been feeding imagination with book-drawn ideas of arriving in a gloam- ing twilight on the banks of a Stygian canal at Maestre, there to embark ourselves and fortunes in a Charon-ic ferry- boat, in which we were to strike out darkling into the waste of waters, to see presently the lights and outlines of a great city, looming dim on the horizon to seaward. ''Mais nous avons cliange, tout celaP' instead of embarking at Maestre, we drove up to the Padua Eailway station, as it might be to Paddington ! delivered in our luggage, and received our tickets mechanically and methodically, and 248 OLEAOTNGS AFTEE « GBAND-TOTIb"-ISTS. "took our seats" as any excursionists to Windsor or Ox- ford might do. " They that trouble the world are come hither also"-not even the Venice lagunes could escape that omnivorous appetite of railway speculation, to which (like "Wantley's dragon of old) " Honscs and churches Are but geese and turkeys," which drains lakes, levels hills, tunnels mountains, and, with a five-hundred passenger-freight, boldly strikes out to traverse the famed water-fence of Venice upon a thread of piled tram-way, which, however safe to travel over, looked Lmingly perilous as it vanished to a point in the closing evening and distant waters. And yet this scene is not without its touch of Venetian interest. Very, very strange it is to look out of a carriage-window upon the black, black depth around you. " It's not ^ery deep," some one says. " now do ym know tUti " « A wound neither deep as a draw-well nor wide as a church-door," speeds a victim; there may not be "fuU fathoms five" to engulph you on the failure of a sleeper or the fracture of an axle^yet quite enough to make you " suffer a sea-change." Within the carriage, all is light, comfort, and warmth ; without dl is suggestive of « hairbreadth 'scapes," of " what pain it is o drown " and so forth. On-on we go. Will this world of waters never end ? In our impatience and helplessness we begin to conjecture whether the sea-city may not have broken from its own moorings, and be floating away before us There is no conjecture, however absurd, that wiU not obtrude itself on nervousness, travelling in the dark, and into — the unknown. TENICE. 249 As we steamed slowly and endlessly on, a slight incident, which may be worth relating, broke the hushed monotony. Our carriage contained twenty or thirty people, ranged in double seats along its length, having a passage between, with doors opening at each end, so that the -conducteur," or « guard," can pass along the whole length of the train, from one carriage to the other, as occasion may requu-e, and utter the final " I'll take tickets, please," without that terrible stop, which ends every English railway journey in ten minutes of fever and fidget. I would strongly recom- mend this arrangement to the attention of EngUsh railway managers and presidents of « roUing-stock departments," as one of those hints which might with advantage be adopted from our neighbours' book, if English conceit would allow our EaUway magnates to think that " any good thing" could come out of the practice of these "/«m« moimseers." . We were, as I said, steaming endlessly along, when the opening door of the carriage, raising a little cloud of im- palpable dust, treated me to an indulgence which I would not barter for all the "high toast," "Maccabaw," or « Lundyfoot," that ever titillated human nostril !-I mean a hearty and refreshing sneeze! I sneezed, once and again, loudlv, sonorously, without restraint, and m most guileless un'consciousness of doing aught remaxkable or uncommon, and yet I doubt if a lighted Catherine-wheel op exploded cracker could have excited a greater sensation than my sternutation seemed to produce in the railway carriage through all its compartments, save those occupied by the " heretici Inglese." At the first explosion, a portly priest opposite broke off his conversation with his neigh- 250 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0XJE"-ISTS. bour to lift his hat courteously, to bow in my face, and utter what the expression of lis face told me was a com- miserating prayer; his neighbour regarded me compas- sionately, and did the like ; ladies in full career of tongue, paused, looked at me, at each other, crossed themselves quickly, and ''miracohr were silent for half a minute. The evident " sensation" lasted long enough to make me feel particularly awkward, under the consciousness that I had somehow committed a solecism, though of what nature I could not at all understand. It was not for some time after that I learned the true state of the case, in hearing that at some remote period, Italy—the Venetian States in particular— had been desolated by a fatal plague (possibly that which occasioned the erection of the church of the " Salute"), of wHch the " premonitory symptom" had been violent sternutation, so that in time "it arrived" that a sneeze came to be interpreted as a death-warrant I or " passing-bell-warning" to pray for a " soul sick unto death, or departing." "Whether it is that the sternutatory organs of the Italians are ever since so pecuHarly insensible or under command that a sneeze is a rarity— or, as is most likely, that the custom keeps its ground, though the reason for it has long passed away— certain it is that my yielding to this (to me) natural and refreshing convulsion of the nerves obtained for me the commiserating regards of a whole railroad carriage, my unimpressible English com- panions alone excepted, who could, as Httle as myself, understand the demonstrative sympathy of the Italians around us. At length we arrived— no, I beg pardon, — we "ran aground"— upon one of the outlying islands of Venice, and VENICE. 251 the huge train disembarked its cargo, with all that con- fusion which nothing short of English system could prevent from being a chaos. And here I gladly acknowledge that something like interchange might take place with recipro- cal advantage : if in some points foreign invention might improve us, assuredly a Uttle of our order and st/stem would be a benefit to them. In this Venice expedition I had an extra consignment of kdies in charge. I sent them off by a light boat to our intended hotel (Daniele). Afemme de chambre, who knew aU her mistress's packages by sight, was to have remained with me to identify luggage, but in the confusion, mistaking orders, she foUowed her mistress, and so I stood-alone in chaos! with twenty-five parcels (more or less, larger or smaller) to look after and extricate. I wonder how I survived it. It was done, however, at last. My pile of " hardes et lagages^' got together, I looked out of the raHway station, Venice-wards. But no! it can't be Venice; it's all a mistake-a dream. The first sound which greeted my wondering ear was an inquiry " whether I wanted an-— omnibus." Yes, " omnibus" was the word, redolent of " the land of Cockaigne," of " Temple Bar," " the Bank, "Chelsea," everything most un^Venetim in creation.-- and yet my ear did not deceive me. " An omnibus is Venetian for one of those large roomy boats which are to the light grax^eful gondola as a waggon to a dennet. Of course I wanted one, and having at length seen all my cargo on board, I embarked at about ten o'clock at night, in pitchy darkness, to traverse the network of minor canals which led from the railway to the heart of the city. This passage waa doubtless inferior to the transit of five N 252 »» GLEATTINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. TENICE. 253 miles or so from Maestro or Puscina, yet still it was some- thing to glide along silently and mysteriously through these dark water-avenues of this extraordinary city. The omnibus boat had a large, roomy, hurricane-house cabin with windows ; it was lighted by one glimmering lamp, merely sufficient to make the darkness within visible, and the palpable obscure without more dense and impenetrable. I felt rather than saw that I was passing between lines of high edifices ; a stifled hum, an occasional glimmer through a chink, told me that life was all about me, as I passed on in a deathlike stillness, only broken by the splash of the oar and the strange note of warning to anything approach- ing with which the Venetian boatman turns a comer. ^ ^ Presently glancing lights appeared more frequently — we passed one or two palazzos, evidently lighted up for recep- tion of guests — then under a bridge, in which I at once recognised the "Eialto" — then we passed along the land- ing-place of the " Piazzetta" to the " Hotel Daniele," to be hailed with the intelligence " All full," and that my lady- friends had preceded me to another hotel — "full also." Hotel-hunting in the dark is a pursuit more exciting than agreeable ; and after more than one rejection, we were all housed at the " Palazzo Grassi" (" Hotel dea Empereurs"), at about eleven o'clock at night. Some of our large party shifted quarters next day, but I and mine, engaging a set of snug entresol apartments, held our ground, than which there could not be a better for seeing to advantage the city scenery of Venice, and studying, as in a Canaletti picture, whenever we looked out of a window, a reach of the Grand Canal, which in- cluded some of its most arabesque varieties of architecture. Before us, in contrast, lay in cold Palladian correctness the church of the " Salute ;" over the way (I mean the water), the "Accademia;" and, not far off, St. Mark's, within reach of either a stroll or a glide — yes, I do mean a stroll, for you may stroll about Venice, as you shall hear, though few care to make an exertion, which all should make, who wish to see Venice " intus et in cuteP Whether the Grassi family were among the ancient magnificos or modem nobility of Venice, I know not, but they are with the past, and have left a magnificent palace, in which the passing tourist can now " take his ease as his inn." This palazzo, like all others in Venice, is raised on a solid Etruscan substructure, of which the foundation- piles must be deep driven into the subsoil : in the midst of a spacious internal court-yard it contains a weU of pure water (a rare conveniency in Venice). Ascending a stately staircase, you see all round very curious represen- tations, not ill painted, on the walls, of ancient Venetian manners and costumes, as they used to appear in the old reunions ; there were the " damas" of Venice, who, as their English libeller said, "let Heaven, but not their husbands, see their pranks;" there were the masqued nobles in their "proud plainness" of black domino, but indulging their love of show, in the gorgeous gold cloth adornments of their attendant menials around, as we some- times see a great man in studied simplicity pacing on an ambling pony, while his groom reins in a "hundred guinea" horse. I considered it quite a treat to be able daily to look on these shadows of the " olden time," now that the reality has gone by for ever. As I mean to eschew most religiously aught of Venice 254 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. VENICE. 255 whicli can be better read in " Murray's," or in other pro- fessional books of travel, — if I borrow from Byron words wherewith to record that " I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs," it is because I cannot otherwise or better give my own peculiar impressions of my visit to the " palace and prison on each hand." As we passed through the ducal halls, rich in the works of the Tintoretti and Paul Veronese, and despoiled of everything else, I asked our guide " what use was made of the palace now ?" And it was with gnashing teeth, and bitter emphasis, that he replied : " Signor, una galleria 'per i forestieri.^^ Yes — " a mere gape-room for the stranger." Truly Venice shall no more be called " a Lady of Kingdoms." If the spirit of Frederick Barba- rossa could look on the present state of the proud republic which compelled him, on the threshold of St. Mark's, to kiss the toe of that haughty " servant of servants," Pope Alexander III., it would, surely, own itself appeased and avenged. We passed at once from the " Hall of Doom," over the famous bridge, into the now empty pri- sons, separated from the palace by a narrow canal ; and it was not until we came to the " ouhliettes,^^ which, as our guide assured us, lay cased deep down in the substructure forming the basis of every building in Venice, that any noticeable subject of conversation arose. " Here," said the guide, conducting us into a small square chamber, lined in floor, ceiling, and walls all with rough timber — " here is where the condemned were con- ducted after sentence, never to leave it until they went penitent to death;" and "ecco, Signor" (pointing to a small square aperture, corresponding to a niche in the wall of the passage outside), " after entering this room as condemned^ they never saw any light again but from a lamp placed there — no nearer." The room was clean and dry ; it had none of the nasti- ness which we are accustomed to connect with an under- ground or under-water dungeon. It reminded me (I know not why, except from the rough planking) of the Lollards' Eoom in Lambeth Tower ; but it made an im- pression of more pitiless, hopeless, mind-murdering du- rance, than I had ever before realised. My breathing came thick, as I began to caU up the idea of some victim of "the lion's mouth" wearing out his days here until madness or death came to his relief, and I asked the man : " Did the condemned always confess their guilt ?" " You see, Signor," he said, " our Church is very mer- ciful! it never allows us to execute a man until he feels and owns that he deserves it; they all do it sooner or later. ''^ " But," said I, " a man might say anything to get out of this dreadful place : suppose a man innocent — suppose that he confessed in mere desperation " I don't know whether I conveyed myself fully to him, for he caught at the word desperation — " Oh, yes, we have often had disperati here for a week or so ; they dash their heads against the walls, and do other impolite things {cose di discortesia). You see, Signor, we have these boards to prevent them from injuring them- selves ; but they all soon get quiet, then sullen, and, in fine, they all confess at lastT^ 256 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0TIE"-ISTS. ^n In short, I found that this boasted mercy was but another name for " peine forte et dure"— a disguised rack ; another variety of that inquisitorial process which compels a man to accuse himself to get freed from the extremity of un- endurable torture. I made a fruitless attempt to explain to the Venetian the rule of English justice, which " holds every man innocent until proved guilty," and "compels no man to accuse or convict himself,"— but he evidently could not take in the idea at all. As we returned over the " Bridge of Sighs," I paused for a moment on the crown of the arch to examine the ex- quisite stonework tracery of a little window which lights the covered way ; and through the tube of the dark canal, as through a telescope, came from the sunny world beyond a passing glimpse of all that is most beautiful in Venice. As I looked, it occurred to me that the name of this fatal passage might be derived from the sensation which a passing look through this aperture was sure to produce on the fated wretches who passed by it to their doom. It was here, for example, that the wretched younger " Fos- cari," brought up from the choking dungeons below, might well have uttered that exclamation of anguished " amoi^ patricB"' which Byron puts into his mouth : " Oh, Venice ! My beautiful — my own — My only Venice, — this is breath ! — thy breeze, Thine Adrian sea-breeze— how it fans my cheek." This thought, which came upon me as I paused on the fatal arch, pursued me to the entresol of the Palazzo Grassi ; and in the cool of the evening, as I leaned from the window VENICE. 257 into the lovely sunset view before me, found form and utterance as follows : The " Bridgb op Siohs" — well named ; for there, As wretches mount that fatal stair Leading to judgment, when a breath Or whispered charge may doom to death, Full on the vision which has grown All torpid in its cell of stone, Up the long vista warmly streaming Comes sunlight on the window gleaming, And through the sculptured stonework glows Where in the distance Venice shows An ocean queen, enwreathed in smiles, And throned upon her countless isles. What victim in such torturing hour, Held in the grasp of despot power. Could look his last on sea, earth, sky, And see them pass without — a sigh ? Palazzo Grassi, May 25, 1851. Even if his Memoir had not told us that Forsyth had been a — schoolmaster ! I think I should have guessed it, from the classic terseness of his style, the reference of all he saw to some classic standard of excellence, and his utter want of appreciation for anything picturesque ! I question much if he did not consider a flight of fancy, or a capricio of genius, rather as a "bounds-breaking " to be punished with the ferula, than a beauty to be admired. He has left us an admirable and condensed classic handbook ; but let none trust him as a guide to aught of mediaeval or romantic interest, for he will be sure to pass them with slighting or contemptuous remark. Had I received as infallible that dash of his pen with which he disposes of " the glaring mosaics'' of St. Mark's Church, I should have overlooked s 258 GLE^lNINGS AFTEE " GRAND T0UE"-ISTS. one of the most curious features of that picturesque edifice, " neither Greek, Gothic, nor Saracenic," but a mixture of them all, and therefore the fitter style for the chief church of a city of which the mingled glories included trophies won at intervals from Greek, Goth, and Saracen alike. The mosaics of St. Mark's, so far from being ''glaring'' in colour, are remarkably subdued, while their quaint designs and mottoes should give them great interest to those curious in these works. Comparing them with others of a known date in Eome, I would set them down as of the twelfth or thirteenth century, notwithstanding that a date to a mosaic figure of Christ in the apsis gives " Mcccccvi. V«ttu0 F," which may be correct as to this single piece ; but it seems clearly of a more modern fashion than the rest, of which the grotesque conceptions and mottoes in quaint monkish rhymes exceed all description. I wonder whether they have ever been copied ? It would be a labour of months, rendered more difficult by the dim light, the straining of the neck, and the curious abbre- viations of the legends. To the designs of these mosaics, iUustrating ante and post-diluvian records, such as " The Creation," the command to be " fruitful and multiply," (! !) " The Deluge," " Babel Building," and such like, no pen could do justice ; and the hurin of Richard Doyle, cutting medieval antics, could not out- caricature them. The sa- crifice of Cain and Abel is thus weU mottoed : " Abel Christus cemit, Kaynus sua mimera spemit." The four guardian saints of Venice, " St. Nicholaus," St. VENICE. 259 Peter, St. Mark, St. in the following : (name unintelligible), are lauded (( Hos quatuor Jure fuit hie proponere cur ? Corporibus quorum Precellit Honor Venetonim His viget, his crescit, Terraque, Marique nitesdt, Integer et invictus, Situs his nunquamque relictus ;" while the figure of the Redeemer is 'garnished with this exhortation to the still spared sinner : " Sub, rex cunctorum Caro factus amore reorum Ne desperetis, Venie dum tempus habetis." These are but few of the many quaintnesses, hastily copied during a hasty visit ; but I much wonder that I have not seen in any book of travels other notice of these curious mosaics besides Eorsyth's disparaging remark. " Didst ever see a gondola ?" Whether you have or not, I won't pretend to paint what you may find in Byron's " Beppo," described to the — life I was going to say, but more correctly, to the — " mourning coach" style of fitting up, which Venetian sumptuary law prescribes for its light and singular "cab of the canal." I will only notice two features of this necessary of life in Venice : one is that fanciful and graceful prow which, with a dim and far-off" resemblance to the erect and arching neck of a sea-snake, cuts the water without sending off" a ripple at either side ; it is made of polished steel or iron, and it seems a point of gondola dandyism to keep it always bright and bur- s2 260 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0XJE"-I8TS. nished. It is obviously a remnant of the high prow of the ancient war-galley, now converted at once into an ornament and* a means of rendering direct collisions harm- less. Should two gondolas meet prow to prow, each glides by the other stately and swan-like, and as smoothly as the polished blades of a pair of scissors. The result would be very different, however, should one take the other on the quarter or side ; in such case the prow would be apt to cut through the frail vessel it struck like a knife. But this, probably, is an amount of awkwardness which the expert gondolier dismisses as impossihle ; and, indeed, the warning and precautionary cry with which these singular vessels round the corners of their tortuous and right-angled canals, almost amounts to absolute security against such an accident. The grace and rapidity with which the gondolier pro- pels his vessel has often been noticed. I know of no exercise better calculated to exhibit fine shape, and graceful, manly action to advantage, than the rowing of a gondola ; but I have never seen noticed the peculiarity of action which enables a single man with one oar, not used in sculling, but over the vessel's side, to keep the gondola in a course perfectly straight and sufficiently rapid. Should one of our watermen wish to work a small boat alone and with one oar, he " sculls it"— that is, he works over the stern with an action corresponding to that of the tail-fin of a fish ; but the Venetian gondolier works his craft by a totally different process, with a compound action of his oar, exhibiting much more ingenuity, and requiring much nicer and more scientific management than the downright working of the sculler. The gondolier VENICE. 261 accomplishes his purpose by means of the peculiar forma- tion of what, for want of a better name, we must term the "rullock," or "row-lock," in which his oar works. This is a piece of wood of a remarkable and not easily described Shape, more like the Greek f than anything I can now re- member. It is removable at pleasure from larboard to starboard side ; it must be of tough fibre, and the tortuous groove in which the oar works must be smoothed and polished with the greatest nicety, for on the free action of tJie oar in this groove the true and easy motion of the vessel depends. It forms a shifting pivot, hy which the plane in which the blade of the oar moves is changed con- tinually in the course of every impulse the gondolier gives to his vessel. I can go no further in description ; the in- strument and process must be seen to be understood. The gondolier stands to his work, looking forwards, and like other Italian boatmen, pushes (instead of pulling) his oar ; but in all other respects the action of gondoliering differs from any other mode of rowing I ever saw. On one occasion, having rowed under the " Bridge of Sighs," along that fatal channel " whose gloomy deep Never fisher's net dared sweep," having gazed and shuddered at that "small and low- browed door" in the frowning palace wall, from whence (as the gondolier's tradition whispered) the state victim used to be shot forth into the secret-keeping depths below, in order to make an excursion in keeping with this tale of horrors, we desired the man to guide us through some of the back ways of the city, that we might see something 262 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND T0TJE"-ISTS. TENICE. 263 more of the real life of its population than the domino- plajring, coffee-sipping habitues of the Piazza di San Marco could exhibit. He guided the gondola through water-lanes and defiles of which I could have formed no previous conception — the squalid black decay of the tall, prison-like houses; the ink-like hue of the water-way; the icy silence, seldom broken except by the dip and drip of the oar ; and the unearthly cry of warning as we turned a corner, echoed, perhaps, from another coffin-like barque passing us by — all these formed an ensemble never to be forgotten. I was disappointed at the few, very few signs of human life about us. Once a washerwoman singing at her tub made an event. Again, I remember, we came on a carpenter, and as he planed his block at the open door the shavings fell over from his hand into the canal, and a step too far would precipitate the workman himself into a cold and dirty bath. But with these exceptions, of stirring life we saw scarce anything, though our gondolier assured us that there was a teeming population in every house. "We soon had enough of this Italian copy of Dickens's vivid picture of Jacob's Island and the Folly Ditch, in " Oliver Twist," and we begged to be rowed out as soon as possible into light and life again. I made another excursus out of the usual highway of visitors, by setting off one morning to make my way " over land" from our hotel to " St. Marco's," taking my bearings as to the direction as well as I could. I then plunged into a network of defiles, to which, as some one correctly says, old Cranbourne-alley would be quite a " Via Lata." I wound my way through narrows — turned back from unexpected '' culs-de-sac;' and occasionally crossed little flagged areas in front of smaU secluded churches, where the infant population of Venice tumbled and toddled about in a safe and sunny independence, which led me to think that the little areas aforesaid must have been invented to save the childhood of Venice from losing the use of their limbs in inaction. It was a bad substitute for free air and daisied meadow, but better than nothing, and the total absence of cart, vehicle, horse, or other sign of business, gave the region a kind of home look, as though the whole were but the inner court-yards and passages of some great establishment. I should add, that all was perfectly clean, dry, and sunny, the canals serving, I suppose, as the cloacae of the city. The seeming domesticity of the whole affair was ren- dered more like by the curious familiar advertisements of various kinds affiches to the walls. Among others, I saw little handbills apparently intended to answer the same purpose as our newspaper obituaries. One, as I remember, announced that " Ludovico Cassaris," aged 58, died of fever on a specified day, " at Vesper hour precisely." His virtues were carefully catalogued, the number of his children, the grief of his widow, and " the prayers of all good Christians for his repose," were earnestly requested. This announce- ment had been attracting the passer-by for about three weeks before I read it. Another droll variety of advertisement appears to be an adaptation of the " Warren Blacking puff" to the purpose of singing the praises of "parish priests." I should be disposed to think that popular choice must have had some- thing to do with the nomination of these gentlemen, for I 264 GLEANINGS AFTEB " GRAND TOTTE^-ISTS. saw several of what we would call in England " election squibs" marked on the walls, not in chalk, but in lampblack* ** Siipport Padre V ^," " Maintain il excellentissimo Padre N ," were the remains of some bygone parochial contest; and in one parish which I passed through I should say the parishioners were very little disposed to have the excitement of a " contested election renewed,*' for at intervals upon the walls the good-will of the people to their pastor was neatly stereotyped to the following effect : Dio noi conserve lungamente nostro excellentissimo pievano while here and there looked forth as a warning of frequent occurrence on the Italian blank wall, " Iddio te vede^^ — (God sees thee). Upon the whole, when I emerged at last upon the busy region of the " Piazza di San Marco," I had obtained an interesting view of the interior life of Venice, which I think travellers seldom care to look after. For a " recordanza" we determined to bring away a "measure or two" of the famous Venetian gold chain which is one of its celebrities, and landing at the Eialto (why do retailers of jewellery always establish themselves on bridges, as here, and on the Ponte Vecchio at Florence ?), we asked our way to the manufactory of the article, being as anxious to see the process of making this celebrated chain as to possess a sample. VENICE, 265 I wore to my watch a good, solid, John Bullish specimen of the " curb-chain pattern," well wrought, and a costly thing in its day. I intimated my wish to exchange it for some of their manufacture, to which "i fabricatori" ex- pressed assent, and an intention to allow me its value "according to the quality of the goW^ I gave them my chain, and as it passed from hand to hand, it was evident, that while they admired its workmanship, it was equally clear that for the alloyed material they entertained a more t\\QXL '' sovereign'' contempt. It was, they said, greatly debased, and would never do for their manufacture, the whole secret and value of which consists in the virgin purity of the gold used, with seemingly no mixture of alloy whatever. To test this, they used a very simple experi- ment. A common sandstone was produced, a few particles of my chain were rubbed on the rough surface, and also a few particles of the minute gold-wire they were soldering into links at the moment. Upon the application of a drop of vitriolic acid to each, the English article showed a greenish effervescing result, while the Venetian material remained perfectly unaffected by the application. I was obliged to own the debasing effect with which the spirit of trade could cause even " fine gold to become dim," and the necessity of purchasing some yards of the unadulterated chain became immediately obvious to my daughters, but whether it will ''wear as tveir as the article given (with sundry balancing Napoleons) in exchange, is a matter which remains to be proved. And now what more shall I say ? — shall I try to prove myself a connoisseur in painting, upon the simple plan laid d06^ GLEANINGS AFTEB " GRAND T0IJE'*-ISTS. down by poor Q-oldsmith, who said that nothing more was necessary than to observe that " more pains would have made a better picture," and "to praise Perugino." Shall I begin to criticise the " Pietro Martire,'* or the "Assump- tion" of Titian ? "No ; we must hasten from Venice, and I shall take my readers to but one gallery there, and that not for the purpose of teasing them with details of its mstas of glorious paintings — for they are glorious — but to mourn over the faded, deserted, comfortless aspect of the " Palazzo Manfrini " and its furniture, which looked as if every broker in Soho had selected his shabbiest and oldest article of bygone vertu, and contributed it to furnish the whole set-out. It was the just emblem of the fading city, to which no repairing or cleansing hand would seem to have been applied within the century, if we except, indeed, one or two palazzos, which I suppose to have fallen to Taglioni, the dancer, as " dead bargains," and which were undergoing repairs, probably with a view to re-selling them as a "matter of business." Prom a doge to a dancer! Strange transition, and yet not out of character. We saw the " Palazzo d'Oro," by the Eialto, under the hands of the gilder and plasterer, — to be paid by the profits of pirouettes and stage exhibition. Except those who deliberately sit down to a residence, or to write a book, ten days seems the limit of any stay at Venice. We left in the afternoon of our eighth day, and as we whirled towards Padua I found myself guessing among the palazzos on the Brenta, for " Portia's house of Belmont," and thinking how much better a railway would have suited for playing the jest with which the charming TEincE. 