‘To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.’
‘To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.’
‘To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.’
‘To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.’
A white square villa, or better sort of farm-house, sometimes stared on us from the end of a long, strait avenue of poplars, standing in ostentatious, unadorned nakedness, and in a stiff, meagre, and very singular taste. What is the cause of the predilection of the Italians for straight lines and unsheltered walls? Is it for the sake of security or vanity? The desire of seeing everything or of being seen by every one? The only thing that broke the uniformity of the scene, or gave an appearance of wretchedness or neglect to the country, was the number of dry beds of the torrents of melted snow and ice that came down from the mountains in the breaking up of the winter, and that stretched their wide, comfortless, unprofitable length across these valleys in their progress to the Adriatic. Some of them were half a mile in breadth, and had stately bridges over them, with innumerable arches—(the work, it seems, of Maria Louisa) some of which we crossed over, others we rode under. We approached the first of them by moonlight, and the effect of the long, white, glimmering, sepulchral arches was as ghastly then as it is dreary in the day-time. There is something almost preternatural in the sensation they excite, particularly when your nerves have been agitated and harassed during several days’ journey, and you are disposed to startle at everything in a questionable shape. You do not know what to make of them. They seem like the skeletons of bridges over the dry bones and dusty relics of rivers. It is as if some mighty concussion of the earth had swept away the water, and left the bridge standing in stiffened horror over it. It is a new species of desolation, as flat, dull, disheartening, and hopeless as can be imagined. Mr. Crabbe should travel post to Italy on purpose to describe it, and to add it to his list of prosaic horrors. While here, he might also try his hand upon an Italianvintage, and if he does not squeeze the juice and spirit out of it, and leave nothing but the husk and stalks, I am much mistaken. As we groped our way under the stony ribs of the first of these structures that we came to, one of the arches within which the moonlight fell, presented a momentary appearance of a woman in a white dress and hood, stooping to gather stones. I wish I had the petrific pencil of the ingenious artist above-named, that I might imbody this flitting shadow in a permanent form.
It was late on the fourth day (Saturday) before we reached Parma. Our two black, glossy, easy-going horses were tired of the sameness or length of the way; and our guide appeared to have forgotten it, for we entered the capital of the Archduchy without his being aware of it. We went to the Peacock Inn, where we were shewn into a very fine but faded apartment, and where we stopped the whole of the next day. Here, for the first time on our journey, we found a carpet, which, however, stuck to the tiled floor with dirt and age. There was a lofty bed, with a crimson silk canopy, a marble table, looking-glasses of all sizes and in every direction,[37]and excellent coffee, fruit, game, bread and wine at a moderate rate—that is to say, our supper the first night, our breakfast, dinner, and coffee the next day, and coffee the following morning, with lodging and fire, came to twenty-three francs. It would have cost more than double in England in the same circumstances. We had an exhilarating view from our window of the street and great square. It was full of noise and bustle. The people were standing in lounging attitudes by themselves, or talking loud in groups, and with great animation. The expression of character seemed to be natural and unaffected. Every one appeared to follow the bent of his own humour and feelings (good or bad) and I did not perceive any of that smirking grimace and varnish of affectation and self-complacency, which glitters in the face and manners of every Frenchman, and makes them so many enemies. If an individual is inordinately delighted with himself, do not others laugh at and take a dislike to him? Must it not be equally so with a nation enamoured of itself?—The women that I saw did not answer to my expectations. They had high shoulders, thickwaists, and shambling feet, or thatcrapaudeuxshape, which is odious to see or think of. The men looked better, and I saw little difference between them and the English, except a greater degree of fire and spirit. The priests had many of them (both here and at Turin) fine faces, with a jovial expression of good humour and good living, or of subtle thought and painful watching, studious to keep the good things that enriched the veins and pampered the pride of the brotherhood. Here we saw the whole market-place kneel down as the host passed by. Being Carnival time, high mass was celebrated at the principal churches, andMoses in Egyptwas given at the Opera in the evening. The day before, as we entered Parma in the dusk, we saw a procession of flambeaux at a distance, which denoted a funeral. The processions are often joined by persons of the highest quality in disguise, who make a practice of performing penance, or expiating some offence by attending the obsequies of the dead. This custom may be ridiculed as superstitious by an excess of Protestant zeal; but the moralist will hardly blame what shews a sense of human infirmity, and owns something ‘serious in mortality;’ and is besides freed from the suspicion of ostentation or hypocrisy. Lord Glenallan, in ‘The Antiquary,’ has been censured on the same principle, as an excrescence of morbid and superannuated superstition.Honi soit qui mal y pense.When human nature is no longer liable to such misfortunes, our sympathy with them will then be superfluous—we may dry up our tears, and stifle our sighs. In the mean time, they who enlarge our sympathy with others, or deepen it for ourselves from lofty, imaginary sources, are the true teachers of morality, and benefactors of mankind, were they twenty times tools and Tories. It is not the shutting up of hospitals, but the opening of the human heart, that will lead to the regeneration of the world[38]!
