JOURNEY from NAPLES to ROME.

And mingle with the people’s wretched lee—Oh line extreme of human infamy!—Lest by her look or colour be exprestThe mark of aught high-born, or ever better drest.

And mingle with the people’s wretched lee—

Oh line extreme of human infamy!—

Lest by her look or colour be exprest

The mark of aught high-born, or ever better drest.

Here is a beautiful performance too of the Venetian school—a resurrection of Lazarus, by Leandro Bassano, esteemed the best performance of that family, and full of merit—the merit ofcharacterI mean; while Mary’s eyes are wholly employed, and her mind apparently engrossed by the Saviour’s benignity, and almighty power; Martha thinks merely on the present exertion of them, and only watches the deliverance of her beloved brother from the tomb: the restored Lazarus too—an apparent corpse, re-awakened suddenly to a thousand sensations at once, wonder, gratitude, and affectionatedelight!—How can one coldly sit to hear the connoisseursadmire the folds of the drapery? Lanfranc’s St. Michael too is a very noble picture; and though his angel is infinitely less angelic than that of Guido, his devil is a less ordinary and vulgar devil than that of his fellow-student, which somewhat too much resembles the common peeping satyr in a landscape; whereas Lanfranc’s Lucifer seems embued with more intellectual vices—rage, revenge, and ambition.

But I am called from my observations and reflexions, to see what the Neapolitans callil trionfo di Policinello, a person for whom they profess peculiar value. Harlequin and Brighella here scarcely share the fondness of an audience, while at Venice, Milan, &c. much pleasantry is always cast intotheircharacters.

The triumph was a pageant of prodigious size, set on four broad wheels like our waggons, but larger; it consisted of a pyramid of men, twenty-eight in number, placed with wonderful ingenuity all of one size, something like what one has seen exhibited at Sadler’s Wells, the Royal Circus, &c.; dressed in oneuniform, viz. the white habit and puce-coloured mask ofcaroPolicinello; disposed too with that skill which tumblers alone can either display or describe; a single figure, still in the same dress, crowning the whole, and forming a point at the top, by standing fixed on the shoulders of his companions, and playing merrily on the fiddle; while twelve oxen of a beautiful white colour, and trapped with many shining ornaments, drew the whole slowly over the city, amidst the acclamations of innumerable spectators, that followed and applauded the performance with shouts.

What I have learned from this show, and many others of the same kind, is of no greater value than the derivation ofhis namewho is so much the favourite of Naples: but from the mask he appears in, cut and coloured so as exactly to resemble aflea, with hook nose and wrinkles, like the body of that animal; his employment too, being ever ready to hop, and skip, and jump about, with affectation of uncommon elasticity, giving his neighbours a sly pinch from time to time: all these circumstances, added to the very intimate acquaintance and connection all the Neapolitans have with this, the least offensive of all theinnumerable insects that infest them; and, last of all,his name, which, corrupt it how we please, was originallyPulicinello; leaves me persuaded that the appellation is merelylittle flea.

A drive to Caserta, the king’s great palace, not yet quite finished, carries me away from this important study, and leaves me little time to enjoy the praises due to a discovery of so much consequence.

The drive perhaps pleased us better than the palace, which is a prodigious mass of building indeed, and to my eye appears to cover more space than proud Versailles itself; court within court, and quadrangle within quadrangle; it is an enormous bulk to be sure—not pile—for it is not high in proportion to the surrounding objects somehow; and being composed all of brick, presents ideas rather of squat solidity, than of princely magnificence. Ostentation is expected always to strike, as elegance is known to charm, the beholder; and space seldom fails in its immediate effect upon the mind; but here thevalley(I might sayhole) this house is set in, looks too little for it; and offends one in the same manner as the morebeautiful buildings do at Buxton, where from every hill one expects to tumble down upon the new Crescent below. The stair-case is such, however, as I am persuaded no other palace can shew; vastly wider than any the French king can boast, and infinitely more precious with regard to the marbles which compose its sides. The immensity of it, however, though it enhances the value, does not do much honour to the taste of him who contrived it. No apartments can answer the expectations raised by such an approach; and in fact the chapel alone is worthy an ascent so fit for a triumphal procession, instead of a pair of stairs. That chapel is I confess of exquisite beauty and elegance; and there is a picture, by Mengs, of the blessed Virgin Mary’s presentation when a girl, that is reallypaitrie des graces; it scarcely can be admired or commended enough, and one can scarcely prevail on one’s self ever to quit it. Her marriage, a picture on the other side, is not so happily imagined; but it seems as if the painter thought that joke too good to part with, that there never was a particularly excellent picture of a wedding; and that Poussinhimself failed, when having represented all the six other sacraments so admirably, that of marriage has been found fault with by the connoisseurs of every succeeding generation.

