LIBRARY LETTERS FROM ABROAD TO KINDRED AT HOME, " Well, John, I think we must own that God Almighty had a hand in making other countries besides ours." — The Brothers. BY THE AUTHOR OF "HOPE LESLIE," "POOR RICH MAN AND THE RICH POOR MAN," " LIVE AND LET LIVE," &C,, &C. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. IL NEW-YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET. 184L 5 1 8 2 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841, by Harper & Brothers, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York. / LETTERS, i&c. JOURNEY TO LANSLEBOURG. Sunday Evening, October 20. Here we are, my dear C, at the foot of Mont Cenis, at the Hotel Royal, reading and writing by an excellent wood fire, the first we have had or needed. This inn was built by the order of Napo- Jeon, and K. and I have slept in the room he occu- pied, more soundly than he did, I fancy. Our first day's drive to Annecy was through a pretty country of hill and dale. The leaves were falling in showers, almost the only autumnal sign. The ground, highly cultivated, was looking as green as ours does on the first of September, and much as our Berkshire may a hundred years hence. I won- der if that lapse of time will bring us the conve- nience we find here, of extra horses at the foot of every long hill, ready to be attached to the travel- ler's carriage. Annecy is a little place, rendered interesting by its thrift — a singular quality in a Savoy town — and by its old chateaux and sanctuaries that have a name in history, religious and civil. I went out alone, while the day was dawning, to the sanctuary where the bones of St. Fran9ois de Sales and La Mere Chantal 8 JOURNEY TO LANSLEBOURG. are permitted to lie side by side. " A tender friend- ship," says the pious Catholic, " subsisted between these saints." Protestant scandal does not allow this platonic character to the sentiment that united them ; but let religious pity keep close the veil which hides the history of feelings that a forced condition con- verted into crime. I like to enter a Catholic church in the gray of the morning, while the lights on the altar are struggling through the misty dawn, while the real people that glide in and drop down before the images and pictures are as shadowy as the pictures themselves; and the poor, old, haggard creatures come tottering in to say in the holy place, as it would seem, their last prayer ; and the busy peasant, with her basket on her arm and her child at her side, drops in to begin her day of toil w^ith an act of worship. I saw in that dim sanctuary a scene that would make too long a story for a letter, dear C. When I entered, two persons (my dramatis personse) were kneeling before an altar, over which hung a painting representing the frail saint (if, in- deed, the Mere de Chaptal were frail) as triumph- antly trampling on temptation in the old form of the serpent. We stopped for a while at Aix to see baths fa- mous in the time of the Romans, and which are still in good preservation. The water resembles that of the hot springs of Virginia; its temperature is 110^ of Fahrenheit. Till we reached Chambery Savoy appeared fertile; and the hills in the ap- proach to this town, its capital, are covered with JOURNEY TO LANSLEBOURG. 9 vineyards, and very beautiful, but the town itself, or so much of it as we saw, is horrid; its nar- row, dirty streets filled with beggars, soldiers, and priests. You may resolve the three classes into one. The beggar frankly begs, the priest begs, pleading the sanction of divine authority, and the soldier takes without the pains of begging. A priest in the court of our Chambery inn beset Frangois for money to say masses for his dead : " Mes morts," replied our courier-philosopher, " Mes morts sont tons en paradis ;"* " and if they w^ere not," he added, " what could such men as they do for them ?" Alas for his Catholic faith in our heretical company I The road from Chambery is continually ascend- ing, with Alps on each side, little towns pitched in among the rocks, and habitations sprinkled over the rough and sharp hill-sides, where it seems hard "work for a few goats to find subsistence. I have seen many a patch of rye, that I could cover with my shawl, niched in among the rocks, and the people look truly like the offspring of this hard, niggard soil. They are of low stature and shrunken, and their skin like a shrivelled parchment. They reminded us of the Esquimaux, and the pointed cap and shaggy gar- ment are not dissimilar to the dress of the savage. Half of them, at least, have goitres, some so large as to be truly hideous " wallets of flesh." But far more revolting even than these poor wretches with their huge excrescences, are the Cretins ; an abounding species of idiot who infest us, clamorously begging * " My dead are all in paradise !" 10 JOURNEY TO LANSLEBOURG. with a sort of brutish chattering, compared to which, the begging children's monotone chant, " Monsieur, donnez — moi — un peu — la charite — s'il vous plait," is music The Savoyard is far down in the scale be- low the German peasant ; he will rise as soon as the pressure is removed ; these people are crushed irre- coverably. Various causes are assigned for their pre- vailing physical and mental diseases : unwholesome water, malaria, and inadequate and bad food suffi- ciently explain them. The children, to my astonish- ment, looked fat and healthy. It takes time to over- power the vigour of nature, and counteract the bles- ed effect of life in the open air. The people in the towns appear more healthy and in more comfortable condition than in the open country. I remarked among them some young women stout and comely enough, with a becoming kind of cap, with broad, stiffly-starched bands, which are so brought together and set off behind that they resemble white wings. They wear a black riband around the throat (prob- ably adopted to hide the goitre) fastened by a large broach, at which hangs a cross. The bot- toms of their skirts are ornamented with a narrow- coloured stripe, some with one, some wdth half a dozen. Francois tells us that a red stripe indicates a dowry of a hundred francs; but, as this is but courier information, I do not give it to you for verity. You know it is my habit to walk whenever I can, and to talk with the people by the way-side ; and as the roads have been heavy ever since we left Ge- neva, and our voiturier is a " merciful man" to his JOURNEY TO LANSLEBOURG. 11 beast, I have had this indulgence for many a mile. The Savoyards speak French well, though they use a patois among themselves. I stopped yesterday to talk to some women who were washing around a fountain on their knees. One of them said, in reply to my inquiry, " It was hard enough !" " But," said I, " you should have cushions to kneel on." " Ah, oui, madame, mais les pauvres ne sont pas les rich- es ;"* there was a world of meaning in this truism. I joined a peasant-girl in the twilight last even- ing who, after spending her whole day in tending her cow at an hour's walk from her house, was carrying home her five bottles of milk, the product of the cow. What would our peasant-givh think of such a life ? Their leisurely, lady-like afternoons and unmeasured abundance pass in vision before me as I ask the question. My dear C, how often do I mentally thank God for the condition of our w^orking people ! My poor way-side friend told me she lived on barley, milk, and potatoes -, that she never ate meat ; " how could she when she had no money to buy it ?" But our host at Modane, who is a round, full-fed, jolly widow- er, gives a different version of the poor's condition, which, from his sunny position, he looks down upon quite cheerily. "They have salted meat for win- ter," he says, " occasionally a bottle of wine, and plenty of brandy. They can work at night by oil made from nuts and flaxseed; they have a por- tion of wood from the commune, and they econ- * " Ah, yes, ma'am ; but the poor are not the rich." 12 JOURNEY TO LANSLEBOURG. omize by living in the winter in the stable !" This is the common discrepancy between the rich man's account of the poor and the poor man's own story. Frangois says, " What think you the charitable send them for medicine when they are ill? why, bread ; and they get well, and live to a hundred or even a hundred and twenty years !" Perhaps some of our feasting Dives, victims of turtle-soup, pates de foie gras, and — calomel, might envy these poor wretches, who find in a w^heaten loaf " Nature's sweet restorative." Life is a " tesselated pavement, here a bit of black stone and there a bit of white ;" it is not all black even to the Savoyard mountaineer. Even in Savoy the " schoolmaster is abroad." While some of our party were lunching at St. Mi- chel, K. and I walked on. Our first poste-restante was on the pedestal of a crucifix. While we sat there, a pretty, young mother came out of a house opposite with her child. I called the little tottler to me, and the mother followed. What a nice let- ter of introduction is a child ! We entered into con- versation. She told me all the children in St. Mi- chel went to school ; that they had two schools for the poor ; one supported by the commune, and an- other where each child paid three francs per month. The little ten-months'-old thing gave me her hand at parting, and the mother said, " Au revoir, ma- dame." " Au revoir .'" where may that be 1 There was an inscription on the cross under which we were sitting, purporting that a certain bishop granted an indulgence of forty days to who- JOURNEY TO LANSLEBOURG. 13 ever should say a paternoster, an ave, and perform an act of contrition before that crucifix. I asked a good-humoured peasant-girl whom we joined (the road is thronging with peasants of all ages) " what was meant by the act of contrition." She said it was a prayer of confession and humiliation, begin- ning, " Oh, mon Dieu, je me repens," &c., and that the " indulgence" was forty days' deduction from the time for which the soul prayed for was sen- tenced to purgatory. " This," thought I, " is an easy act, and the bishop barters the indulgence at a bargain !" But the pharasaic feeling was but momentary, my dear C, and I was ashamed when I thought how many w^eary creatures had paused there and laid down their burdens, while, with a simple faith, they performed their act of worship and humiliation, and of love for the departed. When shall we learn to reverence the spirit and disregard the form 1 We have had mists and rain ever since we left Chambery, but the picturesqueness of our journey has been rather heightened by this state of the at- mosphere. Mist, you know, sometimes gives a char- acter of sublimity to the molehills which we call mountains at home ; you may then imagine what its effect must be here, where you look up to mountains folding over mountains, from valleys that you can almost span, and see the rocky ramparts lost in the clouds ; or, perhaps, as the mist drops down and their snowy pinnacles catch a passing sunbeam, glitter- ing, as it seems, in mid heaven. The cascades Vol. II.— B 14 JOURNEY TO SUS A. which pour over the precipices feed with a thousand rivulets the Arc, the beautiful stream that rushes along the valley. Susa, Piedmont, October 21. We have crossed the Alps, my dear C, and are in Italy, but not quite so easily as I write it. The weather is as much a matter of speculation to those who are about to make a passage of the Alps as if they were going to sea. This morning at three I was looking out from my window, and found it perfectly clear. My old familiar friends were shining down on the valley of Lanslebourg, Orion on his throne, and Jupiter glittering over one of the mountain-pin- nacles. " Now," thought I, " we are sure of a fine day." But when Fran9ois came round to our doors with his customary reveille, " Gate oope" (Francois always speaks English in the hearing of the na- tives !) the sky was overcast. We were early astir, which, though " both healthful and good husband- ry," is only the virtue of necessity with us. We took from Lanslebourg five mules to drag up our carriage. Each mule, of course, had his muleteer. The voiturier followed with his horses ; and Francois, whose devious motions often re- mind me of Wamba's, was at the side of the car- riage, before, or behind, wherever he found the best listeners. The " point culminant" of this pass is six thousand seven hundred and eighty feet above the level of the sea, but only two thousand feet JOURNEY TO SUSA. 15 above the valley of Lanslebourg. This was the least difficult pass into Italy before Napoleon came to make a broad and easy way over these frightful barriers. Charlemagne led an army over Mont Cenis in the ninth century;* and this was, I be- lieve, always the route by which the Frederics and their successors brought their German barbarians down upon the plains of Italy. The Chevalier Fab- broni was the engineer of this road, and was seven years in bringing it to its present perfection. The road is carried up the face of the mountain by easy zigzags. Again and again we turned and dragged on our weary way, and yet we seemed no farther from Lanslebourg, which was always directly under us; but we saw by our joyous " compagnon de voy- age," the Arc, diminishing to a thread, that we were making progress. There are twenty-three houses of refuge (ricoveri) at intervals along this pass. Near some of them the traveller is, at particular sea- sons, in danger from avalanches, and at all are men and means of succour, kept by the government. The girls and I walked up the greater part of the way, not following the road, but taking the sharp cross-cuts. I had some talk with our chief mule- teer, a clever man. Our conversation naturally turned on Napoleon, " small in stature and great in mind," he said ; " but a bloody man, that cared not how many he sacrificed to his ambition. He made a beautiful road, not for our good, but to get * The Hospice on Mont Cenis, till very recently a monastery, was instituted by Charlemagne. 16 JOURNEY TO SUS A. his cannon into Italy. Cependant," he concluded, " ceux qui I'aiment et ceux qui ne I'aiment pas con- fessent qu'il n'y a plus de tetes comme celle-la !'* (" After all, those who hke him, and those who like him not, must own that there is no head left equal to his.") As we ascended we got a sprinkling, and, at the turns, the mist was driving at a rate to be no faint remembrancer of the gust from behind the sheet of water at Niagara. I went into a ricovero to dry my feet. The good dame told me they are often so buri- ed in snow in winter that she does not step her foot out of doors from fall to spring. There was a baby in the cradle. Here they are born, and live, and may die, for her husband has been cantonnier here for four- teen years. He receives the highest pay — thirty sous a day, and his house and firewood; not nearly so much as you pay a man-servant who has his food from your table and food as good as yours, and whose life, compared with these poor people's, is a perfect holy- day. Our prudent voiturier dismissed the mules be- fore passing the Savoy barrier, to avoid the tariff of five francs on each animal attached to a carriage ; a tax which goes towards maintaining the road. *We then gave the honne main to the muleteers ; a liberal one, I fancy, from the abundance of their bows, and their cordial " bons voyages !" Our guide-book had promised us " a tolerable inn," and a regale of trout from the lake ; but, un- luckily, we went into the kitchen while a fire was kindling in the salon, and the floor, strewn with egg- 9 JOURNEY TO srSA« 17 shells, bones, and vegetable refuse, cured our appe- tites, albeit we are not over-nice travellers. These mountain trout have been from time immemorial a source of revenue, and their only one, to the monks of the Hospice. The Bishop of Susa has lately put forth the lion's claim, and the poor fathers have been driven away. After passing the plain of Mont Cenis, in which this lake lies, we began descending a broad, smooth road, in many parts cut through the solid rock. Wherever it is necessary to have an ar- tificial support, it is made by a massy wall of ma- sonry. The cascades, which would dash athwart the road, are conveyed underneath by aqueducts, and are let out on the lower side through two openings, doors, windows, mouths, or whatever you please to call them. These waterfalls are the children of the scene, full of life and beauty ; we needed their cheerful voices, for the mist became clouds, and we actually seemed rolling along on them. We saw nothing, and, after a little while, these small, sweet voices, with every other sound, were overpow- ered by the rushing of a cataract below us. We were awed and silent. At this moment, two strong, wild-looking wretches burst out upon us. Whether they came from above or below we could not tell. They thrust their hands into the carriage, vehement- ly demanding charity, and looking very much as if they had a good will to take what we had no will to give. Bacicia cracked his whip at them ; this had no effect : he addressed it to his horses, and this had ; for they brought us within a very few minutes in B 2 18 SUSA. sight of a ricovero, and our pursuers withdrew. Franc^ois and the voiturier insist they meant mischief, and, since we have escaped the danger, we are quite "willing to believe in it. After going down, down, down, the mist became less dense, the trees began to appear, then the outlines of the hills, and, when we reached Molaret, a group of little dwellings on the hill-side, we were in a clear atmosphere, and the beautiful plains of Italy lay outspread beneath us in a golden, glowing light. What a contrast to the stern, wild scene from which we had emerged, was their abundance, habitancy, warmth, and smiling loveliness. Frangois sprang over the carriage wheel, clapping his hands and shouting, " Voila mon pays!" There were tears in all our eyes as well as in his, for strong emotion, of whatever kind, brings them ; and who could for the first time look Italy in the face without emotion — beautiful, beautiful Italy ! Susa appeared quite near enough for us to have jumped down into its cheerful streets ; but we had still ten miles of this most gently-descending road down a mountain of most ungentle steepness. Think of going down for twenty-five consecutive miles ! but we are down, and are looking up at the mount- ain-walls which God has set around this fairest of lands. Susa is a cheerful little town in the midst of vine-covered and broken hills, which appear like the advanced guard of the Alps. Villages and solitary dwellings are terraced (K. says bur- rowed) on the steep acclivities, and are so nearly of the colour of the rocks and soil that they are TURIN. 19 scarcely distinguishable from them; and positions seem to have been selected for the churches and monasteries of such difficult access, as to give the climbing to them the virtue of a penance. And, finally, there is a background of what we are be- ginning to think an indispensable component part of a finished landscape, summits white with eternal snows. On one side of our inn is a piazza,* on the other a river. We have already been out to see an old Ro- man arch ; our path has been crossed by a proces- sion of priests; we have been beset by beggars; and we have come in to give our orders to a came- riero ;t in short, we are in Italy. Turin, 23. — We arrived here last evening, and entered the town by a magnificent avenue. Tu- rin is a very cheerful town, with some 80,000 in- habitants; a gay capital rather, for it is the capi- tal of Piedmont, and was anciently of Liguria. You see how, on the very threshold of Italy, we instinct- ively turn from what is to what was. Turin is said to have grown one fifth in the last ten years. This singular circumstance in Italian history is, I believe, OAving to the fostering care and presence of * Piazza is any open public space in a town surrounded with buildings. I know no English word that answers to it. " Square" it is not, for it is of every conceivable form and •* without form," but never "void." t In many Italian inns the services of the chambermaid are per- formed by men; but the general deference to English customs is doing away, on the travelled routes, with this annoyance. 20 TURIN. Charles Albert, the reigning monarch, styled every- where in Piedmont " the munificent," but better known to us as the treacherous Prince of Cario;nani. We are at the Hotel de I'Europe Piazza Castello ; and as it is the best inn and best position in the town, you may like to know precisely our condition in it. We occupy a suite of apartments on the sec- ond story. Our drawing-room has sofa-bedsteads, and is converted into a bedroom at night ; and for these rooms, with a large ante-room, we pay twen- ty-four francs a day. They have silk hangings, par- tition walls at least four feet thick, double doors, floors inlaid of different-coloured woods, and painted ceilings hung with paintings and exquisite draw- ings of broken columns and old friezes, and are so richly furnished that they almost put my eyes out, after our wretched Savoy inns. I am sitting by a window open on to a balcony that overlooks the piazza, and I will describe it to you as it is at this moment. The piazza is as large as St. John's Park; opposite to us is the king's palace, with an enclos- ure ; on our right, the Palazzo madama, or queen's palace ; on our left, the opening into the fine street by which we entered the town, and a row of lofty houses, with an arcade to the lower story. Our hotel forms one of a similar range on this side. Carriages and carts are crossing and recrossing, and a few busy people seem to be driving forw^ard with some object before them ; but these are ex- ceptions. Here is a little company of Savoyard mu- TURIN. 21 sicians — I know them by their costume* — a woman, with a guitar, singing national airs, accompanied by a man with a harp, and a boy with a viohn. A ring of soldiers gathers round them ; loungers drop in on all sides; 'priests and peasants, plenty of priests. There may be three or four hundred per- sons in the ring. There comes the royal carriage through the palace-gate ; the ring breaks ; a line is formed, and all hats are off. A juggler enters upon the scene, and again the circle forms. There goes a procession of nuns, with their superior at their head, holding aloft a black cross. Near the palazzo madama stand a knot of Piedmontese peasants; old women, with WTinkles ploughed in deep furrows, and white caps wired up into a sort of tower, and loaded with an unmeasurable quantity of gay-col- oured ribands and artificial flowers; there are two very pretty young peasant-girls beside them, with a sort of gipsy hat, with low crowns and immense brims, and a bunch of flowers one side. Here are mendicant friars, with long beards, bare heads, gray cloaks tied with hempen cords, and sandals on their otherwise bare feet. The king appears on horseback, with officers attendant, and servants in scarlet livery, and again the ring breaks and all hats are doffed. Now, my dear C, this may be very tiresome to you, since I cannot make it vivid to your mental, as * There is a striking variety in the appearance and costume of the people of Turin. Sardinia, Savoy, and Genoa are included in the King of Piedmont's dominions. 22 TURIN. it is to my bodily eye ; but to me it seems as if the world had indeed turned into a stage, and the men and women into players, and actors of some poetic dream of my youth. And as I have set down just ■what I have seen, and nothing that I have not seen since I sat at this window, as it is not a festa-day, and not more than ten o'clock A.M., it may be cu- rious to you to compare life here with life in our working-day world. We have just returned from a drive. Turin pleas- es us. The streets are as regular as those of Phila- delphia; but here the resemblance ends, as these streets sometimes terminate in a long and superb avenue, and sometimes the perspective finishes with a church or a palace. The houses are regular, too, but twice as high as ours (don't count feet and inch- es against me), and built of a light stone. First we went to a new bridge over the Doria, a single arch, and reckoned the most beautiful bridge of its kind in the world. While the bridge w^as constructing, its stability was doubted, and there were clamorous predictions that when the scaffolding W'as removed it w^ould fall. When it was finished, the architect placed himself under the centre of the arch and or- dered the supports to be taken away — cross or crown — crown it proved ! We then went to the Church of the Consolata to see a famous silver stat- ue of the Virgin, made to commemorate her saving Turin from the cholera ! Most wretched beggars TURIN, 23 followed us to the church-door ; and when I con- trasted its silver shrine and gorgeous ornaments wuth their squalid poverty, I remembered the apos- tolic charity, " Silver and gold / have not, but such as I have give I unto you !" We drove through the new quarter of the town, where there are fine fresh rows of houses, and a most natural home-odour of brick and mortar. In short, we have been to see bridges, statues, church- es, a botanic garden, a museum of most rare Egyp- tian antiquities, a Pharaoh (huge enough to have eaten up the Israelites), an effigy which Champol- lion pronounced to be contemporary with Abram ! And we have been to the Palazzo raadama, where strangers are admitted, without fee, to a gallery of very fine paintings ; as it is the first we have seen, please give me due credit for not talking very learn- edly of Carlo Dolci's, Guido's, Murillo's, &c. V But we have seen something here that will prob- ably interest you more than all the pictures in Italy, Silvio Pellico. He lives near Turin as librarian to a certain marchesa. We wrote him a note, and asked the privilege of paying our respects to him, on the ground of being able to give him news of his friends, and our dear friends, the exiles, who were his companions at Spielberg. He came imme- diately to us. He is of low stature and sHghtly made, a sort of etching of a man, with delicate and symmetrical features, just enough body to gravitate and keep the spiiit from its natural upward flight — a more shadowy Dr. Channmg ! His manners have 24 TURIN." a sweetness, gentleness, and low tone that cor- respond Avell with his spiritual appearance. He was gratified with our good tidings of his friends, and much interested wuth our account of his god- child, Maroncelli's little Silvia. His parents have died within a year or two. " Dieu m'a fait la grace," he said, " de les revoir en sortant de la pris- on. Dieu fait tout pour notre mieux ; c'est cette conviction qui m'a soutenu et qui me soutient en- core."* In reply to his saying that he lived a life of retirement, and had few acquaintances in Turin, we told him that he had friends all over the w^orld. " That proves," he said, " that there are everywhere ' belles ames.' " His looks, his manner, his voice, and every word he spoke, were in harmony with his book, certainly one of the most remarkable produc- tions of our day. I have been very sorry to hear some of his coun- trymen speak distrustfully of Pellico, and express an opinion, a reluctant one, that he had sunken into willing subjection to political despotism and priestly craft. It is even said that he has joined the order of Jesuits. I do not believe this, nor have I heard any evidence adduced in support of it that tends to invalidate the proof of the incorruptibility of Pellico's soul contained in Le mie prigioni. He is a saint that cannot fall from grace. There seems to me no- thing in his present unqualified submission incora- * *' God granted me the mercy of seeing my parents when I came out of prison. God orders all for our best good. It is this conviction which has hitherto supported and still sustains me." TURIN. 25 patible with his former history and professions. His phase of the Christian character has always been that of suiferance. He is the gentle Melancthon, not the bold and valiant Luther 3 the loving John, not the fearless Paul. Francois is a Piedmontese, and has now returned to his country for the first time after pursuing suc- cessfully his courier career for six years. He went last evening to see his family, and carried them a handful of Geneva trinkets ; and this morning, after a whole night's vigil and revel with them, he brought his father and moth er to see us; she a buxom stepdame, wearing a cap covered with red ribands, and artificial flowers, and earrings, and a string of gold l^eads as big as Lima beans. Good gold, Frangois assures us they are, and that these ornaments are the most esteemed signs of the peasant's wealth, and are transmitted from generation to gen- eration. Happy should be the condition of the peas- ant in the rich spacious plains around us. Turin is at the foot of the Alps, w^atered by the Po and the Doria, and enriched with corn, the vine, and the mulberry. The Muscat grape grows here in the greatest perfection and abundance. It is most delicious, and so is the Asti wine made from it, which, we are told, is too delicate for transporta- tion. We find always, in a rich agricultural coun- try, as we have found here, excellent bread and butter. They make bread in a form which they Vol. IL— C 26 VERGE IL. call grisane, a sort of bread-canes or fagots. Bun- dles of them are placed at the head and foot of the table. The dwellers in the poor, cold valley of Lanslebourg bring all their wheaten bread from Chambery, not less than eighty miles, and we paid for our fare accordingly. We passed our first night after leaving Turin at Cigliano, a considerable place on a great route. To give you an idea of what an Italian inn is, which English travel has not yet remodelled, I will set down our breakfast service: tumblers for teacups, a tureen and ladle for boiled milk, and a pudding- dish for a slop-bowl ! We lunched at Verceil the second day, a place that I remember figures on the scene in Sismondi's Italian Republics, and which occupies half a page in our guide-book, setting forth churches, chapels, and pictures to be seen, and how Marius gained a victory under its walls, and how Nero built a temple here. To us it appeared a most disagreeable place ; and, if I built anything, it would be an altar with an ex voto representing our carriage driving out of it. We went to the market-place, w^hich was filled with ugly old women sitting behind stacks — Alps of apricots, pears, grapes, pomegranates, and most splendid peaches, but neither soft nor flavorous. I have eaten but one peach since I came to Europe that would be thought above par in New- York or Philadelphia ! The market-place in Verceil was filled with idle V E R C fi 1 1. 27 mfeh, who collected about us and stared so unmerci- fully at the girls that they clung to me, and I felt, for the first time in my life, rather Duenna-ish, and glad enough to get back to the hotel. Accustomed as we have been to the quiet ways of going on in Germany and Switzerland, where we felt as much freedom as in our own country, it is very annoying to be cut oif at once from the free use and enjoy- ment of our faculties. Young women cannot walk out here without a male attendant, or a woman pretty well stricken in years. Bacicia, who ordinarily is no dawdler, dawdled at the Verceil inn till we were out of patience. His delay was explained when we found the bridge which crosses the Sesia, a mile from the town, was impassable for the carriage ; there was a ferry-boat, but our way was obstructed by great numbers of carts and carriages, which had precedence of us. Bacicia knew it was market-day, and had foreseen this exigency, and calculated that we should be driven back to Verceil by the lateness of the hour, and thus he should gain twenty francs, and a day's rest for his horses. Franqois' imagination conjured up robbers pouring in with the fast-coming night from Turin, Milan, and Genoa, but our Yankee wit was not to be outwitted by our tricky voiturier, nor our resolution vanquished by a courier's staple alarms; so we seated ourselves on the bridge, and watched the progress of the miserable little boat, which occupied twenty-five minutes in loading, crossing, unloading, reloading, and recrossing. It had five passages to C2 28 JOURNEY TO MILAN. make before our turn came. We tried in vain to buy a precedence, which the poor market-people would gladly have sold us, but the superintending gens d'armes forbade this traffic. In the mean time, up drove a coach with post-horses, and went before us all. " Ah," said Francois, who was walking up and down in a brigand fever, " les gouvernments sont tous des voleurs !" The sun was just sinking as we got into our carriage, and we had yet fifteen miles to travel ; but the moon rose upon us, and, though Fran- cois once persuaded us to stop and look at some bed-rooms in a filthy inn, we came on to Navarro, our appointed sleeping-place, cheerfully and safely. The truth is, there is very little danger of meeting " gentlemen of the road" at the present time on the great routes of Italy. The governments are vigilant, and their licensed robbers are too strong for volun- teer companies. Poor Francois' fears were genuine and inherited. His mother actually died of the con- sequences of fright from an attack of highwaymen a , few days before his birth. We crossed the Ticino, ten miles from Navarro, on a massive granite-bridge, and there entered the Lombardo-Venitian kingdom, and at the little town of BufFalero our carriage was taken possession of by Austrian soldiers, ready to do the courteous hon- ours of welcome which their imperial master ap- points to strangers. As we were not Quixotic enough to attempt to reform the code of national JOURNEY TO MILAN. 29 morals, we directed Francois to pay the customary- fee to save our imperials from a ransacking, and to get the necessary certificate that they were filled with honest gowns, skirts, &c. What a disgrace to civilized Europe are these annoying delays and pet- ty robberies !* Thank Heaven, we have passed our lives exempt from them, as we are often reminded by Fran9ois' exclamation, " Que votre pays est heu- reux ; ah, c'est le pays de la jolie liberte" (" Yours is a happy country ; the country of liberty !") The country between Turin and Milan is fertile beyond description. You have often heard, my dear C, of the rich plains of Lombardy, watered by rivers and intersected with canals ; but you can hardly imagine the perfection of its husbandry. The corn is now six — eight inches high, and the ground as green as ours in June, and we have reached, re- member, the twenty-sixth of October ! The road is bordered with mulberry -trees. The country is too level for picturesque beauty, and it has not the hio^hest charm of aoricultural life. There are no signs of rural cheerfulness; no look of habitancy. The cultivators live in compact, dirty little villa- ges. The very few country-houses are surrounded with high walls, with their lower ^vindows grated ; * The Italians suffer more from police regulations than strangers. A Milanese lady, whose husband has a large patrimonial estate in Piedmont, told me they had given up going to it on account of the indignities she was obliged to suffer at Buffalero, the frontier, where a room and female officers are appointed to undress and search Ital- ian ladies. The travel in our country would be somewhat diminish- ed if we had such regulations on the fiontiers of Pennsylvania and New- York, or Massachusetts. C2 30 MILAN. even the barn windows have this jail-like provision. What a state of morals and government does this suggest ! what a contrast to rural life in England ! what comparisons to the condition of things in our little village of S., where a certain friend of ours fastens her outer-door with a carving-knife, leaving all her plate unlocked in a pantry hard by, and only puts in a second knife when she hears that a thief has been marauding some fifty miles off. " Oh, pays heureux !" Fran9ois mav well exclaim, and we repeat. Milan, 27. — Thanks to all our friends, dear C, for the half bushel of letters we have received here after a month's fasting, and five days less than a month old ! Francois brought us from the postoffice forty francs worth — forty ! forty thousand. We may shrink from other expenses, but letters are an indispensable luxury — at this distance from you all, a necessary of life. What a pleasant even- ing's reading we had, here a tear dropping, and there a laugh bursting forth. Home-voices rung in our ears, home-faces smiled ; we were at S. and L. ; and I think I shall never forget the shock and con- fusion in our ideas when the door opened for an in- quiry about the " lampa di notfeJ' We were disen- chanted ; the hills and valleys of Berkshire vanished, and here we were at the Hotel de Ville, in a lofty apartment, with painted ceilings, pictures of Vesu- vius, and a plaster-stove surmounted with a statue I MILAN. 31 Yes, dear C, we are in Milan, once the illustrious capital of Cisalpine Gaul, and still more illustrious as the metropolis of Lombardy and queen of the northern Italian republics in the glorious days of their successful struggles against the Frederics and the Henrys of Germany ; and, as Ave think with our Democratic principles, yet more glorious for the re- sistance of the people to the nobles.* Images of ecclesiastical pomp and power, of military occu- pancy, and processions ; of the exit and return of the Caroccio — the Lombard Ark of the Covenant — of art, industry, and riches, throng upon us. But, as you know, dear C, it is nothing so far gone and im- personal as its history, that makes Milan the sacred shrine it is in our pilgrimage. Here is the memory of our friends. This was the scene of their high aspirations and their keen disappointments, perhaps of their keenest suffering. Here they sowed in tears what I trust those who come after them will reap in joy. t * The rising of the people of Milan in the eleventh century upon the nobles, and the deadly war they made upon them in their fortified castles within the walls of the city, till they drove them forth in or- der to revenge the insult done to one of their body whom a noble struck with his cane in midday in the open street, is an evidence of the spirit of equal rights hardly surpassed in our Democratic age. t The persons here alluded to are the Italian gentlemen concerned in the affair of 1821, at the head of whom stood the distinguished Milanese, Count Confalioneri, styled by Sir James Mackintosh " Italy's noblest son." These gentlemen, after seventeen years im- prisonment and the horrors of Spielberg (which have been partially exposed by Pellico, Maroncelli, and Andreani), were exiled to Amer- ica, where circumstances threw them into intimate intercourse with my family. I could wish that those who ignorantly think lightly \y 32 MILAN. We have been disappointed to find that most of the persons to whom our letters are addressed are still at their villas. We have sent them, however, notwithstanding we hear that an American gentle- man who brought a letter from one of our exile- friends, was ordered by the police to leave Milan within twelve hours. A caravan consisting of one invaUd gentleman and five obscure womankind can scarcely awaken the jealousy even of an Austrian police. The friends of our friends have come in from their country residences to honour the letters addressed to them, and have received us with unmeasured cordi- ality. It is cold, Novemberish, and raining, as it has been for the last ten days ; but, in spite of it, we have had a very agreeable drive about the city with the brothers C — a. The streets are labyrinthian, and are just now looking dull and dingy enough. The gay people have not yet returned from their summer retreats, and of the 140,000 inhabitants of Milan we see only bourgeois, soldiers, priests, and women in and speak disparagingly of "Italians" could know these men, who have resisted and overcome seventeen years of trials and tempt- ations such as human nature has rarely been subjected to. We honour our fathers for the few years of difficulty through which they struggled ; and can we refuse our homage to these men, who sacrificed everything, and forever, that man holds most dear, to the sacred cause of freedom and truth? and, let me ask, what should we in reason infer of the nation whence they came 1 surely that thete are mariy ready " tOjgo.and do. likewise." MILAN. 33 veils (instead of bonnets) pattering to mass. The streets are paved with small round stones, with a double wheel -track of granite brought from the shores of Maggiore and Como, the blocks so nicely joined that the wheels roll as smoothly and almost as rapidly as over rails, and they are so granulated that there is no danger of the horse slipping. The houses are large ; you might turn half a dozen of ours into one of them ; and the palaces magnificent, as you may imagine from our mistaking La Casa Saporetti for La Scala, which we had been forewarn- ed was the largest opera-house in Europe. We drove to the Arch of Peace, the fit termination for his Simplon road, and adornment of his Cisalpine republic, projected by Napoleon, but not finished till within the last few months. The work was begun in 1807, and the first artists were employed on statues and bas-reliefs intended to illustrate the most brilliant events of Napoleon's life. When the "work was finished his power and life had ended; and art, too often the passive slave of tyrants, was compelled to sacrifice truth and beauty, to desecrate its own Vv^ork, by cutting off Napoleon's head (that noble head made to be eternized in marble), and substituting in its place the imbecile head and mean features of the Emperor Francis. And poor Joseph- ine, who had no tendencies to such an apotheosis, is transformed into the cold Goddess of Wisdom, and wears Minerva's casque. Illustrations of Napoleon's victories, and the great political eras of his life, are made sometimes, by the mere substitution of names, 34 MILAN. to stand for epochs in Austrian history, with what veri-similitude you may imagine. Where this spe- cies of travesty was impossible, new blocks of marble have been substituted, which may be detected by the difference of shade. The structure is seventy-five feet in height and seventy-three feet in breadth. The columns, which are extremely beautiful, are thir- ty-eight and a half feet high. The arch is sur- mounted by a figure of Victory with four horses at-, tached to a car in full career. The details are elab- orate and highly finished, and the whole gave me some idea of what Italy must have been in the days of the Romans, when their monuments were fresh and unimpaired, and of the dazzling whiteness of this. In entering the city from the Simplon road through this arch, you come upon a very noble flace [piazza d^armi), where the soldiers are exercised. We crossed this to an amphitheatre built by Napoleon, and first opened for a fete after the peace of Tilsit. It was designed for feats of arms and equestrian ex- ercises. It is of an elliptical form, and surrounded by tiers of seats, where 30,000 people may be seat- ed — they are nov/ grass-grown ! We next visited the Brera, formerly a college of the Jesuits, but now secularized and liberalized by a consecration to the arts and sciences. We did not take any portion of our brief time to walk through the library and look at the outsides of the 100,000 volumes there. Once up the staircase where, on the landing-places, are the statues of Parini, Monti, and MILAN. 35 Beccaria, we spent all our time in the gallery enjoy- ing its priceless pictures. I first sought out Guerci- no's " sending away Hagar," and, once found, it is difficult to leave it. The colouring and composi- tion is, as it should always be, made subservient to the moral effect — the outer reveals the inner man. In Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, the head of the chosen people, you see the patriot triumphing over the father and lover ; Hagar, with her face steeped in tears, is the loving girl urging the claim of true and tender passion against what seems to her an in- credible sentence ; Sara is the very personification of " legal rights ;" and the poor little boy, burying his face in his mother's gown, is the ruined favourite. We were shown in an obscure apartment a su- perb bronze statue of Napoleon by Canova ; a grand work, but strangely failing in resemblance. Till within two years, the Austrians have kept it hidden in a cellar — buried alive. One cannot but smile at their terror at Napoleon's mere effigy. As we were passing through one of the rooms, C. C — a pointed to the bust of the Emperor Francis with an inscription, in which he is called " our fa- ther." " Our father ,'" he repeated ; " Gaetano's and mine !" His emphasis recalled their reasons for a filial sentiment, C. having been imprisoned by the " good Francis" three years, and his brother seventeen ! While we were driving, the gentlemen pointed out to us the cannon, kept always loaded, guarded, and pointed against the town — against the homes of its citizens ! 36 M I L A N. We saw in the refectory of the old monastery of S. Marie delle Grazie one of the world's wonders, Leonardo da Vinci's " Last Supper," painted on the wall, and now in parts so faded as to be nearly ob- literated. Time and the elements have not been its worst enemies. The wall was whitewashed, and a door cut through it by a decree of the chapter, that the monks might have their dinner served hot from the adjoining kitchen. To complete the desecration, the door was cut through the figure of our Saviour. Would it not be a Uantesque punishment for these brutish epicures to be condemned to a purgatorio where* they should forever enact " wall and moon- shine,'^ and eat only cold dinners ? Leonardo, like other people who have too many irons in the fire (for he was painter, sculptor, archi- tect, and author), let some of them grow cold; he w^as so long about this picture that the Prior of the convent reproached him bitterly, and he took his re- venge by making Judas' head a fac-simile of the Prior's. Vasari has recorded Leonardo's reply to the Prior's complaint, which strikes us as rather bold, considering the relative position of the parties. " O se forse nol troverb, io vi porro quello di questo padre Priore che ora me si molesta, che maraviglio- samente gli se confara" (" Or if, perchance, I do not find it (the face of Judas), I will put in that of the Father Prior who is tormenting me ; it will suit wonderfully well !"*) The engravings of this pic- * The painter may inflict a severer punishment by putting on a head than the executioner by taking one off. Who can ever forget M I L A N. 37 ture give you a better idea of most of the heads than the original now does, and of the movement of the disciples when that declaration struck on their hearts : " Behold, the hand of hirn that betray- eth me is with me on the table !" but no copy that I have seen has approached this face of Jesus, so holy, calm, and beautiful ; it is " God manifest in the flesh ;" you are ready to exclaim with Peter, "though I die with thee, yet will I never betray thee !" And yet it is said the painter left it unfinished, alleging that he could never express his conceptions of the character of Jesus ! By way of a divertimento nazionale, we have just had two men in our drawing-room exhibitino- a cru- cifix which their grandfather cut out of wood fifty years ago ; he must have been, I fancy, fifty years cutting it. There are 2000 figures on it, and an infinity of ornamental details illustrating the history of Christ. " You don't believe a word of that story of the crucifixion I" said Frangois aside to me. This is an unbelieving Catholic's notion of a Prot- estant's faith. When the men, to exalt our ideas of the privilege we were enjoying, said we were the first to whom the thing had been shown, Francois whispered, " They have been showing it these five years ; the Italians are all liars I" Belief or unbe- lief in God and man go together. the '« man of sin" (Pope Urban VIII.) whom Guide's Archangel Mi- chael is transfixing with his spear ? Vol. II.— D 38 MILAN. Madame S. has been to see us. She is a fra- gile-looking little creature, and, though now a grand- mother, as shy as a timid girl of thirteen. There is a tender solemnity in her voice and manner that constantly reminded me of Spielberg and of ^ C — a, though she spoke little of him, and when she did, turned away her face to hide an emotion perceptible enough in the pressure of her delicate little hand, which is not very much bigger or stronger than a canary's claw. I wish those who confound all Italian women in one condemnation could know as we know the character of this good wife, devoted mother, and martyr-sister. We went last evening, escorted by J. C — a, to La Scala. It is built, as are the other nine theatres of Milan, on the ruins of a church. Gens d'armes, tall, muscular young men, were sta- tioned at the entrance of the house, at the foot of the stairs, on the landing-places, and in the lobbies, look- ing, with their swords and high furred caps, rather frightful to us, who have a sort of hydrophobic dread of an Austrian police. J. C — a took us up four flights of stairs, to " I'ordre cinquieme," that we might have a coup d'oeil of the whole theatre. This fifth row bears no resemblance to our galleries or to those of the English theatres. The box we entered was one of several called "loges de societe." They are fitted up as saloons for clubs of gentlemen, with MILAN. 39 carpets, tables, and sofas, and are well lighted. The effect of the theatre from this height is, or would be, magnificent when they have an " illuminazione a giorni" (a daylight illumination). Ordinarily the blaze of light is reserved for the stage ; the audi- ence is in comparative obscurity, and, consequently, though La Scala is perhaps twice as large as the opera-house in London, its effect is by no means so brilliant as that where the light is diffused and re- flected by richly-dressed people. Here we could only imperfectly discern, now a matron's cap, and then a young lady's coeffure, as they peeped from behind the silk curtains of their boxes. The six rows of boxes are curtained with light silk border- ed with crimson. The front box is the emperor's. It occupies both the second and third rows, and is as large as a small drawing-room, and is, of course, royally fitted up with damask hangings, and has a gilded crown suspended over it. The theatre is the great rendezvous of Milanese society. The la- dies receive in their boxes instead of at home, and, being constructed with reference to this custom, they are deep and narrow. Not more than two persons can occupy a front seat. Between the seats in the pit and the front boxes there is a wide space left for the gentlemen to promenade. The music is a secondary object, holding the same place it does in a drawing-room. A favourite air or a favourite performer arrests attention for a few moments, but, as far as I have observed, even the musical Italian is not exempt from the common in- 40 MILAN. firmity of preferring the sound of his own voice to another's, though his be not attuned to heavenly harmony. There was the abashing effrontery in staring which, "when occurring in the street, I have imputed to it be- ing rather a phenomenon to see young ladies walk- ing about as our girls do. But the gaze of men lounging before our box, and sometimes planting their eyeglasses and reconnoitring for the space of two or three minutes, compared with the respect with which our women at home are treated, indicates rather strongly their relative position in the two countries. After having heard Grisi, Persiana, Rubini, La Blache, &C.5 the singing here was no great affair. The Italians can no longer afford to pay their best singers. The presence of art and the result of study are striking in the stage-management. The opera, with all its accessories, is the study of this nation, as " finlancial systems" are the study of England and the United States. During the ballet, which, by-the-way, is interject- ed betw^een the acts of the opera, much to the dis- turbance of its effect, there was a corps of between forty and fifty dancing-girls on the stage at the same moment, not perceptibly varying in height. These children are trained for the ballet at a school supported by the government — for the ballet, and for what besides ? This should be a fearful question to those who must answer it. It would, I should hope, cure our people's mad enthusiasm for opera- MILAN. 41 dancers to witness the exhibition of these poor young things. I felt sorry for our dear girls, and mortified for myself, that we were present at such ob- scenity. I cannot call it by a more compromising name. There were 500 persons on the stage at one time, among them 200 soldiers belonging to the Austrian army. The emperor pays a large sum annually to support the opera at La Scala, considering it an ef- ficient instrument for tranquiUizing the political pulse of Italy. No wonder that sirens must be employed to sing lullabies to those who have a master's canon pointed at their homes. Among other proofs which the emperor has that the love of freedom (that Di- vine and inextinguishable essence) is at work in the hearts of the Milanese, is the fact that no Italian lady receives an Austrian officer in her box with im- punity. It matters not what rank he holds ; if she receives him she is put into Coventry by her coun- trymen. Is there not hope of a people who, while their chains are clanking, dare thus openly to dis- dain their masters 7* * It is true, we see no rational prospect of freedom for Italy. Overshadowed as it is by Austrian despotism, and overpowered by the presence of her immense mihtary force, and, what is still worse, broken into small and hostile states without one federative principle or feeling. But we cannot despair of a people who, like the Milanese, show that they have inherited the spirit of their fathers ; a spirit so heroically expressed in the twelfth century, when Frederic had sep- arated their allies from them, ravaged their territory, exhausted their treasure, and killed off their bravest soldiers. " We are feeble, for- saken, and crushed," they said ; " be it so : it does not belong to us to vanquish fortune, but to our country we devote our remaining pos- sessions, the strength still left in our arms, and the blood yet boiling D2 42 MILAN. The two counts, the brothers C — i, have just been to see us, and expressed their eagerness to honour Confalonieri's letter. The elder C. is Podesta of the city, an office that has fallen from its original poten- tiality to a mere mayoralty ; but still, as its gift is a proof of Austrian favour, its incumbent will proba- bly be discreetly shy of the friends of the exiles. But, apart from this policy, we have little reason to expect hospitality. The Italians have no fellowship with the English, and into that category we fall. The habits and modes of society in the two countries are so different that there can be but little pleasure in their social intercourse. The English gentleman in England invites his Italian acquaintance to his home ; he comes here, and is offered the entree of the Italian's loge. He is offended and cold, and there their intercourse ends. After the gentlemen left us, R. asked K., who had been talking with C — i, " how she liked him." " Very much : he is not only aware that rice does not grow in New-England, and that the Ohio does not empty into the Atlantic, but he seems as familiar with the topography of our coun- try as if he had lived there." The count is a man of the world, and understands the most delicate mode of flattery. in our veins. They were given to us to resist despotism, and, before submitting, we will wait, not till the hope of conquering is lost— that it has long been — but till no means of resistance remain 1" — Histmre des Republiques Italiennes. Is there a nobler declaration of a love of freedom on record than this l MILAN. 43 JSTov, 4.