BOOKS BEFORE TRAVEL.
ByDORA DE BLAQUIÈRE.
I
haveput together the Latin nations, as well as those of Eastern Europe, for convenience’ sake. Indeed the literature of Italy forms, of itself, one library, and that of Venice another; for there seems no native of any distant country who has not tried his prentice hand on Venice, in some of her many aspects. The American authors have been much attracted by the Queen of the Adriatic. From Byron to Browning, our English masters of poetry have delighted in it, and we must by no means omit theStories of Veniceand other works on it by Ruskin, which will take some time to read. Shelley, Rogers, and Browning—the first-named inEuganean Hillsand the last inIn a Gondolaand many other poems—showed they were full of its spirit and colour.
Howell lived there for many years, and has given usVenetian Life, besidesItalian Journeys,Tuscan Cities, andAlfieriand theModern Italian Poets. Its book-lore, music, and theTechnical History of its Lace Manufacture, glass, ceramics, and architecture, have all been written of in turn by different writers. One of the last and best is Robertson’sBible of St. Mark’s. J. A. Symonds has writtenNew Italian Sketches, andLife on a Doge’s Farm. There is also a delightful new book in A. M. Hopkinson Smith’sGondola Days. Mrs. Oliphant has a book on theMakers of Venice, as well as theMakers of Florence.
In the way of Italian stories, we have Hans Andersen’sImprovisatore, Whyte Melville’sGladiators, and the series of Marion Crawford, beginning withSaracenesca, which are full of older days in Rome, the middle portion of this century. Bulwer too has given usRienziandThe Last Days of Pompeii.Romolaby George Eliot, and many of Lever’s novels, picture for us a Florence which has passed away. Nor must we forgetJohn Inglesant, and its remarkable picture of an Italy in the middle ages. In Italian we have the famous novel,I Promessi Sposi,Marco Visconti, and many much more modern books, including those of Silvio Pellico, Amicis, which are all interesting, and written also in Italian of a more modern style, which has taken on some shades of difference from the French. If you intend going to Italy, you should by all means try to get a few Italian lessons, if only to accustom your ear to the sound of the spoken tongue.
The Venetian school of painters is famous for their colouring. The best known of the great Venetian masters are, Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and Titian; and you must know something of them. The last half of the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth were the great periods of Italian art, and besides Varsari’s great works, you should read Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography; and also a good history of Italian art, such as Crowe and Cavalcaselle’sHistory of Painting in Italy. Nor must you omit to learn something of the early history of music, which has so much of Italian in its origin; and poetry which numbers Dante and Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso, in its ranks. You should likewise understand something of Italian architecture, and of its three schools, Venetian, Florentian, and Roman.
I remember well my own burning desire to learn something of the meaning of the things which surrounded me, and how I devoured everything that came in my way, so that the book list in my note-book and the copious notes surprise me to this day: Sismondi’sItalian Republics, Roscoe’sLife of Lorenzo di Medicis, Sir William Gell’s works, Mrs. Jameson’s books, and the lives of all the painters I could reach in English, French, and Italian.
If we wander away from the more modern side of life in Italy, we are even more interested. The Etruscans and their cities, the early days of Rome, Rome in Christian days, and the wars and tumults of the middle ages, have all in turn swayed the Peninsula, and have all had their historians too. The Etruscans are the most mysterious people of antiquity, and in the Etruscan museum at Florence you will first be able to gauge the artistic products of this ancient people in bronze and earthenware. Their power attained its zenith in the sixth centuryB.C., and you ought to know something about them in order to comprehend better the Roman civilisation.