Well! if the palace at Caserta must be deemed more heavy than handsome, I fear the gardens must likewise be avowed to be laid out in a manner one would rather term savage than natural: all artifice is banished however: the king of Naples scorns petty tricks for the amusement of petty minds;—he turns a whole river down his cascade,—a real one; and if its formation is not of the first rate for assuming an appearance of nature, it has the merit of being sincerely that which others only pretend to be: while I am told that his architects are now employed in connecting the great stones awkwardly disposed in two rows down each side the torrent, with the very rocks and mountains among which the spring rises; if they effect this, their cascade will, so far as ever I have read or heard, be single in its kind.

Van Vittelli’s aqueduct is a prodigiously beautiful, magnificent, and what is more, a useful performance: having the finest models of antiquity, he is said to have surpassed themall. Why such superb and expensive methods should be still used to conduct water up and down Italy, any more than other nations, or why they are not equally necessary in France and England, nobody informs me. Madame de Bocages enquired long ago, when she was taken to see the fountain Trevi at Rome, why they had no water at Paris but the Seine? I think the question so natural, that one wishes to repeat it; and one great reason, little urged by others, incites me to look with envy on the delicious and almost innumerable gushes of water that cool the air of Naples and of Rome, and pour their pellucid tides through almost every street of those luxurious cities:it is this, that I consider them as a preservative against that dreadfullest of all maladies, canine madness; a distemper which, notwithstanding the excessive heat, has here scarcely a name. Sure it is the plenty of drink the dogs meet at every turn, that must be the sole cause of a blessing so desirable.

My stay has been always much shorter than I wished it, in every great town of Italy; buthere!where numberless wonders strike the sense without fatiguing it, I do feel doublepleasure; and among all the new ideas I have acquired since England lessened to my sight upon the sea, those gained at Naples will be the last to quit me. The works of art may be found great and lovely, but the drunken Faun and the dying Gladiator will fade from one’s remembrance, and leave the glow of Solfaterra and the gloom of Posilippo indelibly impressed. Vesuvius too! that terrified me so when first we drove into this amazing town, what future images can ever obliterate the thrilling sensations it at first occasioned? Surely the sight of old friends after a tedious absence can alone supply the vacancy that a mind must feel which quits such sublime, such animated scenery, and experiences a sudden deprivation of delight, finding the bosom all at once unfurnished of what has yielded it for three swiftly-flown months, perpetual change of undecaying pleasures.

To-morrow I shall take my last look at the Bay, and driving forward, hope at night to lodge at Terracina.

The morning of the day we left our fair Parthenope was passed in recollecting her various charms: every one who leaves her carries off the same sensations. I have asked several inhabitants of other Italian States what they liked best in Italy except home; it was Naples always, dear delightful Naples! When I say this, I mean always to exclude those whose particular pursuits lead them to cities which contain the prize they press for. English people when unprejudiced express the like preference. Attachments formed by love or friendship, though they give charms to every place, cannot be admitted as a reason for commending any one above the rest. A traveller without candour it is vain to read; one might as well hope to get a just view of nature by looking through a coloured glass, as to gain a true account of foreign countries, by turning over pages dictated by prejudice.

With the nobility of Naples I had no acquaintance, and can of course say nothing of their manners. Those of the middling people seem to be behind-hand with their neighbours; itis so odd that they should never yet have arrived at calling their money by other names than those of the weights, anounceand agrain; the coins however are not ugly.