— -This is the greatest of all Milan's fete- days— the fete of San Carlo Borromeo. The cere- monies were in the Duomo, and the Podesta obtain- ed us places in a " correto," one of the little galler- ies sometimes used, I believe, for the display of rel- ics : and, to crown all, we had the advantage of Count C.'s escort. The Duomo, which, you know, is the great Ca- thedral of Milan, and esteemed the second church in Italy, strikes a Protestant stranger at this time as a temple consecrated to St. Charles as its divinity. Illustrations of his life, for the most part indifferent- ly painted, are hanging between its hundred and sixty marble columns. Directly under the dome, in the crypt, there is a chapel, where the saint's mortal remains, decorated with rich jewels, are preserved in a crystal sarcophagus overlaid wath silver, with- out (as I am told) having undergone any very fright- ful change. I did not look within. I do not hke to see the image of God mummied. The altar of this little chapel, in w'hich silver lamps are always burning, is of solid silver. The w^alls are hung with tapestry of crimson and gold, woven in Milan, which cost thirteen pound sterling the braccio (less than three quarters of a yard). Eight bas-reliefs in pure silver, depicting the most striking events in the saint's life, cover panels of the wall ; and at each angle is a statue of pure silver. One of the bas- reliefs represents the saint distributing to the poor twenty thousand pounds, the avails of an estate 44 MIL A N. "which he sold to relieve them in a time of extra- ordinary distress. Query, how would he approve the w^ealth in mort-main in his chapel 1 I have been thus particular, my dear C, to show you how the generous gratitude of the pious has been wast- ed and perverted by priestly ignorance and su- perstition. This chapel is no just memorial of St. Charles. His records are scattered over the Milan- ese territory, in wise and merciful institutions; so you may turn your denunciation of Catholic abuses into the wholesome channel of veneration for Chris- tian virtues in Catholic form. St. Charles deserves everything short of the Divine honours rendered to him. He was made archbishop and cardinal in his twenty-third year. He lived with the simplicity of Fenelon, subsisting on vegetables, sleeping on a straw-bed, and dispensing in private with the at- tendance of servants. He visited the obscurest vil- lages of his diocese, and penetrated even into the re- cesses of the Alps. He reformed the monastic estab- lishments and instituted parochial schools. He was the originator of Sunday-schools. We saw a large collection of boys and girls in the Duomo, taught by priests and laymen, and learned this school was instituted by St. Charles. We saw the peasants flock- ing to their parish church on Sunday, and were told they were going to the instruction provided by St. Charles I He founded schools, colleges, hospitals, and a lazaretto. In every town in which he resided he left a memorial of his enlightened generosity, a college, an hospital, or a fountain. There are ten MILAN. 45 hospitals and five colleges of his founding, and fountains without number. He poured out gifts of gold like water, and, better than this, he submitted his expenditure to a rigid scrutiny. After hearing all this, you would not stint the homage rendered to him, though you might wish to modify its form. I must confess that, to a Protestant Puritan, dis- daining forms and symbols, and disabused of the mysteries of the Church, the ceremonies appear like a theatrical pageant. On the high altar there were statues in massive silver of St. Charles and of St. Ambrose, the patron-saint of Milan, and, filling the interval between them, busts with mitred heads, also of silver. The treasure of the church was arranged against a crimson hanging, much as dishes are arranged on a dresser. On one side sat the archbishop on a throne with a golden mitre, and in magnificent robes. Within the choir opposite to us sat the civic rep- resentatives of the city, the Podesta at their head, before a table covered with a rich cloth, on which were emblazoned the armorial bearings of Milan in her happier — her free days ! The choir was filled with bishops, priests, and canons. Directly beneath us stood, with fixed bayonets and helmet-like caps, a line of gardes de feu. The nave was nearly filled with people of all conditions ; and what a multitude there might be without a crowd, you may imagine from the Cathedral being 449 Paris feet in length and 275 in breadth. If it were possible for me to describe the ceremo- 46 MILAN. nies, it would be most tiresome to you. There was chanting and music, good and bad, as lively as a merry dance and as solemn as a dirge. There was a consecration of the host and burning of incense, and a kneeling of the vast multitude. There was much mummery of the priests. The archbishop was disrobed ; and, as he laid aside each consecrated ar- ticle of his apparel, he kissed it. A kneeling priest presented him a golden ewer, and he washed his hands. There was a procession of priests, and hom- age rendered by the civic representatives, and a be- stowal of peace by the archbishop, transmitted by the priests in a manner which the girls likened to the elegant diversion of our childhood, " Hold fast what I give you." The whole concluded with a discourse on the merits of St. Charles, in the midst of which we came away with the feeling that w^e had been witnessing a sort of melo-drama. But I rather think this feeling was quite as far from Christian as the ceremonies we contemned. Time and use have consecrated them to the pious Cath- olic. To him, each observation of this to us empty and inexpressive show imbodies some pious thought or holy memory. And, encumbered as the Catholic faith is, and perverted as it assuredly is from the original simplicity of the Gospel, it has, we know, its living saints, and many a worshipper, I trust, who, in spite of all these clouds and darkness, - worships in spirit and in truth. MILAN. 47 Count C — i came again to-day to lionize us, and we went forth in spite of the rain, for we have not time to wait till the waters " abate from the face of the earth." Will you not like, my dear C, to hear something of the charitable institutions of Milan, and to know that this work of Christian love is well done here ? We drove first to the institution for female or- phans. This was founded in the fifteenth century by one of the Borromeo family, a cousin of St. Charles. The building is spacious, built, as I be- lieve all the large habitations are here, around a court, and with broad porticoes on the four sides, where the girls can have plenty of free exercise when the bad weather keeps them from their gar- den. Their garden is even now, on the heels of winter, beautiful ; the grapes still in leaf, roses in bloom, and the foliage not more faded than ours is towards the last of September. The establishment is well endowed. The girls are received from the age of seven to ten, and retained till they are eigh- teen. They are instructed in reading, writing, ci- phering, composition, and in female handicraft. They excel in embroidery. We saw most delicate work in progress for royal trousseaux. When the girls leave the institution, if they are not so fortunate as to get husbands at once — not a rare occurrence, the matron told us — they are placed as domestics or in shops. We saw them in theii long work-room, with the picture of the Virgin Mary at one end of it 48 MILAN. (that holiest image of love to a Catholic eye), ranged on each side of the table, with their work-baskets, cushions, and the implements of their art in the neatest order; some were making garments, the most accomplished embroidering, and the youngest at plain sewing or knitting. There is a little pulpit half way up the room, from which one of the girls reads prayers daily, and occasionally a book of de- votion. Secular books are not permitted. The dormitories are spacious apartments, lofty and well ventilated, and as tidily arranged as our neigh- bours the Shaking Quakers', and with rather more to feed the imagination. Beside each single bed, spread with a pure white Marseilles cover, there hangs the picture of a saint, som.etimes a crucifix, and always a rosary ; and about the walls are pictures of those good old men and pious women that constitute the world of the pious Catholic; and for each com- pagnia (or class) there is an altar, with all proper appurtenances thereunto belonging, where prayers are said night and morning. We went into the chapel, the kitchen, and the distilling-room, where several girls were busily em- ployed ; and finally into the dining-room, just as the bell was ringing for dinner. The girls came trooping in in orderly files — beautiful girls they were ■ — and each, as she passed, saluted us with a grace- ful bow and a sweet smile. I wish teaching could give such manners, and our stiff-jointed girls could be taught them ! The table was neatly spread, with a napkin at each plate. The soup was excellent, MILAN. 49 as I proved by taking a spoon from one of the lit- tle things and tasting it, at which she looked up so pleased that you would certainly have kissed the blooming round cheek she willingly turned to me — and so did I. Besides the soup there was a small portion of meat, potatoes, excellent bread, and white and red wine. Their supper consists of bread, sal- ad, and fruit. On the whole, I came to the conclu- sion that the orphan's Providence in Milan is better than father and mother. Our conductress, who looked very like a respect- able New-England countrywoman, gave me a bou- quet at parting ; and, as we got into the carriage, our most elegant of cavaliers took off his hat and bow- ed to her with as deferential a courtesy as if she had been a royal princess. Our next visit was to an infant-school of one hun- dred and fifty children, under six years of age, of which Count C — i is director. This is one of seven infant-schools in Milan, all supported by private charities. The children, boys and girls, were dress- ed alike in blouses of a stout cotton plaid. They were eating a good soup when we entered, all ex- cept one little transgressor, who stood in a corner of the room, condemned to expiate some sin in this purgatory. He attracted C.'s compassion, and his superb figure bending over him was a picture. The little penitent was, of course, soon transferred to a hungry boy's paradise — the dinner-table After chanting an after-dinner grace, they tramped into an adjoining room, where they went through a drill Vol. II.— E 50 M I L A N. for our edification, showing themselves as well in- structed as the young savans of similar institutions in our New-England Athens. They finished with a catechism somewhat differ- ing from ours. " Where is Paradise ?" asked their teacher. " In the invisible heaven." " Why invis- ible ?" To which, while I was expectmg in re- sponse some metaphysical enigma, the boy replied, " Perche se vede nb" (" Because it is not seen"). " What did you become by baptism 1" asked the teacher. " A Christian." " Are you all Christians 1" They replied, in chorus, " Noi siamo tutti Cristiani, per la grazia di Dio !" (" We are all Christians by the grace of God"). Poor little fellows! May they learn by experience what the glorious posses- sion is, signified by the name which alone the rite of baptism can give. We awoke this morning to a bright day, the first unclouded one we have had for weeks — and this is " bella Italia !" The girls were enchanted, as girls may be, with sallying forth in their new bonnets and fair-weather dresses. C.'s carriage was at our hotel at an early hour (for this was to be a busy day), and off we drove to the hospital, an institution founded in 1456 by Francesco Sforza, fourth Duke of Milan. He gave his palace, a curious antique it is, now, how- ever, forming but a small portion of the pile of build- ings. Successive donations have enriched the institu- tion, till its income amounts to two hundred and fifty MILAN. 51 thousand dollars. There is provision for two thou- sand two hundred and forty persons, and during the past summer the hospital has been full. Supported by this foundation, but without the town, there is an insane hospital, a lying-in hospital, and a foundling hospital, where there are now nine thousand children ! And, besides this, charities are distributed to individuals throughout the Milanese territory, in cases where it is considered inexpedient to remove them to the hospital. There is a fine bathing establishment. Some baths are appropriated exclusively to patients af- flicted with a fever peculiar to Lombardy, resem- bling leprosy, for which the warm bath is the only known remedy. There are plenty of diseases, I fancy, prevailing among the poor in Italy, for which the warm bath and plenty of soap would be a cure. After going through the repositories for clothes, the galleries and courts for exercise, the laboratory, the kitchen (where immense quantities of wholesome food were in preparation), I said to C — i, " The peasants must be very glad to have a good reason for coming here." " On the contrary," he said, " they are unwilling to leave their homes, and never come till forced by misery." Truly He who " set the solitary in families" knew the elements of the affections He had given and for which He was pro- viding. We passed through some of the apartments where were great congregations of the sick, each surround- 52 MILAN. ed with suffering, and yet in what was to him com- plete solitude. No wonder man everywhere clings to the wretchedest home where he can feel a moth- er's hand, meet the eye of a wife or sister, hear the voices of his children, and see some mute objects that touch the springs of memory and hope ! I suppose this is much like other hospitals. I never was in one before, and the scene haunts me — those haggard faces of vacancy, or of weakness and misery. A few were reading religious books, one man was confessing to his priest, and a conva- lescent was recei\ing instruction from a layman, one of a society of men and women who devote them- selves to the ignorant poor. A screen was drawn around one bed, to hide the unconscious tenant from whom the world was forever hidden. In the " Archivia" we were shown Sforza's origi- nal deed of gift, with his autograph ; and, what pleased me much more, a deed of gift from my fa- vourite St. Charles, with his autograph. This slight record of our superficial observation of the charita- ble institutions of Milan will convince you that Italy is not merely the mass of vice, beggary, and impotence it is so often represented, but that there are yet left more than the ten righteous to save the cities. On leaving the hospital a change came " o'er the spirit of our dream." C — i said the day was made to see the view from the spire of the Duomo ; so we MILAN. 53 "Went there, and wound up the ahnost interminable but convenient staircase to the lower roof. This Cathedral is of white marble, that is, original- ly white ; but as it was begun in the fourteenth cen- tury, a great part is discoloured, nearly blackened. It, however, contrasts w^ell with the glittering white- ness of that portion finished in the time of Napoleon. It is a history in stone, going far back into the dim ages. I am always on the verge of a description of these bewitching cathedrals, in spite of my resolution against it. But I ca?i give none, and therefore mere- ly tell you that the edifice is supported by fifty-two marble columns ; that three of its sides are covered with bas-reliefs, with single figures and groups of figures ; that there are more than 3000 statues on it ; that there are 100 spires running up into points call- ed needles, each surmounted with a statue, and in the centre, and rising above all, a marble gilt statue of the Virgin crowned Queen of Heaven. You have no conception of the prodigality of its adorn- ments till you are on the roof, and pass from marble terrace to terrace, up one flight of marble stairs and another, and another, and through labyrinths of gal- leries, and groups of statues of old monks, pilgrims, saints, cherubs, and children; every angle, every little niche filled with them ; and see, far above you, those hundred figures on their airy pinnacles, look- ing as if they were native to the element they are in, and might move upon it. You may, perhaps, have some idea of the extent of this intricate maze of art and beauty when I tell you that persons have wan- E2 54 MILAN. dered about here for hours, lost, and unable to find a clew to the place where they entered. If Gibbon, who was not addicted to pious reflec- tions, exclaimed after his elaborate description of St. Sophia, " How dull is the artifice, how small the la- bour, compared with the formation of the vilest in- sect that creeps upon the surface of the temple!" what, think you, must have been our sensations when, having passed every obstruction to our sight, we raised our eyes from this gorgeous edifice to a temple not built with man's hands — to God's most beautiful work on earth, to the Alps, bounding one third of a horizon of magnificent extent, every point defined, every outline marked on the clear atmo- sphere — to Monte Rosa, sitting a Queen of Beauty on her high throne, shining like the angel in the Apocalypse, whom the rapt apostle saw standing in the sun. We were in danger of forgetting our hu- manity, but our sight was overpowered, our field of vision contracted to the rich plains of Lombardy, then to the city under us, to the piazza del duomo, and to those detestable loaded and primed Austrian canon, and we became quite conscious that this was not the best of all possible worlds ! After winding up the staircase within the central and loftiest spire, we reached a point from which our first resting-place seemed hardly removed from the ground. We came down to the marble wilderness again, and w^andered for an hour over it. Once C — i paused, and, placing his hand on a balustrade, said, "Do you like tragedies?' Young people always MILAN. 55 do, and ours looking like the eager listeners they were, he proceeded : " Two years ago there was a Milanese passionately attached to a young married woman of our city, whose husband became jealous, and fearful to the lovers. In their mad passion and despair they agreed to meet here and throw them- selves off. Both were true to the appointment, but when the woman saw before her the terrible death to which she had consented, her nerves were not strong enough, and she tried to escape from her lover. His resolve, however, was unshaken ; for an hour he pursued, she flying through these galleries, over the terraces, running up these long staircases and gliding down, now hiding, now darting out again ; but finally he caught her, dragged her here, and,-while she was shrieking, clasped her in his arms and leap- ed from this balustrade — look down, and you may imagine the horrors of the death." We looked down at the jutting points that interrupted the descent to the pavement, and all turned away silent and shuddering. We found Madame T. at our hotel, full of cor- diality, animation, and kindness. She had come in from her villa at Desio to keep her appointment with us. She first took us to her town-house, which has recently undergone a remodelling and refurnish- ing, and a most luxurious establishment it is. The per- fection of Parisian taste, the masterly workmanship of England, and the beautiful art of her own country, have all been made subservient to wealth almost un- 56 MILAN. limited. It seemed to me like the realization of an Arabian tale. I have seen luxurious furniture else- where, but nothing, not even at Windsor Castle, so beautiful as Madame T.'s painted ceilings, her mo- saic floors, and a window painted by Palaggio, in the exquisite colours which modern art has revived, illustrating Ivanhoe. How Scott has chained the arts to his triumphal car ! There was a screen, too, exquisitely painted by the same artist. We went through the whole suite of apartments, dining-room, coffee-room, drawing-room, music-room, billiard- room, &c., Madame T. pointing out the details to us with the undisguised naive pleasure of a child. " Je vous assure," she said, " que lorsqu'il y a les rideaux en velours et satin blanc avec les derriere-rideaux en tulle brode, c'a fait un bel effet."* An English or American woman would have affected some little reserve ; the frankness of the Italian lady was bet- ter. When we expressed our admiration, Madame T. said, " This is all very well, but you must see the Countess S.'s house. It is far superior to mine."f * " I assure you, that when the curtains of velvet and w^hite satin, with the under-curtains of embroidered Tulle, are up, the et!ect is beautiful." t We were afterward shown the Countess S.'s apartments. The furniture was most luxurious, and there were beautiful sculpture and painting, but the house was not in as good taste as Madame T.'s, nor more magnificent. I was attracted by a striking, fierce- looking portrait, and asked an Italian gentleman with us if that was the countess's husband. " Oh, no," he replied; " she has not lived •with her husband for some years. This is the picture of an opera- singer, a favourite of the countess ; she has no children, I believe," he added, appealing to our cicerone. "I beg your pardon," replied the man, coolly, " she has one, not quite a year old." I afterward learned this woman had a notoriety that rivalled Catharine's of Rus- M I L A N. 57 Madame T. accompanied us to the studii of Hayez and Palaggio, the two most celebrated painters of ^ Northern Italy. An Italian studio is always inter- esting, enriched as it is with the models, drawings, &c., &c., that are the studies of the artist. Palaggio is an architect and antiquarian as well as painter, and spends whatever he acquires (which is no trifle) upon some treasure or curiosity of art. so that his rooms looked more like a museum than a studio. I might bore you with a description of some things that we saw here, but that my mind was too preoc- cupied to observe Palaggio's paintings, or even to heed his friend Madame T.'s enthusiastic praises of them. In coming here, she had pointed out to us Confalonieri's house, the suite of apartments occu- pied by his angelic countess, and the cupola through which he attempted to escape when he was seized by the Austrian police. All this produced too vivid an impression of our friend's sufferings to allow any pleasant sensations immediately to succeed it. You will be glad to hear that Count C — i has been the faithful steward of Confalonieri, as Madame T. ex- pressed it, " La vraie Providence." R. and the girls passed the evening in the Podesta's loge at the opera. sia ; and yet that, whenever these superb rooms were thrown open, they were filled with the noblest society in Milan. " Mais que voii- lez vous V said a Milanese gentleman to a young English lady who had dechned the countess's invitation ; " elle est une femme char- mante — parfaitement bien elevee !" Backwoods barbarisms are bet- ter than this ! 58 MILAN. This morning we set off on an excursion planned for us by our kind friends, and came first, attended by G — a, to Monza, some eight or nine miles from Milan. This city, you know, is often named in the history of the Italian Republics. It has now an im- perial palace, where the viceroy occasionally lives, where he has a noble park, which, however, does not suffice for his royal hunts, and so there are addi- tions to it ; pairings cut off from the grounds of the neighbouring gentlemen called " cacia riservata,^^ which they must by no means intrude on. What thorns must these encroachments be to the impatient spirit of the Italians ! We went over the grounds ; they are richly va- ried with artificial water, waterfalls, a grotto, &c. But the chief object of attraction at Monza is the famed iron crown of Lombardy. I felt, I confess, a keen desire to see it ; for whatever doubts the skep- tic may throw over the transmission of the veritable nails of the cross from St. Helena to Queen Theo- linda, which form the circlet of the iron crown, it w^as, beyond a doubt, once placed on the brow of Charlemagne and of Napoleon.* It is kept in the * Lady Morgan concludes a most minute description of the pomp that attended the conveying the iron crown from Monza to Milan for Ivapoleon's coronation thus : " Last came a carriage with the master of ceremonies, bearing the crown on a velvet cushion. Twenty-five of Bonaparte's old guard surrounded the honoured vehicle. The crown was received in Milan with a salvo of artillery and the ringing of bells, and at the portal of the Cathedral by the Cardinal-archbish- op of Milan, who bore it through the church and deposited it on the altar. The guaftis watched round it during the night." MILAN. 59 Cathedral of Monza, a rare old edifice with much barbaric ornament, and containino^ amono; its treas- ure some curious relics of Theolinda, the favourite Queen of Lombardy. We scarcely " improved the privilege" of seeing these things, and looked only at a ponderous fan with which her majesty must rather have heated than cooled herself; at a very indifferent dressing-comb with a richly -jewelled handle, and at the sapphire cup, wrought from a single stone, in which her majesty pledged her second husband ! It was evident that our friends had made great efforts to obtain for us a sight of the real crown, and that very solemn observances were necessary to showing it, which I fear we were quite incapable of appreciating. Several priests entered and put on their sacred robes. One knelt, while others placed a ladder against the wall to ascend to the shrine where, above the high altar, this crown is kept en- closed. Three locks were turned with golden keys. The kneeling priest flourished his silver censer; sending up a cloud of incense, and half veiled by it, a huge cross, resplendent with jewels, was brought down, and the sacred crown forming its centre was revealed to our profane eyes. The nails are made into a ring of iron, enclosed by a circlet of pure gold studded with priceless jewels. In the arms of the cross, which is of wood covered with gold, are set, at short spaces apart, small glass cases containing precious relics, the sponge and reed of the crucifixion, bits of the true cross, &c. The cross was restored to its position with a repeti- tion of the ceremonies, the prayers, and the incense ; 60 M I L A N. and, finally, the principal official took off his robes one by one, and kissed each as he reverently folded it. I was glad when it was all over ; for these reli- gious ceremonies, where I am forever vibrating be- tween the humility of conscious ignorance and the pride of a superior liberty, are always painful to me. That grand old barbaric monarch, Frederic Bar- barossa, by turns the scourge and victim of the church, lies here. We were obliged to pass with- out examination his sarcophagus and monument, and the curious frescoes of this Cathedral, for we wanted time on our way to Desio to stop at the monument to the Countess Confalonieri. She is buried in the grounds of her brother, our friend Count C. C — i. The spot is enclosed, and a mar- ble monument is over it, with the following beauti- ful inscription written by Manzoni : " Teresa, nata da Gaspare Casati, e da Maria Origoni il XVIII. Settembre, MDCCLXXXVII,, maritata a Frederico Confalonieri il XIV. Ottobre, MDCCCVI. Orno modestamente la prospers sorte di lui, I'afflitta soccorse con I'opera, e partecipo con I'animo, quanto ad opera e ad animo umano e conceduto, Consunta, ma non vinta dal cordoglio, mori, sperando nel signore del desolati, il XXVI. Set- tembre, MDCCCXXX. " Gabrio, Angelo, Camillo Casati alia sorella amantissima ed ama- tissima, eressero ed a se preparano questo monumente, per riposare tutti un giorno accanto alle ossa care e venerate. Vale intanto, an- ima forte e soave ! Noi, porgendo tuttavia preci, ed ofFerendo sa- grificii, per te, confidiamo che, accolta nell' eterna luce, discerni ora i misteri di misericordia nascosti quaggui nei rigori di Dio."* * " Teresa, born of Gaspari Casati and of Maria Orgoni on the 18th of September, 1787, was married to Frederic Confalonieri on the 14th of October, 1806. She adorned his prosperity, and, in as far as sympathy and benefaction are permitted to a human being, her soul shared his adversity, and her deeds softened it. Consumed, but not MILAN. 61 The whole reading world is now familiar with the character of Theresa Confalonieri ; with the partic- ulars of the heroic conjugal devotion of this victim to Austrian despotism, and martyr to conjugal affec- tion. Let your children, for the sake of their char- ities, my dear C, remember that this character was formed in the bosom of the Catholic Church, and sustained in a country where they will be often told the women are oil of a piece with the Countess S. That the organization of society here, as far aa women are concerned, is bad enough, I doubt not,* but let us not believe that to be universal which is only general. Madame T.'s villa is near the little town of De- sio. After arriving at Desio we had an hour of rich twilight before dinner to see her grounds, which have given us new ideas of an Italian villa, and would lead us to think it is not so much a want of taste for rural life as a want of means to carry out their ideas of art and beauty, that drives the Italian gentry from their country-places. Madame T. lacks nothing to produce the results she wills. Her conservatories, extending many hundred feet on each side her mansion, indicate princely wealth. overcome by sorrow, she died on the 20th of September, 1830, trust- ing in the God of the desolate. *' Gabrio, Angelo, and Camillo Casati have erected this monument to their most loving and beloved sister, and prepared it for them- selves, that they may one day repose beside her dear and venerated remains. Farewell, meanwhile, brave and gentle spirit ! We, con- tinually offering up prayers and sacrifices for thee, trust that thou, re- ceived into eternal life, canst now penetrate the mysteries of mercy which here below are hidden in the chastenings of God." Vol. II.— F 62 MILAN. They are filled with exotic fruits and flowers ; one is filled with pines in great perfection and positive abundance — some five or six thousand well-2:rown plants of the camelia japonica intimate the magnif- icent scale of things here. On one side of the estate there is an old abbey which serves the purpose of stables and other offices, and which, last year, must have looked rather ruin- ous and Italianish; this has been recently ingeniously masked under the direction of the artist Palaggio, and now appears to be fragments of an acqueduct and an old abbey church with a tower, from which you have a view over half the rich plains of Lombardy, of an amphitheatre of Alps, of Como in the dis- tance, and — I could fill my sheet with names that would make your heart beat if you had been here. Within the edifice there is a theatre and a salle d'armes, which is to be also a museum, and is al- ready weU begun with a collection of antiques. There are noble avenues of old trees that might make an Englishman look up and around him. Through one of these we went to a pretty toy of a labyrinth, where one might get " a little lost." We were soon extricated by our lady, who held the clew, and who led us around the winding, bosky margin of a lake so extensive that I did not dream nature had not set it there and filled its generous basin, till Madame T. told me it was fed by a stream of water brought from Lake Como ; and this stream flows through the grounds ; now leaping over a pre- cipice, and now dancing over a rocky channel, and MILAN. 63 singing on its way as if it chose its own pleasant path. There are many artificial elevations ; we pass- ed over one half as high as our Laurel Hill, with full-grown trees upon it ; and between this and an- other is a wild dell with a cascade, an aerial bridge, and tangled shrubbery : a cabinet picture of some passages in Switzerland ; and on my saying this, Madame T. replied, she called it her " Suisse." At one end of the lake, near a fisherman's hut, is a mon- ument to Tasso, half hidden with bays. There was a fishing-boat near the hut, and so I took it for a true story ; but, on Madam T. throwing open the door, we entered an apartment fitted up with mu- sical instruments, which she modestly called her sewing-room. How fit it is for that sedative em- ployment you may judge : there is a lovely statue in the middle of the room ; the walls and ceiling are covered with illustrations of Tasso in fresco, and from each window is a different and most enchanting view. " What a happy woman you must be !" said I to our charming hostess, " to be the mistress of this most lovely place !" (a foolish remark enough, by- the-by) ; her face changed, her eyes filled with tears, and after alluding to repeated afflictions from the severance of domestic ties by death, and to the suf- ferings of her friends for their political opinions, she concluded, "you know something of the human heart — judge for me, can I be happy ?" Alas ! alas ! what contrasts are there between the exterior and interior of life ! 64 MILAN. The deepening twilight drove us in, and Madame T., who, to the refinements of her elegant hospitality, adds the higher grace of frank, unceremonious kind- ness, conducted us herself to our apartments, where we truly were lost in six immense rooms, each as large as half an American house, and a pretty fair- sized one too. We drew as nearly together as we could, and made a settlement in these vast solitudes, which, I confess, look rather dreary, writh our preju- dices in favour of carpets, snugness, comfort, and such un-Italian, unartistic ideas ! There was a family party at dinner. Madame T.'s nieces and grand-nieces are staying with her. The children were at table. " Our Italian custom," Madame T. says, and a \vholesome one it is. The dinner was served in the fashion of Madame K.'s at Frankfort ; fruit, flowers, and sweetmeats only placed on the table, and, being but little more than a fam- ily dinner, would, I think, rather have startled those people who fancy Italians all live on maccaroni and eau Sucre. The cookery was in the best French style. The French, I believe, give the law to the kitchens as well as the toilets of the civilized world. "We had a delicacy much esteemed here — the Pied- montese truffle. It was served as a salad, is white, very good, and very costly. The gentleman who sat on my right (the curate of the village, a person certainly not falling within the condemnation of the gourmand w^ho says a man is a fool who does not love truffles) told me, in the intervals of swal- lowing at least half a pound of them, that they cost MILAN. 65 between seven and fourteen francs the ounce ! Be- sides all the fruits in season, and delicious home- grouyn pines, we had a fruit called nespuli, much liked here, which, to my taste, resembled the frozen and thawed apple I have picked up under our apple- trees in a sunny March day; and, will you believe it, villanous as it was, it had a smack of home and childish and rustic things, that in this far land, in the midst of all these luxuries, brought tears to my eyes. There v/as another strange foreign fruit very pretty and passably good, resembling the seed-ves- sel of some flower, and called chichingie. The evening was filled up with Chinese billiards for the girls and common billiards for the gentlemen, and a diverting lesson in Milanese from the count to the girls, who are highly amused with the cracking sound of this spurious Italian. My evening was spent in talking with Madame T. and with the curate of the Catholic religion in America. He was much surprised at the idea of its gaining ground there, and much delighted too ; and he pro- posed to an octogenarian brother of Monsieur T. a pilgrimage to the Valley of the Mississippi, about which, I suspect, I gave him his most definite no- tion by telling him that no truffles grew there ! Madame T., who uses her privilege of sex in talking freely (and eloquently, too) on forbidden subjects, roused all our sympathies by her particu- lars of the petty and irritating annoyances to which the Austrian surveillance subjects them. F2 66 MILAN. My dear C, it is worth the trouble of a pilgrim- age to the Old World to learn to feel — to realize our political blessings and our political exemptions. And what do those renegadoes deserve — I cannot call them by a gentler name — who, enjoying the order of despotism in travelling through Europe, come home and extol the Austrian government, and sigh for those countries where there is no danger that freedom may run into the madness of " Lynch-law 1" "What is every tyrannical decree of absolutism but a Lynch-law 1 I have met an Englishman who was not ashamed to prefer the quiet of Austrian domin- ion to a government that involved the tumult of an English election! Would these people be cured, think ye, by a year's solitary reflection in the dun- geons of Spielberg ? But " good-night ;" I am too tired for political or any other speculation — remem- ber, we began the day at Monza. Milan, November 11. My dear C, We have returned from our three days' excursion, and as I hear the rain pattering on the pavement, and look up through our dingy window, it seems but a brilliant dream. We waked at Desio to such a morning as might have inspired Guido's conception of his Aurora, and, after a breakfast which our bountiful hostess enriched with every barbarism, English and American, she had ever heard of, in- cluding tea, whose odorous breath for the first time, MILAN. 67 I fancy, incensed that old Italian mansion, we set off in two carriages for Como. 'I was much amused and somewhat instructed by questions which Ma- dame T. and the count put to me relative to Ameri- can courtships and marriages. The count had just come from the marriage of a niece who had seen her husband but once or twice, and never but in the presence of her family. Italian marriages in high life were all, he confessed, mere marriages of conve- nance, arranged by the parents; so that, as Byron has said, " marrying for the parents, they love for themselves." I asked if their young women were always passive under these contracts made by their guardians — no; the reluctance was sometimes too strong to be mastered, and it was not uncommon for them to draw back even at the altar. " But was it possible," he asked, " that our young people were allowed per- fectly unshackled intercourse after the engagement, without the eye of the mother or any guardian what- ever." And then, at my plain story of our modes of proceeding, there were such " Mon Dieus !" and " Dio Mios !" But, finally, they ended with an hon- est and hearty admiration of tha4; system where free- dom and confidence ensured safety, and afforded the best chance and security for affection. Young immarried women in Milan, C — i said, were as much secluded as in Turkey. " They go from their houses to the theatre, and in the summer to their vil- las. They are as incapable as children of taking care of themselves ; _you might as well send the Du- 68 MILAN. omo flying through the air, as five Italian ladies to travel 1" " Do you know," he asked me, " how you would mstantly be known in the streets of any Ital- ian city to be English ?"* " No." " Because you precede your young ladies ; an Italian lady always keeps her protegees under her eye." Is not this a key to our relative position 1 We came all too soon to Como, now a poor little town on the lake-side, with some vestiges of its for- mer magnificence in towers and walls, a rich old Ca- thedral, antique columns, &c. The approach to it is picturesque. The ruins of a fine old feudal cas- tle, standing on an almost inaccessible pinnacle, over- hang it ; but there is little left to remind you that it was once the rival of Milan. Madame T. had arranged our excursion, and here, to our great regret, she was obliged to leave us. But we are becoming philosophic; we turned from our vanishing pleasures to the lake basking in sunshine, to the picturesque little boats floating about on it, and to a certain most attractive one with a pretty centre-table and scarlet cushions, which our cavaliers were deftly arranging ; and in a few minutes more we were in it, and, rowed by four stout oarsmen, passed the gate-like entrance to the lake, guarded by statues, and fairly entered on our miniature voyage. The air (November 9th !) was as soft as in one of our mellowest June evenings, and * Americans are for the most part merged in the EngUsh on the Continent. One of our party said to an Italian, " But we are not English." *' Ah — no ; but English Americans— all the same." LAKECOMO. 69 the foliage had a summer freshness. We have seen and felt nothing before like this Oriental beauty, luxury, and warmth. The vines are fresh, myrtles, olive, and fig-trees are intermingled with them ; the narrow margin of the lake is studded with villas ; the high hills that rise precipitously over it are terraced; and summer-houses, statues, and tem- ples, all give it the appearance of festive ground, where Summer, Queen of Love and Beauty, holds perpetual revels. The Alps bound the horizon on the north. There " winter and rough weather" have their reign; and as I looked at their stern outline and unrelenting " eternal" snows, they ap- peared to me the fitting emblem of Austrian despo- tism brooding over this land of beauty ! We passed Queen Caroline's villa. These sur- roundings, you may remember, w^ere the scene of some of the scandal that came out on her most scanda- lous trial ; and we passed a lovely residence of Pas- ta's, where this woman, who held the music-loving world in thraldom, is living in happy seclusion on " country contentments," an example of filial and maternal devotion. A beautiful villa belonging to Count Porro was pointed out to us ; and as I looked on its lovely position and rich adornments, I felt what these noble Italian exiles risked and lost in their holy cause — but not lost ! Every self sacrifi- cing effort in this cause is written in the book of life! We saw the Pliniana, where the little rivulet Pliny described nearly 2000 years ago ebbs and 70 LAKECOMO. flows as it did then.* It gives one strange sensa- tions to see one unchanged thing v/here the world has undergone such mutations. For a while, my dear C, we felt as if we could spend our lives in floating over this lovely lake ; do not be shocked ; you at home can afford for once to be forgotten. But, by degrees, our mortality got uppermost, the " meal above the malt," our voices one by one died away ; our superb cavalier looked a little qualmish ; G.'s gentle current ebbed ; L. laid her head on the table and fell asleep, and by the time we arrived at Bellagio, twenty miles from Como, the shores were wrapped in a dusky veil, and we were very glad to exchange our boating-pleasure for a most comfortable inn. We went to bed at Bellagio, feeling that it would be little short of presumption to expect a third fine day, and heroically resolving to be " equal to either fortune," clouds or sunshine. I confess I crept to the window in the morning with dread ; but there I saw Venus at her morning watch over the lake, the sky a spotless blue, and the lake as still and lovely as a sleeping child. I was malicious enough to reply to K.'s drowsy interrogatory, " rain- ing again !" But the morning was too fine to be * Pliny stands in the light of a patron-saint of Como. He provided a fund for the support of freed children here. He instituted a pub lie school with an able teacher, contributed munificently to its sup port, and resigned a legacy in favour of the inhabitants. His stat ue, with an inscription, is still here. Li KE COM a. 71 belied. We were all soon assembled in a little ro^ sary surrounding the inn ; for so you might call a court filled to the very water's edge with rose-bushes in full bud and flower. We met our cavaliers pro- faning the perfumed air with cigars, which, howev- er, they gallantly discarded, and attended us to the Villa Serbelloni, which covers a hill overhanging Bellagio. It is the property of a gentleman in the Austrian service who, serving (according to the uni- versal Austrian pohcy) far from his own country, leaves the delight of embellishing and enjoying it to a relative. This gentleman is now making a car- riage-road around the place, and up a steep acclivity, where, at no trifling expense of course, it is support- ed on arches of solid mason-work. The whole hill is converted into a highly-embellished garden filled with roses, laurestines, magnolias, bays, laurels, myrtles, and every species of flowering shrub grow- ing luxuriantly in the open air. The aloe, which will not bear our September frosts, grows unscathed here ; and, as a proof the invariable softness of the climate, C — i pointed out an olive-tree to me three or four hundred years old. This mildness is the re- sult of the formation of the shores of the lake, for within a few miles the winters are severe. We wandered up and down and around the cha- teau, coming out here and there on the most exqui- site views. Once our pleasures were diversified, not interrupted, by shrieks from L. I hastened for- ward and found her flying from a posse of cock- turkeys that her crimson shawl had enraged. C. 72 LAKECOMO. was leaning on his cane and shouting with laughter at her girlish terror at these *' betes feroces," and rather, as I thought, confederate with them. Serbelloni is on a promontory that divides the lake into two branches, and thence you have a view of both; of Tremezzina on one side and Ravenna on the other. And, dear C, it was in the morning light, with the rose-coloured hues on the Alps, and villa- ges, villas, and gardens, looking bright in the early day ; morn's " russet mantle" close drawn here, and there the lake laughing in the sunshine, and no sound but a waterfall on the opposite shore, or the chiming bells of a distant church. It was a scene of pure enchantment for us children of the cold, ster- ile North ! and you will comprehend its effect, and forgive R. into the bargain, if I tell you that, when I first met him on coming back into the " rosary," he exclaimed, his feeble frame thrilling with a sense of renovation and delicious beauty, " I will never go back to America — / cannot P^ Nature is, indeed, here a tender restoring nurse ! After breakfast we left Bellagio (forever, alas!) and walked through an avenue of sycamores to the Villa Melzi. Melzi was president of the Cisalpine republic ; but when Napoleon made the republic a kingdom, and assumed its crown, he made Melzi Duke of Lodi. The place has now fallen into the hands of the duke's son, a lad of eighteen. The house fronts the lake. There is a look of nature about the grounds, and soft and quiet beauty ; but, as they lie nearly on the level of the lake, they are in- L A K E C M 0. 73 ferior in picturesque charm to Serbelloni. Art al- ways comes in in Italy to help Nature, to perfect her, or to make you forget her. We met Beatrice, and Dante, and other statues grouped and single, and on the conservatory were busts of Josephine and Madame Letitia among many others, expressing Melzi's homage to his master. There is a chapel at a short distance from the house, with a beautiful al- tar-piece sculptured, I think, by Marchesi ; and monuments to different members of the Melzi fam- ily, that either express some domestic story or are allegorical — I could not make out which. Of all things, I should like an ancestral chapel, with the good deeds of my progenitors told in painting and stone ! I will not make you follow me through the suite of apartments, beautiful as they are ; but, just to get a notion of the refinement of Italian taste, pause in the dining-room, where two little enchanting marble boys are standing on a side-table, the one with a sad, injured countenance holding an empty bird's- nest from which the other, a little imp of mischief and fun, has rifled the eggs.* There are six groups of children painted on dif- ferent compartments of the wall, all having some allusion to dinner viands. In one a little rascal is holding wide open the mouth of a fish as if to swal- low a younger boy who, to the infinite diversion of his merry comrades, is running away, scared out of * I afterward saw this trait of Nature as an antique bas-relief ; I think at the Doria Villa at Rome. Vol. II.—G 74 LAKE CO MO. his wits. In the next, one boy is sustaining another on his shoulders that he may steal the fruit from a basket on the head of a third; and in the next a murderous little tribe are shooting their arrows at a dove tied to a tree — and so on to the end. There is a capital picture of Napoleon with an ex- pression of keen hopes, unaccomplished projects, and unrealized ambitions. From Melzi we crossed the lake to Tremezzina, called, from the extreme softness of the air through the winter, Baise. The count assured its, as far as climate was concerned, we might as well remain here as go to Naples. We landed at the Villa Som- mariva, the crack show-place of all the " petits par- adis" of Lake Como. We ascended to the man- sion by several flights of marble steps, with odorous vines and shrubs in flower clustering round the bal- ustrades, and a fountain at every landing-place, and entered a magnificent vestibule, in the centre of which stands a Mars and Venus, in form, costume, and expression, such as you would expect to find the aborigines of this land — types of valour and love. The chef d'oeuvre of the villa is in this apartment, one of Thorwaldsen's most celebrated works : a frieze in bas-reliefs representing the triumph of Alexander, but designed with consummate art to bear an obvi- ous allusion to the most brilliant events of Napo- leon's life. The work was begun by Napoleon's order -, but, before it was finished, he could neither be flattered by its refined adulation nor reward it LAKE COMO. 75 Count Sommariva purchased it, and it subsequently- passed, with the villa, into the hands of a man by the name of Richad who had been quietly gaining money while Napoleon was winning and losing em- pires. Richad is dead, and his only son has lately died intestate, leaving this superb place, where art has, as usual, been chained to fortune, to some far- off cousins, poor and plebeian, who hardly know a bust from a block of marble. Here, in another apartment, is " the Palamedes," considered one of Canova's master-pieces. They told us an anecdote of this that will please you. When Canova had nearly completed this statue it fell, and the artist just escaped being crushed by it. The statue was badly mutilated, and Ca- nova at once WTOte to Sommariva that he would make him another in its stead. Sommariva replied that he would have this statue and no other, and that he should value it all the more for it being con- nected with so interesting a circumstance as the provi- dential preservation of the great artist; so, good surgery being done upon it, here it stands ; a monu- ment of the integrity of the great artist, and the del- icacy and generosity of his employer. Remember, these are traits of Italian character, and that such inci- dental instances of virtue are proofs they are not quite the degraded people prejudice and ignorance repre- sent them. There are other beautiful works of Canova here ; his Cupid and Psyche, an exquisite personifica- tion of grace and love, as innocent as if it had been modelled in paradise before bad thoughts were put 76 LAKE CO MO. into Eve's head. I noticed a pretty clock designed by Thorwaldsen ; two lovers sleeping with clasped hands while time is passing unheeded. There is an Andromeda, an antique, charming — ^but I am not giv- ing you an inventory — the house is filled with works of art. Among the paintings, and the gem of them all, is the portrait of a beautiful woman by Leonardo da Vinci — some human beauty like Laura, and Bea- trice, that the poetry of love idealized. I have been rather more particular than usual, my dear C, in my account of the Italian villas ; for I think it will rather surprise you, as it did me, after the chilling accounts we have read of the neglected grounds and ruined palaces of the poverty-stricken Italians, to find that some of them are enjoying all the luxuries of life in the midst of gardens to which nature, climate, art, and wealth have given the last touch of perfection. We were hardly in our boat again when the clouds spread like an unfurling sail over us, and a "wind called Breva came down from Como, curling the lake into yeasty waves. We were all shiver- ing, and the boatmen sagaciously proposed we should warm ourselves with a walk ; so we got out into the footpath that skirts all the margin of the lake. It is paved, and about two feet wide, and kept in admi- rable order by the communes of the different villa- ges, between which it is the only land communica- tion, and the only land outlet to the world beyond Lake Como. The formation of the ground does not permit a carriage-road ; but how picturesque is this LAKECOMO. 77 footpath, skirting along villas and gardens, under arches and over stone bridges, and with vineyards hanging over your heads. Some of us, unwilling to eave it, walked all the way to Como, eight miles ; a pedestrian feat in the eyes of our Italian friends. Those of us in the boat crossed the lake ag^ain to pass once more close under Pasta's villa; but the cloudy twilight was so dreary, and so rapidly deep- ening, that we had little hope of getting even a glimpse of the genius loci. But, just as we were gliding under her terrace, her daughter appeared on it, followed by another lady. " E Pasta ! e Pasta .'" exclaimed our bateliers in suppressed voices, thrill- ing with enthusiasm, that none but Italians in their condition would have felt in such a presence. They suspended their oars, and we stood on tiptoe, and heard a few accents of that voice that has thrilled millions. It was in the harsh, crackling Milanese, hov/ever, so that our excitement was a pure homage to genius. We passed the night at Como, and took our last look of its lovely lake this morning. Last looks are always sad ones. In travelling, you have many a love at first sight — with Nature. You grow into sudden acquaintance with material things. They are your friends — for lack of others, dear C. The road from Como to Milan is such as you would expect princes to make for their own chariot- wheels. The Austrian government, sparing as it is G2 78 MILAN. in all other improvements for the public good, is at immense expense to maintain the roads in this abso- lute perfection. After four or five weeks of contined and drenching rain, there is not as much mud as an ordinary summer shower would make on one of our best " turnpikes !" In many places the road is raised ten and tv/elve feet above the level of the surrounding ground. There is a foot-path on each side, protected by granite blocks like our mile-stones, which occur at intervals of twelve or fifteen feet. Each block costs seven francs. The lands here are possessed by great proprietors, and those which are suited to the culture of the mulberry produce large profits. Some mul- berr}"" lands are valued at a thousand livres the perche. A perche is one thousand eight hundred square braccia, and a braccia is twenty-two and a half English inches. An Austrian livre, or zwan- ziger, is nearly equivalent to a Yankee shilling (sev- enteen and a half cents). The ordinary price of a perche is four hundred zwanzigers. The peasants are paid by shares of the products. We asked C — i, from whom we were receiving this information, how the landlord could be sure of the tenant's fair deal- ing. He said the landlord's right to send him adrift w^as enough to secure that. A threat to do this is always effectual. All his httle world of associations and traditions bind him to the soil on which he was born. Knowledge opens no vistas for him into other and richer lands. He never hears the feeblest echo of the " "march of improvement." He is rooted to the soil, and, so far from a wish to emigrate, no MILAN. 79 prospect of advancement will induce him to migrate from one village to another; ejection is a sen- tence of death. The Comasques are peculiar in their customs. Each valley has its trade. An in- genious man goes off to Milan and sets up his work- shop. He receives apprentices only from his own valley. As soon as he acquires a little property he returns to his native place — invariably returns. Wherever you see an Italian, in London, or Paris, or New-York, hawking little images about the streets, you may be sure he comes from the shores of Lake Como, and that he will follow his guiding-star back there. They return with enough to make them passing rich in these poor districts. You meet men in these secluded places speaking half a dozen lan- guages. Each commune is obliged to maintain a physician, a surgeon, and a midwife. St. Charles made great efforts to elevate the char- acter of the people, and C — i imputes the superior morality of the Milanese to other Italians to this philanthropic saint. In his zealous reforms of the priesthood, he went to the source of Catholic moral- ity. It has become a law of the commune to main- tain the schools he instituted ; but the people are too poor and too ignorant to profit as they should by them. Without a theoretical notion of the effects of freedom and property, they feel that there is no ad- vantage in learning the use of tools while they are bound hand and foot. I told you they were maintained by shares of the 80 MILAN. products. The extremely low rate of wages, when they receive them, will show you how small their share is. A labouring man is paid sixteen Milanese sous (seventeen to a franc) per day, a woman ten. and a child seven. With this they find themselves. Think of our labourers with their dollar a day — their meat three times per diem — their tea, and sugar, and butter, and what not ? while the Milanese peasant lives on coarse bread and thin broth, and only eats meat on his patron-saint's day, at a wedding, or at Christmas ; and this is the gift of his landlord. One who eats rice every day is opulent, and he who eats meat every day is the aristocrat of the village. The improvement in manufactures is putting it into the power of a few among them to wear woollens in win- ter. But, thank Heaven, their soft airs wrap them about as with a blanket; and the cheerfulness which their delicious climate, and perhaps the simplicity of their food, inspire, is like the fresh and fruitful young boughs of their olives springing from a decayed and sapless stem. It is possible the peasant may derive a certain kind of pleasure from knowing that, politically, he is on a level with his lord. The government is, in one sense, to them a perfect democracy — a dead level of nothingness. Our proud and noble friend had the same liability to Austrian conscription as the mean- est peasant on his estate, and his vote (they do vote in municipal affairs) counts no more than his who eats broth and black bread. The spirit of the Mi- lanese gentleman is not broken down by ages of op- MILAN. 