SIX MONTHS IN ITALY. SIX MONTHS ITALY BY GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD, IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. BOSTON: TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. MDCCC LIII. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1853, by GEORGE S. HILLARD, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. THUR8TOS, TORRY, AND EMERSON, PRINTERS. TABLE OF CONTENTS. VOL. H. THE ROMAN NUMERALS ON THE LEFT REFER TO THE CHAPTERS. I. Carnival in Rome ... 1 II. General Aspect of Rome . 17 Piazza del Popolo ... 29 Piazza di Spagna ... . 31 Monte Pincio .... 38 Piazza Navona ... 45 Ghetto 47 HI. Campagna ... 53 Appian Way .... 61 Torre di Schiavi ... 66 Walks in the Campagna . . 68 IV. Agriculture of the Uampagna 72 V. Journey from Rome to Naples 100 NAPLES 105 Museum .... 110 Collection from Ilerculaneum and Pompeii . . .111 Paintings . . . . 115 Bronzes 117 Works in Marble . . 119 Picture Gallery . . .123 VI. Excursion to Pompeii . 125 Camaldoli Convent . . 141 Ascent of Vesuvius . . 144 VII. Excursion to Sorrento . 154 Villa Reale . . . . 164 Grotto of Posilippo . . 165 Tomb of Virgil ... 166 Excursion to Baiaa ... 167 Campo Santo . . . 170 San Carlo Theatre . . .171 VIII. Characteristics of Naples 173 Page Rome and Naples compared 177 Return to Rome . . . 184 Illumination of St. Peter's . 188 IX. Excursion to Frascati . 192 Villa Conti .... 195 " Aldobrandini . . . 197 " Muti .... 199 Grotta Ferrata . . .201 Marino .... 202 Alban Lake .... 203 Excursion to Tivoli . . 205 Hadrian's Villa . . .207 Tivoli 211 Villa d'Este . . . .219 X. Population of the Alban Mount compared with that of New England . . 220 Amusements . . . 223 Popular Literature . . . 229 General Characteristics . 237 Lotteries 240 XI. Artists hi Rome . . 248 Overbeck . . . .251 Crawford . . . . 260 XII. English in Italy . . 266 Steeple Chase on the Campagna 275 XIII. Houses in Rome . . 280 Inhabitants of Rome . . 283 Site and Climate of Rome . 285 Malaria .... 290 Noble Families of Rome . 295 Tragical Story of the Savelli Family . . . .299 XIV. Last days in Rome . 306 Borne to Perugia . . . 307 Falls of Terni ... 313 San Gemini .... 314 PEKUGIA .... 318 Pietro Perugino . . . 318 Raphael's first Fresco . 321 Staffa Madonna . . . 322 Insane Hospital . . . 323 I Etruscan Tomb . . . 324 St. Francis . ... 326 Church and Convent at Assissi 329 Perugia to Florence . 332 LUCCA 335 GENOA 341 XV. Travellers in Italy and Writers upon Italy . 348 Pilgrimages .... 348 Petrarch . . . .351 Poggio Bracciolini . . 353 Luther 353 Montaigne .... 355 Shakespeare .... 359 Ascham . . . . 361 Milton .... Evelyn . Addison .... Gray XVI. Smollett . Dr. Moore . . . Goethe .... Chateaubriand . . Forsytb. .... Madame de Stael XVII. Eustace . Matthews . . Lady Morgan . Shelley . Lord Byron Rogers . Miss Eaton Bell Rose . Andersen . Mrs. Kemble . Spalding . Murray .... XXIII. Concluding Remarks 362 365 368 371 374 378 383 393 399 404 410 415 416 422 428 437 439 439 440 440 443 446 447 449 CHAPTER I. THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. THE Duke of Wellington was once asked which was the best description of the battle of Waterloo, and in the course of his reply he said, that it was impossible to describe a battle : each person could recall and re- late the incidents in which he himself took part, but nothing more : whatever was beyond his own observa- tion could make no impression on the memory. This remark applies with more or less force to every thing which comprises the elements of time and movement. A picture or a bas-relief may be described distinctly and perfectly ; but a series of actions, only in detail, by parcels, and more or less imperfectly. A land- scape may be painted with the most minute fidelity, but no eye can catch, no memory retain, the succes- sive and fleeting impressions made upon it by a violent storm. This is especially true of the gay movements and genial frolic of a Roman Carnival ; every description of which must needs be unsatisfactoiy to those who never witnessed it, and disappointing to those who have. Each one who sees or takes part in this festive VOL. n. 1 A THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. hurly-burly can recount what he observed or what he did, but he cannot paint to the readers the moving panorama, which is ever changing, yet ever the same. He can tell of quaint disguises, of voluble speech, of rapid gestures, of showers of bouquets, and a steady rain of sugar-plums, of streets gorgeous as an autumn wood with hanging tapestry, and of balconies filled with women wearing their gayest gowns and their brightest smiles ; but he cannot transfer to his page the atmosphere of frolic which hangs over all, inter- prets all, and reconciles all to which each contributes his part, while all feet and share its electric influence. ' The delicate shells lay on the shore I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home ; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.' EMERSON. To judge fairly of a Roman Carnival, we must view it in connection with the prevailing tastes, the ordinary amusements, and every-day life of the Roman people ; and inquire into the causes which have made it, here, so much more an absorbing and characteristic a spec- tacle than in other Catholic capitals. The taste of the populace of Rome has been in some degree formed by those splendid and imposing ceremonials of the church with which they have been so long familiar ; by the gilding and marble of their churches, the rich vestments of the clergy, the clouds of incense curling up from censers of silver, and all the other shows and THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. 3 pomps of their worship. They delight in ' the pride of the eye.' On all holiday occasions they hang out from their windows strips of bright-colored cloth. They take great pleasure in illuminations, torch-light processions, and, especially, in fire-works, which are no where seen in such perfection as in Rome. Even death itself is not exempt from the influence of this ruling passion. The funerals of distinguished persons take place at night, are illumined by the blaze of torches, and attended by solemn music and trains of ecclesiastics. Thus, the Carnival is linked by natural laws to the remaining portions of the year. It is merely the an- nual flowering of that taste which is always in leaf. Something is also to be ascribed to the peculiarity of the place the Corso and the streets immediately adjoining to which the show is confined. The Corso is about a mile long, but disproportionately narrow being on an average only about thirty-five feet broad and bordered by lofty houses, nearly all of which are furnished with projecting balconies, constructed with especial reference to this spectacle. When apart- ments are let in this street for the season, the period of Carnival is not included, except by a special agree- ment, and for an additional consideration. Tempo- rary structures of wood are usually put up, where permanent balconies are wanting. Thus, the already narrow space between the houses is abridged by these unglazed oriels and projections, and the persons oc- cupying them are brought within speaking, or, at least, communicating distance ; near enough to interchange bouquets, sugar-plums, and smiles of greeting. And as the street between is densely filled with carriages and 4 THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. foot-passengers, the chain of magnetic influence is un- broken. All are brought so near together as to act and re-act upon each other; and the eifect of a crowd- ed in-door audience is produced in the open air. Were the Corso as wide as Broadway, one half of the mirth and movement of the Carnival would vanish ; and that essential spirit which is now preserved by compression, would evaporate. The Roman Carnival extends over the eleven days which immediately precede Ash Wednesday, though only eight days are actually given up to its gaieties ; the two Sundays and Friday being put under the shadow of the church. Nor does the sport last through the whole of each day, but only from about two o'clock till dark, in the short days of February ; so that the Romans, even in their hours of license, feel the truth of Hesiod's saying, that the half is more than the whole, and know that fine flavors can only be pre- served by abstaining from deep draughts. The course of each day is substantially the same, except that the uproar goes on with an increasing impulse, as the end draws near. The reader will then have the goodness to walk with me into the Corso, at about half past two on a Carnival day, and follow with the mind's eye the sketch of the moving scene which I shall attempt to draw ; and in this, our airy substance, we can pene- trate to the heart of the crowd much more easily than if we were making the effort in our proper material persons. First of all, the aspect of the long and narrow street draws the admiring eye. The usually rather common- place and unexpressive fronts of the houses have sud- THE. CARNIVAL IN ROME. 5 denly put on a life and bloom, like that which a mass of multiflora in full flower gives to a dead wall. Gay streamers, of red, yellow, and blue, flutter in the breeze, and heavier pieces of the same vivid colors hang from the windows in such numbers, that to a fan- ciful mind it looks as if a rainbow had fallen from the sky, and its shattered fragments been caught and arrested ere they reached the earth. Far as the eye can pierce, the balconies are crowded with spectators, of whom a larger proportion are gaily dressed women ; some with beautiful, and all with animated faces, pre- pared to enjoy the scene and not unwilling to be admired. The street below is filled by two rows of carriages slowly moving in opposite directions, and filled with gay occupants, and by a motley crowd of foot-passengers, composed principally but not exclu- sively, of men and boys, some with masks and some without. All this concourse comprising every rank in life, from an adventurous English nobleman to the lowest ragamuffins in Rome, and engaged more or less actively in one common occupation, that of pelting one another with various kinds of missiles ; so that the air is quite filled with the harmless ammunition of their mock warfare. These missiles are of three classes rejecting all minor subdivisions as unworthy of the dignity of history these three are flowers, bon-bons or sugar-plums, and confetti. For many days before the Carnival begins, flowers are brought into Rome from the neighboring country ; and the stock on hand to respond to the uni- versal demand, seems boundless. They are so ar- ranged as to meet the various capacities of purse or 6 THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. the higher or lower points of profusion ; the scale of choice ranging from costly bouquets of the delicate and fragrant products of the conservatory, to little branches of wild flowers, the natural growth of the Campagna, of which a large basket-full may be bought for a few baiocchi. They are, as with us on the eve of a ball, a graceful and permitted attention which might be too marked, if proffered on other occasions ; and there as here, a sharp eye may draw auguries of hope or fear from the manner in which they are received and acknowledged. The instinctive and universal taste of mankind selects flowers for the expression of its finest sympathies, their beauty and their fleetingness serving to make them the most fitting symbols of those delicate sentiments for which language itself seems almost too gross a medium. In some instances, these Carnival bouquets are crowned with a living bird whose legs and wings are imprisoned in flowery bands, and whose drooping head wears a forlorn expression of surprise and terror, awakening a feeling not in unison with the mood of the hour. As the sugar-plums are good to eat, they have a homely savor of utility and fall short of the ethereal expressiveness of flowers ; but as tributes, they are valued by young and old; especially when tastefully enclosed in pretty boxes and cones of gilded paper, bearing likenesses of damsels with pink cheeks and invisible mouths. Of the cheaper sort, a considerable proportion falls upon the pavement and is eagerly scrambled for by the ingenuous youth of Rome, who dart in and out under the wheels of carriages and the hoofs of horses, with a courage worthy of a better cause. THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. 7 The third class of missiles the confetti are bits of lime, of which the average size is about that of a well-grown pea, forming quite a serious weapon of attack. Indeed, discreet persons, who mean to go through the thick and thin of a Carnival, protect their faces by masks of wire against assaults which might otherwise do lasting harm, especially to the eyes. They are sometimes thrown by the hand and some- times skilfully ejaculated through a tin tube. When a quantity of them is forcibly and unexpectedly hurled into the unprotected face, the first sensation is as if the points of a thousand needles had been suddenly shot into the skin ; and then a cloud of darkness settles down upon the eyes which gradually passes off in a rain of tears ; leaving the sufferer, if of an irritable temper, much disposed to ' pitch into ' somebody. Foreigners, the English especially, are said to abuse this privilege of the confetti. The Italians, whose tem- perament allows only a short transition from gentle courtesy to fiery excitement and the drawing of knives, and who do not understand the good-humored horse- play of rougher nations, rarely use them. The most animated contests with these different missiles take place where two carriages, occupied by young persons of different sexes, are detained oppo- site to each other by a general lock ; or under a balcony which sparkles with more than an average proportion of beauty. On these occasions, and at these points, the air is darkened with sugar-plums and flow- ers, the ladies receiving them gracefully as a just tribute that conquerors do not return. The confetti, be it observed, with persons of good taste, are never used except in masculine encounters. THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. Of the mass which elbow one another through the crowded streets, the greater part are in their ordinary garb ; though disguises are common enough not to at- tract any particular attention. Among the most usual masks are punchinellos with portentous noses and pro- tuberant waistcoats ; harlequins in striped costume and daggers of pasteboard ; quack doctors with ludicrous nostrums for all sorts of diseases ; and advocates in gowns and wigs, that threaten the passers-by with in- dictments for a thousand fanciful crimes. Many of the masks carry an inflated bladder at the end of a stick, with which they strike most resonant blows to the right and left a form of practical joke which never seemed to lose its point, nor failed to call forth peals of laughter. Many of the women appeared in male attire, partially or entirely ; a style to be ascribed more to convenience of locomotion in such a crowd than to any innate pro- pensity of the sex to assume what does not belong to them. At any rate, the change was a sacrifice, for the feet and ancles of the Roman women are made for use and not for show. Some persons simply draw over their common garb a dress of coarse white cotton, adopted as much by way of protection against the lime of the confetti, as for a disguise. When to this attire a white mask is superadded, the wearer looks like the ghost of a miller walking abroad at noon-day. I remember one adventurous person who presented a tolerable impersonation of a green monkey. In the carriages which pass in a straight line up and down the Corso, there is such a variety as to form by themselves an entertaining spectacle. Many of them are the common equipages usually seen in the streets, THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. containing grave or elderly personages who come sim- ply to look on and not to take part. There are also many which are rigged out especially for the occasion, consisting of an open frame-work, resting upon wheels, rudely and hastily put together, but successful in the general effect. Sometimes they are contrived to re- semble a ship, sometimes, a moving forest ; and in all cases, the decorations and the garb of the occupants are in what Tony Lumpkin calls ' a concatenation accord- ingly,' so that the sense of congruity is not disturbed. In carriages of this class very elaborate and effective costumes may sometimes be seen. I recall two young ladies in rich Albanian dresses, who attracted much at- tention ; and also a party of young men in the velvet doublets and feathered hats of Sir Walter Raleigh's time. The coachmen appear in some fantastic and extravagant garb, their horses garnished with flowers and ribbons ; the great object being to attract notice. There are three modes of seeing and sharing in the festivities of the Carnival : one is to look at the scene from a window or a balcony : another, to ride up and down the Corso in an open carriage : and the third, from which ladies are debarred, is to mingle with the crowd in the street. An adventurous young man will probably make experiment of all. To be merely a passive spectator soon wearies the eye, and if in a cynical humor, provokes a critical spirit and a wonder that men and women can behave so like boys and girls. To rough it in the street requires a stout frame and nimble feet. The carriage is the best medium, making the occupant at once an actor and a spectator. It is quite curious to remark how a fastidious dignity melts 10 THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. away under the contagious influence of the general riot : to see how soon a middle-aged gentleman, who gets into the carriage with a sheepish air of self-reproach and a look of intense self-consciousness, abandons himself to the genius of the place and the hour, and is seen throwing confetti and bouquets with all the ardor of twenty. Between taking a part and merely looking on, there is the same difference as between dancing and seeing others dance. The mob, gentle or simple, seems uniformly good-humored, though sometimes a little self-command % must be exerted in order to main- tain this genial mood. A handful of confetti is sud- denly slapped into your face, bringing a vision of ten thousand dancing stars before your eyes or as your hand hangs listlessly for a moment over the side of the carriage with a choice bouquet in it, for which you have a particular destination in your mind or heart, a cunning varlet snatches it from your grasp and disap- pears in a twinkling all this must be taken as a part of the fun, and endured with a smiling composure. Many shafts and sallies of verbal wit pass to and fro among the Italians which are lost to the foreign ear. On one occasion, when riding in the Corso with a young friend, whose blooming complexion and light hair, joined to an expression at once frank and fine, made him an attractive image of Saxon beauty, we were met by a carriage moving in an opposite direction, in which was a lively Italian girl, her dark eyes running over with frolic and mischief, who, when she saw my com- panion, threw a bouquet at him, calling out at the same time, in a loud and laughter-broken voice, ' Beefsteak et pomme de terre,' a phrase by which the English are known all over the continent. THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. ll Nowhere does beauty find a more marked or more abundant homage than in a Roman Carnival. The Italians, with their vivid temperament and susceptible organization, are quick to detect its presence, and ex- pressive in the acknowledgment of its claims. A fine countenance gathers a harvest of applause, and brings round its owner a shower of substantial tokens of admi- ration. In looking down the Corso, wherever a denser crowd is seen gathered together, wherever a brisker fire of flowers and sugar-plums is observed to be going on, one may be sure that the cynosure is a beautiful face that beams from a neighboring balcony. Our own fair countrywomen had, at least, their full share of the general tribute. Two lovely sisters in particular, one of whom, from the rare combination of blonde hair and dark eyes, was an object of much admiration to the Italians, were almost the belles of the Corso ; and one of the pleasures of each day was to witness the spark- ling triumph with which they shewed the various offer- ings which had been laid at their feet. I noticed in the hands of some of the young men on foot, a curious contrivance for the transmission of flow- ers to the upper windows. It is a sort of frame-work of wooden slats turning upon pivots. When folded to- gether and lying horizontally, they occupy but little space, but by a sudden movement they can be elon- gated some fifteen or twenty feet, darting up into the air like a rocket. A bouquet, fastened to the end of this, and held in a firm grasp, thus mounted in safety, and reached the very hand for which it was predestined. And thus the merry-making goes on till about five o'clock, when preparations begin for the running of the 12 THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. horses. Mounted dragoons appear in the Corso, and the carriages one by one diverge into the neighboring streets on the right and left ; and in a short time all disappear, and foot-passengers alone are left. A de- tachment of cavalry moves slowly down the Corso and returns on a brisk trot. In the mean time, the horses which are to run, have been brought to the starting- point in the Piazza del Popolo, and are rearing and snorting with impatience to be let go. A temporary semicircular range of seats has been previously erected in the Piazza, looking down into the Corso ; and just in front of these seats is the barrier, behind which the horses are ranged. Each horse is led up by a shewily dressed groom, who stands at his head till the signal for starting is given. The impatient animals rear and plunge, and the struggles which ensue between them and their keepers, often graceful and vigorous young men, lead to fine exhibitions of human, as well as ani- mal power. Accidents sometimes occur, especially when the number of horses is large, as the space in which they are crowded is only of moderate extent. The signal is at last given, the confining rope falls, and the horses bound forth, swallowing the ground with fiery leaps. They rush down the narrow Corso, the people opening a passage for them like waves before the keel of a ship, and then closing up behind them. When I first witnessed this plunging of these spirited creatures into a thronged street, it seemed to me a perilous sport, and I asked if accidents never occurred, and was told that they never did ; but the question seemed to be prophetic, for on that very day one man was killed outright, and two or three were wounded. THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. 13 The horses ran without riders. They are goaded on in their course by leaden balls, into which sharp points are inserted, and so hung upon their backs as to pierce them with every movement. They run the length of the Corso and are brought up at the Piazza Veneziana, where a temporary seat is erected for the judges who award the prizes. The horses are a light-limbed and spirited breed of animals, but they have little opportunity to shew their real qualities of speed or endurance in a race of this kind. From the narrowness of the street, also, an unfair advantage is given to the one or two that get the start at the begin- ning, which lessens the interest in the result. Goethe, who was in Rome in 1788, says, that at that time car- riages were not driven out of the Corso before the run- ning of the horses, but were merely drawn up in a line on each side, leaving only the narrow space between them for the race-course ; and that sometimes the horses would dash against the wheel of a carriage with such force as to kill themselves. With the running of the horses, the out-of-door amusements of the Carnival cease. The crowd in the Corso disperses, and in a few moments the streets are restored to their usual quiet and silence. In the even- ing, there are various social entertainments, and com- monly a masked ball at some one of the theatres. Such, substantially, was the Carnival of 1848 as it dwells in my memory. I confess that before the eight days were over, it began to grow wearisome. It was like a Christmas pantomime acted by daylight. There were, however, some adverse elements at work which impaired the effect, and threw a dispiriting influence 14 THE CARXIVAL IN ROME. over the whole proceeding. The weather was unfa- vorable, and this was an untoward circumstance which no energy of resolve could entirely overcome. The sun rarely shone during the whole period, and the only change was from a dull gray sky to a drizzling rain. For such raree-shows the presence of sunshine is indis- pensable. The gay colors look intrusive and imperti- nent under a monotonous and leaden sky. The mummers and maskers, stumping through the mud and trying to ignore the rain, reminded one of a flock of peacocks disconsolately pacing round a farm-yard in an easterly storm their fine feathers draggling in the wet or plastered to their sides with moisture. In this, as in so many other instances, our daily speech express- es the general sense of mankind. It is not without reason that we say that our ardor has been damped, and that cold water has been thrown upon our zeal. All out-of-door amusements, picnics, water-parties, civic processions, military reviews, are dreary failures, unless the sun looks down upon them with a benignant countenance. At the bottom, there was no great amount of hearti- ness and abandon, and a good deal of make-believe. There was a sufficient reason for this state of feeling, in the political excitement at that time so rife among the Roman people, and in the vague and glowing hopes which played before their dazzled eyes. All Italy, it need hardly be said, was at that time in a feverish mood, and all around the horizon, dark clouds were gathering in the heavens. In various parts of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, collisions had taken place between the citizens and the Austrian soldiers, THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. 15 in which many persons had been killed and wounded. In consequence of these transactions, and by way of sympathy with those who had fallen, the people, at the suggestion of their political leaders, gave up the usual concluding amusement of the Carnival, the Moccoletti, in which every person carries a lighted taper, and en- deavors to protect his own and extinguish that of his neighbor. It was in the midst of the entertainments of the Carnival that we heard of the French revolution of February, 1848, an event which broke in upon the frivolous piping and dancing, like the crashing stride of an earthquake. After this astounding intelligence, it was difficult to enter into the spirit of the scene, or to bar the mind, for even a moment, against the stern realities that knocked for admittance. To a thoughtful spirit, aware of the pregnant significance of this outbreak and not least of all to the Romans themselves, the frisking and capering of the crowds in the Corso seemed like the dancing of a parcel of monkeys over a powder maga- zine. It is evident from the accounts of former travel- lers, that the interest and animation of the Carnival are gradually passing away. Indeed, it can hardly be oth- erwise. Communities, as well as individuals, have their periods of youth, manhood, and decay. As the people of Rome grow older and more thoughtful, as the sense of the duties and responsibilities of life presses upon them more heavily especially if they should emanci- pate themselves from their state of political minority it cannot but happen that the inclination towards a style of amusement so essentially boyish must pass away. Tasso, in one of his prose writings, says, ' L'allegrezze sono conform! all' eta degli uomini siccome i frutti alle 16 THE CARNIVAL IN ROME. stagioni, laonde quel che diletta alia giovinezza non suol pjacere all' eta matura parimente.' A Carnival will not be in unison with the ripened taste of a people that have reached the full stature of moral and mental manhood. Goethe has given a description of this amusement as he saw it at the close of the last cen- tury, in a sketch full of grace and spirit written in that beautiful and transparent prose which forms not the least among his great literary merits from which the reader will see how much the Roman Carnival has been tamed and sobered in the course of sixty years. But if it has lost in vivacity, it has gained in refinement and decorum : the better taste of to-day would hardly tolerate some of the incidents which he records. CHAPTER II. General Aspect of Rome Piazza del Popolo Piazza di Spagna Monte Pincio Piazza Navona The Ghetto. GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. MODERN Rome presents few striking architectural points or combinations.* The houses, which are gen- erally stuccoed, have no marked character ; they have commonplace fronts pierced by commonplace windows ; looking like convenient dwelling-places, but bare of * In republican and imperial Rome the heights were crowd- ed with population, but the low plain bordering on the curve of the Tiber, then called the Campus Martius, was an open space, used for public assemblies and gymnastic and martial sports. But now this latter region is the most densely peopled part of Rome ; while the highlands are comparatively de- serted. This change of the seat of population was probably determined, in a great measure, by the nearness of the river. The ancient aqueducts were mostly all destroyed, or abandoned to neglect and decay, during the dark centuries of Rome. The restoration of such as were restored was comparatively recent. For many generations, a large part of the inhabitants could have depended only on such sources of water as were within the walls. On this account, the poorer classes would naturally fix their habitations as near as possible to the Tiber. VOL. II. 2 18 GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. memories and traditions. In walking through the Corso or the streets that diverge from it on either hand, the eye lights upon few of those fine pictures in stone, which are so frequent in Bruges or Nuremburg. Though some of the palaces can boast of facades of conspicuous merit, yet many present upon their fronts palpable indications of the periods of bad taste in which they were erected. Indeed, in these narrow streets, grand architecture would be thrown away. In the Corso, the sublime mass of the Riccardi Palace at Florence would look like a line-of-battle ship anchored in the Tiber. For the same reason, the indifferent fronts of so many of the churches are the less to be regretted, because in their unfavorable positions beau- tiful structures could not be appreciated. But Rome enjoys a great advantage in the pictur- esque inequality of its surface. Besides its imme- morial seven hills, it now includes three others, the Janiculum, the Monte Pincio, and the Vatican ; to say nothing of the artificial Monte Testaccio. The ground every where, except in the central portions, rises and falls, swelling into bold or gentle elevations and sink- ing into valleys more or less depressed. The effect of converging lines of perpective is enhanced from the fact that the point of meeting is in a different plane from that of the eye. Here, we look up to a group of conventual buildings, crowning an eminence ; there, we look down into a cavernous abyss of crowded dwell- ing-places ; or we see a church closing a vista made up of a long descent and a long elevation. It is only necessary to choose a commanding position in Rome, to find pictures unique in themselves, attractive to GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. 19 the eye, and delightful to recall. The view from the Pincian Hill, for instance, is that with which stran- gers are most familiar ; and let us consider for a mo- ment some of its peculiarities. An American eye is first struck with the absence of that dingy red brick which predominates so tyran- nically over all our cities ; to the despair of artists and the discomfort of those who are born with the sense of art. This glaring color is quite unknown in Rome. The buildings are, as a general rule, of stone, or cov- ered with stucco ; or if brick be used, it is painted ; and the different hues of the architectural scene being variations of the same ground tone, blend to the eye in one uniform tint of cream or stone color, with patches of ashen gray ; all which is in beautiful unison with the blue sky and the green ring of plain and mountain in which the city is set. The next most conspicuous peculiarity is the variety and irregularity of the air line. The formal horizontal monotony of our blocks of building are nowhere to be seen. Though there are no spires properly so called for they are Gothic in their origin there are multitudes of towers and domes, obelisks, columns, belfries, stately palatial masses, convents and churches. To these are to be added the irregularities of the sur- face of the soil. Thus, the outline or profile traced upon the sky by the projection of all these architec- tural forms is singularly indented, irregular, and broken. Rome shoots out into the gulf of the sky a great num- ber of capes and promontories. These two elements of color and outline are both favorable to the training of the artist, for on whatever spot his eye may light, it 20 GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. falls upon something which has a pictorial possibility which may be incorporated into a sketch. This pic- turesque character of Rome is the great secret of that magic spell which it throws over every artist who dwells within its borders : an influence, which like that exerted by a fine climate upon a sensitive frame, is more felt after it is removed than while it is enjoyed. Artists, like all mortal men, are sometimes unreasona- ble and inconsistent,, and will speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them ; but no artist ever lived in Rome and then left it, with- out sighing to return. From the irregularity of surface in the site of Rome, and from the power thus afforded of looking down, as well as above and around, we are admitted to view many interior pictures, and to see the reverse side of the tapestry of life. Rome is a city of wide spaces, and luxuriates in elbow-room ; and the buildings are not crowded, shoulder to shoulder, except in a few places. All the larger houses are so built as to enclose a court-yard, and many of them have patches of gar- den-ground in the rear. In looking down into these court-yards, the observant eye will meet with frequent subjects and hints for the artist; in the moulding of a window, in a projecting balcony, an ornamented frieze, or in an orange-tree, whose dark foliage and golden fruit stand out in the happiest contrast with the gray hues of the wall. Rome is, indeed, full of the picturesque; which is seen not only in its well-known ruins, its renowned churches, its sparkling fountains, its obelisks, its arches, and its columns in those objects which are described GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. 21 in guide-books and sit for their pictures in sketch-books but it comes upon us at every turn. It is found in combination, not merely with beauty and finish, but with dilapidation and decay. Here, we see a frag- ment of antiquity wrought into a modern wall ; there, an old house with quaintly carved ' coignes of vantage ; ' here, a massive gateway of stone, with a pine or an orange-tree overhanging it. The interior scenes into which we glance as we walk along, have the same character. Here, is the open door of a sculptor's studio into which we peep, and through the marble- dusted atmosphere mark a silent congregation of busts, or a form of beauty or grandeur struggling into sym- metry. There, is the shop of a dealer in antiquities, strewn over with pictures, engravings, vases, antique furniture, books, armor, and plate a collection of nicknacks over which Jonathan Oldbuck would have gone wild with delight all in dusty disarray, but look- ing none the less like a Dutch interior. Here, is a window full of bewitching bronzes, all of which we wish straightway to buy ; and near to it, another, rich in mosaics and cameos, equally tempting to our fair friends. The charm of cleanliness belongs neither to Rome nor its people. The sense of beauty and the sense of neatness and order do not necessarily dwell in the same natures. The Italians, who have so much of the for- mer, are sparingly endowed with the latter. But in Rome even dirt becomes picturesque. The shops of grocers, butchers, and vegetable dealers, are deficient in that careful propriety, that exquisite niceness, that absence of every thing distasteful and unsightly, which 22 GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. we observe in similar establishments in the large cities of our own country, and still more in London ; but even here there will be something to mark the percep- tion of beauty, and an eye accustomed to pictorial com- binations. The grocer's shop will have a dirty floor, and a dingy, stained wall ; but he will dispose his hams, his round buffalo cheeses, and his strings of Bologna sausages so as to produce a certain picturesque effect : he will ornament his wares with flowers and branches of laurel, and on the evenings of the great church holidays will set up an image of the Madonna, and burn candles before it. The shop or stall of the dealer in vegetables will be littered with decayed leaves, orange-peel, and refuse fragments of every de- scription ; but his green melons, his purple egg-plants, his snowy cauliflowers, his blood-red tomatoes, will be so grouped as to bring out contrasts of color which an artist need not disdain to study. The living figures of this landscape also share in this common element of the picturesque. In Rome, as in middle and southern Italy generally, more of the occu- pations of life are carried on, and more of its wants are provided for, out of doors, than the climate in less genial latitudes will permit. Here, is a cobbler's stall ; there, an old woman roasting chestnuts in a small oven, the ruddy charcoal of which gleams with a pleasant smile of invitation in a winter twilight ; here, a young maiden, with a classic head and hair braided as in one of Raphael's pictures, sits patiently all day long before a table spread with little ornaments of marble ; there, is a booth in which a sort of pancake is cooked and sold, filling the air with savory odors and a comfortable GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. X6 sound of simmering. In a quiet corner, is an elderly man in spectacles, clothed in a decent suit of black, with a pen stuck in his ear and implements of writing before him. He is a ' segretario ' or letter-writer, and he earns his bread by writing letters for those who can- not write, or reading them for those who cannot read. Some travellers may have the good luck which did not befall me of seeing a dark-eyed peasant girl breathing into his impassive ear her messages of. love and trust, with glances and blushes more expressive than her glowing words.* Further on is an osteria, or shop where wine is sold with doors hospitably open to all who have a few baiocchi in their pockets in which is a group of peasants or laborers listening, with a flush of interest upon their swarthy countenances, to the impassioned declamation of an improvisatore for improvisatori are nearly as common in Rome as stump speakers in America whose subject is Rinaldo and Armida, or that wandering knight, J3neas, whom the Holy Virgin brought to Italy. In the middle of the street is a heavy wain drawn by buffaloes, whose sullen movements express a perpetual protest against cap- tivity, and whose fierce eyes seem always (glaring round in search of a victim or by those magnificent oxen of the Campagna, of the color of Quincy granite, colossal' and mild-visaged, the finest images of gentle strength which the animal world exhibits or perhaps a wine-cart, as primitive in its structure as that in which * Such a group forms the subject of a very pleasing picture, painted in Rome by Davis, an English artist, engravings of which are frequently to be met with. 24 GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. the boy Virgil drove the produce of his father's vine- yards to Mantua ; with a movable canopy of foliage to shelter the driver from the noonday sun, and the horse's head adorned with vine leaves and flowers. Rome is also remarkable for the number and variety of the costumes seen in its streets. In Italy, as in continental Europe generally, the various ranks in social life are marked, more or less broadly, by a dis- tinctive costume. The cast-off garments of one class are never worn at second-hand by another. The rural population dress as their fathers and mothers did be- fore them, and attach a certain element of dignity and self-respect to this adherence. The different localities in the neighborhood of Rome such as Albano, Fras- cati, Subiaco are marked generally by certain dis- tinctive peculiarities, especially in the costume of the female portion of the population ; though there is a common likeness running through them all, like the resemblance of features in the members of the same family. The peasant who comes to Rome in the cold days of winter, wraps himself up in the folds of an ample brown cloak, which he wears with ease and sometimes with grace. In fine weather, he sets off his steeple-crowned hat with flowers or ribbons. His waistcoat, revealed by a scanty jacket, is of scarlet cloth, adorned with the gayest of buttons, and perhaps embroidered with gold or silver. His breeches are tied at the knee with shewy ribbons, or fastened with silver buckles ; and his legs are protected by strong leathern gaiters. Around his waist he wears a woollen scarf, and the ends of a shewy cravat flutter in the breeze. The peasant woman wears a boddice of a gay color, GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. 25 often divided into two parts and bound together in front by ribbons. Her gown is short enough to allow full justice to be done to the shining buckles in her shoes. But the most striking part of her costume is the head- dress, which, with many slight variations according to the locality, is always handsome and becoming. It is usually of white linen, lying in a square fold upon the top of the head, and fastened to the hair, which is gathered in a mass on the back of the head, by a silver arrow ; the shape of which designates the condition of the wearer, whether married or unmarried. Some- times this linen head-dress is disposed more like a veil or it is gathered in the form of a hood or it blends with a similar covering over the shoul- ders and bust, in a way which a masculine pen is not competent to describe, nor a masculine memory to retain ; but it serves so well the purposes both of em- bellishment and protection, and being always scrupu- lously clean, is so suggestive of purity, that we have every reason to be grateful that these sturdy women have resisted the general invasion of bonnets. The great number of ecclesiastics who are found in Rome also contribute to increase the variety of costume which is noticed in the streets. The Roman Catholic idea of the character and functions of the clergy, whether secular o monastic, requires that they should be marked by a distinguishing dress, as men severed from all the common ties and relations of life, and dedi- cated exclusively to spiritual duties. One cannot look out of a window in Rome, without seeing one or more figures in flowing robes of black, and capacious and overshadowing hats, moving gravely along, and hardly 26 GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. taking cognizance of the world around them. Even the youths who study in ecclesiastical establishments appear in a similar garb, which is in marked contrast with their quick movements and animated faces. Mixed with these are the Capuchin friars, who wear a robe of coarse, brown woollen, girded around the waist with a cord ; a dress well-suited for the purposes of an artist, but repulsive, from the want of cleanliness which it suggests. The cardinals and higher dignitaries of the church never appear in the streets on foot.* Nor should the artists be overlooked in summing up the characteristic peculiarities of Rome. They form a numerous class, and their identity of pursuits and in- terests goes far to obliterate the distinctions of birth and language. They affect, especially the younger portion of them, certain eccentricities and fantasticalities of dress, which serve to point them out to the eye and mark their profession. They seek to escape from the sober and prosaic costume of the day into the more flowing outlines of older periods or more remote climes. They wear jaunty caps or hats of flexible felt moulded * This rule is inflexible. The Church will not permit its cardinals to be exposed to such involuntary disrespect as might happen from the crowds in a street. Cardinal Rohan, Archbishop of Besa^on, asked as a particular favor from Gregory XVI. that he might walk from his lodgings to the Trinita de' Monti, where he said mass, as the distance was short. But in spite of his illustrious birth, the great sacrifices he had made for the church, and the personal friendship of the pontiff, his request was refused. The pope desired him to ask any thing else, but that was impossible. Gaume : Les Trois Rome. Tom. 1, p. 407. GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. 27 into quaint shapes ; sometimes brown, sometimes green, but commonly drab. They are fond of velvet or vel- veteen coats, loosely and ' curiously cut ; ' often orna- mented with braid, and sometimes garnished with buttons as big as dollars. Their waistcoats are of the gayest patterns, daubed over with great blotches of color jumbled together like a distracted rainbow. Their trowsers are of Turkish dimensions, and often emancipated from the tyranny of braces. Razors, with hardly a single exception, are an abomination in their eyes. Their beards are of all shapes some, square and spade-like ; some, 'great, round beards ;' some, like tongues of flame flickering on the chin ; some, mere tufts like the stroke of a pencil and of all colors, black, brown, yellow, red, or ' orange- tawny.' Such are the figures and costumes which are con- stantly to be seen at Rome, and so identified with it that one never recalls the city itself without some of these attendant shapes gliding in to complete the vision. About Christmas time, there appear in the streets some picturesque and characteristic groups not noticed at other periods of the year. There are the Piferari, so called, shepherds from the Abruzzi and the Sabine mountains, who make an annual pilgrimage to Rome to play before the various portraits of the Virgin. They are frequently seen in companies of three ; an old man, a man of mature age, and a boy. Their instruments are of the most simple kind ; an uncouth bagpipe and a long straight pipe, pierced with holes and furnished with a mouthpiece of reed the primitive form of the clarionet and sometimes a triangle. Their appearance 28 GENERAL ASPECT OF ROME. is wild, almost savage. Their dress is partly of coarse cloth, and partly of skins ; and they wear a kind of san- dal upon their feet, bound round the ancles with thongs. Their conical hats, which they always reverently lay aside when playing, are adorned with gay ribbons. Dark eyes gleaming through long elf-locks of glittering black give a marked character to their countenances. They arrive about a week before Christmas, and during that time they employ themselves with the greatest dili- gence, not only during the day but often late into the night, in going about the streets and playing before the various images of the Madonna, with a grave and earnest expression of face, shewing that they regard their occupation to be the performance of a religious duty. The groups which gather around them on these occasions, always listen with devout attention. Their music is wild, loud, and piercing ; but when heard in the stillness of night, and at a short distance, it is plain- tive and impressive. The effect which it produces is enhanced by those associations, which link these pas- toral groups with those shepherds of Bethlehem that were sent by angel voices to the manger where the child Jesus lay. After Christmas, they play no more, and soon return to their native mountains, coming like birds of passage and like them departing.* * These musicians have simple songs which they sometimes sing to the accompaniment of their instruments. The Abbe Gaume has printed one of them, from their dictation. ' O verginella, figlia de Sant' Anna, Nel ventre tuo, portaste il buon Gesu. Gl' Angioli chiamarano : venite Santi, Andate Gesii bambino alia capanna, PIAZZA DEL POPOLO. 29 PIAZZA DEL POPOLO. Such are some of the general features of Rome, visible every where and at all times, and stamping a common character upon the whole city. There are, besides, some particular localities which have peculiar points of interest, and deserve to be singled out from the rest. A majority of the travellers who come to Rome enter it by the Porta del Popolo, for that is the gate where the roads leading from Florence terminate. The gate itself, though designed in part by Michael Angelo, is not a structure of any conspicuous excellence ; but the Piazza del Popolo upon which it opens, is an imposing square, though not corresponding to the ideal image of Partorito sotto ad una capanella, Ad' ove mangiavan il bove e 1' asinelli. Immacolata vergine beata In cielo, in terra sia avocata. La notte di natale, e notte santa, Questa orazion che sera cantata Gesti bambino sia representata.' ' Virgin sweet, St. Anna's child, That bore the infant Jesus mild ; The angels said, " Ye saints, arise, See where the new-born Saviour lies ; A stable is his lowly seat, Where asses and where oxen eat." blessed Virgin, undefiled, Be thou our intercessor mild ! This Christmas night this holy tide may our songs to Heaven glide, And Jesus hear them, by thy side.' 30 PIAZZA DEL POPOLO. Rome which the scholar forms. It is an irregular area of some three or four acres in extent, in the middle of which rises the noble obelisk of Rhamses, to the height of one hundred and sixteen feet ; itself an architectural pilgrim, with as little affinity with the structures which surround it as the figure of the Wandering Jew would have with the gay crowds of a carnival. At the base of the obelisk is a fountain, with four rounded basins radiating from a common centre like the leaves of a stalk of four-leaved clover a stream of water gushing into each basin from the mouth of a lioness carved in stone. The sides of the Piazza are crescent-shaped, bounded on the right by a row of trees behind which are some of the finest private residences in Rome and on the left by the sloping and terraced walks which lead to the heights of the Monte Pincio. The central point of either crescent is marked by a fountain adorned with colossal statues in marble ; none of which are of much merit, but all escape criticism by the appropri- ateness of the position, and the harmonious relations in which they stand to the objects about them. Op- posite the gate are two churches, exactly alike in size and form, each furnished with a dome and tetrastyle, and looking like architectural twins, claiming admira- tion not for their beauty (for the design is common- place) but for their resemblance. These two churches mark the converging point of the three principal streets of Rome, the Corso, the Via di Ripetta, and the Via Babuino. The Piazza del Popolo, though, as has been before remarked, not corresponding to one's conceptions of the venerable and decaying majesty of Rome, is, from PIAZZA DI SPAGNA. 31 its ample space, its noble proportions, its obelisk, its fountains, its trees, and its fine buildings, a becoming entrance to a great city. It is seen to peculiarly good effect in the afternoon of a fine day in the autumn or spring when it is enlivened with equipages returning from a drive in the Campagna, or passing up the in- clined planes which lead to the Pincio, and with pedes- trians strolling in the same direction and when the sunshine lies in rich masses upon the architectural fa9ades and silvers the spray of the fountains. It also presents a beautiful view when seen from the heights of the Pincio. Its general aspect is gay, fresli, and smiling. It is' not strewn with the wrecks of the past. With the single exception of the obelisk, there is no object in it which carries back the thoughts to the fashion of the antique world. Its smart buildings, its vigorous young trees, its bright marble fountains, and the gay equipages that drive over its smooth pavement, all shine with the varnish of the present. If it be not our visionary Rome, it is yet a fine image which it would be ungracious to repel ; as the morning light is welcome, though it shatters dreams brighter than the realities which it reveals. PIAZZA DI SPAGNA. Of the three streets which diverge from the Piazza del Popolo, that which is on the left or eastern side the Via Babuino leads to the Piazza di Spagna, which is only a few rods distant from the Piazza del Popolo. The Piazza di Spagna is an area of a trian- gular form, with the buildings of the Propaganda at its 32 PIAZZA DI SPAGNA. southern extremity, and the palace of the Spanish am- bassador from which its name is derived on the western side ; and with these exceptions, mostly occu- pied with hotels, lodging-houses, coffee-houses, and shops. This is the most active and least Roman part of Rome ; being wholly given over to the descendants of those blue-eyed and fair-haired barbarians, who once subdued the Eternal City with steel, as their children now do with gold. Here, the English speech is the predominating sound, and sturdy English forms and rosy English faces the predominating sight. Here, are English shops, an English livery-stable, and an Eng- lish reading-room, where elderly gentlemen in drab gaiters, read the Times newspaper with an air of grim intensity. Here, English grooms flirt with English nursery-maids, and English children present to Italian eyes the living types of the cherub heads of Correggio and Albano. It is, in short, a piece of England dropped upon the soil of Italy. The open space in the midst of the Piazza is the principal carriage-stand of Rome, where vehicles of various shapes and sizes may be hired by the hour or the course. Few of them are neat and unexception- able in their appointments ; and the clumsy and time- worn joints of most of them rattle and shake in their passage over the pavements to the great discomposure of irritable nerves. The horses are a small and wiry breed of animals, shewing no signs of nice grooming ; deficient in action, but by no means in ' go ; ' being well able to get over the ground at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. The drivers are, in costume and expression, a hybrid race between the ostler and the PIAZZA DI SPAGNA. 33 bandit. They sit with great patience upon their seats in the warm sunny days when their business is com- paratively dull, and solace themselves with long naps in their intervals of enforced idleness ; their constitu- tions, like those of most Italians, enabling them to bear a great deal of sleep. Let no man with a Saxon face enter one of these carriages, without making a bargain beforehand as to the price to be paid, unless ha wishes to buy experience at the highest rate at which that costly article is sold. Mixed with these carriages and horses there may be seen, in fine weather, a motley assemblage of loungers dispersed about the Piazza for this is the exchange where all the idlers in Rome congregate some stand- ing apart wrapt in their cloaks, some chatting in groups, and some lying down in the sunshine of a sheltered angle. These are the representatives of that non- descript class, larger in Rome than any where else, who pick up a wretched and scrambling subsistence from the crumbs which fall from the stranger's table made up of vetturini seeking passengers, valets-de- place seeking sight-seers, and beggars seeking alms, to say nothing of baser offices and more degrading functions all lying in wait ready to pounce upon the fair-haired barbarians and avenge upon their pockets the wrongs of former centuries. Dark, penetrating glances fall upon the stranger, as if measuring the extent of his inexperience and gullibility ; and his ears are assailed by the whine of the mendicant, the whis- per of temptation, and the loud offer of the man of business. Here is always a living and moving picture to be seen. Here the pulse of vitality beats, and its VOL. II. 3 34 PIAZZA DI SPAGNA. heart is heard to throb. So many are the occasions that bring the foreign residents to the Piazza di Spagna, that an Englishman or American who should station himself in the midst of it, on a fine day, would, in the course of a few hours, be able to speak with nearly all his acquaintances without stirring from the spot. The fountain in the Piazza di Spagna is in the shape of a boat, from which its name, Fontana della Barcac- cia is derived. This form was adopted from necessity, as the head of water is not sufficient for a jet of any considerable height ; and the designer should rather be commended for what he has done than blamed for what he has not. As an object of taste, the fountain neither pleases nor offends. But we overlook its de- fects, or more properly its wants, in view of the magnifi- cent flight of steps of travertine, at the base of which it is placed. This flight of steps leads from the Piazza di Spagna to the promenade on the Pincio, and crown- ed as it is with the fajade of the Church of the Trinita de' Monti, and the Egyptian obelisk in front of the church, it forms one of the noblest architectural com- binations to be seen in Rome or any where else. The steps of which it is composed are one hundred and thirty in number, and the ascent is so gradual, the landing-places so broad and commodious, and its whole design so imposing to the eye, and so suited to the purpose for which it was contrived, that no one, not very old or infirm, can ever ascend it without pleasure. That portion of this flight of steps, which is between the Piazza di Spagna and the first landing-place, is fre- quently occupied by persons seeking 'to be employed PIAZZA DI SPAGNA. 35 as artists' models, whose picturesque costumes are in unison with the fine architecture around them. Here may be seen the invariable figures of an Italian land- scape. An old man, clad in a flowing robe, with a venerable white beard, a staff in his hand and a scallop- shell on his breast, stands for a pilgrim. A sturdy contadino in a smart jacket, a conical hat gay with feathers and ribbons, goat-skin breeches, leggings, and sandals, can be turned with a few strokes of the pencil into a bandit or a shepherd. A young mother in a red boddice and head-dress of snowy linen, with one child in her lap and another sporting at her feet, pre- sents a group that may be idealized into a Madonna with the infant Saviour and St. John. Young men and women, half-grown lads and budding maidens, dressed in the various costumes of the neighborhood of Rome the mountain air brown upon their cheeks and the mountain spirit sparkling through their eyes stand ready to walk into a canvas to give life to an Italian vintage or harvest-home. Some of the young women wear an expression of embarrassment and conscious- ness, and drop their eyes with a smile and half-blush when they meet the glance of a stranger, but most of them take it very coolly and in a business-like way. The landing-place near the top of this flight of steps has for many years been appropriated by a beggar one of the most noted personages in Rome whose pertinacious and original system of levying blackmail every visitor has many times had occasion to observe. He is a living Torso ; his figure from the hips upward being vigorous and manly ; but at that point the crea- tive energy of nature has paused, and to this sturdy 36 PIAZZA DI SPAGNA. trunk are appended the feeble and boneless legs of a new-born infant. He sits in a sort of a wooden bowl, and on the smooth, broad platform which he has made his own, he shuffles to and fro with extraordinary ac- tivity, by the help of his athletic arms : his hands being guarded against the constant attrition of the stone by pieces of wood. From his post of observa- tion his eye commands the whole sweep of the steps, and his victim is singled out and marked down for attack long before he gets within ear-shot. Vain are the attempts of the young and active to escape him. With scrambling haste he overtakes their flying steps, greets them with a most professional smile, and with a whining ' Buon giorno, Eccellenza,' solicits their charity. As the landing-place where he sits is flanked by a flight of steps on either hand, he is frequently thrown into a momentary access of indecision by the approach of two persons from below, at the same mo- ment; one preparing to mount the steps on his right hand, and the other, on his left ; but his quick eye soon points out to him which of the two is the more vulnerable object, and after him he shuffles, magnani- mously renouncing the other. So wearisome are his pertinacious assaults, his simulated and stereotyped smile, and his long-drawn whine, that I have known of more than one case in which a bargain has been made with him, by which, on condition of receiving one or two scudi at the beginning of a Reason, he has agreed to forbear his approaches ; and it is but fair to state that he has always observed his engagement most scrupulously, and only greeted the party so contracting with a friendly nod of recognition. He is said to be PIAZZA DI SPAGNA. 37 a man of some substance and the head of a family : and he certainly rides every day to his place of busi- ness upon a donkey, climbing to its back and crawling down from it with much activity and address. While I was in Rome, my attention was often attracted to a 'younger and brighter form,' who had selected the street in front of the Trinita de' Monti as the scene of his mendicant energies. He was a boy of about fourteen, rather smartly dressed in a blue jacket, a red waistcoat, brickdust-colored breeches, brown gaiters, and a conical hat. He carried in his hand a rude kind of flageolet, from which he extracted mangled fragments of sound, which no musical skill could have put together so as to make a tune. He was a handsome varlet, with round brown cheeks, and roguish black eyes that seemed to be dancing in his head with fun and animal spirits. He would begin his begging in the usual professional drone, and with a proclamation of hunger and want of food, but when this was parried by a joke upon his excellent condi- tion, his fat cheeks, and the sturdy little frame which filled up his dress, as a grape does a grapeskin, his face would break into a beaming and contagious smile, revealing a set of teeth of dazzling whiteness, which looked capable of eating their way through the strong- est fortress of bread and butter. He had the advantage of the Torso in many respects ; and especially in the possession of a pair of most excellent legs which were in perpetual motion. I am afraid that the good looks and picturesque garb of the little reprobate made his occupation quite profitable. He certainly had the air of a person who had found a thriving business. He 38 MONTE PINCIO. was as characteristic a feature in the streets of Rome as a newspaper-boy in those of New York ; and had he been soberly scolded for his ignoble calling, he might have replied with a question not easily answered, ' What else is there for me to do ? ' MONTE PINCIO. Having ascended the splendid flight of steps which leads from the Piazza di Spagna to the Trinita de' Monti, the traveller, turning to the left, will reach in a few moments' brisk walking the public promenade known to the Roman world, foreign and indigenous, as the Monte Pincio. The fine building passed on the right is the Villa Medici, which has, perhaps, the very noblest situation in Rome, at once elevated and se- cluded, and commanding a wide prospect of the most varied beauty. To Michael Angelo is ascribed the architecture of the garden facade ; which is rich and showy, and has a general resemblance to the designs introduced by Claude Lorraine into his landscapes. The gardens, upwards of a mile in circuit, are laid out in rectangles and formal alleys, and divided by broad gravel walks overhung with trees. Many fragments of ancient sculpture are scattered through them. They are neatly kept and freely accessible to the public ; which, however, does not often avail itself of the privi- lege thus courteously proffered. To those whose taste or temperament leads them to shun the noise of crowds and choose the soothing presence of retirement, these gardens present a most congenial attraction. Though within a stone's throw of the most animated part of MONTE PINCIO. 39 Rome, they are, as a general rule, given over to silence and solitude. In their narrow alleys, bordered with high walls of verdure, and darkened by the shade of sombre foliage, no sound of life intrudes. The hum of the city does not penetrate into these leafy wilder- nesses. The flow of pensive thought will be inter- rupted on.ly by the dash of a fountain, the rustling of a leaf, or the chirp of a bird. On the eastern side the gardens are flanked by the walls of the city, and in this direction a grand expanse of mountain and plain unfolds itself to the eye. This villa is now, and has been for a long period the seat of the French Academy of Fine Arts. Twenty- four students, in the departments of painting, sculpture, music, and architecture, are maintained here at the expense of the government for a certain number of years, after having given proofs of ability enough to earn the privilege. At the head of the institution is a director, who is changed every six years. He is usu- ally an artist of eminence ; but his direction and super- vision are mainly nominal, and the young men are left to cultivate their genius pretty much in their own way. The rooms of the academy are thrown open to the public in the month of April, when an exhibition is made of the works of the pupils in painting and sculp- ture. Disinterested critics, who have attended these exhibitions, admit a general level of cleverness and cor- rectness in the performances, but feel a want of those vigorous individual traits which give to art its true vitality and power ; and they are constrained to con- fess that such works do not furnish a sufficient answer 40 MONTE PINCIO. to those who maintain that the results produced by this academy bear no proportion to the expense which its maintenance involves. This inquiry brings up the whole question as to the effect of academies upon art, which belongs to that numerous class of controversies in which ' much may be said on both sides,' and upon which high authorities are directly at issue. Between the Trinita de' Monti and the promenade of the Monte Pincio, there is another object which deserves a moment's pause, tt is a fountain, not re- markable for size or beauty, being nothing more than a small, perpendicular jet of water, falling into an una- dorned, circular basin of stone : the whole overshadowed by a wide-spreading tree. But it is an attractive sight, not merely from its good proportions and unpretending simplicity, but from its fine position and its harmony with the objects around it. The view of St. Peter's, over its flowing and restless waters, though not set down in the guide-books, is well worth a long and patient look. The massive and silent bulk of the dis- tant dome is brought into vivid contrast with the danc- ing sparkle and silvery foam of the fountain, while the wide extent of the city and the Campagna, bathed in floods of rich light, seen from this quiet, shadowed nook, forms a picture not easily forgotten. The Monte Pincio itself is a space of only a few acres in extent, planted with trees and shrubbery, com- prising a circular drive for carriages, and rectangular walks for foot-passengers. There is nothing at all striking in the manner in which it is laid out ; and, indeed, the limited extent of surface forbids any at- tempt at the fine effects of landscape gardening. MONTE PINCIO. 41 Trees, fountains, gravelled walks, and parterres of for- mal cut, disposed with monotonous regularity upon a level plain which one could run round in a few minutes, would soon weary the eye and the spirit, if enforced by no other attractions. The ring in which the carriages drive is so very small, that each of them completes it and re-appears in about five minutes ; re- calling one's juvenile recollections of the way in which half a dozen pasteboard horses used to multiply them- selves in the play of the Forty Thieves. But the charm of this promenade consists in the splendid pros- pect which it commands on every side. On the north and east, it overlooks the varied and undulating grounds of the Villa Borghese, with their fountains, their pic- turesque edifices, and the walks that wind and turn under broad canopies of oaks and pines. Beyond these, a superb panorama of the Campagna and the Sabine and Alban hills is embraced at a glance. On the west, where a fine terrace is formed by a wall en- closing three sides of a square, the view comprises the greater part of the modern city ; including the Janicu- lum, the Vatican, and St. Peter's, and the regular out- line of Monte Mario, crowned with its dark line of cypresses. The fashionable hour of resort to the Monte Pincio is that just before sunset. At this time, the gravelled terrace on the western side begins to be thronged with pedestrians. Carriages arrive in rapid succession, and wheeling into line, move round in an unbroken succes- sion, and soon are brought so near to each other, that no one can stop without deranging the economy of the whole circle. Nowhere in the world is seen a greater 42 MONTE P1NCIO. variety of equipages than on the Pincio, on a fine win- ter's afternoon. English taste, French elegance, and Roman state may be studied in vehicles which to the instructed eye betray their origin at a glance. But these occur at rare intervals ; the rank and file being composed of rickety and tumble-down carriages, which seem old enough to have been driven by Jehu in his nonage groaning and shaking so dismally, that one expects every moment to see them give up the ghost and fall to pieces on the spot, and drawn by horses which look like the rats in Cinderella, arrested half- way in their transformation. Most of these are hack- ney coaches hired for the hour, but some are the private property of decayed families, who live in bond- age to the miserable weakness of ' keeping up appear- ances.' Rome is said to be the paradise of priests, the purgatory of foot-passengers, and the hell of horses. Certainly it seems to be a city of refuge for worn-out steeds and a hospital for decayed carriages, and the last -stage of both may be observed on the Monte Pincio. The company on foot forms also a motley and mis- cellaneous assemblage. Among them are comely English matrons and blooming English maidens, at- tended by gentlemen in shooting jackets and gray trowsers, with that air of intense determination which characterizes the sons of Albion, all the world over, when engaged in the solemn service of taking exercise French and German artists in velvet sacks, fantastic hats, and unrazored chins and a few Italians, mostly young men, attracted by the blue eyes and golden locks of the fair Saxons ; for the Italians, generally, are MONTE PINCIO. 43 not a peripatetic race, and rarely walk for the sake of walking. Our own country, too, sends its representa- tives ; the gentlemen being known by a dress of finer materials and smarter cut ; and the ladies, by their smaller hands and feet, their lighter movements, and more delicate features.* In fine weather, children of various ages may be seen sporting about the walks, and animating the scene with their lively movements and innocent faces. There is probably no spot on earth from which the spectacle of sunset is seen to greater advantage than from the Monie Pincio, when we take into account the natural beauty of the panorama and the sacred light of association which hallows every object on which it falls. When the air is clear, and the dome of St. Peter's, the pines of the Pamphili Doria, and th^ cypresses of the Monte Mario, relieved against a burnished sky, seem to quiver and burn in golden flame when the last rays of the sun have left in shadow the plains and valleys, and linger only upon the domes and hills there is no heart so impassive, there are no perceptions so dull or worn, as to resist the solemn beauty of the scene. * Reumont, in his ' Neue Rb'mische Briefe,' written some ten years since, speaking of the Pincian Hill, says, ' The boys in the streets of Rome are indifferent to strange sights, and but little attention was awakened by a Yankee curiosity, who for some time paraded up and down here : his face over- shadowed by an immense red beard ; in a black velvet frock lined with red, and adorned with shining metal buttons and a flowered silk collar; a gray hat ; a red cravat ; ruffles to his shirt ; a very gay waistcoat, and light-blue pantaloons.' Who could this apparition have been ? 44 MONTE PINCIO. The most listless steps are arrested, the most careless voices are hushed, and for a moment's space, at least, all acknowledge the genius of the place and the hour. For some days in the winter, the setting sun, the dome of St. Peter's and the terrace on the western side of the hill, are in the same line, so that the spectator sees the rays shining through the windows in the drum on which the dome rests, producing a fine effect, and apparently cutting off the dome from the rest of the structure by a glowing zone of fire. The beams of a setting sun form an appropriate light to the landscape which is seen from the terrace of the Pincian Hill. The sinking orb and the declining city are in unison with each other. To each belong a vanished splendor, a glory that has passed, a power that is gone. Is there a morning for Rome as for that slow-descending sun ? Will she, who has twice slid from a zenith of pride who now for the second time is shining with pensive and faded light once more flame upon the forehead of the morning sky, and again climb up the great vault of time ? There is but one drawback to the simple and ele- vating pleasures which a walk on the Pincian Hill brings with it. The labor of taking care of the grounds is performed for the most part by convicts, in their uncouth dresses, chained together two by two, and guarded by soldiers armed with loaded muskets. Such a spectacle was a hideous shadow upon a sunny land- scape ; painful and not profitable to those who were compelled to witness it, and hardening and degrading to the outcasts thus exposed to the common gaze. PIAZZA NAVONA. 45 PIAZZA NAVONA. The Piazza Navona is an irregular area, of an oblong shape, about eight hundred and fifty feet in length, and one hundred and eighty in breadth. The most con- spicuous object in it is an immense fountain in the centre, which is one of the heaviest sins against good taste that ever was laid upon the much-enduring earth. In the midst of an immense circular basin huge blocks of stone are tumbled together, and so scooped, hollowed and indented as to represent the natural inequalities of the living rock. To these blocks are appended four colossal statues in marble, embodying four great rivers in the four different quarters of the globe ; the Danube, the Nile, the Ganges, and the La Plata. Below the statues, at opposite points of the circular basin, are a lion and a seahorse, also in marble. The whole is crowned by an obelisk of about fifty feet high, resting on a pedestal of about sixteen. The entire combina- tion is a cold and extravagant allegory, hardly inferior in absurdity to the monument to Dr. Arne, where he is represented playing on a harpsichord in the river Thames, with tritons and sea-nymphs sporting around him. Nor is there any special merit in the execution of the statues, to awaken a forgiving spirit towards the bad taste and want of simplicity in the design. Mod- elled by Bernini, and executed under his direction, they have the largest measure of his faults, redeemed by the smallest proportion of his peculiar merits. They are sprawling, grotesque, and monstrous ; with as little dignity about them as the giants of a travelling cara- van. Nothing, however, can be said against the water 46 PIAZZA NAVONA. which foams, gushes, and leaps from every part of the uncouth structure, in streams which are as pure as they are copious. Its curves of breaking silver and its voice of mellow music plead, and not unsuccessfully, in favor of the absurd caricatures which it embellishes. There are three other fountains in the Piazza, neither of which has any thing remarkable about it ; but the fact of there being four in a space of such limited extent, is worthy of mention as shewing the copious supply of water which Rome enjoys. In the Piazza Navona many characteristic traits of Italian life and manners may be observed. A vege- table market is held here once a week, attended by the country people from the neighborhood, when groups of men and women may be seen all over its surface, dressed in picturesque costumes and engaged in bar- gaining and chaffering, in the most animated manner ; for Italians put more of discourse and gesture into the buying of a cauliflower, than we should, into the buy- ing of a house. The Piazza also abounds with shops and stalls for the sale of all sorts of second-hand arti- cles, and nowhere elsp have I ever seen such quantities of broken pottery, old iron, disabled household utensils, and all conceivable kinds of trash piled together ; awakening wonder, at every step, that any one should ever buy such rubbish, or could put it to any use when bought. Here, too, are shops of higher pretensions, though not imposing in their outward appearance, occu- pied by dealers in pictures, engravings, cameos, in- taglios, antique gems, and the like ; and it is said that those who have time, patience, and money, will some- times light upon very good bargains. THE GHETTO. 47 On Saturdays and Sundays in the month of August, the sluices which carry off the waters of the great foun- tain are stopped, and all the central portions of the Piazza are overflowed to the depth of one or two feet. The populace then, obeying that impulse which draws all living things towards water in hot weather, rush to the temporary lake in eager crowds. Horses, oxen, and donkeys are driven into the cooling waters ; vehi- cles of all kinds, from the stately coach of a Roman principe to the clumsy wagon of a contadino, roll through them ; equestrians ride through them carefully with shortened stirrups ; and boys, with bare feet and rolled-up trowsers, splash their elders with that noisy satisfaction which their Boston contemporaries manifest, when a wandering snowball hits a respectable black coat between the shoulders. On these occasions, the outer margin of the Piazza, not reached by the water, and especially the capacious steps of the Church of St. Agnes, are occupied by crowds of idlers ; the windows of the shops and houses are filled with gay faces and bright dresses, and the whole spectacle is described by those who have witnessed it, as one of the most agree- able in Rome. THE GHETTO. As regards the privileges and social position of the Jews, the cities of Leghorn and Rome present two ex- tremes. Nowhere on the continent are they better off than in Leghorn ; nowhere are they worse off than in Rome. In Leghorn, there is little or nothing to wound their sensibilities, or remind them of the ill-will of their 48 THE GHETTO. Christian brethren : in Rome, the iron of persecution and insult is every day driven into their souls. Such are the different results of the wise lessons of commerce and the exterminating spirit of religious bigotry. Previous to the reign of Paul IV. who was made pope in May 1555, the position of the Jews in the Papal States was comparatively favorable. That dark and fervid bigot, whose character is drawn with so much life and vigor by Ranke, launched against this unhappy race, in the first year of his power, a merciless enact- ment. He forbad them to reside in any other place in the Papal States than Rome and Ancona, and in these cities they were restricted to a particular region. He compelled them to wear a visible badge of separation, which for rnen was a yellow hat, and for women a yellow veil or handkerchief. Jewish physicians were forbidden to prescribe for Christian patients, and Jewish families were not allowed to employ Christian servants. In their trades and occupations, the- Jews were also teased and injured by many arbitrary regulations. Since that time the Jews in Rome have been re- stricted to a particular quarter, which is called the Ghetto. It is a cluster of narrow and crooked streets, bounded on one side by the Tiber, and situated near the island where the river makes a sudden bend. The ruins of the Theatre of Marcellus, the Palazzo Cenci, and the Piazza delle Tartarucche, with its graceful fountain, are points of interest along the line which di- vides it from the rest of the city. It is accessible by eight gates, which, until the accession of the present pontiff, were closed from Ave Maria till sunrise. On entering the enclosure, the aspect of the place THE GHETTO. 