The evening of the day we left this surprising city was spent out of its king’s dominions, at Terracina, which now affords one of the best inns in Italy; it is kept by a Frenchman, whose price, though high, is regulated, whose behaviour is agreeable, and whose suppers and beds are delightful. Near the spot where his house now stands, there was in ancient Pagan days a temple, erected to the memory of the beardless Jupiter called Anxurus, of which Pausanias, and I believe Scaliger too, take notice; though the medal of Pansa isimago barbata, sed intonsa, they tell me; and Statius extends himself in describing the innocence of Jupiter and Juno’s conversation and connection in their early youth. Both of them had statues of particular magnificence venerated with very peculiar ceremonies, erected for them in this town, however,ut Anxur fuit quæ nunc Terracinæ sunt[8]. The tenth Thebaid too speaks muchde templosacro et Junoni puellæ, Jovis Axuro[9]; and who knows after all whether these odd circumstances might not be the original reason of Anxur’s grammatical peculiarity, well known to all from the line in oldPropria que maribus,

Et genus Anxur quod dat utrumque?

This place was founded and colonised by Æmilius Mamercus and Lucius Plautus, Anno Mundi 3725 I think; they took the town of Priverna, and sent each three hundred citizens to settle this new city, where Jupiter Anxurus was worshipped, as Virgil among so many other writers bears testimony:

Circeumque jugum, queis Jupiter Anxuris arvisPræsidet[10].7thÆneid.

Circeumque jugum, queis Jupiter Anxuris arvisPræsidet[10].

Circeumque jugum, queis Jupiter Anxuris arvis

Præsidet[10].

7thÆneid.

Æmilius Mamercus was a very pious consul, and when he served before with Genutius his colleague, made himself famous for driving the nail into Minerva’s temple to stop the progress of the plague; he was therefore likelyenough to encourage this superstitious worship of the beardless Jupiter.

Some books of geography, very old ones, had given me reason to make enquiry after a poisonous fountain in the rocks near Terracina. My enquiries were not vain. The fountain still exists, and whoever drinks it dies; though Martial says,

Sive salutiferis candidus Anxur acquis[11].

The place is now cruelly unwholesome however; so much so, that our French landlord protests he is obliged to leave it all the summer months, at least the very hot season, and retire with his family to Molo di Gaeta. He told us with rational delight enough of a visit the Pope had made to those places some few years ago; and that he had been heard to say to some of his attendants how there was nomal ariaat all thereabouts in past days: an observation which had much amazed them. It was equally their wonder how his Holiness went o’walking about with a book in his hand or pocket, repeating verses by the sea-side. One of them had asked the name of the book, but nobody could remember it. “Was itVirgil?” said one of our company. “Eh monDieu, Madame, vous l’avez divinée[12],” replied the man. But, O dear (thought I), how would these poor people have stared, if their amiable sovereign, enlightened and elegant as his mind is, had happened to talk more in their presence of what he had been reading on the sea shore,VirgilorHomer; had he chanced to mention thatMolo di Gaetawas in ancient times the seat of the Lestrygones, and inhabited by canibals, men who eat one another! and surely it is scarcely less comical than curious, to recollect how Ulysses expresses his sensations on first landing just by this now lovely and highly-cultivated spot, when he pathetically exclaims,

——Upon what coast,On whatnewregion is Ulysses tost?Possest by wild barbarians fierce in arms,Or men whose bosoms tender pity warms?Pope’s Odyssey.

——Upon what coast,On whatnewregion is Ulysses tost?Possest by wild barbarians fierce in arms,Or men whose bosoms tender pity warms?

——Upon what coast,

On whatnewregion is Ulysses tost?

Possest by wild barbarians fierce in arms,

Or men whose bosoms tender pity warms?

Pope’s Odyssey.

Poor Cicero might indeed have asked the question seven or eight centuries after, in days falsely said to be civilized to a state of perfection; when his most inhuman murder near this town, completed the measure of their crimes; who to their country’s fate added that of its philosopher, its orator, its acknowledged fatherand preserver.—Cruel, ungrateful Rome! ever crimson with the blood of its own best citizens—theatre of civil discord and proscriptions, unheard of in any history but her’s; who, next to Jerusalem in sins, has been next in sufferings too; though twice so highly favoured by Heaven—from the dreadful moment when all her power was at once crushed by barbarism, and even her language rendereddeadamong mankind—to the present hour, when even her second splendours, like the last gleams of anaurora borealis, fade gradually from the view, and sink almost imperceptibly into decay. Nor can the exemplary virtues and admirable conduct ofthis, and of her four last princes, redeem her from ruin long threatened to her past tyrannical offences; any more than could the merits of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius compensate for the crimes of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero.—Let the death of Cicero, which inspired this rhapsody, contribute to excuse it; and let me turn my eyes to the bewitching spot—

Where Circe dwelt, the daughter of the day.