81 presslon. Very few among them court the favour of the Austrian government, or will accept a share in it. Like the most intelligent and conscientious of our slave-holders (and with far better reason), they submit to the evil only because they hold it to be irremediable. But is any moral evil irremediable to those who will adopt the axiom of the noble old blind man of Ancona, "Nothing is impossible to those who fear not death." . C — i believes the government of the Lombardo- Venitian kingdom to be the best in Italy. He was cautious in his expressions, and went no farther than to say, in relation to the newspapers allowed ("pnV- ilegiati'^^) in Milan, '• We only know so much as the government chooses we shall know. Our opinions are our own while we keep them to ourselves ; but he who should express liberal ones would incur the risk of a ' chambre obscure.' " With our defective opportunities of personal ob- servation, you may imagine the conversation of a man so intelligent and highly informed as C — i, and who, from being the lord of a long-transmitted in- heritance, has much practical acquaintance with the organization and peculiarities of Italian life, was a pleasure to us, and our drive seemed to have been a very short one when we entered the gate of Milan, and C — i ordered his coachman to drive on to the Corso. The day was dingy; and, though there were a few brilliant coaches, and handsome ladies in them, C — i warned us not to imagine we had any adequate impression of this drive, which is second in 82 MILAN. display only to that of Hyde Park. We noticed the viceroy's gilded coach with six horses drawn up, w^hile he and his family were enjoying the luxury of a walk. Another day in Milan has been busily passed in visiting the Ambrosian library, where we saw, among many celebrated pictures, an exquisite one designed by Leonardo da Vinci, and finished by his pupil Luini. It is called a madonna, but is, in fact, a prophetic portrait of M. W. ; the same full, rich eye with all a mother's rapture in it ; the same ca- pacity of sympathy with joy or sorrow expressed in the flexible lips ; as unlike as possible to the gentle, not to say tame madonnas that throng the galleries indicating merely placid maternal satisfaction. We saw papyrus with Vvriting 2000 years old, and notes to a book in Petrarch's autograph, and various other things that it is well to see, but very tiresome to hear about. The Cassino de^ JYegoziante was shown us by way of giving us a glimpse of Italian modes of society. It is a large house with a series of apartments: a ball, drawing room, &c., &c., where gentlemen and ladies meet together on stated evenings to amuse themselves. All classes have these cassinos. They save the bother of invi- tations and intrusion on the order of families, and much of the expense of private entertainment. We w^ent in the evening, by his appointment, to Manzoni's. The Italian seems to indemnify himself MILAN. 83 for not roving over the w^orld by wailing in a little world of his own, which he calls a house. We were shown through a suite of empty apartments to the drawing-room, where we found Manzoni, his mother, wife, and children, and all the shows and appliances of comfortable domestic life. Man- zoni is a little past fifty, with an intellectual and rather handsome face, and a striking expression of goodness. His manner is gentlemanly and modest, not shy, as we had been told. Indeed, his reputa- tion for shyness and fondness for seclusion induced us to decline a very kind invitation to pass a day at his country place. We thought it but common hu- manity not to take advantage of his readiness to hon- our Confalonieri's draft in our behalf on his hospi- tality — now I regret an irretrievable opportunity lost. He was cordial in his manners, and frank and fluent in his conversation. He and his mother (the daughter of Beccaria), a superb-looking old lady, expressed an intelligent interest in our country, and poured out their expressions of gratitude for what they were pleased to term our kindness to their exiles, as if we had cherished their own lost children. I put in a disclaimer, saying, you know how truly, that we considered it a most happy chance that had made us intimately acquainted with men who were an honour to their species. Manzoni said this was all very well in relation to Confaloni- eri ; he came to us with his renown ; but, as to the rest, we must have been ignorant of everything about them but their sufferings. " G.," he said, 84 MILAN. " has found a country with you ; and he deserves it, for he is an angel upon earth."* When I respond- ed earnestly, he replied with a significant laugh, " Now that you know what our mauvais sujets are, you can imagine what our honest men must be !" Manzoni had not heard of the American translation of the Prornessi Sposi, and he seemed gratified that his fame was extending over the New World. Would that it could go fairly forth without the shackles of a translation. He told us some interest- ing anecdotes of Beccaria. He said he was so in- dolent that he never wrote without being in some sort forced upon it ; that his celebrated essay on criminal law was procured by the energetic manage- ment of a friend, who invited him to his house, and locked him up, declaring he should not come out till he had written down his inestimable thoughts on that subject. Beccaria good-naturedly acqui- esced, and the work w^as actually finished in this friendly prison. "And much reason," Madame Manzoni (the elder) said, " my father had to rejoice in it, for he often received letters of most grateful acknowledg- ment from individuals who had profited by the hu- mane doctrines of his book." * I trust I shall not appear to have been betrayed into publishing the a^ove by a petty vanit^^ The httle kindness we have had the opportunity of extending to the exiled Italians we count good for- tune, not merit. It has been requited a hundred fold b^ the privi- lege of their intimate acquaintance. But I would, as far as in my humble way I can, remove the narrow belief that there is no hospi- tality, no gratitude among their countrymen. BRESCIA. 85 Our friends have continued their kindness to the last moment — the whole family, C, Count C — i, and dear Madame T. She urged us to renounce our journey to Venice, and spend a week at her villa. This was almost irresistible ; but leaving out Venice in seeing Italy is like losing bishop or castle in a game of chess. So our bills are paid, our post- horses ordered, and we are going, feeling as if we had lived a little life here ; for we have made ac- quaintance, and ripened them into friendships ; we have gone out and returned; we have eaten, and drank, and made merry, and must noW go forth again unknowing and unknown. There is no such lengthener of human life as travelling. Brescia. — A bright, attractive-looking town, with thirty thousand inhabitants, clean streets, and fine old edifices, built from the ruins of ancient temples, and a rich surrounding country, covered wuth villas, vines, and mulberries, and watered by three rivers, which are just now fearfully illustrating the old proverb, " good servants, but bad masters." Italy has been anything but a land of the sun to us. This morning the clouds dispersed, for the first time since we were on Lake Como, and Francois assures us that the priests, who " know all about these mat- ters," pronounce the rain '' une chose finie." " La Sainte Vierge" has been gracious, and to-morrow she is to be unveiled and exhibited to her worship- VoL. IL— H 86 VERONA. pers. In the mean time, half the country is sub- merged ; the fearful Po has burst through its em- bankments and overwhelmed several villages. It is a pity " La Sainte Vierge" has been so slow in her compassions. We have just been to see the " scavi," or Roman remains, which, within the last twenty years, have been discovered and disinterred here. In 1820, the top of a pillar was seen. This led to excavations, which ended in bringing to upper earth a temple of Hercules, a curia, very beautiful mosaic pavements, richly-sculptured altars, a multitude of busts, shat- tered friezes, and broken pillars, and a bronze statue of Victory of the best period of Grecian art. Vic- tory ! I doubt it ; she has an expression of such Di- vine sweetness, as if she might weep at the fantas- tic tricks and cruel games men have played and called them victories. This is the first time we have seen any striking remains of Roman magnifi- cence and art, on the very spot where they stood in the eye of those whose souls were breathed into their forms 3 and the first time is an epoch in one's life! Verona. — We left Brescia this morning at seven ; a morning comme il y en a peu nowadays. When I opened my blind at six, Venus hung over our jessa- mine-imbowered balcony, as brilliant as when she kept her watch at Bellagio. We have been driving on the Via Emilia — a pretty old road, and kept in VERONA. 87 excellent repair. Our first halt was at Desenzano, on the shores of the Lago di Garda, the ancient Be- nacus. The lake is nearly enclosed by Alps, and the climate is so softened by its mountain-wall that the most delicate southern fruits are ripened on its shores. The fish of this lake were sung by epicure- poets of old, and are quite as much relished by the moderns. Catullus, who was born at Verona, had his favourite villa here, on the peninsula of Ser- mione. Its beautiful position was pointed out to us. The lake preserves the stormy character Virgil gave it in his time. Not a breath stirred the leaves as we walked along the shore, and yet the blue waves came with their white crests dancing towards us, and gave K. rather too spirited a salutation. Al- ways excepting Como, this Lago di Garda, with its surroundings, is the most beautiful sheet of water I have ever seen.* For an hour we drove in view of the lake, and during the whole drive we have had beautiful objects under our eyes : a chateau with its long lawn and avenues, a shrine, a crucifix, an old wall, a bridge, and the Alps bounding our horizon. The sterile Alps, our guide-book calls them, but what is there on earth so rich in beauty, so suggestive to the imagination 1 This is the richest part of Lom- bardy, covered with mulberries and vines, and thronging with, as it appears to us, a healthy popu- lation, full fed from the cradle to the grave. The * I had not then been to Bevay and Montreux, nor seen the lake of Luzerne ; but each has its peculiar charm that is not lessened by comparing it to another. 88 VEROJfA. children are stout and rosy, with masses of bright curling hair. The women are tall and well-develop- ed, and the old people so old that one would think they must themselves have forgotten they were ever young — the last thing they do forget. But they are never " rocked in the cradle of reposing age" — never cease from their labours. We see even the very old women, with their gray heads bare or cov- ered with a fanciful straw hat, driving asses and leading cows on the highway. Whenever our car- riage stops there are plenty of beggars around us, but they are for the most part sick or maimed. Comparing the peasantry of Savoy with that here, this climate would seem to be bed and board to them. The first object that struck our eyes on entering Verona was a very curious old bridge over the Adige, and from that moment till we reached our inn we kept up a choral exclamation at the piazzas, the fa- mous old palaces, the immense houses, half as high as the Alps, and at the heavy stone balconies. Verona, a powerful city in the time of the Romans, and so distinguished in the middle ages when the bold lords of the Scala family ruled its destinies, has now dwindled down to a population of 50,000. To me it bears a charmed name, as recalling the time when, a child of seven years, I sat down on the car- pet by the " old bookcase" to read " the Two Gen- tlemen of Verona," the only one of Shakspeare's plays now to me unreadable. But Juliet is, to every English-blooded traveller, the genius loci of Verona 3 VERONA. 89 Juliet, that sweetest impersonation of the universal passion whose mortality Shakspeare has converted into immortality, and fixed her shrine here. We set off in a half hour after our arrival, with a dirty, snuffing old valet de place (I have an antipathy to the best of the genus), to see the locales of the " sweet saint." The palace of the Capulets, so call- ed, is a gloomy, dark old rack-rent edifice, now a hos- tlerie ! We were conducted through an arched way into a court lumbered v;ith carts loaded with wine- casks. The '' balcony" was half way to heaven, where poor Juliet needed, in truth, a " falconer's voice" to be heard by her lover. The garden, we were told, was beyond the court, but we saw no " orchard-wall, high and hard to climb," that " Love's light" wings alone might pass, and we were eager to get away before imagination should lose forever the power of recalling the orange groves and myr- tle bowers, the passionate girl in the balcony, the lover in the garden, and the moon " tipping with sil- ver all those fruit-tree tops." We drove half a mile beyond the gate to the old Franciscan monastery where tradition has placed the tomb of the Capulets; and here, in a dreary gar- den, we were shown the spot where the tomb was. And alas for the disenchantments that yet awaited us ! A servitora unlocked something very like a barn-door, and admitted us into something very like a barn, where she showed us an open stone sarcoph- agus of Verona marble, which, she assured us, con- H2 90 VERONA. tained Juliet's body when it was removed from the garden to this place for safe keeping. There was a stone pillow for her head, and a socket for a candle, which it is, to this day, the custom of the Veronese to place lighted in the coffin. There were two holes drilled for ventilation, probably to admit air enough to support the flame. In the heart of the city, enclosed by an iron railing of most delicate workmanship, are the tombs of the Scala family. When all records are lost but Shaks- peare's, which will undoubtedly outlive all others, these may be shown for the tombs of the Capulets. There are monuments curiously sculptured, with marble sarcophagi and effigies. Three are more elaborate than the rest, and these run up into pinna- cles and are surmounted with statues, an equestrian one overshadowing the rest. "This," our cicerone said, " was of the greatest lord of Verona." It should then be of Cane della Scala.* There is an amphitheatre here built of blocks of stone without cement, and as early as Trajan's time, which is in admirable preservation. Napoleon re- paired it in excellent tast6, so that it now appears quite perfect. It can accommodate 25,000 persons. * " The first of the Lombard princes, he protected the arts and sciences ; his court, the asylum of all the exiled Ghibelines, drew to- gether the first poets, painters, and sculptors of Italy. There are still at Verona glorious monuments of the protection he extended to architecture. But war was his favourite passion," &ic.—Histoire des Repnbliques Italiennes. JOURNEY TO PADUA. 91 I have not half finished the sight-seeing of this crowd- ed afternoon, but I spare you. K. and I returned from a truant stroll in the morn- ing in time to swallow our breakfasts, and to re- monstrate against an over-charge in our bill : a hateful task that falls to my share, and often makes me regret the days when I went on like a lady, qui- etly paying prices, and scarcely knowing them. But we have, in truth, little to complain of. The inn-charges are seldom extravagant ; and as to im- positions strictly, I think we rarely meet with them. Good policy has arranged these matters on these great high-roads. We poorer Americans must pay the rates which luxurious English travellers, who " lard this lean earth," have introduced. Padua. — We have now travelled nearly across the Lombardo-Venitian kingdom. The posting, which all over the Continent is a government monopoly, is well arranged, but much dearer than in Germany. The German postillion is the least civilized of Germans, but the Italian is still lower in the scale of humani- ty. His horses, too, are inferior in size and muscle, but they seem to have a portion of the spirit of their masters, and travel more fleetly than the heavy German horse. Though we are on the verge of winter, the char- acteristics of the country are manifest. Roses are yet blooming. At the post-stations women throng to our coach- windows with waiters filled with grapes, 92 JOURNEY TO PADUA. pears, apples, and nespoli. The people are all out of doors, women spinning by the road-side, combing their hair, and performing other offices that we at all seasons reserve for in-doors. We stopped at Vi- cenza, which is now a town of some 30,000 inhab- itants, long enough to see some of the best produc- tions of Palladio, one of the celebrated architects of Italy, who lived in the sixteenth century, and was born here. All Northern Italy is embellished by his designs and works. I am no critic in these matters, but a too lavish profusion of ornament seems to me to characterize them. The work esteemed his mas- ter-piece is at Vicenza. It is called the Olympic Theatre, and was built precisely on the model of the ancient Greek theatre, that the Vicenzans might get a precise idea of the mode of Grecian dramatic ex- hibitions. The scenery is a fixture representing the entrance of a Greek town and the openings into seven different streets, where you see houses, tem- ples, and triumphal arches. The stage is not much larger than a generous dining-table. Then there are Corinthian columns and row^s of statues extend- ing all around the theatre. There are fourteen ranges of seats for the spectators ; and with all this lavishment of genius, art, and money, there have been but two exhibitions here, one for the emperor, and one for his viceroy. You will agree with me that Palladio might have spent his time, and the Vi- cenzans their money, better than on this, after all, mere toy. The private houses here are most richly ornamented with architectural embellishments. Pal- PADUA. 93 ladio was one of the few prophets honoured in his own country. The inhabitants of Padua have dwindled down to 55,000 : about three times the number of the stu- dents it once gathered within the walls of that ven- erable university where Galileo lectured. The ex- terior wall of the university is covered with busts in bas-reliefs, escutcheons, and various sculpture, illus- trating the men who have been distinguished here. Petrarch, you know, was born at Arqua, in this neighbourhood, and was a canon in the church here, where, if one may judge by the zeal with which every memorial of him is cherished, his love-sonnets were not considered uncanonical. There is a picture of the Madonna at the Cathedral presented by him. There was a curtain over it ; our servitora said, " If the ladies commanded, it should be uncovered." We were so disgusted with this contrivance to exact a fee, this covering up a picture from its worshippers to uncover it to the gaze of heretics for a paltry hire, that we declined the offer.* We saw in the sacristy a bust of Petrarch and a portrait painted by his con- temporary Ciambellini. * We were not long in learning to smile at our own pharisaical Quixotism, and to discard it. The best pictures in the Italian churches are veiled, that they may be "ne'er seen but wondered at" by the devout, and ne'er seen but paid for by the stranger, be he heretic or orthodox. And certainly it is just the possessor should derive an income from such a capital, and the sight of the picture is worth ten times the trifling sum it costs. 94 PADUA. We have a strange feeling in this old world, dear C, as if the dead of all past ages were rising to life on every side of us. We saw in the hall of justice here, a noble hall 300 feet long, and adorned with frescoes by Giotto, a bust of Titus Livius, which was disinterred in the environs of this his native city. The Roman remains and memorials in Lombardy are comparatively few; and it is not to the days of Ro- raan dominion that the mind recurs, but to the period of Italian independence. You perceive in these rich plains of Lombardy the source in nature of the indi- vidual life, vigour, and power of the free Italian cit- ies, in these warm plains completely irrigated, and producing without measure corn, wine, and the mul- berry-tree, those surest natural sources of wealth. And you perceive still, in the noble physiognomy of the people, the intellectual character that made Italy the seat of art, literature, commerce, and manufac- tures, while civilization had scarcely dawned on the rest of Europe. W^ith what feelings must idle, shackled, impotent Italy look back on those days when her looms were sending their gorgeous fabrics wherever there was money to pay for them ; when her envoys could truly declare in Eastern courts that they saw nothing there more luxurious than they had seen in the palaces of their native princes ; the days when their historians, their poets, and their painters were creating works for all posterity. These w^ere the days when Milan and Brescia, Verona, Vi- cenza, and Padua, and all the rest of their glorious company, were republics ; when freedom was so dear^ JOURNEY TO VENICE. 95 ly prized that it was an axiom that " blessed were those that died for hberty and their country ;" when an insolent imperial letter was torn from a herald's hands and trampled under foot; w^hen a beautiful matron, in a famishing town, with her infant in her arms, who had subsisted for days on boiled leather, offered the nourishment in her breast to a fainting soldier, that he might up and " do or die ;" when Milan, with her houses razed to the ground, and her inhabitants driven forth, again rose and successfully resisted imperial aggression. And now Austrian soldiers keep the gates of these cities, and say who shall enter and who depart. No wonder that the Italian's heart burns within him, that the noblest spirits are torpid with despair, languish in prison, or are driven into exile. Venice, JVovemher 18. — There are three posts (about seven miles each) from Padua to Venice. The usual boundaries of land and water are so changed by the overflowings of the rivers, that I fear we are getting no very accurate notions of the face of the country in its ordinary condition. You are conscious you are approaching a city that gather- ed to itself the riches of the world, and whose market converted marshy lands into gardens, vine- yards, and golden fields. There are, what we have not seen elsewhere, pleasant-looking, isolated cotta- ges, with thatched and conical roofs, and an infinity of villages, churches, chapels, and magnificent villas, 96 JOURNEY TO VENICE. whose grounds appear like drawing-rooms pretty well filled with poetic gentlemen and ladies, dressed and undressed artistically. In sober truth, there are many more statues out of doors here than you see people wath us in the finest w'eather. The houses are magnificent, many built after the designs of Pal- ladio, and, like everything of his, prodigally orna- mented ; they are surrounded wath high walls, with arched stone entrances and iron gates, with statues at the gates, and statues on the walls at short inter- vals. The roses are still in bloom, though the trees are nearly stripped of their leaves. Last night, for the first time, we had a slight frost. At Fusina, a mis- erable little town, infested with beggars, postillions, douaniers, and loungers, screaming, and racketing, and racking us, we left our carriage and embarked in a gondola. Yes, dear C, a gondola, which, all our heroic-poetic associations to the contrary not- withstanding, is the most funereal-looking affair you ever saw afloat. They are without exception cov- ered by a black aw^ning, first imposed by a sumptu- ary law of the republic, and maintained, probably, by the suruptuary laws of poverty. Venice is five miles from Fusina, and, seen from thence, appears like a city that has floated from its moorings, and, while distance lends its " enchant- ments to the view," still like a queen " throned on her hundred isles," or, rather, as its proud represent- ative, who refused his oath of adhesion to Henrv VII., said, as if it were " a fifth essence, belonging VENICE. 97 neither to the Church nor the emperor, the sea nor the land !" Nature, too, lent us her enchantments ; the sun setting, as we crossed the Lagoon, coloured the Rhsetian Alps with rose and purple hues, which the waves that played around our gondola reflected, while the pale moon hung over the Adriatic. I cannot describe to you the sensation of approaching such fallen greatness as that of Venice. It is as if a " buried majesty" appeared to you from the dead. We passed in silence the magnificent Piazza St Marco, and were landed at the steps of the Hotel Reale, formerly the Palazzo Bernardo. We went in the twilight last evening, my dear C, to the piazza, passed the ducal palace and the Bridge of Sighs, to get the feeling that we are actually in Venice; and in this piazza, sur- rounded, as you are, by magnificent and unimpair- ed objects, it is not difficult to realize Venice's past wealth and splendour ; it is only difficult to be- lieve that it is 'past. There is the Church of St. Mark, unithig Oriental magnificence with Moorish architecture and Christian emblems ; its facade em- bellished with ecclesiastical history written in mo- saic;* and over its principal arched entrance the * At least that little episode in the history of the church is de- picted here which relates to the transfer of St. Mark's body from Alexandrea to Venice. The first scene represented is the pious fraud enacted by the Christians when they hid the body of their saint in a basket under piles of pork, from which the Mussulmans are repre- sented as recoiling. The story ends with the last Judgment. St. Vol. II.—I 98 VENICE. four horses of Lysippus, the seeming insignia of vic- tory, so often have they tramped over the world at- tached to the victor's car. These mute images put the greatness and the httleness of the world and its players into striking antithesis. They were the em- blems of Corinth's glory, of Rome's, of Constantino- ple's, of Venice', and of Napoleon's. Their king- doms, their glory, and their generations have passed away, and here these four brazen horses stand un- scathed! Three sides of the piazza are surrounded with very handsome edifices, with arcades gay wdth shops and cafes.* On the fourth is a space open to the sea, called the piazzetta (small piazza). On one side of this is the very beautiful facade of the ducal pal- ace ; a mixture, I believe, of Gothic and Moorish ar- chitecture, but so unlike anything European that we have seen, and so like architectural pictures of the East, that we seemed at once to have passed into the Asiatic world. Near the water stand two gran- ite columns, one surmounted by the lion of St. Mark, the other by the statue of a saint. Both these -col- umns were brought from the East, and are trophies of the conquests of the republic in the eleventh century. Opposite the ducal palace is another palace of beau- tiful architecture, and beside it the campanile, the Mark's Gospel, said to be written by his own hand, is among the treasures of the church. "The Venetians chose St. Mark," says M. Sismondi, " patron of their state, his hon figured in their arms, and his name in their language whenever they designated with peculiar affection their country or government." * Over these cafes and shops the nobles once had luxurious casi- nos, where they indulged in every species of pleasure. VENICE. 99 same on which Galileo stood to make his observa- tions. " This is Venice !" we said, as, after gazing for a half hour on this unimpaired magnificence, we turned to go to our hotel ; but our illusion vanished when we looked off upon the water, and saw but here and there a little boat, where there were once " Argosies bound From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England, From Lisbon, Barbary, and India!" I WENT before breakfast this morning to St. Mark's, and, as I paused for a moment at the door to look up at the figure of the saint on a ground of blue and gold, two persons, sinners I am sure, drew my eyes and thoughts from him. They were young men who appeared as if they had that moment land- ed from some piratical expedition. The one was looking about him vvith a careless curiosity ; there w^as a wild, savage desolation about the other I nev- er can forget ; his face was bronzed, and his tangled locks stood out as if they were of iron. I met his quick, glancing eye, but I am sure he did not see me, nor anything in the world around him ; the gor- geous ceiling, the Oriental marbles, the costly altars, pictures, bronzes, were to him as if they were not, and on he strode as if he were on a sea-beach, straight through the kneeling congregation, not paus- ing till he reached the steps before the high altar, when he threw himself prostrate on them, and seemed as if he would have buried his face in the marble. 100 VENICE. The people were passing up and down, jostling him, treading on him ; he moved no more than if he had been struck dead there. It seemed to me that I could hear the cry from his soul, " God be merciful to me a sinner !" and not till the mass was over, when he rose, with an expression somewhat softened and calmed, and taking his companion, who had been listlessly staring about, by the arm, and hastened away, could I see anything but him ; and when I did look around upon this most gorgeous of Chris- tian temples, enriched as it is with the spoils of Can- dia, Cyprus, and the Morea, it seemed poor indeed compared with the worth of this sinning, suffering, and penitent spirit ; for so I am certain it was. Few churches are so enriched with historical as- sociations as St. Mark's. It was here that the sub- jection of imperial to papal power was consumma- ted by the dramatic exhibition of the humiliation of Frederic Barbarossa to Pope Alexander, when the emperor prostrated himself before his holiness and suffered him to plant his foot upon his neck.* The history of this church from the time it was a chapel — a mere appendage to the ducal palace — would be a history of Venice.f * This most abject circumstance in Frederic's humiliation is, I suspect, an interpolation of the papal legendaries. M. Sismondi, the most reliable of historians, merely says, " He (the emperor) threw aside his cloak, prostrated himself before Alexander, and kissed his feet." The foot upon the neck was, however, too picturesque a cir- cumstance to be lost, and do a Venetian painter has given it perpe- tuity in a splendid picture Which hangs in the ducal palace. t It was here that one^f the finest scenes in the great drama of the crusades was enacted, when the heroic Henry Dandolo, blind, VENICE. 101 We have been over the ducal palace, up the "Giant's Stairs," and the golden-roofed staircase, and through the immense halls whose ceilings and walls are embellished by Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and Titian, with, to me — I am profane, or, perhaps, most ignorant to say so — uninteresting pictures. The portraits of the doges, which hang below the cornice, encircling one apartment, are not so. They are all there excepting one, and on the tablet where that should be is painted a black veil^ with an in- scription to signify that this was assigned to Ma- rino Faliero ! Poor old man ! Byron has painted his picture there ; and those who see it beneath the black veil scarcely look at the 120 others. The doges have passed away, and you meet here only tourists, to whom the ciceroni are explaining, in a semi-barbarous dialect, the painted histories of their reigns and triumphs. We went out of the palace on to the " Bridge of and ninety-four years old^ addressed the crowds of Venetians and crusaders, royal, noble, and plebeian, who were assembled in St. Mark's, " Lords," he said, " you are of the first gentry in the world, and banded together for the noblest cause men ever under- took. I am a feeble old man who need repose ; but ill fitted as is my body for the service, I perceive there is none who can so well lead and govern you as I who am your lord. If you will suffer that I take the cross to watch over and teach you, and that my son remain to guard the land, I will go forth to live and die with you and with the pilgrims." And when this was heard, " Yes," they cried all with one voice ; " and we pray God also to permit that you come forth with us and do it." This, with many more particulars, may be found in the touching language of the old chronicler in M. Sismondi's Ital- ian Republics, I 2 102 VENICE. Sighs" and to the prisons of the Inquisition j for, as you know, " There is a palace and a prison on each hand." We went into the dungeons on a level with the sea ; those below its level were destroyed forever by the French revolutionists who, in their days of madness, did this among many other righteous deeds. The curiosities of prisons are horrors, and I shall not detail to you those that were shown us,* but leave them all for the cell where we saw the inscrip- tion which Lord Byron copied, and which you may recollect in the notes to his Childe Harold. Our ci- cerone, who was of a calibre very superior to most of his craft, read the lines with Italian taste and grace, and told us that Lord Byron had taken the pains to retrace and deepen them, " Yes, with his ovyii hand.'^f 20th. — We have been all the morning in our gon- * These hideous prisons are not more than six or seven feet square, with mud floors, and a grating a few inches in length and breadth, which opens into a gallery, into which the only ray of light that ever came was from the torch of the turnkey, when, once a day, he brought the prisoner his food. The French, when they came to Venice, found a man in oneof these cells who had been there for four- teen years. They set him free, and carried him in procession through the grand piazza. The poor wretch was struck, blind, and died in two or three days ! t I was sorry afterward to hear this man agreeing v/ith a hard-fa- voured wretch in calling Silvio Pellico a "menteur," and maintain- ing that he had never been in " the leads," which, by-the-way, they spoke of as " beawe prisons." VENICE. 103 dola. We first rowed through the grand canal, which is bordered for two miles by churches and palaces; affecting memorials of the rise, dominion, perfection, decay, desertion, and death of " Venice ;" a death so recent that the freshness and beauty of life has not quite passed away.*^ A few of these palaces are still in the possession and occupancy of their noble families, but wherever you see one in its original splendour (and most splendid they are) you see the collar-mark upon it, " Provinzie di Venezie/^ indicating that it is appropriated to the officers and purposes of the Austrian government. For the most part they are dilapidated,! with broken glass, parchment panes, and indications that they are de- graded to base uses. As we passed the Foscari palace we saw a Ve- netian washing, patched calico gowns and all man- ner of trumpery drying over the massive and sculp- tured stone balconies of that princely home, to be- hold which once more an exiled son of the house risked and lost his life. Nearly opposite this palace is that which Byron occupied ; its location may have suggested the tragedy of " The two Foscari." And what painful and pleasant remembrances did his res- idence suggest to us as we passed under its balcony * "The foundation of Venice preceded by seven centuries the emancipation of the Lombard cities, and its fall was three centuries after the subjection of Florence." Truly it had a long life of power and glory. t We were told they would be taken down, and small, tenantable houses built from their materials, but for an order of the Austrian government forbidding it, why, I know not, unless they wish to pre- serve them as a trophy. 104 VENICE. and thought of Moore's groping his way through the dark hall after Byron, while he called out, " Keep clear of the dog ! take care, or that monkey will fly at you !" and his droll exclamation as they stood together on the moonlit balcony, " DonH be poetical, Tom !" and, alas ! of the mock-tragic drama enacted here by his Formarina, and of other episodes in his life that he must have wished to blot out, and of which those who admire and pity him must wish his biographer had spared the record. Byron's is the greatest and best known of English names in Italy. Some of the Venetian palaces still contain treas- ures of art. In the Palazzo Barbarigo, where Titian long lived, and where he died, there is a gallery called " Scuola di Tiziano.'''' Here we saw a Mag- dalen, the last he ever painted, and the^r^^, I think, ever painted. It belongs to the highest class of that intellectual painting which reveals the secrets of the soul. You see a woman who has been for^ given much because she loved much; a voluptuary by nature and a saint by grace ; and you feel as- sured, from the depth and calmness of her feelings, that she will sin no more. The old woman who showed us the gallery, and who, in her progress, had poured out the usual quantity of a cicerone's superbas ! and magnificas ! said, " Other pictures have their prices ; this is priceless !" We have seen other pictures by Titian in Venice which seem to me to come into the same category, truly to be " priceless," the Assumption (called his masterpiece), where the loveliest cherubs, alias winged Italian VENICE. 105 children, are floating in a wreath of clouds around her ; or the Sacrifice of Isaac, on the ceiUng of the sacristy in Santa Maria della Salute. The beautiful boy is bending over the pile, awaiting the stroke, with an expression of most dutiful obedience, and something more ; there is a trustfulness, as if he felt his father could not do him wrong. The angel ap- pears with a blended expression of Divine authority and human sympathy, and you fed the command which he eagerly utters, and which the awe-struck patriarch has turned to receive, " Lay not thine hand upon the lad !"* This picture is a lyric poem ; but for the epics of the " Venetian school," with their architecture and landscape, their complication of action and variety of character, their groups of men, w^omen, and children, Jews, infidels, and brutes, it requires more artistic education, and far more time than we have, to comprehend and enjoy them. The Rialtof is a stone bridge over the grand ca- nal, and in its material of stone and mortar precisely what it was when merchants there " most did con- gregate." But the princely merchants, who unlock- ed and locked at pleasure the golden gates of the East, have disappeared, and in their places are peo- * After seeing Titian's masterpieces, one enjoys the old story of Charles Fifth's reproof of his nobles' scorn of his plebeian favourite. " I can create with a breath a hundred dukes, counts, and barons, but, alas ! I cannot make one Titian !" t I do not understand why the name Rialto is used merely to des- ignate the bridge. " It was in 809," says M. Sismondi, " that the Ve- netians made choice of the little island of the Rialto, near which they assembled their fleet, with their collected wealth on board, and built the city of Venice, the capital of their republic." 106 VENICE. pie walking up and down between the rows of mean shops, hawking, in the loudest and most dissonant tones, tortone (a famous species of candy), cakes, fish, and like fancy articles. An old Jew sleeping in the shadow of the bridge, over whom we stum- bled as we got out of our gondola for a moment, re- called my poetic associations with the Rialto; but to retain them undisturbed one should not see it. The bridge is a high arch, and the street on each side of it is of course continued over it between the mean one-story shops which are built on it. The bridge has two other broad passages between the shabby rear of the shops and its balustrades, and thus encumbered and defaced is the aspect it pre- sents as you approach it on the canal. We visited the Arsenal as a memorial rather than an actual existence. Its silent forges and empty mag- azines only serve to impress you with the vast com- merce and power of the fallen republic. It occupies an island three miles in circumference, and has the aspect of an independent fortress. The winged lion, brought from the Piraeus of Athens, still guards its entrance, but you know too surely that his teeth and claws are gone by his watchdogs in Austrian uni- form.* We passed along a portico lined with every * These gentry refused entrance to our courier ; service being a disqualifier for such privilege here, as colour is in our enlightened country. We trust these shadows will, ere long, pass quite off the civilized world. VENICE. 107 species of workshop relating to ship-building — all si- lent now — and, crossing through a spacious dock- yard where there w^ere a score or two of galley- slaves in long, clanking chains, working under the surveillance of other slaves in a different uniform and without chains, called gens d'armes, we entered the model-room. There, among a vast variety of curi- ous things, we saw an exact miniature of the gal- ley in which the doges were accustomed to per- form the ceremony of their espousals witli the Adri- atic. It is of a most graceful form, its exterior gild- ed and embossed with devices illustrative of the his- tory of Venice. The canopy is of crimson velvet; Venice, " a proud ladye," sits in the prow with Peace at her feet and the scale of Justice in her right hand. In the stern is the throne of the doge, and at its back an opening through which he threw the wedding-ring to his sea-bride. Opposite the throne sits Time, with his admonitory scythe and hourglass. When this was rigged, with four stal- wart Venetians at each crimsoned and gilded oar, it must have been a pretty show ! We were shown an immense hall filled with tro- phies, banners, and weapons of all their conquered enemies. Christians and Turks, and halls filled with Venetian armour ; and, among other curiosities, a very entertaining collection of the Inquisition's in- struments of torture ; some among them ingenious and perfect enough to have been forged in the lower regions. Ah, cruelty has ever gone hand in hand with power, my dear C. 108 VENICE. The perfect repose, the indolent luxury of a gon- dola has not been exaggerated. I cannot convey to you a notion of the delight of its soft cushions and gliding motion after a two hours of such tedious sight-seeing as we had at the arsenal ; it puts you into that delicious state between waking and sleep- ing, between the consciousness of fatigue and cares, and the unconsciousness of oblivion. We were rowed out to an island in the sea, San Lazzaro, to see the Armenian convent and college, whose foundations were laid long ago by an Arme- nian who bought the island, and instituted a school here for his countrymen. The pupils receive a learn- ed education for various professions. The college has a printing-press, and prints books in forty or fifty different languages.* A large revenue is realized from their sale. We were conducted about the in- stitution by a very intelligent and courteous Ar- menian priest, and we encountered some fine old Eastern people with long, silvered beards. The * Lady Morgan fancied if there were a free press in the world, it must be " the ocean-press of San Lazzaro ;" and she relates, in her best manner, ber conversation with the librarian, who asserted it was a free press. She asked if he would print a book for her that re- quired a "very free press." "Certainly," he replied; "any book that her ladyship might write," " What, if she should speak ill of the Emperor of Austria ?" " Certainly not." " Might she have a hit at his holiness ?" this was worse still. Unwilling, she says, to lose her game, she started the grand seignior. " The grand seignior was a powerful neighbour." " In a word, it was evident," she concludes, "that the press of San Lazzaro was just as free as the Continental presses of Europe, where one might print freely under the inspec- tion of two or three censors !" VENICE. 109 young men were extremely handsome. As you go east and south the beauty of the human race im- proves ; there is a richer colouring and more spirit, more of the sun's light in the eyes. Our conductor showed us the room in vi^hich Byron received his lessons " when his lordship took the whirriy^ he said, " to study Armenian, and to swim across to us from the Lido !" As we were rowing homeward, a Venetian gen- tleman who accompanied us pointed out the Canali degli Orfani, where bodies are thrown which any one wishes quietly to dispose of. " Fishing here," he said, " is forbidden, lest it should lead to unpleas- ant discoveries !" Our hotel was so full on the first day of our arri- val in Venice that we could only get dismal apart- ments in the rear, where we felt as if more than the ducal palace had a prison attached to it. But the following morning w^e w^ere transferred to a superb suite of apartments in front, looking out upon the sea, which have to us a charm from having been oc- cupied by the Countess Confalonieri when she was suing for her husband's pardon, with long-deferred and finally baffled hope, to the Austrian court. I am alone, the family being all at the opera, and I have just been standing in the balcony looking at the moon, w^hich is pouring a flood of light through this clear atmosphere down upon the sea. In her efful- gence Orion is but dimly visible. I can look up to Vol. II.— K 110 VENICE. the familiar objects in the heavens, and almost forget my distance from you ; but the painful sense returns as I bring my eyes to earth, for oh ! how different is this earth from ours ! There is the splendid Church of San Georgio with her tall campanilla, and Santa Maria della Salute with her cupolas, and here are gondolas gliding out of the little canal into the Giu- decca, and others gliding in and out among the ves- sels that lie at anchor in the harbour. On my right is the ducal palace and prison ; I cannot see the Bridge of Sighs, but it is almost within my touch, so near that I feel the atmosphere that surrounds it, and am glad to be cheered by the lively voices of a merry troop that are passing on to the piazzetta, and, as that sound dies away, to hear the delicious voice of a cavalier in a gondola, who is singing for his own pleasure — and certainly for mine. We hear so much of the gondola in Venice that we almost forget there is " solid earth for tread of feet," though for the most part artificial. After pass- ing the greater part of five delicious days in a gon- dola, I went this morning, the beginning of, alas ! our last day in Venice, to the Rialto on foot, that I might see something of the terra-firma of this singu- lar town. There is nothing, I beheve, in the world like the streets of Venice ; streets they can scarcely be called, nor lanes, nor alleys, for they have not the peculiarities of either. They are lined by such lofty houses, that, excepting at noonday, a ray of VENICE. Ill the sun never reaches them ; no wheel turns in them, no horse's hoof treads over them. They are inter- sected by the canals, and filled with petty shops that in no wise recall the time when Venice was the mart and channel of the productions of the East The manners of the tradespeople are civil, but not obsequious or obtrusive. They have the gener- al Italian habit of asking one price, and offering to take the half of it, " for the pleasure of serving ma- dame," or " to make a beginning," or for some other ready and most reasonable reason !* We bought on the Rialto some trifling specimens of the exqui- sitely fine gold-chain work done here, a pendant for the Brussels lace manufacture. These gold chains, some fabrics of beads, and some rather curious but inferior glass manufactures (all that remain of the unrivalled Venetian glass-works), are now the only products peculiar to Venice. We have merely seen the outside of things here. Our only acquaintance, a Venetian exquisite, who seems not to suspect there is any but an outside to life, could give no very enlightening answers to our many questions. In reply to an inquiry about the education of women, he shrugged his shoulders, and said, " 9a commence !" So I suppose they are about as well instructed as they were in Byron's time here, * It is to be earnestly desired that our tradesmen should not yield to the temptation of ihis habit, which most certainly leads to a dep- raTation of mercantile morality. 112 JOURNEY TO FERRARA. when, as you may remember, a conversation turning upon Washington, a learned lady asked " if he were not the man killed in a duel by Burke." I asked our acquaintance, when we were passing the mad-house, which looked very like a prison, " if the patients were well taken care of." " Assez bien" (" Well enough"), he replied, stroking his mustache. " Luck is a lord." We had our for- tune at Milan 5 we must take the turn of the wheel here.* Ferrara, Nov. 24. My dear C, We are seldom annoyed in Italy with any appa- rent dissatisfaction in the people we employ. The servants at the inns, coachmen, valets de place, &c., &c., are all paid by fees. They have a pride or self-respect which prevents their murmuring when they are not content.f There is a monstrous disproportion between the wages of people and the fees ; for instance, a labourer working out of * I perhaps owe an apology for publishing the above meager no- tices of Venice. Where there is most to be said it is very difficult to say a little well. We spent five beautiful days in going in our gondola from sight to sight, in visiting churches and palaces. Our dawns and twilights were passed at St. Mark's, within two minutes' walk of our hotel. Of course, we accumulated immense lists of things which are mere lists, and have been well expanded by a hun- dred tourists who have preceded us. t This remark does not apply to Southern Italy. All such deli- cacy has vanished long before you reach Naples, where " poor Ohver asks for more,' till it would become ludicrous if it were not most pitiable. JOURNEY TO FERRARA. 113 doors all day gets ten sous, and your waiter, who gives you, perhaps, two or three hours of very light work, expects two francs from each person, which, from a party of six, amounts to two dollars and thirty cents per day. We made a deduction from this at the Hotel Reale, and our garqon, who sport- ed his Venetian gold chain, was " tres mecontent.^^ So was not our gondolier friend, Andrea Donaio. He has attended us all day, the best of gondoliers, the most sagacious and prompt of cicerones. As we came away, he stood at the foot of the stone staircase, hat in hand, in his close-fitted, scarlet- corded dress, his fine black hair waving off his bronzed temples; his sound white teeth shown off by a kindly smile. I told him how glad we should be to see him some bright day in New- York, and his " Grazie, signore," and " Buon viaggio, es- sallenza !" were the last words we heard as we got into our gondola to pass for the last time before the prisons, the Bridge of Sighs, the ducal palace, the piazza, and all its magnificent accompaniments, into the Giudecca. Andrea's wishes were vain. We have had a dis- mal journey hither. As we left Venice, the ram came on again, and has continued; the rivers are still rising, and menacing the country with de- struction. You can hardly imagine anything more frightful than the aspect of the Valley of the Po at this moment. The course of the river is through a flat country. Deposites of slime and gravel from year to year have so raised its bed that, to prevent K2 114 JOURNEY TO FERRARA. it from submerging the adjacent land, dikes have been erected ; and as the level of the river has ris- en, the dikes have been raised higher and higher, till now the river, at its ordinary level, is in some places thirty feet higher than the land on the other side the embankment. Whenever the river rises three feet above its usual level, great alarm is felt, and guards are placed with proper instruments ready to repair the slightest breach in the dike. As we passed along the road on the top of the embank- ment, the brimming, muddy river was rushing furi- ously on one side of us, and on the other, many feet below us, lay villages and farm-houses, those on the lowest ground half under water, and all ap- pearing as if they might at any moment be swal- lowed up. At intervals of a few yards along the road there were tents of matting, saturated with a forty days' rain, and under each two watchmen, peas- ants, stretched on the wet ground, their enemy on the one side, and their menaced homes on the other, ■with an anxiety and despair in their faces that ex- pressed how hopelessly they opposed themselves to the unbridled elements. Poor fellov7s, their case is a hard one ! The win- ter-grain is so soaked that it is certain it must all be rotted. In our thinly-peopled land, where the fail- ure of one year's crops is but a disappointment, you can hardly imagine the effect of such a disaster where the fullest supplies are in fearful disproportion to the consumption. The streets of Ferrara to-day are crowded with people whose homes were under JOURNEY TO FERRARA. 115 "water ; 1500 are provided for — being drowned ! It is said that the King of Piedmont and the Duke of Tuscany, fearing the consequences of the despair of their people, have aheady made liberal appropria- tions for their relief. I hope they may have been instigated by a better motive than fear. The virtue called forth by physical evil is its only satisfactory solution.* We were to cross the Po at the barrier of the pope's dominions, and here, at their very portal, we had a charming illustration of the imbecility of the papal government, the most imbecile in Italy. The ferry appertains to his holiness. There was no boat on our side of the river ; and though the postillions, gens d'armes, and loungers shouted at the very top of their voices, no answer was returned ; at last we despatched a row-boat, and after an hour we saw a * The following anecdote, which I afterward heard from Mr. W. at Florence, may appear to others, as it did to me, an illustration of the above remark. While we were looking at the superb Strozzi palace Mr. W. said, " The head of this house, the marquis, was on his country estates during the distress on the Po last autumn. Seeing some persons on the roof of a house in instant danger of being swept off, he offered a large sum to some boatmen if they would go to the rescue. The peril was too great, and they refused. He doubled his offer, they still refused — they had wives and families, they said. ' Would they go if he would go with them V * Yes, they would do anything the Padrone would do.' The marquis wrote a few lines to a friend and embarked with them. At tremendous hazard they succeeded in their enterprise. By some mistake the note, which was only to have been opened in case the marquis did not return, was read, and was found to contain instructions that, in case his companions should be lost, their families should be provided for from his estate." When I was at Florence this same marquis was spending his time driving four in hand and philandering fine ladies. Truly, calamities have their uses. 116 FERRARA. sluggish machine destined for our transport, and mo- ving as though it moved not. It was drawn by a rope attached to horses on the shore a mile and a half up the river, and then dropped down the current to us. After infinite difficulty, with pushing, pulhng, and hoisting, and the din of twenty Italians who were all helping and all helpless, our heavy carriage was got on board the boat, and we were landed safely on the other side, and were charged by his holiness's servants for these admirable facilities six dollars. Ferrara is a dearly fine old city, with immense, unoccupied houses, and wide, grass-grow^n streets, looking little lilce the seat of the independent and proud house of Este. Its chief interest to us results from its being the home of our friend Foresti, whose character does it more honour than all this princely house from beginning to end. Byron, you remember, says of Italy, " their life is not our life — their moral is not our moral." This is but in part true. There is a moral that is universal ; and wherever man ex- ists, in savage or in civilized life, he renders an in- stinctive homage to such an uncompromising pursuit of justice and love of freedom as Foresti has mani- fested in persecution, in prison, in bonds, and under sentence of death. I believe that if, at this moment, his youth, country, and high position could be re- stored to him, with his experience of sixteen years of chains and most dreary imprisonment, he would again sacrifice all, and suffer all over again in the same cause — such is the uncrushahle material of his noble character. PERRARA. 