It was at Parma I first noticed the women looking out of the windows (not one or two stragglers, but two or three from every house) where they hang like signs or pictures, stretching their necks out, or confined, like children by iron bars, often with cushions to lean upon,scaldalettosdangling from their hands (another vile custom). This seems to shew a prodigious predominance of theorgan of sight, or a want of something to do or to think of. In France, the passion of the women is not to see, but to talk. In Hogarth, you perceive some symptoms of the same prurience of the optic nerve, and willingness to take in knowledge at the entrance of the eyes. It certainly has a great look of ignorance, indolence, and vulgarity. In summer time, perhaps, the practice might be natural—in winter, the habit is quite unaccountable. I thought, atfirst, it might be one of the abuses of the Carnival; but the Carnival is over, and the windows are still lined with eyes and heads—that do not like the trouble of putting on a cap.
We were told we could see her Majesty at mass, (so her dutiful subjects call the Archduchess) and we went to see the daughter of a sovereign, the self-devoted consort of one who only lost himself by taking upon him a degrading equality with Emperors and Kings. We had a Cicerone with us, who led us, without ceremony, to a place in the chapel, where we could command a full view of Maria Louisa, and which we made use of without much reserve. She knelt, or stood, in the middle of a small gallery, with attendants, male and female, on each side of her. We saw her distinctly for several minutes. She has full fair features, not handsome, but with a mild, unassuming expression, tinged with thoughtfulness. She appears about forty; she seemed to cast a wistful look at us, being strangers and English people—
‘Methought she looked at us—So every one believes, that sees a Duchess!’—Old Play.
‘Methought she looked at us—So every one believes, that sees a Duchess!’—Old Play.
‘Methought she looked at us—So every one believes, that sees a Duchess!’—Old Play.
‘Methought she looked at us—
So every one believes, that sees a Duchess!’—Old Play.
There are some not very pleasant rumours circulated of her. She must have had something of the heroine of the Cid about her. She married the man who had conquered her father. She is said to have leaned on the Duke of Wellington’s arm. After that, she might do whatever she pleased. Perhaps these stories are only circulated to degrade her; or, perhaps, a scheme may have been laid to degrade her in reality, by the persons nearest to her, and most interested in, but most jealous of, her honour! We were invited to see the cradle of the little Napoleon, which I declined; and we then went to see the new gallery which the Archduchess has built for her pictures, in which there is a bust of herself, by Canova. Here I saw a number of pictures, and among others the Correggios and the celebrated St. Jerome, which I had seen at Paris. I must have been out of tune; for my disappointment and my consequent mortification were extreme. I had never thought Correggio a God; but I had attributed this to my own inexperience and want of taste, and I hoped by this time to have ripened into that full idolatry of him expressed by Mengs and others. Instead of which, his pictures (they stood on the ground without frames, and in a bad light) appeared to be comparatively mean, feeble, and affected. There is the master-hand, no doubt, but tremulous with artificial airs—beauty and grace carried to a pitch of quaintness and conceit—the expression of joy or woe, but lost in a doting contemplation of its own ecstasy or agony, and after being raised to the height of truth and nature, hurried over the brinkof refinement into effeminacy, by a craving after impossibilities, and a wanton dalliance with theideal. Correggio has painted the wreathed smile of sweetness, but he does not stop till he has contorted it into affectation; he has expressed the utmost distress and despondency of soul, but it is the weakness of suffering without the strength. His pictures are so perfect and delicate, that ‘the sense aches at them;’ and in his efforts after refinement, he has worked himself up into a state of languid, nervous irritability, which is reflected back upon the spectator. These remarks appeared to me applicable in their full force to the St. Jerome, the Taking down from the Cross, and the Martyrdom of St. Placide, in which there is an executioner with his back turned, in achiaro-scuroof the most marvellous clearness and beauty. In all these there is a want of manly firmness and simplicity. He might be supposed to have touched, at some period of his progress, on the highest point of excellence, and then to have spoiled all by a wish to go farther, without knowing how or why. Perhaps modesty, or an ignorance of what others had done, or of what the art could do, was at the foundation of this, and prevented him from knowing where to stop. Perhaps he had too refined and tender a susceptibility, or ideas of sanctity and sweetness beyond the power of his art to express; and in the attempt to reconcile the mechanical andideal, failed from an excess of feeling! I saw nothing else to please me, and I was sorry I had come so far to have my faith in great names and immortal works misgive me. I was ready to exclaim, ‘Oh painting! I thought thee a substance, and I find thee a shadow!’ There was, however, aCrowning of the Virgin, a fresco (by Correggio) from the Church of St. Paul, which was full of majesty, sweetness, and grace; and in this, and the heads of boys and fawns, in theChase of Diana, there is a freedom and breadth of execution, owing to the mode in which they were painted, and which makes them seem pure emanations of the mind, without anything overdone, finical, or little. The cupola of St. Paul’s, painted by Correggio in fresco, is quite destroyed, or the figures flutter in idle fragments from the walls. Most of the other pictures in this church were in a tawdry, meretricious style. I was beginning to think that painting was not calculated for churches, coloured surfaces not agreeing with solid pillars and masses of architecture, and also that Italian art was less severe, and more a puppet-show business than I had thought it. I was not a little tired of the painted shrines and paltry images of the Virgin at every hundred yards as we rode along. But if my thoughts were veering to this cheerless, attenuated speculation of nothingness and vanity, they were called back by the sight of the Farnese Theatre—the noblest and most striking monument I have seen ofthe golden age of Italy. It was built by one of the Farnese family about the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and would hold eight thousand spectators. It is cold, empty, silent as the receptacles of the dead. The walls, roofs, rafters, and even seats, remain perfect; but the tide of population and of wealth, the pomp and pride of patronage and power, seemed to have turned another way, and to have left it a deserted pile, that would, long ere this, have mouldered into ruin and decay, but that its original strength and vast proportions would not suffer it—a lasting proof of the magnificence of a former age, and of the degeneracy of this! The streets of Parma are beautiful, airy, clean, spacious; the churches elegant; and the walls around it picturesque and delightful. The walls and ramparts, with the gardens and vineyards close to them, have a most romantic effect; and we saw, on a flight of steps near one of the barriers, a group of men, women, and children, that for expression, composition, and colouring rivalled any thing in painting. We here also observed the extreme clearness and brilliancy of the southern atmosphere: the line of hills in the western horizon was distinguished from the sky by a tint so fine that it was barely perceptible.