49 and its inhabitants leaves an uniform impression of poverty, desolation, and filth. The streets are narrow, crooked, and dark ; the houses, which have a look of mouldy decay, are crowded with life, so that, in fine weather, the occupants swarm out, like bees, and sit on the steps or on the pavement in front of the door, and there pursue their usual avocations. There are many shops, but usually of a humble class. The Jewish race is here seen in its saddest and lowest plight, not gilded by even a ray of its old glories. There is nothing that betokens the existence of wealth and the power that wealth bestows. There are no dignified forms : no i keen and penetrating brows : none of those beautiful children who, in other lands, remind the Hebrews of the youth of their nation : none of those superb black eyes which blend the passion of Judith, the softness of Esther, and the sadness of Rachel. The general countenance is commonplace : stamped with the im- press of sordid cares and homely occupations : touched by no sparkles of pride or hope. The complexion seems colorless reminding one of plants that have grown in the dark the result of meagre living, dark abodes, and imperfect ventilation. The imagination of D'Israeli would find nothing here suggestive of proud recollections or animating hopes ; but only a forlorn and crushed life, which dwells in the petty wants and works of the present, and borrows no dignity from the past or the future. In spite of the disadvantages under which the Jews have so long labored at Rome, so powerful are the cords which bind us to our place of birth, or so com- pletely has the heart of enterprise been trampled out of VOL. n. 4 50 THE GHETTO. them by the heel of oppression, that at this moment there are nearly four thousand of them crowded to- gether in this twisted knot of streets, where of sun and air they have not enough, and of water only too much ; being always the first and greatest sufferers in those frequent inundations by which the Tiber vindicates its old reputation for turbulence and insubordination. The men, excluded from most attractive callings, are gen- erally petty shopkeepers, pedlers, and dealers in old clothes and second-hand articles. The women have great skill in mending and repairing garments, and in this craft their services are in requisition all over the city. Many of them give themselves to higher and finer kinds of needle-work. I have seen pieces of lace so rich and massive that they seemed rather to have been carved than wrought, which were the fruit of adventurous exploring expeditions into the Ghetto, and obtained at prices which were pronounced very cheap, but to my masculine judgment were nothing less than awful. Among the other disabilities laid upon the Jews in Rome, they are not allowed to hold real estate in fee. Most of the houses in the Ghetto are owned by religious or charitable establishments, and the tenants are so rarely disturbed that their interest is transmitted or as- signed like any other property. As they are compelled to live within certain limits, much extortion might be practised upon them in the way of rent, by short-sighted selfishness, were it not that this class of relations has been settled by a sort of customary law, which the tri- bunals respect, and by which the owners of houses are not allowed, except under extraordinary circumstances, THE GHETTO. 51 to enhance the price to the tenants ; a measure which, in a city which has/come to a full stop like Rome, is both just and politic. At the beginning of the Carnival, it is the custom for a deputation of Jews to wait upon the Senator of Rome, in one of the palaces of the Capitol, and acknowledge a sort of feudal dependence by paying a small sum of money, and presenting pieces of cloth of gold and sil- ver, of velvet, and of brocade. These are distributed as prizes to the owners of the successful horses in the races which take place in the Corso, on the closing days of the Carnival. By a bull of Gregory XIII. in the year 1584, all Jews above the age of twelve years were compelled to listen every week to a sermon from a Christian priest ; usually an exposition of some pas- sages of the Old Testament, and especially those relat- ing to the Messiah, from the Christian point of view. This burden is not yet wholly removed from them, and to this day, several times in the course of a year, a Jewish congregation is gathered together in the Church of S. Angelo in Pescheria, and constrained to listen to a homily from a Dominican friar, to whom, unless his zeal have eaten up his good feeling and his good taste, the ceremony must be as painful as to his hearers. In the same spirit of vulgar persecution, there is upon the gable of a church opposite one of the gates of the Ghetto, a fresco painting of the Crucifixion, and under- neath an inscription in Hebrew and Latin, from the second and third verses of the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah 'I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts ; a people that pro- voketh me to anger continually to my face.' 52 THE GHETTO. The Ghetto from its appearance, its filthy and narrow streets, its old and mouldering houses swarming with a population whom all the fountains in Rome would not be able to wash clean, would seem to be the very hot- bed of disease. Here, we should expect to find all the plagues and pestilences, which have desolated the earth in former ages, preserved as in a morbid museum; and here, too, we should look to have new forms of death invented from time to time. But the reverse is the fact. It is in some respects the healthiest part of the city. It is not only the most free from malaria, but when the cholera was in Rome in 1837, the proportion of deaths was less there than elsewhere. CHAPTER III. The Campagna The Appian Way Torre di Schiavi Walks in the Campagua. THE CAMPAGNA. THE Campagna di Roma is the name of a region which nearly corresponds to the ancient Latium, ex- tending from the mouth of the Tiber to Terracina, and from the sea on the south-west to the lower ranges of the Apennines on the north-east. Its length is about sixty-two miles, and its greatest breadth about forty- five. In spite of its name, it is not wholly a plain ; but is divided into two regions, the highlands and the lowlands. But the term Campagna is usually applied to the lowlands of the Tiber, which, strictly speaking, are known as 1'Agro Romano, or the territory of the city of Rome, comprising about four hundred and fifty thousand acres. This region, the Campagna of tourists and of popu- lar speech, may be likened to a green and motionless sea, of which the Sabine and Volscian Hills are coasts, and in which the Alban Mount is an island. In spite of the inexpressive monotony of its aspect when viewed from a distant and elevated point as from the tower 54 THE CAMPAGNA. of the capital or the heights above Frascati it is a tract of wide and various interest, alike to the geolo- gist, the student of history, the artist, and the political economist. In its geological formation, it is deeply marked with the indications of that struggle between the elemental forces of fire and water which so many of the legends of the mythological period dimly shadow forth. Even to an uninstructed eye, it is obvious that this whole plain was once the bed of a deep sea, which washed the sides of the Sabine Hills, and when lashed by storms, threw its spray over the rocky summit of Monte Cavi, the highest point of the Alban Mount. Still, however, the Campagna is more of volcanic than of marine origin. While it yet lay deep under a waste of waters, it was the scene of a long series of volcanic struggles and convulsions which are traced to two cen- tral points or foci ; one being upon the Alban Mount, and the other, at Monte Cimino, near Viterbo. The ashes and scoriae discharged from these volcanic vents, disposed in layers over the marine deposits, and grad- ually consolidated by great pressure, now appear in the several varieties of piperino, so much used as a building material in the early structures of Rome. The land slowly rose : the fuel of the subterranean fires burnt out : and now another agency, that of fresh water, was introduced. The streams which drain the Apennines did not at first flow into the sea, but spread themselves out into lakes ; remaining long enough to deposit not only strata of sand and marl, but also those immense quarries of travertine, of which the finest buildings, as well as the most interesting ruins in Rome, are constructed. Thus, the Campagna of Rome THE CAMPAGNA. 55 is a vast tablet on which the action of salt water, of fire, and of fresh water, is recorded in lines which, to the scientific eye, are as legible as the inscriptions which proclaim the munificence of the last Pope. Rome, peculiar in so many respects, is unlike all other European cities in the character of the region which lies immediately beyond its walls. Its suburbs are not gay with farms, gardens, country-houses, and villages. The solitude of a rural region is not reached by slow gradations, nor does the tide of population come imperceptibly to an end, like a spent wave that dies along a level beach. But as soon as the gates are passed, we come upon a far-reaching tract of monoto- nous desolation, in which every pulse of life seems to have ceased to beat. Far as the eye can pierce, it rests upon a plain of dreary and sombre verdure, which extends in every direction, and by the impressive mel- ancholy of its scenery, prepares the mind of the travel- ler to pass into the solemn shadow of Rome. This plain is that world-renowned Campagna, which is so in- separably connected with the ideal image of Rome which is populous with so many visionary forms from the regions of history and poetry, vocal with so many voices of wisdom and warning, rich in the most solemn and touching memories, and charms with such desolate and tragic beauty. To the artist, the Campagna furnishes an inexhaus- tible field of interest, alike in its own essential features and the additions made by the hand of man. An im- mense plain, sloping by imperceptible descent towards the sea, and girdled by a distant belt of mountains, does not present those abrupt transitions and animated 56 THE CAMPAGNA. contrasts, which make the most striking landscapes ; but it is a region rich in a certain pensive beauty which, from whatever point it may be viewed, offers sirnilar but not identical points. . Though the inequalities of the surface in the Cam- pagna are inconsiderable, compared with its extent though, when seen from a distance, they disappear to the eye, and are lost in a level expanse of verdure yet the region is not by any means an absolute plain, like that flat dreary table-land, for instance, in which Munich is situated. The traveller who explores it on ' foot or on horseback will find his path shortened, and his interest kept fresh by a constant undulation of sur- face, and by a succession of objects which, in their coloring and grouping, present ever-varying pictures. Sometimes the road abruptly descends into a hollow gorge or glen, where the view is excluded on nearly all sides by hills, and where only a glimpse can be had, through a single vista, of the snow-covered summits of .the distant mountains ; sometimes it passes over a breezy upland from which a wide prospect is com- manded ; sometimes it winds along a lateral valley; sometimes it is shouldered on either hand by precip- itous cliffs, which seem to have been torn apart by violence, and in their sheer sides of yellow travertine, crowned with foliage, offer those fine combinations of form and color which the artist loves to transfer to his sketch-book. It is a region intersected and veined with streams, rivulets and threads of water, and dim- pled with lakes, pools, and fountains ; some, clear as crystal, some, overgrown with mantling verdure, and some, discolored and tainted by the products of a vol- THE CAMPAGNA. 57 canic soil. Through the whole, the Tiber rolls its sluggish waves as slowly as if burdened by the weight of the memories and associations which it bears on its bosom. Of that life which takes root and is fixed per- manently to the soil, there is little or none in the Campagna. There are no cottages, with patches of garden-ground, and children sporting round the door; no spacious farm-houses ; no sights and sounds of rural toil. The figures which are indigenous to the soil are a few shepherds with cloaks of sheepskin, attended by suspicious-looking dogs of dirty white, and, here and there, a mounted herdsman or overseer, armed with a long lance, whose locks and cloak stream back upon the wind as he rides, and whose figure, relieved against the distant sky, suggests that of a Bedouin Arab. But, in general, the living forms are only those which are connected, directly or indirectly, with the neighboring city an artist with his sketch-book; a fowler shoot- ing birds for the market ; a party of equestrians whose fresh complexions and firm seat betray their northern origin ; a peasant from Velletri or Gensano driving a cart laden with wine-casks ; a ponderous wain drawn by gray oxen ; a tumble-down and ague-stricken vet- tura, bound for Albano or Tivoli, crammed with life like the hold of a slave-ship ; and, occasionally, the smart barouche of an English millionaire or the heavy chocolate-colored coach of a cardinal, perhaps drawn up by the side of a road, while the owner, in his red stockings, is solemnly pacing up and down, taking exercise. But if there be few marks of man and his works, 58 THE CAMPAGNA. the life of nature is exuberant and abundant all over the Campagna. In the spring and early summer, it is gay with a luxuriant growth of wild flowers among which the red poppy predominates, spreading a crim- son carpet over the landscape. The many kinds of flowering shrubs which grow here burst into bloom, so that the air is filled with penetrating odors, and the fresh turf is so strewed with blossoms that the foot can hardly be set down without crushing them. This is the period at which the swarm of travellers are usually leaving Rome and setting off upon their northern flight, so that few of those who pass the winter there ever see the Campagna in its vernal attire, of which those whojmve witnessed it speak with the most vivid pleasure. But this season of bridal splendor does not last long, for as the heats of summer come on, the Campagna lays aside its flowery mantle. In this re- gion the sleep of the year is more in the summer than the winter. The fierce heats of July and August have a paralyzing effect, like that of the frost and snows of a northern winter. Then the rays of the vertical sun smite the earth like angry blows, the cloudless sky overhead seems a huge vault of glowing brass, and the ground is so hot that one almost expects to see his shadow curl up and disappear like a leaf thrown upon the fire. Then the flocks and herds are driven into the mountains, the buffaloes retreat to the swamps or immerse themselves in pools of water, and the few inhabitants who are compelled to remain on the spot seek a shelter in caves scooped out from the hill-sides, or in the spacious vaults of a Roman tomb. Streams that were of considerable size in the early spring en- THE CAMPAGNA. 59 tirely disappear, and leave only an unsightly trough oj earth and stones to mark where they once flowed. The ground splits into rifts and chasms ; the roads are calcined into ashes ; and the grass is burnt to the color of hay. But the rains of the early autumn breathe new life into this fainting region, and wake it from its long summer's siesta. A quick, luxuriant growth of grass springs up ; daisies and violets start from the turf; and the clematis blooms along the hedges. The flocks and herds return to their pasturage grounds ; the labors of agriculture are resumed in the cultivated portions ; and the Campagna puts on all the life that ever belongs to it. From this time until spring, its aspect does not materially change. Winter here is not the absolute night of the year the negation and reverse side of warmth and bloom and verdure but it is like the silvery twilight of a high northern latitude which pro- longs till midnight something of the glow of noon. At no period of the year could a botanist walk over the Campagna without gathering an ample and living har- vest from its abundant flora. The turf is green and fresh under the feet ; the air is full of pleasant, earthy odors; in warm sunny days, the lizards dart along the hedges and around the margin of the ponds ; insects hum in the air ; and in the morning, the lark springs from the dewy grass and sings at Heaven's gate. The snow upon the tops of the distant moun- tains tells us that it is winter, but in the sunny and sheltered hollows it is often warm enough, even in January, to make the eye rest with pleasure upon their dazzling lines of cold. 60 THE CAMPAGNA. The memorials of man, which stripe and dot the Campagna, are in harmony with the character of the scenery, and calculated to deepen the impression which its peculiar natural features make. The plain is a great historical palimpsest, from which the towns and cities of a subdued race have been expunged, in order to make room for the proud structures of a conquering people, which now, in their ruins, are no more than monuments of lost power and memorials of faded glory. The most striking objects upon it are the long lines of the Claudian and Marcian aqueducts, which stretch across the horizon for many a mile whose arches, in various stages of decay, sometimes bare and sometimes mantled with climbing plants and veiled in verdure, blend a general resemblance with differences in detail. There are no structures of man's hand which are woven so completely into the landscape as these aqueducts ; and the relation between them and the soil over which they stride, is so happy, that it probably furnished one reason, with a people so sensi- tive to impressions of form, for erecting them. Nothing breaks the monotony of a plain more agreeably to the eye than a succession of arches, high enough and of sufficient span to assume an imposing character when contemplated singly. How admirably the aqueducts of the Campagna are suited to the character of the scenery of which they form a part, may be appre- hended by imagining the far inferior effect they would produce if transported to the neighborhood of Florence, and how much of their present dignity would be lost if they were seen panting up those steep hills, and hurry- ing down those sheer valleys, constantly dwarfed and THE APPIAN WAY. 61 overborne by natural objects of grander bulk and supe- rior height. But now they move along the floor of the Campagna as a stately procession moves through the piazza in front of St. Peter's ; not lost in, but graced by the space in which they are contained. In all points of view they are beautiful and animating objects, whether we contemplate them as a whole, and follow with the eye the decreasing perspective of their arches, till in the far distance the level entablature seems to melt into the earth ; or whether, standing apart, we mark the rounded, portals of blue which each arch cuts out of the sky, and thus set the landscape in successive frames. Just in proportion as these aqueducts have lost in usefulness, they have gained in beauty. The hand of time and the mace of violence which have broken their formal lines and shattered the smooth ring of their arches, which have made nooks and hollows for grass and wild flowers and running vines to take root in have substituted variety for uniformity, and added that peculiar charm of the picturesque, which makes an old mill or a ruined bridge more attractive to painters than when in a perfect state. THE APPIAN WAY. The best known of the Roman roads, the Appian Way, stretches across the Campagna from the Porta San Sebastiano, and since the draining of the Pontine Marshes by Pius VI. forms the most travelled route be- tween Rome and Naples. In some places, the original pavement is laid bare, composed of massive blocks of volcanic stone so strongly and compactly laid as to be W THE APPIAN WAY. impervious to the assaults of time. Such roads could not have been constructed, unless the very workmen who wrought upon them had been impressed with the idea of the eternal duration of Rome. The road, on either hand, is bordered by tombs in various stages of decay, some mere masses of shapeless brick-work, overgrown with ivy and other climbing plants, most of them without name or inscription, but some identified by the investigations of antiquaries. They are of va- rious forms, some round, some square, and some pyra- midal. Some, of larger size and higher pretensions than common, shew remains of architectural elevations, with pediments, columns, or pilasters. They are built of brick, or fragments of stone bedded in cement, or sometimes blocks of piperino. In their perfect state, most of them were doubtless more or less sheathed with travertine and marble, and adorned with bas- reliefs ; but these have passed away, and we have only the interior kernel, the chief materials of which offered no temptation to avarice or rapacity. Many of them are of considerable size, and are resorted to by the shepherds of the Campagna for shelter in bad weather, and some are used as places of temporary habitation. Among these monumental erections the tomb of Cecilia Metella towers aloft in conspicuous and imposing gran- deur. It is a circular tower of travertine, about seventy feet in diameter, resting upon a square basement. The blocks of which the circular portion is composed are of immense size, skilfully laid and admirably fitted with- out the aid of cement, and nowhere can one see a more striking image of solidity and endurance than those massive stones present. Time has not even brushed THE APPIAN WAY. t>3 or roughened them in the lapse of nineteen centuries, and the courses of masonry are as smooth and bright as on the day on which they were laid. This structure, reared by the gentlest and purest of feelings the affection of a husband for the memory of a wife did not pass through the contests of the middle ages with- out having the seal of war set upon its front. It was converted into a fortress in the thirteenth century, and the unsightly and incongruous battlements on the top still prolong the record of the profanation. The Roman custom of burying the dead along their roads led to strange proximities and incongruous juxta- positions. Our modern sense of propriety would be disturbed by seeing a race-course by the side of a cemetery ; yet, near to, almost overshadowed by the tomb of Cecilia Metella, are the remains of the Circus of Romulus, the best preserved of all such structures that have come down to us. Here the fervid and vig- orous animal life of Rome put forth its trained energies, perhaps all the more earnestly from the silent admoni- tion of that sepulchral tower, recalling the dark presence whose touch was destined to stiffen into clods those elastic and obedient muscles. It was not of the largest size although it held eighteen thousand spectators but it is valued by the students of the past, from the fact of its still preserving traces, more or less distinct, of all the various parts of which a circus was composed. For much of this knowledge, the learned world is indebted to an extensive series of excavations made in 1825 by the Duke of Bracciano, the owner of the soil, by which much curious matter was brought to light. A man's natural pride of ownership must be somewhat enhanced 64 THE APPIAN WAT. when he sees the item of a Eoman Circus upon the in- ventory of his estate ; though few would wish to turn over to the plough a soil so fruitful in associations. Many other points and localities of interest lie along the Appian Way, or in its immediate vicinity, such as the church of Domine quo Vadis, the valley of Egeria already described, and the Basilica of San Sebastiano, much visited for the sake of its catacombs. Just before reaching the tomb of Cecilia Metella, the road ascends by a steep acclivity, and passes over a remarkable stream of lava, which flowed from the extinct volcano on the Alban Mount. This elevated position com- mands a very extensive prospect on every side, and enables the traveller to observe the characteristic fea- tures of the Campagna to great advantage. About five miles from Rome is a mass of brick ruins, known popularly by the name of Roma Vecchia, and supposed by Prof. Nibby to be the remains of a villa of the Emperor Commodus. It was not far from this spot that the memorable interview between Coriolanus and his mother is said to have taken place ; and in this neighborhood the scene of the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii is to be sought. We know that these names and these events are but shadows, like the ac- tors and revels with which Prospero entertained his guests before he had doffed his magic robes, but we may apply to the legendary history of early Rome that strain of argument, not more beautiful than true, with which Max Piccolomini justifies and explains the astro- logical pursuits of Wallenstein. ' A deeper import Lurks in the legend told my infant years Than lies upon that truth we live to learn.' THE APPIAN WAY. 65 Dreams and shadows have a language and a beauty of their own. Our interest in the localities associated with the name of Coriolanus no more dies when we know that the whole narrative is but an airy legend, than does the charm of the Winter's Tale, when we have learned that Bohemia has no sea-coast, and that the events of the drama are thus rendered impossible. Niebuhr was himself a man of deep feeling and vivid imagination, and no one was ever more alive to the just significance of those legends which, with gentle and reverent hands, he removed from the domain of history. Over this region of the Campagna a light still hangs, more beautiful than its golden mists or the purple shadows that lie upon its distant hills. The spirit of the past dwells here, and breathes over the landscape the consecrating gleams of valor, patriotism, and filial duty. Between the tomb of Cecilia Metella and the ruins of Roma Vecchia a distance of about two miles and a half Sir William. Gell noted fifty-one tombs on the right, and forty-two on the left of the road ; and he adds, that, doubtless, many more exist. From this fact we may surmise how numerous these structures must have been along the Appian Way, in the flourishing periods of Rome ; especially in those portions lying Bearer to the city. Near Roma Vecchia is a large cas- tellated farm-house, built entirely from the plunder of ancient tombs. Manifold are the uses of the dead to the living. Mummies are split up to boil the tea-kettle of a travelling Englishman, and a Roman peasant sleeps in the tomb of the Metelli. 66 TORRE DI SCHIAVI. TORRE DI SCHIAVI. One of the most picturesque and interesting points of the Campagna, is an elevation about three miles from the Porta Maggiore, on the road to Gabii ; commonly known by the name of the Torre di Schiavi, upon which are some ruins of a villa of the Emperor Gor- dian. The ruins themselves have little either of beauty or expression. They consist of two principal structures, both built of brick ; one, round and tapering like a light- house, the other, octagonal. They are near together, and have a sort of family likeness. There are, in each, niches hollowed in the walls, and rounded aper- tures for the admission of light. The purpose and meaning of these buildings are not distinctly known. The ground in their immediate neighborhood is thickly strewn with smaller fragments. But though these ruins are not much in themselves, they are so happily placed that they form a favorite subject for artists. They are on the circular summit of a beautiful elevation, and the ground about them slopes and falls away in softly- undulating curves and sweeps, the lines flowing into each other by gentle gradations, like the limbs of a marble Apollo. But the chief charm of the spot con- sists in the unrivalled beauty of the distant view which it commands ; revealing, as it does, all the character^ istic features of the Campagna. On the extreme left towers the solitary bulk of Soracte, a hermit mountain, which seems to have wandered away from its kindred heights, and to live in remote and unsocial seclusion. On the right, dividing it from the Sabine chain, is the narrow lateral valley of the Tiber ; and further on, the TORRE DI SCHAIVI. 67 horizon is walled up by the imposing range of the Sa- bine Hills, whose peaks, bold, pointed, and irregular, have the true mountain grandeur, and claim affinity with the great central chain ' of the Apennines. Con- spicuous among them are Monte Gennaro, whose morn- ing shadows fell upon the modest farm of Horace, and the lofty summit of Monte Guadagnolo. Many towns and villages are picturesquely perched along the pointed elevations of this range, and in the foreground, spark- ling like a jewel on a giant's breast, is Tivoli, near which the headlong Anio breaks through its mountain gates and bounds into the Campagna. A very narrow plain divides the Sabine 'Hills from the Alban Mount, whose softer and gentler elevations present, as com- pared with the sterner and bolder line of the neighbor- ing range, a certain character of feminine beauty. Still turning to the right, the slopes of the Alban Mount pass into the level surface of the Campagna, along which the eye glides, till the plain blends with the shining mirror of the Mediterranean. The Torre di Schiavi, on one day in the year, is dis- turbed from its usual propriety of solitude and silence. It is the custom of the German artists resident in Rome to make this spot the scene, or rather the starting- point of an annual spring festival ; combining the char- acter of a picnic and a masquerade. Here is their place of rendezvous in the morning, and of gathering for their return in the evening. Here their first and last songs are sung, and the edicts of their leader are promulgated. On these occasions, the waste region puts on the gayest aspect, and blossoms like a bed of tulips. Some of the artists come in carriages, some on 68 WALKS IN THE CAMPAGNA. horseback, and some on donkeys. The number and variety of the costumes surpass the wildest visions of an inspired tailor. Every garment that ever was shaped or painted, from a Roman toga to an hussar's jacket ; hats of all possible forms, colors, and decorations ; and forests of gay banners enliven the scene. The day is spent in the wildest and most exuberant frolic ; rarely or never, however, degenerating into vulgar license or coarse excess, but preserving the flavor of wit and the spice of genuine enthusiasm. / WALKS IN THE- CAMPAGNA. Some of my most agreeable recollections of Rome are associated with long walks over the Campagna, sometimes extending through a large part of the day, especially towards the end of winter and the beginning of spring. At this season, in sunny weather, there is a mixture of softness and elasticity in the air of Rome which makes exercise agreeable, and prevents it from being exhausting ; nor is there any fear of an east wind's setting in to blight the heated frame with deadly chills. Then the Campagna opens wide its arms of invitation, and offers the freshest of turf, the brightest of skies, and the gentlest of airs ; and it is indeed ' sullen- ness against nature ' to resist the call. There is always variety enough to supply the senses with perpetual in- terest, and keep the powers of observation in a state of healthy activity, so that if weariness comes, it comes unawares. Besides the ruins, the aqueducts, the rich forms of vegetable life, the ever-changing surface of the soil, there are, especially at this season, the finest ' WALKS IN THE CAMPAGNA. 6y atmospheric effects to be seen, from the great extent of space over which the eye ranges at a glance. No- where do clouds play a more imposing part, or present a more glorious shew, than on this boundless plain. How beautifully they lie along the furrows of the hills, or cluster round their sides, as if conscious of the grace they shed ! With how stately a pace they wheel across the vault of blue, their shadows passing over the land- scape like a rippling breeze over a mountain lake ! With what pride they rear their snowy pavilions, and extend the long line of their airy architraves ! With what pu- rifying and dazzling power the sun smites upon their glittering edges, and into what lovely outlines the slow winds carve their marble whiteness ! The low -line of the coast is sometimes hidden in wreaths of vapor while the uplands are in sunshine ; purple mists lie upon the distant heights ; or a sudden shower breaks from a rain- cloud, far enough off to permit the spectacle to be enjoyed in calm security. It is a peculiarity also observable on the Campagna that while it is rarely absolutely calm, the wind is hardly ever blustering and clamorous. The breeze has a caressing quality, which may be felt but not described. It does not seem to blow from any one point, but to stir the air like the motion of a wing. In walking, it is hardly observed ; but when we pause to rest, it comes upon us like a ministering presence to fan the brow and refresh the senses.* * The unfrequency of high winds seems to be a peculiarity in the climate of Italy. I hardly remember what we should call a windy day, during the whole of my residence in Rome. This was quite striking to one born and reared on the coast of 70 WALKS IN THE CAMPAGNA. After these long golden days of ramble and rest in the Campagna, the architectural forms of Rome, seen in the mellow light of the setting sun, gave to the eye a fresh sense of beauty the straight line of its walls and houses, the graceful curve of its domes and clus- tering of its towers, relieving the sight, after the un- broken expanse of the Campagna, as a burst of music after long stillness. In the evening it was pastime enough to recall the pictures of the day, and to com- pare them with the sketches of an artist or the de- scriptions of a traveller. With just enough of fatigue in the frame to enhance the enjoyment of repose, the mind, tranquil and not restless, received and returned the images thrown upon it, unwarped by the irritating influences of a day of over-action. Conversation flow- ed namrally, like a mountain-rill in its rocky bed, and not like the jet that is toilsomely wrung from the spout of a forcing-pump. And if there was music to fill up the pauses of speech, the grace and grandeur of the scenes we had just left were in perfect unison with the deep-hearted and impassioned strains of Bethooven or Schubert, and the language they addressed to the ear renewed and deepened the impressions which the eye had brought home. We seemed to hear again the breezes sighing among the pines of the Campagna, or New England, where the air is never still. In Rome, the visits of the wind are like those of a sympathizing friend, but with us they are like the calls of an importunate and intrusive creditor. Mr. Rose, in his entertaining ' Letters from the North of Italy,' remarks upon the windless character of the climate of the country, and states that he had never seen a windmill in Italv. WALKS IN THE CAMPAGNA. 71 sweeping across the broken arches of the Claudian aqueduct. The melancholy beauty of the region we had traversed appeared to live again in the composer's dreamy and ideal chords, and like that, they seemed darkened with the shadow of vanished hopes, and strewn with the fragments of shattered ideals. CHAPTER IV. AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. THE Campagna presents other aspects besides those which have been considered. Neither the artist nor the idealist hold the whole of life in his grasp. We have no right to look upon a landscape only as a pic- ture, or to view it merely as a harvest- field for dreamy emotions or fine visions. When from any elevated point we survey a wide-extended tract of country, the considerations which are first in importance are those growing out of the relation of humanity to the soil on which we gaze. Who are the men that till these broad plains, these sunny hill-sides, and these shaded valleys ? For whom are those gulden harvests waving, and into whose laps will these ripening fruits fall ? Does this fair landscape support a rnanly, an intelli- gent, a virtuous people ? or does it yield only a mis- erable pittance to a population wasted by hopeless toil * The authorities to whom I have been chiefly indebted in the preparation of this chapter are, Tournon, Etudes Statistiques sr.r Rome : Sismondi, Etudes sur 1'Economie politique : Reu- mont, Roemische Briefe ; Neue Roemische Briefe. AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 73 and paralyzed by poverty ? Do we see the sparkle of self-respect in the laborer's eye, or the sullen and sus- picious glances of ff slave ? Has some enormous capi- talist spread his title-deeds over the whole horizon, or is the soil divided into modest proprietorships, so that the heart of the owner may pass into the sod which he tills, and love lighten the burden of labor ? To overlook all these relations, to surrender ourselves, without question or protest, to the magic of lovely scenery, in spite of the shadow of human suffering which may rest upon it, is to admire 'the plumage and forget the dying bird.' Bonstetten says, that if the statue of Rome which surmounts the tower of the Capitol had human sympa- thies and could feel its position, its lot would have been most pitiable and forlorn, doomed as it has been, for so many centuries, to survey the dreary waste which on all sides surrounds the walls of the imperial city. I have before remarked upon the depopulation of the Campagna how bare it is of permanent habitations how its waste regions never ring with the cheerful sounds of human industry and how a shroud of death- like silence seems extended over its hills and valleys. In regard to their respective suburbs and neighbor- hoods, the city of Rome and the city of Boston stand at opposite points of a scale. Rome is a walled city, and so is Boston ; but one is walled by water, and the other, by stone. The boundaries of our peninsula are as well defined as those which are traced by the gates of Rome. But Boston is remarkable as being the nucleus and core of a population thickly clustered around it in every direction ; so that is as hard to 74 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. say where the city really ends and the country really begins, as to draw the dividing line between two colors on a sunset sky. Within a circle of the radius of five miles drawn from the State-House as a centre, the number of inhabitants outside of Boston will be found to be not much less than that of those within. How infinitely complicated and extensive are the relations between the city and its suburbs, may be fully felt by any one who will stand for an hour upon one of our bridges, either at the beginning or the close of the day or watch the coming and going of the early and late railway trains. It is a system of mutual help and mutual dependence. There are many branches of business in the city, the prosperity and even exist- ence of which rest upon the support drawn from the country ; and multitudes of men and women whose bread is derived from the same source. The city is a centre of distribution, from which innumerable radii diverge in every direction. It is a network of relation, with lateral and convergent threads crossing and re- crossing each other, and forming an organic whole sensitive in every part. We may imagine, but we can hardly calculate, the desolation and blight which would fall upon Boston, were that flourishing belt of towns and villages with which it is now girded, suddenly swept away from the face of the landscape, and the whole range of country visible from the top of the State-House wore the dreary monotony of the flat marshes between Chelsea and Lynn. What Boston would be under so appalling a change, Rome substantially is. After passing by its suburban villas, and those various structures, ecclesiastical and AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 75 secular, which as much belong to it as if they were included within the walls, we come upon the solitude of nature. There are none of these distinct commu- nities which are at once independent in themselves, and yet connected with the metropolis by the strong tie of mutual interest. Farm-houses, or casali as they are called, are scattered over the plain, often composed of several buildings of massive structure, clustered round a court-yard sometimes defended by a battle- mented wall and a towered gateway, and presenting an appearance at once imposing and picturesque but these are no more than islets of life, in a sea of deso- lation and silence. For many miles around Rome there are few or no spots which are hallowed to human beings by the sacred associations of home ; where lovers have exchanged their vows ; where the solitary have been set in families ; where children have been born, where life has gladdened, and death has sancti- fied the mute forms of nature. It was not always so. In the early periods of Ro- man history the whole Campagna swarmed with life, and was the seat of numerous independent communi- ties, who cultivated their several parcels of soil with industry, and defended them with valor. Rome was nearly four hundred years in subduing these little com- monwealths, and succeeded only by the exercise of indomitable courage and the most obstinate perse- verance. The struggle with Veii in particular, the site of which was only ten miles distant, was a struggle of life and death ; and it cost a siege of ten years to put down a city the wal^ of which, in a clear day, could be seen from the Capitol. The training which 76 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. was the fruit of this desperate and long-continued strife prepared Rome for its future career. The con- quest of the world was comparatively easy, after that of Latium had been achieved. But the depopulation of the Campagna was not the immediate result of its passing into the possession of Rome ; for it was the policy of the Romans to mingle their own blood with that of the communities which they conquered, taking part of their lands, opening a vent to their own redun- dant population, and thus at once extending and con- solidating their empire. The evil which now broods over the Campagna rests upon it with the accumulated weight of centuries. The causes of its gradual depopulation are kindred with those which led to the decline and fall of the Ro- man empire itself. They are to be found in that grasping spirit of the favored classes against which so many agrarian laws were directed; in the power of property to attract property ; and in the prevalence of a system by which enormous estates were gathered into a few hands, while the mass of the commuuity was doomed to a depth of poverty which was fatal to virtue, because fatal to hope. The emphatic and often- quoted words of the elder Pliny ' verum confitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam, imo et provincias,' explain the desolation of the Campagna. The influences which we have enumerated had begun to exert an unfavora- ble effect upon it, before the fabric of Roman great- ness had felt the touch of decay. In the closing days of the republic, the land was held in large portions by wealthy proprietors, whos^villas were scattered along the sea-coast and the favorable situations of the inte- AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 77 rior; but wide tracts were left untilled and unoccupied, and both Cicero and Livy allude to the unhealthiness of its lowlands. These evils increased with the de- clining fortunes of the Western empire, and when the successive hordes of Northern invaders laid waste the Campagna, and blotted out whatever of life yet clung to the soil, they only completed a work of destruction which had long been going on. The history of the Campagna during the middle ages is but a record of the disasters and devastations of the city itself, only in more abundant measure ; for while Rome was protected by its walls, the Campagna had no shelter against the storms of war. It was a perpetual field of battle, witnessing the last struggles of the Roman empire against its foreign invaders, and at a later period, the civil contests of the powerful feu- dal barons with each other. Its tombs were converted into fortresses, and it was given over to the noble and the slave, the robber and his prey. But when that period of darkness and turbulence had passed away ; when the new day-spring of civilization, Christianity, and civil order had gone up the eastern sky ; when arts, literature, science, agriculture, and manufactures had revived, and Italy once more put on the beauty of youth and hope the Campagna did not share in the general resurrection. Nor has it since been waked into life ; but it still presents essentially the same fea- tures and has the same character as when the Colonna and Orsini fought together on its plains, and the youth- ful Rienzi mused amid its ruins, and found a motive for generous effort in that dreary solitude from which the inspiration of his impassioned eloquence was drawn. 78 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. Political economists are divided upon the question of the extent of subdivision of land ; whether the agricul- tural resources of a country may be best developed by large farms requiring considerable amount of capital, and cultivated for the most part by hired labor ; or by small possessions in which the soil is tilled by the owner or the lessee, for his own benefit. As to the mere aggregate of wealth annually added to the sum total of the capital of a country, the solution is not without difficulty ; but when we take into account the element of social happiness, the amount of moral and material well-being, which each system respectively creates and sustains, the inquiry becomes still more embarrassing and complicated. A large landed pro- prietor, whose estate is cut up into farms of moderate extent and tilled by tenants who hold leases and pay rents, sits down in his study and calculates, that by expelling these tenants and their families, converting his whole domain into an immense sheep-farm, he can add ten per cent, to his income ; and he feels that the question is settled as to him, and takes his measures accordingly. But what would be the effect upon the community at large, were such a change to become frequent or extensive ? a change by which great numbers of families are uprooted from the soil they cultivated, which, in its turn, helped to cultivate in them the social and domestic virtues which compels them to choose between emigration or a descent in the social scale, and fills their places with day-laborers bound neither to the land nor its owner by any ties but those of self-interest. The highest function of land is the growth of man and not the growth of wealth. AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 79 That country is declining and not advancing, in which, while the rich are growing richer, the poor are grow- ing poorer ; even though the sum of national wealth be on the increase. As to the subdivision of land, the Campagna of Rome and the greater part of France stand at the opposite extremes of the scale ; and the experience of both confirms the judgment that in this, as in most things, there is a point at which the greatest amount of good and the smallest measure of evil are blended; and that this point is to be sought by observation and not established by a priori reasoning. In France the number of separate proprietaries is about eleven mil- lion, and that of separate proprietors about six million. The disastrous effects of this minute subdivision upon the productive resources of France and the hardly less malign influence it has exerted upon its politics, are obvious to any candid observer who has watched the course of events in that country since the general peace of Europe in 1815. In the Campagna of Rome we see the injurious results of the opposite extreme. The Agro Romano, or territory of Rome, so called, according to the survey of Nicolai, contains eleven thousand and four hundred rubbii, the rubbio being about four acres. This territory belongs to one hun- dred and seventy-seven proprietors, of whom one hun- dred and thirteen are individuals, and sixty-four are corporations. Of the individual proprietors the largest is the Prince Borghese, who owns nearly fifty thousand acres. The largest proprietors among the corporations are, the chapter of St. Peter's, which own about forty- five thousand acres, and the hospital of Santo Spirito, 80 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. which has about thirty-two thousand. The number of separate farms is four hundred and seventeen, of which seventeen are of more than two thousand acres each. The estate of Campo Morto which lies be- yond the limits of the Agro Romano, about thirty miles from Rome, but still within the Campagna, properly so called is the largest in the Papal States, being about twenty thousand acres in extent. It belongs to the chapter of St. Peter's. These estates, immense as they are, are not managed by the owners themselves on their own account, but a further process of aggrega- tion takes place through a system, by which the Agro Romano, and indeed much of the Campagna which lies beyond it, are let to a powerful body of middle-men, called Mercanti di Campagna, merchants of the Cam- pagna. They are about fifty in number, residing in Rome and forming a sort of corporation ; and, as such, recognized and protected by the papal government. The enterprise which they undertake requires a great amount of capital, as may be inferred from the fact that the estate of Campo Morto pays an annual rent of five thousand pounds. As these merchants reside in the same place and collectively wield a vast amount of cap- ital, and as their interests are absolutely identical, it may well be conceived that by a concert of action, and by a skilful combination of their powers and resources, they may exert an unnatural influence upon the price of agricultural products, like that of a conspiracy of brokers upon the market value of some particular stock. From the magnitude of their operations, their establish- ments in Rome are like the counting-rooms and ware- houses of extensive merchants ; and there is probably AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 81 no other case in which so much of the spirit and method of commerce is infused into the processes of agricul- ture. Farmers, indeed, they can hardly be called ; their business being the manufacture and distribution on a gigantic scale of agricultural products. The mercante himself visits only occasionally his rural kingdom. Residing in Rome, his time and thoughts are sufficiently occupied in the purchase of the articles necessary for the cultivation of his estates, and in negotiations for the sale of its products. The immediate labors of agriculture are entrusted to the management and supervision of an agent, called min- istro, whose functions are precisely those of the over- seer of a southern plantation. From the great size of the farms committed to his charge, the ministro is obliged to pass the greater part of his time on horse- back ; and the proper discharge of his duties requires an active mind, a vigorous frame, a watchful eye, dis- cretion, authority, and self-command. Under him and subject to his orders, are various subaltern assistants, as each department of labor has its own separate chief with a gradation of subordinates, all forming a staff of aid-de-camps, who are mostly occupied with the direc- tion and oversight of the numerous laborers by whom the work is actually done. It thus happens, says M. de Tournon, that in the largest establishments there are thirty or forty persons who are paid, not for working themselves but for making others work. The buildings attached to these great estates bear no proportion to the extent of territory cultivated, or to the number of persons employed. They consist, com- monly, of a dwelling-house of stone, a store-house or VOL. n. 6 82 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. granary, and a stable. Here the ministro and his various subordinate assistants reside, but no permanent substantial shelter is provided for the great mass of laborers. These are divided into two classes ; those hired by the year or longer periods, and those engaged for a single season or by the day. Among the former, are the herdsmen, the shepherds, and what we should call the teamsters, or wagoners, who are employed in transporting the products of, the farm to their place of sale or export, and in bringing from Rome the needful supplies. Among the latter, are those hired to break up the soil and prepare it for tillage, and to collect the harvest. Each farm consists of arable land, meadow land, grazing ground, wood, and underwood. The rearing of animals is a much more remunerative em- ployment of capital than the cultivation of the soil ; and to this, consequently, the efforts of the mercanti are principally directed. The animals raised upon the Campagna are horned cattle, sheep, horses, swine, and buffaloes. Upon each of the farms the laborers are divided into two great classes ; those occupied with the care of animals, and those engaged in the raising of various crops. The former are usually permanently attached to the estates, and the latter, hired by the day or for the season.* The cattle of the Campagna are a fine race of ani- mals, of that gray color so well known to all travellers in Italy. From them the supplies of the markets in * Upon the estate of Campo Morto there were, in 1813, four thousand sheep, four hundred horses, two hundred oxen, seven hundred cows, and about two thousand pigs. Chateauvieux. Rome are drawn. Large numbers of oxen are re- quired for agricultural purposes, as horses in Italy are not used in farming operations. Of the milk of the cows very little use is made. The cattle live con- stantly in open pastures, which makes them wild and sometimes dangerous. The operation of capturing them, and subduing them to the plough, when they have reached the proper age, requires courage and address, and is attended with some danger. The lasso is used on these occasions as in the plains of South America. To those with whom the flavor of excite- ment is heightened by a dash of the perilous, these scenes are full of interest. The herdsmen in pictur- esque costumes, armed with lances and provided with coiled ropes, are mounted upon spirited horses. Their loud cries and rapid movements, the daring which they display, and the spirit and intelligence of the fine animals on which they ride all this upon the broad horizon of the Campagna, and under a Roman sky make up one of the most animating spectacles which can be found in the tame regions of European civilization, dignified by a sense of danger wanting in a fox-chase, and not stained by the cruelty of a bull- fight. Buffaloes are also kept in considerable numbers on the Campagna, and their uncouth forms are mingled with every visitor's recollections of Rome. Their value consists in their prodigious strength, and in their aquat- ic habits. They are used for towing vessels against the current of the Tiber, and for the dragging of carts so heavy and clumsy that no other domesticated animal could endure the toil. Their services are especially 84 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. valuable in low and marshy lands, which are intersected by streams of water, across which they readily draw their burden ; keeping their heads above the stream and blowing like grampuses. Their flesh is sometimes sold in the Roman markets, and small round cheeses made from their milk form conspicuous objects in the shops of provision dealers. Their temper is sullen and ferocious, but they are not unsusceptible of personal attachment. Each buffalo receives a particular name which he learns to recognize, as well as the person of the herdsman who calls him. When provoked, how- ever, they have been known to kill their keepers. The milking of the females is done in the dark by a person who glides under them, covered with a buffalo skin. The sheep of the Campagna migrate to the mountains in the warm weather, and return to the plains in winter. They form the most important item in Roman agricul- ture, their flesh, their wool, and their milk being all valuable products. The labors of the shepherd are constant and monotonous, but not severe. At the dawn of day he conducts his flock to the particular pasturage place assigned to them. He is attended by one or more dogs of a yellowish-white color, large, powerful, and faithful. Two of them are said to be a match for an ordinary wolf. The duties of the shep- herd during the day are reduced to supervision, his dog fulfilling the rest. Hour after hour he may recline at ease beneath the shade of a tree, watching the changes of nature or soothing his solitude with the drony and lacrymose sounds of a zampogna.* But at * A kind of bagpipe. AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 85 night a more serious course of labors begin. The flock is gathered together and conducted to their fold. The ewes are first carefully milked, and the milk, gathered into large caldrons, is subjected to a quick fire of brushwood. The curd thus formed is made partly into cheese, and partly into ricotta, that delicacy so tempting and so dangerous to a weak stomach, and the whey is consumed by the dogs. The habitations of the shepherds, especially those for winter, though rude and homely enough, are yet such as to furnish shelter against the elements, and the means of lighting a fire. Sometimes they are substantial structures of stone, and sometimes mere huts, covered with a thatched roof and their sides plastered with mud mixed with straw. In the summer season, the shepherds and also the herds- men of the Campagna often find shelter in a ruined building, or a decayed tomb, or in some of the natural caverns of a volcanic soil. The condition of the herdsmen and shepherds of the Campagna, hard as it is, is not without its favorable points. They are permanently attached to their posts of duty, and have inducements to earn a character for industry and fidelity, and to make their own interests identical with those of their employers. Their wages are tolerably good, and when the toils of the day are over they find a place of shelter and repose which, in some imperfect measure, represents a home. The lot of the purely agricultural laborers is not so fortunate. As I have before remarked, the raising of cattle is a more lucrative occupation in the Campagna than the tilling of the soil, and it is consequently the object to- wards which the capital and energies of the mercanti 86 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. are chiefly directed. Of the arable land, there is probably not more than one-tenth under cultivation at any one time, although the soil is very fertile, and especially adapted to the cereal grains. Wheat, the principal crop, is sown once in three or four years ; the land, in the intermediate years, according to its quality, lying fallow, or producing Indian corn, oats, or beans. There is no system of manuring and the soil is left to its own unaided energies. The proportion of land actually under cultivation, moderate as it is, would be still less, were it not that the ground must be broken up and laid down to tillage once in a few years, in or- der to produce grass in the abundance and of such a quality as the necessities of pasturage require. We will suppose that the manager of one of these large farms proposes to break up a tract of pas- ture land, which has been lying fallow for two or three seasons, and lay it down in wheat. In this interval, the vivid energies of a rich volcanic soil have covered it with a rank growth of sturdy shrubs, which must first be cut down with hatchets and rooted up with pickaxes. Then it is ploughed carefully and repeatedly, and the seed grain is dropped into the furrows, and the plough again passes over the tract, in order to cover the seed with earth. Then succeeds the process of breaking up the clods, pulling up the roots of such weeds as still remain, and giving to the furrows a regular form. The young plants, as they appear above the ground*, are weeded and hoed, and the ground is kept loose about their roots. These duties extend from October to April or May, and are very severe, employing a great num- ber of laborers who are hired by the season or by the AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 87 job, and often come from a considerable distance. They are engaged not singly but in troops or compa- nies comprising whole families, the bargain being made with a corporale or head man,. under whose charge they move to the scene of their labors like a gipsy settlement or an Arab encampment. Here they find no perma- nent and substantial places of shelter, but must live in tents or rude huts of reeds and branches of trees. Sometimes, however, they find a sleeping-place in the buildings of the casale, in which case they are com- pelled to walk three or four miles after the toils of the day, and the same distance in the morning before they begin. Their food is meagre and poor and they are imperfectly clad, so that they can offer but feeble resistance to the fatal influences of the climate, being often exposed to days of great heat, and damp and chilly nights, and thus sickness and death make sad havoc among them, and fill the hospitals of Rome from their numbers. M. de Tournon mentions it as an hon- orable trait in the ' noble and pious family of Pamphili- Doria,' that upon each of their estates they employ a vehicle for the transportation of their sick laborers to the nearest hospital. Between the last of these preliminary labors and the harvest, which usually occurs about the middle of June, there is an interval of only a few weeks. During the season of harvest, the Campagna puts on an unusual expression of animation and life. As the grain ripens over great tracts, belonging to different proprietors, the element of time becomes very important, and it is es- sential that a considerable number of supernumerary laborers should be under command during that limited 88 AGRICULTURE OP THE CAMPAGNA. period in which the ripe wheat must be cut. Messen- gers are despatched beforehand into the neighboring mountain towns to collect the necessary recruits, and large stores of bread and wine are laid in at the casale for their refreshment and support. When all the prepa- rations are made, the work of cutting the grain begins at early dawn, each band of laborers continuing by itself, under the direction of its corporate, and the yel- low stalks fall fast under the vigorous attacks of a long line of flashing sickles. The open plain resounds with shouts, songs, and bursts of laughter. The ministro and his assistants, and often the mercante himself, or some members of his family, ride up and down the field, to stimulate and encourage the toil. Carts laden with wine and with water pass slowly along, and the laborers refresh themselves with liberal draughts. In the neighborhood, fires are kindled, at which an abun- dance of food is cooked, more generous than their usual fare. M. de Tournon speaks of having been present at the estate of Campo Morto, on one of these occasions, and seeing between seven and eight hun- dred reapers, ranging along a line of a mile and a half in extent, engaged at their work, and forming by their variety of costumes, the vivacity of their movements, and the wide expanse of the scene, a striking and attractive spectacle. The harvest laborers are engaged for eleven days, and if their labors are prolonged be- yond that time, they are paid by the day. They have three meals a day, and are allowed to sleep two hours in the hottest part of the day. Sleep may be had at this time without danger; but not so at night. As a general rule, the harvest-laborers have no shelter pro- AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 89 vided for them, but upon the very spot of their daily toils, they throw themselves down for their nightly repose, their frames bathed in perspiration, and ex- hausted with the fatigues of the day. Then the chill winds and heavy dews which so often succeed the burning heats of the sun fall upon them with silent, deadly power, and the poison of fever passes into their veins. Each day the number of the healthy and able- bodied is diminished, and when their task is done and they have received their wages, many have no more strength than enables them to crawl home and die at their own doors.* Such are the conditions upon which the Campagna is cultivated, and so little regard is paid to the life and health of the forlorn laborers by whom its golden har- vests are sown and reaped. Such are the cruel and heartless results which ensue, when men act wholly * Chateauvieux, who visited the estate of Campo Morto in the summer of 1813, thus describes what he saw : 'A signal being given they quitted their work, and this long troop fled off before us ; there were nearly as many women as men ; they all came from the Abruzzi. They were balhed in sweat ; the sun was intolerable ; the men were good figures, but the wo- men were frightful ; they had been some days from the moun- tains, and the foul air had begun to attack them. Two only had yet taken the fever, but they told me, from that time a great number would be seized every day, and that, by the end of harvest, the troop would be reduced at least one half. What then, I said, becomes of these unhappy creatures ? They give them a morsel of bread and send them back. But whither do they go ? They take the way to the mountains j-some remain on the road, some die, but others arrive, suffering under mis- ery and inanition, to come again the following year.' 90 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. upon the principle that property has its rights and for- get that it has also its duties. The beauty of the Cam- pagna, to the eye of humanity, is turned to ashes ; and to its ear, the breezes which sweep over it seem laden with the sighs of the sick and the groans of the dying. The deep-hearted Sismondi has written upon this sub- ject in a strain of generous sympathy, and with a full sense of the wrong which man has here done to man. Endowed, according to his own frank confession, with little sensibility to art, and from a defective visual organization, unable to catch the tints of crimson and gold which hang their glories round a Roman sunset, the moral and social aspects of the melancholy waste which encircles Rome, presented themselves to his mind with no veil of enchantment thrown over them. Political economy may question the soundness of some of his conclusions, and experience may doubt the ful- filment of some of his sanguine hopes ; but the spirit of his essay will commend itself to the heart of hu- manity, and they, who differ from him, will admit that he has studied his subject faithfully, and expounded it candidly. From his essay, and the elaborate work of Tournon on the statistics of Rome, fhave drawn most of the facts which I have here presented. From the same sources may be derived the means of correcting one or two of the impressions usually left upon the minds of superficial observers, who record the obser- vations of a hurried visit to Rome, and especially of qualifying that sweeping censure which Protestant travellers are apt to pass upon the Papal government. The desolation of the Campagna is sometimes ascribed to the blighting influence of an ecclesiastical adminis- AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 91 tration, by those who forget that within the States of the Church are comprised some of the most thriving and populous portions of the Italian peninsula, and that the same political causes cannot breathe beauty and fertility over one region, and the silence of death over another. The Papal government, though liable to many objections, is not the worst in Europe ; and the men who administer it are, as a general rule, not inferior in intelligence to the statesmen of other Catholic coun- tries, and probably superior in purity of life. The Catholic Church is eminently democratic in principle, opening freely the path to its highest honors to talent, learning, and worth ; and although family influence doubtless exerts here, as every where else, an unques- tioned power, yet there are always many men in the college of Cardinals who have risen to that high posi- tion, solely by personal merit. But in its relations to the Campagna, the Papal government presents itself in a most favorable aspect. For more than three cen- turies, with various longer or shorter intervals of time, it has been engaged in a contest with the proprietors and lessees of this region, in which it has shewn a laud- able perseverance and a generous humanity; though not always an enlightened judgment, a due respect for the rights of property, or a knowledge of the principles of political economy. To give the history of this struggle in detail would require too much space, but its leading objects may be briefly stated. The Popes, looking at the question from the true point of view, seeking to diminish the sum of human suffering, and to increase the sum of human happiness, have endeavored to re- move the unhealthiness of the Campagna and to in- 92 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. crease its permanent population. By various edicts, some of very stringent character, they have sought to prevent the abandonment of wide tracts to the pur- poses of grazing, and to stimulate the growth of wheat and other cereal grains by laborers resident on the spot. But they have encountered a steady opposition from the proprietors and lessees, who, taking a mate- rial and selfish view of the subject, and starting from the position that land is dormant or inactive capital, contend that they have a right to draw from it the largest amount of return which, with the aid of active capital, it can be made to yield ; and that when they have shewn that pasturage is more lucrative than til- lage, they have met all the elements in the case. The gist of the controversy is contained in a statistical cal- culation presented to the government by the proprietors in 1790, and afterwards restated in 1800. By this it appeared that a capital of eight thousand crowns, invested in the cultivation of wheat, yielded a net re- turn of only thirty crowns; while the same capital, invested in a flock of sheep, brought a return of nine- teen hundred and seventy-two crowns. This was esteemed an unanswerable and decisive argument in favor of the superior advantages of pasturage. But, as Sismondi observes, this comparison is not between two tracts of land of equal extent, but between two equal sums of money devoted, one to pasturage and the other to tillage ; and it virtually involves a begging of the question. The profitable employment of this amount of capital in grazing requires a quantity of land ten or twelve times greater than that which the esti- mate assumes to be necessary for its use in tillage ; AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGKA. 93 while it gives support to only twenty-nine persons in winter, and eighteen in summer. It is thus an extrav- agant waste of land, and a reduction of the number of those deriving support from land to the smallest amount. What is the net return derived from the flocks and herds that roam over the unpeopled tract, to the aggregate wealth that might be drawn from the soil, were the population at the rate of two hundred to the square mile, as in the other parts of the pontifi- cal states ? Thus the state suffers by the absence or non-existence of all those persons whom this mode of using the land prevents from inhabiting it. It is not in the neighborhood of Rome alone that this process is going on, and that an enlightened and humane spirit is putting its veto upon changes sanctioned by that polit- ical economy which tells us that it makes no difference whether a great proprietor spends his income upon the estate from which it is derived, or in a distant capital. The conversion in Scotland of arable land into sheep- walks and deer-forests, by which whole hamlets of colters and small farmers were swept from the soil, is of the same kind, and no calculations of a heart- less science can ever reconcile humanity to such changes.* * ' Campo Morto, one of the estates belonging to the patri- mony of St. Peter's, lying between here, (Gensano) and the lake, is let to a farmer. It contains 4309 rubbi, or about 4400 plebeian hides. We will suppose half of it to have been forest or common land for the old Romans were not so wise as our rural economists, who parcel out every thing ; thus, two thou- sand two hundred families would live on this estate. Now it supports 1. The farmer-general, with his family, in great comfort. i>4 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. In the contests between the government and the pro- prietors, the latter, as might be expected, have had the advantage. The great evil of the Papal government is the frequent changes of system which arise of neces- sity from its constitution. The popes are usually old men when chosen to their office, and thus have but a short time to mature and execute projects of improvement ; nor are the plans of one pontiff usually taken up and carried on by his successor. Indeed, it not unfrequently happens that the election is influenced by the opposition which these plans have awakened, and the partizans of the new incumbent are those who were the enemies of his predecessor. But the force of selfishness is as in- evitable and as calculable as the force of gravitation. The interests of the proprietors and their lessees, the mercanti, have been always the same ; and they have ever presented the same unbroken front of opposition. In the long run, the dogged obstinacy and sharp-sighted vigilance of selfishness will be more than a match for the philanthropy of legislation. Government must 2. The rent constitutes the revenue of about thirty canons, many of whom save out of their incomes, but as others receive pensions in addition : we will set the latter against the former. 3. On the land itself there live about a hundred laborers, nearly all unmarried. 