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LETTERS FROM ITALY AND VIENNA 
 
CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 Printed by Metcalfe and Palmer; 
 
 FOR MACMILLAN AND CO.; 
 
 London : George Bell ; Dublin : Hodges & Smith ; 
 
 Edinburgh : Edmonston and Douglas. 
 
 Glasgow: Jas. Maclehose. 
 
LETTERS FROM 
 
 ITALY AND VIENNA 
 
 ©amfctt&g* : 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1852. 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 Vienna, Feb. 1851. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 Though a straight line is the shortest 
 between its extreme points, yet, if the ex- 
 tremities be Calais and Vienna, the shortest 
 Hue that can be generated between them in 
 time is a grand spiral, that fetches a far com- 
 pass by Hanover, Berlin, and Breslaw,* and 
 comes wheeling up to the Danube with its 
 train of huge and clattering caravans, smoking 
 through every open window as vigorously as 
 from its funnel. If fuel should fail by the 
 way, the " Herr Conducteur" need only re- 
 quire of every German that he should throw 
 his little bundle of cigars into the tender, and 
 billets enough would be forthcoming for the 
 full day's journey. With thirty-eight fellow- 
 travellers in the same carnage, two of them 
 
 * Already modified by the opening of the Prague line. 
 
 B 
 
 V 
 
2 FROM VIENNA. 
 
 ladies, and thirty-five diligent fumists, we 
 carried with us a condensation of smoke that 
 made a rush at the first aperture, and waved 
 through the frosty air in long blue streamers; 
 and when all the sashes were let down upon 
 nearing the final station, the whole train 
 steamed from tender to truck like a steed re- 
 laxing to the goal. 
 
 It was not for the first time that I renewed 
 acquaintance with the light-hearted and light- 
 heeled Viennese. Nous sommes legers, voila 
 tout! was Madame de Stael's concession and 
 defence in behalf of her fellow-citizens, and a 
 hundred times I have made to myself the same 
 apology (though in a somewhat different sense) 
 for this happy race : whom it is impossible not 
 to felicitate on their cheerful temperament, their 
 frank and genial sociability, their natural cour- 
 tesy and kindliness; nor, on the other hand, 
 to take to task for their immoderate love of 
 pleasure. Viennese existence may be defined, 
 at least through the season, to be " life drawn 
 out into a recurring series of dances." In other 
 lands the dance is the bye-play of life, and 
 subordinate to its more earnest purposes : but 
 in a Viennese winter it is one of the prime 
 
FROM VIENNA. 6 
 
 necessaries of being; it is better than meat 
 and drink; and sleep every one would resign 
 at the first touch of Strauss's fiddle. If that 
 son of his father, — I know not how better to 
 designate the man of hereditary minstrelsy, — 
 could be set on the apex of St. Stephen's spire, 
 and quaver forth his Orphean notes to the city 
 that clustered at his feet and to the broad belt 
 of suburbs beyond the encircling Glacis, I sup- 
 pose that in every far and near chamber of 
 the imperial metropolis every fair "locataire" 
 would start upon her feet and dance perforce 
 till he ceased. 
 
 Not having a turn for dancing — any more 
 than Dr. South,* — I was reduced, when nothing 
 better was to be done, to button my English 
 reserve about me, and to wait for the inter- 
 ludes of conversation. One unfailing resource 
 was usually at hand. The votaries of Terp- 
 sichore and Thalia had been startled by a 
 louder voice in 1848, and Politics yet contended 
 
 * One can sympathise -with, this learned and austere 
 Divine in his embarrassment at a Polish reunion. " In 
 this exercise (of dancing) every body joined, and even I 
 myself, tcho have no manner of relish for such unedifying 
 vagaries, had a Madonna put into my hand by the Bishop 
 of Plosko." 
 
 B2 
 
4 FROM VIENNA. 
 
 for the mastery with Pleasure. This had espe- 
 cially been the case in the winter of '49, when 
 the very saloons of the Carnival had resounded 
 with political discussions. I was congratulated 
 by some non- Austrian Germans upon witness- 
 ing the improved and more earnest tone of 
 conversation pervading the cafes since the re- 
 volution. Metternich's government had been 
 too literally paternal; or, if you will — without 
 meaning to impeach the great abilities of that 
 autocratic statesman — maternal. He had treated 
 the people as children, who were to do as they 
 were bidden without asking questions, and then 
 they should have bonbons in abundance. The 
 two great instruments of Government were 
 amusement and bugbears. If any unhappy 
 citizen gave signs that he had outgrown the 
 nursery, and was capable of thinking for him- 
 self, the next great political move was to draw 
 a cordon round him ; to deprive him of pens and 
 ink, and by all means to prevent the infection 
 of reason. " The people must be amused" was 
 the bureaucratic cry. I am sorry to add, that 
 some gentlemen whom I talked with, and who 
 claimed intimate connexion with Metternich's 
 friends, frankly professed the maxim, a The 
 
FEOM VIENNA. 5 
 
 people must be deceived !" They blamed both 
 Metternich and Guizot for their mismanage- 
 ment in not having yielded to the people in 
 words and promised them every thing which 
 they clamoured for. They would have had, 
 they said, ample opportunities afterwards of 
 gradually recovering all they had lost. The 
 people however, at one burst, broke asunder 
 all restraints, and eased themselves of their 
 superiors. They acted as was to be expected ; — 
 the lewder sort like madmen, the better like 
 schoolboys broke loose. They were slowly 
 subdued and brought under the master's ferule ; 
 but they were no longer the children they had 
 been before. Their talk was more serious, 
 their aspirations more manly, their determi- 
 nation deep in the consciousness of growing 
 strength. Development and progress would 
 now seem inevitable, if they be not beguiled 
 by the old bait of immoderate amusement. 
 It is not force and martial law that can per- 
 manently replace the old state of things ; but 
 it will glide in easily and imperceptibly amid 
 a heart-and-soul abandonment to frivolity. The 
 difference is already striking between this year 
 and last. Then there were many c Herr Barons' 
 
6 FROM VIENNA. 
 
 in earnest about the welfare of their country, 
 who are now serious in nothing but in their 
 admiration of the ballet. " It is delightful to 
 hear no more politics," I have heard them 
 say — and they go whirling romid into oblivious 
 felicity in cycles of never-ending waltzes. 
 
 The churches in Vienna are well attended 
 both by men and women, and that much more 
 frequently than in England. For you are not 
 to suppose that the dance interferes with daily 
 diligence in religious observances. It is true 
 that it is not exactly incorporated with them, 
 as in the Jewish and, perhaps, in all ancient 
 religions ; but, as you move sunwards from the 
 northern snow, you would find it extremely 
 difficult to still the saltatorial element of our 
 nature by any stern theories of religion, which 
 did not drive your disciples to vows and a 
 nunnery. The transition from mass to the ball- 
 room, and from the ball-room to mass, a la 
 Louis XIV., alternates here as naturally as 
 night and day. With the Carnival (extending 
 this year to nearly three months), the festivities 
 of the season ostensibly close : but the dancing 
 propensities of the fair Wienerinnen are not 
 to be put down by the regulations of the 
 
FKOM VIENNA. 7 
 
 Church. The substitution of Danubian trout 
 for impenetrable beef, of recherches dishes for 
 plain bouilli) might be borne, (though I have 
 heard the citizens complain that fasting is ex- 
 travagantly dear), and at the close of the Car- 
 nival very many are ready for the confessional ; 
 but the dance survives. At no time in the 
 year, I was told, were private, or perhaps I 
 should say, secret balls so frequent as in Lent. 
 And "why not?" my fair informant added, 
 " since there are no public ones." 
 
 I should say that the feeling universally 
 expressed during this Carnival is, that Vienna 
 is itself again ! as merry, as lighthearted, as 
 saltatorial, as musical, and clean escaped from 
 the seriousness of a revolution. 
 
 One word I must say, before quitting this 
 place, with reference to the army. A finer 
 set of men will not easily be met with. Their 
 frank and just appreciation of the good qualities 
 of opponents, their own self-possessed and un- 
 boastful bearing, their readiness under difficult 
 circumstances to do their duty, and to make 
 no parade of it when it, is done, would do 
 honour to any army. Cheerful in adverse 
 chances, and ungasconading in triumph, and 
 
8 FEOM VIENNA. 
 
 avoiding in social intercourse all obtrusiveness 
 of professional subjects, they are deservedly 
 popular in society, and win the applause which 
 they do not exact. I was in Vienna during 
 the period of the Hungarian war, when they 
 were losing battles, and when the descent 
 of Gorgey upon the Imperial City was within 
 the range of apprehension. I had just crossed 
 the Baden territory, then in a state of in- 
 surrection, and been for a few hours in the 
 hands of the revolutionary rebels ; where I 
 had close opportunities of observing the dark 
 scowling looks and restless ill-conditioned de- 
 meanour that betokened a bad cause. The 
 appearance of almost every one was at once 
 suspicious, ferocious, conscience-smitten, and 
 desperate. But when I found myself among 
 the Austrian soldiery, it was like the transi- 
 tion from a November fog to the sunshine of 
 summer. Every man's countenance was open 
 and honest, and beamed with the consciousness 
 of doing his duty. They were not out of heart ; 
 they were prepared for a long struggle, and 
 quietly confident of ultimate success. These 
 sentiments I heard expressed at a time when, 
 if there were any truth in newspaper reports, 
 
FKOM VIENNA. \) 
 
 they were meeting with numerous disasters. 
 It was pleasant to remark with what respect 
 they spoke of the bravery of the Hungarians, 
 and with what cordiality they admired the 
 military genius of Gorgey. That remarkable 
 man, as he won the confidence of his fellow- 
 countrymen beyond all other leaders, com- 
 manded in like preeminence the respect and 
 admiration of his opponents. At one period, 
 when there was some expectation of capturing 
 him, a saying of General Wohlgemuth's was 
 in every one's mouth — that if he were taken 
 prisoner they would have a difficult question to 
 decide, whether to hang him, or to make him 
 a Field Marshal. But the Fates decreed other- 
 wise, Ato? S' 6Te\€cero fiovXrj. Perhaps in 
 his philosophic retirement in Steiermark, amid 
 the crucibles of his laboratory, he may regret 
 that he ever left the quiet paths of science for 
 a brief and brilliant career of heroism, that 
 went out in darkness: perhaps he may have 
 opened upon the page which he had turned 
 down, when the voice of his country summoned 
 him away, with the self-congratulation that is 
 bitter as reproach — 
 
 " Woe, woe, for Ungarn, not at all for me !" 
 
10 FEOM VIENNA. 
 
 A year later I revisited the Austrian soldiery, 
 when they were wounded and humbled by the 
 aid of Russia. For however this event may 
 be regarded in the distance, it was impossible 
 to hold intercourse with the ober-lieutenants 
 and subaltern officers, without perceiving, in 
 spite of their reserve, how deeply they felt this 
 humiliation. It was similar to that which 
 would have been felt by British troops, if 
 50,000 French had assisted them in putting 
 down the rebellion in Ireland. It certainly 
 balanced for the time any exultation at the 
 successful result. It was as little advisable to 
 speak to an Austrian soldier of the Russian 
 army, as of the field of Waterloo to a French- 
 man. 
 
 But when Hungary and Lombardy were 
 under foot, the attention of the people was 
 turned to the affairs of Germany. The national 
 mind soon recovered its elasticity, as Austria 
 assumed a proud position among the inferior 
 states. Diplomacy and a gigantic display of 
 force gradually trod back her northern rival 
 from all her encroachments, and left to her 
 barely her own boundaries. When I was in 
 Hamburgh in the summer of '50, and saw the 
 
FEOM VIENNA. 11 
 
 town garrisoned by Prussian troops, and found 
 Prussian influence paramount, and heard the 
 citizens speak of Prussia as a flock of doves 
 would speak of the condor that was garrison- 
 ing the dovecot, it seemed inconceivable that, 
 within a few months, the two-headed eagle of 
 Austria should have cowed its black rival in 
 this far northern nook ; that the dark-blue uni- 
 forms should have marched out to make room 
 for the imperial white. But so it is; and at 
 present, from Holstein almost to the gates of 
 Rome, the great breadth of Europe is brooded 
 over by the wings of Austria. How long there 
 may remain any neutral ground between the 
 intruders in Tuscany and Rome, depends I 
 suppose upon moves in Paris. " We have been 
 within sight of the French," said some officers 
 to me, who were returning from Florence, in 
 the tone and manner of those who meant to say, 
 "we wish the time were come to grapple with 
 them." The ill feeling that has been aroused 
 against England by the real or imaginary in- 
 trigues of our Foreign Office in Hungary and 
 Italy, and the exasperation arising from General 
 Haynau's unfortunate affair, are so strong that 
 I cannot doubt but that, if it were the English 
 
12 FEOM VIENNA. 
 
 who had occupied Rome instead of the French, 
 long before now the Austrian would have been 
 at the gates. 
 
 A lion that has tasted blood, and an army- 
 fresh from battle, are in the same mood of 
 pugnacity. Both are eager for a new fray. 
 After the excitements of a real campaign, peace 
 is tame and stupid. The esprit de corps is 
 quickened by keen emulation, the fever-thirst 
 of honour is high, and the fierce delights of 
 danger blend with ambitious dreams of "orders" 
 and promotion in making an army of 600,000 
 men ready to accept battle with any one, or 
 to give it for any cause. They were quite in 
 earnest in braving Prussia, and prepared to 
 march rapidly upon Berlin, if she had not 
 retreated. They (I speak of the soldiers) would 
 be glad to find an English army in any quarter 
 of the Continent, to whom they might shew 
 their opinion of our policy and of the insult 
 which was poured upon their General ; and how 
 long they may be kept from the French depends 
 upon cooler judgments than predominate among 
 the 600,000. 
 
 I give you the impressions which have arisen 
 from conversing a hundred times with officers 
 
FROM VIENNA. 13 
 
 in the cafes and other public places. But 
 the civilians and especially the politicians have 
 other notions. 
 
 This fine but dangerous tone of the army, re- 
 garded merely as a body of fighting men, is 
 due perhaps in good measure to their young 
 Emperor, to whom they are enthusiastically 
 devoted. No one who considers his position 
 can find cause of blame in the prudence which 
 leads him to attach the army to his person. 
 Civilians indeed complain that the army is 
 alone an object of imperial solicitude; that he 
 is less the Emperor of his people, than the 
 Commander-in-chief of the troops. But when 
 he ascended the throne, with two insurrections 
 closing in upon him, he had nothing but his 
 naked sword to lean upon; and he more than 
 any man must know how to appreciate the 
 faithfulness of his army. But it is supposed 
 to be more than a sense of prudence that 
 attaches him to the white uniform. His own 
 tastes are said to be military : he has qualifica- 
 tions that take with soldiers : he throws himself 
 into military duties con amove : he is a father to 
 his army and its master: he sees things done 
 himself: if troops come in by the rail, he goes 
 
14 FROM VIENNA. 
 
 down to the station to receive them; if they 
 leave, he dismisses them in person: the wounded 
 and sick he visits frequently in the hospitals; 
 and some fine morning, when no one expects 
 it, he rides out upon the Glacis and gives 
 sudden orders to assemble 10,000 men around 
 him instantly, that he may see with what 
 efficiency and expedition they can support him 
 in case of need. These things make him re- 
 spected by the ranks and loved, and if he have 
 not high military talents (of which I know 
 nothing), he has at least the heart of a soldier, 
 and is the sort of Emperor whom soldiers de- 
 light to serve. I have often heard subaltern 
 officers express their attachment to him in 
 strong terms, and speak of performing little 
 works of supererogation out of " their love to 
 the Kaiser." 
 
 These, and any other notices of national feel- 
 ing which I may send you, are drawn from 
 intercourse with the natives in their own homes, 
 or in their places of public resort. The fashion- 
 able hotels afford no opportunities of becoming 
 acquainted with the citizens, as they are na- 
 turally frequented by strangers and travellers, 
 not by the natives. An Englishman may spend 
 
FROM VIENNA. 15 
 
 his month in such places, and meet with many 
 Germans, without meeting with one Viennese. 
 In general, I have avoided the resorts of the 
 fashionable, and sought intercourse with the 
 people and the bourgeoisie. Among the middle- 
 class thousands, the native sentiments stand in 
 bold relief, while the aristocratic tens and 
 hundreds are nearly alike in all civilized coun- 
 tries, and too cosmopolitan to be national. 
 
16 FROM VENICE. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Venice, Padua, Bologna. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 In looking over the broad map of 
 Europe, marked deeply with its black arteries 
 of iron, do not be beguiled by the delusion 
 that railroads annihilate time and space. No 
 hours are so tedious as those that are spent 
 upon the rail. The old roomy diligence with 
 its alternations of hill-side and valley, its gro- 
 tesque and amusing array of quadrupeds jingling 
 their bells merrily as in perpetual announcement 
 "the Campbells are coming," its frequent invita- 
 tions to travellers to take a walk ahead, while 
 the cattle were mastering a small gradient; 
 its twenty minutes of procrastination at every 
 poste, to allow you to see the village and 
 gossip with the villagers; its three quarters of 
 an hour, extended to an horn' and a quarter, 
 to enable you to do justice to the rustic table 
 
FROM VENICE. 17 
 
 d'hote, which usually produced something worth 
 observing, even if the bread and braten were 
 too hard for mastication; in short, with its 
 general claim with all its bipeds and quad- 
 rupeds to be an integral portion of the social 
 system of the country, tested perhaps, but 
 amply rewarded, your powers of patient en- 
 durance. The railroad gives you nothing but 
 time. After traversing broad Europe by steam, 
 you know little more of its scenery than if you 
 had passed under it through a tunnel, and no 
 more of its inhabitants than if you had passed 
 over it in a balloon. Express trains will not 
 increase your stock of ideas. One idea is pre- 
 dominant and absolute throughout the day; 
 and that is, the distance from the final ter- 
 minus. From the moment you receive your 
 ticket you suffer a syncope in your existence, 
 till you return it to the official collector. You 
 have nothing to do, nothing to think about, 
 nothing to observe, nothing to learn, till you 
 set foot again upon terra fir ma. Such, at 
 least, was my feeling when I spent two-and- 
 twenty hours in the continuous resignation of 
 despair, ruminating one indigestible problem, 
 " when shall I be at my journey's end." The 
 
 C 
 
18 FROM VENICE. 
 
 old high way, threading villages and vales, and 
 climbing the hills, and running by cottage 
 doors and groups of playing children, and 
 enlivened by a busy population, would have 
 relieved the hours with entertainment, and 
 have given some play to one's human sym- 
 pathies: but these prison-like vans, that keep 
 the same dead level to the end, save, indeed, 
 invaluable time, but leave you nothing to look 
 at more interesting than your watch. 
 
 I must make one exception however (for a 
 few are to be made) for the line from Vienna 
 to Laibach. It has the peculiarity of being 
 sinuous and slow. From Murzuschlag onwards 
 it is nearly as tortuous among the hills as the 
 river Mur. Twelve miles an hour was the 
 top of our speed. But we were richly com- 
 pensated, while it was daylight, by the splendid 
 hill-scenery of Styria, through which the line 
 insinuates itself to Gratz. 
 
 It is worth while spending a day at this 
 place, if it were only to mount the height 
 from which the fortress commands the city, 
 and constrains it to unconditional submission. 
 It rises as a conical mound at the edge of the 
 town, and yields you from its summit one of 
 
FROM VENICE. 19 
 
 those panoramic landscapes which persuade you 
 at the moment that they are the most lovely, 
 the most beautiful, the most enchanting of all 
 that you have seen : till you pass on your way 
 to find, that Nature is prodigal of beauty, and 
 permits none of her children to say, " I have 
 seen all her glory !" The Mur wanders leisurely 
 through the city and across the plain, and gentle 
 undulatious float up from the level, till they 
 crest into distinct hills with great variety of 
 slope and configuration. Chateaux, farmhouses, 
 cottages, and village churches, all dazzling 
 white, are scattered prodigally over the whole 
 scene, — now sheltered in the dells and hollows, 
 and now standing proudly on the eminence to 
 look out on the beauty around them. They 
 are strewn so profusely from the higher de- 
 clivities down to the gates of the city, that it is 
 dubious which are the proper satellites of Gratz, 
 and which are concentric upon their own village 
 church. Far off, on a height by itself, rise the 
 two conspicuous towers of Maria Trost, glisten- 
 ing, in white relief, against a background of 
 dark firs and above a foreground of deep-tinted 
 verdure: whence, beneath a range of sterner 
 mountains that close in the amphitheatre, she 
 
 C2 
 
20 FROM VENICE. 
 
 invites pilgrims from city and village, and from 
 all the neighbouring hills, to pay devotions at 
 her favoured shrine. 
 
 In approaching Trieste from Laibach, a jour- 
 ney to be performed by the Malle Poste, I 
 was interested in observing the change of 
 feature and character now perceptible in the 
 mixed race, that melts into the German on 
 one side and the Slavonian on the other. 
 The highway also was full of life. Eoads 
 which stagger up mountain heights, where you 
 would look for desolation and solitude, are 
 carefully macadamized to bear the crowd of 
 carnages that import the produce of the world 
 into Austria from the Adriatic, or cany the 
 produce of Austria to be shipped at Trieste 
 for exportation. When from some mountain 
 ridge we obtained a view behind us of the 
 ribbon-like road, that folded beneath itself in 
 zigzags to the valley, we beheld a long caval- 
 cade of carts and wagons slowly defiling up 
 the pass. Nor were foot passengers infrequent. 
 The peasants were going to their work of 
 clearing the snow from the elevated roads, 
 clad in very primitive garments of skin with 
 the wool, or fur, turned inwards; and their 
 
FROM VENICE. 21 
 
 wives and daughters, holding their drapery 
 above the snow, stalked majestically along 
 in high Wellington boots. 
 
 The first grand view of the Adriatic from 
 the rocky heights above Trieste makes the 
 heart leap with delight. It lies before you, 
 unless the Sirocco is blowing, fair as a lake, 
 and lapping into the hollows on either side of 
 the towu, where innumerable vessels crowd 
 close to the tongue of land that dips into the 
 bay. The city sleeps far beneath you, as it 
 were at the bottom of an immense amphitheatre 
 of rock, on whose highest parapet you are 
 standing. It will lead you over four English 
 miles to follow the spiral road that lies grooved 
 round the concave till it issues in the port 
 below. 
 
 The Boreas came down from the hills so 
 boisterously upon Trieste, sweeping up every 
 street, clattering at every crazy door, and 
 staggering the pedestrian at every corner, that 
 I should have had some misgivings of hydro- 
 phobian nervousness as to the propriety of 
 committing my "frail bark" to the Adriatic in 
 so tempestuous a gale, had I not learned, that 
 this blustering Boreas was preeminently pro- 
 
22 FROM VENICE. 
 
 pitious to my purpose. He howls over the 
 mountains, but leaves the water scarcely ruffled 
 at their feet. It is only the Sirocco which 
 rouses the Adriatic to dangerous wrath. 
 
 Accordingly we steamed off for Venice in 
 a local hurricane: but once fairly out at sea, 
 it began to relax; then whistled for a while 
 diminuendo, till it whistled itself out into silence. 
 The mountains that lay in a semicircle to our 
 right, round the head of the Adriatic, glistened 
 snow-capped in the sun, and ere long we were 
 running a parallel with the enormous sand- 
 bank that stretches for more than eighty miles 
 its protecting breakwater to the sea. It con- 
 ceals the mainland from view, and bears a 
 few habitations on its surface. But soon the 
 Campanile of St. Mark rose up, like a light- 
 house, behind it; and after steering through 
 the narrow channel that admits a passage to 
 the inner shallows, we found ourselves already 
 at the majestic entrance of the City of Waters, 
 in presence of her domes, and towers, and 
 palaces, and churches, reflected clearly on the 
 unrippled surface of the lagoon. There is no 
 land before you, no cliff or beach : but, to the 
 eye, bright clusters of palaces stand moored 
 
FROM VENICE. 23 
 
 out upon the water; from whose windows the 
 maiden can look smiling down into the floating 
 mirror beneath her. The Dogana, the Church 
 of St. George, and that of Maria di Salute 
 fomi a conspicuous foreground at the junction 
 of the Canale Grande with the della Giudecca. 
 We were already in front of the Doge's Palace, 
 to the right, and looked down upon, from its 
 high column, by the winged Lion of St. Mark, 
 when the spell of admiration was broken by 
 official annoyance. 
 
 The minor tribulations of foreign travel are 
 as bracing to one's patriotism as deeper trials 
 to our moral nature. Before we were allowed 
 to touch shore, three or four officers came on 
 board, speaking nothing but Venetian, and 
 intent upon taking fees over our luggage. 
 I observed that my fellow-travellers were duly 
 armed with zwanzigers for the occasion; but 
 as I happened to possess nothing but Austrian 
 paper, — which is any thing but a douceur to 
 an Italian, — their concentrated virtue exploded 
 upon me. My unfortunate portmanteau was 
 put to the question, to see what confession it 
 would make of heretical and revolutionary pub- 
 lications. My Murray s, and Dialogue Books, 
 
24 FliOM VENICE. 
 
 and Guides to Picture Galleries, were all de- 
 clared to be suspicious. They hesitated for a 
 while over Bradshaw ; turned it gravely this 
 way and that, and opened it in diverse places; 
 but at last decided that it was an ill-looking 
 book, and might possibly contain the statistics 
 of the Inquisition. Even my private account- 
 book was seized, because it had a printed al- 
 manac at the beginning. In short, every scrap 
 of printed paper was confiscated to avenge the 
 indignant virtue of unbribed officials. On the 
 moiTOw I spent some horn's, and sundry zwan- 
 zigers, in recovering my property from the 
 Dogana, and getting it through the censor's 
 office. But at last the sleek censor, smiling 
 at me from head to foot, as an experienced 
 man smiles at a dupe, put me in possession 
 of Bradshaw and the rest, with the satisfactoiy 
 assurance, that they contained nothing con- 
 trary to the faith. 
 
 The external beauty and interest of Venice 
 lie in the prospects from the lagoons and Canale 
 Grande, and in the Piazza San Marco and its 
 immediate vicinity. From the top of the Cam- 
 panile you have a bird's-eye view of the palace- 
 crowded island with its attendant satellites, — the 
 
FROM VENICE. 25 
 
 broad Adriatic to the east, the range of inland 
 Alps to the west, and a single line of rail, 
 straight as a rod, attaching Venice across the 
 lagoon like a pendulum to the mainland. As 
 soon as you leave the Grand Canal, that writhes 
 like a snake through the heart of the city, reflect- 
 ing its princely palaces in picturesque variety, 
 you have the choice of two modes of progression: 
 you may thread, in a black gondola, a network 
 of narrow and dingy channels, between lofty 
 mansions, whose walls are always dank and 
 mould-spotted, and under innumerable bridges 
 that join house to house and gangway to gang- 
 way; or you may plunge on foot into an 
 entanglement of labarynthine allies, just wide 
 enough for a tall man to stretch his arms 
 in; which have never felt the sun, nor seen 
 more than a narrow riband of blue sky over- 
 head. You lose your way inevitably; and, 
 after making as many turns as a statesman 
 in distress, emerge unexpectedly upon a small 
 open plot called a Campo, and then plunge 
 again into the thick of the city, and take your 
 chance of turning up somewhere. The streets 
 proper are all aqueous, and the gondola is at 
 once the carriage, cab, omnibus, and cart. An 
 
26 FROM VENICE. 
 
 old family coach would be as unwieldy here as 
 an elephant ; and the coachman might ferry it 
 all round the inner city without finding a street 
 large enough to get in at. 
 
 The Palais Royal, or whatever its name is, 
 at Paris will give you some idea of the bustle 
 and promenading of the Piazza San Marco, 
 surrounded in like manner with shops and 
 cafes, — but none of its mosaic pavement, its air 
 of Eastern splendour, and the five domes and 
 minarets of its rich and elegant Basilica. The 
 impression which it produces can hardly be 
 exaggerated : its associations of power, of pomp, 
 of pleasure, of decay ; its triumphs and disasters, 
 its glories and its villanies, mingle in strange 
 confusion in the memory, and find, each, some 
 memorial in its present condition. The pillars 
 of the Doge's Palace are sunk knee-deep in 
 the sand, and inch by inch sinking : nor is there 
 much in Venice that seems to hold connexion 
 with the present and the future. It is not in 
 full progress like Trieste, and it is doubtful if 
 even the railroad will put young blood into 
 its old veins. It lives upon the glory of the 
 past; like a race worn out in personal quali- 
 fications, that is proud of the palaces of its 
 ancestors. 
 
FROM PADUA. 27 
 
 The railroad that leads from Venice to dull 
 Padua, after striking across the lagoon to the 
 mainland, is received by a plain as level as 
 the Adriatic, closely set with pollards festooned 
 with vines. At this bleak season of the year 
 they stretch out their bare withered arms to 
 each other across the whole country, and look 
 as if the giants of old time had been suddenly 
 arrested as they were leading a vintage-dance 
 to Pan, and their dry skeletons remain, still 
 clasping each other's hand. A day is well 
 spent in Padua in seeing at least its three 
 great sights. I do not speak of the tomb of 
 its founder, the venerable Antenor ; nor of the 
 bones of Livy, who offended Pollio by that 
 which has made him dear to the Paduans, 
 his patriotic Patavinity : but the trio of sights 
 to which I refer, are Giotto's frescoed Chapel, 
 the Church of Saint Antonio, and the Sala or 
 Hall of Justice. One is hurried through these 
 places by impatient guides and the jingling of 
 vergers' keys: and, sooth to say, the pictures 
 so hastily formed in the mind by sweeping 
 a rapid glance over walls of imagery, become 
 speedily confused, and leave only the recollec- 
 tion of the enjoyment without the power of 
 
28 FROM BOLOGNA. 
 
 distinctly recalling that which occasioned it. 
 But there is one Virgin and Child of Giotto's 
 which I cannot forget. It stands just behind 
 the altar almost level to the horizontal view. 
 The two faces are somewhat nestling together, 
 cheek to cheek, and the Virgin bears that calm 
 expression of unearthly loveliness that looks 
 into one's soul. 
 
 At Ferrara, where I staid but a few hours, 
 I felt little more interest in Tasso's prison than 
 in Antenor's tomb : I could not believe in its 
 identity. I could feel no sympathy with the 
 sorrows of the Poet in a dungeon of brigands, 
 in which he, perhaps, never set foot, and where 
 almost certainly he was not confined. Faith 
 is essential to enthusiasm: and when the Pa- 
 duans really believed that they had discovered 
 the gigantic bones of Antenor and the sym- 
 metrical skeleton of Titus Livius, we can well 
 understand and forgive the reverential feeling 
 that led them to admit into the church the relics 
 of these heathen worthies, as a sort of pagan 
 saints, canonized by fame. But it requires a 
 strong belief to stimulate men to these indis- 
 cretions; and as long as a lurking scepticism 
 remains, the mind cannot lend itself to wonder 
 and emotion. 
 
FROM BOLOGNA. 29 
 
 One is not always in the mood for pictures 
 any more than for poetry. A certain leisure 
 and detachment from material influences is ne- 
 cessary to leave one to those fuller sentiments 
 which swell up continuously and never per sal- 
 tum. Hence it is that I often find greater 
 enjoyment in churches, which, being constantly 
 at hand, can be entered when the soul is in 
 harmony with the higher objects of art, than 
 in those famous galleries which are visited in 
 the whirl and materialism of sight-seeing. One 
 of the greatest enjoyments of Italy is to wan- 
 der about alone from church to church with- 
 out guide or guide-book, and see with your 
 own eyes, and feel for yourself, and drink 
 delight where you spontaneously find it. 
 
 At Bologna, and indeed everywhere in Italy, 
 the passport system is most rigid. Through 
 the whole of this tour> compared with former 
 ones, taken since the revolution, I have ob- 
 served the diminished deference that is paid 
 to my fellow-countrymen. Formerly they were 
 supposed to be a sort of privileged persons, who 
 travelled only for their amusement or informa- 
 tion, and never mixed themselves up with par- 
 ties and politics : but now, as far as my 
 
30 FROM BOLOGNA. 
 
 experience goes, they fare no better than rest- 
 less Poles and revolutionary Frenchmen. I 
 have met certainly with no favour, and at 
 times with bare civility: and I have had oc- 
 casion to observe the difference that is made 
 between the English and the Americans, to 
 the advantage of the latter. At one police- 
 office, upon presenting my passport, I was 
 questioned in a somewhat repulsive and im- 
 perious tone as to my birthplace, object of 
 travelling, &c. ; but when my companion, an 
 American, produced his papers, the counte- 
 nance of the official immediately brightened 
 up, and he replied, " Ah, Monsieur is an 
 American ! the Americans are a good sort of 
 people." This change is due, I believe, to 
 several causes: to the supposed intrigues of 
 Lord Palmerston in Italian affairs; to the 
 treatment which General Haynau received in 
 England, and which, wherever the Austrians 
 have influence, is most deeply resented; and 
 to the British passports which were given at 
 Kome to democratic Italians, in order to fa- 
 vour their escape. The latter was, doubtless, 
 a merciful device: but now every English 
 traveller is paying for it. His papers are not 
 
FKOM BOLOGNA. 31 
 
 taken as a proof of his nationality. He must 
 present himself personally before the police, 
 and not send a valet-de-place as formerly. I 
 have heard Austrians bitterly contrast the pro- 
 tection and more than ordinary deference that 
 was paid to Englishmen with the unredressed 
 insult that was heaped upon their General in 
 England. It is difficult to make them under- 
 stand that with us the government has no 
 power of arbitrary vengeance, but can only 
 put things in course of ordinary law. 
 