That such enchantresses should inhabit such regions could have been scarce a wonder inHomer’s time I trow; the same country still retains the same power of producing singers, to whom our English may with propriety enough cry out;

——Hail,foreignwonder!Whom certes our rough shades did never breed.Milton.

——Hail,foreignwonder!Whom certes our rough shades did never breed.

——Hail,foreignwonder!

Whom certes our rough shades did never breed.

Milton.

That she should be the offspring of Phœbus too, in a place where the sun’s rays have so much power, was a well-imagined fable one mayfeel; and her instructions to Ulysses for his succeeding voyage, just, apt, and proper: enjoining him a prayer to Crateis the mother of Scylla, to pacify her rapacious daughter’s fury, is the least intelligible of all Circe’s advice, to me. But when I saw the nasty trick they had at Naples, of spreading out the ox-hides to dry upon the sea shore, as one drives to Portici; the Sicilian herds, mentioned in the Odyssey, and their crawling skins, came into my head in a moment.

We have left these scenes of fabulous wonder and real pleasure however; left the warm vestiges of classic story, and places which have produced the noblest efforts of the human mind; places which have served as no ignoble themes for truly immortal song; allquitted now! all left for recollection to muse on, and for fancy to combine: but these eyes I fear will never more survey them. Well! no matter—

When like the baseless fabric of a vision,The cloud-capt tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve;And like some unsubstantial pageant fadedLeave not a wreck behind.

When like the baseless fabric of a vision,

The cloud-capt tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve;

And like some unsubstantial pageant faded

Leave not a wreck behind.

We are come here just in time to see the three last days of the carnival, and very droll it is to walk or drive, and see the people run about the streets, all in some gay disguise or other, and masked, and patched, and painted to make sport. The Corso is now quite a scene of distraction; the coachmen on the boxes pretending to be drunk, and throwing sugar-plumbs at the women, which it grows hard to find out in the crowd and confusion, as the evening, which shuts in early, is the festive hour: and there is some little hazard in parading the streets, lest an accident might happen;though a temporary rail andtrottoirare erected, to keep the carriages off. Our high joke, however, seems to consist in the men putting on girls clothes: a woman is somewhat a rarity at Rome, and strangely superfluous as it should appear by the extraordinary substitutes found for them on the stage: it is more than wonderful to see great strong fellows dancing the women’s parts in these fashionable dramas, pastoral and heroic ballets as they call them.Sopranosingers did not so surprise me with their feminine appearance in the Opera; but these clumsyfigurantes! all stout, coarse-looking men, kicking about in hooped petticoats, were to me irresistibly ridiculous: the gentlemen with me however, both Italians and English, were too much disgusted to laugh, whilela premiere danseuseacted the coquet beauty, or distracted mother, with a black beard which no art could subdue, and destroyed every illusion of the pantomime at a glance. All this struck nobody but us foreigners after all; tumultuous and oftentenderapplauses from the pit convinced us oftheir heart-feltapprobation! and in the parterre fat gentlemen much celebrated at Rome for their taste and refinement.

As their exhibition did not please our party, notwithstanding its singularity, we went but once to the theatre, except when a Festa di Ballo was advertised to begin at eleven o’clock one night, but detained the company waiting on its stairs for two hours at least beyond the time: for my own part I was better amusedoutsidethe doors, thanin. Masquerades can of themselves give very little pleasure except when they are new things. What was most my delight and wonder to observe, was the sight of perhaps two hundred people of different ranks, all in my mind strangely ill-treated by a nobleman; who having a private supper in the room, prevented their entrance who paid for admission; all mortified, all crowded together in an inconvenient place; all suffering much from heat, and more from disappointment; yet all in perfect good humour with each other, and with the gentleman who detained in longing and ardent, but not impatiently-expressed expectation, such a number ofRomans: who, as I could not avoid remarking, certainly deserve to rule over all the world once more, if, as we often read in history,commandis to be best learned from the practice ofobedience.