267 owner and her maid Nerissa perplex their husbands, than a passage " By the tranect, the common ferrj', Which trades to Venice," but which now will never trade there more. The palazzos of the Brenta are a fitting avenue of approach to the de- caying city; — the same stamp of desolation and decay seems to belong to all alike. \ 268 GLEAimiGS AFTEB " GEAND TOrS^-ISTS. " VOTIT^ TABELLiE. »> 269 CHAPTEE XV. (( VOTIVJE TABELL^. it " Votiva pateat veluti descripta Tabella Prodigia Sanctis Hob. Variat. " Sancto sapient! pib potent! tremendo Magno mirabili Ter sancto Antonio Paduano Pientissimo post Deum ejusque Yirginem Matrem Protector! et sospetatorL" Inscription on a Votive Tablet in St Anthony's Churchy Padua, The materials of this chapter have been accumulating in my note-book, ever since we came within the regions of Eomanism in fully developed action. And I know no place in our "yiro" of Italy in which a connected notice of them will so fitly come in as when we sojourn in the proper habitat of the " Taumaturgo,^^ the "wonder-worker of Italy," "Saint Anthony of Padua,'* to whose honour more absurdities of paint and sculpture have been perpe- trated and dedicated, than to, probably, all the other saints of the calendar together. The " devotisstmi Padovani,^^ as they delight to call themselves, have not only raised a stupendous Basilica to this saint, but they have hung that compartment of it specially devoted to his honour as thick as the walls admit with votive tablets of every size and shape, which could glorify this " super potent perpetrator of prodigies" ("pro- digiorim patratori potentissimo''), as an inscription on one of these " tabellae" aUiteratively styles him. There are, we doubt not, numbers of people in this un- suspecting English world of ours, who never think of the stories of " St. Anthony and the Eishes," and " St. Anthony and the Mule," except as of exploded fables dating from those ages of mediaeval credulity, the absurdities of which it would be unfair to charge upon the advanced and enlightened Church of modem Italy. We have our grave fears that these unsuspecting people may find some day that even among themselves the spirit of mediaeval credulity has been "not dead, but sleeping;" even in England symptoms show themselves now and again, as if wily and wary watchers of the state of the public mind thought that they might safely reproduce, not for derision but for credence, fables and figments similar to those uninter- ruptedly held in devout acceptance in those happy lands which still roll in their orbits in contented attraction round Eome as their centre. But let such people go to Padua, and they will find St. Anthony's " Sermon to the Fish" published in all the free- dom of a free press for the edification of the faithful, and his triumph over asinine credulity stereotyped in all the efi'ectiveness of the bronze of Donatello ; they may there read how St. Anthony, six hundred years ago, finding the people of Eimini insensible to his preaching, betook him- \i 270 GLEANINaS ATTEE " GEAKD T0TTB'*-ISTS. a VOTIV-S TABELL2E. )) 271 self to the embouchure of the Marecchia, and there called the fish to hear the Holy Word of God, " whereupon," con- tinues the legend, "the fish" (both sea and fresh-water!) came in shoals, and " ranged themselves according to their species into a beautiful congregation (con belli ordine!), to which attentive auditory St. Anthony began a grave, well-arranged discourse concerning Good's manifold good- ness to them, reminding them of this, as not their least mercy, that they had neither been drowned nor suffered any of the other inconveniences of the deluge ! — (Voi solo non sentisti il deluvio universale delV acque, nan provosti il danni, cJie egli face al mondo) — and calling on them in conclusion to express their thanks in the best manner they could !" " As he spoke," continued this veracious legend, " oh wondrous ! as though the fish were endued with human intelligence, with most profound humility, and every semblance of devotion, they bowed their heads, and moved their bodies approvingly (chinarono la testa— hlandiro col corpo), as though assenting to the discourse of the blessed Saint Anthony." The whole sermon, a marvel of pulpit eloquence of its kind (taken down, doubtless, by some listening " phoca" as short-hand reporter), may be had for a paul or two from the sacristan of St. Anthony's own chapel, so that, of course, of the authenticity of the sermon, or reality of the miracle, no doubt can be entertained, save by the wilfully obstinate in unbelief. The difficulty of giving that chief point of the miracle, the " bowing" and " fondling" of the fish, has prevented its being commemorated in a "tabella," but no such diffi- culty presented itself in the case of the Adoring Mule, and accordingly, we find this last prodigy among the "preziosi lavori del BonatelW which adorn the chapel of the " Holy Sacrament," and the book of description tells the story thus, in sequence to the Miracle of the Fishes : '' The wondrous miracle wrought by St. Anthony, when he called the fish to hear him, should have brought all the people of Rimini to their senses. But there was in that city one mulish fellow, named BonviUo^ who denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic bread. At last he declared that nothing would convince him until his mule adored the Host The saint accepted the challenge, and prefaced his victory by a three days' fast ! The heretic also kept his beast from food. The great day arrived, and with it a vast concourse of spectators. St. Anthony came forth from the church — Bonvillo awaited him in the piazza. The saint, carrying the Thrice Holy Host, drew near, and instantaneously the mule knelt down. Bonvillo in vain endeavoured and pressed the animal to turn to provender ; the beast remained immovable, and thus condemned the mcredulity of his master, and in his mute language prayed him to retract his obstinate denial." This is but odo of the many legends contained in a little volume printed at " Padova, coi tipi di A. Bianchi, 1849," and which I purchased in the church of the saint from the sacristan on the day of my visit ; and it seems to furnish a fitting introduction to the consideration of these strange relics of exploded heathenism—which the Church of Eome seems to have adopted, in seeming unconsciousness how strongly they confirm the charge so often urged as to " the close conformity of modern Popery to ancient Paganism." " Our Church must accommodate itself to natures and circumstances." — "We would not insult the educated Northern intellect with the materialities which we are obliged to allow to the gross sensualism of the Neapoli- tans." * Such was the excuse or explanation with which * A very short intercourse with the Romans will show the slight re- gard in which they hold both the mental and physical quaUties of their Neapolitan neighbours, for whose intellect, courage, and tastes, they 272 a i» GLEANINGS AFTER *' GRAND TOUR -ISTS. a Eoman Monsignor adroitly met my statement of some grossierete I had noticed in the religious observances of Naples. The compliment to Northern acuteness was in- geniously thrown in ; but though the fume of the incense failed to confuse my perception of the incompatibility of the adaptive power thus boasted with any real unalterable standard of the true or the good, yet it fully accorded with an observation made before and afterwards, namely, that as we Northerns advanced southwards towards its centre, the observances of the Eoman Church showed themselves in more unchecked offence to our own ideas and religious usages — that the food with which the popular mind was fed became more homogeneous, and grossly material in character. Thus, by degrees, the wayside cross became a ''crucifix;''' and by-aud-by "a Calvary," with all its "properties" of " tie ladder ;' " the pincers" " the nails,'' " the hammer,'' and sometimes " the cock !" (whose crow- ing recalled Peter to thought and weeping), began to appear in all the effectiveness ^of caricature and vermilion paint ; but it was not until we came so far south as Mar- seilles that we lighted on those " Votive Tallets," which Dickens encountered at Avignon, a few stages to the northward. It would appear, to use a geological illustra- tion, that as rocks become changed and modified in struc- seem to have the lowest possible estimation. During our sojourn it was rumoured that the French were about to evacuate Rome, and that his Holiness intended to trust his safety to the devotion and valour of King Bomba and his forces. Even under the stem rule of the restored Papacy the Romans could scarce conceal their contemptuous exultation at the thought of having the mere Neapolitans to deal with, and even the Pope's immediate attendants looked blank at the prospect of being left to the pro- tection of " the best-dressed array in Europe !" (( VOTIViE TABELL^. ii 273 ture within a certain distance of their point of contact with other formations, so the Church of Eome owns an indirect, influence of the spirit of Protestantism in the gradual decorum with which she represses observances everywhere glaring and protruded within her own realms of unwatched operation. There is an indirect tribute paid to the mental freedom and acuteness of the North in the " bated" simplicity of practice and ritual with which Eomanism carries itself under the keen eye and protest- ing surveillance of those of the Eeformed Churches ; to which may be added, as a generally recognised fact, that the Church of Eome would rather bare its breast to a whole platoon of polemic divinity, than to one dart of sar- casm against those usages which, seemingly of her essence, are so provocative of ridicule to those who disown her influence. The " Votive Tablet" is clearly of heathen origin and on classic record, and is one among the "assets" which the system to which it now belongs, has inherited from that exploded paganism, in whose seat it sits, and many of whose usages it apes or copies. Charles Dickens, while holding up these " Votos" upon the point of his satiric pen, makes this excuse for them : that they result from the " Christian virtues of gratitude and devotion." True — gratitude and devotion are essentially Christian virtues — but a further examination of the subject might have led him to a conclusion that as " the best things perverted become the worst," so the working of a system which sanctions the diversion of gratitude and devotion from " Him" in whose care "the hairs of his people's heads are numbered" to imaginary protectors, who come "sailing T 274 »> GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND TOUR -ISTS. into a sick room upon a cloud," there to superintend the amputation of a toe, " or the curing of a cut finger," can scarce be as "harmless" as, in his charity, he would wish to think it. I was neither looking for Votive Tablets nor any other matter for criticism in the Eoman system, when (camera lucida in hand) I began to climb the steep hill, crowned with the " beacon-like fortress" which commands the town and harbour of Marseilles, and a fine expanse of the adja- cent coast ; indeed, the building which towered above me looked more like a military post than a pilgrim's haven ; but about half-way up the ascent, as it rose steep and difficult, the hill began to be dotted with small shrines or pilgrim stations, and when we arrived at the foot of the tower a picture of a large and costly bell, lately" hung in- side, invited visitors, at the cost of a franc, to enter and inspect the chapel of " Notre Dame de la G-arde,"* at the top of the building, upon entering which, I, for the first time, saw the "Votive Tablet" feature of the Eoman * If the tower of Notre Dame de la Garde, at Marseilles, ever had a military character, it has long since been merged in its present use as a place of pilgrimage and prodigy. This is the tower mentioned by Disraeli, in his notice of " The Bombastic Scuderies," one of whom, being governor of this fort, used to talk so grandiloquenUy of "his go- vernment," that two friends were seduced into paying him a visit, the result of which they gave to the world in a witty poem containing these lines: " Mais il faut vous parler du Fort, Qui sans doute est une merveille, C'est Notre Dame de la Garde, Gouvemement commode et beau, A qui suffit, pour tout garde, Un Suisse avec sa halebarde Peint sur la porte du chateau." " VOTIVE TABELL-aE." 275 system in fuU display — at least as full as the capacity of the little chapel would allow. " Nous vous prenons pour notre Gardienne," was an inscription which left no doubt as to who had the honour of all the cures, miraculous escapes, sudden recoveries, and safe voyages, with representations of which the walls of this chapel were tapestried from top to bottom. The Sa- viour was acknowledged on a small side or subordinate altar ; but the presiding Divinity of the temple was an Image of the Virgin, heavily gilt, hideously ugly, carved out of a black material said to be olive wood, and vouched to have effected by its bodily presence more miracles than our space or credulity can find room for, especially in a chapter which must record our visit to more " Votive Mu- seums" than one. One compartment of the chapel presented a perfect forest of crutches, hung up to commemorate cures of the lame ; with these were wax models of arms and legs, suffi- cient to furnish an anatomical museum. Elsewhere were seen numerous neat models of ships, offered either to obtain, or record, the happy issue of a sea voyage. Among these were mingled many common donatives of the rude sailor, such as "an ostrich Qgg,^'' a "foreign shell," or some other trifling memento of his having been to some " far countrie," and returned safely. " They were not worth much," as the sacristan said, turning from them slightingly to point out the treasures of votive art with which his walls were adorned ; but leaving out of sight for a moment the " zeal not according to knowledge," and the perversion of gratitude from Him to whom it was due, which the whole spectacle exhibited, I could not but think t2 276 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUE -ISTS. the rude offering of the poor seaman, who " had done what he could," might reckon for more in the collection than the costlier daubs around us. But oh those daubs! the pen is powerless to describe the absurdities perpetrated by the pencil, in recording the hairbreadth escapes, the deliverances from perils by sea and land, by pestilence and by precipice, which the votaries here all ascribed to " Notre Dame de la Garde." In one fine winter piece she was seen seated on an iceberg, keep- ing watch over a Greenland whaler, snowed up in all the horrors of *' thick-ribbed ice ;" in another, we see the de- votee kneeling to her, apparent in impossible perspective, over the mantelpiece, while the forked lightning flashes by him to burn — his bolster ! Another picture, combining two acts of the same piece, shows at one side a frantic horse dashing his rider into " immortal smash ;" on the other, the victim lying in extremis on his bed, the surgeon with splints and bandages standing helplessly by, when lo ! the Virgin descends through the corner of the ceiling, and the " Yoto" records a case of " cured in an instant !" There were whole shoals of those " enfants terribles,'' the plagues of nurses, the torments of fond mothers, who are for ever falling headlong down staircases, or out of open windows, but, thanks to the Virgin, never breaking their necks. Some of those pictures had a legend attached, to explain the date and particulars of the casualty ; others, however, were left to tell their own "tale of terror," and it is but justice to say that in the ghastly countenances, hideous gaping wounds, and hopeless despair of the victims, and of the wretched family generally huddled together in a comer, "kneeling, with their legs sticking out behind " VOTIVE tabellj:." 277 them on the floor, like hoot-trees /'* — (that wicked Dickens !) — in fact, in making the accident as desperate, and the case to be cured as bad as possible, the painter generally did full justice to the curative powers of the Virgin, and gave the devotee as many horrors as could well be crowded on canvas for his money. One picture caught my attention particularly. It was a Veto representing a section of that awful conflagration and casualty which occurred on the Versailles Eailroad some twenty years since, when, in consequence of the carriage-doors being locked, so many victims perished. There was a stretch of railroad, blazing carriages, roasting wretches in every variety of agony; and calmly looking down from a cloud, above all, sat "Notre Dame de la Garde," protecting her particular votary, amid all the burning wreck. Could it have been that this fortunate individual owed his deliverance to his guardian Lady having rushed off to Versailles in mistake for Marseilles, upon hearing of a conflagration ? It may seem wrong to write in this strain upon such a subject, but I freely own I cannot feel that the error in these offerings should rank among those mistakes in religion, which, while we abjure, we may respect. Every picture added to this, or like collections of the kind, seems a fresh suggestion to others to " go and do likewise ;" and when we find every mother, whose child may have a convulsive fit and recover, forth- with proceeding, not "to give glory to God," but to pay her vows to this " stock of a tree," it seems as impossible to treat tenderly, as to argue seriously, a case for which the " ridiculum acrV^ of the poet seems exactly calculated. It is often said, in answer to the charge of attributing 278 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. divine powers to wonder-working statues or pictures, that no true believer rests his £aith in the image, but carries it up through the image to the being represented, and through him again to the Almighty. We need not ana- lyse this ingenious defence, or subtle distinction, when we find glaring facts to prove it totally irrelevant, and that however the learned may theorise,* the multitude stop short at the proximate object of devotion and trust. One or two examples of Votes out of the many in the chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde will establish this. The first represented a street in Marseilles, through which some hideous masques, in white, were carrying the *' La Garde " Image in procession. At an open window lay a figure on a couch, and underneath ran the following legend : " Clarisse Chalons, ag^e de vingt-un ans, malade depuis trois ans, entiferement paralys^e du cot^ droit, a et(? guerie subitement lors du passage de la statue de Notre Dame de la Garde dans la rue Jean, 25 Mai, 1845." Upon which miracle I will only observe, that supposing the ailment of Clarisse Chalons to have been an affection such as highly sensitive temperaments are subject to, if the characters in the actual procession were half as hideous * On this point their learned men theorise very differently in different degrees of latitude. The " Catholic Christian instructed," professing to answer " Conyers Middleton" in England, about one hundred years since, says, " They do not ascribe their miracles to any power in the image itself;" while Durandtis, writing in the mid-day blaze of unclouded Popery, boldly affirms, " Extra omnem controversiam est sanctorum imagines designare miracula, ut et debdlibas valetudo bona per eos con- cilietur." — Durand. De Ritib. lib. i. c. 5. 283 to powder as they descended to terra firma again. The result, however, thanks to St. Anthony, is given as follows : " Nel giomo xvii di Giugnio MDCCLXXVin, Giovanni Zeno e compagni nella terra di Novol, furono abbruciati della polvere da MortarifFe, chi accidentellemente prese fuoco, e per intercessione di San Antonio di Padua, invocato in qiielpunto, remanesso in vita, 6 requisitarono la Salute." Time and space would fail to show the variety of these Votes, aU virtually investing St. Anthony with the two awful attributes of Omnipresence and Omnipotence; wherever we went through Italy we saw vestiges of the same votive spirit ever addressing its thanks to some inter- mediate protector. At Brescia, where a new cathedral is curiously dovetailed into an old one, in a dark passage connecting the two buildings hung a "Vote," commemo- rating some old gentleman's escape from breaking neck or limb by slipping on the damp flags, and ascribing his escape to some illustrious obscure called " St. Libonim,^^ whom he invoked in a filial spirit of dependence in the very moment of danger (so saith the legend) in the following couplet : " Salva, Liboni, in si fatal periglio ; II consorti a me salve, il padre al' figlio." Libonius, save, in danger dire; To save a son, befits a sire. The last variety of these Votes which I shall notice, are a series hung in the noble Duomo, at Milan, where the solemn majesty of the interior is, I will not say destroyed, but certainly disfigured, by a line of coarse beams running along the splendid nave arches as supports for rows of 284 i» GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUB -ISTS. daubs equally out of character and place, and recording, with sign-post emphasis, a series of miracles in honour of the Holy Sacrament ; the tenor of which may be judged by the following explanatory inscriptions copied from two of the pictures : " S. Stanislaus Kotska, in un Tempio di Luterani, da lui supposti di Cattolici, Si communicando un Angelo." St. Stanislaus Kotska, in a Lutheran Church, mistaken by him for a Catholic Church, receives the Communion from an Angel I How the saint could have fallen into the error — or why, when he discovered his mistake, he could not have walked out again — this veracious legend does not inform iis. Take another — " Si fabrica della api un globo di cera al Eucharistico Sagramento caduto nel fango," A swarm of bees make a globe of wax for the use of the Holy Sacrament fallen into the mud. The artist has done his best to illustrate this miracle — but the miQuteness of the subject, and the distance from which the picture must be looked at, has compelled him to make his bees as big as spring chickens, and thus by enlarging, to diminish some of the marvel of this veritable transaction — as it is recorded in the works of " Thomas Cantipratanus," who caps the legend of the picture by " voTivjE tabellj:. »> 285 telling us (lib. ii. "De Miraculis sui Temporis," c. xl. p. 398) how " these bees lodged the Holy Sacrament in their hive in a ^ pix of tie purest wax' — ^how the owner of the hive saw night after night the whole air brightened and luminous over them — and how, when he went to look for honey, he discovered that the bees, forswearing the sweets of life, had become ascetics ; that they had left off working, and after monastic fashion taken to ' droning,' or singing, which they ceased not to do night and day, con- trary to bee habits in general." ! ! ! It is impossible to speak seriously of such puerilities as these, when we find them defacing the finest monuments, and disturbing the most solemn influences of the noble architectural temples into which they are intruded. With some jumbling of styles, and defects in the details, amply, however, mastered in the general effect, the airy and graceful exterior of the Duomo of Milan sends you into its grand and solemn interior quite unprepared for the contrast ; but you are very speedily sobered to a feeling suited to the place and "its dim religious light," when all is again dissolved into impatient ridicule of the " TahellcB,'' crossmg the Ime of vision as you look up the noble nave, and soliciting your attention to such wonders as I have noticed, of which the crowning one is a picture of the affair already noticed in the account of his church at Padua, where St. Anthony exposes the Host to the venerating mule ! to the conviction and confusion of a heretic. Such is the step from the sublime to the ridiculous down which one is for ever in danger of slipping in Italy— a danger from which not even St. Libonius can preserve the " Northern intellect." 286 GLEANH^GS AETEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. CHAPTEE XYI. THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. " Well, girls," I said to my daughters, as we loitered over the breakfast-table at Milan, with the Alpine routes of return spread upon the map before us, " now, which road shall we take ?" A propos of breakfast, let no unsuspecting Englishman ever allow himself to be deluded by the offer of the Anglais into venturing on, or paying for, the detestable compound produced to him under that name in the Austrian domi- nions : it is not poisonous, simply because it is vapid ! and then the air with which the attendant parades it, as though the " furthest Orient" had been ransacked to provide it for your service. After close and curious inspection, I pro- nounce the Tudesche {Austrian tea) to be a composition of roasted bean-pods and acacia flowers, in equal propor- tions. I may not be quite accurate as to component parts, but of one thing I am certain, that tea, in the Anglo- Chinese sense of the word, it is not. "Well, girls, what route ?"— " The world was all before us, which to choose ?" It was a nice question. We had THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 287 not entered Italy by any of the Alpine, passes. When we left home in early spring, in rather invalid condition, the facility of passing, by a four-day run, from snow and the hise wind at Marseilles to sun and strawberries at [N'aples, with a stroll through Genoa's streets of palaces, and a lounge in the leaning tower at Pisa by the way, had in- duced us to invade Italy by "long sea ;" whereas restored health enabled us to return leisurely northward, hunting the summer before us through the whole length of the Peninsula — hence our embarras de richesses as to how to pass the Alpine barrier. The glutton of old mourned that he could eat but one dinner in the day — we could travel by but one route, and were not likely ever to traverse another during our lives : which, then, should it be ? Eirst there was the Simplon, with its visions of Napo- leon {VOncle, pas le Neveu* de onon Oncle), and all its engineering wonders ; then there was the Great St. Ber- nard, the difficulties of which, it was said, had generated the idea of the Simplon route in its great designer's mind, and one of my silly girls proposed to select that, in compliment * It may be fit here to observe that this passage was written before the present Emperor of the French had showed himself to be " Master of the Position" which he now so ably maintains, and while, in the quaint phrase of an old writer, " he added to his stature by taking stand upon his uncle's grave." In 1851 all things in France seemed approaching to an entanglement of which no human foresight could predict the issue. ZjOuis Napoleon cut the knot with his single and decisive " coup d^etat" and has ever since been proving himself fully equal to the trying and difficult mission to which, when long since he declared himself appointed, he was considered a raving enthusiast. In the present complication of European politics, who can fully estimate the importance of having in the chief place of power in France a ruler so loyally adhering to the cause of order, civilisation, and good faith as Napoleon the Third ? iiH J ■! 288 GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND T0FR"-ISTS. to our Great St. Bernard dog, " Douro/* at home ; tlien there lay the coast road, with its quiet beauties (a Nice drive, as a punster commended it in our hearing) ; but we wanted no " nice drives" or quiet beauties ; we wanted to enjoy Alpine scenes and horrors, after Lady Townley's fashion, " in moderation" — a little episode of wolves, with- out being actually eaten — not exactly avalanches, but a good hearty snowing up, which might realise December in June, and contradict the carol which sings that " Christ- mas comes but once a year." We wanted to see the famous Pfaffers Baths — the infant Ehine and its glacier — in short, we wanted an * adventure !" and so, as our best chance for it, we chose the pass of " the Spliighen." "Not open, yet, Signer," said mine host, when I de- scended to take council with him concerning a conveyance ; "it has rained lately. The Spliighen will not be open now ; but in a few days " It must be noted that the Italians, who, I think, pos- sess a monopoly of supplying the British dominions with weather wisdom (in fact, I never yet met an itinerant vendor of telescopes and barometers who was not an Italian), never trouble themselves with any such artificial indices of the weather ; they have a very simple natural rule which helps them to all they require to know of meteorology, and it is this : — ^When it rains on the plains of Lombardy, it is snowing or icifying in the overhanging Alpine regions ; and therefore when, at the critical period of the passes becoming pervious to travellers, a fall of rain happens, it does more than the hottest sun in ripening the harvest of sub-Alpine Hotel-keepers at either side of the chain. Now we had had furious down-pouring rain THE "opening of THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 289 for a day or two previous, and hence mine host at eighty or a hundred miles distance from the Spliighen Pass, was able to pronounce oracularly, " Not open yet, Signer ;" and he was quite right, as we found in the sequel. I looked grave at this intimation, and forthwith the dis- interested host proceeded to enumerate the yet unseen wonders of Milan. " The Signer had not seen the Scala, nor the Sunday Cassino?" " No ; I never went to either." " Well, then, the Amphiteatro ?" " No ; I did not care for a bad Astley's." In fact, as we had already seen "the Duomo," " Leo- nardo's world-famed fresco," the library with Lucretia Borghia's letters, Petrarch's own Virgil, noted in his own exquisite caligraphy — poets were clerks in his day — and some other specialities, I did not think that another week out of our limited time spent in Milan would " quit cost." What our host thought, is quite another thing. Up-stairs again to take council with the girls — and Murray. Matchless Murray ! that true traveller's friend in need — never in one's way, yet never out of it, and always ready to put you in your way when out of it — thus he goes with you round the world, silent and unobtrusive, and yet aufait to everything. I look to see shortly his " Handbook for the Diggings." Murray soon solved our difficulty. We found quite within our reach an excursion which would just occupy the time which it was supposed would be necessary to thaw the icy heart of our Alpine gaoler. A run through the lakes might be accomplished in three or four days at u 290 »» GLEANHTGS AFTEE " GEAITD TOUE -ISTS. the utmost, and so taking leave of mine host, taking up our carriages, and taking the steamer at Sesto-CalendsB, where the limpid Ticino leaves its parent lake, we found ourselves, without much fatigue, the next evening " taking ease in our inn" at Bavenno, on the LagoMagiore, having hefore our windows the Isola Bella floating like a fairy vision, with all its beauties for a honne bouche, previous to crossing the lake on the morrow for Lugano. I spare my readers all or any of those common-places of travel, which they may learn so far better from professional guide-books, such as, the magnificent view to be had through St. Carlo Borromeo*s " rayless sockets," while you rest yourself in his nose, after the fatigue of climbing his colossal statue near Aurona. This, by the way, being precisely the feat to which to apply poor Sheridan's im- moral advice to his son ; " Tom, why did you go down that nasty coal-pit?" " Just that I might have it to say that I had done so, father," replied Tom. " You fool, could not you say you had done so, without taking the trouble ?" retorted his father. How many adventures do men go through merely for Tom Sheridan's reason, "that they may have it to say." The rarities and beauties of the Borromean Isles, some- what formal and fantastic, but still not incongruous to that spot, rising like an enchanted castle from the waters, have been so often chronicled that it would be impertinent to introduce them here, a few " mems." of my own are all I shall inflict upon the patience of my readers. It looks strange, among the proudest memorials of the proud house of Borromeo, its carved filigrees of stone, its THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 291 florid ironwork balustrades, its stately gates of scroll- work, to see here and there the motto (of the family, I presume) " |l^umilita0," interwoven in the tracery. No doubt the owners may carry an humble spirit under all the panoply of pride and pretension amidst which they dwell, still the word contrasted oddly with the aristocratic pomps and vanities of the lordly palace, terraced gardens, and all thereunto belonging. But the same word showed in even stronger contrast still with the massive silver lining, the jewelled head-gear, and golden stufis which adorned the resting-place of that poor " grinning atomy," the body of Saint Charles Borromeo himself, as he lies in the stately Duomo at Milan. Napoleon lodged (who shall say slept?) in the Isola Bella the night before the battle of Marengo. They show you a tree upon which, with the point of his sword, he carved his initials and engrossing idea, "battaglia," but they are grown beyond all deciphering now ; N. B. stands neither for Napoleon Buonaparte, or nofa hene, or any- thing else at present, save a rough excrescence in the bark, which has quietly grown over and obliterated, the great man's handiwork — a small proof added to the greater ones around us, that even the sword of the con- queror is no match for the scythe of time. I sauntered, as my wont is, into the little church of Bavenno, and was amused by one of those examples of slip-slop copying of inscriptions which so often mystify antiquaries and scholars. The little church was a " res- toration" of a much more ancient building, and over the door was an inscription, recording its erection and founder, which I stopped to read, with the more curiosity u2 292 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND TOUE -ISTS THE " OPENING OF THE PASS ' TO CHIAVENNA. 