Bologna is even superior to Parma. If its streets are less stately, its public buildings are more picturesque and varied; and its long arcades, its porticos, and silent walks are a perpetual feast to the eye and the imagination. At Parma (as well as Turin) you see a whole street at once, and have a magical and imposing effect produced once for all. At Bologna you meet with a number of surprises; new beauties unfold themselves, a perspective is gradually prolonged, or branches off by some retired and casual opening, winding its heedless way—therus in urbe—where leisure might be supposed to dwell with learning. Here is the Falling Tower, and the Neptune of John of Bologna, in the great square. Going along, we met Professor Mezzofanti, who is said to understand thirty-eight languages, English among the rest. He was pointed out to us as a prodigious curiosity by our guide, (Signor Gatti) who has this pleasantry at his tongue’s end, that ‘there is one Raphael to paint, one Mezzofanti to understand languages, and one Signor Gatti to explain everything they wish to know to strangers.’ We went under the guidance of this accomplished person, and in company of our fellow-travellers, to the Academy, and to the collection of the Marquis Zampieri. In the last there is not a single picture worth seeing, except some old and curious ones of Giotto and Ghirlandaio. One cannot look at these performances (imperfect as they are, with nothing but the high endeavour, the fixed purpose stamped on them, like the attempts of a deformed person at grace) with sufficient veneration, when oneconsiders what they must have cost their authors, or what they have enabled others to do. If Giotto could have seen the works of Raphael or Correggio, would he not have laughed or wept? Yet Raphael and Correggio should have bowed the head to him, for without those first rude beginners and dumb creators of the art, they themselves would never have been!—What amused us here was a sort of wildMeg Merriliesof a woman, in a grey coarse dress, and with grey matted hair, that sprang out of a dungeon of a porter’s lodge, and seizing upon Madame ——, dragged her by the arm up the staircase, with unrestrained familiarity and delight. We thought it was some one who presumed on old acquaintance, and was overjoyed at seeing Madame —— a second time. It was the mere spirit of good fellowship, and the excess of high animal spirits. No woman in England would dream of such an extravagance, who was not mad or drunk. She afterwards followed us about the rooms; and though she rather slunk behind, being somewhat abashed by our evident wish to shake her off, she still seemed to watch for an opportunity to dart upon some one, like an animal whose fondness you cannot get rid of by repeated repulses.[39]There is a childishness and want of self-control about the Italians, which has an appearance of folly or craziness. We passed a group of women on the road, and though there was something odd in their dress and manner, it was not for some time that we discovered that they were insane persons, walking out under the charge of keepers, from a greater degree of vacant vivacity, or thoughtful abstraction than usual.
To return. The Collection of Pictures in the Academy is worthy of Italy and of Bologna. It is chiefly of the Bolognese school; or in that fine, sombre, shadowy tone that seems reflected from sacred subjects or from legendary lore, that corresponds with crucifixions and martyrdoms, that points to skyey glories or hovers round conventual gloom. Here is the St. Cecilia of Raphael (of which the engraving conveys a faithful idea), several Caraccis, Domenichino’s St. Teresa, and his St. Peter Martyr, (a respectable, not a formidable rival of Titian’s) a Sampson, by Guido (an ill-chosen subject, finely coloured) and the Five Patron-Saints of Bologna, by the same, a very large, finely-painted and impressive picture, occupying the end of the Gallery. Four out of five of the Saints are admirable oldMonkish heads (even their very cowls seem to think): the Dead Christ above has a fine monumental effect; and the whole picture, compared with this master’s general style, is like ‘the cathedral’s gloom and choir,’ compared with sunny smiles and the shepherd’s pipe upon the mountains. I left this Gallery, once more reconciled to my favourite art. Guido also gains upon me, because I continually see fine pictures of his. ‘By their works ye shall know them,’ is a fair rule for judging of painters or men.