117 Well, here we are, in the midst of his family and friends. One of them, a man of letters, Signor B., called immediately after breakfast, and attended us, first, to the casino, where 300 persons, the gentry of Ferrara, who are its proprietors, meet every even- ing ; and, unless there is a ball, or they are other- wise particularly well amused, adjourn to an adjoin- ing theatre ; truly, " their life is not our life." We next went to St. Anne's Hospital, once a monastery, and now converted to the really Christian purpose of sheltering the sick and insane. The insane are under the care of a distinguished man of science, and, what is more to the purpose, a genuine philan- thropist. We have been told to-day many anec- dotes of him, from which we infer that his organ of benevolence, like our honoured friend Woodward's, has a particular development for the management of mad people.* The " minister to the mind diseased," in our Puritan land, takes his patients to church ; the Italian professor conducts them to the theatre — the universal panacea in Italy ; K. says, " the con- forto and ristoro of old and young, rich and poor." The different modes of proceeding are nationally characteristic: both prove that excitement, proper- ty administered, is healthful and not hurtful to the insane patient. We were shown the cell of the hospital in which Tasso was imprisoned. Our old custode had a loyal * He uses the same enlightened means, substituting truth, gen- tleness, and persuasion for manoeuvring, sternness, and authority. We saw some of the incurables quietly basking in the sunshine in a pleasant garden. 118 FERRARA. # feeling for the house of Este, and would fain have us believe that, dismal as the place appeared to us, it was quite a pleasant residence in Tasso's time, with one lookout upon a street and another upon a garden I There was as much common sense as ge- nius in Byron shutting himself up in this cell to write his " Lament of Tasso." He w^as sure to find the actual locale of suffering innocence and kindred ge- nius a heated furnace for his imagination. The old man told us some particulars of Lord Byron's visit, and showed us his name written by himself in deep-cut characters. " Under Lord By- ron's name," he said, " was that of his Segretario Samuel Rogers." We all smiled, recurring at once to Mr. Rogers, as we had recently seen him, with his own poetic reputation, surrounded by the respect that waits on age, heightened into homage by his personal character; and K. expostulated, and tried to enlighten the old man's ignorance — but in vain. Byron's is the only English name that has risen, or ever will rise, above his horizon, and " the *S'e^- retario^^ must remain a dim-reflected light. B. escorted us to his house, where we were kind- ly received by the signora, and admitted to the studio of her son, who has just received a prize at Florence for miniature painting. They showed us some exquisite pictures of his execution, upon which I said, " You are a fortunate mother to have a son of such genius." " Ah !" she replied, " but he is so good — so good !" This does indeed make the for- tunate mother. In this country of art, my dear C, # FERRARA. 119 the painter's studio is a sort of museum. Young B.'s occupied several apartments containing pretty casts, and the walls were covered with sketches, studies of anatomy, engravings, and paintings. B., the father, gave us various works of his own writing : a work on botany, tragedies, and transla- tions from Byron.* He is an enlightened man, and a first-rate hater of priests and kings. Inde- fatigable as all are who have the hard fortune to take our caravan in train, he accompanied us to the green square, where there has been recently placed a colossal statue of Ariosto on a beautifully-sculptur- ed white marble pillar, with this comprehensive in- scription : " A Ludovico Ariosto la Patria." Multum in parvo ! is there not 1 The Jesuits made a furious opposition to the erection of the statue, being no lovers of Ariosto, or favourers of any homage to secular eminence. They wished to put the statue of his holiness on the pillar, and wrote to Rome for a decree to that effect ; but, before the answer came, the wits of Ferrara had outwitted them. By dint of working night and day the statue had been placed on its lofty pedestal ; and buried under it is a histo- ry of the controversy, and, as B — i said, " milles belles choses^' of the Jesuits, which, when time shall * Signer B. said, " If men write in Italy, it is to get a name, or for the love of it ; there is no pecuniary compensation. Divided as we are into thirteen states, there is no protection for literary property." If most authors are to be believed, this should not lessen the number of books. They write merely to enlighten or improve their public ! Scott is one of the few authors who has had the honesty to avow that getting money was a distinct motive for writing. 120 FERRARA. • have knocked down the column, will serve to en- lighten posterity as to the history and true character of the bigots. In the mean time, the poet stands, as he did in life, high above his fellows. As a natural sequence, we visited a house which Ariosto built, and where he lived and died. The room in which he wrote has a fine bust of him on one side, and on the other the following inscription : " Ludovico Ariosto in questa camera scrisse e ques- ta casa da lui abitata edificb ; laquale 280 anni dopo la morte del divino poeta fii da Girolamo Ci- cognara podesta co' denari del commune compra e ristaurata perche alia venerazione delle genti se mantenesse."* Next to the possession of greatness is the sentiment that reverences it, and this you find everywhere in Italy. The door of Tasso's prison and that to Ariosto's room have been well chipped for relics. B. conducted us to the cemetery, an old monastic establishment, wTested from the priests after, as he said, a " guerre a mort^^ and converted to the good purpose of burying the dead instead of the living. The long perspective of the cloisters is beautiful. Many of the monks' cells are converted into family vaults, and decorated with monuments, frescoes, and bas-reliefs. One large apartment is appropriated to " the illustrious men of Ferrara." * " Ludovico Ariosto wrote in this room ; and this house, built and inhabited by him, was 280 years afterward bought and restored by Girolamo Cicognara with the commune's money, that it might be preserved for the veneration of mankind." FERRARA. 121 We had a scene in the twilight, which I can best describe to you, my dear C, by copying K.'s ac- count of it from her journal. She says, " What was my astonishment, when I came into the drawing- room, to find Uncle R. in a corner of the room, his face covered with his hands. Aunt L. leaning on the mantlepiece also in tears. Aunt K. holding the hand of a lady in black, who, with vehement gestures, was pouring out a rapid succession of broken sen- tences, and L. and M. looking on in most solemn silence. Aunt K. seized me, and said, ' This is Fo- resti's sister. Tell her how much he is beloved and respected in New-York — tell her we try to make him feel he has a home among us.' As well as I could I played my part of interpreter, and Teresa, in a voice interrupted by many sighs and tears, tried to express her gratitude, but exclaimed every few minutes in a paroxysm of anguish, stretching out her arms, ' lo non so piu parlare ; non so piu far al- tro che piangere e pregar la mia Madonna !' Ta- king up her black gown, she said, ' Questo e un abito di voto ', I'ho messo quando era in prigione il mio Felice, per farlo liberare ; dal momento delle sue disgrazie sono caduta ammalata. Stave per mori- re ', i medici credettero che non potessi guarire. Sono solamente tre anni che sto un po' meglio ; ho perso tutti i cappelli, ne aveva molti. Non ho volu- to mandare il mio ritratto al fratello perche sono tanto combiata tanto brutta che non mi riconosce- rebbe. Non posso dormire. Prego, prego sempre Vol. XL— L 122 FERRARA. la mia Madonna che mi guarisca di quest' orribile veglia e che mi faccia abbraeciare una volta il mio Felice prima di morire. Non e che la speranza di vederlo che mi tiene in vita !'* This is a gathering up of the fragments of her discourse ; but I cannot give an idea of her sorrow-worn countenance, her impassioned tears and expressive gestures, which gave the most powerful effect to every word she ut- tered, and left a deep and sad impression on our minds. Just Heaven ! what must be the import to Francis, ' the father of his people,^ of that sentence, * with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.' " Yes, truly, those who have turned the sweet streams of domestic love into such bitter, bit- er waters — the Francises and Metternichs — will have a fearful account to render. My dear C, we have so many exiles among us, we so glorify ourselves with the idea that our free country is their asylum, that I fear we are some- times deficient in that keen sympathy which we should feel in their personal misfortunes, if we real- ized the sundered ties and languishing affections of the broken hearts in their violated homes. * " I no longer know how to talk. I can only weep and pray to our Lady !" Taking up her black gown, she said, " I put on this mourning when my broiher went to prison, with a vow to wear it till he was freed. From the moment of his misfortune I fell sick. I have been near to death. The physicians believed it was impossi- ble to cure me. For the last three years only have I been a little better. I have lost all my hair. I once had a great deal. I would not send my portrait to my brother ; I am so changed he would not know me, I cannot sleep ; I pray and pray to our Lady to cure me of this horrible wakefulness, and that she will permit me to embrace my brother once before I die. The hope of seeing him is all that keeps me alive !" \y FERRARA. 123 Professor B. and some other friends of Foresti passed the evening with us, partly at the theatre and partly at home. In spite of the wear and tear of twenty years' separation, their attachment to him is unimpaired. Among them was an old curate, who said that, " but for his age, he would go to America to see Foresti." Professor B. is a highly-cultivated man, with that great advantage to a new acquaint- ance, a beautiful countenance and charming man- ners, and, withal, he is a hearty liberal. He told us some facts which may give you an idea of the shackles and discomforts the government imposes here, and of the inextinguishable spirit of these no- ble Italians. There is an association of the literary and scientific men of the diiterent states of Italy re- cently formed, which is to have an annual meeting. It is favoured by the King of Piedmont and the Grand-duke of Tuscany ; but the pope, who stops every crevice at which light may enter, has issued a bull, declaring that if a subject of his shall be pres- ent at one of these meetings, he shall be held a trai- tor, and suffer accordingly. A physician is not permitted to make a profession- al visit beyond the walls of the city without going first to the police to declare where he is going, and the name and disease of his patient ! Professor B. said, " In 1831, when we all believed the favourable moment had arrived for asserting our liberty, I, who had belonged to no secret society, nor had had any- thing to do with promoting the excitement, declared my sympathy with the liberals, and was delegated 124 JOURNEY TO BOLOGNA. by them to warn the apostoUc legate that he was about to be deprived of all power, moral and physical, but that his person would be untouched. He cour- teously expressed his obligations to me ; but when, at the end of our twenty-six days of happiness ^ he was re-established, I found that my name was placed at the head of the black-list. I was deprived of all the public trusts I held, and I have been ever since so closely watched that I am but a prisoner. I can- not cross the frontier within ten miles of Ferrara, nor even go to Rome without a special permission from the secretary of state, which can only be procured by stating that I am going on professional business, and shall be in such and such houses, see such and such people, and be absent such a number of d^iys." This is the condition of the best subjects of a gov- ernment of which the head is also the head of the greatest body of Christians in the world. Oh ! my countrymen, thank God for your religious and civil freedom, and cherish it ! Bologna. — We had nothing notable during our dreary, cloudy drive to Bologna, but a rencounter with the beggars at our last post-station. As usual, beggars of all ages, from first to second childhood, flocked around our carriage. We had given away all our sous, and we had recourse to our lunch-bas- ket. I arranged the bread and chicken, and L. dis- pensed. " Oh ! give me a bit," she said, " for this boy with heavenly eyes !" " Here it is ; now give BOLOGNA. «125 this to that blind old woman." " Oh ! I must give this to that little Tot who is stretching up her arm to me ; what a perfect cherub she would be if her face was washed ! keep off, you snatcher !" to a lean, tall half idiot who was intercepting the cherub's slice. " Now, L., this must go to that sick, shivering old man !" " Oh ! wait, see this poor, pale girl." " Now for the old woman !" but the bit w^ent to a trembling boy who looked like a leper, with a with- ered arm ; and when my old woman was at last sup- plied, there was an evil-eyed hag and four boys who jostled the first comers away, and two of them, after devouring, like hungry dogs, what we gave them, followed us half a mile, calling " ca-ri-ta !" Beside the dramatis personse I have described, and who were actually en scene, we saw, as we drove off, oth- ers, lame and blind, coming from their more distant stations towards us. You must attribute some portion of the barrenness of my travelling journal, my dear C, to the bad w^eather that, almost without exception, has attend- ed us in our passages from place to place since we entered Italy. The advanced season, too, is against us. All rural occupation is suspended ; the vintage is past, the corn is husbanded, and the country has now (November 26) as bare an aspect as it ever has in Italy. Bologna, as you first see it, lying un- der the shadow of the Apennines, with its antique spires and leaning towers, is a most picturesque town; but all is picturesque in Italy, down to the laden ass and the beggar. From the villas and villages that L2 126 BOLOGNA. surround the town, you may imagine how rich and smiling the suburbs must be in any but this desolate season. As we drove through the streets we were struck with the long lines of arcades and columns that front all the edifices, and which afford a perfect protection to the foot-passenger. They were de- signed, I think, by the luxurious citizens, when the sumptuary laws of the republic forbade the use of covered carriages. There is an arcade of 640 arches extending from the town to a church of the Madon- na, on a hill three miles from the city. Truly the church has kept itself free of sumptuary laws. The Piazzo del Gigante, to which I have just walked in a pouring rain, is one of the most charac- teristic and grandest monuments of the Italian re- pubhcs that we have yet seen in Italy. With the fountain of Neptune, the master-piece of John of Bologna, in the centre, it is surrounded by churches, superb old palaces, towers, and other buildings with the most curious Gothic fronts. The " Academy of the Fine Arts" here contains one of the best galleries of pictures in the world. They are the master-pieces of the first masters, and what masters they were ! I feel now more than ever what nonsense it is to write about these pic- tures, since, with all I have read about them, I find I had no conception of their power — none worth having of the painter's divine art. BOLOGNA. 127 I make it a rule, in these galleries, not to go bewil- dering myself about from room to room, but to con- fine my attention to the best pictures ; and I have adhered to my rule to-day, hardly glancing even at the pictures of the three Caracci, all natives of Bo- logna. There is a painted tragedy here by Guido that would break your heart : " The murder of the In- nocents." The trustfulness of the lovely children, who feel themselves safe in the close embrace of the mother, contrasted with her terror and an- guish, is most touching. But the most affecting fig- ure is a mother with her hands clasped and her two dead children at her feet. It is all over with her ; she has nothing farther to hope or fear, and the res- ignation of the saint is struggling with the despair of the parent. You w^ant to throw yourself at her feet and weep wath her. The martyrdom of St. Agnes by Domenichino, wdth its glorious golden light, is a picture that even dear J., with all her horror of representations of physical suffering, could not turn away from ; there is such sweet peace on the face of the young woman. Art could not better illustrate that true and beauti- ful declaration of the prophet, *• The work of righ- teousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteous- ness quietness and assurance forever." The execu- tioner grasps her bright, wavy hair with one hand, while with hot pincers in the other he is burning out the flesh of her throat and bosom. The besotted judge looks on, and cherubs are floating over the 128 BOLOGNA. naissant saint, one holding the crown of martyrdom, and another a pen to record her triumphs. I pass over Guidons " Madonna della Pieta,^^ the " Rosario,^^ and even that imbodiment of perfect grace and beauty, Raphael's " St. CeciUa" (their names thrill those who have seen them!), for Guido's "Cru- cifixion," which, like the very scene, fills you with solemnity and aw^e. There are but four figures, and they are as large as life; that of Jesus ex- presses " It is finished !" Mary is not, as in most of her pictures, to the gross violation of truth, rep- resented young, but in the unimpaired ripeness of womanhood. She has the same face, dress, and at- titude as in the Pieta, but there she divides your attention wdth the admirable portraits of the four adoring saints; there Scripture truth and simplicity are sacrificed to a fable or an imagination of the church ; here you see the real Mary, and the un- fathomable depths of her sorrow show the prophecy accomplished : " the sword has pierced her soul." John, standing on the other side the cross, is the personification of gentleness and tenderness worthy that highest trust of his master, "Woman, behold thy son !" The only imperfection that struck me in the picture is a want of a right expression in Mary Magdalene. She is a beautiful, sorrowing young girl kneeling at the foot of the cross, and pressing her brow against it, but she is not the forgiven pen- itent. Surely the reformers forgot that nine tenths of mankind receive their strongest impressions through their senses, when they excluded such glorious pre- BOLOGNA. 129 sentments of Divine truth from their churches. I should have but a poor opinion of him whose devo- tion WQ.S not warmed by Guido's Crucifixion. A masterly head of an old man arrested my at- tention. I examined my catalogue, and found it was painted by Guercino in a single night, and was called " the head of the Eternal Father !" The at- tempt is as futile as profane to represent Him whom " no man can see, and live." While enjoying these sublime work? of art as a new revelation, we were hurried away to see some- thing else that must be seen now or never. The Campo Santo, being the most beautiful thing of its kind in Italy, we could not overlook ; accordingly we drove there. This was formerly a chartreuse — an immense monastic establishment ; once the dreary habitation of the living, who suffered in its magnif- icent solitude, now the beautiful abode of the dead, who cannot enjoy it. Such are the perversions of human things ! The cemetery at Ferrara dwindled to insignificance compared with this. I can give you no idea of the immense perspective of its clois- ters, all lined with tablets, and monuments, and fresco paintings, or of the almost infinite series of cells, converted into family tombs by the exclu- sives of Bologna. These open from the cloister^ and are so arranged as to produce a most picturesque architectural effect. " The million" are laid in four large, open courts in classes, one for men, one for women, one for boys, and another for girls. There seemed to me in this a cold neglect of the law of 130 BOLOGNA. family love, that governs all mankind. There are some splendid public monuments, and a pantheon is building for the illustrious of Bologna, and in the mean time there is a large apartment filled with their busts. I noticed a very fine one of a woman who was professor of Greek in the University of Bologna within the present century.* Immense as the establishment is, large additions are making. " You mean to have room for all Bo- logna,'' I said to our conductor. " Oui, madame, tout le monde entre et personne en fort. C'est pour quoi il faut toujours batir" (" All come in and none go out. So we have to keep on building"). It has been our great pleasure to meet Miss here. You can hardly imagine the dehght, after being exclusively among foreign people, of meeting a high-bred Englishwoman who is not foreign to us. She sang for us, and truly, as Mrs. said of her, she does not sing like an angel, but "like a choir of angels." Music is the key that unlocks * It is said that Italy has produced more learned women than any part of Europe, and that Bologna has longest continued to respect and reward the literary acquisitions of women. It was a lady of Bologna who, in the fifteenth century, was so zealous a champion of her sex as to employ her wit and learning to prove the world has been all this while in error, and that it was Adam who tempted Eve. It is curious that the most illustrious examples of learned women should spring up in a country where they are condemned, en masse, to ignorance ; where a conventual education prescribes religion as their only duty, and their instincts cherish love as their only happi- ness. FILLAGARE. 131 her soul and brings its rich revelations to her face. She looks, while singing, like an inspired sibyl. We went to the opera with her, where we saw, for the first time, a decent ballet. The house is very pretty. There are balconies projecting from the loges, which show off the audience and give the house a lively aspect unusual in the Italian theatres. Jfov, 28. — A wretched morning, and the rain pouring, my dear C. ; but our letters are at Flor- ence, and there must we be — so ho! for the Apen- nines, Fillagare. — As we drove out of Bologna I had a melancholy sense of the ludicrous insufficiency of two rainy days in a place where we might have been employed for six months in studying the al- most unimpaired records of its days of power and magnificence. In spite of the pouring rain, we en-» joyed the environs of Bologna. They are richly em- bellished. At our second post we took a third pair of horses, and at the first ascent a yoke of oxen in addition, and then began a slow drag up the Apennines, which we continued till six this evenino-, with the exception of a race down the hills as fearless and careless as the driving in our own country. This is a new experience ; for, till now, the caution of our postiUions has gone even a little beyond my cow- ardly notions of prudence. The Apennines are a congregation of hills ; those 132 FILLAGARE. we have, passed to-day are much higher, but not un- like, in their formation, the hills between Berkshire and Hampshire, though, judging from their produc- tions, very unlike in their climate. Here are fine fields of well-started winter-grain, and occasional planta- tions of grapes flung from tree to tree. Once the misty atmosphere cleared, and we got a peep of the Adri- atic and the Alps. We have been all day thinking of you. It is " Thanksgiving Day ;" and our position in a huge, lonely inn in the midst of the Apennines, with a salon over a stable, is a sorry contrast to your sweet savours and social pleasures round the hearth of our childhood ! We have entered Tuscany, and I fancy I can see the spirit of this most fortunate land of Italy in our buxom, frank, good-humoured hostess and her beautiful progeny, with their black eyes and golden skins. We have been talking with the eldest, Candida and Clementina, and petting the youngest, Giulio and Angiolino ! " a pretty Ital- ianizing of Tom and Sam," K. says. I like, of all things, to stop at these inns which are not the regular stopping-places. The people are social and frank, and you get some insight into the national modes of getting on. You will find no teacups and no tea (but that first of necessaries you always have with you), and you have a droll medley for your table-service ; and, instead of a dandy waiter with his meager French, and his " snbito signora," and his action never suited to the w^ord, you have all the family to serve you, with their amusing individ- ualities, and all eager and indefatigable. JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. 133 We left our shelter at Fillagare at nine this morning. We are often wondering at the com- plaints we have heard of the impositions in Italy. We had excellent bread and delicious butter from the cascina (the duke's dairy) with our tea, and fresh eggs in the morning, generous un-Italian fires in two rooms, and a pair of chickens for to-day's lunch, all for one dollar each ; and being an inn where travellers seldom stop, they had the tempta- tion to pluck well the goose that is rarely caught. I walked on in advance of the carriage this morn- ing, and a heavy, impenetrable mist came scudding over the hills in one direction, and far, far away in another the light streamed down in a silvery shower, in which the old faith of the land would have en- veloped a descending Divinity. I was amid scenery so wild and solitary that it recalled my earliest ideas of Italy got from Mrs. RatclifTe's romances, when I was suddenly awakened from a revery to an uncomfortable consciousness of my isolation and helplessness by the apparition of a savage-looking wretch clothed in sheep-skins. He, however, betook himself to the reliable occupation of tending his sheep. Soon after an ass-rider overtook me, and I tried to keep pace with his beast, thinking that he was a safeguard who possessed even so much prop- erty as an ass, but the brute ambled away from me ; and while I paused, hesitating whether to proceed or turn towards the carriage, I perceived a ragged, wild-looking man in an adjoining field, who eyed me Vol. II.— M 134 JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. for an instant, and then came rapidly towards me. I hesitated no longer, but turned and walked quick- ly down the hill, seeing, as I looked askance at my pursuer, that he gained on me. " Oh," thought I, " what a fool I was, when Fran9ois told me yester- day this was no country for a lady to walk alone in, to try it a second time !" Like the Irishman, I thought all the world might hear the singing in my ears, when, to my unspeakable relief, our great ma- chine, with its attelage of six horses, appeared in sight. Oh, how brave I felt as I again turned and eyed my enemy, who immediately retreated, giving me thus some colour of reason to believe that I had been on the verge of an incident very rare of late years. It is surprising to me, with the temptations of booty which the rich English travel- lers offer, the urgency of the people's wants, and the favourable positions occurring on the great thorough- fares, that robberies are not frequent in Italy. The wind blew furiously to-day on the summits of the Apennines. These gusts of wind, as M. read to us from our guide-book (at the moment it seemed to be swelling to a hurricane), formerly carried away carriages, travellers, and all ; but now all danger of such a catastrophe is obviated by stone walls erected for protection by the " paternal grand-duke." At our fourth post all wildness and sterility disap- peared, and we came down upon declivities with large tracts of rich pasturage, where herds of cattle and flocks of sheep were grazing, and a little lower down appeared plantations of vines and olives. As FLORENCE. 135 we approached this most beautiful city of Florence, the hills, even at this sear season, appear like terraced gardens, and, as we came down the last long descent with the valley of the Arno at our feet, and fair Florence with its spires and domes before us, we seemed to have passed into another world. The ohve-tree resembles our ordinary-sized willow in its shape and in the hue of its foliage. Some person has happily said that " it looks as if it grew in moon- light ;" an idea exquisitely transfused into poetry by Kenyon in his address to his " sphered vestal !" " Or adding yet a paler pensiveness To the pale olive-tree." The olive lives to such an age that the peasant be- lieves the oldest were planted in the time of our Saviour. The bearing-limbs are continually renew- ed by trimming, but the main stems are apparently sapless, and so decayed and hollow that you won- der how the juices can be kept in circulation. And yet they are in full bearing in the most steril places, where, as our friend K — n said too poetically in prose, " they pump oil from the rocks." We are settled for a week at the ScheiderfF hotel on the Arno, formerly one of the palaces of the Medici. This, I fancy, is the season when most English are to be found in Florence. It seems like an English colony. The coaches in the streets are English, with English ladies and English liveries. The shops are thronged with English, and the galle- ries filled with them.* * I have omitted my first delightful impressions of Florence. We 136 SIENNA. Vienna, December 8. My dear C, We arrived here last evening just at the moment of the only Italian sunset we have seen to be compared with our brilliant sunsets. The golden and crimson rays reminded me of home, but how different from anything at home the Gothic structures and towers that reflected them. Our drive yesterday was through as lovely a country as can be imagined ; broken into steep, high hills, whose declivities of every form are enriched by the highest cultivation, which shows, even now, what a garden Tuscany is ; that here " Nature makes her happy home with man." There seems *to be a fitness and harmony between the ground and its tillers. We have seen nowhere so handsome and attractive a peasantry. They have bright cheeks and bright eyes, and the most graceful cheerfulness. The animals, too, seem the fit offspring of this their bountiful mother-earth. The oxen are mouse-col- oured, large, fat, and beautifully formed. When we arrived at the inn we found that all the apartments au premier were held in reserve for an expected "milor Anglais" (all the English on the Continent are " my lords") ; so we are obHged to put' up with a little saloon without a fire, and to hover round a smoky chimney iii R.'s bedroom.* returned to it at a pleasanter season, when my records were more particular and may prove more interesting. At any rate, I shall avoid the tediousness of repetition. * I once asked an English friend, who, T thought, was sufficiently a philosopher to endure and perhaps to solve the question, " how it si;enna. 137 As we have been looking forward to a pleasant Sunday here, you must forgive my grumbling. We fully realize the happiness of travelling in a large party when w^e assemble, a little Christian congre- gation, ybr our mass. That being over this morn- ing, we sallied forth to the Cathedral, old and grand, rich without and within. It has a rare mosaic pavement of black and wtoe marble, representing Scripture history, and events and characters of the Catholic Church, in a masterly style, by a mere out- happens that the English are so much disliked on the Continent." " How can it be otherwise," he replied, " when they occupy the best apartments, ride in the best carriages, use the best horses, and, in short, forestal the natives in everything ?" And when to this po- tentiality is added the Englishman's shyness and pride, his island in- aptitude at adaptation, his exclusiveness, from principle, taste, and habit, and the consciousness of indisputable superiority that he man- ifests in all parts of the world, thus everywhere running afoul of other people's self-loves, national pride, and, I may add, just self- estimation, it is very explicable why he is the subject of general dis- like. It is a pity he should thus lose the benefit of his wide-spread benefactions. It is the Englishman who keeps alive and astir the needy population of these old cities. It is he who builds the hotels, who sets the wheels in motion on the roads, who makes a beaten path to the temples of old art however secluded, and to the everlast- ing temples of Nature however difficult of access. But this all goes for nothing so long as he maintains his national demeanour, and (as an Italian gentleman said to a friend of mine) " comes down into Italy as if he were at the head of a victorious army !" The American travellers being as yet but a handful in comparison with the English, and speaking the same language, are merged in them. If not English, why then, they say, " you are English Amer- icans." But the moment they become fully aware that you belong to a separate and independent nation, they open their hearts, and pour out a flood of griefs against the English. As we are a young nation we should be flexible, and avoid the foibles of the parent ttock. M2 138 SIENNA. lining. It bears a very curious resemblance to Retzch's etchings. There are frescoes in the sacris- ty, designed by Raphael, in which there are three portraits of himself; if not en peintre idealized, he must have had an outer fitting his inner man. In this same sacristy are twenty-five volumes of church music, illustrated by Benedictine monks in the fif- teenth century, in colours as vivid as the rainbow, and with the most elaborate finish. For the rest (I adopt a great authority) " vide Guide-book," which guide-book sent us off in search of the Fonte-Blan- da, to which Dante, by a simple mention, has given an " immortal youth." So up we mounted and down we strode through a street that no carriage could pass ; and at the foot of it, and at the gate of the city, we found the fountain. Sienna is celebrated for the purity and abundance of its water. Here it flows through several pipes and by grotesque mouths into an immense basin, which is covered with a stone-vaulted roof of three arches ; and, hanging over this, on the verge of a perpendicular hill, is a large church dedicated to St. Catharine. It is a most picturesque place ; but what is not picturesque in Italy ? The old hags I saw skinning lambs, as we again mounted the steep hill, were subjects for Michael Angelo. If these old women had been born in New-England, they would as soon have flayed themselves as flayed lambs in the street of a Sunday. So much for conventional virtue ! It was festa-day in Sienna, and these secular employments were a curious episode enough in the general JOURNEY TO RADICOFANE. 139 " idlesse" and gayety of the streets. It was St. Catharine's festa, too, being her natal day, and we were passing by a Httle chapel, built on the site of the very house in which she was born ; so we pushed aside the curtain to the door and turned into it, ex- pecting to find it crowded ; but she whom the paint- ers more effectually than the church have canonized, has met with the common fate, and has little honour in her own country — or her own chapel. There were some twenty children kneeling about the door, who suspended their prayers to stare at us ; and the young priests who were going in and out, 1 inferred from the direction of their eyes, thought less of the saint than of the blooming young heretics who were with me. Radicofane. — We were up betimes this morning, and before seven drove from the little piazza, with its antique column surmounted with the nursing mother of Romulus and Remus, and her human cubs. We were but a few miles from Sienna when I dis- covered that I had left my shawl and mantilla at the head of my bed, where I had placed them to raise my scant pillow. I sent back a line from the next post, but, I take it, there is little hope in Italy of retrieving such a loss. If the master of the ho- tel chances to be honest, the cameriera will be too quick for him.* * I have transferred the above from my journal, and am willing to bear the shame of it, if, by recording the issue, I may save others 140 RADICOFANE. As we have proceeded on our journey to-day the country has become sterile and beggars multiply. We have been followed up and down hill by a tail of little beggars clothed in a mass of ragged patch- es ; yet their beauty, with a certain grace and re- finement in their expressions, went to my heart. They are not beggars " by theirs or their parents' fault ;" and when their little hands were stretched out for " carita" I longed to take them and lead them to my free, unoccupied country ; and they were quite as kindly disposed to us, promising us for our few halfpence the protection of all the saints, the company of " Maria Santissima/' and, to crown all, access to Paradise ! K. asked a boy of twelve years, who wore a cot- ton jacket and trousers (December 9, two thousand four hundred and seventy feet above the Mediterra- nean), and manifestly no under-clothes, " if he knew where America was ?" " No ; nor England, nor Rome, nor Florence !" Another, still older, had heard of Rome, but he had been four years to school ! " His mother was dead, and there was no one to pay for him, and give him bread any longer ; and," he concluded, "there is no work — ah, signorina, questo paese e molto povero — molto miserable !" from such sweeping and unfair judgments. My property was sent after me to Rome by vetturino, with a very civil note from our host of the Aquila Nera ; the man who brought it merely required a re- ceipt for it, and persisted in refusing a reward for his service. This would have been a rare instance of disinterested civility in America, and singular in England ; but still Americans and English go on vi- tuperating Italian cupidity ! RADICOFANE. 141 Poor and miserable indeed! It consists of a range of volcanic hills without soil, excepting here and there enough to sustain pasturage for a few sheep. We are on one of the highest, dreariest summits, and are now, just as the evening is closing, sitting in the huge balcony of our barrack-like inn. I will sketch the scene before us for you. No ; we are not quite at the summit, for that is crowned with a ruined fortress, and cowering under its walls is a wretched village, between which and our inn the road passes. Before our door is an old stone fountain with the armorial bearinos of some o forgotten family. From the fountain there is a straight, steep path to the village above. Ascend- ing this path are asses with immense bundles of fire- wood on each side (a family's winter supply proba- bly), consisting of mere twigs and withs. There are priests, too (the only people here, Fran9ois says, who don't work and do eat), with their gowns and three-cornered hats, dawdling up the path. And there, driving their scanty flock to the fold, goes a shepherd and shepherdess, and their little girl, look- ing lean and wearied, their windowed ragged- ness half hidden with dark red mantles (here the shepherd's costume), which hang to the ground be- hind. Round the fountain are gathered ass-drivers drinking with their asses, and beside them is an old hag, who, having just espied us, has pressed her fin- gers on the sightless eyeballs of a child beside her, and then wildly stretched her arms towards us, is crying " carita !" 142 JOURNEY TO VITERBO. In the street under us is a smart English travel- ling-carriage waiting for a change of horses. The courier is sauntering round it, and my lady's maid is in the rumble; a gentleman is standing beside the open door, a very pretty young woman is in the carriage with three pet-dogs. The little rag- ged escort that followed us up the hill have sur- rounded the carriage, reinforced by some half dozen blind and maimed old creatures whom the sound of wheels has brought down from the village. The lady is caressing her pets, feeding them with raisins and biscuits, as well as I can see ; she gives no heed to the beggars' clatter — yes, she is tired of it — she asks the gentleman to get in, and they coolly close the windows. I don't know what my poor little beggarly friends think, but this turning aside from hu- man necessities to pamper brutes seems to me one of those " fantastic tricks at which the angels weep." My dear C, you may say " something too much of this ;" but beggary here, remember, makes up a good portion of the history of the country, or, rather, a running commentary on the neglect and abuses of its governments.* Viferho. — We left that wild place up in the clouds this morning with only just light enough to see our ♦ No one born and bred in Europe can well imagine how striking the want and beggary of the Old World is to an American eye. 1 must be forgiven for a tedious recurrence toil; I could not other- wise fairly give my impressions. VITERBO. 143 winding way. We again entered the papal terri- tory at the end of our first post, and we find increas- ing wretchedness, and our own wretched condition in bad roads, puny horses, ragged harness, and in- competent postilhons, all betokening his holiness' dominion. We passed to-day through Bolsena, now a miserable little town, but once an ancient Etrus- can capital, whence the Romans are said to have removed 2000 statues ! " The world is a stage," and the scenes, wuth but a little longer interval of time, as shifting as the scenes of a theatre. I WISH you could have seen us, dear C, an hour ago, escorted about by two little fellows, ragged and beautiful, who would fain have persuaded us to go to the Church of Santa Rosa to see the saint's body, which is exhibited in her own church. But though our conductors reiterated in most persuasive tones " e una bella Santa — Santa Rosa," we persisted in leaving the vilely dirty streets of Viterbo for the suburbs, where we had a delightful stroll to, a chapel of St. Francis', which we entered just as a proces- sion of Franciscans went in to their vesper-service. Our little guides dropped on their knees and joined in the service ; and so did we in our hearts. How skilfully the Catholics have made many of the oflfi- ces of their religion to harmonize with the wants and spontaneous feelings of man. A vesper-service is the very poetry of worship. 144 VITERBO. On our return our cicerone, without warning us, knocked at the door of a house, into which we were admitted by an old crone who, on the boys saying something to her in a low-toned patois, conducted us through a suite of apartments, and passed us over to the " PadronV He led us out into a garden, and told us this had been Madame Letitia's, and was still in the possession of the Bonaparte family. I fancied this was a mere invention to filch us of a few pauls ; so I was grudgingly offering the fee when the gen- tleman, with a very dignified bow and a " grazie," declined it, and turned away to pluck us bouquets of roses and geraniums. It was now my turn to say " grazie," and to feel as if I had been guilty of a meanness quite equal to that which, with a true trav- eller's prejudice, I had gratuitously imputed to the Italian gentleman. It is difficult for us to imagine that this little town, which now contains about 13,000 inhabitants (not so many as some of our western towns accumulate in three or four years' growth), has been standing ever since the time of the Etruscans, was a celebrated place in their day, and has since often been a papal residence ; but these Old World towns have, as an Irishman might say, a growth two ways. We left Viterbo at seven this morning, little think- ing of what dread moment to one human being was the instant of our departure. We started with six JOURNEY TO ROME. 145 horses, and, according to the laws of posting in the pope's dominions, with a postillion to each span of horses. They were all young men, one a boy of thirteen, and all impetuous and noisy, beyond what you can well conceive, never having heard the clam- our of Italian postboys. There were two carriages ready to start at the inn-door. Fran9ois, anxious to have the advantage of precedence on the road, urged our postillions, who needed no urging, and w^e set off at a gallop dow' n the steep street of Viterbo and into the market-place crowded with people. I shud- dered as I saw them jumping on one side and the other to avoid us. I called to Fran9ois to check our speed; he did not hear me, and on w^e dashed, turned a corner, and a moment after we felt a slight jolt of the carriage as if it were passing over something, and a momentary check of the horses, and heard cries and exclamations, and again the postillions' clamour burst forth, and the horses w^ere put to their speed. I thrust my head out of the window, and saw the girls in the rumble as pale as death ; K. bent forward and said, " We have run over a wom- an. I called to Francois and the postillions to stop ; they did not hear me ; say nothing in the carriage ; it will do no good to stop now." The postillions were still urging their horses, we were actually ra- cing up hill, the scene of the tragedy w^as already far behind, and fearing, as K. did, to shock her un- cle by communicating the disaster, I submitted to the apparent barbarity of galloping away, unheeding the misery we had inflicted. A half hour afterward Vol. II.— N 146 JOURNEY TO ROME. a courier who passed us on horseback called out, " e morta !" (" she is dead !") It has been a gloomy day to us. Nothing could exceed the dismay and dread in the faces of the young postillions when we stopped at the post-house, except the boy, who, being the son of the postmaster, was sure of acquittal, and bore with perfect unconcern all the blame which his com- rades heaped upon him, imputing the disaster to his unskilfulness in not turning aside his horses. Fran- cois confirmed their statement, and K., at their ear- nest supplication, wrote as mitigatory a statement for them as the case admitted, to be presented to the police of Viterbo. Francois tells us now that she will be recalled to Viterbo as a witness, and congratulates himself on his superior wariness in not putting his name to the testimonial. " Miss K.," he says, coolly, " did not think." " No, Francois ; but, if she had, she could not have refused to do justice to those men because she exposed herself to inconvenience." "Ah, madame, one must take care for one's self first!"* * We went through the usual transitions, being first incensed at the postillions, and then, when we felt the misery of exchanging the free gallop over hill and dale for a prison in Viterbo, itself a prison, with the curses of all the town, and the horror of having sent a fel- low-creature "unanointed, unannealed," to purgatory, we pitied them. Fran9ois afte^-ward recognised one of them at Rome, who told him he had got off with a few weeks' imprisonment. " Was the wom- an young?" asked Francois. "So-so." "Had she a husband?" " Yes." " Did you not fear he would stab you ?" " At first, yes ; but he was a sensible fellow, he thanked me, and offered to treat me to a dinner'" JOURNEY TO ROME. 147 Our last posts were through the dreary wastes that encompass Rome. The campagna is not, as I had ignorantly believed, a level, biit presents an un- dulating surface, •without morasses or stagnant wa- ter, or anything that indicates unwholesomeness ex- cept its utter desertion. The grass looks rich and rank, as if it sprung from a virgin soil, and its tints are glowing, even at this season. There are scat- tered here and there large flocks of sheep, with lean, haggard, and half-clothed shepherds, and shepherd's dogs ; and there are herds of oxen of a very large and fine species, and with horns as beautiful as ant- lers. But, with these exceptions, there is no life. From the summits of the hills, and there are consid- erable hills, the eye stretches over a wide reach of country, extending for miles in every direction, and here and there an old barrack-like dwelling, a crumbling tower, a shrine, or a crucifix ; but no cheerful habitations, no curling smoke, no domestic sounds, nothing that indicates human life and " coun- try contentments." It is one vast desolation ; a fit surrounding for the tomb of nations. As we caught the view of St. Peter's, and the domes and spires of the three hundred and sixty churches of Rome, it seemed as if life were still beating at the heart of the body doomed to die first at the extremities. You may expect to know my sensations on first seeing Rome. I cannot tell them, my dear C. I do not myself know what they were. I forgot myself. Two miles from Rome we passed the Tiber, on 148 ROME. the Ponte Molle, the place where Constantine saw the vision of the cross ! and, after passing this, the aspect of the country changes, and immediately around the walls of Rome there is a belt of villas and gardens, a little discordant with what has pre- ceded, like gayly-dressed people in a funeral train. The city, as we entered it at the Piazza del Popolo,* has the gay aspect of a modern capital, with its fountain, statues, churches, and uniform modern edi- fices ; but there are certain antiques, like the Egyp- tian obelisk, covered with hieroglyphics, which re- semble heirlooms in the house of gay young people w^ho have just set up housekeeping. We had plenty of time for observation, while Francois was trying to soften the officials. But their hearts were too hard for his rhetoric, and so we drove to the Dogana through the Corso, the principal street in Rome, long and narrow, looking, I fancy, as we proceeded at a foot-pace, with a soldier on each side, like cap- tured contrabandists. The Corso was full of gay equipages, filled with English people, and lined, for the most part, with mean shops, with mean, every- day commodities ; such shops and such " goods" as you would see in the " Main-street" of Hudson, or in any other second-rate town. We had no feeling of Rome till we arrived at the custom-house, and saw there some witnesses for the old city, in a portico with superb antique Corinthian pillars. After a lit- tle fussy ceremony, a mere make-believe peep into * This place is said to derive its name, not from the people — they do not figure in these parts — but from an ancient grove of poplars. ROME. 149 our baggage, and the payment of a few pauls for this gentle treatment, we were released, and are at this moment in comfortable apartments in the Hotel de Russie. We are in Rome / We were beginning to think the deep-blue sky of Italy a traveller's sto- ry, but here it is. The evening is delicious ; there is " An ampler ether, a diviner air." Our apartments open on a terraced garden, and we have been walking in it amid orange and lem- on trees bent with fruit, and roses and flowering shrubs in bloom. Some of these, planted in vases, stand on fragments of antique sculptured pillars. I observed one on a colossal foot, chiselled, perhaps, by a Greek artist. At every turn there are statues, antiques too, patched as our grandmothers patched china — Greeks with modern Roman throats, toes and fingers pieced on ad libitum, and even a trunk with legs, arms, and head supplied. How the organ of veneration must thrive in Rome ! W. came to us immediately on our arrival. Could anything be more fortunate than our meeting him here where the girls most need the brother — friend he will be to them, and we all need the refreshment of his society and the comfort of his co-operation. K — n is here too for the winter ; so we have sud- denly come into possession of an independent for- tune ! W. has engaged our lodgings near Monte Cavallo, looking out on a green hill, the Viminal, with a garden adjoining in English occupancy, and, N2 150 ROME. of course, in high cultivation, and, what is better than all the rest, with the sun shining on us from its rising to its setting. We pay twenty-three Louis, one hundred and one dollars, a month for our rooms ; all other expenses are a separate affair. This low price, as we are assured it is, is in consequence of our being far from the English (fashionable) quarter. But, as we have no acquaintances, that does not signify, and the acquaintances we wish to make, and daily visit, the Colosseum, the Forum, &c., are very near to us. The tribute which pil- grims from all parts of the world pay to these ruins is now the chief support of Rome. There are here every year from ten to twenty thousand strangers, many residents for the winters, and English people noted for the liberality of their expenditure. We have been to the Colosseum, not farther from us than your neighbour S — y is from you — not a quarter of a mile. Where it stands, apart from modern Rome, the ground is grass-grown and bro- ken into footpaths. You have seen a hundred pic- tures of it, read at least a hundred descriptions, and you know its dimensions,* and yet, my dear C, you cannot imagine its impression. I do not mean the impression of its unbroken circle ; of its gradation of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders ; of the soft colour of its stone with its ages of weather-staining ; of the shrubs waving like banners from its lofty heights ; of the slender vines that penetrate its crev- * Its circumference is 1641 feet, its height 157. The length of the arena is 285 feet, and its breadth 182. ROME. 151 ices, and hang out their flexile curtains; of its beds of glowing flowers, or of the mossy matting of its ruined stairs.* Now all this is form and colouring, which here, as elsewhere, holds discourse with the senses. But it is that, w^hile standing under the shadow of this mighty ruin, you first fully realize that you are in Rome — ancient Rome ; that you are treading the ground Caesar, Cicero, and Brutus trod, and seeing what they saw ; that this is the scene of the magnificent crimes and great deeds that fill the blackest and brightest pages in the Old World's story. Under your foot is a remnant of the massive pavement on which the triumphal procession trod ; before you is the Via Sacra, the Roman Forum, the broken temples of the gods, the Palatine Hill, the ruins of the Caesars' palaces, the arches of Constan- tine and Titus, and the Flavian amphitheatre, the Niagara of ruins ! " The heart runs o'er With silent worship of the great of old ; The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns." This is no poetic exaggeration. I am inclined to think Byron is the only person who can describe sensa- tions which people of far more common mould than his feel here. The Colosseum was built chiefly by the Jewish captives after the destruction of Jerusalem, and was dedicated by Titus with the slaughter of 5000 wild * A book has been written on the botany of the Colosseum, in which 260 species of plants are noted. 152 ROME. beasts. It was devoted to gladiatorial contests, to the fight of captive men with captive beasts and with one another 5 subsequently it was the great arena where Christians furnished forth the dramatic show of being torn limb from limb for the entertain- ment of their fellow-men and women.* The gladia- torial games were celebrated here for the last time in the fifth century. Teleinachus, a Christian who in vain had remonstrated against them, threw himself between the combatants, and was immediately killed by the enraged spectators. In consequence of this, the Emperor Honorius abolished the games, and the martyr became a saint. The structure remained entire until the eleventh century, when by a Roman noble it was converted into a fortress esteemed nearly impregnable. In 1332 it was the scene of a bullfight. At the end of the fourteenth century it was converted into an hospital. In the fifteenth a portion of its mar- ble was burned into lime. In the sixteenth century it became the quarry from which the nobles of Rome constructed their palaces, and partisans of all par- ties their fortifications. In the seventeenth Sixtus V. attempted to establish a woollen manufactory here ! After all these vicissitudes, the papal au- thority was at last interposed to save this magnifi- * Those who take disheartening views of the progress of man should solace themselves with looking back in the world's histo- ry. What would now be thought of the autocrats of Austria and Russia (not men noted for hearts over-soft) if they were to furnish for their subjects the shows that amused the polished Romans? Has not Christianity done something for us ? ROME. 153 cent relic of antiquity by Christian consecration. Benedict XIV. in the middle of the last century sanctified it, and erected a cross in the centre of the arena. Considerable reparations have been made from time to time, and are still making. The original el- evation is preserved entire but in one small segment of the circle, and there it appears stupendous. Its five rows of seats are in part still manifest. The seats of the first and second rows were cushioned, and the senators and those of consular rank occupied them. They ascended in position, and they descend- ed in rank, till they came to the poor women who were above and below all ! When I thought of the purpose to which this the- atre was devoted, I felt my impression of its sublim- ity abated by my consciousness of the degradation of humanity. My imagination called back from the dead the hundred thousand people who filled this vast circuit. I saw the Roman ladies looking down on the poor captives of the forest, and the human sacrifice ; and I wondered if, when they met in their passage through the vomitories, they talked of the ast new fashion, and tenderly inquired of the young mother " if her baby had yet cut a tooth !" That monster, " custom,^ does so harden the heart ! We have been to St. Peter's, and are not disap- pointed. The great works of nature and art al- ways surpassed my expectations. We walked in si- 1 54 ROME. lence up and down the nave, made the circuit of the wall, stood under the glorious dome, and content- ed ourselves with the effect of its atmosphere with- out studying the details. The most beautiful object in approaching St. Peter's is certainly not itself; the dome is lost in this view, and the fagade has neither grandeur nor harmony. Nor the colonnades with their row of statues, but the beautiful fountains, the very types of life, grace, and youth where every- thing else is fixed and heavy. Sunday. — We have been out of the Porta del Popolo to-day to attend service in the English chap- el. It is greatly to the honour of the pope that he permits the public worship of heretics here in the very heart of his dominion. This is better than the burning of the convent in our land of liberty of con- science and universal toleration ! There was a con- gregation of from six to seven hundred people, with- out any notable attraction in the officiating clergy- man. It is cheering to see the English, wherever they most congregate, maintaining the observances of their religion. We found at Wiesbaden, Frank- fort, Geneva, and here at Rome, a regular English service on Sunday; not a nominal thing, for the English, with very few exceptions, scrupulously at- tend it.