The masquerade was carried on when we had once begun it, with more taste and elegance here, than either at Naples or Milan; so it was at Florence, I remember; more dresses of contrivance and fancy being produced. We had a very pretty device last night, of a man who pretended to carry statues about as if for sale: the gentlemen and ladies who personated the figures were incomparable from the choice of attitudes, and skill in colouring; butil carnovale è morto, as the women of quality told us last night from their coaches, in which they carried little transparent lanthorns of a round form, red, blue, green, &c. to help forward the shine; and these they throw at each other as they did sugar plums in the other towns, while the millions of small thin bougie candles held in every hand, and stuck up at every balcony, make theStrada del Popoloas light as day, and produce a wonderfully pretty effect, gay, natural, and pleasing.

The unstudied hilarity of Italians is very rejoicing to the heart, from one’s consciousness that it is the result of cheerfulness really felt, not a mere incentive to happiness hoped for. The death of Carnovale, who was carried to his grave with so many candles suddenly extinguishedat twelve o’clock last night, has restored us to a tranquil possession of ourselves, and to an opportunity of examining the beauties of nature and art that surround one.

St. Peter’s church is incontestably the first object in this city, so crowded with single figures: That this church should be built in the form of a Latin cross instead of a Greek one may be wrong for ought I know; that columns would have done better than piers inside, I do not think; but that whatever has been done by man might have been done better, if that is all the critics want, I readily allow. This church is, after all their objections, nearer to perfect than any other building in the world; and when Michael Angelo, looking at the Pantheon, said, “Is this the best our vaunted ancestors could do? If so, I will shew the advancement of the art, in suspending a dome of equal size to this up in the air.” he made a glorious boast, and was perhaps the only person ever existing who could have performed his promise.

The figures of angels, or rather cherubims, eight feet high, which support the vases holding holy water, as they are made after the form of babies, do perfectly and closely represent infants of eighteen or twenty monthsold; nor till one comes quite close to them indeed, is it possible to discern that they are colossal. This is brought by some as a proof of the exact proportions kept, and of the prodigious space occupied, by the area of this immense edifice; and urged by others, as a peculiarity of thehumanbody to deceive so at a distance, most unjustly; for one is surprised exactly in the same manner by the doves, which ornament the church in various parts of it.Theylikewise appear of the natural size, and completely within one’s reach upon entering the door, but soon as approached, recede to a considerable height, and prove their magnitude nicely proportioned to that of the angels and other decorations.

The canopied altar, and its appurtenances, are likewise all colossal I think, when they tell me of four hundred and fifty thousand pounds weight of bronze brought from the Pantheon, and used to form the wreathed pillars which support, and the torses that adorn it. Yet airy lightness and exquisite elegance are the characteristics of the fabric, not gloomy greatness, or heavy solidity. How immense then must be the space itstands on! four hundred and sixty-seven of my steps carried me from the door to the end. Warwick castle would be contained in its middleaisle. Here are one hundred and twenty silver lamps, each larger than I could lift, constantly burning round the altar; and one never sees either them, or the light they dispense, till forced upon the observation of them, so completely are they lost in the general grandeur of the whole. In short, with a profusion of wealth that astonishes, and of splendour that dazzles, as soon as you enter on an examination of its secondary parts, every man’sfirstimpression at entering St. Peter’s church, must be surprise at seeing it so clear of superfluous ornament. This is the true character of innate excellence, thesimplex munditiis, orfreedom from decoration; the noble simplicity to which no embellishment can add dignity, but seems a mere appendage. Getting on the top of this stupendous edifice, is however the readiest way to fill one’s mind with a deserving notion of its extent, capacity, and beauty; nor is any operation easier, so happily contrived is the ascent. Contrivance here is an ill-chosen word too, so luminous so convenient is thewalk, so spacious the galleries beside, that all idea of danger is removed, when you perceive that even round the undefended cornice, our king’s state coach might be most safely driven.