293 when I perceived, staring me in the face, the names of two rather incongruous divinities — Darius and Diana! Yes, I was right ; there it stood, an explicit declaration that the temple owed its origin to the care "Darii et Dianse!" What could it mean? I entered the church, and found the solution of the mystery in the fact that some ignorant copyist had mistaken in transcribing a much more ancient inscription, which attributed the erec- tion to some one rejoicing in the patronymic " Darini- dianus," whatever that word may mean. Out of this the blunderer (could it have been Signor II Padre ?) manufac- tured King Darius and Queen Diana, and attributed the pious work to them. Many a controversy on a disputed text has arisen from a similar blunder. Doctor James Johnson, in his pleasant Italian tour, speaks of a notable thunderstorm which he encountered at Bavenno twenty years ago. We came in for its *' pendant," with this agreeable difference, that we were housed before the storm, he after it. We had retired to rest, after seeing " The sun with golden set Give promise of a goodly day to-morrow." At about eleven I was awakened by a refreshing sense of coolness in the air, accompanied by a noise, for which I could not at first account ; there was no rushiug cataract in the immediate neighbourhood, and yet rushing water "was in mine ears," coming down "with a will," as seamen have it. I opened the window, and was presently aware that the noise I heard was that of " the big rain come dancing to the earth," after most approved tornado fashion, while from peak to peak to Alpward " the live thunder kept leaping," with incessant and awful activity; it was magnificent beyond describing, it was "Byronic !" " of the first impression." I would have come hither, if for no other gain but to be able hereafter to read Byron's glorious description of an Alpine thunderstorm, with such an illustration impressed on my memory. The morning came, " weeping piteously a gentle rain." No one who had slept soundly could have imagined how the elements had been " keeping it up" the night before. It was, in all senses, a "soft morning;" and we sat — our bills paid, and ready to depart — looking hopelessly at the misty landscape. The boat we had engaged the night before to carry us to Luino lay under our windows ; but we agreed that to commence a voyage in an open boat in such weather would be madness, and so we sat gazing dis- consolately abroad. At length one of our boatmen approached, and civilly said, " Signor, you engaged us last night — ecco ! here we are. i» " But, friend, the rain 1" said I. " Niente, niente,^^ said the man; "it is nothing, Signor — ^we cannot lose our day. Still, if the Signor wishes to stay, he will make us a ' huono mano* worth while." " I wish to go very much indeed," said I, " but we should be drenched before half across the lake in such a rain as this." " Non, Signor ; we shall have up our * casa hiancd! pre- sently." I did not understand this, but seeing the man confident and smiling, not at all like a man preparing himself to p I H 294 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. encounter a down-pour of rain, I gave the word — " an- In a few minutes I saw a very simple yet effectual contrivance, by which we, our luggage, boatmen and all, crossed Lago Magiore in soaking rain without suffering the slightest inconvenience. It is a pity this contrivance could not be with safety adapted to our hyperborean climate : if it could, we should not have so many recorded execrations of tourists against the "Killamey shower," or the " Fatter dale rain-pour*' at TJlswater. Every boat is furnished with large hoops, which fasten to the sides, after the fashion of a gipsy caravan ; over these the canvas " contrived a double debt to pay" — a sail or a shelter, as required, is spread, and no rain can possibly penetrate ; should the shower become specially heavy — as, with parting spite, it did in our case— a second sail is added, and effectually excludes the worst weather. I doubt if I ever saw steadier, soaking rain than we had while crossing the Lago, and yet the girls could touch their sketch-books, the boatmen pushed (they don't pull) their oars, while I anglicised an ode from a pocket Horace, each and all perfectly without inconvenience from the piti- less, pelting rain. Not for their own merit, yet as a psychological curiosity, I offer my readers the conceptions which the bedraggled Muse afforded in answer to my invocation on that occa- sion — turning as my thoughts did, on the enduring repu- tation which Horace has obtained, so that, in spite of all that .is objectionable in morals or principle, no scholar would willingly be without a pocket Horace when treading what the poet has made classic ground at every step : THE " OPENING OE THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 295 " Poscimus siquid vacui," &c — Hor. Ode, lib. L 32. Sweet poesy, whose witching power Beguiles so oft my leisure hour, Embalming art is thine ; then give Thoughts which beyond the hour may live ; Teach me that strain Alcseus sung When Lesbian harp erewhile he strung ; Who, fierce in fight — the conflict o'er, His war-barque idly drawn to shore — Loved to sing wine's soul-cheering joy, And Venus with her urchin boy. Come, Poesy ! — the day-god's crown — Thou who canst care in Leth^ drown, Meet guest for Jove's own festive hall — Answer a votary when I caU. " Exegi monumentum aere," &c. — Lib. iii. Ode xxx. Brass may corrode on storied grave, Ages roll on, the wild winds wave, The pyramids lie tombed in sand, But still the poet's trophies stand — Death to destroy him vainly strives, Wedded to verse his mind survives. And laurel crowns his honoured bust When Rome's proud Capitol is dust — Where Aufidus from rapid springs To Daunian plains scant verdure brings, There, humbly bom, still thy name Is widely heralded by fame : Who first taught Latian measures slow In swift iEolic verse to flow. Thine be the praise his Muse, and thine The Delphic wreath for him to twine. I ' Midway across the noble expanse of waters, it seemed to us that the rain had done its worst ; the mists, instead of broodiQg on the face of the lake, began to float up- wards, exposing the sides and ravines of the Alps, and at intervals allowing peaks and precipices to come out into most picturesque relief. I don't pretend to speak from 296 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UB"-ISTS. any experience in these matters, but the shifting, tanta- lising landscape as we neared Luino realised to me descriptions I have read of the coquettish play which the Spanish lady is said to make with her mantilla, when, "half sly, half shy,'* she now exposes one feature, now another, and then hides it again, attracting curiosity and admiration, more, perliaps, than if she brought the full play of her charms to bear on the beholder ; or, to use a more national illustration, I would say that I doubt much if we could have seen the grand scenery of Upper Lago Magiore to greater advantage in broad, glarish sunshine, than we did in that "freshness of a weeping morning," of which our own island poet has sung — " Its smiles and its tears are worth evening's best light." Arrived at Luino, the little landing-place commanded so noble a view of the encircling Alps, every moment clearing and glistening in the emerging sun, that we resolved, instead of encountering and paying for the grimaces and attentions of the Luino innkeepers, to bide in the boat until a carriage, ordered to convey us to Lugano, about fifteen miles distant, could be got ready. It came before we had " drunk our fill" of the noble panorama around us. What a pleasant drive that to Lugano was ! — not the less so for a few makeshifts, which reminded us of the " Hwill do, any- Tiow, your "honour^' of the poor old " Isle of the West." As we ascended the hill from Luino, the leather portion of a hind-spring gave way ; we jumped out, the little non- descript carriage was aground. Now, in such a dilemma, one of your high-finished, well-hung Long-acre travelling carriages would have been disabled, and we, its freight, THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 297 embargoed until repairs had been made, secundem artem. In Ireland, Paddy, the postilion, would soon find out a rope makeshift for the occasion ; and our Italian "cocchiere" proved himself quite as equal to the emer- gency. The fractured leather we found to be a piece of stout, flexible oxhide ; it had literally worn out from use where the buckle pressed it; it needed but to make a buckle-hole an inch or two up in the leather, and all would be right as ever. I saw our coachman fumbling and labouring with an old blunt apology for a knife, to repair the injury, and producing to him a piece of high- finished English cutlery with the manifold conveniences of a travelling-knife, for boring, sawing, or sewing, the work was done in an instant. As the man returned my knife with an Italian profusion of thanks, I saw him look at it with admiration for a minute, and murmur to himself: " What a people are these English ! — what a people !" I wonder how long it will be before Italy turns out anything like an ordinary Sheffield penknife ! But to resume. What a pleasant drive that was over the mountains and through the woods to Lugano ; the sweet, fresh smell of a well-washed Italian landscape — ^the sun bright, and yet not too warm — the giddy speculations of my foolish girls, as to " how well a bandit would look perched on some overhanging cragl" — then the hearty, neighbour-like pleasantry with which the Swiss at the Barrier welcomed and sped the " Inglese" — "always glad to see the Inglese ;" all this was agreeable and exhila- rating in the highest degree; and we drove, without accident, into the little idly-busy town of Lugano, the capital of the Swiss canton Tessin. , ! 298 GLEAITEKGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. Has our reader ever seen a great unwieldy ox, or an irritable thin-skinned horse, teased by the gad-fly ? If so, he has an excellent illustration of the annoyance which this same little free-spoken democratic Swiss canton causes to its gigantic neighbour Austria on the one hand, and jealous Sardinia on the other ; as it sits buzzing in saucy independence between them, its stinging free press, its audacious outspoken democracy, keeps them in a perpetual fever of watchfulness ; it would be too much to say that we perceived any difference in the atmosphere breathed by free men, but we were soon aware that Lugano was pervaded by a spirit very different from the Italian towns through which we had for some time been passing ; a slight but significant symptom of this showed itself, when among the placards on the blank walls, these in themselves novelties, we saw " L'Ehreo Errante'' (The Wandering Jew), and other books of like tendency, announced as printed and published by the Lugano press, with most daring publicity, under the very nose of absolutism in Church and State ; even we strangers found some of the inconveniences of a single night's domicile in this little pestilent democratic state ; there are no less than three newspapers published in the petty, but free, town of Lugano ; they put forth, we doubt not, very plain-spoken speculations on the neighbouring despotisms as occasion may offer ; whereupon these despotisms fidget and fume, and keep watch and ward to try and exclude such strictures from circulating within their own domi- nions; but, as I suspect, with doubtful success. In a long continental tour we nowhere experienced such strict and sifting examination of luggage as when we arrived at THE "opening op THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 299 the Austrian barrier in passing from Lugano to Como. My little travelling-library was carefully ransacked, every book opened and scrutinised ; of ancient and classic- looking volumes they seemed to take small note, but anything of modern type or binding was closely looked after, and compared with an " Index prohihitorimi /" I had some few books of incendiary appearance over which these Dogberrys pondered a good deal, but none of them seemed to excite so much doubt and suspicion as a "Continental Bradshaw!" the elaborate railway time- tables and section-maps seemed to have a very " gunpowder look" to the eyes of our inquirers ; but at length, with some misgivings, they let them go. All the while, to my infinite amusement, a whole budget of newspapers, reeking from the democratic Lugano press, lay snugly in the folds of the hood of the coupe of our carriage, where the driver had stowed them just as we left the town, and where the stolid " Tudesche'' never thought of looking for them. I thought of " IVIrs. Partington and her mop" — of "Napoleon the Great and his Berlin decrees" — of ''Napoleon tie Little T and his new device of "three warnings" for muzzling the press of France — of those wiseacres of the " collective wisdom" who sometimes "run-a-muck" against the reporters of the House of Commons; and then I thought how futile were all attempts to stifle the expression of opinion — " for better, for worse," the oozings of the press will filter through all barriers. Of course, I said nothing, locked up my over- hauled trunks, and on we passed with our contraband cargo of democratic combustibles towards Como. I should have mentioned before, that we had floated 300 »> GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUE -ISTS. H p.: over the dark waters of the Lugano through the gloaming of the delicious summer evening of our arrival, with the noble Monte Salvador impending over us, and showing its bold outline in ever-changing proportions wherever we went. We had also that same evening the after-part of the thunderstorm of the night before at Bavenno ; the display of lightning and growls of remote thunder were awfully grand ; and as we scudded across the lake home- wards, we enjoyed these great pyrotechnics of nature in perfection, while the "waterworks" were so obliging as to " hold hard" until we were fairly housed, when they poured forth somewhat in the style of Southey's description of " how the water comes down at Lodore;" we fell asleep listening, " As they came plashing, And rumbling, and dashing ;" felicitating ourselves that they were washing the steep streets, and preparing freshness and coolness for the journey of to-morrow. "We had originally planned to cross from Lugano to Porlezza, thereby taking in the savage Alpine scenery of the upper reach of Lugano lake, hoping thus to come on " the Larian," last and fairest of this beautiful Italian triad, at Menagio, and thence to go down to Como town ; but we heard such tales of the searching strictness of the Austrian douaniers in that direction, and of their feverish vigilance against suspected characters, who were in the habit of smuggling, not silks, but sentiments into the Co- mesque territory through the mountains, that I determined not to risk difficulty or interruption in that remote comer ; THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 301 our route was, therefore, changed, and with considerable advantage. Securing the coupe of a diligence over-night, we started at six o'clock next morning for Como, via Codelago — an abbreviation for " Capo di Lago" — a beau- tiful village at the "head" (I should say " foot") of Lu- gano lake. The drive was all beauty and all enjoyment (including the game of " hide and seek" at the Austrian barrier before detailed), and at ten o'clock we drove into Como, where, taking up our heavy baggage (which we had despatched by railroad when we left Milan to meet us there), without housing ourselves in a town with little of particular interest, we at once engaged a boat to take U8 up the lake to Bellaggio — the sweetest of resting- places, where, as at Cadenabbia, on the opposite shore, they seem to be turning the whole village into an inn ; and no wonder ; who would linger in the dust and white glare of Como when he could luxuriate in coolness and quiet among the rich groves of Bellaggio, with the main waters of Como on one hand, and the placid depths of Lecco on the other ? These same waters of Lecco have a mysterious look of depth and profundity peculiar to themselves ; and geolo- gical observation has associated with them remarkable convulsions of nature. I asked one of our boatmen how deep they might be ? and his mode of measurement was quaint and original : " Frofondo di duccento uomini, Signor*' — "Two hundred men deep !" and yet it was no very clear reply after all ; it might mean a fifth, more or less, according as he took his " standard man" from me or himself, for I stood full six feet high, while the fellow himself would have been drowned in "five feet, nothing!'* ii! 302 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. If The celebrated Stelvio road, forming the main commu- nication between Austria and her Italian territories, fringes the eastern shore of Como lake, and the tunnels near Varenna were indicated to us as " lions" on no account to be missed. We therefore laid our plans for seeing them en passant on the morrow, by taking boat early; and " how pleasant it would be to save time and breakfast in this nice boat, with its pavilion cushions and awnings !" We merely hinted this, and — presto! — it was done. The Como boat is far in advance of those of Lugano and Ma^ giore in its accommodations. ^^We are more polished here^'* the Comesque boatman said, drawing himself up proudly, in reply to our remark to this effect ; and so they are ; with your table before you, you can draw, work, write, or read at ease, the awning overhead defends from the power of the sun, and yet leaves the view free on all sides ; and in this tented house we found next morning breakfast appa- ratus, our kettle bubbling on a " braziero," all ready in the grey dawn for our repast, at any hour and on any part of the lake we might select ; the whole set-out was a quiet indication of the delicious and equable climate in which such an indulgence, al fresco^ could be thought of or ac- complished ; one of those gusts which will sweep on the fairest day, over mountain lakes in our northern regions, would have sent our whole apparatus of comfort and crockery into " immortal smash." I closed my eyes that night on the sweet moonlit lake under my window, having performed the necessary duty of paying my bill, and re- ceiving from a huge glumdalca of a chambermaid, with, however, a voice like a seraph, that ne plus ultra of civil good wishes, " Felidssima notte, Signer, ^^ THE " OPENING OP THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 303 t.. We started with the rise of a glowing June sun for the Stelvio tunnels, which still hold their place in Italian admiration as wonders of the world; but to those who have seen or glided through those truly wondrous exca- vations of our English railways, or that one (more won- derful, I believe, than any of our English works) — the tunnelled mountain between Avignon and MarseiQes — the Stelvio passes will seem poor and common efforts of genius or labour ; they are simply bored through limestone strata, inclined at about half a right angle in well-defined beds. To complete the tunnel, nothing more was required than to remove the adjacent strata to form the roadway, leaving those overhead to form the super-eminent arch, much in the fashion of a " lean-to shed ;" there was in them no- thing at all of that sturdy struggle of science, with chalk and slush and running sands, by which the English tunnel advances its wondrous length of brick or stone through the obstacles or impediments of nature. The truth must be confessed, that, as wonder-workers, " Joint-stock" ad- venturers have put Autocrats out of countenance and fashion, the will and control of One Imperial and impe- rious mind has effected some surprising things in days gone by ; but that secret of combining smaller forces into "monster companies" which is a discovery of our age, can now bring to bear on such enterprises a power of capital and labour far beyond what the resources of any single individual could command ; and commerce and "dividend-day" are likely to leave more lasting and stu- pendous trophies of their achievements than even con- querors and despotism. Our original plan had been to loiter at the tunnels until 304 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND T0UE"-ISTS. we saw the steam-boat from Como to Colico looming in the distance, and then to put off and meet her in the mid- waters, but finding nothing to detain us at these objects after we had, in Tom-Sheridan fashion, enabled ourselves "to say we had walked through them,'* and finding an inviting fresh breeze up the lake, assured, moreover, by our boatmen that they could with ease land us at our destina- tion at Colico long before the steamer, we determined, at the cost of a few shillings extra, to proceed at our own rate, and in our own boat, to our destination. We thought, and I am sure every reader (not of the Manchester "go-ahead" school) will agree with us, that we could enjoy the splendid Alpine scenery, towards which we were advancing, much more while gliding along in a pleasure- boat, than if packed and crowded in the great groaning, wheezing monster of a steamer, having the gale as it came from garden or grove, flavoured with coal smoke or garlic! "We therefore re-embarked, reached Colico with ease a full half hour before the Como steamer; and by doing so secured to ourselves that great desideratum of travelling comfort — the coupe of the diligenza for Chiavenua. At Colico the Alps appear to impend overhead, and yet as you advance the way seems to realise the poet's descrip- tion of " Wilds immeasurably spread, WMch lengthen as we go." It is wonderful what deep valleys lie in the recesses of this huge frontier-chain, which at a distance seems one plain wall of perpendicular precipice. Chiavenna lies in one of these valleys under the Alpine barrier, where it rises in good earnest to the pass of the Splughen ; let us speed qb THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 305 hastily as we may over the parched yet swampy stages between Colico and Chiavenna, where malaria is ever "at home" in a region alternately deluged by the melting snow torrents, or baked in the fierce southern sun's rays reflected from the mountains over them. As we drove through this district in the parching heat of a summer's day, it looked dry and adust as an Arabian desert, yet we crossed at intervals broad beds of debris from the impending moun- tains, telling plainly in their extent, and the size of the huge boulders which lay here and there, what volumes of water must occasionally pass that way, in their course to a sullen, dirty-looking "mere," called Lago diEiva, fitter to be an Essex fen than to blot an Italian landscape. As we looked at this dirty pool, it seemed scarce credible that it was one of the feeders of the lovely Como lake, whose waters danced and sparkled in the sunshine lower down, yet so it was — all the Guide-books shout warning in your ears against lodging, or eyen falling asleep, in this pesti- lential district; yet I think, upon the principle of the well-known story "don't ride the big dog!" they had better have said nothing about the matter, for my expe- rience testifies, that in our whole tour I nowhere felt such irresistible tendency to somnolency and a mid-day nap, as here, and on a former occasion, in crossing the Pontine Marshes, to which a similar warning is attached. Query — Should I have felt sleepy if they had kept silence on the subject ? We arrived at Chiavenna just in time; a day sooner, and we should have been greeted with a repetition of the Milan warning, " Not open yet, Signer;" a day later, and we should have missed the adventure of ''opening the m 306 ii GIjEAJSTHQS after " GBAKD TOIJE -ISTS. pass;'^ the transit of the Splughen would have sunk into an hum-drum ordinary transaction ; had we come when we originally intended, we should have lost our ffiro of the lakes, and been compelled to join a corps of grumblers, some of whom had garrisoned the inn for a week and up- wards ; full six-and-twenty had sat down for some days at the table d'hote, and when we joined them, we made up the ftdl tale of the Canterbury pilgrims, when " At night was come into that hostelrie, Wei nine-and-twenty in a compagnie, Of sundry folk — by adventure yfaDe In fellowship — and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Coire of the Orisons wolden ride, The chambers and the stables weren wide." Other arrivals in the course of the evening swelled our numbers, and the distracted maesftro di posta (of whom more anon) bound to forward all, was at his wits' end to provide conveyances for over thirty passengers on the morrow. I will not follow up Chaucer's description by affirming that " Whan the sonne was gon to rest, So had I spoken with hem everich one, That I was of thir felawship anon." But I had spoken to some near me — made acquaintance with a countryman of mine own, who, traversing the world under the torturing infliction of tic-douloureux, had, never- theless, all the frank, cordial bearing of the Irish gentleman {not jontlemaiij observe), with whom I agreed that he, my daughters, and myself, should endeavour to make a quar- tette in whatever carriage fell to our lot to-morrow ; as to THE "OPEl^INO OF THE PASS" TO CfllATENI^^A. 307 the rest of our mixed multitude, I amused myself, as is my wont, in speculations on their characters and positioiis. One group afforded us much amusement. Of course we had with us Dickens's " Pictures from Italy," those Bozzean sketches which are as truthful as daguerreotypes, and humorous as H. B.'s caricatures; going nearly step for step over his ground, I can vouch for his accuracy and truthfulness, and if any professors of the Roman Catholic faith feel that soreness which he de- precates, it will only be a confession, that when mirthful satire limits itself to truth, its slightest fiUip is felt harder to bear, than more weighty and downright blows dealt in solemn earnest — and that ridicule has a sharper edge for some follies than argument. I am reminded of Boz and his pictures here by a tableau at the head of our tai^le d'Mte, which we, in imagination, set down for Mr. Dickens and his family, as he has sketched them in his graphic scene of arrival at the " Hotel de I'Ecu d'Or;" in number they tallied exactly. " The sweet lady" of the family — " Mademoiselle Charmante" — her sister — " first little boy" —" first little girl"-— " second little boy"— " second little girl" — "the baby that topped everything" — "the two nurses" — aU, all were there, even to the '^ brave courier," attending everybody, and to everything. The head of the family himself was a good, and not unintellectual looking man enough. We were amusing ourselves with the coin- cidence, " Could it be Dickens .**" when, lo, it transpired in the buzz of conversation around us, that it was only a German baron, who had been spending a year at Venice, and was now returning to his own country; what con- ceivable attraction he could have found in a city rotting x2 308 ti n GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUE -ISTS. THE " OPENING OP THE PASS" TO CHIAVENNA. 309 away piecemeal, where few travellers exceed a fortnight, it was hard to conceive, except it might be that he lingered on the speculation of getting rid of family surplusage, by losing a child or two out of a window into the Grand Canal. A more dreary gymnasium for childhood than Venice one cannot easily picture to imagination ; and yet here was apere dufamille who had domiciled himself there for a year! None — not "to the manner born" — save a German, could have done such a thing. Chiavenna stands prettily under the Alps, in a valley which branches eastward into the deep defile of the Bre- gaglia, memorable as the grave of a city buried " quick," with its 2000 inhabitants, over two hundred years ago. I walked up the valley after dinner with Bishop Burnet's striking narrative, written freshly after the event, in my hand, in order to see if I could identify the locality and make out the geological causes of such a catastrophe. The evening deepened round me as I advanced up the lonely gorge, for I had long lost the sun, though still bright upon the lowlands of Italy. I very soon found that, wherever the grave of the buried city lay, nature had been too rapid and luxuriant in its growth of natural forest to allow me any hope of identif3ring it. At length I arrived at a point of road where a wilderness of crag and rock, from every crevice of which shrubs and trees were springing, covered the whole level of the valley, and just as I began to doubt whether I should proceed further, an old peasant came up, and I asked him " Whereabouts Pleurs had stood ?" His answer was short, but impressive. "You are standing just over the church, Signor !" I then became aware, by degrees, of the character of the scene around me ; fringed and shaded everywhere by the rich vegetation and groves, which had grown spontaneously among and over the fallen masses, lay the fragments from a huge mountain opposite, called Monte Conto, off which a sliver or slice had sepa- rated, and come down in sudden and overwhelming ruin on the miserable town beneath, leaving still a wall or face of bare rock frowning in majesty over the desolation below. I subsequently saw the ruins of the Eossberg mountain in Switzland, the fall of which effected such havoc about thirty years since ; and I may hereafter endeavour to ex- plain the causes of that catastrophe, but those of the destruction of Pleurs were altogether different ; the com- parison I am about to make may seem petty, but it is applicable. I know no better similitude for the vast ruin on which I looked than to imagine that the stone-fronting or casing of Somerset House, or some other great London edifice, were to tumble bodily on the street beneath, leaving the interior wall of rubble masonry still standing. Magnify this idea proportionably by some twenty thou- sand times, and you will have the proximate cause of the destruction of the city of Pleurs, with its palaces and people, in the year of grace 1618. Tradition reports them to have been a people specially wicked, and fre- quently warned of some deserved judgment ; but, in the words of Him who is "patient because He is eternal," I would say, "Suppose ye that these men were sinners above all otliers, because they suffered such things ; I tell you nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish !" By my walk up the Bregaglia valley I had missed an amusing interlude, which was, however, so graphically described to me on my return, that I will here insert it. ii u 310 it i> GLEAIiriNQS AFTEB " GEAKD TOTTE -ISTS. THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO CHIAVENIfA. 311 As my daughters aat in the inn window enjoying the cool Italian evening, an improvised Italian comedy sud- denly commenced in the public square below. From a Como diligence descended a small, swarthy, dusty, daring individual, just returned from achieving the adventure of " The Great Exhibition !" He had made one of a party "delivered at so much a head'* in London, by some re- tired courier, who had turned contractor for the occasion ; and from what I saw and heard here and elsewhere of the helplessness of foreign trayellers, I have little doubt that during the Exhibition season many an unfortunate foreigner arrived in London was " stalled and fed" in the purlieus of Leicester-square, walked by his keeper for exercise to and from the Crystal Palace, and ultimately delivered up safe at home, with as little opportunity of forming a true or adequate idea of the "World of London" as a mouse in a pantry can have of the proportions of a palace. I doubt if Albert Smith was received with more honours at Chamouni, after having achieved Mont Blanc, than the daring Chiavennese obtained from his townsmen as he descended from his seat en banquette — all dusty and travel- stained. At once the town was astir; they gazed in wonder — they crowded round — some embraced (how they do embrace) — hundreds asked questions ; the traveller, to do him justice, tried what a man could do to answer all ; but it was an impossibility. Curiosity at last found an expedient. A table was put in requisition from the inn ; the little man, all adust as he stood, was elevated thereon; a circle formed in the little piazza, with the great ruined feudal castle of the De Salis, Counts of Chiavenna, frown- ing overhead ; and then and there, with the impromptu facility indigenous to Italy, the Exhibition hero delivered his " exposition'^ of the sights he had seen, and the dangers he had passed ; and a curious exposition it must have been, in its original freshness, for it charmed me at second-hand. The orator did not disdain the use of diagrams to aid his eloquence. When language failed to convey his sense of the magnitude of London, he pulled from his breast a copy of the Illustrated News — " I saw it all printed — / myself, i^— all, all— and as quick as tliatV said the nar- rator, using one of the indescribable Italian gestures to signify rapidity. He then pointed to the well-known vig- nette of that wondrous journal, saying, " Such is London ^-ecco !" Whereupon more than one of his wondering auditors audibly expressed astonishment: "Ah, what a city ! what wonders ! It must he almost as hig as Milan .'" The whole description was much in the same proportion to the subject. The amusement of the two English girls who sat listening as well as they could to the Italian nar- rative, was infinite, and according to their account, the piece of pantomime by which he attempted to give his company an idea of the department of the Exhibition in which the machinery was worked by that docile and inde- fatigable giant Steam, must have been a rich treat indeed. One cannot see everything, and I am sorry I missed this, but the lecture was concluded just as I walked into the piazza, and I only arrived in time to see the lion of the evening retire amidst the vivas of his admiring friends. There was a perfect Babel of nations and tongues in the salle of Chiavenna, as we separated for the night, 312 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. THE " OPENING OP THE PASS" TO SPLTJGHEN. 313 before tlie "opening of the pass," with an intimation similar to that given to the Canterbury pilgrims, that we must " make forword erly for to rise To take our way ther as I you devise." Our "ybnrori?," or covenant, was for three o'clock next morning, and the reveil duly sounded accordingly, and yet we might with impunity have snoozed for two hours longer, for our train of pilgrims was not gotten into motion until six, in consequence of a parting act of Italian ras- cality, which shall be told in due course ; but having brought myself and readers to the foot of the mountain, I think it as well here to pause and take breath for the ascent. ' * CHAPTEE XYII. THE " OPENING OP THE PASS" TO SPLUGHEN. We were up at three in the cold grey light of an Italian sunrise, to encounter that piece of Italian rascality of which I gave hint before, and which I must, with some national vanity as a British subject, introduce by a little episode of testimony to the foreigner's sense of English integrity ; the only place in our tour where I had bur- dened myself or my purse with a " laquais de place" was at Naples, and there he proved no burden at all, but a valuable light ener of our troubles. Steady, intelligent, ever " content with his wages," I am sure he saved us the amount we paid him, by protecting us at our first landing in Italy from varieties of imposture. Guisseppe had been in England, too, as a courier, and seemed always to recur to England and its ways with a pleasurable regret. A few days before we left Naples, I desired him to go and engage for us a " veturino" for Eome ; it was done imme- diately. I had already specified the price for which I 314i QLBAiriirGS AFTEE " GEAND T0TJE"-ISTS. THE " OPENING OF THE PASS** TO SPLTTGHEN. 315 expected to have a carriage, and G-uisseppe brought me back the ^^ contratto'^ ready filled, for even a less sum than I reckoned on. I expressed myself satisfied ; and then he said : " The Signer had best come and see the carriage for himself." " Why ?" said I ; "you have seen it, and tell me it is comfortable, and what more is necessary ?" " Cospetto, Signor,*' said he, coming up close to me, "see your carriage for yourself, and know it again, or they may put the change upon you ; and then, if a ' povero diavolo' like me dared to interfere, when you were gone I might taste the knife some dark evening P'* "Ay!" said I, "let us go, then; but it is not so in England." " Iddio, Engla/ndr said Guisseppe, " wo, no ; in England your bargain is made, and it stands. Tour yes is yes, and your no, no; but here yes is this! and no is thatP^^ making some indescribable movement with his flexible fingers, indicative of utter nothingness — ^^ come and see your carriage for yourself that you may know it again, Signor.