4. In the spring, a few hundred laborers come to work for a few days, and in the summer, five hundred come from Abruzzo to get in the harvest for eleven days' food and wages. The rural economist will say how many useless hands he spares ! and the pious must rejoice that instead of two thousand two hundred families of heathens, thirty gentlemen now live upon the land, who sing mass while others listen to them.' From a letter of Niebuhr to Savigny. Life of Niebuhr, vol. 3, p. 166, 2ded. AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGN.A. 95 enunciate general principles. It cannot follow a supple and flexible selfishness through all the winding turns along which it slips and glides. Self-interest tires out all competitors, and is sure to be in at the death. The well meant efforts of so many popes to increase and widen the belt of cultivation, to reclaim the wastes of the Campagna, to dry up its swamps, and to dot its surface with radiating centres of population and activ- ity, have produced little or no effect. The same evils that provoked attention in times less humane and less enlightened than our own, still present themselves to the more experienced mind and more susceptible heart of to-day. There is the same dreary depopulation, the same deadly malaria, the same frightful waste of hu- man life. Nor to the sober and unimpassioned reason, which will not believe a proposition simply because it wishes it to be true, is there much hope for the future. The essay of Sismondi, to which I have before alluded, points out the elements of encouragement in a sanguine, but not an extravagant spirit ; and he certainly proves that the reclaiming of the Campagna is not an impossi- ble enterprise. The events which have taken place since the date of its publication, do not, however, tend to make the desired consummation more probable. We meet upon the threshold this inexorable dilemma ; the Campagna cannot become healthy till it is more thickly peopled ; and it cannot be more thickly peopled till it becomes more healthy. To overcome this difficulty to solve this problem would require a concentration of powers and a command of means, such as the ordi- nary flow of events can never call forth. It might be done by a man who added to the large capacity, the 96 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. iron will, the piercing insight, and boundless resources of Napoleon, the energetic and pertinacious benevo- lence of Oberlin ; but that such a man should spring from the exhausted soil of Rome, would be a miracle hardly less striking than if an angel should come down from heaven and in a single night cover the Campagna with smiling villages and a vigorous population. Were a region like this, fertile and sickly, lying in the track of western emigration in our own countiy, it would present but a brief obstacle to the advance of that great wave of population which flows so steadily towards the setting sun. The first generation would fall before the deadly influences of the soil, but their places would be supplied by new comers, and the contest be continued by fresh frames and unworn spirits, and man would triumph at last over nature. But the conquest which would be possible to the boundless energies of a young democracy like ours, is beyond the feeble powers of a decrepid state, which can do no more than struggle against natural decay and repair the breaches of time. The statements of the condition of the Campagna may also tend to correct another of those wrong first impressions into which travellers are apt to fall. From the multitude of beggars and idle persons in the streets of Rome, they jump to the conclusion that the Romans, and the Italians generally, are a race of incorrigible idlers, who will not work and therefore deserve to starve. But how many of those who form and second this hasty judgment, have put themselves into a situa- tion to ascertain the willingness or unwillingness of this unemployed population to embrace the opportunity of work when offered to them ? Rome, of course, has AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 97 little or no foreign commerce ; and, as has been before remarked, has no rural population connected with and dependent upon it. Its support is derived mainly from two sources ; from the great influx of strangers drawn to it by its unique attractions in art and history ; and from the tributes, prescribed or voluntary, offered to it as the capital of Catholic Christendom. Were these sources cut off, a considerable part of its population must either starve or move to some other place. The manufactures of Rome, more considerable than is com- monly supposed, are mostly confined to objects of taste and beauty. Here are produced pictures, statues, en- gravings, cameos, bronzes, works in marble, artificial pearls, and the like ; but no one, that can help it, em- ploys a Roman tailor, dress-maker, shoemaker, or hat- ter, no one buys a Roman carriage or Roman furniture, nor any thing that is there made of linen, or cotton, or wool, or glass, or porcelain. Thus the range of em- ployment is very limited, and there are numbers of persons who beg because there is nothing else that they can do. But the conditions under which the cul- tivation of the Campagna is carried on are alone enough to remove the reproach of idleness from the population of the Papal States. We have seen that in the hot months of the year, such as May, June, and July, the labors of agriculture are attended with serious risk, not only to health but to life, and that every year there are many persons who carry home from these fatal plains the seeds of death. And yet, in spite of this confirmed experience, each successive season sends forth its fresh recruits to be decimated by the inglorious and invisible foe that creeps along the dark morass and VOL. II. 7 98 AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. falls from the sky upon the dewy ground. The reap- ers, who are the most exposed to the noxious influences of the soil and climate, usually carry home about five dollars, and for this humble pittance the inhabitant of a mountain village leaves his breezy home, and toils for perhaps a fortnight with a distinct consciousness that the chances are, to say the least, not against his being stricken to the heart by the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noon-day. Could the rich foreigner who spends this sum upon a cameo, or a bronze ornament, in the course of a morn- ing drive, have a fact like this brought home to him, he would probably repress the impatient ejaculation called forth by the importunate beggar at his carriage door. There is something inexpressibly affecting, even heroic, in the quiet devotion and self-sacrifice of these reapers of the Campagna, who bravely encounter the chances of death or lifelong sickness, that they may carry home to their families a handful of silver. They are soldiers who go down to a field of battle in which victory is without spoils and defeat without glory. The condition of these forlorn persons is, however, but an extreme instance of the weight of hopeless toil and suffering that rests upon the laboring population of a large part of Europe. Every where the heart is torn by the visible presence of irremediable distress. Every where we see men who are made old, while yet in their prime, by over-work, meagre food, and wretched shelter women, from whose forms and faces their native dower of grace and beauty has been crushed out by the weight of toil, too great and too early laid upon them children, whose little faces are already shad- AGRICULTURE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 99 owed with care or pinched with hunger. Every where the grand and lovely scenes of nature are associated with the sharp penury or hopeless prostration of man. Such sights, and the disproportioned masses of wealth that meet our view at the other end of the social scale, awaken pity or indignation according to the observer's temperament. A benevolent temper is often united with a fierce and rebellious spirit ; and where such a combination exists, who can wonder that the protest of humanity should take the form either of distrust of God's providence, or of a blind and desperate assault upon all existing institutions ? That there are constant troubles in Europe is not so much a matter of surprise as that there should ever be a considerable period with- out them ; and, what is saddest of all, the wiser mind is forced to confess that those struggles and convulsions spring from such motives, or are attended with such conditions, as make failure inevitable. The apostle Paul told the Romans of his time, that ' the earnest ex- pectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.' It is so now ; and now as then, the Spirit of God must help the infirmities of man, before the bondage of corruption can be broken. CHAPTER V. Journey from Borne to Naples Naples The Museum. JOURNEY FROM ROME TO NAPLES. ON Thursday, March 9, at eleven o'clock in the morning, I left Rome for Naples, occupying, with two friends and countrymen, the rotonde of a diligence. A diligence has three divisions : the coupe, in front ; the interieur, in the middle ; and the rotonde, behind. They correspond to the boxes, the pit, and the gallery in a theatre. The rotonde, says somebody, (quoted by Murray), ' is the receptacle of dust, dirt, and bad com- pany.' Our route was along the Appian Way, passing through Albano, L'Aricia, Gensano, and Velletri. The weather was fine, and such views of the region we traversed as could be caught from our narrow confine were beautiful ; especially when illumined by the yel- low rays of a setting sun. The shades of night fell upon us as we entered upon the monotonous plain which extends from the Alban Mount to Terracina, and we lost the sight of the deso- lation of the Pontine Marshes. The diligence stopped JOURNEY FROM ROME TO NAPLES. 101 about an hour at Terracina, a delay for which, in logical language, there was no * causa causans ; ' but the * causa sine qua non ' was, that we were in Italy, where time is of no value, and the whole movement of life is adagio. For persons of an impatient spirit a residence of a few months in that country may be pre- scribed as a good medicine. It will either kill or cure. I could not but murmur at the darkness which hid every thing from the sight except the interior of a dirty post-house enclosing with its ebon wall the striking features of Terracina itself, as well as the view of the distant Monte Circello, which tradition has fixed as the seat of the Circe's enchantments. Some obstinate sceptics have doubted this, because the localities do not all correspond with Homer's description ; but the weight of evidence is against them, for there is a cavern in the rock which is still called, ' The Witch's Grotto,' ' La Grotta della Maga,' and Valery states that the swine which are raised in the neighborhood attain a size which can only be explained by the fact, that they are the lineal descendants of the unhappy com- panions of Ulysses. The glittering rays of the morning sun revealed a beautiful scene, different in character from the neigh- borhood of Rome. To the right, the curved shore of Gaeta, as the light fell upon the rippling line of the breaking waves, shone like a sickle of silver, and the gulf which it clasped was of the darkest blue. It was pleasant to be so near to the sea once more to catch again the deep respirations of its mighty heart, and to hear the sound of oars, and of keels grating upon a pebbly bottom. For some distance, the road ran close 102 JOURNEY FROM ROME TO NAPLES. to the water's edge ; and the sandy beach, the boats drawn up along the shore, the children dabbling in the waves, and the freshened air reminded me of some points in the coast between Boston and Nahant ; only that the outlines had every where a softer char- acter. But to the left, the land view awakened no familiar associations. Every thing was abrupt, sa- lient, and picturesque. Elevations, more or less high, shot up suddenly from the plain. The landscape was full of startling antitheses, if I may be allowed such an expression. The line of hills which blocked up the horizon was indented and irregular. The towns and villages crowned the heights and hung, like nests, from the walls of rocky precipices. The forms of vegetation approached more nearly the tropical types. The cactus grew in the hedges. Orange and lemon-trees stood out boldly, open to all the air, and not crouching behind walls and in sheltered court- yards. Fig-trees wore a sturdy and defying look ; and the vine, though not at that time in leaf, had the inde- pendent character of a child of the soil. Men and women, with countenances and costumes alike marked, were at work in the fields. The general aspect of the scene was glowing and impassioned ; and differed from the scenery of more northern regions, as the changeable features and fervid gesticulation of a Nea- politan differ from the grave and calm demeanor of an Englishman or German. Indeed, at Terracina the gates of a new region are thrown open to us, through which we pass into the precincts of the warm South. The face of nature and the face of man differ from those which we have left behind. Flowers of more JOURNEY FROM ROME TO NAPLES. 103 vivid coloring, fruits of finer flavor, men of more rest- less passions all shew that we are drawing nearer to the sun. The region which lies south of Terracina, embracing the Bay of Naples, has another element of interest, as the scene of what may be called the romantic litera- ture of antiquity. Here was the abode of Circe a beautiful enchantress, smiling but malignant the ear- liest type of a character which has been multiplied to so infinite an extent in all subsequent periods. At Formise, Ulysses and his companions met with the ad- venture, since so often repeated, of the Lsestrygons, whose king is a man-eating giant, and who has a wife of the same homicidal and cannibal propensities. From the scars of violent volcanic action in the neighborhood of Naples, from the gloomy shades of Avernus and traditions of streams of lava, the ancients formed their pictures of Tartarus and the Styx. The airy and im- aginative shapes of the Greek mind passed into the literature of Rome from the south of Italy. The elements that came from Etruria were sterner and gloomier. That was a land of sombre superstitions that gave to Rome the system of omens and divina - tions, so interwoven with its history and poetry. We passed through Fondi,* Itri, Capua, and other places, striking from their situation, or interesting from * Fondi was, in 1534, the residence of Julia Gonzaga, widow of Vespasian Colonna, the most beautiful woman of her age. The fame of her charms had reached the ear of the Sultan Soly- man at Constantinople, who commissioned the corsair Khalr- Eddyn Barberoussa to make a descent upon Fondi and carry her off. The attack was made, the town carried by assault, 104 JOURNEY FROM ROME TO NAPLES. their associations ; but I can only recall a general pic- ture of rich, warm sunshine, of a cloudless sky, a blue sea, a luxuriant vegetation, towns and villages perched upon heights, and with steep and narrow streets occu- pied by men and women, dark, dirty, and picturesque ; very good to put into sketch-books, but by no means looking as if they would make comfortable neighbors. There was so much work for the eye to do there was such an amount of form, light, and color dashed upon the canvas of the horizon that in the whirl of impressions, there was neither time nor patience to rest upon details. The whole route was much infested by that ravenous brood of animals that feed upon trunks and passports. I will not attempt to record how many times we fell into their devouring jaws nor how great was the sum of delay and vexation occasioned by them nor what was the aggregate of tribute they levied upon us but will only enjoin it upon those who may hereafter have occasion to jour- ney on that route, to fortify their souls with patience, and their pockets with pauls. We reached Naples after dark. The streets, glit- and all so suddenly, that the lady had only time to escape to the mountains in a night-dress. Such an adventure must have had its alleviating elements. It would be curious to speculate to what eztent her fright and sufferings were soothed b^ the proud consciousness of the beauty from which they flowed. The trouble and the consolation came from the same source, as the rust of Achilles' spear cured the wounds it made. I will not believe the tradition which says, that she caused a gentleman, who assisted her in her flight, to be assassinated, because he had seen her in so much of an undress. NAPLES. 105 tering with gas and filled with people, presented a marked contrast to the comparative silence and gloom of Rome. A turn of the carriage brought Vesuvius before us in all its glories and terrors. The sight was beyond the hope. A ruddy coronet of flame burned upon its summit, and its side was streaked with veins of fire. But after a vigil of thirty-six hours, nature claimed her rights ; and the great torch of Vesuvius, hanging over the Bay of Naples, was eclipsed in attrac- tion by the candle that lighted me to bed. NAPLES. My residence in Naples lasted only a fortnight ; and even that short period was abridged by several days of bad weather. Of course, under such circumstances, only general impressions could be gathered. But in Naples, in this as in so many other respects unlike Rome, we do not need the help of time to grasp and hold the spirit of the place. The veil of the past not here to be uplifted slowly and with reverend hands. A single look from a favorable position puts the travel- ler in possession of what is most striking and charac- teristic. The entire outline is traced ineffaceably, and afterwards nothing more is required than to cut the lines more deeply. At one touch, the gates of the mind are opened and the glorious pageant enters. Rome is like a fresco, in which only a measured por- tion can be painted each day; but Naples is a sun- picture taken in an instant. It is indeed a curious fact that in Naples itself there are very few objects of interest or curiosity. In archi- 106 NAPLES. tecture, there is almost nothing that deserves a second visit. There is not a church or a palace or a public building of any kind, of such conspicuous merit that one need regret not to have seen it. Why this city more than double the size of any other in Italy should languish in such architectural poverty, is a mys- tery not easily explained. All the works of art of any consequence, are to be found in the Museum ; and the great attraction of this collection is not in its pictures or marble statues, which seem but crumbs fallen from the tables of Rome and Florence, but in its unique relics from Herculaneum and Pompeii. It cannot be denied, that after the excitement and exhaustion of Florence and Rome, it is a relief to find ourselves in a place where there are no churches to visit, no picture- galleries to go through, no palaces and villas that must be examined where no inexorable Nemesis chases us with a guide-book in one hand and a watch in the other where we may, without self-reproach, surren- der ourselves to unforeseen impulses, and not rise in the morning with a duty, in the disguise of a pleasure, set against every hour in the day. The beauty of Naples and its environs can as little be described as exaggerated. The extreme points of the two projecting arms which enclose the bay on the northwest and southeast, are about twenty miles distant from each other in a right line. They are similar in their shape and character, but by no means identical. The southern promontory stretches farther out to sea ; but, on the other hand, the balance is restored by the island of Ischia on the north, which is much larger and more distant from the land than its southern sister NAPLES. 107 Capri. The curve of the gulf lying between them is not regular, but the line of the coast makes nearly a right angle at Naples- and also at Castellamare ; the intervening space being nearly straight. Vesuvius occupies a point about half way between the projecting points. The whole space is crowded with human life, and comprises within itself nearly every form of beau- ty into which earth and water can be moulded. On one side, from a liquid plain of the most dazzling blue, a range of mountains, the peaks of which are for many months covered with snow, rise into the air. Forests of oak and chestnut encircle them midway. Between them and the sea there is hardly a terrace of level land, and the cliffs that line that tideless shore are often crowned and draped with luxuriant vegeta- tion. In another direction, the primitive features are less grand; but the action of volcanic agencies has given great variety of surface within a small compass. Numberless points are crowned with villas, monasteries, and houses, linked together by a glowing succession of orange groves, vineyards, orchards, and gardens. Over all the unrivalled scene, Vesuvius towers and reigns ; forming the point of convergence in which all the lines of beauty and grandeur meet. I have never seen a mountain that so impresses the mind as this. Although not quite four thousand feet high, it produces all the effect of a much greater elevation, because its whole bulk from the level of the sea to its summit, is seen at a glance. Besides the peculiar interest which belongs to it as a volcano, it is remarkable for its flowing and graceful outline, and the symmetrical regularity of its shape. A painter could no where find a better model 108 NAPLES. from which to draw an ideal mountain. But when to this merely lineal beauty, we add the mysterious and awful power of which its smoke and fire are symbols, and those fearful energies of destruction which the imagination magnifies at will, it becomes a feature in the landscape, which, considering its position and prox- imities, has no parallel on the globe. It would seem as if volcanic agency were necessary to crown the earth with its most impressive loveliness and grandeur, just as a human face never reveals all its beauty till passion burns in the eye and trembles on the lip. The action of fire alone heaves up those sheer walls and notched battlements of rock, and sets the mountain lake in those deep and wooded sockets, by which the most expressive landscapes are formed, and through which great effects are produced without the aid of great space. Water shapes and smooths the earth into some- thing like a Grecian regularity of outline, but fire sharpens and points it after Gothic types. The whole line of coast from Pozzuoli to Sorrento repeats and renews the same curves and waves of beauty. The land is rounded, scooped, and hollowed ; holding out jutting promontories and projections, like arms of invitation, to the sea. No rigid lines of de- fence are thrown up ; no castellated masses of granite stand along the coast like line-of-battle ships drawn up for an engagement ; no where is an expression of de- fiance stamped upon the scene. Along the rocky and iron-bound shores of New England, the meeting of the sea and the land is like the meeting of enemies under a flag of truce. Even the sunshine and the calm speak of conflicts past and to come. Upon the prac- NAPLES. 109 tical and unromantic coast of England, their meeting is like that of men of business who have come together to talk over a bargain. But in the Bay of Naples, the meeting of the sea and the land "is like the embrace of long-parted lovers. The earth is a beautiful and impassioned Hero, and the waves lie upon her bosom like the dripping locks of Leander. t Naples itself is only the core and nucleus of this fertile and populous shore, which every where swarms with life and glitters with human habitations. In re- spect to situation, the cities of Naples and Edinburgh have an element in common ; or rather, they leave a similar impression upon the observer's mind. In both, the town, the buildings, the work of man's hands, are subordinate to the grand and commanding features of nature around and above them. This is never the case with a city standing upon a plain. In Edinburgh the houses look, in comparison with the mountain ridges near them, like a handful of toys upon a giant's lap. Naples is not only stretched along a winding coast, but scattered over the terraces and spurs of a range of semicircular hills ; and is brought into imme- diate proximity with commanding heights and a grand expanse of water. Thus, when it is seen from the sea which is the finest point of view the magnifi- cent lines and sweeps of the landscape fairly eat up the city itself ; and its white buildings look like rows of China cups and saucers ranged along the shelves of a crescent-shaped closet. But though it is easy to tell what Naples suggests, it is not easy to tell what it is. What words can analyze and take to pieces the parts and details of this matchless panorama, or unravel that 110 THE MUSEUM. magic web of beauty into which palaces, villas, forests, gardens, vineyards, the mountains and the sea, are woven ? What pen can paint the soft curves, the gen- tle undulations, the flowing outlines, the craggy steeps, and the far-seen heights, which, in their combination, are so full of grace, and at the same time, expression ? Words here are imperfect instruments, and must yield their place to the pencil and the graver. But no can- vas can reproduce the light and color which play round this enchanting region. No skill can catch the chang- ing hues of the distant mountains, the star-points of the playing waves, the films of purple and green which spread themselves over the calm waters, the sunsets of gold and orange, and the aerial veils of rose and ame- thyst which drop upon the hills from the skies of morning and evening. The author of the book of Ecclesiasticus seems to have described Naples, when he speaks of ' the. pride of the height, the clear firma- ment, the beauty of heaven, with his glorious shew.' ' See Naples and then die,' is a welt-known Italian saying ; but it should read, ' See Naples and then live.' One glance at such a scene stamps upon the memory an image which, forever after, gives to every day a new value. THE MUSEUM. The Museum of Naples, comprising an extensive library, a picture gallery, a large collection of works in marble and bronze, a wilderness of vases, and all the spoils of Herculaneum and Pompeii, is contained in a building of vast extent, originally designed for a train- THE MUSEUM. Ill ing-school for cavalry ; subsequently appropriated to an university, and at the close of the last century, dedi- cated to its present purposes. Its proper name is Palazzo de' regi Studii. The most interesting portion of this vast storehouse of art and antiquity is found in the rooms which contain the multifarious and innu- merable objects which have been brought here from Herculaneum and Pompeii. These possessions are absolutely unique. They defy rivalry, and can never be damaged by comparison. A large part of all that we know of the private life of the Romans has been revealed to us from these opened graves of the past. It is a curious fact, that we owe the preservation of these most impressive and instructive memorials to means and causes which, of all others, would seem the least likely to accomplish such a result. It is difficult to conceive of a more destructive agency than that put forth by the eruption of a volcano ; nor is there any wrath so consuming as the wrath of fire ; and yet, in this instance, their spell has been reversed, and they have sheltered from decay, and restored unharmed, a world of objects which air and light would long ago have destroyed. Long buried beneath a sea of lava, or shro.uded in a grave of ashes, the domestic life of Rome has awakened from its sleep of centuries, to startle the present with an authentic voice from the past. Many persons have regretted that these things were ever taken from the localities in which they were found ; feeling that by this removal the proper relation between them has been lost, and that all these curious and beautiful objects, arranged in shew-rooms and exposed in glass cases, are like an exhibition of cut 112 THE MUSEUM. flowers as compared with a garden in bloom. Upon* what may be called the sentimental side of the ques- tion, that side upon which Lord Byron looked at the transportation of the Elgin marbles to London, there is no doubt that much may be urged in support of this view. But Herculaneum is shrouded in the deepest night, so that nothing can be seen . beyond the small circle of light shed by the torches ; and at Pompeii it would have been necessary to maintain an army of keepers and guardians to protect the treasures there found from the rapacity of travellers. Upon the whole, therefore, we must be content with the arrange- ment as we find it, and not let what might be cast a shadow upon what is. A suite of several rooms is devoted to articles in iron and bronze ; lamps, candelabra, cooking utensils, agri- cultural implements, and weapons of offence and de- fence. The collection is especially rich in lamps and candelabra, many of which are most elaborately wrought, and of rare beauty of form. The difference between ancient and modern taste the former run- ning to the beautiful and the latter to the useful is nowhere more strikingly seen than in contrivances for artificial light. The lamp by which I am now writing, if set down by the side of the superb works of art which delight the eye in the Museum of Naples, would look as homely as a barn-yard goose sailing about in a fleet of imperial swans. But on the other hand, it gives ten times as much light as the best of these antique beauties. The Roman wick was but a bit of thread drawn through a hole, casting only a feeble glimmer, and in a well-ventilated room it must have flared and THE MUSEUM. 113 frottered to the great discomfort of sensitive eyes. May we not accept circular wicks and glass chimneys as a fair compensation for the beauty which we have lost ? Seen by daylight, it must certainly be admitted that these Roman lamps and candelabra are a perpetual pleasure to the eye. The most graceful forms of animal and vegetable life were imitated and reproduced in their ornaments, such as the claws of lions and griffins, the legs of goats, the branches of trees, the stems and flowers of liliaceous plants, and these are ingeniously combined with minute architectural details, bas-reliefs, and heroic or mythological forms. It is the same with the vessels of metal destined for the homely offices of life. In the outline, the decorations, and especially the shape and fashion of the handle, we see the claims of an eye that exacted beauty in every object on which it fell. In a vase found at Hercula- neum, and deposited in one of these rooms, the handle represents an eagle grasping a hare. In the first room which I entered, are several balances and steelyards wrought with the same taste and elegance, the weight representing the head of a hero or demigod. In the same room is a small portable furnace, and scattered through the collection are many other articles of kitchen furniture. There is also an urn of very elab- orate construction. In one of the rooms are various pieces of armor and weapons of offence, swords, lances, bucklers, and helmets, some richly orna- mented with chased work. Distributed in cases around the same room, as if to mark the contrast between peace and war, are agricultural implements, such as hoes, pickaxes, spades ; and also locks, hinges, bits for VOL. II. 8 114 THE MUSEUM. horses, door-knockers, and keys. Scattered through ttfe various rooms are a multitude of miscellaneous objects, such as tripods, musical and surgical instruments, bronze inkstands, styles for writing, articles belonging to the toilet, such as mirrors, combs, pins, and even cosmetics, playthings for children, dice some of them loaded tickets of admission to the public games made of ivory or bone, moulds for pastry; and, not the least curious of all, a variety of articles of food charred by the heat, such as nuts, many sorts of grain, fruits, and loaves of bread with the baker's name upon them. In short, these marvellous rooms present an epitome of the whole domestic and daily life of Rome under the empire. By the help of the innumerable objects con- tained in this unique collection, we can follow out all the hours of a Roman day, in their several duties or amusements. We can sit, or rather recline, with the wealthy nobleman of Pompeii at his meals, and criti- cise his table furniture, and almost pronounce upon the flavor of his dishes or the age of his wine. We can peep into the dressing-room of his wife, and see her toilet apparatus spread out before us ; her rouge, her mirrors, her ornaments ; in short, all the weapons with which she fought off the approaches of time. We can penetrate into the kitchen, see the charcoal lighted in the brazier, hear the water bubbling in the urn, and snuff the steam of the dishes that simmer in the sauce- pans. We can sit with the student in his library, go out into the fields with the farmer, visit the shops of mechanics and artisans, and accompany the surgeon in his professional calls. We can go with the respectable citizen to the theatre, and with the wild young man to THE MUSEUM. 115 the gaming-table, and see him lose his money to the blackleg. From all that is spread before us, we gather the truth that man is an animal with but very few tricks ; that the same wants impelled, and the same passions disturbed him, in those days as now ; that the same dangers lay in his path, and the same temptations led him astray ; and that life was the mingled web of suffering and enjoyment in Pompeii eighteen hundred years ago, that it is to-day in London or New York. A spacious room in the Museum is devoted to the paintings found upon the walls of the houses and public buildings of Pompeii, which have 7 been skilfully detached from their original positions and assembled here. As these paintings are very numerous, and comprise a great variety in style and design, and as they are huddled and crowded together upon the walls of a single apartment, in such a way as shews that economy of space was a primary object of considera- tion, the whole effect is somewhat confusing and be- wildering. I believe that of late years the practice of removing these paintings has been discontinued, and that in the recently excavated houses they are allowed to remain on the walls without being disturbed. These pictures have been greatly admired, and highly, per- haps too highly praised. The sight of them affects the imagination so powerfully as to leave us in a frame of mind not exactly suited for calm criticism. We are so astonished to find the drawing, expression, and coloring so good, that we are inclined to overstate their excel- lence ; in the same way as civilization is more than just to the poetry and eloquence of savage tribes. The number of paintings which the excavations of Pompeii 116 THE MUSEUM. have brought to light is astonishing. The use of this form of decoration in ornamenting the walls of houses was universal, and the specimens preserved to us shew as great a variety of merit as is included between the daubs of an itinerant portrait-painter and the best works of Stuart or Copley. There were decorative artists of every gradation of excellence, and suited to ample and moderate incomes. These paintings are popularly called frescoes ; but, as a general rule, they are painted in distemper upon a dry wall. Their chief merits are grace and flowing ease of outline, and the spirit of the attitudes and move- ments. The perspective is often defective. The finest thing in this room, and perhaps the finest picture yet found in Pompeii, is the celebrated group of Achilles and Briseis, so well known by the admirable engravings and enthusiastic description of Sir William Gell. The colors are sadly faded, and I cannot but think that the head of Achilles is seen to some advantage in the spir- ited engraving in the ' Pompeiana.' Two other well- known subjects which have been often engraved, are also here ; the sacrifice of Iphigenia in which, Agamemnon is pictured with his face covered, and Iphigenia is grasped by two priests in a very uncere- monious manner and Medea meditating the murder of her children. Both of them have much merit in design and execution. The general character of these paintings, and of those which are left on the walls of Pompeii, is light, airy, and sportive. Those heathen views of life and death which breathe through the poetry of Horace, in exhortations to crowd the short span of time with music, wine, and flowers, before the THE MTTSEITM. 117 dark hour of renunciation came, shed also a sunny gleam of grace and beauty along the walls of Pompeii. Female dancers, draped and undraped, Bachantes and Fauns, groups of Mars and Venus, nymphs, centaurs, and rope-dancers are frequently recurring subjects. Many of them are full of comic power, and instinct with the sense of the ludicrous not unlike the carica- tures of modern times. Animals are sometimes repre- sented in grotesque positions and quaint combinations, which remind us of Granville's illustrations of La Fon- taine. The aim of the artist seems to have been to produce an atmosphere of agreeable sensations, and to exclude every object which could bring the shadow of reflection over the spectator's mind. Every thing must suggest life and movement the opening bloom of pleasure, and the sparkling foam of careless mirth. How different is the prevailing sentiment of a modern Italian gallery, with its Martyrdoms, its Crucifixions, its Pietas, its Madonnas, and its Magdalens ! The modern artist does not hesitate . to lay his hand upon the deepest and most solemn chords of the human heart ; for the echoes they awaken are not returned from the chambers of the tomb, but from the vault of heaven which bends over them. The gallery of bronzes is rich in works of the highest merit. Those which I recall as of conspicuous excel- lence, are : A bust of Democritus, powerful and individual. A very pleasing bust of Berenice. A group of Athletes, full of spirit. An admirable bust of Caracalla, containing authentic evidence of its being a good likeness. 118 THE MUSEUM. A beautiful bust of Antinous, with the 'drooping head and melancholy lips with which he is uniformly rep- resented. A noble and expressive bust of Scipio Africanus. An admirable bust of Archytas. A bust of Seneca ; perhaps the most striking bust in the whole collection ; stern, grim, and lifelike ; with massive lips and hair falling in ragged locks over the brow. Three Fauns ; one, of small size, dancing a light, airy and graceful figure ; one, sleeping ; and the third, a little larger than life, represented in a state of genial intoxication. This last is a very admirable work in spite of the subject and a good illustration of the power of the ancient artists in idealizing a coarse object. In the attitude and expression there is the utmost of madness and frolic, and the least of vulgar brutality, which art can possibly combine. He has been drinking such wine as might have been pressed from grapes that grew upon the grave of Anacreon. Mercury in repose. This is perhaps the finest bronze statue in the world. The figure is of the size of life in a sitting posture the left hand resting on the knee, and the right slightly supporting the figure against the base on which it is seated. The right leg is loosely extended, and the body slightly leaning for- ward. The air and attitude of the figure are those of a person who is enjoying the luxury of rest, after con- siderable muscular exertion. The limbs are in the soft bloom of early manhood. The proportions are beautiful and the expression perfect ; hi every respect, a work of the highest class. This admirable statue THE MUSEUM. 119 was discovered at Portici, about the middle of the last century. A horse's head, of colossal size, full of life and spirit. Besides these, this room contains a very curious object in the shape of an immense water-cock, made of metal, found in the island of Capri in which a con- siderable quantity of water still remains, after the lapse of two thousand years. It is always shaken by the at- tendant officials, for the benefit of incredulous ears. The collection of marble statues is arranged in sev- eral halls and corridors, and contains not a few works which would hold up their heads and claim admiration, even in the Vatican. The following are some of those which most impressed me : Psyche ; a fragment, but full of feeling, grace, and beauty ; by some, ascribed to Praxiteles. A bust of Caracalla, animated and lifelike. Two equestrian statues of Balbus and his son, found at Herculaneum ; simple, noble, and dignified. A beautiful bas-relief of Daedalus and Icarus. A fine head of Alexander. The Hall of the Muses derives its name from the statues of these goddesses arranged in it. They were found at Herculaneum, and many of them are very good. In this apartment is a large vase of Greek marble, carved in relief with a subject representing the education of Bacchus. The history of this vase is cu- rious. It was found at Gaeta, where it had been used by the fishermen to tie their boats to ; and the marks of the ropes are still visible upon it. It was rescued from this degrading service, and removed to the Cathe- 120 THE MUSEUM. dral at Gaeta, where it was used as a baptismal font ; and finally brought to the Museum. A beautiful statue of Adonis gives its name to one of the apartments. In the same room is a curious and well-executed compo- sition of Cupid entangled in the folds of a dolphin. In the Gallery of Flora is a colossal statue of that goddess, of great merit, especially in the disposition of the drapery, although the exaggerated dimensions are not in unison with our conceptions of the goddess' of flowers. The statue was found in the Baths of Cara- calla, at Rome. In the same apartment is a fine statue of Juno, full of dignity and expression. Here, too, is now deposited the celebrated mosaic found at Pompeii, representing the decisive moment in the battle of Issus between Darius and Alexander. In composition and perspective, this is one of the finest remains of anti- quity. The struggle, terror, and confusion of a deadly hand-to-hand encounter ; the exulting and victorious expression of the Macedonian hero ; the despair and agony of the Persian king, as he sees the tide of battle setting against him, and his faithful friends falling around him are all admirably represented. This mosaic had been injured by an earthquake with which Pompeii was visited some years before its destruction, and the repairs it underwent in consequence are de- tected by the inferior character of the workmanship. In the gallery of the Flora is also deposited the finest work in the whole collection, the noble statue of Aris- tides, the grandest embodiment of high intellectual power and calm dignity of character that ever was expressed in marble. The attitude, the simple and expressive disposition of the drapery, and the elevated THE MUSEUM. 121 air of the head make this statue one of the most pre- ^cious legacies which antiquity has bequeathed to us. In one room is gathered together a little congress of Venuses, and the visitor may study and compare all those modifications of beauty and grace, which the ingenuity of ancient artists contrived to throw around their conceptions of the goddess of love and smiles ; and mark the essential character of the figure combined with unconsciousness, with playfulness, with coquetry, and with wantonness. The colossal Hercules of Glycon is overloaded with masses of muscle ; and this exaggeration of animal power and the small size of the head make the statue look too much like an overgrown gladiator, and not the duty-obeying demigod, whose heroic strength was ever governed by heroic sentiments. The Torso at Rome is better, so far as it goes. The celebrated group of the Farnese Bull, which stands in the same hall, is a noble work, in which the intellectual conception of the artist is not at all overlaid by the weight and. bulk of the material. This group was found in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, much injured, and restored by Bianchi, a Milanese sculptor. Besides the above, there is a fine composition of Ganymede embracing the eagle. A capital group of Hercules and Omphale, with a sort of comic power about it, like the laugh-in-the- sleeve which runs through the poetry of Ariosto. A striking head of Jupiter Ammon, with horns. A sitting statue of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, a work of great character and expression, which Canova has imitated, but not improved upon, in his statue of the mother of Napoleon. 122 THE MUSEUM. One room is devoted to works in colored marble. Here is a striking statue of Apollo, in porphyry ; of a size larger than life ; represented in a sitting posture, holding a lyre in his hand the lyre and the extremi- ties of the figure being in Carrara marble. The dra- pery, in spite of the hardness of the material, is wrought with infinite patience and skill, and hangs in such deli- cate folds that it looks as if the breath of summer would move them. There is also a Meleager, in rosso antico ; two barbarians, in pavonazzetto, in a kneeling posture, and supporting an entablature ; an Egyptian priest, in basalt ; and a very fantastic statue of Diana, in oriental alabaster and bronze, looking like a macoronic poem in two languages. The Egyptian Museum contains the usual assortment of articles found in such collections ; vases, figures in bronze and terra cotta, sarcophagi, and ghastly-grin- ning mummies by no means a cheerful company. To pass from a hall illumined by the light of Greek genius, into one of these grim and dingy Egyptian mu- seums, is like going from a garden to a cellar. A spacious and well-lighted room is dedicated to the patient labors of the scholars who occupy themselves with unrolling and deciphering the rolls of papyri which have been discovered at Herculaneum and Pom- peii. Some large cases contain a quantity of the rolls as they are found ; looking like small cylinders of charred wood, and so little like what they really are, that when first brought to light, large quantities were destroyed by the workmen in mere wantonness. Two or three of the machines used to unrol them were in operation. They resemble somewhat the sewing THE MUSEUM. 123 frames of the bookbinders. The papyrus, as it is un- rolled, is attached to gold-beater skin, by means of a weak solution of glue. Infinite patience is requisite in the process, as a single rash pull at the capstan may undo the work of days. Some of those which have been most successfully unrolled are ranged round the room in glass cases. By an inexperienced eye, the letters can be just traced by a rather stronger line of black. In an inner room are the books which have been published. It is melancholy to reflect, that after all the expense of time and money given to this pursuit of knowledge, nothing of the least value has been brought to light. The picture gallery contains a number of indifferent works and a few good ones. Among the latter are : A Holy Family by Raphael, called ' Madonna col divino Amore,' in which the Child, seated on the lap of the Virgin, is blessing the Baptist, who kneels before him on one knee, holding a cross in his hand. Eliza- beth supports the arm of the Child which gives the benediction. Joseph is standing in the background. There is much in this picture which is characteristic of Raphael, but the action of the Child seems hardly consistent with his age, and too much like a dramatic performance. The Madonna della Gatta, so called from a cat which crouches in one corner, is by Julio Romano, from Raphael's design ; a refined and beautiful con- ception, interpreted by a coarser hand. The marriage of St. Catharine, by Correggio a subject often repeated by him is a very beautiful picture, so far as the human element involved in the' 124 THE MUSEUM. subject is concerned. The Child and Catharine are two lovely children, playing at what they do not quite understand. The smiling and arch surprise with which the child looks up into his mother's face is full of the peculiar charm of this fascinating painter. By the same artist is the Madonna della Zingarella, in which the Virgin is resting with the Child, during the flight into Egypt a pleasing and expressive work. By Titian, are a very noble portrait of Philip II. of Spain ; a Magdalen, and a Danae, both splendid speci- mens of coloring, but neither of them remarkable for refinement of feeling or elevated expression. The ' Carita,' by Schedone, is a very striking work a little melo-dramatic in its general tone, and with an atmosphere of exaggeration hanging over it, but full of vivid power and animated life. It breaks upon the eye, like a burst of military music upon the ear, and it is quite difficult to turn away from it and look at any thing else. There is a fine and expressive portrait by Parmigia- no, which every American will look upon with curi- osity, because it bears the name of Columbus. But it is certainly not the portrait of the illustrious naviga- tor, and it is difficult to understand why it ever came to be called so ; for the fine and delicate features are those of a scholar, artist, or poet, and not of a resolute and indomitable man of action. CHAPTER VI. Excursion to Pompeii Camaldoli Convent Ascent of Vesuvius. EXCURSION TO POMPEII. A SINGLE day spent at Pompeii gives time enough for only general impressions. The buried city lies about thirteen miles from Naples, and is now approach- ed by a railway, which passes through Portici, Torre del Greco and Torre dell' Annunziata. A railway to Pompeii ! There was infinite matter for reflection in this contrast of ideas. One of the most wonderful results of modern civilization brought into immediate relation with the most striking monument of the arts and life of the past ! To me, there was nothing dis- cordant in a combination which disturbs the sensibili- ties of many. It seemed appropriate to be transported from the living and smiling present to the heart of the dead past, by the swiftest and most powerful wings that modern invention has furnished. The situation of Pompeii must have been beautiful. It was built upon a gently swelling elevation ; the base of which was a bed of lava, the product of some errup- tion of Vesuvius long anterior to the earliest historical 126 EXCURSION TO POMPEII. period. The loveliest of seas spread its ample bosom in full view of the inhabitants its cooling breezes sweeping over the town without any intervening object to break their power. Vesuvius was about five miles distant ; and after a sleep of many centuries, its sides were covered with gardens and vineyards, its broken summit crowned with forests of oak and chestnut. It was then an object of beauty and grandeur, and a bounteous source of corn and wine : not, as now, a mere shape of awful and unmeasured terror ; ever watched with uneasy glances, like a sleeping lion or a rising thunder-cloud. A navigable river, the Sarnus, flowed through the city in a clear and rapid current. Blessed with these natural advantages, living under a delicious climate, upon a thickly-peopled coast most strongly stamped with the luxury of Rome, the inhabit- ants of Pompeii might well have felt that the lines had fallen to them in pleasant places. The first aspect of the resuscitated city did not cor- respond exactly to my expectations. It looked some- what like a square in a modern city which had been partially destroyed by a conflagration. All the exca- vated rubbish had been removed, and there was noth- ing to prove that it had been so long buried under a shroud of earth. When we reach the end of the exca- vated portion, and are stopped by a sheer wall of gray ashes, of' some eighteen feet high, with trees and vines growing upon it, we begin to comprehend the unique character of the place. As is well known, the utmost wrath of the volcano was not let loose upon Pompeii. It was not destroyed by streams of lava, but by showers of cinders mixed, EXCURSION TO POMPEII. 127 as is supposed, with liquid mud which penetrated and flowed into all the lower parts of the houses in a way that dry ashes could not have done. The ruin effected by the first eruption was by no means complete, and there are indubitable proofs that the inhabitants re- turned and carried off many of their valuables. The bed of earth, which now lies over a portion of the city, is disposed in several successive layers, and is the deposit of many distinct eruptions. It grows finer in grain as it approaches the surface ; the upper part having been more exposed to the disintegrating action of air and moisture. It is no where so light and vola- tile as wood-ashes, but is more like fine gravel. The color is dark gray. The volcanic eruption was not the first calamity which fell upon this devoted city. Six- teen years before that event, it had been desolated by an earthquake the first premonitory symptom of the reviving terrors of the long-slumbering Vesuvius and many indications of the destruction occasioned by this disaster are visible among the ruins. The traveller will always find a guide at the railway station, and if the one who took charge of me and the friends by whom I was accompanied, be no more than a fair specimen of his brethren, I should speak highly of their courtesy and intelligence. To dwell upon details ; to ask my readers to follow me to every build- ing and point of interest to which we were conducted ; and to repeat the expositions which our Cicerone glibly recited would be a wearisome catalogue, since par- ticulars are nothing without minuteness and accuracy ; and what chance is there for being minute and accu- rate, upon the strength of a single visit, in which you 128 EXCURSION TO POMPEII. are marched about and presented to forums, temples, basilicas, theatres, and houses, till the mind becomes an architectural chaos, in which, columns, pilasters, pediments, mosaics, statues, and pictures whirl and dance like the broken images of a feverish dream ? I will therefore confine myself, substantially, to such general impressions as were gathered from an examin- ation of a few hours. When we begin to look about us, we are immedi- ately struck with the extreme narrowness of the streets, which finds no parallel in any modern city of Europe, unless it be Venice. It is, indeed, a city not of streets but of lanes and alleys. Many of these are so narrow that a man can step from one curb-stone to the other ; and where they are wider, a raised stepping-stone has been placed in the centre of the crossing, so that no more than two strides are required to pass from one side to the other. Of course, the vehicles adapted to such streets must have been of proportionate dimensions between the wheels ; and as each one must have occu- pied the whole space between the curb-stones, we are left without any means of conjecturing what expedients were resorted to, or what police regulations were in force, when two carriages, moving in different direc- tions, met each other. The streets are very well paved with large, irregular blocks of lava, in which the ruts worn by the chariot wheels are distinctly discernible. Many private houses and villas have been excavated in Pompeii, differing from each other in elegance and extent, as their owners were men of wealth, compe- tence, or poverty ; but still with a certain family like- ness among them all. A single glance at these ruined EXCURSION TO POMPEII. 129 mansions enables us to see that the views of domestic architecture, and the objects which a man proposed to himself in building a house among the Romans, differed in many respects from those which prevail among us to-day. The causes of this difference are to be found, partly in the dissimilar requisitions of a hot and a cold climate, and partly in unlike habits, tastes, and ways of living. In a northern climate, the necessity of using artificial heat for many months in the year is the controlling element in domestic architecture ; but in southern Italy houses were and are built with special reference to the warmth of the sun in winter, and an abundance of fresh air in summer. We must have compactness ; but they required extension. A fine house in Pompeii consists of several enclosed spaces, some open to the sky, around which walls and colonnades are built. These communicate with each other by doors and passages. The atrium which is the principal room entered after the vestibule is a large and often elegantly decorated apartment, with a square or rectangular opening in the roof, which has a pitch towards the centre ; and under this opening is a sunken cistern, called a compluvium, into which the rain-water drips. Around this apart- ment, or hall like state-rooms around a cabin are ranged the sleeping rooms ; little, dark, narrow, con- fined holes, without windows ; and receiving light and air only through the door opening into the atrium without any of the comforts and conveniences of a modern bedroom ; and often containing only a rude bench, rather than bedstead, on which the sleeper VOL. n. 9 130 EXCURSION TO POMPEII. probably threw himself without taking off the clothes he had worn during the day. In small houses, occupied by persons of modest for- tune and inferior position, the atrium and its appendages made up the whole of the residence ; but where the owner was a man of fortune and consequence, the atrium was used as a sort of public hall, or reception- room, and the family resided in inner suites of apart- ments. But the same primitive type of construction was repeated throughout. Sometimes the space devot- ed to the compluvium in the atrium, was, in the inner halls, occupied by a small garden, or rather bed of earth, in which shrubs and flowers were planted. There are many of these baby-gardens at Pompeii, some not bigger than a hearth-rug. In the more im- posing houses, the women of the family resided in a quarter exclusively appropriated to their use. When we compare a Roman house in Pompeii with the houses in a New England town of the same class, we readily see a marked difference in the tastes, habits, and employments of their respective inhabitants. In general, in a New England house, the entry or hall is not conspicuous for size or ornament ; whereas in a Roman house, the atrium which corresponds some- what to the spacious hall of an old-fashioned country- house is the prominent portion, upon which the wealth and taste of the proprietor are most displayed ; and a stranger who had penetrated so far would form an accurate notion of the extent and character of the whole mansion. In our houses, more provision is made for separate occupation and individual seclusion ; a change wrought by many circumstances, conspicuous EXCURSION TO POMPEII. 131 among which are the cheapness of books the univer- sal taste for reading, and the amount of time devoted to letter-writing ; a result which we owe to the cheap- ness of paper, and to that inestimable blessing per- haps the most precious product of modern civilization the public post. In nothing are the advantages en- joyed by the women of our time, as compared with their Roman sisters, more conspicuous than in this matter of letter-writing. In Eome, the privilege of writing and receiving letters was reserved to a select few to men of fortune, of high rank, or conspicuous station and to the greater part of the female sex it was an unknown luxury. In this department, modern literature owes much to the delicate and graceful genius of woman ; but in this she has done no more than pay a debt of gratitude for a privilege which has con- tributed so much to her intellectual development and happiness. A Roman house was constructed for general con- venience, and not for the special tastes and exclusive accommodation of individuals composing the family. They lived together in the atrium or some correspond- ing apartment ; seeking the sunny side or gathering round a brazier in winter, and in the summer, drawing a linen shade over the roof, and opening all the doors for the free circulation of air. The difference between the domestic habits of the ancient and modern world is nowhere more conspicuous than in the sleeping apart- ments of their respective houses. If a merchant or lawyer of Boston or New York could be carried back some eighteen hundred years in time, and become the guest of a householder of corresponding position in 132 EXCURSION TO POMPEII. Pompeii, he would be received in an atrium adorned with mosaics, fresco paintings, marble statues, richly- carved columns, and stucco ornaments in comparison with which his own modest drawing-room would seem a very commonplace affair but when he came to re- tire for the night, his host would shew him into a small, dark, miserable closet, without furniture and without windows, such as he would deem hardly fit for a dog that he loved. The ancient inhabitant of Pompeii, when he felt an exposition of sleep, asked only for a place to lie down upon like a Neapolitan beggar on a fine summer's night. His dressing-room was at the public baths, and there all the operations of the toilet were performed. Ifi decorations and embellishments, the difference is that in Pompeii they are seen in the houses themselves, but with us, in the appurtenances and appendages. We hang pictures and engravings upon the walls, but they painted the walls themselves. We spread costly car- pets upon the floors ; they trod upon marble slabs often inwrought with mosaics. We shade our windows with rich curtains ; they dispensed with windows altogether. Most of the houses brought to light in Pompeii are small, and there must have been a good deal of packing and stowing to accommodate large families. As what may be called the common or public portions of each house absorb what seems to us a very large part of the whole, so the public buildings and places of public re- sort fill what seems to modern notions a disproportioned space of the whole extent of the city. The residents of Pompeii, like the inhabitants of Southern Italy to this day, were a people of out-of-door habits. Their time EXCURSION TO POMPEII. 133 was spent in places of public amusement, at the baths, in the courts of justice, at the temples, in lounging about the forum, and basking in the sunshine. With- out books, magazines, and newspapers ; without letters to write ; and with a fine climate always attracting them into the open air, there was nothing to call them home but the requisitions of eating and sleeping. One or two facts are expressive upon this point. Pompeii was a city of two miles in circuit, and probably did not contain more than twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The portion which has been thus far excavated does not exceed one-sixth or seventh of the whole extent ; yet within that space, have been found an amphitheatre with accommodations for ten thousand persons, and a larger and smaller theatre ; the former prepared for five thousand persons, and the latter for fifteen hun- dred. When we compare these provisions for public amusement in Pompeii with those of a city of similar extent among us, we have a guage by which we may measure the comparative amount of domestic habits and resources in the two cases. In one respect, the comparison between Pompeii and a modern Italian town is favorable to the former. Whenever a house is excavated and the walls and floors are first laid bare, every one is struck with the general air of neatness and freshness which characterizes it. The colors of the paintings glow as if they had just been laid on. The stucco is as pure and white as if the trowel of the mason had passed over it an hour before. The marble or mosaic floor is stainless and spotless. Frequent whitewashings, ablutions, and re- newals of paintings must have been the fashion of the 134 EXCURSION TO POMPEII. place. The austere spirit of Dutch cleanliness must have presided over the housekeeping of Pompeii. I need not say that neatness is not a conspicuous virtue among the people who live around Vesuvius at this day, and that the houses of Torre del Greco or Resina would not stand the examination of a board of health, so well as those of Pompeii. The public buildings of Pompeii, consisting of tem- ples, basilicas, forums, and theatres, were doubtless imposing in their aspect and of fine architectural forms, but their ruins are somewhat disappointing from the nature of their materials. They were not built of marble or stone, but of brick covered over with stucco. This will do very well in a climate so mild as that of southern Italy ; but nothing is more paltry and shabby than a brick ruin. Vegetation must give it grace and beauty, and there is none here. The visitor is con- ducted to a wide space strewn over with shafts and cap- itals of columns, with fallen pediments, broken walls, yawning chasms half filled with rubbish, and shapeless masses of masonry, and he is told that here, was a basilica and there, a forum and a temple ; but unless his eye be so trained as to see beauty in deformity and symmetry in disorder, he must turn away discouraged and disappointed. Under the guidance of our well-mannered Cicerone, we saw the usual points and objects of interest. Among these are, a fine painting of Diana and Acteon on the wall of the house of Sal lust ; a beautiful altar, of mar- ble, in the temple of Mercury ; a Sphynx, of the same material, in the house of Faunus ; the mosaic labyrinth which gives its name to the house where it was found ; EXCURSION TO POMPEII. 135 two pretty and graceful fountains of shell-work ; the secret passage for the priests in the temple of Isis ; a shop for the sale of oil and wine, with vessels set into the counter ; a chest to hold money, made of bronze and wood some of the latter material still remaining. By far the finest house within the walls is one which had been discovered and laid bare about four months previous to the date of our visit, called the house of the Suonatrice, from a painting of a female playing on a pipe, at the entrance. This house was deemed of such peculiar interest, that it was under the charge of a special custode, and was only to be seen on payment of an extra fee." It was not of large size, but had evi- dently been occupied by a person of ample fortune and exquisite taste. The paintings on the walls were nu- merous, and in the most perfect preservation. In the rear was a minute garden not more than twenty or thirty feet square, with a fairy fountain in the centre ; around which were several small statues of children and animals, of white marble, wrought with considera- ble skill. The whole thing had a very curious effect like the tasteful baby -house of a grown-up child. Every thing in this house was in the most wonderful preservation. The metal pipes which distributed the water, and the cocks by which it was let off, looked perfectly suited for use. Nothing at Pompeii seemed so real as this house, and nowhere else were the em- bellishments so numerous and so costly. Pompeii, though a Roman city in its political rela- tions, was every where strongly marked with the im- press of the Greek mind. It stood on the northern edge of that part of Italy which, from the number of 136 EXCURSION TO POMPEII. Grecian colonies it contained, was called Magna Graecia a region of enchanting beauty, in which the genius of Greece attained its most luxurious development. It has been conjectured that Pompeii had an unusually large proportion of men of property, who had been drawn there by the charms of its situation and climate, and that it thus extended a liberal patronage to Greek architects, painters, and sculptors. At any rate, the spirit of Greece still lives and breathes in its ashes. Its temples, as restored by modern architects, are Greek. Its works in marble and bronze claim a place in that cyclus of art of which the metopes of the Parthenon are the highest point of excellence. The pictures that embellish the walls, the unzoned nymphs, the bounding Bacchantes, the grotesque Fauns, the playful arabesques all are informed with the airy and creative spirit of Greek art. The ruins of Pompeii are not merely an open-air museum of curiosities, but they have great value in the illustration they offer to Roman history and Roman literature. The antiquarian of our times studies the great realm of the past with incomparable advantage, by the help of the torch here lighted. Especially, the knowledge we here gain, directly and indirectly, upon Roman civilization using that word in its most com- prehensive sense is important both in character and amount. On this point, scholars, naturally enough, are led into exaggeration and overstatements, from taking one or two favorable elements as the standard by which the whole life is judged. What do we learn on this subject from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the researches which they have called forth ; and EXCURSION TO POMPEII. 137 what was the moral, intellectual, and industrial rank of their inhabitants, as compared with a city of the same size in Germany, England, or America ? So far as the ornamental arts of life are concerned, their superior advantages will be admitted. The householder in Pompeii saw himself surrounded with finer works in bronze and marble than are found in modern houses ; and his lamps, braziers, tripods, and table furniture gratified the sense of beauty more than our chairs, tables, and cups and saucers. Our paper hangings, too, are an inferior substitute for graceful designs drawn in lively colors upon a ground of the purest white and finest grain. But in the useful arts, he was not nearly so well off as we are. His bolts, locks, and hinges were rude and clumsy. The use of glass windows was a rare and costly luxury. His house had no chimney for the escape of smoke. His garden and farming tools were heavy and ill-contrived. His dinners were not graced with the convenience of a fork, and his bed was a heap of garments spread upon the floor. In all that relates to dress and ornament, the same inconsistency is observable. The rings, chains, brace- lets, and broaches worn by the ladies and gentlemen of Pompeii were, to say the least, equal to the finest works of modern jewelry ; but in the substantial articles of dress, our superiority is infinite. The substitution of silk, cotton, and linen for wool is an unspeakable advantage in health as well as comfort. Not that these materials were unknown to the Romans, but their use was so rare and exceptional, as hardly to be taken into account. The imagination lights up at the sound of a Roman 'toga;' but in point of fact, it was neither a 138 EXCURSION TO POMPEII. comfortable nor convenient garb. It was an immense shawl, made of wool of the natural color, imperfectly cleansed from the animal oil, and by no means of the delicate and flexible texture of our fine flannels. Imagine a fine gentleman sweltering under this load of woollen, on a hot day in August, and we shall be dis- posed to credit ,the statement of Pliny, that the bath was sometimes resorted to seven times in one day. The grace and beauty of the female form are also seen in modern times to greater advantage, not only from the improvement in materials, but from the more be- coming and convenient form and fashion of the gar- ments worn. ' Tunica ' and ' stola ' have a more imposing sound than gown or petticoat; but their loose, flowing and bagging character must have been awk- ward and unsightly confounding fine with ordinary forms and in a high wind must have kept their fair wearers in a constant state of alarm. Shoes and stock- ings, too, it will be admitted, are better than sandals, though sculptors say that the use of the former has spoiled the foot. But the superiority of modern times is mostly seen in the greater variety of occupations and resources which they furnish, and especially in the higher char- acter of those resources. Man is an animal that can- not long be left in safety without occupation : the growth of his fallow nature is apt to run into weeds. Imagine newspapers and periodical literature struck out of existence, and books and letter-writing confined to a favored few, and can it be doubted that all forms of demoralizing and corrupting amusement would put on a fearfully increased amount of temptation that EXCURSION TO POMPEII. 139 the dram-shop, the gam ing-saloon, the theatre, and haunts of yet grosser vice would be resorted to by far greater throngs ? What was the state of Pompeii ? There, the wealthy citizen, leaving a house in which Grecian art had surrounded him with an atmosphere of ideal beauty, went to the amphitheatre, where he sat for hours witnessing the most cruel and brutalizing of sports ; men hacking each other to pieces, or fighting with wild beasts, till the sand of the arena became soaked with blood. The tasteful amateur of art, when we look upon him from the side of humanity and phi- lanthropy, is not much above a New Zealand can- nibal. Nor is this all. The discoveries in Pompeii and Herculaneum present a fearful weight of evidence, in addition to that which literature had previously fur- nished, that among the Romans the vice of cruelty was attended with its twin vice of lust. The foulest epi- grams of Martial, the grossest descriptions in Petro- nius and Apuleius, are illustrated to the eye in the remains of these cities, in sculptured and pictorial rep- resentations, the very remembrance of which pollutes the imagination. The husband and father in Pompeii saw daily, before his own eyes and the eyes of his wife and daughters, subjects delineated which no man should ever look at a second time. Whether we regard such things as cause or effect, they are equally mournful to contemplate. What must have been the tone of con- versation and sentiment, and the standard of morals in a community where such atrocities were tolerated, not to say, favored ? There is much in the character and history of the Roman people which we may justly admire ; their energy, their perseverance, their con- 140 EXCURSION TO POMPEII. stancy in adversity, their political wisdom, and espe- cially their legislative and jural constructiveness ; but we are not called upon, in so doing, to overlook the most obvious moral distinctions, and insist that the influences which formed their civilization were as efficacious in training the individual to excellence as in making the nation powerful. The work of excavation at Pompeii goes on slowly. Sir Wm. Gell, in 1835, estimated that about one-eighth only of the area enclosed by the walls and supposed suburbs had been laid bare ; and the labors of the workmen have not proceeded at any greater speed since that time than before. The sheer wall of dark gray gravel which bounds the excavated portion can- not be looked upon without the deepest interest and curiosity ; and the imagination busies itself in depicting the wealth which lies hidden in its silent depths. No one can view it without wishing to have his eyes touched with that magic ointment of the Arabian tale, which gave the power of seeing all the treasures which are concealed in the bosom of the earth. It is com- mon for travellers to express impatience at the slow rate at which the excavations proceed, and to complain that the government does not employ the utmost avail- able amount of force, until the whole city is uncovered ; but there is something to be said on the other side. The shroud of earth and ashes preserves what it hides. As soon as a house is exposed to the sun and air, the process of decay begins. The fine colors of the frescoes fade, the rain washes away the stucco, and the whole aspect of things undergoes a deteriorating change. For the sake, then, of those who come after CAMALDOLI CONVENT. 141 us, it is better that the work should go on moderately ; that they may have the privilege of seeing the same fresh revelations which have been vouchsafed to us ; and not be obliged to content themselves with records ' of faded beauty and traditions of decayed splendor. CAMALDOLI CONVENT. Tempted by the first day of sunshine and blue sky we had recently enjoyed, and by the convenient proximity of a little congress of donkeys, we one day chartered two of these quadrupeds and a biped guide for an excur- sion to the Camaldoli Convent, on the height above Naples, about five miles distant. The donkey flourishes in great vigor on the soil of Naples ; and he is well fitted for excursions in the neighborhood, where there is a good deal of up-hill work to be done, and where every body, who has an eye in his head, is willing to move at a slow pace. Justice has hardly been done to the moral qualities of this respectable quadruped. He is strong, sure-footed, and easy ; and as to his obstinacy, we have never heard but one side of the story. If ever a misanthro- pic donkey should publish his autobiography, he may have much to say of the obstinacy of man. The road to the convent was a gradual ascent. A few weeks later, the trees and vines would have been in full leaf, and given it a grace which then it wanted. But it was not too early for flowers, which grew all along the path in the greatest profusion ; in some places, spreading a rich carpet which concealed the soil on which they grew. There were violets, peri- 142 CAMALDOLI CONVENT. winkles, and a species of aster ; all as blue as the sky which hung over them. We reached the convent gate at about half past one, were received by one of the brethren, and conducted into the garden. The view from this spot seemed to me at the time, and seems now as I recall it, the most beautiful I had ever seen. It is very extensive, taking in the whole bay, Vesuvius, Capri, Ischia, Procida, Nisida, and Cape Misenum. The proportion of land and water is precisely what the eye demands, and the forms into which the land- scape is moulded embrace every element of softness, beauty, and grandeur of which the mind can conceive. The monk who accompanied us was a good-looking young man, dressed in flowing robes of white woollen, with a mixture of apathy and dejection in his counte- nance, and a certain slowness and difficulty of speech, as if his articulating muscles were so rarely called into play that they had become stiff. He had the air of a man whose mind was fading away from want of nutrition, like the light of a candle burnt to its socket. When he learned that we were from America, he asked us for some tobacco, as a remedy for the tooth- ache, with which he said he was troubled. For the first time in my life, I regretted my abstinence from the Virginian weed, in all its forms ; and felt some- thing like a pang that none of our party had the power of throwing this small pleasure upon his dreary path. His notions of localities in America were very crude. One of my companions remarked that he was a hand- some man but knew little of geography. He made some inquiries about flowers, and especially the dahlia, which apparently he had never seen. Many of his CAMALDOLI CONVENT. 143 brethren were slowly and silently pacing about the grounds, like white clouds drifting before the languid winds of noon. Our conductor led us into the room appropriated to the reception of strangers, and with hospitable kindness set some wine and water before us, and urged us to remain till some refreshment should be prepared ; which we with proper acknowledgments declined. We offered him some money, which he at first refused ; but upon our pressing it upon him, he took it and gave it to one of a group of three men who stood near us, and who, ag he told us, were out of employment and had come to the convent to beg. There is nothing remarkable in the conventual build- ings themselves. On one of the walls is a kind of sun- dial, with a Latin inscription which I thought very happy : ' Horam dum quseris, sensim tua fata propinquant, Haec memora, et tibi non peritura para.' I took leave of our monk with much interest, and for many days his face and figure haunted me with painful recollections. His mind was not quite paralyzed, and retained the power to struggle towards any friendly ray of light and knowledge that opened before it. He had yet some years to travel before reaching the meridian of life ; and what a path of dreary monotony lay before him ! No expansion, no progress, no development ; but merely continued existence ; day after day falling upon .his heart and mind, like rain-drops on the rock, quick- ening no growth of thought, feeling, or experience. If a man so placed be conscious of the paralyzing influ- 144 ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. ences around him if they awaken an impulse to struggle and resist if he can see the iron shroud close upon him, and light afterlight disappear, with what bitterness of spirit must he Jook out upon the lovely prospect around him, and how hateful must the beauty seem to him which he can only see through the bars of a cage. He cannot feel himself inspired and elevated, but only mocked and flouted, by the restless waves, the free winds, the unguided clouds. Better the dreariest heath, the most unsightly moor, that bears the noble harvest of action and opportunity. Let me not be misunderstood. Let me not be sup- posed to join in any vulgar Protestant cant against con- vents and monasteries, monks and nuns. I am aware of the great good which monastic establishments have done in their day ; and I admit, that even at this time such places of retreat may open sheltering havens of rest to those who have fought with life and been con- quered by it ; and that, especially, the purer and more spiritual nature of woman may live and expand in an atmosphere too much deprived of vital force to stimu- late the coarser texture of man's. But life is but another name for development ; and to take a youth, with an empty mind, an unfurnished memory, without experience, and without resources, and immerse him in the dreary grave of a monastery, what is it but to give a draught of slow poison to the soul itself ? ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. No mountain on the globe is so well known as Vesu- vius. Its vicinity to a great capital visited by so many ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 145 curious and so many enlightened travellers, and in which a pulse of scientific vitality has never ceased to beat, in spite of the indolent and pleasure-loving habits of the great mass of the inhabitants, has made its his- tory and organic structure familiar to all who are inter- ested in such inquiries. Carefully abstaining, then, from all display of cheap learning and second-hand speculations, I shall confine myself strictly to a narra- tive of what came under my own observation, during a single ascent. This enterprise is neither difficult nor dangerous ; and may be so managed as not to be very fatiguing. The great laws of political economy regu- lating supply and demand are here in full force. Every body wishes to go to the top of Vesuvius, and consequently there are ways and means contrived for getting every body up. As to the best time for making such an excursion, there is a difference of opinion among the learned. The most energetic class of trav- ellers those who are every where disposed to dive the deepest and stay under water the longest will insist upon it that the visitor should leave his comfort- able bed at midnight, climb up the mountain by torch- light, and see the sun rise from the top. But nature's voice, through all her works, protests against such rude disruptions of ordinary habits ; and without wishing to speak disrespectfully of sunrises, it may be observed, that those persons who, from unnatural tastes or en- forced circumstances, are in the habit of seeing sun- rises, take rather a malicious pleasure in overstating their claims, which a judicial eye easily pronounces to be inferior to those of sunsets. Besides, Vesuvius is so placed that the view of the eastern horizon is shut out VOL. II. 10 146 ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. by intervening ridges ; but on the west, the broad disk of the setting sun, as it sinks into the sea, is in full sight. In this view, it is therefore advisable to leave Naples early in the afternoon, see the sunset from the summit, remain there till after the darkness comes on, and return in the evening ; and if the traveller can find a young moon to light him home, so much the better. This, at any rate, was the plan which, after mature re- flection, was adopted by me and the friends who went with me, and we certainly had no reason to regret the choice. We left Naples between twelve and one, and drove to Resina, which we reached in about an hour the whole distance swarming with population, and present- ing an almost unbroken succession of houses. On arriving at Resina, we found a congregation of horses and guides at hand, waiting to be engaged ; and in a few moments the arrangements were made, each of the party and a guide being mounted on horseback. This business of conducting travellers up Vesuvius appeared to absorb all the industrial activity of the place ; for the whole town seemed clustered about our heels. Beggars OO swarmed around us in such number and variety as no one can have any conception of, that has not visited this land flowing with corn and wine and oil. A rabble rout of boys of all ages was darting to and fro, like so many wingless swallows ; some offering fruit for sale, some thrusting stout sticks into our hands, some beg- ging ; and the whole company, boys, beggars, and guides, roaring, screaming, and gesticulating, to the utmost capacity of their lungs and muscles. Women and young children gazed upon us from the doors and ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 147 windows as we passed by, and when we got fairly under way, we were escorted for some distance by a set of ragamuffins, such as follows a drum and fife in. New England. After leaving the town and gradually dropping our escort, we entered upon a continually ascending path which led us over the remains of old eruptions. But time had so crumbled and decomposed the volcanic products, as to form a loose and friable soil of great fertility. Vines grew thickly and luxuriantly ; trees stood in goodly rows ; and garden vegetables were ex- tensively cultivated. The bean plant, at that time in full blossom, filled the air with its delicate fragrance. The only thing that seemed wanting was grass. There were no smooth lawns or green pastures, but the sur- face of the soil every where was of an uniform iron- gray tint. Every turn of the road revealed enchanting views of Naples and the neighboring coast ; always similar, yet never exactly the same. In about an hour after leaving Resina, we reached the Hermitage, so called. Here are two buildings one, a sort of osteria, or place of entertainment ; the other, of larger size and more imposing aspect, had the appearance of some kind of public establishment. A number of beggars and idlers were, as a matter of course, lounging about the door or basking in the sun under the wall. Two or three carriages stood near by, which had brought parties. We here took a lunch; a measure by no means to be commended for imita- tion, in consideration of the violent muscular exertion which must so soon follow. After remaining at the Hermitage about an hour we 148 ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. again mounted and rode about a mile further, the road being nearly on a level the cone of Vesuvius lying on the right, and the broken ridge of Mount Somma on the left. Mount Somma, when viewed from a distance, looks like a separate peak, but is really a precipitous escarpment, surrounding for half a circle the true sum- mit of Vesuvius. An inverted cup, in half a saucer, .will serve as a homely illustration of the relations of the two. This circular ridge of Mount Somma is supposed to be part of the edge or lip of the ancient crater of the mountain, prior to the first recorded eruption, A. D. 79. After leaving the Hermitage, a change came over the character of the tract which the road traversed. Every thing was grim, savage, and forlorn. No form of vege- table life gladdened the eye, and not an insect animated the scene. Nature seemed to have retired from the unequal contest, and given over the whole region to the stern genius of desolation. The landscape was lying dead upon its bier, with ashes strewn upon the corpse. Every thing around bore the impress of ruin, struggle, and conflict. Masses of lava? of various shades of brown and gray according to the dates of their deposit, were piled upon and tumbled over each other, cleft into seams, and twisted into uncouth shapes the whole scene resembling a field of battle covered with the wrecks and fragments of a deadly fight. The only sound heard was ihe roaring and murmuring of the mountain a heavy, sullen sound, like the plunge of a large body into the sea recurring at brief and regu- lar intervals ; as if the fire-king were warning rash intruders against the peril of approach. Reaching at lost the base ^of the great cone, we dismounted and ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 149 entered upon the only fatiguing part of the whole ascent, the climbing the sides of the cone. This is of only moderate height, but it is composed of loose, soft, scoria?, of the consistency of fine gravel ; the in- clination of the sides being just enough to keep each particle from rolling down to a lower level. At every step the foot sinks and slides, and the toil is the most wearisome and heart-breaking that can be conceived of. With some experience as a pedestrian, nothing that I had ever known in the way of foot-work bears any comparison to this. It is like such walking as we sometimes dream of, when the feet seem shod with lead or are glued to the ground, and we struggle and strain but never get on. The presence of a piece of lava, firm enough to keep its place and large enough for the foot to rest upon, is greeted with a benediction. The lazy and luxurious may have helps and alleviations in this toilsome ascent. They may have a guide to precede them, with a strap round his shoulders by which they are pulled up ; and another in the rear, to push them along. Those who are too delicate, too feeble, or too old for even this modified form of muscular exer- tion, can be carried up in a sedan chair. With many pauses, many deep-drawn respirations, much taking off the hat, and much wondering when it will be all over, the summit is at last reached for me, who disdained all assistance but that of a stout stick, it occupied about an hour and a quarter. Two or three other parties were going up at the same time, and on looking back in the pauses of labor, it was amusing to see a long string of men and women panting up the steep, with guides pulling and pushing them ; some full of pluck 150 ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. and spirit, and some apparently dead-beat and deaf to the encouragements of their companions and the ear- nest and voluble assurances of their guides. Besides these, there were several men and boys who seemed to be going up on their own account, some carrying fruit, loaves of bread, and bottles of wine, and some, empty- handed, intending to pick up a few grani by lighting sticks at a bed of lava, or putting copper coins into it till they became encrusted. One man carried a heavy basket of oranges and bottles of wine on his head, and yet walked up the hill with hardly a pause, and apparently with little more effort than if he had been on the Toledo at Naples. It was nearly five o'clock when we reached the top of the great cone, and stood face to face with all the terrors and sublimities of Vesuvius. Before us, at a distance of about three hundred yards, was a second and smaller cone of ashes, the vent or funnel through which the fiery contents of the volcano, which for many days had been in a state of unusual activity, were ejected. At intervals of about a minute, large quanti- ties of red-hot stones were thrown into the air, through the opening at the top of the cone, accompanied by a loud crashing and hissing sound, very like that made by a large wave breaking upon a shingly beach. The cone appeared to be from three to five hundred feet high, yet in many cases so prodigious was the projectile force, that masses of stone of considerable size were thrown to a height equal to that of the cone itself, and the heavy thump, with which they fell upon its ashy sides, had a sound of death in it. As there was very little wind, the showers of descending stones dropped in a ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 151 defined circle, so that the line of danger was easily marked ; and a few moment's attention enabled one to select a post of observation which was perfectly safe, though near enough to the perilous edge of the fiery rain to give the blood a more rapid movement than common. On every side, the scene was one of the most solemn and awful desolation the sublime archi- tecture of ruin peaks, dells, and plains of funereal lava the beds of extinct fire-torrents the surface every where tossed and broken, as if a stormy sea had been arrested in a moment and turned into a solid mass. It was the most striking embodiment of death brought into immediate contrast with the most intense and fiery life. Between the spot where I stood and the base of the cone there was a constant oozing and flowing forth of streams of lava, the general appearance of which did not quite correspond with the impressions I had formed of it. It was a tamer and less formidable thing than I had supposed. It did not leap forth from any defined vent or orifice, but seemed to exude from the soil like pitch from a pine. I had imagined that it was like a stream of molten metal running from a furnace, and smiting upon the eye with intolerable splendor. But the surface cools immediately upon exposure to the air, and after gliding a few feet, it looks like a contin- uous mass of compact and glowing coals, on the top of which lies a blackened crust of coke and charcoal. Its rate of progress is, or was, as I saw it, very slow. It flowed along a well-defined trench or channel, the edge of which, by daylight, did not differ materially in ap- pearance from the cooled surface of the lava, so that 152 ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. it was mainly by the slow motion of the latter, that the firm substance was distinguished from the fluid. Sometimes it fell over a sheer descent of a few feet, forming a glowing fire-fall in imitation of water tumbling over a rocky ledge. The cool surface would be the first to drop ofFat the edge or angle of the wall, leaving a sheet or line of pure fire. The glowing stream could be approached near enough to thrust a stick into it, though such neighborhood was too uncom- fortable to be borne for a long time. The day of my ascent was the seventeenth of March, and of course the sun set at about six. As the veil of darkness was gradually drawn over the landscape, the impression of the scene grew deeper, and its sublimity more awful and overpowering. The lava, that had a faint and sickly gleam while the sun was upon it, now burned with a fierce, deep red, that was at once beau- tiful and fearful. All around, in spots removed from the flowing mass, ruddy streaks of fire shot up through the crevices of the broken soil. The red-hot stones that were ejected from the cone could be followed in every point of their flight, till they rose so high in the darkening air as- to present only a quivering point of light to the eye. The smoke and fine ashes also thrown from the cone, passing off in wreaths and curls, were touched with changing colors of red, orange, and yellow. To complete the marvels of this indescribable scene, a young moon was high in the calm, blue heavens above, whose rays dappled the gray waste with lights of silver and shadows of ebony, and blended with the broad red banners of the lava streams and the smoke and upward-shooting stars of the cone. ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 153 The effect produced by the combination of the sepa- rate elements which I have enumerated is beyond all power of description. Of all the works of God upon which I have ever looked, including Niagara, Mount Blanc, the pass of the Stelvio, and the ocean, by far the most awful and impressive was the cone of Vesuvius as I saw it. Nothing viewed under the ordinary condi- tions of life is any preparation for a volcano in a state of activity. This is not the case with other striking phenomena of nature. A hill is suggestive of the highest mountain ; a lake, of the ocean ; and the dash of a mountain-stream over a ledge of rocks, of Niagara. But the element of fire we usually see only in small masses and under manageable conditions. Even in conflagrations we grapple with it and subdue it. But here upon the cone of Vesuvius we see it poured out like the floods, and piled up like the mountains. It is a new revelation of omnipotent power, and of the weakness of man. Between seven and eight we turned our faces home- wards. The descent of the cone, which had taken so long to climb, was accomplished in a few minutes, the force of gravity doing all the work, the will being only called upon to keep the body upright. The ride to Resina by moonlight was a tranquillizing influence after the strong agitations and excitements of the day. CHAPTER VII. Excursion to Sorrento Villa Reale. Grotto of Posilippo. Virgil's Tomb Excursion to Baise Campo Santo San Carlo Theatre. EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. ON the morning of March 19th, I left Naples for Sorrento, making one of a party of five. The cars took us to Castellamare, a town beautifully situated between the mountains and the sea, much resorted to by the Neapolitans in the heats of summer. A lover of nature could hardly find a spot of more varied attrac- tions. Before him spreads the unrivalled bay dotted with sails and unfolding a broad canvas, on which the most glowing colors and the most vivid lights are dashed a mirror in which the crimson and gold of morning, the blue of noon, and the orange and yellow- green of sunset behold a lovelier image of themselves a gentle and tideless sea, whose waves break upon the shore like caresses, and never like angry blows. Should he ever become weary of waves and languish for woods, he has only to turn his back upon the sea and climb the hills for an hour or two, and he will find himself in the depth of sylvan and mountain solitudes EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. 155 in a region of vines, running streams, deep-shadowed valleys, and broad-armed oaks where he will hear the ring-dove coo and see the sensitive hare dart across the forest aisles. A great city"~is within an hour's reach ; and the shadow of Vesuvius hangs over the landscape, keeping the imagination awake by touches of mystery and terror. From Castellamare to Sorrento, a noble road has within a few years past been constructed between the mountains and the sea, which in many places are so close together that the width of the road occupies the whole intervening space. On the right, the traveller looks down a cliff of some hundred feet or more upon the bay, whose glossy floor is dappled with patches of green, purple, and blue ; the effect of varying depth, or light and shade, or clusters of rock overgrown with sea-weed scattered over a sandy bottom.* On the left is a mountain wall, very steep, many hundred feet high, with huge rocks projecting out of it, many of them big enough to crush a carriage and its contents, or sweep them into the sea. This was no fanciful apprehension ; for not long before, two or three immense masses, each as large as a good sized cottage, had fallen from the cliff, and were blocking up the road so that it was im- possible to get round or over them. The carriages * The colors of the Bay of Naples were a constant surprise and delight to me, from the predominance of blue and purple over the grays and greens of our coast. I was glad to find that my impressions on this point were confirmed by the prac- tised eye of Cooper. There seem to be some elements affecting the color of the sea, not derived from the atmosphere or the reflection of the heavens. 156 EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. came to a full stop here, and the occupants were obliged to scramble over the obstructions, and charter a new conveyance on the other side. The road com- bined rare elements of beauty ; for it nowhere pursued a monotonous straight line, but followed the windings and turnings of this many-curved shore. Sometimes it was cut through solid ledges of rock ; sometimes it was carried on bridges, over deep gorges and chasms, wide at the top and narrowing towards the bottom, where a slender stream tripped down to the sea. The sides of these glens were often planted with orange and lemon-trees ; and we could look down upon their rounded tops, presenting, with their dark-green foliage, their bright, almost luminous fruit, and their snowy blossoms, the finest combination of colors which the vegetable kingdom, in the temperate zone, at least, can shew. The scenery was in the highest degree grand, beautiful, and picturesque with the most ani- mated contrasts and the most abrupt breaks in the line of sight yet never savage or scowling. The mountains on the left were not bare and scalped, but shadowed with forests, and thickly overgrown with shrubbery such wooded heights as the genius of Greek poetry would have peopled with bearded satyrs and buskined wood-nymphs, and made vocal with the reeds of Pan and the hounds and horn of Artemis. All the space near the road was stamped with the gentle impress of human cultivation. Fruit-trees and vines were thickly planted ; garden vegetables were growing in favorable exposures ; and houses were nestling in the hollows or hanging to the sides of the cliff. Over the whole region there is a smiling expression of EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. 157 wooing and invitation, to which the sparkling sea mur- mured a fitting accompaniment. No pitiless ice and granite chill or wound the eye: no funereal cedars and pines darken the mind with their Arctic shadows ; but bloom and verdure, thrown over rounded surfaces, and rich and gay forms of foliage mantling gray cliffs or waving from rocky ledges, give to the face of Nature that mixture of animation and softness, which is equally fitted to soothe a wounded spirit or restore an over- tasked mind. If one could only forget the existence of such words as ' duty ' and ' progress,' and step aside from the rushing stream of onward-moving life, and be content with being, merely, and not doing if these lovely forms could fill all the claims and calls of one's nature, and all that we ask of sympathy and compan- ionship could be found in mountain breezes and break- ing waves if days passed in communion with nature, in which decay is not hastened by anxious vigils or ambitious toils, made up the sum of life where could a better retreat be found than along this enchanting coast ? Here, are the mountains, and there, is the sea. Here, is a climate of delicious softness, where no sharp extremes of heat and cold put strife between man and nature. Here, is a smiling and good-natured popula- tion, among whom no question of religion, politics, science, literature, or humanity is ever discussed, and the surface of the placid hours is not ruffled by argu- ment or contradiction. Here, a man could hang and ripen, like an orange on the tree, and drop as gently out of life upon the bosom of the earth. There is a fine couplet of Virgil, which is full of that tenderness and sensibility which form the 1 highest charm of his 158 EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. poetry as they probably did of his character, and they came to my mind in driving along this beautiful road : ' Hie gelidi fontes ; hie mollia prala, Lycori ; Hie nemus ; hie ipso tecum consumerer aevo.' There is something in the musical flow of these lines which seems to express the movement of a quiet life, from which day after day loosens and falls, like leaf after leaf from a tree in a calm day of autumn. But Virgil's air-castle includes a Lycoris ; that is, sympa- thy, affection, and the heart's daily food. With these, fountains, meadows, and groves may be dispensed with ; and without them, they are not much better than a painted panorama. To have something to do and to do it, is the best appointment for us all. Nature, stern and coy, reserves her most dazzling smiles for those who have earned them by hard work and cheerful sacrifice. Planted on these shores and lapped in pleasurable sensations, man would turn into an indolent dreamer and a soft voluptuary. He is nei- ther a fig nor an orange ; and he thrives best in the sharp air of self-denial and on the rocks of toil. We reached Sorrento about noon, and put up at the Hotel du Tasso, which is said to occupy the site of the house in which the illustrious poet was born. Where traditions and localities are concerned, it is more ad- visable to lean towards the side of credulity than of scepticism ; and I surrendered myself to the genius of the place without doubt or inquiry. The name of Tasso, however, was not needed to commend this hotel, which was beautifully situated and admirably kept ; the rooms furnished and watched over with Eng- lish neatness. EXCURSION TO SORKENTO. 159 The name of Sorrento is found in every collection of Italian sketches, and there is no other place in which those characteristic peculiarities of scenery which are called Italian, are more strikingly dis- played. The mountainous promontory which forms the south-eastern boundary of the Bay of Naples is a lateral branch of the Apennines, and its smooth and rounded forms are of the type which characterizes the limestone formation. On the southern side there is not even a terrace of level land ; but the rocks cluster round the roots of the mountains, the villages hang on sharp declivities, and the only communication be- tween them is in boats or by mules. The moment the traveller is put ashore, he begins to climb up a sharp ascent. But at Sorrento, on the northern side, this abrupt line of the coast is varied by a plain of some four miles in length and two or three in breadth, thrown up by volcanic agency and filling a rounded gulf or bay left originally by the receding hills. This plain, on every side except towards the sea, is shoul- dered by .mountains ; so that it lies like a green and motionless lake on the lap of the hills. The coast line is a broken wall of volcanic tufa, varying in height, with projecting buttresses and receding hollows, worn, channelled, and fluted by the action of water, which, below, has scooped out winding galleries and arched caverns. This line of cliffs, seen from below, is of striking beauty. The rock, being of a soft texture, is every where broken, indented, and honey-combed : shrubs and flowers have found procreant niches and give life to the gray walls : winding paths half paths and half staircases lead down to the beach, which 160 EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. is strewn with fallen fragments ; and white, square, flat-roofed houses crown the top ; often built so near to the edge that the wall of the house seems a continu- ation of the wall of the cliff*. In many places the vol- canic soil has split into clefts and openings, running down from the mountains to the sea, which time has enlarged into picturesque glens. A formation like that of the cliff of Sorrento, if stretched along the coast of New England, exposed to the action of our high tides and the shocks of our north-easterly storms, would ere this have been worn away, and the superincumbent plain have disappeared; but here, the power of the sea is merely enough to ensure a constant variety of sur- face. At the base of the cliff many cavernous open- ings and passages have been scooped out, into which boats can pass. The softer portions of the upper part of the wall are slowly eaten away by time, and masses are occasionally loosened and drop off. The tradition of the place is, that a part of the house in which the father of Tasso resided fell into the sea, soon after the poet's birth ; and with it the room in which he first saw the light. It is also said that in calm weather the ruins of ancient buildings may be seen on the bottom of the bay. The plain of Sorrento contains about eighteen thou- sand inhabitants. Besides the city of Sorrento, there are three villages, Meta, Carotto, and Sant' Aniello. The volcanic soil of which it is composed is of great fertility, producing oranges, lemons, grapes and figs in abundance, and of the finest flavor. The streets and roads, as is so often the case in Italy, are built up on either side with high walls, including all view of the EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. 161 Hesperian gardens, which they enclose. It is as cele- brated for the mildness and salubrity of its climate as for the richness of its soil. Sheltered on the east by the lofty peak of St. Angelo, the sun does not shine upon it till nearly an hour after it has risen ; and the heats of the summer are further mitigated by the cool sea breezes. The inhabitants are said to be a gentle and courteous people, of affectionate disposition and strong family attachments. This reputation they have enjoyed for a long period. Bernardo Tasso, the father of Torquato, and himself a poet of no mean rank, who lived at Sorrento for some years, called it, in one of his letters, 1'Albergo della Cortesia, from the gentle manners of its inhabitants ; and of the climate, he says, that it is so healthful that men never die there. Our countryman, Cooper, resided here with his family for several weeks, during his sojourn in Europe, and speaks with great satisfaction of the pleasure he en- joyed in the beautiful scenery and in the opportunity which the sea afforded him of indulging his aquatic tastes. His descriptions, it may be here said, of the whole Bay of Naples, are animated and accurate ; shewing an eye quick to detect beauty and discrimi- nating in the analysis of its component parts. Pleas- antly, indeed, according to his account, must their days have glided by; the mornings passed in reading or writing, and the afternoons, in pulling about under the shadows of the cliffs and bathing in their vaulted cav- erns; with occasional excursions by water to distant points in the bay, and in cool weather, by donkey rides in the neighboring mountains. VOL. II. 11 162 EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. We arrived at Sorrento, as I before remarked, at noon. The remainder of the day was passed in ram- bling about the town, along the shore, and climbing to the top of the projecting headland, called the Cape of Sorrento, which shuts in the plain on the south-west. Wild flowers grew in great profusion all along the shore, among which the color of yellow predominated; as if they had absorbed the golden sunbeams that fertilize the soil. The ridge of the promontory was thickly overgrown with myrtle, and with spiry cones of heath covered with delicate white blossoms like seed pearl. In one place, a fairy waterfall was leaping down the rocks. A few fishing vessels were drawn up along the shore : one bore the appropriate name of II Nuovo Amore. Groups of women and children gave life to the scene ; some of the former had distaffs in their hands. Blue eyes and brown hair were not Uncommon. Beggars, of course, were not wanting, though not in such force as in places nearer Naples. Every point on which the eye fell was a picture : the gray and crumbling cliffs mantling with vegetation, the white, cubical houses, the groups of fishermen and their families on the shore, and the distant mountains all realized a poet's or a painter's dreams of a vision- ary Italy. In the town itself, whenever the eye could overpeer the churlish wall, it beheld dark green domes of foliage, in which oranges glowed like stars. The vines were not yet in leaf. The evening was passed upon the balcony of the hotel, which is set upon the edge of the cliff in such a way that a line dropped from it would fall into the water. The air was soft and mild, without a touch of EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. 163 that rasping harshness which the wind, when blowing off the sea, brings with it on the coast of New Eng- land, even in summer. The sobs and whispers of the waves upon the beach and among the caverns below fell gratefully upon the ear. Here and there the gleaming sail of a fishing vessel was discerned, and the sound of oars was borne across the liquid plain. On the right ai'ose the dark bulk and regular outline of Vesuvius, holding aloft a fiery torch, the light of which was somewhat dimmed by the moon's silver mantle. The mountains which enclose the plain were in deep shadow, but the rays of the moon fell upon the white houses and salient points of the shore, and spread over the whole bay a sheet of tremulous crystal. As the night deepened, one by one the sounds of life died away and we were left alone with nature. The spirit of the scene and the hour fell upon us all, and the only words spoken were occasional exclamations of delight at what was before and around us. The magic panorama, seen under so spiritual a light, seemed hardly a piece of this world ; and when I reluctantly left it and went to rest, it was only exchanging one dreamland for another. The next morning, the weather wore an uncertain aspect, but we chartered a large boat, with three sails and five men, and put off* for Capri ; but on getting out a mile or two, it began to blow so heavily as to make it impossible to enter the blue grotto, which was the main object of our expedition. We therefore returned to Sorrento and retraced our steps to Castellamare. Ar- riving too late for the train to Naples, three of us took a carriage and drove to Salerno. We passed through 164 EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. Nocera and La Cava, and reached Salerno early in the afternoon. The region between Nocera and Sa- lerno is striking and picturesque, being a succession of narrow valleys and deep dells between thickly wooded mountains, the peaks of which shoot up into craggy and broken points, while the sides and bases are cov- ered with vineyards, houses, and gardens. The streets of the towns are narrow and dark, and the houses built with projecting balconies. The inhabitants were swarming the streets ; a dirty and slatternly race, with a sort of repulsive animal look about their coarse, ragged black hair and swarthy complexions. The beggars were numerous and importunate. At Salerno a beautifully situated town, built along the spurs and terraces of a splendid amphitheatre of hills, with a winding shore and a lovely bay we spent the hours of daylight in rambling along the beach ; watch- ing the evening clouds ; and endeavoring to draw from them the assurance of a fair day for the morrow, on which contingency our excursion to Peestum depended. But the morning rose in rain and wind, with every appearance of a settled storm, and so we set our faces towards Naples again. And thus it happened, that in my sparkling round of Neapolitan pictures and memo- ries, there are two gemless sockets, where the blue grotto and Psestum should be, but are not. o ' VILLA REALE GIIOTTO OF POSILTPPO VIRGIL'S TOMB. In Naples there are as strong contrasts of light and shade as in a picture of Rembrandt's. The streets in VILLA REALE GROTTO OF POSILIPPO. 165 the central portions are narrow and dark, but in leaving them and coming out upon the glittering sea, we pass from midnight to morning. The Villa Reale a pub- lic promenade in the street called the Chiaja has the brightest and gayest aspect in Europe. It is nearly a mile long ; shaded with orange-trees, myrtles, and acacias ; sparkling with fountains, and adorned with marble statues and vases gleaming through the foliage. On one side, is a row of tall, shewy houses ; on the other, the broad mirror of the bay, from which the light is thrown and multiplied in dazzling gleams. Though a public walk, it is not open to the universal public. Soldiers are stationed at the gates, who exer- cise a rule of exclusion wide enough to keep all beg- gars outside ; an exemption which forms not the least of its attractions. Here is every thing that can restore the weary or amuse the idle a prospect of indescrib- able beauty ; the breezes and voices of the sea ; the rich foliage of the south ; gay faces of men and women, and children sporting round the fountains. At the extremity of the Chiaja is the grotto of Posi- lippo a tunnel of rather more than half a mile in length- through which flows the great stream of travel between Naples and the western part of the bay. The rock through which it is cut is of soft tufa, and the result is no great triumph of patience or skill. It is characteristic of the way in which things are done in this part of the world, that there are no sidewalks nor any protection whatever for foot-passengers. The in- terior is but dimly lighted, and it seemed to me that many accidents must occur there. A throng of vehi- cles, donkeys, and foot-passengers was constantly 166 VIRGIL'S TOMB. passing through it, and what with the rapid driving of these fervid sons of the South, the confusing sound of wheels and of voices increased and multiplied by rever- beration from the vaulted roof, and the faint light which puzzled the eye and quickened the apprehension, I never could shake off an uneasy sense of danger while walking in it. The little round of light at the opposite end the object-glass of this stone telescope expand- ing on approach, is a curious thing to see for the first time. At certain seasons, the setting sun is said to shoot a level ray quite through the grotto. Above the grotto are the remains of a columbarium, which time out of mind has enjoyed the honor of being called the tomb of Virgil. Nor is it by any means im- possible that it is so, though it must be admitted that the weight of evidence is against the claim. But there is quite enough of interest clinging round it, from the fact that a long line of poets and scholars, beginning with Petrarch and Boccaccio, have visited the spot, more in the spirit of faith than of scepticism. There is nothing at all remarkable in the structure itself, which is of brick, shattered by time and overgrown with myrtle, wild vines, and grass. Laurels should be there, but are not. They have frequently been planted, but the rapacity of visitors has cut them to pieces and brought them to an untimely end. Whether Virgil were really buried here or not, it is certainly a spot which a poet might well choose for his last repose. The rich life of the soil, breaking forth in a luxuriant net-work of vegetation, suggests the creative energy of genius, and breathes around an air of hope and promise. The view but in mercy to my readers I spare them EXCURSION TO BALE. 167 any further attempts to describe the indescribable. In this magic region, there is not a hill or elevated point which does not command a prospect that cannot be seen without rapturous interjections, or described with- out a blaze of superlatives. EXCURSION TO BALE. On the twenty-third day of March, I drove with two of my friends to Baise ; a very pleasant excursion, though so many objects were crowded into a short space of time, that they left but indistinct images on the mind. The whole region is seamed and scarred with the marks of volcanic violence ; for it has been a battle-field on which fire and water have struggled for victory. The coast line is constantly changing. The solid has displaced the liquid, and the liquid the solid. Here are repeated, on a small scale, the convulsions and revolutions, the effects of which, at earlier and unrecorded periods, geologists trace in ampler lines, upon broader pages. Of Pozzuoli, once a flourishing seaport and a fash- ionable watering-place, nothing is left but its beautiful situation. We saw the ruins of the amphitheatre, and those three celebrated columns of the temple of Sera- pis, from which science has drawn such striking con- clusions as to conflicts between land and sea, nowhere else recorded. We took donkeys and a guide to the crater of Solfatara, a nearly extinguished volcano ; the only surviving remnant of the vehement elemental forces once in such powerful action all along this coast ; like the last few tongues of flame licking up the 168 EXCURSION TO BAIJE. broken fragments of a great conflagration. It is not much more than a mile distant from the town. It pre- sents a curious and unique aspect : being a sort of table- land of moderate extent and elevation, around which a natural bank is formed. The soil resembles that found in the interval between the high-water mark and the upland, on a New England beach being of a white color and loose in texture and is thinly overgrown with a sickly vegetation of yellow-green. Copious vapors every where issue from the spongy ground, and the whole expanse steams and smokes like the waters of the sea, when a morning of sharp and sudden frost condenses the warmer breath of the waves. A sense of insecurity mingles with the wonder which this ap- pearance awakens, not diminished by the hollow sound returned when the foot stamps heavily upon the ground ; suggesting a vision of a great natural laboratory vaulted over by a thin crust of earth, which may one day break through and throw some lover of useful knowledge upon the burning heart of the mystery he is seeking to investigate. Continuing our drive to Baise we passed by the Monte Nuovo, which was thrown up by volcanic agency, no more than three hundred years ago, in the space of forty-eight hours, blotting out a large part of the Lucrine lake. It has a decidedly parvenu look, and must live many hundred years longer, before it can expect to hold up its head in respectable mountain society. Although about four hundred and fifty feet high, and now partly clothed with a ragged suit of veg- etation, it has little more of character or expression than a huge heap of ashes. The whole region over EXCURSION TO BALK. 169 which we passed was sprinkled with ruins, and the very dust raised by our wheels was once the costly marble of imperial structures. This shore, as every scholar knows, was the focal point of Roman luxury and splendor, glittering with palaces, temples, and villas ; so charming from its climate and position, that men who might elsewhere have enclosed square miles for their pleasure-grounds, were here content with an acre. We were taken through the usual curriculum of sight-seeing, but the only thing that made much im- pression upon me was the Piscina Mirabile, so called ; an underground structure or cistern, about two hundred and twenty feet long and one hundred broad, with a vaulted roof, divided into four aisles or compartments, resting upon forty-eight pilasters. If this was, as it is generally admitted, a reservoir for water, for the use of the Roman fleet, it leaves an impression of the extent of their marine, hardly warranted by other records, written or monumental. Perhaps here, as in other cases, the Roman taste for architectural splendor led them to go far beyond the demands of mere utility. The day was one of rare beauty, and the rich light that hung upon the islands and the waters of the bay, and the striking features of the coast, notched, scooped, and abraded by the cutting and rending action of fire, pre- sented attractions far more powerful than any work of man's hands. At the point at the extremity of our drive we found a small house of entertainment, prettily situated, with a porch overgrown with vines, and commanding a beautiful view of the bay and its islands. Here we had a Roman lunch of oysters, with a wine which was 170 CAMPO SANTO. called Falernian, and was not bad. We could look out upon the Mare Morto a small sheet of water which had nothing deathlike in its aspect and be- yond it, upon the Elysian fields, a pleasing, though rather tame landscape. Returning to Naples we took the fine road, of mod- ern construction, which passes over the hill of Posilip- po, instead of threading the grotto. We entered the city in the glow of a magnificent sunset, which burned along the western sky in broad masses of crimson and gold, threw delicate veils of rose and purple over the opposite headlands, and turned the smooth waters of the bay into ' a sea of glass mingled with fire.' CAMPO SANTO SAN CARLO THEATRE. My brief residence in Naples leaves me little else to chronicle. The intervals and fragments of time not employed in visits to the museum or in excursions to the neighborhood were mostly spent in walks about the city, where not only the landscape presented its ever-varying and beautiful page, but the open-air life of the people was a constant source of amuse- ment and interest. I went to the Campo Santo, of which I had so often read, and saw a paved rectangu- lar enclosure, marked with the massive stone covers of three hundred and sixty-six pits or vaults, into one of which the ghastly death-harvest of each day is thrown, with the careless indecency with which a lump of coal is pitched into a furnace ; as if the sacred form of man and woman, never so sacred as when newly stamped with the dignity of death, should be shot into SAN CARLO THEATRE. 171 a hole like rubbish from a cart. Within a few years, however, a new cemetery has been built, where the wealthier classes deposit their dead in that decent and humane way practised in all other parts of Christen- dom. This cemetery occupies a fine piece of rising ground on the outskirts of the city, and is already very thickly covered with monuments ; all, of white marble, and some very showy and costly ; but very few in good taste ; that being a plant to which the soil of Naples does not seem to be congenial. I attended one performance at the theatre of San Carlo, a structure of immense size, containing six rows of private boxes, all glittering in blue and gold. The boxes are of large size, quite like small drawing- rooms ; and indeed they are much used by the occu- pants for the reception of their friends. The royal box, blazing in crimson and gold, faces the stage, and is two rows in height ; almost large enough to have a vaudeville of its own going on contemporaneously with the performance on the stage. The seats in the pit are numbered, and the most comfortable I have ever seen. The effect of an enclosed space, of such vast extent, is very striking ; and such colossal structures present great advantages for all spectacles addressed to the eye ; but for music, vocal music at least, a smaller building is surely better adapted. The opera I saw was Nabuco, by Verdi, a composer whose resonant and superficial strains seemed in unison with the huge vault into which they flowed. There was an ex- cellent orchestra, with a very fair company; and the performer who sustained the principal part was a good actor and a pleasing singer. In the chorus of the 172 SAN CARLO THEATRE. exiled Hebrews, on the banks of the Euphrates, there was a strain of tenderness and melancholy beyond the composer's usual mood. It was the first night of the performance of the opera, and the scenery and decora- tions were very fine. The audience was very respon- sive and apprehensive, but better-natured than I had imagined. Among other signs of this amiable quality, they called out the artist who had painted the scenes, and gave him a very hearty round of applause. I re- gretted that my limited stay in Naples did not permit me to visit the little theatre of San Carlino, so famous for its broad farce ; where the national character, Poli- cinella, still displays on the spot of his origin, those cheating, lying, bragging, and profligate propensities which, seasoned as they are with infinite drollery, have carried him all over Europe, and made his squeak and big nose every where so popular. CHAPTER VIII. Characteristics of Naples. Rome and Naples compared Return to Borne Illumination of St. Peter's. CHARACTERISTICS OF NAPLES. ROME AND NAPLES COMPARED. NAPLES is a city which most travellers approach with a stock of ready-made impressions, and they look about to have these impressions confirmed ; and every- thing which has that tendency is noted and recorded, while the rest is unheeded and forgotten. Many years ago, there were a considerable number of Lazzaroni so called, in Naples, who had no fixed place of abode ; slept in any sheltered spot they could find ; were rich if they could call a shirt, a pair of trowsers, and a red cap their own ; and when they had earned enough by any chance job to support them through the day, left off work and took to lounging and basking in the sun. The traveller who comes here from the north, when he sees a man in a ragged garb, on a sunny day, sleeping under the shelter of a wall, sets it down in his note-book as an unexampled phenomenon, exults in having caught a Lazzarone, and very likely flowers out into a dissertation upon the subject. But men, in 174 CHARACTERISTICS OF NAPLES. warm weather, may be seen sleeping in the open air in Rome and Florence, not to say Paris and Vienna, and it is thought no strange thing. The truth is, that the whole race of Lazzaroni, as a class characteristic of and peculiar to Naples, has nearly disappeared. The lapse of time, and the greatly extended net-work of communication between Naples and the rest of Eu- rope, by means of the increased facilities of travel, have completed a change which began under the trenchant administration of the French, and much obliterated the distinctions once existing between the lower orders in Naples and those in the other large capitals of Europe. In other respects, too, the peculiarities of Naples are growing less and less marked, and those racy traits of life and character which so much impressed the travel- lers of a earlier period, are fast disappearing from observation. Still, there is and ever must be an indi- vidual and strongly-marked expression in the character of Neapolitan life. Much of it is determined by the position of the city upon the earth's surface. Naples is the fifth in size of the European capitals London, Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, only, ranking above it ; * and Paris, the most southerly of these three, is four hundred miles north of Naples. Naples is a southern city of the first class. The cold is never formidable ; and for seven or eight months in the year it is possi- ble for a healthy man to sleep in the open air without discomfort. This leads to a great deal of open-air life. Many of the trades and occupations, which in * Constantinople, from its peculiar character and position, is not included in this list. CHARACTERISTICS OF NAPLES. 175 other cities are carried on and performed within doors, are here transferred to the street. Here the cobbler brings his bench and the tailor makes up his garments. Here macaroni is cooked and eaten ; here the barber lathers and shaves his customers ; and the letter-writer drives his fluent quill. In the long, warm days of sum- mer, groups of eager idlers listen with flashing eyes to tales of their favorite hero, Rinaldo, read or recited from memory by a professional story-teller ; a spec- tacle which carries back the thoughts to the shores of the ./Egean and the majestic song which flowed from the lips of Homer. Along the quays of Naples, Punch is in his glory, revelling and rioting in a breadth of humor which wanes and pales in colder climes. In walking through the streets, the same gregarious tastes and the same indifference to domestic seclusion may be observed in the open doors and windows of the houses of the poorer classes, which allow all the ways and works of the family to be seen. Travellers, who have resided in Naples long enough to become ac- quainted with its society, say that this same general trait manifests itself also among the more favored classes, in a want of personal delicacy, in careless habits as to dress, and in a style of conversation in which embarrassing topics are discussed with alarming unreserve. Whenever the sun shone I could always find amuse- ment enough in stepping out upon the little balcony in front of my room. I lodged in the fourth story of the house No. 28 Santa Lucia. The house was lofty and spacious, and with apartments and suites of apartments for hire. A porter was stationed at the entrance, on 176 CHARACTERISTICS OF NAPLES. the ground-floor, whose life seemed to be passed in touching his hat and looking down upon the quay which extended below. All along the sea was a row of rude counters or tables of wood, protected from the sun by an awning stretched from the rear and projecting for- ward at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Upon these tables various products of the sea, fish, oysters, and muscles, were offered for sale. Women were scat- tered about, selling fruit, roasted chestnuts, and other edibles. Idlers were lounging around or lying listlessly in the sunshine, and children in great numbers were running to and fro. Boats were putting off" and arriv- ing, rowed by men in red caps and no redundancy of drapery. There was no great amount of business done : the buyers were few and the sellers many. But there was a great deal of talking, much gesticula- tion, animated play of countenance, and rapid move- ment. It was a lifelike and parti-colored tableau vivant, softened by distance. Nothing was fixed, but every thing was subject to rapid change and continuous movement. Here too were assembled a large number of the one-horse vehicles which are peculiar to Naples, resembling somewhat an antediluvian chaise. The quantity of persons that may be packed into and around one of these calessos, or cittadines, quite ex- ceeds all previous notions of the power of stowing and compressing. Besides three or four who will be squeezed into a seat meant for two, there will be supernumeraries hanging on behind or clinging to the shafts in front, so that every spot where a man or a boy can sit or stand is occupied. The Neapolitan horses are small but full of spirit, and though they dash about ROME AND NAPLES COMPARED. 177 the crowded streets with a careless speed that keeps a stranger in a constant state of apprehension, yet such is the skill of their drivers that accidents rarely occur. Rome and Naples, though only about a hundred and thirty miles apart, and inhabited by a population of the same faith, the same language, and of kindred blood, are singularly unlike. Rome is situated in the midst of a sombre plain, is without foreign commerce, is the capital of an ecclesiastical state, and overshadowed by the solemn memories of a great past. From these and other external influences, and perhaps from some of those primitive and inexplicable peculiarities in the organization of the inhabitants themselves, there is a general air of gravity and silence in the streets, and in the countenances of those who frequent them. The light from the sky seems absorbed by the gloomy walls of the narrow passages upon which it falls ; and at night the dim lamps are mere guiding-points to the eye, with but faint illuminating power. The ' absence of loud noises of any kind is remarkable. There are no heavily-laden carts or drays thundering over the pave- ments, no huge omnibuses lumbering along. The carts which come in from the country are either lightly con- structed or move at a slow pace. The sound of the human voice does not gather and swell in large streams. Ecclesiastics glide along without speaking, foreigners and artists do their talking in the cafes, the peasants from the country do not seem to be a very chatty race, and even the beggars are not clamorous in their approaches. Naples, on the contrary, situated in a region of va- ried and smiling beauty, is full of life, movement, and VOL. H. 12 178 ROME AND NAPLES COMPARED. gaiety. To the swarm of unthinking ephemera that hum and dart in the sunshine, the present is every thing and the past is nothing ; nor indeed is there any thing in the past history of Naples, as compared with its present state, to throw a shadow on the brow of the most sensitive patriot. There is no ghost of departed power and glory to rise up and frown upon the giddy gaiety of a thoughtless race. In Naples, the outward aspect of the earth, sea, and sky, have passed into the spirit of man and kindled it to a genial emulation with nature. The better classes are fond of shewy colors in their dress. Soldiers in gay uniforms take the place of the ecclesiastics in Rome. That taste for rich and gorgeous splendor which we notice as characteristic of the African race, sheds its influence over the city upon which the wind from Africa so often blows. In Naples, too, the silence of Rome is displaced by a roar of voices. Eveiy body talks in a loud tone, and enforces his words with the most animated gestures. This uni- versal and fundamental sound is varied by the rattling of the rapid carriages and the shouts of the open-air dealers in eatables and other articles, stationary or itin- erant, till the whole air overflows with the uproar. In Rome, the influence of external nature being less powerful and attractive, men have turned their thoughts inward and have created or collected forms of beauty in architecture, sculpture, and painting. In Naples, the world in the open air has taken such hold upon the senses, and woven such a net of fascination around the facile nature of the people, that it has prevented that discipline and devotion of mind which make the artist. Art is a reproduction and not an imitation of Nature ROME AND NAPLES COMPARED. 179 The forms of the world must be turned into shape in the artist's mind, before they can appear as creations. Naples and its neighborhood are so lovely that there is no room for the ideal. There is so much to be enjoyed that there is no time for study. It is a curious fact, that Naples has produced but one great landscape- painter, Salvator Rosa, and that his inspiration was drawn, not from the characteristic scenery of Naples, but from the wooded mountains of La Cava and No- cera. No Neapolitan painter has ever warmed his canvas with the pearly lights of Cuyp, or spread over it the aerial gold of Claude Lorraine. In this, as in so many other things, successful work is the result of a due proportion between the task and the instrument. Southey, whose literary industry was so remarkable within the range of his own library, said, that he should never have accomplished any thing, if his energies had been buried under the vast stores of the British Museum. The Dutch painter, who, when he looked out of the window, saw a meadow, a windmill, a willow-tree hanging over a brook, or a rainy sunset behind a row of trees, felt himself competent to grapple with such themes, and set himself to work accordingly ; but what artist would not fold his hands in despair before the glories of a sunset in the bay of Naples ? In personal appearance, so far as my own observa- tion went, the advantage is decidedly with the Romans. There are more fine faces in the latter city, and gen- erally a higher expression and loftier carriage. I noticed a great many countenances in Naples, espe- cially among women, which were repulsive from their strong stamp of animal coarseness. Sensual mouths, 180 ROME AND NAPLES COMPARED. large and impudent noses, and rough, vinous complex- ions were common ; and the effect of these personal disadvantages was generally enhanced by a filthy and slatternly attire. In Rome, there is much of quiet dig- nity observable in the manner of the common people met with in the streets. In Naples, the general char- acteristic is excessive mobility both of body and face. The play of countenance is rapid and incessant. Two ragged idlers talk on the Chiaja with gestures so ani- mated and glowing that an orator might study them with profit. We feel as we walk along the streets that multitudes of first-rate comic actors are here running to waste. In Rome, in spite of all the changes of time and the blows of fate, there is still an indefinable some- thing which recalls the old Roman aspect and spirit, but in Naples, every thing indicates a corrupted Greek mind and character ; vivacity that has passed into buf- foonery ; a love of beauty that has degenerated into sensuality and voluptuousness ; quickness that has be- come restlessness, and susceptibility that has declined into impatience. Naples is to Greece what the farces of the San Carlino are to the comedies of Aristophanes. The virtues of the lower orders of the Neapolitans are said to be good-humor and temperance, and under certain qualifications, honesty. That is to say, a Neapolitan lazzarone will scrupulously account for the money which is entrusted to him, from a sense of honor, but will not hesitate to pick a pocket when under no such restraint. Pocket-picking is a very common accomplishment here, and handkerchiefs, especially, are apt to take to themselves wings and fly away. Young lads shew a great deal of dexterity in this form CHARACTERISTICS OF NAPLES. 181 of abstraction, though they act, probably, quite as much from the love of mischief as from confirmed dishonesty.* It is the misfortune of Naples, that while the upper classes are corrupted with the worst vices of civiliza- tion, and the lower orders lead a life of somewhat savage unrestraint and lawless abandonment to their instincts, the middle and industrious class which generally acts as a moral check and counterpoise to the two extremes is here smaller and less influential than in the other cities of the first class in Europe. Of course, I have no personal knowledge of the upper classes in Neapolitan society, but that they are, with many marked exceptions, worthless and corrupt, is the general verdict passed upon them by competent ob- servers. The soft climate of Naples has melted away the two great guardian virtues, in which the security for all the others resides ; valor in man, and chastity in woman. The lower orders, as seen in the streets, seem to be a strange combination of the man and the child ; propelled by the passions of maturity, but with as little of prudent forecast as the inmates of a nursery. In their verb there is but one tense, and that is the present. * The police are said to practise a singular test to ascertain whether a lad accused of picking a pocket be guilty or not. The culprit is required to place his hand upon a table with the fingers outstretched, and if the fore-finger and middle-finger be of the same length, the case goes against him and judgment is passed accordingly ; for, in the exercise of this profession, these two fingers are made use of like a forceps, and the young ragamuffins in the streets are said to lengthen the forefinger by perpetually pulling at it. 182 CHARACTERISTICS OF NAPLES. There can be no doubt that there is great suffering among the poorer classes of Naples, though life can be sustained on so little. The burden of cold, which is so great an element of wretchedness in northern capitals, is there hardly felt at all ; but many lives are unquestionably shortened by hunger in a land that so teems with plenty. The childlike unconcern for the future, of which I have before spoken, lies at the bot- tom of this. Marriages are contracted most heedlessly and improvidently, with no provision for a rainy day, and the poor children that are thus called into being, are born to a life of wretchedness and poverty ; from which, however, they draw no warnings of experience, but they, in their turn, having scrambled along to ma- turity, through rags and hunger, repeat the heedless folly of their parents, and thus transmit the inheritance of misery.* The Neapolitans are said to be an indolent race, but here, as in many other places, it is difficult to say how much of this indolence is to be ascribed to a distaste for labor, and how much to want of motive and oppor- tunity. We are apt to make rash judgments on this point. The Irish, for instance, are often accused of indolence in their own country ; but we know that with us they are a hard-working race. The reason is that a new set of impulses is waked to life upon our soil, and that the natural instincts of accumulation and progress become propelling powers. There is a great deal of * Vieusseux states that a man earning a tari a day, about a shilling of our money, will think of marrying without any scruple. CHARACTERISTICS OF NAPLES. 183 idleness in Naples, and the heat of the climate is in some degree its cause and its excuse. But when we see the careful and laborious cultivation under which the whole neighborhood smiles, how every available square foot is made use of, and with what pains all fertilizing substances are gathered and saved ; when we note the constant industry of the sailors who navigate the little crafts that ply about the bay, and have learned how cheaply their services may be secured ; when we observe men panting under a heavy load to the top of Vesuvius, in the hope of selling a few oranges and bot- tles of wine, we may be led to pause and ask if the indolence of the Neapolitans is not, in some degree, their misfortune as well as their fault. Naples suffers from over-population, and there is neither employment nor food for all who seek them. Agriculture is limited by the surface of the soil, and commerce and manufac- tures are regulated by the wants of the inhabitants and the consequent extent of consumption. But it takes but little to support life in Naples, and the consumption is consequently much less than among the same num- ber of persons in northern latitudes. That moral ele- ment, which submits to present sacrifices for the sake of future good, without which neither men nor commu- nities can ever be in a progressive condition, exerts but a feeble sway 'over the mind of the lower orders of the Neapolitans. And yet, if these grown-up children, these civilized savages, were suddenly transplanted to New Orleans or Baltimore, and were told that they might be sure of a dollar for every day's work, and of work for every day, they would probably become the subjects of a moral reformation ; would grow provident 184 RETURN TO ROME. and thoughtful, put their money into savings banks, and co*ne under the control of Malthus's preventive check. RETURN TO ROME. I left Naples for Rome on Tuesday, March 24, in the steamer Vesuvio for Civita Vecchia. Gentlemen in America, who live at home at ease in a country where they have only to take a coach and drive down to the steamer, five minutes before the time of starting, may like to know how they manage these things in Naples. The first thing to be thought of in such a case is the passport, the ' great medicine ' as an Indian would call it of modern Europe. A pointed saying is often quoted, that in England the whole machinery of government, king, lords and commons, is put in motion in order to get twelve men into a jury-box. In Europe, it would seem that the whole object of civil society was to get a passport into every man's pocket. Having gone, upon my arrival at Naples, to the police-office, deposited my passport and obtained permission to stay, it was now necessary to reclaim the precious docu- ment, get permission to go, and then secure the signa- tures of three or four officials ; the whole involving an expense of some four or five dollars. Then I went to the office of the steamer and took my passage, exhibit- ing my passport as a' voucher of my identity, without which no conveyance can be engaged. The steamer was lying in the stream, and after having my luggage brought down to the quay it was necessary to engage a boat, and commence the negotiation of a treaty to RETURN TO ROME. 185 that effect with a gentleman in a red shirt, who began by asking the modest price of two dollars for putting me on board. By the time that the high contracting parties had come to a point of agreement, the hour at which the steamer was announced to start had nearly arrived, and with an instinct of punctuality calculated for the meridian of New England, I began to be uneasy lest she should depart without me. For this state of mind there was no excuse except my short stay in Naples. At last I was put on board the boat, which, as I saw on my approach, was slowly swallowing an immense travelling carriage, in an anaconda-like fash- ion, at once removing all apprehension of being late. We did not get under way until some two hours after the appointed time. The deck was a scene of much confusion, loud talking, vehement gesticulation and aimless running to and fro ; all in striking con- trast with the silent despatch which guides and rules such movements with us. Amid the general chaos of voices, I at length distinguished one which seemed to be speaking with consecutiveness and authority, and perceived that it belonged to one of the officers in the boat, who was calling out the list of the passengers' names, in order to learn if all were on board ; a cere- mony which seemed quite superfluous, for the foreign names were so ludicrously and inconceivably traves- tied, that not more than one out of three could be distinguished by their proprietors. All the delay, how- ever, was more than endurable, for before us was the city, and around us the bay ; both seeming to put on new beauty as the moment for leaving them drew near ; and the harbor was swarming with life and mo- 186 RETURN TO ROME. tion. Right under the steamer's quarter was a small boat in which were two men, one of whom was of a race indigenous to Naples. He was a reciter and a singer, with a tolerable voice and a rapidity and volu- bility of utterance which exceeded any thing I ever heard. He had a sort of guitar in his hand, with which he accompanied his voice. He alternately spouted and sang, with an extravagance of gesticulation which made me think that he would end by jumping out of the boat, but he did not seem to be doing any violence to himself in all this : he was merely obeying the im- pulses of a most restless and mercurial temperament. We left the bay of Naples bathed in the golden vapors of a rich sunset. The rocky headlands on the north long lingered in sight, and when at last they dis- appeared behind the veil of evening, I looked upon the gray sea and sky as a child looks upon the pitiless curtain which falls at the end of his first play. I remained in Rome till the 8th day of April, en- joying the clear blue skies and soft vernal weather, and spending a considerable part of the time in deepening the impressions made by the objects which I was so soon to lose sight of. I explored the grounds of the Villa Borghese, which every day put on a livelier green, paced the rustling aisles of the garden of the Villa Medici, saw the sun-sets from the Pincian Hill, and heard the deep voices of the Pamphili-Doria pines whose dark monkish robes of foliage disdained to recognize the touch of spring. Every where the fertile soil was breaking out into a luxuriant growth of wild flowers, and every grove and copse rang with vernal music. To one born and reared upon the sea- RETURN TO ROME. 187 coast of New England, there is a charm in a Roman spring, not only from its essential character, but be- cause it recalls and justifies all the glowing descriptions of that season in Latin and Italian poetry which, when read upon our own soil, seem somewhat overstrained. Our spring is a piece of mosaic, with here a bit of winter, and there a bit of summer. In our metereo- logical alphabet, B. does not follow A. A soft vernal day is succeeded by piercing winds, and open windows and fires alternate capriciously. Our climate is law- less and revolutionary, and very fond of breaking the legitimate line of succession. But in Rome the spring is a well-defined period which divides winter from summer, has a character of its own, and is not a com- posite season made up by contributions from the other two. The year puts off the garments of winter and puts on the robes of spring, with deliberate change. With each day there comes a livelier green and a deeper blue, and with gentle, imperceptible gradations, the hours glide on to the full maturity of summer. Rome shews to particular advantage at this season, because there are so many gardens, villas, and patches of cul- tivated ground within the circuit of the walls, and a few moment's walk will, from any point, enable a visitor to surround himself with all the fine influences of nature. The Villa Borghese, which lies just under the walls, comprises in the variety and extent of its grounds and the number and diversity of its trees, shrubs, and plants all possible forms of vernal attrac- tion. That air of gravity and soberness, which I have more than once alluded to as characteristic of Rome in the winter season, now gives place to a more cheer- ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER'S. ful aspect. The sunshine is more penetrating, there is more of a ' light, glad green,' in the foliage, and the people have a gayer and airier look. Rome is like a widow who puts off her weeds and appears in colors once more. It is difficult at this season to look at any- thing which is inside of a wall or under a roof. The walls themselves are gay with wild flowers mignio- nette and violets perfume the air, making even ruins smile. The invitations dropped from the sky, borne upon the breeze, and written along the earth are so pressing, that the claims of architecture, sculpture, and painting are for the time postponed. ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER J S. In March, 1848, there was great consternation throughout Rome at the discovery that one of the treasures of St. Peter's Church, the head of St. An- drew, had been stolen, and evidently by some one familiar with the internal arrangements of the church. Such an event, in an ecclesiastical capital in which there was so little of business or politics to talk about, created as much sensation as the overthrow of the Bunker Hill Monument by an earthquake, would in Boston. Besides the horror which so sacrilegious an act awakened in every good Catholic, the theft involved a considerable pecuniary loss, for the head was en- closed in a silver case, set with jewels, valued at about twenty thousand dollars. A liberal reward was offered for the restoration of the relic, which was found on the last day of March, buried in a vineyard outside of the walls. The silver case and most of the jewels were ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER'S. 189 also recovered. This happy event was ascribed by the common people to a miracle, but the clue to the dis- covery was undoubtedly given in the confessional. The next day, the bells all over the city rung out a peal of triumph, and in the evening there was a.partial illumination of the dome .of St. Peter's. But this was not a sufficient expression of gratitude, for on the fifth of April, in the following week, the restored treasure was borne from the Church of St. Andrea della Valle to St. Peter's, with all the state and splendor which the Romish church could command. The procession was as numerous and imposing, to say the least, as any that has been seen in modern times ; for besides the civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries who always appear offi- cially on such occasions, it was increased by many who simply wished to gratify the Pope ; since it was generally understood that he had been greatly disturbed at the loss, and equally rejoiced at its restoration. The relic was placed in a glass case, on a kind of car, under a silken canopy. The chief place in the procession was occupied by the college of cardinals, with the Pope himself at their head. Besides these, there were the Roman nobles, the various religious orders, the paro- chial clergy, the members of the ecclesiastical colleges, the municipality of Rome, the guard of nobles, the newly organized civic guard, various recently formed clubs and associations, and, what was most character- istic of the general tone of feeling and most novel in a Roman procession, a band of ladies, of noble birth, dressed in black, their heads covered with veils, and carrying lighted tapers in their hands. The weather was fine, and as the splendid procession, so rich in 190 ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER'S. costume and color, passed through the piazza of St. Peter's, which was filled with spectators on foot and in carriages, the effect was in the highest degree beautiful and imposing. The length of the procession, the superb costumes defying the most piercing power of daylight, the grand dimensions of the piazza itself, the noble architectural forms on either side, and the animation and interest which glowed in every counte- nance, covered and concealed the theatrical element, and left only a stately symbol, in which the grateful sense of a religious community put on an outward form, such as suited their susceptible temperament and their ever-hungry senses. It is only on occasions like these that we see and feel the whole power of the Romish Church, which, on ordinary ceremonials, seems to hold back and keep in reserve one half its resources. The most conscientious Protestant, unless he were as hard and as cold as the stones on which he stood, could not help ceasing to protest, for the moment at least ; nor could he fail to feel upon his heart the benediction of waters, drawn from the common stream of faith and emotion before it had reached the dividing rock. In the evening, a finer and fuller illumination of St. Peter's took place than on the previous week. This is one of those sights of which the reality surpasses all previous imagination. An illumination is always beau- tiful, but the enormous size of St. Peter's makes it sub- lime. The defects of the building are lost, and only its majestic outlines are traced in horizontal and per- pendicular lines of fire. It looks like a glorified and transfigured structure such as paints itself upon the mind's eye after reading Banyan's description of the ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER'S. 191 New Jerusalem all made of light, and rising up to the sound of celestial music. The two points from which the illumination is seen to the greatest advan- tage are, the piazza in front of the church and the Pincian Hill. From the former, the magnificent spec- tacle is viewed in all its details and dimensions. Little is left for the imagination but every thing is addressed to the eye, that, bathed in a flood of soft light, in which the whole space embraced within the colonnades is as bright as a noon-day sun, runs over with the keenest satisfaction the glowing lines which charm without dazzling. But when viewed from the Pincian Hill, the effect is quite different. The imagination is impressed in proportion as the eye loses. The lumi- nous dome becomes an aerial vision, floating between heaven and earth an arrested meteor which throws upon the dark sky the crimson light of a conflagration. The tremulous movement given to the flames of the lamps by the wind, adds greatly to the effect. It seems as if a shower of stars had fallen upon the building, and were yet quivering and trembling with the shock. It was altogether like an exquisite vision something not of the earth and had we seen the radiant mys- tery slowly mounting upward and passing into the sky, it would have seemed no more than its natural and appropriate close. CHAPTER IX. Excursions to Frascati and Tirol!. EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. IF the immediate neighborhood of Rome is deficient in that beauty and variety which are so conspicuous at Naples and at Florence, an ample equivalent is found in the noble ranges of mountains that encircle the Campagna on the south and east. That fine assem- blage of rounded heights, table-lands, valleys, lakes, and sloping declivities, familiarly known by the com- prehensive name of the Alban Mount, is a bounteous gift of Providence, for which a lover of Nature, living in Rome, should offer up perpetual thanksgivings. It is not of the family of those lower ranges of the Apen- nines which are seen beyond and on each side of it, but is of volcanic origin ; and it seems to have been added as a special grace and crowning charm to a landscape already rich in the elements of beauty and grandeur. It is of an egg-like shape the sides being nearly parallel to the course of the Tiber about sixteen miles in length and twelve in breadth. It rises up like an island from the green plain of th*e Campagna, as it EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. 193 once emerged from the level of that sea, which at a remote period, occupied the whole Agro Romano. Its most elevated point is about three thousand feet high. It is covered with towns and villages ; its whole popu- lation amounting to about forty thousand, who are mostly engaged in agriculture. They have a good reputation with those who have lived among them. They are said to be a courteous yet manly race ; clinging to old customs and old costumes ; with a taste for enjoyment which survives the pressure of that poverty and severe toil that is the hopeless lot of many of them. At certain seasons of the year, the whole region swarms with artists, who find there an inexhaus- tible variety of woodland and mountain scenery, to- gether with picturesque dresses and fine figures and faces. The rich, volcanic soil invites and rewards a careful cultivation. On the warm sunny slopes which border on the Campagna, the vine and olive flourish luxuriantly : extensive tracts are also employed in the raising of garden vegetables. The peach, the apple, the pear, the plum, and the cherry, all find congenial soil and climate. Higher up, the chestnut thrives, whose fruit, as every one knows, is an important part of the food of the rural population of Italy. Still higher, are forests of oak and pine, where the wood- man's axe rings through the glades, and the fires of the charcoal burners gleam at night. It is now and has ever been a favorite place of retreat from the heats of Rome. Here the Pope has his summer palace, and here are a large number of the sumptuous villas of the Roman nobles. The Alban Mount is also full of historical and legen- VOL. II. 13 194 EXCURSION TO FEASCATI. dary interest. The Latin tribe, one of the constituent elements of the Roman people, had here its seat. Upon the highest peak of the range was the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, where all the tribes of Latin blood, the Romans included, met every year to worship ; and where the victorious generals of the republic repaired to offer praises and acknowledgments. In these moun- tain glens, undoubtedly, most of that ballad literature of Rome, the loss of which Macaulay so eloquently laments, and so successfully restores, had its origin. Nor need the scholar be reminded that this is the scene of the most original and vigorous portions of the jEneid of Virgil ; nor how the genius of the poet, which rather languidly recounts the traditions borrowed from Greece, wakes to new life, when he feels his feet upon his own soil, and deals with Latin names and Latin legends. To this Alban Mount, in exploring which many weeks might be profitably and agreeably spent, I could only give two days. I left Rome on the second day of April, after an early breakfast, and arrived at Fras- cati some time before noon. We were a party of five, and I can only say of my companions that had I had the power of making a selection from among all my friends, I could hardly have chosen better. Among them the arts of sculpture, painting, poetry, and music were worthily represented, and there was a common fund of frankness, good-humor, animal spirits, and love of nature, from which all drew in fair proportions. One of them possessed the convenient accomplishment of a perfect acquaintance with the Italian language. Thus companioned, as I drove to the excellent inn at Frascati, on a fine breezy morning in spring, under a EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. 195 sky of the loveliest blue, with nature bursting into bloom and bud all around, and in the midst of a land- scape to which Cicero, Virgil, and Livy had given dignity and beauty, I felt that I had much to see and much to remember. We first went into the grounds of the Villa Conti, which lie near the inn. These are not among the most famous or the most extensive of those at Frascati, but in them nature has not been so elaborately dressed and decorated as in some others, and they therefore retain more of the charm of simplicity, and are also in good condition. There is a thick plantation of fine old trees in the rear of the casino, which stand close together and form an impenetrable shield of foliage, upon which the fierce rays of an Italian summer sun beat in vain ; and in the very heart of the grove is a mimic lake of pure water, not much bigger than a signet ring, gathered into a marble basin upon which, even at noon, a broad shadow is flung from the ver- durous wall reared around it. There is nothing here very elaborate or costly ; and yet all the needs and re- quirements of a summer retreat in a hot climate seem to be fully met. The trees were oaks, cypresses, and pines, the foliage of which is massive and dark; and the shadows they formed were so deep and solid, that the eye seemed to be looking into the hollow of a cavern, or the aisle of a cathedral, rather than into a woodland alley. The luxury of such shadows and such fine sparkling water may well be imagined in those intolerable days of August, when the sky that bends over the Campagna is turned into a vault of glowing brass, and the sun, into a fiery dragon that eats up every green thing. 