The monuments, although incomparable, scarcely obtain a share of your admiration for the first ten times of your surveying the place; Guglielmo della Porta’s famous figure, supporting that dedicated to the memory of Paul the Third, was found so happy an imitation of female beauty by some madman here however, that it is said he was inflamed with a Pigmalion-like passion for it, of which the Pontiff hearing, commanded the statue to be draped. The steps at almost the end of this church we have all heard were porphyry, and so they are; how many hundred feet long I have now forgotten:—no matter; what I have not forgotten is, that I thought as I looked at them—why so theyshouldbe porphyry—and that was all. While the vases and cisterns of the same beautiful substance at Villa Borghese attracted my wonder; and Clement X.’s urn at St. John de Lateran, appeared to me an urn fitter for the ashes of an Egyptian monarch, Busiris or Sesostris,than for a Christian priest or sovereign, since universal dominion has been abolished. Nothing, however,canlook very grand in St. Peter’s church; and though I saw the general benediction given (I hope partook it) upon Easter day, my constant impression was, that the people were below the place; no pomp, no glare, no dove and glory on the chair of state, but what looked too little for the area that contained them. Sublimity disdains to catch the vulgar eye, she elevates the soul; nor can long-drawn processions, or splendid ceremonies, suffice to content those travellers who seek for images that never tarnish, and for truths that never can decay. Pius Sextus, in his morning dress, paying his private devotions at the altar, without any pageantry, and with very few attendants, struck me more a thousand and a thousand times, than when arrayed in gold, in colours, and diamonds, he was carried to the front of a balcony big enough to have contained the conclave; and there, shaded by two white fans, which, though really enormous, looked no larger than that a girl carries in her pocket, pronounced words which on account of the height they came from were difficult to hear.

All this is known and felt by the managers of these theatrical exhibitions so certainly, that they judiciously confine great part of them to theCapella Sestini, which being large enough to impress the mind with its solemnity, and not spacious enough for the priests, congregation, and all, to be lost in it, is well adapted for those various functions that really make Rome a scene of perpetual gala during the holy week; which an English friend here protested to me he had never spent with so little devotion in his life before. Themisererehas, however, a strong power over one’s mind—the absence of all instrumental music, the steadiness of so many human voices, the gloom of the place, the picture of Michael Angelo’s last judgment covering its walls, united with the mourning dress of the spectators—is altogether calculated with great ingenuity to give a sudden stroke to the imagination, and kindle that temporary blaze of devotion it is wisely enough intended to excite: but even this has much of its effect destroyed, from the admission of too many people: crowd and bustle, and struggle for places, leave no room for any ideas to rangethemselves, and least of all, serious ones: nor would the opening of our sacred music in Westminster Abbey, when nine hundred performers join to celebrateMessiah’s praises, make that impression which it does upon the mind, were not the king, and court, and all the audience, as still as death, when the first note is taken.

The ceremony of washing the pilgrims feet is a pleasing one: it is seen in high perfection here at Rome; where all that the pope personally performs is done with infinite grace, and with an air of mingled majesty and sweetness, difficult to hit, but singularly becoming in him, who is both priest of God, and sovereign of his people.

But how, said Cyrus, shall I make men think me more excellent than themselves?By being really so, replies Xenophon, putting his words into the mouth of Cambyses. Pius Sextus takes no deeper method I believe, yet all acknowledge his superiour merit: No prince can less affect state, nor no clergyman can less adopt hypocritical behaviour. The Pope powders his hair like any other of the Cardinals, and is, it seems, the first who has ever done so. When he takes the air it is ina fashionable carriage, with a few, a very few guards on horseback, and is by no means desirous of making himself a shew. Now and then an old woman begs his blessing as he passes; but I almost remember the time when our bishops of Bangor and St. Asaph were followed by the country people in North Wales full as much or more, and with just the same feelings. One man in particular we used to talk of, who came from a distant part of our mountainous province, with much expence in proportion to his abilities, poor fellow, and terrible fatigue; he was a tenant of my father’s, who asked him how he ventured to undertake so troublesome a journey? It was to get my good Lord’s blessing, replied the farmer,I hope it will cure my rheumatism. Kissing the slipper at Rome will probably, in a hundred years more, be a thing to be thus faintly recollected by a few very old people; and it is strange to me it should have lasted so long. No man better knows than the present learned and pious successor of St. Peter, that St. Peter himself would permit no act of adoration to his own person; and that he severely reproved Cornelius for kneeling to him, charging him to rise and stand upon his feet, addingthese remarkable words,seeing I also am a man[13]. Surely it will at last be found out among them that such a ceremony is inconsistent with the Pope’s character as a Christian priest, however it may suit state matters to continue it in the character of a sovereign. The road he is now making on every side his capital to facilitate foreigners approach, the money he has laid out on the conveniencies of the Vatican, the desire he feels of reforming a police much in want of reformation, joined to an immaculate character for private virtue and an elegant taste for the fine arts, must make every one wish for a long continuance of his health and dignity; though the wits and jokers, when they see his arms up, as they are often placed in galleries, &c. about the palace, and consist of a zephyr blowing on a flower, a pair of eagle’s wings, and a few stars, have invented this Epigram, to say that when the Emperor has got his eagle back, the King of France his fleurs de lys, and the stars are gone to heaven, Braschi will have nothing left him but thewind:

Redde aquilam Cæsari, Francorum lilia regi,Sydera redde polo, cætera Brasche tibi.

Redde aquilam Cæsari, Francorum lilia regi,

Sydera redde polo, cætera Brasche tibi.

These verses were given me by an agreeable Benedictine Friar, member of a convent belonging to St. Paul’sfuor delle mura; he was a learned man, a native of Ragusa, had been particularly intimate with Wortley Montague, whose variety of acquirements had impressed him exceedingly.

He shewed us the curiosities of his church, the finest in Rome next to St. Peter’s, and had silver gates; but the plating is worn off and only the brass remains. There is an old Egyptian candlestick above five feet high preserved here, and many other singularities adorn the church. The Pillars are 136 in number, all marble, and each consisting of one unjoined and undivided piece; 40 of these are fluted, and two which did belong to a temple of Mars are seven feet and a half each in diameter. Here is likewise the place where Nero ran for refuge to the house of his freed-man, and in the cloister a stone, with this inscription on it,

Hoc specus accepit post aurea tecta Neronem[14].

Here is an altar supported by four pillars of red porphyry, and here are the pictures of all the popes; St. Peter first, and our present Braschilast. It has given much occasion for chat that there should now be no room left to hang a successor’s portrait, and that he who now occupies the chair is painted in powdered hair and a white head-dress, such as he wears every day, to the great affliction of his courtiers, who recommended the usual state diadem; but “No, no,” said he, “there have beenred cap Popesenough, mine shall be only white,” andwhite it is.

This beautiful edifice was built by the Emperor Theodosius, and there is an old picture at the top, of our Saviour giving the benediction in the form that all the Greek priests give it now. Apropos, there have been many sects of Oriental Christians dropt into the Church of Rome within these late years; a very venerable old Armenian says Greek mass regularly in St. Peter’s church every day before one particular altar; his long black dress and white beard attracted much of my notice; he saw it did, and now whenever we meet in the street by chance he kindly stands still to bless me. But the Syriac or Maronites have a church to themselves just by theBocca della Verita; and extremely curious we thought it to see their ceremonies upon Palm Sunday, when their aged patriarch, notless than ninety-three years old, and richly attired with an inconvenient weight of drapery, and a mitre shaped like that of Aaron in our Bibles exactly, was supported by two olive coloured orientals, while he pronounced a benediction on the tree that stood near the altar, and was at least ten feet high. The attendant clergy, habited after their own eastern taste, and very superbly, had broad phylacteries bound on their foreheads after the fashion of the Jews, and carried long strips of parchment up and down the church, with the law written on them in Syriac characters, while they formed themselves into a procession and led their truly reverend principal back to his place. An exhibition so striking, with the view of many monuments round the walls, sacred to the memory of such, and such a bishop of Damascus, gave so strong an impression of Asiatic manners to the mind, that one felt glad to find Europe round one at going out again. One of the treasures much renowned in it we have seen to-day, the transfiguration painted by Rafaelle; it was thefirstthing the Emperordidvisit when he came to Rome, and so a Franciscan Friar who shews it, told us. He saw a gentleman walk into church it seems, and leaving his friendsat dinner, went out to converse with him. “Pull aside the curtain, Sir,” said the stranger, “for I am in haste to see this master-piece of your immortal Raphael.” I was as willing to be in a hurry as he, says the Friar, and observed how fortunate it was for us that it could not be moved, otherwise we had lost it long ago; for, Sir, said I, they would have carried it away from poorMonte Citoriato some finer temple long ago; though, let me tell you, this is an elegant Doric building too, and one of Bramante’s best works, much admired by the English in particular. I hope, if it please God now that I should live but a very little longer, I may have the honour of shewing itthe Emperor. “Is he expected?” enquired the gentleman. “Every day, Sir,” replies the Friar. “Andwell now,” cries the foreigner, “what sort of a man do you expect to see?” “Why, Sir, you seem a traveller, didyouever see him?” quoth the Franciscan. “Yes, sure, my good friend, very often indeed, he is as plain a man as myself, has good intentions, and an honest heart; and I think you would like him if you knew him, because he puts nobody out of their way.”