There is a side pavement at Bologna, Modena, and most of the other towns in Italy, so that you do not walk, as in Paris, in continual dread of being run over. The shops have a neat appearance, and are well supplied with the ordinary necessaries of life, fruit, poultry, bread, onions or garlick, cheese and sausages. The butchers’ shops look much as they do in England. There is a technical description of the chief towns in Italy, which those who learn the Italian Grammar are told to get by heart—Genoa la superba,Bologna la dotta,Ravenna l’antica,Firense la bella,Roma la santa. Some of these I have seen, and others not; and those that I have not seen seem to me the finest. Does not this list convey as good an idea of these places as one can well have? It selects some one distinct feature of them, and that the best. Words may be said, after all, to be the finest things in the world. Things themselves are but a lower species of words, exhibiting the grossnesses and details of matter. Yet, if there be any country answering to the description or idea of it, it is Italy; and to this theory, I must add, the Alps are also a proud exception.
We left Bologna on our way to Florence in the afternoon, that we might cross the Apennines the following day. High Mass had been celebrated at Bologna; it was a kind of gala day, and the road was lined with flocks of country-people returning to their homes. At the first village we came to among the hills, we saw, talking to her companions by the road-side, the only very handsome Italian we have yet seen. It was not the true Italian face neither, dark and oval, but more like the face of an English peasant, with heightened grace and animation, with sparkling eyes, white teeth, a complexion breathing health,
——‘And when she spake,Betwixt the pearls and rubies softly brakeA silver sound, which heavenly music seem’d to make.’
——‘And when she spake,Betwixt the pearls and rubies softly brakeA silver sound, which heavenly music seem’d to make.’
——‘And when she spake,Betwixt the pearls and rubies softly brakeA silver sound, which heavenly music seem’d to make.’
——‘And when she spake,
Betwixt the pearls and rubies softly brake
A silver sound, which heavenly music seem’d to make.’
Our voiture was ascending a hill; and as she walked by the side of it with elastic step, and a bloom like the suffusion of a rosy cloud, the sight of her was doubly welcome, in this land of dingy complexions, squat features, scowling eye-brows and round shoulders.
We slept at ——, nine miles from Bologna, and set off early the next morning, that we might have the whole day before us. The moon, which had lighted on us on our way the preceding evening, still hung over the western horizon, its yellow orb nigh dropping behind the snowy peaks of the highest Apennines, while the sun was rising with dazzling splendour behind a craggy steep that overhung the frozen road we were passing over. The white tops of the Apennines, covered with hoar-frost gleamed in the misty morning. There was a delightful freshness and novelty in the scene. The Apennines have not the vastness nor the unity of effect of the Alps; but are broken up into a number of abrupt projecting points, that crossing one another, and presenting new combinations as the traveller shifts his position, produce, though a less sublime and imposing, a more varied and picturesque effect. A brook brawled down the precipice on the road-side, a pine-tree or mountain-ash hung over it, and shewed the valley below in a more distant, airy perspective; on the point of a rock half-way down was perched some village-spire or ruined battlement, while hamlets and farm-houses were sheltered in the bosom of the vale far below: a pine-forest rose on the sides of the mountain above, or a bleak tract of brown heath or dark morass was contrasted with the clear pearly tints of the snowy ridges in the higher distance, above which some still loftier peak saluted the sky, tinged with a rosy light.—Such were nearly the features of the landscape all round, and for several miles; and though we constantly ascended and descended a very winding road, and caught an object now in contact with one part of the scene, now giving relief to another, at one time at a considerable distance beneath our feet, and soon after soaring as high above our heads, yet the elements of beauty or of wildness being the same, thecoup d’œil, though constantly changing, was as often repeated, and we at length grew tired of a scenery that still seemed another and the same. One of our pleasantest employments was to remark the teams of oxen and carts that we had lately passed, winding down a declivity in our rear, or suspended on the edge of a precipice, that on the spot we had mistaken for level ground. We had some difficulty too with our driver, who had talked gallantly over-night of hiring a couple of oxen to draw us up the mountain; but when itcame to the push, his heart failed him, and his Swiss economy prevailed. In addition to his habitual closeness, the windfall of the ten guineas, which was beyondhis expectations, had whetted his appetite for gain, and he appeared determined to make a good thing of his present journey. He pretended to bargain with several of the owners, but from his beating them down to the lowest fraction, nothing ever came of it, and when from the thawing of the ice in the sun, the inconvenience became serious, so that we were several times obliged to get out and walk, to enable the horses to proceed with the carriage, he said it was too late. The country now grew wilder, and the day gloomy. It was three o’clock before we stopped at Pietra Mala to have our luggage examined on entering the Tuscan States; and here we resolved to breakfast, instead of proceeding four miles farther to Covigliaio, where, though we did not choose to pass the night, we had proposed to regale our waking imaginations with a thrilling recollection of the superstitious terrors of the spot, at ease and in safety. Our reception at Pietra Mala was frightful enough; the rooms were cold and empty, and we were met with a vacant stare or with sullen frowns, in lieu of any better welcome. I have since thought that these were probably the consequence of the contempt and ill-humour shewn by other English travellers at the desolateness of the place, and the apparent want of accommodation; for, as the fire of brushwood was lighted, and the eggs, bread, and coffee were brought in by degrees, and we expressed our satisfaction in them, the cloud on the brow of our reluctant entertainers vanished, and melted into thankful smiles. There was still an air of mystery, of bustle, and inattention about the house; persons of both sexes, and of every age, passed and repassed through our sitting room to an inner chamber with looks of anxiety and importance, and we learned at length that the mistress of the inn had been, half an hour before, brought to bed of a fine boy!