196 EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. After lunching at the inn, we took a donkey excursion to the remains of Tusculum, about two miles distant, occupying the summit of the hill on the lowest spurs of which Frascati is situated. The road led through woodlands and pastures, not unlike some portions of New England, and opened widening pros- pects as we ascended. Here are many interesting ruins, especially the remains of a theatre, most of the seats of which were hewn from the living rock, as was often the case with such structures among the ancients. It is difficult, however, for any one to waste a look upon a dead ruin upon a spot from which so living and glorious a landscape may be seen. On one side are Rome, crowned with the dome of St. Peter's, and the Campagna, a motionless sea of green, which imper- ceptibly flows into the living blue of the Mediterranean. On the opposite side are the Alban Valley, traversed by the Via Latina, the wooded crest of Monte Pila, the Camp of Hannibal, the convent on Monte Cavi, and the ridge of Alba Longa a landscape as exhilarating from its variety and picturesque contrasts as that to- wards Rome is impressive from its vastness and mo- notony. On our way back we paid a visit to the Villa Rufinella, which is splendidly situated on the summit of a hill, and commanding a prospect hardly inferior to that from the site of Tusculum. The lawn in front and the portico contained many works in marble, more or less dilapidated, which had been found in the neigh- borhood, and not deemed worthy of being transferred to a more ambitious museum. In the grounds is a EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. 197 quaint horticultural toy, which would have seemed pretty enough if done by children, but is hardly wor- thy of men and women. Along the slope of a gentle hill the names of the most celebrated poets of all nations are traced in boxwood, and are still distinctly legible in living green, though grown a little out of proportion. This villa was unoccupied except by a steward or bailiff, who looked after the grounds and received the visitors. On our return to Frascati we visited the most cele- brated of its villas, the Villa Aldobrandini. Erected during the latter part of the sixteenth centuiy, by Car- dinal Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of Pope Clement VIII., under the superintendence of Giacomo della Porta, it stands as a most striking memorial of the great resources held by the ecclesiastical nobility of that age, and the magnificent style in which they were used. It is situated on the sloping side of a hill, and the architect has been happy in the adaptation of his structure to the character of its site, but the building itself has little beauty of outline or proportion. The same may be said of all the villas of Frascati. They belong to the dark days of art, and when we consider the rich capabilities of their situations, and the great expense lavished upon many of them, we cannot but wonder that even then so little architectural invention was displayed upon them, and that so little architectural beauty has been the result. They are open to the general criticism of wanting character and expression. What would not Palladio have done with such spots to build upon and such fortunes to build with ? The Villa Aldobrandini has long been celebrated 198 EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. for its waterworks, in which that element, under the guidance of Fontana's fantastic genius, was made to play a variety of tricks, as unlike its natural move- ments as are the contortions of a rope-dancer to the bounding grace of a wood nymph. Among other things, there was in the gardens a statue of Pan with a pipe of reeds, and of a satyr with a trumpet, and each, by the action of water, was made to emit a sound similar to that of the instrument he carried. The peculiar situation of Frascati encouraged, and perhaps helped to form a taste for these costly playthings in water, for which the cravings created by a hot climate offer the best apology. Placed on the lower spurs and ter- races of a succession of hills, from which copious and rapid streams of water were constantly flowing, the hydraulic artist found here in the highest perfection the two great elements of his calling ; an abundance of water and a sufficient head or projectile force. The element became in his hands the most docile of slaves. He could make it leap in sheaves of foam and obelisks of silver ; trip down cascades of marble, or repose upon couches of turf. It was seen in conjunction with grandeur and with quaintness, but rarely with sim- plicity or good taste. The Villa Aldobrandini has of late years been seldom occupied, and its elaborate and expensive structures are slowly going to decay. The diminished incomes and simpler tastes of our day are not in unison with establishments upon so grand a scale, which, descending, as they often do, to impover- ished families, must be a source of any thing but agree- able reflections and associations. What greater vexa- tion can there be than to inherit an immense palace or EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. 199 villa, with an income insufficient to live in it, and made insufficient mainly by means of the expense incurred in its erection ? Such structures are often the graves and the monuments of buried fortunes, and their mag- nificence serves as a scale by which we can measure the difference between ancient ambition and present decay. The next morning, after an early breakfast, we sum- moned once more our faithful friends, the donkeys, and took up our line of march for Albano. It was a bright, sparkling, spring morning, and the early dew yet hung upon the grass, and thin straggling vapors crept over the plain of the Campagna. We first paid a visit to the Villa Muti, where Cardinal York lived, and which is now let by the season. There is nothing very re- markable in the architecture or embellishments of this villa, but its situation is fine and the grounds are prettily laid out, though over the whole there hangs an air of neglect ; that careless and slipshod look which tells that the master's eye is withdrawn. As one of our party was in treaty for a suite of rooms in this villa, we went over the interior and examined it with a tenant's dis- paraging eye. What we saw is very easily described a large number of immense rooms, generally open- ing into each other, with little or no furniture, and no great promise of that indefinable blessing comfort. Many of the floors were paved with tiles or brick, like the hearth of a country farm-house ; and some of them with a diversity of surface like a rolling prairie on a small scale. The great luxury was in space, and of this there was enough and to spare. There were drawing-rooms in which a general conversation could 200 EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. hardly be kept up except by the aid of speaking-trum- pets. It seemed to me that the whole family of Priam might have been stowed away in this villa. It is well enough in summer, though even then a magnetic tele- graph would be a ' real blessing ' to housekeepers, but in winter such a congress of great stone barns under one roof must be forlorn enough. After leaving this villa, we entered upon a beautiful sylvan region overshadowed with fine oaks and chest- nuts, and brightened with a luxuriant growth of flowers and flowering shrubs. I was struck, as I had been on the previous day, with the resemblance which the scenery bore to some of the woodland tracts of our own country. There was the same light and airy out- line to the branches, the same delicate tinge of yellow in the green of the foliage, the same tangled variety of growth, and the same look of unpruned and unchecked development. It was a tract of honest wildwood, and not a park run to seed ; and Romulus and Remus could not have picked flowers, or gathered nuts, upon the lap of a more genuine nature. And yet, I trust it will not be deemed unpatriotic to say that no forest that waves over the Mississippi could have the charm that hallowed these venerable woods. The centuries of history and tradition that have passed over these green patriarchs have carved memorials upon their trunks and mingled airy voices with the rustlings of the breeze. We look upon every landscape, partly with the natural eye, and partly with the eye of the mind. We see more than the painter can transfer to his canvas. No western prairie shines with the light of Marathon or Runnymede ; and the poetry of Virgil EXCURSION TO FRASCATI. 201 and the legends of Livy deepen the shadows of these forest aisles of Frascati, and touch their domes of foliage with spiritual gleams. Our first resting-place was the monastery of monks of the Greek order of St. Basilio, at Grotta Ferrata. Bristling with towers and surrounded with a ditch, it has more the air of a fortress than of a monastery ; but its style of architecture is well suited to its situation ; for its frowning aspect is the more impressive from its contrast with the sylvan region, thickly wooded with elms and planes, above which it rises. The great at- traction of this monastery consists in a series of seven frescoes by Domenichino, in the chapel ; the subjects of which are taken from the legendary life of St. Nilus, its founder. So far as a hurried examination of these works enabled me to judge, they seemed of great merit, and not a jot below their high reputation. They do not beat down the mind with superhuman power, like the frescoes of Michael Angelo ; nor fill it with visions of celestial beauty, like those of Raphael. Domenichino was neither a giant nor a seraph. But these works at once delight the taste and satisfy the critical judgment. Their conspicuous excellence consists in their loyalty to truth. There is nothing in them that is false, ex- travagant, or affected ; nothing theatrical, distorted, or violent. The expressions and attitudes are such as the subject demands. There is no crowding, hurrying, or jostling in the groups, but every figure has room enough, and moves and breathes freely. Charles Lamb said of Middleton, that he was a prose Shakespeare. It may be said of Domenichino, that he was a himself, and shouting to the broad blue sky over our heads, smacking the whip and sometimes cutting away at the butterflies, grasshoppers of a finger's length, and the lizards of all colors, I was for the first time struck with the peculiar character, variety of form, and color of the olive. I had observed them in abundance at Flor- ence, and in the neighborhood of Rome, but I had not seen any like those which lined one side of the road leading to this pret- ty little city. ' The peculiar character of the trees upon this spot consists in their extremely antique, grotesque, and fantastic character. Upon first sight of them, the shape and look of their trunks sug- gest the idea of the human character. A number of strange forms of men appear before you, wearing long beards and gar- ments cut in the fashion of other ages. Some stand in bending postures, or rest their arms upon staffs, or other supports of ao 212 EXCURSION TO TIVOLI. which bears the classic name of La Sibilla, in the grounds of which are the remains of that graceful Co- rinthian temple which has probably sat for its likeness more often than any building on earth. Ten of the uncouth form ; others recline upon stony or verdant couches, kneel upon the ground, or are grouped in pairs, their limbs oddly joined, and their position and action indicative of some sentiment. Sometimes you will see one standing in the midst of others with the action of an orator making an harangue, one arm put forth and the other holding or hid in the drapery, while the hearers assume different characters of sentiment and expression. Then again you will see pairs of venerable peo- ple sitting upon the earth or upon green banks, deeply engaged in some matter, discussing warmly, or sedately, or whispering confidentially. The color of their trunks very much assists the imagination, since patches of moss often contribute to give character, as it is seen upon the bare naked gray of the formed and deformed masses. ' There is a kind of supernatural look attending a grove of olives a visionary, uncertain something occasioned by the skeleton-like and half-human shapes of the long, pendent, bare twigs, and the fantastically bent arms and branches ; and this impression is very much strengthened by the quality of the color, and the prevailing sobriety, and somewhat melancholy tone which prevails. The thick haze of leaves and twigs tem- pers the lightest sunshine ; and while light is admitted, it is so broken, that no deep or abrupt shadows are seen or bright patches of light admitted. Every object is of a vague and indistinct character, lit by a mysterious kind of illumination a gray mixture of light and darkness. ' An olive wood must have suggested to Dante the idea of the souls imprisoned in the trunks and branches of the trees who suffered and lamented when they were broken or touched. ' It is said of this singular and prolific tree that a full crop once in ten years repays the farmer for all the care and pains he bestows upon it, and that it will live a thousand years. It EXCURSION TO TIVOLI. 213 eighteen columns of travertine which once surrounded the cell are still remaining ; and these, happily, form an unbroken series, and are turned in the right direc- tion. The building, when perfect, plaped any where, springs up spontaneously, and renews itself without attention or trouble, and is found in all the rocky elevations in the coun- try, and even in the plains ; although in the wide and open pianura of the Abruzzi it is no where to be met with. It gives a peculiar character to the country wherever it grows ; its soft, feathery foliage, and its peculiar color contrast strong- ly with every other verdant thing about it, and mixes in a graceful and harmonious manner with the forms and colors of the rock, the earth and the vegetation generally. Nobody has painted the olive. Gaspar Poussin, who lived in its ten- der shadow, was ungrateful to it and never bestowed the atten- tion upon it which its various beauties deserve. Nobody has represented it better, but he has not done it justice. In some respects, it is as dark as the cypress ; in others, it is a sil- very plume ; in some states, a rich golden green, vivacious and effective ; in others, a soft leafy shadow, or a cloud hover- ing over the side of the mountain, its form indefinite and its place unfixed. In itself, it appears to know no change, is always green and flourishing, and ever laden with its fruit some member or other of its family. You may strip it when you will, early or later, or if you leave its fruit to hang until it turn black as jet, which it does, it gives out a flavor of a new kind, makes the purest oil, or may be dried, and so kept for use. When it has stood out ages of productiveness, has be- come venerable, and shews symptoms of having been touched by time, it still suggests no notion of decay, for its freshness continues ; and the vigorous shoots that spring up and unite, and add their strength to the parent stock, promise support and duration for ever. The old and the new are so assimilated and mixed in one character, that the changes of season are never seen to affect it The young leaf of the coming year pushes gently off that of the past, while the new-born blossoms 214 EXCURSION TO TIVOLI. would have been an elegant structure, and its remains have formed a most satisfactory ruin ; but no fabric of man's hands ever owed more to its situation. No architect in his dreams ever dropped a building upon a more appropriate spot. It hangs upon the gray cliff which it crowns as gracefully as the rose hangs upon its stalk. The relation between the temple and the rock is like that between the capital and the shaft: each seems to require the other as its complement. Nature and art never worked together more harmo- niously; and to call the combination merely pictur- esque is to do it injustice. It is a picture which re- quires nothing to be added to or taken from it to make it perfect. Forsyth has truly said, that ' Tivoli cannot be de- scribed ; no true portrait of it exists ; all views alter and embellish it ; they are poetical translations of the matchless original.' It owes its most striking attrac- tions to that cause which is so efficient, not only in the creation of natural beauty, but of material wealth the sudden passage of a stream of water from one level to another ; which, in our country has given us Niag- ara and Lowell, Trenton Falls and Rochester. The play, surround and hang in tender companionship with the matured fruit. The soil appears to influence, in a most extraor- dinary manner, this singular tree ; in some parts it grows to the height and magnitude of a large elm, in others it is stunted to a massive bush ; in some specimens the trunk is bulky and the branches gnarled and thick with long pendent tresses of slender thin-leaved twigs j in others its character is a slender shrub, with stems and branches green, and yielding kindly to the softest breeze ; but in every state it is abundantly prolific.' EXCURSION TO TIVOLI. 215 river Anio or Teverone, flowing through the lateral openings of mountain ranges, is swollen in its course by several smaller streams, and approaches Tivoli, where the highlands come to a full stop and the lines of the landscape pass by sharp angles and sudden turns into the level of the Campagna, in a deep and rapid current. In its haste to overleap the steeply inclined plane which lies between its upper bed and the calm sea of verdure below, it breaks into a variety of smaller streams which plunge and hurry over the rocky bar- riers, like a company of soldiers who, in the confusion of a retreat, abandon their orderly arrangement and continuous movement ; each individual making his es- cape, as best he may. In the Campagna below, all the broken fragments are reunited; and the river, after a tranquil flow of a few miles, empties into the Tiber ; like a wild youth who, after a short course of tumult and resistance, subsides into a sober man of business. The Anio, like the Italian rivers generally, is a mis- chievous stream, liable to sudden and great increase ; thereby causing much damage to the works of man. To prevent this, the skill of engineering has bridled and guided its wild energy. In consequence of a for- midable flood which took place in 1826, a new tunnel was cut through Monte Catillo for the principal stream, which had previously fallen over a massive wall, built by Sixtus V. into the Grotto of Neptune, directly below the temple of the Sybil. This grotto, a deep cavernous hol- low, once the spot from which the leaping and foaming waters were seen to the greatest advantage, described by a thousand travellers, and sketched by a thousand artists, has lost the attractions of the living stream, and 216 EXCURSION TO TIVOLI. can only shew its deserted bed. But it is well worth visiting to see the marks which the rending, cutting, and scooping action of the waters has left upon their rocky channel the sharp edges, the rounded hollows, the irregular lines, and jagged points the results of passionate elemental conflict all in the heart of a pop- ulous town, and accessible by an artificial path which a lady might trip down in a ball-dress without tearing her satin slippers. A rich growth of shrubbery blooms along the sides of the cliffs, the lively green of which stands in fine contrast with the dark gray rocks below. Here, too, may be observed the successive layers of deposit formed by the calcareous waters of the Anio, similar in character to the older rock from which its primitive bed was hewn. One of the lions of the place is a hollow mould in the travertine, left by a cart-wheel, the spokes and circle of which had been decomposed after the stony covering had been formed around them. From the same region, an iron crow-bar has been ex- tracted from the solid rock, left there by a Roman quar- ry-slave ; or perhaps by a Sicanian laborer who had been gathered to his fathers before Rome was founded. The modern tunnel, through which the main current of the river is carried off, cut along the flanks of a hill opposite to the Temple of the Sibyl, is a skilfully designed and admirably constructed work. It is about a thousand feet in length, and has two parallel beds or troughs, separated by a narrow spine of rock, and so contrived that the water may be shut off from one of them, whenever there is need of examination and re- pair. The fall of water from the edge of the tunnel is about eighty feet in height. The whole effect is fine, EXCURSION TO TIVOLI.- 217 in spite of the prosaic element of artificial ness. A stream of pure water rushing with arrowy swiftness over an inclined floor of rock, and breaking into a snowy sheet of foam, has an essential beauty derived from color, form, and movement. A mass of clear water, flowing as rapidly as is possible without break- ing the surface, is one of the most animating of natural objects ; for though the same spectacle is revealed to the sight, yet the ever-changing particles of the stream stir the mind with images of succession and variety, and the whole is an illustration of the course of history or of human life, a uniform web woven of innumera- ble individual experiences. Besides this main channel, there are several lateral and divergent streams which, at their own sportive will, leap over the rocks in sheets, or lines of foam, forming a succession of cascades known by the name of Cascatelle. Of these, the finest in picturesque effect are those which flow from the broken arches of an immense ruin called the villa of Moscenas, which, if that were its true designation, must have been large enough in its perfect state to have accommodated a hundred irritable poets and kept them far enough apart to prevent the possibility of a quarrel. The dark red brick of the crumbling ruin, the dazzling white of the falling water, and the vivid green of the foliage which clothes the slopes of the hill and waves from the roof of the villa, produce the happiest combinations of color, and give to the landscape painter a subject which asks nothing from invention. The above remarks comprise rather an inventory than a description of Tivoli. Verbal accounts or even 218 EXCURSION TO T1VOLI. pictorial sketches of its peculiar scenery are to the actual vision, what the score of an opera is to the performance. Nor is this illustration so purely imagi- native as it may seem ; for in a landscape in which water forms so large a part, sound and motion are im- portant elements which the artist can never reproduce. The pen or the pencil, too, may grapple successfully with details and isolated points, but neither can grasp the magic whole. To form a notion of Tivoli, we must imagine streams of falling water in all the forms which it can assume, leaping into hollows, gliding over in- clined planes, or breaking into clouds of foam-dust, which glow with a thousand iridescent hues, smiting the eye with lines and points of metallic brightness. These streams must be fringed with trees and shrubs compressed between walls of black and dripping rock carved and worn into innumerable fastastic shapes and distributed all along the slopes of a rounded and semicircular hill ; with such careful attention to details as if nature had for once relaxed her stern and homely mood, and set herself to work to compose a perfect picture. Ruins must be set upon the very points where the eye asks for them. A general landscape of the noblest feature must be added ; including a grand mountainous background, a wide horizon, and a broad plain into which, as into a sea of verdure, the jutting capes and headlands of the hillside project. Touch the heights with the gray mists of an antiquity five hundred years older than Rome, and throw over the whole a purple light drawn from the poetry of Horace, Catullus, and Propertius and the result will be a dream of Tivoli. EXCURSION TO TIVOLI. 219 In the after part of the day we paid a visit to the Villa d'Este, a building which, from its formal and elaborate magnificence, might stand as a representa- tive of its whole class. Vast sums of money were lavished upon its waterworks, its terraces, its stiff* plan- tations, and its broad flights of steps. It is now unin- habited and falling to decay; but the garden with its pines, cypresses, and avenues of box, left by their unpruned growth to form an 'obsolete prolixity of shade' still retains a melancholy charm ; and from the casino a wide and lovely landscape is commanded. I am almost afraid to confess all the admiration I feel for these stately Italian gardens in which the earth is made a foundation for verdurous architecture, and walls and columns are hewn from the living green which, with their vases, statues, and smoothly -levelled floors, are like magnificent drawing-rooms open to the sky. The Villa d' Este seemed to be in an easily reparable state. Why has not English wealth and English whim invaded a spot of such capabilities with scythe, hatchet, and paint-brush, cleared away the rub- bish, beautified the halls, trimmed the shrubberies, set the fountains playing, and made the whole habitable and uninteresting ? CHAPTER X. Remarks on the Kural Population of the Papal States ; especially as compared with that of New England. THE various towns and villages upon the Alban Mount contain about as many inhabitants as the county of Berkshire, and it may not be unprofitable to consider for a few moments the v points of resemblance and dif- ference between them. Such a comparison will also serve to illustrate the respective conditions of the agri- cultural population of the south of Europe and of New England, generally. Between any two portions of the human family there are essential points of resemblance and identity. There is the common mystery of birth and of death. The heart is torn by the same passions, and the moral sense assailed by the same temptations. The motive power is substantially similar, though external influences mod- ify the course and direction which it communicates. In nine cases out of ten, the necessity of earning one's bread is the controlling impulse of life ; and wherever this operates, it acts in much the same way and brings out similar qualities of mind and character. Upon Berkshire and the Alban Mount the light of civiliza- POPULATION OF THE ALBAN MOUNT. 221 tion and Christianity alike rests, though not in equal degree. In both, the shadow of human life is traced upon a golden ground of immortal hope. But when we descend to particulars, the points of difference are numerous and important. The inhabit- ants of the Alban Mount are, with very few exceptions, exclusively engaged in agricultural pursuits. Their whole circle of occupation begins and ends with the soil on which they tread. There are no manufacturing es- tablishments at all, and very little of handicraft occupa- tion of any kind. The few articles of foreign growth which the simple wants of the inhabitants require are mostly supplied from Rome ; so that there are very few shopkeepers, and those few of a humble class. As no new houses have been built within the memory of man, there is but a limited demand for mechanics. There are priests and physicans ; but of the legal profession, at least in its higher departments, probably none. I have no means of ascertaining the population of the inhabit- ants of the Alban Mount, who are exclusively engaged in agricultural pursuits. Mrs. Graham, who spent three months in the mountains east of Rome, in the summer of 1819, and has published an interesting ac- count of her experiences, states, that in Poll, a town of thirteen hundred inhabitants not far from Tivoli, in the Sabine hills, the only handicraftsmen were a car- penter, a blacksmith, a shoemaker, and a worker in leather for agricultural uses. Probably about the same proportion of mechanics would be found in the towns and villages of the Alban Mount ; the rest being en- gaged in some department of agricultural toil. When we come to look at the relation of man to the 222 POPULATION OF THE ALBAN MOUNT. soil on which he dwells, there is also a marked differ- ence. In Berkshire, every farmer owns the land which he tills, and most men, whatever be their occupations, own the houses in which they dwell. This is by no means the case upon the Alban Mount. Here the fee of the soil belongs to some of the great families of Rome, or to some monastic establishment; and the oc- cupants hold it, either upon leases for a certain time, paying a fixed rent, or enjoy a sort of qualified owner- ship, which is transmissible and inheritable, on pay- ment of a ground-rent, like the tenants of the Van Rensellaer and other great estates in New York. These, however, form the exception and not the rule, for the greater part of the population are mere day laborers, whose families are crowded into the narrow streets of the towns, and are themselves employed by the great proprietors, especially the mercanti of the Campagna, in labors of cultivation. Those who enjoy the usufruct of the soil sometimes accumulate proper- ty, though their prosperity is somewhat dependant upon the liberality and patience of the proprietors of whom they hold, for the rent which they pay is by no means nominal. Mrs. Graham states, that a farmer in Poll who cultivated a piece of land belonging, like most of the town, to the Duke of Sforza, paid by way of quit- rent a fifth of all the corn, and a fourth of all the pulse, wine, oil, &c. raised upon it ; and she adds, that in bad years this was hard upon the cultivator. There is also a difference in the employments of the female part of the population in the two regions we are comparing. In New England, no woman takes part in the out-of-door labors of husbandry, except, perhaps, POPULATION OF THE ALBAN MOUNT. 223 occasionally at haying time. From the perfection to which manufacturing machinery has been carried, and the consequent cheapness of clothing, the sound of the spinning-wheel is now rarely heard in a New England farm-house ; and only here and there, in some secluded hamlet, is cloth woven for domestic consumption by the females of a household. But in the neighborhood of Rome, as in Italy generally, the female part of the pop- ulation share to a considerable extent in field labors, especially at the times of harvest and vintage ; and in winter they ply the distaff and spindle and manufacture the coarse clothing, both woollen and linen, worn by their families. Were a scale of civilization graduated by the amount of labor done by women putting our North American Indians, whose women do all the work, at the zero point our country would stand at the top. We have a right to be proud of the general considera- tion paid to women among us, and of the lighter tasks assigned to her in the common struggle for subsistence. No American abroad can look with any composure upon a woman toiling in the sun with a hoe or a sickle in her hand. The effect of these out-of-door labors is fatal to the grace of the female form and the beauty of the female face, and it is rare to find a good-looking woman in the peasant classes of Europe, except among the young. When we pass from the substantial occupations of life to its amusements and entertainments, we find that those of Berkshire have a larger proportion of the intel- lectual element in them and are more addressed to the mind. Every house has at least a shelf or a closet of books. Every head of a family takes one or more 224 POPULATION OF THE ALBAN MOUNT. newspapers, and reading is an universal resource. All occasions, too, of public gathering are imperfect, unless the programme of the entertainment include something for the mind, in the shape of a political harangue, an occasional discourse, or a literary or scientific lecture. A fourth of July without an oration would be the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. A public dinner is nothing without the post-prandial speeches. There is some want of reflection in the strain of remark which we frequently hear upon the incapacity of the people of New England for amusement. ' The sports of children satisfy the child.' The grave and earnest character of our rural population forbids their taking pleasure in many forms of entertainment which excite and gratify the prolonged intellectual childhood of the peasantry of Europe. The amusements of the people of the Alban Mount are generally unintellectual in their character, and ad- dress themselves to the senses. Such entertainments as lectures, discourses, and speeches are wholly un- known. Sermons and religious exhortations are mostly confined to the season of Lent. A considerable part of their stock of amusement comes from a source which seems odd enough to a New England man, and that is the church. The Romish church, which providently employs all possible means for holding and retaining influence over the popular mind, takes care to gratify the national taste for brilliant spectacles. Every town and village has one or more saint's days, which are celebrated every year, and attended by the whole pop- ulation of the neighboring country. They take a local pride in these festivals, which call forth a strong spirit AMUSEMENTS OF THE ALBAN MOUNT. 225 of emulation ; each hamlet striving to make its own celebration the gayest and most attractive. A popular amusement of the people of Albano the running at the bucket is thus described by Mueller, a clever German writer, from whom I have before quoted. Two stout posts, about nine feet high, wound round with leaves, are set up in the middle of the street about three feet apart. Upon these there rests a round transverse stick, passing through the two handles of a bucket or tub, which swings freely below. A peasant by the aid of a ladder fills the bucket with water, and dipping a piece of white paper with a black line upon it into the water, he sticks it on the side of the bucket. The persons who take part in the sport are mounted upon donkeys, and armed with stout staves pointed at the end with iron. The object of the game is to urge their beasts between the posts, and to hit the paper with the point of their staves continuing their course so that the contents of the overturned bucket shall fall upon the ground behind them, or at least upon the haunches of the donkey. But to do all this requires skill and luck, and is rarely achieved. The rider must not only aim right, but at the same time manage his not very docile steed in such a way as to second his purpose. In general, they contrive to hit the mark, but are not quick enough to escape the water. This is a modified form of success, but shouts of laughter greet the unlucky tilter who fails to strike the paper but suc- ceeds in getting a ducking. Another amusement described by Castellan, the French traveller, may be cited as characteristic of the tastes of the rural population near Rome, though he VOL. II. 15 226 AMUSEMENTS OF THE ALBAN MOUNT. witnessed it at Tivoli, and not upon the Alban Mount. It is a coarse kind of blindman's-buff, except that the players strive to catch a pig and not one another. A number of persons are wholly enveloped in sacks of thick linen cloth, which are gathered over the head and tied in such a way as to form a sort of pad or cushion. These prevent the wearers not only from seeing but from running, and they are obliged to make progress by uncouth leaps. Holes are left for the arms to pass through, and each person holds a stick or club in his hand. When ready, these prisoners in sacks are ar- ranged in a circle, and a pig, with a bell round his neck, is put into the centre. At this signal, every man darts forward and moves in the direction of the bell ; but at the first impulse, half of them fall down. They tumble over each other, and in the confusion give and receive heavy blows. The pig is the prize of the per- son who first holds him in a firm grasp, or knocks him down with a stick. The poor animal, frantic with ter- ror, rushes about among the sacks, and easily throws down the wearers by an unexpected shock ; but his efforts to escape are frustrated by the outer circle of spectators, who drive him back, until the sport is closed by a lucky grasp or blow. The laughable effects and combinations of such a scene may easily be conceived. It is usual for the successful player to invite his com- petitors to an entertainment, at which the pig appears as the principal dish. Neither of these sports is cruel or degrading, but they shew a very unripe and boyish taste. A popula- tion of any manly maturity of mind and character, like even the peasantry of the Tyrol, for instance, could AMUSEMENTS OF THE ALBAN MOUNT. 227 never be brought to take any pleasure in either. It would surely be better for our people to have no taste at all for amusements, than to find satisfaction in such rough horse-play. The industrious habits of the people of New England make the hours of daylight too valuable to be spent in frolic, except on rare occasions. Thus our amuse- ments are, as a general rule, thrown into the evening. But just the reverse is the case upon the Alban Mount. Dancing, for instance, in some form or other, is a gen- eral pastime of the whole human family. We select, for that object, a winter evening and a well-lighted apartment, and add the accessaries of an entertainment and the best music that can be had. But there the young men and women go out on a summer afternoon, and dance hour after hour under a tree usually not more than one or two couples at a time and to no other music than the sound of a tamborine. We value dancing not so much for itself as for the exhilarating glow which it diffuses, and the gayer tone of conversa- tion to which it leads ; but the Roman peasantry enjoy it for its own sake. They find pleasure in its mere movement, as children do in running about and playing. Here it may be remarked, that our fashion of allowing young persons of different sexes to form parties together for amusement, without the parents, is not at all sanc- tioned by the customs of Italy, or indeed of Europe generally. Of intellectual life, as we understand the word, there is not much among the inhabitants of the Alban Mount. Newspapers are rarely seen which indeed is no great loss, for the journals printed at Rome under 228 EDUCATION. an ecclesiastical censorship, are without life or interest and literature and politics rarely form topics of con- versation. The means of obtaining a certain amount of education are more generally diffused in the Papal states than is commonly supposed. The priests shew a laudable zeal in giving the rudiments of knowledge to the young people under their charge, and there are in many places charity schools founded, at periods more or less remote, by benevolent persons. In most of the towns and villages there are public schools also, in which elementary instruction is given. There are probably not many parents so situated as not to be able to procure for their children the knowledge of reading and writing at least, by a little effort and a little sacri- fice. The will is doubtless more wanting than the op- portunity, but the quality and character of the education would not be deemed high, at least by a Protestant judgment. Here again I recur to the authority of Mrs. Graham. There was at Poli a charity school, founded some centuries ago by a lady of the Conti family, open to all the children of the place. The boys were taught reading, writing, and Latin and Italian grammar, but no arithmetic ; the girls, reading, sewing, spinning, and knitting. Religious instruction formed a large part of the whole. The Italian authors read were exclusively religious. ' A short catechism, the Chris- tian doctrine of Bellarmine, a history of the Bible, but not a chapter unprepared, and the lives of the saints, complete the studies of the school of Poli, and probably those of most of the free schools in Italy.' The Italian Santa Croce or Christ's-cross-row taught in the school at Poli, contained prayers in Latin and Italian, a short POPULAR LITERATURE. 229 catechism, and a mutilated form of the decalogue ; for the second commandment was omitted, and the tenth divided into two, so as to make the number of ten. How the ecclesiastics who published, and those who taught this edition of the commandments, could recon- cile such a form of untruth to their consciences, may be left to some skilful casuist to settle. An Italian peasant might well be puzzled with the injunction against image worship contained in the second commandment, when compared with the practice of the church. The rural population of the Papal states are by no means without a taste for reading, but the direc- tion in which that taste moves marks a difference be- tween them and the people of New England. Here we have no such thing as a popular literature, address- ing itself to a certain class exclusively, and found only among them. In our country towns, the clergyman and his parishioners, the doctor and his patients, the lawyer and his clients, all read the same books, and draw from them common topics of interest and discus- sion. A fair proportion' also of the books read in New England farm-houses are works appealing to the reason and understanding ; historical works ; works in which questions in religion, politics, social economy, and edu- cation are treated ; besides the great variety of miscel- laneous subjects embraced in reviews and magazines. But in Italy, and indeed in many other parts of Europe, we find a popular literature so called a class of books circulating among the rural population and the lower orders of the towns, cheaply printed on coarse paper, and generally written in some local dialect. These books are not found in the scholar's library, unless col- 230 POPULAR LITERATURE. lected as a matter of curiosity, though some of them were written by educated men ; nor, on the other hand, are the books which scholars read and rich men buy found in the peasant's cottage. The popular literature is exclusively poetical in its spirit, and generally takes the form of verse. The whole peninsula is very rich in works of this class, and a man of taste and industry might, with no great pains, collect materials for an in- teresting book about them. The lively organization and excitable temperament of the Italians, and the abundant leisure, voluntary or enforced, which so many of them enjoy, make them take great delight in hearing romantic or humorous adventures, in prose or verse especially the latter read or recited. A person whose memory is stored with resources of this kind, is a welcome guest in every peasant's cottage, and he who is so fortunate as to possess a rude gift of impro- visation which is by no means uncommon among the lower classes is followed and listened to as a popular speaker is with us. As this class of literature springs spontaneously from the common heart, it has fixed lo- calities, like indigenous plants. Venice, Milan, Flor- ence, Naples, Sicily, have songs, ballads, and narrative poems peculiar to themselves, though some of these have merit enough to overleap provincial barriers and become general favorites. Rome, too, is the centre of a popular literature which circulates extensively throughout the neighborhood. Its productions are numerous, and divided into several classes. The oldest among them are stories from the romances of chivalry, most of them drawn from the POPULAR LITERATURE. 231 two great fountain-heads of romantic literature, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and Char- lemagne. Ancient mythology and history furnish the materials for another division, with which the legends of saints are sometimes strangely intermingled ; and moral and religious subjects, and the adventures and miracles of holy men, are also a fruitful source of pop- ular reading. No books are more eagerly devoured by the people of Rome and its neighborhood than stories of bandits, outlaws, and robbers. Indeed, the general heart of mankind seems to keep a corner of sympathy for offenders of this class ; partly from admiration of their courage, and partly because they are supposed to spare the poor and strip the rich. These books, in general, have little of invention or literary merit of any kind ; nor are they relieved by that vein of hu- mor which runs through the exploits of the English Robin Hood. They are, for the most part, made up of horrors and atrocities : teaching by inference the mischievous doctrine, that a life of crime and vio- lence may be expiated by certain formal acts of devotion especially if crowned by a death-bed re- pentance. The Romans have also a number of satirical and humorous poems, written in their own local dialect, marked by a rich though coarse vein of humor, and reflecting the manners and characteristics of the com- mon people with great fidelity. In Rome, and indeed throughout Italy, books recording the lives and sayings of famous jesters, are great favorites with the lower 232 POPULAR LITERATURE. orders. Some of these are in prose and some in verse.* Besides the above, there are to be found in the Papal states a great number of poems which are miscellaneous in their character, and not to be ranked under any particular class. Among them are tales in verse of pure invention, political and satirical ballads, versified proverbs and moral sayings, fables, and especially love-poems, which are more characterized by fire and passion than by tenderness or sentiment. The Italian language runs easily into the mould of verse. Every event in life which assumes the least consequence a birth, wedding, or death in a noble family a nun's taking the veil the arrival of a distinguished stranger a literary or scientific meeting produces a luxu- riant crop of sonnets and occasional verses, which pass away and are forgotten like the flowers which decorate a ball-room. This ' fatal facility ' of verse-making is also quite common among the lower orders, and every rural neighborhood has its own indigenous growth of songs and ballads. The serenading lover that sings another's verses intersperses them with his own. The wandering minstrel or improvisatore that recites passa- ges from Tasso or Pulci pieces out the defects of his memory with his own ready invention. Every where the voice breaks naturally into song, and every where the air vibrates to the touch of rhythm and measure. Many of the tales in verse which are purely fictitious * A good account of the popular literature of the Romans, with extracts, maybe found in the appendix to Mrs. Graham's work above mentioned. VERBAL MEMORY. 233 are of Eastern origin, for the wild and wondrous char- acter of Eastern romance suits the taste of the common people in Italy. They have no liking for dark and su- pernatural terrors which make the flesh creep. Their facile and impressible nature demands gay,, airy, and smiling fancies. The shapes and conceptions of Gothic fiction the sheeted ghost gliding from the church- yard the midnight bell struck by airy hands the groan mingling with the wind that sweeps through the aisles of a ruined chapel the damp vault, and the bloody shroud have no charm for these children of the sun. The gloomy and spectral shadows which flit through Mrs. Radcliffe's Italian romances, are of North- ern, not Italian origin. Resuming the parallel between the rural population of the Alban Mount and that of New England, we find that in one intellectual power, that of verbal memory, the former have the superiority. A people of indoor habits and bookish tastes know little practically of the extent to which the memory may be trained. There is a striking passage from Plato's Phcedrus, quoted in Lieber's Reminiscences of Niebuhr, as to the injurious effect of the invention of letters upon this faculty. The invention of printing tends further in the same direction. To learn what the memory can retain, we must go among the unlettered peasantry of Europe. We know how many of the Scotch and English ballads have been handed down from lip to lip, often through several gen- erations, and taken down for the press at last from the recitation of persons who could neither read nor write. Were a man of letters, with the tastes and the ener- getic perseverance of Scott or Hogg, to make a ballad 234 POLITICAL POWER. foray into the mountains near Rome, he might gather materials from the memory of peasant men and women for more volumes of popular poetry than publishers would print or the public buy. Mueller relates that a friend of his, who lodged at L'Aricia, collected several hundred short poems, mostly Ritornelle,* from the lips of the various members of his hostess's family. The two controlling relations of man's life are his relations to the soil and his relations to the state. A comparison between a county in Massachusetts and the Alban Mount, in regard to the former, has been briefly made, and the superiority which we enjoy in having so large a body of independent proprietors, cultivating their own lands, adverted to. Nor is our own advan- tage less, when we look at the relations between man and the state. In Berkshire, every man of the age of twenty-one years not only has a voice and a vote in town affairs, but feels himself to be a citizen of the state and of the common country. He is a part, small indeed, but still distinctly recognizable, in a vast sys- tem. The wave of impulse which proceeds from his solitary vote is prolonged till it reaches to Boston or Washington. Let a man of great political ability start up in the smallest village, he cannot live to the age of thirty without having had opportunity to shew his pow- ers, or without entering upon a career which may lead to the highest honor and the widest influence. This consciousness of political power this sense of being * Eitornelle are short poems of three lines, sometimes with rhymes, but oftener with assonances. The first line is some- times shorter than the last two. Most of them are expressions of the passion of love. ORGANIZATION OF TOWNS. 235 a unit in a mighty aggregate of force broods over the mind and characterto an extent which we cannot measure till we have been where it does not exist. It moulds the countenance, modulates the voice, and governs the gait and gesture. But upon the peasant of the Alban Mount there rest none of these ennobling cares, these educating respon- sibilities. He has no political influence, and not the least voice in shaping or modifying the system of which he forms a part. He is a mere passenger in the ship of state. It is true that the principle of centralization is not pushed so far in the Papal states as in some other parts of Europe, and that municipal indepen- dence is recognized within certain limits. There is a division into provinces, districts, and communes ; the districts corresponding to our counties, and the com- munes, to our towns. The communes have a muni- cipal government something like that of our cities. There is a chief magistrate a gonfaloniere like our mayor ; a board of anziani, varying in number from three to nine, like our aldermen ; and a body of councillors or deputies, from eighteen to forty-eight in number, according to the size of the commune, corres- ponding to our common councilmen. But none of these are chosen by popular vote. The councillors, originally named by the Pope, fill their own vacan- cies; * and the anziani are selected by the delegate of the province from a list furnished by the councillors. Two thirds of the councillors must consist of land- * This system rests upon a law of Pius VII. dated July 6, 1816. 236 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. owners ; and the other third of literary men, mer- chants, and tradesmen. Thus, the greater part of the inhabitants are excluded from any share even in the municipal administration of their own towns or vil- lages, and no one has any voice in the central govern- ment at Rome. Without attempting to extend the above superficial comparison into the region of morals and religion, which would require a much more minute knowledge of the heart and mind of the rural population of Italy than any hasty traveller can acquire, I may venture to make a few remarks upon their character, founded upon what I have seen, heard, and read, which shall have the merit at least of being free from prejudice. It may be observed at the outset that there is one pe- culiarity noticeable here, which seems strange to us that the inhabitants of places near to each other have, or are reputed to have, essentially different qualities. Thus, the people of Frascati and Albaao stand higher on the scale of good morals and good manners than those of Tivoli and Marino. Almost every town and village has its own character and reputation, which are matters of common notoriety in the neighborhood. The limitation of these local traits is explained by the fact, that the rural population of Italy is for the most part stationary, and that men usually end their days on the spot where they were born, and thus the habits and tastes of one generation are transmitted to that which comes after it, without any foreign infusion. Looking at general characteristics, without regard to local peculiarities, we find among them a large share of those engaging qualities which are the indigenous GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 237 growth of the heart, but few of those virtues which are the result of culture and training. They are rich in the various modifications and manifestations of sympathy, but poor in the products of principle. Their nature is easy and enjoyable. They are amiable, vivacious, and good-natured, with a natural gentleness and cour- tesy of manner, quick perceptions, and an instinctive tact. Family affection is strong with them, and family quarrels are rare. But, on the other hand, they are pas- sionate and vindictive ; sudden in quarrel and prompt in the use of the knife, and never forgetting a real or fancied wrong. They have not the courage to speak the truth if it costs them any sacrifice, or will be pro- ductive of pain to the person whom they are address- ing. Their lively fancy makes them boastful, and their keen enjoyment of life makes them cowardly, except under strong excitement or provocation. They are credulous and extremely superstitious. In regard to industry* they are no better and no worse than the generality of mankind, after making fair allow- ance for the debilitating heat of the climate in summer. With motive, and when roused by the breath of hope, they will work well ; otherwise not. They are not provident or thoughtful for the future, but enjoy the present with a childlike indifference as to what the morrow may bring forth. In regard to temperance, I am inclined to think that the inhabitants of Southern Italy, and of the wine- growing countries generally, enjoy a reputation some- what beyond their deserts. It is true that it is very rare to see a man absolutely drunk ; but it is not un- common to see those who have drank more than is 238 USE OF WINE. good for them. But even where excess is avoided, the constant use of wine in considerable quantities is unfavorable both to health and good morals ; to health, from the febrile and inflammatory state of the system to which it leads, and to good morals, from the irrita- bility of temper and quarrelsome spirit which it in- duces. If the proportion of the cases of stabbing brought to the Roman hospitals which occur in or near wine-shops could be known, I have no question that it would furnish a strong fact wherewith to point the exhortations of a temperance lecturer. There is an added temptation to drink abundantly of wine, from the nature of the usual food of the common people. This, being principally vegetable, does not, especially in cold weather, supply the waste of nervous energy, but leaves, even when the appetite is satisfied, a cer- tain dull and indefinable craving, like being filled but not fed. Wine relieves this sense of flatness and inert- ness by the momentary glow and fillip it gives to the languid blood ; but the relief thus derived is like the heat of a fire of thorns, and there is thus constant inducement to repeat and increase the remedy. If the common people of Rome and its neighborhood could eat more meat and would drink less wine, there is little question that their health and morals would be the better for the change. In handiness and management, in labor-saving con- trivances, in the adaptation of means to ends, in econo- my of time and labor, these people are lamentably, ludicrously deficient. The philosopher who defined man to be a tool-making animal did not make his obser- vations upon the Alban or Sabine hills. Every irnple- HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS. 239 ment and instrument which comes to help the hand of man is of the rudest and most primitive kind. Their ploughs and carts would be taken by a Yankee farmer to be the fossil remains of an antediluvian age. It is the same with domestic furniture and household uten- sils. Each generation receives what is handed down from its predecessor, and in its turn transmits it to its successor, without question and without improvement. No man ever thinks of contriving a labor-saving expe- dient, or of opening a short cut to any desired object. Flax is spun upon the primitive distaff, and woven by a clumsy hand-loom, very much as in the days of the chaste Lucretia ; and water is toilsomely brought home from the spring, in copper vessels, upon the heads of women. Graceful as is the appearance of these mov- ing caryatides, and suggestive as the sight is of class- ical and oriental associations, one would gladly forego it, if these poor women could be relieved by the aid of a pump or a leaden pipe. The habit of laying aside a portion of their earnings as a provision against a rainy day, is not common among these careless peo- ple ; and where there are no savings banks, there is little inducement to a peasant, who is not so fortunate as to own a piece of land, to take the trouble, and run the risk of investing his small savings. They are fond of dressing gaily, and their holiday costume, which however lasts a lifetime or even longer, is often quite expensive, and adorned with ornaments of gold and silver, of homely workmanship, but always of the finest quality. A great deal of money is wasted by the middle and lower class all over Italy, both urban and rural, in lot- 240 LOTTERIES. * teries ; a form of gaming which, to their disgrace be it spoken, nearly every government encourages and up- holds. The Papal treasury derives an income of more than a million of dollars a year from this demoralizing source. This form of gambling is an universal passion among the rural population of the mountains near Rome, as well as in the metropolis itself ; and, unhap- pily, as a general rule, the poorer a man is, the more eagerly he engages in this mischievous excitement, and the more money he wastes in it in proportion to his whole means. The tickets are divided into very small portions, and for a shilling or two a poor man may try his luck and put himself on the uneasy rack of expec- tation. The system of drawing is very complicated, and the prizes are determined by a combination of three numbers. The holder of one draws a small prize ; of two, a much greater ; of three, many hun- dred times larger.* In selecting the numbers to ven- * ' The lottery offices are distributed in every part of the cap- ital and in the provincial towns. Supposing I enter an office and stake a shilling upon Nos. 6, 14, 21, 32, 47, this is called playing a quinterno, and should these five numbers win, I should win a very large sum, the exact scale of which I do not remember, but something like five thousand shillings. A sum staked upon three numbers is called a terno, upon two, an ambo, upon one, an estratto. If, upon playing a quinterno, I choose to reserve the advantage of winning something if only one, two, three or four out of the five numbers be drawn,! win proportionately less than if I had bet upon the whole five only. The same refers to playing terni and ambi. If I play a shil- *ling upon numbers 6, 27, 49, and say " terno secco," should one or two of the three be drawn, I gain much more by this terno secco than had I spread the chance over the ambo and LOTTERIES. 241 ture upon, the buyer is guided sometimes by a dream, sometimes by tbe answers of a fortune-teller, and some- times by accidental circumstances. There are printed books in which multitudes of events and objects are designated, each by its appropriate number or combi- nation of numbers : these books are constantly in the hands of the common people, and consulted whenever any thing remarkable takes place. An Englishman in Rcftne once threw himself out of a window and was killed. There was immediately a great run upon the numbers corresponding to window, death, and the age of the suicide. A German fell down the steps of a house and injured his shoulder. The family who lived on the floor where he landed bought numbers corres- ponding to shoulder, and a fall down stairs, adding that of the steps over which he had tumbled. They were so lucky as to draw a prize, and they went to thank their benefactor for the good fortune he had brought them. These lotteries are usually drawn on Sunday. The numbers are put into a box, taken out by a boy, and announced by an officer, in a loud voice, to the expectant crowd, whose expressive countenances pass rapidly from hope to joy or despair, according as they win or lose. A dignitary of the church is usually present to grace the ceremony. The direct and indi- rect mischiefs of this legalized system of gaming the money wasted by it, the loss of time it occasions, its poisonous influence upon the mind and the moral sense, estratto. If I play a shilling on one number, 88, for instance, I may play it as estratto that is drawn, or as eletto which is drawn, first, second, third, fourth, or fifth, of the five always drawn.' Memoirs of Col. MACERONI, vol. ii. p. 37. VOL. II. 16 242 MORALS. and the distate for dull and hard work which it begets, are felt and acknowledged by all enlightened men ; but there would be great difficulties in the way of abol- ishing it, so strong and so universal is the passion for it among the people. It could only be effectually done by a concert of action among the several governments of the peninsula. The Papal government, it is fair to state, was the last to establish a lottery of its own. and devotes a part of the income derived from it to charita- ble purposes. The sweeping charge of dissoluteness, so often "brought by travellers against the whole people of Italy, is certainly not just when applied to the greater part of its rural population. Indeed, on this point, the observa- tions of travellers are made upon a small class of idle men and women, living in large towns, who are doomed either to selfish and heartless celibacy or to marriages of convenience. Where there is want of occupation and want of interest, one great safeguard against tempta- tion is removed, and intrigue and gallantry are resorted to by way of pastime, and to give flavor to the insipid dish of life. In the cities and large towns of Italy, so- ciety, as that word is usually used, is corrupt ; but this is a reproach by no means peculiar to that country. But, even in these, the chief object of the greater part of the population is to earn a subsistence ; and under this necessity, there are neither time nor means for a life of habitual profligacy. That the marriage vow is not kept, nor the family tie respected, among the trades- men and mechanics of Rome and Florence, that they are given over to a life of debasing indulgence, is a state of things which a moment's reflection will con- MORALS. 243 vince us to be impossible. Were it so, society would come to an end. Though the higher classes are profli- gate from a want of any elevating object in life and from a corrupt system of marriages, and though the women of the lower orders are often led into evil courses through the pressure of poverty, the middle ranks lead at least decent and reputable lives. But the rural population of the Papal states may indeed in this respect be called a virtuous people. The practice of auricular confession, often abused and always sus- ceptible of abuse, herein works favorably ; as we also see its good influence in the superior chastity of the Irish peasantry as compared with the English. The conduct of young persons before marriage is regulated by a very rigid law of decorum ; and after marriage, besides the restraints of religion and public opinion, the jealous and vindictive temper of the people checks the approach of temptation. An injured husband takes the law into his own hands, and avenges the wrong done to his honor by a stab with a knife ; and even mere im- prudence and levity of conduct is often thus cruelly punished. Nor does the tone of public feeling severely reprobate this ' wild justice,' and bad as it is, it has the effect to prevent the wrong which it so sternly rights. But the rural population of the Roman States cannot be excepted from another charge brought against the Italian people in general, and to which most of them are unhappily obnoxious that of want of principle and self-respect in all money transactions. The tem- per and patience of the traveller are exhaused by the constant indications of a want of manliness and a want of honesty on the part of those with whom he comes in 244 BEGGING. contact. Every thing at the inns must be bargained for beforehand, and extortion will creep in at the slightest unguarded loophole. Every mechanic and shopkeeper begins by asking twice as much for his services or his goods as he intends to take. The most inventive fancy cannot anticipate all the various expe- dients and excuses by which pauls and baiocchi are extracted from the purse. Besides these, there is the almost universal taint of beggary, which rests like a plague-spot over town and country ; at least, every where that the presence of strangers offers any temp- tation. There are multitudes who adopt begging delib- erately, and as a profession, either from sheer laziness, or from some disabling physical infirmity, which they always contrive to obtrude upon notice in the most offensive manner. But the evil does not stop here, for there is a large number of amateur beggars, who make begging an occasional episode and digression in their lives, who solicit alms whenever a favorable opportunity offers or a promising countenance presents itself; who, in short, are restrained by no sense of independence, no glow of self-respect, no sting of shame, from stoop- ing to this degrading habit. In those beautiful moun- tainous tracts near Rome, to which the feet of tourists are most accustomed, there is no assurance where a peasant man or woman is met, that they will not put on the bending gesture and lazy whine of a mendicant, and drawl out a dismal ' date mi qualche cosa,' break- ing in upon the Jhoughts inspired by the scenery like a discordant note in a strain of music. This is a sad state of things, but it is fair to hear what may be said by way of apology or palliation. Italy is a country PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 245 swarming with travellers during a portion of the year, and comparatively deserted during the rest. It is also a country whose material resources are but imperfectly developed, thus giving but limited sphere and occupa- tion to its redundant population. These travellers also, as a general rule, move through certain prescribed routes and settle within certain well-defined limits ; and by long habit, a considerable portion of the population depend absolutely for their daily bread upon their ad- vent and residence. Rome, especially, from which a large part of the inferences respecting all Italy are drawn, is a winter watering-place. Here, on the one side, is a resident population, needy to the last degree ; and, on the other, a fleeting population, rich to a certain extent, as the mere fact of travelling implies, but really believed to be made of gold and silver ; and the two thrown together for once and not likely ever to meet again. Surely something may be pardoned here to the weakness of man. The permanent inhabitants of watering-places in England and America have not the reputation, to say the least, of pushing their notions of disinterestedness and fair dealing to any thing like ro- mantic extravagance. Those who have lived long enough in Italy to become domesticated among its people, and to penetrate into those nooks and by-ways which are not stained by the stream of foreign travel, give a much better account of the country. The inhabitants of the mountainous regions near Rome are, generally speaking, a fine-looking race. The men are well-formed, and, in their movement and bearing, free and graceful. They fall naturally into striking and statuesque attitudes, and, when speaking, 246 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. break into kindling and expressive gestures. The women did not seem to me so handsome as the men, though among them there are often fine heads and striking countenances. From their habit of carrying burdens upon the head, they are very erect, and their gait and movement are full of emphasis and expression. In young men and women both, there is a great deal of a kind of beauty to which our northern eyes are not much accustomed that derived from color alone. With them the tone of coloring is Venetian ; with us, Umbrian. The complexion is of a rich healthy yellow, with a burnish and glow upon it like that of a ripe nec- tarine ; the eyes are of sparkling brown or black ; the teeth, white and regular ; and the massive raven hair shines with a sort of metallic light, like a bit of freshly- broken anthracite coal. These fine colors, so common in Italy, are in part the result of that open-air life which all the people lead. In southern Italy, at least, no man or woman, especially in the rural regions, stays under a roof any longer than is inevitable. Every person who has lived in Rome or its neighborhood, must have noticed the antipathy felt by the inhabitants to a fire. An Italian child, from the moment he is born, begins to know the light and air of heaven. He tumbles about the grass like a dropped orange. Even when within doors, the sun shines and the wind blows in through huge yawning windows if windows they can be called which are without glass or shutters and through great openings where doors ought to be, but are not. He never breathes an atmosphere poisoned by stoves or furnaces, but grows up in the sunshine and the breeze. Thus it is rare to see a sickly complex- COSTUME. 