 Bologna lies at the bottom of the remotest 
 undulations thrown off from the Apennines, 
 where they subside and die out into the plain. 
 From the top of the adjacent hill, at the de- 
 cline of day, you can hardly persuade your- 
 self, at the first glance, that it is not the 
 broad ocean which is spread out in the dis- 
 tance. The plain is so boundless, so hazy, 
 so blue, so dotted over with white buildings, 
 that look like the crest of waves in the 
 twilight of evening ! The ugly towers of 
 the city do not invite the eye to rest 
 on them, though they crown some of the 
 most beautiful, or more properly, beautified 
 churches that Italy can boast. Francia, Guido, 
 
32 FROM BOLOGNA. 
 
 the Caraccis, Dorainichino, have made them 
 famous. 
 
 I descended the hill and passed through the 
 colonnades of the streets (for in Bologna the 
 principal streets are huilt on colonnades), now 
 dropping in at this church-door and now at 
 that, to see what was renowned in art or ob- 
 servable in the worshippers. It was now Lent ; 
 all the churches were well filled: in several, 
 the holy sacrament was being administered to 
 the laity, and the confessional boxes were most 
 of them occupied. In the latter, however, I 
 observed only one man, with a very lazzaroni 
 appearance, and who, I thought, had, proba- 
 bly, escaped from Passatore's gang to get ab- 
 solution for his spring robberies before opening 
 the season for the summer. The rest of the 
 boxes were occupied by the feebler and less 
 criminal sex. 
 
 There is in all the worship of the Boman 
 Catholics a great mixture of reverence and 
 irreverence. The bowings and kneelings and 
 osculations were numerous; and I could not 
 help looking at one little six-year-old child as 
 if I loved him, who, with a sweet innocent 
 gravity, left his mother's hand as she walked 
 
FROM BOLOGNA. 33 
 
 down the church, and dropped behind for a 
 moment, to give a hearty smack to every holy 
 thing which he passed. On the other hand 
 many made long parentheses in their prayers 
 to retail the news to their neighbours, or to 
 beg for charity of the stranger. One old 
 woman, nearest the altar and just in presence 
 of the priest, was plying her distaif and re- 
 citing her prayers simultaneously. Dogs you 
 might suppose to be sacred animals from the 
 number that frequent the churches; and the 
 baskets of vegetables that stand on the floor 
 would furnish forth a small market. It must 
 also be confessed that the great majority of 
 worshippers appeared to be repeating, mecha- 
 nically, a series of words with the smallest 
 possible attention or semblance of devotion. 
 
 The personal appearance of the men and 
 women in this part of Italy is prepossessing. 
 There are boys and girls in abundance (though 
 often in rags) who would be considered hand- 
 some specimens of their species anywhere. 
 Both here and at Padua the young children 
 are very pretty. The piazzas are sprinkled 
 with little rosy-cheeked brunettes, and black- 
 eyed ragamuffins apparently ripe for any boy- 
 
34 FEOM BOLOGNA. 
 
 ish mischief. They look up into your face 
 with that easy nonchalance and lively im- 
 pertinence, which makes it dubious whether 
 you ought, as a moral disciplinarian, to chuckle 
 them under the chin or to box their ears. 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 35 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Florence, March 1851. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 Four horses and four oxen dragged us 
 up the passes of the nude Apennines, which 
 present, in many places, the wild beauty or 
 desolation. Vegetation is scanty, and the 
 u human face divine " so rarely to be met 
 with, that we were left very much to enjoy, 
 undisturbed, our own meditations along the 
 range of raggedly clad rocks. A miserable 
 " Restoration" by the wayside presumptuously 
 offered us a dinner and made an enlivening 
 change. Two presumable sorceresses, who had 
 occupied the cabin for many years, kindled a 
 fire, and swung over it a mighty cauldron of 
 macaroni soup ; but, whether from natural 
 causes or from malignant conjuration, not a 
 particle of smoke would ascend the chimney: 
 on the contrary it made straight for the door, 
 
 D2 
 
36 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 which was on the opposite side of the dinner- 
 table, shrouding on its way the fair ladies, our 
 fellow-travellers, who showed a little vexation 
 and humour at being thus compelled, unseason- 
 ably, to wear the veil. When we had dis- 
 cussed the macaroni broth, our appetites, 
 though still keen, were baffled by the per- 
 tinacity of the heef- — to speak of it with cour- 
 tesy — for some of us had strange suspicions, 
 and eyed the two gaunt cauldron-women with 
 horror. We tried it with our knives and with 
 our teeth, but so unsuccessfully, that at last 
 we were reduced to look at it with hungry 
 eyes, and wish it were made of a penetrable 
 stuff." The only trait of character that pre- 
 sented itself — and that not peculiar to Italy — 
 was afforded by our coachman, who kept up 
 a lively parley with the postillion, half in 
 earnest half in jest, touching a matrimonial 
 alliance to be arranged between their re- 
 spective families. u Well," he concluded at 
 last, " if you like, I will take your sister to 
 wife : but, you understand, I will be master 
 at home, if not — 
 
 (0 fortunate murium sua si bona norint 
 
 Angliacse !) 
 
 — I give the stick to everybody." 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 37 
 
 If Venice is a splendid spectacle, Florence 
 is the city to live and luxuriate in. Its mar- 
 ble cathedral with its enormous dome (the 
 predecessor and rival of St. Peter's), its rich 
 and tasteful campanile ; its churches, each a 
 treasury of sacred art; its statues and monu- 
 ments; its busy streets, where the throng are 
 moving to and fro for ever ; its pleasant Arno, 
 fretting against its four bridges; the inesti- 
 mable riches of genius in the Uffizii and the 
 Pitti Palace, combine with its pleasant position 
 among the hills to make it one of the most 
 charming cities in the world in which to so- 
 journ for a season. 
 
 On our way hither we had often been 
 alarmed by reports of the bandit II Passatore 
 and his corps. I am told that a few weeks 
 ago not a single carriage passed these hills 
 from Bologna without being stopped and plun- 
 dered. But the grey coats of the Austrians 
 were now visible on the heights, forty of the 
 banditti were already in prison, aud the rest, 
 as we believe, have decamped. The Austrians 
 are now in possession of Tuscany: and, for 
 my part, considering that I was indebted to 
 them for a safe journey, I greeted their ap- 
 
38 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 pearance with pleasure. A great portion of 
 the people have already opened their eyes to 
 the evils of violent revolutions. Nothing has 
 more reconciled them to the idea of having 
 some one to rule over them who can rule, 
 than the exploits of the redoubted Passatore. 
 The specimen they have had of the want of 
 a strong executive has convinced them that 
 they must choose between the rule of con- 
 stituted authorities and the rule of brigands. 
 A state that cannot keep its own subjects in 
 order cannot protect them. As soldiers are 
 removed banditti take their place; just as, if 
 the maritime powers were to dismantle their 
 fleets, the sea would be covered with pirates. 
 And thus it happens that men who would 
 have hated the sight of the Austrian s a few 
 months ago, are now glad to find that some 
 power is at hand to protect them from the 
 plunder of anarchy. The common instincts 
 of self-preservation will lead men to sacrifice 
 liberty, as they always have done, to personal 
 security. 
 
 The begging propensities of the Italians are 
 distressing. That striking parable of the Un- 
 just Steward would, I am persuaded, lose to 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 39 
 
 their minds one great trait of its naturalness 
 from their inability to enter into the Steward's 
 dejection — " to beg I am ashamed !" I was 
 accosted just now, as I strolled out of the city 
 to the Poggia, by a man wrapped in a fine 
 blue cloak and smoking a cigar, which he 
 took from his mouth to inform me that he 
 was the father of four small children, and 
 hoped that I would give him a grazia. A 
 little farther on, having taken some notice of 
 a well-dressed child that was gathering wild 
 flowers, the bonne immediately presented her- 
 self to me, and begged for a few quatrini. 
 It is dangerous to hole at any one, however 
 well he may be dressed; for the chances are 
 that he will take the opportunity of soliciting 
 charity. It would seem that a vast number 
 of well-dressed people are beggars in disguise. 
 In the Uffizii Palace, the room called the 
 Tribune is the centre of interest, unless it be 
 divided with the group of Niobe. Michael 
 Angelo, Kaphael, Guido, Titian, Annibal Ca- 
 racci, Albert Diirer, Correggio, Paul Veronese, 
 and others, form a splendid circle round the 
 five statues in the centre, which are all haloed 
 with fame. I was particularly struck by that 
 
40 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 of the man crouching down and whetting his 
 knife mechanically, while his whole soul looks 
 out to some object before him. Neither this 
 nor the Venus de Medici lose anything by 
 being set in juxtaposition. It is marvellous 
 reality in the presence of mythological beauty. 
 The high Gardens of Boboli, to which the 
 Pitti Palace belongs, present as lovely a scene 
 as one could desire. From the semicircular 
 terrace above, surrounded by a belt of deep 
 verdure, the grounds descend rapidly by ar- 
 tificial slopes to the Palace below, nursing 
 midway a diminutive lake, with its grotto in 
 the centre, presided over by the water-god, 
 and inhabited by Tritons and Naids, that 
 beckon to each other in marble. Urns, and 
 vases, and statues, and fountains are distri- 
 buted about the gardens, which are laid out 
 designedly as a paradise of art. The eye 
 rests for a moment on the magnificent pile of 
 building below, then sweeps over the wide 
 valley beyond Florence whitened with in- 
 numerable habitations, as if a mighty city 
 had been broadcast over the plain. Just op- 
 posite, across the town, rise the bold bare 
 mountains, not as they lie more distantly to 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 41 
 
 the left in continuous ridges, but in grand 
 distinct masses, that billow up against each 
 other. A chasm divides them at one point 
 (through which lies the road to Bologna) 
 from the more verdant eminence to the right 
 crowned with the towers of Fiesole. So many 
 princes and nobles have been won by the 
 beauty of its site, that they have crowded it 
 with mansions and villas. It rises on the 
 view among the neighbouring heights as a 
 mountain of palaces. On descending the gar- 
 dens you have a near panorama of the city, 
 with the lordly proportions of its cathedral 
 and the rich architecture of Giotto's Campanile. 
 In time of fall service the gigantic cathe- 
 dral presents a sight of high interest. Five 
 congregations at least are accommodated within 
 it, and kept in simultaneous operation. On 
 the pavement, just underneath the wide dome, 
 an octagonal parapet, corresponding to its base, 
 encloses the high altar with its officiating 
 priests and a goodly number of worshippers. 
 Other congregations are gathered up the re- 
 cesses before their respective altars, and in the 
 body of the church a larger multitude cluster 
 round the pulpit, beneath an immense awn- 
 
42 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 ing, hung low, and expanded over the whole 
 width of the nave. From the north transept 
 pour forth the voices of a full quire, and in- 
 vite another assembly, without seeming to in- 
 terfere with the devotions of the rest. The 
 broad pavement between these five parties is 
 dotted over with worshippers kneeling in all 
 directions, as they feel more strongly the at- 
 traction of this or that altar. Others vary 
 their position from time to time, either not 
 knowing what saint to choose, or desirous of 
 securing the favour of more than one. 
 
 To me the northern transept was the more 
 attractive. In front of the altar a space capa- 
 ble of containing from two to three hundred 
 people was fenced off from the rest of the 
 church by an oblong partition, half wainscot, 
 half glass. A shallow flat roof projects in- 
 ward round the partition, and, supported by 
 slight pillars, forms a sort of piazza, under 
 which the choristers are congregated. In the 
 midst stands a large rolling lectern, bearing 
 breviaries of gigantic type that can be read 
 at a great distance. The choristers present a 
 motley appearance from their variegated 
 dresses: some of them heads black, shoulders 
 
FEOM FLORENCE. 43 
 
 crimson, body white, and extremities black 
 again. They smile and make signs to each 
 other, and gossip from time to time, till their 
 turn comes to take part in the service; when 
 they " start into voice a moment, and are 
 still." Meanwhile two youths in white stand 
 at the elevated lectern, the corners of which 
 they just reach with extended hand. The 
 music is stentorian. Now a pair of crimson 
 capes, one from each side, advance to the 
 lectern, and bow, and utter a musical note, 
 and separate to their places again, and are 
 succeeded by another pair. Anon the bell 
 rings, and there is a solemn commotion: all 
 heads are bowed: the candles are raised aloft 
 on their golden candlesticks: the censer of 
 incense swings more vigorously : the lectern 
 wheels round upon the pivot, and a new act 
 commences. 
 
 Accustomed in England to much preaching 
 and much intelligible reading of the Scrip- 
 tures, for few persons intone the Bible, we 
 are most struck in the Roman Catholic wor- 
 ship with the seemingly small amount of 
 instruction and exhortation. Preaching, in 
 comparison with prayer, is always at a dis- 
 
44 FEOM FLORENCE. 
 
 count. I went into one church in which the 
 pulpit was occupied by an orator, who was 
 attended to by the occupants of perhaps a 
 dozen benches before him, while the more 
 numerous portion of the congregation were 
 plying their prayer-books apart, indifferent to 
 his address. They now and then listened to 
 him for a few sentences, then returned to 
 their breviaries, and their lips were in rapid 
 motion again. Considering that the Bible is 
 about as frequently seen and read in Italy as 
 a volume of Acts of Parliament in England, 
 we are led to inquire how the people obtain 
 any sufficient knowledge of the most simple 
 facts of the Gospel, and of biblical history in 
 general. Line upon line and precept upon 
 precept, with a very ample reading of the 
 Scriptures from week to week, leave our rural 
 population with a very small amount of scrip- 
 tural knowledge. The same thing has to be 
 repeated over and over again like the per- 
 petual dripping of water, till a small portion 
 slowly stalactites in the memory. How is this 
 process carried on in Roman Catholic coun- 
 tries, where nearly the whole of the public 
 services seem to consist in the recitation of 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 45 
 
 prayers? Perhaps the proper answer is, that 
 no such work is attempted : that the people 
 are as ignorant of the general contents of the 
 Bible as might be anticipated. The priests, 
 however, take much pains with the children, 
 and the confessional gives them a hold upon 
 the mothers, which, in fact, brings all early 
 education under their control. The English 
 character will not bear the interference in the 
 household, which is assumed by the foreign 
 confessor. An Englishman, of devout habits, 
 feels instinctively that he is the natural priest 
 of his own family, — a position in which he 
 seems to be justified by St. Paul, who does 
 not direct uninstructed wives to a mental di- 
 vorce from their husbands, 'that they may be 
 united in spirit to a priest, but, " if they will 
 learn anything," he says, " let them ask their 
 own husbands at home" The confessional puts 
 the devout wife wholly in the power of the 
 priest, till, as she ripens in religious feeling, 
 nothing is left to her husband but the body; 
 her soul is married to another. 
 
 On Wednesday I was present at a Lent 
 sermon, tolerably well attended, under the 
 usual pic-nic-like awning in the nave of Santa* 
 
46 FEOM FLORENCE. 
 
 Croce. The good man was highly oratorical. 
 He seemed to be contending against the 
 Powers of the air, less with argument and 
 spiritual weapons, than with clenched fist and 
 open palm, and the windmill-whirling of his 
 arms. With our northern snow-cooled blood, 
 and more purely intellectual, as distinguished 
 from aesthetic, cultivation, we are indifferent 
 judges of what is suited to a meridional 
 people. I cannot, however, help thinking that 
 the example of the great Master himself, in 
 the midst of an imaginative race under a 
 warm meridian, is on the side of the calm 
 and serious mode of instruction, and not on 
 that of the declamatory and rhapsodical. Who 
 could vociferate the Parables, or deliver the 
 Sermon on the Mount, with vehement gesticu- 
 lation? The effect of mere oratory is as eva- 
 nescent as the froth of the sea. If immediate 
 action indeed be required, it may be highly 
 successful: but if it relates to those moral 
 subjects which are permanently to influence 
 our conduct, its effect is nearly null. The 
 popular declaimer sees his audience before him 
 in a great calm, and he lets loose the storm 
 of words, and lashes up their feelings, and 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 47 
 
 puts them in a chafing agitation; but when 
 his voice ceases, it is like the falling of the 
 wind; the billows subside, the froth disap- 
 pears, and their feelings flow back into their 
 wonted channels, as if nothing had happened. 
 One word of real instruction, one wholesome 
 truth insinuated and fixed in their minds, 
 which they may carry home and reflect upon 
 in private, would have more influence upon 
 their conduct and upon their permanent tone 
 of mind, than any amount of pleasurable ex- 
 citement dependent upon the contagion of num- 
 bers and the thrilling power of sound. 
 
 As I looked into another church on my way 
 home, I read the following inscription : 
 
 " Whoever thou art that drawest near in supplica- 
 tion, bow down upon thy face ; venerate the threshold ; 
 imprint kisses upon the walls; and prostrately adore 
 Saint Antoninus the grace and defence of Florence." 
 
 On a slab opposite is another plagiarism from 
 Horace — 
 
 " Nil desperandum Antonino duce." 
 
 When they call upon us to worship many 
 gods (and Horace never went farther than 
 this in his worship of idols), it is but fair that 
 they should be allowed to adopt the language 
 
48 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 of the heathen. Otherwise, with all admiration 
 of the elegant fancy and exquisite tact of the 
 cultured Lyrist, I feel great repugnance at 
 finding him replacing apostles and prophets 
 as the exponent of Christian aspirations. I 
 have seen a consecrated cemetery on Italian 
 ground with a motto over its portal, that 
 betokened nothing to my mind but spiritual 
 inanity. Instead of some noble sentence from 
 the Bible, pointing to a resurrection, and to 
 their blessedness who die in the Lord, your 
 expectation was mocked by the melodious 
 platitude — 
 
 OMNES EODEM COGIMUR ! 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 49 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Florence, March. 1851. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 It is beneath the dignity of history 
 and, I fear, of epistolography (as my subject 
 descends I draw upon the Johnsonian vocabu- 
 lary), to give you a bill-of-fare. Cowper, 
 with his manly unprudish vernacular, could 
 venture safely and gracefully upon a dung- 
 hill ;■* and all that / have to deal with is the 
 most refined dinner that was ever served up 
 at the table-d' bote of the Hotel — at Florence. 
 It consists of six courses, produced on a feast 
 day, a Sunday: and as we take nothing but 
 a cup of coffee and a dry roll for breakfast, 
 you may suppose that when the bell rings 
 between five and six, travellers' appetites are 
 in the ascendant. But then there are six courses 
 coming, which might satisfy Vitellius ! Alas, 
 
 * ■■ The stable yields," &c— Task. 
 
 E 
 
50 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 they keep the promise to the ear and break 
 it to the hope. 
 
 First course — half a round of Bologna sau- 
 sage as thin as a visiting-card. 
 
 Second course — a patty as large as half-a- 
 crown, containing a quarter of an ounce, I 
 believe, of cocks' gills. 
 
 Third course — a slicelette of mutton that 
 would balance a penny. 
 
 Fourth course — a little spinage. 
 
 Fifth course — a whole lark. 
 
 Sixth course — a syllabub pudding, all froth. 
 
 Dilution of wine ad libitum. 
 
 This is an elegant repast; and I do not 
 envy the man who cannot eat it. 
 
 But to leave gastrology, let us turn to 
 something more elevating. 
 
 On the top of one of the many mountains 
 that close in upon Florence stands the little 
 town of Fiesole, famed for old age and beauty. 
 It remains where it was before the ages of his- 
 tory, when the Etruscans laid stone upon stone, 
 as they lie now. But what scenes have passed 
 beneath it in the deep valley of the Arno, 
 since the day when it defied Rome in her 
 infancy to the day when it defied her again 
 
FROM FLORENCE, 51 
 
 in her decrepitude! It has seen the greatest 
 empire in the world grow to maturity and 
 wither away beneath it. It gave shelter to 
 Cataline, and has survived consuls and em- 
 perors. It has seen the Arno roll in blood at 
 its feet, and watched in the distance the plun- 
 dering tribes of the north as they hastened to 
 the destruction or the defence of Rome. The 
 Goth, the Lombard, the Frank, have spread 
 desolation around it: but its handful of in- 
 habitants have kept their high nest in the 
 rock. The wars of mediaeval times have seen 
 it towering above them, till in securer days 
 the Medici came to dwell in its shadow, and 
 the gardens of princely houses were spread on 
 its declivities. It looks out now upon the 
 splendid palaces of the nobles of Italy; upon 
 Florence clustering on both banks of the river 
 around its solemn and prodigious dome; upon 
 monuments of art which are the wonder of the 
 world: but it is prouder of its rude wall of 
 Etruscan masonry, than of all the glories of 
 the surrounding scene. It has changed Fse- 
 sulas to Fiesole, and that is all. It claims the 
 respect of patriarchal age, and belongs to an 
 earlier generation than the cities of the land. 
 
 E2 
 
52 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 Man is so like to man in all similar con- 
 ditions that I could fancy, as I slowly de- 
 scended the mountain, that if I had visited 
 the ancient Fsesulans in their Etruscan days, 
 I should scarcely have found them differing 
 from their present representatives. The same 
 misery or love of gain (if cash was then 
 coined) would have surrounded me with beg- 
 gars, as now : some lame boy of the old world 
 would have hopped before me, perhaps, as eager 
 to show me the workmanship of the new-built 
 wall as my present guide was to show me its 
 decay : the lads would have ceased from their 
 game on the green to stare curiously at the 
 stranger, as now: the half-coquetish maiden's 
 then maiden progenitrix would have smiled 
 at me from the door-sill, like her many-re- 
 moved grandaughter : some three young girls, 
 hanging together in hoyden bashfulness, would 
 soon have grown bold and asked me for cop- 
 pers, as now : — and yet these people have been 
 dust these two or three thousand years, and 
 know nothing that has taken place around 
 them; not even, that in heart and soul, in 
 all their thoughts and feelings and passions, 
 they have been perpetually reproduced in their 
 
FROM FLORENCE. So 
 
 descendants; and that if they should start to 
 life again from their dank beds in the shadow 
 of the ancient wall, they would wake as from 
 a long sleep to know old Faesulae again, and 
 to claim its present inhabitants for their 
 brothers and uncles and cousins ! And when 
 in a little while they all rise together to the 
 Judgment, despite the lapse of ages, how like, — 
 in two great divisions, — will every man's story 
 be to every man's ! 
 
 Two minds of high genius that filled the 
 world with imagery without chisel or brush, 
 are for ever associated with Florence. The 
 house in which Dante was born is still shown 
 in the city, and the palace garden that Boc- 
 caccio has immortalized lies on the slopes of 
 Fiesole. The former poet, so prodigal of in- 
 vention, and filling a liquid language with 
 strength till it swelled sonorous as a silver 
 trumpet, vindicates his place in the foremost 
 rank of bards, and wears his myrtle with 
 Homer and Milton. Among his countrymen 
 he stands alone, with no second near him. 
 His influence has been felt for ages in the 
 world of imagination, and poesy, sculpture, 
 and painting have kindled their torches at his 
 
54 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 light. Yet, in some respects, the splendour of 
 his genius has been injurious to severe truth 
 and to the best development of Christian art. 
 He could people the invisible world with my- 
 riads of palpable forms, and give them life 
 and action and distinctive character. But he 
 peopled it after the manner of a magician. 
 The bizarre and monstrous images that de- 
 lighted and horrified the dark ages he freely 
 adopted, grouping them anew with original 
 genius. His clear and tangible inventions 
 reacted upon the vulgar imagination. A 
 crowd of artists covered their panels with 
 distorted representations of his purgatory and 
 hell. All reserved and reverential forbearance 
 in the treatment of these subjects was aban- 
 doned. Truth suffered no less than art. The 
 infernal world became, in their feebler hands, 
 a pandemonium of toads, and lizards, and 
 strange birds, and bats, and colossal crabs, 
 that made themselves monstrous by exchang- 
 ing limbs with each other. Reality, even po- 
 etical, there was none. The devil and his 
 angels were but creatines of the witches' caul- 
 dron, and the awful prison-house of hell was 
 no more than the cave of Stycorax! 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 55 
 
 How different and, as I think, far grander 
 were the indefinite conceptions of Milton. In 
 spite of opinions which have recently been put 
 forth by those , who would go back from the 
 sublimity of the undefined to the minute and 
 puerile conceits of medievalism, I still think 
 that high truth, no less than grandeur and 
 strength, is on the side of Milton when he 
 discards the mesquine and the abominable, and 
 gives the proportions of Satan at a stroke : 
 
 " His form had yet not lost 
 All her original brightness, nor appeared 
 Less than archangel ruined ! " 
 
 This, surely, is more in harmony with the 
 treatment of holy Scripture. It does not re- 
 present the great Enemy by images that are 
 despicable and loathsome to the senses: it 
 speaks of him as one who appeared among 
 the sons of God and conversed with the Al- 
 mighty; as one who contended with Michael 
 for the body of Moses, and, because it is un- 
 seemly to u speak evil of dignities" (see Jude 
 8 and 9), was rebuked without " railing ac- 
 cusation;" as one who led his hosts against 
 the Hosts of heaven; as one who bears the 
 titles of " Prince" and " God"— the God of 
 
56 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 this world and the Prince of the powers of 
 the air. If he is compared to animals at all, 
 it is to the serpent for his proverbial subtilty 
 and wisdom (" Be ye wise as serpents"), and 
 to the lion for his dreaded strength. His 
 ideal figure should be marked with the deep 
 lines of perverted intellect, while his stature 
 is strong and terrible. In no case should he 
 appear as a disgusting abortion, which even 
 all the wicked despise and spurn. 
 
 The less lofty but more genial imagina- 
 tion of Boccaccio, lax, perhaps, in morals 
 and creed, produced or recast the hundred 
 tales, which became a well-spring of poetry 
 to all the north. Absolute invention is so 
 rare a plant, — blossoming less frequently than 
 the aloe, — that it is treasured not only for its 
 own natural growth, but for the seed which 
 it yields for artificial cultivation. The leading 
 and germinant idea once given, fancy will 
 easily bud upon it, and strike out new 
 branches, and make it beautiful in flower 
 and fruit. But it is only at distant intervals 
 that a master genius arises who can create. 
 Homer — for his butcherly anatomists are not 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 57 
 
 to be heard* — stands alone and intangible. 
 Virgil welded the Iliad and Odyssey into 
 one, and made himself a name by refined 
 judgment and melodious rotundity of verse. 
 The Greek dramatists borrowed old subjects 
 perpetually, and added variations to the pri- 
 mitive invention. Horace recommends the 
 poets of his day to do the same. Chaucer 
 drew largely upon Boccaccio ; and, in all 
 probability, without the Decameron the Can- 
 terbury Tales had not been. Spenser, Shaks- 
 peare, Milton, and even Dryden, are indebted 
 to the fertile invention of the Tuscan. He 
 has attained to a proud preeminence, and 
 
 * The learned have, I believe, for the most part, given 
 up the conceit, which the authority of Wolf for a time 
 made popular with the philologists, not with the poets, 
 that the Iliad is a collection of rhapsodies by different 
 hands, strung together at last like the beads of a rosary. 
 This is well. The impress which one great inventive genius 
 stamps upon his own coin cannot be scratched out by any 
 scholar's penknife. Bentley did some damage to Milton 
 with his profound prosody ; but he never went so far as to 
 suggest that the Paradise Lost was a collection of Puritan 
 hymns and songs sung in divers conventicles, or set to 
 hand-organs in the streets, which one John Milton (who 
 was blind, if, indeed, his blindness were not assumed in 
 imitation of Homer, if any Homer there were), made his 
 daughters write out in a fair hand, when his memory was 
 failing him by the fireside. 
 
58 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 succeeded beyond his peers in diffusing him- 
 self through the Fair Literature of Europe. 
 
 One other name comes vividly before me as 
 I descend slowly to the valley of the Arno. 
 Four centuries ago the churches of Florence 
 resounded to the fervid eloquence of Savo- 
 narola. He spake like a prophet, and was 
 accounted such. With the zeal and vehe- 
 mence of Luther, he made a last spasmodic 
 attempt to reform the Church of Rome within 
 itself. He failed, and perished. He en- 
 deavoured to do what modem Romanists tell 
 us Luther should have done — reform the morals 
 and elevate the piety of the age without touch- 
 ing their faith. He strove with heart and soul 
 to rectify abuses, to inspire men with a zeal 
 for God, to renovate a corrupt generation, 
 and to teach the slaves of sin the beauty of 
 holiness. But the creed of ages he would not 
 touch with one of his fingers. And what was 
 the result? His own mind was well-nigh 
 overset in the mighty struggle; his own life 
 was sacrificed in the cause : but the Church 
 of Rome remained what it was. His entire 
 failure to reform it from within was Luther's 
 justification for cleansing an encrusted creed 
 
FEOM FLORENCE. 59 
 
 and striking at the root of papal corruption. 
 Still he fought the fight, if erringly, yet 
 nobly and faithfully ; and his name, I would 
 fain trust, is great in heaven ! I seem to 
 picture him to myself as standing in his place 
 within the inner circle, with his palm-branch 
 resting on his shoulder, very near to those 
 who wear the Martyrs' crown. 
 
60 FEOM FLORENCE. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Florence, March. 1851. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 I have just been to see what they told 
 me would be a fine sight — the public pro- 
 cession of the Grand Duke to high service at 
 the church of the Annunciata. It stands in 
 a square surrounded with cloisters on an ele- 
 vated platform. The Austrian soldiers, who 
 had ornamented their caps with twigs of ever- 
 green, lined one side of the square, the un- 
 adorned Tuscan troops the other. The streets 
 that abutted on the Place, and the windows 
 that overlooked it, were respectably crowded. 
 Punctually at eleven the Grand Duke's car- 
 riage, followed by three or four others, swept 
 round the piazza to the church-door, amid the 
 crash of military music. And then I wondered 
 what had brought the people together! There 
 was no enthusiasm ; no eager curiosity ; no 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 61 
 
 cry, good or bad; no stretching of the neck 
 and standing on tiptoe; not even the silence 
 of sullenness, which has a meaning — but the 
 quiet gossip of blank indifference. If the car- 
 riages had been all empty the interest would 
 have been the same. The horses and harness 
 were the sole objects that called forth remarks 
 and excited the vulgar attention. I could not 
 but contrast this apathetic reception with the 
 enthusiasm that welcomes our Queen, when on 
 any public occasion she presents herself to the 
 people. To us she is the key-jewel of the 
 arch that gives stability to all our institutions; 
 the symbol of Power dispensing justice with 
 her right hand, and bearing on her left the 
 broad shield of civil protection ; the personi- 
 fication of Britannia wearing the crown and 
 reposing with confidence upon her lion. But 
 he who personifies Italian institutions personi- 
 fies nothing that can call forth popular enthu- 
 siasm. He must depend for regard and esteem 
 upon his private and personal virtues, which 
 are, perhaps, known to few and misinterpreted 
 by the multitude. 
 
 On one score, at least, the Grand Duke is 
 said to be popular. He is highly religious in 
 
62 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 a species of devotion not above the compre- 
 hension of the vulgar. He pays much respect 
 to holy water, and crucifixes, and privileged 
 altars. He will alight from his carriage on 
 the highway to pay his devotions at the 
 shrine of a favourite saint: he is orthodox in 
 genuflexions ; and he takes off his hat to the 
 Madonna as soon as she comes within range 
 of his lens. It is not to be inferred that there 
 is any want of sincerity, any mere aiming at 
 applause, in this highway devotion : it is 
 simply natural that when grand-ducal religion 
 walks abroad in Tuscany, she should appear 
 in Tuscan costume. 
 
 After spending an hour or more in the 
 church of the Santo Spirito, I passed directly 
 into the Pitti Palace, and, in spite of the 
 splendour of this gallery, I felt as if I had 
 exchanged for the worse. The noble pictures 
 that surround the Santo Spirito tend all to 
 encourage one tone of feeling, and that in 
 harmony with the most worthy objects of art. 
 There are few greater enjoyments, in certain 
 moods of mind, than to stroll round some of 
 these wonderful churches, and receive, as it 
 were passively, the impressions which their 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 63 
 
 walls convey, — putting out of sight the few sym- 
 bols of false worship that present themselves, 
 and which seem to be insignificant and rare in 
 proportion as historic and metaphorical repre- 
 sentations are abundant and grand. These, — 
 to one who is not suffering from the yellow 
 jaundice of controversy, — breathe a spirit of 
 holiness, of admonition, of Christian hope, of 
 Christian triumph. Art seems here to have 
 effected with least alloy the highest purpose 
 for which it was given to man. The eye 
 roves from one sacred subject to another, and 
 the elevated feeling which they inspire is never 
 struck down to the earthly by the blending of 
 the meretricious with the pure. No Bacchante, 
 or Venus, or Cleopatra comes athwart the con- 
 templation of celestial holiness, and stands in 
 juxtaposition with angels and saints, with the 
 pure Virgin and her holy Child, with the cross 
 and Him that bled thereon. 
 
 A few Protestants feel scandalized at any 
 pictorial representations in the house of God. 
 But I know not on what ground, except that 
 of their presumed liability to be worshipped, — 
 a liability which depends not on the picture, 
 but wholly upon the instruction they have re- 
 
64 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 ceived. There are certain images set upon 
 Romish altars, and Madonnas and other saints 
 placed in positions to invite adoration. These 
 the people are taught to worship, and they do 
 as they are directed. But the great historical 
 frescoes and paintings that adorn the walls are 
 not presented to them as objects of adoration, 
 and it enters into no man's mind to regard 
 them as such. If all the churches in England 
 were frescoed to the roof, there is no one, un- 
 less he were prompted by false teachers, who 
 would dream of committing idolatry. 
 