We had now to mount the longest and steepest ascent of the Apennines; and Jaques, who began to be alarmed at the accounts of the state of the road, and at the increasing gloom of the weather, by a great effort of magnanimity had a yoke of oxen put to, and afterwards another horse, to drag us up the worst part; but as soon as he could find an excuse he dismissed both, and we crawled and stumbled on as before. The hills were covered with a dense cloud of sleet and vapour driven before the blast, that wrapped us round, and hung like a blanket or (if the reader pleases) a dark curtain over the more distant range of mountains. On our right were high ledges of frowning rocks, ‘cloud-clapt,’ and the summits impervious to the sight—on our farthest left, an opening was made which showed a milder sky, evening clouds pillowed on rocks, and a chain of lofty peaks basking in the rays of the setting sun; between, and in the valley below, therewas nothing to be seen but mist and crag and grim desolation with the lowering symptoms of the impending storm. We felt uncomfortable, for the increased violence of the wind or thickening of the fog would have presented serious obstacles to our farther progress, which became every moment more necessary as the evening closed in—as it was, we only saw a few yards of the road distinctly before us, which cleared as we advanced forward; and at the side there was sometimes a precipice, beyond which we could distinguish nothing but mist, so that we seemed to be travelling along the edge of the world. The feeling was more striking than agreeable. Our horses were blinded by the mist, which drove furiously against them, and were nearly exhausted with continued exertion. At length, when we had arrived near the very top of the mountain, we had to cross a few yards of very slippery ice, which became a matter of considerable doubt and difficulty.—The horses could hardly keep their feet in straining to move forward, and if one of them had fallen and been hurt, the accident might have detained us on the middle of the mountain, without any aid near, or made it so late that the descent on the other side would have been dangerous. Luckily, a desperate effort succeeded, and we gained the summit of the hill without accident. We had still some miles to go, and we descended rapidly down on the other side, congratulating ourselves that we had daylight to distinguish the road from the abyss that often skirted it. About half-way down we emerged, to our great delight, from the mist (orbrouillard, as it is called) that had hitherto enveloped us, and the valley opened at our feet in dim but welcome perspective. We proceeded more leisurely on to La Maschere, having escaped the dangers threatened us from precipices and robbers, and drove into a spacious covered court-yard belonging to the inn, where we were safely housed like a flock of sheep folded for the night. The inn at La Maschere is, like many of the inns in Italy, a set of wide dilapidated halls, without furniture, but with quantities of old and bad pictures, portraits or histories. The people (the attendants here were women) were obliging and good-humoured, though we could procure neither eggs nor milk with our coffee, but were compelled to have itblack. We were put into a sitting-room with three beds in it without curtains, as they had no other with a fire-place disengaged, and which, with the coverlids like horse-cloths, and the strong smell of the leaves of Indian corn with which they were stuffed, brought to one’s mind the idea of a three-stalled stable. We were refreshed, however, for we slept securely; and we entered upon the last stage betimes the following day, less exhausted than we had been by the first. We had left the unqualified desolation and unbroken irregularity of the Apennines behind us; butwe were still occasionally treated with a rocky cliff, a pine-grove, a mountain-torrent; while there was no end of sloping hills with old ruins or modern villas upon them, of farm-houses built in the Tuscan taste, of gliding streams with bridges over them, of meadow-grounds, and thick plantations of olives and cypresses by the road side.
After being gratified for some hours with the cultivated beauty of the scene (rendered more striking by contrast with our late perils), we came to the brow of the hill overlooking Florence, which lay under us, a scene of enchantment, a city planted in a garden, and resembling a rich and varied suburb. The whole presented a brilliant amphitheatre of hill and vale, of buildings, groves, and terraces. The circling heights were crowned with sparkling villas; the varying landscape, above or below, waved in an endless succession of olive-grounds. The olive is not unlike the common willow in shape or colour, and being still in leaf, gave to the middle of winter the appearance of a grey summer. In the midst, the Duomo and other churches raised their heads; vineyards and olive-grounds climbed the hills opposite till they joined a snowy ridge of Apennines rising above the top of Fesole; one plantation or row of trees after another fringed the ground, like rich lace; though you saw it not, there flowed the Arno; every thing was on the noblest scale, yet finished in the minutest part—the perfection of nature and of art, populous, splendid, full of life, yet simple, airy, embowered. Florence in itself is inferior to Bologna, and some other towns; but the view of it and of the immediate neighbourhood is superior to any I have seen. It is, indeed, quite delicious, and presents an endless variety of enchanting walks. It is not merely the number or the exquisiteness or admirable combination of the objects, their forms or colour, but every spot is rich in associations at once the most classical and romantic. From my friend L. H.’s house at Moiano, you see at one view the village of Setiniano, belonging to Michael Angelo’s family, the house in which Machiavel lived, and that where Boccaccio wrote, two ruined castles, in which the rival families of the Gerardeschi and the —— carried on the most deadly strife, and which seem as though they might still rear their mouldering heads against each other; and not far from this theValley of Ladies(the scene ofThe Decameron), and Fesole, with the mountains of Perugia beyond. With a view like this, one may think one’s sight ‘enriched,’ in Burns’s phrase. On the ascent towards Fesole is the house where Galileo lived, and where he was imprisoned after his release from the Inquisition, at the time Milton saw him.[40]In the town itself are Michael Angelo’shouse, the Baptistery, the gates of which he thought worthy to be the gates of Paradise, the Duomo, older than St. Peter’s, the ancient Palace of the Medici family, the Palace Pitti, and here also stands the statue that ‘enchants the world.’ The view along the Arno is certainly delightful, though somewhat confined, and the bridges over it grotesque and old, but beautiful.