* * We rarely saw English people travelling on Sunday ; and as it involves no discredit, and to abstain from it often imposes disappoint- ment and discomfort, this indicates the steadfastness of their reli- gious principles. Captain Basil Hall's *' Patchwork," just published, ROME. 155 I HAD been walking about St. Peter's to-day till I felt the exaltation which the grandeur, the vast riches, and endless w^onders of that glorious church produces, when I was suddenly attracted by the changing group around the bronze statue of St. Peter. This, formerly a statue of Jupiter, has been made by papal consecration the presiding divinity of the Christian temple. It is a sitting figure, elevated a few feet from the floor, with a circlet round the head (now a glory), the left hand raised, and the right pressing a key to the breast. The rigid face has a cold, inflex- ible expression most unsuited to the impulsive dis- ciple. It looks like the idol it is ; and rather singu- larly in keeping with this expression is the right foot protruding from the drapery, condescendingly presented to the kiss of the faithful. I have often heard of the kissing of St. Peter's toe ; but, till I saw^ grown-up men and women ac- tually press their lips to this w^orn bronze toe, then . rub their foreheads against it (a phrenological man- ifestation !), and finally kneel before the image, I had never fairly conceived of this idolatry ; and yet, should we call it so ? Who shall analyze the feel- ing in which love and reverence blend ? a nicer art than to separate the ray of light ; who shall judge contains an interesting history of the steady efforts of the English at Rome, which resulted in the establishment of " a Protestant ceme- tery, a Church of England service, and a charitable fund dispensed at a Reformed altar to the subjects of the sovereign pontiff" God save the nation that binds to its altars its domestic ties and its char- ities. 156 ROME. and condemn the impulses of devotion in an ignorant mind ? I will not, but rather describe the scene I saw before this image to-day. Among the throng who came and went were two peasant- women, both in costume. Each had a child in her arms, one a boy about two years old, the other a girl somewhat younger. They were ragged, but I am accustomed to seeing these little, lost cherubs in rags ; and hap- pily, in preparation for a visit to the grand Basilica, they had undergone the rare ceremony of a washing ; and their brilliant eyes shone out from the unsullied golden ground of the Roman complexion — but gold- en or yellow hardly describes their peculiar tint of skin — ^Victor Hugo has done it well in poetry : " Ilsemble qu'il est dore du rayon du soleil." About this glowing complexion hung the richest curling hair of a glossy golden brown. The mother of the boy, after kissing the toe herself, put his lips to it. He submitted to the ceremony somewhat re- luctantly, faintly touching it with his hps, and giving his nose a brush across it. As he raised his head he saw the little girl whose mother was waiting for her turn, and half springing from his mother's arms, he kissed the child's round cheek of warm flesh and blood, and uttered a joyous chuckle at its contrast with the bronze toe that re- sounded through arch and aisle. It was a pretty triumph of nature ; a living picture in this land of pictures !* * I observed the decent-looking people among the faithful discreet- ly wiped the toe before kissing it, and Mr. G, told us that when his ROME. 157 December 30. — A most beautiful morning, my dear C. The sun has just risen above the Viminal Hill. I perceive a slight hoarfrost on the garden opposite to us. The leaves on the tall orange-tree by our window look slightly chilled ; and the poor women who are passing with their shawls close drawn over their heads shrink from the enemy as ours would if the mercury were ten degrees below zero. This is the first frost w^e have felt in Rome. We devoted yesterday morning to Crawford's and Thorwaldsen's studii. They present a striking con- trast of the toils, privations, and difficulties of the young and struggling genius, with the comfort, riches, and glory that wait on him who has won the day. Crawford is at this moment laid up, dangerously ill from overwork, and Thorwaldsen is making a visit in his native country which is little short of a triumphal progress. Sculptors, from the weight of their mate- rial, are compelled to work on the ground floor. Crawford's studio occupies three obscure, small, and sunless apartments, so cold and damp that they strike a chill through you. Here he has a few things fin- ished, and several spirited and beautiful models that are to be done into marble if he has orders for them. The sculptor labours under a disadvantage from the costliness of his material ; if he be poor he cannot put his design into marble till it is in part paid for. Our countrymen, not being practised in these mat- holiness does it this reverence, his attendants first spring forward and give it an effective rub with their cambric handkerchiefs. Vol. II.— 158 ROME. ters, have not sufficiently considered this, and orders have been sometimes given with generous intentions, but with the mercantile idea of payment on delivery of the goods, which could not be executed for want of money to buy the block of marble. It is the English custom to pay half the price of the work on giving the order. Among Crawford's designs is a very noble statue of Franklin. It is meant to illus- trate his discoveries in electricity ; he is looking up to the clouds with the calm assurance of conscious power. What an embellishment would this be for one of the Philadelphia squares ! Another design, which seemed to me to belong to the romantic school, is the rain of snakes described in the Apocalypse. The curse is falling on a family. The group inevi- tably reminds you of the Laocoon, and in one respect it seemed to me superior ; the parental instinct here triumphs over physical anguish. Crawford's last and most finished work is an Orpheus, which, as far as discovery has yet gone, has no prototype among the ancient sculptures. He has presented the rare husband at the moment of entering hell. Cerberus is lulled, and his heads are fallen in sleep ; the lyre is closely pressed under Orpheus's left arm, and his right hand shades his eyes, as if to concentrate the light on entering the dark region. The figure will, I believe, bear anatomical criticism ; it has the eflfect, at any rate, to an unscientific eye, of anatomical success. It is light, graceful, and spirited; a most expressive imbodying of poetic thought. There is the beauty of perfect symmetry in the face, with \y ROME. ^ 159 a shade of earnestness which, though unusual in classical models, does not at all impair its classical serenity. The young man is said to possess the courage and perseverance that is bone and muscle to genius ; if this be true, he is sure of success, and this cold, cheerless studio will, at some future time, be one of the Meccas of our countrymen.* We had some discussion last evening with our Eng- lish friend K — n on the character of American intel- lect, which ended in his confessing his surprise at what we are achieving. " I find," he said, " established here and at Florence three American artists (Green- ough. Powers, and Crawford). We have but three : Gibson, Wyatt, and M'Donald : and you have Mr. Wilde at Florence, who has set himself down there to write the life of Dante, and is investigating his subject with the acuteness of a thoroughbred law- yer ; and here is Green, your consul, who, with frail health, has determined to devote twenty years to a history of Italy ! I told a friend the other day that we must put to whip and spur, or we should be dis- tanced.*' It is something new to hear our country admired for anything but cutting down forests and * On our return to Rome from Naples we had the pleasure of per- sonal acquaintance with Mr. Crawford, and of confirming our prepos- sessions in his favour by actual observation. The tide had even then turned in his favour. He had recovered his health and become known to many of his countrymen. While this book is going through the press we hear that a sum of $2500 has been made up in Boston for his Orpheus, We hope that New- York will not lag behind, but will extend her hand to her own son while there is yet some faith and generosity in doing so. When he becomes better known there will be no merit in sending him orders. 160 ROME. building up towns in a day, or making railroads and canals; but surely, the same power that in one stage of our progress overcomes physical difficulties, will in another achieve intellectual conquests. The extensive stables of the Barberini palace have been converted into a studio for Thorswaldsen, and they are filled with the most exquisite forms which invention, memory, imagination, and love can take. The collection of sculptures that bears his name gives you some idea of the variety and beauty of his works. That which impressed me most, and brought tears to my eyes, which I ignorantly supposed marble could not, is a colossal statue of Christ. His arms are ex- tended, and he seems on the point of saying, " Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." There is a most affecting blending of benignity and power in his expression ; you feel that " God has anointed him above his fel- lows," and that " he will save to the uttermost those that come unto him." The head of our Saviour in Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper is the only one that approaches this in force of expression. Christ is attended by his disciples, six on either side. The statues were done for a church in Copenhagen. There is another admirable set of figures, design- ed, I believe, for the pediment of the same church. These are necessarily so arranged as to make on each side a descending line from the centre figure. This is done with consummate art ; each figure seems, without design or choice, to have fallen into the at- titude expressive of the feeling of the moment. ROME. 161 John the Baptist preaching is the middle figure; next stands a scoffer, his head thrown back. An old man bends over his staff in devout attention ; a young shepherd is riveted to the spot, while two boys are playing with his dog; a child is leaning on his mother's shoulder ; and another mother is sitting on the ground, with her infant in her arms. Besides sending these great productions to his native coun- try, Thorswaldsen has founded a museum in Copen- hagen, and enriched it with copies of his works; and thus he will send pilgrims trooping from all parts of the world to his far, cold land. No wonder the Danes love him, and follow his footsteps, load- ing him with gifts and honours. My dear C, This is the festa of St. Peter ; of course, a great day in Rome. As we have been so long negligent of the privilege we may any day enjoy of seeing the pope, we went this morning to high mass at St. Pe- ter's, where he w^as to be present. He has the merit of having risen from the lowest grade, of society, and is said, besides having considerable learning, to be an amiable, inoffensive old man. You know the great democratic principle of the admission of all to all employments has ever been fundamental m the Catholic Church. A Catholic ceremony is, to the eye of a Protestant, more or less a dramatic show, with a rich theatrical wardrobe and dull actors. What, I wonder, would 02 162 ROME. an humble student of the Gospels, who had never heard of the Catholic Church, think on coming into St. Peter's, and walking up the nave under its vault- ed and golden ceiling, with its incrustations of pre- cious marbles, its sculptured columns, its magnificent arches, statues, mosaic pictures, and monuments ; its gilded bronze baldachino (made of the spoils of the Pantheon), its hundred lamps burning round St. Pe- ter's tomb, with his image presiding — and let it be his festa, with the pope in the triple crown, gor- geously arrayed, surrounded by his cardinals in crim- son and embroidered satin, attended by his Swiss guard in their fantastic uniform, and by his guarda nobili ; what if there w^ere such an uninformed per- son as I have imagined among these multifarious spectators from all quarters of the world, what would he think on being told that this was a Chris- tian temple, and these the disciples and ministers of the meek and lowly Jesus, who taught that God only accepted such as worshipped Him in spirit and in truth 1 The ceremonies we saw to-day (and which cer- tainly would not contribute to this supposed person's farther enlightenment) I shall not describe to you. The pope, who is an ugly old man with a big nose and a stupid expression, had an elevated seat behind the tribune, where his priestly attendants seemed chiefly occupied in the care of his embroidered vest- ment, which flowed many a yard on the ground when he stood, was borne by them when he moved, and nicely folded and replaced in his lap when he ROME. 163 again sat down. The cardinals, as a class of men, are very noble in their appearance. With the ex- ception of two or three middle-aged men, they are old, and have the badge of age, their thin and white locks fringing their crimson scullcaps. They too had train-bearers from an inferior order of priests. One part of the ceremony was solemn and thrilling, as a devotional sentiment expressed simultaneously by a mass of men must always be. At the elevation of the Host all the Catholics present bared their heads and fell on their knees, the swords of the soldiers ringing on the pavement. The music was delicious. After the chantings were finished, and his holiness had blessed the assembly, he w^as placed on a chair covered with red velvet, the triple and jewelled crown was put on his head, the chair was placed on poles also covered w^ith red velvet, and borne on the shoulders of twelve priests. On each side was car- ried a huge fan of peacock's feathers; and thus suited and attended, he made a progress down the nave and into a side-chapel. He shut his eyes, drooped his head, and appeared to me like a sanc- timonious old woman ; but, to show how just such passing judgments are, I was afterward told the poor old man said he habitually closed his eyes to escape the giddiness occasioned by his position. As we stood in the vestibule awaiting our car- riage, cardinal after cardinal drove off; and as I saw each heavy coach with fat black horses, gild- ed and tasselled harness, and its complement of three footmen in embroidered liveries, dash through 164 ROME. an ignorant, wretched multitude, nearly running over the blind and lame, those words of doom oc- curred to me : " Wo be to the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves ! should not the shepherds feed the flocks 1" " The diseased have ye not strength- ened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost." But let us not forget, my dear C, that from the herd of priests and monks issued such men as WicklifFe and Luther, and that in their body, and having died or to die in their faith, are such men as San Carlo, Fenelon, and our own C* Tired of waiting, K. and I left the rest and walked home. Passing a half-open door, we heard a mur- muring of tiny voices, and, looking in, we saw in a dark, damp, cold den, lighted only through this half-open door, a dame's infant-school.f The teach- * And here, too, for the sake of our charities, I quote M. Sismon- di, who j^s no lover of priests, and assuredly no favourer of the Ro- man Catholic religion. He says, " The pontifical government counts among its servants more men distinguished for talents, and fewer for their vices or want of probity, than any government of Europe !" Query — Does he not mean of Continental Europe ? t The powerful writer of the address to the working classes in Italy V in the " Apostolato Popolare" says, in speaking of the defective teaching to the few of that class in Italy who are taught, " Even re- ligious books are given to them in a dead language which they do not understand. The books which the rulers cause to be distributed in the elementary schools teach them to be servile, poor-spirited, and selfish^ and after the Austrian catechism— the common model — ' That subjects should deport themselves towards their sovereigns as slaves towards their masters,' and that the power of the sovereign * extends to their property as well as to their person.'" ROME. 165 er, a hard-featured subject, was knitting away for life, and teaching these little things, two, three, and four years old, their prayers in Latin, which they re- peated with the appointed crossings and genuflex- ions ! Most of them were ragged and dirty, but beautiful enough for Guido's angels. I thought of the well-lighted, warmed, and spacious school-rooms in my own country, and of the hght poured into the young mind there !* We have been looking at frescoes to-day ; and if I should run into rant, my dear C, about them, do not think it is to impose on you New World people who never have seen them, but that it is the effect of novelty and surprise added to their intrinsic beau- ty. You are probably aware, as the name implies, that they are put on the wall while the plaster is fresh ', of course they must be executed with great rapidity. The ceiling and the walls of the private houses in Italy are embellished in this wayj- and though often done without much expenditure of art or money, they are so very pretty that I rather dread seeing again our blank ceilings. Fresco painting is to us a new revelation of the power of the art ', and such a fresco as Raphael's Sibyls, his School of Athens, or Domenichino's Life and Death of St. Cecilia, in a certain little chapel here, seem to * What a curiosity to an Italian teacher would a list of our school* books be ! What an inestimable treasure to Italian pupils a single one — Miss Robbins's Popular Lessons, for example ! 166 ROME. me as superior to an easel painting as an epic is to a lyric poem. Unfortunately, there are but few of these masterpieces in good preservation. They suf- fer more than oil paintings from damp and neglect. The Romans had this art in great perfection. I have seen in a gallery of Titus's baths, in an apart- ment of Augustus's palace, and in the tomb of Au- gustus's freedmen, all now far under ground, fres- coes, medallions, flowers, birds, divinities, &c., traced with accuracy and grace, and the colours still vivid. The Nozze Aldobrandini, now hanging in the library of the Vatican, is one of the most beautiful of the old frescoes. It is a representation of a Greek wed- ding, is supposed to be a Greek painting, and was found in the baths of Titus. Guido's Aurora, one of the most exquisite poetic conceptions ever mani- fested to the eye of man, is still as fresh as if it were just dyed in the rainbow, on the ceiling of an apart- ment in the Ruspigliosi palace. Raphael's Sibyls is also a masterpiece, and it has an advantage over the Aurora in bearing the impress of the true religion. It seems to me the most for- tunate subject a painter ever chose. It is painted in an obscure little church {Santa Maria della Pace) ; so uncalculating is genius ! The place to be cover- ed was an arch in the nave, the most awkward pos- sible, it would seem, for the disposition of the fig- ures. But difficulties were only spurs to the genius of Raphael ; and so perfect is the grace and nature of this picture that it would never occur to you he had not place and space at will. As this, after see- ROME. 167 ing the galleries of Florence and Rome, is my fa- vourite picture, suffer me to describe it to you, my dear C. The four sibyls, the lay prophetesses who are sup- posed to have intimated to the Old World the reve- lations they had received of the coming of our Sav- iour, are the subjects of the picture. The time chosen is the moment of the angels' communication to the inspired women. The first is a beautiful young creature in the freshest ripeness of woman- hood. Her record-book is in her lap, and her glow- ing face, turned towards the angel, conveys the an- nunciation, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good-will to man !" The face of the cherub, who is looking at her intently, with his chin resting on his closed hand, indicates the joy there is in heaven at these tidings to man. The next sibyl is writing down the revelation as her heavenly messenger reveals it. Her face is in profile. It has something more than mere joy ; a comprehension of the obstacles to be met and the moral revolutions to be made. There is eagerness in the angel's face, and an almost Divine energy in the young woman's. The art that could give such force to such delicate lines is amazing. The face is the most spiritual, and I think the most beautiful, I ever saw. Her whole soul is so intent on the record she is making that it seems as if her pen would cut through the tablet. The next figure reminds you of classical models, of something pre-existent in art, which nothing else 168 ROME. in the picture does. It is very lovely, and express- es perfect awe and reverence, as if her inward eye beheld the " King of all living things." The fourth is a dark old woman, who compre- hends the coming struggles with the powers of dark- ness, the martyrdoms, the seed to be sown in tears, and, seeing the end, is unflinching and unfearing. What must Raphael have thought and felt before he painted this picture ? He is the Shakspeare of painters, and with almost as full a measure of inspi- ration. The picture is a poem, such as I hope may be found in the libraries of heaven, if the soul read there without the intervention of letters. Domenichino's Evangelists are in the four angles of the dome of St. Andrea della Valle. They are reckoned his best frescoes, and he is reckoned sec- ond only to Raphael. The freedom and vigour of the figures, and the freshness and harmony of the colouring, are striking. St. Mark's muscular arm actually stands out from the picture. There is a lion (his symbol) at his feet, with lovely children playing on his back, at whom he looks round so gently that he reminded me of the humane lion of Bottom's Pyramus and Thisbe. St. John, an angel who holds his inkstand, and two little boys at his feet twined in one another's arms, are all personifications of love ; commentaries on that Divine admonition, " Little children, love one another !" These frescoes are the transfer and perpetuation of actual existence. They have but the one fault of Donatella's statue — '^ they do not breathe." ROME. 169 After looking at these pictures till our necks were stiff, we went to San Carlo to see the Cardinal Vir- tues, also by Dominichino. But we had hardly got in when a young priest ordered us out, because there was to be an exposition of the sacrament, and the presence of Protestant ladies must not profane the ceremony. "We had just come from witnessing, un- molested, the same service in the Sistine chapel, in the august presence of the pope, and so we told him. But the young priest was inexorable ; exorcise us he would ; and so, casting a pitiful look at the Lady Charity who sat impotent among the Cardinal Vir- tues, we were swept out. This is the first discourtesy of the sort we have met with here. Narducci, our landlord, was so scandalized when we told him of it, that, after many exclamations of " is it possible ? this — a Roma !" he went to the priest and brought an apology, and a very civil invitation to come again to the church. It is the studied policy of the Roman people, from the pope down, to conciliate the Eng- lish ; and such is the precedence given them at the religious ceremonies, and so great their number in comparison with that of the Italians, that you might imagine they were spectacles got up for their edifica- tion.* * There is another reason, as I have been told by a pious Catholic, why so few of his faith are seen at the ceremonies at St. Peter's. They are considered by them as rather spectacles than for religious edification. Vol. II.— P 170 ROME- My dear C, January 1. — You must know by this time that our friend K — n is not one of those visiters at Rome whom M. Sismondi justly reproaches with regarding it merely as " a museum where pictures, statues, monuments of antiquity, and all the various produc- tions of the fine arts are exhibited to their curiosity, to whom the 160,000 or 180,000 inhabitants who live within the walls of Rome appear merely an ac- cessory." K — n sent us a note this morning, inform- ing us that there would be an immense concourse of the Roman people in costume at the Piazza Lavona, and our carriage being soon announced by our coach- man sending us up two splendid bouquets — New- year's favours* — we set off to see the show. The Piazza Lavona is the largest market-place in Rome. It was so completely filled with the people, and their products and wares, that it was with some difficulty we made our way among them. At last we got a station in the centre of the piazza near a fountain where four river-gods, seated on rocks from which the water issues, are sustaining an obelisk. There was a fair going on. Very few of the people were in costume, unless, alas ! the general badge of South- ern Italy, rags, may be so termed. The graceful * This was not an uncommon kindness in our coachman ; often, on returning to our carriage from some sight-seeing, we found a knot of jonquils, or violets, or a paper of delicious smoking chestnuts. •' The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions, of Httle {not) soon forgotten charities." The humblest, like our good Mariano, may throw in their mite. ROME. 171 white head-dress which you see in the pictures of the Roman peasantry is uncommon now. The women wear in its place a cotton handkerchief tied under the chin, which being of a bright colour, has rather a pretty effect. Some of them wear cheap English cottons, but the general dress at this season is a stout woollen plaid, almost perdurable.* The men wear hats with high, sugar-loaf crowns ; the shape of the brims it would be difficult to tell, for I think I have never seen a whole one. Their breeches are un- strapped at the knee, and their legs sometimes bare, but usually covered with what may, by a stretch of courtesy, be called a stocking. Every man who can command such a luxury once in his life (it is kept on as long as it retains a semblance of the original garment) wears a cloak, and as gracefully as if he were a troubadour. They really look like princes in disguise, so lofty, independent, and majes- tical is their bearing. Mr. Gibson, the English art- ist, in speaking to me of the striking grace of the Roman people, imputed it, in part, to the affabil- ity with which the}^ are treated by their superiors, which saves them from the shyness and constraint whose " natural language" (to borrow the phreno- logical term) is awkwardness. We alighted to see better what was going on. Mariano cautioned us to leave in the carriage whatever might be purloined, as the place was full of " Lombardi," and explain- * These stuffs are, for the most part, manufactured at an establish- ment belonging to the government. They cost seventy-five cents per yard, a yard and a quarter in width. They are sometimes home- made. m 172 ROME. ing his meaning by the synonyme Ladri (thieves). A curious memorial this of the old wars with the Lombards. We made our way amid grain, vegeta- bles, poultry, honey, eggs, coarse wares, wretched toys, and a most clamorous crowd, and were follow- ed by ragged boys screaming " Vuole un facchino V (" Do you wish a porter 1") and were glad to get back to the carriage with some paltry toys, the best we could find, for Mariano's children. I have never seen the children look so happy as to-day ; not one but had some trifling toy. Lady D. finds the Roman people much deteriora- ted during her twenty years' acquaintance with them, incivility and surliness in the place of their former graciousness and " captivating sweetness of man- ners." This may possibly be, in part, owing to the influx of English, whose national manners are not calculated to call forth " captivating sweetness" in return. It is certain the people here do not mani- fest the light-heartedness and careless buoyancy we have seen elsewhere in Italy ; but may there not be the faint dawn of a better day in their thoughtful- ness, even though it be sullen and sad 1 It is said that the Romish religion is nowhere less respected than at Rome ; that the women are still under its dominion, but that among the men there is a pervading infidelity and, of course, a discon- tent with the government, that will urge them to join in any hopeful movement against it. How can it be otherwise when the government, instead of af- fording them aid and protection, only puts forth its ROME. 173 power and ingenuity to tax and harass them? "4lome," says M. Sismondi, " pretending to have eternity at its disposal, takes little care of the future of this world." The streets are thronged with idle men. A por- tion of them are the labourers on the campagna who, to avoid the mal-aria, come into the city when- ever unemployed ; and as festas, including Sundays, occur twice or thrice a w^eek, this is nearly half the time. On my remarking this concourse of idlers to Mr. G., he said, " Perhaps you are not aware that many who appear mere idlers 3.Ye facchini (porters) who are waiting for employment." I can only say I always see them " waiting,'^ never employed ; and in Rome, where there is no commerce and no manu- factures, what employment can there be for this herd of facchini ? Not absolutely no manufactures, for there are many thousand sculptors, w^orkers in mo- saic, makers of conchiliglias, and other like jim~ crackeries for milords Anglais; but remember, these are all articles of superfluity for which there is no regular and certain demand. The interchange of productions between the different states of Italy is discouraged and shackled in every way by their rulers, so that the beautiful Roman mosaic has no market at Florence, nor the pietra-dura, the manu- facture par excellence of Florence, at Rome. There is no comfort in buying anything here ; no article has a fixed value or price. The seller asks the highest price he has any hope of obtaining from ignorance and credulity, and the buyer " beats down" P2 174 ROME. till his time or his patience is exhausted. I have been taken in more than once by supposing that '^ fixed prices^' in great letters announced, as it would with us, the inflexible rule of the dealer. On one occasion I was looking at an article, when K. whisper- ed to me that the price was extravagant — I should offer less. I pointed to the " fixed prices," and shook my head, and, after paying the price demand- ed, I had the mortification, before leaving the shop, to see another purchaser come in and, after a httle trafficking, buy the article at half the price I had given. Frequently, after solemn asseverations that the thing has been offered to us at its ultimate price, we w^ere followed out of the shop and on to the pavement with proffers of reduction, and finally it has been sent home to us at our own price. And to this degree of debasement is a people brought who are born in one of the richest climates of the world, and loaded with God's good gifts ! But do not imagine, my dear C, that this debase- ment is universal. It obtrudes itself upon the notice of strangers because those who traffic with them are most exposed to temptation. An American gentleman who has resided in Italy for many years told W. that, leaving out of the ac- count conjugal fidelity, he had never found in any part of the world better faith or more virtue than in Italy,. This testimony does not prove all it asserts, but certainly it intimates that there is some good faith and much virtue. Our consul is married to an ItaUan woman, an exceedingly pretty and attractive ROME. 175 person, who, in our exacting New-England, might be held up as a pattern- wife. Signor N., from whom we hire our rooms, occu- pies an apartment next to us, and we are on the friendliest terms. We have found him honoura- ble and liberal in his dealings, and most kind in his attentions. His wife is a highly- accomplished artist, one of a large family, all qualified by the ed- ucation which a widowed mother, by dint of energy and struggling, obtained for them, to secure an in- dependent existence. They now cherish that moth- er with filial devotion. And, to come down to the humblest life, our coachman, who spends all the daylight of every day in our service, is invariably faithful and patient, and moderate in his demands. Now, my dear C, if the only Romans we chance to know would be valuable members of society any- where, is it not a hint to us to take the denuncia- tions of travellers with some allowance, and, at any rate, that we may safely enlarge our charities ? A little more on this head, and I have done. I will re- peat to you, without the slightest deviation, a story I have just heard from an English gentleman. A friend of his, an artist, who was residing in Rome with his wife, lost one or two children. In their first an- guish they were advised by their Italian nurse to change the scene ; and with that instinct of nature which always turns to the birthplace as the universal panacea, she begged them to go to her native vil- lage, fifty miles from Rome. They had scarcely reached there when the cholera broke out, and they 176 ROME. were put in quarantine. They had expected to re- main but a few days, and had httle money with them, and there was no possibihty of communicating with their friends. Rather a dilemma to be thrown in among the priests and Levites of this world! There was no borrowing; for, save some few dol- lars laid up in the village for the payment of taxes, it was as moneyless as one of our Western settle- ments. They lived by barter. The English stran- gers were obliged to remain four months. All their wants were supplied. The people trusted them in- definitely. Quantities of grain were brought to them, which they exchanged for smaller commodi- ties. They made acquaintance with a gentleman in the neighbourhood who lived a secluded but luxu- rious life upon two hundred dollars a year ! He had a good library, was highly cultivated, particularly well informed in regard to everything in England, and, furthermore, one of the excellent of the earth. All this, dear C, among the dishonest, lying, mur- dering, treacherous Italians! There is some super- fluous reviling in this world ! Is it a fancy of mine, think you, dear C, or is it remarkable that most of the best preserved monu- ments here are associated with good names that shine out among the great ones of old Rome ? The Colosseum bears the family name of Vespasian, and is the record of the magnificence and triumphs of his son. The Arch of Titus, the conqueror of the ROME. 177 Jews — the man who, when master of the world, sigh- ed over every day unmarked with a good deed as lost — still spans, almost entire, the Sacra J^my Drusus, Constantine, and Septimius Severus, whose arches are remaining, are, if not at the extreme right, somewhere about the juste milieu of ancient names ; and the lofty column of Trajan, " best of the good," still bears the record of his deeds. The unimpair- ed column of Antoninus Pius is the memorial of a man whose name designated his eminent goodness. Almost every day we drive under the still perfect arch of the gentle Nerva's Forum, while the palaces of the Caesars, extended and embellished by such beastly wretches as Nero, Caligula, and Domitian, are a shapeless mass of ruins ! If I had your powers of description in this way, dear C, or Cruikshanks' of illustration, I would give you a letter worth having on the beggars of Rome. The Italian has sentiment in his nature, and the beggar expresses it in the form of his pe- tition. His " Non m' abbandonate," and " Cari- ta, signora, per I'amor di questa imagine !"* kindle your imagination if not your heart. How I should like to show you the fellow who sits, like a monarch on his throne, on the stairs of the Piazza di Spag7ia, and whose smile, disclosing teeth strong enough to * " Do not abandon me !" and " Charity, lady, for the love of this image !" This last supplication is made near a shrine of the pitiful- looking Virgin, where the beggar has what in our trafficking country would be called " a good stand for business." 178 ROME. grind all the grist in Rome, and his hearty saluta- tion, " Buon giorno, signor," are well worth the bai- oc' he asks much more as a right than a favour. He is an old receiver of customs, and is well known to have a full treasury. " How dare you beg of me," asked Mr. G., " when you are already so rich V " Ah, signor, I have my donkey to feed." " You are well able to feed your donkey." " But I have my nine children, signor." There is no answer to be made to a fellow who confesses to such luxury ! Then there is the poor moiety of a man whose trunk (torso !), trussed on to a circular bit of wood slightly concave, comes daily down our street of St. Vitale at a jocund pace ; and the two old crones at Santa Maria Maggio7'e who hobble towards you with a sort of. pas de deux, and seem as well content that one should get your baioc' as the other, " equal to either fortune." They are probably partners in the trade. And there is the handsome youth by the French Academy, who has been dying with a " sagne di bocca" (spitting of blood) for the last fifteen years without any apparent diminution of the vital current ! And the little troop of mountain- peasants, whose hunting-ground is somewhere about the American consul's, with their bewitching smiles, sweet voices, and most winning ways; a genuine lover of happy young faces ought to pay them for a sight of theirs. Even beggary is picturesque here. ROME. 179 We went this morning to the Church of St. Agos- tino to see Raphael's Isaiah, one of his most famous frescoes ; the church was so dark we could not per- ceive its excellence. But we did see what to you, a student of human nature, would be far more inter- esting. This church has a statue of the Madonna and child which has peculiar virtue. Some poor girl having, in an ecstasy of devotion, seen the holy mother open and shut her eyes upon her, miracles have ever since been wrought for the faithful who kneel before this image. I am not sure whether it be of wood or stone ; but whichever it be, the foot is so worn away with kissing that it has been shod- den with silver. The altar on which it is placed was (at midday) brilliantly lighted with candles, and a semicircle of lamps hung before it. The mother is sitting ; the child stands on her knee on one foot in a pert attitude. Both images wear glittering crowns. The mother's throat is covered with strings of pearls. She has a complete breastplate of jewels; her arms are laden with bracelets, and her fingers with rings ; and, to make her look completely like the queen of strolling players, her hand is filled with artificial flowers. Kneeling before this image in earnest devotion (I saw many tears, but not a wandering eye) were a multitude of men and wom- en, for the most part ragged and filthy beyond de- scription, all of whom, as they came in or went out, kissed the silver-shod toe — some again and again fondly, as a mother kisses her child ! 180 ROME. But the most extraordinary thing of all is the garniture of a pillar on the Virgin's right. It is literally covered with every species of small weap- on : daggers, pistols, and knives, &c. These have been dedicated to the Holy Mother by two classes of persons : by those w^ho have been rescued from the murderer, and by the murderer who has escaped the penalty of his crime. The sanctuary privilege is still in force at Rome. A gen d'armes dare not follow an offender into a churchy he may remain there till he is driven by starvation to surrender, but no one is permitted to supply his necessities. The police of Rome is wretched. The laws are ill ad- ministered. Atrocious offences escape justice, and small ones, if they be against the Church, are rigidly punished. I believe reports of crime here are much exaggerated. We have been repeatedly told that our street, which is retired and has few habitations, is dangerous after nightfall; but our friends come and go every evening without molestation, and W. seldom leaves us before eleven. The truth is, the couriers, who daily meet and gossip on the Piazza di Spagna, choose to give a bad name to all lodgings remote from that neighbourhood ; and they amuse their idle hours with weaving little tragic romances, taking care to make them " deep" — like a certain young friend of ours, who, in her maiden tragedy, burned all her dramatis personse alive on the stage. Mr. G. and W. had an animated discussion here this evening, W. insisting that it is the common tes- timony of mankind that the Romans are addicted to ROME. 181 assassination, and Mr. G. maintaining that they do not strike often, and never but with good cause; that there being no public justice to right them, they are compelled, like savages, to take the matter into their own hands. He said that, notwithstanding all the reports about robberies, during a twelve years' acquaintance with Rome he had known but one! and that, when the Romans rob, they do not stab ; they have no cold-blooded cruelty. Love, w^hich runs into disease only among the higher classes in other countries, plays its daily tra- gedies here among the humblest. It is the natural offspring of idleness. With these hot-blooded, im- petuous Italians jealousy is almost sure to spring up with it ; it is, par excellence, the passion of social life in Italy. There was a beautiful young woman hired by a foreign artist to sit for him ; this is one of the most productive of the passive industries of Rome. Her husband forbade her going to the painter's ; she replied that he did nothing for her, and she must earn what she could. Yesterday he followed her to the artist's studio, and asked to see the picture of his wife. The artist readily admitted him, w^hereupon he plunged a knife into his wife's bosom ; she fled, and he slabbed her a second time. To-day she died. Public opinion is in the husband's favour, and it is said he will only pay the penalty of a few days' im- prisonment. But what morals can be expected of a people who have the w^orst examples of bad faith from those who should be their models as well as protec- VoL. II.— Q 182 ROME. tors. K — n told me a story of some brigands who had become formidable on the road between here and Naples some years since. As the ceremonies of the holy-week approached the outlaws felt an irresistible desire to "walk the Seven Basilicee;" which means, I take it, confessing and doing penance in these supremely holy sanctuaries, an observance very dear to all good Catholics.* Their chief en- tered into a treaty with the pope for permission to come and go unmolested, and the holy father, loath to repress so pious a wish, granted it. Their rendez- vous in Rome was known, and the pope sent his emis- saries to persuade them to relinquish their unholy trade. The conference was proceeding amicably "when the pope's lambs turned into wolves, alias gens d'armes, and the betrayed brigands were seized and bound. " Ah, for shame !" I exclaimed, at the conclu- sion of the story ; " this is as bad as our treatment of the Indians." " And ours of the East Indians !" re- sponded K — n ; " all great nations have their pecca- dilloes !" When will nations hold themselves bound by the strict rule that governs an upright individual ? When they are in deed as well as in name Christian nations — and not till then. * " Boniface in 1300, the year of the jubilee, proclaimed ' une indul- gence pleniere' for such as, having confessed, sliould visit for fifteen consecutive days the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Villani reports that during the year there were 200,000 strangers at Rome." —iiinmondi. His holiness, Boniface, understood the art of indirect taxation. ROME. 183 The tombs are among the most interesting monu- ments about Rome. They annihilate time, and level all national and individual differences by speaking to you of ties that are universal, and of experience common to all. Here, where parents and children have wept, you feel the strain of a common human- ity ; and the only difference between you and those w^ho have lived and suffered ages before you is, that wherein you are most blessed they w^ere most wretched. The angel of life did not keep his watch over the burial-places of their dead. If, per- chance, a ray of hope penetrated the clouds and darkness that wrapped the tomb, it came from their own natures, and was wavering and uncertain, most unlike that steadfast and inextinguishable light which shines in upon the Christian's soul. And this, I take it, was in part the reason why the an- cients built their splendid mausoleums, such as the tomb of Adrian and that of Ceciha Metella, and those on the Appian Way, which, even in ruin, ap- pear like the vestiges of fortresses and palaces. The fast was all to them, — pride and love sought to per- petuate the memorial of an ended existence. Mem- ory fondly lingered where hope had not yet come. We have been to the tomb of the Scipios. It is not more than fifty years since the tomb of the Scipios was opened, and now an exact copy of its most beautiful sarcophagus embellishes a cemetery in our New World.* Above the entrance to a vineyard is * That to Spurzheim at Mount Auburn. 184 ROME. the inscription, " Sepolcro degli Scipioni.^^ The barred door was opened to us by a woman, who, provided with wax tapers, conducted us down a flight of steps and into the interior of the vault by a narrow winding way, through the burial-place of one of the most illustrious families of Rome, and where we were treading they came in sad proces- sion to lay their dead. We saw on the walls of these corridors the names, and exact copies of the ori- ginal inscriptions, which have been carried off to the Vatican. The niches where the sarcophagi, busts, and other funereal ornaments were placed are emp- ty. Some of these we have seen in the Vatican. We have been to the Columbarium, which con- tains the remains of the freedmen of Augustus. They are called Columbarium from the resemblance of the small compartments where the urns were placed to pigeon-holes. We knocked, as all an- tiquity-huniers must do at Rome, whether they are in quest of a palace or a tomb, a bath or a tem- ple, at a huge, strong, wooden gate resembhng an immense barn-door, and were admitted into a vine- yard, where we were at once in the midst of sacred relics. Broken, antique, sepulchral inscriptions are inserted in the wall, some made in vanity no doubt, and some in love ; I noticed one of a father Jilice dulcissimcB. Fragments of columns, bits of bas- reliefs, and terra-cotta urns were strewn over the ground. We descended a dozen steps into the Co- lumbarium, a small apartment with a vaulted ceil- ing delicately painted in fresco. The bones, resolved ROME. 185 by fire to small fragments and ashes, are in terra-cotta vessels with covers, more like our garden-pots than like urns. These are placed in the pigeon-holes. Thus reduced, men and women may be packed away in a very small compass ; 8000 are said to have been bestowed here. There are some small marble sar- cophagi embellished with bas-reliefs. Octavia's tomb is unknown; and here is an inscription on her dressing-maid, and another on her w^orker in silver. But one of the most interesting sepulchral monu- ments that I have seen is that of some honest ba- kers, close to the walls of R&me. A very noble arch with Ionic pillars has lately been uncovered there. When Totila, with his barbarians, had pos- session of the city, they pulled down the walls. Bel- isarius, who was lying at Ostia, returned as soon as To- tila retired, and, hastily reconstructing the wall, made use of whatever would help to shorten his labour. In this way the tomb of Caius Cestus came to make a part of the wall, and thus this superb arch, and the baker's tomb just in its shadow, were covered up ; the tomb is of marble, and in the sides of the walls are openings to represent ovens. The frieze is sculptured with bas-reliefs representing the baker's art, kneading, moulding, weighing the loaves, and piling them in baskets ; bread and baskets are of the identical form used by the Roman bakers of the present day. In a house hard by, whither they have been removed from the tomb, are the statues of the baker and his wife, worthy elderly people, lying side by side on a stone tablet. After going about day Q2 186 ROME. after day to see the ruins of temples to imaginary divinities, triumphal arches, palaces, circuses, and amphitheatres, memorials of the pride and luxury of individuals and the misery of " the million," it was refreshing, dear C, to find in this baker's pretty tomb a proof that the humbler virtues and domestic arts were sometimes honoured. My Dear C, Sunday. — We went to the Church of St. Cecilia to-day to see the p«)fession of a nun. Signora N. accompanied us, and expressed as sound opinions on conventual life as if, instead of a good Catholic living under the dropping of monasteries, she had been bred in Boston. A carpet was spread in the nave, with a double row of chairs set around it, and the enclosure was guarded by a small detachment from the pope's Swiss guards. By Signor N.'s interest, we obtained a place on these extra-exclusive seats. We waited two mortal hours. The cardinal who was to come here to bury the living, was engaged in burying the dead. The mother, with the nurse and young bride of heaven, sat near us, and , who, if she had before appeared to me as a mere fashiona- ble inanity floating over the surface of life, now made me feel that there was a certain dignity in an existence that comprehended the affections of a wife and mother. The circle of chairs was filled, and a large au- dience, chiefly English, gathered round; finally in ROME. 187 came the cardinal and the officiating priests, who robed him in embroidered satin and point lace, which they took from a trunk previously brought. When he was completely equipped, with his jewelled mitre on his head, a chant announced the bride's approach ; and she entered the church with a friend at her side and a train attendant. She appeared about nineteen, and with that peculiar expression of repressed exultation that you may have seen on a silly >cung girl whose head was exaltee with the eclat of a wedding. She was dressed in a load of finery, to make more striking her renunciation of the pomps and vanities of the world. Her head was tricked off with all-coloured false jewels, feathers, gold chains, and artificial flowers. Her profuse black hair, her only personal wealth, hung in ring- lets over her face, neck, and shoulders, and falling over the back of her head she had a gauze veil em- broidered with silver. The folds of her embroider- ed satin gown were sustained by an ultra fashiona- ble hump {toiirnure^ Y)ar courtoisie),'and her train was held up by two children three or four years old, bedizzened in blue and pink satin, spangles, silver fringe, and tawdry artificial flowers, who, as I infer- red from feather wings sewed to their backs, person- ated angels ! The poor thing knelt before the cardinal and made her vow of renunciation. She then sat as inex- pressive as a wax figure, while he addressed to her a sing-song exhortation, in which he held up before her a long line of female saints who had endured 188 ROME. tinendurable inflictions and mortitications. When this precious homily, recited and received without a sign of emotion, was over, she was led out by the cardinal, and we again saw her, but very imperfect- ly, through a grated door in a side chapel ; there she was disrobed, her hair cut off, and, in the nun's habit and veil, she lay under a pall while the ser- vice for the dead was chanted over her. It is not long since this whole ceremony was performed in the nave of the church ; and the present decent in- novation of withdrawing behind the scenes is a faint sign that there is life and progress even here. It was, after all, though I have spoken of it flippantly, a touching sight to see a young creature self-immo- lated through the force of most unnatural circum- stances; but I do not wonder that in a country where the alternative is, for the most part, between vice and vacuity, a woman should choose to give a religious colour to the latter. Female school-education here is in the hands of the nuns. You may imagine how well fitted to pre- pare girls to be wives and mothers, and effective members of society, these poor wretches must be, who know the world only through their sighs and unavailing regrets. The bells are ringing, and so they are in Rome at every hour of the twenty-four. There are certain convent-bells that ring every fifteen minutes, and others that ring through the hour. When I am ROME. 189 suddenly awaked in the night by the ringing of the bells, with the deep-sunken impressions of years, I fancy myself in my room in W. street, and an Albany steamer announcing its arrival. What a deadly home-sickness comes over me as I awake to the reality, and contrast the indications of the bells of the two countries, pretty fairly illustrative of their different condition. The steamer's bell announces the arrival of the politician, busy with the project of making a new governor and dislodging an old one, or framino- new laws and abolishino: the old ; of the philanthropist, who has come to examine prisons, establish a peace society, disseminate Bibles, or help on the extermination of slavery ; of an author, about to publish some new theory in religion, or politics, or social life, which is to reform the morals and mend the manners of mankind ; of the inventor of a new machine which is to improve the fortunes of the hu- man race and make his own ; of a host of merchants to buy and to sell. While the bells are ringing they are all on shore; no passports, no Dogana! And what say the midnight bells of Rome 1 Why, that the poor monks and nuns must out of their beds and troop to prayers ! In the severer orders the summons is repeated three and four times during the night — this, dear C.,is the productive labour of Rome ! I ASKED an Italian gentleman who was mending the fire at Miss M.'s, in the hopeless endeavour to send the smoke up the chimney, if the chimneys in 190 ROME. Rome were not apt to smoke. "They all smoke," he replied ; " and how can it be otherwise ? the houses have been built hundreds of years, and the chimneys recently put in." They are an English luxury, and seem contrived, as an English writer says, rather " to ventilate than to warm." The Italians consider fires injurious to health.* There is ice in the street now, and a blazing fire of half a dozen good-sized sticks is essential to our comfort, while our delicate little landlady is warmed with a few coals in an earthen pot (called a marito) with an upright han- dle, a most inconvenient affair. The immense mar- ble-floored apartments of the palaces are warmed only by a brasier with a few coals. Once I have seen, at some villa, a blazing fire ; at the Borghese, probably, for Prince Borghese is married to an Eng- lishwoman. The shrivelled, shivering old women sitting out of doors with a marito at their feet are forlorn objects. You w^ould be surprised at the articles of food ex- posed for sale here, such as cock's combs, the claws of poultry, blood, and the entrails of animals. I smile when I recall the time when our village butch- er refused to make a charge for a " calf's head and feet," and that even now it is considered a bold in- novation to sell liver. Meat is sold here in bits as small as we distribute about the table ; indeed, the poorer classes scarce taste meat at all. Polenta * Our medical gentleman at Naples was so fearful of the feverish influence of the fire, that when he passed through the drawing-room to his patient's apartment he crept round by the wall. ROME. 191 (hasty-pudding) is here, as in other parts of Italy, a prime article of food.