 The danger, however terrible it may look 
 in books of controversy, is purely chimerical. 
 The principle, indeed, is already given up by, 
 I believe, all Protestant churches. There are 
 none which I have seen at home or abroad 
 that do not occasionally admit of pictures over 
 the Communion-table, on the ceiling, or in the 
 windows. And, for myself, I must confess I 
 do not see what is gained by discarding all 
 other pictorial representations to make room 
 (as is common in parts of Germany) for the 
 portraits of Luther and Melancthon. 
 
 Art is the gift of God, and to be used most 
 worthily in His service. A skill to ornament 
 
FEOM FLORENCE. 65 
 
 the tabernacle in the days of Moses seems to be 
 imputed by him to divine inspiration. " Then 
 wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab and every wise- 
 hearted man, in whom the Lord put wisdom and 
 understanding to know how to loork all manner 
 of work for the service of the sanctuary.'''' (Exod. 
 xxxvi. 1.) And in what way can pictorial art 
 be employed in the divine service, if it be 
 not by pourtraying those sacred subjects which 
 have a direct tendency to elevate the thoughts 
 to Him or to inspire sympathy with His saints ; 
 or else by depicting those metaphorical images 
 which embody general truth, and are a kind 
 of delineated parable? When such works are 
 produced by the few persons who have power 
 to produce them, what place is more appro- 
 priate for them than the Christian temple? — 
 provided, of course, their admission be made 
 subordinate to its direct and more important 
 destination: provided, also, the churches are, 
 as they should be, always open to the people. 
 When the congregations are assembled in 
 Roman Catholic churches there are always pe- 
 culiarities to be observed, which arrest the at- 
 tention of a foreign protestant. I saw the mass 
 celebrated by a dignified ecclesiastic, who pcr- 
 
 F 
 
66 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 formed the service with unusual solemnity and 
 decorum. As soon as he retired to the sa- 
 cristy, which he did with much state, attended 
 by officials and bearing his richly-bound missal 
 in his hand, a crowd of worshippers, whom he 
 had left around the altar, pressed eagerly for- 
 ward to kiss the spot where the holy sacra- 
 ment had stood. There was an evident struggle 
 to be foremost, that their lips might come in 
 contact with the marble before the virtue of 
 the recent Presence had departed. I could 
 imagine it a spiritual Bethesda, in which heal- 
 ing depended upon priority. A girl of eigh- 
 teen, impelled by a keener zeal or the natural 
 vivacity of her sex, succeeded in triumphing 
 over her competitors (many of whom were 
 young men), and reached the goal first. With 
 reverence and radiant satisfaction she deposited 
 a kiss and a small piece of coin upon the altar, 
 and was followed by, perhaps, twenty others 
 who did the same; till the thing surceased of 
 itself, as the ennobling sentiment became ex- 
 tinct in the vulgar operation of kissing each 
 other's kisses. 
 
 I may mention that the mode of accenting 
 the Latin prayers seems to be, on many oc- 
 
FEOM FLORENCE. 67 
 
 casions, affected by the modem Italian pro- 
 nunciation. To prevent any egregious blunder 
 in an ignorant priest, the quantities, I observed, 
 were marked in their books. Yet there was 
 often a tendency to Italianize the Latin and 
 make terminations in ine long. The ejacula- 
 tion " Domine non sum dignus," which the 
 priest repeats three times before approaching 
 the sacrament, I have heard pronounced ex- 
 actly in this manner, " Domeene non soom 
 deenious," with an accent on the ee. 
 
 Shortly after I read a tablet with this in- 
 scription, inviting worshippers to the Mother 
 of Mercy : " Whoever recites the litany of the 
 Blessed Virgin before this altar shall obtain 
 an indulgence of two hundred days, which 
 may be applied also to the benefit of the 
 dead." 
 
 The latter clause is intended to stimulate 
 the devotion of those who have obtained more 
 indulgences than they need for themselves, or 
 who have lost some dear friend whom they 
 would solace and relieve in the pains of pur- 
 gatory. Of all the strong holds which the 
 Romish Church has upon the feelings and the 
 imagination, none, perhaps, is more powerful 
 
 F2 
 
68 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 than the dogma which makes no disseverment 
 of the affections in death, but throws the dead 
 upon the compassion of the living, and places 
 them within reach of human aid. The wronged 
 wife recollects the love of her youth ; forgives 
 her wrong-doer in the grave ; and, as she 
 fondly deems, returns before the Mother of 
 Mercy his evil with good. Or if conscious of 
 wrong on her part, she inflicts litanies upon 
 her soul as a penance, and drops her atoning 
 tears upon the flames of purgatory. The 
 maiden, whose true love was sanctified, not 
 severed, by the death of her betrothed, feels 
 for him in his fiery trial as she felt in his last 
 sickness, as for one whom she can soothe and 
 aid, and to whom she can still consecrate her 
 days. The human tie is unbroken: she prays 
 for his deliverance as her own: and perhaps, 
 in her readiness to sacrifice all for his sake, 
 she would even throw her soul into the prayer 
 of Moses, " Yet now if thou wilt forgive his 
 sin ! — and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of 
 thy book which thou hast written !" 
 
 I was present last Sunday at two Lent ser- 
 mons, at the Annunciata and the Santa Croce, 
 both exclusively controversial ; — though one 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 69 
 
 only in the true unscrupulous spirit of polemics, 
 which is not peculiar to the Romish Church. 
 It was a general and perpetual broadside 
 against Protestantism. The preacher began 
 by laying down the fundamental principle of 
 Protestantism ; which was, that every man 
 formed his religion after his own caprice: he 
 presumed to judge of the mysteries of revela- 
 tion by " this", he said, touching his own 
 forehead: the consequence was, there were as 
 many religions among Protestants as there 
 were meu : they threw aside the seven sacra- 
 ments of the Church, and then one thought 
 that there were three or four, another that 
 there were only two ; a third that there were 
 none at all. One believed in the Blessed 
 Trinity, another blasphemed it. One held 
 that Jesus was the son of God, another that 
 He was a mere man, another doubted if He 
 ever lived. They went to greater or less 
 lengths according to their individual fancy : 
 but the principle was the same in all. " Pro- 
 testantism," he exclaimed with vehemence, but 
 wound down in a descending climax, " is but 
 another name for atheism, impiety, and ma- 
 
70 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 He then passed on to Protestant morality, 
 and freely quoted Luther and Calvin ; but 
 from parts of their works with which I am 
 little acquainted. These arch-reformers, he 
 told the people, asserted that works of piety 
 were absolutely useless: nothing in the world 
 could be of less value than a good work. 
 They had only to believe, — not in Catholic 
 truth as taught by the Church, — but in the 
 capricious whims of their teachers, and then 
 they were for ever safe. After once believing 
 it was not possible for them to be lost, — unless, 
 indeed, it were from the pride of good works. 
 
 And then look, he said, at the results of 
 Protestantism! Judge by the fruits. The 
 religious wars which have desolated Europe, 
 the revolutions that have overthrown king- 
 doms, the spirit of anarchy that is abroad in 
 the world threatening to break up all social 
 institutions, have sprung from this source : 
 Luther is the author of all these things! 
 Therefore, he concluded, shun every Protes- 
 tant that tempts you from the faith ! Be as- 
 sured that their principles are a compound of 
 errors and absurdities ! When you once im- 
 bibe them, you have entered upon the path- 
 
FROM FLORENCE. 71 
 
 ways of falsehood and iniquity, which will 
 slowly, perhaps, but at last surely, conduct 
 you to the precipice of perdition. 
 
 This is the best account I can give of his 
 sermon from memory, and from my somewhat 
 imperfect comprehension of it. 
 
 At the other church, the Santa Croce, the 
 preacher delivered his discourse in the manner 
 of a thesis. u There is no purgatory," he 
 began, " that is the proposition which I un- 
 dertake to refute." He proceeded to inform 
 his hearers that u in Germany, beyond the 
 Alps," this credence of the Church was re- 
 garded as a fond superstition : but there he 
 was at issue with the Germans, and he would 
 proceed to prove to them that it was a truth 
 and no superstition. This he would do from 
 the testimony of holy Scripture, from the 
 fathers, from all tradition, and from the na- 
 ture of the doctrine itself. From the Bible 
 he would produce only one passage, but it 
 should be in the words of Jesus Christ Him- 
 self: " Agree with thine adversary, &c, lest 
 thou be cast into prison: verily, I say unto 
 thee, thou shalt by no means come out 
 thence till thou hast paid the uttermost far- 
 
72 FROM FLORENCE. 
 
 thing.' 1 '' This, he said, implied the prospect of 
 payment and of subsequent liberation. He then 
 passed on to Saint Augustine and to general 
 tradition. But the strength of his discourse 
 was reserved to the last; which, indeed, con- 
 tained little to convince, but much to per- 
 suade; and was well calculated to make his 
 audience congratulate themselves upon their 
 traditionary faith. It consisted in a com- 
 parison of the doctrine of purification after 
 death for human imperfection, with that of an 
 irremediable hell. How few could venture to 
 think that they were quite fit for heaven! how 
 terrible to believe that all these must go to 
 hell ! And how consolatory was the doctrine 
 of purgatory to the survivors, who had lost 
 their children, perhaps, in the levity of youth, 
 laden with venial, though not yet immersed 
 in deadly, sins ! How comforting to the 
 mother's heart, to feel that she could rescue 
 her child from suffering by her prayers ! He 
 enlarged touchingly, as there was ample scope 
 to do, upon this species of consolation; and 
 the people listened with attentive interest, and 
 seemed glad to have their faith confirmed in 
 a persuasion so full of comfort. But he did 
 
FEOM FLOEENCE. 73 
 
 not inform them how easy it is to imagine 
 consolatory doctrines to meet all the wants 
 and fears and yearnings of heart that belong 
 to suffering humanity, when yet there is no 
 evidence that they are true. He concluded 
 his discourse by apostrophising Florence. She 
 was beautiful for situation, the joy of. the 
 whole earth: she was famed for her splendid 
 temples : her palaces were filled with the trea- 
 sures of art, that made her the admiration of 
 the world ! May she, he concluded, be no 
 less famous for her faith and beautiful in the 
 works of piety. 
 
74 FROM ROME. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Pisa, Siena, Rome. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 The leaning tower of Pisa made me 
 wonder too early in life to repeat the opera- 
 tion now. Horace never made a greater mis- 
 take than when he placed happiness in the 
 " nil admirari." Wonderers are always happy, 
 except when they are afraid; and even then 
 it is a " pleasing fear." I was glad, however, 
 to see the friend of my nursery, which divided 
 my astonishment with the tower of Babel ; 
 and to retract on the spot the prejudice which 
 I had so early imbibed against the Pisans, as 
 a monstrously wicked race, who had dared to 
 imitate the abomination of the plains of Shinar. 
 
 The route from Siena to Viterbo (Pisa and 
 Siena are united by rail) does not offer suf- 
 ficient objects of attraction to call, after the 
 descriptions of so many travellers, for special 
 
FROM ROME. 75 
 
 notice. The most interesting portion to me 
 were the wild desolate scenes that lie among 
 the Apennines about Radicofani, where one 
 reaches the brow of a mountain some three 
 thousand feet high, crowned with an old cas- 
 tle, once in possession of a knight of brigands, 
 and well fitted for their present occupation. 
 A few houses under shelter of the precipitous 
 rock that forms the summit, congregate into 
 a small village, and a solitary inn a little 
 lower down by the wayside offers, in its 
 ample chambers, night accommodation to the 
 traveller. Our party consisted chiefly of la- 
 dies, and the grand savagery of the panorama 
 around them, and the frowning presence of 
 the robber-castle overhead, evidently affected 
 their imagination. They fortified their cou- 
 rage, as best they might, with good cheer : 
 but when the red beams of the setting sun 
 were slowly ascending the castle walls, leaving 
 gloom and darkness below, they plainly ex- 
 pressed their misgivings j and had already bar- 
 gained about the distribution of chambers, so 
 that the stronger sex might be within call, 
 when they were greatly relieved by the ar- 
 rival of a couple from Eome, bringing the 
 
76 FROM ROME. 
 
 intelligence, that the redoubted Passatore had 
 fallen in a fray a few days before, and that his 
 gang was dispersed. Countenances brightened 
 up, and supper was discussed with vivacity. 
 Nevertheless the next morning there were grave 
 reports of the dismal howling of the wind and 
 unearthly noises in the chimney; and one old 
 lady confessed to having passed the night, like 
 a nervous sentinel, in wide-awake fear. 
 
 The next day we descended to the Dead 
 Lake of Bolsena. Its shores, except at the 
 extremity at which Bolsena stands, are swept 
 clean of inhabitants by sulphureous exhalations, 
 and every thing around it is silent, solemn, and 
 deathlike. It is the scene of Pliny's floating 
 islands, — probably a congeries of roots and 
 weeds, now bound firmly to the shore. The 
 town still contains many Roman antiquities. 
 Upon our arrival the whole juvenile popula- 
 tion turned out into the streets to beg, and 
 during the two or three hours which we spent 
 there, they never ceased from their importunity 
 for an instant. Whenever any one of our party 
 appeared he was surrounded by the uplifted 
 palms of twenty or thirty children, that followed 
 him in all his movements, just as the out- 
 
FROM ROME. 77 
 
 stretched necks of a flock of geese point to 
 the intrusive stranger. It was in vain to re- 
 lieve them, in the hope of diminishing their 
 number. Those who received " grazias,' 1 
 hastily transferred them to their pockets, lifted 
 up their hands as before, and clamoured anew 
 for charity. We were not sorry to turn our 
 backs upon this insatiable brood of beggar- 
 lings. 
 
 We began now to lose all fear of the robbers. 
 Indeed all conversation upon the subject had 
 ceased with the silence of a French young lady, 
 who, upon the plea of having no purse, had 
 expressed great desire to meet with the banditti 
 — " it would be such a delightful adventure !" 
 But when it was quietly suggested to her that 
 they carried off young ladies to the mountains, 
 her countenance dropped, and she said not a 
 word more about the robbers. As we ap- 
 proached Rome the conversation turned much 
 upon the wonders which we expected to find 
 there. The ladies, as good Catholics, were 
 specially interested in the religious ceremonies, 
 and appeared to be approaching the Holy City 
 as much in the spirit of pilgrims who were 
 anxious for the Pope's benediction, as in that 
 
78 FROM ROME. 
 
 of tourists in search of health and relaxation. 
 There was an old gentleman of their party — 
 French like the rest, — who prided himself much 
 upon being a reactionnaire, but at the same 
 time upon having assisted at the barricades 
 of 1 830 ; and also upon having been yet 
 earlier a thorough revolutionist, and a friend 
 of the friends of Danton. He could not resist 
 the opportunity of expatiating with delight 
 upon the scenic religion of Rome ; but then 
 fearing that he had gone too far in his en- 
 thusiasm for a pure Parisian and a man who 
 had seen the world, he suddenly drew up, and 
 adroitly but unfairly turned the responsibility 
 upon his wife. " His wife wanted to see these 
 things: she was a devout Catholic — and he 
 too. He thought there ought to be no differ- 
 ences in religious matters, and therefore all 
 men ought to belong to the Church of Rome. 
 Otherwise, in his opinion, all honest men had 
 the same religion — Catholics, Protestants, Jews, 
 Turks, and Brahmins. But Luther had done 
 incalculable mischief, and caused bloody wars 
 about nothing: for all religions were the same 
 at bottom ; and if all Christendom would but 
 acknowledge the Catholic faith there would 
 
FEOM HOME. 79 
 
 be an end of these animosities. He honoured 
 the Catholic Church because it was one: he 
 admired its imposing ceremonies: these things 
 suited his wife : he should take part in the 
 services at Rome, and certainly stay over the 
 Holy Week. He should have much to see 
 and do, and should accompany his wife every- 
 where. She was anxious for absolution, and 
 would have much to say at the confessional." 
 
 The lady listened patiently to his miscel- 
 laneous creed, not as if she were edified, but 
 as if she were used to it, and could not help 
 it. But at this last touch a frown rippled 
 over her brow like the shadow of a light 
 cloud in April. 
 
 At last, at nightfall of the third day from 
 Siena, we were at the gates of Eome. We 
 entered at the Porta del Popolo upon the 
 Piazza of the same name, from which the 
 three great streets spread fan-like into the 
 city. There was nothing to excite enthusiasm : 
 for it was already night, and the dingy lamps 
 barely tarnished the darkness in the broad 
 empty Place. Our minds were full of base 
 materialities. For the crowds of visitors that 
 gathered to the Holy Week made it uncertain 
 
80 FROM EOME. 
 
 whether we should not have to encamp for 
 the night in that same Place of darkness. The 
 like had happened to some travellers whom 
 we had heard of; and therefore our first great 
 concern was to secure some convenient nook 
 beneath the tiles of the Eternal City. 
 
 One of my first visits was to divine service 
 in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, at which 
 the Pope officiated in person. We were there 
 early and had much time to admire the un- 
 rivalled beauty of the ceiling, before our eyes 
 were called down from the most sublime efforts 
 of Michael Angelo to the scarlet caps of the 
 Cardinals. They walked up the Chapel at 
 intervals, preceded by two officials in black, and 
 followed by a third who seemed chiefly to be 
 occupied in untwisting their long crimson trains. 
 The aisle was lined by the Pope's Swiss 
 guard, — a fine set of men, wearing feathers of 
 yellow and white, and clad in a strange dress 
 with alternate stripes of red, yellow, and black. 
 It is said to be a very ancient costume, and 
 pronounced to be very fine. Otherwise I should 
 have called it Harlequinian. No one is admitted 
 into the Pope's presence, even in the house of 
 God, except in full black dress. Frock coats 
 
FROM ROME. 81 
 
 and suspicious vests are infallibly stopped by 
 the master of the ceremonies, and their owners 
 not permitted to pass the bar. Ladies are 
 always contraband, where the Pope is: but 
 they are allowed to occupy certain benches 
 below the bar, upon appearing in black, with- 
 out bonnets and sably veiled. This is an 
 effectual penance to the vain. They arrest 
 no attention, but are all set in jet just alike, 
 and as ^indistinguishable as the tenants of a 
 rookery. When the Cardinals had slowly 
 taken their places, the Pope entered by a 
 private door at the east end, wearing a large 
 white mitre. After a while he ascended the 
 throne on the north side of the altar, and 
 sat in state looking younger, and fresher, and 
 better, than I had anticipated. The service 
 now began, and while the quire was singing, 
 the Cardinals one by one approached his Holi- 
 ness, and bent to him, while he held out his 
 hand to be kissed. Others knelt down at his 
 feet in utter humility. Some waved candles 
 before him, some swung incense ; and as the 
 fumes rose up around him I could not but call 
 to mind the passage, which I have so often 
 heard applied in this direction, a He as God 
 
 G 
 
82 FROM ROME. 
 
 sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself 
 that he is God." 
 
 The Chapel with all its surpassing beauty 
 does not strike one as devotional, and (as was 
 to be expected in a show-place) there was little 
 appearance of devotion in the congregation. 
 Every one was on the qui vive to see the 
 Pope, to hear him speak, or to watch the 
 motions of the Cardinals. They had laid 
 aside their square caps and sat with small 
 scarlet saucer-like caps, that just fitted the 
 crown of the head. I cannot undertake to tell 
 you how often the Pope's mitre was removed 
 by the proper authorities, and how often put 
 on again ; nor at what points of the service 
 a youth crouched down on his knee and turned 
 himself into a living lectern, supporting a large 
 breviary in front of his Holiness. The whole 
 service as divine was disagreeable 1 every one 
 seemed to be going through a state ceremony. 
 At one point only did I feel interest in it in 
 any sense that could be deemed proper to the 
 place. It was when the Pope descended from 
 his throne, laid aside his mitre, and knelt with 
 his Cardinals on the floor before the altar, 
 and seemed by that one act of homage to the 
 Invisible to confess that God alone was great. 
 
FROM ROME. 83 
 
 Many Italian ladies had their prayer-books, 
 and were reciting' their private prayers during 
 the whole service, the sermon (which was in 
 Latin) included: but most of them precisely 
 in the manner of one who has undertaken 
 to count so many thousand in an hour. The 
 operation went on mechanically, like German 
 wool-knitting, and did not in the least distract 
 their attention from the Pope and the French 
 officers. I could not but observe one sable- 
 satined lady, who kept swinging gracefully 
 in her hand a pearl rosary, which she managed 
 better than a fan, as if beating time to her lips, 
 which were in rapid and perpetual motion, — 
 now laughing, now chatting, now saying a 
 prayer, which she beaded off on the rosary ; then 
 reversing the operation, — praying, chatting, 
 laughing, and from time to time pointing out 
 to her companion how many beads she had 
 got through. I presume she was not pre- 
 tending to worship any body or any thing, 
 (for they have a great choice of objects here) ; 
 but was most likely clearing off a penance 
 imposed upon her by her confessor at the close 
 of the Carnival. 
 
 There are more earnest worshippers in Rome 
 
 o2 
 
84 FROM ROME. 
 
 than those who bask in the presence of the 
 Pope, and holier places in my estimation than 
 the Sistine Chapel. One of these nobler temples 
 is the majestic ruin of the Colosseum. Founded 
 by Vespasian, — built in part by the captive 
 Jews, — hallowed by the blood of Ignatius and 
 many martyrs, — and afterwards in its state of 
 splendid decay, among fallen and standing 
 arches, consecrated to the memory of those 
 faithful witnesses whose blood had dried into 
 its arena, it is now the Holy Place to many 
 an unobtrusive devotee, who kneels before the 
 Cross amid the fragments of its broken pillars, 
 and worships in the open face of heaven. It 
 comes nearest to the primitive temples in times 
 preceding revelation ; the pure sky of Italy 
 is overhead, and looks through the lofty arch- 
 ways and windows ; in its side-cells the martyrs 
 girded their loins to the last fight; its orna- 
 ments are of nature's handicraft — shrubs, and 
 plants, and wild flowers in unnumbered pro- 
 fusion overhanging its corridors and pilasters. 
 And there before the Cross I have seen the 
 day-labourer kneeling, wholly wrapt up in his 
 own devotions, and unconscious of the many 
 wanderers among the ruins. I have seen him 
 
FROM ROME. 85 
 
 burst into a flood of tears, touched by the 
 remembrance of his sin, or of the mercy that 
 has blotted it out ! There too, once a week, 
 a congregation is drawn together to hear a 
 monk preach to them in energetic terms of the 
 religion of Jesus; of that religion which has 
 changed the amphitheatre of blood into a house 
 of prayer for all nations. 
 
 How like — in another mood — did it seem to 
 me to the house which the Master built upon 
 a rock, with the assurance that it should stand 
 for ever. The foundation, they will have it, 
 was laid here. The prime builder chose out 
 a site in Borne and reared that spiritual build- 
 ing, which the gates of hell should never 
 destroy. But how — if this be so — is its first 
 glory departed! What rents are in its walls! 
 How is half the building fallen away, and lying 
 around it in a thousand fragments! Weeds 
 and thistles are in all its chambers, and lizards 
 and creeping things overrun its walls. Yet, 
 in spite of all, how sublime and beautiful is 
 its decay! Compared with its former self, it 
 is but a ruin: but compared with any temple 
 that heathen hands have reared, it stands out 
 in unrivalled majesty. 
 
86 FEOM ROME. 
 
 ^ay, they will tell us, this is no emblem 
 of the Catholic Church: that is to be sought 
 for under the perfect dome of St. Peter! 
 Thither let us repair. 
 
 Without accepting the hyperboles of Byron, 
 we would however approach it with the re- 
 membrance that its destination is, in the main, 
 as truly, as it is sublimely represented in the 
 prophecy which he puts into the mouth of 
 Dante : 
 
 "While still stands 
 The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar 
 A dome, its image, while the base expands 
 
 Into a fane surpassing all before 
 
 Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in; ne'er 
 Such sight hath been expanded by a door 
 
 As this, to which all nations shall repair 
 
 And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven!" 
 
 If you ask why, being neither architect nor 
 artist, I presume to feel for myself in this 
 Temple of Temples, I refer you to the above 
 lines. "Fit audience find though few" is no 
 motto for the vestibule of a cosmopolitan fane. 
 He who builds a church for the multitude 
 must be judged by them : his success is to be 
 estimated by its effect upon their perceptions: 
 and to be admired by a select corps of artists 
 
FROM ROME. 87 
 
 is slender compensation for repelling the de- 
 votional instincts of the many. If he have 
 raised a mere Palace of Art when he meant 
 to build a temple to the Almighty, his work 
 is essentially a failure. 
 
 As one therefore of the multitude, who go 
 up to St. Peter's as to a house of prayer, I 
 would claim the liberty of receiving impres- 
 sions without book. 
 
 Seen at a sufficient distance, St. Peter's rises 
 in calm and august grandeur, and looks alto- 
 gether worthy of the object for which it was 
 destined. A fitter temple can hardly be desired 
 for the worship of the Incarnate. Ideas of 
 the abstract infinite will always better har- 
 monize with the Gothic. But as you approach 
 it on level ground, the dome, which is its crown 
 of glory, retires behind the facade; and this 
 latter hides the church entirely, and threatens 
 to become nothing more than a very fine street- 
 building; from which it is saved by the circus 
 of grand colonnades, and the broad flight of 
 steps that ascend to its five gates. But once 
 enter the portal, and the Temple returns in 
 its full sublimity. The eye gathers up the 
 six hundred feet of length at a glance, 
 
88 FROM ROME. 
 
 clearly lightened from above at the transept, 
 where it shows at an immense height a broad 
 lune of its dome, supported by two superb 
 evangelists in mosaic. Beneath is a segment 
 of its grand inscription " Tu ES Petrus, &c," 
 largely legible at so great a distance. Its 
 tine proportions, its colossal pillars, its freedom 
 of space, the roundness and perfection of roof 
 and arch, give it an appearance at once tran- 
 quil and sublime: not in that sublimity which 
 suggests and indicates something indefinitely 
 greater than itself, and which is the true sub- 
 limity of adoration; but in that which is com- 
 plete in its own amplitude, and impresses the 
 puny spectator with a sense of his insignificance. 
 But to my mind, in its broad features, it 
 does little more. It does not infuse mysterious 
 awe, or yearning aspirations. It is in no sense 
 "the gate of heaven:" it leads to nothing 
 beyond itself. It is rather to be considered 
 as a triumphal monument erected in memorial 
 of the establishment of religion upon earth. 
 It seems to say that a glorious work has been 
 accomplished, and it is time to repose upon 
 it, and exult in it, and enjoy it. " The king- 
 doms of this world are become the kingdoms 
 
FROM ROME. 89 
 
 of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall 
 reign for ever and ever!" 
 
 The mosaics, frescoes, and paintings are, to 
 an ordinary spectator, beyond all praise. Copies 
 of the chefs-d'osuvres of the first artists, made 
 chiefly in mosaic-work, confront originals with- 
 out cause of shame. But the minor orna- 
 ments are often in questionable taste 5 and 
 the statuary, for the most part, though vigor- 
 ous, is glaring and exaggerated. The black 
 and hugely gigantic bishops over the east altar, 
 with their prodigious mitres and their golden 
 robes doubling on all the winds, are much too 
 good for gingerbread, — yet they always suggest 
 it. Then there are large-limbed, swollen-bodied 
 babies hanging on all the pillars and misrepre- 
 senting cherubs. Some of them seen near are 
 fatly ridiculous. But the dimensions of the 
 temple are so grand, that they recede into 
 insignificance. In spite of a few drawbacks, 
 it stands in proud preeminence as the noblest 
 temple of its kind, perhaps of any kind, which 
 the world has ever seen. The more frequently 
 it is visited the more strongly does this im- 
 pression prevail. 
 
 The Vatican overwhelms one with its 
 
90 FROM ROME. 
 
 wealth. I have returned from it with a con- 
 fused blending of images, which I hope to fix 
 more definitely in subsequent visits. From the 
 Apollo Belvedere to the little petulant satyr 
 that kicks out his hoof from the sarcophage, 
 every thing calls aloud for notice, and having 
 once gained it, rivets your attention. The 
 mosaic figures on the floor look up into your 
 face, and the frescoes on the ceiling call your 
 regards upward, and statues and relievos and 
 inscriptions, without number, arrest your at- 
 tention midway, and you move about in a 
 world that art has peopled by its own creative 
 power, and can hardly conceive the reality of 
 the things around you. The large expecta- 
 tions which I brought with me were largely 
 exceeded, and the riches and glory of Rome 
 were never so strongly impressed upon my 
 imagination. We wandered from chamber to 
 chamber absolutely oppressed by a sense of 
 admiration. The Apollo, the Antinous, the 
 Laocoon, were already sufficiently familiar in 
 their general outlines to be viewed with more 
 criticising regards : but so many novel and 
 unexpected objects crowded upon our aesthetic 
 perceptions, that we paused and breathed deep, 
 
FROM ROME. 91 
 
 as men who are staggered by their own 
 emotions. 
 
 I send you these first impressions of the 
 Vatican in all their confusion, as well to im- 
 part a general sense of its multiplicity of mag- 
 nificence as to explain my inability to enter 
 into details. 
 
92 FROM ROME. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Rome, April 1851. 
 
 Dear S— , 
 
 Palm Sunday is the great day, on 
 which commence the ceremonies of the Holy 
 Week. We were in St. Peter's by nine 
 o'clock, in order to secure seats for the ladies 
 of our party. They were admissible only by 
 tickets and under cover of black veils, to 
 screen them from the Cardinals. We obtained 
 also for ourselves a very favourable position for 
 observing the chief ceremonies. The princely 
 Cardinals in their gilt coaches, with three glit- 
 tering footmen behind each, and accoutred 
 with trappings of the most flaming gorgeous- 
 ness, drove up to the beautiful gate of the 
 temple in all humility, abjuring, perhaps, se- 
 cretly and inwardly the pomps and vanities of 
 this wicked world. The cathedral was lined 
 with soldiers, the French occupying one side 
 
FROM KOME. 93 
 
 and the Papal troops the other, while the 
 motley guard figured in all their colours 
 about the high altar. This altar rises just 
 beneath the dome, and is under cover of 
 a majestic canopy ninety feet in height, 
 supported by four twisted bronze pillars (the 
 bronze from the ancient Pantheon), orna- 
 mented with a tracery of foliage. In front 
 of it, descending to the level of the pave- 
 ment, is a marble balustrade, on which a 
 hundred lamps, or more, are kept perpetually 
 burning. The steps that ascend to it all round 
 were covered, for the occasion, with a rich 
 carpet, which extended eastward into the tri- 
 bune or chancel, till it was received by the 
 green-baize and crimson benches appropriated 
 to the Cardinals. At the extremity of these, 
 just before the east altar, stood the crimson 
 throne erected for the Pope, against a lofty 
 screen of the same colour. On the pinnacles 
 of this temporary screen fluttered six little 
 golden cherubs, suspending from golden chains 
 three more cherubic playfellows, of whom one 
 bore a grand tiara in his hands just over the 
 Pope's head, — ready to crown or to extinguish 
 him. The Harlequinian guard now exerted 
 
94 FROM ROME. 
 
 themselves to thrust back the people from 
 the high altar towards the transepts and 
 aisles, in order to leave a broad marble 
 avenue up the whole length of the nave, in 
 preparation for the arrival of the Cardinals 
 and Pope. At length the head of the pro- 
 cession appeared at the west door. It was 
 preceded by the body-guard of princes and 
 nobles, who constitute a veritable Legion of 
 Honour, worthy tcf hold the Pope's stirrup. 
 They made a fine and imposing appearance 
 in their splendid uniforms of azure and gold. 
 The Cardinals moved slowly up the nave, and 
 it seemed a tedious pilgrimage from the west 
 end to the east. Last of all came the Pope, 
 borne aloft in his chair of state by eight or 
 ten stalwart men in scarlet from head to foot. 
 He blessed the people as he came, stretching 
 his hands over them and looking down with 
 mild benevolence. They bowed their heads 
 to his blessing, as the ripe corn before the 
 western breeze. They set him at last upon 
 his throne in the tribune, with the long lawn 
 of baize before him, on which might have 
 stood an ordinary church. He was supported 
 right and left by Cardinals and stately bishops, 
 
FROM ROME. 95 
 
 and more remotely by the erect glittering 
 swords of his guard of nobles. Singing now- 
 broke out from the iron grating just above 
 our heads in the south wall, in which was en- 
 caged a nest of choristers. Kissing of hands 
 and divers genuflexions proceeded. Two at- 
 tendants unfolded the robes of the Pope, and 
 presented to the people a full view of his 
 white under-costume from head to foot. They 
 looked at him for a few seconds (the object 
 of which I could not learn, unless it were to 
 ascertain that he was not a man of straw), 
 and then with great dignity wrapped his robe 
 round him again, and he sat all crimson and 
 gold. Once more the two attendants spread 
 wide the folding-doors of his vesture, another 
 brought a crimson-cushioned stool and laid it 
 devoutly at his feet. He knelt down upon it 
 the sixteenth part of a minute, or while one 
 might fairly count seven; then rose and re- 
 clined back upon his throne, and the folding- 
 doors of his vesture were closed, and he sat 
 motionless as before. But now the service 
 proceeded in earnest. A youth held before 
 him a book, from which he intoned his part 
 of the performance in a clear strong voice, 
 
96 FROM ROME. 
 
 that passed by the high altar unbroken, and 
 died at last midway in the nave. Meanwhile, 
 at his side stood a whole forest of ornamented 
 wands or thyrsi, made of palm wood, and in- 
 tended to represent branches. They were 
 brought in pairs, one from each side, and 
 laid across his knees, where they received his 
 blessing. They were then immediately taken 
 up by two Cardinals (pairing before him from 
 north and south), who kissed them first, and 
 then bore them with solemnity, if not with 
 satisfaction, to their places. The Cardinals 
 had only hoiced to their master, the rest hielt 
 as they received the palm, and some kissed 
 the holy slipper. This process continued for 
 an immoderate time, till not only all the Car- 
 dinals, bishops, and ecclesiastical officials had 
 received the pontifical boon, but also a great 
 number of grandees, foreign diplomatists, mili- 
 tary officers (including a few in English uni- 
 form), devout travellers, and learned men, and 
 students of Eomish universities. At first I 
 looked upon these donations as something that 
 conferred special honour; but they cheapened 
 in my estimation as I grew weary, and es- 
 pecially as I learnt from an Italian gentle- 
 
PROM ROME. 97 
 
 man that nothing was more easy than to 
 obtain one: I could have had one myself if 
 I had been so minded, and that without pre- 
 judice to my being a protestant. When all 
 had been made Palmers, from cardinal to sa- 
 cristan, from prince to pilgrim, the cathedral 
 at the east end wore a new appearance. It 
 was a shrabbery of thyrsi. But when the 
 Cardinals sat down they laid their palm-wands 
 in parallels on the ground before them, making 
 a broad white fringe to the baize. 
 