^^ Justice to every one, I must say, though we had our own grumblings with veturinos afterwards, in the long viaggio from Eome to Venice I never experienced, or rather saw proof, of the justice of Guisseppe' s caution until we came to deal with the villanous maestro di posta at the foot of the Alps. Thus it happened — among our "band of pilgrims" at table the day before, was a lady, no bad representative in appearance for Chaucer's " Wife of Bathe :" " Bold was hyr face, and faire and red of hew." I do not presume to insinuate that the resemblance went further than personal appearance. A lady she evidently was, well-bred, and wealthy, travelling with an invalid sister, who did not appear at table, and waited on by her own attendant courier and femme de chamhre. They had been among the earliest arrivals at Chiavenna, had passed near a week awaiting " the opening of the pass," and had availed themselves of their priority of choice to secure by extra pay the entire coupe of the diligence, three places for two, with a view to the accommodation of the invalid. I was unaware of this, when the evening before, while examining my own tickets in the bureau, a little, quiet, self-possessed German lady, with two daughters, glided into the office and commenced a dialogue with the post- master ; he had just assured me that a coupe seat was " imposstUle'' so I said no more on that head ; however, I heard the same word repeated by the new comer : a short dialogue ensued, terminated by the transfer of some clinking matter, which found its way, not to the desk where he deposited the seat-fares, but to the maestro^s own pocket. And now, attending sharply to what was going on, I saw him hand her the usual billet, and whisper at the same time, " It is yours, hut say nothing!*'' At dinner-table, subsequently, in conversation with " the comely wife of Bathe," and speaking of the rush of voyageurs for the morrow, she expressed, in a self-satisfied tone, her content in having long since secured the coupe. " Don't be too sure," I said, relating the little scene to what I had been witness in the office. The lady seemed somewhat startled, and expressed some 316 iC »> GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOTJE -ISTS. anxiety at tlie possibility of not being able to obtain this accommodation for her sick sister. " The crowd in the rotonde would be her death," she said, and presently, with the composure of an old traveller, she had her courier summoned, and desired him to " pre- occupy'* the coupe with some of their luggage, as a precaution for securing her " vested rights." The cou- rier vanished to obey orders, but in no short time re- turned, imprecating ineffable maledictions on that " cativo maestro di posta'^ — the coupe was given to another. There arose "confusion worse confounded" — the Babel of an Italian quarrel, to which the wildest " Irish row" is quietude. The host was summoned, who had witnessed the lady's original contract; and at last the ^^ maestro, ^^ livid and dogged, took his stand on the assertion that the last comers had brought him a superseding order, a "patent of precedence" from the bureau at Milan! The lying scoundrel; the only warrant for his conduct lay burning in his breeches-pocket at the moment. "We re- tired to our rooms, leaving the parties still in high dis- pute ; at last they separated for the night, to renew the battle in the morning. When we descended, at about half-past three next morning, after our hasty and horrible " caffe nero,^* we found the war still raging, but with a doubtful aspect. The courier, like a faithful " hrave,^^ had gone on loading the coupe with the thousand-and-one conveniences of wealthy travelling ladies ; there were their baskets, their butterfly-nets, their camp-stools, stowed here and there, and in the midst of them, sly and placid, but with an a n THE "OPENING OF THE PASS TO SPLITGHEN. 317 anxious look withal, sat the little German lady and her daughters, handed in and given possession by the maestro di posta himself. The Englishwoman or her sick sister had not yet made their appearance. They came pre- sently, and the courier explained the state of the case. "What am I to do?" said my comely friend, turning to me. " Go and produce your ticket, and demand your place," said I ; " and I am willing, if necessary, to testify what I witnessed last night." I felt proud of my countrywoman, beholding her noble bearing as she advanced to the usurper ; the perfect lady was in every look and word, but withal, entire determina- tion to assert the rights of which she was conscious. " Madame," she said in French, "you hold my place; here is my billet, dated a week since, engaging the entire coupe for myself and sister, who is sick." The German woman quailed ; she had possession, but she had with it the consciousness of underhand dealing. She looked round for her accomplice, he was busy else- where ; and she got out of the coupe without a word, her daughters following, and our friend and her sister instantly ascended and took possession of their rightful domain. It is necessary to remark that at this time their diligence, as the principal and regular conveyance, stood first in the rank of a line of carriages in the archway of the great yard, and no other carriage could proceed until it moved on or in. My Irish friend S and myself, with, I suppose, the natural aptitude of Irishmen for a quarrel, stood at each side of the coupe, saying to the occupants. 318 ») GLEANUTGS APTEB " GBAND TOUB -ISTS. who seemed agitated and alarmed, " Now you have got your places, keep them, and if necessary, we will support you." Presently the foe appeared in sight again. The maestro raging " terrible as ten thousand furies, black as night," and exclaiming, that they must give way. " Come down, ladies, come down," said he, insolently. " No," said I, speaking for the first time ; and pointing to the office, I quietly added, " I saw what passed there last night." At this he raged worse than ever, ordered the horses to be taken from the diligence, and swore furiously that they " might sit there if they pleased, but that tJiat diligence should not leave the yard that day." The men, by his orders, actually commenced unharnessing the horses. Yet I saw it was but the "tail of the shower" — the last effort to frighten females — and at every move I whispered, " Keep your seats — keep your seats." At last the fellow, seeing no symptoms of irresolution on the faces of my brave countrywomen, shook his head, and retreated to his bureau, followed by the discomfited Grermans. I had the curiosity to peep in, and saw the chinking process of last evening repeated, while he dis- gorged the bribe for which he had not been able to give value. The Germans were obliged to content themselves in the cavern of the rotonde. I had already placed my girls in the coupe of an inferior caleche, which brought up the rear of the cavalcade, not the best of carriages, but as good as we could have expected as late comers in such a press for places. S and I jumped into the interior, and at last the cavalcade began to wind its slow length through the streets of the quiet town ; but in the delay THE " OPENING OP THE PASS" TO SPLUGHEN. 319 occasioned by the battle of the coupe, the sun was high, and six had chimed before we were clear of the defiles of Chiavenna. It takes about seven hours to clear tbe pass of the Spliighen, and transport you fairly from Italian to Swiss ground, and probably there is no part of Europe where you pass in so short a time into so thorough a contrast as to climate, scenery, habits, manners, everything which constitutes difference between countries and people. At Chiavenna we left dusty roads, traversing vineyards yield- ing the sweet wine of the Valteline ; we entered Spliighen village through avenues of huge pines standing grimly out of the white snows, which crunched in disgusting slush under our carriage- wheels as we passed; while further down towards Tussis, the husbandman was but sowing the grain which the Italian farmer was already preparing to reap ; then the look of everything was so different, and not less so the reality ; in Italy, they bmld with blocks of marble, in the Switzland with fir-logs ; in Italy, no house looks as if a repairing hand had touched it for a hundred years ; in Switzland, every house looks as if the master inspected it weekly, to see that not a nail was loose in the clumsy fabric; in Italy, all looks grand, desolate, and crumbling ; in Switzland, aU is homely, snug, and service- able. You plainly see that his forests are to the moun- taineer what his quarries are to his classical neighbour, and the plenty of timber, and the lack of other resource, induces the Switzer to execute in this material works to which it is nowhere else applied. The huge timber via- ducts which cross the infant Rhine at various places, are wonders in their way, for solidity, rudeness of construe- 320 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. tion, and abundance of material, whicli proves tliat the constructers had it at prime cost. Bishop Burnet, with the cool daring proper to the character which Dry den gives of him, as " A portly prince, and goodly to the sight, Seeming a son of Anak for his height, Like those whose stature did to crowns prefer. Black brow'd and bluff, like Homer's Jupiter," makes light of the danger of what must, in his day, have been a terrific adventure indeed, namely, the passing the Splughen by the gorge of the Cardhiell, that fearful road where avalanches did the work of Milton's " Serboniau bog," and " engulphed whole armies" of Marshal Mac- donald's force, when making the same descent, in 1800 ; we, however, thanks to modern engineering, were enabled to eschew this horrible gorge, and to leave it at our left hand as we passed Compo Dolcino, whence, by a series of surprising traverses, the road climbs the mountain side, instead of keeping the valley of the Lira, a wild, desolate Alpine glen, covered with the huge debris of the impend- ing mountains, which come smoking and thundering down, as the avalanches in their course, or the quiet but irre- sistible action of frost, may loosen and set them in motion; as our string of carriages crawled up the ascent, and we pedestrians occasionally cut off an angle by straining up the short way from one traverse to another, it made the blood run cold to think of the possibility of one of these missiles being set rolling just at the time of our transit— why should it not happen now, as well as at another time ?— and as we passed here and there crosses set up, asking prayers for the soul of one or more victims '' perished miserably," THE " OPENING OF THE PASS TO SPLUGHEN. 321 and as occasionally we heard the report, and then the sigh of a falling avalanche on some of the mountains around us, several of which falls occurred in the course of the morning as the sun's warmth came to act, it was impossible to avoid the speculation — why may not one of these take our direction as well as any other ? Who can answer that why ?— except by reference to that Providence in which God tells us He has " the hairs of our heads all numbered," and in which He can order the " fall to the ground" alike of " the avalanche" and of " the sparrow !" Our ascent, though slow as to distance, was rapid as to climate, and we presently came to that debatable land where winter and summer still disputed the ground, lite- rally face to face, and inch by inch. At first we were surprised and interested, as the road wound upward through a region of huge rock and precipice, to remark that wher- ever a little spot of soil presented itself, it was thickly carpeted with the richest variety of flowers, enamelled on a ground of exquisite green. Nothing could be more agreeable than these little natural gardens, blooming in places which the snow had covered probably a week before : in one spot, not four yards square, I counted, with a passing glance, not less than a dozen difierent wild flowers, gentian, cowslip, and I know not how many others, but chief among them all, that sweet little catholic- flower — the same in every clime and language — the " For- get-me-not." Having already inflicted on my readers tha rhymes with which I beguiled a rainy transit over Laga Maggiore, I now ofier them the thoughts with which this little flower cheered my upward way. I do not say they were finished there, but the rough draft was forged and T 322 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND T0UB"-ISTS. the idea put in shape, as I loitered behind the carriages towards the snowy peaks of the Spliighen : TO A SPBIG OF " FORGET-ME-NOT," GATHERED IN THE SPLUGHEN PA8S, JUNE 6, 1851.* Forget thee ! — never — till their hold, Clinging to Memory's greenest spot, Shall fail the beautiful and bold ; Thy name's a spell — " Forget-me-not." Blind with the glare of circling snows. With what relief my pained eye caught Nestling, where sharp the Alp-peak rose, Thy modest flower — " Forget-me-not" I found thee 'midst a whole parterre. Bright into Nature's carpet wrought. But none of all the bright ones there Appealed like thee — " Forget-me-not^ Not wild-rose blush of warmer hue, Nor violet bud with fragrance fraught. Nor gentian's deep and dazzling blue Had charms like thine — " Forget-me-not.'" For near or far, where'er we roam. Waked from the long-sealed depths of thought. Youth's memories, and ties of home Spring at thy touch — " Forget-me-not^ * May I be permitted to felicitate myself on perceiving, in one of the minor poems just published with Mr. Tennyson's " Maud," that in the very same place a little Alpine flower carried him " in spirit" homeward as it did me ? He communicates his incident thus : " What more ? we took a last adieu. And up the snowy Splughen drew ; But ere we reached the highest summit I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. " It told of England then to me, And now it tells of Italy. O love, we two shall go no longer To land of summer beyond the sea." THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO SPLUGHEN. 323 Still continuing to mount, we presently came on the battle-field, where the conflict between snow and sun raged in good earnest. To carry on the metaphor, while one party kept up an incessant, steady fire, the other offering but a dogged, passive resistance, and bleeding at every pore, was giving ground, though imperceptibly yet certainly. "VYe were now in the exact line to examine the phenomena of winter prolonged into " leafy June," and at length forced to yield the earth to the rule of the short but rapid summer of these regions. The first fact that struck us was, that, at tJie very edge of the retreating snow, out of the brown earth, which had not yet had time to assume its summer livery of green, the crocus and snow- drop were springing up even as we looked on — in fact, where the snow had lain yesterday, flowers were bursting through to-day! And no wonder, for they were every- where watered with water actually tepid. We put our hands to the bare brown soil, and it felt quite warm to the touch. The melting of the snow did not take place at the surface, but underneath, at the point of contact with the ground on which it lay. As we looked around us, and saw in every direction the slight but continuous drain with which the whole body of snow was trickling down the slopes of the mountain, and making its way into the rills, rivulets, and streams around, many of the phenomena of these regions became intelligible. We saw before us the sources of those floods wlych, in summer, when other rivers shrink in their beds, swell the rivers which have their rise in the regions of eternal frost, into turbid tor- rents. We saw also under our eyes the forcing process, by which the Lapland and Alpine summer ripens in few t2 324. 5> GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUB -ISTS. days fruits and flowers, which, in more temperate regions, take months to acquire the same perfection. I shall neither puzzle myself nor my readers with theories of latent or radiated heat, but simply give my resulting impression — that the whole scene before me was one huge hotbed, kept at a forcing heat by the wonderful compensating provi- sions of nature, and that the covering of snow was somehow made to answer the double purpose of the glass frame of a hot-house and of a vast watering-pot ; superior in its distri- bution of moisture even to the magnificent system of arti- ficial irrigation which made Lombardy, as it lay below us, the garden land of Europe. Still we went up— and now " the bounds of false and true are past," and we are completely in the snow world. Traces of man or his works beyond the road we travelled there were none, save here and there the blackened walls of a deserted chalet, grim and miserable ; some of these rude dwellings showing terrible tokens of what might have happened if any had dared to abide in them during winter. Occasionally there was a ^«Z/ chalet standing, the remain- ing half cut away, either in the sweep of an avalanche or in the bombshell-whirl of a passing rock, as clean as if a knife had sliced it. The mountaineers re-occupy these dreary-looking abodes, while keeping their cattle on the upper pastures during the short summer of a month or two, and at September, or thereabouts, resign them to winter again. As we saw them half emerging from their snow covering, without a sign of life about them, more desolate abodes for humanity imagination could not picture to itself. Somewhere here is an inscription recording that the road is the design of a " Chevalier Donnegani;" and TUE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO SPLIJGHEN. 325 I dare say it is to impress the traveller with a deeper sense of the benefits which he owes to the engineering powers of the Chevalier Donnegani that the diligenza seems to stop, as a matter of course, at a point of the road whence a short path brings you to the cascade of the Medessimo stream ; from whence, looking dovm over a wall of rock eight hundred feet of sheer depth, you may well realise your chances of escape from an avalanche projected into the Cardinell pass below. The cascade at your side — a tolerable but not overwhelming volume of water — goes collectedly over the ledge, but before it is half-way dovm the fall, is broken and dissipated into mist ; and one may safely assert, that not a single drop ever reaches the valley by perpen- dicular descent. Could one preserve brain and eye with- out reeling, here would be the spot to witness the fall of an avalanche into the valley underneath. But I suspect that nature will not be closely looked upon by human eye in these vast operations ; and that ice dust, darkness, and deafening noise, overwhelming to the human senses, are too inevitable concomitants of these events to permit of our realising the " suave mari magno''' of the poet.* * As we had adopted this route professedly to enjoy, if possible, an avalanche " in moderation," I may as well honestly confess that as we got nearer to the possibility^ I found my appetite for the acttml of this enjoyment lessening every moment ; and by the time I stood in the po- sition where this phenomena of nature might present itself at any instant, I felt quite satisfied, not to say thankful, as time went by, and no ava- lanche came near. The first abatement of appetite for this Alpine luxury came on when, about a mile above Campo Dolcino, I heard a sharp report like a musket-shot, and presently a kind of rushing sound, gentle as t}»e sigh of a giant in love. " An avalanche" said the driver, turning his head. I looked in the direction of the sound, and down the slope of a mountain, apparently about three miles distant, at the other side of theCardinell pass, I saw something like a gigantic stream of milk 326 )> GLEANINGS AFTER '' GEAND TOUE -ISTS. We were now in the actual avalanche region, and ap- proached those famous galleries through which the road passesTor nearly a mile in length, and which are constructed upon the principle inculcated by the homely Scotch pro- verb, which bids us " Jouk, and let the Jaw gae bye ;" or perhaps it would be better to say, on the larger principle now beginning to be universally recognised in human science, that there are many cases in which the w^ay to conquer natural difficulties is not to oppose, but to yield to them.* The Plymouth breakwater fulfils its functions, not by presenting a wall to the waves, but by allowing them to break on its shelved side as on a natural beach ; and the Spliighen galleries shun the conflict with the avalanche force by lying under it, and allow it to rush over their arched roofs adapted to the natural lie of the gliding towards a valley. Could that innocent-looking thing be the dreaded avalanche ? Yes, it certainly was. I saw the mountain left bare and brown as it glided on, presently a few dark objects seemed to bound after it down the steep ; these were massive rocks, loosened and leaping into the valleys below, such as lay round us in the glen of tlie Lira, brought down there by similar causes. Soon after, the avalanche reached, I suppose, some precipice, and went bodily over ; for a snow- mist arose, and for a while hid this scene. By appearance I had judged it three miles distant. I suggested this to the driver ; he smiled, and said it was twenty ! Until then I had no conception of the magnitude of the operation of nature on which I looked. I heard and saw several others in the course of the morning, but all at a considerable distance ; and as the driver ever piously ejaculated at each explosion, "If it please God and the Virgin that they come no nearer," I soon began to acknow- ledge the wish with an Amen. * If I do not much mistake, I have seen this profound principle ex- pressed in the motto " Cedendo vincimiis" adopted doubtless by some sagacious founder of a family, who had steered himself through troublous and stormy times, by acting on the principle that occasionally a " loosing tack" is a better way of making a prosperous voyage than to sail for ever in " the wind's eye." THE "opening of THE PASS" TO SPLUGHEN. 327 overhanging rock, down which the avalanche pursues its thundering way. Thus, no doubt, many an avalanche has fallen over these galleries since their formation, leaving the roadway uninjured beneath ; and, as we passed, we could well realise the possibility of an avalanche sweeping over us, doing as little injury to life or limb as the Fall of Niagara causes to those who stand beneath it in the cavern formed between the volume of waters and the wall of rock over which they tumble. Darkly yawned the first gallery, fifteen hundred feet in length, as our carriages rolled noiselessly into its recesses ; its small, oblong windows gave but a gloaming light, little more than enough to make darkness visible. The passage through was by no means clear. We occasionally discerned great drifts of snow lying here and there imder the win- dows, which must have been blown in during the stormy winter, and in one or two places the drifted snow would appear to have completely choked the pass, for it was sho- velled aside to leave carriage-way, evidently by human labour. We proceeded slowly through, and emerged into clear sunshine. Our eyesight was scarcely reconciled to the dazzling glare of the snow around us when we entered a second gallery, as gloomy but not as long as the first, emerging from which we passed through a third; and, leaving that behind, the highest peak of the Spliighen rose on our left hand in snowy majesty, at an altitude of about eight thousand feet, while beneath it, completely command- ing the pass through an oblong valley, in official sulkiness stood the Austrian Dogana, with its appurtenances of vast post-stables, and an hostelry — of which you might be glad to avail yourself in a blinding storm, but would certainly 328 GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND TOrR^-ISTS. THE " OPENING OF THE PASS" TO SPLUGHEN. 329 eschew otherwise ; for not all the snow of the impending mountains could wash away its ensemble of filth and ^roS' sierete. Every one must remark that dirt and slush always looks all the dirtier for the contrast with " unsunned snow." And as this Austrian station stood with all the accumu- lated frousy heaps of winter in great petrified dunghills ahout it, I thought I never looked on a less inviting domi- cile. As for the residents of the dirty den, inasmuch as oflfi- cers, men, and horse-boys, all alike turned out in an uniforni of dark green spectacles, essential for the preservation of sight in these regions, they were, I presume, unconscious of the filthy appearance which everything wore to our un- defended and unhabituated vision. These goggle-eyed gentlemen took a considerable time to viser our passports (it was the last infliction of that torment which we experienced ; free Switzerland, Eng- land's continental counterpart, knows nothing of such inventions), and we took the opportunity to discuss a slight refection, in the shape of some Como confectionary, excellent in its kind, which I had laid in a few days before against emergency ; and I never expect to find a more appetising locality than the gorge of the Spliighen ; and never, never again do I expect to enjoy such a draught of ice-cold water as washed down our repast. This finished, the officials satisfied, and a fresh relay of magnificent horses to the carriages, we now prepared for what was the " open- ing of the pass" in good earnest, for hitherto our way, though steep, had been open, and over the natural road, but we now entered what might be called a lane, through the deep-lying snow, without following the line of road at all, cut by human labour the exact breadth, and scarcely the breadth, of a carriage ; and as we advanced, the snow walls rose as straight and perpendicular as the side of a house, to a height varying according to the lie of the ground from fifteen to twenty, and in some places even thirty feet ! Through this lane our string of carriages proceeded as noiselessly as if the horses had been shod with felt. At intervals of a half-quarter of a mile were men stationed ready to shovel away any impediment, who stared gravely at us from their green eyes as we passed. A workman, en blouse, with green spectacles on nose, and shovel on shoulder, was a strange-looking object ; sometimes a horse, awltwardly driven, or slipping from the snowball which collected on his hoof, would gib a little, and bear his car- riage against the snow wall, an accident which caused a halt until '* extra luggage," in the shape of a couple of hundred-weight of snow, was discharged from the vehicle. On the whole, however, we proceeded safely and cau- tiously, until the summit level was mastered, and we began to descend traverses corresponding to those which we had climbed heretofore. Here the rule and necessity of the road obliged us to call a solemn halt of a full hour in a "lie by," provided for such an emergency, until an ascending train of carts, carriages, and oxen from the Swiss side had passed us. The opening of the pass was quite as great an event for the traders of Switzerland as for the tourists of Italy ; and as the pent-up stream of commerce and agriculture rolled slowly up-hill southward, I should be afraid to guess the length of the train of vehicles of all sorts, shapes, and sizes which passed us in solemn procession. Eirst came an English britschka (Long-acre against the world), in which stood up an 330 GLEJLCrnSTGS AFTER " GBAKD TOUB -IST3. elegant-looking English girl, staring with surprise at our collection of nondescript conveyances ; her husband, or lover, or brother, as the case might be, sat with cheroot in mouth on the box ; then came a rout of oxen shouldering each other, and their huge horns forming a forest of formidable-looking weapons (one could understand how a driven herd of these animals could formerly have routed legions in a pass like this), then came in long array a line of the low, ungainly Swiss car of burden, which might be called "the ship of the Alps," freighted with a "ge- neral cargo," among which we recognised the complicated machinery of a steam-engine, distributed on several cars — an apparition which seemed to set aU the Italians ques- tioning and inquiring what it could be, or mean ? The weariest day comes to an end ; the cavalcade for Italy slowly wended its way upwards, and we addressed our- selves to the downward traverses ; a truly perilous un- dertaking to appearance, but which we accomplished in safety, thanks to a gracious Providence, and reached our "pranzo," or mid-day collation, at Spliighen, about two o'clock, thus performing in safety a journey which wor- thy Mrs. Marianne Starke says, " ought never to be at- tempted in June." In a secondary sense, and as its secondary causes, the safety of our passage was due to those noble animals of whom I before spoke; the docility and sagacity with which they performed the descent of those zig-zag tra- verses by which we descended the mountain, cann£)t be too much admired. Of a size approaching that of the London dray-horse, they turned the sharp comers with a practised caution worthy of the most managed steed at THE " OPEim^G or THE PABS" TO SPLUGHEN. 331 « Astley's ; all the powers of charioteering would have been powerless to regulate the descent ; but these fine creatures might literally be said to have taken the reins into their own control, and yet not to abuse their licence. As if to show us how much we owed them, an incident occurred in mid-descent, which, even when I now think of it at safe distance, chills my blood. We were in full career, a carriage on each traverse, in the position, each relatively to the other, of the inhabitants of the different flats of a ten-story Edinburgh house ; we actually looked down on the roof of the carriage next below us, and not a hundred yards in advance of us, when we heard a general exclama- tion, and there was an evident attempt to check the whole cavalcade : to our horror we saw that the leaders of the foremost carriage (the diligence proper, the coupe of which had been the cliamp de hataille in the morning) had, in turning a traverse, been unable to check themselves in time, had gone over the trifling road fence, and, in danger of instant destruction, were standing on a mere ledge of bank impending over the precipice below, with the mon- strous triple carriage, and wheel-horses, ready to be dra^Tcred after them. For a moment the scene was horrible even to look at. Quick as light every male of the party was on the road hastening to the rescue, which was a work of some time and caution ; to secure the great diligence from going over by its own gravity— to rescue from their place of peril the noble animals, who, trembling in every lunb, and conscious of their danger, helped in their o^vn way to remove it by standing motionless—to readjust the harness — and give the ponderous vehicle in charge to the conducteur instead of the incapable driver, all this was a 332 i» GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. work of time. At length the cavalcade was once more in motion ; and I dare say there was not a soul among all who witnessed the occurrence, who did not make the rest of the journey under a profound impression, that the run down an Alpine pass was an achievement far more easy than safe. The ludicrous will often mingle with the most sublime and critical danger. As I hurried down, among others, to the rescue, even the horror I felt at what might happen before the inmates of the imperilled diligence could be rescued, was lost in a laugh at seeing from one of the terraces above, the activity with which the " invalid of the coupe" imitated her sister in jumping out at the safe side of the road ; the youngest, or most rosy-cheeked girl of the party, could not have done it better. I thought of the tongue-tied boy, who, in the extremity of his father's danger, spoke !— of the gouty man, who forgot his crutches and ran dowTi stairs on hearing that the house was afire ! Here was a rich, hippish, petted demoiselle to match, who that morning had tottered languishingly towards the car- riage, but in the hour of peril found her nerves as firmly strung for a jump as need be. I should not be surprised to hear that the shock had the bracing efiect of a shower- bath, and that she found herself all the better for the alarm and exertion afterwards. Arrived at Spliighen, where I had arranged to stop, with a view to an expedition to the Voghelberg Glacier, at the Ehine source, I experienced the first contrast be- tween Swiss honesty and Italian policy. I communicated this intention to " mine host" of the Spliighen Inn, and he answered me in the very words of my crafty Milan TnE " OPENING or THE PASS" TO SPLUGHEN. 333 landlord, but with a meaning and intention directly oppo- site : " Not open yet. Signer."