257 ion, and almost every countenance has a look of ripe- ness and soundness. The peasantry near Rome, both male and female, are fond of showy costumes, and they have a native taste for the disposition of colors, and the appropriate use of ornaments of gold and silver. On all festival and holiday occasions, when they appear in their best attire, the general effect produced is very fine, and forms a strong attraction to artists, who learn here the difference between costume and dress. CHAPTER XI. Artists in Borne Crawford. ARTISTS IN ROME. THE artists in Rome form a numerous body, social in their tastes and gregarious in their habits. The distinctions of blood and speech give way under the fusing influence of a common devotion to the same pursuits. The general artist type is more easily re- cognized than the particular nationality. The outward appearance of the whole class expresses a pursuit of the picturesque under difficulties. The hair and beard are taught to curl and wave in such a manner as to give, if possible, a romantic and ideal character to commonplace features. The costume happily com- bines roughness and quaintness, so as to be at once imaginative and economical. They generally dine at the Lepre, in the Via Condotti, and take their coffee in the Cafe Greco, in the same street a dark and dirty hole, reeking with the fumes of bad tobacco. Many of them add music to their other accomplishments, and in the evening their voices often gratefully break the deep silence of the streets of Rome. ARTISTS IN ROME. 249 The greater number of these artists are Germans, who exert a sensible influence uponXudents from other nations. This is especially true of tnte painters. The Germans have, in this art, fairly earned\the rank and consideration which they enjoy. Their style of painting is often unfairly judged, because judged by its defects its stiff outlines, its elaborate precision of de- sign, and its watery tone of color. But to do justice to the German school of painting as it now is, we must go back to what it was thirty or forty years ago, when Cornelius, Overbeck, Schadow, and Veit, then residing in Rome, began to breathe into art the breath of spirit- ual life, and to grasp the pencil once more with hands as pure as those of Fra Angelico. Before this period, frivolous or profligate lives expressed themselves in un- meaning or sensual forms, and painting aspired to be no more than a kind of luxury addressed to the eye. Cornelius and his friends recognized a higher aim in art, and felt that no amount of technical skill could atone for the want of that vital inspiration which flows from earnestness of purpose, purity of sentiment, and depth of feeling. It was their faith that the artist himself must be a man of pure life and religious spirit, before art could become an instrument of moral and spiritual growth. With these views and in this mood, they dedicated themselves to their work and steadily persevered in their purpose, unmoved by the opposition of the few or the indifference of the many ; until, like Wordsworth, a kindred spirit in a sister art, they had formed the taste by which they were to be judged. The debt of gratitude which is due to these Luthers and Melancthons in art should be freely paid, and even 250 ARTISTS IN ROME. their mannerisms be pardoned as energetic protests against corruption and degeneracy. Overbeck still resides in Rome and pursues his art. He is a very devout Catholic, and leads a life of almost monastic seclusion. I visited his studio which is open to the public once a week and had at the same time the satisfaction of seeing him. He is tall and thin in person, subdued in manner, and with a countenance expressive of benevolence and self-renunciation. His appearance was a combination of the gentleman, the artist, and the monk. The works of his studio were exclusively charcoal drawings of sacred subjects, chiefly taken from the life of the Saviour. They were all char- acterized by depth and purity of sentiment, but in their execution I was a little disappointed. They seemed to be drawn with a hesitating hand, as if the mind of the artist had been oppressed with the grandeur of his theme. There was also a want of ideal beauty in the faces, which were cast in a broad Teutonic mould. There was something strongly subjective in their ex- pression, which shewed that they were the productions of a man who lived in seclusion, and reproduced the images of his own mind without replenishing his fancy by observation. The most pleasing of his works was a drawing illustrating the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. In this, the architecture and accessaries were rather Gothic and mediaeval than oriental, and there was a want of grace and ideality in the forms and faces of the principal figures ; but there was great purity of design and truth of sentiment, combined with the most conscientious accuracy of drawing. There is great satisfaction in looking at a work of this kind, in which ARTISTS IN ROME. 251 nothing is done for effect, and where the design and drawing offer themselves boldly to criticism, and disdain the shelter of a gaudy tone of color. Overbeck, from his age, his European reputation, and the high merit of his works, may be said to stand at the head of the artists in Rome ; though, from the ascetic seclusion of his habits, he exerts but little per- sonal influence upon his professional brethren. No one, however, either in painting or sculpture, has suc- ceeded to the throne left vacant by the illustrious Thor- walsden. He was one of those men of northern birth, like Winkelman and Zoega, who find in the scenery, the climate, and the life of Italy, the home of their hearts ; and become really exiles in the land of their birth. Some critics affect to discover the Scandinavian in his works, and this may be true in his female forms ; and it is perhaps also true that in the reactionary state of feeling against Canova and his school, the merits of Thorwalsden may be ranked too high. But it must be admitted that nothing since the brightest days of Grecian sculpture is better than his best works; his statues of Jason and of Mercury, his bas-reliefs of Day and Night, and parts of the Triumph of Alexan- der. He combines more than any other modern sculp- tor, Michael Angelo not excepted, the power of re- producing the calm beauty of Grecian art, and the power of expressing in marble the sentiments and affections of the soul. No artist except Raphael ever reigned more supremely over the two realms of form and spirit. He is at once the most classic and the most Christian of sculptors. He is equally at home in these lovely forms of classic mythology which mean 252 ARTISTS IN ROME. nothing but what they are, and those spiritual shapes which are the symbols of truth and the representatives of ideas. Thorwalsden was as happy in his temperament and disposition as in his genius. He was not goaded by those fervid and impetuous passions which have made the lives of so many artists as turbid and restless as the course of a mountain torrent. His youth was not stormy and his age was not torpid : he had nothing to subdue and nothing to repent. Neither envy nor malice nor hatred ruffled the fountains in which he saw the face of beauty. He waited patiently for fame and wealth ; and when they came, he was not elated by them. No one was inclined to question his title to honors which were so gently worn. Genial, sympa- thetic, retiring in his habits but not ascetic, he never lost his interest in life, nor ceased to follow the fleeting steps of ideal beauty. His simple tastes enabled him to indulge largely in the luxury of giving. He was a generous and discriminating patron of art, and had collected around him a most interesting gallery of the works of living painters, the greater part of which were specially ordered by him. To young sculptors he gave what was better than money advice, en- couragement, and instruction never seasoned with harshness or arrogance, but always as gently conveyed as gratefully received. Among the artists resident in Rome at the time of my visit were many distinguished men, especially among the sculptors. Setting Overbeck aside, there were no names among the painters comparable to those of Tenerani, Wolff, Gibson, and Crawford. Ital- ARTISTS IN ROME. 253 ian painting is at a very low point of degeneracy. There is nothing, even, to replace the pedantic draw- ing, the academic attitudes and brick-dust coloring of Camuccini. There was an exhibition of the works of native artists in the spring of 1848, most of which were incredibly bad to which England seemed to have contributed the drawing; Germany, the color; and France, the sentiment. Every young artist dreams of Rome as the spot where all his visions may be realized ; and it would indeed seem that there, in a greater degree than any where else, were gathered those influences which ex- pand the blossoms, and ripen the fruit of genius. Nothing can be more delicious than the first experi- ences of a dreamy and imaginative young man who comes from a busy and prosaic city, to pursue the study of art in Rome. He finds himself transported into a new world where every- thing is touched with finer lights and softer shadows. The hurry and bustle to which he has been accustomed are no longer per- ceived. No sounds of active life break the silence of his studies, but the stillness of a Sabbath morning rests over the whole city. The figures whom he meets in the streets move leisurely, and no one has the air of being due at a certain place at a certain time. All his experiences, from his first waking moment till the close of the day, are calculated to quicken the imagi- nation and train the eye. The first sound which he hears in the morning, mingling with his latest dreams, is the dash' of a fountain in a neighboring square. When he opens his window, he sees the sun resting upon some dome or tower, gray with time and heavily ARTISTS IN ROME. freighted with traditions. He takes his breakfast in the ground-floor of an old palazzo, still bearing the stamp of faded splendor ; and looks out upon a shel- tered garden, in which orange and lemon-trees grow side by side with oleanders and roses. While he is sipping his coffee, a little girl glides in and lays a bunch of violets by the side of his plate, with an ex- pression in her serious black eyes which would make his fortune if he could transfer it to canvas. During the day, his only difficulty is how to employ his bound- less wealth of opportunity. There are the Vatican and the Capitol, with treasures of art enough to occupy a patriarchal life of observation and study. There are the palaces of the nobility, with their stately architec- ture, and their rich collections of painting and sculp- ture. Of the three hundred and sixty churches in Rome, there is not one which does not contain some picture, statue, mosaic, or monumental structure, either of positive excellence or historical interest. And when the full mind can receive no more impressions, and he comes into the open air for repose, he finds himself surrounded with objects which quicken and feed the sense of art. The dreary monotony of uniform brick walls, out of which doors and windows are cut at regu- lar intervals, no longer disheartens the eye, but the view is every where varied by churches, palaces, pub- lic buildings, and monuments, not always of positive architectural merit, but each with a distinctive charac- ter of its own. The very fronts of the houses have as individual an expression as human faces in a crowd. His walks are full of exhilarating surprises. He comes unawares upon a fountain, a column, or an ARTISTS IN ROME. 255 obelisk a pine or a cypress a ruin or a statue. The living forms which he meets are such as he would gladly pause and transfer to his sketch-book ecclesi- astics with garments of flowing black, and shovel-hats upon their heads capuchins in robes of brown peasant girls from Albano, in their holiday boddices, with black hair lying in massive braids, large brown eyes, and broad low foreheads beggars with white beards, whose rags flutter picturesquely in the breeze, and who ask alms with the dignity of Roman senators. Beyond the walls are the villas, with their grounds and gardens, like landscapes sitting for their pic- tures, and then the infinite, inexhaustible Campagna, set in its splendid frame of mountains, with its tombs and aqueducts, its skeleton cities and nameless ruins, its clouds and cloud-shadows, its memories and tradi- tions. He sees the sun go down behind the dome of St. Peter's, and light up the windows of the drum with his red blaze, and the dusky veil of twilight grad- ually extend over the whole horizon. In the moon- light evenings, he walks to the Colosseum, or to the piazza of St. Peter's, or to the ruins of the Forum, and under a light which conceals all that is unsightly, and idealizes all that is impressive, may call up the spirit of the past; and bid the buried majesty of old Rome start from its tomb. To these incidental influences which train the hand and eye of an artist, indirectly, and through the mind, are to be added many substantial and direct advan- tages ; such as the abundance of models to draw from, the facility of obtaining assistance and instruction, the presence of an atmosphere of art, and the quickening 256 ARTISTS IN ROME. impulse communicated by constant contact with others engaged in the same pursuits, and animated with the same hopes. If, besides all these external influences, the mind of the young artist be at peace, if he be ex- empt from the corrosion of anxious thoughts and live in the light of hope, there would seem to be nothing wanting to develop every germ of power, and to se- cure the amplest harvest of beauty. But this is the favorable aspect of the case. It is like an argument on one side of a doubtful cause. An obvious question is suggested to a sceptical mind if Rome be a place of such magical power, why does it not send forth an annual supply of Raphaels and Correggios ? Of these clusters of fantastic looking young men, bearded and mustachioed, that emerge from the reeking depths of the Cafe Greco, how few are there that ever paint a picture that a man would want to look at twice, much less buy. How much of time and energy is wasted in idle dreaming, weak self- indulgence, lounging, smoking, and wine-drinking. It is true in art, as in many other things, that the inward faculty is often paralyzed and discouraged by the too great abundance of external instruments and facilities. Compression and concentration are essential elements in attaining the best possible results. The stream, which moves with such power and swiftness when shouldered between neighboring cliffs, would become an unsightly swamp if left to spread itself over a wide and level region. In walking through the halls and galleries of the Vatican, with their army of busts and statues, I have often said to myself, that if I were a young sculptor, my heart would break at the sight of ARTISTS IN ROME. 257 what was around me ; not merely from despair of rival- ling the excellence of the best works, but from a sense of the unprofitableness of laboring to add any thing more to stores already so vast. Besides, that the accu- mulation of so many works of the highest merit, both in sculpture and painting, may act upon many natures rather as a narcotic than a stimulus, the presence of so much that bewitches the eye has a tendency to draw the attention outward to external objects ; to give to the thoughts a wandering and volatile character, and fill the mind with a flutter of restless images, that never can become fixed. Excellence in art is to be attained by active effort and not by passive impres- sions ; by the manly overcoming of difficulties ; by patient struggle against adverse circumstances ; by the thrifty use of moderate opportunities. The great art- ists were not rocked and dandled into eminence, but they attained to it by that course of labor and disci- pline which no man need go to Rome or Paris or London to enter upon. In the sphere of the needful and the useful, the value of the result is generally pro- portioned to the richness and variety of the instru- ments employed. Law, medicine, or engineering may be best studied where there are the best libraries, the ablest professors, the -most extended facilities. But not so with the fine arts, in which native power so largely enters. An academy for teaching young men to write poetry would be an obvious absurdity, though it might have the effect of increasing the number of commonplace versifiers; and it may be questioned whether academies of painting, with their lectures, their casts, their models, their exhibitions, and their VOL. n. 17 258 ARTISTS IN ROME. prizes, have any other effect than to multiply the num- ber of indifferent artists and of poor pictures to make painting only a higher kind of upholstery, a little better than the trade of the paper-stainer. To visit the studios of young artists is one of the ap- proved methods of disposing of an idle forenoon in Rome, and I sometimes fell in with the general custom. But such expeditions usually threw a shadow upon my spirits, because they left upon my mind a prevailing impression of mediocrity ; sometimes united with mod- esty, with industry, with good taste, with just views, but still, mediocrity. But the world does not want medi- ocrity in those fine arts which respond to an ultimate instinct, and are not means towards a further end. Of what value is a tolerable picture, a respectable poem, a statue that is not bad ? This is, indeed, in conform- ity with the stern mood of Nature, which moves by inexorable and unsentimental laws, and is prodigal of promise but sparing in mature results. But it is none the less saddening to be forced to feel that of so many that are called, so few are chosen ; of the hopeful and exulting crowds that start in the race, how many drop on the way, and how few reach the goal ! As I have passed groups and clusters of young artists in Rome, I have often thought of an expression which broke from Abernethy, when he came into his lecture-room one morning and saw it thronged with medical students, ' God help you ! where are you all to find bread ? ' More than once have I visited a studio in which one moment's glance was enough to furnish all the elements by which to calculate the occupant's horoscope. There was the evidence of a certain facility of hand, and of ARTISTS IN ROME. 259 an organization sensitive to fine impressions, but no stamp of power and no glimpse of ideal beauty. The young artist had mistaken sensibility for genius, and dreams for creations. He was destined to join that sad caravan of mediocrity, who wander without making progress ; to become one of those forlorn shadows that are neither good nor bad, whom success never stays to greet, but looks at and passes by on the other side. It is true, that such a lot is not always productive of unhappiness, and that moderate powers are often com- bined with either a cheerfulness of temperament which makes sunshine for itself, or with an invincible self- esteem which refuses to admit what it cannot but see ; so that, on the whole, life is comfortable enough. But all the pursuits of an artist, the hopes on which he feeds, the dreams which visit him, and the daily food of his mind, tend to develope that sensitiveness which, while it enhances the glow of triumph, sharpens also the sting of failure. In common life, it is a misfortune to have more ambition than power ; in art, to have more of the vision than the faculty. Unhappy is the life of that artist who will not recognize the inexorable fact of his own mediocrity ; who nurses the delusion that his want of success comes from the obstruction of adverse circumstances, and not from essential defects ; who is ever wooing the beauty which he never can win. His life is, indeed, doubly unhappy ; for his rebellious spirit will check the growth of his powers, and his work will be darkened by the shadows of his discontent. In the fine arts, comparisons are inevitable : there are ranks, degrees, and gradations of excellence. The place of an artist in the scale of merit is a fact from which he 260 CRAWFORD. cannot escape. Unless he have the genius which will carry him near to the top, or the contented spirit which will make him happy lower down, let him betake him- self to more modest toils, in which, if there be less to gain, there is also less to lose. CRAWFORD. I should do injustice to my own feelings, if I did not make particular mention of our distinguished country- man, Crawford ; and yet there is an element of embar- rassment mingled with the impulse which moves me. It is difficult to hit upon the proper shade of language in which to speak of the works or the genius of a valued personal friend. We shrink from excessive praise, as unworthy of the affection which we feel ; and in avoiding that, we may fall into a tone of cold- ness and restraint, unworthy of the object of that affection. The range of sculpture is not so wide as that of painting ; and sculptors differ less among themselves than painters. No two sculptors can stand at points so remote from each other as Rubens and Cornelius, for instance ; both great painters. The distance between one sculptor and another is measured upon the same scale, and the distinction is more that of degree merely, than in painting. To produce the highest excellence in sculpture, the mind and the hand must act together. There must be ideal beauty, truth of sentiment, depth of feeling; and there must be also mechanical skill. These two elements the intellectual and the manual rarely meet. We see works in which a sublime or CRAWFORD. 261 beautiful idea is imperfectly rendered ; reminding us of an eloquent speaker struggling to express himself in a foreign tongue ; and on the other hand, admirable mechanical dexterity is occasionally wasted upon low or commonplace themes. In mere execution, Bernini's Sta. Theresa is a more clever work than Maderno's Sta. Cecilia ; but its sentiment is vile, and no man of relig- ious feeling, or even moral thoughtfulness, would wish to look upon it a second time. Hence, in works of sculpture we recognize a dis- tinction founded upon the preponderance of the mind or the hand. Crawford belongs to that class of sculp- tors whom for want of a better term we may call intellectual. In creative power and poetical feeling, I should place him at the head of all his professional brethren in Rome. He is an original thinker in his art : possessing that quality of invention, without which judgment is cold and taste is feeble. He feels and comprehends the antique, but is not imprisoned within its range. We may apply to him what was so happily said of Cowley, that he wears the garb but not the clothes of the ancients. He is capable, alike, of ex- pressing modern ideas in marble, and of reproducing the fine forms of Grecian art. Let it not be inferred from what I have said, that Crawford is at all deficient in mechanical skill. No one is capable of giving a more minute and careful finish to his works, if he will | but it is true that he does not always do himself justice in this respect. He has something of the impatience of genius : before an image of beauty has been turned to form, another takes pos- session of his mind ; and the new impulse will not per- 262 CRAWFORD. mil him to linger over the task in hand with that plodding assiduity which costs no effort to men of less productive imagination. The coming and the parting guest sometimes interfere with each other. Art is long and life is short too short for any of its precious mo- ments to be given to the finical minuteness of Chinese ivory carving : the unformed block in which the new vision sleeps, waiting to be waked into life, exerts a more powerful attraction for the artist than the statue or bust which already expresses his idea, though not with sufficient distinctness for those with whom art is a mere luxury of the eye. Thus, Crawford's fine genius is not fairly appreciated by those nice critics who judge of works in sculpture by their fidelity of imitation ; who go into raptures over the skilful reproduction in marble of the meshes of a net or the folds of a veil. Crawford's career has been distinguished by energy, resolution, and self-reliance. While yet a youth, he formed the determination to make himself an artist ; and with this view went to Rome about seventeen years ago alone, unfriended, and unknown and there began a life of toil and renunciation ; resisting the ap- proaches alike of indolence and despondency. His strength of character and force of will would have earned distinction for inferior powers than his. Nothing was given to self-indulgence ; nothing to vague dreams ; nothing to unmanly despair. He did not wait for the work that he would have, but labored cheerfully upon that which he could have. Success came gradually, but surely ; and his powers as surely proved themselves to be more than equal to the demand made upon them. His progress in art was steady and uniform, and each CRAWFORD. 263 step onward became a point of departure for a new advance. The reception in Boston of his statue of Orpheus, in 1841, was a marked era in his life : the merits of this fine work introduced him to a larger circle of admirers than he had before possessed, but it did not surprise those who had previously known him. His nature is concentrated and reserved ; his sympa- thies deep and strong, but not lightly stirred. Loved and valued by those who know him, his manner, in general, does not commend his fine genius and sub- stantial worth to those who see him but casually. He is the most truthful of men : in his whole body there is not a drop of courtier's blood. He owes every thing to merit and nothing to favor. I have been more than once amused to notice how, by a sort of necessity of his nature, he would become particularly rigid and un- expressive when thrown into the presence of men of fortune, from whom a commission might possibly have been received. Like all men who, during the forming period of life, have lived much alone, and pursued a great object with intense self-devotion, his spirit is not always where he is himself : some shape or vision of beauty seems to take possession of his thoughts with a power not to be escaped or postponed. His early and exclusive devotion to the chisel left him no time for any wide range of general reading ; but his knowledge of the principles and history of* art, and of the lives of eminent artists, is far greater than any but his intimate friends imagine. The Italian language is to him another vernacular tongue : he has lived much among Italians, and understands the mind and character of the people as few foreigners do. 264 CRAWFORD. Crawford's reserve is the reserve of a lofty and some- times abstracted nature, but borrows no ingredient from coldness, timidity, or envy. His generous spirit passed unharmed through years of poverty and struggle. To- wards his brother artists he has always turned a coun- tenance of friendliness and sympathy. As he was eager to learn, so he is ready to teach. His know- ledge and skill are not hoarded, but liberally imparted. His own experiences open his heart to those young students who are entering upon that steep and difficult path, over which he moved with such firm steps : his hand is ever ready to aid, and his voice to encourage them. It is impossible to know an author or an artist with- out making comparisons between the man and his works. With my knowledge of Crawford, I never entered his studio and looked round upon his various productions in marble, plaster, or clay without a feeling that, excellent as they were, there was a power in him beyond any thing which he had as yet accom- plished that nothing had thus far called forth all the hidden resources of his genius. He never seemed in his appropriate element when occupied with what may be called drawing-room sculpture those merely graceful forms which are not in discord with ottomans and work-tables but he required a wider field and higher tasks. The great work upon which he is now occupied for the state of Virginia, opens to him as noble a field of opportunity as was ever enjoyed by any sculptor, and that his success will be equal to the gran- deur of his theme that he will justify to the world all the admiration of his friends is with those who know CRAWFORD. 265 him not hope but conviction. He now stands upon a point where he may look back upon the past with pride, and forward to the future with calm assurance. The struggle was not too long continued ; the crown did not come too late. The harsh aspect of past trials is soft- ened by distance ; yet are they near enough to deepen the present peace. Singularly happy in his domestic relations, passionately attached to his profession, "his world is comprised in his studio and his family. The energies which bore him so triumphantly through years of struggle will not languish in the air of happiness. The light which he followed in darkness will not go out in the blaze of noon. CHAPTER XII. English in Italy Steeple Chase on the Campagna. ENGLISH IN ITALY. AN interesting historical essay might be written on the causes which have changed the old Roman char- acter into the modern Italian. The points of resem- blance are few ; the points of difference many and marked. The Roman was stern, downright, and con- centrated ; the Italian is sensitive, impassioned, and expansive. The Romans had great organizing and aggregating power ; not only distributing the members of a single state in the harmonious degrees of civil society, but setting separate states into an imperial mosaic of symmetry and beauty. In modern Italian history we see vivid individual development more than combined force, and the fervid energies of isolated communities wasted in passionate struggles with each other. The hard and uniform Romans submitted them- selves to be bound together like the rods of the consu- lar fasces, but the sharper and more salient idiosyn- cracies of the Italians forbid such absorption. The interpretation of the Romans is found in law and order ; of the Italians, in beauty and art. The Latin ENGLISH IN ITALY. 267 language is masculine, robust, energetic, and lapidary : Latin literature is earnest, formal, dignified, and cold : rather to be characterized by negatives than by posi- tives, for it is not imaginative, not inventive, not dra- matic. The Italian language is feminine, flexible, and elastic ; soft as air and flowing as water ; yielding to the finest touch and floating lightly round the most aerial forms of fancy. Italian literature is full of rich invention, airy beauty, wild wit, gay humor, passionate feeling. It is playful, imaginative, tender, and grace- ful. The change from ancient Rome to modern Italy, from strength to softness, and from power to emotion, has suggested to Landor an image of great beauty. ' There tiny pleasures occupy the place Of glories and of duties ; as the feet Of fabled fairies, -when the sun goes down, Trip o'er the grass where wrestlers strove by day." The Trasteverini, who dwell on the right bank of the Tiber, as is well known, claim to have a larger share of the Roman blood than their neighbors on the other side of the stream. They hold their heads higher and walk with larger strides, in that belief. In sober truth, there is very little to support their claim to the blood of old Rome, and still less, to its spirit. These ex- citable and explosive people shew, in their boasting tongues and jealous tempers, that exaggeration of self, the freedom from which was the corner-stone of Ro- man greatness. Hands that stab women with knives will never support the fabric of a great state. But the legitimate descendants of the old Romans, the true inheritors of their spirit, are still to be found 268 ENGLISH IN ITALY. in Rome ; and in no inconsiderable numbers. In the morning, they may be seen in Monaldini's reading- room, poring over the Times or Galignani, galloping over the Campagna, driving about the streets and never looking to the right hand or the left, or gather- ing in groups in the Piazza di Spagna to hear the last news from home. In the afternoon, they betake them- selves to the Pincio, and for a certain season pace up and down its gravelled terrace with vigorous strides, their faces wearing a look of determined resolve, as if the constitution of their country, as well as their own, would suffer if they lost their daily walk. They are not more distinguished from the Italians by their brown hair and ruddy complexions, than by the depth of their chests, the breadth of their shoulders, the firmness of their step, and the energy of their movement. They stalk over the land as if it were their own. There is something downright and uncompromising in their air. They have the natural language of command, and their bearing flows from the proud consciousness of undisputed power. The English, indeed, are the true Romans. The magnificent lines in which the national pride of Vir- gil makes the inferiority of his countrymen in art, eloquence, and science, an element of lofty commen- dation are at this day applicable to the descendants of those painted Britons who stood in the poet's mind as the most obvious types of all that was remote, un- couth, and barbarous. They, like the Romans, are haughty to the proud and forbearing towards the weak. They force the mood of peace upon nations that can- not afford to waste their strength in unprofitable war. ENGLISH IN ITALY. 269 They are law-makers, road-makers, and bridge-makers. They are penetrated with the instinct of social order, and have the organ of political constructiveness. The English, too, as a general rule, are not at home in the region of art. They are either not sensitive to the touch of beauty, or affect not to be. Their artists are wanting in ideal grace and depth of sentiment. The manly genius of the nation disdains the tricks and colors of rhetoric. Their common speech is abrupt ; and their public discourse, plain, business-like, and conversational. A course of policy which all Chris- tendom waits to hear is announced by a badly-dressed gentleman, in a series of clumsy and fragmentary sen- tences, in which there is always good sense but not always good grammar. The English noblemen and gentlemen have the taste which the patricians of Rome had, for agricultural and rural life. They have the same liking for rough, athletic sports ; the same insen- sibility to animal pain and suffering ; and in their per- sonal habits, the same love of bathing a taste which has quite died out upon the soil of Rome. The English residing or travelling upon the conti- nent would, if gathered together, make a large city. They carry England with them wherever they go. In Rome, there is an English church, an English reading- room, an English druggist, an English grocer, and an English tailor. As England is an island, so they every where form an insular community, upon which the waves of foreign influence beat in vain. This pecu- liarity penetrates to the individual. A French or Ger- man table d'hote is a social continent ; but an English coffee-room, at the hour of dinner, is an archipelago of 270 ENGLISH IN ITALY. islets, with deep straits of reserve and exclusiveness flowing between. Travellers of other nations learn to conform to the manners and customs of the people ^ about them ; avoiding the observation attracted by sin- gularity. Not so the Englishman : he boldly faces the most bristling battery of comment and notice. His shooting jacket, checked trowsers, and brown gaiters proclaim his nationality before he begins to speak ; he rarely yields to the seduction of a moustache ; he is inflexibly loyal to tea ; and will make a hard fight be- fore consenting to dine at an earlier hour than five. The English in Rome, as a general rule, shew little sensibility to the peculiar influences of the place. To- wards the Catholic Church and its ceremonies they turn a countenance of irreverent curiosity ; trying the spirit of the Italians by their careless deportment, their haughty strides, and their inveterate staring intimat- ing that the forms of Catholic worship are merely dra- matic entertainments performed by daylight. Nor are they much moved by beauty, in nature or art. An Englishman, in his heart of hearts, regards emotion or enthusiasm as feminine weaknesses, unworthy of man- hood. A fine dog or horse calls forth from him more energetic admiration than the most beautiful landscape or picture. He marches through a gallery with reso- lute strides his countenance expanding as the end draws near. Five minutes despatch a Raphael ; four, a Titian or Correggio ; and two or three are enough for less illustrious names. It need hardly be said that the English in Rome are not popular, either with the Italians in spite of the money they spend or with their fellow-sojourners ENGLISH IN ITALY. 271 from other lands. They form the subject of innumera- ble caricatures ; and hardly a book of travels appears in any language but their own which is not seasoned with stories good, if not true of English phlegm, English rudeness, or English eccentricity. But this unpopularity is not more marked than the lofty disdain with which it is accepted by the parties who are the subjects of it. Coriolanus himself did not confront ill- will with a haughtier brow. Indeed, as a general rule, an Englishman is never so repulsive as when it is his cue to conciliate opposition and disarm unreasonable prejudice. The institutions of England are eminently calculated to promote individual development ; that is, among the favored classes ; and herein the parallel between them and the old Romans fails. An Englishman, happily born and reared, has larger opportunities for growth and expansion than have been enjoyed by the people of any country, at any period Athens, at its best age, not excepted for the religious and domestic elements in England more than balance the art and philosophy of Athens. The most finished men I have ever known were Englishmen. But the difference between the top and the bottom of the scale is much greater than with us. The most ignorant men I saw on the Continent the least prepared to profit by foreign travel were Englishmen. No American would be found upon the soil of Europe so profoundly ignorant, though he might have left home with as little knowledge. He would have bolted the contents of half a dozen guide-books on the voyage. He would not have been prevented by pride, self-love, indolence, or good breeding, from ask- 272 ENGLISH IN ITALY. ing a thousand questions of every body with an English ear in his head. But EngHshmen dislike to ask or answer questions. The ignorance of an American is restless and clamorous : that of an Englishman, silent, apathetic, and hopeless. It would not be fair to leave this picture without its lights. The growling discontent which an Englishman manifests in Italy is to be explained and excused by the perfect material civilization and fair dealing of his own country. Accustomed to the fine roads, the com- fortable inns, the luxurious carriages, the clean beds, and the well-served tables of England, he is thrown upon the discomforts of Italy dirty inns, bad dinners, comfortless sleeping-rooms, bells that will not ring, servants that will not come, and horses that will not go. He exchanges quiet efficiency for noisy inefficiency. There is a great deal of bustle, much loud promising, vehement asseveration, and energetic gesticulation ; but the thing to be done is not done. Accustomed to deal with men who have but one price for their goods, he finds that an Italian shopkeeper begins by asking double the sum he has made up his mind to take. He passes from a land where minutes are precious to one where time is of no value. Born in a country where a trades- man or a mechanic has not broken an appointment since the Norman Conquest, he is involved in a perfect network of lying, shuffling, equivocation, and excuse- making. Engagements are not kept : work is not sent home at the promised time : no man is as good as his word : the moral relation established by a contract is an unknown quantity. Besides all and above all, he is chafed by the absence, every where in Rome, of Eng- ENGLISH IN ITALY. 273 lish comfort and English cleanliness. Doors will not shut : windows will not open : fireplaces will not warm : walls will not keep out the wind : streets and staircases are filthy : carpets are unclean : beds are suspicious. Something must be pardoned to the spirit of English order and English neatness. The English- man in Italy brings with him a standard of civilization, by which his experiences are tried. He cannot make up his body to submit to annoyances and discomforts, because he has not previously made up his mind. The same person who frets at tough chickens and damp sheets at Viterbo or Radicofani, if fairly turned out into the woods and forced to sleep under a tree, rolled up in a blanket, would be the most cheerful and uncomplaining of men. The English in Italy, as on the Continent generally, are not liked ; but, on the other hand, they are never despised. They carry about with them the impress of qualities which extort respect, not unmingled with fear. Too proud to stoop and too cold to sympathize, they are too honest to flatter and too brave to dissemble. Truth, courage, and justice those lion virtues that stand round the throne of national greatness shape their blunt manners and their downright speech. No thoughtful Italian can help honoring the tenacity with which an Englishman clings to his own convictions of what is right and becoming, without regard to the judg- ments which others may form or express ; nor can he fail to confess that the position and influence of Italy would have been far different, had more of that manly element been mingled in the blood of her people. Every conscientious Catholic must needs respect the VOL. II. 18 274 ENGLISH IN ITALY. fidelity which Englishmen shew to the religious insti- tutions of their country ; the regularity with which they attend upon public worship in the chapels of their own faith ; and their careful abstinence from ordinary amusements and occupations on Sundays. This un- compromising hold upon their own interpretation of right is sometimes pushed to an extreme, and often turns an unamiable aspect towards others ; but without it there is neither national greatness nor individual worth. The English are proud of their own country, and for that, surely, no one can blame them. They are proud of its history, of its literature, of its constitution ; and, especially, of the rank it holds and the power it wields at the present time. To this national pride they have a fair right. A new sense of the greatness of England is gathered from travelling on the Continent; for let an Englishman go where he will, the might and majesty of his country seem to be hanging over him like an un- seen shield. Let but a hand of violence be laid upon an English subject, and the great British lion, which lies couchant in Downing Street, begins to utter men- acing growls and shake his invincible locks. An Eng- lish man-of-war seems to be always within one day's sail of every where. Let political agitation break out in any port on the globe, if there be even a roll of English broadcloth or a pound of English tea to be en- dangered thereby, within forty-eight hours an English steamer or frigate is pretty sure to drop anchor in the harbor, with an air which seems to say, ' Here I am : does any body want any thing of me ? ' STEEPLE-CHASE ON THE CAMPAGNA. STEEPLE CHASE ON THE CAMPAGNA. The English are remarkable, among other things, for the energy and spirit with which they transport their amusements into foreign countries. These are neither simple nor unexpensive ; and a good deal of the na- tional resolution is put forth in bringing English hounds and English hunters to Rome. But the result is such as may well make a British heart swell with exulta- tion ; for now, on a fine breezy morning in December, the storm of an English fox-chase may be seen sweep- ing over the Campagna huntsmen, whippers-in, earth-stoppers, and what not with red-coated gen- tlemen that take leaps that make an Italian turn pale, and hounds whose deep bay is borne on the wind that waves the long grass on the Claudian aqueduct. What must have been the sensations of the first Roman fox, that looked forward to a quiet, domestic life, and to no worse fate than to be shot through the head by a peasant, when he found his dreams rudely shattered by these howling demons, and was forced to run for life across the fields he had so often traversed on a fearless trot ! An English fox seems born to and prepared for this inheritance ; buttin Italian fox has had this destiny thrust upon him by ' perfidious Albion.' Unhappy foxes ! your day may come at last, when it will be your privilege, with hound and horn, to chase middle- aged gentlemen in red coats and white-top boots over some purgatorial Campagna. I have a distinct remembrance of a characteristic incident which I observed, on one occasion, before the Pope's palace on the Quirinal. A considerable num 276 STEEPLE-CHASE ON THE CAMPAGNA. her of persons were assembled there, waiting to receive the Pope with some expression of admiration, when he should appear. Two figures in red coats, passed slowly by on horseback, followed by several hounds. That the men, who were probably huntsmen or whippers-in, should have ridden on with the rigid impassivity of their masters was to be expected, but the hounds them- selves had caught from their biped associates the trick of silent indifference, and walked along with their noses in the air, looking neither to the right hand nor the left, and with a marked expression of contempt on their countenances which seemed to say, ' What a set of snobs these are ! there is not a man here that an Eng- lish dog, of good family, ought ever to speak to.' On Thursday, February 24th, 1848, all the idlers in Rome were swarming out to the Tor di Quinto to wit- ness an English steeple-chase on the soil of the Cam- pagna. How striking a commentary on the changes of time and the altered fortunes of Rome, do these words suggest ! What would have been the emotions of a Roman senator under the empire, who, when re- turning from the market where he had bought a British slave, with a sunflower painted on his breast, should have been told that the Britons of a future age would come to Rome, not as slaves and tributaries, but with the proud port of masters and conquerors, and with a haughty disdain of the effeminate amusements of the degenerate people of Romulus, make the legendary soil of the Campagna the scene of their manly and stirring sports ! The weather was extremely favorable for such an exhibition ; the sky of cloudless blue, and the air of STEEPLE-CHASE ON THE CAMPAGNA. 277 that happy mixture of softness and freshness which makes the early spring in Italy so delicious. The place chosen was also well suited for the purpose, being a long stretch of level ground, commanded by an elevation of considerable height, wide enough to accommodate all the spectators. On the top of the hill a table with refreshments was spread under a tent which stood within a temporary enclosure. This was for the benefit of the noblemen and gentlemen who presided over the sport, and their guests. The rest of the spectators distributed themselves in groups and clusters all over the hill-side ; and the variety of cos- tumes and faces, with the bright sunshine and the beau- tiful slopes and undulations of the Campagna, made up a picture well worth the seeking, even if nothing else had been proffered. It was amusing to watch the par- ties as they appeared and arranged themselves upon the hill here, an English family, known by their pure complexions, their full forms, their spotless dra- pery, and their impassive countenances ; commonly at- tended by a tall servant with a basket of provisions there, a knot of German students, studying with admir- ing glances the fine colors in some fair Anglo-Saxon face here, a group of young Italians talking loudly and gesticulating earnestly and there, a peasant girl, with large brown eyes dilated with wonder and curiosity. The first performance was a donkey-race, which served to amuse the spectators and keep them in good humor. The sturdy little quadrupeds horses trans- lated into Dutch, as Jean Paul calls them laid hold of the ground well, and seemed to feel the spirit of the 278 STEEPLE-CHASE ON THE CAMPAGNA. contest. Then came the steeple-chase itself. A cir- cuitous line of some two or three miles in length had been marked out, over which the horses were to run ; and by way of increasing the natural difficulties in the way, several artificial obstructions, in the shape of fences and ditches of various kinds, had been inter- posed. Some half a dozen horses, with riders in red jackets and buckskin breeches, started in the race. The whole course lay open to the eye ; but the distance was so considerable that the horses and their riders were shrunk to half the natural size. There was enough of danger in the enterprise to infuse a strong element of excitement into the minds of the spectators. The horses ran beautifully and took fearful leaps ; and both they and their riders met with serious falls ; but happily no bones were broken, though sometimes the men's limbs seemed folded up like a carpenter's rule. But luckily the soil of the Campagna is soft. At each of the artificial barriers one or more of the horses tum- bled over, and seemed to give the thing up as a bad job ; and, if I remember right, not one of the riders kept his saddle the whole time. After it was over, the rider of the winning horse was brought up in triumph to the tent. His clothes and face were plentifully stained with variations of each soil he had passed over, and he might, as he stood, have done good service in a geological museum. The saying, that it takes all sorts of people to make a world, is accepted as a sufficient explanation of every form of eccentric madness ; and under this comprehensive mantle even steeple-chases may be included. But was there ever a more senseless and fool-hardy pastime among civilized man than this, STEEPLE-CHASE ON THE CAMPAGNA. 279 in which the most fearful risks are encountered without the spur of duty, the meed of applause, or the love of gain ? What an epitaph for the monument of an Eng- lishman living in a land so teeming with opportunities for usefulness and happiness that he broke his neck in trying to jump his horse over a hurdle, while riding a steeple-chase. That a Roman nobleman or gentle- man should be willing to encourage a sport which would stand a chance to get him out of the world with- out the shame and guilt of suicide, would not be so surprising ; but, in general, the more degraded and worthless a life is, the more it is clung to. In such a spectacle the eloquent Pascal would see a new proof of the fallen nature of man, and that weariness of life which is its perpetual attendant and penalty that deep thirst of discontent, which drives its victim into the excitements of guilt and danger,, but can never be slaked but at those primal fountains of truth, from which the infant steps of humanity had wandered. CHAPTER XIII. Houses in Rome Inhabitants of Rome Site and Climate of Rome Mala- ria Noble Families of Rome Tragical Story of the Savelli Family. HOUSES IN ROME. THE houses in Rome, as is the case in most conti- nental cities, are so arranged that each story forms an entire residence of itself; the common staircase serving the purpose of a street. This staircase is often not closed at all, and is always kept open till a late hour. They are rarely lighted, except by a -solitary lamp on the ground-floor ; so that provident persons usually carry a coil of wax-taper in the pocket, to be lighted at night before ascending. The steps of the staircases are invariably of stone ; and, generally, very dirty. For ladies who have delicate lungs and white dresses, it requires no little resolution to climb up to the fourth story of a high Roman house. The residents in such airy regions console themselves with the compensating thought, that when they have once reached their home they have no more upward steps to take. In general, the higher the situation, the healthier. In cold and stormy weather, beggars often coil themselves up in HOUSES IN ROME. 281 the corners of these staircases and pass the night there. Assassins sometimes lie in wait there for their victims, led by jealousy or revenge. The Romans treasure up a wrong, and patiently wait for an opportunity of re- quital. Especially, let no man ever be provoked to strike a Roman of the lower orders ; for that is an insult which nothing but blood will wash out. Many things at Rome betray a general sense of mu- tual insecurity and distrust ; on reaching the outer door of a suite of apartments, there are no means of opening it from the outside, but the visitor, whoever he may be, must ring the bell, which is commonly sounded by means of a string. Nor will his summons be immedi- ately answered. Sometimes his person will be recon- noitred through a bit of glass or grating arranged for the purpose, and sometimes he will hear a voice calling upon him to declare who he is. To this summons the usual answer is, ' Amici,' * friends. Here I may venture to tear a leaf or two out of the volume of my own personal experience. Two of my friends and myself formed a common household during the three months of my residence in Rome. We hired a suite of rooms in the Via San Bastianello a very short street which runs out of the Piazza di Spagna for which we paid eighty scudi a month, which included the care of the rooms. The apartments were on the secondo piano, or third story, as we should call it. There was a family living above us, and another below, but we never met them, and for several weeks did not * ' Amico,' the singular, means something more than a friend. 282 HOUSES IN ROME. know their names. On opening the outer door, we passed into an entry of moderate size, from which doors opened into a bed-room, a drawing-room, and a small kitchen. The drawing-room was a spacious apartment of about thirty feet by twenty, handsomely carpeted and furnished. It had but one defect it was difficult to keep it warm in damp and cold weather. The fire- place was ludicrously unsuited to perform the proper functions of a fireplace ; being a mere hole, or deep oven, scooped out of the chimney, at the end of which the fire nestled in modest obscurity. We were obliged in the early days of our housekeeping, to summon in a mason to remedy some defect in this fireplace, who proved himself to be possessed of those two very com- prehensive faults which some wit ascribed to his horse that he was very hard to catch, and good for nothing when caught. From the drawing-room a door led into a small dining-room, and beyond the dining-room were three bedrooms opening into each other, with windows look- ing out upon the court-yard. These bedrooms were rather dark and cheerless in their aspect. Many things were wanting in finish, and shewed no very high stand- ard of material civilization. The hinges of the doors were not like ours, but like the bolts on which window- blinds are hung ; so that when the door was thrown back, it fell out of the perpendicular. The tongs in the dining-room were composed of a solid piece of iron, bent round ; and a considerable force was neces- sary to bring the ends together so as to grasp a brand. INHABITANTS OF ROME. 283 INHABITANTS OF ROME. The inhabitants of Rome are divided into three classes or divisions ; the Trasteverini, who live on the right bank of the Tiber; the Monteggiani, who dwell on the hills ; and the Popolanti, who occupy the low grounds of the Campus Martius and its neighborhood. It is said that a trained ear can detect peculiarities of speech and enunciation by which each is distinguished from the others. In general, the language is spoken in Rome with a fulness and metallic ring not usual among northern nations, and resembling the rich vo- calization of Italian singers. The mouth is opened more widely than at the north, and the volume of sound projected has more body and strikes more round- ly upon the ear. The letter R is ejaculated with great force. Milton, in his treatise on Education, makes an observation undoubtedly suggested by his own com- parison of the manner of speaking in Italy with that in England. ' For we Englishmen, being far northerly, do not open our mouths in the cold air wide enough to grace a southern tongue ; but are observed by all other nations to speak exceeding close and inward.' In the quality and tone of the voice, the men have gen- erally the advantage of the women. In music, the barytone is the common voice among men; and the contralto, among women. In walking the streets of Rome, fine and expressive countenances are frequently to be seen, both among the country people and the residents themselves. A stranger, however, might pass many weeks there, and have no opportunity of judging of the amount of female 284 INHABITANTS OF ROME. beauty, because the women of the higher and middle classes are not much given to walking in the streets. There are always three or four times as many men as women to be seen, even in good weather. The win- dows of the Corso in the Carnival were a new revela- tion to me on this head. The two points in Europe, where the rays of beauty converge to the most glitter- ing focus are, probably, the Roman carnival and the London opera house. The English and Roman women have a common resemblance in the fact that they are seen to the best advantage when seated. The features of the Roman women are generally regular, and the shape of the face more inclined to the square than the oval. The hair, rich, black, and full, is braided and knotted in a becoming and picturesque fashion. The forehead is low, broad, and firm ; an- swering in its expression to the lower part of the face, which is massive and compact. The eye is large and finely set in its socket. The teeth, arms, and bust are fine ; but the hands and feet, especially the latter, large ; and the whole frame somewhat too sturdy and compact. The nose is large and almost invariably straight or aquiline. A clever Scotchwoman once re- marked, in a mixed party of Italians and English, that she and her countrymen looked like restored busts, with noses too small. The upper lip is often shaded with something more than the suspicion of a moustache. What is most wanting in the Roman women is an expression of softness, delicacy, and refinement. As the men there are like women, so the women are like men. The complexion is more like the rich rind of a ripe fruit than the transparent veil of passing emotions SITE AND CLIMATE OF ROME. 285 which play and vanish like auroral gleams. The eyes shine with a fixed, external light, like that of glass or polished metal ; and do not darken with sensibility. The lips are firm and not tremulous. I have often stopped to look at the nurses who were in attendance upon their young charges, in fine weather, upon the Pincian Hill. Their heads, never defaced with a bonnet, seemed made and dressed to go into a picture. The hair, of rich lustrous black, lay in massive braids, and was gathered into a knot behind, pierced with a silver arrow. The complexion, of a glowing, gypsy yellow such as only Titian could paint was in harmony with the gay boddice and streaming belt ribbon. The face, square in outline and compact in structure, wore the impassive expres- sion of a marble bust. But the large, brown eyes were animated with a strange mixture of animal tenderness and animal fierceness like those of a tigress fondling her cubs. Passion and peril lay slumbering in their depths. It was a volcanic face, which, at a moment's warning, might break out in explosions of love, hatred, jealousy, or revenge. Thus Semiramis might have looked, while yet a shepherd's daughter ; or Charlotte Corday, while dreaming in the woods of Normandy, before the air-drawn dagger marshalled her the way to Paris. SITE AND CLIMATE OF ROME. The site of Rome is not particularly adapted to the metropolis of a great empire. It was selected, partly because here was found the first rising ground above 286 SITE AND CLIMATE OF ROME. the mouth of the Tiber, which was also navigable dur- ing the intermediate course ; and partly on account of the capacity of defence furnished by the rocky emi- nence of the Capitoline Hill and the swamps around it. The many towns in Europe, especially in Italy, which are perched, like eagles' nests, on the top of craggy elevations, so that the inhabitants are obliged to drag every thing, even water, up hill, recall a period when protection against violence was the first consideration. Such a position was of peculiar importance to the first settlers of Rome, a band of outlaws and adventurers who held by the strong hand, and with whom might was right. There were two disadvantages, especially, in the spot on which Rome was founded ; its swampy character made it unhealthy ; and it was liable to most disastrous inundations of the river. The Cloaca Maxi- ma is a proof, not only of the energies and resources of that early period, but of the urgent need which, from sanitary reasons, impelled to it. Time has mod- ified the former of these defects, but not the latter. The overflowings of the Tiber are still a frequent and serious evil ; and the more mischievous in proportion to the amount of property exposed to destruction. The low and tame hills, over which the buildings of Rome slowly straggled, must have suffered by contrast with the splendid mountain ranges to the East. It is no wonder, that, as Goethe says, the Alban women, lan- guishing in the fogs of the Tiber, looked with tearful eyes towards the breezy mountain home from which they had been torn. The climate of Rome and its immediate neighbor- hood can never have been truly healthy. Sanitary SITE AND CLIMATE OF ROME. 287 statistics were unknown among the ancients ; and we can only conjecture, by the frequent hints and state- ments in Roman authors, that fevers were common and violent then as now. The old Romans were less sensitive to atmospheric influences than their succes- sors; partly because of their general use of woollen clothing next the skin, and partly because their system of gymnastic training made the body a more powerful weapon both of attack and defence. Besides, the modern brain and nervous system, exposed to so many stimulating influences, has become of a more suscep- tible fibre than in the days when bread and the circus rounded the whole circle of life. The climate of Rome is soft, rather damp, and, for a European climate, variable. The whole basin of the Tiber is ramparted on the north-east by the chain of the Apennines, and open on the south-west to the Med- iterranean. It is thus exposed to the dry north wind, called the tramontana, which comes down chilled with mountain-snows; and to the south-west, which brings the heat of Africa. These winds often succeed each other with a rapidity which reminds an American of the changes of his own country, but they seldom blow violently. In summer, the south-west wind, then called the scirocco, diffuses a close, damp, penetrating heat. The limbs are bathed in perspiration which no evapo- ration carries off, and to which night brings little relief. The nervous system is unstrung, and a listless apathy takes possession of mind and body. The dampness of the climate arises not only from the neighborhood of the sea and the extent of lakes and marshes, but from the fact that the clouds, wafted by the prevalent south- 288 SITE AND CLIMATE OF ROME. west winds, are driven back and chilled by the peaks of the Apennines, and fall in showers upon the plains. Snow falls occasionally in the winter, but so sel- dom, that when it does take place, the schools are dismissed that the children may have the rare and short-lived pleasure of dabbling in it. Two or three times in the course of an average life, the lake in the grounds of the Villa Borghese is covered with ice thick enough to allow of skating. In January and February, when the clear air allows a passage to the rays of the sun, the temperature is mild and genial. Jn the last week of February a vernal influence is felt in the breeze. The violet peeps forth under the sheltered hedges, and the turf puts on a livelier green. The month of April is delightful the ' ver novum ' of the Latin, and the ' primavera ' of the Italian poets. In May the heat begins to be oppressive. The harvest commences about the middle of June, and its labors, threshing included, usually lasts about three weeks. From the early part of July to the middle of Septem- ber is a period which, in its effects upon man and his works, is more like a northern winter than the proper winter months themselves. The extreme heat has the paralyzing and disabling effect of extreme cold. The fields are parched and dead, and the trees look as if the breath of fire had blasted them. The baked and cracked soil is lifted and whirled about in clouds of dust. No sound of animal life breaks the desert silence, for even the birds cease to sing. The heavens are of a deep cloudless blue, but are often suddenly overcast with a dense mass of clouds which pour down copious floods of rain, attended with heavy thunder and SITE AND CLIMATE OF ROME. 289 lightning. Even in summer, the tramontana some- times sets in suddenly, after the scirocco has been blowing for three or four days the thermometer falls many degrees, and great caution is requisite to avoid the danger of a sudden chill to the relaxed frame. October is the most delightful month in the whole year in Rome. It is the birth of a second spring. ' Re- freshed by the rains of early autumn, the earth is once more clothed with green. The flocks and herds come down to the low grounds of the Campagna, and the vintagers bring home their rich spoils. It is the month of fetes and festivals, of songs and dances. The com- mon people of Rome go out to the Monte Testaceo, and amuse themselves with games and sports. The rich nobleman opens his villa and invites his friends to share the pleasures of a brief villegiatura. The period of my own residence in Rome fell within a remarkably rainy season. From my brief experience I should say, that the climate is depressing and ener- vating, and not at all favorable to diseases of the ner- vous system or of the digestive organs. I have never been in any place where I felt so little disposed to do any work, whether of mind or body. It sometimes re- quired a vigorous moral effort to write even a letter. The effect upon the spirits of day after day of drizzly rain a dull gray sky above and yellow mud below and that too in a city never over-cheerful in its influ- ences is most dismal. One sees his own long face reflected in those of all his friends and countrymen. How often under these shadows have I wished for one of our winter days of clear crystal cold, in which the electric air sends the blood dancing and tingling through VOL. 11. 19 MALARIA. the veins, and charges the brain and frame with energy and endurance ! On the other hand, the Roman climate is favorable to bronchial -affections and to consumption in its earlier stages ; and the inhabitants, whether resi- dents or foreigners, are exempted from those heavy colds so common in our sharp atmosphere. MALARIA. Much has been written about the malaria of Rome, but the subject is not yet entirely clear ; and those in- quirers whose opinions are entitled to the most respect are not agreed as to the causes of the phenomena, the existence of which all admit. In such investigations, it is important to distinguish between the influences which are peculiar to Rome, and those which it shares with other places similarly situated. The case may be thus briefly stated. Those exposures which ordinarily lead to colds or rheumatic attacks, in Rome, especially in the summer fhonths, bring on intermittent fevers which easily assume a malignant type. There are "some pe- culiarities in the climate of Rome and the way of life there, which expose young and incautious travellers to sudden changes of temperature. The climate itself is variable. Then, the difference between the sunny and the shady side of the street is very great. Sometimes the mere turning of a corner brings one into a tempera- ture many degrees lower or higher than that just left. Italians avoid the sunny side of the street in walking, in winter as well as in summer. The habit of making excursions partly in a carriage and partly on foot, is dangerous. The churches and picture-galleries are MALARIA. 291 damp and cold, and the stone or marble floors are deadly chilling to the feet, unless protected by soles of extra thickness. If the adventurous traveller extends his researches further, and goes down into vaults, onibs, catacombs, and recent excavations, the danger arising from sudden changes of temperature becomes of course increased. But this danger, in its milder forms, can hardly be escaped at Rome ; for, in general, in passing out of the street into a house, the frame is sensible of a slight chill. But, besides the above, there is in Rome, and espe- cially in its neighborhood, between the months of June and October, a certain deadly influence evolved from the soil, which strikes upon the exposed frame with generally fatal effect. This morbific agency is most formidable after sunset, and seizes upon the system most strongly when in a state of sleep. This principle of disease is called out from the soil by the action of the sun, and produces effects similar in kind, though inferior in degree, to the fever and ague which pursues the new settlers in our country, wherever moist ground is exposed to the sun, and large masses of vegetable matter are left to decay. The subtle element of death eludes detection, because the nicest analysis fails to discover any different ingredients in the air of the most infected from that of the healthiest regions. Within the city, it is observed, as a general rule, but not without some exceptions, that the more tasteful and desirable the region is, the more dangerous is it during the infected season. Almost all the open spaces, espe- cially if left uncultivated, are unsafe. This is true of that part of the city which lies between Santa Maria 292 MALARIA. Maggiore and St. John Lateran, and around the latter church a region which has the most inviting look of peace and gentleness, but smiles only to destroy. The Piazza del Popolo and the Pincian Hill are not without suspicion. The same remark applies to the Vatican and St. Peter's. On the other hand, where the popula- tion is most dense, and the greatest number of fires are lighted, the air is the most wholesome. The Ghetto, or Jews quarter, the most crowded, filthy, and repulsive part of Rome, is always exempt from malaria. In general, the higher the position, the healthier. From the Alban Mount, in summer, a thick mist is often seen to hang over Rome, above which the high grounds and the upper stories are seen to emerge. The upper stories of a high house are healthier than the ground-floor, especially if they are exposed to the sun, and command a free circulation of air. Monte Mario, which is about four hundred feet above the plain, is in- habitable during the whole year. The Romans have a graduated scale of degrees of salubrity and insalubrity, generally corresponding to higher or lower elevations. The lowest point is, 1' aria pessirna, then, 1' aria cattiva, then, P aria sospetta, then, 1' aria sufficiente, then, 1' aria buona, and lastly, 1' aria fina or ottima. Houses which lie in the cold shadow of a hill, so that the free circulation of air is impeded, are more unhealthy than those which have clear spaces all around them. Sometimes it happens that the houses on one side of a street are more healthy than those on the other. Such is said to be the case with the Via Babuino. Even a difference is sometimes found be- tween the back and front apartments of the same house. MALARIA. 293 The principle of malaria, wafted through the air, seems to be in some measure arrested by material ob- structions. A range of hills often acts as a partial pro- tection. Piperno, for instance, is healthier than Sezza, though at a lower elevation ; because the former is separated from the Pontine marshes by a piece of rising ground. A screen of woods operates in the same man- ner. The cutting down of the extensive forests of pine which once bordered the seacoast of Latium, is be- lieved to have rendered the Campagria more unhealthy. Tournon relates, that the rumor of a project of cutting down a range of wood which protected Alba'no on the south alarmed the inhabitants so much that they went in crowds before the French authorities to protest against the measure. Sir George Head found a priest living with security in the neighborhood of the Palatine, upon a spot which had been abandoned for many years on account of its unhealthiness. He attributed its im- proved condition to a thriving grove of orange-trees. Superficial moisture is not a prominent source of ma- laria. The Campagna is, as a general rule, quite the reverse of a marshy or swampy tract, but resembles the downs of England or the prairies of our own coun- try. The draining of the Pontine marshes in the last century had no perceptible effect upon the health of Rome. It would seem that the exhalations forced up through the superficial soil, from lower strata of mois- ture, by the action of a powerful sun, are more deadly than the evaporation of water on the surface itself. The observation of the English army surgeons confirms this fact. It is the same in the fever and ague districts of our own country. The hot summers are those in 294 MALARIA. which the disease is most formidable, and not the damp. The use of woollen clothing next the skin is in some measure a preventive. The monks of the mendicant orders, who wear, even in summer, a robe of thick woollen, are able to live unharmed in places where other persons are affected. Fire also acts as a dis- infectant. It is said that a person might sleep with impunity in the deadliest regions of the Campagna, in the sickliest season, by keeping a large fire burning in the chimney. It is a mistake to suppose that a too generous and stimulating diet acts as a protection. In this as in similar forms of disease, an anxious and uneasy apprehension of evil is a disposing cause to its approach. Upon the whole, the facts in the case seem to war- rant the conclusion that the effects of the malaria in Rome and its neighborhood are not wholly to be ex- plained by general causes, such as operate in the many infected districts which are scattered over the globe ; but that, in addition to these, there are certain influences peculiar to this particular locality. These last have been sought in the composition of the soil of the Cam- pagna, which is partly of marine and partly of volcanic origin ; from which it is conjectured that gaseous ex- halations of peculiar malignity are forced from it by the action of the sun, and mingled with the atmospheric air. The researches of modern chemistry and the im- proved methods of analysis now in use may throw some light upon this branch of the inquiry. NOBLE FAMILIES OF ROME. 295 4 NOBLE FAMILIES OF ROME. Rome has always been the nursery and not the birth- place of genius and greatness. In antiquity, the leading names of native birth were Julius Cresar, Lucretius, and Tibullus. In the middle ages and in modern times, the same fact is observable. Of the churches and the palaces, the paintings and the statues which adorn Rome, by far the greater part are the works of foreign artists drawn to the capital by the munificent patronage of popes, cardinals, and princes. Of the architects, Gaddi, Brunelleschi, Alberti, Michael Angelo, Amma- nati, were Florentines ; the Fontanas were Milanese ; Sansovino was a Tuscan ; Palladio and Scamozzi were from Vicenza ; Bernini was a Neapolitan ; Borromini, a Milanese. Rome gave birth only to Giacomo della Porta, Olivieri, Soria, Carlo Rainaldi, Antonio Rossi, Geronimo Teodoli, Nicholas Salvi, Luigi Vanvitelli ; not one, of the first class. The oldest of these was Giacomo della Porta, and he was not born till 1543. In painting and sculpture the disproportion is still more curious. Of the painters, from Cimabue to Pompeo Battoni, the natives of Rome were Julio Ro- mano, Gaspar Poussin, Giro Ferri, Francesco Trevisani, and Marco Benefiale ; the last three, very obscure names. Among the sculptors, I do not recall one con- siderable person who was born in Rome. How strik- ing is the wealth of Florence in comparison ! Among her native treasures, are Cimabue, Pinturricchio, Fra Bartolomeo, Donatello, Michael Angelo, Sansovino, Bandinelli, Benvenuto Cellini. In literature, the most distinguished native name is that of Metastasio. 296 NOBLE FAMILIES OF ROME. Rome has been a second country to many artists and writers on art, who have found here the true home of their spirits, and have felt themselves exiles when forced to leave it. Poussin came there at the age of thirty, and remained till his death in his seventy-first year, with the exception of a brief visit to Paris. Claude Lorraine lived in Rome from his twenty- seventh year till his death in his eighty-second. Mengs passed the greater part of his life in Rome, and was never happy out of it. Angelica Kauffman lived there the last twenty-five years of her life ; Winckelmann for twelve years, and never could have been content any where else. Zoega came there in 1784, and remain- ed till 1809, the time of his death. Besides these, there are Thonvalsden, Overbeck, Gibson, Wolff, Crawford, Reinhart, Wagner, Dessoulavy, and many others, who, drawn to Rome as pilgrims and wayfarers, have bowed to the spell of her power, and remained there as sojourners and denizens. The great families of Rome are in like manner strangers to the soil : nearly all of them have owed their origin to their relationship to the ecclesiastics, who have from time to time been elevated to the tiara. A few claim to be descended from the old Roman families Prince Massimi from the Fabii, for instance. How far such pretensions would be sanctioned by the authority of a college of antiquarian heralds may be well doubted. The two great families of mediaeval Rome, the Colonna and Orsini whose feuds so often shook the state still survive. Of the former, there is a branch in Rome, and another in Naples. Of the lat- NOBLE FAMILIES OF ROME. 297 ter, Prince Orsini is the senator of Rome.* The other conspicuous families of the middle ages, the Conti, the Gaetani, and the Savelli, are, I believe, extinct. Of the Frangipani, there is a collateral branch remaining in Illyria. Their claim to be descended from the Ro- man gens Anicia is said to be well founded. The principal families of papal origin now remaining are Buoncompagni-Ludovisi, Borghese, Chigi, Ros- pigliosi, Altieri, Odescalchi, Albani, Corsini, Braschi, Barberini-Colonna, and Pamphili-Doria. Most of these are familiar sounds to strangers in Rome, from the palaces and villas with which their names are asso- ciated. The two well-known families of Canino and Torlonia are comparatively of recent date. The present Prince of Canino, well-known for his successful devotion to science, is the son of Lucien Bonaparte. He married his cousin, the daughter of Joseph Bonaparte, and has a numerous family. He has been a good deal mixed up with the political changes in Rome since the acces- sion of Pius IX., and is reputed to have shewn mucj^ more activity than wisdom in public affairs. Who has not heard of the great banking-house of Torlonia, and of the brilliant parties given by its head, to which all the clients are invited ? Since the days of the Roman emperors, who taxed all the world, there has been nothing so. comprehensive as the percentage * The prince married a daughter of Torlonia, the banker. The family had become reduced in circumstances ; and on the occasion of this marriage it was said, that an ancient statue had been set up on a pedestal of gold. 298 NOBLE FAMILIES OF ROJIE. of the Torlonias. Men of all climes and colors and tongues have paid tribute at their counters. Their waters are deep enough for a millionaire to swim in, and yet so shallow as not to drown the poor artist who comes into Rome with a knapsack on his back. The founder of the family, generally known as the Duke of Bracciano, died in 1829. He was one of that class of men who combine great financial skill and shrewd business tact with a rough and coarse nature, and who in their prosperity are rather inclined to parade their roughness and coarseness as ornaments than hide them as defects. He had also a v.ein of biting humor, and used to enjoy in his cynical way the court paid to him by the old Roman nobility. The Roman nobility have no political influence, and no public career opened to them. The path of high public distinction can be entered only by those who embrace the ecclesiastical profession. This is fre- quently adopted by younger sons, and with fair capa- city and character, they often reach the dignity of Cardinal. But of late years the noble Roman families have contributed fewer members to the church than was the custom formerly. At present, there are only two Cardinals in the sacred college who have sprung from papal families, Cardinal Barberini and Cardinal Altieri. Cardinal Odescalchi, a few years since, re- signed the purple and entered the order of the Jesuits. Being thus without any high career to quicken his powers and elevate his ambition, the Roman noble- man, unless he have literary or scientific tastes, must take refuge in a life of frivolous indolence or profligate self-indulgence. The author of ' Rom im Jahre 1833,' TRAGICAL STORY OF THE SAVELLI FAMILY. 299 a man of sense and observation who lived many years in Rome, thus gives the journal of a Roman nobleman's day. He rises late and hears mass in his domestic chapel. Then he does business with his steward, or gives an order to a tradesman ; and makes or receives two or three visits. He dines alone or with a few friends, as dinner-parties are not a common form of social entertainment among Italians. In summer, the dinner is followed by a siesta. Then the carriage is ordered out, and a few turns taken up and down the Corso, or on the Pincio ; and perhaps an ice is eaten in front of a coffee-house. Then come evening prayers and afterwards a conversazione ; and thus the hours are brought round to bedtime. Who can wonder that with men of any energy of temperament, such strong' excitements as gaming and intrigue should be wel- comed as grateful episodes in a life of such dreary monotony ! It is indeed rather to the credit of the Roman dukes and princes, that there are so many re- specfable men among them. In point of fortune, both the higher and lower nobili- ty of Rome are, as a general rule, in a state of decay and decline. A few are very rich, and many are posi- tively poor. The French revolution, directly and indi- rectly, fell heavily upon them as a class. TRAGICAL STORY OF THE SAVELLI FAMILY. The reader of Lockhart's Life of Scott will remem- ber that Sir Walter, when in Rome, met at a dinner at the banker Torlonia's with the Duke and Duchess of Corchiano, and that the duke told him that ' He was 300 TRAGICAL STORY OF THE SAVELLI FAMILY. possessed of a vast collection of papers, giving true accounts of all the murders, poisonings, intrigues, and curious adventures of all the great Roman families, during many centuries, all of which were at his ser- vice to copy and publish in his own way as historical romances, only disguising the names, so as not to com- promise the credit of the existing descendants of the families in question.' We may easily imagine the rapture with which Sir Walter Scott would have poun- ced upon such a treasure-trove, in the prime of his powers ; and with such materials, a novelist of half his genius might easily earn a brilliant and enduring repu- tation. Such themes would present all the elements of startling adventure, picturesque description, and thrill- ing incident. The scene would change from the peo- pled splendor of Roman palaces to the savage solitudes of secluded castles in the wooded glens and on the bare crags of the Apennines. Nobles, ecclesiastics and soldiers would mingle in the mazy dance of events with artists and scholars; and, mixed with these, the hired bravo and the female poisoner would stalk or flit across the stage and suddenly disappear. Great his- torical names could be introduced with no violation of probability, and around the whole the dazzling lights and hues of romance could be poured. That the an- nals of the great Roman families are so prolific in romantic matter is to be ascribed, partly to the subtle and passionate character of the Italians, which inclines them alike to crimes of treachery and violence ; and partly to the fact that the nobility of Italy in the mid- dle ages lived in defiance alike of law and public opinion, to an extent to which English history, since TRAGICAL STORY OF THE SAVELLI FAMILY. 301 the wars of the Roses, affords no parallel. The great families had almost absolute dominion, not stopping short of life and death, within their own fiefs ; and some fragments of their former feudal privileges yet remain. The fearful tragedy of the Cenci, so well known through the power of painting and poetry, is one of these domestic histories ; and perhaps if all the horrors now slumbering in manuscript in mouldering cabinets and forgotten crypts were revealed to the light of day, it would not be found to be the darkest. That mysterious personage, Lucrezia Borgia, over whose motives and character so much dust of learned con- troversy has been raised, is another and representative character in Italian domestic history. Reumont, in his ' Neue Rcemische Briefe,' relates a tragic story drawn from the annals of the Savelli family, which fearfully illustrates fhe fatal consequences which spring from the collision of fervid passions. I have merely abridged his narrative. About the middle of the sixteenth century, the Duke of Savelli had an only son who, from his mental and personal graces, was the object of great admiration to his friends and relatives, and of a doting affection to his parents. A marriage was negotiated for him with the daughter of a noble Neapolitan house, who was to bring him a dowry of eight hundred thousand scudi ; but on account of the tender age of the bride the nup- tial ceremony was to be delayed for some time. Un- der these circumstances, the young man, while passing the summer at the family castle in Aricia, saw and fell desperately in love with a beautiful young woman, of a decent family, who was betrothed to a young 302 TRAGICAL STORY OF THE SAVELLI FAMILY. man of her own rank in life, named Christoforo, a vassal of the princely house of Savelli. The young woman was possessed of firmness and principle, as were her parents. She was kept concealed in the house so that the young nobleman could neither speak to nor communicate with her ; his presents were returned ; and the marriage with Christoforo hastened as fast as possible. After the marriage, the infatuated lover still continued his persecuting attentions ; wrote letter after letter ; and even hired a house next to that in which the married pair lived, in order that he might see and speak with the wife from the window a step which compelled them to change their abode. Although the young wife behaved with great propriety, and revealed to her husband all the annoyances to which she was exposed giving him her whole heart and her whole confidence his mind was tortured with jealousy, sus- picion, and fear; the more so as the passion of his liege lord was now matter of common notoriety all over the village. He grew at last into such a state of desperation that he resolved to bring things to an end, no matter at what cost. As his wife shewed him all the letters she received from Savelli and as these grew more and more passionate and importunate, and began to assume a threatening tone he at last com- pelled her to write to her persecutor at his dictation, telling him that her husband would soon leave home on business, and that she would then see him at her house. The young prince was overjoyed at the re- ceipt of this missive. Soon after he received another, saying that her husband had left home, and desiring the prince to visit her at midnight, and to come clis- TRAGICAL STORY OF THE SAVELLI FAMILY. 303 guiscd so that he might not be detected if he should chance to be seen by any one else. Christoforo per- suaded her to write these letters by telling her that his purpose was only to play the young prince a trick which should cure him of his passion and enable them to live in peace. When the appointed hour had arrived, the young prince appeared in disguise at the house of Christoforo, which stood apart from any other in the village. He was cautiously admitted and conducted into an inner apartment where Christoforo was seated, dressed in female attire. As soon as the unhappy youth had entered the room, Christoforo rose and shot him with a pistol loaded with five balls; and, after he had fallen, stabbed him to the heart with a dagger. Then, with the assistance of a peasant whom he had taken into his confidence and kept concealed in his house, he carried the bleeding body and deposited it at the gate of the Savelli palace. The murderer and his accom- plice then withdrew to the mountains in the neighbor- hood, and finally escaping into the Neapolitan terri- tory, took shipping for Turkey, and never appeared again in any Christian land. The poor wife, wholly "unprepared for such a tragedy, had fled in dismay to her mother's house on hearing the report of the pistol. When the next morning revealed the bloody work of the night, the whole village, as well may be sup- posed, was thrown into the greatest agitation and alarm. Messengers were immediately dispatched to Home, to inform the wretched father of his irreparable loss. The Pope, Paul III. sent the proper officers of justice to Aricia, investigations were made, and a large num- 304 TRAGICAL STORY OF THE SAVELLI FAMILY. her of persons arrested. The wife was carried to the prison of Borgo Castello, and there examined upon the rack ; but she always persisted in the statement she at first made that she knew and suspected nothing of the murderous designs of her husband, but supposed that he intended to play some trick upon the young prince, and that she had fled upon hearing the pistol shot, and knew nothing further. After some months' examination, all the persons who had been arrested were discharged, except the wife. She, in spite of her constant protestations of innocence, was condemned to death, and the Savelli family were resolved that the sentence should be exe- cuted. But their cruel purpose was not destined to be carried into effect. Margaret, of Austria, the natural daughter of Charles V. and wife of Octavio Farnese, the grandson of the Pope (who had been married be- fore entering the ecclesiastical state) was at that time residing in Rome. Hearing of the beauty of the un- fortunate prisoner, she went to visit her in her place of confinement, and on seeing her, felt so lively an inter- est in her behalf, that she resolved to use all her influence to procure a pardon. She first applied to the Pope, who told her that he would readily grant her request, if she could obtain the consent of the Duke of Savelli, with whom the decision of the woman's fate rested. The broken-hearted old man could not resist the personal solicitations of so powerful a person as the daughter of Charles V. The young woman was set at liberty and entered into the service of her benefactress. Great efforts were made to find the fugitive Christoforo. A price of thirty thousand scudi TRAGICAL STORY OF THE SAVELLI FAMILY. 