* The bread they eat is of a good quality, and often made quite luxurious by a spreading of lard. They have delicate preparations of milk, resembling our curds, but much nicer, called ricotta and giuncata. These are thought to be inim- itably prepared by the peasants of the neighbouring mountains ; we thought them so the other day when they came to us from a kind friend in pretty baskets covered with fresh leaves. Vegetables are very cheap, and the very poor al- most live on the coarser kinds. I have seen old women in the streets devouring the stumps of cab- bages. Soup is their luxury ; soup by courtesy, but really the thinnest of broths. Wine holds the place to them that tea does to our working people. Our servant was looking very surly, and on inquiry we learned it was because we had not provided wine for her breakfast ! Chestnuts are bread here ; they are cheap, abundant, and very delicious, much lar- ger than ours, sweet and marrowy, and approaching the lusciousness of fruit. Their sweet odours as they are roasting perfume the streets which sadly need perfuming. You wdll hardly be able to estimate the poverty of the Roman people by the indications of the food on which they live, without knowing the extreme cheapness of good provisions. W. tells me that he can get a dinner at a restaurateur's for twenty-five * We ordered it now and then for a reminiscence of home, but it was made disagreeable to our taste by the admixture of oil. 192 ROME. cents, consisting of soup, three or four kinds of meat, a variety of vegetable^, a pudding, and a dessert of fruits and nuts. I WISH our grumbling housewives who fancy there is no plague with servants but "it lights on their shoulders," could hear the statements of grievances I hear here, and such as I often heard in England. The men-servants here are more capable than the women, but they are utterly unreliable ; not having the " fear of God before their eyes," there is no de- pendance to be placed either on their word or their honesty. The women are uninstructed, and misera- ble gossips and dawdlers; but being still under the dominion of their religion, you have a hold on their consciences. Francois avers there is not a w^oman in Italy who knows how to cook ; but Francois holds to the old-school opinion of women's capacities. My hearsay information is of little worth, but I have none other to give. We have employed but two women-servants ; the one faithless and efficient, the other inefficient and true — passably so. There is nothing peculiar to any country in this experience. The whole tendehcy of service here is to corrup- tion. Service, for the most part, is paid by fees which are irregular and uncertain. Many servants of cardinals and princes are not paid by their em- ployers, but subsist on fees ; they are, in fact, birds of prey. For example, a gentleman residing here in an official station told me that twice every year, ROME. 193 on the first of January and on the first of July, the servants of the princes and cardinals whom he visits come to demand a fee from him, and he must pay it. The day after his first official interview with the pope, a servant's bill, amounting to sixteen dollars, was sent to him. When the noted banker Torlonia gives a ball his servants levy their tribute — black mail — the next day on the guests. To show you in what estimation this same gentleman Torlonia is held in Rome, it is a common report that his ser- vants give his balls I My dear C, you may almost doubt my being in Rome, since I have not yet said one word of the Vatican, where the history and religion of the Old World are recorded by the hand of art. The truth is, that from the moment of my visit to Winchester Cathedral, I have felt, as. I fancy those do who go to another world, that the sensations resulting from a new state and new marxifestations are incommunica- ble. I cannot convey to you what I have enjoyed, and am enjoying, from painting, sculpture, and ar- chitecture ; and when I involuntarily shudder at the idea of leaving all these magnificent and lovely forms, I doubt the wisdom of our New-W^orld peo- ple coming here to acquire hankerings which cannot be appeased at home. I would advise no American to come to Italy who has not strong domestic affec- tions and close domestic ties, or some absorbing and worthy pursuit at home. Without these strong Vol. II.— R 191 ROME. bonds to his country he may feel, when he returns there, as one does who attempts to read a treatise on pohtical economy after being lost in the interest of a captivating romance. You vvould fully comprehend this danger if you had passed but this day with me. First we went to the Orti Farnesiana (the Farnese Gardens), where we were first shown the remains of Augustus' bath,* for so a large reservoir of Tibertine stone is called, into which flows a stream of the *' acqua felice,^'' co- pious enough to drown half a dozen emperors. Then we were led down broken steps into the baths of Livia, where, now buried in the bowels of the earth, are apartments suited to imperial luxury. The ceiling (shown by wax tapers) is vaulted and painted with a border of the richest colour encir- cling medallions of miniature animals, loves, and fauns. The statues have been removed from the niches. These are unquestionable remains of impe- rial luxury, and our pleasure was not disturbed with doubts, as it sometimes is, when we are told, before a broken stack of bricks half hidden with thorns and ivy, " this is the palace of the Caesars !" When we emerged into daylight our guide led us up a flight of steps, and, pointing to a shapeless mass of bricks, said, '• These are the remains of Romulus' house !" Our friend, who used to admire the " mor- al effect" of General 's swearing, would call this bold lying the ** moral courage" of a Roman * These attractive names are given and changed " ^ discretion^' by the antiquaries and guides of Rome. ROME. 195 guide. But the view from the little platform where we stood was no fiction. Before us was an amphi- theatre of mountains melting into the atmosphere, their snowy edges like glittering clouds ; the dome of St. Peter's enfolded in ether; domes, towers, churches, ruins on every side ; beyond them the cam- pagna, a land-sea^ with its soft, green, wavy surface, and the Mediterranean in the distance gleaming like steel in the sun. No scenery that I have ever seen is more beautiful, none can be more expressive, than that in and about Rome. From the garden we drove quite to the other extremity of Rome, and mounted a hill to visit the Church of St. Onofrio, where Tasso was buried. It was in the convent ad- joining this church that he lodged when he came to Rome to receive the poet's crown. There is a tab- let with an inscription on the wall over the sacred spot where his remains were lain. But a more touching memorial of him is an oak-tree in the ad- joining garden. It is the largest oak in Rome, and is called Tasso's, from the circumstance of his hav- ing been carried at his own desire to sit under its shadow the day before he died. What a scene for a dying poet, the entire city of Rome with its thrill- ing memories under his eye, and the mountains en- closing the campagna, that, if they appeared as they appeared to-day, so shadowy and ethereal, must have spoken to his soul of that world on whose threshold he stood. Come away with us now, dear C, to the Vatican, whose galleries the pope graciously opens to the 196 ROME. public at twelve o'clock on the Monday and Thurs- day of every week, and permits them to remain open till three, when his guards appear, and drive the lingering spectators, like a flock of sheep, from room to room, till they are fairly out of the palace. The Vatican, as you well know, is the pontifical palace. It is an irregular mass of buildings, " a company of palaces," appended to St. Peter's, built from time to time, according to the ability or whim of successive pontiffs, without reference, in its exter- nal, to architectural harmony or beauty of any kind. Mrs. Stark gives 70,000 feet as the circumference of these edifices. At twelve o'clock the Piazza of St. Peter's is thronged with English equipages, and visiters from all part of the civilized world. They enter the colonnade that leads to St. Peter's, turn and ascend a side staircase, mount to a spacious open court (to which privileged carriages may drive by making the circuit of St. Peter's), and then enter the palace, where, scattered through the immense galleries and numberless apartments of the Museum, the multitudinous congregation that pressed through the portals appear but as a few wanderers. My dear C, I shall not attempt to enumerate or describe to you the treasures of these marble halls. You know that the creative genius of nations which had passed away when Rome was founded, has contributed to fill them ; that here are monuments of Egyptian and Etruscan art; that here is imbodied the " graceful mythology" of Greece ; that here, in enduring marble, are her philosophers, poets, ROME. 197 priestesses, and nymphs ; and that here is our real world of old Rome in her rulers and heroes ; and, chiselled while the eye of the artist was on their living- heads, are the busts of Julius Caesar, Cicero, Augustus, Titus, Trajan, and — but a list of them would fill a book instead of a letter.* Besides the men of past ages, you have their his- tory, their occupations, their religious offices, their games written in marble. These are gradations of adornment, as if to accustom your eye to increase of light. The walls at the entrance of the first hall are covered with sepulchral inscriptions; as you proceed, these are interspersed with fragments of friezes and cornices. Along the sides of the walls are placed sarcophagi, baths, altars, fountains, urns, vases, and capitals. You proceed on through length- ening galleries with side-halls, and apartments with pictured ceilings, and mosaic pavements, and marble columns, to a small octagonal court, in the midst of which is a fountain sparkling in the bright, unob- structed sunbeams. Around this court is a portico containing the most precious remains of art, baths in which emperors have bathed, and sarcophagi * The bust of Julius Caesar is said by the antiquaries to be a faith- ful portrait. The face is so deeply furrowed that you can hardly be- lieve it to be of a man not more than fifty-six (his age at the time of his death). The face is a record of inflexible resolution, invincible purpose, and unintermitting anxieties. The mouth is rather like Washington's. There is a bust of Augustus Caesar, said to have been made when he was a boy of eight or nine, and said to be the most beautiful bust in the world. It is faultless in its symmetry; and if he were the crafty and selfish monarch history represents him, he must sadly have perverted his nature. R2 198 ROME. sculptured for their mouldering bodies.* Enclosed in the four angles of this portico are masterpieces : the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Antinous, and, last, Canova's great works, Perseus and the Pugilists.f From this portico you pass to the hall of animals, where, I confess, I can never linger, though it is filled with works admirable for their art; but ser- pents, fish, reptiles, even stags and dogs, have little chance when pitted against gods and men. There is one most enchanting little apartment that we can never pass by, called the Stanza delle Maschere (Chamber of the Masks), from the masks represented in its mosaic pavement. Among several masterpieces, it has an exquisite Faun in Rosso AnticOy found in Hadrian's villa, with the Faun's insignia, the basket, the goat, and the grapes hanging round his joyous face. There is another we always enter too, if we can tear ourselves from the Apollo in time, in which stands, on an exquisite mosaic pavement,J a * Some of the sarcophagi are among the most beautiful works of art, such as that famous one in the capital on which the battle of the Amazons is sculptured. That with the story of Clytemnestra, and many others which I examined, would seem to us subjects most unsuited to sepulchral embellishment, t No works of modern artists, excepting Canova's and Thorwald- sen's, have been admitted into the Vatican ; and I hope my presump- tion may be forgiven if I express a doubt whether Canova's will re- tain their enviable position after the partiality of his contemporaries has passed away. The author of Rome in the Nineteenth Century says that Canova's "Perseus looks more like an actor representing Perseus than like Perseus himself." A similar criticism might be extended to his other works ; they have not the free, untouched na- ture of the antiques. X This is the most beautiful pavement (except the unparalleled fragment of Pompeii) we saw in Italy. It was found fifty miles ROME. 199 porphyry taza or vase forty-two feet in circumfer- ence. But, my dear C, I must hurry on Hhrough apart- ments filled with busts, candelabra, and every form of magnificent vase of marble, alabaster, and jas- per ; through " the hall of geographical maps" a quarter of a mile in length, on whose walls are painted in fresco maps of all the pope's dominions and ground-plans of his cities, to the halls of tapes- try, worked after Raphael's cartoons. But not even here can a lover of Raphael linger, for on and above are his Madonna di Fuligno, his Transfiguration, and his Camere. These camere or chambers are four large unfurnished (unfurnished !) rooms painted in fresco, walls and ceiling, by Raphael, or by his best pupils from his designs.* Each picture occupies one side of a room. After glancing at the rest I always find myself standing before " the School of Athens." This was a subject of Raphael's own se- lection. He was unshackled by dictum of pope or cardinal, and freely followed out the suggestions of his inspired genius, and you have the result in the most dramatic combination of character, circum- stance, and expression.! from Rome, and, encircling a colossal head of Medusa, represents the combat of the Centaurs and Lapithae. * The ceiling of one apartment is an exception. The rooms were given into Raphael's hands with orders to efface the paintings al- ready there. He refused to touch one ceiling which had been done by his master, Peruggino, and this remains, a memorial of his affec- tions more precious even than the memorials of his genius that sur- round it. t I shall do my readers a favour by transcribing the description of this picture from " Rome in the Nineteenth Century :" 200 ROME. It would seem like profanity to leave the Vat- ican without mentioning the Transfiguration and the Communion of St. Jerome, by Domenichino They are called the two great masterpieces of the world. Raphael's was the last picture on which he worked, was not quite finished when he died, and was borne before his body in his funereal procession. Domenichino received but twelve guineas for his from ignorant monks, who suffered it afterward to be thrown into a garret. But here it now stands, for the admiration of the world, and to dispute the palm with RaphaePs favourite work. Between these pic- tures we always finish our day at the Vatican, and " On the steps of a Grecian portico stand Aristotle and Plato en- gaged in argument, and each holding a volume in his hand. Their disciples are ranged around, attentively listening to them. Beneath is Diogenes, an inimitable figure, listlessly extended on the steps. On the left, at the top, is Socrates earnestly talking to young Alcibi- ades, who listens in a lounging sort of attitude, as if half subdued by the wisdom, half willing to turn away from it, yet still resolved to give the reins to pleasure and run the career of gay enjoyment. I know not, however, why the young Grecian was not made more handsome. The old man beside him, with a cap on, listening to Soc- rates, is inimitable. Another, looking over the shoulder of Pythago- ras, who is writing his works, is, if possible, still finer. The figure in deep, abstracted thought, leaning on his elbow, with a pen in his hand, is Zoroaster holding a globe ; Archimedes is stooping to trace a geometrical figure with compasses on a slate on the ground ; and the whole group that surrounds him are beyond all praise. In the corner, on the right, the figure with a black cap is the portrait of Raphael himself, and that beside him of Pietro Peruggino." It is strange that the writer of this description, a woman, should have omitted to notice the figure of Aspasia, whose intellectual beau- ty is so shaded with sadness. She reminded me of Hamlet in his soliloquy of " To be, or not to be." She seems revolving in her mind a mystery ; the capacities of her nature and the degradation of her sex. ROME. 201 are only driven from them by the unwelcome cry of the guards, " Si chiude !" the signal for closing the gates of Paradise upon us. We make our exit through the arcades, or " Log- gie di Raffaelle.^^ These arcades are attached to three stories of the palace, running along one side, and are more like what we call a piazza than any- thing else. They are all painted by Raphael. In one series he begins, as some preachers do in their maiden-sermon, at the creation of the world, and comes down to the crucifixion. They repay the study of days, but we have not yet contrived to save a half hour for them ; and you will not won- der at this, my dear C, if you remember how much the Vatican contains to be examined besides the galleries, through which you may well think I have taken but a bat's flight ; its immense library, and the Paolini and Sistine Chapels, both painted by Michael Ange- lo — the Sistine with his masterpiece, the Last Judg- ment.* My dear C, we began this morning with look- ing at the antiquities of old Rome ; then followed a memorial of the middle ages at Tasso's tomb; and in the museum of the Vatican we have been looking back, through ages and ages, far into the shadowy past. Do you wonder at the common tes- timony of travellers that you live a month in every day at Rome ! and what a month it is ! * The author of Rome in the Nineteenth Century asserts on the authority of a "very accurate" Italian, "That you cannot see the Vatican Museum without walking a mile and three quarters '" 202 ROME. I WALKED an hour this morning with R. up and down the colonnade of St. Peter's. There had been a ceremony in the Sistine Chapel, and the guarda nohile, in their rich uniforms, as they came slowly winding down the magnificent marble staircase in deep shadow, and the Swiss guards in their motley, at the end of the colonnade, their arms gleaming in the fitful sunbeams, and the light glancing over Charlemagne and his voluminous drapery, made a picture for us as we pursued our damp end other- wise gloomy walk. We finished the morning in the Vatican library, where we had a pleasure quite peculiar to it, I be- lieve, of walking through the largest library in the world without seeing a book ! not the largest in the number of books, for, though it is enriched by the accumulations of ages and the bequests of monarchs, the number, including MSS., does not exceed 100,000 volumes — but largest in space ! The principal hall is 1200 feet long, and into this you enter by one of 200 feet which, in my ignorance, I took for the whole, and dawdled through it, looking at its rich vases and frescoed walls, which are adorned with portraits of all the great promoters of learning from Adam down. The books and MSS. are locked in w^ooden cases, of which I presume his holiness keeps the key more tenaciously than he does that he holds in St. Peter's right, as he had far rather open the gates of Paradise to the dead than the Paradise of knowledge to the Hving. The pictures on the li- ROME. 203 brary walls representing the munificent popes gra- ciously receiving from their authors literary produc- tions and discoveries in science, seemed rather a se- vere comment on the present pontiff's exclusion of letters and veto of literary associations ! The custode unlocked many of the cases to exhibit their treasures. Among them are a quantity of quaint old pictures of the earliest period of the re- vival of the arts. It is curious to see how the pat- ronage of the Church has prevented the exercise of the painter's invention. Here are the same crucifix- ions, martyrdoms, and holy families that you see now freshly-painted in Camucini's studio. We saw relics of the early Christians, crucifixes and lamps that were found in the catacombs. A strange passage the mind makes, dear C, from this pontifical palace to St. Peter and his friends lighting these lamps in the caverns of the dead for their pro- scribed worship. A curious relic of another kind was shown us : the hair of a woman found in a tomb on the Appi- an Way. There they are — a little mouldy — the very tresses that some 2000 years ago adorned the head of a Roman lady, probably the only unchanged mortal remains of all the masses of men and women that lived in ancient Rome ! My dear C, The museum of the Capitol, its sculpture, paint- ings, and relics of antiquity, -vould be quite enough 204 ROME. to draw the travelling world to Rome, if everything else here were swallowed up. Volumes have been written upon it, but I shall wisely abstain from wri- ting even one letter, and only tell you what exquisite pleasure I have had from visiting again and again the Dying Gladiator which is in this collection. The artists appear to me often to have sacrificed ex- pression to serenity — to a sort of superhuman, divine tranquillity ; but the brow and lip of the dying gla- diator express the deepest, saddest emotion. Perhaps it owes something of its effect to Byron's admirable interpretation. But it seems to me that if he had never written, and this statue had never received its suggestive appellation, one could not look at it without seeing a man of refined nature death-strick- en without hope, and whose most dejected thoughts are en some distant object of tenderest love. It was for Byron's gifted vision to see in these objects " his young barbarians all at play." There are masterpieces in the hall of paint- ings in the Capitol. The picture that^kept me standing before it half an hour when I was sick with weariness, is Guido's St. Sebastian. The mar- tyrdom of this poor saint is a favourite subject with the painters, and you see him in all the galleries stuck full of arrows. Mere physical suffering is a vulgar means of producing effect. Guido exhibits the physical sensation to show the triumph of the soul; it is the deep shadow that brings out the light. The young martyr is a beautiful boy of four- teen, innocent as a baby and fresh as a Hebe. His ROME. 205 hands are tied together above his head to a tree ; they have not only an unresisting expression, but one of voluntary submission ; one arrow is sticking in his side, another in his armpit. The calm, sweet resignation of his face expresses, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." Among the curiosities of the Capitol (we always look in faith, dear C. ; it is a great help at Rome) is the bronze wolf, with her foster-sons, mentioned by Cicero, and said to have been struck in the prophetic storm on the night before Caesar's death — the first rostral column, as appears by its inscription — and the Fasti Considares, or lists of the consuls (nearly entire), with the date of their election and the term of their service engraved upon stone tablets. The generosity of the proprietors of the Roman palaces, in throwing them open to the occupation of visiters, is worthy of all praise. Occupation it may be called, as from morning to night they are trav- ersed by these new hordes of Northern invaders. The ground story of a Roman palace is given up to menial offices and shops; the picture-gallery occu- pies the second, or the greater part of it. A range of spacious rooms and halls is filled from floor to ceiling with pictures. There is little furniture ; curtains, perhaps, of faded damask, and chairs and tables centuries old. I have never seen, excepting in the S Palace, any look of habitancy. There we found warm rooms, and a table spread with ' Vol. II.— S 206 ROME. books, drawings, and the delicate needlework of a lady who had been driven from the room by our en* trance. Within the last few days rumour says that the obstinacy of this lady in insisting on having the choice of her own rooms has led to a conjugal quarrel, and ended in her leaving her husband's bed and board, and taking lodgings in another palace. I could fill a letter with a mere list of the pictures of one of these galleries. They are vast storehouses of art, more or less valuable ; but not one of them but contains some works of the first painters who have ever lived. Almost every day we have a new one to visit. Es- timate our industry, if you can, and thank me for imitating Byron's sensible example, and, instead of Dragging you round with us, writing " Vide Guide- book;" and if that guide-book should chance to be Madame Stark's, you will admire her laconic opin- ions of pictures thus expressed after the insertion of the name, !— ! !— ! ! ! ! Of all countries, the southern part of Italy would appear the most delicious for rural enjoyments. The villas about Rome are abandoned from dread of the malaria. Their possessors go to them in winter only, and then for short periods. The Romans, with their resources of soil and climate, might make par- adises of their villas, if they studied and obeyed na- ture instead of torturing her with trimming their trees into every fantastical form, imprisoning their avenues with hedges that look as much as possible like solid green walls, and laying out their garden- grounds, like those of Albani, with coloured stones ROME. 207 or flowers in arabesque patterns ! But why, you may ask me, with the everlasting inconsistency of human expectations, look for everything here ? I am not sure I should not steal away from the fault- less beauty and perfection of adornment of an Eng- lish nobleman's park, garden, and conservatories, to wander over the old Mattei Villa on the Ccelian Hill, ruined and abandoned as it is, with its rag- ged berceaus, its untrimmed rose-hedges, its bro- ken-nosed statues, and its vineyard, as it now is, broken and sear, for from its high-swelling grounds you have an unbroken view of the mountains that half girdle Rome. You turn your eyes from Sorade to Tivoli, to the Sabine Mount, to Albano; they bear names to conjure with ; and it seems as if Nature delighted in showing them in a light she has for nothing else. They are invested with a silvery mist ; you would call it ethereal, for there is nothing dimming or shadowy about it ; but I fear ethereal mist is nonsense. It is a sheathed light, a brighter moonlight. The outlines blend with the atmosphere. Before you is the wide, desolate campagna with its sepulchral grass, and the long lines of broken aque- ducts, Cecilia Metella's tomb, the huge ruins of Car- acalla's baths, St. John Lateran's statues stand- ing boldly up against the sky, the walls of Rome, with their gates, towers, turrets, and voices of histo- ry ; and the whole city of Rome beneath you, with its living crowds, and its dead congregations, its St. Peter's, and its desolate places where the " tent-roofed pine" and the slender cypress stand as mourners for the dead. 208 ROME. At the Villa Albani, whose treasures of art any monarch in Europe might envy, we found some- thing much rarer in the dwelling of a Roman prince than chef d'oeuvres of painting or sculpture; car- peted rooms with a comfortable enjoyed aspect, fire in the chimney, and English books and fresh jour- nals on the tables. Irvino-'s Alhambra was among: them. Our cicerone told us the padroni read Eng- lish : a sign of intellectual life. You will not think me quite a savage, dear C, though the lovers of art might, if I tell you w-hat most interested me at the Villa Albani. I had been looking at the admi- rable group of Dffidalus and Icarus, and as I turned from it my eye fell on some toys thrown by a tired child into a magnificent old vase. I forgot the gods, nymphs, and heroes about me ; my thoughts flew home to you, my dear C. ; to your " young barbarians at play," and I hung brooding over the little tin coach and battered doll till I was summoned away. The Borghese Villa is on the Pincian Hill, just under the walls of Rome, and is, indeed, princely in its extent and decorations. Prince Borghese is noted for his liberality, and as, alas ! few Roman princes now are, for his immense w^ealth. The author of " Rome in the Nineteenth Century" happily says that " Julius Casar only bequeathed his gardens to the Roman people, the Borghese princes give theirs." Their gates and doors are always open, and the visitor enters them when and how he pleases. R. and E. often vary their drives by going through those beautiful grounds, where the fountains ROME. 209 are gushing, the grass is always green ; where the hedges and long avenues of trees are always ver- dant, and the birds always singing ; and where you may lose yourself in the sweet fancy of a perpetual summer if you will not foolishly look about for bird- cages, and observe that the trees are cypress and ilex (a species of oak that never changes), and the hedges of laurels. Certainly there was no illusion in the roses we saw blooming there in profusion on the 29th of December. How far below zero stood your mercury on that day, dear C. ? I passed four hours on Friday in walking through the glades and avenues of the Doria Villa with Lady D., and came to the conclusion that four hours could scarcely be more delightfully passed than with an agreeable companion there. It is on the western side of the Tiber. Its present mistress is a beautiful young Englishwoman of the Talbot family; but there is no English mark upon her villa; and per- haps it is good taste to keep up what is national and characteristic. Nothing can be better than the no- ble pines that embellish these grounds, and which, wherever you see them, appear in striking harmony "with the spirit of the scenery of Rome. The pine of Italy is unlike any that we have, and that of Rome seems to me richer and broader than I have seen elsewhere. It has a straight and lofty trunk, and a broad, horizontal top of foliage that seems to have been growing deeper and deeper ever since it or the world stood. The affluence of fountains at this villa is, too, a characteristic beauty. The same S2 210 ROME. stream that supplies the Paulina, the Niagara of Ro- man fountains, is conducted across the Doria Villa. It is peculiar to Rome that, stay here as long as you will, if you have a month, a day, an hour, ten minutes to spare, you may fill it with some object of deep interest. We had a half hour on our hands after leaving the Doria Villa, and Lady D., who selects her objects with the skill that can only be acquired by a long familiarity with everything in and about Rome, drove to the Paulina Fountain, to the beautiful view on the Janiculum, and to St. Pietro in Monto- rio, where, in a court adjoining the church, is a small circular temple designed by Michael Angelo, with columns of Oriental granite, erected on the very spot where St. Peter was crucified. So says tradition, and so believe the faithful. My dear C, you can hardly imagine anything more sombre than a drive in the evening through the wretchedly-lighted streets of Rome. Teeming as they are with human life in the daytime, by eight o'clock you see only here and there a dim form shrinking away from your coach-wheels, or an indistinct figure stealing along in the deepest shade where all is shadow. There is the gloom of night among the tombs, without the consciousness that " the weary are at rest, and the wicked have ceased from troubhng." If you go to visit a friend lodged in a palace, you will have the happiness to find the staircase lighted, and a porter ready to admit you ; ROME. 211 but a Roman liouse is like a closed prison. We went last evening to see our coimtrywoman Mrs. L. After Fran9ois had rapped repeatedly we heard a child's voice uttering the never-failing inquiry, "Chie?" (" Who is it ?"), to which Fran(;ois responded " Ami- ci" (" Friends"). After a long pause, and impatient shouts from Franqois, seconded by Mariano, of " Apri- te i" " Aprite !" (" Open the door !"), " Ecco !" said the little voice, and " Bravo !" cried Francois ; and the parley was ended by the child opening the doof and conducting us up a long staircase by the light of a brazen antique lamp in her hand, rather tal- ler, it seemed to me, than she was. The lower classes of the people are en scene in the streets ; and the stranger, who has no opportu- nity of seeing the better condition of Italian life, has here his best opportunities for observation ; and I assure you, my dear C, these streets are a curious and affecting spectacle to one accustomed to the bustling, achieving industry of New-York, or to the quiet diligence and innocent leisure of our village life. The first thing that meets my eye as I come into the drawing-room in the morning is the drilling of soldiers before our window. This is the great instruction and business of Rome ! As we drove over to the Vatican to-day I was fancying how our little B., with her quick sympa- thies, would endure the aspect of this throng of peo- ple, who, in the affecting language of F. B.'s slave, " have no prospect :" how she would by turns laugh and cry ) but I fear the tears would carry the day— 21^ ROME, try it, dear B. Take this seat beside me. The streets, with an unclouded sun for weeks, are mud- dy and sHmy; they are so narrow and the houses are so high, that at this season they have no chance to dry. That heap of indescribable filth is permitted, as you perceive by the word " irnmondezza'' on the wall — this, like many corners of the streets, is a place of common deposite. We have turned into the Via Serpenti, and here you may see the average condition of life in Rome. In the English quarter it is better, in other quarters-much worse. The win- dows of the lower stories are grated, not glazed. Most of the workshops have no windows ; the light is admitted through the open door, and most cheer- less and comfortless they are in these damp, sunless streets when the weather is as cold as our ordinary March. But, alas ! there are few people in these workshops, and little to be done in them !* You are shuddering, B. You fear we shall trample down some of the people in this crowd ; there is no dan* ger ; the coachmen are accustomed to driving through full streets, and the people know so well how to take care of themselves that they never move aside till the horses' hoofs are close upon them. Do you observe the sullen, brooding aspect of those men who are sauntering up and down in the sun, nei- * Where there is an impoverished population like that of Rome, there is, of course, little employment for domestic ariisans, the hat- ter, the shoemaker, &c. The visiters at Rome provide for their per- sonal wants before they go there. Wo be unto you if you chance to need a new hat, a pair of shoes, or gloves in the city of the Caesars ! You can get them but of a wretched quality and at a dear rate. ROME. 213 ther talking, observing, nor observed, or the man leaning against that ruined arch wrapped in his tat- tered cloak with a remnant of a hat ? What a ma- jestic, free, and graceful air he has ; he looks like a ruined rebel-chieftain brooding over fresh mischief. But I see the men on the piazza, playing at ball, quoits, and mora, have caught your eye — or are you looking at the women in that door-step who are clamouring and gesticulating at such a rate? Do you think they have detected a thief or discovered a murderer ? no, it is but their ordinary manner. They are more cheerful than the men, because they are even more ignorant; they think less, and they have some employment; sewing and knitting are unfailing to women. You are wasting your pity on those babies ; for though they are left to the tending of these pale, lean little children not more than four or five years old, and though (as I am told) those swaddling-clothes in w^hich they are wrapped like mummies are not opened more than once a week, yet they are quiet and contented. In five weeks that we have now been here, and every day, and all day, in the street amid this baby population I have never heard but one crying; is not this a fact in favour of the virtue of the open air 1 This seems to me their only advantage. These beginnings of human life, so hailed and cher- ished with us as the blossoms of future-sustaining fruit, are here but a burden. I have never once seen a child caressed in Rome, even by its mother ! Do you ask why there are so many soldiers, idle as 214 ROME. the idlest, mingling with the crowd ? — dogs watching the flock, my dear, but ill-trained, ill-fed, and in- operative; the pope's government has not energy enough to maintain a vigorous police. Those are Capuchins ; you will meet them in every street in Rome, with their butternut-coloured, hooded gowns, fastened with cords around their w^aists, their long beards, and their feet shodden only with an incrus- tation of dirt ; and this is a procession of Dominicans — noble-looking men, are they not 1 these vehicles have stopped to let them pass, and we must stop too. What huge animals are the oxen attached to these vehicles, and observe the half-circular pent- house of skins by which the driver shelters himself from the wind — not a bad contrivance. Ah, the beggars are taking advantage of our pause to come out upon us from the sunny steps of that magnificent church, where they always congregate. Listen to them ; mark the words of their petition, forever re- peated and often true, and thank God, dear B., that you never heard it in your own country. "Ho fame !" " Muoro della fame !" " Non m'abban- donate !" " I am hungry !" " I am dying with hunger !" " Do not abandon me !" See, as we pass the bridge of St. Angelo, and the filthy street that debouches into the Piazza di St. Pietro, able-bodied men lolling on thosev wooden benches, and women in rags, \5^ith faces and forms that might personate Sabine matrons. See the blind and old stretching their hands for charity, and the cardinal's gilded coach dashing on before us. But ROME. 215 we are at the Vatican — shall we go in, and in that beautiful marble world forget this world of flesh and blood — of sensation and sufferingr ?* * There is enough inexpHcable misery in the world ; the want and suffering of the Roman people are not so. There is in M. Sismondi's " Etudes sur I'Economie PoUtique" a very instructive essay on the Campagna of Rome, in which he shows, after laborious investigation and accurate personal observation, that the condition of the land, and the misery resulting from it, are owing to a violation of those laws of Providence which, if strictly observed, would se- cure food and raiment to every member of the human family. He does not look at the Campagna through the veil in which poets and picturesque tourists invest it, but he sees and exposes the abuses which have reduced it to its present desolateness and cursed it with malaria. It is impossible to compress M. Sismondi's facts into our narrow limits ; but it is easy to see that malaria and every other mischief must result from the present mode of cultivation. An ex- tent of territory, aying in some directions twenty, in others fifty miles from Rome, is in the hands of about eighty proprietors, whose only object is to get the greatest possible amount of revenue for themselves, with the least possible cost of labour. As, in its present vicious mode of cultivation, grazing produces greater returns to the proprietor than tillage, no portion of the land is ploughed more than once in ten years. There is one man over all, called Mercante di Campagna ; he has superintendents under him, who, like the over- seers of the slaves of the South, traverse the fields on horseback, see- ing that others work. The actual labourers are brought, not from Rome, but from the mountains ; some even from the kingdom of Na- ples. They come with their families, sometimes in companies of five hundred. They encamp on the Campagna, and sleep on the ground, or creep at night into the catacombs, the old towers, or the tombs. They are fed in the cheapest possible manner. Is it strange that, at the most moderate computation, at least a tenth of their num- ber perish every season, though the season be short — the sowers being from one district, the reapers from another, and so on. The principle by which human life is multiplied, and sustenance, com- fort, and progress secured to it, is totally neglected, viz., the giving to the labourer a fair share of the product of his labour, and connect- ing him by residence on and interest in the soil he cultivates. Com- pare the condition of the foreign and stinted labourer on the Cam- 216 ROME. I HAVE never yet met a stranger in Italy who did not profess to love Rome. Here he hngers, and here he returns; here, though he be of the dullest mould, he will be waked to a new existence ; and after a little while will find himself getting the feel- ing of a lover for the desolate p.laces of the old city. I have been disappointed in the ruins ; not in their effect, but in their condition. Excepting the Colos- seum, the Pantheon, the Temple of Vesta, and a few others, they are such mere ruins, so changed in form, and stripped of their original embellishments, that they only serve to kindle the enthusiast or puzzle the antiquary.* pagna with that of the hopeful young proprietor on our most un- wholesome new lands ; no wonder that in the one case the malaria is conquered, and that in the other it goes on conquering and to con- quer, till Rome must become its own inevitable tomb. * Our servant was quite un-Italian in his tastes, and often amused himself with our zeal. "You like broken stones," he said; "I like news" (meaning new things). ♦' I would not give Astor House for all the ruins in Rome." This he said when we had kept his dinner waiting, having spent the day in wandering through the broken " arches of the palace of the C^sars" and visiting Sallust's garden. The massive foundations only of the house of this doubtful and lux- urious Roman are traceable. The form of the circus adjoining his garden is discernible, and at its extremity is the fragment of the wall of a temple, and a few of the niches in which beautiful statues were found. One of the obelisks that adorns the modern city was found here. But though these adornments have long ago disappeared, we felt, as we walked through the rustling caves, with broken buttress- es matted with dangling ivy hanging over our heads, the presence of the great men who had walked and talked here, and, perhaps, sometimes not more wisely than we I When you measure the extent of private possession in old Rome, the gardens, circuses, and all the appliances of individual luxury ROME. 217 But there are objects in Rome that indescribably surpass your expectations, which indeed, I honestly confess, scarcely entered into mine ; among these are the scenery of Rome and its surroundings, the obe- lisks and pillars, and the fountains which almost re- alize your fancies of Oriental adornment. As to art in Rome, antique and modern, as you may imagine even from my very inadequate expression of our pleasure, it creates for us of the New World a new life. I have as yet said nothing to you of the churches of Rome, simply because so much has already been, said, and for another, not quite as satisfactory reason, that so much remains to say which I have no power to communicate. There is little beauty in their ex- terior, and that little is impaired by their being hedged in by other buildings. The effect of the ex- terior of an old Gothic village church in England, with its harmonious accompaniments, is better than that of any church in Rome ; but, compared with the interior of these churches, any Protestant church that I have seen, even Winchester Cathedral, is like a disfurnished house. The Romish churches have within the walls of the city, you wonder where " the million" were lodged; truly, they were herded together as " Woollen vassals, things created To buy and sell with groats, lo show bare heads In congregations." It was reserved for a later period of the world, and a then undis- covered country, to put within the power of these " rank-scerted" vassals a name, a political existence, and a home with all its sweet charities. Vol. II.— T 218 ROME. fallen heirs to the accumulated art and wealth of the Old World. The columns that embellished the tem- ples of the gods now support the roofs of the Chris- tian temple. The jasper and porphyry that adorned their palaces, and the sarcophagi in which their em- perors and heroes were embalmed, are now conse- crated to the altars of the saints. The vases for their lustral water are now the henitiers from which the pious Catholic crosses himself. These churches have been enriched, too, with the spoils of the Eastern world, with the gifts of em- perors and queens from St. Helena's days to ours ; and with the offerings of rich penitents who hoped at the last to drive a good bargain by purchasing the treasures of the other w^orld with those they could no longer enjoy in this. Infinite industry has been employed on them, and art has given them its divinest works — ^such works as Raphael's Sibyls, Guido's Archangel Michael, and Domenichino's Fres- coes.* How I have sometimes wished for some of you at home who have worshipped all your lives in a Pu- ritan " meeting-house^^ to walk up the nave of Santa Maria Maggiore with me (a church very near us), between its double row of most magnificent Ionic pil- lars, which once adorned a temple of Juno, and pass- ing by chapels and altars laden with vessels of sil- * These are but a few examples of the many masterpieces remain- ing in the churches for which they were originally designed — some have been removed — they either hung were they cou)d be but imper- fectly seen, or they were exposed to premature decay from the damp- ness of their position. ROME. 219 ver and gold, where candles are forever burning be- fore the pictures of saints and martyrdoms, sit down with me on the steps of the Borghese Chapel, the richest in the world ! It has cost millions, and it is but a side apartment of the church, a rich pendant to a chain. There is a beautiful pavement, the walls are incrusted with Oriental marbles, the ceiling is painted with frescoes; there are columns of porphyry and lapis lazuli, rich carvings, pictures in mosaic, and splendid monuments ; not a square inch is left unembellished. And yet, dear C, I think your eye w^ould turn from all this gorgeousness to the squalid, lean beggar kneeling on the step beside you. The Colosseum is now a church, and the Pan- theon, once a temple for all the gods, is now conse- crated to the one true God.* The statues of the di- vinities have disappeared from the Pantheon, and the niches they occupied are now filled with tawdrily- dressed altars and the pictures of saints. There is a little chapel of the Capuchins near the Piazza Barberini with pictures that you would like to see every day in the year. But of all the * If architecture is a species of writing, what must we think of the disparity between the genius that produced the Pantheon and that which designed the fat^ade of St. Peter's? The worship of the gods has long ago passed, and with some of us the worship of the saints, but there is one altar in the Pantheon at which we all offer our homage ; it is a simple tablet over the ashes of Raphael, whose life you feel in Rome more than that of thousands you see, and yet, as this tablet tells you, he died at the age of thirty-severl : what a glorious immortality he achieved in this brief period ! The veneration of the man who never heard the name of Raphael without touching his batj does not seem exaggerated to one who has been to Rome. 220 ROME. churches in Rome, and I assure you I have visited the most renowned of the three hundred and sixty-five, not one among them, I hesitate as I except St. Peter's, has given me more dehghtful sensations than Santa Maria degU Angeh. It is built after a design of Michael Angelo on the ruins of Diocletian's baths. The roof is supported by huge granite columns which stood in Diocletian's hall. It is in the form of a Greek cross, and when you enter the harmony of its perfect proportions affects you as if a strain of music burst from the walls.* If you do not care for art, or if you are tired of pictures and statuary, you may visit the churches for their curiosities. Through one you go down into the Mamertine prisons, one of the few remaining works of the republic, where Catiline's conspirators were imprisoned, Jugurtha was starved to death, and St. Peter miraculously set free ; or you may dive into the subterranean church where Constantine held his councils, or see in old St. Clement's the model of all churches, or at St. Pietro in Vincolo the very chain with which St. Peter was bound. In short, my dear C, a thorough examination of the Roman churches "would be quite work enough for one lifetime ; do not imagine that I flatter myself I have given you any notion of them in this brief and flippant notice.f * There is no exaggeration in this. I suppose that the ingenious the- orist who resolved music into mathematics could give a satisfactory explanation of my simple fact, t I am aware it requires an art which I do not possess to make this subject interesting, and therefore I have condensed pages into a few paragraphs. I walked these splendid edifices daily with the en- JOURNEY TO VALLETRI. 221 Valletri, February 13. We have left Rome, my dear C, and left it, after a sojourn of but two months, with the fond feeling of lovers. Now^here do you get such an attachment to material objects ; — the living are dead here, 'but the dead are living. I looked mournfully round for the last time on our sunny rooms, and out upon our pleasant garden, wdth its ripening oranges, ever- blooming roses, and singing birds. We have the pleasant sadness, too, of leaving friends at Rome.* N., our landlord, was unfeignedly sorry to part with us ; madame wept, and dear little Enrico could not speak " because the signore were going away !" I would find a better reason for my tears, as we drove on to the Appian Way, than the fear that we were looking for the last time upon the tortuous old walls of Rome, on the towers, domes, columns, and all the gray city surrounded with an atmosphere that the mind's eye fills with " milHons of spirits." You cannot imagine, dear C, for we have nothing bearing the most distant resemblance to it, the sol- thusiasm, if not the devotion of a pilgrim. The limits of my book are drawing to a close, and I am obliged to omit our excursion to Tivoli and Frescati, which occupied the last days of our first visit to Rome. The memory of my delightful visit to Frescati, and the remains of Cicero's Tusculan Villa, his " eyes of Italy," blends with the better memory of the English friend to whose zealous kindness I owed this pleasure. * I should be ungrateful not to specify among these friends our consul, Mr. Greene, who so honourably represents his country at Rome. Though withheld, by assiduous devotion to literary pursuits, from general and useless attentions to his countrymen, his kindness, when needed, is prompt, unmeasured, and effective. T2 222 JOURNEY TO VALLETRI. emn solitude of the drive across the Campagna from Rome to the Alban Hills, a distance of twelve miles. There are remains of tombs and broken lines of aqueducts (most beautiful ruins they make) on each side ; but scarcely an indication of the presence of man, scarcely the note of a bird or the sound of an animal to break the eloquent silence. Could this have been a solitary drive in Cicero's time ? he al- ludes to the danger of robbery in going from Rome to Albano in broad daylight. As we began the ascent of the Alban Mount the aspect of the country changed. The declivities of the hills are covered with ilexes and olives. Instead of going into the hotel, K., L., and myself took a guide, and went off a mile and a half through a galleria, or imbowered walk, to the Alban Lake ; a crater lake, deep sunk within high surrounding hills, which K — n, with his usual aptness, compared to a teaspoonful of tea left in the bottom of a teacup. At the end of the o-a//erza we came upon a village terminated by an ugly summer-palace of the pope. The peasants, whose dwellings are nested in the nooks and angles of an old fortress, were all in the street ; the old women, with their distaffs and spin- dles, walking and spinning, and looking as fit to spin an evil destiny as Michael Angelo's Fates, though, like the young girls, they were dressed in short-gowns of a brilliant red, and head-gear of the same colour. Men and children w^ere sitting in the doorways pursuing the pleasures of the chase — heads their hunting-ground ! Young children were teach- JOURNEY TO VALLETRI. 223 ing younger ones in leading-strings to walk,* and there was the usual quota of blind, lame, and sick beggars. You will scarcely believe me, but it is true that, in a progress of a hundred miles through New-England villages, T have not seen so much beauty as I saw this morning. The peasants of Ti- voli, of Frescati, and of Albano are beautiful ; and I could scarcely turn my eye from these last to look to the Alban Mount towering up into the clouds, where our guide pointed out a monastery standing on the site of the temple of the Latian Jove. That has passed away; but the Via Triumphalis, by which the Roman generals approached it for their ovations, and the Roman emperors for their sacrifi- ces, still exists. There are moments in this Old World, and this on the secluded Alban Lake was one of them, when the " Strong barriers round thy dark domain, Thou unrelenting Past !" disappear, and the long-gone generations rise be- fore you in all their pomp and sacred offices. But we were soon recalled to actual life by our cicerone, who, like all his countrymen in sunshine, with plenty of antichite to show, and a good fee in view, was in a high state of excitement. Fancy one of our common labourers striking his breast, casting up his eyes, and exclaiming, " Dio Mio — bella gior- nata — bellissima giornata, eccellenza ! ah ! da pia- * This nnode of learning to walk, a nursery tale with us, is uni- versal in Italy. 224 VALLETRI. cere anche la vita !"* And then he poured out such compliments on the girls, calling them " Belle ! belle ! belle assai !" for which pleasing improvisation K. insists he charged two pauls extra, and that the next lady he conducts will find herself perfectly an- gelic. In our way we passed the ruins of Domitian's villa and the place where was the Emissario, an outlet for the lake cut through the mountains in obedience to an oracle.f We found R. and E. sitting out on a terrace that overlooked a lovely garden. Here they had taken their lunch and remained for two hours. Is not this a blessed country for invalids 1 Three miles from Albano we overtook our in- amorato, who had jogged ahead on a donkey, to have the privilege of escorting us to the Lake of Nemi, called by the ancients Speculum Diance. "■ Mirror of Dian ! aptly named by those Who dwelt near Nemi's wooded wave." We saw nothing but a solitary beggar, and some cows grazing where Diana had a temple and Egeria her favourite haunt, and where goddesses and nymphs might, indeed, love to dwell! I am now sitting at Velletri looking from a very pleasant win- * "My God— your excellency! what a beautiful ! most beautiful day 1 life alone is a pleasure !" t " This great work," Eustace says, " was done in the year of Rome 358, to prevent the sudden and mischievous swells of the lake, which had then recently occasioned considerable alarm." TORRE TREPONTI. 225 dow at the sun as he drops his urn into the Mediter- ranean, which has appeared in the distance, for the last hour, like a sheet of molten gold. TORRE TREPONTI. After winding down the Alban Hills this morn- ing we soon came on to the Pontine marshes, for- merly so fatal and now pestilential during the hot months. They are twenty-four miles in length, and from six to twelve in breadth. The draining of them was carried on by the Csesars, by the popes, and by the Medici, and to its present state by Pius VI., who rebuilt the former Appian Way and made it what it now is, one of the best roads in Europe. This is supposed to be the place spoken of by St. Paul as Forum Appia, and this, say the authorities, was Horace's second resting-place on his journey to Brundusium. I trust they found the elements as kind as we do. Our carriage is drawn up on the turf while our horses are taking their meridi- an ; and as the inn is a secularized old convent, most uninviting, we prefer remaining out of doors. R. is taking his siesta in the carriage, E. is at her worsted-work, K. reading aloud the " Morals of a Soldier" from a book given her by a ci-devant Ital- ian militaire, and L. is hazing about with an ivy wreath on her bonnet, and the fresh flowers tucked on one side which our handsome cameriero put on our breakfast table as a signal of the primavera. The wide, green level land on each side of us is 226 T E R R A C I N A. broken only by canals and stagnant water, and cov- ered with herds of buffaloes and beeves, flocks of sheep and droves of horses ; a long, level horizon bounds the view on the Mediterranean side, and on the east, beyond the morass, are steep and rugged mountains. Tw^o or three miserable villages are vis- ible on their acclivities. At Sezza there stood once a temple to Saturn one hundred and thirty feet high. Before and behind, as far as we can see, stretches the road, completely imbowered and looking like a beautiful avenue. Beside the inn there is another dw^elhng for human beings, a thing made of sticks and straw. I walked past it and looked in ; rag- ged wTetches, blighted with want and malaria, were playing cards ; like lean and sallow creatures are sauntering up and down before our carriage staring at us; gens d'armes are standing at the inn door, and two healthy-looking little boys are sitting on the step devouring a crust of bread — oh youth and na- ture, how potent are ye ! Terracina. — We are again on the seashore; the "waves are breaking as softly under my window as the ripple of a lake. The fishing boats are drawn up on the shore, and the nets are drying. So a sea- shore might have appeared in the patriarchal stage of society; and here was an important town of the Volsci, an independent nation ! and here, on the very spot w^here the little boats seem sleeping in the moonlight, were once the ships of an important naval TERRACINA. 