— " It will be dangerous to attempt the glacier until the snow melts more. You might stay here a week and not succeed ; you had best go on to Coire." Here was disinterested honesty in true mountain simplicity ; this man might easily have kept me as his guest from day to day, but he preferred telling me the direct truth in the first instance. I trust mine honest host of Spliighen will find the realisation of the axiom that "honesty is the best policy." If he does not, he ought. Tor several reasons it is not my purpose to inflict on my readers the slow length of the " Via Mala" from Splughen to Coire, for the first and best reason, that I do not myself retain as clear and vivid impressions of it as I could wish. The truth is, as I found on this and other occasions, there are certain routes in travel which should no more be re- versed than you should look at the wrong side of a silk- stuff", or eat plain meat after seasoned, or do any other in- congruous thing ; thus, you should ever go " uip the Ehine," and take in its quieter beauties before you throw yourself into the grander scenes of the Oberland, or Grisons. You should come up the "Via Mala" before you have encoun- tered the more truly Alpine horrors of the higher pass ; although I retain a general impression of magnificent scenery in the stupendous Eheinwald defile, with its giant pines and foaming torrents, still I cannot now say that I could particularise any one feature of the transit, except perhaps my own wonder and incredulity in seeing at a thou- sand feet below me what I was informed was the entire BUne, writhing and boiling between two walls of rock, 334 15 GLEANIKGS AFTEB " GEAKD TOUE -ISTS. which, as I stood by the gorge, and peered into its depths, did not look to be twenty feet asunder. My eye was doubtless deceived by the gigantic scale of all around me, but this awful chasm did look as if an active man could have jumped across it without great exertion ; and yet here was a great river, struggling in its grasp, reduced to the dimensions of a millstream. After twenty hours of hard travel, or at least of being girded and wound up for travel, eleven o'clock saw us fairly housed in our inn at Coire, the capital of the G-ri- sons ; and I only fear that, without the excuse of locomo- tion, my readers may feel as fatigued in reading as I was in making the journey. A EIGHI DAT. 335 CHAPTEE XVIII. A EIGHI DAT. (( THE EVENING. >» The scriptural expression for a day, is " the evening and the momiug," and though in general this description passes over parenthetically the busiest portion of our waking hours, it may be affirmed that, in " Eighi" par- lance, "the evening and the morning" are emphatically ^^th^ day," for the rest of the time is occupied in climbiug the mountain so as to arrive before sunset one day, as the morrow is devoted to gettiug down again after the sun is fairly risen upon the earth. As to any one being found to spend by choice twelve waking hours on the Eighi Culm, we believe such an event is not on record, even in the annals of English eccentricity or perseverance. To Eighi tourists the whole business of life, whether of failure or success, is compressed into the two quarter-hours before and after sunset and sunrise respectively. Our Eighi day was eminently a "sweeps," although quite an accidental detour from our route of travel, the occasion of which is too amusiog to be forgotten. It was as follows : 336 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOrE"-ISTS. Some months in Italy had given a certain facility of asking and answering questions in the language, though far be it for me to say I had achieved or even attempted a mastery over its difficulties. I had none of the courage with which people will rush at Dante, just as rash ama- teurs in music insist on beginning with the violin ! that most excruciating of instruments in the hands of a learner — but I can truly affirm that I never committed the folly of venturing within the circles of the " Inferno." I doubt if to this day I comprehend the abominable niceties in the application of the teasing little verb essere (to be). Still I could make my way well enough, hold a common col- loquy, and, by degrees, a Mnd of Italian began to come so naturally to the lips, that whenever a civil native attempted to communicate in his execrable French, I always begged him to accept ony vile Italian phrases in preference, and got along very well. Turning our heads northward again, we well knew that with the climate, we must leave the soft language of the South behind us, and we made preparations for getting up our French for current use once more ; but we never calculated upon a great crevasse (to use Alpine phrase) which lay between the two languages ; we knew that we must leave our Italian, like a contraband article, at the Splughen barrier, but we were utterly unprepared for tum- bling headlong into a region of unknown tongues. This " minor misery," however, actually did happen to us, and for three days we lay helpless and tongue-tied in the — land of Eomanch ! I don't know what the " learned Bopp !" or other deep philologists may make of Eomanch, but I think it not im- A EIGHI DAT.- -"the evening." 337 possible that its basis may be the lost language of the an- cient Etruscans, upon which has been raised a superstruc- ture of jargon, to which every nation and tongue, from Dunkirk to Dalmatia, has contributed its quota. To sim- plify the matter, it is arranged into three dialects ! so that if you should insanely attempt to master the Eomanch of the "Engadine!" and flatter yourself that you have suc- ceeded, you have only to cross into the valleys of the " Vorder" or " Hinter Ehein," to find your labour on a new variety of this patois all to begin over again. A plea- sant language this, truly, for weary " birds of passage" to light upon as a resting-place. As for our case, it was ludicrously pitiable. At the first summons of thought, an Italian expression would rise to the lips ; then, on recollection that we were off Italian ground, came a halt, and an awkward attempt to dress tlie same thought in half-forgotten French ; and when this was accomplished, to see the stolid postilion, waiter, or chambermaid, looking Eomanch ! at us, with all his or her stupid might, was confusing beyond measure. One of our perplexities I must detail, to give an idea of many. From Coire we drove on to Eagatz, as a pleasant resting- place, meaning to give two or three days to the examina- tion of the baths of Pfaffers, which, with their mane of foam, and tail of cataract, are indeed a Swiss " lion" of no ordinary interest. Instead of burying ourselves in the extraordinary hotel at the baths themselves (a locale where even " Mark Tapley" would have found merit in being " jolly !"), we set up our stafi'of rest in the " Hof Eagatz," at the entrance of the gorge of the Tamima, where for our general atmosphere we enjoyed glowing sunshine, and a z 338 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND TOUIl"-ISTS. superb Alpine range at the further side of the Khine in the foreground, with the power of plunging in five minutes into all the Eadcliffean horrors of the defile in our rear, whenever it suited the " gloomy habit of the souL" The afternoon of our arrival, unaware of the distance, and as I was suffering under a slight lameness, we, my girls and myself, vrith S , who still kept us company, took a char-a-lanc from the Hof to the Baths. A safer carriage (your feet within step of the ground) could not be made, and a steadier horse, kept for the route, could not have been selected ; still as we drove on a road not broader than an ordinary shrubbery-walk in England, \^ithout fence or parapet of any kind, and close over the torrent of the Tamima, raging and thundering in its channel a hundred feet below us, it was impossible to avoid some nen'ousness ; man and horse, habituated to the place, trotted briskly up. and down the small steeps of the path, but I, with an imagination realising all the horrors of a start or a stumble, could not but wish them to go a little slower. When I attempted to express this, an Italian " zoppo!" came upper- most—no, that won't do; then a French '' reste,'' ''halte,'' " arretez-vom r still no effect! At each sound the man looked round with the same stolid countenance. All was in vain. I was utterly unable to make him comprehend what I wanted. At last I was obliged fairly to throw myself back, and fright was dissipated in laughter, as I despairingly exclaimed, " Well, what a country we have got into, where a man can't say * stop,' with his neck in danger of being broken." Some Shakspearean hero " plucked the flower of safety out of the nettle danger ;" out of this confusion of tongues, we collected a day of unmixed gratification, in a perfect A EIGHI DAT. — " THE EVENING." 339 ascent and achievement of ^The Eighi," — an adventure which, nine times out of ten, we are informed, gives the tourist his toil for his reward. At leaving Coire we thought it well to do as we had heretofore done with con- venience and safety, that is, despatch our heavier trunks to meet us at Zurich, thus qualifying ourselves for light carriages and mountain roads for some days. On deliver- ing " nos lagages'^ to our Coirean host, he seemed to com- prehend perfectly what we desired, but just at parting asked some question (I suppose in Romanch), to which I first answered " Si, si,'' and then " Oui, oui,'' with an air of perfect intelligence, at the same time comprehending what the man had said as little as if he had addressed me in Parsee. He shortly returned, and handed me a " billet," engaging to deliver my trunks at Zurich, which I placed in my pocket-book, and departed for Eagatz. ' We loitered some days in this delightful locality, so as to pass our Sunday in quiet ; and then proceeded by the wild lake of Wallenstadt (the "cat's paws" of which are proverbially dangerous, and reminded us the more of the whirl blasts of our native mountains) to the " margin of fair Zurich waters," down the full length of which we steamed to Zurich town, in a perfect hurricane. We kept the deck of the steamer, kept our heads on our shoulders, but it fared otherwise with head-gear — for it was then and there, that my daughters were compelled to surrender up those convenient though unsightly shades for the com- plexion, to which foreigners give the expressive name of " Uglies ;" they had done "yeoman service" during many a long Italian day, but were here yielded tributes to the power of the storm — being blown from their bonnets down z2 340 GLEANINGS AFTER " GBAND TOUE -ISTS. the wind as cleanly as the kites or sky-scrapers of a frigate in a squall. Arrived at ZuriclJ, our first inquiry was for our baggage. « No effects !" was tlie sum of tlie answer : we produced our voucher, and the cause of the delay was then evident -that lucky or unlucky " Oui, oui," of mine had been in reply to a question whether the articles should go, by the fast and more expensive coach? or by the "waggon?" Thus the boxes, though safe, were but " coming," and would not arrive "for three days yet" -we must wait unt.I Thursday ! Here was, a gain or a loss— lohick ? We im- mediately set about turning it to the best account we could. . „ I must premise that my travelling companions were ot rather different temperaments-one personified Prudence and the other Eomance-Prudence knew that our tour had a fixed limit, aud that my presence at home was essential by a certain ascertained day ; hence whenever a iitout from the laid-down route was hinted at, in came Prudence with her inexorable almanack-" Papa, you have not time"-" this is such a day"-and then the number of days necessary to reach home by sheer travel were reckoned up, and so we (Eomance and I to wit) used sulkily to submit. I suspect, indeed, that Prudence waa suffering under a slight fit of that " maladie du pays"-the ru>.talgia, or pining for home, to which the Swiss are said to be subject. As for Bomance! I do bebeve her thirst for travel was so unsated, that if I had told her on any given day that I had " engaged a veturino for Palmyra, she would merely have asked, " At what hour in the morn- ing must I get up ?" A ElftHI DAT. — " IHE EVENING. 1) 341 Here, however, were three days which Eomance and I had honestly come by in this apropos mischance. Now to ** Murray" once more. " I can see Zuingle's Church and the * Zurich Archives' to-day. And what for to-morrow ?" The moment we cast our eyes on the map the same idea struck us all — even Prudence herself was not the last to say, " As we can't advance towards England, let us go to the Eighi." And to the Righi we went. Next morning found us slowly wending our way over the Albis range, which separates Zurich from Zug. These heights are memorable in the records of ancient and modern Swiss warfare. Here it was that Zuingle, in one of the conflicts of the early Eeformation, acting as chaplain militant to his flock, and refusing to " call on the Virgin," when wounded and a prisoner, was smitten as a "heretic dog" by some one who, in the act, thought he was " doing God service." Here, in a later day, Massena and the French out- manoeuvred Suwarrow and the Eussians in the Eepublican wars of the last century. As our eyes traversed the smiling prospect, it seemed hard to realise the fact that human hate and strife had so often marred its loveliness. The rough stone block monument, however, which marks the spot where Zuingle fell, is a record not to be disputed, pro\ing " That human strife had once been there, Disfiguring what God made fair, And doing deeds in God's own name Which put humanity to shame." The traveller has his choice of no less than three ascents to the "Eighi Culm" iculmen), which owes its attractions entirely to its position and advantages as an observatory 342 ?5 GLEAiaNGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. for probably the finest and most varied panorama in all Switzerland. Standing at a junction-point for no less than three lakes — Zug, Lowertz, and Lucerne, all of which may be said to wash its base — ^it commands on the one side the whole range of the Oberland Alps, while on the other, the more level country, fiat for Switzerland, though well diversified by w^ood, hill, and dale, loses itself in the shadowy outline of the Jura mountains and Black Porest hiUs, at a distance, it is said, of one or two hundred miles. Probably other points of view may command as fine or finer individual features of scenery, but, as a complete pro- spect, the Kighi is said to give the most magnificent in all this land of grand panoramic beauty. We decided to ascend by one route, and to diversify our excursion in de- scending by another ; accordingly, having driven through Zug, and ordered an early dinner at Arth, we dismissed our carriage to Lucerne, to wait us there, purposing to re- take it at breakfast-hour next morning. At the table d'hote of Arth there were but three guests beside ourselves ; two of whom, a young gentleman and lady, seeming to be "all the world to each other," evidently eschewed any society but their own, for they took their seats at the extreme end of a long table, at coffee ! The remaining guest joined in our more substantial repast, and ultimately became our rather useful and entertaining com- panion on the Eighi and in the descent next morning to Lucerne, where we parted company, probably never to meet again, though for a year or so we fully expected that some day or other he would walk into our remote resi- dence, since as to plan or determined route in his travels, it seemed quite uncertain whither he might direct his cc A KIGHI DAT. — " THE ETENUfG. »» 343 steps ; the lakes of Killamey were just as likely to be his destination as Jerusalem, which he spoke of visiting, and when he left us, his most definite idea was to " Gro and look for a cousin !" who was " someiuhere in Eussia! — he believed at St. Petersburg I" He was one of those young men with more money than taste or judgment, whom America annually turns out to make the " Old World" circuit, just as England formerly sent her sons to go the " grand tour" as a part of educa- tion. He told me that his father had dismissed him for a *' three-year European travel," and that "he must make it out as well as he could." His good-natpre was great ; knowledge of any kind meagre ; maimers not so much bad, as peculiar ; free, but not impertinent ; very much such as you often find in a well-born and nurtured lad who has been learning style and finish during a long cruise in the midshipman's mess of a line-of-battle ship. Above all, his self-reliance and complacency seemed thoroughly Ame- rican — not that I know aught of America, except as I am led to "guess" and " calculate" by occasional specimens and general descriptions. Our acquaintance commenced in this wise. I found him walking about the salon and amusing himself in poising and selecting one from a bundle of " Alpen-stocks" stand- ing in the corner of the room. Not knowing his nation, I said, in French, " Apparently, Monsieur is for the Kighi?" " Yes," he replied in the same language ; I am going to walk up with a guide." Nothing more passed at the time. Shortly after we sat down to dinner, when, on my remarking to my 344 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GBAND TOUIl"-ISTS. daughters in English, that " we had often had watery soup, but I never remembered any so guiltless of flavour as this," to my surprise our companion turned to me, and in our common mother tongue exclaimed, " You may say that, sir! regular potage du lac /'* (Here a pleasing little trait of Swiss simplicity broke in. The waiter overheard the epithet applied by our friend, laughed freely, declared it was a " wo^," and that he would " go down and tell the — cook !" all as a capital joke. "We begged him to " do so by all means.") " Monsieur is an Englishman, then ?" said I. " No !" said he, carelessly. " G-enuine Boston, that's what I am." He said this defiantly, as I thought, and I said no more. Presently one of my girls, having been curiously observ- ing the pair who sat wrapped in each other at the further end of the long board, remarked, " I am certain those are new-married people ; they seem to care neither for scenery, nor dinner, nor anything but each other." Our Yankee friend stooped forward, took a long stare at the supposed " nouveaux maries^'* and abruptly said, ""Well, Tm not married, thank God!" It seemed doubtful whether there was intended rude- ness in this brusque speech, but I thought it better to fol- low it up jestingly. So, looking at him half-seriously, I shook my head, and said : " I never knew a garrison boast so loudly that was not near surrender ; that very speech assures me, that though you may not know it, you are on the brink of matrimony." (( A EIOHI DAY. — " THE EVENING. »j 345 He returned my look, and seeing a joke in my eye, abruptly said : " You're not English !" " How do you know that ?" I replied. " Because I never met an Englishman yet that would joke at first sight." " "Well," I said, " I am not^ though here I may reckon for one — I am Irish." " I knew you were not," he said coolly ; " I know the English all the world over hy their starch.^'* He spoke as promptly and decidedly as if he had been a student of ethnological distinctions and of national character for years, and yet the boy, for he was little more in age, was probably only repeating a national axiom learned with his letters. It is true the Englishman is too apt to wear a starched covering over his sterling and esti- mable qualities, but I hardly think our young American friend could have known much of it, except by " tradition received from his fathers." I don't mean to put the two national characters in comparison, but I will say, for the mere compagnon du voyage, Irish affability makes its way better than English exclusiveness. Our friend held all his American Jlerte bristling to match English hauteur, as long as he thought us " Britishers ;" the moment he found Irish readiness to exchange a repartee, his national Irus- quene was laid aside— at once he became obliging and courteous. "We accommodated him by sending his port- manteau to Lucerne in our carriage, and he offered to en- gage our rooms at the Eighi Culm Hotel, where, by breasting the steep hill-side, he was sure to arrive a con- 346 cc 5» GLEi-KlNGS AFTES " GEAND TOUB -ISTS. A EIGHI DAY. — THE EVEWHf G. >> 347 siderable time before us equestrians ; a very useful kind- ness we found it to be, when, as on this occasion, at least one hundred and fifty persons were scrambling for accom- modation. Dinner ended, we turned our backs on our new friend to meet a few hours later on the Eighi top. He took the mountain path, steep and direct from the town of Arth ; while we equestrians, each mounted on a stout horse, and each conducted by a stalwart gidde, made a detour to the left, leading us over the buried and through the re-building village of Goldau, which lies in the valley between what is left of the Rossberg mountain and the Eighi, up which we presently found ourselves ascending by successive tra- verses or flights of stairs, which our stout steeds clambered steadily and leisurely, as " to the manner born." The tremendous fall of the Eossberg mountain about forty years ago, the debris of which buried a town, half filled a lake ! and flung itself half-way up the slope of the mountain opposite, was one of those events which, well and vividly described as we find it in books, had been one of the exciting causes of my wish to see Switzerland. The descriptions of it in " Beattie's Tour," or " Murray's Hand- book," are excellent, and realise the scene as far as any description can do j but nothing short of ocular observa- tion could give full idea of the tremendous catastrophe which, to all within its influence, must have been as " the crash of a world." The Eossberg seems, as does its gigantic neighbour the Eighi, to be mainly composed of that conglomerate rock called by many local names — '^conglomerate," "nagel- flue" — with us " plum-pudding" stone. In the former mountain, beds of this rock form its slope ; they rise from the valley at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and pre- sent a blufi" face or end to the lake and village of Zug ; they are of great thickness, and seem to rest upon seams of clay, " hinc illm lachrymcey It was the moistening of some of these seams of clay in a season of long-continued rain, which may be said to have converted them into a well- greased run or slide for the superincumbent rock, which, from the accounts collected after the disaster, would ap- pear to have been slowly slipping down on the valley for some days, until at length " getting way," and the base yielding, the whole mass, forming a section of the moun- tain equal in area to the city ofFaris I burst in huge frag- ments and rushed on the devoted valley beneath, and not only overwhelmed the village, but actually sent its frag- ments half-way up the ascent of the Eighi opposite ! It is only this last fact which now remains to give any idea of the tremendous forces engaged in the event. As we rode from Goldau up the Eighi side, and our guides showed us here and there enormous masses of con- glomerate, many of them as large as a church, and then pointing to the fractured Eossberg, explained that they had come from thence in the slip, we could not help shuddering at the idea that the danger ot a similar cala- mity still exists, and that another rainy season may detach and scatter another slice, in a shower of conglomerate rock, sending death and ruin upon all within the sphere of its action. And yet there was the toll-taker at Goldau, " sitting at the receipt of custom," smoking and drinking " schnaps" as composedly as if there was not a buried village under his feet and a fractured mountain over his 348 GLEAmNGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. head. The reckless indifference with which human nature seems to resist all warnings as to possible danger is won- derful. There, for example, is Torre del Greco, under Vesuvius, six times di'owned in lava, seven times built again. The present railroad to Castelamare carries you above the level of the flat house-tops, and you see old women dozing, young women drying com, and children basking and playing in the sun, on the roofs of dwellings built under the shadow of the volcano, of the lava rock which flowed in fiery torrents from it, and covered with a compost formed of the ashes of former conflagrations. In our want of familiarity with these phenomena we wonder at their recklessness ; but they l—what do they do ? Why they realise the reflection of the poet — " Unconscious of their fate The little victims play." But we are making slow way up the Eighi side. How can it be otherwise, when it is literally what I have before called it — " a getting up-stairs ?" When we came to the real steep of the ascent, the path or road consisted actually of trunks of trees placed at intervals, and transversely, to serve as retaining walls to the loose gravel soil of the mountain. But for this precaution, the road, pour ainsi dire, would in the first shower of rain become a mountain gully, impassable to any quadruped. As matters stood, our trained horses climbed step by step, and seemed almost to Jiooh their hoofs over the transverse timbers. Tor us to attempt any guidance would have been out of the question. All our care was fully employed in keeping our seats and guarding against a fall crupper- wise. More- A EIGHI DAT. — " THE ETENING. «) 349 over, the care of the horses was the official business of the guides who conducted us ; had we interfered, we should probably have only done mischief, and (though a rule sometimes to be broken when the salus populi becomes the suprema lex) in travelling I am generally for leaving each " department" to discharge its own duties, relying on ihQ prestige of that universal departmental bugbear — responsibility.* Official men from Downing- street to a Dogana are proverbial for becoming worse and slower in their proceedings the moment you attempt to hurry or put them out of their routine course. At about one-third of the way up we halted at a " rest- haus," to give our beasts provender and their conductors " schnaps." They were hearty, frank young fellows, and did not abuse the order I gave for their refreshment. In about a quarter of an hour we began the ascent again, and the only eff'ect of this little indulgence showed itself in their bringing on the cattle somewhat more briskly, and presently, as we met a large herd of Alpine cattle descending to the " haus," two of them broke into song, rousing the mountain echoes by a " Eanz-dez-Vaches." Here I perceived, for the first time, the origin and mean- ing of this Alpine melody. It would seem that the cattle of each commune graze together in the upland pastures, and that as they come homewards the herd of each pro- prietor follow with unerring sagacity its own leader and bell. These bells, made of thin copper of a large size, * When this was written, we had not had our bitter national expe- rience of what a sorry jade " departmental responsibility" was to prove, when burdened with the duty of preparation for our Crimean winter campaign. 350 jj GLEANIIfGS AFTEE " GfiAKD TOUB -ISTS. give out a weak musical note, with a slight variety in tone, and are suspended round the neck of generally the finest cow in each herd, who marches proudly at the head of its attendant companions, and the " Eanz-des-Yaches" (literally meaning, the ranking or ranging of the cows) is neither more nor less than the imitation of the com- bined tones which these various bells give out, in that simple and not unpleasing harmony which is said to act with an irresistible attraction on the feelings of the Swiss peasant when heard at a distance from his native valleys. We now heard, in primitive perfection, the original melody from the bells of the descending cattle, and the excellent imitation from the manly voices of our guides, which, not having then heard the unequalled performance of Mr. Pringle (the flageolet friend whom Mr. Albert Smith introduces at his soirees), I considered the best I had ever heard. We were now entering what is called the middle region of the mountain, where the deciduous trees of the woods through which we had been hitherto travelling began to give place to those enormous firs indigenous to, and characteristic of, the higher Alpine regions. These giant trees stood further apart than the timber of the woodland below ; deep drifts of snow lay here and there (though it was mid- June) in the sheltered hollows, and occasionally stood forth a huge, shattered, and bleaching trunk, flinging its bare arms, as if in desperation, towards heaven, and realising the description of " Those blasted pines, wrecks of a single "winter," BO graphically used by Byron to symbolise his soul-blighted hero, '* Manfred." Through this sombre avenue, dotted A EIGHI DAY. " THE EVEISTNG." 351 at intervals by " stations of penance," we approached the dreary hamlet, composed of homely inns and an humble convent, where three or four Capuchins serve the church of " Notre Dame des Neiges," or " Our Lady of the Snow," as she may well be called, inasmuch as the whole region is wrapped in a snow-mantle for at least nine months of the twelve. The difficulties of the ascent were now overcome, and a half hour's easy riding over upland levels brought us to the point of the " Staffel-haus," where the traveller, care- fully enjoined not to look round until the proper minute, obtains a kind of preparatory glimpse of a section of that full Righi diorama which awaits him at the *' Culm," after riding and rising gradually for about another half hour. We had timed our journey admirably. We were dis- mounted, and pacing the smooth turf of the Culm about a quarter of an hour before sunset, where we found as- sembled more than a hundred individuals of all nations, ages, sexes, tongues, and temperaments ; all waiting eagerly imtil the sun should make his descent from behind a thick bank of cloud into a small band of sky, " darkly, deeply, beautifiilly blue," which joined the horizon, and which guides, waiters, and chambermaids, all the cogno- scenti learned in Eighi views, assured ns gave every promise of a sunset specially glowing and beautiful. Among the crowd we were at once recognised and hailed by our American friend, with the intelligence that he had secured us apartments, — a favour the importance of which we understood better when we saw more than one party, instead of turning in like ourselves, after the sunset-^ory was gone by, to a warm saloon and excellent ready supper. ;,' ' i 352 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GBAND T0UE"-ISTS. sulkily descending to seek sucli accommodations as the " Staffel-haus" inn might afford them, with the prospect of a shivering re-ascent for the sun's levee to-morrow, at that very coldest and darkest hour of all the twenty-four, which the period immediately before the dawn is known to be. We all walked to and fro, counting the minutes until the sun should make his appearance. Every eye was fixed on the distant horizon, and none were taking note of what was happening at our feet, when suddenly, from the little lake of Zug which washed the steep Eighi base, there exhaled a thin, gauzy vapour, extracted by the glowing heats of the day just closing — this wreathed and curled gently up the sides of the mountain, until, in an instant, before we had time to think, the whole expectant assem- blage on the Eighi top were enveloped in a cold fog, so dense as to render it impossible to discern any object even at the distance of a few yards. The polyglot exclamations of vexation and dismay which burst from the parties thus helplessly shrouded in " cold obstruction," showed how highly their expectations of the coming sunset-glory had been wrought, and how deeply the disappointment was felt. As the wetting vapour floated round and by us, we all sadly reflected that though it was but a passing mist and might soon dissipate, yet minutes were passing too, and it w^ould probably clear away "just in time to be too late." For myself, I had but time to utter to my daughters an Italian expression, which may fit each and every disappointment, serious or trifling — " Cosi e la vita " — when we had another illustration of the " changes and chances of this uncertain world," in a with- iC A EIGHI DAT. " THE EVENING. >> 353 drawal of our mist- veil, with a suddenness and magical effect which might almost lead us to think that the whole had been a device expressly "got up" for our surprise and enjoyment. Not all the seeming magic which entrances the wondering schoolboy in the glories of his Christmas pantomime could equal our delight and surprise in the scene which presently opened on our view. The mist was obviously getting less dense, and occasionally a few objects in the immense am- phitheatre below us began to loom through the haze — such as, a church spire, a tree-crowned hill, or picturesque hamlet — and it was very evident that the whole exhalation would soon pass away completely. By this time, also, the glorious sun had disengaged himself from the cloud- bank which had hidden him so long, and began to tinge the emerging objects with his golden light. Every second was now bringing with it some new and surprising effect. The mist, still sweeping along in most gauzy fineness, con- cealed nothing, but gave to every object an indescribable character of ethereal lightness and grace. It was, in fact, a vast " dissolving view" of real life, shown on a scale, and executed with a perfection of beauty, no human artist could have achieved. At first every one held the breath, to drink in the passing and changing beauty of the scene ; then exclamations of delight burst from those but a moment ago so desponding and murmuring. The whole militia of the Eighi Culm Hotel— albeit well used to sun- set splendours — turned out to gaze on this wondrous spectacle ; and I heard the master of the hotel himself declare that, in twenty years, he had never before wit- nessed such a marvellous combination of light and shade at such a critical moment. But, while we gaze it passes — 2a i? :i J I 354 GLEANINGS AJFTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. the sun has touched the horizon's verge, and is descending below it with that seeming acceleration of motion so well known to observers of nature— a moment more ! " he sinks ! and all is grey" — the long Eighi horn sounds its plaintive and simple farewell to day — we turn into the hotel in search of creature-comforts for the night, and I repeat once again, " Cosi e la vita.'' Yes! in its joys and its sorrows — its sudden depressions and as sudden upliftings —" such is life !" A EIGHI DAT. — "THE MOENING." 355 CHAPTER XIX. A EIGHI DAT. "the morning." I CAN truly affirm that my last chapter was written before Mr. Albert Smith had freshened my recollections, and made my sides ache with laughter, by his lively enact- ment* of the scene at the "long Eighi supper- table," and of his own after sleepless night, under the cross-fire of interrogatories carried on through the chip partitions of the Eighi Culm Hotel, while the " tin fiddle" of his omni- present vagabond friend in the attics, sounded the charge to the air of " Le Moulin du Village." I don't think I met Mr. Smith at the Eighi Culm Hotel in 1851. If I did, I take shame to myself for my stupidity in beiog unaware of the presence of a companion so intelli- * Some time or other, I suppose, Mr. Albert Smith's " Thousand-and- One" nights will have an end, and a time will come when readers may- ask in wonder " which of the Smiths .*" is here meant. For the information, not of the present, but of the future generation, I " make a note" that it is the adventurous explorer of Mont Blanc, and the entertaining raconteur of his adventure, who, night after night, receives his thronging visitors at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, that is here alluded to. 2a2 I 356 »> GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND TOTJB -ISTS. A EIGHI DAT.- -" THE MOENING." 357 gent and agreeable. Yet I should be afraid to swear I did not J because he brought the whole scene, of what maybe an any day, or every day, " reunion;' so vividly before me, that I begin to think "gushing Augusta Effingham" must have been my vis-a-vis at table ; and I feel almost convinced that " undecided Mr. Parker" sat within two or three of me. There is but one part of Mr. Smith's Eighi reminiscences to which I must return a complete " non mi ricordo'' Of any nocturnal disturbances I avow myself utterly oblivious, for just as I had composed myself for a most intense and abstracted moonlight meditation, having my eyes fixed on a snow patch which lay crisping in a hoar-frost, even in " leafy June," before the window, my abstraction became somehow or other more complete than I intended. Sleep surprised me, as it will the most intense thinker, and so I lay insensible to " Jack's" inquiry from No. 18 whether "Harry was asleep in 34?"