 They now took a turn round the church in 
 gorgeous procession. I can pretend to no ex- 
 treme accuracy, but as far as my eye and a 
 note-book served me, the order was as follows : 
 
 20 Ecclesiastics, entirely in black. 
 
 10 in red. 
 
 30 in red with white tippets. 
 
 30 in purple with white lawn. 
 
 16 Cardinals with purple tippets. 
 
 20 Bishops in mitres. 
 
 14 attendants and guards. 
 
 The Pope in his chair aloft. 
 
 80 miscellaneous followers bearing palms. 
 In all about 220. 
 
 After they had made the tour and taken 
 
 H 
 
98 FROM ROME. 
 
 their places again in the tribune, the Pope 
 being seated upon his crimson throne, with a 
 broad empty street before him up to the high 
 altar, the quire began to chant the lesson for 
 the day. It comprised the two long chapters, 
 the 26th and 27th of St. Matthew,— very ap- 
 propriate to the occasion, but hardly to the 
 assembly. When I saw the bishop of Rome 
 surrounded by soldiers and drawn swords, re- 
 presenting his civil as well as ecclesiastical 
 authority, I wondered if it struck any one 
 else as it did me, when they chanted to the 
 Pope, over the casques of his body-guard, 
 " All they that take the sword shall perish 
 with the sword." But this sense of incon- 
 gruity was soon forgotten, and, as the service 
 proceeded, gave place to very different feelings. 
 The chorus was perched up in the iron cage 
 above our heads, but the three solo singers 
 stood on the pavement, facing three men who 
 served, as usual, instead of lecterns. They 
 rested the great folio upon their forehead and 
 two hands, so as to present it open to the 
 singer. The principal narrative was chanted 
 exclusively by one person, the part of the 
 Redeemer by another (i. e. all the words which 
 
FEOM ROME. 99 
 
 Jesus uttered), and a little black man chanted 
 for Judas, and afterwards for Pilate. The 
 central singer stopped when he came to a 
 speech in the Gospel, and left it to be sung 
 in character by one of the others. On a sud- 
 den there was a strange confused clamour 
 from the cage-like grating above us, which 
 we found to arise from the chorus, who re- 
 presented the multitude, singing the discord- 
 ant cries of the False Witnesses. Again they 
 broke forth at the words, " Prophesy unto us, 
 thou Christ, who is he that smote thee?" 
 Again they cried simultaneously for " Barab- 
 bas," and chanted the solemn imprecation, 
 " His blood be on us and on our children!" 
 They mocked Him saying, " Hail, king of the 
 Jews ;" and finally taunted Him in His agony, 
 " Thou that destroy est the temple and build- 
 est it in three days, save thyself! If Thou be 
 the Son of God, come down from the cross!" 
 This, I confess, was to me the truly in- 
 teresting part of the service. The vocal sing- 
 ing (for they have no instrumental music) 
 occupied a very considerable time: and, as it 
 proceeded, I lost, gradually, all sense of the 
 gorgeous pomps that surrounded ine : the Pope 
 
 H2 
 
100 FROM ROME. 
 
 and his Cardinals were gone: the glittering 
 swords in the temple, the wands, and the 
 plumes, and the motley guard, had no power 
 to disturb me ; I was absorbed and over- 
 powered by the simple majesty of the Gospel 
 heard in such a place and at such a time. I 
 felt that here at least we were one. Over the 
 touching narrative of the Kedeemer's passion, 
 and with His very words ringing in my ears, 
 I could know of no dispute between Papist 
 and Protestant; I felt that nothing around 
 me could destroy the force of that saying, 
 " The words that I speak unto you, they are 
 spirit and they are life !" So much did I re- 
 joice to feel in fellowship with the whole 
 Church before the cross of the dying Saviour, 
 and to find the words of Christ stronger for 
 good than any associations around me for evil, 
 that I was moved even to tears, and with dif- 
 ficulty disguised my emotions. 
 
 Perhaps the first unpleasant impression that 
 roused me from my reverie arose from the 
 reflection that the far greater part of the as- 
 sembly were cut off from any participation in 
 my feelings by their ignorance of the Latin 
 tongue. I had rejoiced in the simple narra- 
 
FEOM ROME. 101 
 
 tive of the Gospel : but alas ! to the illiterate 
 it was an unknown sound; it was music, and 
 no more ! Could I wonder that the man by 
 my side was all the while reciting his own 
 private devotions, without any regard to what 
 was publicly said or sung? 
 
 The rest of the service had little tendency 
 to renew my better impressions. Two Car- 
 dinals officiated at the high altar, and left a 
 subdeacon behind them holding the chalice in 
 a strained attitude, with statue-like immobility, 
 for so great a length of time, that one could 
 hardly believe that he was alive, or if alive, 
 that he could have endured it. The Creed was 
 chanted, and took some time ; but long before 
 it was finished, I observed many of the Car- 
 dinals quietly sitting down. Upon remarking 
 upon this seeming impropriety, my Italian 
 friend replied, that " they had already said 
 the Creed themselves, and were not obliged 
 to wait for the music." 
 
 The Pope left the church with the same 
 pomp as he entered it, blessing the people 
 with unwearied benevolence from his high 
 and tottering seat. As soon as his back was 
 turned the palms were treated, I thought, 
 
102 FROM ROME. 
 
 with little respect. Some looked as if they 
 did not know what to do with them : some 
 were giving them to their sweethearts: some 
 to any lady that wanted one: and a decently 
 dressed man offered us his for a " consideration." 
 So vast is this temple that there was room 
 and to spare, though half Rome and all the 
 "pilgrims" assisted at the solemnity. A width 
 of forty or fifty feet was kept open down the 
 whole length of the nave when the soldiers 
 marched out; yet the crowds retired back 
 without inconvenience into the recesses of the 
 magnificent aisles. 
 
FROM ROME. 103 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Rome, April 1851. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 A friend of mine, well experienced in 
 Roman sight-seeing, gave me the judicious 
 advice not to visit objects of the same class 
 continuously. Pictures upon pictures, churches 
 upon churches, ruins upon ruins, become weari- 
 some at last and pall upon the fancy. But 
 in a miscellaneous disarrangement of objects 
 the interest is kept up to the end. Let a day 
 or two devoted to modern art be followed by 
 a communing with the dead among the frag- 
 ments of antiquity. Attendance upon religious 
 ceremonies may give place to an excursion to 
 Tivoli or Albano. Thus the mind remains 
 always fresh for the work of the day. To 
 this cause you are indebted for the sudden 
 transitions which I make without law of as- 
 
104 FROM ROME. 
 
 sociation; as at present from St. Peter's to 
 the tomb of Scipio. 
 
 Scipio's tomb, the Columbaria, and the ex- 
 cavations now carrying forward on the Appian 
 way, may be visited in one afternoon. The 
 rival antiquarians have so shaken our faith in 
 almost every thing Roman, that it is delight- 
 ful to find oneself at last in the undisputed 
 tomb of the Scipios. But, alas, its chief at- 
 traction is gone ! Its most interesting sarco- 
 phage has been deposited in a museum, where 
 it loses nine-tenths of its value. It were some- 
 thing to go under the earth to pay honour to 
 the memory of great men and sages in their 
 own silent chambers, where they had reposed 
 for 2000 years, and should have reposed for 
 ever! But the lust of enriching museums is 
 the modern demon of destruction, all the more 
 intolerable because he wears the mask of Pro- 
 tection and Conservatism. It is this demon 
 which rifles the tombs of the dead, demolishes 
 temples, and breaks up ancient monuments, 
 that it may carry them away from their own 
 place and set them up on pedestals where they 
 have no meaning, and but a faint shadow of 
 their original glory. Professing the highest 
 
FEOM ROME. 105 
 
 regard for antiquity, it dismembers, Medea- 
 like, its own children in the vain confidence 
 that when it puts them together again, they 
 will live as before. When Mummius naively 
 told his human beasts of burden, that if they 
 damaged the works of Corinthian art entrusted 
 to their care, they should be made to replace 
 them, his menace was scarcely more difficult 
 of execution than the attempt to collect the 
 dry bones of the old world in a menagerie, 
 and bid them live. A museum is a good 
 foundling hospital for antiquities that have no 
 parentage : but, for the most part, their in- 
 terest depends upon local associations: they 
 are valuable only in their own place, in a 
 neighbourhood of kindred memorials. In their 
 own family tomb beside the Appian way the 
 Scipios would have drawn a new via sacra to 
 their resting-place, and thousands of pilgrims 
 would have felt their hearts beat with emo- 
 tion in the chambers of their long repose. 
 But who, except the showman of curiosities, 
 cares for the Scipios in a museum? 
 
 The Columbaria, which adjoin the tomb of 
 the Scipios, are at present of deeper interest, 
 because they have been left comparatively un- 
 
106 FROM ROME. 
 
 disturbed. You descend to that of Cneius P. 
 Hylas by a deep staircase into a nearly cubical 
 room, lofty enough to admit of nine tiers of 
 openings like dovecot holes (whence it took 
 the name Columbarium), in which are de- 
 posited the calcined ashes of the dead. At- 
 tached to each is the name of the deceased, 
 and often of his occupation. The dates be- 
 long chiefly to the times of Augustus and 
 Tiberius, and are very conspicuous and legi- 
 ble. It was, we were told, the common burial 
 chamber of slaves and freedmen. 
 
 Many of the inscriptions breathe a spirit of 
 affection. A father builds a dove-nitch to his 
 " dearest daughter," another to his " sweetest 
 child;" and it will be gratifying to our female 
 friends in England to learn how many of these 
 poor slaves had meritorious wives. " To my 
 well-deserving wife" is one of the most frequent 
 inscriptions. Sex. Manlius Hilarius, by way 
 I suppose of securing his right of sepulture, 
 informs you, that he has "bought two urns, 
 or ollce, of P. Clodius." Many others record 
 similar transactions. One woman was midwife 
 to Marcella, and her ashes are ex-officially 
 proud of it. One man leaves an inscription, 
 
FROM ROME. 107 
 
 which I would be glad to believe had some 
 effect in saving his olla from the Museum, 
 
 " Touch me not ! 
 
 O mortal! 
 Reverence the Manes Deos!" 
 
 I recollect however, on the other hand, that a 
 poor plundered freedman calls out to no pur- 
 pose from the walls of the Capitolian Gallery, 
 " Per deos superos inferosque rogo ne ossuaria 
 velis violare !" 
 
 A visit to this place brings forcibly before 
 one's mind the rival advantages of interment 
 or cremation. Custom fluctuated even among 
 the ancient Romans. They appear to have 
 buried in earliest times, when the population 
 was scanty and it was easy to put their dead 
 out of sight, and to have burnt the bodies at 
 a later period, perhaps (especially in a warm 
 climate) from motives of convenience and health. 
 As the Jews were accustomed to inter, they 
 naturally brought the practice into the Chris- 
 tian Church, of which at first they were the 
 sole members*, and subsequent ages, without 
 injunction to that effect, or any obligation 
 of necessity, followed in fact the example of 
 primitive times. But in a case of this kind, 
 
108 FROM ROME. 
 
 involving no point of doctrine, every one is 
 at liberty to form his own opinion, and it is 
 open to discussion which of the two modes 
 is in certain circumstances the most eligible. 
 After visiting these columbaria the prejudice 
 which I had imbibed against cremation was 
 considerably weakened, and it seemed to me, 
 there were circumstances in which it might 
 be preferred. The religious associations which 
 are made to circulate around the grave, might, 
 and in a little time would, be equally attached 
 to the funereal urn. The body might be given 
 "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust" 
 as well after it had come forth as refined gold 
 from the purifying fire, as when it was defiled 
 by the touch of dissolution. The enquiry is 
 not whether a few rich men can embalm their 
 friends, or hermetically seal them up to the 
 Day of Decision, with more satisfaction to their 
 feelings than if they consigned them to the 
 funeral pile : but whether the millions, who 
 are doomed to indiscriminate sepulture, are 
 treated with more pious and christian regard 
 by blending them together in loathsome pits 
 of corruption, where no man can find his own, 
 
FROM ROME. 109 
 
 than by collecting their separate ashes in vessels 
 of honour, and placing them in pure chambers 
 beyond the reach of pollution. Let any one, 
 for example, look down the trap-doors above 
 the common cemetery at Naples, through which 
 the naked bodies of the poor are dropped one 
 upon another, and all upon a mass of horrible 
 corruption, — where in a literal sense "their 
 worm dieth not," — and then let him stand in 
 this sacred columbarium with the rows of se- 
 pulchral vases around him, and say from his 
 own instinctive feelings which abode he would 
 choose for the final resting-place of his dearest 
 friends? which seems to be most pure, most 
 worthy to be christian? Whether is it treat- 
 ing the dead with most respect to cast them 
 into a pit of loathsomeness and pollution, or 
 to cleanse them once, like a holy sacrifice, by 
 fire, and collect their ashes in ums to be con- 
 signed to christian Hope to keep in purity 
 till the resurrection? It may be that, from 
 long association, no considerable number of 
 persons would wish for any change at present : 
 but if the population of Europe should con- 
 tinue to increase for two centuries more as 
 rapidly as it has done of late, it is possible 
 
110 FROM ROME. 
 
 that, by that time, our great cities may have 
 replaced their pestilential cemeteries by pure 
 columbaria ; — or shall our charnel-houses never 
 be cleansed except by the last great fire? 
 
FROM ROME. Ill 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Rome. 
 
 Bear S — , 
 
 It would be a hopeless task to give 
 you any adequate account of the three hundred 
 and sixty basilicas and churches that adorn 
 the Eternal City. All the more important 
 ones have some special interest of their own, 
 and if they were found elsewhere would be 
 the objects of detailed admiration. Some are 
 famous as the site of heathen temples, and 
 yet retain a portico, a column, a tribune, or 
 the fragment of a wall, that was originally 
 dedicated to the worship of Jupiter, Venus, 
 or Vesta. Many contain statues and paint- 
 ings that would confer celebrity on a gallery 
 of art in any city of Europe. Many glow 
 from their marble floor to the summit of 
 their lofty cupolas with frescoes and mosaics 
 admirable for their execution or precious for 
 
112 FROM ROME. 
 
 their quaint antiquity. In some the gorgeous 
 appliances for Divine worship are the chief 
 attraction, and in very many a treasury of 
 strange relics, which no reasonable man can 
 believe in, incite the curiosity or the devotion 
 of the vulgar. In others the ear of credulity 
 is soothed with romances of miraculous adven- 
 ture. For some cause or other, every church 
 within sight will repay a visit, and I would 
 advise you, as a matter of course, to turn 
 into it when nothing pressing obliges you to 
 pass by. 
 
 Details of peregrinations from shrine to 
 shrine would be a tedious story. In the 
 course of one morning I have seen relics 
 enough to satisfy me for life. I have seen 
 the very post, now transmuted into precious 
 stone, at which the Redeemer was scourged, 
 and the wood of the very table at which He 
 ate the Last Supper. I have seen the im- 
 pression of His two feet in sandstone, petrified 
 after the manner of a geological specimen. I 
 have stood under the slab, supported by four 
 pillars, which measured His exact height, more 
 than six feet. I have seen young women, clad 
 in white from their head-dress to their ankles, 
 
FROM ROME. ' 113 
 
 staggering on their knees up the marble stair- 
 case of Pilate, devoutly kissing every step, but 
 especially the cross upon the last, with thankful 
 effusion. Two Priests drew near and looked 
 on with satisfaction, while others were running 
 the kneeling race of humility. We expected 
 to see them also fall upon their knees: but 
 they turned aside and walked up the bye stair- 
 case. Yet a little while after young children 
 were kissing their hands with profound respect 
 and soliciting their blessing. The imagination of 
 an English lady, a Protestant, was so much cap- 
 tivated by this Pilate scene, and so confident 
 was she of the authenticity of the staircase, that, 
 as she frankly confessed, she was much dis- 
 posed to climb the Hill of Difficulty with the 
 rest. She hesitated however when I informed 
 her, that I had seen the duplicate staircase in 
 Germany at Kreutznach, and was there as- 
 sured that it had beyond question the better 
 claims to genuineness. Among other tokens 
 it retained a visible spot of the real blood. 
 She inquired eagerly if I had seen it. I was 
 obliged to acknowledge that I had not: but 
 upon my inquiring for it, the sacristan had 
 pointed with his wand to a brazen cross on 
 
114 FROM ROME. 
 
 the upper step, and informed me that it was 
 " under that/ 11 
 
 The Church of St. Prassede is celebrated 
 for its memorials of the saints, and exposes on 
 two large marble slabs an inventory of its 
 spoils. I quote a few of its earlier items: 
 
 One tooth of St. Peter. 
 
 One tooth of St. Paul. 
 
 A piece of the Virgin's Mary's chemise. 
 
 A piece of the girdle of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Some of the ground on which Jesus prayed 
 before His Passion. Arms and heads of divers 
 Apostles, Martyrs, and Saints complete the list, 
 and show the riches of the sacred museum. 
 
 At another church, the Ara Coeli, we were 
 permitted to see the celebrated Bambino or 
 wooden Babe, looking very much like a child's 
 painted doll, — painted, however, we were as- 
 sured, by St. Luke himself; and famed for 
 its power of deciding between life and death 
 when carried into a sick man's chamber, and 
 of procuring safe deliverances to expectant 
 mothers when brought in contact with their 
 persons. The sacristan informed us that its 
 assistance was called for almost every day. 
 A number of tapers were lighted round its 
 
FROM ROME. 115 
 
 cot, or coffin, before it was opened to our 
 unbelieving gaze. The profusion of diamonds, 
 pearls, and precious stones, with which it was 
 covered, bore witness to the gratitude of the 
 credulous. The " will-worship and voluntary 
 humility" of the Pilate staircase, followed up 
 by the ineffable folly of this doll-idolatry, left 
 us in doubt for the time whether in religious 
 perceptions the Eomans were in advance of 
 the Chinese. It produced a curious effect upon 
 one of our party — an Indian officer — who ob- 
 served, that a he should go back to India with 
 a much higher opinion of the native idolatries 
 than he had entertained before; they were 
 less contemptible than the Italian." 
 
 We now descended the Mamertine prisons, 
 two-dungeons-deep under ground; full of as- 
 sociations of their own, independently of the 
 legends of the church. We were perhaps in 
 the oldest prison in the world. Built by Etrus- 
 can hands in the earliest times of the Eoman 
 state, before the rise of the Eepublic, it became 
 the dungeon of political offenders, especially 
 of those who were to be put out of the world 
 in darkness. Here Jugurtha (the Abdel Kacler 
 of Numidia) was starved to death, and Cethegus 
 
 12 
 
116 FROM ROME. 
 
 and his compeers were strangled by the ex- 
 tremely diligent* virtue of Cicero. But as 
 the Pope has mounted St. Paul and St. Peter 
 on the columns of Antoninus and Trajan, and 
 bidden them take possession of the monuments 
 of the heathen, so do these Apostles — the Key- 
 bearer, and the Sword-bearer — monopolize in 
 the legends of the church, the interest of the 
 Mamertine prisons. Here they were confined 
 together in expectation of their martyrdom: 
 here they converted their gaolers; and when 
 water was wanting for their baptism, a pure 
 fountain sprung up in the lowest dungeon at 
 their feet, from which we had the pleasure of 
 drinking a refreshing draft. Thus far the 
 tale rests on a semblance of evidence, or upon 
 the congruity of the miracle to the notions 
 of the legendary age. Had it stopped here 
 many Protestant visitors, I conceive, as well 
 as Romanists, would have yielded to it, with- 
 out repugnance, an unenquiring acquiescence. 
 But in the mouths of the vulgar, these legends 
 overrun themselves with wonders: and accord- 
 ingly St. Paul is made to mar the whole 
 thing by a miracle too undignified for comedy. 
 
 * " Mea summa diligentia." 
 
FROM ROME. 117 
 
 As he was going down the stairs into the 
 dungeon, one of the ruffian guards knocked 
 his head against the wall; and the wall made 
 the most of its opportunity and took a projih 
 of the Apostle ! There it stands before you ! 
 The high cheek bone, the nose, the forehead, 
 even the bushy beard, have all buried them- 
 selves in the stone and stampt an eternal basso- 
 relievo ! Even our guide, Italian as he was, 
 had some compunctions, and after telling us 
 the legend with grave decorum he added in 
 an undertone, as he followed us down the steps, 
 u C'est une histoire, messieurs !" 
 
 The Church of the Capuchins is famed for one 
 of the most successful efforts of Guido's pencil. 
 The archangel Michael triumphs over the Devil 
 in ineffable beauty, — executing his high work 
 as the minister of Divine judgment, not of 
 human passion. It is delightful to see this artist, 
 who in his less happy moments loses himself 
 in an elegant weakness, brace up his strength 
 to portray an angel that shall be worthy the 
 companionship of gods (Ps. lxxxii. 6). Doubt- 
 less if those Angelic, or departed, beings who 
 have stood for their likeness in thin air to the 
 imagination of the artist, could have selected 
 
118 FROM ROME. 
 
 for themselves, we may suppose that, while 
 Cleopatra would have sat willingly to Guido, 
 Michael and Raphael would rather have chosen 
 their terrestrial namesakes: but if Michael 
 would resign something of his strength and 
 sublime dignity for more than human beauty, 
 and an expression of pure moral triumph, like 
 that of good over evil, he would scarcely find 
 a more perfect personification of his celestial 
 virtues than here looks down upon the van- 
 quished Demon. 
 
 On the pavement of this church is one 
 monumental stone that bears no name or date, 
 and records no more than is contained in the 
 blank inscription: 
 
 " Here lies dust, ashes, and nothingness." 
 
 But beneath it are collected the bones of 
 the Barberini, and he who placed it over 
 them was a Cardinal. The dry skulls and 
 cross-bones of this illustrious family are piled 
 up and arranged in ornamental patterns in 
 the first of the five vaults beneath the church, 
 which serve the purpose of five churchyards. 
 Half the floor of each has been excavated, 
 and then filled up with earth imported from 
 Jerusalem; — making a plot of garden ground, 
 
FROM ROME. 119 
 
 tidily kept, in whose sacred soil the dead are 
 interred. But as these holy resting-places are 
 very small, and in great demand, the monks 
 have devised a method of accommodating every 
 body. The fresh corpses are duly buried in 
 the plot of holy land; but, as soon as time 
 and quick-lime have picked clean the bones, 
 they are taken out, and built up in a fantastic 
 manner into architectural ornaments round the 
 vaults. The whole is a grotto of human bones ; 
 and here and there in nitches, or at the mouth 
 of an artificial cave, stands, like a sentinel, or 
 a hermit, the skeleton of a Capuchin in the 
 habiliments of his order. The effect is strange, 
 but not solemn or impressive. It looks like 
 Death's Folly, — as if he would turn the grave 
 into a palace of art, and mock the living with 
 the rich tracery and mosaic- work of their fathers' 
 bones. 
 
 While service is performing in the churches 
 the entrance to them is usually guarded by a 
 sort of mat, covered with ticking or leather, 
 that is suspended as a screen before the door. 
 It is pushed aside upon entering and closes 
 after you. At St. Peter's and some of the 
 larger churches this screen is so heavy, that 
 
120 FROM ROME. 
 
 weak women must exert themselves to remove 
 it. But then the beggars are always there to 
 offer their assistance. When any respectable 
 person approaches they officiously hold open the 
 screen, and beg for charity as you pass. It 
 is necessary to be alert on these occasions: for 
 if you are off your guard it sometimes happens 
 that while you are giving them baiocchi in one 
 hand, they will help themselves to your pocket- 
 handkerchief with the other. 
 
 Mr. Dickens, who describes so graphically 
 what he has seen, has in moments of forget- 
 fulness a graphic imagination. Thus he com- 
 plains of the monotony of the Church services 
 in Rome : " the same lamps dimly burning, &c, 
 the same priest's back with the same large cross 
 embroidered on it, <£c." To say nothing of the 
 lamps, I have been so far from wearied out 
 with the sameness of the large embroidered 
 cross, that I have never once seen it. In the 
 splendid wardrobe of chasubles at St. Peter's, 
 I found some of them white for the Virgin 
 Mary's days, some sombre for days of mourn- 
 ing, some golden for high festivals, but not a 
 cross among them. The sacristan told us, that 
 the large cross on the back was a Gallican, 
 not a Roman ornament. 
 
 
FROM ROME. 121 
 
 In the evening I was at the Sistine Chapel 
 to hear the Miserere. But the crush was so 
 great, and the heat so oppressive, that I could 
 not stay to the end of it. My place was in 
 the midst of a little knot of priests, who were 
 plying their breviaries and keeping up a con- 
 versation with all around them at the same 
 time : in the midst of which I had my pockets 
 plundered under the benevolent eye of the 
 Pope ! They did not join in the general 
 service, at least till they had cleared off their 
 special prayers ; which they recited in a scarcely 
 audible whisper, out of time with each other, 
 and still more with his Holiness. Their ra- 
 pidity of recitation I have often observed: but 
 one priest, from whose book I read, exceeded 
 every thing of the kind I had seen. His lower 
 jaw moved with incredible velocity. It was 
 more like the vibration of a steel spring, than 
 anything which belonged to articulate utter- 
 ance. I endeavoured to follow him through 
 the Psalms: but before I had cleared five 
 verses he was at the bottom of the page, — 
 then over another leaf, — and so on, at the 
 speed of an express train, that stops at no 
 intermediate stations. Nothing but early prac- 
 
122 FROM ROME. 
 
 tice, like that which forms the drummer's hand 
 to his work, could have given to human lips 
 such rapid articulation. But one could not 
 help asking, what possible duty was fulfilled 
 by dashing through the prayer-book as a young 
 lady runs her fingers down the harpsichord. 
 Surely one mental ejaculation to Him who 
 would be worshipped in spirit and in truth, 
 is more devout, more pious, more profitable, 
 than a full parade of this vesper-tattooing! 
 
FROM ROME. 123 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 Rome, April 1851. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 On Thursday, in Holy Week, we took 
 our places before noon on a private balcony, 
 that just faces the gallery or lodge, as it is 
 called, of St. Peter's, from which the Pope 
 publicly blesses the people. But we were too 
 distant, and there was in fact nothing to see 
 but the splendid Circus lined with French sol- 
 diers and Swiss guards, and beyond them a 
 crowd of people and a crowd of carriages 
 hemmed in by the encircling colonnades. 
 Precisely at twelve the Pope made his ap- 
 pearance in crjmson robes, attended by Car- 
 dinals. He stood motionless, and looked in 
 the distance like a coral ornament set just in 
 the centre of the facade. The multitude that 
 filled the Place went down upon their knees 
 (with the exception of a few obstinate here- 
 
124 FROM ROME. 
 
 tics), the soldiers lowered their arms, the Pope 
 expanded his hands over them in dumb show, 
 — and then, on a sudden, there was a crash of 
 sound: the guns fired, the trumpets blew, and 
 the whole multitude rose and rushed towards 
 the cathedral, — elbowing, pushing, panting, per- 
 spiring; now wedging themselves for an in- 
 stant into a conglomerate at the doors, then 
 expanding again over the nave, which had 
 space enough for all comers. The object of 
 endeavour was to secure a seat for the ladies 
 on the reserved benches in the south transept, 
 to which they were admissible, as usual, by 
 ticket and black veil. Here the preparations 
 were made for washing the Apostles' feet. 
 The thirteen pilgrim-priests who had been 
 chosen to represent the twelve time men and 
 the traitor, were seated conspicuously on a 
 high bench in white surplices and white caps, 
 beneath a fine tapestry of Leonardo's Last Sup- 
 per. The reputed Vicar of the true Lord and 
 Master now entered and took his seat on the 
 throne : from which, after a few ceremonies, 
 he descended, and girded himself with a towel, 
 and proceeded to the Apostolic bench, where 
 the thirteen were expecting him. I was near 
 
FROM ROME. 125 
 
 enough to see their naked feet thrust out to 
 be kissed, and washed, and wiped (all in a 
 rather Jesuitical, but pardonably Jesuitical, 
 manner) by the Pope; who thus sets an ex- 
 ample of humility such, I will be bold to say, 
 as heathenism and even " undeveloped" Chris- 
 tianity never saw ! Peter, with his enormous 
 white beard (which he might have borrowed 
 from out of Bernini's flaunting statues), trem- 
 bling and tottering with affected old age, — for 
 it was affectation in Peter to be very old, — had 
 the honour of being served first. But scarcely 
 had the Pope kissed the foot of the fourth 
 apostle before the whole assembly was in 
 great commotion. I was mounted somewhat 
 aloft, where I had a good view of the spec- 
 tacle : and upon turning to see what was the 
 matter, I beheld the whole multitude doing 
 their utmost to run away, and leave the other 
 nine apostles with the Pope. Ladies were 
 jumping down from the benches, or skipping 
 over them, or making signals to their friends 
 to come and rescue them with all speed; and 
 single gentlemen, with their hats in the air, 
 were rushing to the doors as if the place were 
 on fire. I thought it prudent to commit my- 
 
126 FROM ROME. 
 
 self to the stream, and was borne by it, with 
 scarcely a will of my own, down the nave, 
 through the south door, along the south co- 
 lonnade, up the broad flight of steps that 
 mount to the Vatican, and deposited on a 
 staircase to the right, where the crowd had 
 been greatly weeded by the vigorous Swiss 
 guard, who rejected all, at the foot of the 
 ascent, who wore suspicious waistcoats, brass 
 buttons, and variegated cravats. Having 
 drawn a deep breath and ascertained that 
 my ribs were sound, I entered the frescoed 
 chambers of the Palace. But all the ap- 
 proaches to the Pauline chapel were choked 
 with expectants. In a short time, however, 
 some began to return, giving up their hopes 
 in despair. Their retreat made much disturb- 
 ance in the equilibrium of the crowd ; and by 
 putting the right shoulder to the work, and 
 watching for opportunities, and advancing by 
 inches, I found myself, in half-an-hour, fairly 
 within the chapel, and within reach of a bar- 
 rier that afforded an elevated seat. It was in 
 order to be in time to secure a similar po- 
 sition, that a rush had been made from St. 
 Peter's before the ceremonies were half com- 
 
FROM ROME. 127 
 
 pleted. For immediately after the feet-wash- 
 ing in the cathedral comes the Supper in the 
 Vatican; at which the Pope lays aside his 
 towel for a napkin, and becomes servant of 
 servants to the thirteen. It is difficult, and 
 therefore an object of great endeavour, to see 
 both sights. Many men fail; but a vast num- 
 ber of the fair sex succeed. From my ele- 
 vated position I had a good view of the 
 Apostolic table, richly laden with vessels of 
 gold. But of flesh-viands there were none. 
 The whole feast consisted of fish and vege- 
 tables. A huge dish of artichokes was con- 
 spicuous, and there was salad enough for a 
 regiment. In a short time the duly-washed 
 thirteen made their appearance: Peter tottered 
 to his seat (I now thought from real old age) 
 between two supporters, and the rest followed 
 with more alacrity. Then came the mitre-less 
 Pope, the picture of official meekness, and 
 acted the waiter with dignified resignation. 
 It looked like a self-imposed penance, which 
 he felt a certain satisfaction in fulfilling. He 
 walked round and round the table, serving 
 them exactly like the Premier Garcon at a 
 table-d' hote. After they had been eating 
 
128 FROM ROME. 
 
 (which they did in earnest) for perhaps half- 
 an-hour, the Supper was said to be ended. 
 Thanks were returned, and the Pope with- 
 drew, walking down the chapel very slowly 
 with uncovered lowliness, and bestowing his 
 benediction all the way. He had no sooner 
 disappeared behind the crimson curtain than 
 the make-believe apostles fell-to again, and, 
 though I staid considerably later, I still left 
 them eating ! Any uncharitable construction 
 that might be put upon their appetites was 
 checked by the cooler reflection, that they 
 were only eating salad. 
 
 If you think that scenes of this kind should 
 be accounted serious and solemn, I can hardly 
 agree with you as to the should. The whole 
 thing appears to me so egregious a mistake, 
 that I should be offended even with the so- 
 lemnity that imposed upon the religious sense 
 of the vulgar. But in fact there is no serious- 
 ness about it. If you except the decorum of 
 official countenances and the lover-like infatua- 
 tion of new converts, the rest look on, delighted 
 and merry, as spectators at a dramatic enter- 
 tainment, or at the game of acting charades. 
 