227 station ! On the land-side of our inn is a most cu- rious pile of stone of Nature's masonry, and a little back from the summit are some regular stone arches, the remains of a palace of Theodoric or a temple of Hercules. We clambered up a street almost per- pendicular, to see the Cathedral built on the ruins of a temple of Apollo, but we were frightened by the ragged, ruffianly-looking wretches in the piazza ; and, without seeing the consecrated pillars, we came down again au galop* * We are happily so constituted that the minor miseries of life are forgotten as soon as past, and, therefore, never but at the moment, and by the susceptible traveller, can the misery inflicted by the fleas in Italy be estimated. Ours was at its acme at Terracina, where, during a wretched night, I never closed my eyes. We kept for some days a list of the killed ; of fugitives, of course no account could be made. On one day they amounted to twenty-five; on the next to thirty ; and, finally, the amount ran up to a hundred, when we desist- ed ! If it be remembered that even one of these most subtle little beasts of the field can make his victim perfectly wretched, it cannot be wondered at if sometimes, amid the softest airs of Italy, some of our party longed for the cold winds and hilling frosts of their own coun- try. Lest a delicate reader should be shocked at the introduction of this topic into a lady's journal, I must be allowed to say that it is a very common one among the most refined of the suffering trav- ellers in Italy ; that I have heard it discussed for half an evening in a society of lords and ladies, where, on one side, lavender was rec- ommended as a sovereign antidote, and on the other it was main- tained that the essential oils only occasioned the Uttle wretches to faint, or feign faintmg ! " Fleas" make a distinct article in the guide- books, and fleas are the subject of the fine arts. In one of the gal- leries of Rome there is a picture of a pretty young woman with a basin of water, most intently engaged in finding victims for her noyade. 228 mola di oal'ta. My dear C, Mola di Gaeta. — Would that I could surround you with the odorous, balmy atmosphere of this most de- licious place, and transport you to its orange-bow- ers ! but since that cannot be, pray, the next time you pass my bookcase, take down a certain yellow-cover- ed book, "Kenyon's Poems," and read the few last lines of " moonlight," and you will find the poet do- ing for you what I cannot. This morning, six miles on this side Terracina, at a huge gate between two stone towers, we passed from the Roman States into the Neapolitan territory. You have had something too much of this, or I would describe to you the mob of beggars that surrounded us at Fondi. We needed to have been " Principesse," as they called us, to have afforded relief to such numbers. Just in pro- portion as we advance south the poverty increases. Shoes are becoming a rare luxury, and, as Francois says, " he is accounted a rich man who wears them." In their place they wear leather soles fastened on with cords that are wound around their legs. The working people wear a cotton shirt and drawers ex- tending a little below the knee — the shirt is a win- ter garment. We have seen children to-day with nothing on but thin, short, ragged cotton drawers! A mile and a half before we reached Mola we passed the very spot where, as it is believed, Cicero was killed, and within a vineyard a few yards from the road is a cenotaph erected to his memory.* It is ,* It is better to look at these places, and, I think, even to hear of MOLA DI GAETA. 229 three stories high and circular, and encloses a column of the height of the edifice. The stones and bricks are bare and mouldering. The marbles that incrust- ed them have given place to a mantling of ivy, roses, and laurustines, whose rich breath incenses the dearest name of all Roman antiquity. Our inn has the loveliest position I have seen in Italy. It is in the midst of a large garden, or, rath- er, of orange and lemon groves. For the first time in our lives we have seen to-day these tropical fruit- trees in perfection, as spreading (not as high) as an apple-tree and bending under the weight of their fruit. The gardens are in the recess of a crescent bay, and fill with their terraces the interval be- tween the last slopes of bare, rugged mountains and the sea. These slopes are covered with vines and olives, and through some openings in our or- ange-bowers we get ghmpses of a narrow, gray vil- lage pent in between us and the hillside. Our inn and garden, formerly the villa of an Italian prince, are supposed to cover the site of Cicero's Formian Villa, and upon the strength of that supposition bears the attractive name of La Villa di Cicerone. We have been down to the shore and seen the found- ations of edifices, and subterranean arches and col- umns, that indicate Roman magnificence. We wan- dered about till the twilight deepened upon us with nothing to remind us that we were not in Paradise them, without recurring to the doubts in which the uncertainty of tradition necessarily invests them. Let the antiquaries dispute and the learned doubt, we, the unlearned, will enjoy the pleasure of be- lie vin jr. Vol. II.— U 230 MOLA DI GAETA. till, on retracing our way to the inn, we heard a yell after us of " Signore I signore ! Qualche cosa per il giardiniere !" (•'* Ladies ! ladies ! give some- thing to the gardener !") and, turning, we perceived a tall, swarthy fellow, in Neapolitan imdress, pursuing us for his tax on the sweet air we had breathed. I have never enjoyed anything so perfect, of its kind, as the quiet Sunday we have been passing at Mola di Gaeta. We left it just at evening, and drove from our orange-bowers into the very narrow street of the village, so charming seen through our garden vistas. It being Sunday, the people were, of course, in their festa-dresses — such as had them — and they were like a swarm of bees in that narrow street ; standing, leaning, lying, sitting, it seemed next to impossible that our carriage should find a passage through them ; and such a mingled shout of begging and salutation assailed us, some hands stretched out for " carita, per I'amor di Dio !" and others to give us the graceful Italian greeting. At the end of the street a troop of masqueraders gath- ered about us, playing their antics, to the infinite di- version — of the boys and girls, I would have said 5 but all were merry as merriest childhood. My dear C, let us be thankful for the system of compensation that makes their dehcious sunshine not only meat, drink, and clothing to these children of the South, but a fountain of ever-springing cheer- fulness ! The scene has changed. We are at St. Agata, at a dirty inn. Our philosopher, Fran9ois, laughs at NAPLES. 231 our fallen mercury, and says, " So it always is in life. You had the good at Mola, you must expect the bad at St. Agata!" Unworthy wretches that we are! The Padrone has just sent us up a letter from W., announcing that he and K — n have engaged de- lightful lodgings for us at Naples, where Vv^e hope to be to-morrow. Naples, February 17. My dear C, After a pleasant drive through a long stretch of vineyards and olive-orchards, we arrived at the gate of Naples at four o'clock P.M. W. (our good an- gel) met us at the Dogana, where we had the tor- ment of a long detention. We drove down the long street of the Toledo ; such swarming of human life I never saw, nor heard such clamour ; it was as if all the Bedlamites on earth had been let loose upon it. Broadway is a quiet solitude in comparison !* However, we for- * I extract from the journal of one of my companions a descrip- tion of the scene at the Dogana, too characteristic of Naples to be omitted. " We were stopped at the custom-house, and W. came running out to meet us. How deUghtful to be welcomed to this strange place ! Our carriage was instantly surrounded by beggars, who have increased in numbers and importunity at every step of our way since we entered the Neapolitan dominion. The sentinels, pointing their bayonets at them, gruffly cried, 'Indietro !' (' Back !') Uncle R. and W. poked them with their canes, and a young officer who just then came up flourished his sword over their heads, and made them recede for a moment, but they closed round again in- stantly, like water that had been disturbed by a pebble. Such tatters I never saw. It was difficult to divine what kept them together. 232 NAPLES. got its turmoil and every other vexation when we en- tered our spacious drawing-room at 28 St. Lucia, and sat down by the window to gaze upon the Bay of JVapleSy directly under us, without any apparent in- terposing object, for we overlook the street between us and the water. The crescent-like curve from us to the base of Vesuvius brings the mountain in front of us. The light smoke curling up from the crater caught the beams of the just risen full moon, while the mountain itself and Monte Somma were a dark mass of shadow. We sat watching the little white houses at Portici becoming distinct as one after an- other caught the moonbeams, and the tiny boats which, with their spread sails, shot across the path of quivering beams, and then again vanished in shadow. Yes, we sat as if spell-bound till we were roused by a familiar voice asking, " Is there anything better than this ?" " Nothing," we replied with one voice ; but " deeds speak louder than words." We turned away from the most beautiful harmonies of nature to ex- change greetings with our dear friend K — n, to whose actual presence they were, after all, but " mere moonshine." We are rich at Naples : W. makes one of our family ; K — n is at the Crocella, almost within sha- king-hands' distance ; an English lady, our acquaint- ance, who is not one of those who "isolent ieur There were maimed, halt, blind, and mutes ; some real, some feign- ed, and all as vexing as moschetoes in a walk in the woods in sum- mer." It may well be imagined what a hardening process we had gone through in our progress southward when a young person nei- ther selfish nor stony-hearted could thus describe such a spectacle. NAPLES. 233 cceur en cultivant leur esprit," has lodgings over us ; our Charge, Mr. Throop, is showering kindness on us ; and, finally, our consul, Mr. Hammett, a man of sterling qualities with twenty years' experience here, is bestowing upon us essential favours, the advantage of his society being that we esteem above all the rest. We met here letters of introduction obtained by C — i from exiles at Paris to distinguished Neapoli- tans. They are shy of us, and, as w^e are told, com- pelled to be so by the dastardly system of espionage and persecution maintained by the king. General Pepe, the commander of the Italian detachment of Napoleon's Russian army, has been several times to see us. His fine countenance has a most melan- choly expression ; no wonder ! he told me that of the two regiments he led into Russia, the finest fel- lows in the Neapolitan service, all, save thirty-four, perished in one night. He lives in perfect retire- ment, but it is said that in any emergency the king will be glad to employ him.* One of our daily pleasures is a walk in the Villa Reahy a public promenade-garden between the Chi- aia — the great street of Naples — and the bay. The garden is about a mile in length, well planted with trees and flowering shrubs, and abounding in fount- * This opinion was verified. Before we left Naples the alarm of a rupture with England occurred, and General Pepe was placed at the head of the army. V 2 234 NAPLES. ains— the very spirit and voice of this land of the South. The brightest flowers are the Enghsh chil- dren who take their daily recreation in the garden ; beautiful scions they are of a noble stock. They show themselves exotics here with their fair skins, ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, and long flaxen curls. No car- riages or beggars are permitted within the garden. We now and then see a pretty costume diversifying the uniform fashion of the upper classes of all coun- tries; for instance, we saw to-day a Neapolitan nurse in a rich, dark blue skirt with a broad gold bor- der round the bottom, a bright scarlet jacket w^ith gold bands round the wrist, and a gold comb in her hair, a sort of human paroquet. The garden is em- bellished with statues, casts of our friends in Rome, the Apollo, Antinous, and certain not strikingly mod- est groups, whose exposure in these public grounds shows a remarkable consistency in the king, who, in a fit of sudden, or, as K — n terms it, Turkish prudery, has put all the Venuses in his museum under lock and key. The unrivalled charm of the Villa Reale is the view of the bay. The very name of the ^^ Bay of JYaples^' sets all your ideas of beauty in a ferment, and so let it ; they will create no image approaching in loveliness to the all-surpassing reality. Yet, in the very face of its blue waters and delicious atmosphere — of Capri, lying like a crouching lion at its mouth — of its other amethyst islands — of Vesuvius, with its fresh fringing of yesterday's snow — our countryman, Mr. , maintained to me that it was not to be compared to the Bay of New-York. " I have at one NAPLES. 235 time," he said, "counted fifty merchant-ships there, and what is there here but fishing-smacks ?" Truly, what is there ? The Studii, or Royal Museum of Naples, has, af- ter the Vatican, the richest collection of statuary in the world. Unfortunately, the rooms are dark and noisy ; one of the thoroughfares of noisy Naples passing by it. It may be a mere fancy, but these serene statues, with their solemn associations, seem to me to require an atmosphere of tomb-like silence. Noise is discord, and a Neapolitan street is a con- gregation of discords. Herculaneum, Pompeii, Ca- pua, and all these surroundings, have yielded up their treasures to fill this museum. Among them is an Aristides, the finest statue in the w^orld — in Ca- nova's judgment. The figure is enveloped in a mantle. There is a conscious mental force, and a beautiful simplicity, in its quiet, erect attitude, and an expression of tranquil, intellectual dignity in the head and face, fitting the godlike character of *' The Just." Strange as it may seem, th^e is a Venus in the collection (happily not locked up, pour faire penitence), who appears to me to express as much moral strength as the Aristides. This is the " Venus Vidrix.''^ She stands with her head in- clining towards Cupid, with a gentle reproof in her air, and a purity in her expression, as if she were, indeed, o'er all the frailties of her sex victorious. One of the prettiest groups is " Cupid sporting with a 236 NAPLES, dolphin." Cupid, with a most lovely laughing face and curly hair, has his round arms wreathed about the neck of a dolphin, whose tail coiling around his body, has thrust his legs into the air. There is in this group an expression of life and frolic inconceiv- able to one who has not seen in the antiques how art subdues matter, converting marble into the image of God's creations. If this exquisite whim of art, instead of being housed in a sunless room, stood, as it was designed to stand, in the midst of a fountain, in the odorous atmosphere of an orange grove, with lights and shadows playing over it, its effect would be magical. Not one of the masterpieces here, but a curiosity, certainly, is an Ephesian Diana, a most elaborate piece of workmanship. The head and hands are of black marble, highly finished, the body is enclosed, mummy-like, in an alabaster case, upon w^hich is carved heads of animals and other ornaments. This image, as W. suggested, explains the opposition of the artificers of Ephesus to the faith which was to put an end to their profitable labour. We found ourselves, day after day, leaving halls filled wath busts, statues, and groups, to stand before a mutila- ted thing — the mere fragment of a statue. The arms are gone, and the lower part of the body, the back and top of the head are shaved off; nothing remains perfect but the face and neck. It is called a Psyche, and is truly the type of the soul. It is the perfection of spiritual beauty and grace. There is something in the hang of the head, and a touch NAPLES. 237 of sadness in the expression, that reminded K. of the angel in Retzsch's game of chess ; but the face appeared to me far more powerful and compre- hensive. If I had to answer all the libels of the scoffers at my sex, or to defend the " rights of women," I would appeal to this Psyche, to Raphael's Sibyls, to Dante's Beatrice, and to Shakspeare's Portia, Isa- bella, and Desdemona, to show what the inspired teachers of the world have believed of our faculties and virtues. The bronzes in one apartment of the museum are said to be the finest in the world. They were anteri- or to sculpture in marble. Among them is a life-hke bust of Seneca, with sharp features, sunken cheeks, straight, matted locks, and his neck eagerly stretched forward as if on the point of speaking ; and there are exquisite Mercuries, Fauns, and Amazons. One among a long suite of rooms is devoted to paintings, and one alone contains some of the best treasures of art; a Magdalen by Guercino, which is only less pow- erful than Titian's, and less tender than Guide's. There is a masterpiece of Dominichino's : a boy four or five years old in a blue kirtle is standing with his hands folded in prayer. The " man of sin" is crouching at his feet ; and though the child does not see him, he betrays a consciousness of the presence of evil and a feeling of weakness and danger. Behind him stands a beautiful young angel in all the repose of security, pointing to a glory above, and interposing his shielding wing between the devil and the boy. 238 NAPLES. The Carnival at Naples is inferior in gayety and excess to that of Rome ; but it is said to be only second to that. It is generally remarked that its in- terest is dying away from year to year. Those who think its amusements were only suited to an age when men could neither read nor write, impute this to the " march of mind," which does march, though much in snail fashion, even here. Others maintain that all thinking people feel so deeply the oppression and misery of their condition that they have little heart for amusements of any kind. Such as it is, and so much (or rather so little) as ladies could see of it we have seen, and childish sport enough you will think it. During the carnival the corso, which is a course of carriages through the Toledo, the main street of Naples, occurs twice every week. We joined in it to-day ; Mr. T. took a portion of our party in his carriage, and the rest followed in our own. Mr. T.'s carriage was furnished with baskets of sugar- plums and bouquets of flowers, as his station here compels him to be, in some sort, a participator in the frolic. We soon entered the Toledo, and took a place in the line of coaches. The street was a dense mass of human beings, with just space enough for the ascending and descending lines of carriages, and the windows and balconies of the houses to the fifth and sixth stories were crowded. Guards on horseback, looking like equestrian statues, were sta- tioned at short intervals, and made conspicuous by NAPLES. 239 the red flag which they held. The king- and roy- al family were out. His majesty, with some twen- ty gentlemen, was in an ornamented car drawn by six horses. The king wore no badge of distinc- tion ; they were all dressed in gay dominos and vel- vet caps with white plumes, and all wore masks. The ladies of the court were in a similar car, and dressed in a like fashion. Both cars were furnished with sacks containing bushels of sugarplums made of lime with a thin coating of sugar. These are scooped up and showered around. The great con- test is who shall throw^ most, and most dexterously. Bouquets of flowers are thrown about; our girls had their laps filled with them. Of course an ac- quaintance, a quaint masker, or a pretty woman is the favourite aim. When the royal cars meet they stop, the carriages of both lines halt behind them, and a general guerre a mort ensues. You are not absolutely killed, but " kilt" grievously. The mis- siles are as large as very large gooseberries. The face is protected by a mask of wire. Our defence- less hands were sadly bruised ; mine are yet black and blue. Some carriages were protected by cloth curtains, but in general they merrily took as well as gave. Showers fell from the balconies, and the poor WTctches in the street scrambled for them. In by- gone times the royal cars dispensed veritable sugar- plums ; but even this grace has ceased. The novelty amused us for two or three hours, but I think we should all rather play hunt the slipper at home than to go again to the corso.* * We were, however, a few days after involuntary partakers, or, 240 NAPLES. The Carnival concludes with a masked ball at San Carlo, the largest theatre in Italy. It begins at 12 o'clock on Sunday night. I was over-persuaded to go by our kind friend Mr. T., and K — n's sugges- tion that " it is best to see things, that you may sub- stitute an idea for a word." But as you, dear C, can have only the words, I shall make them as few as possible. The theatre was brilliantly lighted, and viewed from the depth of the stage was a splendid spectacle. The tallest grenadiers in the king's ser- vice were planted like beacons about the house. The royal family were in their box, and the king came do\\Ti and mingled with the crowd. He is a tall, stout, burley, yeoman-like looking man. I ob- served, as he stopped for a few moments near our box, that he excited little attention, and was as much jostled and pushed as his subjects. The dancing was confined to the harlequins, and was a mere romp. There were few maskers, and these few sup- ported no characters, and merely walked up and down, uttering commonplaces in feigned voices. There was an excessively pretty young woman in the box next to us who attracted general attention, and it was to join the starers at her that the king rather, victims of this sport. We had forgotten the carnival, and having spent the morning at the Studii, were walking home through the Toledo, when all at once we perceived the guards taking their sta- tions previous to the corso beginning. The balconies were filling. We were the only ladies in the street, and, consequently, rather con- spicuous, and mercilessly were we pelted as we ran our gauntlet homeward. NAPLES. 241 had stopped near us. She was the sister of a lady whose beauty had captivated a brother of the king. The lady's husband was assassinated a few days be- fore the carnival, and the royal lover went off the next day to Fiorence— ;/c)r his health I Save the little excitement occasioned by our pret- ty neighbour's presence, and the impertinences ad- dressed to her by the maskers, the ball was a heavy affair. The carnival has had its day. Men can re- main children a great while, but not forever. Mr. Throop procured us invitations to the court- ball,* and last evening we went. The mere forms of society are much alike all over the civihzed Avorld. The ball (with rather more space to move in, for there were fifteen or twenty rooms of the pal- ace open) was conducted much like one of our balls. Nothing struck me about the Neapolitan women but the vacuity of their faces, and the abundance and brilliancy of their diamonds. The Italian princes retain their diamonds, as they do their pictures, when every other sign of wealth is gone. The queen, who looks like a quiet body, designed by nature to nurse babies and keep the house tidy, sat with the court-ladies at one end of the dancing-room, and rose once to make a progress through the apart- ments. The royal family supped by themselves. * This was not one of the balls of the Academia Reale^ which are given weekly by a company of whom the king is one, and to which foreigners are liberally admitted upon the application of their repre- sentative. Vol. IL— X 242 NAPLES. Several tables were spread for the guests. Besides the knickknacks of our evening entertainments there were fish, oysters, and game, and on each table an entire wild-boar, stuck with silver arrows.* The ladies gathered hungrily about the tables and ate like good trencher-women. We retired after supper to an adjoining room, and sat down in a most liberty-equality style near a co- terie of ladies, who put up their eye-glasses and stared at us, but without any other uncivil demonstration. We soon perceived they were the ladies of the court, and they no doubt forgave us on the flattering ground of our being North American savages. Nothing can exceed the fertility of the soil about Naples. The crops on the best ground are each season as follows : pears and apples, grapes, two harvests of Indian corn and one of wheat, and at the end of the season a crop of turnips or some other vegetable. But what avails it to the multitu- dinous swarms who go hungry every day ? A man who can get work earns only, by the hardest labour in summer, sixteen cents a day, and he pays a tax of three dollars for every bushel of salt he con- sumes.f He is forbidden to use the salt water that * Of course it was merely a stuffed boar's skin. A boar-hunt in the royal preserves near Naples is a favourite royal amusement, and is attended by ladies. On one bright morning, while we were there, the queen killed, with her own fair hand, seventeen boars— a femi- nine sylvan sport ! t The price of salt is very low, some few cents a bushel. NAPLES. 243 "washes the shore. All articles of necessary con- sumption are inordinately taxed. There is a tax of 25 per cent, on the income of real estate.* We hear much of the indolence of the lazzaroni of Naples ; they are idle, but Mr. Hammett, who is a sagacious observer, says they are not indolent; he has never known one of them to refuse work when offered to him, and they will work for the smallest sum. We complain of their extreme abjectness, of their invariably besetting us, after being paid the price agreed on, " for a little more." " Ah," he says, " they are so very poor." If the man had half a soul the " King of the Lazzaroni" would be most wretched ; but his people are only his to provide for his pleasures and feed his avarice. Avarice is his ruling passion.f During the cholera an impost of half a million of ducats was laid to alleviate the extreme distress of the poor. Fifty thousand only went to relieve their necessities, and the remainder to the king's coffers. W^henever the provinces require expenditures for repairs or improvements they raise money by laying * As if each potentate were not sufficiently ingenious in laying taxes, one plays into the hand of another. Meat is of course pro- scribed during lent, but his holiness grants a dispensation on the payment of three carlini to the king. t The alarm of a war with England occurred while we were at Naples. The English deserted the town immediately, and the peo- ple suffered much loss and the usual confusion and anxiety incident to such a report. It was afterward said the king got up the alarm that he might speculate in the stocks ! This might be truth or sat- ire, it does not matter much which. 244 NAPLES. a tax ; but the money so raised cannot be laid out till a certain officer of the government makes a report as to the appropriation. If three years pass without a report being made, the money escheats to the king. Repeatedly the tax has been laid, the money collected, and the report never made. The avarice of a private individual is a folly, in a king it is a crime.* We had heard a very pretty story of the king braving the cholera, and remaining with his family at Naples that he might share the common danger and calm the panic. The truth is, that he remained at Casserta, a royal residence at a distance from the danger, and that once, when he drove into the city, and was passing through the Mercata, the despair- ing people gathered about him and threw their black bread into his carriage. He threw it out again, and bade them flock to the churches and pray God to pardon them for the crimes for which he had sent this scourge upon them ! Does it seem to you, dear C, that our world of free people and respon- sible governors can be the same in which this self- ish wretch lives, a king, and permitted to transmit his power to his like ? He has been educated by priests, and is now in * The system of espionage is so much more severe in the prov- inces than at Naples that the country gentlemen flock to the city for protection. We knew intimately one of these, a most amia- ble and accomplished young man, whose whole family had suf- fered political persecution. Some had lost their lives, some were maimed, and some had died of broken hearts. While we look with detestation on the vices of a government that thus afflicts its sub- jects, we must not forget the virtue that thus resists. NAPLES. 245 the hands of the Jesuits^ His tutor has published the course of instruction by which he trained his royal and docile pupil. The king is there set forth as the shepherd, and the people as his sheep, over whom he has absolute power to lead them whither he will, to give life or inflict death. As neither the people nor the soldiers have any attachment to the government, there might be some hope of a better future if it were not backed by the power of Austria. The disaffection of the soldiery is so notorious that even the king himself is aware of it. He had at one time a fancy to give the troops a new uniform. " Dress them as you will," said his father, " at their first opportunity they will run away from you !" There is a deep and general depravation here, doubtless, but the spirit of manhood is not extinct. A few days since a Calabrian soldier was struck by his superior officer. He complained to his colonel, who treated the grievance as a bagatelle. The next day, on the parade, the soldier shot the officer, and then walked quietly away. He w^as, of course, seiz- ed, and the next morning executed. To the last he was unfaltering, and said coolly that he had only done what should have been done for him ! Neither is humanity extinct here ; and, as you re- joice in the knowledge of a good deed as a gem- fancier does in the discovery of an antique, or a pic- ture-buyer in the acquisition of a Raphael, I will tell you a story Mr. T. told us of a gentleman whose benevolent countenance he pointed out at the court X2 246 NAPLES. ball. The person in question is the king's master of ceremonies, nobly born, for a lineal ancestor of his received a sword from Francis the First at the battle of Pavia. The descendant has done something better than giving or receiving swords. During the chol- era he took under his protection eighty recent or- phans. He built an asylum for them which cost thirty thousand dollars. He has ever since defrayed its expenses and superintended it daily. His in- come does not exceed nine thousand ducats per an- num !* March 10. — We went yesterday, my dear C, to Pompeii. K — n was with us, quoting poetry and talking poetic-prose ,• the accompaniment of such society, on an occasion like this, is like having fine * I have adverted to the controversy with England which occur- red during our sojourn at Naples. The king fancied he could extri- cate himself from the difficulty by requiring his minister to falsify the word he had pledged to an English company. He refused to do this. The king threatened, he persisted, and was consequently de- prived of his office, and ordered to retire to a strong house in one of the provinces, infected with malaria. He was poor ; his daughters (his only children), in the deepest affliction, said they would throw themselves at the king's feet and entreat his pardon. " Then you will do it at the peril of my everlasting displeasure," said the father. •* I have only done my duty ; shall I ask pardon for that ? No, my children. Leave me my integrity ; it is all that remains to me." A gen d'armes present told him he was indiscreet to say these things in his presence. He replied, " You will do me a favour if you repeat them to his majesty." I asked a Neapolitan friend if this affair were spoken of, " Yes," he said, " but each man looks before he speaks to see who is within hearing !" NAPLES, 247 music to your dancing. We drove past fields in which there were masses of ashes and lava of last year's eruption. It appears now strange that Pom- peii should so long have remained buried. The sur- face of the ground yet unopened indicates what is beneath ; it resembles a burying-ground, except that the tumuli are higher and more irregular. You ig- norantly wonder that the people of the villages at the base of Vesuvius do not live in constant terror : experience has taught them better. The stream of lava rolls slowly, like honey on an inclined plain, and you may be near enough to touch it with a cane and retreat before it reaches you.* After a drive of twelve miles we reached Pompeii, and, alighting, en- tered the Strada dei Sepolcri, street of tombs. This fitting entrance brings you immediately into sympa- thy with the people who lived here ; for their dead, those they loved, wept, and honoured, are as near to you as the dead of yesterday ! This street of tombs was outside the gates of the city;f the tombs are raised several feet above the general level, and * When there is an eruption the people go on with their usual oc- cupations till they see the stream coming their way ; then they pack up their valuables— a small burden — and trudge off to Naples. If their houses are buried, they return, when the lava cools, to build new ones, and cultivate a soil inexhaustibly fertile. t The Romans, except in the case of eminent individuals, forbade interments within the walls of their cities. The author of " Rome in the Nineteenth Century" justly remarks that the Roman custom of burying on either side of the highway explains the common inscrip- tion, " *S2ife Fjaror.'" ("Stop, traveller'") so appropriate for them, and so absurd as used in village churchyards, where no traveller ever passes. 248 NAPLES. crowned with monuments beautifully sculptured, and in some cases nearly entire. The interior of the "wall surrounding the tomb is coarsely wrought in bas-relief. The streets are narrow and paved with large flat stones which bear the traces of wheels, but the pavement is unbroken and far better than that in the older parts of New- York. There are raised side-walks ; a luxury you do not find in the modern Italian cities. * Now, my dear C, I feel it to be quite in vain to attempt to convey to you sensations indefinable, un- utterably strange, and yet thrilling us with a fresh and undreamed-of pleasure ; I know not why, un- less it be from a sort of triumph over time ; for here the past is given back, and the dead are yielded up ! "We passed thresholds where the words " Salve^' and " Ave " saluted us almost audibly. We ranged through rooms where people 1800 years ago went to bed at night and rose again in the morning; we sat down in porticoes where they once sat talking of wh-at Caesar was doing in the provinces and Cicero saying in the Forum. We looked on the architectural designs and figures still in vivid colours on the walls, and fancied how the possessor of the Actseon torn by the dogs of Diana triumphed in having a picture more beautiful than any of her neighbours, and how her rival might have exulted over her in the " Cupid and Dolphin sporting" on the now vacant pedestal of her fountain. We entered the boudoir where the gold bracelet weighing a pound was discovered ; and as we looked at the two doves^ wrought in its NAPLES. 249 mosaic pavement, hovering over a jewel casket while one of them draws out a necklace, we fancied the happy artist showing his successful work to his employer. We saw the baby-heir of the house creeping over the marble floor to the masterpiece of all mosaics, while his nurse pointed out Alexan- der and his helmeted Greeks, and Darius and his turbaned Persians ! We fancied the errand-boy reading the name, still legible, of the oil-merchant, and turning in to purchase oil from the jars sunken in the counter, and yet perfect. We saw the jovial wine-drinker setting down his drinking-cup on the marble slab that still bears its mark. We sat down on a semicircular stone-bench on the side-walk, and heard the old man tell his gossips, how well he fought at Jerusalem under their good Titus, and the nurse promise the listening boy he should go up to Rome and see the wild beasts fight in the new Fla- vian amphitheatre. We imagined the luxurious Pompeian, after his bath, sitting on the bronze bench over a brazier in the still perfect bathing-room, and looking up with Roman pride at the effigies of the captive barbarian kings supporting the shelves on which stood the pots of precious ointments. We fan- cied the Pompeian Rogers dispensing the hospitality of "the house of the Faun," which, from the treasures found there, seems, like that of our host in London, to have been a museum of art and beauty; and as we walked over its mosaic pavements made of precious marbles obtained from elder ruins, and passed walls built of the lava of previous eruptions, we heard the 250 NAPLES. antiquary of Pompeii explaining former pioggie,* and the moralist prosing, as we were, on the mutations of human affairs ! We stood in the tragic theatre, and saw the audience stirred by allusions to locali- ties and celestial phenomena which no roof hid from them. We heard the cries of the workmen in the Forum when the eruption burst forth, and they let fall their tools, and left the walls but half rebuilt, and the columns but half restored that had been overthrown by an earthquake sixteen years before. We heard the sounds of labour in the narrow lanes, and, emerging into a broad street, imagined what must have been the sensations of those who filled it when, looking through its long vista, they saw the flames bursting from Vesuvius, and, turning back, beheld them glaring on the snow-capped mountains opposite. And, finally, my dear C.j after going over the ruined temples of Isis and Hercules, we returned to our own actual life — all that was left of it unex- hausted — and, sitting down on the steps of the tem- ple of Venus, we ate buns, 'and drank our Capri, and sympathized with one of our friends, who feared he should outstay his Naples' dinner and his fa- vourite omelette souffle, and laughed at an unhap- py English pair whom we had repeatedly encoun- tered, the man swearing it was " all a d — d bore, these old rattle-trap places," and his consort, with Madame Starke open in her hands, learning where she was to give one, and where two notes of admi- ration I * The Italians thus designate an eruption. NAPLES. 251 My dear C, We went early this morning to the Studii, and, by way of an appropriate sequence to yesterday, we proceeded directly to the apartments containing the personal ornaments, domestic utensils, &c., of the Pompeians.* There are four rooms, containing more than four thousand vases and other vessels of terra- cotta. They are embellished with classical subjects, and their workmanship marks successive eras of art. The value set on them you may imagine from two among them being estimated at ten thousand ducats each ! In another apartment is a collection of pre- cious gems, sapphires, amethysts, carnelians, &c., cut into fine cameos. What think you of a cup (in which some Pompeian Cleopatra may have melted her pearls and swallowed them) as large round as the top of a pint bowl, made of alabaster, with a rim of sardonyx, having on one side a group in bas- relief of seven figures, representing, with wonderful expression, an apotheosis, and on the other an ex- quisite Medusa's head ! There are a great variety of personal ornaments, necklaces, bracelets, rings, pins, &c., from which our fashionable jewelry of late years has been copied. We saw the necklace and bracelets that Diomed's wife wore for one thou- sand eight hundred years ! Yesterday we went into her wine-cellar, where she was found with her purse * With these are intremingled the treasures found in Hercula* neum. 252 NAPLES. in her hand, and where the wine-jars are still stand- ing !"* There is an immense quantity of bronze armour, some of it beautifully embossed, and so heavy that it would seem to require a giant's strength to sus- tain it. One helmet was found on a soldier who stood it out bravely at his post ; he was discovered at a gate of his city, still on guard, when the ashes were removed ! I'here is an endless variety of bronze lamps, some very beautiful, and small stoves ; one, that seemed to me a nice contrivance, had a fireplace in the mid- dle, pipes running round it, and cylinders at each corner. There is every article a housewife could desire to furnish her kitchen : kettles, saucepans, co- landers, tunnels, dippers, steelyards, with bronze busts for weights ! and, in short, dear C, there is everything to identify the wants, usages, and com- forts of the ancients with our own : surgical instru- ments, keys, garden tools. We observed a writing- case precisely in the fashion of a compact little af- fair K. is now using, and which she bought at a ba- zar in London. The drinking-cups are various and beautiful. There are seventy alike of silver, small and fluted, which were taken from a table outspread for a din- ner that was never eaten j and perhaps it was for this very dinner that some meat which w^e saw in a stewpan was in preparation. * The poor lady is supposed to have sought refuge in the cellar. Very few skeletons have been found at Pompeii, from which it ap- pears that most of the inhabitants had time to escape. NAPLES. 253 There are wheat, rice, oats, honey, figs, prunes, and almonds, all unchanged to the eye, except darkened in colour; and there is dough all ready for the oven, and a cake just taken out of it mark- ed into slices, and looking precisely like a " com- position-cake" prepared for one of our rural tea- tables — I did not taste it ! — and I saw a little cake made in the form of a ring, and set aside — per- haps — to cool for some pet child at school. Strange thoughts all these objects called up of human pro- jects and pursuits, and of human blindness. You will be pleased to know that your profession at Naples, though not sans reproche, as they, for the most part, notoriously take bribes, have a benevo- lent association for the gratuitous prosecution of the causes of the poor. This society meets every Sun- day morning, and go in a body to church to say their prayers. On every Thursday morning four of their number are in waiting to receive applications. Our friend L — a, who is one of them, says it does not amount to much, not from the fault of the law- yers, but from the reluctance of the clients, who have no confidence that the right can prevail with- out the customary accessory of bribes. A bribe to the judge is about as much a matter of course as a fee to the lawyer ! L — a took us yesterday to see the civil courts held in the Vicaria, a palace formerly occupied by the sovereigns of Naples. The lower story und subter- VoL. U.--^Y 254 NAPLES. ranean apartments are devoted to prisons, and are in a horrible condition. The upper story is another kind of prison ; there the archives of the state are kept, and among them precious historical records, jealously locked up. Foreigners are occasionally permitted a few hours' research among them, and a few favoured Neapolitans have been admitted for a very short time. In going up the wet stone staircase we passed a half-famished-looking woman sitting asleep with one child at her breast, in vain seeking food there, and another lean, pallid thing nestled close to her. Would not such a spectacle in the precincts of your courts have brought down a shower of alms ? these people clattered past them as regardless as if these human things were a part of the stone they sat upon. This is " custom." God has not given the Neapolitans hearts harder than ours up in Berkshire. We went through several crowded anterooms filled with law- yers, clients, and idlers, hawkers of stationary, and beggars. One long hall was lined on both sides with desks occupied by scriveners who, amid such clamour as I am sure you never heard, were going on as undisturbed as if they had been in your quiet office. We made our way through three rooms where courts were in session, and where the business was conducted quietly and decently, much, as it seemed to me, in form like the business of our legal tribunals, except in one particular. There is one of- ficer called the procuratore, whose business it is to expound the law and apply its principles to the NAPLES. 255 cause in question. Accustomed, as I have always been, to regard our judges as uncorrupted and incor- ruptible, I felt a sort of shuddering in looking at these men, whose vices are diseases of the heart that must carry disease and death into every part of the body of the state. There are four thousand lawyers in Naples, including clerks and scriveners, and it would seem that they, and all their dependants and followers, were within the walls of this old palace. These masses looked busy and intelligent, and much more respectable than the populace in the street — as if it had been sifted indeed, and this was the grain, that the chaff. The lawyers are marked by the government, as it is well known that they best understand the rights of the people. Authors are marked men too ; and with good reason, if they re- flect and feel as well as write.* * There is a young Neapolitan who obtained permission to print a history of the kingdom of Naples. He went on smoothly till he came to the seventh century, when the invasion of the Saracens gave rise to some patriotic expressions ; the publication was stopped and his MS S. seized. Nothing daunted, he began again; andnow, as fast as he completes a certain portion, he sends it out of the country to be printed. There is an institution here called DAlbergo de' Po- veri (Asylum for the Poor), which has large funds, but so fraudulently managed that the inmates are little benefited by them (the sum allotted to each person is thirty-nine ducats a year, and not more than the half of this is spent upon him). The young historian re- solved to expose these abuses, and he wrote a clever poem, in which he caricatured several persons concerned in them. This was printed here with a foreign superscription. He was seized and imprisoned. He confessed the authorship, but maintained there was no law for- bidding his writing what he would ; and as to the printing, the printer Hiu€t answer for that. He was steadfast, and prevailed, but he is a marked man. One poor fellow, for a much lighter offence, was sent 256 NAPLES. I am tempted here, my dear C, to copy a passage from 's journal which lies open before me, relating to a persecuted author, whose poems the girls have been reading with our Neapolitan friend L. It will at least serve to show you how ground- less were your fears that our young people, in the enchantment of these countries, would lose their sense of the advantages of their own. " L. considers Count Leopardi the finest poet since Alfieri, and certainly there is great power in some of the things we read ; and, oh ! it gives us such a feeling, such a ' realizing sense' of the men- tal suffering endured here by men who have one spark left of that love of freedom which seems to be God's universal gift, who have their eyes open to what is passing round them, and aspirations after better things. < " And as we read with L. and see how excited he becomes, how, from the very innermost depths of his soul, he responds to the bitter invectives and keen sarcasms of the poet, we too kindle into a glow of indignation, and feel ourselves animated by the spir- it of uncompromising resistance ; and when we lay aside the book we thank Heaven, more than ever, that our lot is cast in a land where we can think, speak, and act as the spirit moveth us ; and Amer- ica rises before us in a halo of light, brightening to a madhouse, plunged into the bagno di sorpresa, chained, and con- fined with the " furiously mad." He excited such sympathy and ' called forth such powerful intercession that he was finally released, and is now in Paris. NAPLES. 257 snd brightening. As Dante says on his first seeing Paradise, * E disubito parve giorno a giorno Essere agguinto come quel che puote, Avesse 'i ciel d'un altro sole adornc' " For a quiet person, who does not care to run after sights, I can imagine nothing more delightful than to sit at the window as I do now, and look out on the bay and the golden clouds floating over Vesuvius and Somma, and at Vesuvius itself bathed in purple light. But the chief pleasure of a residence in Na- ples, after visiting the Studii, driving up the Sti'ada JVuova — a superb terrace-road overlooking the bay — after walking through the royal pleasure-grounds at Capo di Monte, through the Boschi, a green Po- silipo with " verd'rous walls," and looking at the king's seven hiindred peacocks dragging their green, their white, and their azure blue plumes ov€r the green turf — and after ranging through the terra cot- ta, coral, and lava shops — the chief pleasure at Na- ples is from the excursions about its rich environs. The girls have ascended Vesuvius, and will give you their report. We have, of course, visited the tomb of Virgil, hardly to be called an excursion, for it is just at the end of the city, over the entrance to Posilipo. The fact of it being the tomb of Virgil is disputed. Eustace argues earnestly for the real presence; but Eustace is an easy believer. It is, however, a position the poet might have chosen if he looked fondly back to earth. It is in a vineyard, amid grotesque .forms of tufa, which give a pictu- Y2 258 NAPLES. resque effect to the ilex, ivy, and laurel that hang caressingly about the tomb, as if they had volunta- rily grown there. There are various openings af- fording glimpses of Vesuvius, of the glorious bay and its lovely shores. The tomb itself is an ordi- nary columbarium, with niches enough for all the Latin poets who have come down to us. We have just returned from Pozzuoli, the ancient Puteoli. After driving to the end of the gay Chi- aia, we entered the grotto of Posilipo, v^^hich is a tunnel cut through a tufa hill, and is 2316 English feet in length, twenty -two in breadth, and, where loftiest, eighty-seven feet in height. It has a few dim lamps, w^hose insufficient light is inade- quately supplied by the few rays of outer day that penetrate the arched entrances at each extremity. The passage is wuld and impressive. The impris- oned and heightened sound reverberating from the walls is like nothing earthly. The smiths who are working by fitful fires in a deep cavity at one en- trance, seem stationed at the threshold of Pluto's realm. An almost impalpable powder, from ground which no drop of rain ever touches, darkens and thickens the atmosphere ; a carriage drives past you with noise enough for a train of railroad cars ; then a Neapolitan car, with a little demon of a horse with only a patch of skin here and there, and no flesh, dashes along, its nine or ten wild, ragged passengers stuck on, chaffering, yelling, and laugh- ing, and all vanishing as soon as past, seeming mere shadows in a shadow land. Suddenly a bright NAPLES. 259 gleam of lamplight illumines the figure of a bare- headed, gray old woman driving an ass with pan- niers, or falls on a strapping, bare-legged girl fol- lowing another loaded with piles of wood. They but appear, and vanish in darkness. There are shrines niched in the wall, where a lamp burns be- fore an image or a crucifix, and in the veiy heart of the passage is a chapel to the virgin scooped in the rock. I have seen this illuminated ; and when its lights are glaring on two or three kneeling worship- pers, and on a haggard beggar pointing to the im- age of the holy mother and stretching his hand to you, it produces a startling effect. It is remarkable that the date of this work is un- known. It is mentioned by Pliny and Strabo, and is supposed to have been done by the Cumseans, to connect Neapolis with Puteoli. After emerging from the grotto this morning — and what a delicious transit it is to the open sky and earth ! — we turned off our road towards Agnano, a pretty, secluded crater-lake devoted to the king's aquatic birds. Such numbers were emerging from it that it seemed a fountain of life, and as if its waters were at every moment becoming incorporate in feathers and wings — poor things, they had a doomed look ! We left our carriage on the lake-shore to walk up a steep hill to Astroni, where we were admitted within a stone wall of four or five miles in circum- ference which encloses the king's preserves. It was here the queen did that delicate bit of lady-like work — ^killed her seventeen boars of a fine morning ! 260 NAPLES. From the hill where we stood we looked down five or six hundred feet into what was once the crater of a volcano, and is now a spacious plain overgrown by trees and walled round by steep precipices. There is no tradition of the volcano, and no other record of it than that w^hich the earth bears on her bosom. To an American eye these preserves sug- gest the idea of uncleared land, upon which the set- tler is beginning his v/ork ; the sound of the wood- man's axe comes up musically from this deep soli- tude. L. and I wandered about the eminences among the superb ilexes, gathering the white heath, and catching glimpses of the bay, the queenly Nisi- da, and the great St. Angelo. We returned to the high road and proceeded along the margin of the Bay of Baia to Pozzuoli. This, once a great maritime town of Southern Italy, is now a miserable beggarly place, containing about 9000 inhabitants, chiefly fishermen, and, as it would appear from the troops that besiege you, beggars, ciceroni, and venders of " antichi,'^ as you are assured the little lamps and bronze images are which are thrust into your carriage by stout clamorous fellows, who meet you a mile out of the town and keep pace with your horses. Ah ! there is a horrid tariff on all out-of- door pleasures in Italy. Your compact made with your cicerone, your condition improves, the venders drop off in despair, and the beggars subside, it being a part of his duty to drive them off, which he often does amusingly enough, by reiterating the only Eng- lish w^ord he knows, and which beggars and all soon NAPLES. 261 learn in the good English society they keep : " d — n ! d—n! d— n!" If you can forget the hving people at Pozzuoli, you may enjoy fine remains of the dead. There are columns of Tavertine of a temple of Jupiter Serapis thirty-five feet high. They bear a curious record of the passage of time and the work of the elements ; for six feet from the base they are entire and smooth, and thus far they have been buried in the sand ; above that they are nearly perforated, made to resemble a sponge, by pholas, creatures that live only in salt water, so that the sea has at one time advanced upon the temple, nearly covered it for ages, and again receded. It is surrounded by baths. The sick who came to bathe in the mineral water brought their propitiatory offerings to the god and to the priest. The ring to which the victims were at- tached is still riveted in the stone, the pavement below the altar is nearly perfect, and all around are strewn steps, capitals, and fragments of bas-reliefs. At a short distance from the temple we found workmen employed excavating an amphitheatre, which will approach the Colosseum in extent, and is found in a good state of preservation. We went through an opened corridor where the masonry was as perfect as if it were done yesterday. But by far the most interesting sight at Pozzuoli is the Via Campana^ a part of the ancient Via Appia leading hence to Gaeta. It is for two miles a street of tombs. The road (its pavement still in perfect preservation) is a deep cut between high rugged 262 NAPLES. banks in which the tombs were imbedded, two and three tiers one above the other. Those that are opened are made in the form of the columbarium. There w^as an altar opposite the entrance, and around the sides a double row of niches (pigeon- holes) to contain the urns. Their ashes are now dispersed to the winds, and Nature, as if to veil the sanctuaries she had so long hidden in her bosom, has dropped over the opening a matted drapery of wild creeping plants. Nothing can well be ima- gined more solemn and more touching than the si- lence and solitude of this street of tombs. The throngs of the city that daily sent hither its funereal train are themselves a part of the mighty congrega- tion of the dead, and oblivion has effaced their rec- ords. " The wheel has come full circle." March 20. — ^This morning the sun rose clear for the first time in many days. Our own ungenial spring has followed us ; and, what with clouds with- out, and illness and pressing anxiety within, we have had some heavy hours. But this has been a day of compensations. We determined at breakfast on an excursion to Miscnum, and on going down stairs to our carriage we met our friend IC — n, who said he should pass the day at iVstrone, but if " we had asked him he should have gone with us !" whereupon we eagerly offered him the best or the worst seat of the coach. NAPLES. 