305 was set upon his head, and negotiations were even entered into with some noted leaders of banditti, to whom large promises were made in case they would deliver him up to justice ; but all in vain. Many years after, there came a rumor to Rome that he had been seen in Aleppo ; but nothing was ever known with cer- tainty of his subsequent fate. The Duke of Savelli was soon after seized with a violent fever which termi- nated in madness, and he ended his days in a lunatic asylum. With him the family became extinct. VOL. ii. 20 CHAPTER XIV. Last days in Rome Home to Perugia Perugia and Assissi Perugia to Florence Lucca Genoa. LAST DAYS IN ROME. ROME, which at first is somewhat oppressive to the spirits, gains upon acquaintance, and after a residence of a few months begins to unfold all its attractions. The sparkle and gaiety of Naples and Paris soon lose their charm with those who are not very young or very light-hearted ; but the repose of Rome, like the beauty of twilight, falls with a soothing influence which time and repetition only deepen. My last days in Rome were darkened by the thought that the time of my de- parture was near at hand ; and the striking points and localities, which had now became so familiar to me, seemed touched with gentler and softer lights, when I was about to see them no more. This was not all to be ascribed to the effect of custom and usage in toning down the thoughts, till they had become in unison with the grave strain of outward life. Something was due to that influence of the vernal season which is so dis- tinctly felt in a city so surrounded with gardens, vine- yards, and broad green spaces. Besides, I had come ROME TO PERUGIA. 307 to have the comfortable feeling of a boy who had ciphered through the arithmetic. I had not the fear of Murray and Vasi before my eyes. I was not haunted by visions of churches that had not been seen, and galleries that had not been visited. I could let the hours bear me where they would, and suffer the reins to drop from my hands. My last week was spent mostly in long walks around the city and its immediate neighborhood, with no other object than that of fastening to the memory as strongly as possible the forms which were so soon to be lost to the sight. I strolled through the grounds of the Villa Pamphili and Villa Borghese, which were now bright with the green, and starred with the blossoms of spring, and heard for the last time the voices of the aerial spirits' that live in their venerable pines. I took a fare- well look at the Forum, the Colosseum, the Palace of the Cesars, the Churches of Sta. Maria Maggiore and St. John Lateran. I paid a parting visit to the Capitol, the Vatican, and St. Peter's, and saw my last sunset from the Pincian Hill. I went into the gardens of the Villa Medici 4 and looked over the wide sweep of pros- pect towards the east. I sometimes shut my eyes as a boy who is learning his lesson looks off the book to make experiment of his progress to try how dis- tinctly I could retain and carry away the scenes that were before me. ROME TO PERUGIA. On Saturday, April 8th, I left Rome in the coupe of a most primitive diligence, in which I had taken 308 ROME TO PERTTGIA. passage to Perugia, trusting to good luck to find a con- veyance from there to Florence. The weather was dull and gloomy, and I was not sorry that Rome did not wear its best look as I was leaving it. How true is the remark of a French writer, that nothing so re- sembles a funeral as a leave-taking ! For two or three posts the country was very uninteresting flat, tame, and desolate and, losing sunshine, it lost every thing. Beyond Monterosi, a gradual improvement took place, and fine views began to open on either hand. We passed through Nepi, a village very picturesquely situated, on the outside of which is a magnificent aqueduct! We reached Civita Castellana, our resting- place for the night, at about sunset. I strolled about the town for some time with two of my companions in the diligence, both young men, one in indifferent health, with a fine and cultivated tenor voice, to whom singing seemed a rather more natural language than speaking. The weather had brightened up since morn- ing, and the mild air of a spring evening brought the whole population into the streets. The men were lounging about in the square, and perhaps enjoying the novel pleasure of talking politics, and speculating on what the Pope meant to do, and whether he would make bread cheaper and drive away the malaria. The women were clustered about a large fountain, dab- bling and splashing in its streams like a hundred wash- ing days ; looking very busy, oriental, and picturesque. We went into the Cathedral, in the dusk of the even- ing, the interior of which was faintly shewn by that dim, religious light which makes every thing impres- sive. The inn was crowded and uncomfortable, and ROME TO PERUGIA. 309 the delays were such as would only have been tolera- ble in antediluvian periods. I whiled away the even- ing by trying the patience of my companions by very unchoice Italian, and listening to the snatches of songs into which one of them was constantly breaking. The next morning the weather was good, and we started early. Between Civita Castellana and Bof- ghetto, the road passed through a beautiful country. At the latter place is a fine old fortress, dismantled and going to decay. Soon after, we crossed the Tiber and drove over a plain shadowed with noble oaks to Otri- coli, where we stopped to leave our musical friend. I shook him heartily by the hand in parting, for I had been drawn to him by his sweet voice and gentle man- ners, and I could not get over the presentiment that he had gone home to die. Narni, our next resting-place, is a beautifully situated city, high on a hill and com- manding an extensive prospect. Here are the remains of the bridge of Augustus a thoroughly satisfactory ruin in every respect for it has an imperial origin, its forms are striking and grand, and the scenery of which it forms a part is exactly what a poet or a painter would wish for the setting of a ruin. During the greater part of the day, indeed, we had travelled over a country of more varied and impressive beauty than I had ex- pected. The slow pace at which we moved enabled me to be on my feet for many miles, so that I had the full benefit of the views. The road went over breezy uplands, from which the distant Apennines and many a glittering hamlet could be seen plunged down into deep dells where the overhanging shadows kept the morning dew far into the day and wandered over 310 ROME TO PERUGIA. extensive plains and through woods of oak and chest- nut, whose massive aisles seemed to lead into primeval and untrodden solitudes. Mountain streams, soon to be dried up by the summer's heat, poured their turbid floods through the water-courses. The great presiding genius of the landscape had been the giant form of Mount Soracte, which had been constantly near us, changing with the changing lights, but always the cen- tral point of interest and attraction. The elements which the Hand of man had added to the scenery had always embellished and never defaced it. Towns, over-ripe with age, crowning the tops of steep hills, as if they had been dropped upon them from the clouds ; feudal towers, rusting away like pieces of disused armor ; aqueducts and bridges with the stamp of Roman greatness upon them ; and walls black with Etrurian shadows offered themselves to the eye when it turned away from the eternal forms of Nature ; and over the whole landscape there hung a charm not dis- cerned by the eye a spirit of power and beauty which gave a voice to every stream that broke upon the solitude, and dignity to every mountain shadow. This interest was not derived from the struggles and dramatic changes of the middle ages alone not alone from the grandeur and decay of Rome but in part from the fortunes of those mysterious Etrurians, whose civilization had passed the culminating point before the seeds of Rome had been planted. And how vivid was the contrast between this mighty past, running up to an unrecorded morning twilight, and the freshness of the actual landscape, just breaking into the verdure and bloom of spring, and exulting in the sense of new-born ROME TO PERUGIA. 311 life ! This contrast was made the more striking by the solitude which brooded over a large portion of the route. Between the post stations there would fre- quently be many miles with hardly a sign of human habitation, and but for a town or village set upon a dis- tant hill, we might have supposed ourselves in some new region just opened to the stream of population and enterprise. There was no succession of farm-houses and modest hamlets, each within an easy call of some other, but after passing out of the towns which, from the compactness of their streets and the height and close proximity of the houses, seemed like pieces cut out of a large city, every thing was solitary and deso- late, as if the land had been wasted by pestilence or ravaged by war. I have spoken often, perhaps too often, of the beauty and variety of Italian scenery, and my only apology is to be found in the ever new pleasure which it awakened. The most striking effects of scenery are produced when elements unlike in the impression they make are brought into immediate comparison and rela- tion. A level plain stretching away to the horizon on every side is well enough to see for a while, but its continuance soon wearies the eye. But let a range of mountains loom up in the distance, and a new charac- ter is given to the intermediate plain. So when a mountain rises up abruptly from a level region, like Soracte, the mountain is the finer for the plain, and the plain for the mountain. It is the same with lakes. The most striking are those which are the deepest set, like Como, or still more, Lucerne. The overhanging cliff and the liquid floor take and give beauty and gran- 312 ROME TO PERUGIA. deur. Mountains themselves which are packed closely together, with only deep fissure-like valleys between them, are shorn of half their power from the want of a proper element of comparison. One of the felicities of the scenery of Cumberland and Westmoreland in Eng- land, and which gives such effect to their low and bare mountains, is that the spaces between them are broad level plains of lake or meadow, from which the hills rise up like trees from a smooth lawn. The character of Italian scenery is mainly determined by the central chain of the Apennines and its lateral spurs, and the comparatively narrow strip of level region between the mountains and the sea. Nor is this all ; for the inter- mediate space has been the scene of powerful volcanic action, which always results in picturesque contrasts. Thus, in Italy, south of the great alluvial plain of Lom- bardy and away from the immediate seacoast, the eye is never discontented with monotony. Standing upon a height, there is always a wide horizon to look down upon ; and travelling over a plain, there are always heights to look up to. The streams rush rapidly through narrow and precipitous banks. The lakes oc- cupy the craters of extinct volcanoes. Deep wooded glens open on all sides, in which rocks and trees group themselves into the finest combinations. The travel- ler's path is full of variety, and the beauty that pitches her tents before him as he moves, never appears twice in the same garb. From Narni I went on to Terni, through a beautiful valley embosomed in high hills. After dinner, I put myself in the hands of a donkey driver and rode down to the falls, through a richly wooded and romantic ROME TO PERUGIA. 313 region, glowing in the early bloom of spring. There were two or three inviting looking houses on the way. These celebrated falls did not correspond to the ex- pectations I had formed of them. They seemed to me to have been be-rhymed and be-prosed beyond their deserts. Poets and travellers who have described them dwell upon their terrors and sublimities as if a mighty power were put forth, before which the mind of man must needs stand in fear and trembling. The answer to such claims is found in the facts that the Velino is only about fifty feet wide, and that the falls themselves are artificial. Brockedon, who has given an excellent view of the scene, speaks of the ' appalling effect of the cataract.' I cannot conceive of the most sensitive nerves being ' appalled ' here, any more than before a city water-spout in a hard rain. The falls did not seem to me sublime, hardly grand ; but worthy of all praise for their beauty and grace. The form of the cliff over which the water flows is very fine ; as is the character of the whole scenery through which the stream flows. The rocks are scooped and hollowed in the most becom- ing shapes ; trees and shrubs grow just where they are wanted ; there is water enough to give animation to the whole scene ; and great variety results from the dif- ferent inclinations over which the stream breaks and glides. The cataract would be perfect in its way were the waters clear, which was far from being the case when I saw them : they were of a dirty yellow, and the silver of their foam seemed tarnished and rusty. The evening was mild, and I passed an hour or two in strolling about the streets of Terni. The soft air and the light of a young moon had brought nearly all 314 ROME TO PERUGIA. the population out of doors. They did not look so in- telligent as the reading and lecture-going inhabitants of a town of similar size in New England, but there were more smiles among them and fewer anxious brows. They strolled about in a leisurely way, as if they had a great deal more of the capital of time than they knew how to invest. Terni, however, has a more thriving and progressive look than most Italian towns. There are some iron works here, employing about one hun- dred and fifty persons, mostly French. The next morning, by virtue of an arrangement pre- viously concluded, I was driven over from Terni to San Gemini, a small village about ten miles off, in order to take a diligence which passed through there on the way to Perugia ; and, to make sure of the time, I was obliged to start at five. The wagon provided for me was primitive enough to have come out of the stables of Shem, but, had it been a wheelbarrow, I should not have murmured, so beautiful was the region through which it carried me. There is a deep charm in that early morning twilight, which amply repays for the pang of parting with one's pillow ; and perhaps a small seasoning of self-complacency at having accom- plished so lark-like a feat adds a flavor to our enjoy- ment. The road ran through fresh and dewy woods and over upland ridges, from which the eye ranged over many a league of plain. It was a great delight to mark the various portions of the landscape struggling out of the darkness and glowing into day to see the long wave of morning gold climb up the gray beach of the eastern sky, and overflow the valleys, and dash its luminous spray against the walls and spires of Narni, ROME TO PERUGIA. 315 till they shone in the distance like battlements of crys- tal. There were very few houses on the road, but we met many laborers, some singly and some in groups, going out to their daily toil. San Gemini is a very small village, as is usual in Italy, resembling the street of a city ; being composed of two rows of high stone houses, and when you come to the end of them the open country begins. I waited an hour for the lazy diligence, but I passed it very pleasantly in walking about the town and its outskirts, watching the ways of the people, and endeavoring to establish diplomatic relations with some very young gentlemen and ladies, whose mothers had brought them out into the morning light. There was a small cafe, crowded with men in coarse working dresses, each of whom took a small cup of black coffee before going out to his labor. Two old men sat down in a corner to play cards : it is my firm faith that a dirtier pack could not at that moment have been found upon earth. Near them was a segretario, or letter- writer, just finish- ing a letter for a very rough-looking contadino, who dug his words out very slowly, and seemed troubled in spirit. The people looked poor but contented. Nearly every person saluted me as I passed, and in the little cafe there was a quiet tone of good manners and an absence of rude staring, such as was hardly to be ex- pected in a place where strange faces were probably not very common. San .Gemini, like all the towns of this region, is set upon a hill, and just outside of the gate of entrance to its single street is a spacious terrace-like plateau which commands a very wide prospect. As I was looking at 316 ROME TO PERUGIA. this and thinking how expressive it was, in its early light and early bloom, of youth and hope and life, my eyes fell upon an object which lay upon the ground a few rods distance ; and on walking up to it to see what it might be, I was somewhat startled to find it a coarsely formed wooden bier, entirely uncovered at the top, in which was the dead body of a middle-aged woman of the peasant class. Not a human being but myself was in sight. The body was dressed precisely as the woman would have been if living, in a gown of blue stuff, with stockings and stout shoes. The hands were hard and brown, shewing a life of severe toil in the open air ; and but for the dignity of death, the fea- tures would have been coarse antl commonplace. As I looked up agrrtn, a shadow, like that of a passing cloud, seemed to rest upon the landscape. The diligence plodded on slowly to Todi, over a hilly road, but through a country so beautiful that no one could have wished to be whirled rapidly through it. The air was elastic and bracing, and the sky covered with massive clouds of snowy white, which the light winds hardly stirred. Todi, high in the air, shone like an aerial city, and was visible for some hours before we reached it. It is a little provincial town of about three thousand inhabitants ; and it is curious to compare such a place with a town of similar size in New England, both in what it has and what it has not. In Todi it would probably be a difficult thing to pick up a news- paper or a periodical ; and a library of twenty volumes in the possession of a layman would be an extraordi- nary phenomenon in such a place. There might be half a dozen intelligent and conversible men found ROME TO PERUGIA. 317 there, but hardly an educated and intellectual woman, able to take part in a conversation upon politics or lite- rature. But, on the other hand, there is a church here by Bramante, in the form of a Greek cross, with four small cupolas supporting a large one, which is so beau- tiful, that if it were dropped down any where in New England, men would take a day's journey merely to look at it. There is also another church, with a Gothic doorway covered with a rich and elaborate carving, such as could not be paralleled in the whole United States. Such is Italy ; rich in art, but poor in thought and action rich in the bequests of the past, but poor in the harvests of the present. Between Todi and Perugia the road passes through a level region, under fine cultivation. Perugia was distinctly visible for so long a time before we reached it, and the distance between us and it seemed so little diminished by the progress we made, that I began to think it was a city in a dream which kept receding as we drew near. But at last we did arrive at the base of the steep hill which it crowns, and after that it was much like going up stairs to bed. For the last mile or two, a yoke of sturdy oxen was harnessed to the car- riage, and about dusk we passed into the town. I found lodgings in La Corona, a humble Italian inn not set down in Murray, the rather shabby diligence having closed against me the doors of the first-class hotels. For the honor of the country let me say, that I found decent accommodations and most obliging attendance was not overcharged or bitten by fleas. 318 PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. The next two days, passed in Perugia and its neigh- borhood, were among the most delightful of my whole Italian tour. Few persons have any notion of how in- teresting a city this is, and how rich in works of art ; to say nothing of its glorious situation, and clean, quiet, aristocratic-looking streets, so utterly without business or bustle. I had the advantage of delicious weather, with a transparent atmosphere which made the distant near, and pushed the horizon so far off as to include a boundless range of mountain, hill, and valley. Stratford-on-Avon is hardly more identified with Shakespeare, than is Perugia with the admirable artist to whom it has given the name by which he is com- monly known. I call him admirable, for so he is in his best works, but there is a great space between his best and his worst works. Sometimes he is almost equal to Raphael, and sometimes he is far below himself. So far as we can judge from what we know of his life though I cannot help distrusting some of Vasari's state- ments he seems to have been one of those men whose genius derives no elements of growth from the charac- ter. His early years were darkened with poverty and struggle : his temperament was not hopeful, nor were his manners engaging. The remembrance of his suf- ferings and privations gave him an undue estimate of the value of money, and when success came, he es- teemed it less for the sphere of development which it opened than for the means of accumulating property which it furnished. His studio was degraded to a shop, and he himself to a mechanic ; and his insulted genius PERTTG1A AND ASSISSI. 319 took revenge by rarer and briefer visits. With the help of his pupils he painted an immense number of pictures, which were dispersed through the galleries of Europe, which have just merit enough to make one vexed that they have not more. Every one remembers the remark of the would-be connoisseur in the Vicar of Wakefield, that the secret of his art consisted in two rules : ' The one, always to observe that the picture might have been better if the painter had taken more pains ; and the other, to praise the works of Pietro Perugino.' In a multitude of cases, these two rules might be put in practice before the same picture. No artist has painted more pictures of which it may be said with truth, that they would have been better if the painter had taken more pains. ,And, at best, he wants variety and dramatic power. When he has many figures to deal with, he does not group them with skill and judgment. He is also deficient in manly grasp and vigorous energy, and there is feminine weakness as well as feminine delicacy in his pencil. His atti- tudes are stiff, and he is wanting in that flowing outline, which is so great a charm in the designs of his illus- trious pupil. He is a decided mannerist, and his heads and faces seem to have been variations of the same original model. But to these wants there are great merits to be set down by way of compensation. His coloring is soft, rich, and mellow ; remarkable for its harmonious gradations and purity of tone. The aerial light of his backgrounds has a certain spiritual look which often reminded me of Allston. His heads are animated with an expression of tenderness, delicacy, and elevation which, however often repeated, never 320 PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. fails to charm. The sentiment of worship especially the devotional instinct which naturally bends the head forward, as a tree is swayed by the wind is always conspicuous in his pictures. It is difficult to believe the stories that are told of his irreligion, when we look upon the rapt and glowing heads of his saints and madonnas. I began my day at Perugia by a visit to the cathe- dral, but could only observe the general effect of the interior, for it was under repair and the pictures were not visible. The frescoes of the Sala del Cambio, or Hall of Exchange, are perhaps the culminating point of the painter's genius. Nowhere else does he put forth so much power, dignity, and variety. On one side, are several Sybils and Prophets, with the Almighty in glory above them ; and on the other, various per- sonages of Greek and Roman history, arranged in groups ; and, above them, allegorical figures of the virtues which distinguished them. On the wall, oppo- site the entrance, are the Transfiguration and the Na- tivity both very fine, the latter especially. The roof is covered with beautiful arabesques, and figures repre- senting the seven planets, with Apollo in the centre. In this room there is a portrait of Perugino himself, which is a harder and coarser face than one would have supposed from his works. In these frescoes, Peru- gino was assisted by Raphael, whose likeness is said to be preserved in the figure of the prophet Daniel. The church of S. Agostino has two works by Peru- gino, one representing the Nativity, and the other, the Baptism of the Saviour. The first is a very beautiful work, full of tenderness and feeling, remarkable for the PERUGIA AND ASSISS1. 321 mixture of maternal love and devotional reverence in the face and attitude of the Virgin. In the sacristy there are also eight very pleasing pictures by him, of small size and in frames. The Benedictine monastery of St. Peter has a fine church of the basilica style. Here are numerous pic- tures, some of the Venetian school, but few favorably placed for being seen. In the sacristy are five lovely little pictures of saints by Perugino, which are perfect gems of feeling and expression. The Infant Saviour embracing St. John is said to be an early work of Raphael's. The stalls of the choir are of walnut, carved in bas-relief from designs of Raphael, which are full of grace and boundless in invention. This monas- tery is grandly situated, and from a public walk near by an incomparable view may be enjoyed. In the Confraternita of S. Pietro Martire is one of Perugino's best works, a Madonna and Child, between two angels and worshipped by several saints. In the Church of S. Severo is Raphael's first fresco. It is in two compartments, or divisions, an upper and lower. In the former, is God the Father with two child angels, each holding a sort of floating scroll. This por- tion is much injured. Below, the Saviour is in the centre, with the dove above his head and an angel on either side ; and a little lower, are six saints seated, three on either hand. The composition is excellent, marked by that balanced harmony and calm repose so conspicuous in the frescoes of the Vatican. Both beauty and dignity may be discerned in the figures ; and the attitudes and drapery shew that he was already beginning to break the chains of the Umbrian school. VOL. II. 21 322 PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. In the Palazzo Connestabile is one of the earliest of Raphael's Holy Families, called the Staffa Madonna, a small round picture, of much sweetness of expression, and with an air of nature and reality about it which dis- tinguishes it from the stiff conventionalism in which the subject was treated by the earlier masters. The Vir- gin is reading in a book, and the Child is looking into it, in a playful, natural way, just as any mortal child might do. In the Church of S. Francesco is a fine picture of St. John the Baptist, with four other saints, by Peru- gino ; and also a Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, which is one of his feeblest and poorest works. Among the other interesting objects in Perugia, are the house of Perugino : a fountain nearly six hundred years old, in marble and bronze, the work of Giovanni da Pisa, and redundant in carving : a fine bronze statue of Julius III. : a massive arch, partly Roman and partly Etruscan, now used as a gateway, very grand, dark, and imposing ; and another Etruscan gateway, in the wall of the citadel, the frieze of which is ornamented with heads of horses. The Palazzo Communale is a fine old building with a noble doorway and beautiful windows. The Pinacoteca, or Academy of the Fine Arts, con- tains some fine works by Pinturicchio, a beautiful Ma- donna by Bartolo, and various other pictures interesting in the history of art. There is also a respectable col- lection of casts, various Etruscan curiosities in bronze, many monuments and inscriptions taken from tombs in the neighborhood. At the close of the day, I paid a visit to the Institu- PERTJGIA AND ASSISSI. tion for the Insane, which has the reputation of being one of the best in Italy. The situation is extremely beautiful. I went without any introduction, but found no difficulty in being admitted, and I was conducted all over the building with much courtesy. There are usually about seventy patients here ; some of whom are supported by themselves, and some at the public ex- pense. The bathing apparatus was very good, but the ventilation rather defective. The floors are of brick, and in winter, stoves heated with wood are used for warming. Every thing was neat and in good order. One of the patients was a decent-looking English wo- man, of middle age, whom some strange blast of fate had blown to this out-of-the-way place. She appeared rational enough, and well pleased to have an opportu- nity of speaking her native tongue. The resident physician seemed to be a very intelligent young man, and I regretted that my imperfect Italian kept our con- versation very near the shore. Every window in the building commands an enchanting prospect, and this cannot fail to have a favorable influence upon the men- tal health of the inmates. As I walked home from the Asylum to my inn, and looked around upon the streets which were as quiet as those of an American city of the same size at midnight, with no noise, bustle, or animation of any kind, and thought how little of relig- ious or political excitement ever disturbed these tranquil waters, and how impossible it was to speculate in any thing but lottery tickets I could not but wonder what motive or excuse men could have for going mad in so sleepy an atmosphere, in which life was much like an afternoon nap. That the wheels of the brain might PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. become clogged with inaction, so as to stop short, and the man and the mind alike die of that Quaker disease, which Jeffrey describes in one of his letters, is easy to comprehend ; but that they should ever go so fast as to get out of gear is a mystery. I took dinner in one corner of a barn-like apartment in solitary state, and thought with pity of the poor Pope who is so grand a personage that he is obliged to do so every day. Three hundred and sixty-five solitary din- ners every year ! A man ought to be paid very high wages far that. Soon after I had sat down, two young gentlemen came into the room and somewhat to my surprise commenced a conversation in English. There was something about them which shewed that they did not belong to the aristocratic class as indeed might be inferred from the modest rank of the inn in which they had found refuge but they were amiable and conversible, virtues not always found in their superiors in the social scale. They were travelling from Flor- ence to Rome on foot, which at this fine season of the year was no unwise measure. The next morning I chartered a small carriage drawn by a single horse, much like a four-wheeled chaise, and drove over to Assissi. I stopped at an Etruscan tomb about three miles from Perugia, on the side of a hill. On going down a few steps, a door is unlocked, which leads into a high vaulted, chamber, the roof of which is composed of massive pieces of traver- tine. Several smaller chambers open out of this. In the rear is an inner apartment, not so large, containing several sarcophagi made of stone, and covered with a sort of plaster. The relief on them is bold and ani- PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. 325 mated. There is also a Roman sarcophagus here. A Medusa's head is carved on the roof of the principal apartment, upon which are also other sculptured ob- jects ; such as human heads and those of serpents. On one side of the door is an inscription, which has attracted much attention from archasologists. The whle tomb is very interesting and impressive, and there are probably many more like it not yet exca- vated. Soon after leaving the tomb, I overtook my English acquaintances, whose knapsacks I had with me in the carriage ; and by a little squeezing made room for them also, and took them as far as Sta. Maria degli Angeli, where we parted ; and as Bunyan says, they went on their way and I saw them no more. The Church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli is a splendid and imposing structure which has been restored, almost rebuilt ; having been greatly injured by an earthquake in 1832, and it has, in consequence, a new and fresh appearance not common in Italian churches. The building was originally erected to enclose and protect the small Gothic chapel in which St. Francis laid the foundation of his order. It has a fine cupola and a nave of stately proportions. This church also contains the admirable fresco of Overbeck, representing the vision of St. Francis, which is generally esteemed his masterpiece, and one of the great productions of the revived school of Catholic art. Leaving the 1 Church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli, I drove up to Assissi, about a mile and a half distant, the situation of which is well described by Dante, ' Fertile costa di alto monte pende.' PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. The view as one approaches to it is very fine ; for, besides its natural advantages of, site, its towers and battlements, its aqueduct and ruined citadel make up a picture in themselves. After entering the town, there is nothing that disappoints the expectation or breaks the spell of old enchantment which hangs over it. The streets are silent, narrow, and steep ; the houses, gray and tottering with age ; the architectural forms, solemn and mediaeval. The rushing and roaring stream of the present has never flowed through this Pompeii of the thirteenth century. The six centuries that have swept over it have not so much as brushed it with their wings. The whole scene seems prepared for the en- trance of St. Francis himself, with his brown woollen robe and girdle of hemp, upon the stage. Assissi, even more than Perugia, is stamped with the image and superscription of one man. The forms of the landscape, the mountains and the valleys, the woods and the rocks, the streets and the houses, are all vocal with the name of St. Francis, that extraordinary man whose life and career offer even to Protestant judg- ment so much occasion for wonder, and such frequent cause for admiration. The Catholics point to his fervid and burning zeal as the legitimate growth of their own faith, and contend that out of the pale of the Romish church there are no influences that could have given it birth. This is to a considerable extent true. Nothing less than a universal Church, which clasped the whole human race in its folds of charity and compassion, could have inspired such fervor of self-devotion. Nor could such lives as his and many others in the annals of the Romish church have existed without the PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. 327 element of celibacy. The influence of a family is always rather centripetal than centrifugal tending to keep men within the sphere of daily duties and prac- tical toil, and restraining all erratic and enthusiastic impulses. But much must be set down to that tem- perament which the fervor of a southern clime burns into the frame. Monachism began in the East, where the fierce sun beats upon the yellow sands with blind- ing and scorching power, and where the stars of mid- night shine through a transparent atmosphere with such splendor, that a highly wrought imagination can easily interpret their rays into glances of encourage- ment or rebuke. There is a vein of orientalism in the history, literature, and art of Italy ; and the life of St. Francis is a picture set in an oriental frame. The part of Italy in which he was born is a region of moun- tain and valley the heights swept by cold winds and visited by snow and frost in winter ; but the lowlands in summer parched with long continued heat in which tracts of brown grass, treeless hills, and bold rocky eminences recall the landscapes of Idumsea and Palestine. Italy, Spain, and the East have been the birthplaces and homes, not only of anchorets, pillar- saints, and ascetics, but of men who have carried into life the ascetic spirit ; and who, while moving about upon their missions of love and faith, were visibly wasting away in the flames of devouring zeal, and, in the ecstasy of their self-abasement, welcomed hunger, poverty, fatigue, contumely, and persecution, not mere- ly with patience but with rapture. In these climes, nature opens wide her arms of companionship and consolation to the melancholy, the disappointed, the 328 PERUGIA AND ASS1SSI. penitent, the impassioned. She soothes them with her golden mornings, the floods of sunshine that break from her" cloudless skies, her indescribable sunsets, her radiant nights, her finest voices, and her mountain streams. How impossible is it for the mind to blend such figures as Simon Stylites or St. Francis of Assissi with the deep snows, the dark winter days, and the gray skies of Russia ! From the fact that Italy preceded England so much in the march of civilization and refinement, it happens that the men and the events of Italian history appear nearer than those of England. It has always seemed strange to me that Raphael was born about the time of Bosworth Field. Fitness and proportion would seem to make him a contemporary of Milton. When we read of the taste and civilization of Rome in the time of the great painter the graceful entertainments of the nobility, the wit, the poetry, the music, and the art that embellished life, the courtly manners, the scholar- ship, the extended commerce and the manufacturing skill which marked the period it is difficult to believe that the best blood in England were then dining at ten ; that their dinners were composed of huge masses of fresh and salt meat spread upon a great oaken table ; that their food was shovelled into the mouth without the help of a fork ; that the floor of their dining-halls was strewn with rushes, among which their dogs searched and fought for bones ; and that in the inter- vals of feasting, their minds were recreated with the postures of tumblers and the coarse jokes of licensed jesters. St. Francis of Assissi was born in 1182, about the time that Henry II. of England was mourn- PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. 329 ing over first the ingratitude and then the death of his eldest son Prince Henry. But when we go to Assissi and see and feel how every spot in the landscape is identified with the saint and recalls his presence, it is difficult to believe that a chasm of more than six cen- turies is opened between us and him. It is not easy to find, any where, in any country, an historical person- age of such fresh and enduring vitality. When we think of Richard of England, and of Thomas a Becket, they seem, by comparison, to recede far back into the night of time. They are dim shadows ; but St. Fran- cis is a living presence, whose name is carved upon the rocks and whispered by the winds and the waters. This is one proof, and only one among many, of the enduring character of deep religious impressions, and that the most lasting conquests are won by those who fight with spiritual weapons against spiritual foes. The church and convent of the order of Sti. Apos- toli at Assissi stand at one extremity of the town, and form a most imposing group of buildings in which the pointed arches of the Gothic are blended, not inhar- moniously, with a massive square campanile. Their general aspect resembles a fortress rather than a church. The entrance lies through a kind of cortile, with rows of arches on either hand, above which on one side a stately terrace is reared. The upper church is a Gothic structure ; with glorious painted windows and a roof of five compartments ; three of which are adorned with frescoes by Cimabue, and two contain gold stars on a blue ground. The upper portion of the walls of the nave has also a series of works by the same venerable hand, representing subjects from the 330 PERUGIA AND ASS1SSI. Old and New Testaments. These designs are memo- rable in the history of art, as marking an epoch as dis- tinct as the advent of Chaucer in English literature; and they are contemplated and estimated by lovers of art with a feeling too reverential for criticism. We see in them, dimmed as they are by time, the successful efforts of a man of original genius to break out of the rigid conventionalism of the Byzantine school ; at least, successful in part, for art in his hands was not wholly emancipated, but, like Milton's lion, was yet pawing to get free from the clods which held it imprisoned until it yielded to the stronger arm of Giotto. This upper church, though Gothic in its forms, is not Gothic in its gloom ; but, on the contrary, is filled with glowing and brilliant light, through which the fading forms of saints and apostles strike upon the eye with strange power. It is much less crowded than most Italian churches, and a silence like that of the grave broods over its spaces. The attention is not disturbed by streams of worshippers going and coming ; nor is the sense of reverence offended by a mass of trumpery and incongruous details in plaster, gilding, and wax. The falling step awakens echoes that seem to have been long slumbering. The whole effect of this upper church is highly impressive, partly from what is addressed to the eye and partly from what is addressed to the mind. The spiritual forms of Gothic architecture make a stronger impression upon one coming from the South from their contrast with the gayer and more secular character of Roman churches. On descending into the lower church, a different scene presents itself. The upper church, with its high PERUGIA AND ASSISSI. 331 room, its ample spaces, and its glorious lights, breathes of the peace and serenity of heaven ; but the lower, heavy-vaulted and gloomy, suggests the sorrows and struggles of earth. It is a perfect treasure-house and museum of art, containing a multitude of curious or beautiful works, many of which, however, can hardly be seen in the dim light. Here are those three won- derful frescoes by Giotto, the Dante of painting, typi- fying the Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity which St. Francis enjoined upon his followers ; and also a fourth representing the glorification of the Saint. There are many works by his followers and pupils, and by later artists, various in style and unequal in merit, but all appropriate to the spirit of the place and deeply pene- trated with religious feeling. There are also some sepulchral monuments and some rich painted glass. To all these striking and instructive objects I could only give hasty and superficial glances, though they would have rewarded the patient study of many days. Below the lower church there is a kind of cellar, in which is the sepulchre of St. Francis hewn out of the solid rock. After leaving the church I was glad to relieve my overtasked faculties by a stroll about the town. In the piazza is the magnificent portico of the temple of Minerva, with six fluted columns and a pediment, of which Goethe has written in such animated terms. I drove back to Perugia in the glow of a declining sun, and though in a very light carriage, the road for the last mile was so steep as to require the help of a pair of oxen. PERUGIA TO FLORENCE. PERUGIA TO FLORENCE. The next morning I left Perugia early in a vettura for Florence. My companions were three Italians, respectable in appearance and very well-mannered. The day was not entirely pleasant, though we had sun- shine enough to light up the beautiful lake of Thrasi- mene, which looked so peaceful and gentle that it was difficult to believe that its banks had ever been trampled with the feet of contending armies, or its waters red- dened with their blood. We stopped to lunch at a post station at the foot of the hill crowned by Cortona, to which I looked up with longing eyes, but had no time to do any thing more. On a small house opposite the inn was one of those inflated inscriptions, so common in Italy, announcing in very stately Latin that Pius VI. visited it on his return from France, and ' filled it with the splendor of his dignity.' The post-house at which we stopped seemed to be under the management of three sisters, handsome and graceful young women, who glided about their duties with a smiling alacrity which would make any reasonable traveller submit to overcharge of at least ten per cent, on his bills. We reached Arezzo about an hour before sunset, and had time to walk the town and. see the house in which Petrarch was born, the fine Loggie of Vasari, author, painter, and architect ; the Palazzo Publico, covered all over with the armorial bearings of the Podestas ; the singular Church of Santa Maria della Pieve ; and the Cathedral, the interior of which is solemn, splendid, and magnificent, with glorious painted windows, the finest in Italy ; a highly elaborate and beautiful tomb, erected PERUGIA TO FLORENCE. 333 to the memory of Guido Tarlatti ; and a striking pic- ture, Judith shewing the head of Holofernes, by Ben- venuti, an artist of our own times, of the classical school of Camuccini. The lovers of good poetry and good wine should not forget that in this cathedral lies buried Redi, the author of ' Bacco in Toscana.' The situa- tion of Arezzo is very beautiful, and as we came out of the cathedral the setting sun was breaking out of the clouds, and covering the broad landscape with rich golden lights and long shadows. A space behind the cathedral is laid out as a public walk, from which the eye ranges over a region of country large enough to make a German principality. The next day was one of steady rain, and my jour- ney left nothing of sufficient interest to be recorded. We reached Florence between four and five in one of those hearty and downright rains which, at least, do not tease one with expectations of clearing up, which are destined to end in constant disappointment. I thought it rather unlucky that I should enter Florence a second time, and find it veiled, as before, in rain and cloud. The weather improving a little towards sunset, I walked out along the Arno and Piazza del Gran' Duca, de- lighted to greet once more those noble architectural forms which all the waters of Rome had not washed out from my memory. I saw again the same pretty flower- girl, in the same Leghorn hat, and with the same smile carved upon her lips ; and alas ! the same wooden case over the David of Michael Angelo which I had left in December. My journey from Rome to Florence occupied eight days, two of which were given to Perugia and Assissi ; PERUGIA TO FLORENCE. and there is no portion of my time spent in Italy that I look back upon with more vivid pleasure. The picture which these days has left in the memory is made up of beautiful scenery, soft vernal weather, picturesque old towns, mediaeval architecture, and most touching and impressive revelations of art. To move along this re- gion, and through these quaint, sleepy, venerable places, with their walls, their towers, their gates, and their churches, is like reading a leaf out of the chronicle of Villani, or the Divina Com media of Dante. Nor is this pleasure to be purchased by any thing more than trifling discomforts and inconveniences. The inns are at least decent, and the food tolerable. Let me also give my willing testimony in favor of the people; for I had 'met with uniform courtesy and civility, and no one had attempted to overreach or overcharge me. My com- panions in the diligence and the vettura were of the middle class and not highly educated, but their manners were gentlemanly and engaging, and marked with a constant recognition of my claims as a stranger in the land. The Italians are naturally of a fine organization, readily taking the polish of gentle speech and courteous deportment. When I compared my last impressions of the Italians with my first, I felt that I had taken one lesson more on the rashness of hasty judgments. Let me earnestly advise all persons who may visit Italy, on no account to forego this land route between Rome and Florence, and not to yield to the temptation held out by a rapid passage in the steamer between Civita Vecchia and Leghorn. Let them also not be in a hurry to get over the ground. Three or four days for Perugia and Assissi, a day for Arezzo, and another for Cortona, are LUCCA. 335 none too much. Assissi, especially, is a place unlike any other unique in its aspect unique in the im- pression that it makes. Its venerable double church hallowed by the devotion of so many generations, and crowded by so many works of Christian art, which overshadow the whole structure with the spirit of prayer and praise is to a Roman Church, what an antique missal, written on parchment and glowing with minia- tures, whose colors rival the flowers of spring or the leaves of autumn, is to a decorated volume from the press of London or Paris. Perugia is more various and hardly less impressive, with an incomparable situation commanding views boundless in extent and glorious in the combination of objects they comprise and rich in the best works of an original artist. Life, indeed, is short, and art is long, and all things cannot be seen ; but thrift and resolution can do much, and let them not fail to see Perugia and Assissi. I left Florence at noon on a beautiful spring day, which made that charming city and its more charming environs look like a bride decked for the altar, and, by diligence and rail, arrived at Leghorn at about seven. I found my old quarters at the excellent hotel San Marco as comfortable as ever, and its landlord, Mr. Giovanni Smith, whose looks and manners are, like his name, a pleasant combination of Italy and England, as obliging and gentlemanly as before. LUCCA. The next morning the steamer not having appeared, I took the opportunity to run up to Pisa and Lucca. 336 LUCCA. Leaving Leghorn at half past ten, I had about an hour for Pisa, which I spent in the cathedral, admiring anew, with a more trained eye, its imposing interior, and study- ing the breathing seraphs in bronze, by John of Bologna, the capitals of the columns in the choir, the wood-work of the nave, and the small marble figures around the pulpit. I reached Lucca between twelve and one, and went first to the Church of San Romano to see the cel- ebrated Madonna della Misericordia, by Fra Bartolo- meo. Much as I had heard of this picture, and high as were my expectations, the sight of it fairly took me off my feet. The Virgin, a beautiful figure full of feeling and truth, stands with uplifted hands, in the attitude of supplication. Above is God the Father, with several cherubs and a tablet, on which are the words ' Miserior supra turbam.' Behind the Virgin, cherubs are holding a sort of canopy over a large number of persons. In front are many portrait figures. An old woman in red is admirable also a kneeling magistrate in a robe of the same color, and an ecclesiastic, his brother. It is not easy to say in what respect this wonderful picture falls short of the best works of the best masters. Draw- ing, coloring, and expression are all fine ; the compo- sition, noble ; the draperies, beautifully managed ; and its tenderness and devotion, most admirable. Kugler says of this great painter, that ' generally speaking, we feel the want of that inward power so essential to the perfection, and even conception of grand and ele- vated subjects.' With deference to so high an author- ity, this seems to me to be a hasty and erroneous judg- ment. Surely his works in Lucca, and his admirable St. Mark in Florence, must have slipped out of the LUCCA. 337 critic's memory when he wrote this disparaging re- mark. In them there is no want of inward power, no want of elevation and grandeur ; but, on the contrary, truth, religious feeling, correct drawing, and especially a splendid tone of coloring which is only to be equalled in the Venetian school. In the same church is another work by him, of uncommon merit : St. Catharine and Mary Magdalen are kneeling, and the Almighty, above. Mary Magdalen is in red, and holding a vase St. Catharine in a kind of monastic robe of yellow both admirable figures. In the cloisters are some curious old frescoes illustrating the life of St. Dominic. In one, he is hauling the devil along with very little ceremony, much like a constable dragging an unwilling culprit to prison. The Cathedral front is a singular architectural struc- ture a forest of columns, no two of which are alike, arranged in tiers and arches over one another. There are many curious objects in the atrium bas-reliefs, in- scriptions, and monsters carved in marble. The inte- rior is very fine, especially the gallery filled with the richest Gothic tracery, and the painted glass of the windows. The roof is colored in fresco, and the pave- ment is in mosaic. The sacristan, an old man, ' fat and scant of breath,' lame with the gout and op- pressed with a sense of the dignity of his office, took me first into the sacristy and shewed me a very inter- esting picture by Ghirlandajo, the Virgin attended by several saints. The head of St. Peter is especially fine. Below, is a long, narrow picture, representing events in the lives of saints, painted with great neatness and delicacy. Then we went into the body of the church VOL. ii. 22 338 LUCCA. and saw a beautiful picture, by Daniel da Volterra, Sta. Petronilla. In a chapel is a work by Fra Bartolo- meo the Virgin and Child, with St. Stephen and John the Baptist ; and below, a Child-Angel singing to a lute. This is a very delightful and cordial composition. The angel is singing with a heart full of music and a face full of heaven. The child in the Madonna's lap is listening to the strain, and his little form seems flut- tering with delight, while a faint, soft smile of sympa- thy plays round the mother's lips. What a soul that cloistered monk must have had ' who never had a child ' to paint a picture so full of human as well as divine feeling ! There is an excellent Visitation, by Ligozzi, a pupil of Paul Veronese, and an artist of con- siderable merit, though not much known. A Presenta- tion, by Bronzino, is good ; as is also a Last Supper, by Tintoretto. The marble chapel in which the Volto Santo an ancient crucifix carved in cedar,, and only shewn on great occasions is kept, has a lamp of pure gold hanging before it, a votive offering of the Luc- chesi, when their devotion was quickened by the ap- proach of the cholera. Behind the chapel is a fine statue of St. Sebastian, by Civitali. There are also some other works by this artist, who was a native of Lucca, and flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century. He was a barber for the first forty years of his life, and then became suddenly a sculptor, and attained to considerable eminence in his new pro- fession. The situation of Lucca, in the lap of an amphitheatre of hills, is very pleasant ; and the walk upon the ram- parts is one of the finest promenades in Europe. There LUCCA. 339 is a noble aqueduct of four hundred and fifty-nine arches, which makes a most picturesque feature in the landscape. The weather was beautiful, the outlines qf the neighboring hills were rounded into the finest curves, and the level plain near at hand, under the most careful cultivation, was revelling* in the vivid yellow-green of spring. The whole population seemed to be out of doors. The women wear a graceful head- dress a sort of handkerchief trimmed with lace and disposed with much taste. A walk under the arches of the aqueduct was a most agreeable refreshment, after all the sight-seeing of the previous hours. 1 left Lucca at a quarter before five, and reached Leghorn at half past six. I noticed that the locomotive on the railway was of Philadelphia manufacture a small dividend contributed in the shape of the useful arts, by the new world, towards paying off that great debt of gratitude which all mankind owes to Italy for what it has done in the fine arts. The brief excursion to Lucca was a most agreeable experience, and as I have begun to give advice let me say, that this neat and beautifully situated town should at least have a day devoted to it. The view of the glo- rious company of hills that stand round about it, as seen from the ramparts, is alone worth coming up 'from Leghorn to look at. The statues and bas-reliefs of Civitali an artist whose works are hardly to be found any where else have a character and expression of their own, and mark a distinct period in the history of sculpture. And, above all, that great artist, Fra Bar- tolomeo, is in his glory at Lucca, and no one, who has not been there, can have any adequate conception of 340 LUCCA. the power and grandeur of his genius. The impression his works made upon me is, I admit, not quite borne out by the rank assigned to him by writers upon art, but my recollections, which are most distinct, confirm the testimony of records made upon the spot. To me, his reputation seems below his merits, and I cannot but think that it would have been higher, if the ad- mirable works which adorn a provincial capital like Lucca, had found a place of deposit in the Pitti Palace or the Vatican, where every traveller could have seen them and every writer could have praised them. I know not what heights of art he might not have reached under more favorable circumstances of development, or with a character of firmer tone. Had he been a braver and heartier spirit, and mingled freely in the shocks of life, instead of running and hiding his head in a monastery at the first blast of danger, and thus added variety, invention, and dramatic power to his other gifts, he might have rivalled every name but Raphael's. But it is much better, so far as the interest of travelling in Italy is concerned, that all the good pictures should not be in one place, but that they must be sought in many separate localities. It is agreeable to know that you can judge of certain painters only by going to certain spots. It establishes a relation be- tween an artist and the place where he lived or wrought, which throws over Ms works a grace like the flavor which wine has, to the mind's taste at least, when drunk on the soil of its growth. Titian, for in- stance, must be seen at Venice ; Correggio, at Parma ; Luini, at Milan ; Perugino, at Perugia ; Fra Bartolo- meo, at Lucca ; Guido and the Caraccis, at Bologna. GENOA. 341 GENOA. The next day, in the afternoon, I went on board the steamer for Genoa and Marseilles. It was very full of passengers, nearly all of whom were English, and there were three English travelling carriages on the deck. The night was very lovely ; the moon bright, and the sea as smooth as a mill-pond. For the first time in my life, I found myself at sea without being miserable. We reached Genoa the next morning be- fore day, and it was a beautiful spectacle to see the light break over the bay and the encircling hills. Engravings and descriptions have made the situation of Genoa familiar even to those who have not seen it. It is a cluster of palaces, of brilliant white, crowded together at the base of a mountain of semicircular form, the sides of which are dotted with gay, suburban villas. The sweeps and curves of the hollow, crescent- shaped mountain are in animated contrast with the level of the Mediterranean, and the brilliant white of the houses is distinctly brought out by the dark back- ground behind and above them. All this was very beautiful as it gradually glowed into day and put on the imperial robes of morning, but when the first shock of surprise and pleasure had passed by, I could not help feeling how very small it all was. It looked like a clever scene in an opera : the lifting of the darkness was like the rising of the curtain. The portion of the harbor enclosed by the moles had the appearance of a good-sized swimming-school and as if the moles were portable and could be folded up and taken in at night. 342 GENOA. After breakfast, I sallied out to see as much as could be seen in half a day. The streets of Genoa, as every body knows, are very up and down, very narrow, and with very high houses on either hand. These houses, in the principal streets, are superb structures of marble built in a rich and shewy style of architecture, which to a stranger seem rather incongruous with the narrow and crowded spaces in which they are huddled togeth- er. Genoa thus may be compared to a cluster of shafts cut through a quarry of marble. I went first to the Cathedral, of which I retain but a faint recollection. There is a singular effect produced in the interior by alternate courses of black and white marble. There are several pictures and statues and rich chapels shining with marble and gilding, upon all of which I threw a hasty glance, but saw nothing that deserved a second look. After walking through sev- eral streets with constant admiration of the fine archi- tectural effects on either hand, and over a noble bridge which joins two hills, and from which you look down upon the chimneys of houses which are six or seven stories high, I came to the Church of Sta. Maria di Carignano. The effect of the interior is very pleasing, and there are four colossal statues, two by David and two by Puget, which have considerable merit. From the cupola on the top there is a fine view of the city, the hills, and the sea. The Palazzo Brignole Sale is a splendid palace with an admirable collection of pictures, which bears well the recollections of Rome and Florence. I was much struck with a work, by Castiglione if I remember right, representing a scene from the life of Abraham. On GENOA. 343 one side, the two boys Isaac and Ishmael are strug- gling together the former evidently second best and Hagar is endeavoring to part them, with a counte- nance of ominous foreboding. In the foreground, Sarah is speaking to Abraham, with an expression upon her face which says as plainly as words could say, ' You see how it is. I cannot stand this any longer, and one thing is certain ; either she or I must go.' Abraham has the look of a man sorely perplexed, as if he thought something must be done but did not know exactly what. The subject is not treated in an ideal way, and the result is not a work of high art ; but it has truth and dramatic power, and the story is told in a natural and homely way. By Rubens, there are por- traits of himself and his wife, powerful but coarse. There is a portrait by Holbein, hard, but vigorous and lifelike. There is an excellent portrait of a man with a book in his hand, by Bassano. An Adoration of the Magi, by Bonifazio, is natural and finely colored. The Virgin and Saints, by Guercino, is an admirable work I think, the best thing of his I have ever seen. There is an excellent Madonna, by Andrea del Sarto a capital Vandyke, the Pharisees questioning our Lord about the tribute-money a beautiful work by Piola, a Holy Family, in which St. John offers a butterfly to the infant Saviour ; an admirable portrait, by Rubens ; and a charming Madonna, by Bordone. This gallery is especially rich in portraits, by Van- dyke, many of them of members of the family. There is a full-length of the Marchioness Geromina Brignole, with her daughter, a little girl, by her side. The lady is not handsome, and she is dressed in a hideous ruff 344 GENOA. that injures the air of the head, but the child is lovely; and the picture, as a work of art, is of the highest merit. But the gems of the whole collection are the portraits of the Marquis and Marchioness Brignole Sale, which hang opposite to each other in one of the rooms. The Marquis is on horseback, a noble figure, dressed in black, with his hat in his right hand and the reins in his left ; the face and form full of dignity and grace ; every inch a gentleman. The Marchioness is a full-length figure, in rather an awkward dress of black, with a large, disfiguring ruff, a feather fastened into ihe hair at the back of the head, and a rose in her hand. This is one of the most beautiful portraits ever painted. There is a winning sweetness and softness in the expression of the eyes, and a light bloom plays round the cheeks and the lips which seem just ready to break into a smile. She stands before you so full of rich, warm life so breathing an image of youth and grace and sweetness that it is hard to believe that all that remains of so rare a ' piece of well-formed earth ' is but a handfull of dust. The picture is as fresh as if the painter were just cleaning his brushes after the last touch had been given to it, and one expects to hear a door open and catch the light step and rustling silk of the fair original. Its fascination is indescriba- ble, and I found it hard to leave the room in which it hangs. There is a certain degree of companionship in an animated portrait of any one who has really lived, beyond what we feel in looking at an ideal head ; not only from the help which the imagination gives, but because ideal heads rarely have the sharp individu- ality of portraiture ; and when the truth of the repre- GENOA. 345 sentation is enhanced by the charm of those delicate and vanishing feminine graces which painters so rarely succeed in catching, the force of the attraction is pro- portionately increased. To me, there is something profoundly touching in the pictured face of youth and beauty that lived and died two or three centuries ago. It brings together, in such vivid contrast, the mortal nature of the subject, and the immortal power of the mind which grasped and arrested it. It is the most striking commentary upon the text that life is short and art is long. The glowing face and the cunning hand have long been dust, but both live upon the breathing canvas to proclaim at once the power of genius and the power of beauty. In the Palazzo Serra is a famous saloon, which is all ablaze with gilding, marble, and mirrors. The preparation of this room is said to have cost the in- credible sum of a million of francs. If so, never was money more unprofitably spent. The result is a cold waste of heartless dazzle and glitter. I would rather live in a garret, with one such picture as that of the Marchioness Brignole Sale, smiling upon me from the wall, than in the chilling splendor of a room like this. In the Palazzo Durazzo, which has a fine staircase of marble, is a beautiful Magdalen by Titian, the Trib- ute Money, by Guercino an expressive and admir- able picture and a very good work by Procaccini, the Woman taken in Adultery. There are also a Sleeping Child, by Guido, very pleasing and graceful, a good Domenichino the Saviour appearing to the Virgin after the Resurrection, a portrait of Phillip IV. by Rubens, full of character, and three Vandykes ; one 346 GENOA. representing the young Tobias; one, a little boy in a white dress, full of grace and feeling: and the third, three children of the Durazzo family. The Church of the Annunciata, into which I looked for a moment, has a splendid interior crowded with rich marbles, gilding, and painting ; but how inferior is the effect of such confusing magnificence to the elevating unity of impression made by the old church at Assissi ! The latter is like a mass by Allegri or an organ fugue by Sebastian Bach ; the former, like a noisy overture by Verdi, which leaves the ear stunned with noise and giddy with a whirl of notes, but the mind just where it was at the beginning. After leaving this church, I walked about the streets for some time. Went into the Loggia de' Banchi and saw the picture of the Holy Family, by Piola, which is painted on stone and covered with glass, in the middle of the street of the goldsmiths. It is a very beautiful work, and has a melancholy interest when we remem- ber that the artist who painted it was assassinated at the early age of twenty-two; and as some say, from envy excited by the excellence of this very picture. Had he lived, he could hardly have failed to become very eminent. Among the other pleasant things which I saw in Genoa, the becoming head-dress of the women is not to be forgotten. It is something betwen a veil and a shawl, of white linen or muslin, thrown over the head and falling down and flowing into the rest of the costume in a way which masculine eyes can more easily approve than masculine pen can describe. I went on board the steamer again about noon, and found it comparatively deserted. Most of the English GENOA. 347 families had landed at Genoa, not venturing to travel through France in its present unsettled state. There were, however, enough left to make a pleasant party, and in the course of the afternoon and evening I had much agreeable conversation with two gentlemen, one an officer and one a civilian, who had lived many years in India. There were also two ladies on board, a mother and daughter, who had been travelling all over Europe, alone and unattended. Although the former, from her own looks and those of her daughter, must have been within speaking distance of seventy, yet she was as full of activity, energy, and interest in life, as if she had been making a bridal tour, in the bloom of youth. Growing old seems to depend much upon the temperament, and somewhat upon the will. With an active mind and a warm heart, all that is dark and unlovely in age may be kept off very long if not to the end. We left Genoa between one and two. The steamer moved rapidly over the waveless sea, and long before sunset the coast of Italy had disappeared from view. I did not part from it in that sadness of spirit with which Mary of Scotland fixed her farewell gaze upon the re- ceding shores of France ; but when the line of land had melted into air, and nothing could be seen but the meeting of water and sky, a momentary shadow fell between me and the horizon. Over that fair region the sight had now no more dominion : it was given over to the memory. Who can look upon the soil of Italy for the last time without regret ! ' Farewell ! a word that must be and hath been A sound which makes us linger j yet, farewell ! ' CHAPTER XV. Travellers in Italy and Writers upon Italy Pilgrimages Petrarch Poggio Bracciolini Luther Montaigne Shakespeare Ascham Milton Evelyn Addison Gray.* PILGRIMAGES. THE earliest travellers in Italy were pilgrims. The stream of devotional feeling, after the approach to Jerusalem became too -difficult or too dangerous, was diverted to Rome, the second city in the Christian heart. Men of this class did not, as we may suppose, usually travel with a pen in the hand. The industrious research of Mabillon has, however, brought to light the journal of one of these religious travellers, a resident of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, who visited Rome in the ninth century. His journal, published by Mabillon in his Analecta, is said to be of some value in an antiqua- rian point of view, especially upon some topographical details, but it contains no record of personal feeling, * In the preparation of this chapter and the two others which follow it, I have been occasionally indebted to an essay in the miscellaneous writings of M. Ampere, entitled, ' Por- traits de Rome a differents ages.' PILGRIMAGES. 349 and the modest writer has not even recorded his own name. A great impulse was given to these pilgrimages by the proclamation of years of jubilee, which dates from the pontificate of Boniface VIII., who was chosen Pope in 1294. Gibbon, in one of the closing chapters of his great work, has described, in his striking and condensed manner, the first of these jubilees or holy years, in 1300, and the motives which induced the pontiff to take the step. His bull, dated February 22, 1300, granted plenary indulgence to all persons who, being truly re- pentant, and having confessed their sins, should visit once a day, during thirty days, the churches of the apostles Peter and Paul. To strangers, the number of days was lessened to fifteen. Hardly was the ink of the papal bull dry, when its call was answered by an innumerable stream of pilgrims, who flocked to Rome from all parts of Italy, Germany, France, and England. Villani, the Florentine historian, who was one of this devout company, computes that during the whole of the year there was no time in which there were not at least two hundred thousand strangers in Rome. A far greater Florentine than Villani, Dante, was also there, and a vivid ray from his genius has fallen upon one of the scenes which he witnessed, and made it immor- tal. The bridge of St. Angelo, in order to accommo- date the immense multitudes that were passing to and fro upon it, had been divided lengthwise by a partition, so that all who were going in the same direction might keep on one side. The poet compares the mournful files of sinners in the eighth circle of the Inferno to the crowds which he had seen upon this bridge. He also dates his poem from the year of the jubilee. 350 PILGRIMAGES. The purpose of Boniface VIII. had been to make the return of the jubilee coincident with the first year of each century, but the Roman people, who had reaped a golden harvest from the presence of so many travel- lers, did not like so long an interval. Clement VI. by a bull dated at Avignon, January 27, 1343, fixed its recurrence once in fifty years. This period was after- wards shortened by Urban VI. to thirty-three years, being those of the Saviour's life ; and finally by Paul II. to twenty-five, which still continues the prescribed interval. The jubilee of 1350 caused a general movement throughout Europe, equal to that of 1300. It occurred during the career of Rienzi, and in the interval between his first success and his last and short-lived elevation. More than a million of strangers visited Rome during the year, although a rainy spring, succeeding a very cold winter, had broken up the roads and made travel- ling difficult and dangerous. The people of Rome, unchecked by any strong hand of authority, plundered the poor pilgrims, without conscience or mercy, through the exorbitant prices which they required for all articles of necessity ; and when the cardinal-legate, from a wish to shorten the stay of the strangers, gave them some new indulgences, the citizens attacked his palace, killed several of his servants, and forced him to leave the city. The crowd of devout worshippers in Rome was so great, that no great ceremonial of religion took place without several persons being crushed to death. Since that period the jubilee has taken place every twenty-five years, and on these occasions the number of strangers in Rome is unusually large, though very PETRARCH. 351 far from equalling the immense throngs of the middle ages. The great concourse of foreigners in Rome during these years has led to the foundation of those national churches and hospitals which are among the peculiar features of this city. Thus, the Spaniards built the church and hospital of St. James; the French, those of St. Louis ; the Lombards, of St. Ambrose ; the Portuguese, of St. Antony ; and there are many others of the same class and origin. The pilgrims were re- ceived and entertained for three days, gratuitously, at these foundations, and they were sure of finding aid and protection there during the whole period of their residence. PETRARCH POGGIO BRACCIOLINI. Petrarch was the earliest among the writers in mod- ern literature, to look at Rome with that feeling, partly scholarlike and partly imaginative, which has since inspired so many books. In his day the papal court was at Avignon, and Rome was in the lowest stage of desolation and disorder. The population was said to have sunk to the number of seventeen thousand, though this is hardly credible. The remains of antiquity, and even the structures of more recent periods, were aban- doned to neglect, or exposed to violence. The heart of Petrarch was moved as a patriot, a poet, and a scholar. In many portions of his writings, and his let- ters, he breathes the impassioned sorrow which the condition of Rome naturally called forth. To the pope Urban V. he writes in the following energetic strain : ' In your absence there is neither repose nor content ; 352 PETRARCH. civil and foreign wars desolate the land ; houses are sinking, and walls falling to the ground ; temples and shrines are yielding to decay ; laws are trampled under foot, and justice is a prey to violence ; the unhappy people sigh and groan, and with loud voice call upon your name ; but you hear them not ; you are not moved with their multiplied sorrows ; you do not see the pious tears of your desolate spouse, nor do you hasten to her side as you should But with what heart, O good Father, pardon me this boldness, can you slumber softly on" the banks of the Rhone, under the gilded roofs of your chambers, while the Lateran is falling to ruin, and this mother of all the churches, stripped of its roof, is exposed to the winds and rains while the sanctuaries of Peter and Paul are tottering to their fall, and that which was once their temple, is now a heap of ruins, a mass of shape- less stones, such as would wring compassion from a heart of stone ? ' In another place, he complains of the ignorance of the people of Rome of their own history, and says that Rome is nowhere so little known as in Rome itself. But, as Bunsen remarks, his own know- ledge of antiquity was any thing but exact, and the reflections which its remains call forth are the splendid declamations of a poetical enthusiast, who would not wish to be disabused of a pleasing delusion. Thus, he calls the Pyramid of Cestius, the Monument of Remus at that time the traditionary name among the com- mon people in spite of the inscription so visible on its walls. From his fervid imagination and strong feeling for antiquity, Petrarch became a warm friend and admirer of Rienzi, that meteor which shone so POGGIO BRACCIOLINI. 