— whether he "had Keller's map?"— and to all and sundry the other interlocutory an- noyances which interfered with Mr. Albert Smith's enjoy- ment of "the balmy," save and except the summons from the Alp horn in the grey morning, and, as Tony Lumphin says, "I'll bear witness to tlat:' It did sound through and about the house, in a fashion which left it scarce a matter of choice to get up ; for to sleep, or lie still, under the infliction, was an utter impossibility. The Alp horn re- duces the turn-out at morning muster to a " matter of course." A tariff posted in every bedroom proclaims a prohibitory duty on the conversion of blankets or counterpanes into morning wrappers! This is sometimes understood as a hint to take the comfort and pay the penalty, but on the morning of the 10th of June, 1851, we saw no instance of " Cloths contrived a double debt to pay — Blankets by night, made mantles of by day." My girls and I had come adequately provided with sundry appliances, to meet that biting blast which swept along, heralding the sun's approach, and preparing us for the realising that magical artistic effect of the "Eospigliosi Aurora," of which wonderful fresco the leading idea seems to be, to express the rapidity with which the god of day sweeps on to his rising, " And leaves the breezes of the morn behmd." We all three took the field, in suitable hirsute garments of endurance, but others emerged from the hotel in most grotesque variety of habiliment ; among the rest, there remains indelibly fixed on memory (and rises before " the mind's eye" as I write) one figure, which even in the glowing sunset of the last evening, I had admired as an exemplification of the triumph of— soul over substance !— of mind making light of physical impediments which would have weighed down, and detained in the lower world, any one possessed by the ordinary desire for the grand and picturesque ; in plain prose, this was a German lady, of that square, substantial build which renders the term " sylphid," as applied to dames of Teutonic race, a mere phrase of form, if not of ridicule. By what route, or by what mode of conveyance the lady in question attained the Eighi top, quite passes my comprehension. If carried by ''porteurs," they must have been of "the race of the Anakim ;" if borne by a horse, the animal must have had the preternatural qualities of the fabled hippogriff! There however she stood " in the flesh," her age sixty, if a day ; i 858 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. her weight twenty stone! if a pound; and yet full of activity to explore, and enthusiasm to admire, everything ! In the nipping morning air she was by no means the last to emerge from the hotel, presenting in the twilight the most extraordinary appearance conceivable — ^her square, solid person, wrapped in a grey horseman's coat, not worn cloak- wise, but put on after manly fashion ! her round, firm face, hedged about with papillottes, her bonnet sur- mounting her unremoved night head-gear! I am sure she divided for some moments the attention of the whole company with the glorious panorama emerging into \dew around us ; our American friend, among the rest, greeted her appearance with a long whistle! and after a steady stare with arms a-kimbo, concluded his survey with the following suggestion, evincing at once his appreciation of the object before him, and his lively interest in the pheno- mena of nature — " By Jove ! ichat an avalanche she would maJce!^^ While the hotel thus yielded up its inmates, and " the Staffel-haus" below sent up its contingent of shivering enthusiasts to the sun's levee, the day-dawn was rapidly coming up from eastwards, in the direction of the Eoss- berg, which seemed to sink into still deeper shadow as the snow-peaks above and behind it began to blush through the grey light of morning. Pages might be filled with descriptions of the Eighi sunrise, and yet tell nothing. "We might detail with guide-book accuracy the names of the giant mountains which began to show in the distance of the Oberland and the Grisons, as the sun touches each successively, and seems to call it into being out of the chaos of darkness ; but when all is done, what do such descriptions convey ? A BIGHI DAT. — " THE MOENING." 359 Nothing ! Names, and no more. There is no travelled impertinence in the assertion, that when you can under- stand a description of the Eighi panorama at sunrise, you do not want it ; pictures will be superfluous, for you must have seen the original to form any conception of that snowy ocean, which loses itself in distance to the south and westward, in which every billow is a separate monn. tain, while Mont Blanc, " The Monarch" of all, shows only like a " crowning tenth wave" in the vastness of that un- defined expanse. Upon one grace of the scene we can dwell, if only to confess the impossibility of fixing it in description — I mean that exquisite and ever-changing blush with which the cold virgin purity of the snow acknowledges the approaches of the day-god. A student of the laws of colour would, I have no doubt, find interest and informa- tion in observing the process by which the bluish grey of twilight is first transmuted into a delicate purple, gradually warming into a rosy, and then a still warmer glow, as the power of the yet unseen sunbeam comes into fuller opera- tion upon the snow's unsullied whiteness ; for myself, not being equal to a scientific, I must be content with a poetico-critical deduction from it, in reference to one of those enigmatical beauties which Mr. Tennyson has been pleased to give his readers, in order that they may exercise ingenuity, or, as the case may be, exhibit ab- surdity in conjecturing their meaning. Twice in the course of that remarkable composition, entitled a "Vision of Sin," which concludes his revised volume of Lyrics, the laureate has introduced these lines : " To the horizon's verge withdrawn, God made himself an awfal rose of dawn." 360 GLEANINGS AITEB " GBAND T0UE"-ISTS. A BIGHI DAY. — *' THE MOENING. »> 361 Sundry "notes and queries" have been put as to the meaning of this mysterious last line. More than one answer has been hazarded, but the oracular poet himself has not condescended to define his own meaning, and therefore leaves it open to one conjecture more; the meaning intended, I conceive to be, that through all the phases and madness of reckless sin, the sinner can never get rid of an overshadowing sense of an awful God, who has appointed a day "wherein to judge the world in righteousness;" that this sense of coming judgment may be dim and faint, often but a hovering impression on the horizon of consciousness, but yet as inevitable a token of future account as the blush before dawn of the coming day. While we stood on the Kighi Culm, in high- wrought expectation of the sun's uprising, unable to calculate at what moment he would actually emerge, and yet con- tinually warned that he was coming near and yet nearer by the increased redness of the eastern sky, causing a kind of awful hushed anxiety for the moment — when we could say that the sun was " risen upon the earth" and that we stood in his full light, these words of Tennyson's occurred to me as best calculated to describe ray sensations, and as embodying a conception from a natural image, which, if it was not in the mind of the author when writing them, might, if he had ever waited such a moment as this, well be so. One would like to know the value of such a conjec- ture, if it would be possible to induce this rather transcen- dental poet to condescend to the infirmities of admiring readers and perplexed commentators. Nearer, and yet nearer, and at last the day-god sur- mounts the Alpine heights and gives the signal to our lower world to "go forth" to its varied labours, pleasures, joys, and sorrows " until the evening." What ideas of force and power are conveyed by the ascending luminary driving up, as it were, the clear blue steep of the Em- pyrean, scattering the mists and vapours, which seem to be annihilated by his very presence. No one can have ever stood and contemplated the rush of a steam-train carrying its hundred tons at the rate of forty miles an hour without receiving the impression of irresistible force in action, and of human nothingness in comparison to the giant power it has evoked. But the scientific embodiment of power sinks into nothingness, and becomes " of the earth and earthy," when compared with the glorious, quiet, natural strength in which the " great light made to rule the day" rolls on his unwearied course, fulfilling from the first morning of creation the simple fiat, " Let there be light," and with light, ministering all those appHances of living enjoyment without which being, if it were indeed a possibility, would be a dreary blank instead of an en- dowment from God " given to his intelligent creation richly to enjoy." The sea of mountains, which spreads itself to the south and east, as " Alp o'er Alp ascends," baffles all description. We heard on every side names of interest—" Voila Mont Blancr ''Tung FrauT " Gliasnicir and so on— but to identify these with any of the giant peaks before us was impossible. " Mont Filatre;' as it stood out in gloom and nearness, though but comparatively a pigmy, was a more impressive object than those huge real mountains looming in the distant horizon. And on the Kighi top one is obliged to let imagination loose in unlimited conjecture rather than attempt to realise anything like accurate knowledge of the Oberland wonders spread out before him. I 362 GLEAinifOS ATTER " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. .■rr, '» 363 There is one point of the panorama, within what is called "the middle distance,'* on which the spectator gazes with an interest to which the mere sense of seeing con- tributes little. As the eye ranges over the lake of Lo- wertz, the position of the little town of Schwytz may be seen, or guessed at, marked as its site is by splintered peaks, called " The Mitres ;'* and near it one loves to fancy that the meadow of" Griitli" can be distinguished by its "greenery," as the natural temple in which the original TOW of Swiss freedom was registered more than five centu- ries since. As I strained my eyes to catch the spot through the growing light of morning, there came to my memory a passage which I had been reading in a Swiss history a few days before, namely, those words of fierce taunt with which the wife of " Werner Stauifacher" first roused in him that spirit of resistance to the " castled chiefs," who from their strongholds of pride, lust, and op- pression, had so long held the mountaineers in thraldom : " Combien de temps encore verra-t-on I'orgueil rire et Thuinilitd pleurer ? Des etrangers seront-ils les maitres de ce pays, et les h^ritiers de nos biens ? A quoi sert-il que nos montagnes soient habitees par des hommes ? M^res, devons-nous nourrir des fils mendians, et elever nos filles pour servir d'esclaves aux etrangers? Loin de nous tant de la- chetd!"— These words, as we loitered over our cafe before de- parture next morning, wrought themselves into the fol- lowing contribution to the Eighi Culm Album : THE BIRTH-WORDS OF SWISS FREEDOM. How long from the castles which rise on our steeps Shall pride see abasement, and mock while it weeps, And foreigners sit in their cordon of towers, Making spoil of our goods in the land that is ours f Jl eighi DAT. — " THE M0ENI17G. How long must we ask in each mountain-girt glen To what purpose our father-land nourishes men ? How long must we mothers sit abject in dust, Breeding boys as their bondmen, and girls for their lust ? Oh ! when will the breeze sweeping free o'er our hills Inspire this bold truth — " Man is free when he wills?" Or when will our snows wash the blot from our name "Which makes it 'mong nations a by -word of shame ? Each taunt like a sting, brought to Stauffacher's cheek The warm tingling blood, still no word did he speak j But each on his heart as a kindling spark fell. And the fire lighted there spread to Furst,—MelchtJwll^—Tdl ! It kindled, it strengthened— it glowed, and full soon, Where the meadows of Griitli lay pale in the moon, Brave men, — met with heaven-lifted hands and bent knee, — Swore a vow, which they kept, and the Swytz-land is free. Righi Culm, June 11, 1851. "We are whiling away description, as we whiled away our time on the Culm, in hopes that to the splendours of our sunset and sunrise might be added one other exhibition, which woul 1 have rendered our achievement of the Eighi a perfect, a ''plus quam perfectmi'' success. "We had heard of the "Eighi Spectre"— a kind of Swiss rival to the " Spectre of the Brocken" — and we lingered on the Culm, in the hope that to all our other good fortune might be added that peculiar atmospheric combination of mist and sunshine, by which sometimes the shadow of the mountain, and of any person who may be on it at the time, are pro- jected in gigantic proportions upon a huge vapour looking- glass, or curtain, opposite. "We waited in vain for this grand phenomenon, and yet our watch was not altogether fruitless. For, though the mist was wanting, the sun shone out with remarkable strength and power, and gave ill 364 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUIl"-ISTS. US a minor wonder well worth waiting for. This was no less than the whole mountain on which we stood clearly reflected from the snow-curtain or sheet of the Oberland Alps. We could trace the outline of the Eighi quite as distinctly as our own shadows on the grass before us ; and must leave to the reader to calculate the delight with which we viewed this effect of a solar magic lantern, in which the object exhibited was an isolated mountain 5700 feet in altitude, projected at a distance of from fifty to one hundred miles ! The sun was now shining in his strength upon the earth, the glory of the ante and post sunrise half-hour was gone, and we now turned into the " Culm Hotel" for coffee and the bill, preparatory to our descent by the way of Kuss- nath to Lucerne. We had discharged our cavalry the night before ; the downward journey was to be made on foot, or, where the way allowed the ladies to be carried, by chaises a jporteur eng^gedi iov them; while our American friend, his guide, and I, took the road, or rather the ravine, Alpen-stock in hand. — (N.B. Every one buys an Alpen- stock on a Swiss mountain. It would be a curious statis- tical inquiry to ascertain, how many of them are ever carried beyond the first hotel, where they are laid down ?) The downward path to Kussnath has nothing remarkable about it, and our progress was marked by little of interest, save a conversation witli our friend's guide, which I record here for the benefit of those tourists who travel over Europe, surrendering themselves to the "tender mercies" of that preying variety of the genus Jiomo called — Courier 1 We had by this time established a pleasant travelling familiarity with the young American. He attached him- self to the suite of my daughters, while his guide trans- A EIGHI DAT. — " THE MOENING. 11 365 ferred his attentions altogether to me. I found him very intelligent and communicative, and he produced a perfect volume of attestations from tourists, all certifying that the writers had tested his civility and fidelity through all sorts of explorations of Alp-land. Our conversation was carried on in Erench, and after I had asked him if "he knew anything of English?" to which his response was, " No, sir, I wish I did," he sur- prised me by the inquiry whether " I wanted a domestic ?" a question which he followed up by an offer, that if I would take him to England in my service, he would " serve me for five years without any wages— not any whatever!" I was startled by the proposition; reminiscences of " Lord William Eussell's* tragedy" came to my memory— I had not the least desire to accept the offer; and at last I said, " It is not the custom of English masters to receive service without wages. We never do it." I then added, " Why do you make the proposal ?" " Tenez, monsieur," he said, laying his hand on my arm ; " I am here a guide, and a good one. But here I can never be more ; I am a guide for life — until I grow old, or perish perhaps some day in a crevasse or a drift — but if I was some years — say five — for I am young, monsieur — in England, I should then comprehend English, and make myself courier; and then," his eyes sparkled as he said, "in a few years more I should come home and sit down rich— rich as a syndic" (this being, I suppose, the Swiss equivalent for our expression of " rich as a Jew"). * For fear of confusion with the historic tragedy of " William Lord Russell," I note that this refers to the murder of an aged nobleman of that name by Courvoisier, his Swiss valet, fearfully committed, and won- derfully discovered in London, some years since. 366 a 5) GLEANINGS AFTEE '' GEAND TOUE -ISTS. " But," I replied, " your wages as a guide are quite as good as a courier's, I should think ?" " Wages — bah ! — wages is a bagatelle. Monsieur will pardon my ignorance, that I presumed to offer him a compliment of it for his service. — Wages is nothing — nothing! it is *the opportunities' ! and all that.^* " What are the opportunities ?" I asked, knowing his meaning, but wishing to discover more of his opinion on the subject. " I don't know what they are, for I am not courier yet. There is a * Verhimdnih' among them which I hope to understand some day. All I know now is, that I see poor fellows like myself go out in a courier dress, and presently they come home, and don't regard the * burgmeister :' that's what I should like to do." Our subject ended on my assuring the poor fellow that his proposition could not be entertained by me. Possibly " Louis Schmutz of Swytz" (such was his name recorded in my pocket-book) may have since found some one to accept his services, and put him in the way of gratifying his am- bition, though I fear without improving his integrity. While on the subject, I may mention an incident illus- trative of those " opportunities," which improved as they know how to improve them, send these courier gentry home as "rich as syndics" and proud as " burgmeisters." When leaving Eome in that annual dispersion after Easter, which regularly puts fifty per cent, on the price of veturinos and post-horses until the flood-tide of travel has abated, an agreeable military friend, who had half pro- mised to take the fourth seat in our carriage, told me one day that he had been seized on by two old lady relatives, A EIGHI DAY. — " THE MOENING." 367 whom he accidentally encountered, and who, in their horrors and alarms at " banditti," had fairly pressed him into their service as far as Florence. " Their courier was not to be found," said he, "ajid in the run for carriages, I am going to engage a veturino for them. I'm sorry I can't join you; I had much rather." I also expressed my regret, and we parted. Later in the day, I met him again, in high glee at having just concluded an engagement for a very good carriage and horses at the price of, I think, twenty-three Napoleons, or some such sum; and, considering the "run" on the road, I thought he had made a very fair bargain indeed. Next day we met as usual. When, in reply to some question as to his journey, Captain M 's countenance immediately fell, as he answered : " I'm in a pleasant tra- velling predicament. In my endeavour to serve these old tabbies I told you of, I am become liable to a complaint for a broken ^contrattof " and then, with an emphasis most un- usual with a high-bred gentleman, he added one of those expressions which "in a captain is a choleric word," — " When I interfere between a courier and his dupes again, m . He then related to me, that while in the act of telling his ancient relatives the clever bargain he had concluded on their behalf, in marched the courier ! who, heretofore, in all their journey ings, had sole charge of these old ladies, " body, soul, and * circular notes' inclusive." Monsieur le Courier listened very coldly to the intelligence of Captain M 's bargain ; observed that a carriage at that price could not be fit for " ' Miladies' to put foot into ; he had himself just engaged a carriage, en particiilier and tres hon i t \ 368 »» GLEANINGS AFTER " GRAND TOUR -ISTS. marche, for thirty mpoleons; the 'contraM was made, and he could not break it without forfeit"— and so on. " The worst of it is," continued the irate captain, " I have seen the carriage the infernal scoundrel has put upon us. It is one I rejected myself as inferior, before I engaged my own ; and, as sure as we are speaking, the fellow actually pays less for it, and pockets the difference, in the shape of com- mission, per-centage, or some such mode of extortion." So much for the " opportunities" which send these harpies home rich men after a few years' plunder of English dupes. I say English, for, according to the pro- verb, " Hawks do not pike out hawks' eyes," continentals seldom prei/ on each other ; and I believe the English to be the only nation which delivers itself, tied and bound, to the calamity of Courierism. The descent from the Eighi brings you to one of the « Tell's chapels," of which there are several in this cradle comer of Swiss freedom. It is very provoking to find in our utilitarian age that Tell and his heroism is beginning to be rationalised into little better than a myth. Some ugly anachronisms are beginning to be affirmed as to his various trophies ; for example, the tower, popularly supposed to mark the spot where he shot the apple from his son's head, is now dis- covered to have existed a century previous to the date of that event— if, indeed, it ever eventuated at all !— and in like manner do they begin to pick holes in the other deeds of daring in his memorable career. So that there is much danger that in some future day this object of popular hero- worship will himself be explained away into a kind of Swiss " Mrs. Harris.'* This is not merely provoking, but in- A RIGHI DAY. " THE MORNING. j> 369 jurious. It is removing from before the minds of the simple mountaineers a standard measure of patriotic de- votion and daring, which has often led them to maintain their hardwon rights, to the admiration of the world. Malo cum Flatone errare. Eather than be convinced with, or by, the most hard-headed matter-of-fact investigator of our age, I should prefer these reflections, to the follow- ing effect, which suggested themselves to the mind of Sir James Mackintosh at the chapel of the Tellen-platte, on Lucerne Lake, the principal shrine of Swiss devotion to the memory of their hero : " To the inhabitants of Thermopylae or Marathon these famous spots are but so many square feet of earth. England is too extensive, too much carried away by industry and utility, to hold Runnymede as an object of national affection. Switzerland is, perhaps, the only place in our globe where deeds of pure virtue, ancient enough to be venerable, are consecrated by the religion of the people, and continue to command inte- rest and reverence. No local superstition so beautiful and so moral as that connected with the deeds of William Tell anywhere exists." This is quite true — true to nature and to philosophy alike — and the principle is enforced by the constant and simple references by which the Swiss are ever directed to their primitive models of patriotism for imitation, as for caution against the deteriorating efiects of modern corrup- tions and foreign intercourse. • " Cavete Rheti, simplicitas morum, et uniOj servabunt avitam libertatem,^^ is the sign-post warning with which the Fathers of Switzerland indicated to their children that one of the highways to " sad and sunken Italy" is now open to friend and foe ; and as we waited for the carriage before Tell's chapel, in the Hohlegaste, near Kussnath, I copied a corresponding inscription, addressed, not to 2b I 370 GLEANINGS AFTEB " GEAND T0UE"-I8TS. traveUers, but to the natives. I copied the characters as I read them, but it was not until I found an interpreter in the pretty little Engluh-t^ughi daughter of "mine host - at Schaifhausen, that I could attempt a free version of the homely Swiss doggerel which marks the hoUow way where Tell is said to have done his act of "wild justice upon Gessler, the tyrant of his country : " Gessler's lochmut Tell er scbosen, Unde edel Schweizer frechheit enser osen; Wie lang wird aber solche wahren? Nach lange wen wir die Alten wahren." Here where Tell did Gessler shoot, Switz-land's freedom-tree took root ; Shall tyrants' axe this fair tree fell ? Never ! whUe Swiss-men be like Tell. At Kussnath, conveyances are as welcome to the tired traveller as they are easily had; and the drive along its beautiful bay to Lucerne might be called the perfection of lake travel. We traversed the border of the lair waters of the " Lake of the Four Cantons," as they lay in all that wondrous variety of light and shade which the Alpine ranges on the opposite shore distributed over the surface. Mont Pilatre rose before us in frownmg majesty, seeming thousands of feet higher than when we confronted bim on equal terms from the rival eminence of the Eighi. ' He seemed to rise, whereas it was, in fact, we who had descended nearer to his base level; thus illustrating the social paradox, that some people, without any real im- provement, seem elevated in the scale of moral excellence, merely by the deterioration of those around them. A EIGHI DAT. " THE MOENmG.'* 371 At quiet, sleepy Lucerne, our Eighi-bund dissolved itself. Our American friend left us, with, as has been already intimated, his most definite purpose towards the Czar-dom of Musco\y, while we retraced our way to Zu- rich, to reclaim nos hag ages. It was a pleasant associa- tion while it lasted, and a complete success in an adventure which is generally supposed, in nine cases out of ten, to end in failure and diappointment. p.S. — Our excellent and never-to-be-sufficiently-com- mended friend, " Murray," who declares himself " soli- citous to be favoured with corrections of mistakes," and promises that such communications will be specially wel- comed as are " founded on j^ersonal knowledge," has not yet acknowledged, either in print or in private, a letter duly despatched from Zurich, in correction of the following doggerel growls, copied into his " Swiss Guide Eook" from the Eighi Culm Album, as descriptive of the fate of a large majority of Eighi expeditions : GRUMBLERS LOQUU5TUR. " Seven weary up-hill leagues we sped The setting sun to see ; Sullen and grim he went to bed, Sullen and grim went we. Nine ! sleepless hours of night we past The rising sun to see ; Sullen and grim he rose again, Sullen and grim rose we." Now it was but an act of bare justice, and due acknow- ledgment to the Eighi, and to the Sun, to offer our counter-certificate of the treatment we experienced in our 2b2 ;i 372 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. expedition to the same locality, and with the same objects. This was accordingly done. Our counter-statement was duly drawn up ; we " Sent it in a letter to the Editor;'* he did not " Duly thank us by return of post." We continue still " For a handsome article his creditor ;'* but! " Lest our evidence be wholly lost," we hereby record our protest against grumbling, to stand as the conclusion of our " Eighi Day"—" ad rei me- moriam. >» A EIGHI DAT. — " THE MOENING." This morn at half-past three we rose, And for his levee shivering waited ; The same round jolly face he shows — In frank good-humour unabated — To them his sulks, to us his rays. This moral teaches — may we mind it— Choose well your time, since all men praise The "sun" and " ford"— ^ms^ as they find it 373 " All praise the ford as they find it.''— Old Proverb. TO MURILVY, PRINCE OF GUIDE-BOOK MAKERS. From the Righi Culm, June 11, 1851. Dear Sir, — Your " Hand-books" all invite Tourists to send you their corrections. But you're so generally right There's seldom room to make objections. Still, when in " Hand-book Suisse'' you quote Some rhymes (not over good the rhyming), Methinks the grumpy " gents" who wrote, Should have " sped up-hill" better time in ; For, — Righi's top last night climbed we, To watch the sun while disappearing ; " Sullen nor grim " good sooth was he, — His parting smile was warm and cheering. 374 GLEANINGS ATTEB " GB^ND TOTJa"-ISTS. " TAKE ME HOME AGAIN.'* 375 CHAPTER XX. " TAKE ME HOME AGAIN 5> " The Faculty" are fearfully fond of sending patients to change the air and climate, when the remedy {if a remedy) is " too late !" It is whispered that our learned leeches feel a decided objection to have a patient who has long lingered in their hands, die on their hands ; and that hence, we often see the poor hectic girl, or emaciated boy, ordered off to " Nice," *' Naples," or ^' Madeira," in that stage of gaUoping consumption, which just aUows them to " see land— and die." Many a British subject has found a grave in some foreign soil, which he or she never touched with living feet. In the case of the young, who have not lived so long as to have had their habits and affections trained and twined round home and its associations, this carrying away from familiar things and faces is not so much felt ; but when the same desperate death-warrant remedy is prescribed for the old, lolio know what it means, the wrench which tears them, while yet living, from all home things, has in it an anticipatory bitterness of death, and the cases are not un- common in which, after all the expense and agitation of removal has been undergone, the poor heart, unable to endure the anticipation of the last scene, and the final eye-closing under the hard hands of careless strangers, has besought, as earnestly as if the thing asked were life and health, to be " taken home to die !" Sir Walter Scott, whose sympathies with home and country were of a peculiarly deep and earnest kind, has left some touching illustrations of what we mean as to this matter; in one of those beautiful passages* which will ever hold their standard place in English literature, he transfers his own feelings to "the inanimate world" he lived in and loved, and after first representing " mute Nature" as mourning " her worshipper," the poet owns the illusion, and claims as his own the sensibility with « " Call it not vain ; they do not err Who say, that when a poet dies, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper And celebrates his obsequies ; Who say, tall cliff and cavern lone For the departed bard make moan ; That mountains weep in crystal rill ; That flowers in tears of balm distil ; Through his loved groves that breezes sigh, And oaks in deeper groan reply, And rivers teach their rushing wave To murmur dirges round his grave. Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn Those things inanimate can mourn. But that the stream, the wood, the gale, Is vocal with the plaintive wail Of those who, else forgotten long, Lived in the poet's faithful song. And with the poet's parting breath, Whose memory feels a second death. ♦ » ♦ * * Lay of the Last 3Iinstrel, canto v. I 376 ?» GLEANINGS AFTER " GBAND TOUE -ISTS. which he had invested her. Nor is it less to be noted that in the hour of his calamity, when the splendid bubble of his fortunes had burst, and the household gods he had con- stituted " lay shivered round him," not one of all the dark visions of the future which the "Ballantyne bankruptcy" called up — not the " walking his last in the domains he had planted," or " sitting the last time in the halls he had built" — could shake the resolute will, or " bring moisture to the manly eye," until he reached the point of wishing himself expatriated, and compelled to " lay his bones afar from Tweed ;" but as he thought of tUs, the strong man " bowed down and wept!" And when in long after years the vision came to be something like reality, and the strong man was indeed bowed by disease, and the master but overtasked mind lay partially overthrown, it is intensely affecting to observe the working of the same home-sick yearnings manifesting themselves through decay, and for a moment arresting even the fatal power of death-illness. When Sir Walter's giant frame gave way, the usual panacea of a southern clime was ordered for tlie shattered invalid, and the remedy was used with all the promptness which zeal and anxiety could apply ; a " King's ship" was placed at the disposal of him whom King and Nation alike delighted to honour ; the voyage to sunny Italy was made with all the ease and comfort which could be attained in such circumstances ; in Italy honours and attentions of all kinds awaited the dying man, whose reputation was " world-wide ;" but through and in despite of all, while the " TAKE ME HOME AGAIN." 377 malady was gaining ground, sapping the fortress, and winning its fatal victory day by day, the longing which lay deep and concentrated in Scott's secret heart was to be " taken home again!" Nor was it uninteresting to remark that the last authenticated scrap of the patriot's writing is stated to be an entry scrawled in a guest - book in the Tyrol, thus — " Sie Waltee Scott" — ^^ for Scotland!'' By the time he had reached London on his homeward journey, it seemed doubtful whether those who were piously bent on fulfilling his wish, would be able to do so. Fresh access of disease had brought on stupor-like unconscious- ness, and in this state the sufierer was conveyed on board a steamer bound for Scotland, to the wonder of all who did not know the depth of earnestness with which he had deprecated the idea of being laid '' afar from Tweed !" The whole account of Sir Walter Scott's dying hour is given by his son-in-law with the pen of a master, whose soul and sympathies were in his subject, and cannot be read, even on repetition, without emotion, including, as it does, the dying testimony of the great book-maker of the age, from whose mind books teemed forth as from a mine, that for that hour "there is no Booh hut One !" The part of Mr. Lockhart's narrative which bears upon our subject is so very naturally and beautifully told that we transcribe it at length, as a better exposition of our meaning than we could give ourselves. As has been said, the dying man was put on board the steamer in a state of unconsciousness, and in the same state was landed at Newhaven, and placed in a travelling-carriage to journey towards his home on " Tweed side." 37S n GLEANn^GS AFTEE " GEA5D TOUE -ISTS. " As we descended the Vale of the Gala he began to gaze about him, and by degrees it was obvious that he was recognising the features of that famiUar landscape. Presently he murmured a name or two : ' Gala water, surely /'— ' Buckholm !'