Next in interest to the Etruscans, to me, were the Catacombs in Rome, and all the Roman monuments there; and you will speedily learn to distinguish the different styles both of architecture and ornament. An excellentHandbook to Christian and Ecclesiastical Romeby M. A. R. Tuker and H. Malleson has just been published in a series of four parts, two of which are now out, and parts three and four will soon be issued in one volume. It is intended to give the visitor a complete historical and descriptive account of Christian Rome in a handy form not at present otherwise available. The first part deals with the wonderful churches and basilicas of Rome, while Part II. deals with the various ceremonies, and Parts III. and IV. with all the monastic orders, the colleges, palaces, etc., in fact, all those particulars that everyone wants to know so much, and finds it so difficult to discover for themselves. This handbook is published by A. & C. Black at a very moderate price, and is being much recommended by the well-known travelling agents, Messrs. Cook and Dr. Lund. Middleton’sRomedeals more with classical Rome, and Story’sRoba di Romawith things as they are. Augustus Hare’sWalks about Romeis very useful, and so are Mrs. Jameson’s great books,Sacred and Legendary ArtandLegends of the Monastic Orders; and also Withrow’sCatacombs of Rome.Rienzi,The Gladiators, theImprovisatore, and Marion Crawford’s novels, all deal with Rome from that fictitious side which is founded on facts; and all of them paint a different Rome. T. A. Trollope’s books on Italy, Leader Scott’s, and the delightful books of Professor Villari and his wife, are all delightful reading, and you will gain an idea of those two wonderful Italians, Giordano Bruno and Savonarola, who were at once patriots, reformers and martyrs. There are, and have ever been, so many Romes, the scenes of which pass before you like those in a drama; and the more you know the more you will enjoy, in your visits to her storied stones. Do you think I am laying too much stress on your study of Rome? When you begin to read you will see that in art, poetry, and literature, in science and in things that made the beauty of life, she has always led the way. But two things you will have to return to England to study, the growth of true freedom and the development of constitutional law; these were of home manufacture.
To understand Italian poets, especially Dante, your knowledge of Italian history must be fairly good, and the study of Italian literature would demand more time, probably, than you will have to give to it. So I will not enter into that subject, but I will advise you to take an Italian daily paper directly you begin your study of Italian, if you do so; for you will very soon be able to spell out a great deal of its contents, and this will aid you in mastering the language. They are fortunately very cheap indeed. My first purchase when I get into North Italy, after passing through the St. Gotthard, and getting near Milan, is theCorriere della Sera(or theEvening Courier) of that city, of which I am very fond, as it is full of general news and is amusing. In Florence and Rome I am very erratic in my choice, and only think of avoiding too fine and close print, and bad paper, as these are often the faults of Italian papers. But at all times there is the delightfulNuova Antologiato be had; and at Lausanne there is theRévue Nationale. Both of these reviews, or magazines, are of the best kind, and the same may be said of theRévue de Deux Mondes. If you can enjoy French, all these can be easily obtained in England, as most libraries take them.
And now I must turn from Italy, as I think you will know quite enough about it for a short visit; and let me hope that you will not be one of the disappointed ones, to whom none of her attractions have appealed, who see nothing of her many-sidedness, and note none of that endless procession of people who made her history through the ages, and understand none of the things which make her everlasting charm. A well-known prelate said the other day, “General culture is sympathetic interest in the world of human intelligence,” and this to me is a definition which explains much of the so-called “disappointment” we hear of to-day.