353 brightly and so briefly ; and sad as was the fate, and imperfect as was the character of the Roman tribune, there was enough in him to justify the enthusiasm which he inspired in a man so ideal and so sincere as Petrarch. Gibbon, in the last chapter of his history, has quoted some eloquent passages on the ruins of Rome, from a Latin essay, ' De fortunes varietate,' by the celebrated Poggio Bracciolini. He was one of the in- tellectual lights of Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century a man of great activity of mind and variety of attainments like many of the scholars of that pe- riod, not always leading a reputable life, and sometimes writing lines which, whether living or dying, he should have wished to blot. These extracts are written with true feeling and much energy of expression, and Bunsen remarks in his learned preface to the ' Beschreibung der Stadt Rom,' that his observation was accurate, and that we owe to him some valuable information as to the state of Rome in his time, which would otherwise have been wholly wanting. LUTHER. Petrarch and Poggio, Italians, scholars, and men of genius, felt themselves in some measure at home, even in Rome. They beheld it with the eye of taste and learning only, and have recorded none of the impres- sions which its religious aspect may have made upon them. But a man of a very different stamp came to Italy in the early part of the sixteenth century. Martin Luther was in Rome in the year 1510, having been VOL. n. 23 354 LTJTHEK. sent there by his superiors, on some business connected with his convent. He was at that time twenty-seven years old, and in the midst of that struggle and unrest through which all persons pass who are destined to ex- ercise great influence over the spiritual nature of man. He was beginning to study the mystery of his own being, and he found it a riddle hard to solve. He was perplexed with doubts, at war with himself, and recoil- ing from the natural impulses of his own impassioned temperament, as the snares and seductions of the enemy of mankind. He entered Rome,.not in the mood of the scholar or the poet not to study inscriptions or muse over the ruins of fallen grandeur but with the burn- ing zeal of a devout pilgrim, who hoped to find there a fountain which would slake the deep thirst of his soul. There his troubled spirit he trusted would attain that peace of God which passes all understanding. But what a disappointment awaited this fervid enthusiast ! He found a warlike pontiff, Julius II., full of dreams of ambition and plans of conquest ; cardinals, worldly and politic ; a clergy, ignorant and profligate. He was shocked at the indecent haste with which mass was said. He was filled with horror at hearing many ecclesiastics openly avow their unbelief. He remained but a fortnight in Rome, but, during that time, so strong and deep was his indignation and disgust, that he hardly ever could speak or write upon the subject, without using language which modern decorum hesitates to quote. *He used afterwards to say, that he would not for a hundred thousand florins have failed to visit Rome ; for, in that event, he should have been dis- turbed by the apprehension that he had been unjust to the Pope in his subsequent controversial writings. MONTAIGNE. 355 MONTAIGNE. Thirty-four years after the death of Luther, Mon- taigne made a journey into Italy, of which he lias left a characteristic sketch. He left home in June, 1580, and returned in November, 1581. His object was the improvement of his health, especially a wish to use the mineral waters of Tuscany ; and thus a considerable portion of his diary is occupied with minute records of the state of his health, and detailed accounts of the effects of the various waters which he tried, especially of the baths of Lucca, where he spent a considerable time.* The journal has the characteristics of thought and style which have given such wide and permanent pop- ularity to his Essays ; the same good sense, the same penetrating observation, the same easy bonhommie, the same liberal and enlightened way of thinking, and * The disease for which Montaigne sought relief was an hereditary calculus. In judging of the medical details of his journal, we must bear in mind that it was not intended for the press, but kept for his own amusement. A part of the manu- script, about one third, is in the handwriting of a domestic, who acted as secretary, who speaks of his master in the third person, though he unquestionably wrote from his dictation. The journal was discovered about the year 1772, in an old chest in the chateau of Montaigne, at that time in the posses- sion of a descendant in the sixth generation from his daughter and only child. It was first published in 1774. Brunei says that the work is of no interest, and has met with no success. Other critics have judged it more favorably. Mrs. Shelley pronounces it ' singularly interesting.' At any rate, the name and reputation of Montaigne give interest to his works. 356 MONTAIGNE. the same careless and rambling method. His course of travel was very irregular and zigzag, and he seemed to have been absolutely without any plan of move- ment ; a course of proceeding which appears to have annoyed some of his companions. He is attracted to all natural phenomena, and records peculiarities of manner and costume, but feels very little of that kind of enthusiasm which seems indigenous to the soil of Italy, and is so insensible to art as not even to men- tion the names of Michael Angelo or Raphael. His honest and homely nature recoils from any thing like sentiment or fine writing. Of the approach to Rome and the Campagna, he speaks in a brief and business- like way. ' Rome did not seem to make much of an appearance as we approached it from this road. Far away on the left lay the Apennines ; the aspect of the foreground was exceed- ingly unpleasant to the eye ; hilly, with every here and there deep marshes, altogether unfit for military operations or marches ; the country all around us for ten miles in every direction, was open, barren, and destitute of trees, and almost equally so of houses/ His reflections upon the altered condition of Rome, as recorded by his secretary, are vigorous and striking. He observed, ' That there is nothing to be seen of ancient Rome but the sky under which it had risen and stood, and the outline of its form ; that the knowledge he had of it was altogether ab- stract and contemplative, no image of it remaining to satisfy the senses ; that those who said that the ruins of Rome at least remained, said more than they were warranted in say- ing ; for the ruins of so stupendous and awful a fabric would MONTAIGNE. 357 enforce more honor and reverence for its memory ; nothing, he said, remained of Rome but its sepulchre. The world, in hatred of its long domination, had first destroyed and broken in pieces the various parts of this wondrous body ; and then, finding that, even though prostrate and dead, its disfigured remains still filled them with fear and hate, they buried the ruins itself; that the few indications of what it had been, which still tottered above its grave, fortune had permitted to remain there, as some evidence of the infinite greatness which so many ages, so many intestine and parricidal blows, and the never-ending conspiracy of the world against it, had not been able entirely to extinguish ; but that, in all probability, even the disfigured members that did remain, were the least worthy of all those that had existed, the malignant fury of the enemies of that immortal glory having impelled them to destroy, in the first instance, that which was finest and most worthy of preservation in the imperial city.' In another place, he speaks of a peculiarity of Rome which has been felt at all times by observant travellers. ' One of the great advantages of Rome is, that it is one of the least exclusive cities in the world ; a place where foreigners at once feel themselves the most at home ; in fact, Rome is, by its very nature, the city of stran- gers.' He also records of the same city, ' The longer I staid in this city, the more did I become charmed with it ; I never breathed air more temperate, nor better suited to my constitution.' He was well received by the Pope, Gregory XIII., and had the honor of the citizenship of Rome conferred upon him, which gave him a degree of pleasure which seems singular in one of so sceptical and philosophical a temperament. Indeed, he never fails to record the little honors and attentions which were paid to him, 358 MONTAIGNE. more as a gentleman of easy fortune than an author, with a self-complacency which shews a fair amount of self-esteem. Of the Carnival, he speaks slightingly. In his time they had races in the Corso, ' sometimes between four or five children, sometimes between Jews, sometimes between old men stripped naked.' At Florence, he saw the Grand Duke Cosmo II. and his wife, the celebrated Bianca Capello, of whose luxu- riant beauty, and liberal display of it, he speaks. He was charmed, as well he might be, with the lovely situ- ation of Lucca. Speaking of the waters at the baths, he says, ' They are much praised for removing erup- tions and blotches on the skin, which I note as a useful memorandum for an amiable lady, a friend of mine, in France.' At Pisa, he records the astounding fact, that the leaning tower deviates from the perpendicular not less than forty-two feet ! a curious instance of carelessness. Of Venice, he says, ' The curiosities of this place are so well known that I need say nothing about them.' . . . ' The system of government, the situation of the place, the arsenal, the square of St. Mark, and the concourse of foreigners, seemed to him the most remarkable fea- tures.' The diary is often amusing from the abruptness with which he passes from one subject to another. Thus, being in Florence, he, or rather his secretary, writes as follows : ' We went to see the cathedral, a magnificent structure, the steeple of which is faced with black and white marble ; it is one of the finest and most sumptuous churches in the world. M. de Montaigne said he had never been in a country where there were so few pretty women as in Italy.' SHAKESPEARE. 359 While at the baths at Lucca, he says, ' After dinner to-day, I gave a dance to the country-girls, and danced with them myself, in order not to appear airish.' SHAKESPEARE. The question whether Shakespeare ever visited Italy is one of those literary curiosities which has been some- what discussed of late years. Mr. Charles Armitage Brown, in an ingenious essay on the autobiographical poems of the great poet, published in 1838, maintains the affirmative of the proposition with much zeal ; and the probability of it is admitted in some of the notes to the Italian plays in Knight's pictorial edition. Mr. Brown comes to this conclusion, partly because it was the general custom at that time for cultivated English- men, whose fortunes would allow of it, to travel in Italy, and because Shakespeare's means were sufficient for such an indulgence, and partly from the superior know- ledge of Italian customs and localities shewn in the later Italian plays, such as The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice, as compared with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It is certainly true that Shakespeare, in his Italian plays, shews an extensive and minute acquaintance with Italian life, manners, localities, occupations, and amusements. Lady Mor- gan remarks, that there is not a single article of furni- ture which Gremio describes as being in his house in Padua, which she has not herself seen in some one or other of the palaces of Florence, Venice, or Genoa ; and Mr. Brown confirms the truth of this statement from his own observation. But, on the other hand, it 360 SHAKESPEARE. may be urged that a journey into Italy in those days was a great undertaking, requiring time and prepara- tion as well as liberal outlay ; and that with the minute and microscopic examination to which the life of Shakespeare has been exposed in our times, which has brought so many curious facts to light, it is hardly pos- sible that some scrap or fragment should not have turned up which would set such an expedition beyond question, supposing it to have been made. And in the next place, his knowledge of Italy may be explained without a visit to the country. The old notion of Shakespeare's having been a wild, irregular genius, with no help from books and study, is long since ex- ploded by modern research and modern criticism. There is little doubt that he understood the Italian language, and we may be sure that in the preparation of his Italian plays, he read every book illustrative of the subject, on which he could lay his hands. His intuitive perception of historical truth, the astonishing sagacity with which he seizes upon every trait which is distinguishing and characteristic, and the vitality which his genius breathes into his knowledge, are as remark- able in his Greek and Roman plays, as in those in which the scene is laid in modern Italy. On the whole, Shakespeare's visit to Italy stands much upon the same footing in point of evidence, as that of the Northmen to New England before Columbus. It is certainly possi- ble, perhaps probable ; but it remains to be proved. It is pleasant to think of Shakespeare's swimming in a gondola, and to believe that the beautiful pictures in The Merchant of Venice and Othello were recollec- tions, and not imaginations ; that Belmont was a pa- ASCHAM. 361 lazzo whose blazing windows he himself had seen, and that when he wrote Lorenzo's lovely description of a summer's night, his thoughts went back to the brighter moons and larger stars of an Italian heaven, and to the myrtle walls and flowery banks of an Italian garden. ASCHAM. The learned Roger Ascham, who went to Germany about the middle of the sixteenth century as secretary to Sir Richard Morysine, the English ambassador, made a flying visit of only nine days into Italy. Most of this short period appears to have been spent in Ven- ice. In his 'Schoolmaster,' written some years later, he alludes to this passage in his life, and makes it the text and starting-point for a furious tirade upon the vices of Italy and the corrupting influence which that country had exerted upon the morals, manners, and literature of England. Indeed, he speaks of the sin which he himself saw, in that brief space of time, as being so great, that one cannot but suspect that he must have gone out of his way, and taken some pains to find it. His observations have no other value than such as is derived from one or two facts which he does not so much state as assume. One of these is, that it was at that time the fashion for young Englishmen, of birth and fortune, to complete their education by a tour in Italy ; and another is, that many ' fond' (that is, fool- ish) books had recently been translated out of Italian into English, over which the good Roger groans in spirit. ' Ten sermons at Paul's Cross do not so much good for moving men to true doctrine, as one of these 362 MILTON. books do harm with enticing men to ill living. Yea, I say further, those books tend not so much to corrupt honest living as they do to subvert true religion. More Papists be made by your merry books of Italy, than by your earnest books of Louvain.' As to good morals, there may be some foundation for these charges against the ' merry books of Italy,' but when we re- member the scandalous stories of monks and nuns which they contain, and the bold hand with which they satirize the vices of the clergy, we may well doubt whether Ascham's protestant zeal did not outrun his reflection when he supposed them to be dangerous to doctrine. Another argument which he uses against visiting Italy sounds rather odd from English lips. He com- plains of the freedom of thought and speech which prevails in the cities of Italy, both in religion and politics, and that young men, who have been accus- tomed to this liberty, come home less inclined to be good subjects and good Protestants. MILTON. In 1638, Milton went to Italy. He was at that time thirty years old, and had been living for some years in studious retirement ; probably the happiest period of his life, undisturbed by domestic troubles or political controversy, and dedicated to the highest intellectual labors and delights. He had in this interval published 'Comus,' ' L' Allegro,' and 'II Penseroso;' but, strange to say, they had attracted comparatively little notice, and he was as yet not much known beyond the circle MILTON. 363 . of his own university. No traveller ever visited Italy more thoroughly prepared to profit by the advantages which that country afforded. He wrote and spoke both the Latin and Italian languages with idiomatic ease and elegance, and was perfectly familiar with the history and literature of both Rome and Italy. His person was beautiful, his manners graceful, and he was skilled in all the manly exercises of his time ; he had also inherited from his father a natural taste for music, in which art Italy was then in advance of the rest of Europe. It is not to be wondered at that this handsome young Englishman, so full of learning, genius, and accomplishments, speaking and writing their own language so perfectly, should have been received by the susceptible Italians with an enthusiasm such as he never inspired in his own country at any period of his life. He passed into Italy by way of Paris, Nice, and Genoa. He remained two months in Florence, min- gling in the learned society of that place, and receiving many marks of distinction from its scholars. While here he visited Galileo, who was then living at Arcetri, in the immediate vicinity of Florence, under the eye of the Inquisition, though not actually a prisoner. From Florence he passed to Sienna and thence to Rome, where he resided also two months, much ca- ressed by the most distinguished society there. He then continued his journey to Naples, where he became acquainted with Manso, Marquis of Villa, a soldier and scholar, well known as the friend, patron, and biogra- pher of Tasso, and who has secured a place in English literature by the beautiful epistle in Latin verse 364 MILTON. the most Virgilian of all compositions not written by Virgil which Milton addressed to him. From Na- ples he purposed passing over to Sicily and Greece ; but, on hearing of the commencement of the troubles between the king and the parliament of England, he set his face homeward. He returned to Rome, where he spent two more months ; visited Florence and Lucca ; and crossing the Apennines, went by the way of Bologna and Ferrara to Venice, where he remained a month. From Venice he took his course through Verona, Milan, and along Lake Leman, to Geneva; and then home, through France ; having been absent about fifteen months. It is rather curious that Milton should not have re- corded any of the impressions which such a country as Italy must have made upon him. It does not even appear that he kept a diary. With what interest should we learn that such a manuscript had been discovered, and how precious a memorial it would be of that bright period of his life ! And it is also quite remarkable how little there is in his subsequent writings which seems to have sprung directly from his Italian tour, and to have been distinctly drawn from the images and impressions then gathered up. Critics are at great pains to trace this or that picture or expression in the Paradise Lost to some painting, statue, or scene in Italy ; but the faint- ness of the resemblance fails to bring conviction to the mind. With the exception of the well-known allusions in the first book of the Paradise Lost to the woods of Vallombrosa, and to the astronomer in Fiesole or Val- darno, there is hardly a line which would prove incon- testably that the poet's foot had ever been upon the soil EVELYN. 365 of Italy. And yet no one can doubt that the art, the scenery, and the antiquities of that country must have sunk deep into his mind, and filled it with images which rose up in his hours of solitude and Blindness with soothing and refreshing influence. He doubtless saw much there which offended his puritan zeal, always an active principle in his nature, however mellowed by classical studies. It is difficult to imagine Milton, at any period of his life, in a Romish church, without a frown upon his brow. He has expressly recorded that he gave offence, and incurred some danger, by the freedom with which he spoke upon religious subjects, and in his grotesque description of the paradise of fools in the third book of the Paradise Lost, there are some touches of sarcasm doubtless supplied by the ceremo- nials of the church which he had witnessed at Rome. The same recollections also gave earnestness and point to the vigorous invective with which, in his prose writ- ings, he so often assails the abuses of prelacy and the corruptions of the church. EVELYN. Within three or four years after Milton's return to England, the pure-minded and accomplished John Evelyn, that model of an English gentleman, visited Italy, and indeed resided there nearly three years. He left England at the age of twenty-three, and it curiously illustrates the difference between his temperament and that of Milton, that the troubles between the king and the parliament which called the one home sent the other abroad. Evelyn has left a diary of his journey 366 EVELYN. and residence, which has no marked literary merit but gives evidence of a thoughtful and observant spirit, and of a pure and elevated character. It is a very gentlemanly record, in the highest sense of the word, and we feel sure that a young man with such senti- ments and dispositions would never lead any but a virtuous and honorable life. He arrives at Rome in November, 1644, and finds lodgings in the Piazza Spagnola, as he calls it, and began to be ' very prag- matical,' to use his own expression ; that is, very busy in sight-seeing. He is attracted to much the same places and objects as a stranger is now-a-days. Fie speaks with enthusiasm of the grounds and collections of the Villa Borghese, mentioning the group of Apollo and Daphne, by Bernini, who was then living, in the prime of his powers and at the height of his reputation. Evelyn mentions him again, in his account of St. Peter's, and says that a short time before his arrival at Rome, the artist gave a public opera, ' wherein he painted the scenes, cut the statues, invented the en- gines, composed the music, writ the comedy, and built the theatre.' Evelyn visited the Villa Ludovisi, where the statue of the Dying Gladiator then was ; and also the Villa Medici, in which at that time were the Venus de Medici, the Wrestlers, the Knife-Whetter, and the Apollino, all of which have long been in Florence. At Naples, he goes to the summit of Vesuvius, and makes excursions to Pozzuoli and Baise. He returns to Rome by land, not venturing to sea for fear of Turkish pirates.* He speaks of himself as going * It is only within a comparatively recent period that the EVELYN. 367 down to the Piazza Navona to buy medals, pictures, and such commodities, ' and also to hear the mounte- banks prate and distribute their medicines.' At Frascati he is greatly struck with the Villa Aldo- brandini, and the description he gives of it may be entertaining to my readers. ' Just behind the palace, in the centre of the inclosure, rises a high hill or mountain all over-clad with tall wood, and so formed by nature as if it had been cut out by art, from the summit whereof falls a cascade, seeming rather a great river than a stream precipitating into a large theatre of water, rep- resenting an exact and perfect rainbow when the sun shines out. Under this is made an artificial grot, wherein are cu- rious rocks, hydraulic organs, and all sorts of singing birds, moving and chirping by force of the water, with several other pageants and surprising inventions. In the centre of one of these rooms rises a copper ball, that continually dances about three foot above the pavement, by virtue of a wind con- veyed secretly to a hole beneath it ; with many other devices to wet the unwary spectators, so that one can hardly step without wetting to the skin. In one of these theatres of water, is an Atlas spouting up the stream to a very great height ; and another monster makes a terrible roaring with a horn ; but, above all, the representation of a storm is most natural, with such fury of rain, wind, and thunder, as one would imagine one's self in some extreme tempest.' After leaving Rome he passed several months at Venice. He was there on Ascension Day, in June, 1645, and witnessed the splendid ceremonial of the coasts of Italy have been safe from the attacks of Barbary cor- sairs. Madame Frederica Brun, who was at Nettuno in 1809, states that a short time before, a boat's crew had landed there and carried off a young lad, the brother of her hostess. 368 AUDISON. espousal of the Adriatic, by the Doge, ' in their glo- riously painted, carved, and gilded Bucentora, envi- roned and followed by innumerable galleys, gondolas, and boats, filled with spectators, some dressed in mas- querade, trumpets, music, and cannons.' He visits, and describes at considerable length, the ducal palace, the church of St. Mark's, the Campanile, and some of the churches and palaces. The arsenal seems to have much impressed him. He saw a cannon weighing upwards of sixteen thousand pounds, which was cast while Henry III. was at dinner, and put into a galley, which was built, rigged, and fitted for launching within that period. There were twenty-seven galleys at that time laid up there, and, as he states, arms for eight hundred thousand men ! probably one cipher too many. In his account of the Carnival at Venice, which he witnessed, he says, ' They have also a barbarous cus- tom of hunting bulls about the streets and piazzas,' of which he remarks with great gravity, that it is ' very dangerous, the passages being generally narrow.' ADDISON. At the close of the year 1700, Addison went to Italy and spent the principal part of the next year in travel- ling there, and on his return to England, published an account of his tour. He was twenty-eight years old when he began his travels ; had lived nearly all his life in the studious calm of the University of Oxford ; had attracted the notice of Lord Somers and the Earl of Halifax by his literary abilities, and through their influ- ADDISON. 369 ence had obtained a pension of three hundred pounds a year, that he might complete his education by foreign travel. His account of his tour is scholarlike, but rather tame and colorless. Sometimes we meet with a graceful turn of expression, and a delicate touch of humor, such as we might expect from his later writ- ings ; but in general the style is languid and without character. There is no youthful glow or spirit about it, but he writes like a man whose blood had been chilled by hard study, and thinned by spare diet. The range of his reading is not at all extensive being mostly confined to the Latin poets but within that range was thorough and exact, as his numerous quotations shew. The most characteristic part of the tour is the descrip- tion he gives of the little republic of San Marino, in which his peculiar vein of humor is called forth. ' This,' he remarks, in speaking of some events which took place some centuries before, ' they represent as the most flourishing time of the commonwealth, when their dominions reached half way up a neighboring hill, but at present they are reduced to their old extent.' His account of Naples and its vicinity is entertaining, especially his sketch of the island of Capri, which he seems to have explored pretty carefully. In Rome, he describes statues, antiquities, and especially medals ; and pours forth a profusion of quotations from the Latin poets in illustration of them, but says very little about pictures. He shews some sensibility to natural sceneiy, especially in what he says of Tivoli, and he cannot help admiring the Gothic beauties of the cathedral at Sienna, though he half apologizes for his taste, as if it were something to be ashamed of. He often falls into VOL. n. 24 370 ADDISON. a strain of general reflection, which is sensible but not striking ; talking like an Englishman and a whig about the blessings of liberty, and how the natural advantages of a fine country are counteracted by despotic govern- ments. What we most miss is life, spirit, and the flavor of personal interest. We want him to take off his learned spectacles and tell us what he saw with his own living eyes how the people lived, what they were doing, and what happened to him. We ask for adventures, and he gives us quotations ; we ask for observation, and he gives us learning. During his absence he addressed to his patron, Lord Halifax, his poetical ' Letter from Italy,' the most spirited and popular of all his poems. It is a sort of abstract or summary of his travels, and in pleasing and flowing lines delineates the natural beauties of Italy, and the fine productions of art which there delight the eye and charm the taste, but with a glow of national pride points to the boon of liberty enjoyed by England as worth far more than all. Towards the close where he has occasion to speak of King William, he says, ' Fired with the name which I so oft have found, The distant climes and different tongues resound, I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain That longs lo launch into a bolder strain.' The poet much mistook the character of his muse, which was anything but 'struggling' or 'bridled in with pain.' On the contrary, it was a well-broken, sure-footed, ambling pad, which a child might have governed with a silken thread. GRAY. 371 GRAY. In the year 1739, the poet Gray set out on a tour to Italy, travelling in company with Horace Walpole. He remained abroad till 1741, and in the interval passed more than a year, at two different periods, in Florence. His letters, addressed to his father, his mother, and his friend West, contain lively and ani- mated sketches of what he saw, written in easy and graceful prose, quite unlike the rich elaboration of his poetry. His first impression of Rome seems rather overwrought, and probably in the flutter of spirits into which a person of so much genius and so much learn- ing must have been thrown on such an occasion, he drew more from what he felt than from what he actu- ally saw. ' The first entrance of Rome is prodigiously striking. It is by a noble gate, designed by Michael Angelo, and adorned with statues ; this brings you into a large square, in the midst of which is a large obelisk of granite, and in the front you have at one view two churches of a handsome architec- ture, and so much alike that they are called the twins ; with three streets, the middlemost of which is one of the largest in Rome. As high as my expectation was raised, I confess, the magnificence of this city infinitely surpasses it. You cannot pass along a street but you have views of some palace, or church, or square, or fountain, the most picturesque and noble one can imagine.' His account of Tivoli, in a letter to West, is full of that playful humor which gives such a charm to his familiar correspondence. ' This day, being in the palace of his highness the Duke of Modena, he laid his most serene commands upon me to write 372 GRAY. to Mr. West, and said he thought it for his glory, that I should draw up an inventory of all his most serene posses- sions for the said West's perusal. Imprimis, a house, being in circumference a quarter of a mile, two feet and an inch ; the said house containing the following particulars, to wit, a great room. Item, another great room; item, a bigger room ; item, another room ; item, a vast room ; item, a sixth of the same ; a seventh ditto; an eighth, as before; a ninth as abovesaid ; a tenth (see No. 1,) ; item, ten more such, besides twenty besides, which, not to be particular, we shall pass over. The said rooms contain nine chairs, two tables, five stools, and a cricket. From whence we shall proceed to the garden, containing two millions of superfine laurel hedges, a clump of cypress trees, and half the river Teve- rone Finis. Dame Nature desired me to put in a list of her little goods and chattels, and, as they were small, to be very minute about them. She has built here three or four little mountains, and laid them out in an irregular semi- circle ; from certain others behind, at a greater distance, she has drawn a canal, into which she has put a little river of hers, called Anio ; she has cut a huge cleft between the two innermost of her four hills, and there she has left it to rts own disposal ; which she has no sooner done, but, like a heedless chit, it tumbles headlong down a declivity fifty feet perpendicular, breaks itself into shatters, and is converted into a shower of rain, where the sun forms many a bow, red, green, blue and yellow.' Of Naples, he says in a letter to his mother, ' The streets are one continued market, and thronged with populace so much that a coach can hardly pass. The common sort are a jolly, lively kind of animals, more industrious than Italians usually are ; they work till evening ; then take their lute or guitar (for they all play) and walk about the city, or upon the seashore GRAY. 373 with it, to enjoy the fresco. One sees their little brown children jumping about, stark-naked, and the bigger ones dancing with castanets, while others play on the cymbal to them.' He describes in the same letter, a visit to Herculaneum, though he does not call it by that name, and speaks of it as having been recently discovered. It was at Reggio, on their return homeward, that the well-known rupture between Gray and Wai pole took place, of which the latter always generously took the blame upon himself. This disagreement is easily to be explained by the difference in character, position, and temperament of the two men. Gray was retiring, sensitive, and studious ; perhaps irritable ; and with a proper share of the pride of genius and learning. Walpole was young, giddy, and probably a little mis- chievous ; sensible of his position as son of the prime minister of England, and not always treating his half- tutor and half-friend with the consideration which he deserved. The wonder rather is that they kept to- gether so long : for no one who has tried it needs to be told that there is no such touchstone of friendship as travelling, and that whatever of selfishness or irrita- bility there is in one's nature is sure to come to the surface under such circumstances. CHAPTER XVI. Writers on Italy and Travellers in Italy, continued Smollett Dr. Moore - Goethe Chateaubriand Forsyth Madame de Stael. SMOLLETT. IN the autumn of 1764, Smollett, who had been for some months previous a resident of Nice, on account of his health, made a short excursion into Italy. He had left England in the summer of 1763 with a consti- tution broken by the toils of a literary life, and spirits deeply depressed *by the death of a beloved daugh- ter, an only child, in the fifteenth year of her age. He set out from Nice early in September, and returned to it before Christmas, running rapidly over that portion of the peninsula which lies south of the Apennines and between Genoa and Rome. His travels are prob- ably more known by the sarcasms of Sterne, who, in his 'Sentimental Journey' ridicules Smollett under the name of Smelfungus, than by their own merits or defects. The strictures of Sterne are not undeserved. Smollett was a man of an extremely irritable tempera- ment ; sudden in quarrel, though placable ; of lofty" self-esteem ; and inclined to suspicion. These infirmi- ties had been aggravated by the wretched life he had SMOLLETT. 375 long been leading, of an author writing for bread a life, at that time, made up of all sorts of degradations and disgusts, the more galling to Smollett from the fact that he was of an old and honorable family, and had the pride of birth as well as the pride of genius, to sharpen the stings of poverty and insult. His journal is, for the most part, an unattractive record of annoy- ances and discomforts, marked by considerable energy of expression, but wearisome from its sameness. With innkeepers, ostlers, and postilions, especially, he seems to have been in a state of perpetual war ; and he fell into so many quarrels with them that the wonder is, considering the revengeful and vindictive character of the lower class of Italians, that he ever got out of the country alive. He is every where devoured by ver- min, poisoned with bad food, and pillaged by extor- tionate landlords. Indeed, making all allowances for his diseased state of mind and body, travelling in Italy at that period must have been a very uncomfortable experience, requiring * patience, animal spirits, and a well-stocked purse to make it at all endurable. Here, for instance, are some of his records between Rome and Florence : ' From Perugia to Florence the posts are all double, and the road is so bad, that we never could travel above eight- and-twenty miles a day. We were often obliged to quit the carriage, and walk up steep mountains; and the way in gen- eral was so unequal and stony, that we were jolted even to the danger of our lives. I never felt any sort of exercise or fatigue so intolerable ; and I did not fail to bestow an hun- dred benedictions per diem upon the banker, Barazzi, by whose advice we had taken this road. If the coach had not 376 SMOLLETT. been incredibly strong, it must have been shattered to pieces. The fifth night we passed at a place called Comoccia, a mis- erable cabaret, where we were fain to cook our own supper, and lay in a musty chamber, which had never known a fire, and indeed had no fireplace, and where we run the risk of being devoured by rats. Next day one of the irons of the coach gave way at Arezzo, where we were detained two hours before it could be accommodated. I might have taken this opportunity to view the remains of the ancient Etruscan amphitheatre, and the temple of Hercules, described by the cavalier Lorenzo Guazesi, as standing in the neighborhood of this place ; but the blacksmith assured me his work would be finished in a few minutes ; and as I had nothing so much at heart as the speedy accomplishment of this disagreeable journey, I cht>se to suppress my curiosity, rather than be the occasion of a moment's delay. But all the nights we had hitherto passed were comfortable in comparison to this, which we suffered at a small village, the name of which I do not remember. The house was dismal and dirty beyond all description ; the bedclothes filthy enough to turn the stomach of a muleteer; and the victuals cooked in such a manner, that even a Hottentot could not have beheld them without loathing. We had sheets of our own, which were spread upon a mattress ; and here I took my repose, wrapped in a great coat, if that could be called repose, which was inter- rupted by the innumerable stings of vermin.' That Smollett, in recording the incidents of such a journey, should have put a good deal of gall into his ink, is not a matter of surprise ; but it is rather re- markable that his journal should be so devoid of lite- rary merit. The author of 'Humphrey Clinker' seems to have packed his genius away at the bottom of his trunk, and not taken it out during his whole tour. His spirit is all put forth in vituperation; but other- SMOLLETT. 377 wise he is tame and commonplace. He is rowed in a felucca along that lovely coast between Nice and Lerici, and goes to Rome by way of Sienna and re- turns to Florence by way of Perugia, and yet the grand and beautiful scenery which passed before his eyes does not appear to have soothed his spirit or left any pictures upon his memory. He faithfully records the steep hills which he had to climb, as if the ache were not out of his bones when he wrote ; but he says nothing of the glorious prospects which rewarded him when he had got to the top. His sketches of the character and manners of the people remind one of the story told of a petty officer, on board an English man-of-war, who, when required to keep a journal of his voyage, and note the manners and customs of the places he^visited, set down in his diary on one occa- sion, ' The inhabitants of this country have no manners at all, and their customs are very beastly.' This is just about the sum and substance of Smollett's judg- ment of the Italians. Smollett's journal is not wholly occupied with the record of his Italian tour, but the larger part is devoted to his travels in France and his residence at Nice. In the course of this portion of the work he gives some advice to travellers, which is as sound now as it was then. Had he always ' recked his own rede,' he would have spared himself many undignified and unavailing quarrels. ' And here, once for all, I would advise every traveller, who consults his own ease and convenience, to be liberal of his money to all that sort of people ; and even to wink at the imposition of aubergistes on the road, unless it be very fla- DH. MOORE. grant. So sure as you enter into disputes with them, you will be put to a great deal of trouble, and fret yourself to no man- ner of purpose. I have travelled with economists in England, who declared they would rather give away a crown than allow themselves to be cheated of a farthing. This is a good maxim, but requires a great share of resolution and self-denial to put in practice. In one excursion, my fellow-traveller was in a passion, and of consequence very bad company, from one end of the journey to the other. He was incessantly scolding either at landlords, landladies, waiters, ostlers, or postilions. We had bad horses and bad chaises ; set out from every stage with the curses of the people ; and at this expense I saved about ten shillings in a journey of a hundred and fifty miles. For such a paltry consideration, he was contented to be mis- erable himself, and to make every other person unhappy with whom he had any concern.' DR. MOORE. In 1775, Dr. Moore, the author of ' Zeluco,' passed some months in Italy, as medical attendant and travel- ling companion to the Duke of Hamilton, and published an account of the country upon his return home, with the title of ' A View of Society and Manners in Italy ; with Anecdotes relating to some -Eminent Characters.' The work was favorably received by the public, and indeed has a considerable degree of merit. The author, who had lived much upon the continent, was a man of candid and liberal spirit, and, though born a Scotchman and reared a Presbyterian, was free from national prejudice and religious intolerance. He had greatly the advantage of his counfryman Smollett, not only in the enlightened judgment he passed upon DR. MOORE. 379 foreign countries, but in the patient good humor with which he met the inconveniences of travel. His po- sition as companion to the Duke of Hamilton gave him access to a higher class of society than he could have reached as a man of letters, or a physician ; and his tour is chiefly occupied with observations upon society and manners, as its title indicates. He had but little knowledge of art, as he more than once frankly con- fesses, and still less sensibility to nature ; but he is a shrewd and intelligent observer of men and manners, with an uncommonly quick perception of the ludi- crous, and a turn for satire, which, though always under the control of good sense and good nature, yet serves to give a spicy flavor to many a paragraph. The popularity of the work was mainly owing to its amusing sketches, to the many good stories which it contains, and to the lively and animated style in which the whole is written. He gives several pages to an account of the political constitution of Venice, and to some incidents from its history ; and I imagine he is the first popular English author who relates the stories of Marino Faliero and the Foscari.* He is also one of the first English travellers who describes a visit to Pompeii, of which then only a very small portion had been laid open. As the work of Dr. Moore is now not much known, I * Byron, writing to Murray from Venice, under date of Feb. 25, 1817, says, 'Look into "Moore's (Dr. Moore's) View of Italy," for me ; in one of the volumes you will find an account of the Doge Valiere (it ought to be Falieri) and his conspiracy, or the motives of it.. Get it transcribed for me, and send it in a letter to me soon. I want it, and cannot find so good an account of that business here.' DR. MOORE. have made a few extracts from it, in order to shew its claims to the popularity it once enjoyed. Describing the piazza of St. Mark's in Venice, he says : 'At the corner of the new Procuratie, a little distant from the church, stands the steeple of St. Mark. This is a quad- Tangular tower, about three hundred feet in heighj. I am told it is not uncommon in Italy for the church and steeple to be in this state of disunion ; this shocked a clergyman of rny acquaintance very much ; he mentioned it to me, many years ago, amongst the errors and absurdities of the church of Rome. The gentleman was clearly of opinion, that church and steeple ought to be inseparable as man and wife, and that every church ought to consider its steeple as mortar of its mortar and stone of its stone. An old captain of a ship, who was present, declared himself of the same way of think- ing, and swore that a church, divorced from its steeple, appeared to him as ridiculous as a ship without a mast.' At Rome, he witnesses the Carnival, and says : ' The coachmen, who are placed in a more conspicuous point of view than others of the same rank in life, and who are perfectly known by the carriages they drive, generally affect some ridiculous disguise. Many of them choose a woman's dress, and have their faces painted, and adorned with patches. However dull these fellows may be, when in breeches, they are, in petticoats, considered as the pleasantest men in the world, and excite much laughter in every street in which they appear. I observed to an Italian of my acquaint- ance, that, considering the staleness of the joke, I was sur- prised at the mirth it seemed to raise. " When a whole city,'' answered he, "are resolved to be merry for a week together, it is exceedingly convenient to have a few estab- lished jokes ready made ; the young lawgh at the novelty, and the old from prescription. This metamorphosis of the coachman is certainly not the most refined kind of wit ; how- DR. MOORE. 381 ever, it is more harmless than the burning of heretics, which formerly was a great source of amusement to our populace." ' The following is a specimen of the shrewd and good- humored satire which frequently occurs in his pages. He is speaking of the Catholic clergy, and the unjust accusations often thrown out against them. ' T temember being in the company of an acquaintance of yours, who is distinguished for the delicacy of his table and the length of his repasts, from which he seldom retires with- out a bottle of Burgundy for his own share, not to mention two or three glasses of champagne between the courses, We had dined a few miles from the town in which we then lived, and were returning in his chariot ; it was winter, and he was wrapped in fur to the nose. As we drove along, we met two friars walking through the snow ; little threads of icicles hung from their beards ; their legs and the upper part of their feet were bare, but their soles were defended from the snow by wooden sandals. " There goes a couple of dainty rogues," cried your friend, as we drew near them. " Only think of the folly of permitting such lazy, luxurious rascals to live in a state, and eat up the portion of the poor. I will en- gage that these two scoundrels, as lean and mortified as they look, will devour more victuals in a day than would maintain two industrious families." He continued railing against the luxury of those two friars, and afterwards expatiated upon the epicurism of the clergy in general ; who, he said, were all alike in every country, and of every religion. When we ar- rived in town, he told me he had ordered a nice little supper to be got ready at his house by the time of our return, and had lately got some excellent wine, inviting me at the same time to go home with him ; for, continued he, as we have driven three miles in suqh weather, we stand in great need of some refreshment.' DR. MOOKE. The following extract shews the kindly mood in which he travelled, and his disposition to take hold of things by their right handles. ' We left Loretto after dinner, and proceeded through a beautiful country to Macerata, a small town, situated on a hill, as the towns in Italy generally are. We only stayed to change horses, and continued our journey to Tolentino, where, not thinking it expedient to begin to ascend the Apennines in the dark, we took up our quarters at an inn, the best in the place, but, by many degrees, the poorest we had seen in Italy. However, as it was not for good eating or convenient bedchambers we came to the country, that cir- cumstance affected us very little. Indeed, the quantity of victuals presented us at supper would have been as displeas- ing to a person of Sancho Panza's way of thinking, on the subject of eating, as the manner they were dressed would have been to a nicer sensualist in that refined science. The latter circumstance prevented our regretting the former, and although we had felt some uneasiness when we were told how little provisions there were in the house, the moment they appeared on the table we were all convinced there was more than enough. ' The poor people of this inn, however, shewed the utmost desire to please. They must have unfortunate tempers in- deed, who, observing this, could have shocked them by fret- fulness, or an air of dissatisfaction. Besides, if the entertain- ment had been still more homely, even those travellers who are accustomed to the greatest delicacies, might be induced to bear it with patience, for one night, from this consideration ; that the people of the place, who have just as good a natural right to the luxuries of life as themselves, are obliged to bear it always. Nothing is more apt to raise indignation, than to behold men repining and fretting, on account of little in- conveniences, in the hearing of those who are bearing much greater every day with cheerfulness. There is a want of GOETHE. sense, as well as a want of temper, in such behavior. The only use and to refresh his worn faculties by that communion with nature of which he writes in such 'glowing terms. In- deed, it may be well doubted whether Byron had, in his heart of hearts, a genuine love of nature, and whether the predominant impulse which drew him to a noble landscape, were not its capacity of being repro- duced in verse. His movements and residences, while in Italy, seem to have been mainly regulated by his relations to women,* which, with the pursuit of literary fame, occupied his whole time and thoughts, till, the trumpet-call of the Greek revolution roused him to a transient gleam of self-sacrificing action. t * In a letter to Moore, dated Rome, May 9, 1317, he says, ' I have not been here long enough to affect it as a residence, and I must go back to Lombardy, because I am wretched at being away from Marianna.' He had then been in Rome about twelve days, and left it a few days after. f Some of my readers may be startled at the statement in the text, that Byron, whose descriptions of scenery, sculpture, and architecture they have read with so much delight, was not a genuine lover either of nature or of art. But none but the very young need be told that there is no necessary connection be- tween imagination and sensibility, and that emotions may be admirably painted which are not habitually felt. That Words- worth and Cowper were lovers of nature that Goethe was a lover of art are proved by their lives as well as their writings. But I submit that the facts of Byron's life shew no more than this, that he felt a beautiful scene or a beautiful statue when brought before them, but that he never took any pains, or went out of his way, to procure either class of satisfactions. There is another piece of evidence on the question of his love of ROGERS. 437 ROGERS. The 'Italy' of Rogers resembles 'Chilcle Harold' as little as possible, considering that they are both poetical pictures of the same country. Byron, at thirty, had exhausted life ; but Rogers, at sixty, had lost nothing beyond that which time must of necessity take. Such is the wisdom of renunciation ! such is the folly of eating seed-corn instead of sowing it ! After the passionate melancholy and intense ideality of ' Childe Harold,' the tone of ' Italy ' will seem, especially to to the young, languid, and its colors faint ; but the latter poem wears well to the end. Men who have lived through the Byron age, in their own lives, are a little shy of the poetry which is so strongly associated with past conflicts and spent storms ; but the mellow wisdom, the genial sympathy, the graceful pictures, and the perfect taste of Rogers are not fully appre- ciated till our shadows have begun to lengthen. It is, indeed, a delightful poem ; a work of such perfect art that the art is nowhere seen ; with just the right amount of personal feeling ; with a warm sense of all that is attractive to a poet and a scholar in Italy, and a nature, which seems to me of much weight. His usual habit was to rise between one and two in the afternoon, and to sit up during the greater part of the night. No true lover of nature ever falls into ways of life like these, or consents to lose the beauty and freshness of the morning hours. Byron felt female beauty as few men have ever done ; and his descriptions of female beauty have a sincerity, a vitality, and a heartiness, which I do not find in his descriptions of nature, brilliant as these are. 438 ROGERS. generous judgment of all that is distasteful to an Eng- lishman and a Protestant ; and full of charming pictures which seem to demand those exquisite illustrations of Stothard and Turner, with which they are so insepara- bly united in our minds. All his sketches of Venice are admirable bringing back the wonders of that unique city as freshly as the scenery of a last night's play : the few words in which he describes the works of Michael Angelo in the Medicean Chapel at Florence are worthy of the subject ; and how well is told the sad story of poor Ginevra, and the mouldering chest, and the portrait that was painted in dream-land, and which has so troubled the ciceroni of Modena, who hear all England asking for a picture which nobody ever saw ! The temperate wisdom of the poet's life has passed into his book, and the style proves the worth of renun- ciation. Nothing is overdone or overstated ; the tempta- tion to over-dress and over-ornament is always resisted; his words are choice, but plain and few ; the tone of sentiment is healthy; fine writing never offends us with its paste jewels ; and whether writing prose or verse (for a portion of the work is in prose) the author knows both what to blot and when to stop. It does not stir the blood, or enchain the attention, at first, but we re- cur to it again and again ; it is not demanded at one time and rejected at another, but it suits our varying moods of mind ; its hold upon us is enduring because its claims are founded on good sense, good taste, and good feeling. MISS EATON JOHN BELL. 43J) MISS EATON JOHN BELL WILLIAM STEWART ROSE. Miss Eaton's ' Rome in the Ninteenth Century,' is. the work of a clever and very well informed woman, who passed several months in Rome and its neighbor- hood in 1817 and 1818. It contains the results of muck careful research, honorable to her industry and perse- verance. The information it gives upon the antiquities,, the ruins, and the monuments of Rome,, is ample and correct ; and it has a full and good account of the sights- and ceremonies of Holy Week. Her strictures upon society and manners are shrewd and sharp, but some- what tinged with Anglican prejudice. The style is. animated and lively, and the whole air of the book shews a healthy mind aided by the energies of a healthy body. Before the days of Murray, there was no better guide-book in English to the sights of Rome, and it will still be found an agreeable and instructive companion both there and at home, after leaving it. Bell's ' Observations on Italy ' are brief and frag- mentary, but excellent In their way. The author was a distinguished anatomist; and a scholar and man of taste, besides. His remarks on art, sculpture es- pecially, have a peculiar value from the profound professional knowledge on which they rest. His criti- cisms on the statues of antiquity are as interesting as they are instructive. His sense of their beauty is not the least impaired by his technical skill and keen ap- preciation of scientific details. His admiration does not-languish in the air of knowledge. Whatever be the subject on which he writes, his tone is always that of an amiable, cultivated, and right-minded man. 440 WILLIAM STEWART ROSE. Rose's ' Letters from the North of Italy,' are the work of an accomplished Italian scholar.* He was familiar not only with the literature of Italy, but with the character, habits, and manners of the people. It has much curious information upon a part of the country which most travellers hurry rapidly over, and upon subjects not usually treated, in books of travels. His account of Venice, its society, its pecu- liarities, its literature, is full and interesting ; and has that easy and natural flow which is the result of thorough knowledge. Like most Englishmen, he paints the people, especially of Lombardy, in rather dark colors. He was an invalid in pursuit of health ; a point of view not favorable to kindly judgments. HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. The powerful attraction exerted by Italy over men of imaginative temperament, born in the North, would seem to justify the theory that all knowledge is but recognition ; and that these ardent Scandinavians, who feel and express the spirit of the country more than its own people, were natives of some pre-adamite Italy, and find themselves in their first home only when south of the Alps. For the last hundred years there have always been men of northern blood living in Rome, and so strongly attached to it that a command to return to their place of birth would be received like a sen- tence of banishment. The gray skies and languid colors of the North, its monotonous vegetation, its dark, * He translated the ' Orlando Furioso ' of Ariosto into Eng- lish verse. It is said to be a spirited and truthful version. HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. 441 wintry days, its summer twilights of pale silver, its sombre forests, its contracted horizons, oppress the eye and mind which have been long accustomed to the splendors and contrasts of Italian scenery, to its atmos- phere of gold, purple, and violet, to the regular outline of Italian architecture, and to the expressive forms and glowing faces of Italian men and women. When Wine kelmann, after living twelve years in Rome, went back to visit his native country, the narrow valleys and sharp-roofed cottages of the Tyrol were a perpetual discord to his eye ; and he fell into a sort of home- sickness for Italy, which weighed upon his spirits and his health, until a determination to return restored him to cheerfulness and activity. Hans Christian Andersen, a native of Denmark, has travelled in Italy, but never resided there for any length of time ; but no one has ever made better use of his opportunities for studying and observing the country. His is a northern imagination dreamy, spiritual, and fantastic without the passion and intensity which, in the South, usually accompany poetical genius like his. It would be difficult for any Italian to produce a book so redolent of Italy as ' The Improvisatore ; ' be- cause he would not feel, to the same extent as a sus- ceptible stranger, the peculiar character of objects and scenes which to him had become dulled by long famil- iarity To Andersen a young man of vivid fancy, fine senses, and cordial sympathies, who had been reared in the blessed air of renunciation every thing was a delight : upon every shape and every scene there hung a brightness like that of the dew of the first morning in Eden. He was like the lad in Miss Edge- 442 HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. worth's story, who had lived all his life in a mine, to whom weeds were glories, and thistles, revelations. No book brings back the externals of Italy more dis- tinctly and vividly to the eye of the mind than this novel of the Danish poet's. Its chief literary merit resides in its descriptions, which are correct in sub- stance and animated with the most sincere poetical enthusiasm. Every thing which an observant traveller may have noted as characteristic of Italy, and not elsewhere found, will be discovered anew in these animated pages. Andersen has a large share of that happy faculty which may be called pictorial memory the power of preserving, in all their original fresh- ness, the impressions made by the sight upon the mind. In his thoughts, Italian pictures dwell like flowers in a conservatory, and not like dried plants in an herba- rium. With what fidelity, for instance, he paints the characteristic features of Rome its fountains, its architecture, its pine% and cypresses, its shops gar- nished with white buffalo cheeses, like ostrich eggs, the red lamps burning before the pictures of the Ma- donna, the flickering fires of the chestnut-pans in the winter evenings, and the yellow moon reflected in the yellow Tiber ! The Campagna, too, is not less faith- fully delineated, with its decayed tombs, its purple mountains, its golden clouds, its tropical rain-storms, and its fierce summer heats, when the deadly sirocco blows and the red -eyed buffaloes chase each other with arrowy speed, in great circles, upon the parched soil. Naples and its neighborhood, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Paestum, and the blue grotto are also described with the same truth and spirit. The story is improbable, MRS. KEMBLE. 443 the characters are not drawn with a very firm or dis- criminating touch, and the sentiment is sometimes a little lackadaisical ; but all who love Italy, and wish to have it recalled to their thoughts, will pardon these defects in consideration of its pictures and its descrip- tions, which commend themselves to the memory by their truth, and to the imagination by their beauty. MRS. KEMBLE. Mrs. Kemble's 'Year of Consolation' contains the impressions of a year spent in Rome and its neighbor- hood in 1846. It is in many respects a remarkable book, with energetic expressions of personal feeling, a masculine grasp of thought, and a feminine sharpness of observation. Her judgments in art are fearlessly uttered, sometimes striking, but not always sound. Her severe strictures upon the character of the people betray the exaggeration both of temperament and of sex. Her energy is not always under the control of perfect taste, and sometimes degenerates into what were she not a woman we should call coarseness. This occasional blemish doubtless springs from the dis- position of vehement natures like hers, to seek right in a point the most remote from wrong : her protest against the silly prudery so common among American women, taking the form of extreme plainness of speech and a hardy grappling with subjects which feminine pens usually avoid, or at least touch upon very lightly. The great merit of the work consists in the admirable descriptions of scenery and nature which it contains. Her sense of beauty of the beauty of color, espe- 444 MRS. KEMBLE. cially is very keen ; and in conveying impressions to her reader, she uses language with uncommon skill. A single expression, or even word, dashed with an ap- parently careless hand upon the canvas, produces a fine effect. She speaks of ' a sulky-looking mountain,' of ' the unhesitating white ' of Italian daisies ; and, again, of ' wide-eyed daisies,' of ' a rusty donkey ' a very happy, though very obvious epithet and of 'snow- white drifts of hawthorn.' Her illustrations have sometimes the quaintness of Cowley ; as when she compares the arches of an aqueduct to ' the vertebrae of some great serpent, whose marrow was the living water of which Rome drank for centuries ; ' or the sky, seen through a window of the ruined Villa Mondragone, to ' a sparkling blue eye through the sockets of a skeleton.' Her account of a summer and autumn passed at Frascati, is written with great animation and genuine poetical feeling especially her sketches of the wild solitudes and woodland regions of the Alban Mount. In the shadow of those grand old oaks and chestnuts, her impatient spirit, tried alike by its own vehemence and by unhappy circumstances, found that peace which she so often missed in the struggles and relations of social life. Mountain and forest scenery she paints with accuracy as well as enthusiasm : she both sees and feels. But, above all, her book is remarkable for the vivid truth of her descriptions of the Campagna ; that is, of the Campagna as an object of sight. She does not moralize or sentimentalize over it like Cha- teaubriand ; but no traveller has ever felt so deeply or reproduced so glowingly the impressions which the MRS. KEMBLE. 445 landscape is calculated to make upon a finely organ- ized nature. Its outlines, its colors, its ruins, its living fqrms, its flowers all reappear in her sparkling pages ; idealized, and yet faithfully represented. It will not be easy to find a more brilliant piece of descrip- tion than is contained in the few pages headed ' Rides through the Campagna.' Who that has been over the same ground will not recognize the truth as well as the beauty of pictures like these ? ' Small valleys open into each other between these swel- lings, all golden with buttercups, or powdered, as with the new-fallen snow, with daisies ; gradually these gentle emi- nences rise into higher mounds with rocky, precipitous sides and cliffs, and rugged walls of warm yellow-colored earth or rock, with black mouths opening into them, half-curtained with long tangled tresses of wild briar and ivy, and crested with gold fringes of broom and gorse, and blue-black tufts of feathery verdure. At a distance, where the plain opens again before us, clumps of wood, of insignificant appearance, dot the level ground ; on nearer approach, they lose, the dwarf, stunted look which the wide field on which they stand tends to give them, and presently we ride slowly between the talon-like roots, and under the twisted, gnarled boughs of cork and ilex trees, warped into fantastic growth by the sweeping of the winds, and covering with their dusky foliage a wild carpet of underbrush, all strewed with flowers vio- lets, purple hyacinths, with their honey-sweet smell and dark-blue blossoms, white spires of delicate heath, the clear azure stars of the periwinkle and the tall flower-fretted stalks of the silver-rod asphodel ; these, woven into one cloak of beauty, spread themselves over the ragged sides and rough gullies of these patches of forest, and every now and then we reach an eminence from which a fine dark sea of hoary wood- land rolls down into the neighboring hollows, and crests the rounded promontories all around us.' 446 SPALDING. There are several pieces of poetry scattered through the book, some of them containing brilliant descrip- tions, and others strongly marked by personal feeling. They all shew much power of language, and many t>f them are of high merit. ' Dim faces growing pale in distant lands, Departing feet, and slowly severing hands,' is a couplet of which any living poet might be proud. SPALDING MURRAY. Spalding's ' Italy and the Italian Islands ' forms a part of the Edinburgh Cabinet Library. It is a truly admirable work, and from its being supposed to be merely a compilation, has not secured to its learned and accomplished author the literary reputation to which he is fairly entitled. It is a compilation, it is true ; but executed in a manner which gives it a right to wear the honors of an original work. Its range is very wide, embracing ancient and modern Italian his- tory ; Roman and Italian literature ; the progress of art ; and the present social and material condition of the peninsula. All this is done in a thorough and scholarlike manner ; the results of a very extensive course of reading are presented in a systematic form and in a clear and easy style ; and the author's judg- ments, both of books and men, are sound, generous and discriminating. Mr. Spalding has lived in Italy, and his book shews a sincere interest in the country and its people. He has made use of German and Italian au- thorities, and in his last volume, especially, which is MURRAY. 447 devoted to the recent history and present condition of Italy, will be found a great deal of valuable information hardly to be met with in any other English work. It would be hardly fair to conclude a sketch, how- ever imperfect, of writers upon Italy and travellers in Italy, without a word of commendation and gratitude to the two guide-books of Murray, the ' Hand-book for Northern Italy ' and the ' Hand-book for Central Italy and Rome.' Their merits are of the highest order, and it is a privilege to have visited Italy under such excellent guidance. Like alt books which are constantly in the hand, they are exposed to the most minute and search- ing criticism ; but they bear it well. I very rarely found occasion to correct a statement, or dissent from an opinion. They are compiled with so much taste, learning, and judgment, and have so many well-chosen quotations in prose and verse, that they are not merely useful guides but entertaining companions. I have constantly had recourse to them in the preparation of these volumes, to revive my fading recollections, and to procure names, dates, and statistics ; and I cheer- fully make an acknowledgment commensurate with my obligations.* * Murray's Guide-books now cover nearly the whole of the continent, and he is one of the great powers of Europe. Since Napoleon, no man's empire has been so wide. From St. Petersburg to Seville, from Ostend to Constantinople, there is not an innkeeper who does not turn pale at the name of Murray. An instance of this came to my knowledge. In the Hand- book for Switzerland, the Hotel Faucon at Berne had been called 'one of the best inns in Switzerland,' but in 1847 a new edition appeared with the words of praise omitted and the ominous sentence ' fallen off' substituted. An English gen- 448 MURRAY. tleman of my acquaintance shewed this new judgment to the keeper of the inn, who had not before seen it. He described the poor man's emotion as at once ludicrous and pitiable. He looked and acted as if he had received an arrow in his breast. CHAPTER XVIII. CONCLUDING REMARKS. ALL persons who travel at all visit Italy. No other country combines so many attractions, or speaks with so many different voices of invitation. Not to be drawn to Italy, not to be grateful for having seen it, not to remember it with vivid interest is to be indif- ferent to every thing that took place before we our- selves were born. No other country has been so fruitful in great men : no one has left so large a legacy to the mind of to-day : no one has passed through such historical changes : no one presents such variety of interests. Ancient and mediaeval Italy, together, com- bine all that is most marked and characteristic in the national life and intellectual development of England and of Greece. The paths of the statesman, the scholar, the Christian pilgrim, and the artist, all meet upon her soil as a focal point of attraction. Italy is a country in which the traveller encounters much annoyance and discomfort : his patience is often tried, and his moral sense is sometimes shocked ; but when we look upon her shore for the last time, none of these things rise up in judgment against her. As in recalling the dead we think only of their virtues, so in VOL. n. 29 450 CONCLUDING REMARKS. taking leave of a country in which we have found in- struction and delight, we remember only what we have learned and enjoyed. The rainy days, the grasping innkeepers, the mendacious vetterini, the dinners that could not be eaten, the beds that murdered sleep all these, as we look back upon them, only serve as shadows in a picture to bring out the lights in stronger contrast. We part in kindness : on the dial of memo- ry only the hours of sunshine are noted. There is a peculiar charm about Italy which corres- ponds to the primitive meaning of that perverted word, sentimental a charm made up of beauty and misfor- tune. In literature, characters like the Master of Ra- venswood, and Mowbray in ' St. Ronan's Well ' the representatives of decayed families if tolerably well drawn, are sure to awaken interest. The same feel- ing extends to declining nations. In prosperous and progressive countries we find elements which quicken the faculties of observation and judgment, commend themselves to the moral sense, and gratify the benevo- lent affections; but Italy is more fruitful in influences which kindle the imagination and touch the sensibili- ties. The smiling fertility of Belgium is not so inter- esting as the dreary desolation of the Campagna. The twilight shadows of Rome are more touching and pensive than the morning beams of our land of prom- ise. It is but a variation of the same thought to say, that the sky, the scenery, the climate, the coast of Italy, leave impressions of feminine softness and femi- nine beauty. We remember England or Germany as we remember a valued and esteemed friend ; but the image of Italy dwells in our hearts like that of a woman whom we have loved. CONCLUDING REMARKS. 451 The interest awakened by Italy is felt with peculiar force by our countrymen, because Italy is so rich in those elements which are most powerful in drawing a cultivated American to Europe, and because it offers such strong contrasts to what is most familiar to us. The mind of man craves to look after as well as be- fore : it needs for its full development a past as well as a future. Our own country supplies but one of these wants : the imagination craves a more dim out- line than the fresh youth of our land can supply : we mingle our sympathies with the distant experiences of other lands. Thus, in proportion to the extent of our reading is our eagerness to exchange thought for sight, and the cold page for the living forms. No Eng- lishman can comprehend the feeling with which a well-informed American looks for the first time upon Westminster Abbey. It is like the mountaineer's first sight of the sea, or the seaman's first sight of the mountains. It is to us not merely a venerable struc- ture but a new revelation : it wakes to life, and clothes with flesh, the dry bones of history. At school and at college, the great vision of Rome broods over the mind with a power which is never suspended or dis- puted : her great men, her beautiful legends, her his- tory, the height to which she rose, and the depth to which she fell these make up one half of a student's ideal world. When we go to Italy, we seem to be seeing a drama acted which, before, we had only read. The Tiber, which so long flowed through our dreams, now flows at our feet : the Capitol, the Forum, the Alban Mount, stand before us in the light of day ; and the imagination easily supplies the forms which are 452 CONCLUDING REMARKS. appropriate to the scene the shadowy ^Eneas, the legendary Romulus, the living Cicero. There is so little of movement and progress in Italy that I cannot conceive that an American unless he be an artist should wish to live there. As we have no past, so Italy seems to have no future. There, humanity, weary with its long journey, and faint with its protracted struggles, has sunk into a state which is half slumber and half despair. She is the Hagar, as well as the Niobe of nations ; and to human apprehen- sion nothing but an angel's voice can revive her droop- ing spirit nothing but an angel's hand can point out to her the fountains of hope and strength. The change from America to Italy from movement to repose, from the present to the past, from hope to memory is soothing and delightful for a time ; but who would wish to transplant his life into that old soil ? who would wish to share in decline and become a part of decay ? who would wish to live in the midst of social evils which he cannot remedy, and of abuses which he can- not help to have his heart perpetually wrung with misery which he cannot relieve, and his indignation aroused by wrongs which he cannot right ? Life is but another name for action ; and he who is without opportunity exists but does not live. The American does not see Italy aright who does not find there fresh cause of gratitude for having been born where he was, and who does not bring home from it a new sense of the worth of labor and the dignity of duty. To have lived in that fair land to have been for a time exposed to its fine influences throws upon all the future hours a grace before unknown. The old CONCLUDING REMARKS. 453 books put on new attractions, and the burden of accus- tomed toil is lightened. A residence in that country enlarges that shadowy realm of imagination and memo- ry, into which we can always escape when chased by troubles. In moments of weariness and despondency when the weight of life is pressing hard upon us the pictures which we have brought from Italy will rise up before us with restoring power: those lovely forms will breathe their own peace over the troubled spirit : the beauty which is there stamped upon the earth, and expressed in marble and upon the canvas, will glide into the mind, and help the thoughts to rise above dwarfing cares and debasing pleasures. The proverb that he who would bring back the wealth of the Indies must first carry out the wealth of the Indies, applies with more force to Italy than to any other country on the globe ; for Italy has had two dis- tinct lives, one ending with the downfall of the Roman empire, and one beginning with the new organizations which were patched up out of the ruins of that colossal fabric. Nor is this remarkable fact all ; but, as I have before observed, the two lives are unlike. In Italy, the child was not the father of the man : Roman and Italian are by no means equivalent terms. No human life would be long enough, no human powers would be vigorous enough, to provide a perfect preparation for Italy ; for that would include a knowledge of Roman history, Roman literature, and Roman law ; of Italian history and Italian literature ; of the history of the Christian Church and of art in all its forms. The best faculties and the amplest opportunities must here select and discriminate. But, on the other hand, there is the 454 CONCLUDING REMARKS. consoling reflection that every scrap of knowledge tells ; the scholar who has done no more than read Virgil has, in Italy, a sensible advantage over him who has not. Every hour spent in previous preparation for an Italian tour brings its recompense of reward. Let no one, therefore, who is meditating such a journey be discouraged by the amount of what he cannot do ; but rather take encouragement from the thought of how much can be done. In the evenings of a single winter, judiciously and vigorously occupied, the seeds of many a precious harvest can be sown. The more learning the better ; but a little is not dangerous. An ignorant man in Italy is a blind man in a picture gallery. In conclusion, I offer a word of advice as to the time for visiting Italy. Most travellers see it only in winter ; but this is a mistake. At this season, the weather is often cold and more frequently rainy ; the sky is cov- ered with a funereal pall of gray clouds ; the houses in the towns are damp and the streets are muddy ; in the country, the trees are leafless and the vines are mere uncouth coils of cordage ; and every where, the faces of the people wear a mixed expression of patient resignation and impatient expectation. It is only in sunshine that the real life of Italy comes out ; and in its absence, works of art churches, pictures, and statues lose half their attractions. The heats of summer are said to be oppressive : on this point, I cannot speak from experience ; but the degree of heat is not greater than we sometimes have it ; and the nar- row streets of the towns and the thick walls, spacious rooms, and stone floors of the houses, afford a protec- tion against it such as is unknown with us. The dis- CONCLUDING REMARKS. 455 comforts of a high temperature, and especially the necessity of remaining quiet during the middle of the day, may well be submitted to in consideration of the clearness of the air, the splendor of the morning lights and colors, and the incomparable beauty of the nights. Of spring and autumn in Italy, I can speak from a brief experience ; and it is certainly not too much to say, that a week in September or April is fairly worth a month in winter. The bulb hardly differs more from the tulip than does Italy in winter from Italy in spring. This latter season in that country is the spring which the poets paint, and its beauties and delights are such that they need borrow no embellishments from the imagination. Language cannot translate all that is seen and felt in the sky, the earth, and the air. He who has seen Italy only in winter has but half seen it : he has seen the reverse of the tapestry a trans- parency by daylight. THE END. fi (, THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. A 000 893 61 1 4 3 1205 00200 1350