— ' Torwoodlee !' As we rounded the hill at Ladhope, and the outline of ' the Eildons' burst upon him, he became greatly excited, and when, turning hunself on the couch, his eye caught at length his own towers at the distance of a mile, he sprang up with an eye of delight. The river bemg in flood we had to go round a few miles by Melrose Bridge, and during the time thus occupied, his woods and house being in prospect, it required occasionally both Dr. Watson's strength and mine, in addition to Nicholson's (his servant's), to keep him in the carriage. After passing the bridge, the road for a couple of miles loses sight of Abbotsford, and he relapsed into his stupor ; but on gainmg the bank immediately above it, his excitement became again ungovern- able. . " Mr. Laidlaw was waiting us in the porch, and assisted us m liftmg him into the dining-room, where his bed had been prepared. He sat be- wildered for a few moments, and then resting his eye on Laidlaw, said, 'Ha! Willie Laidlaw! Oman, how often ha e I thought of you!' By this time his dogs had assembled about his chair; they began to fawn upon him, and lick his hands, and he alternately sobbed and smUed over them until sleep oppressed him." A few words more will give this affecting description all the force and beauty of a picture : " About half-past one p.m. on the 21st of September, 1832, Sir Walter breathed his last in the presence of aU his children. It was a beautiful day! so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt round his bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes."— Zoc^Aari'* ScoU. All that has been thus said, and exemplified, of the reluctance with which the Englishman lies down to die abroad, is aggravated by a consideration which we would gladly omit ; but truth will not allow us to pass over the cruel ferocity with which foreign bigotry tries to barb the sting of death for the English stranger, by holding over him a denial of the decencies of Christian burial, " because he foUoweth not tcitJi itsr Go where you will through 1-5 a TAKE ME HOME AGAIN. »» 379 continental Europe, you find traces of this horrid purpose: to record exelusiveness in human dust, and to carry the bitterness of controversy even into the house where the *' weary are at rest." Marvellous it is, to think that those who claim to be inheritors of " the Chui'ch of the Cata- combs"— now that, instead of lurking in caves and dens of the earth, they have come to sit in "the high places," with power in their hands — should so unblushingly ignore the early Church's experience of " the heart of a stranger" (Exodus xxiii. 9), and calumniate that primitive Chris- tianity they profess to inherit, by suggesting that it was not the spirit but the power to persecute which the early Christians lacked ; and stranger than all it is, that those religionists, who in Protestant England have appealed so loudly and successfully to principles of " civil and religious liberty," as eternal and immutable, should feel no sense of shame, or inconsistency, when they look at the late Spanish "Concordat" of his Holiness the Pope, or when they remember the by-ways and nooks in which alone the worship or interment of an English Protestant is per- mitted throughout the range of the Papal power. In Eome, it was only after a world of device and caution that an enclosure for Protestant burial was permitted (" suh invocatione Call Cestii Mhnid,'' as a Eoman once mock- ingly said to me), and even within this, their own allotted cincture, a ferocious censorship forbids the inscription of a line of Scripture, or expression o fChristian faith or hope, on a Protestant tombstone ; while elsewhere through Italy the traveller is not unfrequently startled by some well-known or familiar name, inscribed in the " unblest nook," or "out-of-the-way comer," in which onl^ the 380 u GLEAl^'INGS AFTER " GEAND TOtlE -ISTS. Christian charity and tolerance of the dominant Church could permit love and sorrow " to bury their dead out of sight." This horrid narrowness, surviving that event which in general brings men to lay down all other enmities at the grave-side, existed long ago, and shows no sign of yielding to that ameliorating influence which some shallow persons dream of having passed on the spirit of the Papacy. When Young buried his " Narcissa," " While Nature melted, Superstition raved, That mourned the dead, and this denied a grave, ♦ * * * ♦ Denied the charity of dust to spread O'er dust— a charity their dogs enjoy. What coiild I do? what succour? what resource? With pious sacrilege a grave I stole : More like her murderer than friend I crept With soft suspended step, and muffled deep In midnight darkness, whispered my last sigh." This ^-spleen to dust" was manifested more than a century ago, and when " Pio Nono" (who ascended his Seat of Eule amid shouts of welcome and universal ^'jubilate,'' for the phenomenon of "a Liheral! and Eeforming Pope") was a few years since readjusting the relations of the Church with that model of zeal and purity " Her most Catholic Majesty" of Spain, the restrictions of his " Concordat" upon the decencies of foreign burial throughout the Spanish dominions were conceived in the narrowest spirit of the darkest ages of the Church's worst intolerance, and the Spanish court submitted in a spirit of subservient bigotry and bad faith, which was well and indignantly exposed by the English ambassador. Lord Howden. "We believe some relaxation of the original " TAKE ME HOME AGAIN." 381 Papal restrictions has been obtained by the firmness of that nobleman, but the intolerant mind of the Holy See was not the less manifested. It may be thought unworthy of a Christian to make so much of the poor posthumous spite which thus pursues a religious quarrel even into the grave, and that a fitter reflection would be, on the power and love of Him, who can, and will call his people even from those depths of the sea, or those sands of the desert, where their unburied bones bleach and whiten, or from the wholesale pits, in which the brave and devoted lie massed, by the shores of the Bosphorus, or on the heights of Balaklava. This is true, and it is a true and wholesome saying " worthy of all men to be received," that none can be laid where He " who came into the world to save sinners" cannot find them ; but this does not render less hateful the hideous bigotry which, miscalling itself Christian and Catholic, would fain darken the closing hours of a sick stranger with a refusal of the charity of Christian burial. There is less mischief than malice in the denial, but it is one of those cases in which the intention to wound inflicts more pain than the injury done, and suggests to any one who would wish to pass from life in a spirit of peace and good- will towards all men, the petition, '* God grant that I may not die in a land so Ch-istian that it cannot be clia- ritable.^* All these reflections have evolved themselves in my mind as I took a final" glean" of the notes which have fur- nished these pages ; although, thanks to a kind Providence, I was enabled so to complete my health-seeking tour as to come home restored in health, instead of being "taken I 382 GLEANINGS ATTER " GKAND T0UE"-1STS. li TAKE ME HOME AGAIN. , »> 383 home to die;" yet the memorials of other tours, which had ended differently, and which I found thick-set in an orchard-field near our inn at Bavenno, suggested a train of thought resulting in the following entry and outburst of a feeling akin to that in which poor Scott said to WiUie Laidlaw, " O man, how oft ha'e I thought of you I" « I had wandered out in the glowing evening sun from the little town of Bavenno, close under the bright snowy Alps, and turning into the village churchyard, I saw within it, at the end of the staz^m^, the hideous ' CaLr^^ ' oTinning and offensive with its real charnel heap and all its tri:^e7of^r..-c;iety; while, in an orchard beyond the churchyard wall I saw a reality of all that uncharitableness from which m the Ian - ^age of our Lita/y, I say with my whole heart, 'Good Lord deliver us ' There, as headstones and other memorials told me, lay the >oung, the brave, the noble-names standing on the roll of History and Fame- who hav ng sought the sunny South for health, had here l^d down to die and hai beef denied the grace of Christian (?) burial. I turned me in mine inn, more sick in heart than in body, w th the mental petition, ^ God grant that I may not die in this land \-take me home ayam! - MS. Diary. Take me back from this land, where the torn heart must crave In grudg'd unblest nook — the last home of a friend ; Where hate says to sorrow — " Stand mute by the grave," Whence " not without hope" sorrow's prayer should ascend. Take me back to our rude home — its clime may be chill. But its sympathies flow not through ice from thQ heart : Yon Alp-peaks stand frozen— yet far colder still, Are this sunny land's charities. " Let us depart." Bavenno, 1851. i Oh ! carry me back to the land of my birth, To the scenes early known— ever pleasant to me ; If vou bury me here, in this churl-granted earth, Tho' the mould may lay lightly, I'll fret to be free ! Make me rather a bed on the heathy hill-side Of my own mountain glen. Could you know how I love it, You might feel how 'twould wound me in dying to bide Far away from its breeze and the blue sky above it. I see, ^ere, the rest by the bigot assigned ^ To the stranger who sick'ning seeks health in his clime ; ^^ How the " house of all flesh" he has " cribbed and confined. Treating life as a heresy, death as a crime. ^ Take me back where the fern-plume waves meetly adornmg His grave -who had loved it while living— when dead ; TYhere the dew-laden hare-bell wUl weep every raommg The tear it has gathered through night o'er my bed. 384, GLEANINGS AETER " GRAND T0TJR"-ISTS. LENTOI. 385 L'ENVOI. On submitting the foregoing chapter to a tribunal of domestic criticism, in a "committee of the whole house," the verdict returned was, that it was all truly described, very true, very sad, but that it was not a fitting conclusion for a tour through which a kind and merciful Providence had carried us without a mischance or even difficulty of any kind worth mentioning. " You know, papa," it was urged, "that even our verj- mistakes turned to our advantage ; but for your ignorance of "Eomanch," at Coire, we should have passed by the Eighi ; and you remember, that our confounding one town with another procured us that magnificent drive from Schaif hausen through the Black Forest and the ' Hellethal Valley' defile, at the end of which, to our amazement, we found ourselves at :Pvihoixvg-Briesgau, on the banks of the mine, instead of Freybourg in Switzerland; so that, on the whole, our few blunders proved rather benefits than otherwise, and therefore we all think you ought to end your volume more cheerfully.'* I at once bowed to the justice of the critique, as I must do to those sterner strictures which less partial reviewers may pass upon my rambling chapters. Letting, therefore, the last chapter stand as it is, I add to it by extending the notice of our journey to a "terminus" nearer home, and sliall release the reader, after a briefly-stated contrast between the most animated and most desolate of all the cities we visited in our progress. With this view, I select London in mid-" Exhibition time," and Ferrara, as it rises on memory, in the stately desolation of a city built to contain 100,000 inhabitants, whose population has long dwindled down, and been stationary at about one-fourth of that amount. Another reason for my selection of Fer- rara is, that nobody else ever mentions it except to remark " that there is nothing here to interest or detain you." On our outward course a powerful influence had ob- tained for us a peep at the Crystal Palace, in its chaotic or chrysalis state ; and ofttimes afterwards, as we numbered the days between the date of our visit and that fixed for the grand opening, we often asked ourselves, " "Will that grub ever grow to a butterfly ? How ever will that Babel be reduced to order, or advance to ornament, within the time ?" How 'twas done we know not ; we only know that Saxon energy and method had its task completed at the appointed period. The news reached us at Rome in due course, that England had opened its " World-fair " on the day fixed, without mistake or disappointment ; and when we reached London some months afterwards, the world was still streaming up to it as a centre, and it seemed high-holiday all England over. Meanwhile our homeward route through Italy had 2o 1 4 'fl 386 GLEAll^INGS AFTEB " GEAND TOirE"-lSTS. brought us, in our course, to Ferrara, a stately city of the past, upon which the far-off glories of its " D'Este Lords" show like a tarnished gilding, scarce visible through the dimming distance. Tasso's place of duresse is there, and a place it is, to make a man pause upon the horrid doubt whether it had been the cell of an actual maniac, or the room of torture chosen for the incarceration of a high- soaring spirit to pine in, until, fretted against the prison bars, it should chafe itself into madness. There is enough of mystery in Tasso's history, and enough of cruelty and pride in the annals of the House of D'Este, to give room for such a speculation. But the genius of Byron, availing itself of a mere hint of Gibbon's, has, in his painfully-powerful fragment of " Parasina," invested the moated Castle of Eerrara with a nearer and more living interest. Even though the poet had not left us, in the account of " Hugo's " execution, one of the most thrilling passages of all his fine poetry, none could have passed it without going to look on the fatal court which, as he tells us, once saw " The crowd in a speechless circle gather, To see the son die by the doom of the father." Byron had of course seen this court, and seen how well it suited his purpose, ere he peopled it with the actors in the final scene of his dark story, but he does not allow our whole interest to rest in the court below. His powerful painting urges us to try and trace among the ranges of the palace windows that "lattice" from behind which the mi- serable adulteress was in refined cruelty placed to see l'envoi. 387 " The evenmg sunbeams shed Full on Hugo's fated head, Kneeling at the Friar's knee, Sad to hear — piteous to see — How that high sun on his head did glisten As he there did bow and listen, And the rings of chesnut hair Curl'd half down his neck so bare ; But brighter still its beams were thrown Upon the axe which near him shone With a clear and ghastly glitter. Oh I that parting hour was bitter." One can imagine the bitterness of death in such a sight as this, only to be surpassed when " RoU'd the head, and gushing sunk Back the stain'd and heaving trunk, — And came a woman's shriek, — and ne'er In madlier accents rose despair : And those who heard it as it past, In mercy wished it were the last.'* AVith the whole of this powerful and minutely painted picture full in memory, in order to make the illusion more perfect we deferred our visit to the scene of the " Parasina" tragedy until " the lovely hour as yet, Before the summer sun shall set ;" so that it was in the glowing evening that we tra- versed the echoing courts and stately but desolate halls of the Castle of Eerriira, until at length we arrived at a saloon overlooking the inner court, and then, standing by a "palace lattice," I asked the cicerone to point out to me the exact spot of the execution in the area below. I had better have left the question unasked, for his reply 2c2 388 GLEAI^Il^GS AFTEB " GBAND T0UE"-ISTS sent Byron's whole description into the regions of sham and unreality. "You can see the place if you please, sir; but it was done, they say, in the vaults helow, and not in the open air at all." This is ever the way with our poets of the transcen- dental and romantic schools ; " in their power To double even the sweetness of a flower," they send us in search of scenes which their descriptions have graved on mind and memory as a choice region of fairyland,— we arrive in breathless interest, and lo ! the result is as sobering as Sancho's visit to Dulcinea the Peerless, at Tobo.so. From the outside, the moat-girdled Castle of Ferrara looked the scene of the mediaeval tragedy admirably ; but as we left its frowning portal, I could only look back on its reaUy fine feudal cincture as the scene of a discovered imposture ; and therefore I recommend those who wish to yield themselves to the illusion of the poet's imagery to read "Parasina," and stay away from Ferrara. When life ebbs low, it is known that the heart will sometimes beat after the extremities are cold ; thus there was a kind of stir and activity about the Piazza, which might be called the heart of Ferrara, upon which the old Castle frowned, and in which the old pied Cathedral stood ; but this faint vitality died wholly away when we had passed into some of the spacious but moss-grown streets farther off. We paid our duty visit to a cold, cheerless Gallery of Paintings, to which we made our way through long lines of stately houses, with closed ''jalousies" and barred l'envoi. 889 portals, from which not a sign of Hfe showed itself, not an eye peered out on our progress ; not a living soul did we encounter, in our long route through the desert city, save a solitary crone, weeding the street, who might have been a witch gathering simples. Had plague swept it, or had war scourged it, Ferrara could not have been left more desolate ; in loneliness and silence it was a perfect " Pompeii with the roofs on ;" or it might be Hercula- neum, if we could see it stripped of its lava cerements ; or any other city of the dead which fancy can call up to the mind's eye. — I no longer wonder why tour-writers " see nothing particular to remark on in Ferrara." I pass over intervening incidents of our route — some treated of elsewhere in these chapters — to come to the period when one of the cheating advertisements which stared us out of our convictions on every blank wall from Cologne to Brussels, and which, in despite of all experience, will some- times delude into the belief that those inseparables, " cheap and nasty," can be divorced from each other, had induced us to try a passage from Ostend to Dover, to be performed at some fabulously quick rate of going, for some absurdly cheap rate of payment. We reached Ostend by train, from Brussels, at the hour indicated " in the bond," and rushed to the pier to see our packet riding a mile ofi* at low-water mark, and to receive the comfortable intimation that " there could be no start until twelve o'clock at night !" Until twelve o'clock we housed ourselves at a wretched pier-head inn, and at twelve o'clock went on board, to find ourselves among a motley crew of " Exhibitioners," to the number of forty or fifty, whose calibre and quality may be judged by this little significant fact, that the not over- 390 II »» GLEANINGS AFTEK " GEAND TOUE -IST3. abundant luggage of us three passengers far eiceeded in weight and bulk that landed for all the other passengers to- gether. Some had literally " no effects" of any kind, others were as lightly equipped as Albert Smith's travelling com- panion, who started from Chamouni for Milan, with no other luggage than (as I remember) " a pair of satin shoes tied up in a birdcage 1" How the swarthy, smoking, obese Continentals around us were to conform to the decencies of dress in London was a problem towards the solution of which I have not as yet made the slightest approximation. A train waited on our boat, for we were now once more in the land of performatice waiting upon promise. After a hasty breakfast we were presently flj^g towards London. Arrived at the terminus, I commenced my practice of a rule I hope I shall henceforth always observe, namely, never to see a foreigner in our land at a loss without offering him any assistance in my power. I had known too lately, and too painfully, the " heart of a stranger" in other lands, not to feel what a wildering whirl the first bustle of an arrival at a London terminus must be to a Continental. I saw a large group of my fellow-passengers from Ostend standing in stupefaction as the London cabmen (engaged by the talismanic finger) took up their fares and drove successively off! The order, and yet the bustle — the rapidity, and yet the regularity — with which all was done, seemed in every sense too much for these " slow coaches ;" they saw all the conveyances engaged by some occult process, unintelligible to them, and disappearing before they had even hauled up from the depths of stow- age in their pocket-books, their " Leicester-square" or other addresses to the localities in the city, where " fo- reigners most do congregate." LENTOI. 391 At last one of them addressed me : " Sir, we were co^ voyageurs last night, pray pardon me — we are strangers — sTiall we he left here f I There was desolation in the very tone of the question, so I replied cheerfully, " Oh, no ; that is but the first flight — we shall have more carriages presently. Tou see I have not had one yet for myself and family. But where do you wish to go to ?" Here there was a general search for and production of old "hotel" cards, — wTitten "directions," — and other " memoranda," on faith of which these poor fellows had venturously flung themselves on the wide sea of London, probably on the assurance that they should " find them- selves * all right' when they had got tliere /" These poor strangers were all the same to me, and with my own ''Jiardes et hagages'' and those " baggages" my daughters, to look after, I began to find myself rather overwhelmed. I might direct, or set right a few of the crowd around me, but I could not well undertake for all. In the emergency I called to a " railway policeman" near me. " Here are some foreigners," said I. " They have all got addresses, as it appears. How are they to get there ?" In a moment the man was among them, with a polyglot power of address to which I had no pretension. I imme- diately saw that provision had been made for the emer- gency — ^that they were " all right ;'^ things w^ere in proper train for forwarding these helpless consignments each to his destination ; and I turned away to attend to my own concerns. As I went, however, one of the foreigners ran after me, grasped my arm, and whispered, " Fardon, monsieur, est-ce que nous, pouvons nous 392 a i> GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. jier /" He indicated the rest by a gesture. " Could they trust the policeman ?" " Oh, yes," said I, laughing ; " when you see the men in * blue coats,' with little blue sticks* in their hands, trust yourselves to them in ani/ difficulty, and by all means." * Lord Palmerston, who (putting aside all his other characteristics of a good speaker) has been justly described as " having always the right word to use in the right place," made some time ago a happy allusion to " the surprise of foreigners at seeing the peace and order of ' The Great Exhi- bition' preserved by a Jew men here and therewith little hits of blue-painted stick in their hands." The thought thus suggested by his Lordship, mingling itself with these reminiscences, has taken shape as follows : THE LITTLE BLUE STICK. To view the " Old Island" the foreigner comes, Thousands flock to the pier his arrival to view; He lands — he looks round for " guards," " barriers," or " drums," In their stead he can see but of " blue coats" a few. Who with all that dense crowd undemonstrative mix. Their emblem of office " small bltie-painted sticks." " Sacr^ Dieu" cries Crapaud ; " Ach mein Gott" puffs Mynheer ; " Santissima,^* murmurs Italia's swarth son ; — Such unenforced order they all think so queer ; Of ^* sbirri" '■'■gendarmerie" " mowcAard!s," not one, Yet no riot — no rushing — no turmoil — no " fix," But all kept in order by — blue-painted sticks. In London arrived, how our foreign guests stare. As the dense living tides through each thoroughfare pour. When puzzled to find out " street," " circus," or " square," A 1 or X 10 guide each just to their door. And should " cabman" or *• swell mob" attempt any trick, They are promptly " pull'd up" by the little blue stick. When the'Queen (may God bless her !) walks down through the nave Of her " Grand Exhibition," the thousands all round. Though impatient to see, stand decorous and grave, And she leaves unmolested by gesture or sound. Yet no guard keeps the path — where the crowd is most thick, You may see here and there— just a blue coat and stick. L ENVOI. 393 And with this general and parting advice we went our several ways. And now ! — does any one suppose that I am about to enter on a description of " The Exhibition," or any part thereof? " Pas si bete, en verite.'' Among the legends of that stirring season, there is one of some poor creature who had entered the Crystal Palace among the earliest visitants, with the insane idea that he would go over the whole seriatim, " beginning at the beginning," and seeing everything in due course and order. The legend runs, that he spent many weary days in going round and round, catalogue in hand, looking for No. 1 of " Class the First," most rigidly restraining himself from admiring anything, examining anything, until he could begin to examine and admire according to rule ; the conclusion of the story is, that after he had thus roamed the wilderness for a fort- night ! some pitying policeman, having ascertained the state of the case, humanely took his catalogue from him, and left him to wander a harmless lunatic among the wonders of art around. I neither vouch for the story, nor do I intend to fall into any similar blunder, nor even to pretend to give anything like a general impression of the effect of that great display of a world's industry thus brought together in competition in the world's greatest emporium. A few general remarks are all on which I intend to venture. " 'Tis magic ! " all cry. Yes — a magic unknown To dwellers in lands where the sword settles strife ; Where Despot sits grim on a bayonet-fenced throne, And on Autocrat-nod hangs fame, fortune, or life. 'Tis a magic which few out of Albion e'er saw, 'Tis the magic, of—" willing submission to law. 394 GLEANTNGS APTEE " GEAND T0T7E -ISTS. The building and the people impressed me far more than even the wonders of art exhibited. The building, that singularly happy conception of a simple unit idea, multi' pliedj and capable of indefinite multiplication, until it gave the required accommodation, seemed to me far more wonder- ful than even the contents of its different departments. And the people, in their complete, and yet unturbulent abandon of enjoyment, was by no means the least pleas- ing part of the whole display ; their good humour and their good behaviour, their perfect independence, and yet thorough decorum, was a sight admirable to witness. There was one day during our stay when at an early hour some hundred farm-labourers, sent up by some kind employer in a special train (I heard they were Mr. Philip Pusey's men from Berkshire), made their appearance in the build- ing in all the brightness of bluff honest faces and snow- white smock-frocks, the embodiment of all that was hardy, healthy, clean, and comfortable. It was, as I have said, an early hour, and the Queen, not having yet ended her usual early visit, was in one of the galleries when this apparition of some hundreds of " that bold peasantry, her country's pride," showed itself in the avenues below ; whereupon her Majesty, instead of leaving as usual by a private entrance, determined to go down and pass out through the ranks of honest rustics, thus affording them an extra gratifica- tion in being able to tell for many a day after, that they had seen many "foine things," but "nought loike The Queen, God bless her !" l'envoi. 395 It was perfectly beautiful to see the spontaneous, un- bidden decorum with which these honest fellows ranged themselves into an avenue for the passage of the royal cortege, along the principal court of the building ; there was not a sign of repression, nor of a rudeness to repress, in the whole proceeding, and this fearless impromptu going down of the Sovereign into the throng, of her subjects, as it appeared to me then, was one of the most grateful sights of the whole display, as it forms one of its most pleasant reminiscences now. Our last transit through the wonderful congress of England and Europe which thronged up to London in 1851 was of a kind to leave an impression not easily to be forgotten. I believe in general the high flood-tide of visitors to the Exhibition legan to flow about two o'clock in the day ; then men of business were gradually disengaged, and could join their families by appointment for the daily visit ; by this time country parties from the suburbs, and more dis- tant localities, began to arrive to swell the flood, which con- tinued to pour in an unbroken stream to one point, where, indeed, the arranging power of the police was sorely and constantly tasked to prevent chaos from coming again. It was about four o'clock in a glowing June afternoon that we left our lodgings in the Belgravian quarter for the " Great Western" terminus, and when we looked up the de- houche by the Marble Arch, at Hyde Park-corner, the sight was indeed one calculated to impress native and foreigner alike with wonder. In one steady stream, never staying, never rushing, in every variety of conveyance, from the 396 tc J1 GLEANINGS AFTEE " GRAND TOUE -ISTS. great field waggon, outrigged into a monster caravan for the day, down to the costermonger's cart (the said coster- monger occupant enjoying his holiday and asserting his unit-independence as thoroughly as the highest, proudest, fairest there), so the full tide of life streamed on in its direction ; and for near an hour our progress in a con- trary one was slow enough, and yet we did not feel it tiresome, for there was occupation for observation, reflec- tion, admiration all around us, and we were scarcely glad when an opening enabled our driver to get free of the main current, and to leave Piccadilly and its living torrent behind us. • •••** There is something delightful in contrasts, and if that between London and Ferrara was marked, 1 fell upon one not less so in another direction, when, in a week after we had been stemming the living surges of London life, I stood inhaling the bracing air and freshening breeze of one of those glens of Southern Ireland of which JVIr. Macaulay has given so glowing a description in his lately published volumes of the History of England ; there, "beneath crags where the eagles build," by "mingling rivulets brawling down the rocky pass," and with a mag- nificent mountain range overlooking all, I stood alone, amidst all the "salvage majesty of uncultivated nature," to review, as I could recal them, the circumstances and incidents of the extended tour just successfully accom- plished. Such an excursion forms an event in the life of a quiet family not to be soon forgotten. The classic associa- tions, historic reminiscences, scenes of beauty, treasures of l'enyoi. 397 art, although sometimes mingling and confusing in the me- mory, still continue to furnish subjects of pleasant recol- lection and fireside description long after the first fresh- ness of enjoyment and wonder have passed away. But I feel bound thankfully to acknowledge that these " sunny memories," when brightest and most glowing, have never dazzled or destroyed perception of the truth of the simple ballad which tells us that " Be it never sae hamely, There's nae place like hame." And in the same proportion that I pity the man whose spirit chafes against circumstance, and pines for change from the place where, in the orderings of Providence, " the lines are fallen to him," so do I feel thankful for the measure in which it is given me to acquiesce in the senti- ments of that " Traveller" who says — " Such is the Patriot's boast; where'er he roam, His first best country ever is at home, And dear the shed to which his soul conforms, And dear the hill which lifts him to the storms;"— in the full feeling of which I greeted "wy own'' mountain glen in the stanzas in which I now take my respectful leave of my readers, and submit my " Gleanings" to their indulgent perusal : ON REVISITING GLEN A- There's a deep joy I cannot speak Springs up within me as again Thy free breeze freshens on my cheek, My own wild, lonesome mountain glen. Thy river sends its gentle brawl. Like uttered friend-words, to the ear, And from the hoarse-voiced waterfall Something like welcoming I hear. ^ 396 li n GLEANINGS AFTEE " GEAND TOUE -ISTS. L ENVOI. 