 I chose to spend Good Friday in my own 
 
FROM ROME. 129 
 
 way, remote from the ceremonies of the Vati- 
 can, with which I was unable to associate any 
 religious worship. Otherwise I have no pre- 
 judice against places, and can as readily offer 
 up my devotions in St. Peter's as in St. Paul's. 
 When surrounded by images, whose worship, 
 in any sense, would to me, at least, be idol- 
 atry, I rest securely upon the sentence of the 
 Apostle, " We know that an idol is nothing 
 in the world," and continue my supplications 
 undisturbed. It were to give a strange im- 
 portance and reality to graven images, to hold 
 that no Protestant could pray under the same 
 roof with them. To me they are a moral 
 nullity — logs of wood and blocks of marble, 
 that affect my spiritual condition no more 
 than the benches and the chairs. I have of- 
 ten made use of portions of the Church of 
 England service in foreign cathedrals; and 
 for myself, without suggesting any rule for 
 others, I have preferred this mode of abnor- 
 mal worship in a strange land to joining in 
 the prayers of Protestant sects. With regard 
 to mere preaching, I allow myself a larger 
 liberty. 
 
 Upon getting some refreshment in the after- 
 
 K 
 
 X 
 
130 FROM ROME. 
 
 noon at a Trattoria, I noticed a more rigid 
 observance of pseudo-fasting than I have else- 
 where seen. The usual repast consisted of 
 maccaroni soup, fish, and oranges. It is true 
 that a little meat was smuggled into the 
 soup; but most of the Italians separated and 
 left it. A few of them, however, called for 
 cutlets and steaks as usual. All took wine ; 
 which never seems to be avoided on fasting 
 days. Even the Vatican apostles were fur- 
 nished abundantly with wine, though the Pope 
 would not allow them even eggs to their salad. 
 
 The question of constrained fasting is one 
 which may well be reconsidered whenever any 
 branch of the Western Church shall find itself 
 in circumstances to reconstruct and modify its 
 code of discipline. At present the theory and 
 the practice are in glaring inconsistency : and 
 I must be allowed to say I think the incon- 
 sistency has been real, if not glaring, ever 
 since the theory was adopted. It will one 
 day have to be considered whether a theory 
 should not be laid aside or materially modi- 
 fied, which for a long series of centuries has 
 produced little more than subterfuges and hy- 
 pocrisy — a theory which treads so closely on 
 
FROM ROME. 131 
 
 the anti-christian heresy of u commanding to ab- 
 stain from meats." Of voluntary fasting there 
 is no question, — any farther than the propriety 
 of it may be affected by difference of climate 
 and condition. If there be any truth in Liebig's 
 doctrine, that the larger portion of our food is 
 wanted to supply animal heat, so that the ab- 
 stinence which prevents fevers in the south 
 would drive the inhabitants of the north into 
 premature consumptions, here is a sufficient 
 reason why the rule of Syrian anchorites 
 should not be the rule of the Western 
 Churches: here is a sufficient explanation of 
 the fact, that a Greek, who lives cheerfully 
 on two ounces of bread and twelve olives a- 
 day, will fast bond fide, while a Roman eats 
 fish by the pound, and calls it fasting. I 
 once sat next to a gentleman at a table- 
 d' hote in the north of Italy, who made him- 
 self conspicuous on a fast-day by rejecting the 
 potage as polluted by meat gravy, and required 
 that pea-soup should be brought expressly for 
 himself. After which he fasted on three poached 
 eggs, five small fishes, two plates of vegetables, 
 one of jelly, cakes, and a whole bottle of wine ! 
 Should such a man be allowed by the Church 
 
 k2 
 
132 FROM EOME. 
 
 to think fasting meritorious? In Austria I 
 was frankly told, " It looks well upon paper, 
 but no one really fasts:" they substitute one 
 dish for another — the more expensive for the 
 cheaper. In Italy the regulations of the Church 
 are attended to much more religiously, es- 
 pecially by the higher classes. Many of them 
 eat no meat on Friday or Saturday, and de- 
 cline invitations on those days. With these 
 it is a law of honour, as it has usually been 
 the only law of safety, to respect the Church. 
 The lower classes, however, respect in this 
 matter their superiors : and if they take ser- 
 vants' places in Protestant families, they ac- 
 count it a grievance to be deprived of meat 
 on Fridays. 
 
 There is one serious consideration to be 
 borne in mind in estimating the desirableness 
 of long compulsory fasts. It is that they 
 have always been accompanied with ample 
 compensations. The Carnival and Lent must 
 be taken together: one is the complement of 
 the other. The same Church that enjoins the 
 mortification sanctions the revelry. It is true 
 that, in practice, English churchmen do not 
 in general make much account of the forty 
 
FROM EOME. 133 
 
 days' fast: but then, on the other hand, they 
 do not prepare for it by two or three months 
 of extravagant dissipation. I could not but 
 admire the simplicity, — if indeed it were not 
 irony in the mask of innocence, — with which 
 an Austrian bishop, whose pastoral address I 
 read in a Viennese paper, publicly and, I 
 thought, superfluously thanked his flock for 
 the zeal with which they had entered into 
 the festivities of the Carnival, and then 
 quietly concluded by trusting that they would 
 pay equal deference to the Lenten regulations 
 of the Church. In fact, when long fasts have 
 been enforced, human nature has always in- 
 demnified itself: and the question is whether 
 it is better habitually to practise Christian 
 moderation and sobriety, or to distribute one's 
 life between ascetism and revelry. A simple 
 ascetic Lent has, perhaps, never been honestly 
 carried out by any Western nation: but a 
 compound Carnival-Lent, which is the Romish, 
 has all the elements of popularity. It satis- 
 fies the flesh and yet soothes the conscience. 
 The season of gaiety is delightful: it whirls 
 on so rapidly and yet lasts so long, that 
 every one has time to be tired, and sigh for 
 
134 FEOM ROME. 
 
 repose. Towards the close of the last Carnival 
 (1851) I heard several Roman Catholics in 
 Vienna express exactly these sentiments. Af- 
 ter nearly three months of dissipation the 
 gentlemen complained that their purses were 
 empty, and the ladies that they were tired of 
 the round of gaieties, and sighed for the quie- 
 tude of the spring Fast. 
 
 If Anglicans think that the English people 
 will be induced to accept a Romish Lent with- 
 out a Romish Carnival, they are attempting 
 to impose upon them a yoke, which the so- 
 called Catholic Church has never borne, or 
 would bear. Its practical system is an inter- 
 change of fasts and feasts in their full phy- 
 sical significance ; and men, or at least women, 
 dance to the Lenten Confessional through the 
 Champs Elysees of the Carnival. 
 
 There are many persons who, on purely re- 
 ligious grounds, prefer the temperate zone of 
 moderation to these violent changes of the 
 thermometer. 
 
 
FROM ROME. 135 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 Rome. 
 
 Dear S— , 
 
 Last evening I was present at the high 
 service of the Armenian Church, celebrated, I 
 believe, in honour of their Bishop or Patri- 
 arch who is now in Borne. This branch of 
 the Eastern Church acknowledges, in Italy 
 at least, the authority of the Pope, but 
 retains, by special favour or compact, its an- 
 cient usages. Its priests are married, and all 
 its ceremonies Eastern, not Roman. It holds 
 out to certain Anglicans an encouraging ex- 
 ample of the large indulgence and considera- 
 tion for English usages, which our bishops 
 might expect, if they would but return to 
 Rome. I have no doubt Pio Nono would let 
 them retain their wives, their dress-coats, and 
 even good old " Sternhold and Hopkins." 
 
136 FROM ROME. 
 
 The Romans had lent their Armenian bre- 
 thren the church of St. Andrew-in-Valle for 
 the occasion. When we entered we found the 
 congregation rapidly forming in front of a tem- 
 porary screen, that partly filled up the entrance 
 to the chancel. Two poles, with a cross-beam, 
 constituted the framework, from which hung 
 two handsome damask curtains, concealing the 
 high altar behind them. It bore a curious 
 resemblance to the preparation for private 
 theatricals. The audience were for the most 
 part Eoman Catholics, with a certain sprink- 
 ling of Greeks. Behind the curtains (for from 
 my position I could see somewhat behind them) 
 they were busily preparing for the show, and 
 palpably rehearsing. Each man was adapting 
 himself to his place and part, while a boy 
 lighted up the army of candles upon the 
 altar. The service began by a priest gliding 
 between the curtains in a bright pink satin 
 robe with a tippet of saffron. He stood be- 
 fore a small lectern, and intoned in a lamen- 
 table voice; which was soon responded to by 
 others behind the curtain. After this had con- 
 tinued some time, the damask curtains slowly 
 sundered at a given signal, and revealed to 
 
FEOM KOME. 137 
 
 the curious and much amused congregation as 
 fantastic a sight as I have ever witnessed. 
 Picture to yourself a golden pheasant at an 
 alabastic trough in the focus of a semicircle 
 of birds of Paradise, who look on and chirp 
 from time to time (if they can chirp), while 
 he gravely dips his head every now and then 
 to the alabaster; — and, in point of bright hues 
 and variegated arrangement, you will not wit- 
 ness anything so gay and brilliant, as delighted 
 the sparkling eyes of the spectators. There 
 stood the golden Bishop before the altar, dis- 
 playing his back-plumage to the people; and 
 there knelt around him at a respectful distance 
 some sixteen priests in splendid silk or satin 
 robes of pink, yellow, vermillion, and bright 
 green, — all so artistically arranged, as to pro- 
 duce the most striking and dazzling effect. 
 The ladies smiled delight, and the young 
 people chuckled. Then there were two 
 Priests, on each side of the Bishop, holding 
 metal disks or cymbals on the top of a staff, 
 which they shook in a rapid and peculiar 
 manner, so as to give the disks a silvery 
 ringing sound and the appearance of spinning. 
 This was too much for some Eoman Catholic 
 
138 FROM ROME. 
 
 lads in my neighbourhood, who could not re- 
 strain their merriment: every juvenile face, 
 that strove to be grave, was yet shortened 
 and broadened. The service I do not pre- 
 tend to explain, as I did not understand a 
 word of it. But nothing which I have seen 
 in Romish worship comes within many de- 
 grees of its whimsical gaiety. At certain pe- 
 riods the curtains closed, as at a theatre, to 
 signify that one act was over; and expanded 
 again, when the preparations were completed 
 for the second. A friend who was present 
 informed me, that at Christmas the proceed- 
 ings were yet more extraordinary. Amongst 
 other things an unclad babe was produced on 
 the stage to personate the infant Saviour ! 
 
 Perhaps you will accuse me of partiality if 
 I say, that I more readily made allowances 
 for this fantastic worship than for the solemn 
 gorgeousness of Romanism. It was indeed a 
 great mistake to expose such a service to a 
 western audience, whom it kept throughout in 
 a state of merry excitement. But, for aught 
 I knew, it might be adapted to the lively 
 imaginations of the east, which delight in 
 pictorial teaching. The same actions which, 
 
FROM ROME. 139 
 
 in the colder and more logical north, would 
 be thought appropriate to a mountebank, have 
 sat upon seers and sages with oriental grace, 
 and increased their reputation and influence 
 among the people. That may be but the 
 natural expression of joy at the equator, which 
 would be a rhapsody of madness at the poles. 
 
 But reflections of this kind, however they 
 may account for and excuse an exuberance of 
 acting in Christian worship, do not recommend 
 it. The simple fact remains, that the great 
 Master and His Apostles, though orientals, did 
 not introduce splendid spectacles, nor depend 
 for their influence upon brilliant robes of pink, 
 and saffron, and green. The spontaneous feel- 
 ing, that such a suggestion can hardly be made 
 without approaching to irreverence, is a clear 
 non placet upon the practice ; nor, when St. 
 Peter taught the weaker sex, that their true 
 ornament should not be "the wearing of gold 
 and putting on of apparel," can we conceive, 
 that he meant to reserve this glittering gear 
 for future Priests and Bishops. 
 
 At nine o'clock on Easter Day high mass 
 was celebrated by the Pope at St. Peter's: 
 but having obtained last Sunday the inform- 
 
140 FROM ROME. 
 
 ation that I desired, I was otherwise engaged. 
 I understood, however, that the service was 
 grand; the Pope officiating in person between 
 the Patriarch of Jerusalem on one hand, and 
 the Bishop of the Greek Church on the other, 
 to signify the union of the three churches. 
 But in the middle of the day, happening to 
 be in the Piazza of St. Peter's, I found myself 
 just in time to see the Pope carried up the 
 Vatican staircase in his golden chair, preceded 
 by the golden cross, and attended by two 
 enormous fans that, expanding on either side, 
 pointed him out in the distance to the people. 
 He was lost for a while among the winding 
 passages that led to the front of St. Peter's, 
 but at last he emerged in stately pomp on 
 the balcony over the principal entrance. I was 
 near enough now to observe his motions, and 
 within earshot of his blessing. While the book 
 was held before him between the two peacock's- 
 tail fans, he chanted manfully the appointed 
 form of words, in a voice that was strained 
 to its utmost power, and heard, I suppose, 
 by tens of thousands that filled the Place. 
 Towards the conclusion he folded his hands 
 and looked up to heaven with the expression 
 
FROM ROME. 141 
 
 of one who was earnestly imploring a blessing, 
 and then stretched his arms across the multitude, 
 as one who would distribute it to them. They 
 knelt or inclined to receive it as far as eye 
 could reach. The benevolent old man did his 
 part feelingly and well, and the effect was 
 solemn and imposing, — nay it was more, it was 
 touching and sublime ! It was the first Bishop 
 of Christendom bestowing his benediction upon 
 the Christian world ! And I did not reject 
 it, because I was a Protestant. We can have 
 no quarrel with the Pope, if he usurps nothing 
 more than the privilege to bless. 
 
 In the evening St. Peter's was illuminated 
 with a display of art and magnificence to be 
 found, they say, only in Rome. In the deep- 
 ening of twilight a beading of small lamps 
 traced out externally all the architecture of 
 the temple, — running up the flutings of the 
 columns, — hanging in the Corinthian acanthus- 
 leaves, — delineating the windows, — spanning 
 the dome with lines of longitude, — climbing up 
 the small pillars of the lantern, — and studding 
 the stem and spars of the cross. This, from 
 its feebler light, is called the Silver Illumina- 
 tion. But a thousand unseen hands are pre- 
 
142 FROM ROME. 
 
 paring the " Golden," which waits till the sun 
 has dipped farther below the horizon. The 
 arrangements are so perfect, that with the first 
 stroke of eight the whole Basilica from the 
 steps to the cross flashes out into instantaneous 
 flame ; which, before the clock has done strik- 
 ing, has run all round the colonnades and 
 lighted up the broad Piazza with a circle of 
 fire. From this spot indeed the distinct cen- 
 tres of light could be distinguished ; but when 
 we retired to the distance of the Pincian Hill, 
 we saw nothing before us but a perfect cathe- 
 dral of flame ! 
 
 Relics were to-day exhibited at most of the 
 churches. I saw many held up without dis- 
 tinguishing them to any purpose: but some 
 of my friends were privileged to inspect — three 
 thorns of the Redeemer's crown — the front 
 of his shirt — a portion of the Virgin Mary's 
 shift — and similar remembrances of others ! 
 What Mr. Newman once said — truly or un- 
 truly — of the writings of the Reformers, that 
 they needed only to be more known to be 
 less esteemed, may with justice be affirmed 
 of many Roman relics. At the entrance of 
 the Colosseum I observed two priests devoutly 
 
 
FROM ROME. 143 
 
 kissing a small cross in the wall, which invites 
 osculation with this inscription, " Whosoever 
 kisses this cross shall receive an indulgence 
 for a year and 40 days." If 400 days of 
 indulgence can be obtained so easily, it is idle 
 to ask what the Romish system of discipline 
 is in books that say nothing of indulgences. 
 However grievously they threaten Purgatory, 
 the penalties can be kissed away at a hundred 
 altars. For the above inscription is quite mo- 
 derate to some that I have read ; and privileged 
 altars seem to out-bid each other in the ex- 
 travagance of their promises. Perhaps they 
 have overshot the mark, and their wares are 
 sinking in credit from their extreme cheapness. 
 They throw suspicion upon Purgatory itself: 
 for if its pains can be remitted by the year 
 for a kiss, or at most for a Litany, many 
 persons will be apt to think, that the pains 
 themselves must be very trifling: for it is 
 impossible to most minds to believe that any 
 serious punishment can be remitted upon such 
 terms. And in fact it is not believed. The 
 way in which some privileged altars stand 
 vacant without a worshipper, indicates suf- 
 ficiently the small degree of faith that is placed 
 in these magnificent promises. 
 
144 FROM ROME. 
 
 The Priests are well aware of the mischief 
 that would arise from taking these indulgences 
 in their plain unconditional meaning ; and there- 
 fore, in modern times, they have happily fenced 
 them in with conditions (of which however the 
 original grant, unless modern, said nothing) 
 which for all practical purposes reduce them 
 to a nullity. Take an example. 
 
 The Pope upon the return of Holy Monday 
 has just placarded the walls of St. Peter's with 
 the following indulgence, granted originally by 
 his namesake, and in 1851 re-issued by himself. 
 
 " Pius the Second, of sacred memory, granted 
 in the year 1462, in perpetuity, a plenary indul- 
 gence for the remission of all sins to the faithful 
 of both sexes, who on Holy Monday of each 
 year shall visit the Chapel of St. Andrew the 
 Apostle beyond the gate del Popolo near the 
 Ponte Molle, and shall five times adore our 
 Lord Jesus Christ with invocation of the glo- 
 rious Apostle St. Andrew for the common 
 salvation of the faithful: as appears from the 
 inscription graven upon the monument there 
 erected by the same Pontiff; where was de- 
 posited the sacred head of the Saint, when 
 it was brought to Eome from the Pelopon- 
 
FROM ROME. 145 
 
 If these words mean anything, they ensure 
 the "forgiveness of all sins" with great pre- 
 sumption upon very unsatisfactory terms; but 
 if (as the modern Romans usually explain away 
 a Pope's promises) they are applicable only to 
 those who are so " faithful " as already to 
 possess " the remission of all sins" on better 
 grounds, without going to the Chapel beyond 
 the gate del Popolo near the Ponte Molle ; then 
 this indulgence is an empty bubble, which is 
 no sooner touched than it bursts into nothing- 
 ness. 
 
 It must be confessed that these indulgences 
 are an eyesore wherever one turns ; and I 
 suspect that many a new convert has found 
 them such upon his first visit to Rome. To 
 a stranger it would appear, that the one great 
 moving principle of the Gospel was Indul- 
 gence. It is paraded at every popular church, 
 and sometimes on three or four altars in the 
 same church ; it is engraven on pillars, and 
 inlaid in walls ; it stares you in the face among 
 ancient ruins, and stands conspicuous at the 
 corners of the streets. The stone cries out 
 of the wall and the beam out of the timber 
 answers it — Indulgence, Indulgence, Indul- 
 
 l 
 
146 FROM ROME. 
 
 GENCE ! It absorbs all other inducements. For 
 any other motive that is presented once to ex- 
 cite the faithful to adoration and works of piety, 
 indulgences are offered them in barter full forty 
 times. Kiss the cross for Indulgences ! kneel 
 at a privileged altar for Indulgences ! say so 
 many aves for Indulgences ! recite the Virgin's 
 Litany for Indulgences! let masses be per- 
 formed for Indulgences ! and so on, without 
 pause or moderation. The practical worship 
 of Eome is made to rest almost wholly upon 
 Indulgences. And when they ask the Luther- 
 ans, Where was their religion before Luther 
 was bom? we may ask in turn, Where was 
 the worship of Rome before Indulgences were 
 granted? It must have been something quite 
 different from what it now is. 
 
FROM ROME. 147 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 Rome, April 1851. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 I will give you one church-scene more, 
 and then conclude that you have had specimens 
 enough of Romish worship. I was present 
 one morning at the Trinita di Monti, that 
 stands on the top of the fine staircase of 135 
 steps, which rises from the Piazza di Spagna. 
 The nuns of an adjoining convent bring their 
 pupils thither to worship. They are drilled 
 to the highest state of conventual discipline, 
 and make a beautiful show upon parade. They 
 are railed off from the promiscuous congrega- 
 tion by an iron screen-work, and have their 
 place immediately before the altar. First come 
 six young girls in spotless white, with white 
 veils bound upon their heads by a chaplet of 
 white roses. They stand before the altar, and 
 bow and curtesy with the most demure de- 
 
 L2 
 
148 FROM ROME. 
 
 liberation. They rise again as by slow clock- 
 work to the full height of their shoulders, — 
 their heads still drooping forward, and their 
 eyes just permitted to look at the ground 
 through their Carlo-Dolcean eyelids. Their 
 steps are measured and immoderately slow, 
 as if they paused to calculate the consequence 
 of every pas before it was irrecoverably taken. 
 But at last they have completed the evolu- 
 tion, which sunders them, each from each, to 
 different sides before the altar, and brings them 
 together again in a parallel position on the 
 other side of a bench, at which they devoutly 
 kneel. Before them burn six wandlike candles 
 in white candlesticks, and ornamented with 
 white ribbons. Meanwhile their more secular 
 sisters appear, two and two, in the offing. 
 They are clad in sky-blue dresses (supposed 
 to be peculiarly grateful to the Virgin) with 
 a sash of still lighter blue hung Diana-wise 
 across the right shoulder, and wanting nothing 
 but the quiver to complete the illusion. But 
 their constrained springless step is not that 
 of the bow-bearing Artemis : the Graces whom 
 they imitate are Silence, Patience, and Mo- 
 desty. With extraordinary slowness and pre- 
 
FROM ROME. 149 
 
 cision of movement the first maiden-couple 
 advances into position before the altar; to 
 which they bow gracefully together, and rising 
 by deliberate inches separate, right and left, 
 each to her appropriate place beside the six 
 white-roses. Four-and-twenty sisters elaborate 
 the same routine, and the whole school is wound 
 up like a Geneva watch, and keeps time as ac- 
 curately — for an hour. I must say, that if some 
 high dames in the Sistine Chapel scandalized 
 one's motions of propriety by the velocity of 
 their vespers, they did not learn this ill habit 
 from the nuns of La Trinita. It was plainly 
 a great point of conventual discipline to train 
 the young ladies to go through the divine 
 ceremonies at the slowest rate consistent with 
 progression. When all was over, they retired 
 with the same perfection of ceremonial parade. 
 The sky-blue sisters paired from eithe&^side 
 before the altar, bent exactly together to the 
 same parallel of obeisance, then rose with their 
 white veils as slowly as the light cloud that 
 floats up the mountain-side, and as slowly 
 veered off beyond the horizon. Last of all, 
 the white-roses reversed their evolution about 
 the candlesticks, bowed in a row before the 
 
150 FROM ROME. 
 
 altar, and then departed with downcast eyes, — 
 silently, musingly, and lingeringly. What they 
 thought, is known only to One : what they did, 
 was the pride of the nunnery ! 
 
 Romanism is a religion of strong contrasts. 
 If on some its obligations sit very lightly, — 
 if in many cases all vital religion seems to be 
 lost in a series of ceremonial make-believes, — 
 yet many who enter conscientiously into its 
 spirit, evince a degree of personal self-denial 
 and patient continuance in welldoing, from 
 which any church in the world might take 
 example. Our own countrymen, — the great 
 inventors and patrons of the comfortable, — 
 are too much disposed to cultivate a comfort- 
 able religion; to choose comfortable places of 
 worship, and comfortable seats, and comfort- 
 able cushions to kneel upon ; even to estimate 
 doctrine chiefly by its tendency to promote 
 " comfort ;" and in short, in spiritual no less 
 than in temporal things, to have every thing 
 comfortable about them. This national ten- 
 dency — it cannot be doubted — puts them to 
 some disadvantage in presence of a religion 
 which is not self-indulgent, and of a Master 
 who preclaims, "Except a man deny himself 
 
FROM ROME. 151 
 
 and take up his cross daily, he cannot he my 
 disciple." The contrast, as far as appears 
 upon the surface, is striking in Italy. Well- 
 dressed ladies kneel side by side with the 
 poor on the same hard benches or the same 
 marble pavement. The want of comfortable 
 accommodation, which perhaps in England would 
 be thought sufficient reason for forsaking the 
 church, is not felt here. On the same stone 
 steps I have seen beggars and fine ladies at 
 the footstool of Him who is no respecter of 
 persons. And in many points, as compared 
 with ourselves, I should be inclined to yield 
 to the Romans the palm of humility and self- 
 denial. 
 
 On Easter Monday we had a grand display 
 of fireworks. The tower of St. Angelo is the 
 usual site of operations ; but the French, having 
 replenished that fortress with gunpowder, held 
 the makers of squibs to be as dangerous as 
 Red republicans. They removed therefore their 
 " explosibles" to the Pincian Hill, which looks 
 down abruptly on the Piazza del Popolo. 
 Though the French soldiers and every dis- 
 posable man in Rome were in the Piazza, 
 there was room enough for at least half as 
 
152 FROM ROME. 
 
 many more. The exhibition was on the grand- 
 est scale ; the explosions stunning ; the castles 
 in the air brilliant and fantastic ; rockets, 
 wheels, serpents, crackers, and I know not what, 
 promoted the general uproar: cascades of fire 
 tumbled down the precipice in dazzling tor- 
 rents; — and then all went out in smoke and 
 darkness ! No fireworks will compensate for 
 the melancholy gloom that follows them. The 
 blaze is for a moment: the melancholy we 
 cany home with us. It is so like the light 
 of joy that goes out in darkness, — the bubble- 
 bursting of the " vanity of vanities," — the tale 
 full of sound and fury, signifying nothing ! 
 
 We drove out on Easter Tuesday to the 
 English Burial-ground, where Keats and Shelley 
 lie beneath the shadow of the pyramid of Caius 
 Cestius. It is a fine place for tombs, in a 
 land where all that was once great upon earth 
 lies buried. It is impossible to wander among 
 the fragments of temples, and palaces, and 
 aqueducts, and tombs, without forming a very 
 different conception of the ancient Romans 
 from that which we brought with us: without 
 feeling little in our own eyes: without becom- 
 ing sensible that the moderns, with their ever- 
 
FROM ROME. 153 
 
 marching intellect and vaunted superiority, 
 are not precisely the great men we had taken 
 them for. With all the increased appliances 
 of modern times, and with the additional ex- 
 perience and practice of centuries, our great 
 cities will now and then produce a work that 
 will stand comparison with Roman greatness ; 
 and, in some three or four cases, they have 
 accomplished an undertaking that has exceeded 
 any single work of antiquity. But it is the 
 immense number of gigantic works in the 
 Roman Empire that overpowers the imagina- 
 tion; it is the profusion of grandeur in the 
 wrecks of Rome that leave modern cities be- 
 hind it. Where are our Colosseums? our 
 Golden Palaces of Nero? our Baths of Dio- 
 clesian and of Caracalla? our temples, and 
 triumphal arches, built to withstand all onset 
 for 2000 years? our domes supported on co- 
 lossal pillars of granite (three score feet high 
 and sixteen in circumference) cut out of the 
 mountains in single blocks, and set up where 
 they shall never be cast down except by the 
 convulsions of an earthquake? I do not ask 
 where one or other of such works is to be 
 found; but where are they crowded together 
 
154 FROM ROME. 
 
 as within the walls of ancient Koine? Turn 
 where you will, it is but a variety of the same 
 scene. From the broken columns, that have 
 lain in the streets for ages, to the towering 
 arches of aqueducts, or the craggy shoulders 
 of buried palaces that peer above the soil, the 
 whole land is strown with memorials of un- 
 paralleled might and magnificence. When you 
 take into account the means at their disposal, 
 and compare them with our steam-engines 
 and machinery, you will not be disposed to 
 speak vaingloriously of " the indomitable en- 
 ergy of Britons." Since I have been in Italy 
 I have felt a profounder admiration of the 
 greatness of the ancient Romans, than I ever 
 felt for that of any other nation. The ruins 
 of the mighty works around one bear witness, 
 that Rome was worthy to be the city of the 
 conquerors of the world. 
 
 From the pyramid of Cestius we passed on 
 to the yet unfinished basilica of St. Paul's. 
 It is more than four hundred feet long, with 
 four rows of Corinthian columns up the nave, 
 separating off its four aisles. It ranks next to 
 St. Peter's in size, and will, when finished, 
 scarcely yield in architectural beauty to any 
 
FROM ROME. 155 
 
 basilica in Rome. The work is going on 
 vigorously, in spite of evil times, and some 
 of the Mosaic portraits of the Popes (of which 
 there is to be a complete series from the be- 
 ginning) are already mounted. It is constructed 
 on a scale of large liberality, greatly aided by 
 the contributions of foreign sovereigns : no 
 expense is spared that is necessary to its per- 
 fection; and it will doubtless be a church of 
 prime magnificence, such as is possessed by 
 few cities of Christendom. But one's prac- 
 tical English nature will sometimes break out 
 even at Rome, and prosaically demand, cut 
 bono? When there are already in the city 
 about two hundred churches more than are 
 required, or than can find a due supply of 
 either priests or worshippers, and when the 
 pecuniary embarrassments of Rome (to say 
 nothing of its coadjutors Austria and Spain) 
 are such as demand every paul for fiscal ne- 
 cessities, is it desirable to sink the revenues 
 of a province in rebuilding a superb basilica, 
 in a wilderness beyond the walls, where there 
 are no inhabitants, and where the very priests 
 that serve at the altar must make haste to 
 escape from the life-blighting breath of the 
 
156 FEOM ROME. 
 
 malaria? The answer is, that it is the tra- 
 ditional burial-place of St. Paul: and, there- 
 fore, while the most pressing public works 
 stand suspended by the revolution, this must 
 go on to the honour of the great Apostle. 
 A vast vacant church may be a splendid 
 cenotaph, and more tasteful than the pyramid 
 that lies heavily on Caius Cestius: but even 
 in this point of view, and allowing the credi- 
 bility of the tradition, to many a Christian 
 pilgrim the sublime ruins of the ancient ba- 
 silica would have seemed a worthier sepulchre 
 and a better memorial of the past, than the 
 modern mosaics of all the Popes. 
 
 Upon returning to the city I would lead 
 you once, in imagination, to the top of the 
 Capitol, where it stands on the frontier of 
 two worlds, the Present and the Past — the 
 Christian and the Heathen. On one side lie 
 the ruins of the great city; on the other, in- 
 terspersed indeed with fragments of old time, 
 the churches and palaces of the Papal metro- 
 polis. Just at one's feet is the ancient Forum, 
 surrounded by its girdle of temples, now 
 partly modified into Christian churches, and 
 partly standing in detached columns and 
 
FROM ROME. 157 
 
 broken entablatures, the survivors of their 
 own names. Beyond it lie the grass mounds 
 that have gathered over the buried city, or 
 the vineyards that have covered them ; and 
 in the midst — the triumphal arches of Titus 
 and Constantine, the grand Colosseum, and 
 the ruins of the imperial Baths and Palaces. 
 In the distance the Sabine and the Latian 
 hills close in the prospect, sweeping round 
 from Albano, Frascati, Tivoli, to the far- 
 famed mount Soracte. 
 
 I only indicate the position, but do not 
 pretend to describe what has been described 
 a hundred times. But I have said, that the 
 ruins have survived their own names. For 
 in the neighbourhood of the Forum there is 
 scarcely one ancient monument, whose tra- 
 ditional designation is not disputed by the 
 antiquarians. Jupiter Tonans gives up his 
 three pillars to Vespasian, and Vespasian, af- 
 ter a short tenure, resigns them to Saturn, 
 and is accommodated with eight granite co- 
 lumns instead, which the antiquaries have 
 taken from Fortune. The temple of the 
 Parcse becomes the temple of Hadrian. Un- 
 lucky Jupiter has been obliged to resign 
 
158 FROM ROME. 
 
 three more beautiful columns to Minerva ; 
 Eomulus and Yesta contend for the same 
 site ; and the time-honoured temple of Re- 
 mus is now assigned to the commonplace 
 Penates. The temple of Peace is, after all, 
 the basilica of the pugnacious Maxentius. 
 The result of these permutations is, that all 
 one's early associations (the only associations 
 that wake poetry and enthusiasm) are scat- 
 tered to the winds : and none but a man of 
 easy credulity, or of antiquarian positiveness, 
 can believe in anything. After a long study 
 of the rival evidence he might come to some 
 probable conclusion; but the unpretentious pil- 
 grim, who is yet sufficiently acquainted with 
 literary disputes not to accept the last say 
 merely because it is the last, finds his faith 
 shaken in all traditionaiy names. While the 
 clerks dispute, the laity grow sceptical; till 
 at last, in presence of half the monuments of 
 ancient Rome, we can feel sure of nothing, 
 but that they are very old, and possibly what 
 the latest, or some one, of the antiquarians 
 has called them. 
 
 I have the greatest objection to be cheated 
 in my sentiments; I would rather be cheated 
 
FROM EOME. 159 
 
 moderately in my purse. I cannot commit 
 myself to an elevating enthusiasm in the 
 temple of Honour and Virtue, while the gen- 
 tleman yonder in spectacles is waiting to 
 prove to me, by book, that it is in fact the 
 temple of Bacchus. One is reduced, there- 
 fore, to generalize over the ruins of Rome, 
 and to lose thereby the interest of special 
 associations : always excepting a few undis- 
 puted objects — the Baths, the triumphal arches, 
 the Pantheon, and, above all, the Colosseum. 
 
 You will blame me, perhaps, if I tell you 
 the reflection that first came to me spon- 
 taneously, after looking, this way and that, 
 upon buried heathenism on one side, and 
 living Christianity on the other. It was — I 
 give it in the bluff form in which it pre- 
 sented itself — Wherein has Rome profited by 
 the change? Wherein are the Christianized 
 Italians superior to their Pagan progenitors? 
 Was the city which produced the stern vir- 
 tues of the older republicans; which was 
 adorned by the Scipios, by Cicero, and Cae- 
 sar; which was ruled over by the Antonines 
 and Trajan, inferior to its Christian successor, 
 whose annals are filled with crimes, whose 
 
160 FROM ROME. 
 
 palaces reek with assassinations and despicable 
 vice? Did the city gain by exchanging the 
 Caesars for the Borgias, and the heathen 
 Lucrece for her Christian namesake ? Take 
 a definite period: after 700 years of heathen- 
 ism and 700 years of Papal rule, whose his- 
 tory reads the purest? which people are the 
 most noble? 
 