263 He took that on the box, the " best or worst," ac- cording to one's fancy. As we drove round the Villa Reale, strapping men, who in our country would be wrestling with Nature and subduing it, besieged us, entreating us to buy little bunches of violets. K — n, who, I observe, seizes eagerly upon every pretext to evade the money-saving, modern non-giving doctrines, bought his hands full and threw into the carriage. The Chiaia had a true Neapolitan aspect. Equi- pages were in waiting at the doors of the English ^^ appartemens meuhleSy^' for the luxurious strangers who were yet loitering over their ten o'clock break- fasts. English gentlemen were galloping up and down the trottoir. Every Neapolitan living thing had come out and was basking in the sun ; and for contrasts they were striking enough, dear C. Un- der the curtained windows of these English princes, and between their doors and their carriages, lay asleep, and sleeping away the sense of hunger, men in the heyday of life, one pillowed on the body of another ; closely packed in with them were women, in masses of rags and patches, looking heads — a regular branch of industry here* — and there were squads of stout ragged children playing games, and knots of women and herds of sailors talking and gesticulating more vehemently than we should if a revolution were on the point of exploding. They * Some of my readers may be shocked by the grossness of such particulars ; but without them they could not get a just notion of the abject condition of this much- wronged people. 264 NAPLES. are an outside people. The passions that lie deep in our souls, and that are only called forth by the voice of their master and to effect a purpose, are continually breaking out here. But theirs is but heat lightning ; ours rives the oak. At Pozzuoli we were, as usual, besieged by a lit- tle army of ciceroni. I had previously promised my patronage to a bright lad who had begged me to ask for Michael Angelo. I did so ; and a stout, ragged, ruffian-looking wretch started forth, ex- claiming, " Ecco ! ecco ! Sono Michael Angelo .'" The ruse only brought down upon him the laugh of his comrades, and we drove off with a certain An- drea, a nice fellow, whom K — n, a fancier of human faces, had at once selected from his tribe. We turn- ed off near the ruins of the ancient mole (supposed to have been built by the Cumaians, and repaired by the Roman emperors) to which Caligula attached his bridge of boats. Here we left our carriage at the Lucrine Lake, and went off by a footpath to the Lake of Avernus, the Tartarus which Virgil describes in the Sixth Book of the il^neid. It is like all the crater-lakes we have seen, deep sunk amid barren and precipitous hills. On the shore of this lake are the ruins of a temple which has been assigned to Pluto J a pretty fair guess ; for who but an infernal deity should have his temple on Tartarus ? We turned from the lake to the grotto of the Cumsean Sibyl, the long-sought and honoured oracle to whom Dominichino has given such divine grace ; sacrifi- cing, as it seems to me, inspiration to youth, beauty, NAPLES. 265 and harmony. We know not what art has done for us till we find it peopling these dreary solitudes with such exquisite forms. The grotto is a low, vaulted passage (a miniature of Posilipo), piercing the hil. and coming out on the other side. We discreetly declined groping through it, contenting ourselves with a bouquet of ivy-leaves and violets plucked about its entrance. We returned to the carriage, and drove round the Bay of Baia, a most secure shelter for shipping. It was here that Pompey, Crassus, and Pompeius dined on board a galley, when Pompey had not the cour- age to do the treacherous act he would have per- mitted his servant to do for him.* Here was the scene of Nero's parricide ; here lay the elder Pliny wdien the eruption that destroy- ed Pompeii burst forth ; and here his nephew wrote that letter which has made us all as familiar with the circumstances that urged his uncle into the scene of danger, with the curiosity of the philosopher and the benevolence of the friend, as if both uncle and nephew were our contemporaries, and we had re- ceived the letter by yesterday's post ! We went up into the little village of Bauli, on the ruins of Lu- cullus' villa, where Tiberius expired, and where the people are now nested in little holes, crannies, and angles of old walls. We descended to the founda- tions of a celebrated reservoir, which the Romans * " Why," asked his freedman, " do you not cut the cables, and make yourself master of the world ?" " Why," he replied, ** did you not do it for me without asking me?" Vol. II.— Z 266 NAPLES. constructed to supply their fleet with fresh water when their fleet lay in the Bay of Bai8e ; of which forty-eight piers are still entire, to show how this magnificent people could provide for an exigency ! We went to the Mare Morto, a little inlet of the sea, the Stygian Lake of Virgil, and over his Elys- ian Fields, and wherever we went we turned a new leaf in the views of this land of loveliness. We stood on the sites and amid the ruins of temples, palaces, and villas ; for here they are, to borrow again Dewey's most descriptive expression, " knead- ed into the soil " As we paused on the shore near the ruins of two magnificent temples, I looked across to Pozzuoh,* and thought of the moment when St. Paul first set his foot on Roman ground there. Who could then have prophesied that the words of this tent-maker should be a law to the conscience, when men stand- ing where we stood should smile doubtfully at being told, " Here was Nero's palace, there was Cicero's villa, and there Lucullus' ; and there, on Nisida, lived Brutus with Portia, Cato's daughter, the ' well- reputed woman,' so fathered and so husbanded !" and should guess whether this ruin was a temple to Venus, or Hercules, or no temple at all ! or this other to Mercury and Diana ! Imagination should recon- struct these temples, rebuild these villas, repeople this Roman w^orld, and refill it with its luxury and pomp, to estimate the faith of the brave apostle, who, in the midst of it all, " counted all things but * The ancient Puteoli, NAPLES. 267 loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord !" But to return to ourselves, dear C. Our carriage "was, as usual, followed by a train — not of loathsome beggars this time, but of young, Moorish-looking girls, who held up saucers with bits of precious marbles from the ruins, which, as they truly said, were " molto bello ! molto graziozo !"* Their lead- er, a joyous creature, addressed a sort of badinage flattery to me, telling me I too was " grazioza e bel- la !" and, when I shook my head, she shouted merrily, and said I should be " if I bought her marbles !" The train swelled as w^e proceeded, and among them was a young mute, who had her spindle and distaff, and spun as she walked. She seemed about seventeen, with a most graceful, fragile figure, and with a shade of prophetic sadness over features so beautiful that they reminded me of Raphael's saints. We had left our carriage and gone up through a defile to get a view of the queen's oyster-eating lodge ; and when we returned, our merry troop, clamouring and laughing, met us half way. Would that I could describe the scene to you, my dear C. ; but I can only give you the materials, and you must make out the picture for yourself. On one side were the ruins of temples, on the other the monstrous foundations of mouldering villas ; before us the bay, and Vesuvius with its blue wreath of smoke, and the Apennines brilliant in their caps of snow, and Capri * There are still striking momorials of the Saracen invasion of Southern Italy in the features and colouring of many of the people. 268 NAPLES. far off in the bay, so soft and dreamy that it seemed melting away while we w^ere gazing at it ; and clouds were driving over us, with fitful sunbeams glancing through them. Our merry followers were joined by an old woman, with a bright red handker- chief tied over her grisly locks. She was the living image of Raphael's Cumsean Sibyl, the same wrink- led brow, and channelled cheeks, and unquenched energy burning in her eye ; the resemblance was perfect, even to the two protruding teeth.* She was sitting on the fragment of a marble column, hold- ing above her head a tamborine, on which she was playing one of the wild airs to w^hich they dance the tarantella, and accompanying it with her crack- ed voice. To this music the gleeful bare-legged girl I have described to you, having seized a strapping companion, was dancing a tarantella around K — n, who, though far enough from a Bacchus or Faun, has in his fine English face much of the joyousness of these genial and jovial w^orthies. My merry girl danced and shouted like a frantic Bacchante. I never saw a mouth so expressive of glee, nor an eye whose brightness was so near the wildness of insan- ity ; there were children with tangled locks of mot- ley brown and gold, and eyes like precious stones, leaping and clapping their hands, and joining in the old woman's chorus ; and my pretty mute was among them, with a chastened mirth and most eloquent si- * Such old women are not uncommon in Italy. I have seen half a score, at least, of living fac-similes of Michael Angelo's Parcae. NAPLES. 269 lence. Apart stood four girls, as grave and fixed as Caryatides, with immense piles of brush on their heads, which they had just brought down from the hills; and we pilgrims from the cold North were looking on, K — n, who had begun by regarding our followers as troublesome sellers of " cose molte curioscy^ had by degrees given himself up to the spirit of the scene. The floodgates of poetry, and of sympathy w^ith these wild children of the South, were opened ', and over his soul-lit face there was an indescribable shade of melancholy, as if by magic he were behold- ing the elder and classic time, and that were an ac- tual perception which before had been imperfectly transmitted by poetry, painting, and sculpture. He threw a shower of silver among the happy creatures, and we drove off. I have in vain tried to put this scene on paper for you. I have seen nothing in Italy so characteristic and enchanting ; and when K — n came to us in the evening, I found I had not exaggerated, nor even fully estimated his enjoyment. We have been with our Eno-lish friends to Paes- tum ; and, though it rained torrents through one of our three days of absence, we had quite pleasure enough to repay us for crossing the ocean. What think you, then, of the scale in which these three days are but a make-w^eight ? Nothing was ever better suited than the approach Z2 270 NAPLES. to Paestum over a wide, wild, and most desolate plain, wdth no living thing visible excepting, at far intervals, a shepherd, in the primeval dress of skins, tending a flock of gaunt, ragged sheep, a herd of buffaloes, looking, as K — n says, as if made of the refuse of all other animals, or a solitary wretch on an ass, who appears, like the snail, to carry his house and household goods with him. The approach is suited to the ruins, my dear C, because there is no- thing to divert your attention for one moment from them. There they stand, between the mountains and the sea, in a wdde blank page, scarcely ruins, but monuments of the art, wealth, and faith of a nation long effaced from the earth — temples erected to an unknown God by an unknown people. I could condense pages of description and specu- lation from tourists more learned than I ; but, after all, they settle nothing ; we are still left to wonder and conjecture, as the Emperor Augustus did when he came from Rome to Psestum, nearly 2000 years ago, to gaze as ignorantly (and as admiringly, I trust) as we now do. The cork models have given you an accurate idea of the form of these edifices ; but you must see them in this affecting solitude with God's temples, the mountains behind them, the sea sweeping before them, and the long grass waving from their crevices, to feel them — to class the sensations they produce with those excited by the most magnificent works of nature, Niagara and the Alps. We stood before them, we walked through them , NAPLES. 271 and around them, and then returned to the httle Trattoria, the only shelter here, to comfort ourselves beside the blazing fagots with hot soup and mezzo caldoy and laugh at the eating and clattering parties —English, German, and Italian — who seemed pour- ing down with the rain upon Paestum, and whose vehement demands our poor little host tried in vain to supply. Among them was an honest German, who seemed to have come for nothing but the " Paestum roses" which the elder poets celebrate, and which he expected to find as immortal as their poetry. "We left him still tramping over the wet grass iu fruitless search of them.* Jlpril 10. — To-MORKow, my dear C, we leave Naples, and take the first homeward step as joyful as the Israelites when they turned towards the holy city. You may well have got the impression from my letters that the beggars are the only company we keep here, and, in truth, the beggars and the street denizens (here lazzaroni, at Rome facchini, and idlers everywhere) are the only inhabitants of the country of whom we have much knowledge. There are so few elements in their condition that *' he who runs may read them." All, theoretically, * Aware that my book is outlasting the patience of my readers, I have omitted, excepting the few paragraphs above, my journal of our excursion to Paestum. My descriptions of the beauty of some por- tions of the route would give but an imperfect idea to those who have not seen it, and those who have need not to be reminded how much there is to be enjoyed. 272 . JOURNEYTOTERNI. acknowledge that they have " organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions;" bodies with human wants, souls with an immortal destiny; and yet, while we tourists give volumes to ruins and pictures, the Lazzaroni are slurred over with a line or a sneer. We forget the wrongs which have brought them to their present abjectness and keep them in it, and quiet our sympathies by reiterating that " the Lazzaroni are the most cheerful people in the world!" and so they are (except, perhaps, our slaves !) far more cheerful, as a friend of ours says, " than they have any right to be;" happier than you and I, dear C, if happiness be indicated by a careless brow and merry shouts; but is not the happiness of a reflecting being shaded by seriousness, looking, as he must, before and after ? and is not the cheer- fulness of these people the most hopeless thing about them, proving, as it does, an unconsciousness that marks the lowest point of human degradation ? — no, Kot the lowest point — I would rather be one of the Lazzaroni than the king of the Lazzaroni. Is it not strange, dear C, that people should leave w^ell-or- dered countries to come here to live ? There are many strangers, for the most part English, who, se- duced by the attractions of the climate and the love- liness of the adjacent country, remain here year after year. Life is rather too short, too full of im- port, to be consumed in mere passive enjoyment !* * My last walk in Naples was too characteristic of the place to be left untranscribed from my notes. I had hardly gone ten paces, when a decrepit old hag hobbled on her staff towards me, crying JOURNEY TO TERN I. 273 Terni, April 24. We have left Rome,* my dear C, and with feehngs too much hke parting with a friend for- ever to say anything about them. We took good advice, and, instead of returning to Florence by the dreary way we came, we are on the Perugia route, "which is filled with beauty, and is beginning to real- ize my early and most romantic dreams of Italian scenery. We scarcely know what spring is; our change of season is like the Russian bath, the plunge from the snowdrift to hot water. Here the muses and the graces seem to have taken the thing with her cracked voice, " Eccellen !" and I gave her a few granifrora my side-pocket. Her feeble blessing me into " Paradiso" had scarce died upon my ear when I felt a hand thrust into this same pocket, and, turning, caught a youngster in the act of exploring it. I forgot that he was Italian, and I of another tongue ; I forgot, too, that I kept nothing in this pocket but halfpence for the beggars ; and, feeling as if I had been robbed of ail I was worth in the world, I poured out my indignation in a volley of sound English, every word as good as a blow. The lad smiled at my impotent wrath, drew back a step, and pointed to a tall companion to indicate that he was the offender; and then stretching out his hand, said, in the true sotto voce tone, " Ah, eccelen! date mi qualche cose." As I passed the Duke of Bor- deaux palace a poor woman was sitting on the pavement, leaning her head against the wall, with a half-famished child asleep in her arms ; she said nothing, but her look should have persuaded some- thing better than halfpence iwm my pocket; it did not; my heart was as hard as the Levite's ; and I walked rapidly on to escape three masses of dirty rags with human heads, hands, and feet that were coining towards me crying, " Excellen, per I'amor di Dio ;" " Ex- cellen, more di fam." The distance from my lodging to the shop was not one sixth of a mile. * We passed the Holy Week at Rome. My readers are already familiar with its splendid ceremonies, and as I cannot give fresh in- terest to them, I have discreetly omitted them. 274 TERN I. into their own hands, and all nature is imbodied po- etry and grace. After winding around hills covered with home- looking houses, and peering down into the deep pathw^ay which the Nar has made for itself through their ravines, w^e arrived here at twelve o'clock this morning, and have spent the afternoon in visiting the Falls. " If you have seen Niagara and Terni," said Fran9ois, " you may die content." But Terni hardly deserves this companionship. The cascade, as per- haps you know% is artificial, the waters that over- spread the country above it having been drawn off by the Romans into the Velino, a small stream, and sent over the rocks into the Nar. It does not owe its charm to the amount of water, but to its height, its most graceful form, and, above all, to its accesso- ries ; to the varied slopes and cone-like mountains -, to the lovely view out into a gardened world, and — to its memories — Cicero came here from Rome to argue a cause about this very watercourse. We saw the fall at every point of view, from the summit to the base ; it was late in the afternoon, and w^e had the advantage of deep shadows below and bright hghts above, and the iris playing over it, not like " Love watching madness wiui unalterable mien," but more like Love fondly hovering around beauty. In truth, Byron's whole description is an extrava- ganza ; his " infernal surge" is so soft and sprayey that you can scarce tell whether.it move up or down ; it might be formed of the glittering wings of angels JOURNEY TO FOLIGNO. 275 ascending and descending. Byron should have seen Niagara, and he could have described it. We came from the fall by a lovely winding footpath through tall chestnut-tress bursting into fresh verdure, and shrubs, and v^^hite feathery heath, and sweet violets, and cherry columbines, and through the orange-bowers of a certain Count Graziani. Ah ! my dear C, this is spring. And the girls who met us with asses whereon we were to ascend the hill to Papigno, were as beautiful as Raphael would have painted wood-nymphs. Terni owes a portion of its fame to this atmosphere of exceeding beauty. Foligno. — The day has been warm, and towards noon we crossed La Somma, a high peak of the Apennines. We had a yoke of oxen attached to our four horses, to drag us up this three mile ascent. K. and I walked the greater part of the way, and amused ourselves talking with the train of beggars that we accumulated, not "stropi and ciechi" (lame and blind), but stout dames and pretty children. The oxen pulled sturdily (the vetturino taking care to let them do all the work), till, when we were within a few yards of the summit, one of them sud- denly stopped and staggered. Their master detach- ed them, when the poor beast gave a convulsive leap and fell dead. His owner broke out into the most violent expressions of despair, beating his breast, clasping his hands, plucking oif his hat, and throwing himself on the ground. Do not laugh at 276 LA MAGIORE. me, for truly he reminded me of Lear's anguish over the dead body of Cordelia. There could in no case be more demonstration of grief. Our beggarly ret- inue forgot themselves, and gathered round him, expressing their sympathy most vehemently ; while he continued touching gently the animal's horns, and crying out, " O Gigio mio !" " O Dio mio 1'^ " che faccio io !" drawing open one eyelid, and then the other, and exclaiming, " e morto I e morto ! O Dio mio !" This was all unaffected. The oxen were proba- bly the only means of living the poor man possessed — his sole dependance for bread for himself and his family ; but he showed all he felt ; they are a demonstrative people. *'' Do you remember a story Mr. Hoffman tells of one of our backwoodsmen, who, having left his wife and children alone in their log habitation to go into the forest, found them all, on coming back, lying murdered before his door, killed by Indians 1 He made no movement, no gesticulation, but said quietly, " Well, now, if this is not too ridiculous !"* La Magiore. — After crawling to-day at a snail's pace up the immense hill on which the old Etruscan city, Perugia, stands, we were induced to retrace our way, by the report of the recent opening of a * It is possible that this man was neither a brute nor a clod, but that a year afterward he exhibited the signs of premature old age. Different races have different manifestations. LA MAGIORE. 277 tomb in which some of the heroes of this brave old eyrie have slept for the last 2500 years. After descending the hill in a little post-carriage, and crossing a field, we descended a ladder, and a doubly-locked door being opened to us, we entered the tomb of a noble Etruscan family. Opposite our entrance hung suspended a bronze Divinity " in lit- tle." There are nine small vaulted chambers, built of square blocks of tufa, with a well-cut Medusa's head in the centre of each ceiling, and about it dol- phins and dragons, I think ; but our survey was so hasty that I do not vouch for its accuracy. One apartment only is left as it was found ; from the rest the monuments and ornaments have been removed. In this are several sarcophagi of travertine as white as marble, and as perfect in all respects as when they came from the sculptor's hands. There was a half-recumbent figure on each, supposed to be the effigy of the person whose remains were within the sarcophagus ; a curious portrait-gallery to be open- ed to exhibition after 2500 years, is it not ? Every- thing is as fresh and uninjured as when the Etruscan mourners laid their dead here. Why, the tomb oi the Scipios is a parvenu to this ! We had only time for a strange, bewildering sen- sation, none to go into a palace hard by to examine some very precious bronzes found in the tomb, and removed there for safe keeping, and which we were told, as travellers usually are on like occasions, were better worth seeing than all the rest. We are this evening at an inn in a straggling vil- VOL. II.— A A 278 LA MAG I ONE. lage half way up a steep hill, where, I fancy, no travelling-carriage ever stopped before. Any rooms, with an invalid, are better than none ; and our vet- turino threatened us with the probability of sleeping in our carriage if we proceeded to the regular stop- ping-place ; so here we are, in the midst of an Ital- ian rustic family, all serving us, all curious, clamor- ous, and good-humoured. Teacups have been bor- rowed from a luxurious neighbour ; a messenger was sent a mile and a half to bring milk for us, and our thoughtful vetturino provided butter at Perugia. So you see how extremes meet. An isolated Western settler, in a like exigency, would have had recourse to like expedients. But I wonder if ever, but in this land where grace and beauty are native to the soil, there was so pretty a rustic lass as is at this moment, with the help of two strapping dames, arranging our beds. I can scarce write for looking at her; and, from that elective affinity which I believe we all feel, she returns my glance, and a smile into the bargain. She is not an Italian beauty ; there is no brilliancy of colouring ; but such perfect symmetry, and such a trustful, appealing, touching expression. She skims over the floor as a bird over the surface of the water ; I never saw motion so light and full of grace — it would make the fortune of an actress of pastoral-comedy. I must ask her name, and some- thing of her history. Her name is Clotilde Poggione ; and for her story she has none, she says. Her father is dead — every one's father dies sooner or later j her mother is very LA MAG I ONE. 279 poor, but neither is that any distinction here, and she earns her bread with these good people of the inn. *' You have never been to America ?" " No," she rephed with infinite simpUcity, " nor to Perugia." " She w^ould Hke to go to Perugia." said her friend, archly. "Ah! you have a lover there, Clotilde," said L " No, no ; I will be a nun." I looked at her gay-coloured woollen scarf becomingly draw^n over her bosom and confined at her slender waist, and shook my head, and, taking hold of her string of corals, asked her if it were not a love-token ; she smiled and blushed, and her companion, laughing outright, said, " It is, it is ! and she has a love-letter in her pocket." Clotilde at first denied the charge, but a moment after she frankly gave it to me, laying her hand on my shoulder aifectionately, and whisper- ing that I might read it if I w^ould. " Yes," she answered to my inquiries, " he is handsome, and very good, but I shall never marry him^ he is a "professoreP She said all this with a sweet sim- plicity that reminded me of the poor maiden of Burns' lines to a daisy. She left the letter with me. It was written by an educated man, and had the due proportions of love and jealousy. I asked her friend, " Would the * professor' marry her ?" " Oh no ! Clotilde has no dowry, and his father will not let him take a wife without a dowry :" poor thing ! It needs no prophetic eye to foresee her destiny, and, living in a Catholic country, she will probably end the love-tale in a convent. 280 JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. Clotilde hung about us last night, attracted by her sympathy with the' young Forestiere, till I was obliged to send her away. I gave her a word of advice which I am sure, from her eager, grateful ex- pression, she means to follow. She was at my door again this morning at five o'clock with a bunch of sweet flowers. Here I have pressed one for a me- morial of her ; may it not outlast the innocence and loveliness of this "bonnie gem," Clotilde Poggione !* After leaving Magione we wound around the de- clivities of beautiful hills, and soon came in sight of Thrasymene, the very image of peace, as it lies deeply imbedded among these hills. Even our vet- turino felt that this was a sight worth seeing, and he voluntarily halted for us to alight. We walked down to the water's edge, and I recalled the days when, in our " noon-time," at the old school-house, I used to creep under my pine desk to read the story of Hannibal, and devoutly hope that he might al- w^ays be victorious. Do not all children sympathize with the boy who swore eternal hatred to the Ro- mans, and kept his oath so filially ? I do still. I plucked some grass, and baptized it in the conse- crated lake. The road led us round the margin of * One of my young companions prophesied that this incident at Magione would furnish a story for some souvenir of 1842. It was a tempting bit of raw material for my humble craft, but I preferred pre- serving the unadorned fact to ingrafting upon it apocryphal additions for the sated appetites of souvenir readers. THRASYMENE. 281 the lake to the httle town of Passignano, which is on a promontory jutting into the lake, and where a mountain rises so precipitously as to make it an im- portant and dangerous military pass. This is the pass into which the " crafty" Hannibal is supposed to have decoyed Flarainius j but why not the " stu- pid" Flaminius, to lead his men into a trap between a rugged mountain and an unfordable lake 7 Because probably the Romans told the story. I have little interest in battle scenes ; but this, though two hundred and seventeen years before our Christian era, was vivid to me. The very form of the ground recalled the actual state of mind, the de- liberations and decisions of this most inexorable hater of Rome, who, to the pride of a military con- queror, added the keen pleasure of success in a per- sonal cause. Hannibal needed not much supersti- tion to have beheved, when he looked from the sun- ny heights where he stood down upon the level plain where his enemy was enclosed in a fog, that his tu- telar divinity had spread the snare for them. This alluvial plain is now thick set with olives and grain. Yesterday we passed the bright city from which he turned aside, not daring to attempt it, and probably ■with a feeling preluding his final discomfiture. Peru- gia still sits queen-like on the throne Nature erected for her, but " who now so poor to do her reverence?" We passed over the little rivulet Sanguinetto,* * The following graceful stanzas were written by a friend on this "bloody rivulet." I am not sure they are among his published po- etry, and therefore quote them without his name. 282 JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. which, with the small town above it, took its name from the bloody work of this battle. We too have our " bloody brook ;" and so, I suppose, have all na- tions had since Cain first began the work of kilHng. We passed last night at Arezzo, a nice town — an epithet that in our sense, the old English sense, must be charily bestowed in Italy.* But everything ap- pears nice to us, in the strictest and in the most gen- erous sense of the word, since our return into Tus- cany. We were here before in the dreariest month of the year ; we had not yet seen the abounding, abject misery of Southern Italy, and certainly we were not struck with the flourishing condition of Tuscany; now it seems all thrift, abundance, and cheerfulness — a cheerfulness to be coveted and enjoyed. This is the glad season of the year, and this the gladdest of all lands, teeming, as it is, with the richest pro- ductions of nature, and now gay with blossoming trees and budding vines. The Tuscan mode of training the vine is very beautiful ', trees are plant- " We win where least we care to strive, And where the most we strive we miss. Old Hannibal, if now alive, Might sadly testify to this. " He missed the Rome for which he came, And what he never had in petto, Won for the little brook a name, The mournful name of Sanguinetto." * Our people are at first confounded by the modern English use of this word, by the " nice countenance," " nice ruin," &c. JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. 283 ed from ten to fifteen feet apart, in rows or encir- cling a field. The limbs are cut off a few feet from the main stem, and so managed as to resemble the framework of a basket ; around this the vine is led, with a pendant from each limb. Sometimes they are festooned from tree to tree, and are often led in several parallel straight lines. The blending of grace with neatness and accuracy in the Tuscan cultivation, seems to me to indicate a rural popula- tion superior to any we have yet seen in Italy.* * Those of my readers who chance to be ignorant on the subject will thank me for translating for them a few extracts from M. Sis- mondi's accurate account of the Tuscan peasant, instead of giving them the superficial observations of my own very limited opportuni- ties, M. Sismondi, in his article " Sur le bonheur des Cultivateurs Toscains," endeavours to show that they are the happiest of all the people on earth who have only their own hands to depend on. The Metayer system prevails in Tuscany. The landlord furnishes the land, house, and implements of husbandry. The peasant cultivates the soil, and renders to the landlord half the product, " The Tuscan Metayer," says M, Sismondi, "receives from the hands of Nature his whole subsistence. He has little want of money, for he has scarcely any payment to make. He hardly knows the existence of taxes, as they are paid by the proprietor ; and as he has nothing to quarrel about with the government, he is in general attached to it; neither has he any interest to settle with the Church, Tithes having been long abolished, his contributions are voluntary." " In fine, the Metayer, in his relations with his proprietor, considers himself as a partner in a community of interests ; he has nothing to discuss with him. Usage has fixed his rights and obligations ; his contract may, it is true, be broken any year by his misconduct; experience has taught the proprietor that he loses and never gains by discarding a peasant, for none will give him more than half the product. Thus the Metayer lives upon the land as if it were his inheritance, loving it devotedly, labouring to improve it, trusting in the future — believ- ing that the fields he works upon will be cultivated by his children and grandchildren. And, in fact, they live on the same land from generation to generation. They understand it with a precision that 284 JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. Had you, my dear C, passed this afternoon with us I should have but to write Florence, and "This brightest star of star-bright Italy" would rise before you " Amid her Tuscan fields and hills," the feeling of property alone can give." " The terraces, elevated one above the other, are often not more than four feet wide ; the in- dividual character of each is knovvn to the Metayer ; this is dry, that is cold and damp ; here the soil is deep, there it is merely the in- crustation of a rock ; wheat thrives best here, barley there ; here it would be lost labour to plant Indian corn, even beans or pease ; a lit- tle farther flax flourishes wonderfully, and the border of this brook is capital for hemp. Thus you learn with surprise from the Me- tayer that, in a space of ten acres, the soil, the aspect, and * the lay of the land' present to him a greater variety than a rich farmer knows to exist in his farm of five or six hundred acres." After enumerating some grievances in the existing laws which cause litigations, vexations, and disappointments among the proprie- tors, M. Sismondi says : " The gentleness and benevolence of the Tuscan character are often spoken of; but the cause is not sufficient- ly remarked, which is, that all cause of quarrel is removed from the cultivators, who constitute three quarters of the population." M, Sismondi, having an estate in Tuscany, and residing there a portion of his time, gives from actual observation and con amore, a picture of the peasant's life as admirable for its exactness as it is at- tractive for its beauty. " When you leave the great roads and climb up the hills of the valley of Nievole, yon meet at every step little paths, which, winding among the vines and olives, are never traced by a wheel, and are only passable for mountain horses with their loads. Along these paths, at every hundred seeps, you find, upon some flowery hillside, a little house, which presents the sweet image of industry fully rewarded — of man's love of the land — of abundance and peac«. The house, built substantially, with good walls, has always one story, often two, above the ground floor. Usually there are on the ground floor a kitch- en, a stable for two horned cattle, and the store-room, which takes its name tinaia from the large vats in which the wine is fermented without putting it to press. It is here, also, that the Metayer locks up his casks,, oil, and gram. He has ordinarily a shed .leaning against JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. 285 with the Arno windino; through her loveliest of val- leys, and the Apennines in the background guard- ing her with its fortress-heights, and pouring oil and. the house, where he can repair his utensils and prepare the proven- der for his animals, sheltered from the weather. On the first and second stories there are often two, three, and even four bedcham- bers. The windows are without glass ; they have only shutters ; but we must remember there is no ice in winter. The most spacious and airy of these rooms are devoted, during the months of May and June, to the growth of the silkworm. Large chests for clothes and linen, and some wooden chairs, are the principal furniture of the chambers. A bride always brings her nut-wood bureau. The beds have neither curtain nor valance ; but on each, besides a good straw bed, made of the elastic husk of the Indian corn, there are two mat- tresses of wool, or, with the very poorest, of tow, a good quilt, sheets of strong hempen cloth, and over the best bed a spread of raw silk, which is displayed on fete-days. There is no chimney except in the kitchen. There is always in one room a large wooden dining-table, with benches ; a kneading-trough, in which provisions are also kept ; a sufficient assortment of earthen jars, dishes, and plates ; one or two brass lamps, steelyards, and at least two copper vessels in which to fetch and keep water. " All the linen and working-dresses of the family are home-made. These dresses, the men's as well as the women's, are of a kind of stuff they call mezza lana (linsey-woolsey ?) if thick, mola if thin. The warp is a coarse thread of flax or tow ; the filling is of wool or cotton. It is dyed by the same women who weave it. One can hardly imagine the quantity of linen ox jnezza lana which the wom- en, by assiduous labour, accumulate ; how many sheets are in the common depot, how many chemises, vests, pantaloons, skirts, and gowns. To give an idea of it, we add a part of an inventory of the family best known to us ; a family neither among the poorest nor rich- est, but living happily on the half of the product of less than ten acres of land. " Inventory of the bridal clothes (trousseau) of Jane, &c., &c. : 28 chemises, 3 gowns of coloured silk, 4 gowns of coarse coloured silk, 7 gowns of cotton cloth, 2 winter working gowns (mezza lana), 2 summer working gowns and skirts, 3 white skirts, 5 calico aprons, I black silk apron, 1 black merino apron, 9 coloured working aprons, 4 white handkerchiefs, 8 coloured handkerchiefs, 2 worked veils and 1 tulle veil, 3 towels, 14 pairs of stockings, 2 hats, one felt and one 286 FLORENCE. wine into her storehouses from the sunny hills that slope down to her feet. But you have not seen it, dear C, and neither the word nor all the descriptive accompaniments I may tack to it will give you so much pleasure as to know we are thus far on our homeward track, and that we found our faithful friend, Mr. H., on the steps of the Hotel de York, where, though the town is full of strangers, he has secured agreeable apartments for us, from which we have a look-out on the Duomo, its Campanile, Bap- tistery, and gay piazza. Florence, as all the world knows, my dear C, is almost unrivalled in the beauty of its position and surroundings ; it is most curious as the best-preserved monument of the middle ages, but, apart from all this, it has interest to an American, a claim on the sympathy of the citizens of a free and working country, that belongs to no other part of Italy; Florence derived the glory and power of its brilhant day from its industry and freedom -, not the freedom of a few lawless nobles, but the freedom of its working classes,* who, in 1260, formed themselves fine straw. — 2 gold cameos, 2 pairs gold earrings, 1 chaplet with two Roman piastres, 1 coral necklace with a gold cross." We should be proud to see our farmers' daughters with an outfit as substantial and suitable as this. * The Florentines began right. ViJlani, writing late in the thir- teenth century of their forefathers, after telling us that the finest of their granddames thought themselves dressed enough in a narrow gown of coarse scarlet cloth, &c., adds, " with all this external coarseness they had loyal minds ; they were faithful to one another FLORENCE. 287 into twelve companies of " arts and trades" (the seven major arts having their consuls, captains, and ensigns), and got so completely the upper hand of the nobles that a title rendered a man illegible to office. There is a curious memorial of the exercise of popular power existing in the architecture of the city. More than 200 towers, which originally were the fortresses of the nobility, and which w^ere, by an ordinance of the people, reduced from the height of 180 feet to 80 feet, are now incorporated into other buildings,* and constitute a part of that massive architecture which makes Florence strike a stranger as " a city of nobles of individual force, where the power of the public was sometimes feeble, but where each man was master and lord in his own house." These towns were wretchedly lighted, and the nobles resorted to an expedient suited to their delicious climate. Near the towers they built Logge arcades, which served them for offices, market-places, and drawing-rooms. Some of them still remain. The unimpaired Loggia dei Lanzi is embellished with groups of statues in bronze, and, with its Greek arches and columns, is a beautiful specimen of archi- tecture. The Pitti Palace, the residence of the and to their country. In their poor and rustic lives they did the most virtuous deeds, and contributed far more to the honour of their famihes and their country than those who live more luxuriously." * " The material," says M. Sismondi, " which these private forti- fications furnished was employed for the common defence. A por- tion of the city-wall, and the palace of the Podesta, now a prison, were built with it." 288 FLORENCE. grand-duke, and fit for an imperial palace, was built by a merchant, as were many of these immense structures, which may stand, for aught that I can see, as long as the solid foundations of nature. They are built of immense blocks of stone, without cement, and without architectural ornament ; but to me their simplicity and strength are more effective than any decoration. They have a curious appendage, large iron or brass rings, in which they placed wax lights for illuminations, and to which they suspended the standards of the rival factions. They built com- pactly, to save the expense of an extended wall. The oldest streets are too narrow to allow a carriage to pass : across some of them you might grasp hands from palace to palace. I am sadly disappointed in the Arno. It embelHshes the city, certainly, but it is turbid ; and, like all the Italian streams I have seen, with the exception of one or two rivulets, it appears as if it had been stirred up with French chalk. We have just returned from Santa Croce, and are overpowered with the heat. I do not wonder at the proverb that no one can die in Florence in the winter, and no one can live here in summer. But for Santa Croce : it is our third visit to the " centre of pilgrimage — the Mecca of Italy." So, indeed, may that sacred place be justly called where are the monuments of such prophets as Dante, Gali- leo, and Michael Angelo. The monuments are im- mense piles of marble j not one of them impress- FLORENCE. 289 es me with its excellence as a work of art. But art would be but secondary here. After Westmin- ster Abbey — after the place hallowed by the great spirits of our own language, there is no monumental effect like that of Sante Croce. It is a sad thought that we have for the last time walked up and down its long line of columns, on the marble pavement trodden by generations long gone, before the monu- ments of Machiavel, Michael Angelo, Dante, Gali- leo, and Alfieri ! Santa Croce was begun in 1294, and is still un- finished, as are all the fa9ades of the Florence churches. This is to save the heavy tax imposed by the pope on the completion of a church ; and in part, probably, from the richness of the plan exceed- ing the ability for its execution. The Piazza of Santa Croce has historical associations that make it quite worthy of the church. '•' The richest Floren- tine citizens" (bourgeois), says M. Sismondi, " hav- ing excited one another to arms, assembled in the Piazza of Santa Croce before a church ; and there, where now are the tombs of the great men of Flor- ence, the republic of the dead, was first formed the popular state of Florence." We went quite to the other extreme from this the- atre of popular associations, in going from Santa Croce to San Lorenzo, where are the splendid me- morials of the Medici, the final subverters of the liberty of Florence. The Cappella de' Principi was designed by Michael Angelo, and its embellishments in great part executed by him. There are on two \^CL. IL— B B 290 FLORENCE. monuments figures in attitudes that it would be dif- ficult for a posture-master to maintain : they are called Day and Night, and Aurora and Twilight. Doctor Bell sees in the Aurora " a spring of thought," " an awakening principle ;" marble is a hard mate- rial for an allegorical refinement ! The celebrated statue of the Duke of Urbino, called Pensiero, from its wonderful expression of deep thought, is in this chapel. I cannot but think that this and other mas- terpieces of Michael Angelo throw a dazzling efful- gence over his inferior works ; and that in these statues on the Medician monuments and in his Mose he has half taken the step from the sublime to the ri- diculous ; but this is as dangerous as to talk democ- racy in an Austrian saloon ! The gorgeous, though yet unfinished, Capella di Medici is also at San Lorenzo. It is dedicated to the monuments of the grand-dukes of Tuscany, and all that can be done to glorify these mighty " acci- dents" by walls incrusted with the costliest marbles, and the most exquisite work in pietra dura is done ; but w^hat is it all, in effect, to the name of " Gali- leo" on his tomb, or the inscription on Dante's, " Onorate I'altissimo Poeta." We have seen Mr. Greenough's statue of Wash- ington. It is a seated colossal figure ; the arms and breast are bare ; one hand is extended in the act of resigning the sword, and the other raised, as if ap- pealing to Heaven. I have heard objections to the double action ; but w^hy, since they are related, and produce a unity of impression ? The drapery, too, / V FLORENCE. 291 is criticized, and will, no doubt, be condemned by many of our people, who are intolerant of any de- gree of nudity. But what was Mr. Greenough to do ? As he says, a French artist made a cast of Washington, while he was living, in military cos- tume, and nobody liked it. Canova put him into a Roman toga, and Chantry into a cloak, such as nei- ther Roman nor American ever wore. Nothing re- mained for him but to present him artistically, and certainly the drapery is arranged with expression and grace. The head is noble; expressing, almost to the point of sublimity, wisdom and firmness, with as near an approach to benignity as Washington's face will bear without a sacrifice of verisimilitude; good, not quite benignant. The subjects of the bas- relief embellishments are happily chosen. Aurora is on one side — a fitting type of our young country — and on the other is the infant Hercules strangling the serpent : a subject suggested, I presume, by Dr. Franklin's medal, and sarcastically indicating our struggle with the mother country. Mr. Greenough, even with his previous reputation, may be satisfied with this work, and our country proud of it. It is something to say for our progress in art that, in forty years from Washington's death, the best statue of him is by his own countryman, I HAVE been walking about Florence with Mr. W., who naturally first showed me some memorials of his hero. Mr. W. was, as you know, a few years 292 FLORENCE. since in our congress — what a change from the arena of Washington to ferreting out the Hfe of Dante from the Tuscan archives! Mr. W. is among the few fortunate men who, from a false positition, has by his own wit found out, and by his own energy achieved, his true one. We went first to a tablet inserted in the pavement of the Piazza diDuomo, which informs you that there Dante was accustomed to sit; and there he contemplated this church, which, before 1300, as Mr. W. has discovered by a registered vote in favour of Arnolfo, its architect, was pro- nounced " the most beautiful edifice in Tuscany." When shall we have such inscriptions to mark the haunts of Washington and Franklin ? Might not the memory of these men be made more operative by appeals through the senses to the active popular mind of our country ? We next visited the house Dante lived in before his banishment, and then proceeded to Beatrice's (she had a local habitation) in a street parallel to that in which Dante lived, and so near to his that her lover might have signalized her in the seaman's sense. We went, too, to Michael Angelo's house, where a suite of apartments are preserved as he left them by the present possessor, one of the house of Buon- arotti. We were rather surprised to find what snug and comfortable apartments were enjoyed by the art- ist, who has so associated himself in our minds with the vast and extravagant. There are a few charac- teristic sketches of his on the walls, shadowings of great thoughts; some humble relics, such as his FLORENCE. 293 slippers, and, what pleased me more than all, a ro- sary, and shrine with its crucifix, before which he may have received the inspiration he infused into his works. We finished the morning in the gardens of the Pitti Palace. Magnificent they are in extent, vari- ety of surface, and embellishment. The entrance is free to all. They are not more lovely now, except- ing that the country which you see from them has the fresh aspect of spring, than they were when we were here on the first of December. The fountains were then playing in a warm atmosphere ; the stat- ues looked perfectly comfortable out of doors ; and there were such walls of laurel and laurestinus in blossom, with a variety of other evergreens, that it seemed as if a charmed circle were drawn around it, which " winter and rough weather" could not pass. The sun was then an enjoyment, and the shade to-day a positive one, and there we sat a long time listening to Mr. W.'s romantic stories of the stormy days of Florence, and to his tribute to the character of the reigning duke, Leopold, of whom we were very willing to believe all good while we were luxuriating in his grounds. He is one of the few sovereigns who have the enjoyments of sov- ereignty without its penalties. His territory is so small that he is not of sufficient consequence to be molested or to be dictated to by his royal brothers; so he gets on very quietly, is kind and indulgent to his people, and hospitable to strangers, even though branded as liberals. It is not long since he received 294 ' FLORENCE. a letter (written at the suggestion of Russia) from his brother of Austria, containing a Hst of Poles who had sought refuge in Florence, whence Leo- pold was advised to expel them. You are aware that advice means command in the Austrian vocabu- lary. The list was headed " dangerous men." Le- opold received it in council. He cast his eye over it ; put his own name at the head of these danger- ous men, and returned it without any farther notice to his minister ! Very nice, was it not, for a man who has Austrian blood in his veins 1* We drove yesterday to the great silk manufactory at the Villa Donato, where steam is introduced for many of the processes ; but there is nothing going on at present but weaving, which is done in the old- fashioned loom. The girls were particularly en- chanted with four iron Doric columns supporting a steam-engine, looking, as they said, like an Italian temple. The Italian atmosphere seemed to them to have subdued the principal antagonist to all poetry. The Villa Donato is a beautiful one, and its present appropriation reminds you forcibly of the time when the merchants of Florence were its princes. * The grand-duke's liberality attracts strangers to Florence, and it is natural they should linger there in the midst of a happy and beautiful people, surrounded by a country that is a paradise, and ad- mitted, without fees or vexations of any sort, to the daily enjoyment of its magnificent drives, gardens, and galleries. FLORENCE. 295 We have been to Fiesoli, the old Etruscan city to which Florence was once but a suburb. It was built, like all the Etruscan cities, on an immense height, about as conveniently placed as a city would be half way up Saddle Mountain. Those of us who could walk, walked up the steepest ascent, and R. and E. were drawn by oxen in a sort of sledge of the most inartificial kind. When they rather revolted at this mode of chmbling, they were soothed with the as- surance that the grand-duke himself had no better. We pedestrians stopped at a farm-house, where we were charmed with rural thrift, cheerfulness, and kindness. The womankind were all engaged, from old age to childhood, either in weaving, spinning, knitting, or braiding straw. There was no misery — no begging. K. gave an old woman, who fetch- ed her a glass of water with eager kindness, a half paul, at which the old crone pressed K.'s hand in both hers, and said earnestly, " Dio vi lo rimerite." The glass of water was the boon that deserved the " God reward ye !" On the almost inaccessible summit we found a church, a seminary, and a monastery, but no remains of the Roman Feesulae, excepting some columns of an ancient temple, and a grand bit of Cyclopean >all, made of massive stones seven or eight feet in length, laid together without cement. What a comment on the history of man, in his social relations and liabil- ^ ities, this little fragment of a wall ! But the thing to go to Fiesoli for is the view of 296 FLORENCE. Florence ; truly a queen of beauty in the lap of hills covered to their summits with vines, and olives, and lovely villas." Such a scene of abundance, grace, and beauty, of nature and art in loving harmony, I never beheld. No wonder the device of Florence was a rose in a field of lihes. We leave Florence to-morrow, my dear C, and I have said nothing to you of what now is Florence ; its unrivalled galleries of pictures ; that of the Palaz- zo Vecchio, The Gallery, and that of the Pitti Pal- ace, which is confessedly the finest single collection in the w^orld ! It is in itself a world ; and when I am there looking at those glorious pictures that re- main in unfading beauty w^hile generation after gen- eration comes hither to see them, I feel fully what was so well said by the old man who for seventy years had shown a famous picture in the Escurial: " We are the shadows, they are the realities 1" I do not now wonder at the love of art which as- tonished me on first coming to the Old World. With us it is comparatively nothing ; in Europe it makes up the occupation of the idle portion of the world ; and so much does the appetite grow by what it feeds on, that I begin to feel the danger (the existence of which I have but just learned) of forget- ting the actual in the painted w^orld. But do not be alarmed, my dear C. ; though the eyes of some of us were half blended with tears as we looked at our favourite pictures for the last time to-day, we cannot yet say with the dying Medici, before whom his priest was setting the joy of the heavenly mansions, FLORENCE. 297 " Caro amico son contento col Palazzo Pittl" (" My dear friend, I am perfectly content with the Pitti Palace !)" No ; we shall once more to-morrow set our faces joyfully towards our earthly heaven — your and our home. Our route from Florence to Genoa was a scene of enchantment ; and, finally, when we embarked at Genoa and left the Italian shore, we felt much as I fancy Adam and Eve did when the gates of Para- dise were closed upon them. We passed through the southern provinces of France to Switzer- land, a country as full of excitement, in a different way, as Italy — perhaps the only country that one can pass into from Italy without ennui. 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