The streets of Florence are paved entirely with flag-stones, and it has an odd effect at first to see the horses and carriages drive over them. You get out of their way, however, more easily than in Paris, from not having the slipperiness of the stones to contend with. The streets get dirty after a slight shower, and the next day you have clouds of dust again. Many of the narrower streets are like lofty paved courts, cut through a solid quarry of stone. In general, the public buildings are old, and striking chiefly from their massiness and the quaintness of the style and ornaments. Florence is like a town that has survived itself. It is distinguished by the remains of early and rude grandeur; it is left where it was three hundred years ago. Its history does not seem brought down to the present period. On entering it, you may imagine yourself enclosed in a besieged town; if you turn down any of its inferior streets, you feel as if you might meet the plague still lurking there. Even the walks out of the town are mostly between high stone-walls, which are a bad substitute for hedges. The best and most fashionable is that along the river-side; and the gay dresses and glittering equipages passing under the tall cedar-trees, and with the purple hills in the distance for a back-ground, produce a delightful effect, particularly when seen from the opposite side of the river. The carriages in Florence are numerous and splendid, and rival those in London. Lord Burghersh’s, with its six horses and tall footmen in fine liveries, is only distinguishable from the rest by the little child in a blue velvet hat and coat, looking out at the window. The Corso on Sundays, and on other high days and holidays, is filled with a double row of open carriages, like the ring in Hyde-Park, moving slowly in opposite directions, in which you see the flower of the Florentine nobility. I see no difference between them and the English, except that they are darker and graver. It was Carnival-time when we came, and the town presented something of the same scene that London does at Bartholomew-Fair. The streets were crowded with people, half of them masked. But what soon took off from the gaiety of the motley assemblage was, that you found that the masks were all the same. There was great observanceof the season, and great good-will to be pleased, but a dearth of wit and invention. Not merely the uniformity of the masks grew tiresome, but the seeing an inflexible pasteboard countenance moving about upon a living body (and without any thing quaint or extravagant in the actions of the person to justify a resort to so grotesque a disguise) shocked by its unmeaning incongruity. May-day in London is a favourable version of the Carnival here. The finery of the chimney-sweepers is an agreeable and intelligible contrast to their usual squalidness. Their three days’ license has spirit, noise, and mirth in it; whereas the dull eccentricity and mechanical antics of the Carnival are drawled out till they are merged without any violent effort in the solemn farce of Lent. It had been a fine season this year, and it is said that the difference between a good season and a bad one to the trades-people is so great, that it pays the rent of their houses. No one is allowed to wear a mask, after Lent commences, and the priests never mask. There is no need that they should. There is no ringing of bells here as with us (triple bob-majors have not sent their cheering sound into the heart of Italy); but during the whole ten days or fortnight that the Carnival continues, there is a noise and jangling of bells, such as is made by the idle boys in a country town on our Shrove Tuesday. We could not tell exactly what to make of the striking of the clocks at first: at eight they struck two; at twelve six. We thought they were put back to prevent the note of time, or were thrown into confusion to accord with the license of the occasion. A day or two cleared up the mystery, and we found that the clocks here (at least those in our immediate neighbourhood) counted the hours by sixes, instead of going on to twelve—which method, when you are acquainted with it, saves time and patience in telling the hour. I have only heard of two masks that seemed to have any point or humour in them; and one of these was not a mask, but a person who went about with his face uncovered, but keeping it, in spite of every thing he saw or heard, in the same unmoved position as if it were a mask. The other was a person so oddly disguised, that you did not know what to make of him, whether he were man or woman, beast or bird, and who, pretending to be equally at a loss himself, went about asking every one, if they could tell him what he was? A Neapolitan nobleman who was formerly in England (Count Acetto), carried the liberty of masking too far. He went to the English Ambassador’s in the disguise of a monk, carrying a bundle of wood at his back, with a woman’s legs peeping out, and written on a large label, ‘Provision for the Convent.’ The clergy, it is said, interfered, and he has been exiled to Lucca. LordBurghersh remonstrated loudly at this step, as a violation of the dignity and privileges of Ambassadors. The offence, whatever it was, was committed at his house, and the English Ambassador’s house is supposed to be in England—theabsenteeshere were alarmed, for at this rate strangers might be sent out of the town at an hour’s notice for a jest. The Count called in person on the Grand Duke, who shook him kindly by the hand—the Countess Rinuccini demanded an interview with the Grand Duchess—but the clergy must be respected, and the Count has been sent away. There has been a good deal of talk and bustle about it—ask the opinion of a dry Scotchman, who judges of every thing by precedent, and he will tell you, ‘It is just like ourAlien Bill.’ It is a rule here that a priest is never brought upon the stage. How do they contrive to act ourRomeo and Juliet? Molière’sTartuffeis not a priest, but merely a saint. When this play was forbidden to be acted a second time by the Archbishop of Paris, and the audience loudly demanded the reason of its being withdrawn, Molière came forward and said, ‘Monsieur l’Archevêque ne veut pas qu’il soit joué?’ This was a hundred and fifty years ago. With so much wit and sense in the world one wonders that there are any Tartuffes left in it; but for the last hundred and fifty years, it must be confessed, they have had but an uneasy life of it.