The books about Spain are legion, and the best of it is that they are also infinitely delightful, so that, while improving our minds, we may do it with thorough enjoyment to ourselves. Here, too, the foreigner has been most bountiful, and has endowed Spanish literature with jewels of research and beauty. To begin only with those of America, we have Washington Irving’sConquest of Grenada, and theAlhambra, Prescott’sFerdinand and Isabella,Philip the Second of Spain, and theConquest of Mexico and Peru. Amicis, also, has a charming book onSpain and the Spaniards, and there are one or two, not very new, but exceedingly interesting, by the Rev. Hugh James Rose, one of them calledUntrodden Spain, and a newer one by J. A. O’Shea, calledRomantic Spain. If we do not read Spanish, we may enjoy Longfellow’s beautiful translations from the Spanish poets, and if we do know it, we may read the great novelist, Fernan Caballero. Perhaps it will surprise you to hear that Spain possesses several very able female novelists, besides the lady I have mentioned, and another one, Emilia Bazan Pardo. In the story of the nations, we haveThe Moors in Spain, by Stanley Lane Poole, which should also be read, and you will find Murray’sHandbook for Spain, a perfect and voluminous guide. There are several others as well. Spain has fewer foreigners than any other European country resident in her borders, and she has the smallest population in proportion to her size. Travelling in Spainwill be of the greatest use to you in cultivating the virtue of patience, and you can, at the same time, take lessons in politeness. If you do not know anything of Italian, you will find Spanish much pleasanter to learn, for the one language seems to act as an extinguisher to the other, in my mind, and I hear others say the same thing, for they are so much alike, and yet quite different. A smattering of Spanish, however, will be very useful to you, as English is not so well known as in other countries. Murray’sHandbookwas written by Richard Ford, and he has also writtenGatherings from Spain, and he is the standard authority on everything connected with its study. There is a book by a Miss Thomas, calledA Scamper through Spain and Tangier, which would be useful to those who wish to make a cheap tour in Spain. She visited the chief Spanish cities. Ticknor’sHistory of Spanish Literatureis the standard work on the subject.
Portugal is not one of the very popular tourist lounges, and the ordinary person has a hazy idea of it as connected with port wine, and the earthquake at Lisbon, and has probably heard of Inez di Castro, Vasco de Gama, and Prince Henry the navigator; and the Jubilee of 1887 made us all acquainted with the fact that the Royal Family of Portugal are near relations of our own, as on that occasion the Crown Prince and Princess were seen very frequently about London. Perhaps many of my readers may know also that Camoëus is the great Portuguese poet, who was the author of theLusiad, a poem which has received such recognition in England that it has been translated four times, the last time by Adamson, who wrote a biography of the poet, and the late Lord Strangford translated some of his minor poems. The only really good book on general Portuguese history is that in “The Story of the Nations Series” by H. M. Stephens. There is also a book by W. A. Salisbury,Portugal and its People, which is a popular work and well compiled.Round the Calendar in Portugalis a book by Oswald Crawford, which I have enjoyed very much, but I think that there is plenty of room for another or even two or three more about Portugal, which perhaps some of my girl-readers would like to undertake.
Amongst Mrs. Pennell’s delightful books, the whole of which are worth reading, is one dealing with Hungary and Roumania, which is calledGipsyland; and Mrs. Elliot has aDiary of an Idle Woman in Constantinople. There are one or two lives of Carmen Sylva, the Queen of Roumania.
Egypt has had plenty of explorers, and I think you will enjoy Wilkinson’sManners and Customs, Mariette Bey’s writings, and Miss Edwards’ delightful books. Then there is Lane’sModern Egyptians, and as a really delightful thing you had better read Miss Gates’ book, theChronicles of the Cid. Stanley Lane Poole’s book onCairo, and Alfred Milner’sEngland in Egypt, are quite modern works, and Charles Warner has written a very interesting one too. For the Soudan, Major Wingate’s book is a good one, and you ought to be charmed with all those written by Mr. and Mrs. Bent. There are many books on Palestine, but none more useful than Thomson’sLand and the Book, for those who wish to travel through the Holy Land with the Bible in their hands.
And now I think I may leave my task of guiding my readers into such reading of many books as will give them enjoyment in their travels in foreign lands. I have not done more than speak of some of the many works which have interested me, for I find others that have been perused, but which do not seem important nor useful enough to be mentioned. In many Continental cities there are fairly good libraries, from which you can procure books dealing with the city in which you are staying; and if you are a rapid reader, you can do much in the way of skimming-over the ground, and a few photographs will remind you of the objects you most desire to recall.