 Thoughts of this kind are common, and sug- 
 gest themselves, without being fully avowed, 
 to most pilgrims who visit the Eternal City. 
 But they involve a fallacy and injustice. We 
 select the bright spots of heathenism and com- 
 pare them with the stains on Christianity: or, 
 at best, we deal with historical personages, 
 who form a very small portion of any people, 
 and overlook the condition of the millions. 
 And it is precisely among the millions that 
 Christianity is most effective ; while those 
 who make a noise in the world, and fill the 
 pages of history, are often least under its in- 
 fluence. The proud virtues of the Komans 
 are open to exception ; the very fame which 
 they acquired renders them suspicious: while 
 the private and unobtrusive virtues which 
 Christianity fosters are excluded from re- 
 
FEOM ROME. 161 
 
 nown by their own humility. Then, again, 
 we apply a very different standard of excel- 
 lence, by which to estimate a pagan sage or 
 hero, and an avowed Christian : so much so, 
 that certain crimes and vices in a Roman 
 Pontiff, that fill us with just indignation, 
 would scarcely have been observed in a Ro- 
 man Emperor. But there is one test which 
 will reveal the real difference between hea- 
 then and Christian Rome, in spite of the 
 hero-worship, which is so alluring, and of the 
 Papal corruptions which have been so flagrant. 
 It is an inquiry into the public institutions of 
 mercy and disinterested benevolence in the 
 two cities. Christian Rome is full of founda- 
 tions of charity for the poor, the sick, the 
 widow, and the orphan; but in the ruins of 
 ancient Rome I know not where to look for 
 memorials of similar institutions. Heathenism 
 taught men to think of their own glory, but 
 inspired not the love of God or man: Chris- 
 tianity — even such as it appears in Rome — has 
 filled the city with works of mercy, and trained 
 men to brotherly kindness and charity. 
 
 M 
 
162 FROM ROME. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 Rome. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 A visit to the Pope's private palace, 
 on Monte Cavallo, did not yield much more 
 than a sight of some first-rate Gobelin tapes- 
 try, — of chambers appropriately, not gaudily, 
 furnished, — of the modest table at which the 
 Pope dines in solitude, — of the many-mat- 
 trassed, undraperied, iron bedstead on which 
 he sleeps, — and of the billiard-room where he 
 digests with a few Cardinals a temperate din- 
 ner and the vexations of evil times. We crossed 
 over the way to the palace of the Rospigliosi, 
 where Guido's enchanting fresco the " Au- 
 rora" is worth, as a sight, the whole of the 
 Palazzo Pontificio. 
 
 Among the not least interesting objects of 
 examination must be mentioned the artists' 
 studios, which they show with much readiness 
 
FROM ROME. 163 
 
 and courtesy. Our own country is well repre- 
 sented, especially in sculpture : and it is not 
 a little amusing (in verification of Mr. Dickens' 
 suggestion) to identify in the various genre 
 pictures of the Ateliers the attitudinizing figures 
 of ragged boys and black-eyed brunettes, and 
 real or mock brigands, who bask in the sun 
 on the hill-side of staircase that mounts to 
 La Trinita. It is just the lazy life that suits 
 Italian predilections. They lie about in vari- 
 ous attitudes half the day, waiting for some 
 artist to hire them; and are paid the other 
 half for being looked at. They hang in pic- 
 turesque groups on the stairs, and the boys 
 and girls are exceedingly beautiful. Many 
 foreigners, at least, who have learned to ap- 
 preciate this stronger style of beauty, profess 
 to hold cheap, in comparison, the pale faces 
 of the north. 
 
 Nor should the workmanship in cameos and 
 mosaics be despised. The latter, at least, are 
 the pride of Italy and Rome, and have been 
 so from remote antiquity. The identical mo- 
 saic doves which Pliny admired in his day 
 are still (so they tell you) among the most 
 interesting ornaments of the Capital, and fur- 
 
 m2 
 
164 FROM ROME. 
 
 nish the type to a thousand imitations. The 
 older churches are rich in this species of art; 
 and in more than one concave apse the " Good 
 Shepherd" appears in the centre in august 
 proportions, and his twelve gigantic sheep fill 
 up the semicircle round him. 
 
 Upon taking the last turn of sight-seeing 
 in Rome I copied an inscription, that has of- 
 ten arrested my eye, from the walls of a street 
 in the neighbourhood of St. Peter-in- vinculo. 
 I give it in Italian and English : 
 
 Antonio il santo, O passeggiero, adora, 
 
 Che fu si di miracoli fecondo, 
 
 Mentre visse non sol, ma morto ancora, 
 
 Che stupir fece la natura e '1 mondo. 
 
 Pero con viva fede a lui t' affida, 
 
 Che perir non puo mai chi in lui confida. 
 
 Saint Antony, O wayfarer, adore! 
 
 Who so in miracles abounded, 
 
 Not living only, but when life was o'er, 
 
 That he held Nature and the world astounded. 
 
 Therefore a living faith towards him cherish, 
 
 For he who trusts in him can never perish! 
 
 This speaks for itself to those who have 
 read in the Scripture of Jesus of Nazareth, 
 " There is none other name under heaven 
 given among men whereby we must be 
 
FROM ROME. 165 
 
 saved." Nay, replies the dead wall, there is 
 the name of St. Antony! 
 
 Among the numerous miracles by which 
 this saint " astounded" the world after death, 
 there is one which he cannot perform. He 
 cannot — I know by experience — drive away 
 the troop of juvenile pickpockets that gather 
 round the u wayfarer," who stops, with note- 
 book in hand, to copy the inscription. In 
 despair of the assistance of St. Antony, and 
 before I had reached the sixth line, I myself 
 turned about and drove them away three 
 several times ! Alas, for the youth of Kome ! 
 as all my departed silks can bear witness! 
 
 Quid intactum nefasti 
 Liquimus ? Unde manus juventus 
 Metu deorum continuit ? 
 
 Upon leaving the Papal Capital it is hardly 
 in my power to describe the general impres- 
 sion it has left on me with regard to the 
 Romish worship. It is so easy to be one- 
 sided, so difficult to be fair. There is so 
 much that is objectionable, so much that is 
 admirable : such strange contrasts ; such pal- 
 pable inconsistencies; such reverence and such 
 superstition: so much habitual religion and 
 
166 FROM ROME. 
 
 self-denial with so much mechanical formality, 
 that while it would he easy to take either 
 side exclusively, and to fill pages with the 
 good or the bad features of practical Roman- 
 ism, it would require a much more intimate 
 acquaintance with the Italians than I possess 
 to combine them in their just proportions, so 
 as not to produce a caricature. On the whole, 
 I am happy to leave the place with a better 
 impression of the religious character both of 
 priests and people, than I came prepared to 
 expect. I do not at all believe, from any- 
 thing I see or hear, that the former are the 
 unworthy class of persons they are often as- 
 sumed to be. Where they are so numerous 
 there are, undoubtedly, some delinquents: but 
 the vast majority are men of respectable moral 
 character, and very many, in the discharge of 
 the duties which they have undertaken, would 
 be exemplary to any priesthood. The exter- 
 nal demeanour of those who are training for 
 Holy Orders is in the highest degree praise- 
 worthy and becoming. 
 
 Among the people, in spite of some strange 
 inconsistencies, it is impossible not to recognize 
 the strong religious element which appears in 
 
FROM HOME. 167 
 
 their character. Day after day, in the dis- 
 tricts of the poorer population, the church 
 steps are besieged by men and women of all 
 ages, waiting for the opening of the doors, 
 that they may offer their morning and even- 
 ing prayers in the house of God. I have 
 seen them sitting on the steps for twenty 
 minutes or more, spending their time in read- 
 ing their prayer-books preparatory to more di- 
 rect worship. When admitted into the church 
 they kneel apart in the most unobtrusive man- 
 ner, and seem wholly intent on their devo- 
 tions: differing in this respect (as the devout 
 poor always differ advantageously from more 
 fashionable worshippers) from those who at- 
 tend mass pro forma, and to set a good ex- 
 ample to their dependents. I have continually 
 seen poor men choose out some quiet spot, 
 where they seemed to be little in the way of 
 observation, and covering their faces with their 
 hands, remain long in mental prayer, and then 
 rise and quit the place without regarding any 
 one, as if they were wholly wrapped up in 
 their own meditations: and sometimes the 
 tears have stolen down their cheeks from the 
 depth of their emotion. In no country that 
 
168 FROM ROME. 
 
 I have visited have I seen a people so given 
 to prayer, and so unostentatious and appa- 
 rently in earnest in their worship. 
 
 One curious evidence of the religious tone 
 prevalent among the people may be men- 
 tioned, though in itself it is sufficiently tri- 
 vial. Put a piece of chalk into the hands of 
 a gamin, and in an hour's time he will de- 
 lineate on the walls, in undisguised features, 
 the moral character of his class. From scrib- 
 blings of this kind, amid such as " Death to 
 tyrants," a Down with the French soldiers," 
 " The republic for ever," &c, I noted down 
 the following, the like of which I do not re- 
 member to have seen out of Italy: 
 
 Jesus Christ be praised ! 
 
 Kespect the Cross! 
 
 Respect the Holy Sacrament ! 
 
 Religion for ever! — (very common). 
 
 To God, and to his mother the mistress of 
 the world! 
 
 Many Saints' names with vivas attached to 
 them. 
 
 In a better hand, painted in black, and pro- 
 bably the work of monks, one meets at every 
 turn, in out-of-the-way places, among ruins, 
 
FEOM ROME. 169 
 
 and on old walls, such inscriptions as the 
 following : 
 
 God sees me. 
 
 God will judge me. 
 
 Heaven or Hell awaits me. 
 
 All things have an end. 
 
 Eternity ends never! 
 
 Religious books also abound in the cheap 
 stalls, and are the popular objects of purchase. 
 Their proportion to other books is, I think, much 
 greater than in England, France, or Germany. 
 To this indeed the Censorship and the Inqui- 
 sition may somewhat contribute. But it must 
 be remembered that if they exclude socialistic 
 and democratic publications, their effect upon 
 religious works is at least as restrictive. The 
 Index Expurgatorius is very even-handed ; 
 it equally fulminates against the poor man's 
 Bible, Socialism, Freedom, and Vice. I was 
 amused to read a notice the other day in 
 an Italian Journal, that Archbishop Whately's 
 Logic was prohibited to the faithful. Out of Italy 
 I should have asked — wherefore 2 But there 
 are many palpable reasons around me why, — 
 next to a cheap Bible, and especially in con- 
 nexion with it, — a common-sense system of 
 
170 FROM ROME. 
 
 Logic should be accounted dangerous for the 
 masses. 
 
 Among the moral virtues of the Romans 
 must be reckoned their temperate and abste- 
 mious habits. They drink little and eat less; 
 and the fasts which the Church imposes are far 
 more attended to than in any other country. 
 Their festivals also are free from excesses. 
 On a Festa-day you will see a girl, perhaps, 
 strike a tambourine, and her companions gather 
 round and dance the Tarantella for a quarter of 
 an hour, and then disperse again about the pro- 
 menades, satisfied with this simple and sober 
 ebullition of festivity. There are no tipplers 
 on these occasions, socldening at benches, as 
 would infallibly be the case in England; and 
 if they eat anything, it is a morsel of bread, 
 an orange, or a few nuts. 
 
 The general demeanour of the female sex is 
 modest, self-respectful, and uncoquettish. They 
 neither court observation, nor are forward to 
 observe. In the presence of strangers they 
 follow their own pursuits with unaffected sim- 
 plicity: they are not vain enough to feel 
 embarrassed. In this respect they stood high 
 above the mark which I had been led to 
 
FROM ROME. 171 
 
 expect. If the vices of some abandoned Borgia, 
 and the intrigues of petty courts, have stained 
 the page of Italian history, and prepared men 
 to receive with readiness the social scandals 
 of modern times, it must be remembered that 
 these charges, true or false, apply to the least 
 national part of the population — its higher 
 classes. And we must always protest against 
 estimating the virtue of any people by that 
 of its " Fashionable World." From the Tales 
 of Boccaccio or the verses of Byron you would 
 not form an elevated idea of the moral con- 
 dition of the society to which they respectively 
 relate : but it is a society from which the mass 
 of the nation are excluded: and among these 
 you will be struck, upon coming in from the 
 south of Germany, by the reserve and modesty 
 of the sex. 
 
 Since writing the above I have had a striking 
 confirmation of the favourable opinion I had 
 formed of the moral character of the Roman 
 parochial clergy. I do not refer to the tes- 
 timony of unprejudiced Englishmen now living 
 in Rome, who express the sentiments of the 
 upper classes when they speak of the Priests 
 as of " men of good repute :" but my in- 
 
172 FROM ROME. 
 
 formant is a German of rank, who being aware 
 of some clerical scandals in parts of his own 
 country, made it a special point to inquire 
 for his own satisfaction into the reputation 
 which the parish Priests bore in Rome. He 
 pushed his inquiries without scruple in all 
 directions, both in high and low life, and 
 especially among those who are most behind 
 the scenes and most capable of making reve- 
 lations. And the result was, that no where 
 did he find cause of suspicion against them. 
 If here and there an individual was known 
 as a bad Priest, he was recognized by all as 
 an exception to the general rule. The belief 
 among all classes was, that their clergy were 
 men of pure life and blameless morals. And 
 my frieud drew the conclusion which every 
 sensible man would draw, that they could not, 
 as a body, have obtained among the multitude 
 this reputation unless they had deserved it. 
 " The life of a Priest" said an Italian to a 
 friend of mine " should be as stainless as a 
 glass of water." And I have reason to believe 
 that the exceptions to this rule are not more 
 numerous in Italy than in England. 
 
 The greatest blot upon the Italian character, 
 
FKOM ROME. 173 
 
 as it appears in the transactions of vulgar life, 
 is their defective perception of the beauty of 
 honesty and truth. Never elsewhere had we 
 found so large a proportion of those, with 
 whom we had dealings, ready to cheat on all 
 occasions without compunction or shame. If 
 unmasked in their attempts at fraud, they were 
 no way disconcerted : it was only regarded as 
 an enterprise that had failed, and they hoped 
 to be more successful next time. No verbal 
 agreement is safe, however respectable the 
 parties may appear. Contract after contract 
 is broken, when the time for fulfilment comes, 
 if you have not the terms down in black and 
 white. Articles undertaken to be made at one 
 price are sent in at another, and the original 
 bargain is ignored, or declared to be too un- 
 reasonable to be kept. Nor in the clearest 
 cases of fraud is there any redress at law, 
 unless you have a written engagement to show. 
 The judge will decide in favour of the de- 
 frauder on the ground that one man's word 
 is as good as another's. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, if I remember rightly, 
 says somewhere, that he felt disposed to give 
 thanks to Divine Providence for the amount 
 
174 FROM ROME. 
 
 of vanity which he possessed: he imputed to 
 it many excellent results. Without scrutinizing 
 his mode of expression, we may be allowed to 
 wish, that the southern Italians had a little 
 more of those qualities, which, in their de- 
 praved or exaggerated development, we call 
 vanity, self-esteem, and pride; but which (like 
 all the innate passions of our nature) have, in 
 their proper measure and subordination, a ne- 
 cessary part to perform in promoting the moral 
 progress of the race. A nation, for example, 
 with as much amour projpre as the French, 
 can never, under any disadvantages, be debased 
 below a certain mark. Where the shame of 
 personal dishonour is felt, there will always 
 be an early limit to degradation. The bad 
 will be spurned, at least when it becomes base. 
 And the marked defect of those qualities in 
 the Italians, which are perhaps excessive in 
 the French, does not appear to me to be a 
 national virtue, nor the christian grace of hu- 
 mility, — though it is commended and cherished 
 as such in convents and monasteries. 
 
ROME TO NAPLES. 175 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 Rome to Naples. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 The character for dishonesty which I 
 have given to some of the Italians, will only 
 be too promptly illustrated by a hasty sketch 
 of the chain of impositions that conducted us 
 to Naples from Rome. Our party consisted 
 of a German Baron, an American, and myself. 
 Upon quitting the holy city we all three had 
 the misfortune to be presented with a duplicate 
 of our bills. My own case was speedily dis- 
 posed of, and the second inventory of comes- 
 tibles was explained to be " a mistake." But 
 when we were seated in the Vettura, and the 
 Vetturino was in the act of smacking his whip 
 in parting triumph, the sleek waiter stepped 
 to the carriage-door to inform the Baron, that 
 he also had forgotten to settle his account. 
 The worthy Baron was well acquainted with 
 
176 ROME TO NAPLES. 
 
 Italian in all its dialects ; and the burst of 
 indignation with which he received this an- 
 nouncement, it exceeds my English to describe. 
 The Italian only, with its caniglias and uccios 
 and uzzos of contempt, sufficed to give vent to 
 the German's scorn of Roman roguery. But 
 in vain did he protest that he had paid his 
 hundred francs over-night. The " Padron" 
 maintained with impudent pertinacity that he 
 had never seen the money ; — presuming, I sup- 
 pose, upon the probability that the German 
 had lighted his cigar with the " quittance." 
 This hope however was vain. The luggage 
 was unpacked, and the quittance, duly signed 
 by the Padron a few hours before, produced 
 in black and white; upon which, and under 
 the threat that his conduct should be exposed 
 in Galignani, he consented to acknowledge 
 that this was a second mistake. We now 
 rolled down the street to take up our American 
 friend; whom we found standing at the door 
 of his lodgings well-nigh snorting with scorn. 
 For he too had committed the indiscretion of 
 paying over night ; and in the morning the 
 whole household, from the eldest to the youngest, 
 was ushered up into his room to declare, that 
 
EOME TO NAPLES. 177 
 
 no one had received the cash ! I need not 
 say, that in maintaining his just rights one 
 American is a match for a Roman household. 
 The gentleman of New York did not pay 
 twice. 
 
 The small fry of Facchinos, or porters, (though 
 offering characteristic traits of nationality with 
 their pleasant demand of two francs for touch- 
 ing a portmanteau with two of their fingers) 
 I will leave to scream at each other, and tear 
 the ladies' bandboxes in pieces. But at the 
 frontier of the kingdom of Naples we came 
 in contact with the officers of his Neapolitan 
 Majesty. The barrier gates were closed at our 
 approach, but opened again at our humble 
 request, and we were permitted to draw up 
 for half-an-hour under the official archway, 
 there to perform quarantine till our persons, 
 luggage, and passports were declared to be 
 free from revolutionary infection. Meanwhile 
 an official, who seemed to be lounging about 
 for the purpose, took the opportunity of in- 
 forming us, that within the last three days 
 they had sent back six carriages of travellers 
 for the equivocal reason of not duly " satis- 
 fying" the police : he endeavoured mysteriously 
 
 N 
 
178 EOME TO NAPLES. 
 
 to impress us with an idea of the difficulty of 
 crossing the frontier in these troublous times. 
 This was preparatory to a demand for three 
 separate fees : one for touching our passport 
 (they were careful to explain that the govern- 
 ment charged nothing for signing it) ; another 
 for not touching our luggage; and a third 
 supplementary for the police in general, i.e. 
 for those who had been at the trouble of 
 looking on. These were all paid under the 
 fear that otherwise our books would be con- 
 fiscated as at Venice. But upon leaving this 
 place — which we did with an official escort on 
 the box, who took another fee for attendance — 
 we found that the real place of examination 
 was a few miles further on at Fondi; where, 
 as our escort promptly informed our coachman, 
 it would be necessary to bribe more largely if 
 we hoped to get through. Accordingly, upon 
 our arrival at that place our prime spokes- 
 man, the Baron, was ushered up into what, 
 I suppose, I must call the Bribing Chamber 
 of the Police : where some of the officials were 
 at table playing cards, and others making 
 bargains with the couriers of some half-dozen 
 carriages, which were detained, like our own, 
 
ROME TO NAPLES. 179 
 
 at the door. The Principal wrote out a Per- 
 mission to pass without saying a word, handed 
 it to the Baron, and waited to see what fee 
 he meant to offer. A certain sum was prof- 
 fered, and contemptuously rejected: it was 
 doubled : upon which the Principal quietly took 
 back the Permission, and said, that it would do 
 for another party. For ourselves, our luggage 
 must be searched ; and as our horses were not 
 Neapolitan, they would not be allowed to be 
 taken into the country. The Baron now tripled 
 the bribe: which was at length accepted, and 
 we were permitted to go on our way in peace. 
 Glad were we to escape from the mob of 
 naked children that beset all the carriages 
 without intermission, thrusting unsightly objects 
 in, almost, at the windows, and outraging the 
 feelings of female travellers (several of whom 
 were English) by their importunity. The 
 police meanwhile looked quietly on, intent upon 
 nothing but taking bribes. 
 
 Abundant assurances were given us that our 
 Lascia Passare, for which we had paid so hand- 
 somely, would be everywhere respected, and 
 no farther fees would be required. At the 
 gates of Naples however the Custom-house 
 
 N2 
 
180 ROME TO NAPLES. 
 
 officers told us, that they would respect it only 
 upon condition of paying again: which, for 
 the sake of our books, we were obliged to do. 
 Just as before, a certain sum was offered, and 
 rejected: it was doubled: when the Principal, 
 having taken it, turned upon his heel and said, 
 " Well, gentlemen, you have satisfied me — 
 now you must satisfy my assistant" — turning 
 us over to his clerk. 
 
 The sum total of these exactions is not great 
 — but it is all highway robbery; and if with 
 all deference we might be permitted to whisper 
 a word into the Royal ear, it would be to 
 ask, at what period of Neapolitan history it 
 is expected, that the people will begin to re- 
 spect a government that is represented to them 
 by such officials? 
 
 But we must return a little upon our way. 
 At the conclusion of the Holy Week at Rome 
 it was as difficult to make a reasonable bargain 
 with a Vetturino, as to find a sensible man on 
 the Pilate staircase. At last however we passed 
 through the eternal gates, and in a couple of 
 hours mounted the heights of Albano, visited 
 its lake, admired its lovely scenery, and put 
 what faith we could in old stories and the tomb 
 
ROME TO NAPLES. 181 
 
 of Ascanius. At Cistema, the village of wells, 
 we arrived in time to walk its boundaries before 
 sunset, and to observe the strange picturesque 
 antiquity of its huddle of houses, its ruins and 
 cave-huts, and the variegated costume of its 
 pretty inhabitants. The next day our road 
 was ruled for us across the Pontine Marshes, 
 in an endless parallel with the great Pontine- 
 Level drain through an endless avenue of trees, 
 at whose extremity a gothic portal of blue- 
 sky stood distantly before us, like the gate of 
 heaven at the close of life's pilgrimage. Not 
 a creature was to be seen, not a voice to be 
 heard, through all the weary way. The bray- 
 ing of an ass would have been music in that 
 silence of death. The malaria encamped there 
 alone : and the natives had fled from it to the 
 hills that formed our eastern horizon; where, 
 at a level just above the reach of the noxious 
 exhalations, their cottages were from time to 
 time discernible. 
 
 Upon approaching Terracina, — the "late 
 saxis candentibus Anxur" of old days, — the 
 scene changed. The bold towering rock that 
 stands like a giant at the gates to guard the 
 frontier town from the Neapolitans, — the fine 
 
182 ROME TO NAPLES. 
 
 hill above with its caves and cliffs, and the 
 ruins yet conspicuous upon it, — the majestic 
 bay, of which Terracina forms the extremity, 
 with the wide view across to the rocky island 
 of Ischia, and to the yet remoter summit of 
 Vesuvius, — offered large compensation for the 
 dreariness of our morning's journey. Upon 
 resuming our way, we soon passed the jealous 
 frontier of Naples, and ever-to-be-forgotten 
 Fondi; then swept under pleasant Itri, that 
 built her nest on high in the clefts of the rocks ; 
 venerated, as we passed, the tomb of Cicero, 
 and the memory of the freedman who honoured 
 his dead master ; and finally congratulated our- 
 selves at sunset in an hotel built, as they tell 
 us, on the site of Cicero's villa, close to the 
 sea-shore, where the tide yet plashes against 
 the broken arches that once belonged to that 
 omniloquent genius. 
 
 At sunrise the scene from our hotel was 
 enchanting. An orange orchard at our feet 
 descended to the water's edge, and filled all 
 the air with its luscious odour. The ruins of 
 Roman villas were on either side, breaking 
 the swell of ocean into perpetual spray. At 
 the distance of two or three miles along the 
 
HOME TO NAPLES. 183 
 
 shore stood Gaeta^ on the hill-slope beneath 
 Orlando's tower, looking out brightly upon 
 her splendid bay. Behind us was a range of 
 verdant hills, and in front lay the broad Medi- 
 terranean unruffled to the horizon. To the 
 far south, the insular rocks of Procida and 
 Ischia closed in the gulph, and beyond them 
 the conspicuous Vesuvius threw up its silvery 
 vapour to be reddened in the rising sun. It 
 was well that we rose betimes to enjoy this 
 glorious prospect ! for so fair a morning ushered 
 in a day as gloomy, drizzling, and at last 
 drenching, as ever damped the buoyancy of 
 a traveller's spirit. At St. Agatha, with good 
 fare at a dirty inn, we did our best to pass 
 contentedly the two or three hours of impri- 
 sonment which the weather imposed upon us. 
 Our hotel, for so it was called, was in fact 
 a stable-yard, surrounded with stalls for cattle 
 on the ground-floor, and sleeping apartments 
 above. The latter opened upon a common 
 gallery running in part round the yard, and 
 sheltered under the projecting eaves. The bed- 
 rooms were scantily furnished, the beds such 
 as would be scorned in all our model cottages ; 
 and the doors, like the shells of feverish oys- 
 
184 EOME TO NAPLES. 
 
 ters, gaped a little for fresh air, and refused 
 to be quite closed. And then the air which 
 they drew in came direct from the stable ! 
 Yet many of our noble tourists were fain to 
 sleep in these chambers with their delicately 
 sensitive ladies, and in the morning called for 
 the Strangers' Book, and wrote in it grateful 
 commendations of the inn ! Such good does 
 it do to the dormant capabilities of the great 
 to jostle a little over the stones of travail ! 
 
 We entered Naples in the obscurity of even- 
 ing, when nothing was to be seen but the 
 sombre presence of its Vesuvius, and the sweep- 
 ing semicircle of its frontage to the sea. Since 
 then we have formed a tolerable acquaintance 
 with this Queen of Bays from Sorrento at the 
 south-east to Capo Misero at the north-west, 
 — a distance, I believe, of about 70 miles. 
 
 But we must begin with Naples. The 
 streets, and lanes, and bye-lanes of this Graeco- 
 Roman city present the strangest sight ima- 
 ginable. They are not merely the places of 
 traffic and of promenade, but, by turns, the 
 cafes, the dancing saloons, the maccaroni 
 rooms, the dormitaries, and, above all, the 
 sinks and sculleries of the population! Here 
 
ROME TO NAPLES. 185 
 
 a reclining group, of all ages, are huddled to- 
 gether in picturesque confusion, as if they were 
 doing it on purpose to be daguerreotyped for 
 sale: there the men are lying about on the 
 pavement asleep, while the women are spin- 
 ning flax at their side: here a fine healthy- 
 looking sun-burnt girl of eighteen has just 
 deposited her jet-black shock of dishevelled 
 hair in her sister's lap, who is disentangling 
 it, and ferreting through the brushwood with 
 venationary zest : there the young children, 
 three-parts naked, are tumbled in a heap like 
 new-born pigs. A good part of the Chiaja, 
 the sea-side promenade, is in possession of the 
 laundresses, and a thousand dripping draperies 
 flutter in the breeze. Then cripples and un- 
 sightly aborts, and all who have anything 
 horribly disgusting to show, expose their de- 
 formities and montrosities to the public gaze 
 without a rag to hide them, and strive to 
 excite compassion by revolting the feelings — 
 an attempt in which, in the long run, they 
 fail. I believe it would be ultimately ad- 
 vantageous to these poor wretches themselves, 
 if the police would interfere to prevent their 
 committing these outrages upon decency and 
 
186 EOME TO NAPLES. 
 
 pity. They shock the feelings a few times, 
 and then slowly and certainly harden them: 
 they oblige their habitual spectators to steel 
 their hearts and shut up their sensibilities in 
 mere self-defence. I should be much disposed 
 to impute to this cause the tendency to cruelty, 
 which I was sorry to observe among the Nea- 
 politans. Who cares for the sufferings of an 
 ass or mule, when he is accustomed daily to 
 such scenes as these? Accordingly, as long 
 as a poor beast can be made to move, he is 
 goaded on to death with heartless cruelty. If 
 a society for the protection of animals were 
 established here, it would have to send half 
 the donkeys to a veterinary hospital to be 
 healed of their raw wounds, and half their 
 drivers to prison. Even where there is no 
 intended cruelty, beasts of burden in general 
 must lead an ill life at Naples. In proportion 
 as the natives work little, they make their 
 cattle work much. The high two-wheeled ca- 
 leche, with three persons (besides babes) in 
 front, three (besides babes) in the middle, 
 three standing behind, and three swung in a 
 net below, makes a droll picture, and is an 
 amusing mode of travelling to every one but 
 
ROME TO NAPLES. 187 
 
 the horse; who often is only prevented from 
 coming to a dead standstill by being flogged 
 into a continuous gallop. Away they all go ! 
 the bag of boys jostling into place below, the 
 men behind gesticulating, laughing, screaming ; 
 the women and babes delighted with the swing ; 
 the whip flying incessantly ; and the raw-boned 
 beast lungeing desperately on his way. 
 
 The beggars are all distanced by this rapid 
 mode of sweeping through the streets — not to 
 mention, that none of the twelve or fourteen 
 worthies in this " one-horse chaise" have any 
 sous or grains, as they call them, to spare. 
 But in aristocratic vehicles, where two or 
 three horses take it leisurely with twice as 
 many pic-nic gentlemen and ladies, a motley 
 escort of mendicants is as natural an append- 
 age as a company of Swiss guards to royalty. 
 Wherever you move out of the town, — to Pom- 
 peii, to Castelamare, to the villas about ancient 
 Baise, — you have the same flesh-and-rag cortege. 
 As a general rule, every man and woman that 
 you pass on these excursions, or at least that 
 you look at, hold out their hands for alms ; 
 and all the young children, with all the lads 
 and lasses up to the years of mature /wdiscre- 
 
188 ROME TO NAPLES. 
 
 tion, flock about the carriage on both sides 
 and behind, all, as they tell you, very hungry 
 and crying aloud for " small coin" and " mac- 
 caroni." Here, at our left-hand, are two strap- 
 ping wenches returning from work in the fields, 
 steadying a faggot of brushwood on their heads 
 with one hand, and thrusting the other into 
 the carriage as they run beside it, — loudly pro- 
 claiming that they are dying of hunger, but 
 laughing all the while, and showing their 
 white teeth at their own imposture. They 
 are followed by a more juvenile troop, who 
 imitate their betters, and sing out incessantly 
 for famine as merrily as grasshoppers. Whe- 
 ther they get something or nothing, they trot 
 on with the carriage, and their cheerful vi- 
 vacity is never exhausted. They know that 
 you will descend at Solfatara to visit the 
 sulphur pits, where the embers of an old- 
 world volcano are still smouldering and smok- 
 ing; and where the earth, smitten like the 
 chest of the hectic, yields to the stethescopic 
 ear the cavernous sound of far-gone consump- 
 tion within. They know, again, that you will 
 draw up to view the marble floor and the 
 broken columns of the temple of Serapis ; that 
 
ROME TO NAPLES. 189 
 
 you will linger about the ruins of the temples 
 of Venus and Diana, and whisper many times 
 to light-eared Echo beneath the ivied dome 
 of Mercury. Then you will plunge into the 
 dungeons of Nero, and rove among the lofty 
 columns of the great Eeservoir of Waters. 
 Tombs and caves and ruins are all to be 
 visited in their turn. And on each of these 
 occasions, joined by others who are waiting 
 for you at the spot, they will tread out all 
 your footmarks behind you, encumber your 
 steps in front, interrupt your conversation, 
 and irritate to the utmost of their power your 
 charity and your patience. If you make your 
 body small, and creep through some narrow 
 opening into an ancient columbarium, there 
 are little urchins that will crawl after you, 
 and carry on their calling in the tomb. If 
 you leap the ruined parapet and leave the 
 mannikins behind, there are stout tall lads 
 who can leap farther than you, and are ac- 
 customed to beg both on the sunny and the 
 shady side of the wall. If, importuned out of 
 patience, you seize, — as one of our party did, — 
 the postillion's whip, and make a flying radius 
 round you, the whole tribe, little and big, flit 
 
190 ROME TO NAPLES. 
 
 off as instantaneously as a swami of Neapoli- 
 tan flies, — and as instantaneously return: and 
 when at last, overcome by their persevering 
 good-humour, by their offerings of wild flow- 
 ers, and by the merriness of their mendicity, 
 you find that, in fact, you have parted with 
 all your sous, a little sly boy will unknot his 
 handkerchief and offer to give you change for 
 a carline, and a girl, who has been " very 
 hungry" for an hour, will show you that she 
 has her apron full of eggs. 
 
 I am told that in winter these poor crea- 
 tures are in extreme distress; that they will 
 fly upon a morsel of bread like wild cats, and 
 tear from each other the scraps that are given 
 to them. Under such circumstances they ac- 
 quire the habit of importuning every stranger 
 for food, and cany it on by custom in the 
 summer months, when they are no longer in 
 want, but find abundance for their small needs 
 in the natural exuberance of the soil. 
 