Lent is not kept here very strictly. The streets, however, have rather a ‘fishy fume’ in consequence of it; and, generally speaking, the use of garlick, tobacco, cloves and oil gives a medicated taint to the air. The number of pilgrims to Rome, at this season, is diminished from 80 or 90,000 a century ago, to a few hundreds at present. We passed two on the road, with their staff and scrip and motley attire. I did not look at them with any particle of respect. The impression was, that they were either knaves or fools. The farther they come on this errand, the more you have a right to suspect their motives, not that I by any means suppose these are always bad—but those who signalise their zeal by such long marches obtain not only absolution for the past, but extraordinary indulgence for the future, so that if a person meditate any baseness or mischief, a pilgrimage to Rome is his high road to it. The Popish religion is a convenient cloak for crime, an embroidered robe for virtue. It makes the essence of good and ill to depend on rewards and punishments, and places these in the hands of the priests, for the honour of God and the welfare of the church. Their path to Heaven is a kind of gallery directly over the path to Hell; or, rather, it is the same road, only that at the end of it you kneel down, lift up your hands and eyes, and say you have gone wrong, and you are admitted intothe right-hand gate, instead of the left-hand one. Hell is said, in the strong language of controversial divinity, to be ‘paved with good intentions.’ Heaven, according to some fanatical creeds, is ‘paved with mock-professions.’ Devotees and proselytes are passed on like wretched paupers, with false certificates of merit, by hypocrites and bigots, who consider submission to their opinions and power as more than equivalent to a conformity to the dictates of reason or the will of God. All this is charged with being a great piece of cant and imposture: it is not more so than human nature itself. Popery is said to be amake-believereligion: man is amake-believeanimal—he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part; he is ever at war with himself—his theory with his practice—what he would be (and therefore pretends to be) with what he is; and Popery is an admirable receipt to reconcile his higher and his lower nature in a beautifulequivoqueordouble-entendreof forms and mysteries,—the palpableness of sense with the dim abstractions of faith, the indulgence of passion with the atonement of confession and abject repentance when the fit is over, the debasement of the actual with the elevation of the ideal part of man’s nature, the Pagan with the Christian religion; to substitute lip-service, genuflections, adoration of images, counting of beads, repeating ofAvesfor useful works or pure intentions, and to get rid at once of all moral obligation, of all self-control and self-respect, by the proxy of maudlin superstition, by a slavish submission to priests and saints, by prostrating ourselves before them, and entreating them to take our sins and weaknesses upon them, and supply us with a saving grace (at the expence of a routine of empty forms and words) out of the abundance of their merits and imputed righteousness. This religion suits the pride and weakness of man’s intellect, the indolence of his will, the cowardliness of his fears, the vanity of his hopes, his disposition to reap the profits of a good thing and leave the trouble to others, the magnificence of his pretensions with the meanness of his performance, the pampering of his passions, the stifling of his remorse, the making sure of this world and the next, the saving of his soul and the comforting of his body. It is adapted equally to kings and people—to those who love power or dread it—who look up to others as Gods, or who would trample them under their feet as reptiles—to the devotees of show and sound, or the visionary and gloomy recluse—to the hypocrite and bigot—to saints or sinners—to fools or knaves—to men, women, and children. In short, its success is owing to this, that it is a mixture of bitter sweets—that it is a remedy that soothes the disease it affects to cure—that it is not an antidote, but a vent for the peccant humours, thefollies and vices of mankind, with a salvo in favour of appearances, a reserve of loftier aspirations (whenever it is convenient to resort to them), and a formal recognition of certain general principles, as a courtesy of speech, or a compromise between the understanding and the passions!Omne tulit punctum.There is nothing to be said against it, but that it is contrary to reason and common sense; and even were they to prevail over it, some other absurdity would start up in its stead, not less mischievous but less amusing; for man cannot exist long without having scope given to his propensity to the marvellous and contradictory. Methodism with us is only a bastard kind of Popery, with which the rabble are intoxicated; and to which even the mistresses of Kings might resort (but for its vulgarity) to repair faded charms with divine graces, to exchange the sighs of passion for the tears of a no less luxurious repentance, and to exert one more act of power by making proselytes of their royal paramours!
The Popish calendar is but a transposition of the Pagan Mythology. The images, shrines, and pictures of the Virgin Mary, that we meet at the corner of every street or turning of a road, are not of modern date, but coeval with the old Greek and Roman superstitions. There were the same shrines and images formerly dedicated to Flora, or Ceres, or Pomona, and the flowers and the urn still remain. The oaths of the common people are to this day more Heathen than Catholic. They swear ‘By the countenance of Bacchus’—‘By the heart of Diana.’ A knavish innkeeper, if you complain of the badness of his wine, swears ‘Per Bacco e per Dio,’ ‘By Bacchus and by God, that it is good!’ I wonder when the change in the forms of image-worship took place in the old Roman States, and what effect it had. I used formerly to wonder how or when the people in the mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and who live in solitudes to which the town of Keswick isthe polite world, and its lake ‘the Leman-Lake,’ first passed from Popery to Protestantism, what difference it made in them at the time, or has done to the present day? The answer to this question would go a good way to shew how little the common people know of or care for any theory of religion, considered merely as such. Mr. Southey is on the spot, and might do something towards a solution of the difficulty!