This dialogue, natural and simple, had taken such hold of our goodreligieux’s fancy, that not a word would he say about the picture, while his imagination was so full of the prince, and of his own amazement at the salutation of his companions, when returning to the refectory;—“Why, Gaetano,” cried they, “thou hast been conversing withCæsar:”—I too liked the tale, because it was artless, and because it was true. But the picture surpasses all praise; the woman kneeling on the fore-ground, her back to the spectators, seems a repetition of the figure in Raphael’s famous picture of the Vatican on fire, that is shewn in the chambers called particularly by his name; where the personifications of Justice and Meekness, engraved by Strange, seize one’s attention very forcibly; it is observable, that the first is every body’s favourite in the painting, the last in the engraving.

Raphael’s Bible, as one of the long galleries is comically called by the connoisseurs, breaks one’s neck to look at it. The stories, beginning with Adam and Eve, are painted in small compartments; the colouring as vivid now as if it were done last week; and thearabesquesso gay and pretty, they are very often represented on fans; and we have fine engravings in England of all, yet, though exquisitely done, they give one somehow a false notion of the whole: so did Piranesi’s prints too, though invaluable, when considered by themselves as proofs of the artist’s merit. His judicious manner, however, of keeping all coarse objects from interfering with the grand ones, though it mightily increases the dignity, and adds to the spirit of his performance, is apt to lead him who wishes for information, into a style of thinking that will at last produce disappointment as to general appearances, which here at Rome is really disproportionate to the astonishing productions of art contained within its walls.

But I must leave this glorious Vatican, with the perpetual regret of having seen scarcely any thing of its invaluable library, except the prodigious size and judicious ornaments of it: neither book nor MS. could I prevail on the librarian to shew me, except some love-letters from Henry the Eighth of England to Anne Boleyn, which he said were most likely to interestme: they were very gross and indecent ones to be sure; so I felt offended, andwent away, in a very ill humour, to see Castle St. Angelo; where the emperor Adrian intended perpetually to repose; but the urn containing his ashes is now kept in a garden belonging to one of the courts in the palace, near the Apollo and other Greek statues of peculiar excellence. From his tomb too, some of the pillars of St. Paul’s were taken, and this splendid mausolæum converted into a sort of citadel, where Sixtus Quintus deposited three millions of gold, it is said; and Alexander the Sixth retired to shield himself from Charles the Eighth of France, who entered Rome by torch-light in 1494, and forced the Pope to give him what the French historians calll’investiture du royaume de Naples; after which he took Capua, and made his conquering entry into Naples the February following, 1495; Ferdinand, son of Alphonso, flying before him. This Pope was the father of the famous Cæsar Borgia; and it was on this occasion, I believe, that the French wits made the well-known distich on his notorious avarice and rapacity:

Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum,Vendere jure potest, emerat ille prius[15].

Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum,

Vendere jure potest, emerat ille prius[15].

This Castle St. Angelo went once, I believe, under the name of the Ælian Bridge, when the emperor Adrian first fixed his mind on making a monument for himself there. The soldiers of Belisarius are said to have destroyed numberless statues which then adorned it, by their odd manner of defending the place from the Gothic assaulters. It is now a sort of tower for the confinement of state prisoners; and decorated with many well-painted, but ill-kept pictures of Polydore and Julio Romano.

The fireworks exhibited here on Easter-day are the completest things of their kind in the world; three thousand rockets, all sent up into the air at once, make a wonderful burst indeed, and serve as a pretty imitation of Vesuvius: the lighting up of the building too on a sudden with fire-pots, had a new and beautiful effect; we all liked the entertainment vastly.

I looked here for what some Frenchrecueil,Menagianaif I remember rightly, had taught me to expect; this was some brass cannon belonging to Christina queen of Sweden, who had caused them to be cast, and added anengraving on them with these remarkable words;

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