FROM NAPLES. 191 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 Naples, May. 
 
 Dear S— , 
 
 Naples itself affords comparatively few- 
 sights to one who is not now beginning his 
 tour, but has arrived at the farther end of the 
 Peninsula of wonders. For so very ancient 
 a town it is singularly deficient in obvious an- 
 tiquities, though they abound in the immediate 
 neighbourhood. The Borbonian Museum is the 
 great attraction, and stands unrivalled among 
 similar institutions. Its pictures and wwks of 
 modern art, though sufficient to enrich any Euro- 
 pean gallery, sink in point of interest into insigni- 
 ficance beside the mosaics, frescoes, statues, and 
 all kinds of precious relics from Herculaneum 
 and Pompeii. You seem to live again with 
 the old Romans, and to be a witness of their 
 every-day life. It is curious to observe how 
 many pictures and statues look as if they were 
 
192 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 the original germ of works that are the pride 
 of modem times. It is difficult to say in paint- 
 ing and sculpture (as in poetry and all the pro- 
 ductions of imagination) how far backward the 
 first outlines of invention may be traced. It is 
 not that the modern artist is a conscious plagia- 
 rist; he never perhaps saw the original to which 
 his own work bears a filial likeness. But the 
 forms and groupings which were shut up in 
 Pompeii for so many centuries were already 
 well impressed upon the public mind, as they 
 were themselves but the expression of tradi- 
 tionary forms existing yet earlier. And the 
 tradition continued when the types were lost. 
 The same germinal ideas reappear in distant 
 ages with the variations of individual fancy. 
 
 Upon returning to my hotel somewhat late 
 in the evening, I unexpectedly came upon a 
 large procession, singing psalms in the silence 
 of the night, and dazzlingly illuminated with 
 flags of fire. For such was the appearance 
 given by the broad and fluctuating sheets of 
 flame that streamed in the wind from iron 
 vessels filled with combustible materials and 
 carried on the top of poles. For a moment 
 I had supposed that one side of an entire 
 
FROM NAPLES. 193 
 
 street was on fire. Upon inquiring what it 
 meant, I was told, that they had been carry- 
 ing the " good God" to a sick man, and were 
 now taking Him back to the church! That 
 is, — they had been carrying the Holy Sacra- 
 ment to the sick man's chamber, instead of 
 the wooden Bambino used for that purpose 
 in Home. This idea — which they express so 
 crudely — of carrying the good God about in 
 the Priest's box, seems to put the Deity very 
 much on a par with the household idols found 
 so abundantly at Pompeii, which a man can 
 take away with him in the palm of his hand: 
 and it is so offensive to one who is conscious 
 of the greatness of his spiritual being in his 
 longing attempts to feel after the Infinity of 
 the Godhead, that he revolts from the transub- 
 stantiatory theory, which produces in dough 
 these multitudinous Penates. The Romanist 
 will meet the difficulty by telling him that 
 they are all ONE, and that each is verily the 
 Lord of heaven and earth! It is only in a 
 country entirely Romish that the excrescences 
 upon its ancient creed appear in their full 
 deformity. In the presence of Protestantism 
 there is always a tendency to extenuate, and 
 
 O 
 
194 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 veil, and soften down the more scandalizing 
 points: and that, I believe, not merely to 
 make a fairer show before opponents, but be- 
 cause, in an atmosphere freshened with Pro- 
 testant ideas, the Roman Catholic mind itself 
 is nauseated with extravagances, which are 
 greedily quaffed in as wholesome and invigo- 
 rating in the moral malaria of Rome. It is 
 reported, for example, that a Romish bishop 
 in England gave out, that he would excom- 
 municate any one of his flock who should be 
 so superstitious as to worship the Cross itself 
 as per se an object of adoration. When a 
 fellow-countryman of ours mentioned this cir- 
 cumstance to an ecclesiastic at Rome, who was 
 showing him some relics, he looked extremely 
 surprised at this novel idea, shook his head as 
 one who suspected heresy, and replied that 
 such doctrine would not be borne in Rome. 
 
 A rumour being afloat, that some English 
 vessels have been wrecked and abandoned on 
 the African coast, a crew of Neapolitan sailors, 
 who are capital hands and feet at diving, have 
 thought it a fine opportunity for exercising 
 their talents, and securing what booty they 
 may from the foundered stores. Accordingly 
 
FROM NAPLES. 195 
 
 they have fitted out a vessel, and set sail this 
 morning just under niy window. But being 
 desirous in so perilous an undertaking to secure 
 the countenance of the u good God" to enable 
 them to rifle the wrecks without being wrecked 
 in turn, they have hired a Priest to propitiate 
 for them the favour of heaven by working the 
 clapper of a single great bell all the morn- 
 ing without intermission! It makes the most 
 nerve-rending din imaginable ! Clang, clang, 
 clang, clang — it goes, at the rate of a double 
 quick march, while the sailors are working, 
 sweating, screaming, and flinging their limbs 
 to all points of the compass. A thousand idle 
 spectators, in all kinds of motley dresses, with 
 many children in no dress at all, have ga- 
 thered at the tocsin, and stand admiring the 
 enterprising crew. They frisk, and laugh, and 
 gabble with delight. They absolutely enjoy the 
 horrible clash of sound ! Clang, clang, clang, 
 clang, goes the tympanum-rending kettle-bell, 
 provoking in vain the favour of any saint! 
 Little boys swim about in the sea for joy — 
 some of them with amulets round their necks, 
 which their anxious mothers have tied there 
 to make them buoyant. The birds are all 
 
 o2 
 
196 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 frightened away, and have taken refuge on the 
 heights of St. Ermo, or the more umbrageous 
 hill of Posilipo : and the fishes, I doubt not, 
 are no less alarmed and are making for the 
 deep waters. But to my extreme delight, 
 after four hours of stunning preparation, there 
 rides the vessel forth at last, and the thirty- 
 thousandth clapper-clang hath sounded and 
 ceased ! 
 
 It was the respectable master of my hotel 
 who informed me, that this bell-riot was made 
 " for the purpose of propitiating the favour of 
 the good God." I leave you to decide the 
 point of casuistry, whether it is more Christian 
 to worship an idol with adoration that is due 
 only to the Supreme, or the Supreme with 
 a devotion that is fit only for an idol ! 
 
 As you stand by the parapet of the Chiaja, 
 looking down upon the clear calm sea, you 
 will fancy perhaps, in half-a-minute, that you 
 see something white in motion under the water. 
 It will soon assume the form of a pair of 
 human extremities of immature proportions, 
 striking vigorously upwards. If you had not 
 travelled long enough to have learnt unhappily 
 the Horatian " nil admirari" — " stare at no- 
 
FROM NAPLES. 197 
 
 thing" — maxim of experience, you would be 
 tempted to call aloud for assistance to save a 
 poor boy from drowning, whom some fanatically 
 public-spirited disciple of Malthus, or some bad 
 mother with too large a brood, had submersed 
 in the deep, like a cat or dog, with a block 
 of lava at his neck. But wait a little and ob- 
 serve ! Never mind the kicking, though it 
 looks so like the energy of despair ! Do not be 
 nervous because you cannot see the head and 
 shoulders, or because the former is buried in 
 the sand. In a few minutes, which will seem 
 ten to your impatience, the little heels will 
 approach the surface, a sudden strange un- 
 traceable revolution will take place, and there 
 will stand the dripping urchin before you, 
 blowing lustily, like a Triton, to get rid of 
 the chest-full of breath that has done such long 
 service. In seven seconds more another head 
 will start up, like a cork, and then another; 
 till you will find yourself in presence of six 
 or eight diving sons of divers, who are prac- 
 tising their hereditary art. Their special de- 
 light is to dip for money. Throw a carline 
 into the sea, and they will join heads together 
 
198 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 at the bottom, like gudgeons that converge 
 upon a worm. 
 
 The moveable stalls, a sort of sedan shop, 
 at which women sell fruit in the streets, are 
 often gorgeously coloured and gilt, and have 
 religious devices upon them — a Madonna, a 
 patron saint, but especially (I know not why, 
 unless it be that they make fine colours) the 
 red flames of Purgatory. In one of these de- 
 corations I saw two monks nearly up to their 
 chins in the fire, while two little angels, flying 
 above them, were emptying pitchers of water, 
 as large as themselves, upon their tonsured 
 skulls. Anywhere else it would have looked 
 like satire. But the large, broad-smiling, lym- 
 phatic dame who tended the stall, could as 
 easily have walked up Vesuvius into the crater, 
 as have been capable of satirizing a monk. 
 
 The heat is already (in May) intense. A 
 day or two of the Sirocco has driven the popu- 
 lation into their houses for shelter. The poor 
 boys that have no home creep into the shade, 
 wherever it is to be found : and upon walking 
 along the exposed Quai at noon, I observed 
 that each of the stone posts had a boy curled 
 up and asleep under its contracted shadow. 
 
FROM NAPLES. 199 
 
 One curious sight, and a bad sign of the 
 education of the people, are the well-known 
 letter-writers, who sit about the streets, es- 
 pecially near the theatres and post-office, at 
 a small deal table with pens and paper before 
 them, and an empty chair at their side, wait- 
 ing the commands of a client. In any country, 
 except perhaps Scotland, this accommodation 
 would be appreciated by the lowest class; but 
 here you will see the client's chair occupied 
 by well-dressed and respectable-looking per- 
 sons, to whom letters are unknown. Perhaps 
 the very convenience which their ignorance 
 has rendered necessary, makes them contented 
 to remain helpless. There is a sub-officer in 
 regimentals, looking very much like an Eng- 
 lish sergeant, dictating the substance of a rou- 
 tine communication, which the expert scribe 
 trims, like his pen, at a few strokes into 
 shape and point. There sits a poor woman 
 nursing her youngest child, and telling her 
 story with a sad dejected countenance, as if 
 she were writing to her runaway husband or 
 her prodigal firstborn. A demure respectable- 
 looking matron, who would have been a Qua- 
 ker in England, — if they admit friends who 
 
200 FEOM NAPLES. 
 
 cannot write, — is communicating her thoughts 
 with precision and care to the staid little dap- 
 per man, who treats his clients with much 
 deference. And there, among the pillars of 
 San Carlo, lingers a tall girl of nineteen, 
 looking out for a likely interpreter. She 
 would not for the world open her mind to 
 any raw young man — but one: and therefore 
 she chooses out the mild motionless old gen- 
 tleman with large spectacles and snow-white 
 occiput, who has had much experience, and 
 composed many epistles for her friends, — a 
 safe discreet man, who writes straightforward, 
 and makes no observations; a confidant as 
 trustworthy as the Father Confessor, and far 
 less inquisitive. Two minutes later I saw 
 her leaning over his shoulder with an expres- 
 sion of countenance at once laughing, arch, 
 and coy. The old gentleman wrote on, while 
 she whispered her " secret correspondence," 
 without sign of surprise, question, curiosity, 
 or interest; without moving a muscle, that 
 did not lead direct to his fingers' ends. Only 
 when she paused for a moment, he raised his 
 eyebrows, to look up into her face, above his 
 large spectacles, mutely demanding, if more 
 
FEOM NAPLES. 201 
 
 were coming: then he dropped his scalp down 
 from its wrinkles, signed, folded, and was 
 feed ; and again sat motionless, — looking at 
 nothing over his spectacles. 
 
 Last night sleep was once more driven from 
 mine eyelids by the nocturnal Bacchanalia of 
 another saint. The glare of torches passing 
 under the window incessantly, with the sing- 
 ing, shouts, and noise of the procession, were 
 evidence of the success which had attended 
 the party we had met in the streets in the 
 morning, bearing long candles and a large 
 tray in their hands, and crying aloud for con- 
 tributions towards the festival. I wish they 
 would let the saints sleep in their graves and 
 honest men in their beds without molesting 
 both with their midnight revelry. It is some- 
 times dangerous to meet these processions by 
 day, unless you are prepared to join in their 
 adoration. At Castelamare, a short time ago, 
 an Englishman, who declined to remove his 
 hat upon one of these occasions, ran a near 
 chance of being treated a la Haynau by the 
 flushed mob. The only wise course is to keep 
 out of their way, and to avoid insulting the 
 public feeling which you cannot respect. 
 
202 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon I strolled out to a 
 village on the hills, in the hope of enjoying 
 the quietude of the day and the beauty of the 
 scenery. The latter, at least, was scarcely to 
 be had. One of the greatest inconveniencies 
 to the pedestrian in Italy is the jealousy with 
 which all private property is secured by im- 
 moderately high walls, which shut out the in- 
 habitants from a view of their own glorious 
 country. Elsewhere, with hills in the neigh- 
 bourhood, you can reckon pretty surely upon 
 getting at least a tolerably large diorama of 
 the country; but in the vicinity of Italian 
 towns you may climb the hills to no purpose. 
 You may wander all day between walls, from 
 twelve to sixteen feet high, with the assurance 
 that a charming landscape lies all around you, 
 but of which you will as fruitlessly attempt to 
 get a glimpse, as young Cain, when he roved 
 around the walls of Paradise. I have spent 
 hours upon hours in a labyrinth of lanes, see- 
 ing nothing but a wall on this side and a wall 
 on that, and meeting no one but a few riders 
 upon asses in search of pic-nic adventures; 
 whom, if any one had withstood by the way, 
 their asses, from necessity, must have imitated 
 
FROM NAPLES. 203 
 
 Balaam's in crushing their foot against the 
 wall. Nothing is here to remind one of Italy 
 but these dungeon-like walls and a section, at 
 least, of the blue sky, which the lords of the 
 soil could not wholly monopolize. None but 
 an oppressed and patient people would have 
 allowed themselves to be thus shut out of 
 their own land. One of the recognized rights 
 of the public way ought to be that of public 
 view: nor should any selfish proprietor be al- 
 lowed to wall up the people's property in 
 such a manner as to destroy the enjoyment 
 of it, any more than he has the right of wall- 
 ing up his neighbour's windows. But as it 
 is, — in the neighbourhood of great towns, the 
 very highways of Italy are the promenades 
 of a prison. 
 
 At a small hamlet I met a party of re- 
 ligious men spending the Sunday in a way 
 very similar to that of our Tract distributors, 
 except that, instead of pamphlets which no 
 one could have read, they were leaving at the 
 cottage-doors prints of the Madonna. They 
 were welcomed by the peasants with smiling 
 looks and expressions of gratitude and joy. 
 Many women, I observed, as they stood on 
 
204 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 the door-sill to receive the boon, crumpled the 
 Virgin with kisses in the fervour of their first 
 love, and then when the picture had done duty 
 in exciting a momentary exaltation, it was 
 handed to the infant to play with, — probably 
 as a sacred charm that would bring a bless- 
 ing. Even here the quietude of the day of 
 rest was startled by the explosions of a gun- 
 powder devotion. The uproar — I can call it 
 nothing less — of a holy festival rose from the 
 valley below in loud shouts, in the crashing 
 monotone of the solo bell, in the braying 
 blast of a trumpet, and in reiterated fulmina- 
 tions. I turned aside into a small chapel by 
 the way, perhaps five-and-twenty feet long by 
 twenty broad, chokingly full of rustics, all of 
 whom were screaming the service at the ut- 
 most pitch of their peculiarly harsh voices. 
 It was worse than stunning, it was harrow- 
 ing and rending : as they will understand 
 who have experienced the saw-like effect pro- 
 duced upon the nerves by the discord of Nea- 
 politan women. 
 
 Upon returning to the hotel where we dined, 
 we were called up to the roof after dark to 
 witness another holy fete in the immediate 
 
FEOM NAPLES. 205 
 
 vicinity — that of Saint Fasqual. The front 
 of the church was brilliantly illuminated, and 
 the monks were congregated in great force 
 along the coping behind the lamps, and looked 
 down upon the assembled multitude. The en- 
 tertainment consisted in a grand display of fire- 
 works, mingled with bell-ringing and military 
 music. The grand finale was the explosion 
 of a long train of fulminating caps, which 
 were so arranged as to make the tour of the 
 monks' garden. The hundred-and-one blasts 
 were terrific and deafening: the reverberations 
 rattled in the windows, seemed to shake the 
 very houses, and at last growled out in thunder 
 on the hills of Vomero and Posilipo. The 
 design of all this sacred tintamarre, in the 
 belief of the people, is to drive away the evil 
 spirits of the air : though, if it have any effect 
 at all, I should be disposed to think that it 
 rather invites them. They have, in conse- 
 quence, no pity on the sensitive nerves of the 
 sick and dying. The clang of the terrible 
 bell must be heard to purify the atmosphere 
 from demons: and if it have not succeeded 
 in this design, I cannot help suspecting, that 
 it has frightened many a poor soul out of its 
 tenement before the lease was fully up. 
 
206 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 I am sensible to what Shakspeare calls " the 
 
 music of sweet bells ;" I can listen with solemn 
 
 delight to the Miltonic toll, 
 
 " Swinging slow with sullen roar 
 Over the heath and over the moor :" 
 
 and I can well feel with Cowper, 
 
 "There is in souls a sympathy with sounds:" 
 but this horrible hammering of bell-metal can 
 be matched only by the fryingpan and poker; 
 nor do I see the piety of serenading the saints 
 with " rough music." 
 
 Then there is the blood of San Gennaro, 
 that melts three times a-year to stain with its 
 awful blot the moral character of the clergy. 
 If I speak more severely of this lying wonder 
 than of other pretended miracles, it is because 
 it differs in kind from most of them. What- 
 ever fraud there may have been in the first 
 instance, a vast number of Romish miracles 
 may be believed with the most honest cre- 
 dulity: but this cannot be explained by any 
 love of the marvellous, by any superstitious 
 exaltation of the fancy, that imposes upon itself 
 with wonders, as wildly and as honestly as a 
 dreamer: it calls three times a-year for the 
 cooperation of wilful deceivers. It is no passive 
 
FROM NAPLES. 207 
 
 acquiescence in an idle tradition; it is the de- 
 liberate contrivance of delusion. You must 
 either believe in this perpetual miracle — more 
 wonderful in its unmeaning perpetuity than 
 all the miracles of all the Apostles — or you 
 must believe that the Priests from generation 
 to generation are habitual impostors. No other 
 alternative is left : they force you into a corner 
 thrice every year and compel you distinctly 
 to answer the question, Is the miracle true, 
 or are we shameless deceivers? 
 
 The latter alternative I take — reluctantly and 
 per force: the former is wholly out of my 
 power. And the same conclusion is come to 
 by a vast number of Neapolitans, whom many 
 strong reasons retain in the exoteric profession 
 of Catholicism. A passing traveller has, of 
 course, but meagre opportunities of forming a 
 judgment upon such a subject from his own 
 observation. My informants are those who 
 have been resident here for many years ; and 
 their testimony is to the effect, that the whole 
 educated population of Naples may, with few 
 exceptions, be divided into two classes — infidels 
 and bigots. The young men are for the most 
 part infidels, to an extent little removed from 
 
208 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 atheism: as they grow old, they fall under 
 the influence of women, who themselves are 
 under the influence of the Priests, — and atone 
 for the impiety of their youth by abject super- 
 stition and the most narrow-minded intoler- 
 ance. As in politics there is no moderate or 
 middle party, but every man is either an 
 ancien-regime Bourbonite, or a Red Republican 
 at heart, showing the white feather outwards ; 
 so in religion there are frenzied bigots and 
 profane infidels — but no party of rational Chris- 
 tians between them. The gross superstition 
 of the people is acknowledged and deplored 
 by some of the clergy themselves : though it 
 is clear that all who have a hand in the 
 Januarian imposture, are guilty of fostering 
 what they profess to condemn. 
 
 Indeed the only extenuation of this offence 
 against common sense and morality is to be 
 found in the vehemence of the popular super- 
 stition. If San Gennaro does not bleed, the 
 people will be in a frenzy: they will anticipate 
 some dreadful public calamity, and very pro- 
 bably make a tumult in the streets ; — which, 
 both to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, 
 is the most awful event that can happen under 
 
FROM NAPLES. 209 
 
 the sun. It is like the rumbling of the 
 earthquake that forebodes a volcanic eruption. 
 Therefore a few drops of the saint's blood 
 must be applied as an homoeopathic cure to 
 the bloodthirsty spirit of the populace. This 
 favourite miracle must again be produced to 
 soothe their irritation, and to convince them 
 that, with all their past crimes, they are still 
 under the favour of their sanguineous patron. 
 Were it not for this, it is believed that many 
 of the Priests would be glad to get fairly 
 quit of the liquefaction : for the day of inquiry 
 and of retribution is coming; and the number 
 of those who believe it (in secret) to be a 
 gross imposture is yearly increasing. With 
 the French at Home, and with the prospect 
 of a railroad joining Naples to the Seasonable 
 World, they would do well to dispose of the 
 blood in time, before it falls into the hands 
 of respectable chemists. 
 
 In sober seriousness, this miracle cannot be 
 contemplated without pain and grief. When 
 can the superstition of the people cease, if it 
 be not earnestly resisted by their appointed 
 teachers? In some Koman Catholic lands — 
 in France for example — the Bishops have from 
 
 P 
 
210 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 time to time come forward to denounce and 
 expose a vulgar superstition, of which they 
 might have made a gain, and have borne the 
 popular odium which, for a moment, results 
 from such a course. Let the clergy of Naples 
 leam from them a lesson of honesty and of moral 
 courage, and make a vigorous effort before it 
 be too late. Let them brace up their minds 
 in the cause of truth to run a little personal 
 risk; and, in the presence of the people, let 
 them wash out once for all the clotted dregs 
 of imposture, and throw the vial into the Lake 
 of Avernus! 
 
FROM NAPLES. 211 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 Naples, May 1851. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 After giving you impressions so un- 
 favourable of the Romish worship at Naples, 
 I am happy to yield the Priests the benefit 
 of the account of themselves and their flocks 
 given (or at least edited) by one of their own 
 community — the Abbe Galanti. You will 
 judge how far it confirms or refutes what you 
 might have anticipated. 
 
 " The clergy of Naples," he writes, " are in 
 general exemplary, and more tolerant than is 
 supposed. They make less display than in 
 some other places, of turbulent scenes, which 
 are contrary to charity, and cover rather than 
 
 expose the faults of the faithful If more 
 
 care were taken in the education and choice 
 of those who dedicate themselves to the altar, 
 the Neapolitan clergy would be the first in 
 the Catholic world. In general the Regulars 
 
 P2 
 
212 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 have less merit: and yet (though in a less 
 degree than formerly) they are jealous and 
 emulous of the Seculars. Till lately the 
 churches of the monks and nuns were more 
 frequented and better served — because rich. 
 The parish churches were very small, often 
 squalled, and almost empty; which deprived 
 the Incumbents of all regard. But with the 
 dissolution of several convents, many fine 
 churches have become parochial: the oblations 
 of the faithful have turned towards them, and 
 the Divine service has begun to be performed 
 with pomp. A juster and more natural tie has 
 arisen between the faithful and their Pastor. 
 
 " In Naples religion degenerates into super- 
 stition, but not into fanaticism; and the splen- 
 dour of the service is regarded as the most 
 important part of it. In public calamities the 
 people are pleased with penitential processions. 
 They are to be met with in every street, at 
 all hours of the day, and attended by all 
 ranks. This custom indeed was fatal in the 
 plague of 1656, and the authorities were obliged 
 to prohibit it (as in the terrible eruption of 
 Vesuvius in 1822) for the purpose of ensuring 
 the public tranquillity. The Church desires such 
 
FROM NAPLES. 213 
 
 penitential solemnities to appease the Divine 
 wrath, not to give occasion to greater dis- 
 orders. A few years ago an infinite number of 
 prodigies were reported to have been wrought 
 by an image of the Virgin near Caserta, and 
 the people began to flock to it with rich 
 offerings : but the wisdom of the government 
 and the illuminated piety of the ecclesiastics 
 having repressed the popular credulity, the 
 miracles and the offerings ceased. This suffi- 
 ciently shows, that there is no superstition but 
 what is designed and instigated ; and that 
 travellers ought to be more measured in speak- 
 ing of the tendencies of the people. 
 
 " To the Neapolitans all the services of the 
 Church are nothing but brilliant festivals. Here 
 the genius of the nation appears fertile in rites 
 and pomps. The temples on holy-days are 
 converted into magnificent saloons, decorated 
 with hangings, lights, and music. The seats 
 are turned towards the orchestra rather than 
 towards the altar. The people are full of 
 devotion towards the Madonna. Every shop 
 has one of its own, with one or two lamps 
 burning. Some traverse all the streets with 
 night-torches; and in the summer months they 
 
214 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 make for these images pretty constructions, 
 decorated with rich carpeting, altars, musical 
 instruments, and artificial fires: — all by the 
 voluntary contributions of the neighbours and 
 populace. Often you will see persons apostro- 
 phizing these images with the greatest effusion, 
 and expressing to them their special needs: 
 others prostrate themselves in prayer before a 
 crucifix in the silence of the night, or on the 
 threshold of a church On the 17th of Jan- 
 uary horses adorned with flowers are led to 
 the church of St. Antony; where they are 
 blessed, and garlands are tied to their necks; 
 and after being made to turn round in the 
 church three times, they are held to be safe 
 from every evil. 
 
 " Other popular festivals are the procession 
 of Antignano on Easter morning, the pilgrim- 
 ages to Cardito, and Scafati on Ascension- 
 day, and to Monte Vergine and the Madonna 
 dell 1 Arco at Pentecost. Beautiful is the sight 
 of those who return from these distant pil- 
 grimages with cars decked out with branches, 
 with hats and staves ornamented with images 
 of the Virgin, while the air is filled with 
 songs, and sounds, and shouts of festivity. 
 
FROM NAPLES. 215 
 
 Such cavalcades bear the greatest resemblance 
 to the ancient Bacchanals: whom they resemble 
 indeed in the movements of the dance ! In order 
 to lay by a little money for such excursions 
 the people condemn themselves to privations 
 for the whole year. They are thought happy 
 who have been able frequently to repeat them 
 in the course of their lives. When girls are 
 betrothed it is inserted in the marriage articles 
 that they are to be taken to these feasts. 
 
 " Christmas is kept by the Presepii — a species 
 of devotion peculiar to Naples. It consists in 
 constructing a natural landscape, in which to 
 represent the birth of the Eedeemer. Almost 
 every house has one of greater or less size, 
 and not a few deserve the best attention of 
 the man of taste. All the circumstances and 
 the costumes are represented with the greatest 
 art, so as to form a most agreeable illusion. 
 Some of them are put in action. There you 
 see the lady on the terrace spread her linen 
 to the sun, — the baker put his bread into the 
 oven, — a procession of confreres with a bier 
 and the usual accompainment of poor, who 
 attend a corpse to the grave, — soldiers who 
 go through their exercises, &c. &c... 
 
216 FEOM NAPLES. 
 
 " Among the lower class the necessity of 
 labour renders the majority more moral than 
 is believed. Many show a singular aptitude 
 for every kind of industry. Intemperance is 
 their prevailing vice, and the fruitful source of 
 disorders and crimes. To escape from misery 
 they have recourse to the ruinous gambling 
 of lotteries, which not only increases their dis- 
 tress, but accustoms their minds to a faith in 
 dreams, and cabalistic luck, and a thousand 
 follies. 
 
 " The lowest class are the facchini — the fa- 
 mous lazzaronij about whom so much non- 
 sense has been written. With them must be 
 reckoned the ambulant vendors of fruit and 
 eatables, not to say, the fishermen. These all 
 have few wants, possess nothing, and do not 
 care to acquire anything. They are scantily 
 clad, and thence took the name of lazzari. 
 Contented with necessaries, they lead an easier 
 life than you might suppose. The facchini 
 are at the command of the merchants, the 
 Custom-house, the shops, and private indivi- 
 duals. They are often trusted with large sums, 
 without ever giving occasion to complain of 
 their deficiency. This moral virtue, rather than 
 
FEOM NAPLES. 217 
 
 their raggedness, should call for the observa- 
 tion of the considerate traveller. 
 
 " Personal beauty, in Naples, is rather with 
 the men than with the women. With the 
 advance of civilization the latter have acquired 
 greater liberty. At first, only ladies of rank 
 had this freedom: but at present not even the 
 artizans accompany their wives when they go 
 abroad! The fierce monster jealousy has been 
 expelled by the softer manners of the age. 
 But with the acquirement of greater liberty, 
 our women have not equally improved in 
 morals: they have rather gained the means of 
 abuse than of self-government. Hence it arose 
 that women of the higher classes, who were 
 the first to obtain freedom, were the first to 
 set bad examples. (The Editor adds in a note 
 characteristic of Neapolitan idiosyncracy — c We 
 do not think that this increase of female liberty 
 is to be commended.') 
 
 " The inhabitants of Naples, living in a 
 healthy and charming climate, and drawing 
 from a fruitful soil the productions most suited 
 to human life, are naturally given to festive 
 gaiety, and much disposed to indolence and 
 effeminacy. Pleasure is their ruling passion : 
 
218 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 they seek it earnestly and devote themselves 
 to it in excess. At Christmas, at Easter, at 
 Martinmas, and during the Carnival, all is 
 pomp and profusion. 
 
 " The most obvious quality of the Neapolitan 
 is his tendency to quarrel. He easily flies into 
 a passion, and soon grows calm. He speaks 
 loud, is full of curiosity, and must needs decide 
 everything. Easy to be governed, he grum- 
 bles, but obeys. He is vivacious, garrulous, 
 full of gesticulation. Dancing, singing, and 
 music are the constant and universal taste. 
 The people still use the tambourine, nacchere, 
 and lute — all very ancient instruments, as ap- 
 pears from the pictures of Pompeii. The fa- 
 vourite dance is the Tarantella — a dance mil 
 of grace and expression. But the late changes 
 have made a great alteration, if not in these 
 tastes, at least in the liberty of expressing 
 them. The mass of the people have lost in 
 gaiety and gained in prudence." 
 
 Thus far our author. Besides the great city 
 of Naples, with its 360,000 inhabitants, Poz- 
 zuoli, Portici, Eesina, Terra del Greco, An- 
 nunciata, Castelamare, Vico, and Sorento, lie 
 round the bay and cover its fertile shores with 
 habitations. The rocky isles of Capri and 
 
FROM NAPLES. 219 
 
 Ischia, that guard on either side the entrance 
 of the gulph, make its dimensions more per- 
 ceptible and give a certain unity to the scene. 
 The soil is so fruitful as to produce a succes- 
 sion of three crops in the year, and the high 
 road that runs along the coast, passes through 
 enclosures of orange-trees, lemons, figs, vines, 
 and olives. The whole country, except where 
 it is blasted by volcanos, is a full garden with 
 the exuberant growth of a hothouse. Here 
 the wealthy and luxurious Romans built their 
 summer retreats. Here Virgil's tomb is shown 
 beside the so-called Grotto, or Tunnel, bored 
 by the Cumaeans through the rock, on a scale 
 that puts to shame the borings of many of our 
 railroads. It is said to be 2654 palms long, 
 24 wide, and in height varying from 26 to 94. 
 It formed the old high road from Neapolis to 
 Puteoli and Cumse. 
 
 In that direction there is much to interest 
 the antiquary, the poet and the Christian. 
 There the heights of Posilipo, as you quit the 
 town, afford a ravishing view over the richly 
 verdant vallies on one side and the wide bay 
 on the other, bounded by the broken promon- 
 tories from Castelamare to Sorrento. Vesuvius 
 stands out by itself, as always, the monarch 
 
220 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 of the scene. The road then dips to the sea- 
 shore, just opposite the little isle of precipitous 
 Nisida, crested with its conspicuous prison. It 
 then passes through a land of wonderful fer- 
 tility, interspersed with hot springs and mineral 
 waters, and the extinct, or yet smouldering 
 craters of volcanos. Everywhere — on the 
 heights, or by the shore — are the remains of 
 Roman villas, of heathen temples, of innume- 
 rable tombs. Here the sulphury vapour is 
 steeming out of the ground hotter than the 
 hand can bear; there the heavy tread of the 
 foot is reverberated in caverns underground, 
 which no man has explored. The ruins of the 
 temple of Neptune look out upon the sea, 
 where his aid was invoked in old time by the 
 Neapolitan sailors, in rites not more supersti- 
 tious than are thought available now. Per- 
 haps it was this very temple that suggested 
 to Horace (as he trod the path to his favourite 
 Baise) that simile of the shipwrecked mariner, 
 in which he celebrates his own escape from 
 
 a more fickle sea: 
 
 " Me tabula sacer 
 Votiva paries indicat uivida 
 Suspendisse potenti 
 Vestimenta maris Deo." 
 
FROM NAPLES. 221 
 
 At Pozzuoli, or Puteoli, the man of letters 
 will be interested by the reminiscences of the 
 golden age of Borne, and of the days when 
 Cicero wrote his Queestiones Academicce in the 
 neighbouring villa, which he named after the 
 Academe of Athens. Hence, as far as Baias, 
 all is classical, enchanting, — or infernal. For in 
 this vicinity are the grottos of the Cimmerii, 
 who never saw the light, and the dreadful 
 A vermis, which was the lake of Hell. The 
 dark cave of the Cumaean Sibyl is a little 
 more remote, and in the brimstone bed of Sol- 
 fatara was placed the forum of Vulcan. These 
 associations survived heathen times. It was 
 long believed by Christian people that the ake 
 of A vermis was truly the entrance to the Lake 
 of Fire ; and Capaccio (says Galanti) devotes 
 a chapter to proving that Solfatara is in truth 
 the Gate of Hell. 
 