Customs come round. I was surprised to find, at the Hotel of theFour Nations, where we stopped the two first days, that we could have a pudding for dinner (a thing that is not to be had in all France); and I concluded this was a luxury which the Italians had been compelled to adopt from the influx of the English, and the loudness of their demands for comfort. I understand it is more probable thatthis dish is indigenous rather than naturalized; and that we got it from them in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when our intercourse with Italy was more frequent than it was with France. We might have remained at theFour Nations; for eighteen francs a day, living in a very sumptuous manner; but we have removed to apartments fitted up in the English fashion, for ten piastres (two guineas) a month, and where the whole of our expenses for boiled and roast, with English cups and saucers and steamed potatoes, does not come to thirty shillings a week. We have every English comfort with clearer air and a finer country. It was exceedingly cold when we first came, and we felt it the more from impatience and disappointment. From the thinness of the air there was a feeling of nakedness about you; you seemed as if placed in an empty receiver. Not a particle of warmth or feeling was left in your whole body: it was just as if the spirit of cold had penetrated every part; one might be said to bevitrified. It is now milder (Feb. 23), and like April weather in England. There is a balmy lightness and vernal freshness in the air. Might I once more see the coming on of Spring as erst in the spring-time of my life, it would be here! I cannot speak to the subject of manners in this place, except as to outward appearances, which are the same as in a country town in England. Judging by the fashionable test on this subject, they must be very bad and desperate indeed; for none of that stream of prostitution flows down the streets, that in the British metropolis is supposed to purify the morality of private families, and to carry off every taint of grossness or licentiousness from the female heart. Cecisbeism still prevails here, less in the upper, more in the lower classes; and may serve as a subject for the English to vent their spleen and outrageous love of virtue upon.
Fesole, that makes so striking a point of view near Florence, was one of the twelve old Tuscan cities that existed before the time of the Romans, and afterwards in a state of hostility to them. It is supposed to have been originally founded by a Greek colony that came over with Cecrops, and others go back to the time of Japhet or to Hesiod’s theogony. Florence was not founded till long after. It is said to have occupied the three conically-shaped hills which stand about three miles from Florence. Here was fought the last great battle between Catiline and the Senate; and here the Romans besieged and starved to death an army of the Goths. It is a place of the highest antiquity and renown, but it does not bear the stamp of anything extraordinary upon its face. You stand upon a bleak, rocky hill, without suspecting it to have been the centre of a thronged population, the seat of battles and of mighty events in eldest times. So you pass through cities and stately palaces, and cannot bepersuaded that, one day, no trace of them will be left. Italy is not favourable to the look of age or of length of time. The ravages of the climate are less fatal; the oldest places seem rather deserted than mouldering into ruin, and the youth and beauty of surrounding objects mixes itself up even with the traces of devastation and decay. The monuments of antiquity appear to enjoy a green old age in the midst of the smiling productions of modern civilization. The gloom of the seasons does not at any rate add its weight to the gloom and antiquity. It was in Italy, I believe, that Milton had the spirit and buoyancy of imagination to write his Latin sonnet on the Platonic idea of the archetype of the world, where he describes the shadowy cave in which ‘dwelt Eternity’ (otiosa eternitas), and ridicules the apprehension that Nature could ever grow old, or ‘shake her starry head with palsy.’ It has been well observed, that there is more of the germ of Paradise Lost in the author’s early Latin poems, than in his early English ones, which are in a strain rather playful and tender, than stately or sublime. It is said that several of Milton’s Poems, which he wrote at this period, are preserved in manuscript in the libraries in Florence; but it is probable that if so, they are no more than duplicates of those already known, which he gave to friends. His reputation here was high, and delightful to think of; and a volume was dedicated to him by Malatesta, a poet of the day, and a friend of Redi—‘To the ingenuous and learned young Englishman, John Milton.’ When one thinks of the poor figure which our countrymen often make abroad, and also of the supposed reserved habits and puritanical sourness of our great English Epic Poet, one is a little in pain for his reception among foreigners and surprised at his success, for which, perhaps, his other accomplishments (as his skill in music) and his personal advantages, may, in some measure, account. There is another consideration to be added, which is, that Milton did not labour under the disadvantage of addressing foreigners in their native tongue, but conversed with them on equal terms in Latin. That was surely the polite and enviable age of letters, when the learned spoke a common and well-known tongue, instead of petty, huckstering, Gothic dialects of different nations! Now, every one who is not a Frenchman, or who does not gabble French, is no better than a stammerer or a changeling out of his own country. I do not complain of this as a very great grievance; but it certainly prevents those far-famed meetings between learned men of different nations, which are recorded in history, as of Sir Thomas More with Erasmus, and of Milton with the philosophers and poets of Italy.