397 great field waggon, outrigged into a monster caravan for the day, down to the costermonger's cart (the said coster- monger occupant enjoying his holiday and asserting his unit-independence as thoroughly as the highest, proudest, fairest there), so the full tide of life streamed on in its direction; and for near an hour our progress in a con- trary one was slow enough, and yet we did not feel it tiresome, for there was occupation for observation, reflec- tion, admiration all around us, and we were scarcely glad when an opening enabled our driver to get free of the main current, and to leave Piccadilly and its living torrent behind us. There is something delightful in contrasts, and if that between London and Eerrara was marked, I fell upon one not less so in another direction, when, in a week after we had been stemming the living surges of London life, I stood inhaling the bracing air and freshening breeze of one of those glens of Southern Ireland of which Mr. Macaulay has given so glowing a description in his lately published volumes of the History of England ; there, "beneath crags where the eagles build," by "mingling rivulets brawling down the rocky pass," and with a mag- nificent mountain range overlooking all, I stood alone, amidst all the " salvage majesty of uncultivated nature," to review, as I could recal them, the circumstances and incidents of the extended tour just successfully accom- plished. Such an excursion forms an event in the life of a quiet family not to be soon forgotten. The classic associa- tions, historic reminiscences, scenes of beauty, treasures of art, although sometimes mingling and confusing in the me- mory, still continue to furnish subjects of pleasant recol- lection and fireside description long after the first fresh- ness of enjoyment and wonder have passed away. But I feel bound thankfully to acknowledge that these " sunny memories," when brightest and most glowing, have never dazzled or destroyed perception of the truth of the simple ballad which tells us that " Be it never sae hamely, There's nae place like hame." And in the same proportion that I pity the man whose spirit chafes against circumstance, and pines for change from the place where, in the orderings of Providence, " the lines are fallen to him," so do I feel thankful for the measure in which it is given me to acquiesce in the senti- ments of that " Traveller" who says — " Such is the Patriot's boast; where'er he roam, His first best country ever is at home, And dear the shed to which his soul conforms, And dear the hill which lifts him to the storms;"— in the full feeling of which I greeted "wy oW mountain glen in the stanzas in which I now take my respectful leave of my readers, and submit my " Gleanings" to their indulgent perusal : ON REVISITING GLEN A- There's a deep joy I cannot speak Springs up within me as again Thy free breeze freshens on my cheek, My own wild, lonesome mountain glen. Thy river sends its gentle brawl, Like uttered friend-words, to the ear, And from the hoarse-voiced waterfall Something like welcoming I hear. ;f 398 GLEANINGS AFTER " GEAND T0UE"-ISTS. Old rugged mountam range ! once more I hail your furrow'd friendly face ; True, since our communing before, I've looked on many a foreign grace — Graces which men, they say, have found Their truant hearts from home- tie stealing; Yet all I saw on foreign ground Could not supplant one homestead feeling. I saw the vine-clad hills of France, I climbed the steep Vesuvian mount, Then laid me down in classic trance By Numa's nymph-named Roman fount. The southern sunbeam warmly fell On classic plain, on hills of vine ; I loved its glow, yet would not dwell Away from this wild glen of mine. What tie is this — so strong — so strange — Which distance strengthens— space can't part ? — A " length'ning chain" where'er we range, Linking mute nature and man's heart ; A chain which gold nor makes, nor buys. Which holds through want, can time withstand— What is it? All the magic lies In three short words — Our Natht; Land. APPENDIX. (No. I., p. 10.) " II Padre Gesuiia" and I were one day busy over some lapi- darian inscriptions and other Catacomb curiosities in the museum of the " Collegio," when, going to a cabinet of choice rarities, he produced to me a small broken vessel of thick glass, into the material of which, in the making, several figures and designs in gold had been introduced, so that, in looking through it, the figures showed like a picture. I know not whether the process of doing this is among the lost arts, or one difficult to execute, but it struck me as very curious ; nor do I recollect ever to have seen such a thing elsewhere, though it may be simple and common for what I know. "This," said the Padre, "is the fragment of a sacramental vessel of the Primitive Church, found in the Catacombs. All these figures are exquisitely wrought and highly symbolical. Observe," he said, "the Apostles in the boat, with Peter at their head, and the Saviour walking on the waters. And there," pointing to a man holding a fish in his hand, "there stands Tobit!^* Here, thinking Tobit an unlikely symbol for a sacramental vessel under the " new dispensation," I ventured to suggest that it was more probably Peter, bringing the fish to pay tribute for his master and himself (as recorded in Matt. xvii. 27). " Pardon, Signor," he rejoined, in the symbolic language of the Church, " Peter is ever designed as grave and reverend, as becomes ' the 400 APPENDIX. Prince of the Apostles;* this, you observe, is a youth {' gio- vinetto ')." "But," I returned again, "at the time when that vessel was supposed to be made, Tobit did not reckon in the canon of Scrip- ture ; and it is not likely a personage from an apocryphal book would be introduced into such an assemblage." " Pardon again," he said, " Tobit is canonical once and for 11 ever. " Not until Trent," I returned. " Your own Jerome treats it and its fellow-books very lightly as authority." "No, no," he said, decidedly but good-humouredly, as of a point that admitted no argument whatever. I did not reply at the time, but when I next visited the college brought witli me a small choice copy of the Vulgate having Jerome's prefaces, and taking an opportunity to refer to our con- versation of the day before, showed him that passage * in which the great "Vulgate" authority speaks of the Apocryphal Books with at least as strong rejection as any Protestant. The Padre took the book, examined it attentively, particularly the title-page, and having read the passage, returned it without a word ; but I heard him sigh deeply as he turned to examine some of the articles in the case near at hand. Except a few words, during an after- visit to the Catacombs, nothing further in the way of discussion ever passed between us ; but on the subject of antiquities and " ogetti interessantV I found him uniformly intelligent, communicative, and obliging. (No. II., p. 54.) Having spoken of Eustace as " the tolerant," to which I might justly add the epithets " refined and amiable," I fear I must lay * " Hie prologus, Scripturarum quasi galeatum principium omnibus libris quos de Hebrseo vertimus in Latinum convenere potest, ut scire valeamibs, quidquid extra hos est, inter Apocrypha esse ponendum. Igitur Sapientia, quae vulgo Salomonis inscribitur, et Jesu fil : Syrach, Liber et Judith, et Tobias, et Pastor, non sunt in Canone."— Hieronimi, Pro- logus Galeatus in Bib, Sacr, Vvlgata. APPENDIX. 401 to his charge, and to that of individual Roman Catholics like- minded with him, the spread of a delusion which prevailed in these countries some years since, and under the influence of which many people gladly believed that an amelioration and better ap- preciation of the principles of " civil and religious liberty" had passed upon the spirit of the Roman Church. It was generally argued, but more charitably than correctly, that the Church of such men as Eustace could not be the truculent oppressor, for which ?^//m-Protestants proclaimed it ; and it was supposed that the fiery ordeal of the last half -century, purging away many as- perities, and giving the Papacy to know the " heart of a stranger," had taught it a measure of toleration accordingly. This was a pleasant dream into which men fell, and from which they are now in course of being somewhat roughly awakened ; and indeed, to do the Papacy justice, it has been for some time, especially since Pio Nono's accession, doing its own part to dispel the de- lusion, for it has been exhibiting itself to the world as unchanged and unchangeable, untaught by adversity, unconquered by con- cession, inflexible in purpose, and as determined on the subjuga- tion of intellect and human freedom of thought, as in the days of Hildebrand ; whether in " open Concordat" or " secret allocution," every *' pronu7iciamento'* of Popery speaks this purpose. As for "Eustace," once held forth as " The Model Man," of refined, cul- tivated, and corrected Catholicism, he is now spoken of at Rome as little better than " heretical ;" and there can be little doubt that his " Classical Tour " may expect, sooner or later, to be honoured by an insertion in " The Index ! " whenever Pio Nono has leisure to attend to the " detestable liberality" of some of his sentiments, and the atrocious freedom of some of his strictures upon patent abuses and follies, at Rome and elsewhere. If there were nothing else to ensure his proscription, the freedom with which he canvasses, or rather condemns the lying wonders selected to sentinel the high altar of St. Peter's at Rome, and the candour with which he avows his disbelief of the miraculous liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius at Naples, these in themselves must, when submitted to an ultramontane tribunal, ensure Eustace's conviction as a setter forth of "heresies," "most tolerable and not to be endured." 2d I i i 402 APPENDIX. APPENDIX. 403 'I (No. in., p. 88.) I have sometimes met with writers pretending to speak from observation of the morals of Italy in a style provocative of the question, " Sister, sister, where did you find that bodkin ?" Such men as Byron, as licentious in practice as in principle, and accus- tomed to talk with perhaps even more than his usual licence in bravado of that world " which had outlawed him," might, without inconsistency, make disclosures on such topics ; but how others have done so has sometimes surprised me. Now, I neither have, nor can pretend to, any information whatever as to that dissolute- ness which is said to stalk abroad through Italy, audacious and unveiled ; on the contrary, with one or two exceptions, I am bound to give my testimony that neither indecorum nor indecency vrill anvwhere offend the stranger, unless he seeks them ; and if he does, surely he is " less sinned against than sinning." I have spoken of one or two exceptions ; Naples presented one, Rome the other. In Naples you cannot walk the streets (no lady ever does) without having at intervals the language of the pandar whispered ia your ear ! You turn your head, and see at your elbow a grave, respectable-looking personage, who might pass for a member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, were it not for the indescribably loathsome smile with which he meets your look of surprise or indignation. The other circumstance wliich caught my attention at Rome was occasionally seeing two persons together, so obviously un- suited in rank or manners as to attract observation. These were a young woman, holding, rather than walking with, an elder, who perfectly embodied the conception of the Duenna of old Spanish comedy. I was at last led to ask an Italian teacher who attended in the family the meaning of this, and his explanation was to the following effect : — " You English bring your Island manners with you wherever you go, and hence your * signorine^ can walk alone, or in company, as they please, without molestation ; but no Roman female can do so with impunity. Those persons you notice are Roman women of the middle ranks ; they cannot afford an equi- page, their husbands are engaged in their avocations, their busi- ness takes them out, and their only protection from insult is to hold the arm of an old nurse or other domestic, which indicates that they are not subjects for solicitation to the libertines of the city." It would be very unfair and unfit to quote the general assertions freely made by the shopocraci/ of Rome as to the state of priestly morals ; they may not be true ; they may be the sug- gestions of that political dislike to priestly rule which is universal ; they may be of no value as evidence, yet they are confided to English ears with an unsolicited freedom, which provokes the question. How long can blind reverence for an order survive this keen sense of individual depravity ? (No. IV., p. 105.) Conyers Middleton, in his celebrated "Letter from Rome,'* seems to have allowed himself to be led away by similarity of sound into supposing that heathen Soracte had been christianised into S. Oreste, and his error has been generally adopted, if, indeed, it was not of earlier date ; for BoUandus, in the " Acta Sanctorum," speaks of a "laudatum opusculum" of a certain "Antonius de Effectis," in which it is argued that S. Oreste is the right name of the mountain, " non tamen deductum ah aliquo Sancto Oreste, sed a svperstitionibus Gentilium." In fact, it appears that though there was an obscure and seldom mentioned martyr named Orestes, affirmed by Baillet and others to have been " grilled to death" in Lesser Armenia, yet he never had any connexion with the cele- brated Horatian mount, and that the proper alias for Soracte is " St. Silvester ;" for other legendary authorities tell us that it was Charlemagne, who, taking in his latter years the monastic habit from the hands of Pope Zachary, retired to Mount Soracte, and there built a monastery in honour of Pope Sylvester, after whom the Mount is now sometimes named. Our route brought us sufficiently close to Soracte to enable us to admire its picturesque outline, but not near enough to allow of our examining the structure of that singular rock, obviously of igneous origin, which has stood up in isolated protrusion from the subjacent level from before the historic era. 2d2 404 APPENDIX. Durmg a day, or rather a few hours of a day, of our stay in Rome, a snow-storm enabled me to realise unexpectedly Horace's *' Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte." I could catch the pinnacle glittering in the morning sunshine from the walks of the Pincian, and, as a matter of course, when I skirted it afterwards, it was with Horace in hand, and I did homage to the classic mount in an attempted version of the poet's midwinter Ode on this theme. I say "midwinter" rather than "Christ- mas" advisedly, for though there be something of the cheery spirit of Christmas frolic and merriment breathing through the Ode, yet it not merely lacks any Christian reminiscence of that season, " Which to the cottage as the crown, Brought tidings of salvation down," but it is also too largely redolent of the sensual epicureanism which, tainting the mind of the writer, gives so painful and un- pleasant an effect to some of the most refined and admired produc- tions of this charming classic, in which we can seldom read an ode to the end without finding the " amari aliquid" rising up, and proving that even when the elegant sensualist attained to an ennobling or unexceptionable sentiment, he was still ignorant of any true consistent moral basis, or connexion, in which the truth on which he might have stumbled could inhere ; hence the freedom of translating Horace is continually cramped by the necessity of trying to reduce some sentiment or expression within the bounds of presentable propriety. " Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte — nee jam sustineant onus SilvaB laborantes, geluque Flumina constiterint acute Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco Large reponens, atque benignius Deprome quadrimum sabin^. O Thaliarche merum diota, I APPENDIX. 405 Permitte Divis caetera, qui simul Stravere ventos sBquore fervido Depraeliantes, nee cupressi Nee veteres agitantur omi Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere, et Quern fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro Appone, nee dulces amores Speme, puer, — neque tu choreas Donee virenti canities abest Morosa. Nunc et campus et areas Lenesque sub noctem susurri, Composita repetantur hora, Nunc et latentis proditor intimo Gratus puellae risus ab angulo Pignus qui direptum lacertis Aut digito male pertinaci." HoBACE, lib. i. ode ix. Soracte's brow stands white — the snow Bends the o'erladen trees to earth — The ice-bound streams forget to flow : 'Then with piled fagots warm thine hearth, Nor stint thy draught of generous wine — Nor be it present care of thine To what the coming year gives birth. Let Gods, who still the warring wind, The waving woods, the surging sea, Dispose thy future — now they're kind — Ask not what may to-morrow be. In park, at dance, in games appear, Or whisper in some lov'd one's ear. Youth's season should not joyless flee, Too surely crabb'd age waits behind. Even now rings forth from yonder nook The tell-tale laugh of romping girls, Who think ere this you should have took Some " forfeit-pledge" of rings or pearls. R. M)Q APPE2fJ)IX. APPENDIX. 407 (No. v., p. 129.) I shall not enter upon the difficult and useless question, at once " vexata" and vexatious / of the propriety or impropriety of public exhibitions of undraped sculpture, further than to observe that there seems to me no medium between absolute iconoclasm and leaving art free to carry out its conceptions, and the mind and taste to admire those conceptions, without having the attention directed to hinted improprieties, made the more noticeable by imperfect and afterthought attempts to hide them. Nobody, we are sure, thinks more highly of the delicacy or purity of that American young lady who thought it necessary to put the legs of her pianoforte into muslin trousers ; and every such attempt — from the days of the fourth Paul, wlio constituted Volterra breeches-maker ! (" hrachettone") to Michael Angelo, to the Nitith Pius, who has spoilt Canova's " Stuart monument" — rather im- pairs than improves our conviction of the mental purity or pro- priety of the fastidious corrector. The great-minded Buonarotti bluntly told his prude Pope, that " if he would reform the living world, the nudities of his ' Last Judgment' would do little harm to morals." This was all the freedom he could use towards the Papal throne, but upon the whisperer " behind the throne" (Biaggio of Sienna), at whose suggestion Paul was induced to meddle with the painter's great work, he revenged himself in a piece of biting and terrific satire, which must be seen to be fully under- stood, and which has "damned the hyper-reformer to everlasting fame," in a punishment proportioned and appropriate to his folly. Let any one who visits the Sistine Chapel, and stands before Mi- chael Angelo's great fresco, stitdi/ the design of the " Midas-eared figure" placed in the riglit-hand comer of the lowest circle of the Inferno, and the point and power of the indignant artist's satire will at once be perceived, though described it cannot be. As to Pio Nono's fit of prudery, in which he draped and dis- figured Canova's work, whether it was brought on by his own unprompted will, or owing to some whisperer behind his chair, I take leave to record my sense of his services to the cause of deli- cacy or morality as below. " Malo cum Platone'^ — I had rather err with Michael Angelo than be " proper" with Pio Nono. ON SEEING CANOVA S FIGURES ON THE STUART MONUMENT IN ST. Peter's put into drapery. Some natures in themselves unclean, Touching God's word with hand'obscene, Will thence draw thoughts impure; In Heaven itself, such souls would find Nor place, nor pleasure, Uo their mind — Vicious beyond all cure. 0*er Kings extinct, on either hand Canova's chaste conceptions stand In purest pity viewed ; Till bronze robes make (they hide not) shame, While loud the prurience they proclaim Of Plus, Pope, and — prude! E. (No. YI., p. 135.) The fearfully impressive " word-Picture" in which Suetonius re- cords the miserable end of the persecutor Nero is well known ; even in a translation we do not quite lose the power and effect of a description which actually shows us the " darkness visible" of that last terrible night of the tyrant, when " on the bare earth exposed he lies, With not a friend to close his eyes ;" and I must record a little incident of the dim far'^ff event, which came under my observation in the same unexpected manner in which one continually finds himself brought face to face with mat- ters of remote antiquity, while stumbling among " the chief relics of Imperial Rome." One day I was poring over some Catacomb inscriptions in the cloisters of the Benedictine monastery annexed to the " Basilica of S. Paiilo fuori le Mure," when, among other tablets with which the wall was studded, I observed the following : HOC SPECVS EXCEPIT POST AVREA TECTA NEEONEM : NAM VIWM INFEENIS SE SEPELIEI TIMET. 408 APPENDIX, / In fact, I bad stumbled upon tbe real, orforgedj epitapb of tbe tyrant Nero, wbich was voucbed by anotbcr inscription under- neatb, purporting to give an account of its discovery, to tbis effect : " Reperta, prope Anienem, inter Salara et Nomentanam in suburbano Phaontis liberti, nunc la Supvtara ; centum fere abbinc annis Nazanem avecta, donee Romam, mensis Octobris anno mdcclvi.** Tbe allusion in tbe epitapb is explained by a passage in Suetonius, descriptive of tbe confusion, terror, and borror of tbe last bours of tbis model persecutor. After telling of bis basty and sbameful fligbt in tbe direction of Pbaon's villa, vaguely described as lying between tbe " Forla Salara" and "Porta Nomentana" (now " Porta Pia "), the bistorian goes on to say : " ut ad diverticulum ventum est, demissis equis, inter fruticeta, ac vepres, per arundineti semitam a?gre, nee nisi strata sub pedibus veste, ad adversum villae parietem evasit. Ibi hortanti eodem Phaonti, ut interim, in specum egest^ harenjb concederet, negavit se vtvum sub APPENDIX. 409 TEKRAM rrURUM. »> Tbis proposal to take refuge in the " arenaria" — the Catacombs ! — must have caused the soul of him whose hoarse roar of " Chris- tianos ad leones" bad so often driven tbe persecuted to tbe same refuge, to recoil in dread and borror. Had he followed this counsel — had bt; fled to the sand-pits, and found there tbe per- secuted remnant who were cowering from bis persecutions — and had they (as we should hope they would have found grace to do) acted on their divine rule, "if thine enemy hunger, feed him, if he thirst, give him drink" — what an incident it would have formed in the history of primitive Cliristianity ! But Nero's day of grace was past, and he must die as be bad lived. There is much confusion as to the supposed locality of Nero's sepulture. Some place it at or near the site of the church of "Santa Maria," close to the "Porto del Popolo," and pretend that tbe church was built to " scare away sprites and phantoms, which used to flit round the dead tyrant's grave, and fright the faithful from the neighbourhood;" others have supposed some connexion between Nero's tomb and tbe curious and undoubtedly ancient piece of reticulated brickwork called the "Mnro Torto" at some little distance ; while the note to tbe monumental slab which I have copied would place it farther off still, and nearer to tbe scene of bis death. In my own opinion, if I may offer one, derived from tbe internal evidence of the monument itself, I am inclined to doubt tbe authenticity of tbe epitaph— it seems more like an afterthought Christian taunt to tbe dead persecutor, invented when the narrative of Suetonius bad become known, than an idea likely to have occurred at the time of Nero's decease ; moreover, the note which purports to tell us where it was found is " too particular by half," and is too plainly borrowed from the description of Suetonius to incline us to credit it. This is one among many instances in which doubtful or lying legends, tacked • on to unquestionable historic truths, tend to " destroy the value of all evidence" at Rome ! (No. VII., p. 136.) I have already (Appendix, No. 11., p. 54) referred in a general way to Eustace's censure of the " personages" selected to occupy the four most conspicuous niches in St. Peter's, I mean those which are formed in tbe pillars which support tbe great dome, and look upon and guard the high altar. Of these be plainly says two are occupied by saints (" Veronica" and " Longinus")^ " whose very names exist only in legendary tale" while the third is appro- priated to St. Helena, chiefly celebrated for "the invention'' (the happily ambiguous word) of tbe wood of tbe true cross,— a lady whom Eustace, while admitting her virtue and piety, would dis- miss to stand in tbe vestibule of the temple with her son Con- stantine ! Eustace refers still more directly to St. Veronica as "of dubious origin and obscure namCy whose existence may be questioned by . Tnany, and is unknown to most" This is plain speaking, from a Ro- manist. We must not expect, under the growing influence of ultramontanism, to find many similar expressions of sense and candour in tbe writings of professed Roman Catholics respecting accredited impostures of their Church. Let us respect and value it accordingly. I 410 APPENDIX. I shall not easily forget the circumstances under which I wit- nessed the exposure of the " Volto Santo," that relic of super- eminent sanctity, in which the repute, honour, the very name and existence of St. Veronica are wound up and involved. We had been hearing the service of the Miserere in the Choh* Chapel of St. Peter's. It was clear daylight when the performance commenced, but as the mystic and symbolic candles were suc- cessively extinguished, evening had gradually darkened round us, and it was night when we issued from the chapel into the area of the great temple, and while we had been wrapped up in the music within, the "Adoration of the Eclics" had commenced in the nave without. Never can I forget that scene. When my eyes became accus- tomed to the gloom of the dimly -lighted church, I perceived that the whole vast area of the building was paved with worshippers, all kneeling, some grovelling in the dust, as unworthy to lift an eye to the holy objects presented to their adoration. In a small bal- cony over the niche where stood the statue of St. Veronica were two or three priests, in glittering garments, surrounded with lights, and holding out to those who dared to look upwards, a small, square, brown cloth, which it was utterly impossible to dis- tinguish in the distance, and which was very quickly carried back to its reliquarium within, as an object too sacred to be exposed to general view for more than a minute ; this was the sudariut,i of St. Veronica, of whom the legend — carefully hidden in the esoteric traditions of the early ages, but made public when the mediaeval mind was ripe and ready for marvels — runs as follows: That St.Veronica was a Jewess, one of the weeping " daughters of Jeru- salem," who, pitying the Saviour's agony and toil as he went bear- ing his cross, had wiped his face with her handkerchief, and was re- warded and converted by finding the divine likeness {Volto Santo) miraculously imprinted in the Saviour's blood on the cloth, where it continues, according to the convictions of the devout, to this present day, and constitutes the very cliief relic of the rich reli- quarium or the high altar of St. Peter's. {Nota hene^ there is a rival " genuim and only'* Sudarium preserved elsewhere, at, as I recollect, Turin!) ^ ^>-ii^ •* ^^^t^ ^ /^ ^CiAir*- f\t^* f' -*» ^ .,.^^ ^.//'V^k^Ki!^ / APPENDIX. 4U Arringhi, referring us to many authorities (" gravissimi scrip- tores'*), of whom he names " CJonstantius Porphyrogenitus," " Me- thodius" Bishop of Tyre, and "Marianus Scotus," reports the story as above written. Fompilio Totti, in his " Roma Modema^" repeats the story thus : " Sacro santo Sudario, dove Christo N. S. andando a consecrarse, stesso nel Calvario, voile col suo divino e pretiosissimo sangue, il proprio volto imprimere per lasciare in terra questo memoriale etemo del infinito suo amore, verso il genere humano. EflSgie e reliquia veramente pia d'ogni altera sublime e adoranda, per esser non fatterra de mano angelica, od humana, e delineata con colori terreni, ma del fattor medesimo degli angeli e degli huomini col proprio sangue miracolosamente." — Eoma Modema^ p. 12. And yet in the face of this hyperbolical language of the pro- found adoration and venerating care with which the supposed handkerchief of the supposed saint is preserved, even Romish writers have been bold and honest enough to treat the whole as a modem invention founded on the barbarous name originally given to a pretended effigy of the Redeemer's countenance. Mabillon, who had the honesty to expose more than one case in which "pagans" and "publicans" were exalted into saints and martyrs in the blundering zeal of the worshippers of early ages, expressly says, " Haec Christi imago, a recentioribus Veronicas dicitur — imaginem ipsam veteres Veronicam appellabant ;" the truth being, that this St. Veronica, now set to guard and sanctify a chief post in St. Peter's nave, was no real person, but has been imagined out of a blundering application of the words " Vera Icon," or True Image, the title inscribed on, or ascribed to, the handkerchief when first put forward as tlie like- ness of the Redeemer ! Well might Mr. Eustace, or any one else who loved truth better than a church legend, speak of St. Vero- nica as of " dubious origin and questionable existence." Nor does the lance-head of Longinus, with which it is pretended that he pierced the Saviour's side on the cross, and which the Grand Turk Bajazet is said to have sent as a present to Pope Inno- I 412 APPENDIX. cent Vni., rest on any better foundation as to the reality of the person or thing. The fatuity which selected these "apocryphal" personages to guard the very penetralia of the chief Church of the Papacy, may well be deemed judicial. (No. VIII., p. 167.) Since the note upon the " Pasquinalia" was written, 1 have been able to obtain a copy of this most scarce, and proportionably costly volume, of which all writers on rare and curious books, from " De Bure" to " Disraeli," have taken notice, and it fully deserves the notice it has obtained. Daniel Hensius, thinking his copy vMique, paid for it one hundred ducats ! as for a Phoenix ! and recorded his purchase in the book itself in these words : "Roma meos fratres igni dedit— unica Phcenix Yivo — aureisque veneo centum Hensio." D. Hensius, Empt. Venet. 1614, 13 Marti. Rome burnt my brothers— Phoenix-like I live — Hensius for me one hundred lives did give. R. To give anything like a description of the contents of this volume would, in a note like this, be impossible. Many of the pasquils are of local allusion, many out of date, and many of the wittiest, and those most illustrative of the mind and morals of the time, unproducible from their indecency. The Borgias, tlirough all their branches and crimes, arc, as may be supposed, a staring mark for Pasquin's arrows ; Clement VII. and Leo X. have their fair or foul share of notice. The volume also contains " Sortes Virgi- lianse," the point of some of which is admirable ; that drawn for Erasmus, neither zealous Papist nor open Protestant, is very happy : " Terras inter ccelumque volabat." All come in for their turn. The Pope, meddling with "affairs of kings and kingdoms," is thus rebuked : " Pastorem Tityre pingues Pascere oportet oves ;" APPENDIX. 413 the dulness of the Sorbonne at Paris obtains this inscription : " Umbrarum hie locus est, somni noctis que profundae ;" while the eighth Henry of England, on one occasion, draws as his lot ** Jura negat sibi nata ;'* and on another, either on the occasion of liis " seeing Gospel light in Anna Boleyn's eyes," or of some other of his numerous mar- riages, he gets " Conjugium vocat— hoc prastexit nomine culpam." On the whole, a selection from this volume might be as well worth a reprint by some of our archseologic societies as many others which their labours have called out of the land of forgetfulness. In order to show the kind of " paper pellets" with which the wicked wit of Rome used to pelt the Power which it nevertheless con- tinued, in a strange blindness, to acknowledge as " Christ's Vicar UPON Earth !" I select the following series of remarkable con- trasts : Antithesis Christi et Pontificis, per Pasquinam, torn. i. p. 27. " Christus regna fugit — Sed vi Papa subjugat urbem. Spinosam Christus — Triplicera gerit ille coronam. Abluit ille pedes — Regis his oscula praebent. Vectigal solvit — Sed clerum hie eximit omnem. Pavit oves Christus — Luxum hie sectatur inertem. Pauper erat Christus — Regna hie petit omnia mundi. Bajulat ille crucem— Hie servis portatur avaris. Spemit opes Christus — Auri hie ardore tabescit. Vendentes pepulit templo — Quos suscepit iste. Pace venit Christus — Venit hie radiantibus armis. Christus mansuetus venit — Venit ille superbus. Quos leges dedit hie — Prajsul dissolvit iniquus. Ascendit Christus — Descendit ad infera Praesul." " Not of this world," said Christ — Which Popes claim all. On Chrises brow thorns— On Pope's tiaras fall. I II, ii 414 APPENDIX. Chrisi washed men*s feet — Kings kiss the Pope's on knee. Christ tribute paid—The Pope makes priests "scot-free." Christ fed his sheep — In luxury Popes feed. The Christ lived poor — Insatiate the Pope's greed. Christ bore his cross— Of serfs the Pope is borne. Christ spurned at gold— By av'rice Popes are torn. Christ scourged out barterers — Whom Popes invite. Peace-giving Christ came — Popes come armed for fight. Christ came in meekness— Popes with haughty brow. All Christ-made laws — Pope's edicts disallow. Christ reascended — Where be dead Popes now ? R. (No. IX., p. 194.) Arringhi tells this story with true florid Italian amplification : how the abbot and his companions wandered about until their tapers were reduced to a half-finger*s length — " tunc ut poeta aitt* ^^gelidus que per ima cucurrit ossa tremor^' — the crisis " sancto vindice dignui' was come, — and Abbot Crescentius bethinks him- self of invoking God through the merits o/'— the Saviour ? some would say — not at all ! but through the merits of St. Philip Neri ! — the rest must be told in the "ipsissima verba'^ of Arringhi : "Abbas quippe bonam vel desperatis inde rebus spem concipiens, his verbis socios alloquitur. Quorsum animos o socii despondimus, Deo fidamus, ipse enim viam errantibus monstrabit, imanimes fundamus ei preces, siihnixi meritis, Beati PhUippi Nerii, et protinus nobis, ut spero auxUium presto erit. Vix ea — se humi omnes projiciunt, orant, invocant eidemque cujus patrocinio Jidebant, vitam jam cum via deperditam enixe commendant. ffaud spefrustrari passus est suorum preces heatus Philippus, nam brevissimo temporis intervallo vix elapso, res mira, ipsummet foramen — per quod aditus primum illis patuerat, prompta manu ofFen- dunt, et inde quasi e profundo pelagi sinu ac portum e tenebris in lucem salvi atque incolumes emergunt postquam integro septem horarum spatio (quod incredibile dictu est ?) defessi in incertum perambulaverunt." — Abringhi, Bom. Subter, torn. iL cap. 28, sec. 22. I have given the original at length, in order that the reader may see how completely and practically the saint supersedes the Sa- h APPENDIX. 415 viour God, both in the transaction of the rescue, and in the esti- mation of the rescued wanderers, whose first consistent step in daylight was to betake themselves, weary and hungry as they were, to pay their vows at St. Philip's chapel {ejusdem beati Philippi sacellum adeunty ibiqtce gratiarum vota persolvant) ; and the con- clusion is also suitable, for it is to the saint they inscribe their " votive tablet," dedicated on the occasion " Votivam ex argento tabellam, ejtcsdem sejpulchro ad perjpetuam rei monumentum Abbas appendit.^^ > .^' » theolog; ■■-■:'¥rNARY THE END. C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND. <7 cr '»• 9f5.0l R78Z COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 010677089 CJ (^y^7H(^ 30 ^m ——■MlilW.-. DEF^1946