 But Puteoli has holier associations; and as 
 you stand on its busy shore, in old times one 
 of the finest harbours of Italy, looking over 
 the great deep southward, you can call to 
 mind the day when a solitary vessel bore up 
 from the horizon, freighted with the merchan- 
 dize of Alexandria, bringing among its pas- 
 
222 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 sengers a poor and persecuted Jew, who had 
 received a commission to change all the re- 
 ligions of the Gentiles. He landed under 
 Cicero's villa, and beneath the walls of the 
 temple of Neptune. He, too, was thankful 
 that he had escaped shipwreck, — but he put 
 up no votive offering to the sea-god: he, too, 
 was eloquent and athirst for wisdom, — but he 
 set not a foot in the Academy. He passed by 
 the Lake of Avernus and the sulphury mouth 
 of Hell, and saw nothing in these dread fables 
 but an expiring volcano and a myth that was 
 written in water. And the work which he 
 effected has survived, absorbed, overpowered, 
 new-moulded, or swept away, the might, the 
 religion, and the philosophy of Home. He 
 has placed his epistles beside the eloquence of 
 Cicero — the invisible things of faith beside the 
 poetic visions of Virgil and Horace — and has 
 won nations to his cause. Not only has his 
 influence been felt by the rude multitude, over 
 whom the philosophers and poets had no power ; 
 but such minds as Justin's, Origen's, Tertul- 
 lian's, and Augustine's, have torn themselves 
 with an effort from the wisdom of Tully, that 
 they might learn a better wisdom of St. Paul. 
 
FROM NAPLES. 223 
 
 Through him the idol of Neptune has fallen 
 into the sea, and the temples of Venus, Sera- 
 pis, and Mercury will never be reared again. 
 The religion he taught remains — still living, 
 growing, expanding, — feeling after the future, 
 and forming it ; while every religion which it 
 has once overpowered is dead for ever! 
 
 The little island of Nisida, that rises so ab- 
 ruptly out of the sea, as if a fragment of cliff 
 had been floated off from the mainland, is 
 crowned with a conspicuous convent-like build- 
 ing, that serves the purpose of a clerical prison. 
 Minor offenders against discipline and morals are 
 handed over to the Archbishop for punishment, 
 but greater delinquents are sent u to the gal- 
 leys," as they call it, in this island. We were 
 somewhat startled at being told that the num- 
 ber at present confined there was more than 
 three hundred. But it was explained that two 
 hundred and sixty of them were there for po- 
 litical offences, arising out of the late revolu- 
 tion; the rest had been convicted of various 
 crimes, chiefly (so said our informant) such as 
 are committed against the opposite sex. 
 
 On the other side of Naples, to the south, 
 the bay is, if possible, yet more enchanting: 
 
224 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 but, at this time of day, you need no elabo- 
 rate description of the villages that sleep in 
 the sun upon the sultry skirts of Vesuvius, 
 or of the two fated towns which they over- 
 lapped and clung to, like the garment of 
 Dejanira. From the Castle-at-sea, which gives 
 its name over the water to the town that 
 crowds down to it on the shore, round to the 
 end of the great promontory that divides the 
 Gulph of Naples from that of Salerno, the 
 road keeps near the coast — now within reach 
 of the spray — now ascending in a long gra- 
 dient upon the hilly bank, in the face of Na- 
 ples and all its villages, that glitter across the 
 bay — now pointing straight ahead upon the 
 rocky heights of Capri — now taking a sweep 
 inland along the groove of a mountain gorge, 
 to cross the lofty bridge that spans its nar- 
 rower gullet — now emerging again from the 
 oppressive sweetness of orange and citron 
 grounds upon the fresher breezes of the sea — 
 and terminating at last upon the promontory 
 of Sorrento. From the summit of the hill that 
 lies behind this place you will command, right 
 and left, the two great bays of Naples and Sa- 
 lerno, embracing at one view the twin bosoms 
 
FROM NAPLES. 225 
 
 of the deep that rest upon Italy between 
 Paestum and Pozzuoli. 
 
 In paying a visit to Herculaneum and Pom- 
 peii, we preferred a drive through the villages 
 to ignoring a fair country by the railroad. 
 Our charioteer was a Neapolitan without dis- 
 guise — whipping, carolling, hallooing, — twist- 
 ing, every three minutes, his shoulders and 
 chest round to us on the pivot of his back- 
 bone, to tell us all he knew of every thing 
 we passed, — and then twisting back again 
 with a jerk, like a marionette, to save his 
 galloping steed from running over a child; 
 flying into a frenzy with everybody at the 
 beginning of a sentence, but laughing good- 
 humouredly at the end of it: in despair at 
 every small difficulty, in ecstasy at every de- 
 liverance : and reverting, when nothing newer 
 presented itself, to his three standard topics of 
 eloquence — San Gennaro, Vesuvius, and Mac- 
 caroni. He gave us an account in Neapolitan 
 gibberish (which my companion, Baron P — , 
 was kind enough to interpret) of all the erup- 
 tions, or, as he called them, revolutions of Ve- 
 suvius from the beginning of the world down 
 to 1850; but especially of the famous one in 
 
 Q 
 
226 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 the fourteenth century, when a torrent of lava 
 rolled down the very streets of Naples straight 
 upon the church of San Gennaro : but the 
 Saint of the Melting Blood was at his post to 
 avert the mischief. He lifted up his right- 
 hand — (our Neapolitan put himself in position 
 and showed us the exact attitude), — rolled back 
 the lava into the crater, and shut up the 
 mouth of the volcano. Since that day to this 
 the fiery deluge has never ventured upon the 
 same course again. 
 
 In the midst of his raptures about Vesuvius, 
 in whose land of lava we now were, and of 
 whose devastating eruptions he spoke with the 
 sort of respectful admiration which an Eastern 
 shows for the tyrant that terrifies him, he did 
 not, however, forget the maccaroni. It was 
 made to perfection in these villages about the 
 base. And he had been able to eat more of 
 it since the revolution than before. Previously 
 to that event the land was in the hands of 
 middle-men, who had special privileges, which 
 enabled them to oppress the people, and keep 
 up the price of com. But these privileges 
 they lost in the revolution, and could no 
 longer prevent the poor from buying corn at 
 
PROM NAPLES. 227 
 
 a reasonable rate. This, at least, was his view 
 of the case ; of which, however, he gave a 
 very confused explanation: but the important 
 point was, that before the revolution he ate 
 black bread, now he could get white : then 
 he feasted on garbage, now he could buy 
 maccar ni. 
 
 Good wine and maccaroni were the product 
 of a soil that warmed itself on the cinders of 
 volcanos. Accordingly, of his own motion he 
 drew up at a maccaroni manufactory at An- 
 nunciata, and invited us to witness the pro- 
 cess of turning off these edible tubes. We 
 were shown the flour in various stages of re- 
 finement, and then the dough in its proper 
 state of consistency. The tubes are produced 
 by enormous pressure. The dough was thrust 
 into a strong metal box, bored at one end 
 with open rings (or any other pattern that 
 might be desired) : into the other end was 
 fitted a moveable piston, upon which a screw 
 was brought to bear, turned by a wheel so 
 large, that a man worked it like the tread- 
 mill, by walking up its side. The immense 
 power thus obtained compressed the dough in 
 the box, and ultimately forced it through the 
 
 Q2 
 
228 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 rings in long tubes of maccaroni. These were 
 cut off at proper lengths, and hung up on 
 lines in the sun to dry. 
 
 Above the streets of Herculaneum the lava 
 lies more than eighty palms deep ; and has 
 run in at the windows, and under the strong 
 doorways, and filled up the theatre, the tem- 
 ples, and the courts,— with all the streets and 
 lanes between the houses, — and then cooled 
 down into a compacted mass with the fossil 
 of a town in its centre. They have chipped 
 out the lava from the long galleries of the 
 theatre, and cleared the stage, and opened up 
 old entrances; and you may take your place 
 now by the orchestra, and hear the rumbling 
 of carnages overhead in the streets of super- 
 imposed Resina. But except for the purpose 
 of seeing the depth of the molten deluge and 
 the manner in which the now solid stone has 
 forced itself into the interior of buildings with- 
 out destroying them, taking an impression of 
 every thing, down to a comic mask, that fell 
 in its way, Herculaneum affords less matter 
 of interest than might be anticipated. The 
 earlier excavations have been filled up again, 
 and the Museums, as usual, have plundered 
 
FROM NAPLES. 229 
 
 the place of every thing that is locally inter- 
 esting. The Resinans also protest loudly above- 
 ground against being undermined in their beds, 
 and consigned one day, on a sudden, to the 
 ancient level of Herculaneum. 
 
 Pompeii lays stronger hold upon one's soul ; 
 chiefly because you can see it in extenso, with 
 its streets and forum basking in the sun in 
 awful silence. Though it was given over for 
 a time to the pillage of antiquarian Protec- 
 tionists, yet a great part of its characteristics 
 remain. It is disappointing, indeed, to hear 
 the guide exclaim, as he opens a closet which, 
 you presume, contains something worth pre- 
 serving, " There, gentlemen, is the stucco of 
 the statue which has been removed to the 
 Museum," or, u Here, from this spot was taken 
 the finest ancient mosaic in the world." " Look 
 at that monument, gentlemen, it is of the high- 
 est interest : it is an exact copy of the original 
 which has been removed." But happily they 
 could not carry away the forum and amphi- 
 theatre in donkey-carts. Otherwise, before 
 now, one might have been the delight of the 
 Champs Elysees at Paris, and the other set up 
 on Goose Green in the parish of Camberwell. 
 
230 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 But there the Forum lies in the heart of the 
 vacant city, with all its temples and broken 
 columns to itself! and, high above, Vesuvius 
 looks sternly down upon its solitude, and seems 
 to demand, " Is this the city that / smote and 
 buried out of sight? Who then has raised her 
 from the dead?" Nay, they are mute after 
 long ages in presence of each other! There 
 is no life any more — it is but the exhumation 
 of dry bones. The City lies beneath her De- 
 stroyer like a skeleton in its opened sarco- 
 phagus, yet surrounded by the ornaments and 
 utensils of common life. 
 
 The ascent to the crater of the far-famed 
 Volcano was an inevitable expedition from Na- 
 ples. It differed somewhat from what I had 
 expected, especially after reading Mr. Dickens' 
 account. But that gentleman ascended nearly 
 in darkness, and when the mountain was 
 covered with snow and ice. From Portici, on 
 the sea-shore, the mountain rises by a mode- 
 rate ascent to about half its height, and then 
 strikes up, steep and conical, to its apex. The 
 sister ridge of Monte Somma leans upon it at 
 the base of the cone ; and somewhat below the 
 fork between the two lies the Hermitage — the 
 
FROM NAPLES. 231 
 
 station of rest and refreshment. Up to this 
 point the path, though very rough, is passable 
 by mules and asses: but disdaining their as- 
 sistance we trusted to a mountain staff, and 
 to a guide who showed us the way over the 
 lava. It lies in two states — rocky beneath, 
 cineracious above. The former, compact and 
 solid, furnishes paving-stones for the streets of 
 Naples, and materials for the most substantial 
 architecture: the latter bears the greatest re- 
 semblance to a heavy kind of coke, varying in 
 size from small cinders to large masses. With 
 this lava-coke the greater part of the mountain 
 is covered from top to bottom. It lies in rusty 
 black heaps from the lip of the crater down 
 to the broad base below the Hermitage, where 
 it spreads out into dark fields of enormous cin- 
 ders. It never binds or becomes firm, but is 
 just as loose to the foot as if it were thrown 
 out last week. Directly up this mountain of 
 ashes lies your way to the summit: for the 
 sheet of sand, that descends the whole length 
 of the cone on one side, affords no sufficiently 
 firm footing. The ascent increases in difficulty 
 to the top. For the larger ashes have rolled 
 lower down, and hold more compactly together ; 
 
232 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 while the smaller ones above scarcely afford 
 place for the sole of the foot, and treacherously 
 slip from under it at the moment of desperate 
 effort. You pause midway to draw breath, 
 and to quiet a palpitating heart. The moun- 
 tain of lava overhead, more precipitous than 
 ever, frowns forbiddingly upon you; and be- 
 neath, there seems to be no support to rest 
 upon. The black fields of desolation sink 
 away so abruptly from your feet, that you 
 cling, giddy and bewildered, to the rough cin- 
 ders, and seem to be on the point of rolling 
 hopelessly to the bottom. But by the time 
 your pulse has recovered its normal state, the 
 giddiness is gone; your courage is again in 
 the ascendant, and slowly — slowly — slowly the 
 ashes are trodden under foot, and you stand at 
 last, panting and glad, on the rim of the stu- 
 pendous crater. 
 
 The toil is amply rewarded; first, by the 
 magnificent view of the Bay with its steep 
 mountain isles, its verdant promontories, its 
 amphitheatre of hills, and its inner circle of 
 city and villages, that whiten the shore — and 
 then, by one glance, into the valley of the 
 volcano. Steep is the descent to that bottom- 
 
FROM NAPLES. 233 
 
 less pit of destruction: but it may be made 
 without difficulty, for some two hundred feet, 
 by those who can endure the volumes of sul- 
 phureous vapour, which puff out uncertainly 
 around them ; and who are skilful enough to 
 avoid those specially hot spots of earth which 
 will gnarl the soles of your shoes. The crater 
 itself (since 1850) is a deep vale of sulphur, 
 wonderfully beautiful, with the most brilliant 
 hues of orange and red. The centre cannot 
 be seen either from above or by descending 
 to the utmost limits of safety. It has the ap- 
 pearance of being open and sinking well-like 
 into the depth. 
 
 The descent to the Hermitage is most easy. 
 It is made on a part of the mountain free 
 from lava, and covered with a fine loose sand 
 or ash-dust, in which at every step you sink 
 half-way up to your knees. You may trot 
 down from top to bottom. To slip beyond 
 recovery, to fall headlong, or in any way to 
 hurt yourself, is nearly impossible. 
 
 It is injudicious to determine universally 
 what enterprising ladies can, or cannot, do : 
 because one extraordinary woman will dis- 
 tance all ordinary men. But as a general 
 
234 FROM NAPLES. 
 
 rule, ladies cannot ascend Vesuvius without the 
 ^assistance of guides, who either steady and 
 draw them with a girdle round the waist, or 
 carry them, with great labour, in palanquins. 
 A lady and a lady's maid belonging to our 
 party were too ambitious, and, unaided, made 
 the attempt on different days. But both grew 
 giddy and fainted away upon the lava, and 
 lay there for some hours before they could be 
 got down again. The sedan, or palanquin, 
 system requires six or eight men according 
 to the weight of the party. We could not 
 but be amused by a French gentleman, who 
 was carried up in this maimer by a little 
 army of porters, to whom he cried out exult- 
 ingly every now and then, " Courage, mes 
 Enfants!" while his eyes sparkled with tri- 
 umph at the feat which he was performing. 
 
 This expedition, even if you walk the whole 
 way from Portici, as we did, though very 
 troublesome and difficult, is too short a day's 
 work to be extraordinarily fatiguing. It is not 
 to compare with the pedestrian exertion that 
 must sometimes be made in Switzerland; al- 
 though there is, perhaps, no one Alpine ascent 
 usually made by tourists, that is so difficult to 
 
FEOM NAPLES. 235 
 
 master as the cone of Vesuvius. The average 
 time of ascent is an hour and a half to the Her- 
 mitage, and another hour and a half to the sum- 
 mit. But any fast young gentleman, or heroic 
 pedestrian, will perform each portion in an 
 hour: and some few, starting from the latter 
 station, have scrambled, hands and feet, over 
 the coke in thirty-three minutes. Is it not 
 written in the Book of the Hermitage? 
 
236 pisa. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 Pisa, Genoa, Turin. 
 
 Dear S — , 
 
 The sea passage from the Gulph of 
 Naples to its rival of Genoa is made in three 
 days, or more properly nights. For the steam- 
 ers touch in the morning at Civita Vecchia 
 and at Leghorn, and do not start again till 
 towards evening. If it should happen to be 
 a saint's day at either of these places, not a 
 stroke of work will be done; the business 
 necessary for enabling the vessel to put out to 
 sea again will be deferred for twenty-four hours. 
 You must look therefore at the calendar before 
 starting, otherwise you may spend a week in 
 reaching Marseilles. At Civita Vecchia no- 
 thing is to be seen but the not unusual sight 
 of an Italian town in the possession of foreign 
 bayonets. At Leghorn, after four hours of 
 lazy preliminaries, we received a written per- 
 
ptsa. 237 
 
 mission to land; on the strength of which we 
 made an excursion by rail to Pisa to admire 
 once more the elegance of its many-columned 
 Campanile, bowing with all its bells, — the ela- 
 borate doors of the Cathedral, — the Baptistery 
 with its splendid font, provided with a circle of 
 well-like cavities, adapted to entire but erect 
 immersion, — and above all, the mediaeval Fres- 
 coes of the Campo Santo, yet tolerably pre- 
 served beneath its quadrangle of Porticos. They 
 enclose the sacred soil that once lay in the 
 streets of Jerusalem, and was, possibly, trodden 
 by holier feet than shall ever tread it again. 
 In the Frescoes something more than art is 
 visible. Here the heavy carcase of a monk is 
 contended for in mid air by an angel and a 
 demon, this pulling at the feet, that claiming 
 the tonsured skull : and there the daring artist 
 has taught a startling lesson by tumbling a nun 
 from heaven, weighed down by the huge cross 
 to which she clings ! In another fresco, — the 
 Triumph of Death, — the Icarian painter has 
 attempted the impossible, and marred his work 
 by contradictory conceptions. He has repre- 
 sented the disembodiment of the immaterial 
 spirit by a very material embodiment of flesh : 
 
238 GENOA. 
 
 plump babies are making their way out of the 
 mouths of the dying, — half-a-foot yet entrapped 
 between the teeth, — to signify the departure of 
 the lingering soul. 
 
 The Genoese amphitheatre of Palaces, fenced 
 in by a bank of hills, and looking down upon 
 a forest of masts in its sheltered waters, — so 
 beautiful in itself, — loses much of its glory and 
 looks tame in immediate comparison with the 
 more splendid Bay of Naples. It is doing it 
 injustice to visit it with the grand picture from 
 Pozzuoli to Sorrento yet fresh upon the mind. 
 But it is second only to that far-famed gulph, 
 and as you ride up into the crescent of the 
 city on the bosom of the tideless sea, you 
 feel that once only have you entered so fair a 
 haven. 
 
 But touch the shore, and the balance is 
 turned against Naples. The coast may be 
 less beautiful, but it is inhabited by a braver 
 and better race. The " Dolce far niente" has 
 given place to hard-working industry. The 
 people are decently clad. The countenance of 
 the vulgar is no more brigandine, lazzeronian, 
 and beggarly : the poor are not all mendicants ; 
 the idlers less numerous, and not all pick- 
 
GENOA. 239 
 
 pockets ; the facchinos not always discontented 
 with all remuneration; and "the human face 
 divine" at least vindicates its claim to the former 
 epithet. The picturesque groupings of dirt and 
 rags and nakedness, which enchanted the genre 
 painter at Naples, have grown scarce. The 
 shaggy lion's-mane beard, with the hare's heart 
 beneath it, has become rare. But instead of 
 them are the comely forms of the female popu- 
 lation, moving easily along in the national 
 costume, which was woven for them expressly 
 by Modesty and Grace. It consists in a long 
 muslin veil or scarf, supported on the crown 
 of the head, and falling over the shoulders and 
 within the arms, that lightly embrace and re- 
 tain it. It gives an air of feminine dignity 
 and elegance to the lowliest maiden that 
 wears it. 
 
 The vast amount of shipping that lies in the 
 harbour — the constant plying of boats to and 
 from the steamers that come in from all parts — 
 the lively streets, where the passengers step on 
 as if they had something to do — the incessant 
 strokes of the anvil, and the grating of wheels, 
 that bespeak the industry of the people — the 
 absence of the Tarantella dancers, and of un- 
 
240 GENOA. 
 
 sightly cripples, and of little children at the 
 doors, who seem always in a state just ready 
 to put to bed, — form at first a comparison, and 
 then a striking contrast, with the scenes of 
 Naples. She also is lively, but only to the 
 sound of the tambourine : and then she takes 
 her long siesta, basking on the shore, while 
 the commerce of the world goes by her. 
 
 Here too the religion of Rome has thrown 
 off the excesses of southern superstition and 
 appears at least in its normal state, not to say 
 in that milder and more rational form in which 
 it prevails in the Gallican Church. Coming 
 fresh from England I should doubtless find 
 much to object against in the imagery and 
 ceremonial of Genoa : coming up from the 
 flame-and-noise worship of the south, and from 
 the Priesthood of the Melting-Blood, I breathe 
 more freely, and seem nearer home. Political 
 and spiritual thraldom forge chains for each 
 other, which break and fall off together, when 
 some unexpected earthquake shakes the prison- 
 doors. The part of Italy most advanced in 
 political development is least involved in abject 
 superstition. 
 
 In the evening the streets and the public 
 
GENOA. 241 
 
 walks presented a lively and striking appear- 
 ance. It was Ascension-day : all the population 
 were abroad, the women wearing their national 
 costume. It looked as if a thousand nunneries 
 had turned out their white-veiled daughters in 
 troops to enjoy the freedom of a holy eve. 
 They could not have been more prettily be- 
 haved, if it had been veritably a promenade of 
 nuns. In the morning processions had been 
 numerous in the streets, headed by a silver 
 Cross borne aloft as a standard, and followed 
 by many reverently behaved young people 
 chanting the Psalms. I saw such a procession 
 stop on one of the bridges, where three Priests 
 went through the service as decorously and im- 
 pressively as an English clergyman conducting 
 the funeral service in the open air. The people 
 stood round with their hats off, and quietly 
 continued their way to the promenade when 
 it was over. I could not but contrast their 
 serious demeanour with the clamour and gaiety 
 of Neapolitan demonstrations. 
 
 Another striking and agreeable change in 
 passing northwards is the visible revival of the 
 art of printing, or, at least, the revival of its 
 application to any of the great objects of human 
 
 R 
 
242 GENOA. 
 
 interest. The Newspapers at Naples are a 
 ludicrous delusion. News there is none: the 
 editors might almost be indited for obtaining 
 money under false pretences. They dare not 
 utter a word upon any national subject that is 
 of any real interest to anybody. Official docu- 
 ments, or mystifications, that are handed to 
 them for insertion, a list of promotions, a few 
 namby-pamby nothings turned off in a leading 
 article, followed by an elaborate account of a 
 wedding, a christening, a funeral, or a religious 
 ceremony, is as much as they dare venture 
 upon in the Home-department. In treating of 
 foreign lands they are a little less timid, and 
 that just in proportion to their remoteness from 
 Italy. They borrow a few articles from Galig- 
 nani after they have been before the world for 
 some three weeks, and their contents are known 
 to everybody. But they will much sooner 
 inform you of what is taking place in China 
 than of any political occurrence at Florence or 
 Rome. You must depend upon private sources 
 of information if you ever expect to learn that 
 the French soldiers have expelled the Roman 
 troops from their own city. 
 
 It is necessary to live for a while in a coun- 
 
GENOA. 243 
 
 try where it is a crime to speak the truth and 
 treason to print it, in order to be aware of 
 the pernicious effects of this worst species of 
 tyranny. The moral cowardice which it en- 
 genders — the unmanly habit of concealment and 
 prevarication — the baseness and treachery of 
 espionage — the abandonment by noble minds of 
 all noble pursuits, because that which is slavish 
 alone is safe — the hopeless stunting of the in- 
 tellect by allowing it no range beyond trifles— 
 the want of faith in the honesty of authors who 
 write under constraint — the impossibility of ever 
 educating and elevating public opinion ; — these 
 are some of the evils that follow from a fettered 
 press. And though it would doubtless be dan- 
 gerous, after so long a silence, and among a 
 people rendered by that silence alone so poli- 
 tically ignorant, to give to the Press the ex- 
 treme liberty which it enjoys in more favoured 
 lands ; yet a beginning might at least be made 
 by allowing it to tell the plain truth. Let it 
 not be a crime to record facts. If a small part 
 of the pains had been taken to enlighten the 
 people, which have been spent in purposely 
 deceiving them, southern Italy would not now 
 be situated, like dead Pompeii, on the ashes of 
 a smouldering volcano. R2 
 
244 GENOA. 
 
 In the shop- windows of Genoa the very titles 
 of the books are refreshing, — though, in many 
 cases, I abominate their contents. Here are 
 Prondhon's schemes, and Cabet\s, and Louis 
 Blanc's, and other Utopian potage — the scum 
 and bubbles of overboiling liberty that have 
 wellnigh put out their own fire. They could 
 no more appear at Naples or Rome, than a 
 >heap version of the Bible, with which they 
 are classed in pemiciousness. A Roman book- 
 seller informed a friend of mine this spring, 
 that, while most prohibited works could be 
 procured without much difficulty, the books 
 that would really bring him into trouble, if 
 they were found in his shop, were the Socialist 
 publications and the Bible ! But these hot- 
 blooded works of the Republicans have done 
 more good by enlisting all soberminded men 
 against them than could have been effected 
 by 100,000 bayonets. They have had free 
 entry into the market here, — and have drugged 
 it, and are at a discount: into which condition 
 no repressive force could have brought them. 
 They have had rope enough, — and some of 
 them have already made their confession. The 
 censorship, on the contrary, would have made 
 
GENOA. 245 
 
 them permanently famous. I can well under- 
 stand how mischievous books are eagerly sought 
 after, and invested with a fictitious importance, 
 merely because they have been made contra- 
 band. If you ask an Italian bookseller what 
 modern works of repute he has to show you, 
 he will put a volume into your hand with the 
 remark, " Here, sir, is a work of great merit, 
 a work that has been prohibited" — just as we 
 might say — " a work that has been handsomely 
 reviewed in the Quarterly." 
 
 I never thought that I should have greeted 
 with pleasure the title-pages of Socialists and 
 Red-republicans. But now they look like the 
 symbols of liberty, and signs that I have es- 
 caped from the land of political death. Even 
 Ledru-Rollln's Decadence de FAngleterre was 
 viewed with benevolence, — the more so, as it 
 is a rarity anywhere but in the shop-windows. 
 I rejoice to be no longer in a country 
 
 " Where single thought is civil crime, 
 And individual freedom mute." 
 
 Expediency, it need not be said, is in the long 
 run on the side of honesty and truth. By 
 repressing opinion — which is subjective truth — 
 a government may gain a momentary benefit 
 
246 GENOA. 
 
 with a permanent damage and a blot. By 
 allowing it free course, it secures the incal- 
 culable advantage of knowing for certain the 
 state of the public mind, of profiting by the 
 conflict of parties, of seeing vulgar errors sifted 
 and discussed, and ignorance lose credit from 
 being allowed fully to expose itself. No corps 
 of spies and policemen will give a government 
 half the useful information that is conveyed 
 by an unshackled press. It is its best ally 
 if it wishes to act honestly by the people ; 
 for free discussion will always end by giving 
 to honest rulers the rewards of honesty. But 
 when they are committed to an iniquitous 
 and merely selfish policy, their greatest enemy 
 is an enlightened public opinion. To prevent 
 its development by stifling the Press is the 
 great object of their endeavour. For the educa- 
 tion of the public mind by the free discussion 
 of the right and wrong of every question will 
 as infallibly bring all arbitrary misrule to an 
 end, as the spread of Christianity (without ap- 
 pealing to the sword) overthrew or modified 
 all the heathen governments of the world 
 
 I will not detain you with the beauty of 
 the road that runs round the brow of the 
 
FROM TURIN. 247 
 
 Mediterranean from Genoa to Nice. The great 
 range of the Apennines (that lies the full length 
 of Italy, like the fossil of a huge Saurian, with 
 its ribs descending almost to either shore, with 
 its long jaw resting obliquely upon Genoa, 
 and its tail splashing round through the sea 
 upon Sicily) softens down in this neighbour- 
 hood into slopes and verdant valleys, richly 
 clothed with abundance. The line of high- 
 way traced over, and sometimes cut through 
 the final undulations that terminate in abrupt 
 cliffs above the sea, gives a wide view over 
 this inland ocean, and looks out upon the 
 clustering palaces of Genoa for many a far 
 mile. It is scarcely less beautiful when it 
 strikes into the interior, among bright-green 
 hills and valleys, to Arquata. There, at the 
 feet of the expiring Apennines, the Turin rail- 
 road receives the traveller, and conveys him, 
 in an hour, within sight of the sterner and 
 more majestic Alps. How solemn and grand 
 did they appear as we caught the first sight 
 of them from the luxuriant plains of Italy ! 
 How sublime a bulwark to the might and 
 severity of the north ! The clouds of evening 
 were already gathering about their rugged 
 
248 FROM TURIN. 
 
 forms, ominously foreboding a stormy future; 
 and the blood-red sun of Italy went down 
 angrily behind them! 
 
 Turin is a noble capital — less interesting 
 perhaps to the tourist than other cities of Italy 
 — not ancient — not historically renowned — not 
 quaint in its appearance — nor gorgeous — nor 
 sublime ; but possessing broad, straight, well- 
 paved streets, with substantial and convenient 
 buildings ; its principal thoroughfares lined on 
 both sides with shady and lofty arcades and 
 promenaded by a busy throng of active and 
 intelligent people. The greater elevation of 
 the arcades takes from them the air of dulness 
 which commonly marks this style of archi- 
 tecture. Personal beauty is not conspicuously 
 the dower of the daughters of the land ; and 
 the not infrequent goitre betokens the vicinity 
 of the Alps. These rugged heights hanging 
 out, on a hundred slopes, their glaciers to the 
 sun, terminate northwards the vista of the 
 principal streets, and seem — such is the de- 
 ceptive appearance of unaccustomed magnitudes 
 — to be close at hand. On the opposite side 
 of the town the avenue of arcades looks out 
 upon a range of verdant and picturesque hills 
 
FKOM TURIN. 249 
 
 rising immediately from the banks of the Po. 
 The highest of them is crowned with the con- 
 spicuous dome and towers of the Superga — a 
 votive church erected in 1706 by Amadeus to 
 the Virgin, after his great victory over the 
 French. Few cities are better laid out for 
 the ordinary purposes of social life than Turin ; 
 and if it could be wheeled somewhat farther 
 from the French frontier, it would make a 
 fit capital for future Italy. Its citizens belong 
 without doubt to the foremost race of indepen- 
 dent Italians. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere in Italy, the love of 
 obscurity which characterized the houses of the 
 old Eoraans, still prevails. Light and heat 
 are so connected together in their ideas in this 
 sunny clime, that in order to exclude the one 
 they adumbrate the other. The doors of 
 the shops and cafes are hung from top to 
 bottom with sombre curtains, that draw aside 
 for ingress and egress; and the solitary small 
 window is carefully closed with Venetian blinds. 
 Entering from the bright streets you see no- 
 thing before you but coloured spots on a back- 
 ground of darkness; and at a Restaurateur's 
 you may get through the first course before 
 you can well recognize your plate. 
 
2;jO FROM TURIN. 
 
 This obscurity, as might be supposed, is 
 much cultivated in the churches, where it has 
 a mysterious and solemnizing effect. After 
 sunset, when the streets are dim beneath a 
 dozen stars, glide in through the curtain that 
 excludes even the twilight from yonder yet 
 open church ! Spend a few minutes in devout 
 meditation, and adore Him who is Light in 
 Darkness ! — How solemn and awful is the im- 
 pression ! How near does Spirit seem to Spirit 
 when darkness has gathered all visible things 
 to itself! With what longing do we feel after 
 that unseen world, when our senses find nothing 
 to rest upon in this ! In the solitude of the 
 Temple when none but the Invisible is there — 
 when night has shrouded the pictures, and the 
 columns, and the altar, — when the silence is 
 so profound that it seems to be positive and 
 audible — how fearfully does the soul whisper 
 to itself with the benighted Patriarch, " How 
 dreadful is this place; this is none other but 
 the house of God, and this is the gate of 
 heaven !" 
 
 But look again, when the eye has grown 
 familiar with the night ! It is not utter dark- 
 ness ! The turn of the arches is just traceable 
 
FROM TURIN. 251 
 
 beneath the roof, where they catch the last 
 ray of twilight. At the east end some hand 
 has lighted a feeble taper, that just glimmers 
 to the knee of the Madonna. Nay — listen ! — 
 it is not utter silence ! There is a sound as 
 of companions in the darkness ! — a light rust- 
 ling of the garments — a breath — a sigh — the 
 fluttering of lips that whisper at a dread Con- 
 fessional, where ONE only can hear! Slowly, 
 slowly, the forms of human worshippers become 
 perceptible in outline : rows upon rows of silent 
 adorers grow upon the vision: and instead of 
 being alone with God, you find yourself one 
 among many : — among many who have stolen 
 at eventide "within the veil," to worship their 
 common Father, unknowing, and unknown to, 
 each other! 
 
 There is something touching and cheering 
 in this consciousness. If Italy be, as we think, 
 in a state of spiritual darkness, yet many, I 
 doubt not, are in all sincerity worshipping the 
 true God through the night, who will be re- 
 cognised by all Christians in the morning. 
 
TO ITALY. 
 
 My spirit lingers yet among thy tombs, 
 Hope-widowed Italy! For to mine eyes 
 Thy cities are as crowded cemet'ries 
 
 Of great men's graves; wherein the myrtle blooms 
 
 And Fame with lamps of fire their vault illumes. 
 Thou art the dead, not they ! Beneath the skies 
 Thou liest death-still as Pompeii lies, 
 
 While high above the dark Volcano glooms. 
 
 Oh ! that some Scipio from his sarcophage 
 Rising in strength unto his country's needs 
 Might yet ennoble an ignoble throng, 
 
 And breathing on faint hearts his ancient rage, 
 Make them once more, in unambiguous deeds, 
 The stern and stalworth children of the strong ! 
 

II 
 
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